Getting Past the Drumpfsters

It is not going to be easy to survive the Drumpfenreich:  combining the worst qualities of the worst Presidents of the last 100 years, the Trump administration has the rampant corruption of Harding, the paranoid hatred of all the better institutions of American life of Nixon, and the naive ignorance of the world which Dubya exhibited.

June 15 will mark a milestone of sorts, as we reach Day 146, which would be 10% of Trump's term in office.  I will exclude the possibility of his re-election, not that I do not consider it a serious threat, no matter how much the majority of the population hates him.   The Republican gameplan will now focus on disenfranchising as many potential voters as possible, and the party's stranglehold on so many state governments makes it a realistic strategy.  Only the courts stand in the way of a return to a series of measures designed to discourage anyone without the leisure to pass through a series of time-consuming, challenging obstacles if they don't already hold the necessary credentials.

The only thing possibly worse than Trump himself are the people he has chosen to surround himself, in the White House itself and in his Cabinet.  But let's not dwell on that right now.

The good news, once again, is that Trump has accomplished almost none of the objectives that he espoused when he ran for the Presidency.  The bad news is that he has plenty of time to learn how to do it, and very few impediments, apart from those of his own and his own party's making.  The other bad news is that nothing he wants to do is a good idea. He picks the wrong allies, wants to help the wrong people (and I include his cronies particularly among those), creates chaos wherever he goes (or at home, in the White House), and has a perverse dislike for valued objects like science, a free press, clean energy, public education, civil liberties, and civility generally.

Now, I will admit that there is one current Trump initiative in which I must wish him sucecss, even if I am not a believer.  He dares to try to accomplish what so many others have failed to do--he wants to broker a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians.  I do admire the audacity; it ranks with him rating himself worthy of running for the Presidency.  Even if, in my view, he was wrong about that, he certainly was right in his assessment (if he ever had it, at any time!) that he could win.  So let him try with Netanyahu.  If he can pull it off it would clearly dwarf any other possible positive achievement of his terrible reign, a la Jimmy Carter, who similarly was able somehow to deliver arch-warrior Menachem Begin's agreement to the deal with Egypt.

Of course, I don't believe Netanyahu is prepared to negotiate seriously, to be the one to recognize any form of Palestinian state, to allow any part of the West Bank to be ceded to their longstanding neighbors, those fellow Semites.  I never imagined Begin would make peace with Sadat, though.

Even imagining this could happen, though, violates one of my cardinal rules about surviving Trump's administration.  I have raised my hopes.  Expectations must always be at rock bottom, with him. Subsequently being proven right, as would normally happen, is not the point.  The point is that disappointment is a near-certainty if one hopes for anything that is not criminally stupid and badly executed.

The good doctor Deepak Chopra provides some suggestions for skills to develop to avoid being consumed by the stress arising from Trump-driven outrage.  One of my own resolutions is to limit myself to no more than one Trump-driven rant in this blog space per month.  Please hold me to that.

Their Lives Were Not All About Donald Trump
Chris Cornell - guitarist and lead singer for Soundgarden, one of the top grunge bands, who had a successful solo career after the '90's.  His style was brooding, dynamic; it was not so hard to imagine that the writer of "Black Hole Sun", a powerful grunge classic which pleads for a black hole to swallow everything up, might end up taking his own life.  Sorry.

Gregg Allman - Keyboard player and usual lead singer for the Allman Brothers, who basically pioneered a brand of Southern country-tinged blues rock.   He became the leader after the early death (motorcycle accident) of his brother, Duane, the superior talent of the band.  Allman had several comebacks over the years; Gregg's talents were never shown better than in his performance of the '70's classic, "Whippin' Post".

Zbigniew Brzezinski- He was a displomatic and military strategist who drew upon his early days in Communist Poland. He was not as much as a hard-ass as he appeared during his key role in the Carter administration, when circumstances (the invasion of Afghanistan) triggered an increase in Cold War tensions; later , he supported President Obama's efforts to reduce our war footing.

Frank Deford - One of the most talented pure writers in sports journalism I have ever come across.  Young folks may not recall him, though he appeared on TV until recently; I remember his essays in Sports Illustrated which showed humor and true appreciation of the finer aspects of sport.

Roger Moore - or, Sir Roger Moore, as some might have it.  The most purely British of the James Bonds, he brought a little more respectability to the role after the louche manners of Sean Connery.  I will remember him best as The Saint, though.

Jim Bunning - Let's stay positive about Bunning, who was an unapologetic right-winger Senator in his later life, Mitch McConnell with some dignity.  He was a great pitcher.

Roger Ailes-- I have a very hard time saying anything good about Ailes, who made Fox News what it is today, except that he did believe in journalism, which meant he had a hard time accepting Donald Trump's behavior.  He did, though--he swallowed his ethical scruples and backed his candidacy in a thousand little ways.  Of course, he was not in much of a morally-superior position.

Spring Sports Report

A little later than I wanted to get this, but not ridiculously so.

