Op-Ed
I have been in a funk since the day after last year’s presidential election. About a month before the voting, I began to feel as though Donald Trump would beat Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. I thought the only hope was that she could eke out a win through the Electoral College. Well, we all know that didn’t happen.
This week, the Senate will vote to confirm Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma Attorney General who has spent a sizeable chunk of his tenure as Attorney General organizing other states to sue the very agency he's slated to lead.
This is a problem for America, and Ohio.
The Environmental Protection Agency protects the water, air, rivers, lakes, streams, forests, prairies, mountains, and coastlines we all love. And equally as important, the EPA ensures that big polluters like the fossil fuel industry, big utilities, and their allies, do not abuse our lands and leave the little guy to pay the price either economically or with less secure public health.
Pruitt's place at the helm of the EPA threatens to take all the work we've done to develop this agency off course. He does not believe in science or climate change, and this fundamental lack of understanding is not a good foundation for continuing the work to preserve our clean water, clean air, and preserved lands in the United States.
In Liberal America, there's a growing feeling of hysteria
Conditioned to accept whatever's claimed
As long as it's Donald and the Russians blamed
Mr. Putin says he'll be friends with you
I don't subscribe to this point of view
It would be such an ignorant thing to do
If the Russians hate their children too
How can I risk my little boy with Oppenheimer's deadly toy
There is no monopoly in common sense
On either side of all the missile defense
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
Believe me when I say to you
The Russians hacked your cell phone too
There is no historical precedent
To put a stooge in the office of the President
There's no such thing as a winnable war
It's a lie we don't reject anymore
Obama says we will protect you
I don't subscribe to this point of view
Believe me when I say to you
I know the Russians hate their children too
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
What might kill us, me, and you
Part I. Personal
Wednesday evening I answered the phone, and a man pretending to work for the local sheriff's department asked me to identify myself, told me that the call would be recorded because it might be used against me in a court of law, and ordered me to get a pen and paper. He spoke fast and unclearly and with lots of strange background noises. He claimed that I had failed to appear for jury duty and I would be arrested if I didn't do what he said. (I'd received no notice of jury duty.)
Maybe this much is true. Donald Trump, pseudo-president-elect, loser of the real election, charismatic stump-speech populist whose actual ability to govern may well be non-existent, has inflicted significant damage on America’s political infrastructure.
This is scary, of course, but not necessarily a bad thing. I say this even, or especially, if he manages to assemble a far right, white-nationalist-friendly cabinet and inner circle and start attempting to implement some of the promises he made on the campaign trail. If the Trump pseudo-presidency is “normalized” and we-the-people and the media shrug our shoulders at the rebuilding of Jim Crow Nation — the Wall, the Muslim registry and God knows what happens next — then yes, this is a disaster and moving to Canada is a viable option. But if Trump, instead, is the reincarnation of Bull Connor, someone who makes a dark, hidden ugliness suddenly clear to the public at large, then his rise to power may be the harbinger of profound, positive change.
It was a moment as tiny as marking a ballot — those two minutes of the second debate, when the presidential election hung suspended mid-diatribe and the candidates let go of their opponent’s flaws long enough to honor a bit of common humanity.
No big deal. Yeah, I know.
But as the thing winds down to the day of reckoning, and a sense of lost values and lost democracy overwhelms me — the election season is pure spectacle, full of sound and fury (signifying nothing?) — I find myself going back to those two minutes over and over, trying to understand why they hit me with such force.
The Chicago Cubs have won the World Series. They beat the team of Chief Wahoo and it’s long past time for him to depart.
With a rare comeback victory from being down three games to one, the Cubbies have ended the longest World Series drought in baseball history, beating the Cleveland Indians, the team with the second-longest drought. Not since 1908 have the Windy City north siders done this.
Congratulations especially to team president Theo Epstein, who put together the team that in 2004 ended the curse of the Red Sox, who had not won a World Series title since 1918. Now he's done it again in Chicago. How my native Boston let the best baseball operations guy and the best manager (Terry Francona) leave town at the same time is beyond me.
But the real loser this year is Chief Wahoo, and it’s time to bury him forever.
The Cleveland Indians have been soiled for decades with the most cringeworthy logo in all of sports. It is an obscene cartoon that is beyond degrading. I will not describe it in detail. Cover up the feather and it could be an insult to every racial or ethnic group on the planet.