1000 Songs

I finally broke down and signed up for the "Premium" (paid) version of Spotify.  I'd been freeloading (literally) for a few years, but it was getting unwieldy playing and managing my "Liked Songs" list, and in particular the lack of control over the sequencing of them.  I didn't really mind the ads; if they got too obnoxious one could always mute the volume for their duration.  Truth be told, Spotify was starting to make it very difficult to utilize in the free mode:  AI no doubt the culprit. 

 I took advantage of my new-found range of freedom to expand the list from some 500 songs to 1000, adding dozens of additional artists not previously put there in the haphazard way free Spotify permitted.  I think this is the max:  my poor cellphone was slowing down tremendously toward the end.  My plan is to keep it at this level, going forward.  As I tire with some of them, I will add some others, looking toward more recent releases, more jazz (I had binged about 50 jazz pieces before but didn't add any this time around), and the Psychedelic Furs (I forgot to put some add before I hit my limit).  I could probably cut some of the Beatles ones, which are mostly drawn from that great "Love" compilation done for Cirque du Soleil. 

Here are some stats for the 1000 songs: 66 rock artists are represented with a single song--this doesn't necessarily mean they are one-hit wonders, just that selectivity drove that. There are some 32 jazz artists with 49 cuts, headed by Miles with six and Coltrane with five.  There are 73 more rock/pop ones with between 2-4 on there, total of 220 songs, and 36 with 5-10, inclusive with 270 (average 7.5). In the top group are 24 with 395 selections (about 16.5 per).  Here I should say that I am going by the first name in the artist description, but combining some of the obvious ones together (for example, Jack White and the White Stripes, or Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits, though those are not among the top group). I also made some executive decisions that might be somewhat controversial:  I didn't combine the ones from The Band and Bob Dylan, though I did combine The Band with Robbie Robertson's selections. 

For those who know me and my music tastes, there aren't too may surprises in my top 10 (there was some clustering below Bowie in the 11-15 range): 

1.  Beatles/John Lennon 34 (no McCartney, Harrison, Starkey thus far)
2.  U2 32 (including two Passengers, one The Edge solo cut)
3. Blind Faith/Eric Clapton/Traffic/Steve Winwood/Derek and the Dominoes 32 (tie) - I would argue there is a continuum in the membership
4. Steely Dan 28 (maybe too many, but I didn't limit myself to the 1970-1980 period)
5. Talking Heads/David Byrne 24
6. King Crimson 20 (including one solo from Tony Levin--I know, not necessarily Crim)
7. Bright Eyes/Conor Oberst 19 (I feel this is totally defensible)
8. David Bowie 17 
9. (tie) Jimi Hendrix 15; Police 15; Joy Division/New Order 15 --(again, uniting that pairing could be disputed--a lot, but not total continuity in the personnel, though some difference in the sound)*

Yes, I know:  "OK, Boomer Dad"!  I swear there's a good number of women in the lists, and of soul performers, but none with 10 or more songs chosen.  I don't have much country, except some outlaw versioning, and only some of the very oldest hip-hop. 

I will have to do a "Songs of Resistance" piece shortly from the list-- things that might inspire us in the days to come, though they may have been written long ago.  (by that I mean 50-60 years ago, even) 

Ed.  This post was written late last year, but I held off posting to do some analysis on my "Top Shelf" of CD's, which I didn't get around to doing.  The stats here have changed marginally as I have added some artists and cut down a few that were overly represented (meaning additional songs that didn't make my cut).   

My understanding is that one can share a playlist with the broader Spotify community, which I will attempt to do, with the list as it stands now.   

 * Here are the Honorable Mention artists with 10 or more songs chosen (alphabetically): The Band (without Dylan), Beck, Broken Bells/The Shins, Bruce Springsteen, CSN&Y (various), The Doors, Gomez, Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna, The Kinks/Ray Davies, Paul Simon/Simon &Garfunkel, Yes/Wakeman, Santana, The Who/Pete Townshend. 

https://open.spotify.com/user/chinshihtang?si=e3grDzxWTqy8iKTVAHk5CA

The Best Picture

 

Tonight the Motion Picture Academy will present its awards for the 2025 films they choose to honor.  In truth, all the nominated films have received their honor; this is about the show, and I have to admit that I am a total sucker for it. Somehow, the drama of this entertainment vehicle that has a little entertainment (Conan O'Brien this year) and a lot of tension and time-wasting gets me emotionally involved.  I know, not everyone feels that way. 

Anyway, the scuttlebutt this year is focused on the award for Best Picture, which is deemed to be a battle between voters for Sinners and those for One Battle After Another (hereafter OBAA).  It's gotten serious lately with lots of invective thrown around by backers of one against the other.  It seems to boil down, among the litigants, to some questions about which is more cool, more hip, more woke.  OBAA is accused by Sinners-backers of cultural disrespect of blacks and, well, Sinners is, in part, what they say it is, a violent celebration of vampire culture. 

Sinners is more than that, and in fact is worthy of serious attention in many ways.  I abhor the vampire trope and have had more than enough of it, and I'm not going to make allowance for Sinners' attempt to humanize or celebrate it.  It's simply not part of actual human experience, and never will be. On the other hand, Sinners is drenched in the blues, which I can always handle, and in the reality of Depression Era South.  The acting performance as Smoke/Stack by Micheal B. Jordan in it is profound, Oscar-worthy to be sure, much different in its complexity than his supposed main opponents for Best Actor, the rogue table-tennis freak played by Timothee Chalamet or the burnt-out rebel freak played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Remember, we're supposed to be voting for the skill of the actor, not the fame of him, the unusual nature of the charactor, nor the incredible lengths to which Chalamet goes to perform a role.  Though Chalamet's is the kind of role that wins, at least in the old days. 

No, back to Best Picture--that award-upon-award can not be reduced to two films; ten are nominated, including some foreign ones, and even ones not in English..  Spreading the candidacy among so many worthy films will water down the numbers, so that voters are not all funneled into one camp or another.  The result, in the modern days, is that the award for Best Picture has become one that can be unpredictable, even so unanticipated that it was read incorrectly off the card once.  That uncertainty has made that particular award less anticlimactic (usually). along with its going to some extremely unusual recipients lately (Parasite, Moonlight, Childhood, Everything..you know the rest). 

My choice, and it is unambiguous, with due regard both for Sinners and OBAA, is Hamnet.  I will give credit to Adam Baidawi, in an article about the film that focused on its lead actor, Paul Mescal, that it is "a body blow of a film"*.  That understates it--it goes through the heart, deep into the soul, and pulls it out.  It is unquestionably "best", in the sense "more good than any other", because it is about being a better person, about love, in a way that those two leading movies fail to represent. It will make its viewers better, and thus the world. It is only accessible to anyone who has been a father, a son, a daughter, or especially, a mother, or any woman, not to mention fans of The Bard. It is not out of bounds to claim it to be at least on the same film-making level as the other two (maybe not box office, or special effects). In particular, lead actress Jessie Buckley, in an unforgettable series of careful, fetching nature and close-up shots, is considered by most to be a sure bet to win Best Actress.  Chloe Zhao, the director, has won an Oscar before (though that's not a positive), and she has worked magic with the story of Hamnet, which I can't wait to read.. 

I don't guess Chloe will win, and I will grieve for that, but we can only celebrate the successes of the eventual winner, who will be either Paul Thomas Anderson for OBAA (often nominated, never a winner) or Ryan Coogler for his incredibly creative realization of a bizarre, but in its own way,  grounded story. That Best Director winner usually lines up with the aforementioned overall winner.  Sinners is the favorite, because there is a strong historical correlation between nominations and winning (and Sinners has a record 16 of them).  But just remember also this:  there is no best picture--we're talking about art here.   

 

*Really an excellent article in GQ magazine--something I'd never see--that came to me out of the blue on my phone.  Mescal is a highly-trained and awarded actor who was superb in his role as "Will" but was not even nominated for Supporting Actor.  That is an extremely competitive category with, besides Mescal's, four "sure thing" kinds of performances:  both Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn for OBAA, Delroy Lindo for Sinners, and the unheralded possible winner (he won the Golden Globe) Stellan Skjarsgard (sp).  