European Soccer
I greatly enjoyed the British FA Cup semifinals the previous weekend; both games were close, dynamic affairs with tons of top players in evidence at the famed Wembley Stadium. They moved the semis there a few years ago and converted to the single-game, must-decide outcome format used in the final. When all four of the teams are as good as in this year's matchups (Chelsea-Tottenham, Man City-Arsenal), it works.

It certainly helped, from my biased point of view, that Chelsea won its match, 4-2. Both teams approached the game seriously, not quite playing all their top XI, but close and with eminently reasonable substitutes where they didn't.  The rivalry is at a peak; though they will not play again in this Premier League's season, they are 1-2 in the table (four points apart), and Chelsea's win should provide a needed psychological  boost to help 'dem Blues reach the finish line first. As such, it should complete their recovery from a frankly disastrous 2-0 loss a week previously to Man United. Chelsea Rule OK in 2017!

Winning the Cup final vs. Arsenal will just be icing on the cake (and may complete Gunners' coach Arsene Wenger's long-awaited departure).

I should mention Barcelona's incredible comeback from 4-0 down in the first leg of a Champions League series against Paris St. Germain.  They had to pull off a 6-1 win to do it, scoring three goals in the final seven minutes.  I have rarely seen anything more outrageous (and that includes the PSG goaltending at the end).  They pushed it too far in the next round, though; a 3-0 away deficit to Juventus was more than they were capable of erasing.  I don't usually root for Juventus, but I'm thinking they might break through the recent Spanish domination this year.  Somewhat surprisingly, they haven't won since 1996. 

ML Baseball
It appears the trends toward more home runs (tighter wrapping of the ball, maybe?) and more strikeouts will continue this year.  Hitting the ball somewhere within the ballpark is out of fashion (too many good fielders?  I doubt it), and stolen bases, too--unless it is a sure thing.  The Earl Weaver philosophy (two walks and a 3-run homer) never went completely out of style, but now it is in, "big league" (as our Fearless Leader, "POTUS minus the TU", would say, somewhat slurringly).  Arm injuries remain a strong trend for overthrowing pitchers, but the greatest harm so far has been the 80-day suspension for a steroid for one of the key players on my Rotisserie team, Pirates' outfielder Starling Marte. 

I shed my rooting interest in the hapless, rebuilding Reds last year in favor of the lifelong favorite team of my aged father, the Cubs.  Their having won the World Series, at last, in 2016 (and what a joyride it was!), I have fulfilled my commitment to them.  I do favor the Indians, who competed nobly last year and have a long schneid (winless streak) of their own  (appears to be since 1948).  I am also hopeful their downstate "rival", my Reds, will be able to avoid last place in their highly competitive division.

My preseason picks were as follows:
  AL division winners--RedSox, Indians, Astros; with Orioles over Rangers in the Wildcard game
  NL division winners--Nationals, Cubs, Dodgers; with Diamondbacks over Cards in the WC
  ALCS - Indians over Orioles; NLCS - Nationals over Dodgers
  and World Series:  Indians over Nationals.
So far, I see no reason to regret any of these picks, though it's early.

NBA
The first round ended up very predictably, after some early excitement.  In the East, the #8-seeded Bulls defeated the #1 Celtics in both of the first two games at Boston, but then Rajan Rondo got hurt and the team chemistry dissolved, the Celtics winning the next four.  Similarly, the #6 Bucks folded after giving #3 Raptors a bit of a scare.  The best first round series, in terms of quality of entertainment and play, were the Rockets-Thunder matchup of MVP candidates and the strong effort the Grizzlies produced against the Spurs before succumbing.

Now, I would say the main question of the next two rounds is whether the anticipated Spurs-Warriors showdown in the West will happen, and can anyone stop the Cavaliers in the East?  On the latter question, I had some thought that the Washington Wizards might be the team to stop LeBron James' streak of six straight years in the championship playoffs, but they disappointed in Game 1 vs. Boston and will now be serious underdogs to pull it off (as would the Celtics against the Cavs).  Spurs-Warriors seems extremely likely to me, and the odds are increasingly pointing toward a third straight year of Cleveland-Golden State in the championships, with GSW looking like the better team at this point.

College Hoops
 I found justification for my rooting interest in favor of the U. of Kentucky in this English press article, which argues correctly that Kentucky's frequent practice, in which they recruit the top high school stars, get them to play one year, and then actively assist them in landing on a NBA team if that be their intention, the so-called 'one-and-done", is the most honest in college sports.

The Wildcats' current crop were "very freshman" in their play but showed tremendous talent and matured by the end of the regular season.  They got a very tough draw in their region, coming up with big wins over Wichita St. and UCLA in the first two rounds, but then hitting the wall against a more seasoned group of future pros, the eventual winners, North Carolina.  My other main rooting interest (besides Yale, which came up short in the Ivy League championship game), the U. of Louisville Cardinals, had a decent team, competitive in their "new" conference, the refurbished ACC, but didn't make it too far.

Finally, I did happen to catch the end of the most amazing event in college basketball this year, the upset of Connecticut in the NCAA women's semifinal by South Carolina.  After an incredibly emotional victory, breaking UConn's 100+ game winning streak, South Carolina came up short in the final.  A Pyrrhic victory is still a victory, still will be remembered in history.