Archives for February 2022

Thursday, February 17, 2022

The fifteen year old girl from Russia who had tainted blood of a banned substance and was allowed to skate performed last. She bobbled once, fell twice and came in fourth. Thank god. I feel sorry for her, but if she had made the podium none of the medals would have been awarded and the other skaters would not have gotten their moment in the spotlight.

The scene after she skated was surreal. The woman who won, a teammate of hers, was standing all alone. She was not joyous. The second place finisher looking at the girl crying said in Russian, “I don’t want to watch this.” She turned away. She was crying and angry and really pissed off. She was refusing to go out for the podium ceremony. I can thank Johnny Weir for translating the Russian. (Who knew Johnny knew Russian?) Someone tried to console the silver medalist and she said, “I don’t speak English.” The third place finisher from Japan was crying too. Not sure why, but lots of tears. I like her. Her performance was smooth and beautiful. I also liked the American skater, Lieu, She finished down in the rankings but she has a lovely child like smile, not forced. More of a “I’m so happy to be here. I can’t believe it!” look about her.

Finally, they got the three women to come out to the podium. Once again, the young Japanese woman was so cute. She was looking to someone who was directing the thing. “You want me to step up on the 3rd place podium now? Stand here? I should now stand on the top podium with the gold medalist? Okay.” She got on the top spot then side shuffled, hesitantly, to get closer to the girl who won. So cute. 

The girl who everyone thought was a lock to win had moved behind a second blue curtain and was gone from sight. Do you think the Russians will care? The coach is known to discard girls like used toilet paper.

If we consider how their leader Mr. Putin acts it seems they are doing the same behavior.

While the Russian government is saying they are pulling back from the Ukraine, the evidence on the ground is the exact opposite. Likewise, in the case of this young girl, first it was the lab took a long time to get the results so they let her skate. Then it was it must have been tainted by her grandfather and drinking out of the same cup, then it turned out she had two other medications for a heart condition while not banned made no sense. 

The shame is if the Olympic Committee had been honest they would have said no from the get go. But this seems to be a problem around the world. Whether it’s doing the right thing, or standing up to bullies or speaking the truth it all is in short, and sometimes belated, supply. Take the accounting firm doing Trump’s taxes for over a decade, now they say you can’t rely on what they did. Nice.

Take the whole Republican party: national, federal, or state. They all, with few exceptions, are willing to lie and do the bidding of the chief liar. 

There was a young skater who was skating for, I think, Belarus. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. WTF? That is one of the richest per capita townships in the world. I just checked the listings. Top listing is 40 million, cheapest is a 1 bedroom apartment for $475,000. To live in Greenwich you need MONEY – big time.

But this girl is skating for Belarus (or one of those countries.)

The most interesting story so far is Eileen Gu. She is snowboarding for China. She holds dual citizenship in both China and the U.S. She wanted to compete for China so she could be a model for girls there. She’s smart. She’s gorgeous, and she is trying to effect things in a positive way. Maybe we should export more of our athletes? Like the girl from Belarus who lives in Greenwich. Why not? Maybe this would help break the strangle hold nations, corporations, and athletic committees have over us?

As to the unfortunate fifteen year old Russian girl? How about some foreign aid in the form of Billie Jean King, Megan Rapino, and Katrina Witt? This young lady is getting bad help. Period. It needs to stop. Someone gave her that medicine. I agree with Witt. they should be banned from the sport for life.

What happened to that girl was of the Russian skating association’s making. 

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

First off, the last post was numbered incorrectly by like 100 days. That has been corrected.

Everyone is concerned about the Russian skater. She was found to have a banned substance in her blood. In the worst “the dog ate my homework” excuse some fat f*ck said that her sample got contaminated by her grandfather, who takes the medicine and she must have used the same drinking cup as he did.

Aside from people who know something about this drug saying she’d have had to do more than sip from the same cup and he’d have to have almost thrown up in the cup, I have questions:

– Does she have a grandfather?

– Was she actually in contact with said grand papa? 

– I mean aren’t these little girls snatched from their beds by an evil skate training coach who keeps them locked away from their family?

