Month: August 2026

Nixon

In August of 1974, I was a seventeen year-old graduate from Wyoming High School in Wyoming, Ohio, getting ready to go to Denison University. And, I was a “budding” politician, with multiple campaigns under my belt, including working on headquarters planning for the Get Out the Vote operation in a US Congressional Special Election.  

And for the past two years, I was steeped in the Watergate scandal.  The original break-in of the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate office building took place in June of 1972.  From that summer on, I absorbed every bit of Watergate information:  the early courtroom action, the amazing reporting by Woodward and Bernstein at the Washington Post; the Senate Hearings in the summer of 1973 with the Ervin Committee, and the House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings in May and June of 1974.

President Nixon used every trick in the book (including “dirty tricks”) to keep the Presidency.  But in the end, he was his own undoing.  It was his tapes, recordings Nixon made in his own office over the years, that became the coffin nails.  By late July of 1974, it was clear that Nixon would be the second President of the United States to be impeached, and likely the first convicted and removed from office. 

In those early days of August, as I packed my bags for college, the Gallup Polling organization did their usual Presidential Approval Poll.  24% of Americans still gave Nixon an “approved” rating.  But facing sure impeachment and conviction, Nixon resigned.

At seventeen, my friends and I broke open a bottle of champagne.

Approval

24% is not the “record low” for Presidential approval ratings.  That honor belongs to Harry Truman at 22%, three weeks before he left office in 1952.   George W Bush hit an understandable 25% in October of 2008 in the middle of the stock market crash.  Jimmy Carter hit 28% in the summer of the Iran hostage crisis in 1979.  And George HW Bush had 29% approval in the summer before the 1992 election, while still in a national recession. 

So I guess Donald Trump’s current 30% isn’t really very surprising.  After all, none of the other Presidents could be considered a “cult hero”, in the way MAGA adores Trump.  And, even on his best day, Trump was still “under water”, with 49% approval.  (By the way, Joe Biden’s lowest was 36%, and his highest was 57%).  That 30%, much like Nixon’s 24%, might be considered the Trump baseline of support.

Flawed Vessel

Trump also has the further “structure” of the Christian Nationalist’s “flawed vessel” theology.  How could a man with known sexual improprieties, even with a legal conviction, be  supported so strongly by the religious right?  Because he is telling them he will do what they want, what they see as the “work of the Lord”.  That “work” excuses all the other flaws.  And, of course, if he’s good enough for God, then he’s good enough for them. 

If Nixon’s actions in the summer of ’74 didn’t shake the 24% confidence in his Presidency, even with a looming impeachment and removal, nothing could.  Trump is in a similar position.  No matter how ugly the summer of 2026 becomes:  from the debacle in the Middle East, the outright theft of Venezuelan oil (just today), his threats on free and fair elections, and the nonsensical destruction of the Reflecting Pool, the East Wing and now the Kennedy Center; the 30% are sticking with Trump.  They are so invested in their belief, that he could (of course) “…shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and I wouldn’t lose any voters”.  

Lost Cause

So, for those who think, “Well, this (fill in the blank) will be the thing, this (fill in the blank) will ‘break the camel’s back’ of Trump’s support”; to use an old New Jersey term, “fuhgeddaboudit”.  That won’t happen.  And after Trump is finally gone, there will always be that 30%.  Like the twentieth century “Lost Cause” Confederates, no amount of fact or consequence will be enough to change their minds.  

Since I mentioned the Civil War, it is now “fitting and proper” to extract a phrase from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.  “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work…”.  By living I mean those of us not in the 30%. Those with our eyes wide open to the risk that Trump creates to our American democracy.  

We are at a critical moment.  A week from today is Labor Day, the traditional beginnings of political campaigns for November.  But you’d have to be a hermit to not see the campaigns have already begun.  What happens in Maine and Texas, Georgia and Iowa, Michigan and yes, even here in Ohio, might make all the difference to the America of the future.  Our “unfinished work”, is to restore government, of the people, by the people, and most importantly for the people.  We can no longer have faith that the “momentum” of the American experiment alone will move us on from this crisis.

As President Kennedy said, “God’s work on earth must truly be our own”.  

So let’s get to work.

A Track Story

Back in the early 1980’s I was what I would call today, “a kid coach”.  I became an Assistant Track Coach at Watkins Memorial High School in 1978 when I was just twenty-one, three years older than my seniors.  And I became the Head Coach when I was twenty-four.  Like most of the “kid coaches” I run into today, I thought I knew everything.  I had an enormous amount of energy, and, I was definitely “cocky”, about the team, the program, and the fact that I was in charge.

Luckily I had some great mentors to look to, the older generation of track coaches who were willing to overlook the cockiness and lead me to become a more successful (and seasoned) leader.  My first head coach, John McGowan was one of those.  And another was Mike Doran, the coach of our rival school at Reynoldsburg.  Mike, John and I were all officials as well as coaches, and we travelled to meetings together.  We had great conversations about coaching and problem solving in track and field.

The Dual Meet

While Mike and I were friends off of the track, we were still arch-rivals when our teams met in our annual dual meet.   And in the mid-1980’s, Watkins won a bunch of those in a row.

