More crap

On Friday, we learned that the Trump administration denied North Carolina's request to extend FEMA's Tropical Storm Helene relief funding for debris removal.

The storm caused about $60 billion in damages for the state and killed approximately 100 people. It was awful. North Carolinians are still trying to figure out how a storm with the force of a hurricane could ravage the mountains.

To be fair, FEMA is still providing 90 percent funding, but the remaining 10 percent is the equivalent to $200,000 million, which is not insignificant when people are still living in tents.

A few months ago, Kim and I went to Asheville to hear one of our favorite bands, Underhill Rose, perform. On the way up, the first hint of damage we saw was at Old Fort. Trees were still down. Some buildings were uninhabitable. 

By the time we reached neighboring Black Mountain and Swannanoa, the scope of the damage was clearly evident – and almost unbelievable to process from the inside of a car.

When we finally reached Asheville, the Interstate still had a layer of river silt imprinted on its surface and storm damage – particularly fallen trees – lay strewn on either side of the road. And this was five months later. It's going to take a long, long time for complete recovery.

But on Friday, the Trump administration said nope, further assistance is "unwarranted" and gave no reason why. So much for the transparency they claim to have.

And this coming from a guy who criticized then-President Joe Biden for abandoning the state and mishandling the hurricane response. Forgotten, I guess, was Trump's own response to North Carolina in 2017, during his first term, when the state requested $929 million in aid in the wake of Hurricane Matthew. North Carolina received just one percent ($6.1 million) of what it requested. Thanks, bro.

In the back of my head I'm thinking the only reason to deny the state recovery funding is retribution. Governor Josh Stein is a Democrat who doesn't mind sparring with Trump now and then. And Buncombe County, where Asheville is located, voted heavily Democratic for Kamala Harris in the 2024 general election. She received 98,602 votes (61.47.percent) while Trump totaled 59,016 votes (36.77 percent). So the payback presidency continues because a child pretending he's a clown sits at the Resolute Desk.

Roy Cooper, another Democrat, was the governor in 2017, in case you're looking for a pattern.

Meanwhile, the idiocy continues. When he's not denying FEMA funding, Trump's trying to punish Harvard University by banning the enrollment of foreign students for absurd or inexplicable reasons. Fortunately, a federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order to block the ban. That action puts a stop – at least for now – of a potential brain drain that could hurt this country for decades. Harvard, like most prestigious universities, do invaluable work in research and development. For example, Harvard is probably the leading university in the world in cancer research. So, yeah, let's shut that down.

•   •   •

On a side note, I've noticed that whenever MAGA responds to criticism of Trump, the explanation often given is that the critic is suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), as if it's an actual thing that is treatable with counseling.

I've been seeing and hearing that for years. I suspect I'll get a few TDS's for today's blog. 

Political debate is a natural, even a genetic, part of this country's heritage. Unless free speech is suddenly declared illegal by executive order, agreeing to disagree is part of a normal and healthy exchange. Declaring that an opponent has TDS amounts to nothing more than a tired, childish ad hominem attack in an attempt to extinguish a person's viewpoint from the debate with a weak insult. 

Be better than that, MAGA.

 

 

 

 

Immigration game

The other day I saw a story published by The Wall Street Journal – a conservative newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns FOX News – that the Department of Homeland Security is considering a reality TV program that pits desperate immigrants against each other in a competition for U.S. citizenship.

I thought this was pretty much more dystopian Trump administration nonsense until I got to the part where TV producer Rob Worsoff has been pitching a show like this as far back as the Obama era (Worsoff, by the way, helped produce Duck Dynasty).

The story gained further credence for me when it noted that DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said she has been in contact with Worsoff and that the Trump administration is interested in the concept, revealing the idea is "in the very beginning stages of that vetting process."

Holy hell. Is there no end to Trump's indignities? His excessively corrupt administration (see: gold-plated Qatari 747 jet airliner) thrives on the pain and despair of others, and immigrants are an easy and special target for him. Not all immigrants, mind you. South Africans, who are white and speak English, are coming to the United States as asylum seekers and are welcomed by the Trump clown show. But Hispanics, who are usually non-Whites, don't generally speak English and are often being labeled, without due process, as MS-13 gang members, are being deported (probably unconstitutionally) to foreign nations not native to them. Cruel and unusual? Well, yes. That's the point, isn't it?

All this abomination got me to thinking about immigration in this country. It's not a particularly pleasant picture when you get right down to it.

Oh, sure. We've seen the images of poor Europeans coming off ships at Ellis Island under the shadow of the State of Liberty, and it's as feel good an image as there is. It's what America is all about. It's the Statue of LIBERTY, for crying out loud.

Until you consider that Black Africans were brought to these shores in 1619 to serve as slaves – by white Europeans, and primarily, by white Englishmen and who were mostly Protestant Christians.

Which makes the white Englishmen this country's first immigrants, not to mention its first slave holders. And one of the first things the white Englishmen do is steal the land from native Americans, who are not white. Oh, my God! It's an invasion!

It's a slippery slide from there.

As the country grew, so did its biases. As humans, we don't seem to do well with things we don't know about. Like somebody else's culture. Or their religion. So when the great potato famine sparked Irish immigration to the U.S. in the mid-1840s, it also brought with them large numbers of Catholics, and well, you know the rest: Irish need not apply.

Then it was the Germans in 1848, crossing the Atlantic to escape revolution. The resident Englishmen were so confused by this they called the Germans "Dutch" because the German word for German is "Deustch." Makes sense, right? It's a dehumanizing tactic to label an ethnic group something they're not. Well, we know that now. Because we're still seeing it happen.

About the same time that the Germans came over, the Chinese arrived, hoping to take advantage of the gold rush in California. Here's a factoid: the Chinese were primarily used to build the western section of the Transcontinental Railroad. Approximately 12,000 Chinese immigrants helped with the construction of the project from 1865 to 1869, often working under horrendously dangerous conditions. Imagine that. The American railroad system, made in China.

Then came the Italians in the 1880s, trying to escape hardship and political strife. Oh, my God. Mafia. More Catholics. And that Mediterranean dark skin. Watch out.

Meanwhile, Jews are coming to the United States in three significant waves from 1820 to 1924. One of the most shameful moments in American history, to my mind, occurred in 1939 when the German ocean liner MS St. Louis tried to disembark 900 Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi persecution in Germany immediately prior to World War II. But the United States, Canada and Cuba refused to admit the asylum seekers. Some returned to Germany, only to perish in the Holocaust.

And, of course, we have the Muslim ban. After all of our past history, it's no surprise, I guess. 

We like to think of ourselves as a nation founded on Christian values, but our past often reveals us for who we really are: humans who struggle with prejudice, fear and ignorance. The hope is that we can learn from our past.

And then the next thing you know, we find ourselves with government sanctioned immigration games on TV. 

Do you feel like we're being set up for something?

 

 

 

 

Mom, again

There's this picture of Mom that I love when she had just turned 19. She's just graduating from high school, so I figure it's about 1947.

I don't think the photo was professionally done because the top of her head was nearly cut off. It might have been taken by a family member. Perhaps one of her four siblings. Or maybe her dad, Harry. Or even my Dad, who was dating Carol at the time. I'll never know. 