U.S. vs. The World

 That was the headline that the NBA, in its desperation to find a reason to create basketball involving its All-Stars in a way that would appeal, came up with for this year.  I think it was a lot better than recent efforts, because in fact there are a whole lot of All-Stars from countries other than the U.S., enough to make a team that is very credible--especially if you include Canada now as something foreign.*

 The NBA, like Major League Baseball, maintains a token presence outside our borders in Toronto, barely a couple hours drive beyond.  The NHL has maintained its traditional franchises in Canada but has overwhelmed their previous dominance with a host of US teams based in places like Arizona, Florida, Anaheim and Vegas. While in football, of course, Canadians have their own thing which is inferior to ours and we don't have to respect it. 

Baseball differs a little in that regard, though, because the source of its players is increasingly from various regions of the world, almost outnumbering those from the US.  Indeed, there is a World Baseball Classic coming up, with teams from countries all over competing with the US.  We are not the favorites, nor even the best American team--that would probably be the Dominican Republic.  Japan can also put a scare into us, with Shohei Ohtani perhaps playing both ways--maybe even in the same game!  

Snark:And what is this thing about Puerto Rico competing against the US? That should not be allowed.  Donald--speak up for the "ownership" of that territory, and let's seize their players.  The Venezuelans, too, since we're running that country; there's some significant players from both./s.

Not Quite Ideal 

I am a fan of the Olympics, and I watched a lot of these Winter Olympics just finished.  First, I want to commend the Italians for putting on a good show, giving the athletes the opportunity to do their things under the best conditions for their sports (they have the advantage that bad weather adds to the drama without stopping most events), for filling the arenas and locales safely, and for managing the local chaos which the event always produces.  The closing ceremony was intensely "bello"; that one, and the Japanese one from the '24 Tokyo Olympics have together set the bar very high for creativity to be supplied by future hosts. 

The Winter Olympics feature a bunch of sports about which I know relatively little, don't normally follow, and which I have no aptitude nor desire to participate in anymore.  That's okay, but I am a fan of most sports and these are a good change of pace to see different ones.  I feel the same way about most of the sports in the Summer Olympics, too.  The Olympic sports that I most follow--baseball and basketball--are there, but not particularly well represented by national teams.  Those sports, and others such as soccer, volleyball, ice hockey, field hockey, and Ultimate Frisbee,  I would put in a separate event for national team sports. It would be a major draw in itself and bring the rest of the games closer to the original idea. #

The nationality aspect is the worst problem with the games, with the TV coverage strategy the second worst.  Abolish the medal count; make the medal award ceremony private, without the anthems.  As for the TV coverage of the Olympics, I've watched it in other countries, and the problem is always the same. It's about "our" athletes and whether they win medals. If anything deeper is provided, it's usually not about the sport, but it's about life stories. To their credit, I suppose, they are still holding to the '70's Wide World of Sports approach:  "the human drama of athletics".  But if there's no patriotic interest, no special narrative, it's not worth showing, as it presumably won't draw ad revenue.   Less editing, more channels, please--nothing that hard to do.  All that patriotic gore and media hype detracts from the focus of the Olympics, which must be the games and the athletes' incredible devotion and skill.

The nexus of media fame and athlete sometimes resembles a car crash.  It's particularly intense for the US participants in figure skating, the only sport in the winter games that is a major draw. * US figure skater Ilia Malinin got T-boned by the intense expectations which got to him mentally, freezing him up extraordinarily. It's truly unfortunate that his greatest audience so far in his short career saw his worst--his skating ability is miraculous, as he's shown in the past.  Women's skater Alysa Liu, who had been through the wringer of the public eye years before, quit a few years ago in reaction, but then came back for the love of the sport and skated (a much less difficult program) with joy and won the gold medal.

There wasn't much anti-American sentiment (referring specifically to "USA!"), though there was a typical unhinged Italian riotous protest off-campus, generally against the expenditure and land-use decisions, but also specifically against the presence in Italy of the US paramilitary force called by the acronym "ICE".  What the hell they were doing there is unexplained and inexplicable:  I'm quite sure there were no undocumented immigrants to the US among the Olympians gone abroad, and if there were some in the support teams or the volunteers at the games who are self-deporting, fine.  I guess they want to take credit, if there are some units toward their quota to be accrued.  .

Terrible Tariff Mess  

We all knew that the tariff regime imposed by Trump in executive orders last spring relied on a legal basis which was unsound. The Supreme Court has done no less and no more than making that clear, without providing any remedy.  The money collected by importers following their perceived requirement to obey was until now paid to the Federal government's Treasury.  The expectation from the Court's decision is that the money, collected contrary to law, must be refunded by the government to those who paid it in.  What those importers are expected to do with it has not been seriously considered. 

I think that the amount they are going to see will be only a fraction of the number collected from those tariffs--I have heard that amount is $170 billion.  Trump immediately reimposed tariffs under a different shaky legal justification, uniformly at 15%, so almost as high as before.  My prediction is that those importers will only get the difference between the old tariffs and the new ones, and that the effort to get it will require piles of bureaucratic paper and/or lawsuits.  Instead, Trump will seek to distribute money in checks signed by him to every US citizen, which works out to about $500 per individual, minus the amounts he pays after short-changing the importers.  He will sell it to them that this way, they don't have to deal with the complexity of reimbursing consumers. He may not get away with it this time, though.   

Tariffs are the classic Us vs. World kind of policy, but the world outside the US doesn't have as much problem with them as one might think.  Consumers abroad don't have to pay for them.  The issue is mostly about the uncertainty, there and in financial markets, and this new tariff policy will not end that, and the mess will continue as Trump tries to layer in penalties above and beyond.  

 As for "Bomb Iran", Trump has boxed himself into a scenario in which he will end up having to act, to do what Bibi wants him to do, in spite of the Iran government's desperation to avoid getting bombed again--or worse.  Whatever concessions they can make, and they are willing to make some--essentially the same ones they agreed to long ago in the multi-lateral agreement Trump trashed in his first term--they will not be enough for Bibi, and therefore, for Trump.  What a dumbass loser!

 

 *The surprising thing is that the US won vs. The World in both semifinals and so played each other in the "So What?" finals.  I don't really know more than that, as I didn't watch any of it.   In general, though, if the US takes on the world, it will lose. Even in a nuclear war.

# I support most of the Olympic ideal, though I have to give the Moderns some credit for finally abolishing the myth of amateurism.  One interesting note is that I heard a podcaster saying they had heard there is an informal agreement among nations not to start wars during the Olympics. (see the timing of the Sochi Winter Olympics and the initial invasion of Ukraine) I didn't know there is such a thing, but I know that in the original (Greek) Olympics there was the tradition that the warring of city-states would cease for the period of the Games.  

 +I am intentionally dismissing ice hockey from that honor:  its following in the US is intense but not so huge, and it's not a sport that most TV viewers can take in.  I will say that the broadcasters in hockey have a special talent for following that puck and recognizing each player involved, made more difficult by the constant, unannounced substitutions. 

As for the US' ice hockey team's gold medal, I salute their devotion and skill, like all the other NHL athletes who showed up.  

The reason figure skating is so central is because of its many female (and gay) enthusiasts.  Men are dragged in, and sometimes we are amazed, often amused--because we men tend to think it's amusing when people fall on their butts.  

That Was "The Golden Age" That Was

 -- A little 2025, a little the last 80 years, and a Gore Vidal novel I just finished.  

 

 

There is no doubt that 2025 was a year of a distinct and recognizable change in the USA.  What it portends for the future is much in doubt--ain't it always that way?--but this year, taken as a data point, is truly what President Biden used to say, an inflection point. 

The effect of the attempted destruction of the federal government that was the chief initiative of the Trump Administration in this year may take long to fully reveal itself, whether or not there is ever a serious effort to reverse it.  The damage sought to our climate, cruel and casually imposed, may or may not be fatal in the larger, global sense. 

The damage to our international relations, though, and to our nation's position in the world order, is permanent. Even if we somehow regain our footing as a nation and can refrain from piratical kleptocracy in the new A.D. (After Dickhead), we will never again be the monopole, the only superpower, able to set and maintain the primary rules of geopolitics on the grand scale.  Diplomatic primacy, military superiority, the security of owning the world's reserve currency, the best military alliances, somewhat real economic dominance--these are all in question, even if we can maintain our momentum in a frenetic technological race. We can talk about the loss of moral posture below.    

What we shattered in 2025 was cracked by the fall of 2024.  It was no longer possible to dismiss the freakish Trump win in 2016 as an aberration.  This was the great realization abroad, and the implications of that fact, although not always viewed in the same way for its effect locally, always provides critical guidance on the national interest, because always relevant.  The USA was, indeed, that important. It will never be the same in that regard.

