November Election Will Test Nation's Values

It is being hailed as Mitt Romney’s “finest hour.” 

Ten minutes actually, but who’s counting. Unlike Susan Collins of Maine and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Joni Ernst of Iowa who acknowledged Donald Trump tried to force Ukraine to investigate his political rival, Romney realized the action rose to the level of an impeachable offense. Trump’s actions were “as egregious an assault on the Constitution as can be made,” Romney said during his allotted 10 minutes of time explaining his vote to convict Trump of abusing the power of his office. 

Romney acted like a true United States senator loyal to the Constitution and his oath of office to uphold it. The other 52 Republican senators acted like Mafia button men following orders from their capo Mitch McConnell and their don, Donald Trump. They executed their orders without regard to collateral damage inflicted on our democracy and republic. 

It is ironic that the vote to acquit came on the day Kirk Douglas died. Douglas was instrumental in breaking the Hollywood blacklist of screenwriters. His 1960 production of “Spartacus” identified Dalton Trumbo as the screenwriter, the first time his name, not a pseudonym, appeared in a film credit since the blacklist began in 1947. Cold War fear of communism led to a public crusade against alleged widespread infiltration of the entertainment industry by communists. 

Hollywood moguls turned a blind eye toward the practice of using blacklisted screenwriters whose work was attributed to others. Trumbo, for example, wrote two screenplays that earned Academy Awards for their stand-in writers. 

As long as they were making money the studio heads went along with the public deception. Just like today’s Republican senators go along with Trump’s violations of political norms and, more to the point, the Constitution. 

One wonders how Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, supposedly experts on the Constitution, could uniformly uphold an action that clearly invited a foreign country to interfere in our elections. In addition, they countenanced Trump’s gutting of the powers of the legislative branch to conduct oversight of the administration. 

It is with incremental steps like these that democracy dies. But first, the next stage of abuse—reprisals. Since the Republican Senate impeachment acquittal, Republicans have initiated an investigation of Hunter Biden. The Treasury Department has turned over his tax records to the Senate. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman who testified before the House impeachment inquiry has been advised he will be reassigned away from the White House. Trump’s Homeland Security department has suspended new and renewed applications for New Yorkers to the Global Entry travel program because the state restricts access to its motor vehicle records without a court order. Romney awaits punishment beyond verbal and written harangues from Trump. 

At campaign rallies Trump tries to convince as yet nonbelievers that while they might not like all they see in his presidency they do like looking at the increase in their 401k retirement accounts since he assumed office.

Any politician would do the same, down to the failure to give his predecessor any credit in salvaging the economy and beginning the nation’s longest period of sustained growth.

If Democrats have any hope of supplanting him they will have to plant a different focal point in the voter’s vision—a mirror. Looking at their reflection voters will have to decide if greater economic fortune outweighs a diminished values system. Whether profits trump principles. Are they patriots or profiteers. In the pursuit of political goals, is the means to an end more important than morality?

The Census Bureau reports that only one-third of the work force actually invests in retirement plans. The gap between rich and poor keeps spreading. Socialism is not the answer. But a fairer federal plan that ups the tax on the wealthy would help even out the inequity and pay for needed programs. 

Scapegoating immigrants is not the answer. A sensible, non discriminatory immigration plan would help. 

Affordable healthcare should be available to all. While Trump duplicitously insists he would not eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, his Justice Department is fighting in court to do exactly that by eliminating Obamacare.

Trump ignites extremes. The November election will hinge on each and every voter’s value systems. We will find out exactly what kind of nation we are. 

New Year's Surprises and Resolutions

Have you broken your New Year’s resolutions yet? I am not in the habit of making any resolutions, not that I consider myself perfect in all ways. I just don’t see the need to focus on an arbitrary day to begin any transformative plan.

But I have been mulling a change that would affect you as well. I am considering reducing the percentage of blog posts that deal with the Trumpster. It is hard to imagine anyone who has launched more terabytes into the blogosphere but I will try my best to adhere to my resolve.

So what will I write about? Life. Just ordinary life. Take, for example, the surprise that greeted Gilda and me when we returned home from a less than 24 hour trip on Monday. The intake pipe to the master bedroom’s bathroom toilet froze during the frigid cold snap. Good thing our house has three bathrooms.

It wasn’t the first time we experienced this inconvenience since we remodeled the bathroom 13 years ago and put the toilet, and the offending pipe, up against an exterior wall (in the 20 year priors to the remodel, the pipe never froze as it was attached to an inside wall). 

Apparently, according to our plumber, frozen intake pipes next to exterior walls are a common predicament during prolonged cold snaps accompanied by high winds. All we could do, he related, is hope, and pray, the pipe wouldn’t burst while we warmed up the wall with a portable heater. After several hours we were back in business.  

More Tales From the Cold: Thursday’s “bomb cyclone” blizzard dumped eight inches on our driveway and front walk. But the high winds kept most of the snow from sticking to our solar panels. Around 4:15 pm I confronted the inevitable, suited up in snow pants, boots and balaclava and spent the next 45 minutes making sure to propel the fluffy snow in the direction of the wind. It was, actually, one of the easiest snowstorms I’ve ever had to clear.

Time to Break My Resolution: Heck, you might think I have no willpower, but keep in mind four days have gone by since the New Year began. So here are some Trumpian thoughts:

In case you haven’t heard about it, there’s an informative article in The New Yorker by Evan Osnos detailing how our bumbler-in-chief is making China great again. Here are two links, one to the print article (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/08/making-china-great-again) and the second to an interview Osnos did with Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air (you can either read the transcript or click on an audio link: https://www.npr.org/2018/01/03/575288560/journalist-as-u-s-retreats-from-world-stage-china-moves-to-fill-the-void).

One of my takeaways from Osnos was that we no longer have just Russia to worry about concerning the integrity of our elections. Here’s a short clip from Osnos:

“I asked a strategist in Beijing, this very prominent figure, a guy named Yan Xuetong. I said, how long does the period of strategic opportunity last for China? He says, well, it lasts as long as Trump is in office.”

Thus, not only Russia but China, as well as other countries that have stroked Trump’s ego, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines, have a vital national interest in keeping the dumb-as-a-loon-in-chief in office in 2020 and in retaining a Republican controlled Congress in 2018. 

Interference in our electoral processes may well become commonplace, but Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions are more interested in stopping state sanctioned marijuana sales than in preventing the sanctity of our most cherished right. 

News Flashes: One of New York WCBS TV’s field reporters Thursday evening confirmed that “slush is wet!” 

Does anyone else find it amusing that ABC News correspondent Eva Pilgrim reports out of Boston? 

Was anyone else surprised Gail Collins did not include any mention of Seamus, the dog Mitt Romney strapped to the top of his station wagon when taking his family on a vacation years ago, in a New York Times column about Romney’s potential candidacy for the Senate seat being vacated by Orrin Hatch? (https://nyti.ms/2E38sXV)

Reality Politics Under Trump and the GOP: Nepotism Is in, Fair Play Is out

There’ve been lots of ink spilt and bytes clicked over the upcoming vote December 19 by the Electoral College for the 45th president of the United States. The pros and cons of voting for the choice of the plurality of each state’s electorate or choosing, as David Pozen put it in Thursday’s New York Times, “Hillary Clinton or an establishment Republican,” have been hotly debated, mostly because of antipathy toward Donald Trump (http://nyti.ms/2hIy98J).

But here’s the reality—Hillary won’t be selected and even if the electors wanted to choose “an establishment Republican” there ain’t any of them around anymore. In the Grand Old Party there are no more Jacob Javitses, Edward Brookeses, Everett Dirksens, Charles Percys or Howard Bakers—the likes of senators willing to compromise and work with Democrats. Not even Ronald Reagan would qualify as a doctrinaire Republican these days. He, after all, worked with Tip O’Neill’s Democratic Congress.

Perhaps the euphoria of recapturing the three branches of government (once a conservative Supreme Court nominee is confirmed) has fractured the backbone of Republicans. They seem willing to abandon truth, constitutional principles and personal conscience in their eagerness to not become targets of Trump’s Twitter darts, public threats and humiliations (Trump keeps threatening Speaker of the House Paul Ryan if he doesn’t support him without reservation while his dangling of Mitt Romney as a potential secretary of state was mean-spirited. But to be fair, Romney’s willingness to represent to the world a man he considered unfit to be president made him unworthy of any sympathy.).