 But it's beautifully posed.

She's standing in an open field, in heels, wearing dress gloves and an above-the-knee skirt, complete with a shoulder bag. And a corsage.

She might be smiling, but I'm not quite sure. Maybe it's the hint of a smile. Or perhaps the suggestion of one, as if she knows some really good stuff and she's not going to tell anyone. At least not yet.

What I love about this picture is that she is standing firm on her ground, facing 45 degrees from straight on. She's looking ahead. There's confidence there, I think. She's holding her shoulder bag with a measure of authority.

Mom and Dad are already an item by this point, and it'll be three more years before they are married. I remember hearing stories that Dad would take the trolley from where he lived in Allentown to see Mom, who lived in neighboring Bethlehem.

There's no way she can clearly see what awaits her, however. 

She never goes to college (she did major in accounting in high school and worked for an insurance agency for a while) but she and Dad end up having three sons who kept them pretty busy.

I'm supposing Mom was the ideal 1950s-60's housewife, but I have to guess this part: even though I lived it, I was in my world, she was in hers. Dad changed jobs fairly often, first as a high school English teacher, then a Red Cross counselor, then a teacher again, and then a Moravian minister before becoming a teacher once again and then, at last, back to the church again. I like to say he couldn't keep a job, but that wasn't it. I think he needed to find his true challenge; his authentic self. It always seemed to be somewhere he wasn't.

Consequently, the Wehrles lived in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Connecticut and back to Pennsylvania before moving to Ohio, and then, finally, to Wisconsin before Dad found himself. I'm pretty sure Mom never factored in all the traveling she would do as a housewife in her life, but there it was.

Sometime in the 1960s, Betty Friedan wrote a bestseller called The Feminine Mystique and a copy somehow ended up in our house. It wouldn't surprise me if Dad bought it for her because she was a voracious reader, but the book challenged the belief at the time that "fulfillment as a woman had only one definition for American women after 1949 – the housewife-mother."

I'm not sure if this book was life changing for Mom or not. I was only 12 in 1963. But I think an independent streak emerged and evolved in Mom. She got a job at Moravian College to help with finances while Dad was in seminary. A few years later, when Dad had a church in Coopersburg, Mom turned to oil painting. She was very good at it. I'm sure she found a sense of fulfillment in her talent and soon Carol Wehrle originals were hanging in many of the rooms of our house.

I have a few to this day.

She died in 1991 at the early age of 63 when she could no longer hold back the breast cancer that  ultimately ravaged her body. She outlived Dad by four years (who died of the prostate cancer that found his bones), and in those four years she displayed a courage and strength I don't think I'd seen in her before, even though she needed courage and strength to raise three sons.

I didn't see it then.

I see it now.

Thanks, Mom.

 

 

 

 

Home improvement

If you had asked me several years ago what a pergola was, I probably would have answered "Huh?" and shrugged my shoulders.

Our old arbor was in serious disrepair.

 "Something made in Japan?" might have been my guess. It's likely that I might actually have been thinking of a pagoda.

But we had this simple wooden structure in our backyard that over the years was seriously deteriorating. It was there when we bought our house more than 22 years ago. It was our decorative arbor and bench where the wisteria grew and climbed.

But the structure was in bad shape, even back then.

Finally, about a year or so ago – about the time we had our new backyard fence built – the arbor/pergola became a real eyesore. It had a bad lean to it, so much so that we figured it might collapse the next time a bird landed on it. Slats were falling off of it. The only reason it was still standing is that the wisteria was no doubt holding it all together.

We thought it was only a matter of time and that we needed to do something this year.

Our new pergola is a sight to behold.

 So we contacted Nico Barrie of A&K Quality Fencing in High Point, the same guy who built our fence.

"Help," I pleaded. 

Nico arrived in the nick of time to give us an estimate. I showed him a picture of an arbor that Kim and I liked at the Davidson County Senior Services Center and asked him if he could build us something similar.

He said he could. The day he started the job, he tore down the old structure within minutes, then set the new four main posts in concrete, which already made it different from the old one. He and his crew came back the next day, after the concrete had set, and finished the job within hours.

Just like that, we had a beautiful, brand-new pergola. (OK, OK. Turns out the terms arbor and pergola are pretty interchangeable. I think it might all depend on how upscaly you want to be). It's the perfect addition to our yard. I kind of wish we had done this a few years ago when our house was selected for the Master Gardeners garden tour.

Just for the record: By description, a pergola is "a garden or patio feature that creates shade and defines an outdoor space. It typically has vertical posts, horizontal beams and an open roof made of slats or of a louvered design."

By description, an arbor is "a vertical structure in a landscape or garden that consists of two or four posts with a simple slatted roof."

Nico settled the issue when he billed us for a pergola.

 

Finding our voice

More than 50 years ago, I stumbled into an antiwar protest on the campus of Kutztown State College, a small liberal arts school near Allentown, PA, where I was a student majoring in English.

This was probably sometime around 1970 or '71, and the war in Vietnam was in hyperdrive and dividing the nation. Protests were no guarantee of a safe space for free speech by that point: the shootings at Kent State where four young people were killed at the hands of the Ohio National Guard had occurred in 1970, and every gathering of demonstrators anywhere thereafter was fraught with danger and fear of the unknown. Uncertainty hovered over us like some dark, viral cloud.

The Wehrles and the Hoffmanns speak with one voice.

 The war was relentlessly chewing up American lives for a purpose we could not comprehend. More than once I wondered if I'd flee the country for Canada, even though my draft lottery number of 262 kept me safe. The highest number called in 1970 was 195.

Still, I came to the protest by accident. It wasn't a particularly large demonstration, but I was curious, so I wandered by to see. I carried no signs and I came without a true agenda. But the next thing you knew, I was raising my fist in defiance. Hell, no, we won't go.

And that was it. My days as a protester were over.

Until yesterday.

Less than three months into the second Trump administration, there's been nothing but chaos. An illegally created (and absurdly named) Department of Government Efficiency, headed by an unelected billionaire oligarch, somehow has been granted (or assumed) the power to cut one federal agency after another: slashed, possibly beyond repair, are critical agencies like USAID, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department  of the Interior (including the National Parks Service), the Department of Veterans Affairs, NASA, and NOAA, to name some.

The result of these cuts has – or will – stifle medical research into such fields as cancer research, Alzheimers, autism and Parkinson's. Cuts to the Department of Education will eliminate school lunch programs. student loans and civil rights protections. Even the arts have been hampered with cutbacks created by Trump's expanding net of autocratic power.

It's Project 2025 in full form.

All of which pisses me off. People are being hurt while Trump, a convicted felon who laughs at us daily from behind the Resolute Desk, gathers more and more power.

So Kim came to me the other day and said she wanted to go to the National Day of Action (Hands Off!) protest to be held on the steps of the Old Courthouse on the square on Saturday. Kim has been growing more and more frustrated by the cruelty and stupidity of this administration and wondered how we could respond.

So, Saturday afternoon, we joined the 55 or so people who collected on the square. I'd made each of us a cardboard sign – Kim's sign said, "Stealing women's rights is wrong," and mine said, "Hands off our Democracy."

