BETTORS AWAKE!

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Here’s a course correction to securing your financial fortune this year!

As you know from last year, I’m your ultimate source for wagering advice in the world of baseball.  And you lucky believers in my powers who played my picks laughed all the way to the bank with your take from those hapless Vegas bookies.  Yes, I told you in April of last year the Cubs and Indians would meet in the World Series.  Many of you laughed out loud, I’ve been reliably informed.  I assume you’ve been kicking yourselves in the tail ever since.  

For those who missed out, I gave you a second shot this spring with my selections to win for the 2017 season.  They were:

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The bold face of teams above indicates the division leaders (and the qualifying wildcard teams) as of September 2, about a month away from the final standings.  Selecting seven out of the top eight playoff-bound teams ain’t bad, don’t you agree?  This year I also tabbed Washington and Chicago in the National League championship series, with the Nationals emerging the winner.

In the American League Houston and Cleveland would reach the finals, with the Tribe to triumph.  As for the World Series, I picked Washington over Cleveland in six.

Alert!  A last minute course correction!  There’s been an Indian uprising!  It’s now Cleveland over the Dodgers in the World Series!  Yes, the Dodgers may have a team that compares favorably to the great 1927 Yankees, but they have been slipping lately, while the Tribe is, as we say in the Clubhouse, en fuego.

If you haven’t yet made your bet, you’re in luck with the update.  If you have already wagered on my April choices, place another on the revised picks for the World Series as a hedge that should bring an ever bigger payoff.

Still skeptical?  How could I possibly tab jerkburg Cleveland over Newman-loved LA?  Besides the aforementioned momentum shift, Cleveland has the best pitching and the deepest pitching (starters and relievers), and we all know that pitching is the name of the game.  We also know that the American League has a slight edge in overall quality.

So what are you waiting for?  Reserve that Brinks truck now; hire that NRA brother-in-law of yours to ride shotgun; and head for Vegas in October to pick up your swag.

I modestly acknowledge your applause.  No, no charge, though gratuities are accepted.  If all goes well, I’m thinking of changing professions and investing in a pack of Tarot cards.

BACK ON THE BEAT...BRIEFLY

A reader reminded me recently that when I started this blog I said I was going to talk about the misuse of words in public discourse.  Be a word cop, in short.  I confess I’ve strayed from that mission, what with Reichsleiter Donald Trump threatening our very lives nonstop here on planet earth. 

In any case, I resolved early this week to find time to return to my original purpose.  

My first action was to put two much-abused words on the disabled list (DL), with hopes that they might return to health and use with rest. 

The first was “absolutely.”  You can’t listen to talking heads talk these days without set-up questions being answered with an “absolutely.”  Besides the lethal repetitiveness of the word, it’s risky usage: in a post-Einsteinian world of relativity, very little, if anything, is absolute.  Give the word a break.

Second is the puzzling popularity of “existential,” as in “existential threat.”  Why this fancy way of saying “real,” “factual,” or “empirical”?  Is it because of its visually close association with the word existentialism, the fashionable philosophy that makes you sound important?  Then quit showing off, I say as a practicing existentialist (Camusian variety).  You’re only confusing your listeners for no good reason.

That’s where I was when Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.  Why?  Front and center with the answer came the president’s back-up flack,  Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Trump did it “for atrocities [committed] against the chain of command.”  Really?  Against Trump’s chain of timid and misinformed toadies?  Atrocities? Really?  Did Comey bomb Yemeni hospitals?  Re-open Auschwitz?  Or not swear loyalty to the mentally deranged New York street thug who obstructed justice by demanding he do so?

I suggest all you Trumpenproles out there open a dictionary and look up the word “atrocity” for starters.  And do I think firing Comey after asking him to end his investigation of General Flynn for his ties to Russia poses an existential threat to our continued existence as a democracy?  Absolutely!