The height of Republican disdain for democratic principles, and Democrats, is playing out these days in North Carolina. For those not aware of how a Republican-controlled legislature can thwart the electorate’s will, take a few moments to read how GOP lawmakers are racing at breakneck speed to turn the newly elected Democratic governor into an impotent executive: http://nyti.ms/2hL1QX4.

The double standard Republicans are demonstrating vis-a-vis Trump and their treatment of Hillary Clinton is equally egregious. They smooth over his obvious business conflicts of interest, they don’t bat an eyelash at the intrusion of his children and son-in-law into affairs of state in violation of nepotism and conflict of interest protocols, they fail to strongly challenge Trump’s rejection of the intelligence community’s assertion that Russia was behind the hacking of Clinton’s and the Democratic Party’s emails, they paper over Trump’s repeated lies, the latest being his contention that the Obama administration did not cite Russian hacking before the election, to name just a few of their tolerances for the disruption of government as we know it and the accountability of elected officials.

Let me share with you an analysis of Trump’s meeting with technology executives earlier this week that illuminates the quagmire of ethics and absurdity we have entered into: 

https://bothsidesofthetable.com/let-me-point-out-to-you-how-ridiculous-the-trump-tech-meeting-was-14c318986244#.15ticgqoz 

(For those who chose not to read the link, the central point  by Mark Suster was the meeting at Trump Tower included 25 people. “25 people. 4 of them — FOUR — are the president-elect’s children (sic—actually three children and one son-in-law). That is 16% of everybody in the room or put differently if I include Donald Trump the meeting consists of 20% family members. This is the definition of nepotism that we would condemn from the least democratic nations in the world.”

Political Potpourri: Wedge Issues, Romney, Bridgegate, Trump as Candy Man, Couturiers

In the wake of the Orlando massacre, another wedge issue has moved to the forefront in defining the race for the presidency as well as campaigns for control of the House and Senate: gun control, specifically, the ability to deny the legal sale of firearms to those on the Do Not Fly and Terrorist Watch lists or to those with mental health issues. A subsidiary issue is the availability of assault rifles such as the AR-15 to the general public. The Orlando shooter, as well as the San Bernadino shooter and other mass killers, used an AR-15 rifle.

Wedge issues this year include abortion rights, Planned Parenthood, the Supreme Court, immigration, income inequality, same-sex marriage, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Islamic terrorism, campaign finance, and the minimum wage. 

The essence of each wedge issue can be summed up as the forces of fear and bigotry vs. the forces of hope and tolerance.  . . .

The Democrats’ best friend in this election might be Mitt Romney. The 2012 Republican standard bearer has been vocal in his antipathy, even animosity, toward Donald Trump. If he can sway fellow Mormons to withhold their votes for Trump, Hillary Clinton could win some Mountain States that are a challenge to any Democrat (http://nyti.ms/1XR6ktS).

But Trump’s negative coat tails might not paint the Senate blue as Mormons and other anti-Trump voters might prefer to keep the Senate red as a counter-balance to a liberal president.  . . .

Just when you think this election season can’t get any weirder two reports this week evoked Watergate memories. First came word that Democratic Party files had been breached, not physically as in Watergate but electronically. Not by Republicans but by Russians who wanted to gather data on Trump.

Second, the spirit of Rosemary Woods lives on.  The 18-1/2 minute gap in Richard Nixon’s White House tapes, allegedly created by an inadvertent contortion Woods performed at her secretarial desk while transcribing them, possibly has been matched by lost or erased emails and texts from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, communications linked to the investigation into Bridegate, the allegedly illegal disruption of traffic across the George Washington Bridge to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing Christie’s reelection bid.  . . . 

Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans want to reduce tax rates, especially for the wealthy. They also profess a desire to return to simpler times, as life was in the 1950s. They lambast Democrats for wanting to impose higher taxes on the rich. Elizabeth Warren, says Trump, wants to impose a 95% income tax rate. 

Sounds Draconian, until you realize that back in the 1950s under President Eisenhower, when unions were strong and  the middle class grew, the top effective tax rate was 91%.  . . . 

Trump is not alone in issuing damning statements about Hillary Clinton. The other week on NPR I heard U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.—one of the three female House members who prefer to be called “congressman”) attack Clinton, saying she lies and cheats while “Trump is a candy man” who gives people what they want.

I seriously doubt Blackburn knows that “candy man” is street talk for drug dealer. It would be an appropriate description for a candidate who is trying to dupe the electorate. . . 

Should Hillary Clinton win the presidency, the most negatively impacted group would be couturiers. After eight years of stunning gowns, dresses and ensembles showcased by first lady Michelle Obama, fashionistas would no longer have a White House muse to clothe. There are, after all, just so many variations on the tuxedo Bill Clinton can be expected to wear.


Your election witticism of the day, courtesy of whowhatwhy.org:

Don’t buy a single vote more than necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide. —Joseph P. Kennedy

Danger Ahead: Trump Isn't the Only One Pivoting

The great pivot has begun.

Confident he has the Republican Party presidential nomination sewn up, Donald Trump has begun to moderate his positions to make his candidacy more attractive to establishment Republicans plus independent and Democratic voters who are a) ignorant, b) forgetful, c) forgiving, or d) just plain anti-Hillary.

That racist-, misogynist-, nativist-, fascist-sounding candidate of the last eight months? Oh, Trump would have you believe that character was just the opening gambit in a negotiation to become the next person to lay his hand on a bible and recite the oath of office administered by chief justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts, the same chief justice Trump has vilified as a “nightmare” and “disaster” for conservative values.

Trump says he is the best negotiator and this deal, to be successful, will truly require an artful play. But as much as The Donald may pivot to the center to modify his positions on building a wall and having Mexico pay for it, restricting entry into the country by all Muslims, rounding up and kicking out of the country 11 million illegal immigrants, and other extreme ideas including ordering the military to commit war crimes, Trump has miscalculated one vital aspect of his Mephistophelean plan.

Having unleashed the devil inside his followers, Trump is powerless to restrain the evil that resides in the hearts of the beastly mob. They’ve been riled up by cursing and gutter talk of mugging protesters, of bombing Muslims back to the Stone Age, of ridiculing political opponents not for objections to their ideas but rather because of their physical attributes. Trump has galvanized his acolytes to the point where they endanger the physical lives of protesters as well as our nation’s treasured right to peacefully protest.

So the grand pivot to the center has little chance of succeeding in this Internet age when everyone’s cell phone makes them, as Mitt Romney found out four years ago with his infamous 47% speech to what he thought was a sympathetic audience, an instant muckraker.

But there’s another pivot underway that is equally discomforting. It is the pivot of thoughtful Trump detractors who reason that Trump is not as bad as Ted Cruz and given the choice of the devil from New York or the devil from Texas, the former is more tolerable than the latter because of his unorthodoxy, because of his “New York values,” because he is known to compromise or, in his jargon, negotiate, and not be rigidly doctrinaire like Cruz.

Probe deeply into all the Republican candidates—those still running and those who have fallen away—and you will find, even inside teddy bear, hug-worthy John Kasich, extreme conservatives who believe in trickle down economics, who reject climate change reality, who care not for women’s health or their equal status, who would undermine the civil rights of minorities, and who believe the best foreign diplomacy is combat-based.

On the other hand, they believe inside Trump resides a man that can be controlled or at least reasoned with. He’s a businessman, as he often relates. He’s only after the best deal.

So they pivot their contempt for all things Trump. They don’t see, or don’t want to see, the parallel to what the intelligentsia and commerce-crowd believed in Germany in the early 1930s in their desire to see the Fatherland become great again. 

What I'd Like to Hear

Not wanting to dim the afterglow of Ellie and Donny’s wedding, I have avoided watching almost all of the Republican National Convention. I expect, however, I will tune in to listen to Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech tonight.

For the Mittster to win the election, pundits have said, he must cut into the advantage Barack Obama has with two key constituencies—women and blacks. Accordingly, they have been pressing the point that an improved economy, which only the Mittster can deliver, would be the best tonic for what ails these two demographics.

So I wonder, under a Romney presidency ...

... would women who could not afford traditional medical care still be able to receive screenings and treatments at Planned Parenthood, or will Republicans cause the clinics to shut down by defunding them?

... would anyone with a pre-condition still be eligible for health care insurance or would Republicans turn the clock back on one of the key provisions of Obamacare?

