The Newell Post

Well, here we are again on the precipice of a new year. I don’t recall if I wrote down my resolutions for 2018 which is probably a good indication that none was kept.

Nevertheless, I am going to attempt to jot down a few lines on expectations of behavior I am hoping to live up to. I guess ending a sentence with a preposition didn’t make the cut?

I spent entirely too much time watching bad TV, specifically cable news channels. It did not bring me happiness and only served to enlarge my carbon footprint.

I did return to reading books as opposed to Kindle versions and I will continue to do so. Libraries are wonderful institutions that may one day suffer the same fate of bookstores.

Fortunately, Sarasota has a fine library and two bookstores to peruse. I miss going to bookstores, and record shops for that matter because I often found something that I hadn’t been looking for. Today, that experience has been relegated to the various supermarkets I frequent.

60 Minutes had an interesting segment last night. I may have previously seen it or something similar. The topic was whiskey, specifically single malt whiskey of Scotland. It made me want to drink more whiskey. I am not sure this is the type of resolution that one ought to make as a challenge for the upcoming year but I may at least have a drink or two in 2019.

I was going to get political and start off with my pledge not to lie 15 times a day or that my Ancestry DNA came back indicating I was Native American, but then I reconsidered and decided not to. (There goes that damn preposition ending another sentence!)

Oh well, maybe the best thing I can do is not to be so hard on myself and not to take myself so seriously? Maybe instead of watching cable news a little more Laurel and Hardy is called for. ( I just can’t seem to control myself!)

Let me summarize my goals and objectives.

I am going to be a better Jimmy.

I can’t change anyone but myself, and only I can change myself.

I am going to end the year as I often have. Eileen and I will stay up and watch the ball drop on Times Square before we drop off to bed.

It’s a tradition as well as an expression of faith in the new year that we are happy and content

with.

Happy New Year everyone!

One of my favorite holiday movies is White Christmas. I remember watching it with my mother when I was a little boy. I always remind my daughter, Jeannine of that, each holiday season we watch it together.

I love everything about it except, you know, Emma was a real pain in the ass and caused more grief for Bob and Betty, but I digress.

The storyline was cute for its day. A song and dance team played by Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, want to save their poor retired general who has been sentenced to a life of poverty running a huge Vermont ski inn.

With songs by Irving Berlin and with singers like Bing, Danny, and Rosemary Clooney, it had to be a box office smash and it was. It still is, at least on TV and Netflix.

But back to the storyline.

General Waverly fought the good fight and helped defeat the Nazis. Ten years after returning home the good general is an innkeeper and struggling to make ends meet. One of Berlin’s songs asks, “What can you do with a general who’s retired?”

Well, I think Mike Flynn knows the answer to that and was compelled to sing it in court yesterday.

President Eisenhauer warned us back when he was about to turn the keys of the White House over to John Kennedy that the military industrial complex was something to be feared.

Who makes up this military industrial complex, well, for starters, the military, members current and retired.

You don’t see retired generals wearing threadbare sweaters trying to make a go of running hot-sheet motels. You don’t hear of retired generals having a problem getting their VA benefits or forced to live in homeless shelters.

Retired generals do ok.

Which brings us to Mike Flynn.

Having lived in a country that has been obsessed with the USSR as a threat to democracy and to life on the planet which obsession and fear did not subside when the USSR went the way of the Tsar, I am curious how a general of the U.S. Army, could try to comfort the Russians.

And, how could he represent another country, that has lately proven to be a questionable ally, if not a country no longer to be trusted, and do so without following the requisite registration as an agent of a foreign country?

When I see pictures of Flynn in his uniform and all the jewelry it makes me sick. I don’t want to hear that he was a hero.

If we accept that statement then Benedict Arnold and Robert E. Lee are heroes.

The one act of integrity that he made was not hiding behind the lame defense that Trump and his morons put forth, the “I didn’t know you shouldn’t lie to the FBI,” defense. At least he did that much.

I know it is Christmas and we should put the spirit of Christmas into all our thoughts and actions but I do think he should do some time in prison, even if it is for one night.

The glee that he exhibited when urging the “Lock her up” chants demands that he feels what it is like to be locked up.

Christmastime is here, that song is actually playing on the radio as I type. How fitting to start off with reminding you that it is, indeed, Christmastime.

When I used to teach religion in Catholic schools I used to speak of Christmas as a time for transformation. After all, Christ was born and transformed the world. Now I know a lot of bad things have been done in His name by religious leaders who should have been spreading His word but instead did horrible things while wearing the collar.

