WHAT IF WE JUST IGNORE HIM?

Like millions of people, I think the presidency of Donald Trump is going to be an unmitigated disaster that has the potential to inflict profound and lasting damage to the United States and the rest of the world. After all, even if your ignore his racism, sexism and hyper-aggressive posturing, he still is a woefully unprepared man who’s personal and professional history show absolutely no evidence that he has the talent and experience to be an even below average president. In short, every other past commander-in-chief is playing for second place in the “Worst President in History” sweepstakes.

But as we gird for the nausea-inducing inauguration coming in January, I am finding a sliver of hope in how we all can survive the coming tsunami of regret, in a very unlikely place. For buried under the news about his ridiculous/dangerous cabinet choices, his stunning lack of basic international knowledge and his reliance on Russia for legitimacy, is the cascading number of A and B list celebrities refusing to perform at his inauguration.

Seemingly, none of these performers is making a big and public rebuke of The Donald – they are just simply declining the invitation as if it were an offer from Bob in accounting to attend his hastily thrown-together holiday party.

And that may be the secret for living under a Donald Trump administration – just ignore him.  Don’t engage with him on Twitter, don’t hold a press conference, and don’t protest at the Oscars if you are famous, or protest at Starbucks if you aren’t.  Just live your life as if Trump were still just a mediocre businessman and D-list celebrity.

Here is my rationale. A few years ago, I read an article when a physicist was explaining what the Higgs Boson, or God particle, does related to all other things. He said to think about Higgs Boson like the water in a swimming pool, and you, immersed in the water, are all other particles of matter swimming forward. The water is necessary to push against for propulsion.

For Donald Trump, his Higgs Boson is angry response to his rhetoric. He needs it to survive in the political realm. His incredibly shocking success in the campaign was 100 percent based on attacking his opponent, waiting for the response and then attacking with double the venom. And it worked, again and again and again. First with the wilting assemblage during the primaries and then with Hillary Clinton in the general election. Trump was most comfortable – and effective – when he threw out something provocative and then lured his adversary into a childish back and forth.

But right now, our brightest stars and entertainers are showing us a clear path forward. They are telling The Donald, thanks but no thanks. And current reports suggest that these simple and low-key acts of refusal are really getting to him.

I truly believe that is our best response to Trump world. When he says something purposefully provocative, mean spirited and stupid, just leave it alone. After all, we have to remember who and what he is.  He is a bully and deeply insecure man whose biggest fears in life are being neglected and forgotten. People like that need our anger and complaints to feed their insatiable hunger for attention.

Yes, I fully realize that failing to engage against his misdeeds in office would be extremely harmful and I am in no way advocating withdrawing from the political process. Indeed, all of us must vigorously fight against his mean-spirited wishes and overt attempts to destroy our liberal democracy.

What I am advocating is for all of us to ignore the man and fight against the acts.

If you are a democratic politician, women business leader, minority celebrity or any of his other favorite targets and he inevitably aims his twitter rage toward you; don’t respond. Let him seethe with unspent ammunition wasting away on his smartphone.

By all means, fight against his retro-policies and illegal legislation. Fight against his Supreme Court nominee and cabinet picks. Just don’t call him out by name. Don’t even mention his name.  Starve him of the thing he craves most – attention.

After a while, I think the man might actually have a change of heart. Is it inconceivable that after a year of aggressive national neglect Trump might recalibrate and try to recapture the spotlight by implementing policy that is logical, beneficial and well thought out?  Not because he suddenly develops a sense of morality, but because civility and integrity provide him with the only path toward the attention he so needs.

It seems obvious that Trump didn’t become president to serve his nation and his people – he became president to serve his ego. Yet, if his ego is ultimately not served while occupying the White House, we might actually force him into become a decent public servant after all.

COLLEGE COACHES ARE CEO’S, NOT MENTORS

The University of Oklahoma Football; Wells Fargo; Duke Basketball; Enron.

What do these four institutions have in common? Simple, they are (were) led by chief executive officers who are bound to one simple goal above all others – winning.

The job of all CEO’s – whether it is for a Fortune 500 company or a major college program - is to accomplish the following three tasks: 1.) Stay employed as CEO, 2.) Make money for your stakeholders, 3.) Wring the most profitability and efficiency as possible out of your employees. Accomplish these three tasks and you’re a winner.

And as such, fans and supporters of big-time college athletics would probably sleep better at night if they stopped believing in the fantasy that coaches and corporate CEO’s are re any different. They are not – and this is never truer then when controversy and scandal emerges. For a CEO and a big-time coach reacts to controversy and scandal in exactly the same way: first, protect oneself, second protect one’s operation, third protect one’s legacy.

The University of Oklahoma Football enterprise is run by its chief executive Bob Stoops – more commonly referred to by his ceremonial title – head coach. Same for CEO Mike Krzyzewsk at Duke. The title coach is bestowed upon these men because it is familiar to fans and steeped in the historic trappings of American sports going back more than a century. But make no mistake, these two famous and public men are chief executive officers in the exact same way that John Stumpf was CEO of Wells Fargo (before being force to resign amid scandal) and Ken Lay was CEO of disgraced energy giant Enron.

Currently, CEO’s Stoops and Krzyzewski are embroiled in scandals involving employees at their place of business. For Stoops the controversy surrounds his comments and actions related to an employee of the football program who punched a female student in the face and broke her jaw. That employee, Joe Mixon was disciplined a couple of years ago, but allowed to return to the football program because his value to the overall operation was deemed worthy of the public relations backlash of his actions. Exacerbating the controversy has been CEO Stoops’ comments related to the employee’s criminal behavior, saying that he deserved a second chance.

For CEO Krzyzewski, he is dealing with an employee, Grayson Allen, who has repeatedly tripped opponents during games and also acted petulantly on the bench. Krzyzewski, after conferring with his legal and public relations counsel, has suspended the athlete indefinitely; a strategic move allowing the CEO to modify the duration of the punishment dependent on public and stakeholder sentiment in the coming days and weeks.