... would unemployed children still living at home through age 26 be covered by their parents’ health care insurance or will Republicans deny them coverage that was extended under Obamacare?

... would our streets and homes be safer if Republicans ended grants to states to hire policemen and firemen?

... would children and their families in poverty be better off under Republican plans to reduce spending on social welfare programs? Would they be better off if block grants are given to the states which have their own budgetary problems and are looking for ways to cut expenses?

... would a Romney administration fight for women to receive equal pay for equal work as men?

... would they be better off if there were fewer Pell grants for their children’s higher education? 

... would they be better off if there were fewer regulations to protect our food supply, our drug industry, our natural resources and parklands from exploitation and pollution?

... would they be better off if programs supporting the arts and culture were curtailed or sharply reduced?

I suspect the answer to all these questions, and more, would be a resounding “NO.” But let’s give Mitt the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps tonight I will hear him enumerate beyond platitudes and generalities his specific vision for America. Perhaps he will provide specifics about what his administration would cut to achieve a reduction in our national debt. Perhaps he will offer specific solutions to regenerate our industries, to reinvigorate investments in our infrastructure, to expand opportunities for the underemployed, to assist those whose homes have depleted in value.

I suspect we will get more of the same “America’s best days are ahead” from him. More “trust me.” I’d like to trust him, but so far his campaign has lied about things Obama didn’t say or do. Even after the lies have been pointed out to them, Romney and Paul Ryan have continued to lie. 

If he wins and both houses of Congress swing Republican, would he have the backbone to stand up to the extreme wing of his party? I doubt it. He could score a lot of points with me if he would say tonight a woman has the right to an abortion if she is raped, or becomes pregnant through incest, or the pregnancy puts her life in danger. That would take courage. He’s said that in interviews. Now let’s hear him say that before the convention delegates. I doubt he has the courage to do so. Prove me wrong, Mitt.  

What If ...

I don’t normally watch Hardball with Chris Matthews, but the Yankees game hadn’t started yet and I had a few minutes to kill while doing the dishes last night. I tuned in at the end of Hardball, in time to hear Matthews describe what would happen if Romney-Ryan were elected. If you vote for Mitt Romney you get the “March of the Clowns,” said Matthews, enumerating the likes of Bachman, Trump and other extreme politicos who would shape a list of regressive disasters known to most intelligent observers and already delineated by your faithful correspondent back in January. I’ll spare you the details, but here’s a link in case you don’t remember what I wrote: http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2012/01/america-of-our-past-and-future.html.

What prompted Matthews’ outrage Monday was the Todd Akins affair. For anyone not familiar with this ultra-conservative Republican congressman running to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) of Missouri, he espoused Sunday, before partially recanting, a theory that when a woman is “legitimately” raped, her body “has ways to try to shut the whole thing (meaning, pregnancy) down,” thus negating the need for an abortion. Akins opposes all abortions.

Beyond the repulsiveness of what Akin said about rape and his utter failure to comprehend and empathize with women who are attacked sexually, Akin has performed a public service. He is proof-positive this election is about more than just the economy. Social issues, the right to an abortion being one of them, are very much at stake.

Akin exposed a basic belief among many Republicans, that there be no exceptions for abortions. It’s all part of the Republican war on women that includes shutting down Planned Parenthood, requiring invasive gynecological ultrasounds before legal abortions, and efforts to ban contraception. Though Romney said yesterday he would permit abortions in the case of rape or danger to the health of a mother, in the past he has supported a total ban. It’s another flip-flop, another example of not knowing what we’d get should Romney win. 

What’s more, a draft of the Republican Party platform to be adopted next week calls for a constitutional amendment banning all forms of abortion, according to CNN (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/gop-platform-abortion_n_1815021.html). Will Romney finesse that total ban out of the platform, or simply ignore it during the campaign, much as he has sidestepped specifics about his economic recovery plan and his taxes? 

His presumptive running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan, in linked to Akins. As Eugene Robinson pointed out in The Washington Post, “Last year, Akin co-sponsored a bill in the House that would have narrowed the exception that allows Medicaid funds to pay for abortions for women who are raped. The proposed measure would have permitted the use of funds only to end pregnancies resulting from ‘forcible rape.’ Paul Ryan, now Mitt Romney’s running mate, was another co-sponsor of the measure, which ultimately failed.

“The statutory rape of a child by an adult would not fit the definition the House Republicans tried to impose; nor would the rape of a woman who was drugged, say, or who had limited mental capacity. Never mind the fact that, as far as criminal law is concerned, rape is rape. Never mind the fact that all rape, by its very nature, is ‘forcible.’

“Akin’s assertion about ‘legitimate’ rape is really nothing but an attempt to blame the victim. It stems from the view that the only true victim is a woman who is raped while violently resisting a ski-masked assailant who came in through the bedroom window. Anything short of that, she must have been asking for it.”

Robinson also noted, “Akin, by the way, is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.” 

Hey, Chris Matthews—no need to send in the clowns. They’re already here. 

More Summer Musings

How Did They Know? How did the brain trust at Modern Baking magazine know to send me an online subscription solicitation? I hadn’t baked bread in more than 15 years but had just recently taken up the practice. Two breads down and lo and behold, the subscription solicitation arrives in my email inbox, even before my planned blog on my new pursuit. Big Brother is definitely watching. Maybe Modern Baking has access to my supermarket purchases. The honchos there would have seen my purchases of flour, yeast, non fat dry milk and deduced I was baking up a storm.

I stopped baking bread when I started following the Atkins diet of no or reduced carbohydrates. I didn’t do it to lose weight, but rather to control my triglycerides and cholesterol. They’re much better now, thank you, so I dusted off the Welbilt bread machine and began mixing the ingredients several times a week before going to bed. The smell of fresh cooked whole wheat bread permeating the house is quite stimulating in the morning. 

But it also can be enlarging. Aside from the bread, I haven’t changed my eating habits over the last fortnight, so I’m left with bread as the reason I’ve added a few not-so-well-placed pounds. Less than two weeks till Ellie’s wedding, so I think I might resist making any more bread for a while.

Early Bird Special: Today I might have officially become a retired senior citizen. To lose those few pounds around my waist, I not only unplugged the bread machine but also decided to forego eating carbs. No bread. No cereal. No chips. No rice. No pasta. No potatoes. No pizza. Lots of hunger. 

By 4 pm today I was in deep need of an early bird special dinner. As Gilda had an evening appointment, I was on my own, which meant I could attack the leftover chicken scarpiello at my whim. My whim meant 5 o’clock. After polishing off a double portion (even with some potatoes), I was still hungry, so I ate some almonds and cashews. I’m still hungry. How will I make it to a normal bed time? What’s more, when I go to bed hungry I tend to hallucinate. I’m not optimistic about this diet. I’m not optimistic about really getting older and becoming a devotee of early bird specials. I hope my daughter appreciates the extreme sacrifice I am making for her.

Bird’s Eye View: Driving home last Thursday night from the theater (an enthralling production of Dogfight at Second Stage, highly recommended), I saw a column of scaffolding rising at the end of 8th Avenue. I knew it wasn’t a new Apple store popping up. I assumed good ol’ Christopher Columbus’ statue at his eponymous circle was in need of some pointing or other minor repair. 

I was wrong. As the accompanying article reveals, ordinary citizens will get to see what previously only New York’s pigeons could appreciate—face to face encounters with the Great Navigator (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/13/arts/design/in-columbus-circle-tatzu-nishi-to-build-living-room.html?_r=1). 

Cosmo Girl: Yesterday I finally finished an article from the the week prior’s New York Times Sunday magazine on the international proliferation of Cosmopolitan. Today, news came its signature editor, Helen Gurley Brown, died. 

Here’s one incomparable line from her obituary on The Times Web site: “She was 90, though parts of her were considerably younger.”  (To read the rest of the obit click this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/business/media/helen-gurley-brown-who-gave-cosmopolitan-its-purr-is-dead-at-90.html?pagewanted=1&ref=arts)  

Youthful Enthusiasm: In Paul Ryan’s introductory remarks with Mitt Romney Sunday aboard the USS Wisconsin, the Republican vice presidential hopeful delivered some good and bad news. He started with the bad news—Barack Obama was still president. Then he went on to say the good news was “on November 6 he won’t be any longer.” 

Maybe it was the excitement of the moment, but for the record, regardless of who wins the November election, Obama’s first term as president of the United States will not end until around noon on January 20, 2013.  