But Mike had one more “old coach” trick to show me.  He had a good team, and so did I.  When we showed up at Reynoldsburg on their new track, both of us expected to win the meet.  Mike’s “trick”:   our team was no longer announced as “Watkins” or “Watkins Memorial”.  Mike had his press box call us the “Southwest Licking High School” team.  That was the name of our school district, but not our school.  Even on the paperwork we weren’t WM; it was listed as SWL.  

I was annoyed.  I protested to the press box, to the officials, and even to Mike himself.  But it was to no avail.  Our winners were from “Southwest Licking”, and our lane assignments were announced the same.  It got  to me, and from there, to the team as well.  For the first time in years, Reynoldsburg beat Watkins (or Southwest Licking).

After I cooled off, Mike and I talked about it.  He said it simply.  “My kids didn’t think they could beat Watkins, but they never ran ‘Southwest Licking High School’ before.  I had to get into their heads, and maybe get in yours”.  He wasn’t wrong; it worked.  

Lake America

It was a one-shot deal.  In future years Mike showed me some other tricks – he even had new jerseys created for the Conference Cross Country meet, revealed just before the gun went off so my kids couldn’t “key” off his.  That one worked too.  But whether it was “Southwest Licking High School” or white jerseys for a purple and gold school, it only worked once.

This week President Trump tried a “school name switch” on Canada.  The US and Canada are traditional friends and allies.  But there is and always has been an imbalance in the relationship.  It’s really simple, Canada has a population of around 41 million people. That’s about the size of California, and dwarfed by the 342 million in the United States. 

More than 80% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the United States border, so the “big brother” has a major influence on Canadian lives.  And like many “younger brothers”, Canada has always been anxious to show its independence, even though 25% of its Gross Domestic Product and 75% of their exports depend on the United States.  Just like the relationship between the UK’s Princes William and Harry can grow rocky; so can the US/Canadian one.  And that’s particularly true about trade, exchanges that both nations depend on.

Make A Deal

Canada is a notoriously tough trade negotiator.  And, of course, President Trump imagines himself as the greatest “deal maker” ever.  So when the two sides didn’t get together over Trump’s tariff ridden policies, Trump wanted to try a new “trick” of the negotiation.  

He “renamed” Lake Ontario as “Lake America”.  We can definitely argue whether any President can arbitrarily “rename” a lake whose identification predates both the founding of the United States or Canada, but that’s another issue.  It was guaranteed to annoy the Canadians.  It’s not just the “Ontario” part, the most populated province of Canada.  But it’s also the “America” part.  Both Canada and the United States are in North America.  There’s a built-in resentment by Canadians that somehow the US gets to claim “America”, while Canada (and Mexico and the Central American nations) cannot.

Cost of Wood

The problem really is that the re-naming thing is a “one trick pony”.  And Trump already used it up, against Mexico with the “Gulf of America”.  I don’t think it’s going to work any better in the Canadian negotiations than it did with the Mexicans.  

What it does do is make the President of the United States look petty, and even worse, demented.  Like he doesn’t know the history of Lake Ontario, an almost direct line back to the Iroquois language.  And he doesn’t recognize the real issues facing the United States; a war with no end in sight, prices skyrocketing, and a Nation boiling in turmoil over the actions of the “internal security force”, ICE.

Rename the Lake.  It will be changed back soon enough, along with the Gulf of Mexico, West Palm Beach International Airport and the Kennedy Center.  Start a trade war with our nearest neighbor.  The price increases will make it even easier for Democrats to win office.  

All are “nails in the coffin” of the Trump Era of American politics.   Most coffin wood comes from Canada, so that cost will go up as well.

How It Worked

First things first.  The Constitution of the United States (Art. 1, Sec 4) gives the power to conduct elections to the individual states.  Further interpretation of the 14^th Amendment allowed Congress to make some rules and adjustments.  And the 15^th (race), 18^th (gender) and 24^th (18 years old) Amendments expanded who was eligible to vote in Federal elections.  The one office NEVER mentioned in the Constitution when it comes to governing elections:  The President of the United States.

Disregarding the Constitution and the Law, President Trump issued two Executive Orders regarding the mid-term elections in November of 2026 (WH.gov).  The first order demanded that states turn over voting rolls to the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in order to check that all the registered voters were American citizens.  The second order told the United States Postal Service to only deliver and return absentee voter ballots that were cross-checked against the Federal lists.  

Assumption of Power

This is an extraordinary assumption of power.  The President, with no Constitutional role in the process, is using the DoJ and DHS to actually “edit” who is registered to vote.  There is no law passed by Congress that gives the Federal government the “right” to check voting rolls against citizenship lists.  That is the job “prescribed to the state”, as written in Article 1, Section 4. 

There are some parts of elections that Congress has been part of for a while.  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (now significantly gutted by the Robert’s Supreme Court) gave the Justice Department the obligation to make sure that the voting process didn’t discriminate against minorities.  But that was a “law” (“I’m just a bill, Oh I only a bill, and I’m sitting here on Capitol Hill…”) passed by Congress and signed by the President.  It was not an order issued without check or balance by the Chief Executive.

And never before has the United States Postal Service (USPS) been used to “filter” votes.  That’s an entirely new role for the Post Office, one that was neither written in the Constitution nor added by law.  

