So after Super Tuesday, the General Election campaign has started. Mr. Trump, in his own inimitable style, kicked off the race by making fun of Joe Biden's stutter. But our expectations of Mr. Trump are so low at this point that nobody seems to notice anymore, certainly not his Kool-Aid drinking followers. Even moderate Republicans, (the few that are left), make excuses for him, saying that: "He didn't really mean it", or "He was just joking". It's funny how his "jokes" are not remotely amusing. They're cruel barbs designed to wound and hurt. It takes a real man to boast about sexually assaulting women, or to denigrate the sacrifices of those folks who served their country, be it in peace or war. He reserves a particular contempt for those who suffered wounds in the course of their service, calling these folks "suckers", and "losers''. And if you're a Gold Star parent, he minimizes the ultimate sacrifice made by your son or daughter, especially if you're a Democrat. And if you happen to be a Democratic Gold Star parent who happens to be of Indian descent, you're doubly damned. But I didn't go to my keyboard to rail against Mr. Trump. As the late Rep. Louise Day Hicks, (D-South Boston), once noted: "You know where I stand"
Let us instead talk about some of the emerging Republican "stars" who gained prominence on super Tuesday. Take Sen. Katie Britt, who gave the rebuttal to Mr.Biden's State of the Union Address this past Wednesday. She was a cheerleader in high school, (which should come as no big surprise, because she still cheers for the GOP, God's Own Party), and she was once Alabama's "Junior Miss':). Interestingly she was one of 19 valedictorians of her HS graduating class. Perhaps that signal honor was reserved for those lucky graduates who managed to learn to read during their 12 long years of schooling.
Anyway, she showed her complete lack of personal integrity when she dedicated part of her rebuttal to a teary story of a woman who was the victim of sex trafficking from the time she was 12 until she was 16. Sen. Britt blamed this horrific story on the immigration policies and actions of the Biden Administration. Except she happened to leave out a few inconvenient facts. One was that the abuse referred to in Sen. Britt's rebuttal took place in the early 2000s, when Joe Biden was a Senator, not during the Biden Administration as Britt infers. The alleged exploitation actually took place during the George W. Bush administration, if we're keeping score. All of the purported abuse took place in Mexico, organized by Mexican human traffickers who provided underaged girls for the pleasure of visiting tourists, some of whom may have been Alabama constituents of Britt's. In a recent note, I made a comment about not letting the facts get in the way of a good story, and that holds here as well.
Sen. Britt's delivery of her rebuttal was seriously weird. Sometimes her delivery was sort of breathy; the kind of thing that you might see in a Lifetime movie just before the heroine kisses her studly suitor and the director mercifully fades to a commercial.
Sometimes she reminded me of a girl who's slightly tipsy, over pronouncing her wods just a bit. and on one occasion she gave the sort of sniff that any frequent cocaine user would recognize.
But such rebuttals can be treacherous. When Florida Sen. Marco Rubio gave one, he stopped, mid-sentence, to take a glass of water from someone off-camera, and guzzle it as if he'd just returned from a trip to the Mojave Desert. (link: https://youtu.be/19ZxJVnM5Gs?si=IC9RP4DGjKCkC3i1)
Then-Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal opened his rebuttal by wishing those tuned in a "Happy Mardi Gras'. (link: https://youtu.be/QFK8aTpYAmg?si=dXUBakQ2hb4dvVSn) Jindal was a notorious policy wonk who had an extraordinarily high 'Geek Quotient', so nobody shouldn't have been surprised when he blew his chance at political fame and fortune.
Michell Bachman was clearly distracted by something occurring off camera during her rebuttal, and we never did find out whether it was some gyrating Chippendale dancer, or a newly discovered corpse. (link: https://youtu.be/1fRxO_Yx99I?si=bq4Lz8h8C1ZzJEji) Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy appeared to be on the verge of tears during his rebuttal. (link: https://youtu.be/5RKmiivRrBU?si=XtubwdhMCygbS0mw) To be fair, I should note that some managed to use their rebuttals to make political hay. Bill Clinton, Nikki Haley, Gretchen Whitmer, and Paul Ryan all acquitted themselves well. But the rebuttal is a poisoned chalice more often than not, and a savvy politician would do well to avoid this opportunity that has trapped many.
March, like February, promises to be an eventful month, for any number of reasons. There's the NCAA Men's and Women's intercollegiate basketball tournaments, which always seem to be full of dramatic storylines and athletic derring-do.
