I don’t recall who it was but there was a kid in our neighborhood who lied all the time. Real blatant tales that everyone knew were lies. No one believed him but it did not stop him from telling them. There was an element of bragging in the lies and an element of wanting to be something he was not so he could fit in. The big thing though they were harmless.

Later on there was this fellow student in law school who did the same thing which surprised me. I wondered at how he ever got into law school his stories were so obviously made up. I liked him and humored him by listening but did not for one second believe him. His stories also were harmless. He busted out after the first year.  I just Googled him to see if I could locate him to no avail.

I recalled both of these guys as I again heard or read what Trump recently said. Is it the Washington Post that has calculated the lies he has told and the number is over twenty thousand? I figured the kid in our neighborhood and the fellow law student were destined to have sad lives because a man’s word is his bond, at least that’s how I looked at it, but perhaps I am wrong. It seems the guy who lies all the time can do fairly well as Trump has shown.

Ickes the Progressive Republican was always backing a candidate who he hoped would not be in the pockets of big business doing its bidding rather than the peoples and the candidates he backed always seemed to lose, although he seemed to believe that they would have done much worse had he not helped organize their campaigns. He cared about winning but thoroughly enjoyed the battle even when losing.

Over time he came to recognize a few truths about the people. He found: “once again that the public was less responsible to demands for political purity than to the need for party regularity. What seemed to surprise Ickes was not that [his candidate] lost. But that his vote was so small, that such blatant corruption failed to shake party loyalty.”  

After seeing municipal reforms he and his friends sought to bring about were mostly rejected he cynically noted: the people, “did not resent a suppression of their civil liberties; they do not object to misgovernment; they can condone even vice and crime. Give them their movies and jazz, radio, baseball and golf links and what the Hell!”  

Did you ever hear of the Dodo bird? I know you are asking what has that to do with headlines to this post? Be patient, I’ll get to it. If you have that’s great. If not, here’s what it is: an “extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the island of Mauritius, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.”

I’m wondering if you ever heard of Harold Ickes? If you have that’s great. If not, here’s who is: “an extinct species of politician that was known as a Progressive Republican endemic to the United States during the 20^th century.   

Ickes was born outside of Altoona, Pennsylvania in a family of “solid pre-revolutionary war stock.” His mother Ann McCune Ickes, a staunch Republican of Scotch Presbyterian ancestry, was said to believe in the virtue of hard work and the valued of industry, honesty and respect. She died when Ickes was 16-year-old. His mother’s eldest sister Ada Wheeler brought him and his sister Mary to Chicago to live with her. She encouraged his love of books and desire for education.

Chauncey Wealthyman graduated from Pritchett a small college in Missouri at the top of his class in the first decade of the 20th century. He went to graduate school at M.I.T. and upon graduation developed a system that rewarded him remarkably well so that he felt an obligation to donate money back to his college.

He wrote to President Uriel Sebree Hall of Pritchett College the following: “A science building being necessary to properly educate students in science, I am donating ten million dollars to the school for that purpose.” President Hall wrote back to him: “Thank you for your most generous donation. We will now be able to use your contribution to improve our standing in the field of athletic by constructing a new athletic building and facilities for our athletes.”

Chauncey wrote back to the president complaining that he set out the purpose of his gift and expected the college to abide by his wishes. In response President Hall explained in writing back to Chauncey: “The letters  prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit the second part, the operative clause.”  In other words the college felt free to use the money in any way it saw fit.

When I was in college and still unaware – actually astonishing unaware – about the doings of America and the rest of the world having spent all my life among folk from similar ethnic backgrounds almost all believing the same religion I found myself during the summer after my freshman year (or may have been my junior although I lean heavily toward the former) in  the PLC program at a firing range in Quantico, Virginia. While there during a short break I and others were  approach and given an application to join an organization which if we did we would get some kind of trinket the person was offering in exchange for our signatures. Whatever was offered slipped my mind years ago but back then I thought that the minute or so it would take to complete the application would be well worth it in order to get it into my hands. That I did. I do not recall hearing from my organization again. I would of course hear much about its sinister work against the American people over the years. I sometimes wondered if I was still listed in its membership roles.

I never heard of him but I suppose some of you have. He’s Father George William Rutler the 75-year-old pastor of St,. Michael the Archangel  Catholic Church in Midtown Manhattan.  He is known for his outspoken criticism of Pope Francis and liberalism. He compared on his television show on Eternal Word Television Network Pope Francis to Neville Chamberlain .He said liberals don’t believe in love because they have no souls. He said abortionists and sodomites are united  in a commitment to death and to self destruction. He complained that those with recovered memory of abuse by priests were exploiting the Church scandal to make money.

He has had been pastor of St. Michael’s  since 2013 and over his days as priest has written  dozens of books and was host to his own program on EWTN. He is a well regarded member of the Adamantine group in the Catholic Church who look upon Pope Francis with great skepticism.

Sadly, although he appeared to be a priest one could admire and respect  a twenty-two year old woman named Ashley Gonzalez after encountering him had this to say: “It affected me in a way where I never want to go to church again.”

It certainly appeared like racism in professional sports especially in the ranks of coaches and managers and even to those who call the penalties or balls and strikes. For years the sign “no blacks need apply” was displayed prominently over the door of the teams. It reinforced the idea that “yes blacks can play the sport” although that too was questioned at time but “they don’t have the skill” to manage or coach teams, or even call umpire or referee the sports. As for the position of quarterback, it took the Patriots 56 years before a Black quarterback, Jacoby Brissett, took the first snap under center in 2016. At that point the Giants never had a black starting quarterback.

It was not until 1947 that Jackie Robinson became the first Black player in the modern era in Major League Baseball (MLB). It was not until 1975 that the first Black manager Frank Robinson became Cleveland’s manager.  Today there are two Black managers: Astros manager Dusty Baker and the Dodgers’ Dave Roberts. Baker. The percentage of Black players has dropped during this century from 13% down to its present 7.7% although players of color make up 42.5%. There are 10 Hispanic managers in MLB.

We saw that a prominent Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was murdered on November 27 in a suburb of Tehran while riding in a car. The strange story of his his actual assassination put out by the Iranian officials reads like something out of science fiction: the killers were in Israel operating both a machine gun and bomb by remote control via a satellite. Those initially accused of carrying out this action in the early quest by Iran looking to determine the culprits are the United States and Israel, most likely the latter.

This hearkens back to the time between 2010 and 2012 when four Iranian nuclear scientists Masoud Alimohammadi, Majid Shahriari,  Darioush Rezaeinejad and Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan were assassinated in Iran by the same suspects. Another Fereydoon Abbasi  was wounded. In these killings also the finger of blame was pointed at the two nations.

The assassinations or murders all involve scientists who were involved in some manner in the Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons.  The hiatus in the dates of these murders probably stems to the Obama administration’s coldness toward Israel as it attempted to bring about a cessation of the Iranian nuclear program peacefully by entering into a deal with it and other countries.