As soon as we got there, we ran into Scott and Catherine Hoffmann, our former next door neighbors who are now living in Charlotte. Catherine said they had the option of protesting somewhere else yesterday, but she wanted to be in a place where she had lived for decades.

We stayed for a little more than an hour in the 80-plus degree weather. We were encouraged by the occasional car that honked its horn in support as it drove past the courthouse on Main Street. That was a positive sign to see in cherry red Davidson County. Another surprise was a pickup truck that pulled up in front of the courthouse from out of nowhere. Moments later, a young man was distributing bottles of water to the gathering.

Today is April 20. It's Easter. It's also 90 days past inauguration, the day when Trump issued an executive order to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 after falsely proclaiming a national emergency on the Mexican-U.S. border. The Insurrection Act could pave the way for Trump to institute martial law in this country, which could have implications for our First Amendment rights. Oh, and by the way, April 20 is also the anniversary birthday of Adolph Hitler. Just sayin'.

Will any of this matter? Is anybody listening?

I don't know, but the seeds of a grassroots movement (50501 decodes into 50 protests, 50 states, one movement) are often sown in the most unlikely places. The trick will be to grow and maintain momentum, especially as the crucial 2026 midterm elections grow closer.

In my hour of protest I felt something I hadn't felt in more than 50 years. It felt good. It felt like we had a voice. It felt important. 

It felt righteous.

 

 

 

 

The oligarchy

Oligarchy.  

Noun. 

A small group of people having control of a country, organization or institution.

I've been thinking about this a lot trying to figure out how our country has seen its democracy teeter on the precipice toward anarchy. Or worse. It might be above my pay grade.

I mean, how did we get to the point in our history to where we're scooping mostly brown-skinned people off the street, deporting them to a foreign prison, perhaps "disappearing" them forever, all without the fundamental right of due process? Due process. The original cornerstone of our form of government, based on the rule of law. Where is it? Has due process been disappeared as well?

Does this make you proud to be an American citizen?

I guess it's possible when your leader is lawless himself, a 34-time convicted criminal and adjudicated rapist who has been given the keys to your future, your fortunes, your very lives, because the cost of eggs was too high. 

So how does this happen?

The only thing that makes sense to me is the money.

Trump, the lawless leader, has stacked his cabinet with a coterie of maleficent billionaires intent on not serving we the people, but rather we the top one-tenth of one percent. It's why we've been inflicted with ridiculous and unnecessary tariffs that manipulate the stock market, and when played correctly, further enriches the wealthy. Has possible insider trading crossed your mind?

Money talks. It always has. Which makes Trump's power base all the more incongruous since his primary appeal seems to be with those who can never live the lifestyle. "He looks out for us," claims the working class, somehow never seeing the graft and corruption unfolding in front of their eyes.

So Trump surrounds himself with 13 billionaires in positions of control and whose combined personal wealth of more than $460 billion exceeds the GDP of 172 countries. Take a look:

• Elon Musk, department of government efficiency co-head: $439 billion. 

• Leandro Rizzuto Jr., ambassador to the Organization of American States, $3.5 billion.

• Warren Stephens, ambassador to the United Kingdom, $3.4 billion.

• Linda McMahon, education secretary, $3 billion.

• Howard Lutnick, commerce secretary, $2.2 billion.

• Charles Kushner, ambassador to France, $1.8 billion.

• Jared Isaacman, NASA administrator, $1.8 billion.

• Thomas Barrack Jr., ambassador to Turkey, $1 billion.

• Steven Witkoff, special envoy to the Middle East, $1 billion.

• Frank Bisiganano, Social Security Administration commissioner, $1 billion.

• Scott Bessent, Treasury secretary, reported billionaire.

• Vivek Ramaswamy, department of government efficiency co-head, $1 billion. 

• David Sacks, AI (not A1) and crypto czar, net worth unknown.

• Doug Burgum, interior secretary, $100 million.

• Mehmet Oz, administrator for the centers for Medicare and medicaid services, $100 million.

That's what an oligarchy looks like. I'm still trying to find where we the people are in here. 

What could possibly go wrong?

Sleep well.

 

 

 

The Covid couple

The one thing that Kim and I hoped to accomplish was to go through the rest of our lives without ever having contracted Covid-19. 

I mean, after all, we made it this far. We survived the deadly outbreak back in 2019 by doing everything we were told: we wore masks, we sanitized our hands, and, when it became available, we took every Covid vaccine the schedule offered us at exactly when the schedule offered it.

Well, so much for that.

Last week, around Monday, both of us started feeling a little punkish. I had a slight sore throat, a bit of a runny nose, aches in my joints. Kim was much the same way, but with a persistent cough to boot. She suggested we take a flu/Covid test, even though we've been vaccinated for both.

So on Wednesday evening we bought testing kits, swabbed our noses and immediately dropped our heads when the dreaded double lines showed up on our testing devices.

Covid! How the heck did we get Covid?

The first thing we did was try to contact as many people as we could after we attended a recent funeral over the weekend. Then we tried to figure out what to do next.

Apparently, there's not much more you can do. We called our doctor's office Thursday morning and told them our symptoms. By the afternoon, we had our prescriptions for Paxlovid, the treatment designed to mitigate the effects of severe Covid. It's not a cure.

Anyway, Kim's Rx was affordable, but mine was over $300. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What the heck? I wasn't feeling that bad.

"I'm not buying that," I told Kim. "Forget it."

That turned out to be a wise decision. When Kim opened her package, it came with a list of medications not to combine with Paxlovid. Lovastatin was on that list. I take Lovastatin. OMG. So I guess this is the one time the high cost of a medication saved me from further problems, if not something worse.

Kim, meanwhile, is taking her Paxlovid, complete with the side effect of altering her sense of taste. She said she feels like she's been licking aluminum cans.

So here we are, entering our fifth day of Covid. Neither of us can taste our food, and both of us feel more lethargic than people our age should probably feel. I do have more of my appetite back than I did a few days ago, but what's the point of eating if I can't taste anything? So now I'm on the Covid-19 diet plan. Yes, I've lost a few pounds. Yay.

Truth be told, I'm not feeling that bad. We did some light yard work yesterday because I hate to waste a beautiful day. Then we napped and afterwards watched a lot of television.

And we continue to test, impatiently waiting for the double lines to finally disappear.

 

 

 

 

An old friend shows up

I'd just settled into my chair, pretty much minding my own business without any expectations whatsoever, ready to watch another episode of Vera on Britbox.

Our 1966 Mustang back in the day.

 Vera is a beloved British crime drama series that showed up on ITV for 14 seasons before running its course this past January. The show is based on the novels written by Ann Cleeves. It starred Brenda Blethyn as detective chief inspector Vera Stanhope, a matronly character with an irritatingly scratchy voice and nimble mind who could solve murders in 90 minutes.

Most of the episodes were well written and I got hooked, binging on one show after the other.

One of the things that really intrigued me was that most of the series was filmed in Newcastle, a beautiful port city in the northeast corner of England just a stone's throw from the Scottish border. Hadrian's Wall is just a short drive away. I can tell you this without ever having set foot in England. Because of Britbox, I've walked the campus of Oxford University, floated down the Thames, seen the White Cliffs of Dover. You get the point.