Practical Considerations

When the DoJ followed the President’s order, and demanded that states turn over their voting rolls, some agreed.  After all, the “redacted” voting lists of every state, county, municipality, village and unincorporated area is publicly available (here’s Licking County, Ohio).  What isn’t available:  the Driver’s License numbers, Social Security numbers, or race and gender information.   But thirty-four states refused to give the unredacted files.  The DoJ sued thirty-one of them. 

There are around 210 million registered voters in the United States.  Practically, it would take an inordinate amount of personnel and time to cross-check the citizenship status of each one of them.  In addition, there is the obvious difficulty of parsing the “John Smith’s”, the “Jose Lopez’s” and the “Andrew Kim’s”, not just by state, but nationally.

Nevada, for example, turned its voting rolls over to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).   Initially, DHS claimed there were 16,000 non-citizens on the list.  But, after further review, that number fell to 185 possible non-citizens registered to vote (NPR).  Each one of those 185 needs to be individually reviewed prior to the release of the list back to the state.

Clock’s Ticking

So the review process takes time, and is prone to error.  After the process is completed, the Executive Order envisions a “cleared” list returned to the states, and to the Postal Service in that state.  Labels would be produced for absentee ballots from that list, and the USPS would only deliver and return those ballots with the labels.

It’s sixty-nine days until the election.  Mail in ballots, both domestically and overseas, need to go out by the end of September, forty days or so from now.  It’s hard, no it’s impossible, for DHS or DoJ to clear 210 million registered voters in that amount of time.  But that’s what the President wants them to do.

Supreme Court

Many states (twenty-three) sued the President for over-stepping his Constitutional Powers.  Multiple Federal District Courts enjoined the DOJ from enforcing the order.  But this week, the US Supreme Court removed the injunctions, and allowed the DOJ, DHS and USPS to proceed with the program (Trump v California). 

What happened?

In the Court systems of the United States, there is a policy called “presumption of regularity”.  For example, if a Police Officer sees you run a red light and writes you a ticket, you have every right to challenge that ticket in Court.  But if the only evidence you have is a “he said, she said” argument against the Officer, you’ll likely lose.  That’s because the Court gives a “presumption or regularity”, an assumption that the Officer is doing her job and telling the truth.

In the same way, the Federal Court gives the “presumption” to the Federal government, and certainly to the President (and in our current US Supreme Court, even more THIS President).  And the Court did NOT rule on the substance of the Executive Orders.  Instead, they said that the states asked for the Order to be suspended too soon.  And since the President has this “presumption”, the process can continue until the Court can actually hear the “merits” of the case.

What’s Next

The Postal Service issued their final regulation for the handling of absentee ballots on Friday, going into effect today (Wednesday, August 26, 2026).  With that final order, it’s no longer “too soon”.  The states are waiting at the Court House door, ready to start the whole legal process over again.  I’m sure new injunctions against the order will be coming soon, and it will begin the process of “rising” to the Supreme Court once again.  And, unless the Supreme Court acts with unusual speed to grab the case back, the Executive Order will likely not go into effect for November.  But, sooner or later, the Court will rule on the Constitutionality of Trump’s effort to control elections.

The Constitution seems clear.  But nothing is “set in stone” when it comes to the Robert’s Court.  So, the threat of Presidential control of American elections isn’t over.  The 2028 Presidential election remains under threat.

Luddites

In the early years of the 19^th century, a group of textile workers in the North of England fought against the addition of machinery into their factories.  They were opposed to the modernizations because they were afraid of losing their livelihood to “machines”.  They took their name, Luddites, from a legend.  The story goes that an apprentice worker, Ned Ludd, got so angry that he destroyed two “stocking frames” (mechanical knitting machines) after being criticized for his work.  Young Ned supposedly came from the Sherwood Forest, home to another legend, Robin Hood.

The Luddites organized as military units, and marched against the factories.  Ultimately the British Army, fresh from the battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars, came in to smash the organization.  Some leaders were killed in battle, some executed, and still others were sent to the penal colony in Australia.  But their name lives on, as a nickname or an insult for those who are opposed to “modernization”.

Workers in France organized in a similar way at that time.  A common word in our language came from the French word for cheap wooden shoes, “sabots”.  The workers were said to throw their shoes into the machinery of the modernized factories in protest, jamming up the gears and conveyors.  It was called “sabot-age”.

Midwest Silicon Valley

In our era of political divisiveness there are few issues that cross party lines.  One is the epidemic of Data Centers growing like corn and soybeans in the late summer, often in the same fields. That is particularly true in our local area here in Pataskala, on the east side of the Columbus, Ohio metro area.  

Columbus is the state capital and known as the home to THE (it’s a thing) Ohio State University.  And Columbus is also the home to major insurance companies, including Nationwide, Grange and Encova.  It’s called the “Hartford of the Midwest”. 

But the newest moniker for the Columbus area is the “Silicon Valley of the Midwest”.   One of the famous silicon chip production plants (part of President Biden’s Chips Act) is being built here by Intel.  Meta, Microsoft, and Google all have huge operations here.  And most of that building activity is on the northeast side of Columbus, just beyond the outer belt, a few miles up the road from my house.