I am trying to ignore that for the time being and to get back to transformation.

Back in my teaching days, I would speak of the various characters in the arts that exemplified  the transformative nature of the season,

There was Scrooge of course.

But there was also Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree and even Frosty The Snowman.

If you are to believe the animated Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, even Santa and Donner were transformed, though you would have thought that Santa needed no change of heart.

In all of the above illustrations, Christmas brought a change of heart and mind to the characters. In some cases, life-changing transformations were realized.

This year I am going to try on my transformation. Perhaps I can learn a thing or two from Scrooge and Santa?

One thing that retired life provides is ample time to be crabby. You can start your day off watching whichever side of the aisle to which you subscribe. If you are like me, MSNBC will be the eyeopener for the morning along with a hot cup of coffee. I recently restricted my viewing to no more than a half hour. I then listen to the mass from Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and try to transform my Church by not abandoning it in its time of disgrace. It’s sort of like being a fan of the New York Jets.

If you are one of them, you probably watch Fox and you really do need to transform.

Well, there I go. I have to stop doing that and perhaps that is the first journey on my road to transformation? I have to leave all the hate behind me.

It’s not easy to do but it is certainly necessary and, without abandoning hate, you miss the whole point of Christmas and transformation is impossible.

So, I am going to leave Trump alone and I hope those of you who support him can ignore the Democrat you most love to hate. It’s a start and only step one of the thousand-mile journey.

The goal is not just to abandon hate for Christmastime but to make its abandonment a way of life.

I am tired of being angry.

Try watching (or even reading) The Polar Express this Christmas as it might be worth all our whiles to believe in Santa and to play with your trains as you prepare for the arrival of God’s Only Son.

Merry Christmas.

It’s an essay, not a letter but I thought ‘letter’ read better as you open a letter but you don’t really open an essay.

Sorry, Pontiff, I will now get to the point.

I went to all Catholic schools, grammar, high school, undergraduate, graduate, and law school. I did take a couple of classes at Teacher’s College of Columbia University but you get what I am trying to say.

I get the Catholic thing.

I taught in Catholic schools. I believed in the Church then, and despite all the terrible, despicable you and your fellow priests have perpetrated on us, I still believe in what Jesus did and said.

We were always told that all priests were the image of Jesus. The Pope was Jesus on Earth. I don’t think the euphemism “image” was ever used for you or your predecessors.

You are supposed to be Christ on Earth.

Start acting like it.

Ask yourself, if Jesus through the gamblers and hawkers out of his Father’s temple, what would he be doing to your priests today? Do you remember reading somewhere about ‘suffer the little children…? I don’t think he meant that the children should suffer.

Kick all the bishops and cardinals off their pedestals and get a few nuns in there to help you. Trump gets rid of people all the time and they haven’t done half the shit your boys have done.

You know this is what Jesus would do. He would forgive them but he would not tolerate them and he might encourage us to visit them in prison and to make sure they were clothed and nourished. But then again, maybe He sends them straight to hell?

We had this blue wave in America, I am not sure if you are familiar with that term. To make it applicable to you, think of it as a black shirt and white collar wave. In this case, you priests would be the ones waving goodbye.

One last thing, the sanctity of the confessional should not apply to rapists and pedophiles.

Please save our church. That is why God put you in that position. Get rid of any priest who abused a child or knew someone who had and did nothing about it.

God pray for you.

I had my IVIG treatment today. One of the pre-meds administered is a steroid. It often keeps me up on the night of my treatment. So instead of going to bed at 10PM and after taking two Advil PMs, here I am writing an entry five minutes before the day after today.

I didn’t have any show that I was interested in on regular TV so I turned to Youtube as I usually do at least once or twice a day.

Tonight’s focus was on music. I started off with listening to one of my all-time Doo Wop songs, Darling Can’t You Tell, by the Clusters. I used to listen to this song when I was a kid back on Leland Avenue. It was my Mike’s record but he always let me listen to anything I wanted. The song always makes me think of him.

I then saw a recommended video with Joannie Mitchel, Both Sides Now. That, in turn, reminded me of Judy Collins and I YouTubed her as well. Both Sides as sung by Judy Collins was one of my favorites in December of 1968. The Beatles had the White Album but I asked my brother to get me a Judy Collins album preferably with Both Sides Now on it.

When listening to Both Sides Now this evening it brought back many powerful memories, none of them good.