Softball Update: I’m a bad student of the game. I haven’t learned my lesson—when pitching, don’t let the other team hit the ball directly at your fielders!

We lost again yesterday, another blowout, 11-1, to a team that began the day with the same 3-10 record. Thirteen errors in the first six innings of a seven inning game. I think they had six legitimate hits. I don’t like losing, but I really hate giving a game away. I’m also embarrassed to say I lost my cool after the fourth or fifth error in the second inning. I apologized to the player I criticized, but the damage was done. They’re trying, but from my vantage, they’re really trying my fortitude. 

Chick-fil-A and Other Food for Thought

Lots of news and views to review from the last week or so ...

So liberal-minded cities and universities have rallied against Chick-fil-A because its president voiced religious opposition to same-sex marriage. Not a position I would endorse but probably not one solely held by Dan T. Cathy, son of the founder, S. Truett Cathy, a deeply religious man whose beliefs are underscored by keeping all 1,600 of his restaurants closed on Sundays.

The liberal elite wants to make an example of Chick-fil-A, denying it permission to open new units or by revoking existing permits. I wonder, though, would these same liberals denounce one of their store favorites if they knew it harbored similar anti-gay biases? As Matt Bai reported in the July 22 NY Times Sunday magazine, Target in 2010 contributed $150,000 to a Minnesota group backing a conservative candidate opposing gay marriage. 

During Sunday night’s telecast of the NY Yankees-Boston Red Sox game, the camera lingered on Paul Simon in the box seats at Yankee Stadium. Yes, he’s worth pointing out to the audience. But what about the mustachioed gentleman sitting to his left? He probably wields as much influence, if not more, than Simon, though not as an entertainer. He does it with the weight of his ideas, the scope of his vision, the power of his reasoning. That man was Thomas L. Friedman, foreign affairs columnist for The NY Times. Sadly, neither the broadcasters on ESPN nor the people in the control booth had any idea who he was.

Sticking with foreign affairs, Mitt Romney continued his gaffe-prone world tour, this time praising Poland’s vibrant economy while ignoring its 12% unemployment rate (50% higher than U.S. jobless rate), and lauding Solidarity for its part in overturning Communist rule. Solidarity, however, reacted coolly to Romney’s visit because of his anti-union positions in America. Former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, on the other hand, who invited Romney to Poland, praised him.

On a topic that can be classified as “nothing new here,” an article suggesting Barack Obama’s mother might have had African ancestry has caused quite a stir, with conservative commentators suggesting it’s merely a ploy to make the president’s life story appear more appealing while liberals are fascinated by the possibility. 

Regardless of its veracity, the research by Ancestry.com demonstrated that just as happens today, in the distant past blacks received unequal, more severe punishment for identical crimes committed by whites. According to Ancestry.com, a geneology company based in Provo, Utah, an African indentured servant named John Punch escaped from Virginia in 1640. After his capture in Maryland along with two white escapees, Punch received a life sentence of servitude, a punishment “harsher than what the white servants received,” The Times reported. The two white men received just four additional years of servitude.

Calamity Mitt

There’s an exegesis that major calamities suffered by the Jewish people occurred through the ages on the ninth day of the month of Av, known in Hebrew as Tisha B’Av. Calamities such as the destructions of both temples in Jerusalem 656 years apart, first by the Babylonians and then by the Romans. 

Tisha B’Av was commemorated over this past weekend, coinciding with Mitt Romney’s visit to Israel and Jerusalem. Need I say more? No, but I will.

Despite what Sheldon Adelson and other near-sighted people, including some of my friends, think, the worst development for Israel would be Romney’s election. As he so mis-ably demonstrated yet again on his “world tour” of England, Israel and Poland, Romney has no idea how to speak diplomatically. After publicly insulting the British, he publicly insulted the Palestinians. No amount of backtracking can remove his lack of diplomacy. Perception is reality in the eyes of the Palestinians. He has given them no reason to believe he would be an honest broker of a fair and equitable peace (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/us/politics/romney-angers-palestinians-with-comments-in-israel.html?_r=1).

Palestinians are industrious. Educated. They have been productive citizens and residents wherever they have been given an opportunity. The tragedy of the Mideast is that too many Arab countries used them as pawns, consigning them to live in squalor instead of absorbing them into society, as Israel did with Jewish refugees who had to flee repression in Arab countries. Romney naively attributed the economic disparity between Israelis and Palestinians to “culture.” That’s but one of the reasons.  I don’t have the time or inclination to expound on the full set of reasons. Perhaps, given all his money, Romney can hire experts who could educate him on the differences between the two peoples.

As could be expected, Romney was well received by Israeli hawks for his no-questions-would-be-asked-nor-criticism-leveled should Israel decide to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Just as candidate Barack Obama in 2008 expressed sympathy for those living near the Gaza Strip under constant danger from missile attacks and condoned retaliation, Romney scored points when he said, “We respect the right of a country to defend itself.” Romney also fawned on the Israelis, and further angered the Palestinians, by saying Jerusalem was Israel’s capital. 

Interestingly, Romney, and for that matter, most other politicians, have chosen to stay silent on a more imminent threat to Israel and other Western countries, namely, the huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction in Syria that could fall into the hands of terrorists or unstable factions should the government of President Bashar al-Assad tumble. Would Israel and the United States risk a foray into Syria to secure these stockpiles? Israel is already distributing gas masks in its northern regions, but the threat would be far wider to the Jewish state, indeed, to the world at large if groups like al-Qaeda or Hezbollah had access to these WMDs. 

Romney always seems to be trying to say what he thinks his audience wants to hear. Back in Great Britain he opined he would restore the bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office. Sounds great to an Anglophile. Churchill was the symbol of British grit in World War II, the staunch anti-Communist thereafter, originator of the term “the Iron Curtain.” But what do India and other non-Caucasian members of the United Kingdom think of Churchill? Reading about the fall of the British empire, Gilda has related to me stories of how racist Churchill was, how he felt Indians were inferior people, and thus could be sacrificed (read that, starved) so Anglo-Saxons would have enough food during WWII. Millions in India died after their foodstuffs were shipped to the British Isles. 

Perhaps Romney wasn’t aware of this “small” fact. I, for one, wasn’t aware of it until recently. But I’m not running for president. My comments won’t anger a nation. 

Sound of Silence, Broken

Six days. Betcha didn’t think I’d be able to stay silent six days without a word about politics. I could’ve lasted longer, but the pursuit of the Latino vote by Mitt Romney and Barack Obama left me with little resolve to remain mum. 

I’m not surprised Mitt wouldn’t give specifics about his immigration reform policy should he become president. Though his tone might have been softer than what he conveyed during the primaries, Romney cannot promise relief to illegal immigrants and the Latino community for a simple reason—the right wing of his party would not stand for it. Not that they’d vote for Obama, but they could become less supportive if he espoused a softer line. If elected, Romney will have no more success mustering Tea Party members behind a more progressive immigration policy than House Speaker John Boehner has had trying to herd these cats into compromise budget positions. 

The lesson to be learned: voting for Mitt will be like buying a pig in a poke. You won’t know what you are getting despite his lofty rhetoric.

Here’s what passes for political reporting these days. Last week WCBS 880 news radio aired a clip of Romney saying he would win Wisconsin and Michigan on his way to the White House. What a surprise! Real news would have been Romney conceding he wouldn’t carry a state, but then that would mean getting Mitt to say something honest.

Over the weekend Romney hosted hundreds of fat cat supporters at a retreat in Utah. The monied set got to mingle with the candidate and his advisors, giving them a piece of what’s on their minds. I wonder, how many advocated for improving the lot of workers? How many lobbied for more aid to families under financial stress? How many suggested that providing affordable health care for all citizens should be a priority? How many sought more food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, aid for dependent children? How many volunteered that perhaps their success living the American Dream brought them to the realization that the super-rich could afford to pay more taxes to help those less fortunate? D’ya think any of them pressed for greater scrutiny of the financial sector? Of pharmaceuticals? Of food and product safety? How many of them figured out that cuts in police, fire, teachers and other municipal workers put everyone’s quality of life and safety at risk?

I’m not holding my breath that any of them asked for anything more than lower income taxes, lower capital gains taxes, lower estate taxes and the elimination of regulations that protect the public. I’m also confident Romney was all ears. He was, after all, rubbing elbows with his type of people. 