A 2025 retrospective post on Substack by Phillips O'Brien, an expert on the military-diplomacy nexus and the war against Ukraine, was titled "2025 In Review: The Year We Switched Sides".  That tells a lot of the story, and is almost incontrovertible in that case, but I disagree with the notion that this applies to us all (in the US) and across the board, but merely that, in the world to come, all will know that we can change sides without any consistency. Except greed, maybe. What has changed is that we are not in the clear leadership position anymore.  

"The Golden Age" 

The seventh and final novel in Gore Vidal's series of US historical novels came out in 2000.  He lived until 2012, but he was already 75 then and near the end of his highly productive writing career.  As with others in the series, he mixed real historical characters, using their authentic statements and writings to drive dialogue and interactions with invented characters which he strategically placed close to "the room where it happens" (to quote the play "Hamilton").  

The narrative centers around the journalistic career of an invented D.C. newspaper editor and publisher, Peter Sanford, spanning the years from 1940 all the way to contemporary time in 2000, though its focus was mostly on the time just before the US' entry into WWII and the immediate postwar period.  For the characters in the story (and clearly for Vidal), the intentional entry into that war was in order to launch a period of global dominance, though its gleam was ended after the (again, intentional) fabrication of the Cold War, which soon transformed into the Korean War stalemate (his character's view:  defeat and surrender), and by the betrayal of our values of the anti-Communist witch-hunt.  So, from that view, the Golden Age only lasted from 1945 to 1950.

Vidal's cynical view of American history reveals itself frequently through the story.  FDR knew the Japanese were going to attack; in fact, he welcomed it and forced it to happen. The sudden Wendell Wilkie rise to the Republican nomination to challenge Roosevelt's unprecedented third term was driven by by big money of New Dealers who wanted to make sure both parties were inclined to war, against popular opinion and the positions of the top Republican candidates, and included a murder to help ensure that the dynamics of the Republican convention favored the dark-horse candidacy of Wilkie.  Such are the creations Vidal puts into his story behind history. I was somewhat surprised he never mentioned the shocking story of the internment of Japanese on our West Coast. 

Sometimes he deals with known fact, often with popular underground wisdom, frequently he grants his characters the prophetic quality which comes only with hindsight, and he is not beyond inventing history.  In The Golden Age, Sanford's foil is an opportunist, Clay Overbury, who is a Senator due to take the Presidency in 1960 (instead of JFK, in the knowing whispers in Washington drawing rooms) before he dies in a plane crash.  The Sanford character is part of a family particularly close to FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt, and then later he has personal interactions with President Harry Truman. 

Vidal breaks down that fourth wall to some extent in this novel, which covers some events Vidal, as someone within the elite, witnessed personally, if peripherally. He even puts himself, "Gore Vidal", in a couple of scenes and ends the novel with Gore fictitiously interviewing Sanford, now Vidal's age of 75 and physically infirm, at Vidal's (real) home in Ravello, Italy.  Then the final chapter is told by Vidal in first person and wraps up the series with some philosophical musings about the existential reality, or lack thereof, of history, reality, and the greater historical context. It includes some unfortunate comments sarcastically referring to the fear of Arabs blowing up planes, just a year before the reality hit. 

I would point out that Vidal was also something of a scholar of ancient history and his whole limited 1945-50 range of US' period of true greatness is a slight at ourselves in comparison to the greater Golden Age of Athens.  It is instead to empire that the US is and was destined, in Vidal's view, something developing over several of his novels and many of his essays. 

With respect to Vidal's view, our Golden Age was not really ended by the Korean War or the rise of our stultifying military-industrial complex.  Our culture and its impact has been much more than military rule, domestic or abroad, and much less about governing the savages than about guiding them toward our interests.  With plenty of advantage over our rivals, we've been able to more than keep pace, militarily, economically, and above all, technologically. Until now.   

Last Words on this Regrettable Year:  

AI has achieved the right level to interact with American culture--that's why it's called "slop". 

I cannot complain too much about the year, as I have had little or no personal impact of the government insanity.  Just some people who've lost their jobs; I'm sorry for them, but that happens all the time as employers take it out on those below in the hierarchy.  The stress of constant challenge to our confidence in our supposed political leadership hurts deeply and reminds us of the need for reform, but we all recognize the failure in the scenes we are presented daily.  The most common injury is to morality and decency. 

And honesty. My greatest concern for 2026 is that the flood of fraud, combined with the tariffs, will inhibit consumer spending to the point that recession does come, and that Washington will then create some war as a distraction.  In my view, that is the only way the Republicans will be able to hold onto power in Congress. 

Postscript: The Golden Age of Food  

 The organic food movement grew some surprising legs, so it may survive locally, but global food availability--the incredible variety of food that is available today, because of both sea and air shipping--may be in serious danger.  The price of imports and supply chain issues may combine over time to end broadly-available exotic produce and narrow our diets, though there may remain pockets of gourmet for the most wealthy.  

Five Takes on TDS

 

 

 

 I have often seen the acronym misused with regard to those who sense reality, applied incorrectly by those whose motivation is only to "own the libs". I propose several alternative views of it. 

1)  Trump Derangement Syndrome:  According to the Cambridge Dictionary, derangement is defined as the state of being completely unable to think clearly or behave in a controlled way, especially because of mental illness. This applies, not to those who react with anger or sadness to Trump's maladministration, but it is better applied to those who are still under his spell after all these years--the MAGA believers.  These folks are generally still out of their minds and beyond reach. 

2)  Trump Delusion Sufferers:  These are the people who had some rational thought that a change of administration might benefit them, in terms of their chief concerns--say, the economy.  They now realize that the expectation they drew from what was promised was merely a scam.

The way to interact with them is as you would with someone who is a victim of fraud, whether their own credulity caused them to become victims, or just were outwitted.  Sympathize with them for their loss; then you can safely share with them how you, too, suffer from the damage.

3) Trump Depression Sufferers:  These are the many people who have observed what is happening and cannot get over the sadness it brings them.  Depression is very hard to treat; the recourse to alcohol and/or drugs is the wrong medicine.  In this case, it would seem best to try to interest them in something else besides politics, such as horseback riding, a fitness and dieting regime, comedy, or Tai Chi. 

4) Trump Dethronement Schemers:  Some of them are motivated by a spirit of revenge, others from a righteous desire to defend our Constitution, but the common thread is what King Crimson called "Radical Action to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind" (album cover illustration above).*  This is all well and good but needs to be put on hold, lest the 8647 Police come to take you away. I will admit that this is the version to which I am most susceptible. 

5) Trumpism Defeat Scenarists:  At last we come to a worthwhile version.  People are coming at this from all sorts of angles. There are various ways to skin this cat, and the only question is to unite around the one script that is most feasible. It must start with taking control of the US House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections, then using the control of the House committees to expose the full range of corruption in this administration and the damage its economic and foreign policies are causing.  The goal is a complete wipeout of the Trumpist program in 2028, and then to move forward with policies that will prevent any recurrence of unconstitutional and anti-democratic governance.  The progress will then follow.

 

*Photo from the Wikipedia article about that musical release, by the sterling formation of the 2010's which performed the last live tour of the band.  Highly recommended, as is the more reduced "Live in Toronto" release.  I hope this plug makes up for the appropriation of the intellectual property.

Gulf of Understanding

 

 Let's Talk About America

This is about more than just the US of A, which is all that our new Dictator King claims so far to rule, though he pretends to want to extend its borders to Greenland.  It would "look so strong" on those spread out, 2-D  maps of the world which have to stretch that land mass out insanely.  I'm sure that's the idea fixed in his mind.  In this case, he's using this cute little head-fake of renaming the Gulf of Mexico, to help remind his undiscerning voters that this is part of making America Great.  

But what is America?  Most of the Western Hemisphere probably think it refers to them, too.  You know, Brazil and Paraguay in South America, Nicaragua and Belize in Central America, even the rest of North America (maybe Canada not so much).  Admittedly, the Gulf pictured and mis-named here has only three nations that it borders--Mexico, the US, and Cuba.  I would suggest that the truer American body of water is the Caribbean Sea, which is a big deal geographically for most of the hemisphere, at least on the Atlantic side.

It is fair to say that Donald Trump is an American President, but he is not the President of America.  One should not conclude that he has an intention to make great all of America; at best, his constituent interest--the ones unto whom he is legally accountable, if that means anything anymore--is limited to the borders of the US and its assorted territories (not colonies, we pretend).  And the District of Columbia, technically within the US' borders, but just to be clear:  I say he is a criminal allowed to roam the streets there only with armed guards.