– Okay, let’s go with the grandfather excuse but in order for it to actually work they have to have been kissing, French kissing. Lots of tongue – ewwww.

But then again, what did you expect from Russia? An in the age of Trump and the rise of authoritarianism the act of bold face lying is in.

Speaking of bold face lying V.P. (ie Vlad Poot) says that Russian troops are pulling back. That means that they are moving forward. Remember 1984? Black is white, and white is black? Yeah. Our intelligence has seen no pull back. Shocking, I know.

So here’s my solution, but first a little history. In the woods of Finland stand two tall round towers. They can be seen above the tree line. What were they used for? To protect a bottle factory after WWII. Why? The Fins were worried that the Ruskies were going to invade with tanks. You know what defeats tanks? (rock, paper, scissors, Molotov Cocktails). Yup. take a bottle, put gasoline in it, stuff a rag in the neck and you are good to go. The bottling factory was making thousands of Molotov Cocktails and the towers were put up to shoot down bombing aircraft.

If I were President Zalinski, I’d figure out how to make lots of Molotov Cocktails. I’d make some PR films with tanks being burned and distributed that to the front lines where the tanks are stationed. I’d show the cocktails being dropped from remote control cheap drones, shot through the air, dropped from high rise buildings. I’d let those fellow know that they’ll be burned alive.

Speaking of remote control drones, boy I’ve got a good one for you. I watch a show called, “What on Earth?”  folks looking at satellite images and trying to figure out what the weird thing on the ground is. In the Middle East they saw this image of what appears to be two race tracks running in parallel. The tracks look like a giant lower case “d” resting on its back with the upright tail cut off. Where the tail should be is a large brown rectangle. What on Earth? Indeed. 

Turns out it’s a race track, but the race track is a brown space between the two asphalt “d” strips. They race camels! Camel racing is a big deal over there. They used to have child jockeys. Typically, they snatched kids from foreign countries. Nice, I know, Then that got outlawed so they switched to robot jockeys. The robot jockey is a drill motor with a whip mounted on it and the attached between the humps of the camel. They put colors on the little boxes that hold the drill. The drill is remote controlled. 

When the camels are lined up to race their owners are on the two asphalt tracks in vehicles. One person drives and one person works the remote control which whips their camel. The camels are kept in the brown patch I described. As the camels run the cars go along with the racing camels whipping them by remote control. Nice. I know.

Okay, I can’t get this out of my head. In a competition for the stupidest person in Congress, we have Marjorie Taylor-Greene. She called the Gestapo the Gazpacho. Do you think people have had a field day with that? Of course. As one person said, MTG is what you have when the ventriloquist died and the dummy keeps talking, but the one I like best:

– “Waiter, my soup is cold.”

– “It’s gazpacho.”

– “Gazpacho, my soup is cold.”

(You see the joke is that gazpacho is a cold soup, not hot. It therefore is served cold. Apparently, Ms Greene in this joke doesn’t know that and thinks the waiter is telling her his name is Gazpacho.)

You might wonder why I go to the trouble to explain the joke in detail. Well, I’m sure there are a lots of folks who have never had gazpacho and don’t know that it’s a cold soup.

For that matter there are probably people who don’t know there exist cold soups.

I’m trying to help. I swear.

Back to the Olympics and the skater. Yes, she is fifteen. No, she should not have been allowed to skate. But we live in a time of lying to our faces and some people like it.

In an interesting note, one that I hadn’t thought of before: authoritarianism and misogyny (contempt for women) go hand in hand. Authoritarianism has a huge piece of machoism and the idea of manliness. Part of that is to put women down. Conversely, women are a foundational for democracy to flourish. If women are oppressed it is hard for democracy to survive. The wild west was tamed when women started showing up. I think the reason is easy to understand, “Do you want to fight or get laid?”

Yet, we see women being subjected to all kinds of abuse. Be it an honor killing in Pakistan (How does a brother kill his own sister?); the Taliban in Afghanistan not letting women go to school, or dress the way they want; or Republican and Christian right trying to pass anti-abortion laws. It’s all the same thing. It’s trying to control women and when that happens democracy begins to whither. 

