It seems a recording of Donald “the Donald” Trump has emerged, showing him making “lewd remarks.” Near as I can tell, the only thing more offensive (about what Mr. Trump said eleven years ago) than what he says (or tweets) on a daily basis is that he used “the P word” (I suppose if there were a recording of the Donald using “the N word,” that would be even worse). Got it: that’s what American life is, these days. Substance is irrelevant. We don’t go more than a micron below the surface of anything. The wrong word was used. The...

I exercise my privilege to write about things of particular interest to me, noting the passing of Oscar Brand at age 96, a singer, song-writer, author, arranger and all-around good guy… and notably, the world’s longest running radio host, setting the world record for radio programs with a single host for his show “Folksong Festival”, which was on our local public radio station for over seventy years, debuting in December, 1945, seventeen years before I was born. Rest in peace, Oscar.

We’ll start with this semi-hit piece called “The Curious Case of Alicia Machado,” she the former Miss Universe from Venezuela whom Hillary Clinton invoked at this week’s presidential debate to highlight Donald “The Donald” Trump’s generalized contempt toward women, noting that he once referred to Ms. Machado as “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping,” evident references to weight gain and Latina heritage. Trump, surprise surprise, has been fighting back, noting that Ms. Machado has “issues,” including a purported sex tape (turns out to be true and was evidently a basis for baseballer Bobby Abreu to break up with his then fiancee,...

The Hebrew word for hello, good bye and peace seems the appropriate notation for the death, at age 93, of Shimon Peres, former Israeli prime minister (often considered the best of Israel’s leaders in the technical sense of competent leadership, although he was rarely the most popular), as well as holding a number of cabinet positions, and late in his life, the figure-head president of the State of Israel. Mr. Peres was a prime mover for most of the modern peace initiatives that formed the seemingly never-ending “Israeli Palestinian Peace Process [TM],” but, as the last of the founding generation...

Donny Trump, Jr., The Younger Donald (TM) has been on a tear lately , appealing to White supremacists ,and neo-nazis galore, sayeth Media Matters. The latest, comparing a handful of hypothetical Skittles from a bowl containing three poison ones to Syrian refugees, an “analogy” which originated in the Nazi propaganda machine, is, evidently, just the latest in a rather loud and clear appeal to this particular demographic (i.e. White supremeacists and neo-Nazis). I hearken back to my own post from June, noting the uncanny comparisons between Trump rallies and Nuremberg-style rallies of an Austrian-born dictator of the not too distant...

On this, the fifteenth anniversary of the first post of this blog, following a blast in Manhattan’s Chelsea section that injured 29 (with a second homemade explosive device found four blocks away from the 23rd Street explosion), which, in turn, came on the heels of an explosion that, thankfully, didn’t injure anyone, along the course of a Jersey Shore 5-K race called the “Semper Five” (a fundraiser for Marine Corps related charity)… I ventured into Central Park for the NYC Marathon Tune-Up, an 18-mile footrace, this morning. [BTW, “ISIS” hasn’t claimed responsibility for either of those events, though an ISIS...

In the brief interregnum between 9-11+15 and the 15th anniversary of this blog (tomorrow, actually… not sure what, if anything, I’m going to say on the subject) we are presented with the inevitability of the march of time with the loss of one of the greats of American art, the playwright Edward Albee. Winner of the Tony and the Pulitzer, some of his best known works include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story, The American Dream, and The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? Like other geniuses of the modern era, Beckett and Ionesco (or O’Neill and Miller), Mr....

Alright, alright. I’ll quickly give you this Daily News piece noting that the Trump theme of “never give a sucker an even break” applies to the supposed reason that he received $150,000 in state funds following 9-11 for “business loss” (which may actually have been legitimate business loss at the time) which, being the compulsive liar that he is, he insisted on the campaign trail was for “charitable purposes” of some kind… and like virtually everything purportedly “good” that Mr. Trump says he did… the evidence seems scant. And so I can only say… damn it… even on 9-11 +...

Item: Right here in invariably-tolerant-Brooklyn [TM], a 32-year old woman with the all-American name of Emirjeta Xhelili decided to accost, attack and assault two hijab-wearing women pushing baby strollers, including nearly toppling over a stroller carrying a 15-month old baby, suggesting strongly that they get … out of America. Yes Ms. Xhelili is a proud Trump supporter, but… you know… Perhaps Ms. Xhelili is in that “basket of deplorables” to which Hillary Clinton attributes half of Trump supporters (the other half being people “just looking for change.”) Name calling… good strategy. Calling your opponents xenophobic racists really worked well with...

Such is the conclusion of the invariably sober Kevin Drum concerning the latest FBI revelations associated with “Hillary’s damned emails.” He does a thorough review, and concludes that it is as close to an exoneration of HRC and her handling of her emails as one will see anywhere. And yet, she is just such a terrible campaigner, that she just can’t spit out words similar to: “Look, I readily admit that ‘best practices’ were not followed, and in hindsight, certainly should have been, but there is a huge chasm between not handling your electronic communications in the most perfect state...