I'm sure, if Trump were ever to consider the rest of the Western Hemisphere, he would just seek to dominate and intimidate, though it would be a worthy objective instead to give sincere assistance to all the nations of the hemisphere. 

Not-so-Loyal Opposition

 Recently I have been struggling with the meaning of a logical conclusion that starts with the premise that the Trump Restoration was not a fluke; that it is the prevailing voice of Who We Are.   If you feel, as I do, that this regime is up to no good, then we should be looking for the US to do as little as possible abroad.  Because what we do--apart from whether it is done effectively or not--is bound to be harmful.  Harmful there, and ultimately, because we are part of it all, whether we believe it or not, harmful here, as well. 

That is not a simple principle to execute without immense damage.  We saw it in Afghanistan, and we would see it in a whole variety of nations.  The vacuum of power resulting would be catastrophic in Central Europe, in Northeast Asia, on the borders with Russia, in the Middle East--though we can see that this administration seems willing to ignore the latter.  This suggests that one of the first dominos to be pulled out of play will be the contingent in northeast Syria supporting the Kurdish-led independent force there, a mini-regime in defiance of Turkey and holders of much of the land once ruled by ISIS. * I would expect that our forces in Iraq will be withdrawn.  Also, I think those who are eagerly anticipating the US war with Iran will be disappointed; as Trump will make a deal to keep Iran from exploding the nuke test they are readying. .

Like I say, though, it's probably for the better.  We do not want to be involved in Syria, though we wish them well.  At worst, it's Europe's problem.  From our opposing and limiting point of view, his withdrawal from the hot spots is pushing against an open door.  (Which is the opposite of an Open Door policy.)  But let's slow down the larger withdrawals in these first months to allow development of defense against our packing up and departing. 

Instead of the US and the CIA etc., which works out badly in the best of times, we should defy the Trump Administration and have shadow representatives from the USA in global conferences, specifically from states.  As an example, California should be formally admitted to the Global Climate Conference, in place of the US representative. Some other states should petition for that one, as well.

Speaking of windmills (I am in favor, and feel Trump's resistance is, at best, quixotic), I suggest myself for a contingent of Americans willing to bunk down in Denmark to support the resistance against expansionist, imperialistic American--and by this I mean the US, under King D------d I, may his stench be contained--trade representatives. 

We should all be working on Buying Not-American, especially now before the prices go up with tariffs. If I only cared for Molson beer....

We have to distinguish between those right there with the Mumps--Bezos and his charming, underdressed partner, Zuck, and some unnamed South Asian CEO type, from all of which we should seek to disengage, loudly and publicly--and those who would have to show up but not be seen in public with them. Can we credit Disney and Apple, who were not there and did not give a million, maybe?  The one that's hardest to see giving up entirely is Google.  And no nvidious distinctions, damnit!   

 

* Speaking of which, what has he done to make us safe from ISIS?  Snow is not going to make New Orleans safe. 

And, why hasn't the war between Russia and Ukraine been stopped yet?

 

...Anni Aurei

("Of the Golden Ages") 

Everyone's doing their Best Of...lists.  Here's some of my picks, throwing in a few Latin words (as we follow blindly down ancient Rome's path toward dissolution): 

Word (nomen) - brainworm. 

There have been multiple mots thrown out there on the wall, Time Magazine-style.  The most ridiculous I heard was the first one, "demure", from Dictionary.org, but really from some influencer who misuses it all the time to the point that it has become standard English, like the varied usages from "literally", "precipice", "leafy", and "vibrant".  In this case, I wouldn't know, maybe it trended strongly; but, do we have to celebrate it? 

Oxford went with "brain rot'.  I don't know, was this their translation of RFKJr's former malady, or are they still being haunted by the prions of mad cow disease?  

The Economist dragged it out in their essay, but finally went with "kakistocracy", the rule by the incompetent.  They remain indignant at the lack of good government.  I think "idiocracy" will surely be nominated by someone; that movie made a big comeback this year as it seemed to signal a logical endpoint for all our society's worst trends toward, yes, incompetency, performative politics, big piles of shit, etc.  I think what we're getting so far is just the first part, "Id-cracy", rule through the id of an idiot.  But that's just temporary; we could still avoid full idiocracy with  more education of the populace and a little less nihilistic "don't give a shit" attitude. .

Returning to my main point, I am still going with the Kennedy reject as my personal focal point of dissatisfaction with this year's version of the multiverse.  (see "Lathe of Heaven", below)  There must be some other place where the Kennedy heritage is destined to end up,  other than kneeling at the foot of  Drumpf, then playing the Fool in spreading some widespread, avoidable avalanche of a health catastrophe.  In my outlier thesis, it's his fault that Harris lost.  This is altogether too weird.

Film - (cacumen) 

For me, it will be "Dune, Part Two", though it was released too early to be a significant Oscars contender.  I thought it lived up to my expectations, which were high.  I think one additional episode should be enough from Mr. Villeneuve, who has now topped The Mexicans (take your pick of the big 3) as top international film director.  A year or so for him to get perspective on how to handle all the the many successive novels and the gist of them, but some of it can be speed-walked.  Particularly the part about the Dominant Worm ("God Emperor"). A little more "Chapterhouse of Dune", the backstory that is behind the streaming serial "Dune: Prophecy"(not impressed) might help the understanding.  Anyway...

I'm eager to see the early Dylan biopic with Timothee Chalamet ("A Complete Unknown").  I'd have to guess he may be Best Actor in the Oscars, and this is surely Angelina Jolie's chance to win Best Actress for her portrayal of Maria Callas (in "Maria"), unless she messed it up entirely.  I'm not considering any of these post-Thanksgiving entries, though;  they can be on my Film of the Year list for 2025, if they are good enough.

I'd say "Lee", Kate Winslet's WWII vehicle, and "Conclave", the story of a fictional election of a Catholic Pope, are movies that were released in good time and had some good points ("Lee" was an unheralded true story, "Conclave" had good use of foreign languages in the Vatican's polyglot environment, fine roles for Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini, and Italian Sergio Castellitto), but did not reach paradigm-shifting excellence.  One that went for it was "Anora", the tragicomic sex flick of a stripper and a Russian oligarch's wayward son.  It has the same crazy energy as two recent international triumphs, "Parasite" and "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once" but I think it falls short in terms of social significance.   

As for the season's two big blockbusters, I haven't seen "Wicked", but I will do so though it's not my cup of witches' brew, and "Gladiator II" does not interest me--I love historical fiction but this is an unhistorical one. 

Song (canticum) -

 I've read a few of these top 2024 songs lists--rarely one of albums anymore, though they are still made.  These lists have a lot of stuff representing our fractured "popular" musical environment, while I only hear a couple of the genres (rock, indie). I will try to take some listening suggestions from them--YouTube is so easy, if you don't mind a few commercials.  These Best Of.. unanimously name Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us" as #1. Yes, it's odious, but so are we all--I guess. 

The one I'd go with is Karen O, with Danger Mouse, on "Super Breath".  I think it's 2024, anyway.  Karen O's re-emergence as a powerful, controlled vocalist of renown in recent years was late but welcome, and D.M. gives her a suitable, classic backing instrumental line.  Yes, the breakthrough album for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs was in 2022.

Book (librum) -

 Again, I've read a few of these lists, and there is one name always on the list (some respectfully refuse to rank within the top 5 or 10).  That is "James", by Percival Everett, taking the Huckleberry Finn story from the other side, that is, Jim's.  I have to try that one. Mostly I have read Yuval Noah Harari this year and some sci-fi, and I regret little of it.  The late Ursula LeGuin still entices my reading--she wrote so much, so well.  A re-reading of her "Lathe of Heaven" (1971) was revealing in what she anticipated of our future world, and it got me thinking more about dreams, an underappreciated aspect of our lives.  Anticipating a lot of free time to read in the near future, I do have a powerful list going forward.

Person  (persona)

 TIME came out with theirs before I, to my temporary embarrassment. I was going to critique their list, which had some interesting names, along with the unnecessary repeat candidates (Trump, Musk, Putin).  Of their list, I would strongly support Yulia Navalnya . It said she was previously a candidate, but did Alexei ever win? If not him, not Nemtsov before him, TIME has let history down.  My pick: Alvin Bragg - he is the Buster Douglas (of Mike Tyson fame) of Donald Trump challengers, the one who won.  It may not have been the "World's Biggest" prize of all time, but he did it and 2024 was the year. (Biden already got his in 2020, with Harris alongside).