LATE, BUT WORTH IT

Sorry to be two weeks late and two rubles short, but here, by popular demand, are my (and your) picks to click in the 2017 Major League Baseball Season.  You’ll remember that last year, against the wisdom of my higher paid colleagues in the soothsaying business, I predicted a Cub/Indian World Series; those of you who listened, drove to Vegas, bet a wad on my prescience, shoveled your haul into the Brinks truck rental, and were rewarded by being bumped up into the 39.6% tax bracket.  You are welcome.

Why not do it all again?  I must alert you though that picking the winners this year is far more difficult than last—particularly in the American League East and National League West divisions.  In the former any team but Tampa Bay could win it all this season.  In the latter the Dodgers will have their hands full fighting off the Diamondbacks and Rockies; the Giants will do a major fade, however. (Ditto for the Angels, I’m sorry to report.)

Without further ado the final regular season standings for 2017 are:

What about those playoffs?  Well, the Chicago Cubs will face the Washington Nationals in the National League final series.  The Cleveland Indians will face the Boston Red Sox in the American League final.  World Series?  Washington over Cleveland in six.  You can take it to the bank.  Or to Las Vegas again, if you’re one of those greedy folks intent on passing our president in personal wealth.  And remember...per my usual policy, these selections are guaranteed.  If they all do not finish in the order predicted, I will provide you next year’s picks absolutely free of charge!   

By the way, I remain a baseball card collector in my old age.  And I’m desperately seeking the Major League Rookie card for the guy pictured below in an early photo.  If you have it, or know where I can find this guy’s rookie card, I will give you $25,000 cash for it!  Help me out.  Remember all I’ve done for you.

MADNESS IN MARCH

Ready for a break from life-or-death matters?  To ease your ongoing suffering in the Time of Trump, I bring you my second composition from the Caligula Suite, “Divertimento #2: Variations on The Madness of March.” Enjoy!

Anyone can play Bracketology.  And watch the NCAA basketball tourney on the telly. Be assured it’s good clean fun, exciting to see the world’s best pure athletes compete in a game famed for its nonstop excitement.

You need not bet on the madness in one of those popular brackets you have heard about.  Not mandatory.  But for me, the absence of a monetary stake in the games has all the thrill of kissing a sibling.  So I advise putting some fleeting spice in your life and plunge a fin or a sawbuck or next month’s mortgage payment into the nearest pool.

The odds of picking every winner in the pool are approximately 3.4 trillion to one, I’ve been told.  Not an easy task, even for a seer like me.  So I trust that if I miss a pick or few, you’ll cut me some slack.

Donations to your favorite gambling guru are not required but welcome.  No, I’m sorry to say, such humane and worthy acts are not tax deductible.  I do stand by my standard guarantee, however: if you do not profit from my predictive powers, I will provide you with the same service next year absolutely free!  How fair is that?

May the peace of Pacifica be with you.

 

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Going to Vegas?   Remember to reserve your Brinks truck rental early.

OFTEN IS THE QUESTION ASKED: ARE YOUR PRESIDENT SANE?

At long last (has it been only a month?), the mental health professionals have stepped forward to evaluate our new president...without any close-up examination, they concede.  Fortunately (if that’s the right word), our reichsleiter exhibits his psychic wounds like campaign ribbons for all to see.

The shrinks seem to have come to a consensus diagnosis:  Mr. Trump is a Paranoid Narcissistic Sociopath.  I’ve also heard a professional in the field describe him as a malignant narcissist.  Yet a third suggestion, that of infectious disease specialist Steven Buelter, in a recently run piece in the New Republic, opines that Trump may be suffering from neurosyphilis, perhaps picked up during his extended, carefree, salad days that even he admits were fraught with risk.  Beulter adds that this king of STDs can be easily cured if treated. But who among us has the courage to tell the emperor he should get a Wassermann Test?

Meanwhile, we’ve lately heard that the Russians are building a psychological profile of Trump in advance of his first post-election meeting with his Russian chum, Vladimir Putin.  Do you think Donald is doing the same?  (Given his low regard for intelligence in all its forms, I doubt it, too.)

So what do we do?

First and foremost, go back and read my blog entry of October 7, 2016, in which I made light of my fears, reproduced here.  Note the section in bolder face.