Politics always offer its own dramatic storylines, from the upcoming "SuperTuesday '' primary, (March 5),to the continuing demonstrations of why Congressional Republicans are unfit to govern. (Biden impeachment farce as exhibit #1: GOP refusal to address the so-called 'Crisis on the Southern Border as exhibit # 2 because the addled Mr. Trump would rather use it as a wedge issue in the November election than take steps to solve it, with the inability of the House majority to pass any sort of budget, leaving the brave people of Ukraine to: "Twist, twist slowly in the wind...", [to steal a now forgotten line from former Nixon White House Counselor John Erlichman], as Exhibit # 3). But the event that I'm looking forward to is the Next big TrumpTrial, which begins on 23 March in Manhattan. It's the first of Mr. Trump's trials that are criminal, rather than civil. It's the oldest of the Trump indictments and many say that it's the weakest. It's the so-called "hush money" trial which, on the surface is about a payoff to a strippper, but upon closer inspection, involves the sort of cheap and tawdry tax fraud for which Mr. Trump has become notorious. This is the case brought by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, and is scheduled to be heard by Justice Jose Merchan, who has the reputation of not tolerating nonsense in his courtroom. Mr. Trump is a difficult client who is often his own worst enemy, and his new team of lawyers will be hard pressed to keep him in check. Smart people know what they don't know, while stupid people imagine that they know everything that there is to know.
If you have not read Eric Swalwell's questions to Hunter Biden during his hearing, you have to.
SWALWELL: Any time your father was in government, prior to the Presidency or before, did he ever operate a hotel?
BIDEN: No, he has never operated a hotel.
SWALWELL: So he’s never operated a hotel where foreign nationals spent millions at that hotel while he was in office?
BIDEN: No, he has not.
SWALWELL: Did your father ever employ in the Oval Office any direct family member to also work in the Oval Office?
BIDEN: My father has never employed any direct family members, to my knowledge.
SWALWELL: While your father was President, did anyone in the family receive 41 trademarks from China?
BIDEN: No.
SWALWELL: As President and the leader of the party, has your father ever tried to install as the chairperson of the party a daughter-in-law or anyone else in the family?
BIDEN: No. And I don’t think that anyone in my family would be crazy enough to want to be the chairperson of the DNC.
SWALWELL: Has your father ever in his time as an adult been fined $355 million by any State that he worked in?
BIDEN: No, he has not, thank God.
SWALWELL: Anyone in your family ever strike a multibillion dollar deal with the Saudi Government while your father was in office?
BIDEN: No.
SWALWELL: That’s all I’ve got.
I'm saddened to report the death of Flaco The Owl, an escapee from the Central Park Zoo last year who became a favorite of New Yorkers of all stripes. Reports indicate that this marvelous bird met his end when he collided with a building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Reqiscat in Pachem, Flaco:)
Here's a video on Flaco
Birds have the capacity to inspire us because they often escape from captivity because they simply want to be free. One of the most famous birds ever to make his home in New York City was a red-tailed hawk named Pale Male, who lived to the ripe old age of 33, (1990-2023). He outlived at least 8 mates and any number of offspring over the course of his long life. Pale Male finally died from renal failure, essentially old age.
Here's a link to a story about Pale Male's passing:
Birds seem to enjoy being free to go about their business, whatever that business might be. Peregrine Falcons have established their nests on tall office buildings in every corner of the US where such buildings exist, and humans seem to enjoy watching them squabble over who is going to sit on the eggs produced by the lucky couple, (90% of all bird species mate for life but, as anyone who has ever been married knows all too well, spouses often disagree about any number of things). We know this because where large birds like falcons, hawks and eagles establish themselves in an urban setting, rather than some tall cliff in Alaska or in a similarly remote area, cameras that monitor the goings on in the nests of these avian superstars soon follow. We like to watch the gestation and birth of these birds and, once hatched, we follow their growth and development as avidly as if they were our own close relatives. Through the magic of remotely operated cameras, we can watch these creatures being fed pre-chewed and partially pre-digested food by their parents which, while disgusting on its surface, is little different from the way that human infants are fed, except that human parents use rubber nipples and tiny spoons to feed their young. Birds must deposit food in a form that is easily utilized by their fledgelings, so the deposit is made directly into the throats of their babies. who probably imagine that their food magically appears in their mouths. We watch them develop and grow. We exalt when they embark on their first flight, usually with mom or dad flying close support...just in case. Red Tailed hawks are fairly common hereabouts, and I used to see adults escorting kids as they wobbled across the afternoon sky.