CEO’s Stumpf and Lay also oversaw employees who perpetrated crimes and violated rules. The only difference between the businesses and the athletic programs is scale. Wells Fargo and Enron featured corrupt culture and employee misbehavior on a national level.

Similarly, when the scandals became public, Stoops, Krzyzewski, Stumpf and Lay all reached for their CEO playbook on how to handle a crisis which relies on a strategic balance of bold declaratives with flaccid silence. As such, you get congressional testimony and post-game press conferences which feature the following:

·         Virtuous proclamations about company/team culture (no acknowledgment of how this culture attracted and coddled said employees in the first place).

·         Forcefully declarations that any employee misbehavior will not be tolerated (deafening silence about how there is always a sliding scale of punishment based on an employee/players worth to the organization).

·         Vigorous assertions of how the company/team will move forward toward correction and healing (unanswered questions about how the misbehavior would have been allowed to continue were it not for outside discovery).

Indeed, it probably is for the best that we finally acknowledge that big-time sports tracks to the same amoral compass as big-time business. Corporations don’t exist to make our communities better, improve the lives of employees and provide outstanding products and services to customers. They exist to win and by and large we all accept that fact. So too is the reason why Oklahoma Football and Duke Basketball exist, to win. And the men in charge of those enterprises are hired and fired to ensure they stay in the winning column – broken jaws and tripped opponents be damned.

The only final sin of big-time college coaching and big-time corporate stewardship is to lose. For a losing record is the only surefire way to lose one’s job, one’s program and one’s legacy.

DONALD TRUMP AND JERRY JONES: THE MEN OF THE HOUR

I’m a democrat and hate the election results. I’m a lifelong Cowboys fan and love the current state of the team.

I am dreading January and the inauguration.  I am so looking forward to January and the Playoffs!!!

In short, I’m a man who is practically ripping at the seams with cross-purposed emotions. 

Anticipating the incredible low of witnessing Donald Trump holding a bible and being sworn in and anticipating the lofty high of seeing Jerry Jones hold the Vince Lombardi trophy.

How did this happen? How did 2016 become both the year of Trump and the year of Jones?

For most of my life Donald Trump has been a kind of a punchline. All Hat and no cattle as the saying goes. Loud, brash, classless, a fabulously wealthy man who does the one thing that all other fabulously wealthy men don’t do –brags about his wealth. A man of ridiculous hair, a ridiculous show, a ridiculous “university,” a ridiculous bunch of businesses that no other self-respecting billionaire would ever put his name on….Donald Trump in the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s was America’s rich but embarrassing uncle we endured on holidays.

For most of my allegiance to the Dallas Cowboys since 1989, the owner, Jerry Jones, has also been a kind of punchline. Also, all hat and no cattle when it came to actually building a great team. Yes, the early success (almost all of it due to Jimmy Johnson) was great. But since 1995? Embarrassment. A laughing stock. The parade of bad coaches, the expunged draft picks searching for a wide receiver, the face lift, the incomprehensible press conferences, Greg Hardy…all of it. Again, a kind of crazy uncle Jerry you barely could tolerate on family gatherings.

And so, during the spring, summer and fall of 2016, I’ve been all but sure that Trump would screw up and bow out before election. During the spring, summer and fall, I’ve been all but sure Jerry would screw up and have the team bow out before the playoffs.

But my god! Here we sit toward the end of December and Trump is heading toward the White House and Jerry is heading toward that awkward congratulatory handshake with Commissioner Roger Goodell.

For both men, the reasons for their success in 2016 come down to three factors:

-          Blind luck; a steadying influence; historic weakness of their opponents.

First the luck. Sorry, Trump and fans, but losing the popular vote by 2.8 million, yet winning the White House doesn’t make you good, it makes you lucky. The Electoral College and some breaks with voting patterns in just three states – and a totality of less than 100,000 votes put you over the top. Add in a frisky Vladimir Putin, a meddling FBI Director and the fake news strangeness and let’s just say, you metaphorically found the right four leaf clover on November 8.

For Jerry, his ride toward glory is paved by the incredible luck of having a ready-made NFL quarterback fall into his lap in the fourth round of the draft. And don’t forget Cowboy’s fans, the man tried nearly everything possible to select a QB NOT named Dak Prescott in last April’s draft. And, if Tony Romo didn’t get injured, ol’ Jerry would have never even plaid the kid to begin with. Jerry O’Jones must be 100 percent Irish to have that kind of luck.

Moving on, both men have greatly benefited by the influence of two key people who helped save each man from themselves. For T, it was the move to bring Kellyanne Conway to lead his campaign. The amateurs Lewandowski and Manafort would have almost certainly sunk the S.S. Trump long before it sailed into port. Her guidance to let Trump be Trump 80% of the time, but reign him in enough not to scare off skeptical supporters helped him win in key counties around the nation.

For Jerry, it is the calming presence of his son Steven. Let’s be totally honest fans: If Steven hadn’t literally shoved his father against the wall on that draft night three years ago, this franchise would own Johnny Manziel, and chances are very good that his historic implosion would have been even more spectacular in Dallas than it was in Cleveland. 

Finally, a word about the competition. Trump fan’s, if you are being totally honest with yourselves, no one thought back in 2015 that Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and the rest would be as terrible as they were. No one. But there they were, a gaggle of stumbling, incoherent, low energy nincompoops who made all us wonder – how did any of these guys actually win an elected office?

And of course, his defeat of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Now being a loyal democrat, I could point out a lot of extenuating circumstances for her loss, but… It is inarguable that she was an historically unpopular candidate whose wonky delivery and Clinton baggage was a huge mountain to try and climb.