Mural by Mindaugas Bonanu.

Mural by Mindaugas Bonanu.

THE RUSSIAN CONNECTION

Why won’t Donald Trump show us his income tax returns? Every other presidential candidate has in the last 35 years.  Why should he deny us a look into his bona fides?  They would shed much light on the claims and character of a man who wants to lead us? 
Trump has an oft-invoked answer.  He can’t because he’s being audited by the IRS.  Lame response; the IRS itself says an audit should be no hindrance to their release.   Donald and his son Eric tell us the current return runs to more than 12,000 pages—apparently more than we could digest and understand is the clear implication.  Try us; surely we can hire a skilled accountant or two to explain the contents.
Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate echoed a common speculation that Trump was hiding the fact that he was worth a lot less than he claimed—not a billionaire at all.
And that he was most likely gaming the tax code and paying no federal tax at all.
Investigative reporting by The New York Times has since confirmed the likelihood of both, though Trump stays mum on the subject.   The greater part of the story—a complex one of international import at the highest level—is yet to be fully told.  We only know it in its sketchy outline as The Trump-Putin Affair.  Yes, the short and fit Russian assassin and the American Master of Bluster have something going.
Open and Inquiring minds want to know more about this strange match.  Just watch the orange heap light up at the mere mention of Putin‘s name.  What’s behind it?  Is it a joint power grab...or...what?
Well, it’s widely believed that Trump, who has for many years wanted to build hotels in Russia, is deeply in debt to Russian oligarchs.  Putin, on the other hand, flatters Trump with kind words, including the Russian word yarki, which Trump chooses to translate as “genius” while Putin prefers “flamboyant.” (Western analysts believe Putin’s flattery is meant to encourage Trump in his disruptive view of the West’s geopolitical interests, thus serving the Kremlin’s own.)
 Add to this strange pairing Paul J. Manafort, a shady lobbiest who received millions for helping pro-Russian dictator Viktor Yanukovych to power in the Ukraine, subsequently becoming Trump’s second Campaign Manager before the press got wind of his past and the man was summarily demoted out of sight.
Complicating matters further is Lt. General Michael J. Flynn, the fired former director of the pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency and now one of Trump’s closest advisors, previously seen seated next to Putin at a Russian state dinner.  Apparently he was also present with Trump more recently at the top-secret security briefing given to presidential candidates.  Now season that mix with Russian hackers who seem to know every other secret we as a nation have, and feed them to Wikileaks’ Julian Assange, who has threatened to alter the outcome of the pending American election with an October bombshell.  Yes, it’s all a big puzzlement.
While no one has put all the puzzle’s parts together yet, Trump’s attachment to Putin was evident in the first presidential debate.  Though Trump had been informed of Russian intrusions into our cyberspace at a previous security briefing, and heard it again from Clinton at the first debate, he quickly came to Russia’s defense, saying we didn’t know for sure it was Russia, that it could have been China (always his favorite scapegoat) ... or somebody else, for that matter.  Trump as skeptic...now that’s a new one on me!
I despair of ever unraveling this Gordian Knot of international intrigue, preferring the less complicated and more hopeful back story I’ve been told by reliable sources who prefer to remain anonymous.  What if all this cloak-and dagger stuff is just a cover?  For what, you will ask.  Some good old-fashioned amour, that’s what!   Yes, I’ve heard it said by some very, very smart people, whose names you would recognize, who say the vodka the lovers share has been spiked with bearnip.
Moreover, while I have no first hand knowledge, I’ve been reliably informed by unimpeachable observers in the know that Trump recently went on one of those legendary manly rides with Putin and his biker gang, the Night Wolves.  Can’t you see them now, Vlad and Donnie (as they call themselves when mounted in tandem on Putin’s Harley) preparing for the adventure.  The short, fit conqueror of Crimea gallantly helps the pudgy would-be leader of the free world with his girdle as the “Wolves” look on.
Picture them now on their wild ride east at dawn over the Moscow River on Vlad’s hog, roaring across the meadowlands and past the Isle of the Dead before spending a stormy night on Bald Mountain, only to descend onto the steppes of Central Asia, there to pitch their tent and snuggle up against the autumn chill by generating some real heat in their shared sleeping bag.  Ah! A little warming of the earth to speed along the thaw.  Ain’t love wonderful!  And to think there might even be a split Nobel Peace Prize in the offing!  That’s the good news heard on the grapevine. Amor Vincit Omnia.                                                  