Athlete (athleta) - 

 I saw that one of the sports mags named women's basketballer Caitlin Clark as Sportsperson of the Year, and I respect that choice for the huge impression she has made this year for the sport.  I would go with Stephen Curry, for a career of great NBA success, somehow exceeded by his amazing series of three-pointers in the desperate fourth-quarter comeback against Nikola Jokic and Serbia in the semifinal game of the 2024 Olympics.  Meaningful, and memorable.  Second choice would be for Freddie Freeman, for a similar career of success topped off by a remarkable game-winning homer for the Dodgers in Game 1 of the Series.

Food  (cibus) - 

 This is the Golden Age of Global Food.  I think a lot of the international shipment of food items will tail off due to increased price, climate change considerations, and more blights of food products.   Coffee and avocados are two products we can expect to become more scarce, much more expensive.  Forget about those lousy unripe Chilean fruits we see in the market.  My pick is a domestic product--Talenti gelato and sorbetto, which captures the essence of Italian high-end iced product and packs it tightly in nearly unopenable jars and sells it for $5-6 a pint--high-end price also, but well worth it.  The man credited with putting it on the market, Dean Phillips, ran a quixotic campaign in '24 to replace "too old" Joe Biden. He didn't get far, but he planted the idea that blossomed out of control after Biden's debate with Trump.

Lots of links I could have added--go find the lists yourselves if you want.  I gave you my choices.  Latin translations by Google translate, which isn't too swift on the Latin.  Not enough current data for the AI learning machine, I'd say.

More Quick Hits

Strategy for Playoffs (Planning Them) 

If you read between the lines in my previous WC comments, I believe that, if they are going to keep this extra playoff round, they should make it more valid.

 Expand the Wild Card round to best-of-five, the Division Series to a full 4-of-7. That would fix it, in the way the NBA Playoffs ensure these contests have their completion (though I personally would advocate "calling it" in any best-of-7 when it's 3-0).

That would mean a long break for those two bye teams in each league, both for good and for ill. The next evolution would be toward a system in which the only bye team for the first round is the one with the best regular-season record in the league--the NFL once again setting the pace. 

Where do the days come from to do all this? By reverting to the traditional 154-game regular season (from the current 162).  Adding those four potential additional games to the length of the whole season (including playoffs) would need this adjustment, though the one I propose would also bring the chance for more off-days and make-up days.  Few would object to this change, except team owners.  So they would need some adjustment, perhaps in their precious cap limits. 

"College football" is in chaos, it seems to me, with professional college, inc. teams serving as money-making incubators for the NFL owners to cherry-pick. The 'conferences", and their championships? Don't make me laugh. There are two that matter (the SEC and the Big 10) for the new, over-expanded playoff system. Those championship games will be life-and-death battles, for seeding? It makes no sense except in the greed, cow-milking one. And I was one of the ones recommending the radical idea of an expanded round! (I meant, to six). 

4X4 for Kamala 

Post-Election Proposals for Popular (mostly non-Partisan) Reform 

1) Remove the income cap for Social Security tax--this will fix one problem, at least. The previous argument for the famous shut-off in midyear for the privileged, that Social Security is but an insurance policy, now paid for the year, is no longer sustainable, as the tide has gone out and we see our wet suits for what they are. It is pay-as-you-go, always has been, really, and this gap for income earners between $140K (or whatever the current calculation for when the tax stops, for the rest of the year), and $400k, which was the Biden going-nowhere proposal, with tax recurring above that, will have to go. Among other reasons, for equity. It can get bipartisan support, and the complete change will save the security-part of SSA. (Above 400k, it can increase, or whatever the system can allow...) She could even advocate this now, if she wanted to show some intelligent diversion from a straight Biden line, but it has risks. 

 2) Direct election of the Speaker of the House

 Yes, but--ARTICLE 1,-Section 2. The House shall chuse their Speaker.. 

So, it would be non-binding, in a different way from chusing our President. Get it? I'm sure the House would, and meaningful challenges to the will of the electorate would be rare. Any of that would importantly take the struggle away from the existential question of the ownership of the White House. The elected Speaker would be able to deal with the Senate and thus with the President as head of Congress, and pull back the legislative authority from the presidency. The over-empowered executive could then focus on its true, huge responsibility for global security, maybe? Yes, and administration, a la- Jimmy Carter (bless him!--his 1976 victory is the key to understanding this election). 

I'd suggest ranked-choice voting, runoff of top 3, low barrier to entry but short campaign (in years with Congressional elections, so every two years). 

Could Donald Trump win this, after he loses to Kamala? I'm willing to see it. 

 3) Do Away with States' Winner-Take-All (Conditionally) - This would be a compact of Congress that would support best practices and induce states voluntarily to switch away from giving all their Electoral Votes for President to the candidate getting the plurality in their state.  This would create more interest in turning out in the large states with partisan majorities, in spite of which there are always contrary pockets, usually in multiple Congressional districts. .

The other half of this would be independent certification that states are not excessively gerrymandering their districting.  Fair congressional districts are within our power to develop; AI could actually be useful here in developing a set of districts maximizing various objectives, in order to present decision-makers with a final choice. This reform would be targeted for the 2032 Presidential election.

4) Start a Federally-Supported Institute for Home Health Training - This is a favorite unopened envelope from the 2020 campaign. It is clear that the best health service for many, the one woman worth paying for, is at home, with varying levels of attention there, from periodic to full-time, depending on the needs and resources of the client.  It is very hard to find and keep active capable home healthcare workers.  A nationally-recognized certification program would allow these workers to move about, as many would like to do, and get work where they go.  So many will be needed.

The Institute should be located in South Florida (this is the partisan part).  That's closest to where the greatest portion of eventual work will be, and it is a good area to recruit future home healthcare workers. 

These are proposals for a Harris administration that could actually be accomplished in a hostile, or hopelessly split (at best) partisan Congress.  Doing any of these would radically change the dialogue and push toward 21st-century-suitable processes to manage one of the most important aspects of our society. If, on the other hand Harris loses, I got nothing for you, US. 

 These would not require constitutional amendments, which are not possible at this time.  Some may need to wait until after the expected post-Trumpian collapse of the Republican party as a viable competitor for national office (as opposed to the Senate, where they will linger on).

To Put it in Terms of D & D

 Donald Trump is Chaotic Evil.  Joe Biden is Lawful Good.  It's as simple as that, really, in our Presidential election this year.  Pick a side in the war.

But is that all there is?  No--there is a lot more involved.  Libertarians, for example, tend to be Chaotic Neutral.  Where do they go, especially those who really want to be more Good? Corporations, and most politicians, are either Lawful Neutral, or if they can be bought, Neutral Neutral.  Some are even Neutral Evil (e.g., Bernie Madoff).  

Nikki Haley's natural consistency is the Lawful Neutral, and her victory  loss in New Hampshire shows she has some appeal to them.  She has shown, however, that she has to preserve her claim to the affection of the Lawful Evil elements of her Party in order to have a chance to defeat the forces of Chaos. 

There's more, as we cover all permutations. Neutral Evil is barely if ever represented in public; it's like the Witch in Hansel and Gretel, or Donald Trump, if you mistakenly go into his dressing room--just don't go there.  Neutral Good may be the most numerous of all, in terms of the American electorate.  Not too interested in which team, not too much involved, but their intentions are benevolent in general. Biden, logically, should win the majority of these folks, and if he can get them to vote, he will win the election.

That's Fine, But What About Me?

There aren't many politicians, or even public figures, who are Chaotic Good, like the character I portray in politics.  Bernie Sanders and his 2016 Presidential campaign comes to mind, and I love him, but I was indulging the pragmatic, rather than maximalist, dimension of my activism too much at the time.  (He wasn't going to win, and his candidacy didn't help Hilary's in her mission to Stop Trump.) Besides, I had a job. 

My ideas at heart are about removing major facades of our political infrastructure for entirely new ones.  These could fairly be called radical, and I wear the label proudly if I am ever asked (which I am not--it's practically a slur, since 1980 anyway).  I could name a couple of musicians who exemplify the characteristics:  Bono, or maybe Bruce Springsteen.  John Lennon.  Among politicians, Jimmy Carter, though his devout Christianity is a little too conventional for me. Nelson Mandela, of course.

Now, is my philosophy rare?  Not at all, Haley, after all, correctly pointed out that the majority of Americans want an option other than Biden v. Trump.  That view is the diametric opposite of today's presumed general election, in other words a very Chaotic Good impulse.  That's the space she's trying to claim, and I respect that.  