And about those Cowboys.  Well let’s see: the defending NFC Champion Panthers are out of the playoff picture, Green Bay has dug itself a huge hole with Aaron Roger’s surprisingly bad play for most of the year, the Seahawks have an offensive line that is truly offensive and the Giants offense and Eli Manning are like Ambien with cleats.

Yes, I know the Patriots are looming if the Cowboys make it to the Super Bowl, but even Bill Belichick’s dynasty is without the most dynamic playoff threat in the NFL – Rob Gronkowski.  Indeed, this year sets up amazing well for Dallas, given the anemic competition currently assembled.

So there you have it. In a normal year, with their normally unchecked demeanor and with even normal competition, these two guys would probably revert back to their normal default setting of laughing stock. But not this year.

Indeed 2016 is their year. Our men of the hour Donald and Jerry. I truly don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

A NEW YEAR'S LETTER TO JETHRO

Dear Jethro:

We are 40+ days into PEOTUS territory.  Your guy won, my gal lost. You are anxiously looking forward to January 20, I’m dreading it. You are high-fiving with the other camo-wearing bro’s down at the hardware store, while me and my left-coast liberal elites are sobbing into soy latte’s at our local, non-Starbucks coffee joints.

But after much consideration, I’m writing this letter, a month after the election, not to point an angry finger at you and curse your choice, but rather to thank you. You and your side has done something that quite simply, my left-wing associates and I could not do on our own: You have guaranteed a return to power of the Democratic Party in a massive and convincing fashion.

Your unwavering and rabid support of Donald Trump and your feral hatred of Hillary Clinton over the past year has coalesced to deliver a beautiful and sacred gift to all of us progressive, idealistic folks. For in two to four years’ time, a tidal wave of regret and recrimination will sweep through your rural and suburban environments which will affect real and lasting change in American politics and make the 1960’s progressive era look like a John Birch Society cocktail party.

For you have unloosed the great and might Trump – soon-to-be destroyer of the Republican Party and unlikeliest hero to liberal democrats from sea to shining sea. If Newt Gingrich was our pony on Christmas morning back in the 1990’s, Trump today is our fire red Ferrari parked in the driveway with a giant bow perched on the hood.

Don’t get me wrong.  I realize there will be tremendous pain for the country during Trump’s first and only term in office. The environment, the economy and the social contract that makes America great will suffer tremendously. The middle class will fall further and further behind the One Percent and a great many minorities, women and marginalized populations will live in fear and hopelessness. Indeed, dark times lie ahead.

Yet, it is always darkest before the dawn – as they say – and a great light and hope will soon emerge on the horizon. That light and hope will come in the form of crushing buyer’s remorse among the white, under-educated voters who actually believed that a fabulously wealthy con man who sees the world through a Manhattan penthouse window was some kind of regular guy populist.

Once that buyer’s remorse sets in, and sets in deep within the pit of your stomach, you will all do what you do best – robust apathy. You’ll do nothing. Just like you’ve done little to nothing to improve your lot in life and lift yourself out of the working class malaise you’ve been stuck in for 30 years, you’ll forget all about the energy and emotion that brought you out to the rallies and the voting booths to support your orange-haired messiah. In short, you’ll stay home in 2018 during the midterms and certainly you will stay home on the second Tuesday in November of 2020.

And with you sitting out the elections, or at least phoning in your efforts, my side might actually get our act together and really move in to enact change. You see, democrats and just as responsible for Trump as you are. We blew this last election in a lot of ways. We were overconfident and unlike you, we simply went through the motions without putting our blood sweat and tears into the process.

Understand; even if we somehow eked out the win in 2016, damage – perhaps permanent – would have been done to our party and our philosophy. My God, the lapdog media, conservative zealots and Republican-led House and Senate would have been absolutely giddy at the prospect of savaging every move or decision Hillary made over the next 48 months. A Clinton victory would actually set back the party more than four years of Trump will, without the future upside.

A Clinton win would only exacerbate our problems at the state and congressional level. Our own apathy during midterms and our lack of a coherent response to the Republican’s bag of dirty tricks, voter suppression and ALEC legislation would simply be kicked down the road like an old can. We would limp along – holding onto the White House - but letting go of everything else.

No, the juvenile behavior, laughable policy missteps, sham strategies and overall international embarrassment that will be a Trump administration, portend much better for my party’s long-term viability. You’ve broken our arm by electing him. Yet, as any physician will say, a break grows backs stronger than the original bone.

So thank you. In this season of giving, you have truly bestowed a wondrous present to all of us liberals. And while I fully realize it’s a gift you didn’t want to give, my thanks are heartfelt all the same.

Happy 2017!

THE GREAT DISCONNECT

THE GREAT DISCONNECT

After the incredibly surprising presidential election and the ascendency of Donald Trump, there have been thousands of columns and millions of words written about what it all means.

·         America was fed up with the swamp of Washington

·         Hillary was a deeply flawed candidate

·         Obama failed to rally supporters

·         The media is dishonest, therefore a “tell it like it is” candidate was right for the times

And all these explanations have a role to play in comprehending one of the most seismic shifts in American politics, but it seems to me that consensus is forming around one central point: white, under-educated, working class voters truly believed that the elites in the government, corporations, Wall Street and the media abandoned them years ago and therefore a true populist outsider was their only hope to maintaining their relevancy in a diverse global economy.

When one removes the more offensive characteristics of Trump – the racism, misogyny and general crudeness – it is fairly easy to understand this sentiment. Trapped in a cycle of stagnation, where the jobs of their parents are gone forever, and (rightly or wrongly) believing that liberal America neglects them and siphons their tax dollars toward underserving urban minorities, working-class whites saw Trumpism as their salvation. To them, “Make America Great Again,” meant making the American system work for them like it used to.

But there is a crucial rub that I just can’t wrap my head around – the great disconnect I see in this way of thinking that, in short, upends my past worldview.