Heading overseas. Note decal on windshield.

 Watching Britbox has even sharpened my vocabulary. I mean, we're in the land of Shakespeare here. After watching all these police shows, I learned that "defenestration" is the act of throwing somebody out of a window. Really. It's in the Oxford dictionary. Look it up. You can use it in a sentence: Vladimir Putin employs defenestration as a policy to subdue his political enemies.

Anyway, I digress.

The thing about Newcastle is that it's the city where my cherished 1966 Mustang ended up, of all places. It wasn't until about the 11th or 12th season of watching Vera that the thought popped up in my mind that, hey, maybe the Mustang will show up in the background parked on the side of the road or something. So I kept a casual eye on the lookout, not really expecting much.

I still call it "my" Mustang because we owned it for 19 years, slowly refurbishing it over time: we had the engine and transmission rebuilt, put on new chrome trim, replaced the upholstery and carpet, gave it a new coat of Wimbledon White paint. There was clearly a personal relationship between us. And it looked fantastic.

On TV in England. Note decal.

 Then, in the 13th season, in an episode of Vera titled "Tender," a white Mustang wheeled onto the screen about five minutes into the program with two women in it.

My breath quickened. My eyes widened. Could this be it?

The one clue I had was that our car had a Mustang Club of America decal on the front right corner of the windshield.

And there it was. I reversed the video for another look. The decal was still there. Oh my God! That's my car! It's on TV. In England.

Well, I was about 90 percent sure, anyway. Another clue is that the windshield had two BB shot nicks in it, and yep, there they were, right where they always were. My heart was pounding. Now I was 99 percent sure.

But I still had one more verification (Vera-fication?) to make.

So I texted Phil Ternent, the owner of Northumbria Classic Car Hire in Newcastle. After we put up our Mustang for consignment with Streetside Classics in Charlotte back in 2014, Phil ended up with the vehicle after the original buyer in Kent suffered some health issues and could no longer drive it.

Phil has a fleet of classic cars, most of them European, like MGBs, Jaguar E-Types, Porches, etc. He rents them out for weddings, graduations, birthdays, stuff like that. Phil texted me out of the blue one day asking if I was the last American owner, and we've become Facebook friends ever since then. Right now, he's still my only friend from across the pond.

He once posted a video driving the Mustang down a back country road lush with deep green English scenery. The video was from the driver's perspective and, being in England, he was on the left side of the road. It was a little disorienting for me. A car was coming from the other direction. "For God's sake, man!" I shouted. "Get on the right side of the road!" I'm glad he couldn't hear me.

Anyway, I texted Phil: "I'm writing because I'm curious: did the Mustang show up in an episode of "Vera," the one titled "Tender"?

Phil answered: "Hi. Yes it was in Vera in one episode. Shot a few minutes away from where it lives! I do see your posts on Facebook. Hope your football team is doing well." (That was about the time the Philadelphia Eagles were on their way to winning the Super Bowl). Then he added: "Car still going strong, still being used for hires for weddings and bucket list experiences."

And, apparently, for TV appearances as well.

I couldn't believe it. I couldn't wait for Kim to get home for lunch. She teared up when she saw the car.  So did I. We watched it over and over again.

It was a jolly good show, luv.

 Cheerio.

 

 

 

 

Neill

As I get older, I keep getting reminded of my own mortality.

When that happens, it almost always means somebody else has come to the end of their journey. And those reminders are coming at me quicker and quicker these days, it seems. 

Neill

 So on Thursday, I learned that Neill Caldwell, a good friend and former Dispatch colleague of mine, was in the hospital following a fall he'd taken earlier in the week. But his hospitalization addressed other issues as well, including advanced pneumonia.

He'd been treated with intravenous medications, but with no effect and consequently, he was taken taken off the ventilator that morning. He died shortly thereafter. He was only 65.

News like that often travels along curious paths, sometimes arriving with lightening speed, at other times showing up frustratingly incomplete. 

It's confusing. And unreal. And that word – what do you mean, he died?

It requires processing. Remembering. Grieving.

My own memories are a little spotty these days, so forgive me if I don't catch it all, or I don't see something in the same way that you did. But what I do remember is this:

I was a few years into my job as a sports writer at The Dispatch. This would have been in the early 1980s, and the two-man sports department was seriously understaffed. One day, sports editor Larry Lyon told me The Dispatch had approved of adding another member, somebody who would cover sports half of his time and shoot photos for the entire newsroom the other half.

Neill in his natural habitat.

 Then Neill came in. 

The first thing I noticed, because you couldn't unnotice it, was his physical stature. He was short. I'm not sure he cleared five feet.  

But the moment Larry introduced us, the bonding began, as you would hope with any new employee finding his way. Or rather, us finding our way. I think we went to lunch together that very first day as the newly constituted sports department. Larry already knew Neill previously, but I immediately found out Neill had a quick sense of humor and he certainly was friendly enough.

As time progressed, it was clear to me that Neill was also a talented writer and a dedicated journalist. He was a great addition to the staff. Although his time was supposed to be divided 50-50 between writing and photography, I think it gradually morphed to something more like 60-40, and then maybe even 70-30 in favor of writing. The sports department might have silently endorsed that invisible shift in his job description.

Neill (right) in his other natural habitat.

 Although I will say this: Neill was proud of his work behind the lens as well as in the darkroom. He was a better photojournalist than I could ever be.

It also became clear that Neill could have a short fuse. If the newsroom photo machine got jammed at deadline or a story wasn't panning out the way he wanted, not only could you see the air turn blue, you could feel it, too. Sometimes it paid to walk a wide circle around Neill on those off days.

Then he met Lynne. They fell in love. They got married. Neill, from my perspective, became a calmer, more patient person. The two of them traveled everywhere. Lynne was a Methodist minister and Neill fully supported her, becoming involved in the church as well. He served as an editor for the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church as well as a correspondent for the United Methodist News Service. And when he was done there, he became the editor of The Stokes News.

Printer's ink was in his blood. If nothing else, Neill was as versatile as they came.

In the past few years, as time put more distance between us former Dispatchers, we'd try to get together as a sports department once in a while to catch a minor league baseball game. A reunion, of sorts. We traded our life stories like they were baseball cards, talked sports, talked nonsense and just figured we'd see each other again next season.

We were, after all, a team. There's always next season.

Except when there's not. 

Fare thee well, my friend. Fare thee well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DEI purge gets more stupid

Diversity. Equality. Inclusion.

What, in God's name, could be offensive about those qualities? If they bother you, please tell me why you oppose diversity, or equality or inclusion. Please tell me.

And yet, presidential convicted felon Donald Trump's absurdist politics is trying to purge any DEI-related programs or references from the federal government.

Which has led to this:

On Friday, the Department of Defense has flagged tens of thousands of photos and posts for deletion in a purge of DEI-related content, per executive order by Trump.

The Enola Gay at the Air and Space Museum.

 That means, among others, references to women and people of color – for example, the Tuskegee Airmen, or the Women's Army Corps – will be purged from military archives.

Even, most stupidly, references to the Enola Gay are included.