As this episode plays out, I am looking for the secret that the Dungeon Master has hidden away.  The Vorpal Weapon that will finally penetrate the Bickhead's defenses (or Dickhead's befences), or alternatively, the Ring of Power that Trump covets.

 

We are Not a Nation of Laws

Understanding what it means if the facts and the evidence are there, and they decide not to prosecute – how do we then call ourselves a nation of laws? Liz Cheney quote in CNN Interview, published Aug. 4, 2022. 

We are clearly a nation of men, not of laws.   The old saying is an aspiration, just as democracy is an aspiration.  Justice depends on those who must enforce the law, or not, and for which laws. 

It used to be exclusively the province of men.  As in, no women.  That has changed., at least in terms of active participation.   We still have no way to bring the intelligence of young people into the formula for self-governing, as our civic education in democracy prepares them poorly and our system changes but slowly, if at all.    

But the real point is that the US of A has always chosen to be on the edge of lawlessness, or if not that, lawless on its edges.  Those edges, or frontiers, were always moving, and absorbed our aggressive tendencies until the 20th Century.  Then we had world war to absorb them, or most of them. Some leaked out in "racial" riots, and in lone-wolf-type political assassinations. 

This American tendency toward weak observance of the law and prevalence of violence is not the norm for a society said to be advanced. There are plenty of examples, other nations, where the laws are clear, and enforcement is thorough and efficient, disobedience rare and incarceration even more rare.  Many of those have full democratic exercise; others maintain the vote but have less free speech and economic liberty.  

Self-restraint of the people is critical for lawful societies. Too much disobedience is simply uncontrollable for the authorities. 

As for the previous question, though, there are so many pending investigations of Trump at this time, that surely there will be at least one indictment--possibly several, once the retaining wall of respect for past holders of the Presidential office has been breached.  The announcement or whatever of his 2024 Presidential run should be no impediment, and in fact it ends any need for the social restraint generally shown toward excoriating ex-Presidents, especially one-term losers.  Instead of doing something good for the country, or humanity or the future of the planet, he continues to suck money away from suckees and shows a willingness to carry the ludicrous con forward.  As for the DOJ, the threat of his forever-imminent announcement certainly did not spur them to immediate action. 

Mere indictment, and I mean criminal indictment(s), civil suits being necessary but insufficient, clears way too low a bar.  I want to see convictions, even if plea-bargained (I would think avoiding prosecution under the Espionage Act would be important for his future employers).  Trump's card is his own conviction that there would never be a jury that would vote unanimously against him; I think if the jurisdiction is properly chosen (like Atlanta, maybe, for his Georgia vote tampering) it is a possibility.   Again, though, we need the heavy stuff, perhaps the insurrection itself if the right persons will turn, if we want to change the course of the story he tells himself:  so far, he's still free and making money, so everything's basically fine.  

Lawlessness is Central to Our Culture

It seems obvious to some, but we are slow to recognize to what degree we fixate on the borderline between legal and extra-legal, and beyond.  The Western, which almost always turns on that question of how we act when we are outside the control of the civilized world.  The Gangster epics, which are all about the spaces between what we do in life and the law, and the kind of people who occupy them.  All the varieties of cops-and-robbers, including so many that make heroes out of criminals, even assassins who kill for money.

Okay, you may say, that's just Hollywood, Dreamland, the sublimation of desire to survive in the real world with its stifling conformity.  This ignores the American tendencies to live outside the rules in our daily lives  (I excuse attorneys from reading the following).  Smoke pot, drive intoxicated, exceed the speed limit, fail to come to a full stop, cheat on taxes.  Everybody does it, or some of it--but not everyone everywhere. 

In many countries, people obey the law because it is the law and they know it.  In America, people obey the law best when it suits them, randomly when it coincides with their intentions to be free.  

Remember the line in "America, the Beautiful" at the end of the second verse : 

"THY LIBERTY IN LAW"

I think that's the way we want it to be, that in our liberty of actions we choose to obey the law, and that the law protects our liberty.  As for the latter, it's a whole other subject, but let's just agree that the reality is that the law is not evenly applied to all in that regard: Some people's liberties are more protected--we could generalize and say it's the people who can afford good lawyers. 

Do we choose to obey the law?  There's a favorite defense American lawbreakers employ, that they didn't know it was against the law--essentially Trump's play in the Mar-a-Lago document theft case.  It's useless in a court as a defense, which presumes you know the law:  in some sense the law must be known to expect obedience, as our justice system does.  Sometimes, no doubt, we know, whether or not we'd ever admit it. 

Overall, though, I would say our tendency is that when it comes down to it, we choose liberty. 

Tip-Off

 The State of Sport, Pt. 1

NBA:  Will the trends be Bucked?

The top question in this year's NBA season is not the soap operas at big-money collectives in Brooklyn and L.A., but will the Milwaukee Bucks' championship be the signal for rising dominance? 

Over its history, there have been those kinds of dominant teams, ones that monopolized their conference titles and won more than their shares of the Finals.  Boston Celtics in the early '60's are the archetype, but several have emerged since then.  In the 21st Century, things have moved faster, and these periods of stable dominance have been shorter.  Still, in recent years there have been the rule of the Golden State Warriors, who won the Western Conference five straight years, with three titles, the Cleveland Cavaliers, their opponents in four of those (winning one of the others), and before that the previous LeBron James collective in Miami and the Kobe/Shaq Los Angeles Lakers, with similar successes. 

So, are the Bucks at the peak of their success, or is there more to come?  There certainly would seem to be in the form of Giannis Antetokounmpo, their star center who has raised the Bucks up from league mediocrity, one level at a time.  He is still very young. 

Normally, franchises can only move up one step at a time.  The best thinking of league team General Managers seems to be that a threesome of star players (at least, shining at that moment) is needed in order to shorten the path to stable success in the playoffs. That third star becomes decisive at some point when margins in key games are so narrow. The current coinage of The Big Three as it applies to the Bucks is Giannis, Jrue Holiday at point guard, and now Khris Middleton, as wing man.  Middleton's place in the triad was secured by clutch baskets down the stretch of close games in last year's playoffs, sometimes when Giannis, a poor free-throw shooter until now, wasn't even on the court.  

We will have to see whether that develops as it would need to do for longer-term Association dominance, Jordan- or Bill Russell-level, or if Giannis' path develops with other vertices, other teams.  He is a transcendent talent, like the one who led the Bucks' previous championship, some five decades ago (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, at that time still Lew Alcindor). 

If the Bucks renew success this year, winning their Conference finals, that would then suggest that their progression so far is not even complete.   But at this time, I am reminded that the critical moment in the Bucks' path to the championship was defeating the Brooklyn Nets by a point in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference semifinals--that early.  Their success so far is contingent, and dependent on defeating a host of other valid contenders.  More than ever before, I daresay. 

Questions 2, 3...n

We start by examining the team chemistry of the Big 3 triangles at Brooklyn (Kevin Durant/James Harden/Kyrie Irving?) and the Lakers (LeBron/Anthony Davis/Russell Westbrook).  Both have the challenge, playoff-time, that there will be only one ball and three guys who want to get it and shoot it.  More immediate questions are finding the best way to include newcomer Westbrook and getting Kyrie his vaccination at some point before the end of the regular season.  Those two teams have the most talent, but that doesn't always decide it. 

Some one-line oversimplification for the other championship contenders I see: 

Atlanta Hawks -  Huge surprise that they reached the Conference finals.  Duplicating that would indicate the kind of progression possible with Trae Young, who I'd compare to Stephen Curry. 

Phoenix Suns - Just as huge a surprise that they could win the Western Conference last year.  The duo of Chris Paul and Devin Booker lacks a third and also seems fragile.  One more chance, I think. 

Miami Heat - A third recent major surprise, when they reached the NBA Finals through the bubble playoffs of 2020.  Jimmy Butler is still there and makes the incredible possible. 

Los Angeles Clippers - The question is whether their own magic man, Kawhi Leonard, will be available for the playoffs.  Paul George without Kawhi was not enough, but the Clippers still reached their own highest level ever by reaching the Western Conference finals. 

Utah Jazz - Likely once again to have the best record in the regular season in the West.   They oppose the Big 3 approach with a more pure team concept.  But can they get past the second round? 

Denver Nuggets - They are a dark horse in the Western playoffs.  They have the league MVP, talented big man Nikola Jokic, but will lack top scorer Jamal Murray for most of the regular season.  If they can catch fire at the end, they could surprise all with a playoff run.  It is rare in the NBA for such a team (expect them to be in the middle of the pack of playoff qualifiers) to go so far as the Finals, but it can happen. 

