Free-Range Children

My piece in the Boston Herald today concerns giving children room to be children without adults hovering over them.

(Well, there you go! Now you don't have to bother going to the Herald's website to read it, let alone buy a hard copy of the paper. Of course, buying a hard copy now and showing at the door to the party I'll throw when I win my Pulitzer  - sometime in 2035, perhaps - will gain you admittance and there will be FREE liverwurst sandwiches, so the value is obvious.)

Of course, if you want to know MY OPINION on the matter, you'll have to read the piece. But, then again, if you've been coming here for any appreciable length of time, you can probably guess my opinion, so...

Oh, what the heck. Why not go there anyway? It will make me feel good knowing I'm not just taking the Herald's money for no good reason.

Soon, with (odds are decent) more better stuff.

Another Choice?

The current field of presidential candidates here in America is comprised of (in the words of their opponents, mind you) a racist and misogynistic fascist; a crotchety superannuated socialist; a corrupt carpetbagging liar; and an evangelical, hated by his Senate colleagues, who will make it his first order of business to turn the United States into a theocracy.

I think those characterizations run about 50% true - no prizes for guessing those I believe and those I doubt - but, whichever way you slice it, it's not a prime field from which to choose for many an intelligent and discerning voter.

There is, however, another choice. He probably won't get much coverage in this farcical race fueled by reality TV ethics, but my piece in today's Boston Herald at least gives you his name (even though I lay out my reasons as to why he likely doesn't stand a chance.)

Who IS this guy?

So, if you're looking for an alternative, why not go to the Boston Herald website and read my piece?

(I should note it's not an outright endorsement of this candidate; mostly just my thoughts concerning his chances which, as I say, are slim. My voting for him depends upon how the other political party conventions shake out. I'd say it's 50-50, at this point.)

Soon, with more better stuff (but I pretty much guarantee you won't find a better candidate.)

Creep Show

[photo from HERE]

Probably not a newsflash, but I’m here to tell you that this year’s crop of presidential candidates is the creepiest ever.

We’ve had creepy candidates before, here and there, and we’ve elected creepy presidents. Richard Nixon was about as creepy as they come. His 1972 campaign team was even called CREEP (the Committee to Re-Elect the President.) In this year’s race, though, Nixon would be just another face in the crowd.

A couple of candidates who dropped out were as creepy as a spider crawling up your leg. Ben Carson said he attempted murder when he was a teenager. When some reporters questioned whether or not he had tried to stab someone, he became indignant that they didn’t believe his claims of trying to kill a fellow human being. If that doesn’t qualify as creepy, little does. Chris Christie had a bit of creep factor already, but it skyrocketed when he was seen on-stage endorsing Donald Trump while standing in the position usually reserved for a candidate’s wife. The shifty-eyed death stare he gave the audience was just a bonus.

Bernie Sanders, through no fault of his own, is the oldest remaining candidate. And age has a built-in creep factor. People don’t like to think of aging or dying. Since I hope to one day attain the age Bernie is now at, I don’t like to acknowledge age-related creepiness, but it’s still a fact. The only thing creepier is someone around the same age trying to hide it via make-up or some sort of patently bad comb-over.

Speaking of which, hello Mr. Trump! The Donald is, of course, the creepiest of all the candidates. It would be easier to make a list of his non-creepy attributes than his creepy ones. From having to think about how early he must get up in order to get that hair in shape each morning, to his orange skin and white eyelids, to his unnatural preoccupation with women’s plumbing and the size of his own genitalia, his creepiness is off-the-charts. Despite Ted Cruz having been compared to Grandpa Munster – you can’t get much creepier than that - Trump manages to make Cruz appear as wholesome as Ward Cleaver by comparison.

I’m tempted to say the creepiest thing about Hillary Clinton is her husband, but recent appearances on talk shows have made me rethink that. Maybe you or I would be so tickled at having Bernie Sanders question our qualifications for the presidency that we’d break out in a spasm of cackling laughter the like of which has been unheard since the Evil Queen in Snow White, but I doubt it. It struck me as the type of patently phony laughter used by creeps to emphasize a point. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she really does laugh that way and, if so, brrrrrrrrrrr.