To echo Hamlet’s words, “oh my prophetic soul!”  Put aside my self-indulgent final paragraph meant to playfully show off my knowledge (and love) of Russian music that amused no one but me.  Focus instead on the bold-faced section and the names mentioned.  Flynn.  Montrafort.  Murky background players then, central figures in a widening scandal of truly unimaginable magnitude now.  I hope I’m wrong.  But the more I hear of the election last fall the more likely it seems that Trump and his alt-right associates have sold us out to Putin and imperiled our democracy.  Absolute proof may be lacking now, but evidence is mounting in spite of Trump’s desperate and diversionary attacks on the press.  And so we slip and slide rapidly toward at least a constitutional crisis.

Usually I fight fear by writing light and harmless fantasies intended to amuse. It’s not working this time.  I’m scared. 

So what do we do? Let’s first remind ourselves again that change is the only constant.  We should seize it and the opportunity it inevitably brings.  Let’s move briskly and peacefully away from the doomed union and establish ourselves as that sovereign nation, Pacifica, where we preserve and improve on the best of what was.

IT'S A DOG'S WORLD

I’m back!  Again.  You thought I was hiding out somewhere from Herr Trump and the New Order (Neuordnung) and had deserted you in your hour of need.   Not so.  Got a cold and the shingles at the same time.  Not recommended for the living... and those who wish to go on with it.

Accept my apology for not covering President Elect Trump’s first press conference for you Wednesday last; I bailed on it early with the hope I could take an incomplete, pleading the above illnesses as an excuse, when it was really my state of mind that was hurting.  Every time I see our reichsleiter-to-be on TV I feel as though his angry eyes and fulminations are directed directly at me for stumbling into his alternate universe, and he means to persecute me for my faith (in science).

So what did I do?   What you should do. I changed channels.  To?

Dog TV, my usual refuge in trying times.  For those of you who know it not, I give it five stars in stress relief.  Yes, as you rightly guessed, I first subscribed to it for my two dogs, thinking they would enjoy having kindred company when I left them home alone.   Not to be. They just didn’t dig it, and went back to reading The New Yorker for their escapes. I think Gypsy looked up once while I held her and forced to view another Golden Retriever on the tube; not interested.  As for high-strung Heidi, true to her shepherd genes, she cannot be forced to look at anything when on the trail of imaginary possums.  And that’s almost always. 

Talk about balms to hurt minds.  Dog TV delivers comfort and solace, a quiet joy along with a sense of what is right in nature.   The background barking is simple, pleasant, unobtrusive—and when a human voice intrudes, it is brief and muted.  And added plus for me is that some of the scenic footage was shot at my very own Dog Beach here in Surf City.  How do I know?  Because when I watch those pups splashing joyfully in the waves, I see in the background the familiar oil-drilling platforms in stubborn place.

As for our unaware canine friends, photographed mostly in the outdoors and free to be their antic selves, they run and roll at will, yip and woof without restraint, wag tails and sniff out all identities in soothing harmony.  Such a melodious melee!  It makes you want to pile right into the frolic and forget the millions of folks about to lose their Obamacare.  

The cost for Dog TV?  A measly five bucks a month.  Am I your best friend or not?  (By the way, this is Divertimento Number One in a series from my Caligula Suite, composed to get you through the Reign of Trump.  More to follow.)

Here are three happy subscribers to Dog TV,With Heidi, left; Gypsy, right; I’m in the middle.(We are real dogs and people, not paid actors.)

Here are three happy subscribers to Dog TV,
With Heidi, left; Gypsy, right; I’m in the middle.
(We are real dogs and people, not paid actors.)