tdog

Not so much as “the beginning of the end” in Ukraine (Brother Dmitry explains it all for you here) as the beginning of the end of “the current arrangement” [that would be “everywhere]? And while we can be proud that our intellectual giants like Bob Costas can tell us what’s wrong with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, even as his own network helps promote the very spectacle Putin has assembled… and we can also all be proud that our prior Dear Leader suggested that “he looked into Putin’s eyes and saw into his soul” (or something)… Anyway, where I was going is...

Well, it seems to be be happening… on this, what would have been Abe Lincoln’s 205th birthday (had that bastard John Wilkes Booth not shot him)… one of the pioneers of my parents’ youth, or perhaps even earlier, has left us… thus, the legendary Sid Ceasar passes away at 91. His hey-day as uber-showman was around ten years before my own birth, but his influence on media was incalculable; among his writers were Woody Allen, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks and Neil Simon. Interestingly, his death was announced by his family spokesman and long time biographer, my college and law school...

Shirley Temple Black has passed away at 85. The original child star– one without “the problems” that plague the “child stars” of today (some of whom remain children into their 40’s and beyond), who served brilliantly as a diplomat and public servant… in her day, the most popular movie star on Earth… and yet… a functioning human being. I took it as an article of faith that someone who was a huge movie star in an era before my parents were even born was not only still around, but would live forever. No such luck. Another of the great ones,...

For New Yorkers of a certain age, the background sounds of our lives featured the quintessential announcers of the New York Mets. The last of them from the “Amazin Mets” era, Ralph Kiner, a Hall of Fame player in an amazing ten year career, passed away at 91. (Here is my tribute to one of his broadcast partners, amazingly, from 2004. Pete Seeger, of course, recently left us at 94, as did Nelson Mandela at 95. Good runs all. Hard to believe these giants have been with us for as long (although Kiner, of course, was a Pittsburgh Pirate for...

There are lives that are simply exemplary. Pete Seeger, who just passed away at 94, led one of them. R.I.P., Pete. We do seem to be running out of the great ones.

Not much going on here in Arctic-blasted Brooklyn… I began the 2014 campaign with an arguably disappointing finish– but a finish– in the 17 degree [F] Fred Lebow Manhattan Half this morning. At 16 or 17 degrees [F] first thing in the morning, this was actually one of the warmest mornings we have had, or will have, for some time, here in the NYC area. Compared to other parts of the country, this would be quite warm! So… in the “Hello Captain Obvious” Department, we take a look at this piece from our friends at Pravda, on why the CIA...

Yesterday marked the twelfth “anniversary” of America’s most visible demonstration of its post-Constitutional existence, the opening of its Caribbean resort gulag at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Somewhere around 150 protesters braved Washington, D.C.’s rain for an event that started across from the White House and proceeded to the National Museum of American History; this account offers a picture (that’s probably me there in the front row in the orange rain poncho). The most poignant part of the event took place after it “officially” ended, as a group of activists “occupied” the interior of the museum, for a human tableau depicting hoods...

I resolve (maybe) to blog just a little more than last year. That shouldn’t be too hard. Might this be the year our mighty, but nowhere near as mighty as it pretends, nation, finally begins to recognize reality? One of the greatest slogans, in my view, of our nation’s most preeminent industry– propaganda– is from a margarine company whose name I forgot, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” The sad reality is that, while it isn’t nice to fool Mother Nature, she ain’t no fool. It’s ourselves we’ve been fooling, by believing a propaganda machine telling us of high...

We mean it man. We love our airing of grievances. And now…the feats of strength.

Nelson Mandela passed away at 95. The post-title could relate to a mediocre semi-bio-pic (of Mandela) with Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman of a couple of years ago… but I’d prefer relating it to this poem, by William Ernest Henley [a poem supposedly recited by Mandela himself during his long incarceration at South Africa’s notorious Robben Island political prison]: : Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the...