After all, like many, I grew up believing that the great hallmark of America’s rural working-class was that they were rugged individuals who would always pull themselves up by their bootstraps and “get er done.” No matter what, they could rely on their grit and determination to succeed, completely without government hand-outs and public assistance. Conversely, I was fed a steady diet from a young age that  poor minorities in big cities are inherently lazy welfare kings and queens unwilling to lift a finger in order to improve their lot.

Yet, if one looks closely today, isn’t the plight of the white working class, stuck in dying rural communities, a hell of their own making? Do they not now share an equivalent level of blame as the urban poor for their own stagnation?  How come, as coal receded (not by regulation, but by market forces) years ago and factories moved to Asia decades ago they didn’t actively engage in that whole boot-strap-pulling thing?  How come they didn’t tap into their rugged individualism and learn new skills and new jobs? How come, for example, they didn’t tighten their belts and forgo the purchase of a new tractor in order to afford computer classes at the local junior college?

And why doesn’t Red America seem to cast the same skeptical eye toward the meth addicts, pregnant teens and government-assisted unemployed factory workers in the small communities of Iowa or Kansas, as they do the inhabitants of big cities of New York or LA?

How come rural whites haven’t – as they are so fond of advising the urban poor – broken the cycle of poverty?

For years, I have heard my welfare-bashing conservative friends point to individuals who escaped the ghetto to become successful as proof positive that anyone willing to work hard can leave the inner city behind. Yet, millions upon millions of angry and disaffected whites voted for Trump in the hopes that he could do something they haven’t been able to do: save them and their impoverished communities. How come, instead of filling stadiums to hear him rail against crooked Hillary, they didn’t access their great self-determination and work harder to make their communities great again?

Why does conventional wisdom suggest that poor urban minorities are failing in America, but poor rural whites are being failed by America?

Don’t get me wrong. I am deeply saddened by poverty in America’s heartland. And I do believe that government assistance and publicly financed education and skills training in rural America ought to be a huge priority for the next administration. However, perhaps it is time for a great leveling of blame and ridicule.

Yes, there are poor minorities stuck in the inner city who are unmotivated to change. Yes, there are black and Latino predators in Chicago or Detroit who exploit the crime-riddled streets and hopelessness for personal gain. But so too are there unemployed factory workers in Nebraska who are content to live off welfare checks and there are OxyContin dealers in Alabama who prey on going-nowhere teenagers with little or no potential for upward mobility. 

It seems to me that in America, everyone has a chance to succeed and everyone has an opportunity to fail themselves and their community.

For my entire life, conservatives have pointed to inner city minorities and said it’s their fault they are poor and liberal elites need to understand the nation does them no favors by providing public assistance. And for the last eight years, conservatives have pointed to the Obama Administration as the manifestation of failed policies and philosophies about welfare and entitlements.

It’s strange, but in that same span of time, I’ve never heard conservatives rail against the absolute failure of rural America and rural Americans to innovate, grow and overcome. In fact, I’d argue that rural America has become an innovation desert, while the vast majority of true invention and American exceptionalism happens within the same zip codes of the inner cities they rail against.

So now, rural white America has its prophet in Donald Trump soon to occupy the White House. Will he be the magical leader who somehow unlocks the suspended potential of his devoted fans? Will he waive a diamond-encrusted wand and vanquish the hidden forces that have held down the factory worker, farmer and gas station attendant for all these years?

History has a funny way of gently tugging on our sleeve and pointing out how wrong many assumptions can be.  When Barack Obama was elected, he swept into office riding an incredible surge of hope and change. Without going into the details and justifications, I will simply write that millions of Americans probably feel disappointed that he didn’t change their fortunes like they thought he might. Safe to say, our nation’s first black president did not remove the problems of poor minorities in America. And now, history will see if millions of poor rural people have the ear of a New York billionaire elite who has never spent a day of his life being anything other than spectacularly wealthy and urban. 

Somehow, some way, we have created a great disconnect in America today. The narrative continues to be that inner city minorities allowed poverty to happen, but rural whites had poverty happen to them. It will be fascinating to see if that narrative remains the same four years hence.

In case anyone at all is interested, here is my recap of the 2016 Summer Olympics

Hundreds of athletes and thousands of visitors were decidedly NOT done in by mosquitoes, raw sewage and desperate violent criminals. In fact, the crime and the deplorable conditions were much more on display in Sochi Russia than in Rio – but Russia is far whiter and therefore it’s a lot easier to forget about squalid conditions in a European setting than in a South American setting.

Speaking of Russia – yes the state sponsored PED cavalcade of that nation was a huge story going into Rio, but then again, so was the more subtle hues of drug-enhanced individual athletes by their coaches and teams (USA included – I’m looking at you Justin Gatling!) who proved once again the universal truth about competition fueled by money and fame: If your aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying.

Being an American and watching NBC coverage of the Olympics reminds me of that famous New Yorker cover that shows how Manhattanites see the word – 9^th Avenue looming large in the foreground while China and Japan appear as mere blips on the map. Just like that illustration, NBC execs think all we see or want to see is gymnastics, swimming and beach volleyball, while all the other sports are tiny far off islands of not-worth-our-time outliers.

Charisma counts – big time. Yes, Michael Phelps is technically the greatest and most decorated Olympian of all time, but he simply cannot carry the jockstrap of Usain Bolt when it comes to commanding worldwide attention. Phelps has the backing and support of the world’s only superpower and a sizable army of marketers, image-makers and publicity folks, yet Bolt, from tiny and poor Jamaica is far, far more of a cultural, social and sporting icon then Phelps will ever be. Michael seems like a nice enough guy, but his vanilla personality fades like a Bulgarian weightlifter running the 100 meters against an athlete built to streak across the track and also streak across every newspaper, magazine, computer and TV screen in the world.