How big a deal is it?   The chip factory itself needs so much power, they built their own power plant.  That power plant is so big, it needs its own natural gas pipe line all the way from West Virginia.  It was built in less than two years: land bought, trenches dug, and pipeline laid right through our community, almost before we knew what was going on.  The only above ground evidence now is the lot where the equipment was stored.

Data Centers

All of these operations, from producing silicon chips to keeping data, require huge amounts of electronic storage.  Add that to the head-long rush to develop artificial intelligence, and there is a tremendous need for “Data Centers”.  But, building those centers created a national bipartisan opposition movement. 

What’s a data center?  It’s what we used to call a “server farm”, a place where huge amounts of data are stored electronically.  The Apple IIC (late 1980’s) generation knew about bytes and kilobytes. Anyone with a cell phone today is familiar with the terms megabyte and gigabyte.    But there are terms for even greater storage capacities:  terabytes, petabytes, exabytes, zettabytes, and yottabytes.  What’s a yottabyte: one septillion bytes,  a 1 with 24 zeroes behind it (ID Tech).  Many of the data centers planned for our area would store multiple exabytes (one million terabytes) of data.

What does it take to run a data center?  It’s just like the old “server farms”; stacks and stacks of computer servers.  They each require power, so data centers use a lot of electricity. And like any piece of electronic equipment, it operates best in a given temperature range – between sixty and eighty degrees Fahrenheit  (Energy Star).  Since servers produce heat they require cooling equipment, which then requires access to water.  And it is critical that data centers maintain power, so they need backup generators (usually natural gas or diesel) in order to protect from primary power failure.

Farm Friendly

As you pass the Pataskala city limits (we went from village to city in 1996) there’s a welcome sign.  It states that we’re “16,500 strong” and that we are a “Right to Farm Community”.   And in this “strong” community,  there’s a strong movement against the data centers that are already planned here. The “anti-data” folks think data centers will use local energy and cause those prices to go up.  They are afraid that data centers will suck up the local water causing shortages and more price increases.  And they believe that data centers will pollute land and water, and cause noise pollution.

But the real issue is of a more general concern.  The soybean and corn fields that the “village” had are quickly disappearing.  And it’s not just data centers.  There are distribution centers (we used to call them warehouses, right?) all over the place, from Amazon to FedEx. We even have fields of solar panels. There are housing developments and apartments going up in former farm fields.   And some “Right to Farm” folks  here in Pataskala don’t like it.  Even the folks living in the brand new housing developments, came here to “live in the country”. And they are joining the “fight” to keep it that way.

Are the “anti-data” folks modern day Luddites, or just folks fighting to protect their “farm” community?  Are they opposed to Artificial Intelligence, or are they using Claude, Chat GPT or Google to plan their campaign?

And what about the remaining actual farmers?  They want to be able to control their land, including who they are allowed to sell it to when they choose.  They don’t see it as very “farmer friendly” when the folks in the housing developments tell them what they can’t do.

Data Response

The data center folks have answers.  They’re putting in their own power sources, just like the Intel natural gas power plant.  In fact, the ones local to Pataskala may tap into the new natural gas pipeline running under our collective backyards and farm fields.  New data centers have found a way to recycle water so they don’t continually tap into the local supply.  And while they do need to test out their auxiliary power supplies, they can do that at times that don’t interfere with sleeping heads in the city.  The generators are no louder than the twenty-four hour parade of semi-trucks moving in and out of the Amazon Fulfillment Center.

The companies who want to build data centers in Pataskala are even willing to turn down the normal tax abatements that new industries customarily get for building in the city.  They’ll pay the regular school, fire and city taxes, right from the start.

But that hasn’t changed minds in the opposition.  So, maybe a change in language would solve the problem.  Instead of “data center”, go back to “server farm”.   And solar panels could be “solar farms”.   New apartment buildings could be “people farms”.   And new schools could be “educational growth facilities”.  

That way the City of Pataskala could still be a “Right to Farm” community, long after all the real farms in this Columbus suburb are gone.

Addendum – Pataskala is now “18000 strong”. Sorry Mr Mayor!!

Alpha Centauri

Forty Trillion dollars:  it’s really an unfathomable number. Forty trillion kilometers takes you to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our solar system.  A stack of forty trillion one dollar bills would go to the Moon and back; six times.  The $100,000 bill (used in 1934-35 with Woodrow Wilson as the portrait):  well it would take four hundred million of those to cover forty trillion.  

This unimaginable number has a very real world application.  $40 Trillion is the current amount of the United States debt.  It is the accumulation of  the US Government spending more than it brings in, piling up over the last 190 years.  The last time the government was “debt free” was when Andrew Jackson paid out $33 million to clear it. We’ve been spending more than we bring in ever since.

But it’s been in the last forty-six years that the American government has really piled up the  debt.  Here’s what the graph looks like:

(Note:  this graph ends at 2021 and $30 Trillion – in the last six years we’ve added another $10 Trillion. That alone seemed like a huge debt back in the Obama Administration!!!).