News from the Weekend

One of the recurring themes of this year’s presidential election is the effort to portray Mitt Romney and family as being more than slightly different than the average Joe, Jane and their children. The Romneys do, after all, have a net worth in the $220 million range.

Nonetheless, I have no doubt Mitt and Ann can identify with coupon-cutting families across the country. Of course, the coupons Mitt and Ann are clipping are from zero coupon bonds, but what the heck, they have to cut along the dotted lines, as well, to get their money. 

Chilly enough for you (at least those of you in the northeast)? With temperatures barely in the 60’s, with the skies mostly overcast, I think I may have jinxed the weather for everyone by removing our heated mattress pad on Saturday for a summer hiatus. Who knew the weather gods would react so quickly? Please, accept my apologies.

The weather cooperated over the weekend, first for a Prospect Park picnic Saturday in honor of soon-to-be-son-in-law Donny’s 30th birthday (Ellie cooked delicious fried chicken with several homemade salads) and then on Sunday for Ellie’s bridal shower at our friend Linda’s house. The rains held off until the ladies had retired from the tented garden patio to the comfort of the living room to open presents and eat some scrumptious desserts.

I did the unthinkable Friday night—I switched from watching a NY Yankees game to a NY Mets telecast.

The Yankees had bulletined Johan Santana’s bid for a no-hitter had entered the ninth inning. How could any baseball fan resist being a witness to history? I must say, I was emotionally involved when Santana ended the no-hitter with a flourish, the way it should always end, with a strikeout. 

Santana’s exploits notwithstanding, I’m not ready to abandon the Yankees. But it was heartwarming, for one night, to share in the joy of the “faithful,” long-suffering Mets fan. 

One of the last decisions I pondered while at Chain Store Age in 2009 was to cut the frequency of our monthly magazine down to nine times a year. I bring this up because of an article in today’s NY Times about the choices several daily newspapers have made to trim publication down to several times a week (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/business/media/as-newspapers-cut-analysts-ask-if-readers-will-remain.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=business).

As it was for me, the decisions tried to balance reduced advertising revenue with the need to cultivate and inform readers on a consistent basis. Ultimately, my management team determined we could not provide monthly publication frequency. I retired before the cuts could be implemented the following year. 

Another Times article caught my eye over the weekend. It too involved my former employer and “gaydar,” the ability to detect someone’s sexual orientation by merely looking at them (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/opinion/sunday/the-science-of-gaydar.html?_r=1).  

In the early 1980s one of the vice presidents of our company thought I needed an executive editor. He brought a woman candidate to my cubicle for an interview. She was very experienced, but not really interested in business journalism. I enjoyed hearing her background, but we agreed it would not be a great match.

After she left the vice president settled into my office to ascertain my reaction. These were semi-"Mad Men" days, so you’ll pardon his crude choice of words when he asked “if she and I could get into bed together” (possibly in his defense, keep in mind that publications are “put to bed” when they are printed).  

Anyway, I responded “I don’t think so, besides, she’s a lesbian.” How did I know that?, he asked incredulously. Simple, she told me, including the fact she had a relationship with Betty Friedan. 

That was the last time he ever recommended any candidate to me.

Odds & Ends: Yankees, Swimming, Vegetable Oil, Romney, E-Mail

After another disheartening loss by the NY Yankees, this time to the Cincinnati Reds, I thought I’d ask one of my friends, a long-suffering NY Mets fan, how I could cope with a season of unfulfilled expectations. 

“Realistic expectations,” was Ken’s response, a philosophy he has perfected over many years but which he readily admitted was foreign to Yankees fans who have grown accustomed to regular season success, at the very least. 

Based on their play and their injury-laden roster, the Yankees and their fans are in for a very loooong season. Will it be a success if we manage to finish ahead of Boston?

Ken is my swimming instructor. He’s opened his pool, but it’s weeks too early to even consider dipping a dainty toe into the water, even if he heats it up. We agree I have the fundamentals down, that my failure to stay afloat is mostly, if not all, mental. Ken suggested adding a psychologist to the instructional team. My sister suggested a hypnotist. 

It’s still open to debate who will learn to swim first—two and a half year old Finley or his 63 year old grandfather.

The other day while driving home I was stopped behind a Mercedes with a decal across the back window proclaiming, “Powered by vegetable oil.”

Cool. Except the car really smelled like cooked French fries. 

The Sunday NY Times ran a profile of Mitt Romney and how the Mormon religion has shaped his life (“Romney’s Faith, Silent but Deep,” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/us/politics/how-the-mormon-church-shaped-mitt-romney.html?_r=1&hpw). 

He is, no doubt, a religious man. Nothing wrong there. But I was troubled especially by the last paragraph of the story, the one where Ann Romney was quoted about his decision to run for president. According to Gloria White-Hammond, a friend and pastor of a Boston-area African Methodist Episcopal church, Mrs. Romney said she and her husband “felt it was what God wanted them to do.” 

I’m troubled whenever anyone, other than maybe a clergyman, ascribes actions to what God wanted them to do. Is that how our government will be managed, by what is perceived to be messages from God? Romney, it turns out, as a practicing Mormon, is said to believe God has chosen the United States to be a special nation, that its Constitution is divinely inspired. 

“God is on our side” often is a rallying cry of countries that go to war. Heaven need truly help us if we devolve into a 21st century nation that believes our actions are always godly and beyond reproach. 

A friend sent me one of those right wing emails that deplore what is wrong with America and what we need to do to fix it. The thrust of this missive was too many people are taking money from the government without contributing anything in return. In other words, the have-nots are bleeding the haves dry. “We have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are now more people getting free stuff than paying for the free stuff.” 

Here’s the final credo:

Obama:Gone!

Borders: Closed!

Language: English only

Culture: Constitution, and the Bill of Rights!

Drug Free: Mandatory Drug Screening before Welfare!

NO freebies to: Non-Citizens!

I can’t let these screeds go unanswered, so here’s a little of what I wrote back:

Here's a link to a USA Today article http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-08-30-1Asafetynet30_ST_N.htm . In essence it says: 

50 million are on Medicaid

40 million get food stamps

10 million are on unemployment

4.4 million are on welfare.

Assuming no one is double dipping, that means 104.4 million receive some form of government assistance. That's roughly one-third of the U.S. population, not a majority. Enrollments in these programs have gone up because of the recession George W. Bush left as his legacy. 

Would you really like to live in a country that does not care for its elderly, for its infirm, for those who are not provided a proper education so they can climb out of poverty? Would you really like to live in a country that has no compassion for the less fortunate? Are you comfortable living in the richest country in the world while millions of children go to bed hungry each night? 

For sure there is waste, lots of waste, in these programs. But just as we don't tar the full military for the wrongdoings of a few idiots, we shouldn't dismiss the benefits these programs provide to the needy, of all ages, sexes, creeds, religions, background, and country of origin. 

Many in our country donate to worthwhile charities and other helpful programs. Yet poverty persists. Hunger remains. Education budgets are cut at a time when we need better trained employees. Private solutions are not sufficient to solve our problems. An economy without controls will lead to more abuses a la Enron, Tyco, JP Morgan Chase, and the derivative crisis that is the derivation of much of the financial problems of today. Surely you can't believe that we live in a Pollyanna world where everything will turn out just right if we pray hard for it and wish for it because in their hearts all men and women are good and would not take advantage of their neighbors and countrymen? There's a reason the first thing new settlers build is not a church but rather a jail. 

Wild Things

If there was one book I loved reading to our children when they were young it was “Where the Wild Things Are.” Maurice Sendak’s vividly dark, surreal tale of the rambunctious, undisciplined Max in his wolf suit let me entertain Dan and Ellie with my best growls and snorts. Naturally, I was saddened by Sendak’s death last week, but I was comforted by the prospect of reading “Where the Wild Things Are” to Finley during our Mother’s Day weekend visit. Alas, as Gilda was putting Finley to bed last night, I heard her reading the book to the little fellow, and having quite a good time of it gnashing her teeth and making wild things sounds. This morning I asked Finley if he wanted me to read it to him. He responded like Max with a firm, “No.” Ah, well, maybe next time we see him.

Perhaps one reason I enjoyed Sendak is we shared a first name. In his early years Sendak’s moniker was Murray. Why he later preferred Maurice, I cannot tell you. Maybe he thought it had more of an artistic flair. His most famous character, Max, was the name of my father’s youngest sibling, killed in the Holocaust. I almost was named Max in his memory (my mother chose Murray, instead). The son of my father’s only surviving sibling was named Max. 

