Hot day here in the big city. Not so hot that I didn’t manage to eke out a finish (just under a 12 minute mile) in the UAE Healthy Kidney 10K, my eighth finish of the year towards nine needed to qualify for the 2016 NYC– which would then be my 15th consecutive if I make it to the finish line– entitling me to guaranteed entry until I drop… since I’m registered for at least three more races here, including the 2015 NYC… I’m optimistic… And on the subject of things I’m optimistic (albeit cautiously) about… Sen. Rand Paul of...

The old joke was “Welcome to Ireland; please set your watches back 200 years.” Times they would appear to be changing as Ireland appears to be at the forefront of one of the big human rights developments in the world; the Grey Lady treats us to this discussion of the future of the Catholic Church in Ireland, in light of the impressive (62% to 38%) referendum win for a constitutional amendment permitting same sex marriage in Ireland. While a huge (and well-deserved) rebuke for one of the most abusive and corrupt religious institutions in the Western world the Church, the...

The Grey Lady treats us to this simultaneous hagiography/hit-piece/elegy called “Poor Little Rich Women”, discussing an alleged sociologist’s case-study of around 100 pampered glam-SAHM’s (glamorous stay at home moms) of the Upper East Side, which, as this Gothamist observation notes, ,correctly, , is the Grey Lady’s core demographic, to wit, the aging rich White folk of the Upper East Side of Manhattan– specifically, the parts between 63rd and 94th between Lex and 5th… roughly a square mile or so, at most, which houses an insanely high portion of the Masters of the Universe. The big takeaway from the piece seems...

What to say about the President’s (rather quiet) approval of a permit for the Shell Oil Company to start drilling for oil in the Arctic? The business of America is business, particularly multi-national global corporations not based in the United States (among the major beneficiaries of the proposed uber-top-secret “free trade agreements” he is trying to thrust on us). So, while he screws around on approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, the delay of which does not really or necessarily keep the tar-sands “oil” in the ground… his government approves a practice that is pretty much a consensus environmental disaster....

The City of Brotherly Love is the site of a disastrous Amtrak train crash, in which at least six people have been confirmed dead with dozens injured. It’s been a bad period for trains in our area , what with an earlier incident in Valhalla, NY where a commuter Metro-North struck an SUV, killing several people, and 2013’s disastrous derailment in the Bronx killing four. I’ll make the obvious point: American infrastructure is not being maintained– and that’s physical infrastructure like track and rolling stock, and human beings, who, if you look carefully, are probably working longer hours than ever...

Who are you going to believe– Seymour Hersh– a journalist who has broken amazing stories time after time, from the My Lai Massacre to Mafia-style hit his present piece documenting the blatant falsehoods surrounding the Mafia-style hit murder daring raid of the compound in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was hiding out and then murdered taken out by Navy Seal Team Six, and has proven a reliable source for decades… or my lying sack of sh*t college classmate the President of the United States, who might, you know, exaggerate from time to time. Bottom line: I obviously believe Hersh. The...

Given my posting frequencies of late, one would never know if I were live or if I were Memorex some kind of net-bot, or if i were just an aging malcontent watching his nation decline (environmentally, financially, morally, in health terms, you name it…) so quickly (under the “management” of his own college classmate the President) that not even the self-indulgence of blogging is worth the trouble very often. Oh well. It’s a lovely proto-summer day here in the Big City; I managed to eke out race 7 of 9 toward qualification toward NYC Marathon #15 which will take place...

That would be German for “Happy Birthday,” specifically for Germany’s most infamous leader born in 1889 (I won’t invoke “Godwin’s Law” by naming him). It was used as the occasion for the Columbine Massacre several years ago. No, as an American Jew, I haven’t lost my mind in invoking this date to make my point. It’s my country’s government that has lost its mind. In planning to commence the training of the “Ukrainian National Guard” on this date, the United States is more than being provocative toward a nearby power. Among the groups within the “Ukrainian national guard” are, ahem,...

Thanks to our buddies at The Onion, noting that [Arkansas-based] Walmart Vows to Defend Whichever Gays Buy Their Cheap Sh*t. A perfectly reasonable observation, given that Indiana Governor Mike Pence, who signed a bill into law that was expressly designed to allow open discrimination against Black gay people in Indiana was itself an early April Fool’s joke… he just wants to “clarify” that. And, of course, the U.S. unemployment rate is at a seven year low at 5.5%, stocks are at or near record highs, and (as usual), the major force for diplomacy is the United States the European Union...

If… it’s the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, which now features the ultra-irresponsible Benjamin Netanyahu for a fourth term, after an apparent big win in Israeli national elections for his Likud party and its right-wing-nut allies. Crazy and irresponsible continue to work in popular elections everywhere… in Israel, that means a reckless politician who has tried to foment a potential world war involving the United States and Iran, who has just promised no two-state solution, neo-liberal economics destroying Israel’s economy (the nation was founded on economically egalitarian principles by Central/Eastern European socialists), and, of course, jeopardizing Israel’s most important international relationship...