1968 was not a particularly good year for me and I am guessing I was not alone.

I had graduated from high school having slept through that experience and in September of that year, I began to sleep at St. John’s University. I wasn’t tired but I slept nonetheless.

To say that 1968 wasn’t a particularly good year for me ignores the New York Jets winning the AFL championship game which I attended with my dear friend Mike. It was the only thing that kept me awake. Fortunately, the Jets went on to win the Super Bowl in the second week of 1969 so at least I had that.

But 1969 was as miserable a time for me as 1968 had been. The new decade just around the corner would prove to be my turning point, I woke up. I was glad to do so.

A couple of my family members who read Married With Cancer told me they never knew all that Eileen and I endured. I am guessing no one knew what I was going through during those terrible years starting in high school and ending in the spring of 1970.

I laugh a lot. I try to make others laugh a lot. So, on appearances, I guess people thought I was doing ok. Another dear friend, PJ, didn’t let my jokes get in the way of him telling me about this diet. He knew that I was a skinny guy trying to bust out but just didn’t know how. It would be more accurate to say I was afraid of doing what needed to be done.

It’s the same reason I was such a terrible student until my junior year at St.Johns. When I lost the weight, having followed PJ’s guidance, I began to read. What an enlightenment for a college student. I began to go to class, I was ready for Mensa after figuring out the connection between going to class and getting good grades.

I know I was not unique and I hope I was able to help someone else out along the way. It’s just so hard to recognize when someone is struggling, especially if that someone is a good actor.

This teenage depression affected my writing of A Bronx Boy’s Tale. I got through the eighth-grade portion of the book in a matter of days. However, the point in the book that I started high school provided such a writer’s block that no explosive could destroy. I couldn’t write the truth. I really didn’t even want to review my truth. I couldn’t wait until I got to the day I met Eileen. But first, I had to create an alternate reality for the six years of high school and college.

It’s funny how music brings such lucid memories to me. I used to listen to music when I wrote A Bronx Boy’s Tale. Just hearing the music of that time, especially the Beatles, brought me right back to Leland and Thieriot Avenues and Blessed Sacrament. I could taste the french fries at Orchard Beach.

Tonight those same memories created such powerful images for me. Images I didn’t want to see.

The good news is that unlike the positive memories of my life, these dark illusions do not stay with me that long.

Thank God, because the Jets haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1969 and there doesn’t seem to be one looming in their immediate future.

Be well and happy.

Jimmy

There is a new enemy of the people.

Well, Trump will be telling us that shortly.

The newly elected Democratic House of Representatives will certainly keep Trump tweeting.

I do hope Nancy Pelosi is elected Speaker as she seems to tick off Republicans even more than Hillary. I am surprised you haven’t heard the “Lock ‘er up” rant when her name is mentioned.

Of course, everyone is speculating that the Dems will be up Trump’s ass like a porn star’s lawyer but I am not so sure they will have the time.

I am basing my conjecture on lessons learned watching West Wing.

To the uninitiated let me explain.

President Bartlet was elected and failed to let voters know that he had MS.

He never lied but he did fail to tell the truth which turned out to be as bad as lying.

Because of this evasion of truth, the Republican House censured him.

I don’t think there were any other lies that President Bartlet told and they censured him.

My question, will the Dems censure Trump for lying and, if so, how many times?

I mean, Trump lies a dozen times a day. If he gets censured for every lie he has ever told as President and for those he will surely continue to say, he will have no time for sending troops to ward off imagined invaders. He won’t be able to hug Putin or piss off NATO.

The only one who makes out is Melania as he won’t have time to hold her hand as they disembark Air Force One. That’s something we can all appreciate.

I think we are in for two more years of nothing getting done that would make America great. No infrastructure programs. No education bills. No real tax reform.

Buy stock in cable news and you can retire at a young age. Their ratings will be off the chart as the House issues subpoena after subpoena.

Then, of course, there is Mueller.

Now that the election is over he will continue and hopefully come to a speedy resolution. Whatever the result is we need to move on.

I don’t think we will move on, however.

We are much too divided to agree on anything. Republicans are scared to stand their ground and vote with a conscience. They will kowtow to Trump and his base base.

Republicans fear these people more than they fear the Democrats. We should too.

The base will bring us all down. It will be the death of this nation if we follow their lead.

Impeachment is not an option as the Senate decides the matter and, even if Trump is impeached, we are stuck with Pence and I don’t think we want that.