Sendak, for those not aware of it, was homosexual. He had a 50 year relationship with the late Dr. Eugene Glynn. It’s another example that LGBT couples are just as likely to have loving, lasting relationships as do straight people. Sadly ironic that Sendak passed away the same week North Carolina voters chose to join some 30 other states in declaring marriage is to be solely between a man and a woman. 

Here’s an interesting statistic—North Carolina, according to the most recent data, has an above average divorce rate, as do many of the anti-LGBT states. So much for those Bible-belters holding marriage as a sacred state. New York’s divorce rate, by contrast, is below average.  

One of the best commentaries on the whole affair comes courtesy of a friend of daughter-in-law Allison. She posted a Facebook message of the following chalk sign, “If you don't like gay marriage, blame straight people. They're the ones who keep having gay babies.”

Speaking of Facebook, some Wall Streeters expressed annoyance at Jeffrey Zuckerberg for wearing his signature hoodie sweatshirt, and not a suit and tie, at an investors’ presentation prior to the company’s initial public  stock offering (IPO) slated for next Friday. “I think he has to realize he’s bringing investors in as a new constituency right now, and I think he’s got to show them the respect that they deserve because he’s asking them for their money,” Michael Pachter, an analyst for Wedbush Securities, told Bloomberg TV.

Excuse me! We all know that in IPOs the little guy, the individual investor, rarely has access to new stock issues. So if Wall Street doesn’t care for Zuckerberg’s attire, let them stay away. I’m sure there are plenty of Joe Publics out there who would like nothing better than to latch onto Zuckerberg’s hoodie laces and snatch up some Facebook stock at its offering price. 

I’m simply amazed at the gall, the chutzpah, of anyone on Wall Street thinking they deserve “respect” these days. 

Which brings me to my final point of the day. Much has been written and spoken about Mitt Romney’s insensitivity to a younger, fellow high school student who had bleached his hair blond. Let others decide whether Romney bullied the lad while snipping his locks. The insensitivity has seemingly lasted nearly a half century as Romney only half-heartedly apologized for his high school hi-jinks. 

Equally if not more telling was another high school incident that has come to light—his walking a nearly blind teacher into a closed glass door and laughing hysterically about it. 

Two weeks ago the Torah portion read in synagogues included the admonition “Thous shalt not ... put a stumbling block before the blind.” I wonder just how caring and considerate Romney is to those less fortunate than him. We've already seen during the primary season Romney’s inability to relate to the common man, his silver spoon upbringing exposing a leaden tongue and duller brain. Now we are finding out this behavior pattern is in his DNA and goes back at least to his high school days. 

Media Daze

Every time I hear Eliot Spitzer I get sooooo angry. Not because I don’t like him. Rather, because I generally agree with what he says and his fall from grace has deprived New York and country of a leader who could have made a difference. Now, he’s just another talking head, albeit one who makes sense and isn’t too pompous and self-righteous. Like most pols, he has an ego, but he’s working hard to control it.

The former governor and attorney general of New York, or Client #9 in the federal sex probe that cost him his leadership of New York State and potential national candidacy, is now a host on Current TV. Yesterday he was interviewed on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show. ‘Twas an earnest analysis of issues, well worth your listening to: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2012/may/02/eliot-spitzers-viewpoint/

Holy Communion: I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with some of the positions emanating from the Catholic Church. I support its call for a higher minimum wage in New York. 

But my real communion is for the criticism Catholic bishops have heaped on Rep. Paul Ryan, a fellow Catholic, for his budget proposal that would strip government support for the needy. As explained by Father Thomas Reese of Georgetown University on Tuesday’s The Colbert Report, the Catholic hierarchy believes Ryan’s budget would cut benefits to the poor and hungry while enriching the rich. 

Here’s a clip of Stephen Colbert’s interview with Father Reese. You’ll also see and hear how duplicitous politicians can be and how easy it is to expose them in this age of everything-you-say-is-recorded-and-will-be-played-back-at-some-future-date: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/413499/may-01-2012/paul-ryan-s-budget---thomas-reese.

Let’s Get Real: Over lunch yesterday I caught up with last Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher. I won’t tax you with another link. Instead, here’s a quote from Bill himself I thought was particularly cogent: 

“Mitt Romney is running on the question, ‘Can I run this economy better than Barack Obama?’ 

“How can you run on this idea that I’m going to take over an economy that my party ruined?” 

Like Maher, I’m baffled that anyone, even die-hard Republicans, would believe the ideas of the party that turned a record surplus into two debt-producing wars and an unpaid prescription drug benefit program could be palatable to any voter with memory.

Catch Up, Not Ketchup: Here’s another example of why my wife is a foodie. For years Gilda’s been an advocate of dark meat when it comes to eating chicken. It seems the rest of the consuming world is catching up to her. Cluck along as you read this: http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268802/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=Wff78MGb

Rider of the Purple Sage: Last weekend Gilda enlisted me (notice I didn’t volunteer) to help with some yard work. Heavy lifting stuff, like moving five 50 lb. bags of potting soil. After she trimmed some bushes I collected the discarded branches, some for kindling, the rest for collection by city crews. I noticed the pile of brush resembled a tumbleweed, which brought back memories of my one and only trip to Reno 34 years ago. I was in Nevada to cover the opening of a J.C. Penney catalog distribution center. 

As I sped down the highway—everybody speeds along Nevada highways—I saw tumbleweeds blowing towards me. There were tumbleweeds in every lane. They were as wide as my car. Have you ever collided with a tumbleweed? I hadn’t. I’m not ashamed to say I was pretty scared. I couldn’t take any evasive action. We collided. At least that’s what I think happened, for you see, when a tumbleweed hits a car it vaporizes into thin air. All that frenzy and fear for nothing more than “poof!” 

Victory, At Last: I had expected to post this blog entry last night but wound up enthralled by the triple overtime NY Rangers 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The game, which started at 7:40, didn’t end until 12:14 am this morning. 

During high school and through college I was a rabid hockey fan; I lost interest in the Rangers when most, if not all, of my favorite players retired or were traded. My passion renewed during the Mark Messier era of the early 1990s. When Messier delivered on his promise of a Stanley Cup in 1994, the first one for the Rangers in 54 years, I was the most happy for any championship any of my teams in any sport ever won. When the Rangers let Messier go in a contract dispute a year or so later, my allegiance became dormant again. I didn’t follow the team during this past regular season, so I’m a little lost recognizing players by their numbers or faces. Nonetheless, the viewing intensity is still there. 

Watching Stanley Cup hockey wears you out. Scoring is typically low; every touch of the puck can be a game changer, every miscue can result in a goal, or a fantastic save. Gilda was fast asleep when the game ended, so I couldn’t shout “goooooal” when Marian Gaborik poked a perfect pass from Brad Richards through the pads of Washington goalie Braden Holtby to finally end the contest four and a half hours after it began. Sudden death. Sudden victory. 

The Age of Nuance

Here’s a word you need to get familiar with, if you have not already done so—"nuance." It has a soft, lilting sound to it. A sort of Dance of the Seventh Veils spelled out in six letters. Lots of tease, little of actual substance. 

Webster’s New World Dictionary defines nuance as a noun meaning “a slight or delicate variation in tone, color, meaning, etc.; shade of difference.” A classic definition, one that fails to capture the potent force hidden within the modern usage of nuance. Nuance is the best friend of politicians, the bogeyman of an ill-informed or forgetful electorate.

Ever since Mitt Romney emerged as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee with the departure of Rick Santorum and the awaited capitulation of Newt Gingrich from the field of GOP candidates, Romney and the Republican party elite, along with play-along media, have been talking up his need to appeal to mainstream voters, independents who will determine the outcome of November’s election. They’ve been using words like nuance or “pivot” or “redirect” to explain what Romney needs to do to soften the conservative positions he espoused to secure primary victories and delegates. 

Now, we are being told, the real Romney will emerge and present himself as someone who the full electorate can embrace. Are they kidding? Do they hold us in such contempt and disdain that they think we will quickly forget how reactionary Romney has been to any thoughts of compassion for the needy and investment for the country?  

Sadly, I believe they are right. American voters have soooooo little memory it is easy with enough dollars to propagandize yourself to victory—and clearly in this year of the super-PAC advertising blitz it will be easier to warp the truth than ever before. 