Ryan Lochte is THE American athlete for our Post-Trump era. He possesses real talent, but it’s not nearly as potent as he thinks it is. He’s dripping with white male privilege and bro-centric douche-baggery, yet he can really turn on the charm when needed. He has the functional IQ of a house plant, yet he’s smart enough to know how effective thinly veiled racism can be as a cover. After these Olympics, Lochte in US sports, like Trump in US politics, has become the living embodiment of American confusion and angst before the rest of the world. We can’t explain either of these men and we feel someone dirty even having to try.

The Rio and Sochi Games both proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Summer and Winter Olympics should be forever tethered to a permanent location – Greece in Summer and Switzerland in Winter. The corruption, cost overruns, colossal waste, and financial ruin that haunt the host cities has become an almost masochistic ritual in civic emolliating. It’s no longer interesting to wonder about which Olympics was best, but rather more fascinating to ponder which city lost the most money. Please, let’s all band together and force the IOC to anchor future Olympics to two sites. Let’s save billions, crush graft and cronyism and simply enjoy the athletic completion – in two really nice places!

Finally, while men are still stronger and faster, these Olympics demonstratively showed that women athletes are just much more compelling. Because their sports are not huge money-makers, women athletes aren’t coddled brats with an Olympic-sized sense of entitlement. They often work harder because they don’t have the same money-fueled support system to pave their way. They routinely demonstrate gold medal-worthy levels of sportsmanship that is almost unheard of in the male sports. And more often than not, women are WAY more balanced and grounded then their male counterparts. Need proof? Don’t make me bring up Lochte again.

CLINT EASTWOOD: “GET OFF MY LAWN MINORITIES!”

This was mildly disturbing, yet wholly predictable. A decrepit old white actor who’s lived in a platinum-plated bubble for more than 60 years decides he is going to tell minorities and women to get over this whole discrimination thing.

Basically Clint Eastwood’s entire interview can be boiled down to: “Hey look, Trump says some pretty bad things, but c’mon, making fun of blacks and dames was fine when I was a kid, so let’s just go back to the days when a privileged famous white guy could yuk it up with his buddies and tell off-color jokes and spew sexist rhetoric, safe from the persecution of political correctness. Whatdaya say?”

Don’t you just love it when someone who is literally and figuratively separated from the wrath of racism by bullet-proof glass, concrete walls and – probably – a moat with crocodiles, tells blacks, Hispanics, Muslims and women to stop complaining? Don’t we all feel better knowing that Dirty Harry is on the case making sure that minorities and women don’t get too big for their britches!

Of course being a loyal democrat, I am kind of glad Mr. Eastwood is wading back into the presidential election.  I think we all remember his great foray into the 2012 campaign when he snagged the best actor nod for playing a beloved senile has-been, delivering a cringe-inducing monologue to a piece of furniture.

Keep talking Clint. Your status as a fallen A-lister who has the power to crush republican presidential dreams is secure.

 

OF COPS AND FISHERMAN

This story troubles me. Police waited three hours to take out the Orlando Nightclub shooter?  Three hours in which he shot more people and also allowed some wounded people to bleed out and die?

Obviously, the whole terrible ordeal bothers me. It was gut wrenching and almost impossible to imagine.

 

But the fact that police officers waited and waited to engage – seemingly with no real negotiations going on. Seemingly with no hope to get him to surrender. Seemingly, the cops waited because they didn’t want to engage with an armed man in tight quarters.

Now of course that makes sense.  I wouldn’t want to engage with an armed man in tight quarters – but here’s the thing.  I’m me. A civilian. I’m not supposed to engage with an armed man in tight quarters.

Police are.

We are told time and time again that police risk their lives every day to protect us. We hear that from cops, the media, senators and the president.  We are told that the cops are brave men and women who risk their lives to protect people.

But do they really? 

Let’s unpack the blanket statement that cops risk their lives to protect us.

·         On one hand, of course they do. They wear a uniform that identifies them as police. If you are a bad guy, that uniform can certainly look like a target.

·         The carry guns and Tasers and mace and are sworn to uphold the law and go after the bad guys. That is inherently dangerous and therefore meets the test of someone who is a life-risker.

·         They also engage in high-speed pursuits, domestic violence incidents and traffic stops – all considered highly unsafe events.

But on the other hand, do cops inherently go above and beyond their sworn professional duty to risk their lives for complete strangers?

·         I would love to see legitimate stats (say from the FBI) with painstakingly detail about how many hostages, or injured shooting victims have died in the last ten years because cops were prohibited from directly engaging a bad guy in order to keep themselves out of harm’s way.

·         I would love to see legitimate stats on how many people have been killed or injured by accidental police shootings because the cop’s training and personal decision prompted the use of a gun over non-lethal methods.

·         I would love to see an exhaustive investigation into the possibility that systemic fear of black men by white cops leads to the over-use of deadly force in such encounters.

First caveat: I’m not a cop, never have been. I can only imagine their job. Second caveat; I’m not a cop hater and am profoundly glad they do their jobs and protect people. Third caveat: I don’t want cops taking unnecessary risks in order to stop bad guys.

However, my point of this post is as follows:

Do we overdramatize the role of “hero cop” to their detriment?  If we constantly hear from our leaders that, “our brave men and women in uniform risk their lives every day,” isn’t it inevitable that we feel let down when they don’t? I read the above mention story and wondered: did those poor souls in that Orlando nightclub bathroom go to their deaths believing the cops abandoned them?

I was a lifeguard in high school.  The first thing they teach you in lifeguard school is this: never go into the water unless you know for sure the drowning person is not going to drag you under. If it’s a choice between saving them and risking your life, back away and let them drown. 

Let’s be honest. Cops are taught the same thing. AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. I believe that the only way you can have an effective police profession is to mostly guarantee cops that they get to go home at night unscathed.

I’m just advocating that we stop with this unattainable level of hero worship that revs up the expectations far beyond the ability of cops to save everyone.