Just in case you need reminding, or if you're so young that you were never taught this fact in high school history, the Enola Gay was a B-29 Superfortress airplane that dropped the first atomic bomb used in combat against Japan in August 1945, and helped bring about the end of World War II eight days later. 

How did this purge of history happen?

Apparently, a computer database used by the DoD flagged the word "gay" for deletion. That metric included people whose name is Gay, whether it be first name or surname. That also included the name of an airplane whose place in world history is inviolable.

The pilot of the aircraft, Col. Paul Tibbets, named the plane after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets.

Hopefully, this absurdity soon will be corrected, although there is a certain stubbornness that emanates from the Trump regime. He's never wrong, you know. And yet, I can see these Neanderthals scraping the name "Gay" off the bomber, which currently hangs prominently in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at Dulles International Airport. Or maybe scrapping the plane altogether. Because, you know, by their reckoning, it's a gay airplane and therefore subject to DEI scrutiny. Ridiculous? Of course. But apparently anything goes with these knuckle draggers.

As illustrated by the Enola Gay debacle, cleansing anything that smacks of DEI is childish, ignorant and ridiculous. And to my mind, this repugnant purge counters the essence of most of our Judeo-Christian values.

The very foundation of American equality appears in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. You know, the part where we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal. Do we now remove that document from the National Archives? I wouldn't put it past those Russian assets currently serving in the White House.

And let's try this for a thought exercise: if you look at DEI as a word and not an acronym, "Dei" is the Latin word for God. So by that logic, if you're messing with DEI, are you not messing with God?

God knows. Just sayin'.

 

Meltdown

No matter how many times I see the video clip, it becomes even more astounding by increments and multipliers.

There, in the Oval Office of the White House, Felon-in-Chief Donald Trump and Vice Ankle Biter J.D. Vance provoked, and then escalated, an argument with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that was heard around the world. Keep in mind that Zelenskyy was an invited guest to the White House, ostensibly there to sign an agreement granting the United States mining rights to rare earth minerals (such as graphite, titanium, lithium, beryllium and uranium), which are critical components in today's computerized and digital world.

Dress suit optional.

 In return, Zelenskyy was seeking a measure of security in its war against aggressor Russia.

What devolved was an unexpected attack (some suggest a deliberate ambush) by schoolyard bullies Trump and Vance in an effort to belittle and embarrass Zelenskyy, who pretty much held his own against the shameful tag-team antagonists.

Vance accused Zelenskyy of being ungrateful and "disrespectful" for trying to "litigate this in front of the American media."

That's hilarious, considering that Zelenskyy was the invited guest here who suddenly found himself defending his country once again, this time from two apparent Russian assets disguised as American political leaders.

Furthermore, the media that was present were mostly right-wing outlets which also included a representative of the Russian state media. But not the Associated Press or Reuters, two of the world's respected news agencies who were excluded from the media op. One right-wing reporter even asked Zelenskyy, who famously wears military-style clothing to illustrate his fight against the Russian aggression, why he didn't wear a dress suit to the White House – as if that would solve all problems.

And what the hell was Vance even doing there in the first place, except to bite ankles? Very odd.

Most of you probably saw by now the 10-minute exchange that did such incredible damage to decades of American diplomacy. We became a much weaker nation on Friday. Couple that exchange with DOGE's ongoing cuts to the federal government, we're not only becoming weaker, but poorer, less healthy and less informed. Certainly, less respected.

At one point in the exchange, Trump became unhinged in front of our very eyes when Zelenskyy, trying to invoke reason toward an unreasonable person, told Trump that the U.S. would feel future problems with Russia.

"You don't know that," Trump fired back, his voice growing louder in an effort to overwhelm Zelenskyy. "Don't tell us what we're going to feel."

Trump then told Zelenskyy that Ukraine was losing its war with Russia and that he must accept a ceasefire. Some ally. You could almost see Russian president Vladimir Putin dancing a jig in the ether. The United States at that moment had become a Russian ally. Mission accomplished.

One could sense that if there had been a plate of cheeseburgers and French fries in front of them, Trump would have picked them up and hurled them against the White House walls in just the way White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson described what she saw during the House Select Committee during the Jan. 6 hearings. I certainly believe her testimony now.

Trump licked Zelenskyy out of the White House without signing the mining agreement.

Another thought came to my mind as well.

In one of the great moments of American diplomacy, I pictured President Franklin D. Roosevelt meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the deck of the HMS Repulse off the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941. The United States still had four months to wait before Pearl Harbor and its entry into World War II, but England was standing virtually alone, (Germany attacked an unprepared Russia in June of that year), holding off the Nazi juggeraut almost singlehandedly.

FDR and Churchill got together to sign the Atlantic Charter, which declared the United States' support for the United Kingdom and outlined goals for the defeat of the Germany.

FDR did not throw any tantrums. He wasn't offended that Churchill was wearing a naval uniform and not a dress suit.

It was a moment of American greatness. The way we once were.

 

 

A spark. An ember

There was one delicious moment this week that gave me hope that the resistance to convicted felon-in- chief Donald Trump and his vulgar, immoral presidency is alive and well.

That moment came on Friday during the National Governors Association winter summit at the White House.

During the meeting in which Trump was discussing his executive order to bar transgender women from competing in women's sports at the college level, Trump goaded Janet Mills, the Democrat governor of Maine.

"Is Maine here, the governor of Maine?" asked Trump, knowing full well that she was and her stance on the matter. He was training his sights.

"Yeah, I'm here," replied Mills.

"Are you gong to comply with it?," asked Trump, referring to the executive order, which has no force of law.

"I'm complying with state and federal laws, Mills said.  

"Well, we are the federal law," arrogantly – and ignorantly – replied Trump. "You better do it because you're not going to get any federal funding if you don't."

Wait. Was that a threat? It sounded very, umm, Mafia-like. The executive is not federal law. The judiciary is.

"See you in court," said Mills, clearly aware of the three branches of government and what checks and balances are all about. 

Suddenly, in the midst of all the chaos that has fallen around us since Trump's inauguration last month, somebody stood up to him. Somebody grew a spine. Significant, perhaps, that she was a woman.

In the wake of Trump's cost-cutting slash-and-dash scramble through federal government bureaucracy these past few weeks, it feels like most politicians – the people who actually do wield the power – have mostly sat back and watched as our democracy gets stripped of its talent and intellect. Republicans, who control all three houses of congress, are complacent even though you know they know better. Democrats so far have been mostly disappointingly tepid and flaccid in their pushback.

Then Mills piped up. She spoke softly, but the room reverberated with her defiance. It was a welcomed, fearless spark in the resistance.

One of the greatest scalpels to American democracy has been the newly-invented Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which, as we shall see, is an oxymoron. Trump's MAGA world believes this agency is essential and it plays well to his base. The rest of us see it as mass murder.

The agency, headed by Elon Musk, the world's richest man whose companies (Tesla, Space X) are energized by government contracts. He walked into CPAC the other day waving around a chain saw like a child with a dangerous toy that he shouldn't be near, performing as a live metaphor to indicate how thorough his cuts have been.

It's not an office that was created by Congress, so it has questionable legality. Nor is Musk an elected official. He's an immigrant from South Africa who was not born in the United States and, as we can see, does not have a whit of American DNA in him. His cuts are soulless and stupid.