What is it that the Russians say, “May you live in interesting times”?

Oh no, the Chinese say that.

Long before I signed on to Facebook, I had a page on Ning. I heard about Ning at a conference and I loved it. I still have my page, Yankeetrains.ning.com.

Yankee Baseball and Lionel Trains was a fun way to share two of my passions, the Yankees and Lionel trains. I had pictures of both and would occasionally share posts from my blog. It truly was a social medium.

To be fair, Facebook was also a social medium. I was able to connect to family across the nation. I connected with friends I hadn’t seen in years. It was terrific, and I was regularly checking for updates from all my friends on Facebook.

Now, I rarely log on.

I don’t share my blog on Facebook too often. This entry won’t appear on Facebook, but it will be on my Linkedin page and Twitter.

I got to despise Facebook during the 2016 election as more and more anti-posts appeared on my page. I have a diverse family as well as many friends who were offended by what appeared on my page. None of it was from me but who needs it?

Then I began to hear about the russians (lower case on purpose) and their despicable interference, and I am sure they were responsible for some of the posts that sullied my page.

It makes me think about a history class I had in my last year at St. John’s. We read Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan. “The Medium Is The Message” or as someone else put it, “The Medium Is The Massage”.

One of the propositions put forth had to do with the electronic revolution and the shrinking of the world. Because of computers and the ease of communication that was possible even before the internet had been created, people of different cultures were going to connect much more easily than ever before.

When we discussed this my professor asked what happens when we find out we don’t like each other?

Well, I guess he was right. For all the joy that connecting with family and friends the Facebook experience has connected us to some people we would rather have left off our list.

I am capable of believing that some of my blogs were offensive to some and I really hope they deleted me from their friend list. It’s the American thing to do.

You don’t like MSNBC?

Changed the channel.

You don’t like Fox and Friends?

Change the channel.

It’s what they call free speech and the right of privacy.

We have the right to select what we listen to and the right to be left alone.

Exercising those rights in a respectful way will help eliminate the Anti from Social Media.

2016 posed a significant challenge to voters. I am not quite sure why. I know many did not like Hillary and, had the Republican challenger been a traditional Republican politician, say Jeb Bush or John McCain, I can see how those who did not like Hillary would have opted for the Republican candidate.

Once, however, Trump won the nomination I couldn’t imagine him winning. Coming from New York where Trump’s face was ubiquitous, I couldn’t even bring myself to watch The Apprentice much less vote for him for President.

Trump was always obnoxious and the worst stereotype of an arrogant New Yorker. I still can’t imagine how anyone living west of the Hudson and south of Staten Island could vote for such a blowhard.

Well, they did, and I hope they are happy now.

I am guessing enough of Trump’s 2016 supporters are sufficiently sick of his vile rhetoric to jump the Republican ship and restore dignity and order to Congress. We still have Trump to deal with, but he will be a frightened mouse of a President in the face of a hostile House.

But first, the Democrats have to win.

To make it easier for you I have devised a methodology to enable you to make the correct decision.

You’ve seen the horrific things perpetrated and condoned by the supporters of an unbridled second amendment. All you have to do to make it right is to vote for the candidate that the NRA does not support.

To further assist you in this just think of the babies in Newtown and the students in Parkland. You’ll do the right thing.

Remember the torch-wielding marchers in Charlottesville? Don’t vote for anyone who supports hatred.

Think of your mother and if you are blessed with a daughter and vote for the candidate that would make them proud of you.

Get your head out of the stock market, although it did take an inopportune tumble of late. You were not put on this earth to monitor your 401K. Trust me. I don’t want to lose money, and I like the fact that Obama restored our economy when he took office and I even appreciate the fact that Trump hasn’t destroyed it…yet. Nevertheless, the recovery has not been equally distributed.

Vote for the candidate more likely to help those who don’t have a stock portfolio or a 401K.

So, there you go. I used this methodology when I voted early in Florida. I hope to God it works.

As the 1960’s bled into the ’70’s music was the poetry that inspired listeners to feel, to hope, and very often to mourn.

Seemingly hours after four college students were gunned down by the National Guard on the Kent State University campus, Neil Young at the behest of David Crosby had written Ohio.

The song quickly became the anthem for young people seeking to bring an end to the Viet Nam war.

Four students dying during a protest on an American university campus within recent memory of the 1968 assassinations, reinforced the concept of America as a divided country.

There were other things that served to divide us but the war took center stage, and it appears that our nation has yet to restore the breach that was forged during those dark days.