In Orlando, people died who otherwise might have lived because the cops were not going to risk their lives to save them. That is horrible to comprehend and horrible even to write, but it is the truth. No hero cop with a lantern-jaw and rugged good looks shouted to his brothers in blue: “damn the regulations, I’m going to save those poor people!” and stormed that bathroom in front of a hail of gunfire. The cops waited until a relatively safe tactic was found and then they executed.

Cops have a dangerous job. It turns out however, theirs is not the most dangerous job - that belongs to loggers and commercial fisherman. Cops rank 15^th in most dangerous professions.  Yet we don’t lionize guys who cut down trees or haul in fish. Hell, probably 99.999 percent of all Americans don’t even know those ARE dangerous jobs. And no politician stands before a crowded arena shouting about our nation’s patriotic duty to blindly support the brave men who chop down redwoods or reel in halibut.

And as far as I know, the loggers and fisherman of the world don’t have union leaders, senators and mayors decrying any person who dares criticize their tactics, mistakes and judgements. Nor is there a huge competition between Republicans and Democrats to show which party is more supportive of tree cutters and fish gutters.

Cops deserve our respect and support – no question. However, let’s show them respect and support by accurately acknowledging who and what they are: professionals who do a job and then go home, just like the rest of us. Can cops be heroes? Of course! But so can the logger who risks his life to feed his family or the fisherman who risks his life to pay for his daughter’s education.

 

THE OLD LION CAN STILL ROAR

He looked old and feeble.  Too thin. Slightly reminded me of Paul Newman before the end.  But I can’t think of another speech where physical weakness was so outshined by verbal power.

Bill Clinton, President Bill Clinton, can still bring it in front of a large crowd. As great as Michelle Obama was, and as unifying as Bernie Sanders tried to be – it was William Jefferson Clinton that provided the port in the storm for all democrats during the tumult of their own discord and fear about “that other guy.”

If you are a democrat fence-sitter about Hilary occupying the White House, you have absolutely no doubts the country and the world would become of a better place if he re-took residence in the People’s House.

Look, I get it.  When Bill talks about his love and pursuit of Hillary all those years ago, most of us of a certain age, cringe a little bit and think about a dark-haired intern and a blue dress.  We know the love story of the Clintons is one where a huge chapter bespeaks shame, infidelity and massive public embarrassment.

We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that ALL of our heroes are flawed and human. We know that a “perfect” person is just someone whose secrets have yet to be revealed. And we know that as Bill went on and on about Hillary’s intellect, caring and self-sacrifice, the political image-burnisher was cranked up to 11.

But the man can use a speech like a firefighter uses water to vanquish flames. If our political house is on fire and “that other guy” is wielding a can of gasoline like a drunken madman, Slick Willy can rain down his words of comfort and optimism and extinguish the fire of fear and hate.

I’m old enough to have heard so many political speeches. I came of political age during Reagan, slept through most of Bush Senior’s one term, laughed and then cried at the feebleness of his son’s language butchery and even got to witness in person one of Obama’s stem-winders. 

Clinton is simply the best in modern times. His voice isn’t particularly soothing, his genuineness is questionable and his personal history can tug on the words like a pesky fly – but them man is pure smooth hell behind a podium. End of story.

He’s like Lawrence Taylor bank in the day. Yes, Taylor was a pretty despicable person off the field, and left his fans with a bad taste in their mouths, kind of like the way Clinton’s personal life did for many of us. But come game day, there was no one on the planet you’d want more then LT rushing the left side of the offensive line, and there is no one on the planet you’d want more making the case for our next president than the man from Hope Arkansas.

Like a proud old lion with few, if any, hunts left, Bill Clinton dragged his tired bones onto the stage and let out a resounding and singular roar as only he could.

Blame it on Nat Turner

If I said to you that last night I drove through a “bad neighborhood,” what image would immediately pop into your mind about my stated location? I believe with every fiber of my being that if you are white, the image in your mind would contain one singular element with stark clarity – the presence of multiple black males hanging out on the streets.

Sure, your mind’s eye would be collaged with graffiti, trash, neon liquor store signs and bright marquees for payday loans. But, those are just scenery in a drama where the starring role is occupied by dark skin contrasted against “wife-beater” t-shirts and baggie blue jeans.

If we are being honest with ourselves, we can’t escape the fact that we white men are terrified of black men.

And I think that, more than any other factor, is the heart of our modern day prejudice and racism in America – and more – the singular reason why so many white cops stop, frisk and kill black men. The cop on the street doesn’t hate the black man, he isn’t repulsed by him – he fears him.  In fact, the cop fears the black man more than he fears the possibility of losing his job or losing his freedom if he puts a bullet in the black man’s head.

You can hear the fear in Darren Wilson’s testimony about shooting Michael Brown. "I felt like a 5-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan,” he said in testimony. You can see and hear it in the cell phone video of Jeronimo Yanez shooting Philando Castile. These white men were terrified of the black suspects before them.

Juxtapose these two tragedies with what happened a few years ago in Nevada with rancher Clive Bundy.  When you boil the entire standoff down to its essence you have a situation where a bunch of white men in violation of the law and with guns were allowed to go about their law breaking so as not to spark a volatile situation. Even though they were armed – with some even taking up sniper positions – the lack of fear on behalf of law enforcement was obvious.

To white cops, a white civilian with a gun is problem to solve. A black civilian with a gun is a nightmare to wake up from.

We all learned about Nat Turner and his rebellion in school. An angry slave and his followers took the law into their own hands and killed dozens of white slave owners. We learned about it alongside thousands of dates and facts and names of historical significance in High School.  And then, many of us, simply forgot about it.

Or did we? Indeed, we forgot about the facts and the how’s and the when’s, but did we forget about the visceral feeling – a black man exacting revenge for mistreatment and abuse and enslavement at the hands of whites?