Okay, for the person who is going to ask, “Are you trying to say honor killings and the right to life (ie killing women in my terms) is the same thing?” I have one word for you.

GAZPACHO!

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Mikaela Shiffrin is the top woman skier in the world or as some know her “that girl who fell twice in the Olympics.” I have a fantasy about her. Before you get all wound up think about it. She’s gorgeous. Long dirty blond hair tumbles down her shoulders. She obviously in great shape. Why wouldn’t I have fantasies? Mine involves what happened to her last night. She was in bed. She feel asleep while eating Goldfish, those orange covered fish shaped cracker bites. 

So here’s my fantasy (No, not the “would I kick her out of bed for eating goldfish?” you sicko.) 

She’s on the top of the slope, about to take her run. She’s visualized her run. The camera is upon her every move. She turns and looks straight into it. She smiles her 1000 megawatt smile. And her teeth and inside her mouth is coated with orange goldfish residue! She then turns her head, pops in her mouth guard, which is pure white. She smiles and her smile is, of course, radiant. She flies down the slope, comes in first and earns a Gold Medal. Interviewed at the bottom, she’s asked what the difference was.

:”The goldfish, definitely the goldfish.”

She smiles that big 10,000 megawatt orange faced smile. and leaves the person at the mic searching for something to comment upon.

And now onto miscellaneous bitching:

Question: Why do smart TV companies give you dumb user manuals? Or, more to the point, why do they give you a user manual that doesn’t tell you how to use the TV?

We got a new “smart” TV. Great. We took it out of the box, set it up, charged the clicker (no more stinkin’ batteries to replace), instead you have a solar cell on the back for charging it, or you can plug into a mini USB. 

Everything is pugged in, we hit the clicker and nothing. We check everything. Nothing wrong. We finally find a button on the TV. They said there was one on the bottom of the TV. Did they show us where it is? No. In fact, the button is so small, about a quarter of an inch, hidden between two little plastic plateaux that it is imposable to hit it, unless you know exactly where it is. All you need is to get on your knees, use a flash light and look at the lower edge and finally try pushing anything that looks like it might click the TV on.  The TV comes on! Then there’s the set up. To do the set up you need the clicker to work. But it doesn’t. Well it sort of works. It will take you into the handicapped controls, but you can only mute the TV from there. Nothing else. Great. Finally, Shelby googles set up. Turns out you have to pair the clicker with the TV. Hey, I have an idea? Why not tell people that in the User Manual? 

Of course, if they got that brilliant idea I’m sure the instruction would be “Make sure to pair the Remote with the TV,” and not how you do it. Turns out you have to simultaneously have to hold down the two horizontal buttons on the remote for several seconds while the TV is on. Hey, I have an idea! Why not put that in the user instructions “Pair the TV remote with the TV by turning on the TV using the little square 1/4” button found in the bottom right hand corner of the TV and then hold down the left and right horizontal buttons of the remote simultaneously for several seconds until the TV says it is paired with the remote.”?

Then there’s the half hour of questions you have to answer before the damn thing will work: Wi-Fi password, Amazon Password, Samsung account set up, Samsung password, etc. etc. etc.

As I was cleaning up the packing materials I noticed the TV remote’s plastic wrap had a little picture showing the remote and saying you had to pair it. There was a sketch of the remote with the two buttons highlighted. Not that you could tell that the buttons in white meant “hold these down simultaneously to pair with the TV” mind you. But there was some attempt. Why shoot, why didn’t I think to look on the wrapping instead of the User Manual? Then all I’d have to figure out is that the two white buttons shown on the drawing meant “this is how you pair it.”

I’m not done bitching yet.

Ice Hockey. WTF? Goals are scored by creating a melee in front of the net, hopefully the goalie won’t see the puck in the confusion. WTF? Never understood why that was considered great stuff.