Romney’s Achilles’ Heel in all this pivoting and nuancing is the belligerency of his fellow Republicans who continue to ratchet up their attacks on women, children and the less fortunate. Take, for example, their proposed budget, which Romney has labeled as “marvelous.” As a NY Times editorial the other day pointed out, the GOP-controlled “House Agriculture Committee voted ... to cut $33 billion over the next decade out of food stamps. That would immediately end benefits for two million people, and reduce benefits for the remaining 44 million people who use the program. A family of four would find their benefits lowered by $57 a month beginning in September, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The committee trimmed job training for food-stamp recipients by 72 percent; 280,000 students would no longer be eligible for free meals.”

How does that square with Romney's promise to preserve the safety net? Perhaps the nuance of his words is that he will preserve it—in cold storage!

You could argue Barack Obama has not been a great president. But you can’t blame him for the lousy economy, or the growing deficit, at least not if you have a memory that goes back before January 20, 2009. Romney et al would have us believe the Bush years never happened. They’re hoping for collective amnesia. 

Or they’re looking for a scapegoat for all of our troubles. Stephen Colbert came up with one Democrats and Republicans could agree on. Take a look: 

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/413205/april-25-2012/the-word---united-we-can-t-stand-them?xrs=share_copy

Finally, Some More Political Thoughts

You might have noticed (my ego hopes you have), lately new blog postings have not been showing up as frequently as in the past. There’s a simple explanation, having nothing to do with running out of topics to write about or opinions to discourse. Rather, it’s because five days a week I’m involved in educational pursuits that have eaten into my free time. I’m even finding it difficult to watch the recorded Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, causing me to make a conscious decision as to which source of news and commentary is more beneficial—the two Comedy Central shows or reading the NY Times.

Anyway, here are some thoughts that have been rolling around my brain the last few days...

How could anyone call her a “Democratic strategist”? I’m referring, of course, to Hilary Rosen, who made the asinine comment on Wednesday that Ann Romney, wife of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, was somehow unfit to comment on women’s economic issues because she never worked for pay outside the home.

Did she honestly believe stay-at-home moms provide no value to the household, that they don’t understand, in very real terms, economics, when the cost of peanut butter skyrockets, when the tab for filling up the car with gas for the soccer/Little League/ice skating/cheerleading practice isn’t gushing forever skyward, when home heating bills force her to swaddle the baby in extra blankets to keep fuels bills from exceeding monthly mortgage payments?

It doesn’t matter that Ann Romney might be rich enough to not worry about those problems. But anyone who has risen to the status of “strategist” should understand basic political talk, and that every comment made, no matter how innocent, might well be turned against them and used by their adversaries.

Rosen has apologized for her “poorly chosen” words, which have been repudiated by President Obama and his re-election staff. That’s not enough. Rosen should be summarily dismissed from any aspect of the Democratic campaign for not only poor judgment but also for giving Republicans an opportunity to carve into the substantial lead Obama has over Romney among women.

Let’s be clear: Even if she didn’t put her foot in her mouth, and by extension, give the impression she was voicing Obama/Democratic thinking, there would be many women who did not support four more years of an Obama presidency. What she did was rile up the opposition, giving it another talking point no matter how many times she (or Obama) apologizes or retracts her statement. An already difficult re-election has been made more difficult. Instead of focusing on other issues, Obama must now spend time cementing his appeal to Independent women (and any Republican woman who thinks for herself).


Don’t Get Sick: Only the most optimistic supporters of the Affordable Care Act believe the Supreme Court will uphold the law. Which means millions of Americans might find themselves without insurance coverage by mid-summer. Which begs the question, what will Republicans do to preserve some of the more well-received features of the so-called Obamacare, such as the provision that denies insurance companies the right to withhold coverage based on a pre-existing condition, and the ability to insure children until age 26 if they don’t have their own insurance?

If Congressional Republicans don’t pass immediate remedial bills in these areas when they return from their summer recess (under the assumption the Supreme Court will void the entire law and not just the mandate part), health care once again will become a core issue in the campaign. Romney should not be allowed to ask voters to wait until he’s elected to secure a new health care law. House Speaker John Boehner should have his staff working on a bill right now, given his stern belief Obamacare is unconstitutional.

I wouldn’t count on it, however. Just don’t get sick after June.


Speaking of Health Care ... Here’s a dilemma Romney will face at the GOP nominating convention in Tampa: To shore up his conservative credentials, how much face time will he give to his rivals? Actually, I don’t see that as too much of a big deal. No, the real dilemma will be, should he allow former vice president and new heart recipient Dick Cheney a turn in the spotlight?

So far, Romney has not embraced former president George W. Bush. He wants no link to the man who sent the country off to two God-forsaken wars after his staff ignored warnings about an Al-Qaeda attack, and who saddled the country in more mounting debt with a Medicare prescription drug plan. But Cheney is a neocon hero, a talk-tough pol who would cause applause to cascade down from the rafters of the convention hall. Could Romney withstand the comparisons to Cheney? More to the point, could he afford to remind voters that Cheney in great part bequeethed to the country a legacy of vitriol, war and debt? A Cheney speech would rouse the convention delegates and inspire the faithful at home, but most assuredly be so partisan it would turn off Independent voters.


Speaking of Vice President: To me, it’s almost a no-brainer—Romney will pick Marco Rubio, the first-term U.S. senator from Florida, as his running mate. The son of Cuban refugees will secure Florida in the Republican column, as well as help Romney close the gap with Obama among Hispanic voters in other states. He’s also more conservative than Romney, so the hard-core will feel better about voting for him for president.

Obama’s only chance of winning Florida again is if Sarah Silverman and her Jewish cohorts descend on the Sunshine State on election day and hold their collective breaths until grandma and grandpa (and maybe some mothers and fathers) vote for a man they repeatedly have been told is Israel’s worst enemy ever in the White House.

Instead of a Florida election, perhaps we should have a competition between ethnics. Let’s see, Dominoes? Pinochle? Mah-Jong? At least it would be a lot more entertaining than picking a president by counting hanging chads.

Fantasy Time

It’s Fantasy Time again.

No, this isn’t a posting about Fantasy Baseball teams. Nor is it a posting positing how Republicans will solve all our problems by easing taxes on the rich while reducing health care for women, children and minorities, and in general socking it to the disadvantaged (for a pithier description of the “cruel” plans of the GOP, as depicted in their new federal budget proposal adopted by House Republicans this week and endorsed by presumptive presidential candidate Mitt Romney, read today’s lead editorial in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/opinion/a-cruel-republican-budget.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss.

No, this is a blog about dreams, of expectations waiting to be fulfilled, of freedom from want beyond one’s wildest imagination. All at a price of...$1.

You can’t win it, if you’re not in it. So I’ve got my Mega Millions ticket. I’ve got more than 640 million reasons why I should win the Mega Millions drawing tonight. Of course, so do millions of other wishful thinkers. It only takes $1 to walk away with a prize, as that man who recently won hundreds of millions in a lottery found out when he impulsively bought one ticket during a stop at a Long Island supermarket during a visit from out of state with his family. The machine picked his numbers. I let the machine pick mine as well.

I’m not piggish. I don’t need to win it all. I’d be more than happy to share the bounty with several winners. I just want enough to be “comfortable.” Naturally, one person’s perception of comfort differs from another’s. As I’m already retired, comfort for me won’t mean retiring from full-time work. Gilda, on the other hand, probably would, though I dare not speak for her. At the very least, she’d work fewer hours, take longer vacations. She’s always wanted a home by the water, so I could see us indulging her longtime dream. We’d set up trusts for our children and grandchildren. We’d set up charitable trusts. We’d work hard not to forget that being rich carries responsibilities.

Which brings me back to reality and a retraction from what I wrote four paragraphs ago. Republican politicians are engaged in fantasy thinking, believing as they do that trickle down economic theory works. They are to be chastised for their insensitivity, yet I can understand their adherence to their version of an entitlement society where the wealthy are the entitled. They just want to ensure their status quo.

What I cannot understand is how and why Americans who are purposely kept down by the Republican elite support them. There have been several articles recently on the thought process behind this phenomenon, but the rationale escapes my comprehension. What’s more, I cannot fathom how dumb the electorate is, that voters cannot remember it was Republican policies that got us into the economic mess we are in and the two disastrous wars we have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Republicans harp on the growing deficit, and voters don’t remember it was Republican foul-ups that swamped us in red ink.