The mission of DOGE is to cut waste from government, which sounds great on the surface. But even in the short term, the cuts could be fatal to our democracy.

The hidden agenda behind DOGE is to slash as much money from the federal budget in order to free up funds to play for Trump's coming tax cuts for the wealthy. The last time Trump did this, in his first term, he added $8 trillion to the national debt. And don't you know that Musk and his companies will benefit from those tax cuts?

The thing is, there are 2.4 million government employees outside of the military and the post office. Those civilian employees, and the services they provide this country, are the ones being cut to ultimately feed the wealthy. If you fired all of them, it would represent just three percent of the federal budget.

In other words, we are killing ourselves to feed a mirage. This is Trump's biggest scam.

• The Department of Veterans Affairs dismissed more than 1,000 employees. Good luck getting your benefits processed in a timely way. If ever..

• The Defense Department will reduce its civilian workforce of 700,000 full-time workers by 5 to 8 percent. That should make us less efficient. And weaker.

• The Education Department has already lost at least 39 people in special education and student aid.  We are becoming less smart. And less compassionate.

• Hundreds of employees were laid off from the Energy Department until it was pointed out to the clueless that this department deals with the nation's nuclear weapons. Their dismissals were rescinded. Efficient, that.

• Employees with public health agencies like the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were dismissed. Feel safer yet?

 • The Internal Revenue Service is about to lose thousands of workers right in the middle of tax season. You might get this year's refund by Christmas.

• The National Park Service fired about 1,000 employees. These are the people that keep your national parks clean or offer educational interpretations at places like Gettysburg, the Grand Canyon, Pearl Harbor, Yellowstone and Yosemite.

• Like the Energy Department, the Agriculture Department had to rehire dismissed workers who were involved in the current bird flu epidemic. Once again, a display of DOGE's "efficiency."

I could go on: USAID, federal grants and loans, inspectors general, the Department of Justice are all falling under the knife, causing damage that might not ever be repaired by ensuing administrations.

What we are seeing is kind of a cultural, and maybe societal, suicide. It's unkind, it's malicious, it's ignorant, it's horrifying. The government is supposed to help us, not hurt us.

And it's all to satisfy the whims of a convicted felon seeking retribution from those who dared to defy him.

Show us the way, Janet Mills. Show us the way.

 

 

 

 

Super anxious

My Super Bowl anxiety is increasing by the minute.

Those who know me know that when I'm wounded, I bleed Philadelphia Eagles midnight green. It's been that way ever since I can remember. I am a child of Allentown, PA, which is just a drop kick away from the Philadelphia city limits. I've grown up with the Eagles. The team's imprimatur is in my DNA. I just can't help it.

I've got four Eagles shirts, an Eagles hoodie and an Eagles bandana to prove it. I might wear all of them at the same time today.

This might also explain why my anxiety levels are higher than my LDL numbers just hours before kickoff against the Kansas City Chiefs this evening.

Don't get me wrong. I'm pulling for the Birds from the get-go. That's a no-brainer right there.

But I see signs. I hear voices. I have visions.

The Chiefs are going for an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl victory. No NFL team has ever done that before. If that should happen – if the Chiefs should beat the Eagles – it will mean the Eagles will have lost two of those three games to KC in that stretch. Kansas City beat Philly 38-35 two years ago.

If I'm reading my Facebook pages correctly, there's a sense of nationwide ennui for this game. You can check this map for proof:

 I couldn't quite put my finger on why there appeared to be so much disinterest in the game, but then I started thinking:

• There seems to a certain amount of fan exhaustion from having the Chiefs in the Super Bowl for the third straight year. I can understand that. After all, we lived with Tom Brady and the New England Patriots dominating the scene with six Super Bowl victories and nine SB appearances in 11 years. Not to mention his Super Bowl victory with Tampa Bay in 2021, defeating the Chiefs 31-9.

The Chiefs have won nine straight postseason games, including three of the last four Super Bowls.

As if that's not aggravating enough for non-Kansas City fans, the Chiefs have won a startling NFL-record 17 straight games decided by one possession. That's the stuff of which dynasties are made.

I think many fans outside of Kansas City and Philadelphia were hoping for a Detroit Lions-Buffalo Bills matchup, just to have two completely different teams in the Super Bowl.

• It doesn't help that this game is actually a repeat of the Super Bowl from two years ago.

• There's also the Taylor Swift factor. If you're watching the Chiefs, then you're seeing superstar singer Taylor Swift yet again. She's dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, whom we seem to know more about than we do of our own family members, thanks to the 90 seconds or so of air time she gets each game that drives you absolutely crazy.

This actually doesn't bother me. Swift is a native of West Reading, PA, and outside of Kelce, she's an Eagles fan. At least, she's been spotted in the past wearing almost as much Eagles paraphernalia as I do.

•  Referee-gate. There seems to be this feeling among many NFL fans that the Chiefs are getting the benefit of all the referees' calls, and have been for years. Which might account for all those 17 straight one-possession victories.

One of the latest head scratchers came in the AFC title game two weeks ago when Buffalo went for a 1-yard first down attempt on fourth down. Quarterback Josh Allen did something of a tush push, and when the whistle blew, one sideline judge came running in suggesting that Allen succeeded in getting the first down to keep the drive alive. The other sideline judge, whose view was partially blocked, came running in indicating that Allen was short of the first down marker. It was his call that stood, favoring the Chiefs.

If there are any suspicious calls in today's game – and there will be – the NFL will have questions to answer, warranted or not. Fans are already questioning the quality of officiating across the league more than ever, it seems.

• Is there a conspiracy? Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes is only 29 years old and has already won three Super Bowl rings. That puts him on a pace to match or even surpass Brady, just when you thought Brady was a once-in-a-generational quarterback. Sometimes you can't help but feel there is a script being followed here. Plus, there is that three-peat thing out there. Maybe the NFL wants to see it happen.

• There doesn't seem to be much appeal for rapper Kendrick Lamar headlining the halftime show. I've seen people complain they won't even watch the game because of him. I'm still trying to connect the dots on that one.

I don't know. I think a true NFL fan isn't bothered too much by all the background noise going on here. As an Eagles fan, I see our team coming into the game with the best defense in the league. With running back Saquon Barkley (who grew up in Allentown), we have an exciting 2,000-yard breakaway rusher who might be reminiscent of Barry Sanders. Coach Nick Sirianni has a 48-20 record for a winning percentage of .706, fifth highest in NFL history over 50 games.

This is a chance for the Eagles – who won the Super Bowl in 2017 by beating Brady and the Patriots 34-28 – to gain some retribution from two years ago. So there's motivation.

Kim and I have been invited to a Super Bowl party or two, but I'm staying home. My anxiety is overwhelming me. I want to be able to get up and walk away from the TV if things are going badly. I might even channel surf because I might feel like I'm jinxing the Eagles just by watching them. I want to drop F-bombs on the officials without reproach. I want to scream and shout like an unsupervised teenager when things go right. I want to watch the game on my terms, which includes a bowl or two of Kim's fantastic five-bean chili and a good German craft beer.

We're hours away now – and just over a month away from Opening Day in case all else fails – from kickoff.