Personal Debt

Let’s hold up for just a second.   Most American households live in debt.  There are mortgages, car loans, and credit card payments.  So it’s not a matter of debt, it’s a matter of scale.   The credit rating bureaus use a “magic number” to determine what rating  to give a particular person.  It’s right around 30%.  If your total debt payments; house, car, credit cards, are less than 30% of the total credit you qualify for, then you have a better credit rating.  As that number approaches or exceeds the 30% level, credit ratings drop quickly.

The US government has an “income”, the sum total of all the taxes and fees collected.  It’s a substantial sum of money, around $5.6 Trillion a year.  But the problem is that the government spends more than $7 Trillion a year, going further into debt.  And, like any homeowner, the government has to pay interest on the debt.  Currently, that’s about 15% of the spending.  In real dollar terms that’s a little over $1 Trillion a year.  It’s money going to “service” the debt.  It’s like making the minimum payment on a credit card.  The bank’s happy to take the money, but the actual debt doesn’t change much.  We’re paying interest, and we’re borrowing more.

Debt to Income

There’s another way to look at it.  The “average” American has an 80% debt to income ratio.  That means they owe about 80% of their annual income, when everything is added up.   The “income” of the whole United States is categorized as the GDP, the Gross Domestic Product.  So if we look at the amount we owe as a percentage of everything we make (GDP) here’s what it looks like:

So if the average American has an 80% income to debt ratio, the US Government passed that in 2011.  Today, we, the US Government, owes more than 120% of the national GDP.

At this point, it’s easy to say, “So What?”  What’s the “real world” impact of this enormous, unfathomable, unpayable debt?

Choices

For just a second, ignore the actual “money owed”.  Let’s just look at covering the interest.  Currently 15% of the US Government spending isn’t going to Medicare or Social Security or the new “Trump Class” battleships.  It’s going to pay interest on the debt. (That’s a 2.5% interest rate, by the way.  I wish I could get that for my house!!!).  Right now we spend more on the debt than any other category in the budget – even defense spending. Here’s what it looked like in 2024, at the end of the Biden Administration.

So it restricts the choices government can make.  The $1 Trillion is going to the debt instead of paying most of the total college debt in the US ($1.86 T) or helping to pay for Medicare for all ($3.8 T) or even paying for forty Trump Class Battleships ($1.1 T).  Well, they’re only planning for fifteen of the nuclear white elephants, a total of $275 Billion – that now sounds like chump (Trump) change!! 

Liftoff

So there seems to be choices we don’t make because of the debt cost.  But that’s not really how it works.  The national debt is really like a credit card with no maximum. There is no “credit limit”.  So the US Government actually doesn’t make choices, they spend whatever they want, and just go further in debt.  

Sometimes that makes sense like  when Obama was faced with American economic catastrophe in 2009. He set aside his campaign goals, and simply tried to save the Nation from another Great Depression.  He (and Congress) spent a lot of money (remember the TARP Acts?) to keep the economy going – and we still had a serious recession that changed our economic fortunes.

And when the world pandemic threatened economic collapse again, the Trump and Biden Administrations ultimately spent trillions to keep the economy going (PPP, Build Back Better, Trump stimulus checks).  

And sometimes it doesn’t make any sense; like when the “Big, Beautiful Bill” cut $4.5 Trillion in taxes over the next ten years, creating an annual $1 Trillion deficit increase. (The other $3.5 Trillion is made up by some spending cuts but mostly anticipated income from tariff increases – just another tax on the US people).

So when you look back at the first graph, keep in mind the debt “liftoff” around 2010 was an alternative to national depression, and some of the escalation since then was for the same reason.

More Money, More Money

The second impact of our government deficit spending is this.  The total money supply is around $24 Trillion.  So when the government spends $2 Trillion more than it brings in, it has the effect of “diluting” that $24 Trillion by adding 8% that doesn’t really exist.  It effectively increases the supply of money available.  

And now to basic economics.  The value of a product, whether it’s a gallon of gas or a “widget”, is based on the demand for that product.  If the United States moved to mostly electric vehicles, the “value” of a gallon of gas would go down, because the demand for that gallon would decrease. (Why do you think big oil companies don’t want electric cars?).  Or, if Saudi Arabia decided to flood the market (and could get the oil out of the Strait of Hormuz) then the value of the gas would go down because the supply would go up.

If demand goes down, or supply goes up, then value (cost) goes down.  We are all aware of that today as the supply of oil fluctuates based on the military situation in the Middle East.

Big Mac Standard

But the demand for money is constant.  It doesn’t go down.  So the supply of money is the ultimate determining factor of the value of money.  When the supply of money goes up, the value of it goes down.

When I taught high school economics, I used the “Big Mac” standard.  As a kid back in 1970, a “Big Mac Value Meal” cost $0.95.  That’s a burger, fries and a drink.  Today, that same order costs $10.40.  The burger, fries and drink  aren’t bigger.  What’s changed is the value of the dollar.  By the “Big Mac” standard, the dollar is worth about 10% of its 1970 value.  And that’s because of the huge increase in the supply of money available.  It’s the very definition of inflation.

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Last Tuesday went by pretty quietly.  There wasn’t a great tragic event in the world; no new war started (or old war ended).  It didn’t feel like an historic occasion.  But Tuesday, August 18th, 2026 may well be a day that will “live in infamy”, much like October 29^th, 1929 (Black Tuesday), September 29^th, 2008 (the financial crisis) or March 16^th, 2020 (official recognition of pandemic).  Tuesday, the US National Debt blew through $40 Trillion, and no one even blinked (National Debt Clock).