We are, so far, reluctantly facing the choice of the lesser of four creeps (five, if you want to count John Kasich, but he’s mostly creepy just because he refuses to acknowledge that he’s dead.) This could be the first election since 1972 where Richard Nixon would have had a legitimate chance.

Soon, but I'll be damned if I know with what.

Something I Thought I'd Never Say

That's what I've said.

You'll have to go to the pages of the Boston Herald to find out what it is. Sorry!

(The Boston Herald is a fine newspaper. Me sending you there does not require an apology. It's just that I realize it's a hardship for you to click on a link to get to what you might have thought you'd find here without traveling elsewhere. So, to make up for it, you're all invited to the party I'm going to throw in, say 2037, when I win a Pulitzer. I will be serving FREE dill pickles, so bring a napkin.)

Here's the link that will get you where you need to go.

In the meantime, I'm going to go out and buy a few jugs of dill pickles just in case the Pulitzer committee decides I should get my prize now.

Soon, with more better stuff.

P.S. The photo of dill pickles came from here. Maybe if he wins a Pulitzer before I do, he'll serve you some pickles. If so, mazel tov!

A Simple Political Solution

I admit what I’m about to say will sound absurdly idiotic at first blush, but so did the idea of moldy bread being a cure for a number of hideous ailments, so hear me out.

I think President Obama should nominate Donald Trump to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Antonin Scalia.

Republicans in the senate have stated they will not consider anyone nominated by the lame-duck Obama. By nominating Trump, the president will force the Republicans to act. There is nothing more desired, by the Republican establishment, than to keep Donald Trump as far away as possible from the presidential nomination. Given a chance to sidetrack him somewhere else, wouldn’t they jump at it? Granted, having Donald Trump sitting on the high court isn’t what even a single one of them would have considered a pleasant proposition a few months ago, but now it may seem a reasonable alternative. At least as a justice he’ll only be one of nine and the other eight justices could keep him in check.

Meanwhile, Obama would not only get points for a vicious sense of humor, but Hillary Clinton would be spared having to get on a stage with Trump. Despite polls showing Clinton beating Trump in November, those have been taken before they’ve faced each other in debate. Nothing that has happened during this campaign season filled with defeat after defeat of common sense could lead me to believe the vicious attacks he’d level at Hillary would do anything other than boost his popularity.

As for Trump himself, he’s said that one of the best reasons to vote for him would be so that he could appoint excellent Supreme Court justices. What successor to Scalia could possibly be better, in his own mind, than himself?

If you think having Donald Trump seated on the highest court in the land would be worse than a gun-toting wild west Republican convention in Cleveland, I have to think you’re not considering the most likely outcome of all this, i.e., he’d be odds-on to do something hideous enough to be the first justice impeached since Samuel Chase in 1805 and thus, to the delight of all involved, sent packing back to New York, possibly even before the November general elections.

Whatever the outcome, I would love to read what he had to say the first time he was allowed to write a majority opinion.

“This is a huge decision. Huge! Let me tell you, this court is winning so much, we’re getting tired of winning. We’re making America great again, believe me. I’m making good deals here. I told Little Sonia she should get on board – even Lying Clarence agreed with me on this one – so let me tell you, this was a no-brainer. If this was like the old days, I would have put Roberts out of here on a stretcher. He knows my IQ is one of the highest and I’m a very smart guy. I would also like to add I look damn good in a black robe and I guarantee you there’s no problem underneath it.”

Of course, every opinion would read more-or-less the same since that’s pretty much the entirety of his spiel.

Well, either you agree this is a genius idea or you think it’s the most crackpot thing you’ve heard in this entirely crackpot election year. If you like it, I thank you. If not, I ask you to please check out today’s date.

Soon, with more better stuff.