When I was working in Boston, there was an incident where a male falcon, (a tiercel), was stepping out on his mate, (known as a falcon), for, presumably a younger and cuter falcon. All of these birds lived high. up on the facades of tall buildings in Boston's Financial District, so when the two females began fighting over this tiercel who was "...torn between two lovers...", it was quite a spectacle. The two females went at each other in the skies over Boston for much of the afternoon. While the details are dim, I think that the interloper was driven off to points west. The winner was the original mate. The thing that stuck with me was the fact that the tiercel spent the time while the two falcons were fighting, killing pigeons and feeding the combatants. Apparently, he didn't seem to care who won, because he fed both combatants equally.
Some birds adapt well to urban environments. Parrots and parakeets find each other and establish colonies that thrive nicely. There was a colony of parrots that established themselves in the vicinity of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, and a colony of parakeets set up housekeepim\ng in electrical transformers in the general vicinity of Kennedy Airport. The truth is that many birds are smarter than we once gave them credit for. Crows, in particular, can fashion rudimentary tools from bits of twigs, work in teams, and think strategically. The story I use to describe the intelligence of crows involves 2 crows, an otter, and a tasty fish.
The otter catches the fish and prepares to eat it. One of the crows lands in front of the otter and motions as if it's going to steal the otter's fish, whereupon the otter drops the fish and prepares to do battle with this greedy and opportunistic crow. Just as the battle is about to start, the second crow lands just behind the otter and gives the otter a vicious peck to its sleek bum. When the otter turns to face this new threat, the first crow grabs the fish and the two crows fly off into the great beyond, presumably to enjoy a well-earned fish dinner:) I know people who aren't able to game plan like that.
I read an interesting story in the NY Times today that Trump branded properties are trading at a discount to other similarly situated properties, both in the codo and the rental markets. The studies were conducted by academics whose methodology seems sound. One of the studies went out of its way to be sure of comparing: "...apples to apples...'''. The example used in the article compared a 3 bedroom condo in a doorman building that bore the Trump name with a similar building that didn't have the Trump brand, but was similarly sized and appointed. The Trump branded dwellings traded at a significant discount to the unbranded buildings. In one study, the discount was 23%, and in another study, using slightly different methodology, the discounted value was 17%. I think that this comparison surprised most folks. It certainly surprised me...
Trump unveiled a new line of gold "Never Surrender '' sneakers for $400 the pair at the Sneaker.com convention in Philadelphia the other day. According to the story in the 'Guardian", the room in which Mr. Trump's announcement took place stank of weed, and Mr. Trump was booed by many, who tended to skew younger than his usual audience. Also being touted on this new website are bottles of "Victory '47" cologne and perfume at $99 a bottle. God only knows what it smells like. I can only imagine that the perfume smells like a common nightwalker after a hard night's work, while the male cologne smells like an old man's testicles. If I'd read about this in 'The Onion', I'd think that it was a joke. But, alas...
Mr. Trump may have inadvertently triggered another legal problem for himself, because if you examine the gaudy and overpriced high-top sneakers closely, you'll notice that the sneaker has a red sole, in keeping his 'Red, White and Blue' theme, (Don't forget the gold, for all things Trump must contain some gold). Red soles on footwear produced by the designer Christian Louboutin are a trademark that has been robustly defended by lawyers in the employ of Mr. Louboutin. Since anyone who has ever seen me in the flesh knows that I am no slave to fashion, I had to check one of my trusted websites, FashionLaw, for guidance. What I found was that the iconic red sole on Louboutin footwear is protected under the legal concept known as "Trade Dress' ', a concept that is based in design, rather than function. Put simply, you can't trademark a shoe, but you can trademark, (as is the case here), some unique aspect of the shoe that is an unmistakable identifier, such as Louboutin's red soles. Trade dress can be anything, from the characteristic appearance of children's clothing to the design of a tonic bottle, (While you can't chaim trade dress protection for the contents of a bottle of Coca-Cola, but you can't claim trade dress protection for the universally identifiable borrl that it comes in). Even such mundane products as insulation can be protected by trademark trade dress laws. Owens-Corning. one of the largest players in that. industrial segment, sought and received trademark protection for the characteristic pink color of its insulation products some years back, (you may recall seeing ads that featured the cartoon character, 'The Pink Panther' as the Owens-Corning product. Sad to say, I live for this sort of thing:)