Back in 2010, I took a track team out to California for the National meet.  As part of the trip, we went to Yosemite National Park, climbed up to a lake, then drove on into Nevada.  As we came down the mountain my assistant coach, a truck driver, noticed the smell of burning.  He asked me to touch the brakes.  Nothing happened – the brakes were so hot they no longer worked.  We flew down the mountain side, working to gear the car down.  Luckily we hit a long flat stretch where we could stop and let the brakes cool.

Today our Nation is careening down a long financial mountain road, and no one’s even trying to hit the brakes, or drop down a gear.  It’s hard to imagine how we can even begin to stop, but stopping, or at least slowing down, matters.  The value of the money we work to earn and spend depends on it. Otherwise Tuesday, August 18th, 2026 may become famous:  and not for a “good” thing.

Lessons

The recent actions of the United States are teaching lessons throughout the world.  Some of those lessons might be valuable.   They are teaching the world to be self-sufficient.  But, even those have a price in American influence.  And other lessons are dangerous to world stability.

To understand the problems, we need to understand recent history.  The post-World War II world “order” was dominated by two competing powers:  the United States and the Soviet Union.  And while those two never went to “head-to-head” war, the conflicts from 1948 to 1993 were almost always seen in terms of the USSR versus the US.  Korea, Vietnam, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and other smaller conflicts were “proxy wars”.  The US supported “proxies” against the Soviets (Afghanistan), while the Soviets supported “proxies” against the United States (Korea, Vietnam). 

The Cost

In the meantime the Soviets and Americans fought the Cold War directly against each other.  They built competing military alliance systems, most notably the US led NATO versus the Soviet controlled Warsaw Pact.  And both sides competed through military economics.  The cost of the vast number of nuclear weapons placed a huge burden on each.  To President Ronald Reagan’s credit, he was able to leverage the greater US economic might to force the Soviets to spend more than their economy could bear.  Those of us who remember the 1980’s remember the Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed Star Wars. 

The concept was to build satellites in space that could destroy the enemy nuclear missiles beyond the atmosphere.  It never really worked (and even today seems just beyond the edge of our technical abilities).  But the billions of dollars the US spent on the project forced the Soviets to do the same.  The US was spending six percent of gross national product on defense. To match, the Soviets were spending in excess of twenty percent of  theirs.   Reagan’s spending is the current “base” of US national debt, which doubled in his Administration.  But it is also the proximate cause of the fall of the Soviet Union in 1993.

(The US debt just topped $40 trillion yesterday. Perhaps we should take note of the Soviet lesson of 1993??).

Pax Americana

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the world entered an era of “Pax Americana”. The US defended American policy through the “show” of strength throughout the world.  US Aircraft Carriers extended the might of American airpower.  We could “balance” other military threats in much of the world by the presence of a carrier group hundreds of miles offshore, safe from most responses.  The US placed force protection in each of the world’s “hot-spots”.  US Carriers were near North Korea, near Taiwan, near the Middle East (often in both the Mediterranean and the Arabian Seas), and in the Caribbean.  That was American strategic doctrine until the Trump Administration began.  And that’s the lesson the world learned.

But Trump is teaching a very different plan.  Currently, the United States is trying to project our military power in the Middle East in an “asymmetric” conflict with Iran.  As many as three US Carrier Groups were in the Middle East (the Ford, the Lincoln, and the Bush groups).  And while that concentration didn’t last for long, it meant that other parts of the world were left “uncovered”.  Some still are.

Trump’s Friend

Trump has left the Pacific without a US Carrier Group.  It has occurred before, as recently as two years ago, but only for a couple of weeks.  The current move of the Washington Group from the Pacific to the Middle East leaves the Pacific empty of US Carriers for the foreseeable future. 

What’s the danger?

North Korea is a whole “lesson” in itself.  It is a rogue state, run by a single dictator.   It is a nation that defied the world, and even its own “mentor” state China, to build nuclear weapons.  North Korea is currently a “high risk” environment for use of those weapons.  But the Trump Administration continues to “counter” North Korean military moves (testing missiles and such) by touting Trump’s great relationship with Kim Jong Un.

A lesson Iran might learn from North Korea is once you get a nuclear weapon, the world stops “messing” with your country.  That certainly seems to be what the Trump Administration is doing.  And now, the offensive force of the Washington Carrier Group has been rotated away from there, and into the Middle East to replace the fatigued Lincoln Group.

Taiwan

And even more significantly, the movement of the Washington Group takes one more “piece” off the table to balance China’s interest in reconquering Taiwan.  The US has been committed to Taiwan defense for generations, but with no Carriers within short-range, it would be difficult (perhaps impossible) to effectively come to Taiwan’s defense should China determine to strike.

The closest US Air Base is Kadena, located 370 miles away at Okinawa.

With the US bogged down in an asymmetric war in the Middle East, and the Washington Group gone, perhaps China will take this opportunity to fulfill their stated goal of conquering Taiwan.  And then what would the US do?  Does this become the “World War III” scenario?  Or will Trump back down and “allow” China to proceed?  What lesson should China take from current US actions?