I don’t remember hearing anything about the NRA back then. After all, lone assassins were responsible for three deaths. At Kent State, it was the National Guard who did the shooting. Today’s tragedies are quite a different story.

Despite the perceived mayhem of the sixties I never once worried about going to school.

I never worried about going to church.

I went to Times Square on New Year’s Eve and my only concern was that there might be a transit strike before I got home.

Today’s kids are not quite so lucky.

The reason kids today have much more to fear than I ever has nothing to do with Obama, Hillary, or Nancy Pelosi.

You can build the highest wall you want but it wouldn’t have protected the children in Parkland.

The wall would not have protected the worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue.

We can hide from the rest of the world but we cannot hide from the Second Amendment.

Shortly after Parkland, I was in an office volunteering and I was working with a woman of my generation (it’s a nice way of saying she was an old woman). I made a remark about the tragedy and she agreed that something had to be done…BUT I don’t want to take away the Second Amendment!

WHY THE FUCK NOT!

We’re not talking about the Eucharist or the Virgin Birth. We’re talking about the right to have a musket in your house on the prairie. Read the Federalist Papers. There is not one mention of an automatic rifle. I swear to God there is no mention of an AR-15 or an AK-47.

LOCK THEM UP!!!!

Too many innocent people are being killed. Too many live in fear. It’s time to have a rational gun policy and it’s time to LOCK THEM UP.

I know the NRA is scared of Nancy Pelosi. The Florida Republicans sure are as she is featured in every political ad buy for a Republican politician running scared. Just wait until next week when more women win their race and enter Congress in the new year.

We were a divided country in the sixties and seventies.

We may think we are a divided country once again. I don’t think we are. The news networks are divided. The White House wants us to be divided but Americans can see through all of that.

I can’t imagine any parent worried more about the second amendment than their child going to school.

Is anyone worried about a caravan?

The biggest threat to our democracy is the hacking of our computer systems. You can’t ever use Facebook anymore yet our government tells us to duck our head under our desk and that will protect us. We did that once before and thank God we never had to find out if it worked.

There are real dangers out there and they have absolutely nothing to do with mothers and babies.

More of us realize that all the hate that has been exposed in recent years is not American.

The thousands of Americans who have died defending the values espoused in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution did not make the ultimate sacrifice so that a bunch of skinheads and survivalists and nationalist can stalk Americans.

They died fighting people like that.

Americans know this.

They know the truth when they see and hear it.

Maybe we just need a good song to remind us who we are.

C’mon CSNY, play us a song like you used to.

I thought American society turned the corner when Obama was elected.

It seems incredulous after two years of Trump that we ever elected a black man as President.

Back in 2009 when Obama took the oath of office, my three children decided to blow the day off and travel to Washington DC to witness history. It was that kind of event. And, it was one event that I didn’t even serve as the instigator. Going to Yankee games and Jet games and Ranger games, well, that is what I always pushed on them. As a former history teacher, however, I was never so proud of my children than when they told me they were going to the Inauguration.

Now, nine years later, there is no sense in going to Washington. Bad people work there. People who hate. People who talk about Jesus much as the pedophile priests do, with a sneer and the look of the devil.

We are going to elect a black governor in Florida. He inspires people much the same way that Obama did. Like Obama, Andrew Gillum’s journey will be fraught with danger and hatred. It’s already started.

A robo call has gone out to Floridians, some have said from the KKK, pantomiming a stereotype black voice. It’s goal, of course, to minimize and degrade the next governor of Florida.

I don’t know how we got here after 2009.

For how long have we heard from the right that our society was going to hell. Gay marriage, transgender rights, affirmative action, and immigrants, billions and billions of illegal immigrants.

Well, it seems that those topics are not causing our demise.

Unbelievably, our ruination comes as a result of those who always hid behind family values, God, and law and order.

Well, family values went out as soon as our president was taped paying off a porn star.

God? Don’t get me started. The Born Again Bigots are too busy throwing stones to realize God is no longer on their side.

Law and Order? How many aids and staff have to get indicted to blow the lid off of this?

The only law these people keep is the second amendment.

Forget about the other amendments, just let them keep their bazookas.

You know, I stopped writing for a long time because I didn’t want to get back on the soapbox. But I am still bombarded with the utter lunacy of the last two years. And now, they can’t even point to the economy as the stock market gave back all the gains made in 2018.

Well, go out and be sure to vote.