Yesterday as my correction notes, as I occasionally do, I confused a name and wrote out one in place of the other. It’s something that happens. I’d prefer that it not but it does  especially when my editors are tired.

It reminds me of the time when I was cross-examining a witness in an arson case. He was presenting an alibi for the defendant suggesting that he remembered something because the day before he drove to Saratoga to watch the horse races. The Saratogo Race Track is in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Not being much of a horse racing fan I never heard of Saratoga. What I thought he said was he went to Sarasota. I knew Sarasota was in Florida. So I jumped into my examination asking “are you telling the jury you drove to Sarasota just to go to the track?” He’d say “Saratoga.” I heard Sarasota. I repeated the question adding emphasis to it while looking at the jury to show my utter disbelief in his statement. He’d say “Saratoga.” I’d hear Sarasota. This went back and forth for a bit. I’m not sure what the jury thought of my performance but I’m sure it wasn’t impressed.

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”  Thomas Paine 1776

We have a president who should be impeached. He is being backed by people in the Republican leadership who originally were going to stand up to him. They made a deal with him to give him a pass on whatever he did as long as he supports the Republican long-term agenda to lower taxes and make it easier for financial companies to loot the United States and defund programs for the needy. They turn their eyes from his lies and misdeeds.

I’ve pointed out before how he lies. He even lies about simple things like civil war battles. I’ve pointed out how he tweets in a vicious manner about people. I’ve pointed out how he is a coward to one’s face but stabs one in the back when out of the person’s presence. He has the worst traits of any person I know or have read about.

I’ve been trying to find the perfect adjective for our president. It came to me after reading a story about him and one of his golf courses. He epitomizes the word buffoon.  One definition of it is a person who does silly things sometimes intentionally that makes people laugh. Another is a ridiculous but amusing person.  Another is a gross and usually-ill educated or stupid person.

There’s no doubt of his lack of education. His Frederick Douglass and Andrew Jackson statements among others demonstrate that. He is amusing (if you forget the position of responsibility he holds) with his taking on both sides of every issue praising something he denounced a couple of hours earlier. His tweets are silly sometimes intentionally so but on other occasions even without him realizing it like his early morning tweet of just learning Obama wiretapped him at Trump tower. Add it up he is ridiculous.

Here is the story the casts this in concrete the he is really a buffoon. It is about a golf course he owns in Virginia. The story written back in 2015 tells how Trump fixed up the course he bought including, “building a flagpole along the river complete with a plaque commemorating the “River of Blood,” a dramatic name for a harrowing event that never happened.” 

If ever there is a name that should scare you it is Jamie Gorelick. If you have never heard of her then you have not been paying attention to American politics over the last quarter of a century. Right now she is a lawyer with a big law firm in Washington, D.C. Not only that she has become a large influence in the Trump administration. For all you conservatives who want to believe Trump has your values close at heart you might want to pay attention to Jamie Gorelick. Her values are not your values.

She is the lawyer for the people who have the most influence on Donald Trump, the man without friends, his daughter Ivanka and Jared Kushner. It is amazing how these New Yorkers seem to find each other. You can expect her influence on Trump’s daughter and son-in-law will eventually spill over into open spaces in Trump’s mind.

She worked for the Clintons. She was general counsel for the Defense Department and then became U.S. Deputy Attorney General. She was one of the reasons I never trusted the Clintons.

Dare I say it. Times they are changing. How do I know it? Well at one time the Old Howard was prohibited from showing nudity during its routines. You know about banned in Boston. It was only a Boston thing though and in 1953 the Old Howard was closed when Rose la Rose, shown seated, was accused of having been nude just at the end of her strip tease act .

It appears in other parts of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts nudity was accepted. In Provincetown over a century ago if this article is correct Louise Bryant, a woman who led an interesting life, appeared nude in a play put on by the Provincetown Players.

I assume Boston has now caught up with P Town. I really don’t know because I have not been to a play recently. And, before going I’d read about it. If it had nudity I would skip it. It’s not my cup of tea. But that is just me and if others liked it so be it.

Abe suggested it would have been nice if Trump engaged in a malapropism and called Kim Jong-un a “smart fortune cookie.” Maybe, but Abe’s suggestion made me think he would have been better off calling him a “smart fortunate cookie.” Had Trump thought of it he would have recognized that was the most appropriate definition for him.

As you know Trump said this  about the Kim Jong-un (KJ-un): “At a very young age, he was able to assume power. A lot of people, I’m sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he’s a pretty smart cookie.”  Or you could based on the same evidence call him a murderous S-O-B.

You do know shortly after he assumed total power in North Korea, KJ-un, whether considered a fortune or smart cookie, executed his uncle and all the members of the uncle’s family. This is similar to what Lenin the Bosheviks’ leader did  to Czar Nicholas II and his family. I wonder if Trump would call Lenin a pretty smart cookie if he knew anything about him.

We have no input into what we are. We have much input into what we become. How is it so, so, many people are proud of what they had nothing to do with? How is it they lack any pride at all in what they did have something to do with?

I am writing about two incidents at Fenway Park which have been called racist. I’m not quite sure what happened but they involved as far as I can tell using the N… word against a black outfielder and the next day against a black woman who sang the National Anthem. Now whoever these people are who are using the N. . .  word I assume they are not black. Whatever their racial make up is it is a condition which they had no control over just like the black persons who they feel for whatever reason they have to denigrate had no control over what their racial make up is.

But I can tell you one thing, the black outfielder worked hard to achieve his success and the black singer likewise did the same to enable them to appear on the field in starring roles at Fenway Park. I will bet dollars to M & Ms that is more than you will be able to say about the people with the vile tongues.

Many are fierce advocates for the Pro-Life position. Some suggest abortion under any circumstance must be condemned. Others are Pro-Life but admit exceptions being willing to accept that a woman raped need not give birth to the rapist’s child and she may have an abortion even though it is taking the life of the innocent unborn;  others would suggest that if the woman’s life will be lost by giving birth then too the life of the unborn may be taken. Then there’s the question of time. Does life begin at conception, or when brain activity is detected, or when the fetus is capable of living outside the mother.

I remember being taught that when there is a question of whether the woman’s life may be lost in giving birth and it came to a choice between the woman and her child such a choice could not be made. The doctor must remain neutral doing her best to save both. I was never comfortable with that teaching especially if the mother already had other children at home. I wondered wouldn’t it be better to save the mother so she could raise her other kids rather than having them grow up without her warmth and care. I suppose it was I thought of it while a young man and I could conceive of nothing more horrible or tragic than to lose my mother( or father). Marriage and children confirmed in me the most important and critical role a mother plays in the upbringing of a child.