Decapitation

The Trump Administration led a full out military attack against the nation of Venezuela.  We sent special forces into Caracas to kidnap the President, Nicolas Maduro.  While this was justified as a “legal action”, with Maduro immediately whisked to New York for indictment on charges, what lesson should Russia take from this?  Perhaps they should (or still could) swoop in to kidnap Zelenskyy in Ukraine?  Certainly, the US action, sending the Ford Carrier Group to take a sovereign Venezuelan citizen, could give Putin justification for a whole lot of aggressive actions.

And finally, at the opening of the current Iranian War, the US and Israel engaged in an explicit action to “decapitate” the Iranian leadership.  That was certainly successful, with over fifty of  the top Iranian civilian and military leadership killed in the first days.  The hope was to create so much confusion in the change of command, that Iran would be incapable of launching a defense.

But the Iranians prepared in-depth leadership in preparation for just such a strike.  And now, when the United States looks to negotiate a settlement to the conflict, we find it difficult to reach folks with “the power” to “cut a deal”.  Why is that? The answer is simple:  we killed most of those who could make that decision, and the ones that remain aren’t interested in dealing with a nation-state that killed their families, friends and leaders.

Lessons Taught

The lesson we should have learned:  don’t kill the folks you are negotiating with.  That actually seems pretty self-evident.  But here we are, in a war that can’t stop, because the other side won’t talk.

For twelve Presidents, from Truman to Obama, the United States was able to “balance” peace in the world.  The wars that occurred, from Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan to the Middle East, were limited in scope.  And those Presidents could balance the military needs in war, like Vietnam, with the world’s overall strategic concerns.  It was often a delicate “game”.  

But this President, this Administration, is a “bull in a China shop”.  They act as if the lessons of the past have no value.  It seems all we can do is hope that the world will wait for the US to “come to its senses”.  

Or, maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Byron

Byron Donalds is the Congressman from Southwest Florida (Ft. Myers down to Naples) and candidate for Governor in the Florida primary on August 18^th.  In an exceptionally long answer to MSNOW’s Peter Alexander on Monday, he spoke for five minutes straight. It was a “filibuster”, designed to ignore the more specific fact-checking questions that Alexander tried to interject.

Donalds used MAGA-Republican “Joe Biden” talking points.

He talked about Joe Biden wrecking the economy.  He talked about Joe Biden leaving high inflation.  Donalds went on about Joe Biden and open borders.  Finally, there was Joe Biden who brought 10 million undocumented migrants into the United States.  Donalds isn’t the only one spouting this Party line.

The Facts

So let’s start with the facts.  Below are the statistics for undocumented migrants, inflation rates and the national debt for the past eighteen years. 

Undocumented Migrants  Annual Inflation      National Debt

• 2008 – 12 million                    0.10%              $10.70 Trillion
• 2016 – 10.7 million                 2.10%              $19.98 Trillion ($1.16 T/year)
• 2020 – 11 million                    1.40%               $27.75 Trillion ($1.94 T/year)
• 2022 –  11 – million                  6.50%            $31.42 Trillion ($1.835 T/year)
• 2024 – 14 million*                  2.90%            $35.46 Trillion ($1.22 T/year)
• 2026 – 14 million*                  3.4%               $38.51 Trillion (12/25)** ($2.05 T/year)
  • *(6 million with TPS or other protected status) 
  • ** (current US debt – $39.93 Trillion – $2.4 T/year annualized)
  • George W Bush was President 2000 – 2008
  • Barack Obama 2009 – 2016,
  • Donald Trump 2017 – 2020,
  • Joe Biden 2021 – 2024, and
  • Trump again since 2025.
  • Pew Research Center              Bureau of Labor Statistics       US Treasury

Undocumented Migrants

In the past two decades, the lowest number of undocumented migrants (40% of which are in the United States with permission) was at the end of the Obama Administration.  That number was relatively stable, increasing just a little during the first Trump Administration.  But there was a rapid expansion of almost 3 million (not 10 million) during the Biden Administration.  

What happened?  There was a massive increase in migration to the US borders during the Covid crisis, which also coincided with wide-spread drought in Central America.  This world pandemic economic dislocation led many to leave their homes to “come to America”.  While there were a lot more people at the border, and more were granted access, there were never “open borders”.  

The Biden Administration attempted to deal with that crisis through Congress.  A comprehensive immigration reform bill included: strengthening the border, reforming entry practices and rules, taking care of “Dreamers”, and removing criminal migrants. It was passed by the US Senate, and on track for House approval.  So rather than taking preemptive executive action, Biden kept pressure on the Congress to “finish the job”. It would have solved the problem for generations.

But Donald Trump didn’t want the comprehensive bill to pass. It would be a success for Biden before the 2024 election.  He literally ordered Republicans in the House to vote it down, and enough did so to kill the bill.  It was only after that ultimate failure to reach agreement on comprehensive reform, that Biden used executive powers to restrict the border.  

Inflation

The Covid pandemic shut down the American economy.  In order to keep the damage to a minimum, President Trump pumped government money in.  It wasn’t just the famous “Trump signed” stimulus checks (government cost – $464 Billion).  It was the $800 billion in PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loans as well.  All of that cash created a lot of inflationary pressure. 