I don’t think so.  I think many of us feel – at an almost reptilian brain level – the fear of that revenge. We know that through our birthright and through perhaps our own actions, we are guilty of that mistreatment and abuse of black peoples. And we fear it. We fear the revenge, our comeuppance. We fear it because we are great at it, exacting revenge. It’s part of our white American lore. Against Santa Ana at the Alamo, Against the Germans in WW1 and the Japanese in WWII we were hurt, but we can back stronger and vanquished our foe.

Won’t black people eventually seek revenge against us? For what we’ve done or what our ancestors did? We would, if it happened to us.

And so, because of Nat Turner, and because of millions of terrible abuses and mild slights later, we know the bank account of racism and oppression is full.  We live in fear of a withdrawal that, truth be told, we would have made decades ago, if the shoe was on the other foot.

 

MY TOTALLY AWESOME PLAN TO REVAMP THE NBA DRAFT

The NBA Draft kind of sucks. It is nowhere near as exciting as the NFL Draft and by its nature it rewards bad teams and their mediocre to poor management and ownership.

There has to be a better way – and now, there is and it would work like this

Allow players to decide where they play, just like every other business in America.

How it works:

1.       Every NBA team submits a list of 60 NBA eligible players to the league office. The 60 names most often sited create a pool of that year’s selectees.

2.       Any NBA-eligible player not on the initial list is free to sign with any team as a free agent after the selection event is completed.

3.       Have each of the 60 players pick a number – 1-60 – out of a hat. Players select from the hat based on some kind of random computerized process.

4.       The player who selects the #1 can go to whichever team he wants. The player who selects the #2 can go to whichever team he wants, except the team selected by the prior player. On it goes.

5.       Every team gets the same amount of money within the salary cap to sign two players from the pool. The contracts are 2-year guaranteed deals.

6.       If a team and a player cannot reach a deal, the player’s recourse is to forgo selecting a team and wait until the following year. If that happens, he retains amateur status and can back to school or retain pro status and play overseas.

7.       A player can opt out of a team selection, only once.

It solves everything wrong with the current NBA Draft system.

• It stops teams from tanking, because there is no longer any incentive to lose on purpose.
• It creates a system that is inherently fair to players, teams and fans. Players choose the place they want to work, franchises are forced to spruce up their image and winning to attract those players, and we finally end a situation where teams are like plantation owners and players are like the help.
• It would be ungodly exciting for everyone to watch.
• It creates a system where the best of all possible synergies between player and team is created. Players inherently want to go to a place they can succeed.
• It provides more, not less, opportunity for players to succeed and franchises to get it right. Players can find the best situation for them and franchise get to test-drive players for two years and not be forced to lock into a three-year deal on a player that isn’t working out. In the current system, teams hate to give up on a Kwame Brown because it makes them look bad, but if Kwame selected them and it didn’t work out, they can let him go and move onto the next opportunity without blame.

I welcome any additional thoughts and comments.

MAYBE THIS TIME...MAYBE??

Have you ever played a silly game, like tossing playing cards into a hat with a friend and you keep missing the target? And you take a moment, grip the card carefully and exclaim, “OK, this time it goes in.” And then you flip it forward and it misses the mark. Then you say, “OK, THIS TIME!”

And you miss again.  All this is repeated again and again, until you finally make it.

I’ve been thinking about this scenario for the past 24 hours in relationship to the horror in Orlando and our national disgrace related to assault weapons.

Could it be that after so many heart-wrenching mass shootings, after so many funerals and so many ineffectual thoughts and prayers, we might finally actually get the card in the hat and actually do something constructive about the proliferation of assault weapons in our country?

For years, I’ve been saying to myself: OK, this time…this time we will finally take action to reduce the number of assault weapons in circulation.

I really thought after Sandy Hook, after all those kids were killed, I thought it was time. I was wrong.

I really thought after the Aurora shooting, after a massacre in such a general location as a movie theater, I thought it was time. I was wrong.

I thought after San Bernardino, after tragedy struck at an innocuous holiday party for a bunch of low level government bureaucrats, I thought it was time. I was wrong.

Could the massacre at Pulse in Orlando finally be the one?

I get it. The odds of meaningful gun reform are long. Really long.  But, here are a couple of things we may wish to consider.

·         People who steadfastly support the NRA are by their nature, fearful people. True, they fetishize guns and love the macho power of assault weapons, but at their heart, they are afraid. They fear the unknown and unseen madman who can strike at any moment, at any place.

·         At its core, the situation of Omar Mateen is terrifying on so many levels. He was on the FBI watch list, and yet cleared to buy an AR-15. He passed background checks to become a security guard. He lives in a country where he can purchase assault weapons with no problem whatsoever, but was denied purchase of body armor. He was not a member of ISIS, but apparently become radicalized because of a simple website.

Think about that for a second. If Omar Mateen can become a mass shooter, literally anyone can. He wasn’t some crazed loner, like the Aurora shooter, or some mental defect like the Virginia Tech or Sandy Hook shooters.  He was an angry man – apparently extremely homophobic - and easily walked among us.

And the FBI, questioned him in 2014 and didn’t have enough to stop him at all. 

·         And, he didn’t strike some military base or some meaningful target to further the goals of ISIS. He simply cloaked himself in the violent and nihilistic rhetoric of ISIS to carry out his personal homophobic rage on a gay nightclub. He simply exploited the idea of ISIS to vent his hatred of people completely disassociated with that terror group’s designs.

If law enforcement and our intelligence community couldn’t stop Mateen, they can’t stop anyone of similar intent. And if he could be radicalized by ISIS propaganda – really, only for the justification for mass murder against personal objects of disgust – then anyone can.

And so I come back to the idea that this time it might be different. I think Mateen represents a kind of watershed moment of clarity surrounding our feelings of safety and security.  I think many people - maybe enough people - are going to realize that NOTHING could have stopped him from doing what he did and NOTHING is going to stop others from committing similar acts of terror and hate on their own bete noires. And more importantly, many people – maybe enough people – are going to realize that in order to take back a certain level of safety and security we have to at least make it harder for these would-be mass murders to kill us in such great numbers.