The Standard Scenario is the Lakers against either the Bucks or Nets.  Personally, I'm looking for a different trend to continue:  the last three years have featured six different teams in the NBA finals.  I think there's room for two more new ones.   The Brooklyn Nets vs. either the Clippers or Jazz.  The Nets' superior money should win out.  But it's OK!

The College Game - I have no idea--I know the University of Kentucky Wildcats are full of one-year-and-done secondary-school superstars, as they always are--and it really doesn't matter that much until after the New Year.  Then we'll see which teams have put it together for the Tournament, which is what it is all about. 

Mr. Fix-It: 

I can never watch sports without wondering if it might be better if..... Most of these thoughts will be both logical and also outrageous and beyond consideration.  But those who manage the product (commissioners and owners) need to consider the quality of their product, always open to real improvement. 

In the case of the NBA, though, there's not so much to suggest.  They cleverly caught on to the "more in the playoffs is better" axiom with their Covid improvisation in late 2020 of the Play-in Tournament (to make sure contending teams had a real chance to get in the playoffs in that unevenly truncated season), and then kept a form of it.  Now ten teams in each conference get a shot (Ed. up from 8). 

One aspect I would correct a bit:  the three-point shot--a great innovation for this still-young, still-changing sport--has taken over, more than it should. The answer would be to make the 3 option slightly less rewarding, but not by simply moving the arc back:  the true gunners can make it at any distance, if left alone. However, if one looks at the arc behind which you get three, as it's painted on the court, you can see that it flattens out to a straight line giving access for threes all the way to the end of the court (the baseline).  The logic of this is that the corner shot, having no backboard to bounce off, is more difficult to triangulate perfectly, but this is old news now, and there are too many players just hanging out in that corner, "spacing".  If the arc were to continue to the sideline, that corner shot is just worth two.  It would change offense, to the benefit of battles in the paint, and generally in front of the basket.  The would-be spacer is squeezed more into the midrange of the court, where the action used to be.  

As for the college game, my personal view is that college basketball--men's--has subordinated itself excessively to its football colleagues in the construction of conferences.  The NCAA should take over and make the finals tournament a 256-team free-for-all, organized around regional conferences that supersede the crass  financial calculations of the Athletic Directors around football revenue.  The conferences' cash cow is these conference tournaments that are fun for the little guys, but a nuisance for the top teams in the big conferences, ultimately weakening them in the contest that really matters ("March Madness", the current national 68-team elimination tournament).   I'd like to see the conference tourneys go, in exchange for more emphasis on conference play itself for seeding the big deal. 

That won't happen, so let's focus on the short-term question:  how do we keep them down on the farm (the NCAA) when they have seen the big city (NBA)?   You can't, really, but the best thing would be to allow a return to college play for some of those who 'go pro' and then find it a level too high.  That is, they might  only lose half their eligibility if they turn pro, or be offered an inducement to return to complete their degree, for example?  

Pyramids of Success 

(inversely to number of franchises)                                Examples

                      Multi-season dominance              old-time Celtics, Lakers, Michael, LeBron and Steph                                                

                                        Just reaching the top        Bucks, Hawks, Heat, Toronto (with Kawhi)

Reaching conference finals     Clippers, current Celtics, Nuggets, Jazz

Early playoff-round 'Opponents'   Knicks, Trail Blazers, Pelicans

Play-in Posse    Pistons, Hornets, Kings, Spurs

Tankers:      TimberWolves, Magic, Rockets

There is one more thought I have for the NBA.  It is looking at going from 30 teams (6 divisions by 5 teams each) to 32 (8X4, or better, 4X8 with each of the four divisions having a "subdivision").  This is sensible and copies NFL's pattern, which is rarely wrong from a marketing sense.   Even better marketing, and I'm certain it's an idea that was proposed and then classified as a "non-starter", would be to put the two new teams on the other side of the Atlantic:  one in Europe, and one in London.   

The NBA teams would fly to Europe once a year, play both teams, and head back over a week.   The European teams would play each other a bit more, maybe, but would make up for that with 2-3 very long road trips each season. 

To make it even more interesting, the "European" team should be the one that has earned it, either through NBA performance (Play-In level) or, if not, by taking the place of the previous year's team by winning the European professional league championship.   This would resonate with Europeans, and their level of pro basketball has risen dramatically in recent years, judging by the quality of players coming over. 

The London team would be of the conventional sort, the idea being to get hold of a bunch of City investment money. 

I admit some of this is copying the NFL's tracks, but this approach is more real to the sport than a couple tourist teams blowing into town to provide gladiatorial entertainment. 

Additional Notes:  I was born in Kentucky and spent some of my formative years growing up there, which is to say basketball is very close to my heart.  So, I begin this series with that sport; I plan to follow it with comments on baseball, both types of football, tennis, and the Olympics.  Always sticking in my two cents' worth of improbable suggestions, of course. 

Side-View Mirror

What Was Tolerable 

(... Specifically in 2020)

There's a fairly high bar for something to have been tolerable last year.  Whatever's present, will have been present day after day for indefinite duration, so it had better not have been very annoying.  

Cooking - (but not cleaning up afterward) - the best of the many options in these latter days of the Golden Age of Global Food (supply chains permitting).  

Stretch corduroys - I find them superior to stretch blue jeans, though that's also a notable innovation, for those long stretches sitting.  And who cares about the "whoosh-whoosh" walking around the house anymore?  Apparently no one. 

Robert Fripp/Toyay Willcox Sunday Lunch- performances on youtube and elsewhere, King Crimson guitarist Fripp covers rock classics in brief form while Willcox performs in her own chosen way.  Here they "do" Metallica.  That and memories of the Crimson tour in the last years of the decade just finished provide a Hurrah! that will resound from this era. 

Sirius XM.  My cars (Hyundai) had the bug on top for it, so they tracked it down and gave it to me, practically.  It works in the Gorge when KTAO cannot be found.   If you listen to one station exclusively, it is repetitive an a couple hours' hearing will bring duplication.  So, keep changing!  My most frequent listens 1st Wave, U2, Real Jazz, Alt Nation, Sirius XMU, and that English football one.  Now, Hyundai--that's a different story, for another day.  

Talenti Gelati e Sorbetti.  It's just Unilever, but they are packing some good gelato and sorbet flavors.  My current favorites are the Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Gelato and the Cold Brew Coffee Sorbetto.  My answer to the "unpacking" going on in talks all over. 

...And What is, Now 

The picture's practically self-explanatory, if it's all readable.  Our local cinema reopened yesterday after about 12 months, and we had to go see a movie in the theater.  Locally, we were being rewarded for low number of Trump Virus infections ('green' status), something likely not to persist:  we are being deluged with out-of-towners from various Neanderthal-leaning states (and California).   We were so charged to be there, with the popcorn and the candy, and 25% maximum-capacity seating, and good ventilation.  

As for the movie, it was a good choice for us.  See my review for more about it; we knew next to nothing going in, but were not up for a police procedural or some kind of tear-jerker.  We wanted action, and sensory stimulation.   

One other comment:  The trailer for upcoming movie "Dune" flattened me.  Streaming services have their place, for TV-type viewing, but this is one I commit to seeing on a big screen (not in my home). 

Remembering the Heroics of "Ballers" Who Mattered to Me -   (Factual Statements below are Unchecked)

Westley Unseld - Wes, the player who I wanted to be.  The master of the defensive rebound/outlet pass, and of scoring in the low post. A humble, hard-working, effective Hall of Famer. I saw him in the semifinals of the Louisville Invitational Tournament as a child (his Seneca team suffered a tough loss to Carr Creek in the final, or was it the other way around? )  He was the franchise player for the (US) Capital area NBA team for a decade or more and got at least a title there. 

John Thompson - never saw him play (a backup on some Celtics teams) but his effect on basketball, through his coaching and recruitment, made a permanent difference to the game.  His teams earned a great deal of respect and generate major NBA stars. 

Gale Sayers - He was a hero whose abilities were beyond imagining for me.  His specialty was the broken-field run, avoiding tacklers and cutting back and forth, but always forward.  His style reminds me of some of the modern 'footballers" like Messi, DeBruyne, or Pulisic.  Like them, defenders have to go for the knees; Sayers' career was all too short.  