But then there’s all those sports I’ve never heard of, or newly invented, or that I only pay attention to once every four years: skeleton, luge, bobsled, (and the all new monobob!) what ever that thing is where they race on snowboard four across. The cross country relay race. That looks like fun, race two laps, tap your team mate to go, then collapse on the snow. Biathlon – where do they get those wacky guns (rifles? long rifles? god knows.) But I want to talk most about ice dancing.

Ice Dancing – a couple goes out on the ice, poses waiting for their music to start. Once the music starts they move around the ice together mimicking each others moves. They can do a semi lift once I think, but that’s it. Okay, it’s kind of intriguing for a few minutes, but how do you devote your life to that? The women have a certain sort of beauty. I’d say there are three categories of beauty: “eat you alive,” art school dreamy eat you alive, and dreamy ghostly. 

But then, then we get to the heart of the competition, and this is where you either make it or break it – The Twizzle. I’ve learned there is a Level 3 and a Level 4 twizzle. The famed eat you alive woman did a Level 3, while her partner did a Level 4. She really needed to do a Level 4 to put them in medal contention. Too bad, they were so close. Do I know what a Level 3 versus a Level 4 Twizzle is? Absolutely. NOT. I’ll file that away with toe loops, camels and other figure skating terms ai don’t understand.

Although, I have to say Johnny Weir does a very good job of explaining techniques. That is when you can hear him. I really wonder how hard it is for NBC to get the audio levels so that the commentators’ voice can be heard over the music being played? Later on in the Olympics they seemed to get it better. 

NBC’s coverage has been so scattered that we at times have given up.

But onto my major point about the twizzle.I can see corporate America embracing the twizzle: The MacTwizzle, The iTwizzle, the cafe mocha twizzle, the twizzler roller coaster, the vanilla chocolate twizzle cone (oh forget that, they already have it don’t they?) Twizzle Pizza – delivered fresh to your door.

Did you see the figure skater from Mexico? Oh man, gotta love it. He trained on a rink in a shopping mall, in amongst the other customers. They didn’t let him play his music. He got asked lots of questions. I’d imagine people asking him, “What are you doing?” But no. The Number One question was , “Where is the bathroom?”

Then there’s the ski jumper who about a year ago had an accident. It looked horrific. Typically, we see these folks lean forward and seemingly float down the hill. In the accident the fellow had one ski go up in the air while the other dropped as his body cranked over to that side, then he hit the slope and it was fast and hard and awful. Punctured lung, cerebral hemorrhaging, broken bones, etc. etc. etc. They put him in an induced coma. Now, he’s back jumping.

Okay, okay. Enuf 4 now.

No, no not enough, because this was delayed in posting due to watching the Super Bowl I yet another fantasy to share. This is my Joe Burrow fantasy.

You know how they the wining QB often says, “We’re going to Disney World” right after winning.

Well, I’d have like to seen Joe Burrow say, “I wish Aaron Donald well in his retirement.”

I’m sure Burrow would not like to see that guy tackling him any more.

And how did we get through a whole Super Bowl and Super Bowl pre-game show, and all that yakking and, as far as I know, no one, and I mean no one mentioned Cincinnati’s famous five way chili?

I mean – reallY? 

BTW When I was last in Cincinnati I went to one chili joint and asked, “What if you want the 5th chili topping but not the 4th (there is a definite order to the toppings btw.) Do it you say you want it 5 way hold the 4th?”

Yes, I was told.

The next joint said, “No. Say you want it 3 way add the 5th topping.”

Obviously, this needs more study.

Okay, now I’m done.

Due to all the other stuff going on I did not post this on the date listed.

That, and I was waiting for the 2nd mag to arrive at my doorstep.

My brother, Rob, had warned me of it’s arrival.

…

Day 370 I achieve the famed “Double Double”

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

As many of you know I’m a shy quiet guy. I don’t like to brag or toot my own horn.  I let my actions speak for themself. Take for instance this fact: within the last 12 months I have been mentioned, with photographs, in two different alumni magazines! The famed Double-Double! 