Here it is: Eagles 31, Chiefs 21.

 

Oh, good grief

Unless something happens in the next 24 hours, we're going to be in a war with Canada.

A trade war, actually. Don't worry, no blood will be spilled, eh?

Thanks to convicted felon Donald Trump, who is pretending to be an actual president of the United States, Trump has slapped a 25 percent tariff on Canadian and Mexican imports as well as a 10 percent tariff on imports from China.

The tariff on Canada is set to take effect at 12:01 a.m on Tuesday. So there's still time to wiggle out of this mess.

It's difficult to know what Trump is thinking. A tariff is pretty much akin to a tax on the people of the country who are imposing the tariff. Because it's a tariff on IMPORTS! That means the duty is paid on those goods by the importers. Consequently, the cost of those duties is passed on to the consumer.

That consumer would be us.

That's how tariffs work.

Trump, who apparently has no clue how tariffs work even though he is a graduate of the prestigious Wharton School of Business, claims the tariffs will stop the flow of fentanyl and undocumented immigrants from entering the US. It's difficult to see how that happens unless he's counting on the actual THREAT of tariffs to do this.

Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau have both promised counter-measures to oppose Trump's tariffs. If they really want to do damage, they ought to ask Trump to actually increase the percentage of the tariffs that he is imposing against them because it's the United States that will have to pay. As it stands, Trump has threatened to raise tariffs if any opposing action is taken. Buckle up.

According to research from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, it's likely that American consumers will be paying more for practically everything from sneakers to oil to lumber to avocados (food) to toys.

Expect supply chains to be disrupted. Expect inflation to rise. An extended tariff trade war could also result in a recession. Maybe even world-wide recession. When you voted for Trump, did you know this is what you were voting for?

Yikes. And you thought the price of eggs was too high. I fear we ain't seen nuthin' yet.

•   •   •

Diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) have dominated the news cycle lately, especially coming after the horrific mid-air collision of an U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet over the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Trump, without offering any proof whatsoever and while the bodies of the deceased were still being pulled from the frigid river waters, told us that his common sense indicated DEI hiring practices by the military and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were responsible for the tragedy.

Sweet Jesus...

Here is the more likely scenario: if the helicopter is at fault, responsibility falls on the Department of Defense under newly-installed secretary Pete Hegseth. If, however, investigations show the crash to be the fault of air traffic control, then responsibility falls on the FAA and the Department of Transportation under newly-confirmed DOT secretary Sean Duffy.

Both the DOD and the DOT fall under Trump's purview. No wonder he's trying to point blame elsewhere.

One of the best summations of this disaster that I've seen comes from a commentator on Quora: "What the investigation will not show is that the crash was due to undocumented immigrants, LGBTQ, Greenland, DEI, California water policies or Bishop Budde's sermon. Trump tries desperately to pass the blame when bad things happen because he's a terrible leader. But when a military helicopter takes down a commercial aircraft full of passengers, we the people need to hold Secretary of Defense Hegseth and president Trump accountable."

Amen.

Here we are again

 I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

                                         – Article 2, Section 1, Clause 8 of The Constitution

By reciting the oath of office to begin his second nonconsecutive term as president of the United States, adjudicated rapist Donald Trump told the first lie of his new administration. He has no interest in preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States. We saw that in his first term.

This moment also gives us cause to wonder exactly what is the best of Trump's ability in the first place? Remember the American carnage he described in his first inaugural? Turns out, he unarguably was the singular author of all the carnage that followed.

Within hours of uttering his inaugural lie on Monday, he announced that he is going to ignore the 14th Amendment with a presidential executive order that guarantees birthright citizenship. He can't do that, of course. You can't legally change amendments with an arbitrary stroke of the Sharpie. Unless, of course, you think you're higher and mightier than the Constitution you just swore to preserve and defend. (To me, the word "preserve" implies that you can not attempt to change any aspect of the Constitution with an executive order).

That evening – the very evening of his inauguration – he pardoned more than 1,500 insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020. He said he would, and he did. All of them.

This action was so foul that the country's largest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, as well as the International Association of Chiefs of Police, both of whom endorsed Trump, have spoken out against the pardons. Wow.

Those pardons on Inauguration night gave us the revolting spectacle of a convicted presidential felon pardoning convicted felons. By doing so, he put back on the streets not only insurrectionists, but also any number of cop beaters, abusers of women and at least one pedophile.

Consequently, Trump has put back on the street a virtual regiment of Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and Three Percenters – many of whom were armed and injured upwards of 140 police officers on J6 – and therefore regained the use of his personal pseudo-militia. Upon their release, several rioters already have pledged to follow Trump's leadership with promises of violence, chaos and disorder.

What ever happened to Back the Blue? It's more like back the coup.

Hmm. A paramilitary group standing by and standing back (for now) for their leader. If you have any sense of history, Trump's unofficial militia is very reminiscent of Hitler's SA Brownshirts of the 1930s. Look it up and draw your own conclusions because I'm not doing all your work for you. You should have done that before the elections.

Releasing these felons stands in marked contrast to Trump's treatment of immigrants who are seeking asylum. Trump claims the country is being invaded by murderers and rapists (ironic, that) and declared a state of emergency. He has relocated active-duty military to the southern border to try and halt "the invasion." And yet, he releases violent insurrectionists into our society. What an ignorant, dangerously hypocritical fool.

•   •   •

Trump's administration of retribution for his perceived grievances (which is closely following the Republican wet dream described in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025) includes an assault of any and all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in the Federal government.

Or, in other words, it's about the elimination or reversal of any civil rights legislation in the past 60 years or so. Colleges may now admit only whites. Employers may now hire only whites. Our bias is showing.

I would have bet the house that DEI was based on a straight line to the tenets of Christianity as described in the Bible. You know, especially the part that describes God's plan for humanity where all people should be treated with respect and inclusivity, regardless of background or circumstances.

Apparently, not in Trump's world. I am waiting for the Evangelicals to justify for me what is happening here. I'm having trouble seeing God's plan in this.

•   •   •

I didn't think it would happen so soon, but the roundup of people slated for deportation (see "Brownhsirts") has already begun.

So far, several workplaces across the country have been targeted by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officers, apparently entering buildings without warrants. How is that possible? Among those taken in a roundup in New Jersey were a military veteran who served his country as well as several Puerto Ricans, who happen to be American citizens by birth. All this suggests the arrests are random. And, don't you know, based on racial profiling.

It's also been reported that many field hands are no longer reporting for work. Consequently, some crops are beginning to rot in the fields. If that happens on a larger scale in the ensuing weeks, expect the price of produce to skyrocket. And if that happens, can a recession be far behind?

•   •   •

Early Saturday morning, Trump fired a dozen of inspectors general without notice (which is illegal. By law, they must be given 30 days notice of termination).

IG's are critical to maintaining oversight in government. If they are doing their job correctly, they unveil potential or actual corruption in government agencies and make sure those agencies are following the law.

But Trump's purge will affect veterans affairs, health and human services, housing and urban development, labor, the environment and – get ready – social security. What could possibly go wrong?

•   •   •

It's already been a consequential week in Trump's rampage to reshape the government and the way we live our lives. 