Joe Morgan - The man who added the magic, simply by doing everything right, to make the Big Red Machine into the world champions of '75-76.  The best trade the Reds ever made in my lifetime was to get him.  (The worst, obviously, was trading Frank Robinson, which happened before i was even aware of it.)

Diego Maradona - Pele was a bit before my time, or at least before my attention was drawn to international football, but we got to see and experience from afar Maradona's roller coaster career and life, rising from the slums, dodging enemies external and internal, to achieve exceptional glory.  My last memory of him was a cameo in Paolo Sorrentino's "Giovinezza" (Youth), in which he plays a retired, rehabbing footballer who still boasts some incandescent skills, playing with a soccer ball. Not much of a stretch, as a role. 

Alex Trebek - We admired his skills as game-show host and erudite enunciator, but we did not realize what a beautiful role model his kind, generous behavior presented.  One of my regrets was that I never got on Jeopardy! when I was young and my factual recall was ferociously intact. 

And John Lewis/Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  Why not include them?  These two played their game(s) as it was meant to be played. They put the lie to cynics who deride their profession(s).  

5X5: #5- The New Life

This is the fifth and final of the series of thoughts from the coronavirus quarantine, looking within, outward, and ahead.  Instead of five in five days, or even five weeks, we've had plenty of time to make the fisstu' and let it simmer. 

Food

We've been fortunate with regard to access to quality local options to get food, and no excessive restrictions.  I want to give my greatest praise for the modern supermarket, especially the ultramodern one, which was ready for the logistical challenge. There were those who went crazy with the overstocking of certain items, but that was corrected before long.  The idea that toilet paper would be something to hoard--even with the supply chain inertia around the industrial/commercial rolls--is an example of a kind of craziness that has been the exception rather than the rule.  

I consider the past few years to have been the Golden Age of Global Food.  The downside is its cost; not all could access it.  One reads of the feasts of the kings of the Middle Ages, or in classic Roman times; this kind of plentiful variety is accessible to a much broader population today, but will it continue?  I have my doubts.  Though we can still insist on quality--or not, as many will opt--the quantity and variety of food ingredients and products may decrease. Instead, I expect less fresh produce brought in by airplane from exotic climes, and less fresh meat from distant factory farms.  

Meanwhile, I've been putting in a lot more time developing my cooking skills.  We now have the time, the material, and the information needed to try new dishes, though most of my designs for them start with the basic ingredients of olive oil, onion, and garlic, and going from there.  I have drifted a little into Thai, Korean, and Chinese methods, but I have to restrain myself with regard to the chiles and such. 

I have also started a diet for the self-quarantine period.   My 'Covid-19 Diet' has the objective of losing 19 pounds; I'm a little more than halfway there.  The concept is the mini-fast; by eating nothing for more than half the day (at least 12 hours, preferably 14-16), the body burns off pounds gradually.  I do it roughly the opposite of the Muslim Ramadan approach:  my last food should be around sunset, then I have nothing (except water, and coffee--black, no sugar--in the morning) until around 10-11 a.m.  I then eat freely during the remaining daylight hours.  I've always been a brunch fan--now I can have a brunch-like meal seven days a week, the daily schedule allows it (no alcohol, though). 

Buildings

Shelter--the right kind, in the right place--has never been more important in modern life.  Thus, those who do not have "all the comforts" are especially at a disadvantage for their mental well-being, though we see very little of that in the televised reporting from these elite individuals' personal home offices.  Peloton has never seemed more appealing, though they seem to have pulled back on their ads--cash flow crisis?--in favor of ubiquitous adds for insurance of all kinds and pharmaceuticals. 

Still, I feel quite certain that humanity will have little trouble adapting to Coronavirus Rules, even if they are with us for decades. I am reminded of a science fiction story I read once but can't place:  was it Asimov, or Arthur C. Clarke, maybe?  It posits a distant future where people rarely, if ever, meet up in person.  Instead, their holograms meet up in a safe place.  The quality of that very possible future lifestyle will depend on a lot more development of what we refer to today as virtual reality.  VR is more of a gimmick than something with convincing verisimilitude and the full range of sensory input today, but give it time:  Artificial intelligence used to be a sore disappointment, almost an oxymoron, but no one is laughing at the idea of AI today. 

The problem with people's lives being limited to being physically at home all the time is what is sometimes referred to as "nature deprivation".  Even during this crisis, it has been critically important, for mental and physical health, to get out and get some sunlight and some exercise in a natural setting.  In that regard, I am very sympathetic to those in the big cities with the stay-at-home orders and feel that the trade-off required has been (net) harmful to many, while being relatively safe here+, and still able to go out--working in the yard, taking hikes or bike rides--has been a comfort. 

The Eponymous Novel (Orhan Pamuk, 1997)

I'd had this paperback in the house for some years, didn't know where it came from, but when I ran across it in my little bookcase for potential reads or partially-read ones, I figured this is the time.  Orhan Pamuk is the Turkish novelist awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007; this novel was first published in 1994, one of his earlier efforts, and translated into English in 1997.

The opening grabbed me.  Its first sentence:  "I read a book one day and my whole life was changed."  Yes, I could identify. A young male student sees a book carried by a beautiful woman colleague, tracks it down, and reads it obsessively, day and night, and can think of nothing else. The book offers the promise of a new life, and in that life everything that was before, though it remains still, is somehow different when framed by this. 

We come to realize that the ideas of the book will be shown only through the course of our young man's impetuous adventures.  In 1990's Turkey, this takes the form of going, on buses operated by a variety of private bus lines, to the most obscure areas in the country's vast interior.  Searching for that woman, with or without that equally mysterious man seen with her, who may well be other atoms, following the same kind of random movement patterns.  We're not sure, though, as our guy saw her companion, Mehmet, shot and then disappear from sight. This wandering goes on, with great Pamukian embellishment, for fifty pages or so. 

Then Boom!  The inevitable head-on crash of buses,* and somehow our protagonist and the object of affection are literally thrown near to each other.  Operating Platonically (i.e., no sex, despite himself), they begin working together to try to decode and translate into practical action the precepts of the book, which leads them to a conspiracy-theorist, known as "Dr. Fine".   They infiltrate his family presenting themselves as a promising young couple ready to be mentored.   They eventually take off, separately, pursuing their destinies.  

It's a somewhat trying book to digest, because it teases much more than it delivers.  About halfway through, I resorted to reading some reviews to see what I was missing.  The answer was: not too much, at that point.  I learned that the name of this book he read and obsessed about will not be disclosed, nor much of its contents.  Some reviewers were respectful (no less than D.M. Thomas wrote the review for the New York Times), some reduced it to a shaggy-dog story.  To that, though, I would disagree; there is definitely a resolution, and a lot more opportunity to fill in the dots than that would suggest.    

(the following bit has spoilers)

 The key to the plot comes early, from the mysterious initial companion of our heroine, Mehmet (not his real name), when he says, "The way of the book leads only to death".   The conflicts in the course of the novel involve the fundamental Turkish challenge,  melding all of Western European/American civilization with the ancient traditions of Western Asia.   In the resolution of its mysteries, the course of the novel narrows its range from a yearning that is universal, for greatness and the sublime, to desires that are intensely personal and surprisingly mundane, even antisocial.   In this regard, the novel brings to mind the work of Umberto Eco, or very differently, Albert Camus.  Characters in the story make their choices, often inexplicably, unfeelingly, or on false impressions, but randomness rules.

It may be needless to say, but The New Life  hasn't changed my life much yet.  The novel was very popular in Turkey, with a lot of speculation about its hidden meanings:  Was it about the Koran, or some other religious text, or about the Gulenist cult (which was allied with Erdogan back then, seeking a modern religious revival in the country, and in conflict with the repressions of the secular authority)?  Well, not exactly--that unnamed book's proposed lifestyle was something more like the old American TV series "Then Came Bronson", if you remember it:  a drifter, his identity and purpose shown through heroic acts as he travels from town to town.  One amateur reviewer of Pamuk's novel titled his effort as "Blood on the Tracks", referring of course to the Dylan album, the tracks being here the dangerous byways of Turkey.  A very good summary phrase to which we Westerners can relate.


*One aspect mentioned several times was that it seemed to our main character that the mysterious book had been written as though it were specifically for him.  For me, that resonated with the bus-crash motif.  We had taken a long drive through the Turkish countryside in our honeymoon trip in 1993, and there were several near-miss head-ons or ravine plunges, due to narrow roads, blind curves, no shoulder on the roads, and trucks and buses driving pell-mell.  So, I could identify with that, too.

+23 cases so far in Taos County; no deaths.