In his response to President Obama’s last State of the Union speech, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-Indiana) said the GOP believes in possibilities. “We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots; we must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves,” said Daniels. Tonight’s Mega Millions drawing offers one version of that road to have-dom.

Etch A Sketch Draws Memories

The intense renewed interest in Etch A Sketch reminded me that Gilda and I knew the owners of the Ohio Art Co. that manufactures the toy that has come to symbolize Mitt Romney.

We met Bill Killgallon, chairman, and his brother, Larry, president and chief operating officer, a little more than 30 years ago, at the annual conferences of the Association of General Merchandise Chains every October. The AGMC was mostly a networking, social gathering of old line variety store executives from companies such as M.H. Lamston, McCrory, Winn’s, G.C. Murphy, Kresge, Rose’s, T.G.&Y. and Woolworth. Some of them had diversified with a discount store division under such nameplates as Murphy Mart, Kmart, Woolco and even a little company at the time called Wal-Mart. Don’t feel too ignorant if you don’t recognize some of those retail companies. Most of the AGMC membership of regional retailers have vanished under the weight of competing with Wal-Mart and Target.

Along with the retailers, the AGMC attracted key suppliers, Ohio Art among them. If any business travel could be considered a perq, attendance at the AGMC conference would fall under that rubric. By long-standing tradition of my publishing house in recognizing that a spouse could be an essential contributor to forging business relationships, the editor’s wife was permitted to attend on the company dime. I can truly attest that Gilda opened as many or even more contacts than I did during those AGMC meetings, oftentimes through her association with the spouses of the retail executives. It also didn’t hurt that from the time they were toddlers we brought our children to these conferences. One of the first words Dan learned to say was “croissant” as he and Gilda enjoyed breakfast on the patio of our room at the Arizona Biltmore when he was just two years old. One of my favorite pictures, hanging on our den wall, shows me wearing a straw cowboy hat while carrying Ellie asleep on my chest, a bandanna covering her head, during a cocktail reception two months before Ellie’s second birthday.


Gimmee, Gimmee, Gimmee, but I don’t want to pay for it.

It’s not surprising to me that a NY Times/CBS News survey has found widespread opposition to all or parts of the health care measure, the legality of which is now being debated at the Supreme Court. The survey found 47% disapprove of the Affordable Care Act, with only 36% approving it. Why wouldn’t our lemming-like public have negative opinions when they’ve been bombarded for the last year by Republican presidential candidate after candidate trashing the law (without offering a realistic alternative, mind you) and with hardly any aggressive defense mounted by President Obama (perhaps he’s waiting for the official re-election campaign to begin his counter-attack)?

Of course, the public shows its selfishness by also telling The Times/CBS News poll it favors coverage of pre-existing conditions (85%) and the extension of insurance to children until they turn 26 (68%) but not wanting to support a mandate to require everyone to buy insurance or be fined (51%). Just how do those people think the added benefits can be funded? Do they think insurance grows on trees?


“Nothing discredits religion quite like the gap between what believers profess and how they live.” I liked that sentence in a column (“Tebow in Babylon”) by Ross Douthat in Sunday’s NY Times Review section. But what I really liked from that section was Frank Bruni’s essay, "Rethinking His Religion," about the transformation his former college roommate has undergone over the last 30 years. I won’t ruin it for you. Here’s a link, with my suggestion to read it all the way through. The ending is priceless: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/opinion/sunday/bruni-a-catholic-classmate-rethinks-his-religion.html?_r=1&ref=frankbruni


On another spiritual note, did anyone else think it slightly incongruous that the National Geographic cable TV network chose to air “Only for God: Inside Hasidim” on a Friday night? Not that any Hasidim would be watching regardless of the night, but it did show a lack of sensitivity to broadcast the program last Friday night, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath.

Spring Thoughts Mean Only One Thing

If near-40-year-old Andy Pettitte can attempt a comeback to the rigors of major league baseball with the NY Yankees after being retired one year, perhaps there’s reason to believe I can return to the pitching mound after a three-year hiatus from Sunday morning fast-pitch softball.

I’m not sure our temple team needs a 63-year-old pitcher, but our 64-year-old hurler jumped ship, signing with another squad. So there may be an opening if none of the younger arms proves reliable. Over my near 30-year softball career, reliable would be a good descriptor of my performance. I wasn’t the best pitcher in the league, but I was among the most consistent, almost always keeping our team competitive. Before I joined, the team would lose by double-digit scores as the pitcher, Mike, simply lobbed the ball over. While we still lost most of our games during my first season, the scores were much closer. Mike, however, was not a happy teammate. He protested his demotion to the bench, appealing to the leadership of the temple Brotherhood, the sponsor of the team. Sadly, they suggested to Mike it was time to hang up his spikes. He chose, instead, to switch temples, though his misfortunes continued on his new team and it, too, told him to ride the pines.

I retired three years ago when I was no longer the starting pitcher and couldn’t justify waking up early Sunday mornings from April through October. I’m still not sure the warmth and comfort of our bed won’t seduce me into staying home (this morning, for example, I rolled out of bed at 10:30), but I’m getting that old excitement back. Yesterday I even bought new cleats (just in case) and tried on my old uniform; it fit perfectly, with no tugging at the waist of the pants. Actually, I rarely wore baseball pants, preferring to pitch in shorts. To say my “chicken legs” weren’t a distraction to batters would be disingenuous, but hey, you’re allowed to try any legal means of changing the focus of the opposition. I also checked my glove to make sure the lacing was in good order. In short, I’m ready for a season with players almost all of whom are closer to my son’s age (33) than mine. First practice is in a week or two, first game April 22. Hopefully, I won’t get hurt.


I ventured back in time in a different way on Thursday, attending a luncheon of the Society of the Silurians at the Players Club on Gramercy Park in Manhattan to hear the featured speaker, Gail Collins, Op-Ed columnist for The NY Times, and an acquaintance going back more than 35 years to our days in New Haven when her husband, Dan, and I worked at the New Haven Register. (The Silurians, by the way, is an organization of veteran New York City journalists founded in 1924. As previously mentioned, I’m 63. With very few exceptions, I was the youngest in the room of 150, a record attendance, there to hear Gail talk about her career and her thoughts on politics of the day. Even society president Tony Guida, distinguished looking at 70 with a full head of coiffed, silver hair, couldn’t avoid noting the age of the assembled when he asked for all cell phones, beepers, pagers and pacemakers to be turned off prior to Gail’s presentation.)

Gail didn’t disappoint, regaling all with stories of her days as a Connecticut state capitol reporter before coming to New York in 1980. We took a few minutes before and after her talk to catch up. The only disappointment was Dan and another New Haven alum, Trish Hall, now Op-Ed editor of The Times, weren’t in attendance. But I did sit next to Times reporter Robert D. McFadden, a spry 50-year veteran of the paper, whose main assignment these days is writing pre-obituaries of the noteworthy and famous.

By the way, anyone who has followed Gail’s columns on Mitt Romney knows she always includes a reference to the star-crossed family trip to Canada when Mitt boxed the family Irish setter, Seamus, in a crate atop the station wagon as he, his wife and their five boys rode inside. Seamus eventually developed diarrhea, forcing Romney to make an unscheduled stop to hose down the dog and crate but not allow any of the humans to relieve themselves. Gail maintained Romney’s behavior provides insight into his character. Nevertheless, she indicated when the primaries are over she will retire Seamus from her columns. I’m not so sure, if Romney winds up securing the Republican presidential nomination. We’ll just have to wait and see.


After the luncheon and a quick stop at Gilda’s office on Union Square, I was off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the “The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini,” an exhibit I highly recommend but alas is closing today. One thing struck me among the painted portraits—several of the 15th century profiles of men looked vaguely familiar in their headdress. It was not until later that evening when watching the evening news that I realized the turbaned men hanging on the walls of the Met bore a striking resemblance to the millinery styles of the men of present day Afghanistan.


Saturday was Gilda’s birthday, her 63rd. Don’t worry. Gilda has no qualms about revealing her age. Indeed, she is vastly amused when people guess she is 20, even 30, years younger. Not wanting to jostle the crowds of St. Patrick’s Day, we spent a peaceful day together. Today we will tour the annual orchid show at the Bronx Botanical Gardens and then head off to Brooklyn where Ellie and Donny will prepare a birthday feast of one of Gilda’s favorite foods—fried chicken.