Well, good luck with that. Trump has ordered health agencies to stop warning Americans about bird flu and to halt the publication of scientific reports. He's also put a pause on the National Institute of Health's cancer research for review.

You know those egg prices you thought were too high under Biden?

Guess what's coming?

Jimmy Carter

The first thing that pops into my brain when I think of President Jimmy Carter is inflation (bear with me, my memories of Carter improve significantly. I promise).

 Kim and I had just gotten married in 1980 and within a year, we were looking to buy our first house. The trouble was, inflation was running at 14 percent at the time. I think most mortgage interest rates were hovering around 18 percent, if memory serves (this was, after all, 44 years ago).

We finally heard of a program offered by a local financial institution where first-time home buyers could purchase a house for 16 percent interest over 30 years. We jumped on it. Over time, we were able to refinance a couple of times to lower the interest rate, and eventually we paid off the mortgage ahead of schedule.

At the time, I thought the Carter presidency was unremarkable. It was also in 1980 that saw the failed hostage rescue attempt ("Operation Eagle Claw") that left eight American servicemen dead in the Iranian desert.

It seemed America could do nothing right. High inflation, coupled with the failed rescue attempt, hustled Ronald Reagan into office later that year, seemingly booting Carter to historical oblivion as a one-term president.

But when Carter died last month at the age of 100 and the retrospectives began poring in, my ever changing perspective of Carter's presidency changed even more.

Carter actually inherited the high inflation rate when he took office in 1977. In an effort to curtail inflation, Carter appointed Paul Volcker as chair of the Federal Reserve. Volcker raised interest rates, eventually knocking down inflation just in time for Reagan's first term.

Most of us might regard the Camp David Accords as Carter's crowning achievement, bringing a peace between Egypt and Israel that still exists. Carter also continued to normalize relations with China after Nixon first opened doors.

It was during the Carter administration that negotiations brought about the release of the hostages in Iran on the day that Reagan was inaugurated.

Carter, a principled man of faith, was also a social visionary who long pushed for civil and human rights.

He was also a dedicated environmentalist, placing 56 million acres of land in Alaska under federal protection and soon signed into law the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which included protections for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Carter also tried to clean up government with ethics reforms in the wake of Nixon's Watergate adventure by putting independent inspectors in every department. He attempted to make government more representative of the country itself by appointing more Blacks, Jews and women to political positions than all previous presidents combined.

He also created the Department of Education, the Department of Energy and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Carter's post presidency and his work with Habitat for Humanity showed us the innate decency of the man, as if we could ever forget. He did, after all, win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for "decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflict, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.

We are about to embark on an era that will inaugurate a convicted felon (who is also an adjudicated rapist) to the presidency and whose first inclination is to pardon hundreds of insurrectionists who violently tried to change the will of the American people with a damned lie. 

This fact alone makes the Carter years seem like it happened in a different country.

 

 

 

A Complete Unknown

 

The first time I became aware of Bob Dylan was probably around 1966. I was working a summer job as the municipal swimming pool's custodian. Yeah, I was the guy who was responsible for turning on the chlorine tank every morning and tossing in shovel loads of alum to make sure the daily pH levels of the water met public safety standards with the litmus paper tests I took.

Yep, your summer health depended on the responsible nature of a 16-year-old nonscientist high school sophomore throwing chemicals into your germ-infested community pool.

I was also the guy who cleaned out the locker rooms with Pine Sol and every evening picked up the trash you left behind on the grounds with a spear stick and a baggie.

But I had the place to myself. It was the best job I ever had.

Anyway, I'd amuse myself by turning on the PA system and listen to either records (we had a pool turntable) or the radio while I was working. And my music tastes were changing. I was slowly graduating from The Lettermen and the Tijuana Brass to The Beatles and Rolling Stones.

That's probably when I first heard "Blowin' in the Wind." Only it wasn't Dylan singing. It was Peter, Paul and Mary, who often served as a more commercial vehicle to Dylan's gravel-voiced delivery. And it was the lyrics that hit me like an arrow to the heart. In 1966, we were moving deeper and deeper into the anti-Vietnam War era and I was approaching draft age. The Civil Rights movement was also taking foot, so for me, Dylan's transformative lyrics – the ether of his words – truly meant something.

I bring this up in the wake of the current Dylan movie biopic, "A Complete Unknown," which traces the early years of Dylan's influential life.

You have to be careful with movie biopics: they edit, delete, change and/or invent stuff to move the narrative. You need to know that going in because movies only have two hours or so to tell a story. Having said that, there's been some really entertaining biopics out there. My short list includes "The Glenn Miller Story," "The Buddy Holly Story," "Coal Miner's Daughter," "Walk The Line," (directed by James Mangold, who also directed the current Dylan flick), "Elvis" and "Bohemian Rhapsody."

You can add "A Complete Unknown" to that list.

The cast is astounding. Timothée Chalamet portrays Dylan so well, you can't even understand all his mumbles. (which might be a technical issue with the production. Or not). Monica Barbaro is brilliant as Joan Baez, and Boyd Holbrook nails it as Johnny Cash. But perhaps the best supporting nod, I think, goes to Edward Norton as Pete Seeger as he tries to mentor the youthful and rebellious Dylan through the bohemian hills and dales of the early 1960's folk music culture. I didn't know Seeger was that influential.

I was further taken in when I learned that all the primary actors did their own singing and played their own instruments. That, to me, is worth the price of admission alone. Some critics have suggested that Chalamet does Dylan better than Dylan. And Chalamet's duets with Barbaro were remarkable. All done live. No dubbing.

It's hard to determine what the plot of the movie is. Again, some critics have asked why this movie even exists at all (kind of harsh there, I think). There is some triangular conflict when Dylan's girlfriend, Sylvie Russo (a pseudonym for the real life Suze Rotolo, who shared the "Freewheelin' with Bob Dylan" album cover with Dylan) and Baez that comes and goes with some feelings getting hurt, so bad on you, Bob.

But through it all, the movie seems to be taking us to the place where Dylan (Is he folk? Is he rock? Is he blues? Is he country? What exactly is he?) abandons his acoustic guitar and goes electric. This iconic moment apparently happened at the chaotic 1965 Newport Folk Festival, and drew the ire of fans and festival organizers alike, including Seeger). Shouts of "traitor!" littered the stage, as well as some actual litter thrown at him during his performance.

There is some question about that. YouTube video clips don't make it seem all that bad. There is some booing, but to my ear, not much. And were they booing because of a poor sound system, or were they booing the short three-song set he played? It's your call. A year later, in Manchester, England (and not shown in the movie), someone shouted "Judas!" and Dylan replied with "You're a liar!" and asked his backup band to play even louder.

I came out of the theater simply amazed and with a warmly renewed awe for Dylan, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."

Before 1961, nobody, absolutely nobody, heard lyrics like Dylan's in music before.

It kind of made me wonder to whom does Dylan, now 83, pass the folk tradition torch? Woody Guthrie handed off to Pete Seeger, who handed off to Bob Dylan, who handed off to ... Bruce Springsteen? Jason Isbell? Taylor Swift? Pfft.

Who raises our consciousness now, especially when we need it most? 

The times they are a-changin'... still.