Mateen was a literally a stew. A stew of rage, intent, outward normalcy, malleability, access and an assault weapon. There is only one ingredient society could realistically remove from this stew that would have saved lives on June 12 – the gun.

Maybe this time?

 

PARTNERS IN LEGEND

When you swim, the water acts as both benefit and curse. The water provides the resistance that slows and stalls you from reaching the speed you’d love to achieve. But the water is the thing you push against to get anywhere. The curse of resistance is actually the benefit of propulsion.

I thought about that when I heard the sad news of Mohamad Ali’s passing and thought about the legendary partnership between the greatest athlete of the 20^th Century and the greatest announcer of the same era, Howard Cosell.

Their verbal sparring was legendary, to the point of being uncomfortable.  When I was just a little kid and witnessed their heated conversations on TV I thought they were really mad at each other. I thought this big, hulking monster was savaging this obnoxious, verbose yellow-blazered maniac.

It was only later that I learned how those performances were necessary resistance that actually propelled the legend of both men forward.

In order to make his act work; in order for this 1960’s black athlete to be taken seriously as the smartest, most charismatic and larger-than-life figure the world had ever seen, he needed a white foil to take it all out on.

And Cosell was there, along for the ride in its entirely, to be the resistance Ali needed to get to the other side. To become THE GREATEST, Ali needed, perhaps the greatest second banana in history.

Further, the sportscaster only burnished his legacy be being inexorably linked to the most recognizable and famous person on the planet for more than two decades. After all, in the 60’s and 70’s, if Ali walked into a room with Bob Hope, John Lennon, Richard Nixon, Lucille Ball, Joe Namath, Pele, Mick Jagger, Wilt Chamberlin and the Pope – everyone would stop talking, turn around and say, “hey, there’s The Champ!”

Indeed. There would still be a Mohamad Ali without Cosell, but I’m not sure there would have been, “The Greatest.” And, Howard Cosell would still have been a great and revered broadcaster, but not the single greatest in history.

If there is a heaven, both of these giants are together again: the most charismatic superstar and the most articulate broadcaster those of us left of earth have ever seen and heard.

 

 

 

 

ABOUT THAT GORILLA...

Many have written this before: when it comes to sympathizing with animals or people, animals always win.

·         NFL players beat wives and girlfriends, but only Michael Vick still elicits protestors outside stadiums because of his dog fighting past.

·         This ..\Pictures\child.jpg image was a singular and world-wide tragedy, yet a ton of hard right politicians and people in the US and Europe still won’t accept refugees, but imagine if this body lying face down in the surf was an adorable baby hippo or panda bear fleeing some torturous animal park or zoo?

·         Babies, and toddlers and mothers and fathers are gunned down at staggering levels in the US to a collective national yawn, yet a lion named Cecil, gunned down by a trophy-hunting dentist sets the internet on fire in protest.

A few days ago, when Harambe, the gorilla was shot in order to protect a child who had somehow gotten into the enclosure, social media blew up with outrage at the parents, the zoo, and the very practice of caging animals. It is now THE story in the world.  More clicks and reads than the missing Air Egypt plane, more attention than ongoing atrocities in the Middle East and Africa, almost (imagine!) more attention than Donald Trump.

Why?

Why do we literally stop everything, place our outrage and shock for human tragedies on hold and pick up our collective white-hot anger for the perceived wronging of an animal? Why do we instantly forget about dying kids, mutilated brothers and sisters, mangled corpses of once-thriving family members, because some whale, primate or large cat is killed, imprisoned or harmed by Homo sapiens?

I think I finally know why.

No, it’s not because of our humanity and kindness for animals. No, it’s not because the innocence of animals strikes deep into our hearts. No, it’s not because we hold ourselves to higher standards of stewardship over the fauna of the earth.

We do it – we rage more against the killing and mistreatment of animals vs. people because it’s easier.

At the end of the day, accounting for the endless violence and mistreatment and hatred people inflict on other people is just too hard. In response, we instantly latch onto the simplicity of people hurting animals.

In war, when a drone strike mistakenly takes out an innocent wedding party, or US soldiers accidently shoot civilians, or bombs drift too far afield and destroy a hospital, there exists significant complexity. Complexity around the rules of war, the rules of engagement and the blurred lines between civilian and enemy combatant.

With inner-city violence, there is complexity as well. Complexity about guilt or innocence, the role of police, the role of guns and the role of poverty.

In short, caring deeply about people we don’t know personally is harder than caring for animals we’ve never met.

People come with faults and prejudices and meanness and hate. Animals do not. There are many people who are “not on our team” – people outside our class and station and ethnicity and nation of origin. Animals aren’t on anyone’s team and therefore are benevolent free agents that we can instantly care about.

If I care about a single young black teen gunned down on the incredibly violent streets of Chicago, must I care about all street kids – even thugs and gang-bangers?  If I care about massacred civilians in Syria, do I also have to care about the “bad guys” who are legally targeted by our military? If I care about the wife or girlfriend abused by a famous athlete, must I care about all victims of domestic abuse, even if they live in my neighborhood or are a part of my own inner-circle? For many people, that gets complicated very quickly.

But caring about a lovable gorilla, or a majestic lion, or a stable of fighting dogs?  That’s easy.

The same calculous that makes it so difficult to really care about unknown humans works fine with animals.  We can care about the euthanized gorilla, because we can care about ALL gorillas.  We are decidedly pro gorilla and there are no exceptions or caveats with that caring.

Because no gorilla ever did us wrong, we can go ahead and love them all. No strings attached.

Yet isn’t it strange that unconditional love is really only paid out by us when it comes to inter-species affection. As people, we find it so much easy to care for animals then our own kind.