Even more interestingly, I attended both of these schools! I have not achieved the renown of the fellow who kept sending alumni notes to Harvard (or was it Yale?) who told of his fabulous exploits and signed off with “if you are ever down in Georgetown(Bahamas) do look up Missy (or was it Muffy?) and me aboard our yacht.” It turned out that he never went to the school in question and henceforth the alumni magazine said they weren’t going to publish his exploits anymore. There was such a hue and cry (i.e. “Are the you kidding? It’s the only reason we read that mag!”) that they relented.

Now, to be fair the alumni mags did not publish everything I sent them. I managed to get my buddy Peter Newman’s backyard to be described as bodacious. But that pales in comparison to what I wrote. 

And my buddies from Harvey School, Bill and Theo, sang Happy Birthday to fellow Harveyite Peter Duncan (“Dunc”). He pleaded with us to never do that again. Poor bastard. I got that in.

As I have read with growing ennui the fabulous exploits of fellow alum, I have felt a certain je ne sais quoi. A sense of unworthiness ala Wayne’s World like, I mean one alum invented the first artificial heart. All I can say to that is, “Oh Yeah? Well fellow classmate Cy Wilcox invented the Medtronic stint. Yeah, go king ’69. Suck it Jarvic. King ’63 or thereabouts.”

Me? What have I done? Eh…See, there in lies the problem. I have felt so unworthy. I mean. Every time I open the alumni mag there is someone inventing something great or getting famous or making tons of money. Me? Not so much.

But now? Now I can hold my head up high. Okay I haven’t hosted Saturday Night Live (yet), but I went to a school where some of those actors’ kids now go.

I walked the same hallow ground where Carly Simon once spent her summers. I still have shot of being on the cover of Rolling Stone. I mean the magazine hasn’t folded so there’s a chance. Am I right?

Yeah.

I’m somebody.

Yes, the double double. It’s rare. In fact, I don’t know of anyone who has achieved that distinction.

Many of you know my brother, Rob. Renowned for getting more “Marks” in a single day at Harvey and then not running them off so they doubled. Such fame. (“Rob, Why didn’t you run them off?” Answer, “George didn’t have any so there was no point.” Such bravery and guts.) Note: “Marks” were punishments you got for misbehaving at Harvey. Each mark required you to run one lap on a circle. (example: 10 marks for spitballs – very bad.)

But later in life Rob looked a lot like David Letterman. In fact, he had been mistaken to be him. Well, we were at Harvey at a reunion. There was nothing going on except a dedication of a tennis court (dedicated in the name of Cort, of course.) After the dedication this little fellow comes up to me and says, “Hi, I’m Paul Shaffer.” To which, I responded, “You are? You look familiar.” (Talk about playing it cool.) “Well, I’ve been on TV a lot.” “Oh yeah? You should meet my brother. People say he looks like David Letterman.”

That’s how I got this picture.

But the best part of that story is that David Letterman did show up the next day to watch one of Paul’s kids play football. (Dave’s kids went to Harvey too.) When word filtered up to the Admin Building that Dave Letterman was on the football field someone piped up and said, “No it’s not. It’s that imposter from Ridgefield!” And that’s why Dave you didn’t get swarmed that day with people wanting your autograph. You’re welcome.

Where was I? Oh yes, fond memories and exploits. In study hall one year I had a desk next to Sandy Close. He was very strong and very quiet. Kids would ask him where he lived, “In a house.” That’s the only conversation I remember hearing him have after a year! Later in life my brother sent me a picture from People magazine. In it was an actress whose photo of her face was taken straight on, black and white, with her hands holding back her hair off her forehead. “Looks exactly like Sandy!” Rob wrote. It was his sister Glenn, Glenn Close. Ah me.

But most of all I want to thank my fellow alum from all years, you lazy bastards. If you had sent in anything, anything at all, I possibly would not have made it into those rags, and for that I am ever grateful.

Carry on. I’ll be around and about.

