Czar Donaldov is now learning the harsh lesson that California Gov. Jerry Brown experienced the hard way in his 1970s incarnation: There are some problems that press releases can’t solve. Jerry Brown, the former governor’s kid, set the template for modern executive leadership. When presented with a problem, the correct response is to ignore it and hope it goes away. Kinda … [Read more...]
Trump’s Blackrobes: Humpty Dumpty Homotextuals
“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master. That’s all.” -- Lewis Carroll Last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine presented required reading for every civics, law, social … [Read more...]
Bernie or Bust, Dolores a Must
The impervious cycles of American history predicted a 2016 Republican victory as I wrote in February of that year with 17 candidates in the GOP race and Donald Trump a joke. They likewise predict a Democratic win this November. As the old saying goes, Democrats don’t win elections, Republicans lose them. The Elephantines are well on their way. But the capacity for snatching … [Read more...]
Czars Donaldov & Nixon win Democratic Caucus
“When your enemy is destroying himself, never interfere.” * I’m certain that King Donald never read Napolean but Richard Nixon certainly did and Trump is doing a pretty good imitation. Nixon’s racist divide-and-conquer southern strategy, upon which he hung the euphemism “law and order,” broke the Democratic base electing an re-electing him. Trump has long been doing … [Read more...]
Springtime for Fat Cats & Unburied Hatchets
USELESS BANK RIDES AGAIN. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristoff published a story in the NYTimes two weeks ago about US Bank firing employees for being good Samaritans after the bank ripped off customer money. Some poor lout had his account mistakenly frozen and his paycheck funds were not released when they said they would. He spent hours trying to unfreeze … [Read more...]
Love Saves a Life on Reno’s Mean Streets
The world is in an uproar. The danger zone is everywhere. Ray Charles I had already become depressed before I left my house to run some errands last week. I ventured forth with little hope of improvement. I was wrong. Love was all around me. Southbound on Keystone, I had stopped at a red light at the I-80 underpass when I beheld a group of people around a body on the … [Read more...]
Bill Harrah’s Cookie Cutter Crumbles
Bill Harrah thought he’d live forever. Northern Nevada would have been better had he done so. His toys, the world’s largest auto collection, filled several huge warehouses next to the Sparks rail yards. Well over a thousand vehicles spanning a century of America’s expansion were housed there in running condition, including two of the most expensive cars in the world, … [Read more...]
Going to Confession with Father Barbwire
I spent much of MLK weekend, including (heresy!) the entire third quarter of the 49er-Packers game, posting notices of a three-page section of The New York Times commentary section. Author Michelle Alexander has just released the 10th anniversary edition of her seminal bestseller, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness.” It spent almost 250 weeks … [Read more...]