I’m saddened to report that earlier this year, my friend and college classmate Lyle Brooks has passed away at age 66. Lyle was one of the original co-bloggers here, for its first few months in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, we had a point counterpoint format with yours truly serving as “the Left-Leaning Dog” and Lyle as “the Rabid Dog.” As his obituary observes, Lyle was still working in the New York court system at the time of his death, where he had worked for decades. Lyle was the nephew of famous beat poet (and Columbia grad) Alan Ginsberg.
Lyle’s death was abrupt and sudden; he had been scheduled to have dinner with the Unseen Editor (also a college classmate and also one of the prime movers of this blog), but unfortunately, failed to return messages. A brief investigation discovered the awful news.
In all honesty, as we observe Memorial Day this year, the universe does seem off. In personal terms, at this time a year ago, the Loquacious Pup was fighting a horrible disease, and unfortunately, our cat Mr. S succumbed to a similar fight; we’re delighted that LP has managed to get on with her life. Mrs. TD and I remain gainfully employed, still live at Stately Dog Manor (with TD father-in-law and our other cat Mr. D), and superficially at least, things here in our corner of Brooklyn look similar.
In the macro, howeer, Donald Trump has returned to the White House, and has vowed that his second non-consecutive term [largely devoted to personal revenge as well as the enrichment of himself and his family via space-age corruption through such dark magic as “cryptocurrency”] will not be slowed down by some of the difficulties of the first term, such as competent appointees who have any knowledge of the subject matters for which they are responsible, or any integrity from Republican majorities in Congress, or any even rhetorical resistance from Democrats [who, let’s face it, have long been more interested in fundraising than governance, so why stop now?], or any actual compliance with law, including court decisions of a judiciary that he himself has largely appointed. For good measure, he has attacked major universities (including Columbia) by cutting their funding and signing “settlement agreements” giving the government substantial control over academic freedom, while still decimating research funding. Better endowed Harvard University has fought back, recently getting a court to block an order banning it from enrolling international students. And of course, we won’t even talk about “DOGE” and the role of Elon Musk in gratuitously terrorizing and frequently firing the federal work force in the name of fake fiscal control (belied by “the Big Beautiful Bill” that will decimate health care for tens of millions who receive Medicare and Medicaid, while still managing to add at least $3 trillion to the federal deficit (probably closer to $5 trillion).
Sorry for that diversion (although this blog has always been about diversion). Rest in Peace, Lyle.
Recent Comments