Friday, February 4, 2022

I have been trying to lose weight for at least two years. Each attempt starts off well enough then something happens and it all goes to hell. The latest victim was Noom, the psychology app. The basic idea of Noom is based on weight and calories. Foods that weigh a lot but have fewer calories will fill you up and you’ll loose weight. They give you lessons to read and motivate you. The app can be used to track weight, food intake, water consumption, and exercise. Cool. I was all in. They also assign you to a group so you can share your experience and they have coaches that monitor the chats and might send you encouragement. Most of which are autogenerated and the personal ones are in the rah-rah psych question area, “Well, Rick what can you do today to get yourself back on track?” That kind of thing. 

The little lessons they give you every day have a kind of bad pun sort of humor. Turns out the coaches are not of the same mindset as the writers of the lessons, and they don’t understand that passive aggressive behavior is not a motivator.

When I made a joke in the same vein as the writers I got pulled up short with an all caps LET ME REITERATE THE RULES!!! announcement and my comment was taken down.

That pretty much finished me. I tried to slough it off, but to no avail. I gained back the few pounds I had lost and yo-yoed in a window never really losing and never really gaining.

At the beginning of January I decided to try again. Not so much with Noom, but with the goal of losing five pound a month. “How hard could that be?” I asked myself. “It’s like a pound, a pound and a quarter per week. That’s doable.”

I lost a pound, then two. With two days left in the month I was two, two and a half pounds from my goal. I was disheartened – Same old, same old. The first month was the easiest, I knew, and I wasn’t going to make it.

Shelby had a buddy who had been doing a simple thing to lose weight, did I want to try it? Sure, why not?

Eat 20 grams of total carbs a day or less.

That’s it?

Yup.

There’s a book you can read and there are some videos.

She had read the whole book. I gleaned through it.

The idea is that sugar can do bad things to your body. If you can cut out most sugar then you can get your body to start acting better. The doctor pushing this idea said you’ll loose weight effortlessly, and your cravings will go away. Yeah, right.

Well, with two days left in the month why not try it?

Carbs get translated into sugar in your body. If you look at the nutritional information you’ll see ‘Total Carbohydrates’ It’s right there. Eat less than 20 grams of that stuff. 

Turns out fruit has a lot of carbs. I didn’t know that. I did know pasta, starchy vegetables, crackers, pizza had carbs. So does milk, but heavy cream does not. Huh?

What do you eat? Meat, cheese, green beans (but not regular beans.)

Two days until the end of the month, I can do it.

The morning of February 1st I got on the scale and I had not met my goal. I had exceeded it by a pound.

Obviously, a mistake. 

The next day my weight was down. I also wasn’t craving sweets or wine, etc.

My weight has continued to go down and I am halfway to meeting my second five pound goal on day 4 of the month.

Hum, maybe not a mistake.

This is the first time in a long time that I have felt hopeful that I can actually lose the weight I have been trying to loss for years.

Prison – A woman has been sentenced to six years and a day in prison for attempting to register to vote. She was told she could. She has paperwork to prove it. The judge accused her of “tricking” the authorities. Her case is not unique. Several women have had similar experiences in other jurisdictions. 

Hum, I wonder what kind of message that sends?

Meanwhile men who have committed voter fraud are let off with probation.

The women were black. The men were white. The men voted their dead relatives for Trump. Part of their actions are being used by legislators to show voter fraud exists and to pass restrictive voting laws.

Sublime Drama – Nathan Chen, regarded as the dominant figure skater in the world fell at the last Olympics and the gold eluded him. since then he has won every competition since, save one. Yesterday, he skated in team competition (who knew that was a thing?)

Shelby had said that she saw a piece on him. He plays the guitar. He’s good. 

Before he skated we watched a piece on him. Seated at a piano, a grand piano, he said, “This is the music to my short program.” He plays classical piano. He’s really really good. One of the comments about his performance on ice is that he really feels the music. Yeah, I guess so if you can play it.

He is known for his athletic ability on the ice. It wasn’t that long ago that people were speculating would anyone land a quadruple in competition. Elvis Stroyka (or some name close to that) had done it in practice, but could he land it in competition? This was three or four Olympics ago. I think he did a shaky quad. 

At about that time Nathan Chen would have been two. There’s picture of him standing on the ice in skates, firmly rooted to the ice.

When asked about the last Olympics and his fall and his performance Chen said he was so nervous that he remembers none of it.

How would he do this time?

The team competition was the opening statement. Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski were on hand to comment.

Having just listened to Billie Jean King’s audio book “All In.” I am now knowledgeable enough to know that it is bad form to comment on how a woman is dressed or looks if she is an athlete. But what about the commentators? Can you talk about what they are wearing? Well, maybe it would be impolite to comment on the women, but Johnny? I mean, come on. Where did he get that gold tasseled arm coverings? Or were they on his legs? I forget. My god. 

Other skaters came out and did their thing, including the one person who had beaten Nathan. One thing that was really helpful was the scores on the technical part of the program were put up as the person was performing along with the upcoming thing they were going to do next. Also, the top scorer so far was shown, as was the nominal (par? average?) score for whatever was next. What a help that was! It gave you an idea what was happening in real time.

Nathan is no longer nervous or awkward. He is a tall slender young man of 24. He can do quads that can leave people breathless. He makes it look simple. But could he do it here? He had taken one quad out of the program so he could concentrate on his artistry. Would that help? He had a double combination mid-way through the program. Johnny said that was tough because you’d need to be in super shape to have strength that late in the program. Maybe, Johnny hadn’t seen the clip of Nathan’s workout? I think Jerry Rice would be impressed.

Nathan took off his skate guards. He entered the rink. He skated around a bit to warm up. Then he took his starting pose. The music began. I wondered if it was music was his playing? He skated longer than most before his first jump. Would he land it? Bang, made it. The performance unspooled. Here came the double late in the middle. Effortlessly, bang bang – perfect landings.

And then it was over.

Silence.

“I have no words,” said Johnny.

Johnny always has words.

There is no doubt who the best in the world is. We saw it.

The Trim Tab – I think it was Malcolm Gladwell’s first book, “The Trimtab Factor” where I first heard the term. A trimtab is a little keel on the end of a really big keel on a big ship. It is used to start to turn the big keel. A big keel is really hard to turn unless you start it with a small little start – the trimtab.

Gladwell wrote about the idea of how you could get a big change started with a small push or influence. He called this “The Trimtab Factor.”

The idea of how little things can lead to really big changes.

We are seeing that now in our country. A dedicated and small band of folks have worked relentlessly, for decades, for generations, to accomplish this goal. It’s kind of amorphous, but victory is close. It’s almost within their grasp. I’m sure they can taste it. 

It’s the overthrow of our democracy. They’ve done it before in states. Virginia in the 50s is an example. Ruled for years by a Republican governor and legislative body they were able to annoy Washington and crush community dissent. Knowing much of what they were doing would be unacceptable to the general population they wrapped their laws and policies with high minded sounding names and patriotic slogans. Internally, they knew exactly what they were doing. 

We now see the fruits their labors in state after state. In the capture of media outlets to allow them to spread subtle and not so subtle lies. All to feed their end objective – to gain and stay in power.

It has worked. At first it was small marginal victories, but now with power in their grasp they are doing everything they can to rig the game. When asked, they deny. Oh it’s not that bad. The other side does the same thing. We are doing it to save America. All lies.

What happens when they take power? Do they address the problems facing the country? Are they concerned about the welfare of the people? No and no. They use their power to stay in power. They appoint judges to help them rig the system more (because politicians won’t stay bought). They give themselves tax breaks and rob the government coffers.

It’s true today. It was true yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that.

It may be too late.

Will some come around? Will there be a pang of conscience? 

Michael Steele, former RNC Chairman, says that’s like waiting at the bus stop and the bus never comes.

Susan Collins when asked if Trump ran in 2024 would she support him? Her answer was that there are lots of fine people interested in running so it’s unlikely … 

It’s comments like that they make me think she is the most naive senator.

The dumbest is Ron Johnson.

We are almost finished listening to Megan Rapinoe’s book “One Life.” Many of the same issues as Billie Jean King’s book: fair pay for women athletes, gay rights, but also the drug prison race problem in this country. Her comments are lucid. With a drug addicted brother she knows both theoretically and from real life what she is talking about.

Enough. Gotta go.