Biden continued the effort with the $550 Billion Infrastructure Act.  When the economy began to re-open after the pandemic, it literally “caught fire”.

The result of that “fire” was the inflation bump of 2022, which hit a monthly high of 9.1% in June, and finished the year with an annual 6.5%.  That inflation was caused by both Trump and Biden, and was both a foreseeable and reasonable choice.  The alternative was the likelihood of a prolonged recession or even depression.  US unemployment hit an historic high of 14.8% in April of 2020, right as the Covid closures took place.   It was the highest since the Great Depression in the 1930’s. If that trend continued, a Covid Depression was certain.

But Biden finished his term with inflation under 3%.   Since then, the second Trump Administration raised costs through their tariff policy, the “Big, Beautiful Bill” tax cuts, and indiscriminate deportations that reduced workers in the job market. And then there’s the war he chose to fight in Iran, hiking the cost of gas and impacting all the products that gas transports in this country.

Feel the Burn

There’s an old saying in the legal profession:  if you have the facts, pound the facts.  If you have the law, pound the law.  If you don’t have the facts or the law, pound the table.  MAGA-Republicans don’t have the facts, and they seem to take pleasure in stretching the law.  But they are still pounding Joe Biden; as if that argument of the past will overcome the realities of America today.  

Byron Daniels isn’t talking about the price of gasoline.  He’s not talking about the escalating cost of health care, even in his retirement aged Congressional District.  And he’s telling us to trust President Trump in this imbroglio in the Middle East. 

No wonder he’s lying.

(Randy Newman’s 1972 solution to world problems – Political Science)

Greatest Ever

The United States prides itself on being the most powerful military in today’s world.  In fact, we go even farther.  We have the largest Navy (more tonnage) and Air Force ever assembled in world history.  The US does not have the largest Army (China, then India) nor the largest total forces. North Korea does, with every adult male in the active military or inactive reserve.  But, Americans would argue we have the most effective, best equipped, and best supported ground force.

So what’s going on in Iran?  How can the tenth most “powerful” country in the world stand up to “Number One”?  No matter what the President or his Cabinet members say, it’s clear that the United States is poised to lose the war they chose to start there.

Americans have had this argument multiple times.  How could the North Vietnamese hold out against the ultimate might of the United States for over a decade? How did the Taliban in Afghanistan withstand the first assaults, then last two decades before America’s ignominious final withdrawal at Kabul?  

Force Dissipation

When I taught the concept of force in my classroom, I tried this example.  There is no question that ten members of my Cross Country team could push my Jeep up a hill.  They’d all get around the back, find a place to push, and drive it right up.  But what if they all had to push on the trailer hitch.  No one would be allowed to touch the back fenders or the spare tire, they all had to push on the hitch “ball”, a 1 -7/8 inch diameter piece of steel.  There wouldn’t be the “room” for all ten, some would be pushing others who might be in contact with the ball, and the force would be dissipated.  They would likely fail.

The United States is spending more than a $1 Billion a day fighting in the Middle East.  Part of this expenditure is based on the imbalanced cost of weaponry:  Iran is attacking with drones that cost hundreds of dollars, we’re shooting them down with missiles that cost millions of dollars.  Iranians seem to have a virtually limitless supply.  Americans are running low.

And, most importantly, Iran seems to be willing to accept an unlimited number of casualties to continue the battle.  Estimates are up to 6000 Iranian military already dead, and three times that wounded.  The United States has a “treasure over blood” policy in effect.  We are spending a fortune daily to avoid casualties.  Currently, 18 Americans have been killed, and 624 wounded.  For many in the United States, that’s already too much.

Blood and Treasure

A further outcome of the “treasure over blood” policy is that the supply line becomes critical.  Having the defensive missiles, the offensive weaponry, and the basics of food and shelter for American personnel is how Americans fight wars, and keep American military lives safer.

Iran knows that.  One of the less known losses in this conflict was the US Navy logistics base in Bahrain.  Early in the war, Iranian missiles and drones caused heavy damage there, taking the base “off the table”.  Now, the US Navy is trying to re-supply its heavy commitment (twenty ships, including the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier) from Diego Garcia, a British base over 2,000 miles away in the middle of the Indian Ocean.  For the Lincoln alone, that includes weapons for 120 air sorties a day, and food and necessities for the more than 5000 on board.  It’s not working out so well.

The lesson of Vietnam and Afghanistan is the doctrine of “asymmetric war”: a lesser power having the will to outlast an ultimate power.  Somehow, it still hasn’t “sunk in”.  That lesson forced Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford to unilaterally end Vietnam, causing the ugly retreat from Saigon in April of 1975.  Presidents from Bush to Obama to Trump refused to acknowledge the same situation in Afghanistan, and it took Joe Biden to accept that failure in August of 2021.

Gordian Knot

There is a story in ancient history of the “Gordian knot” in Phrygia in central Turkiye.   It was a rope so intricately tied, that no scholar or mathematician could logic out how to untie it.  The story went, that anyone smart enough to unravel it, would conquer and rule all of Asia.  Alexander the Great, passed through Phrygia on his campaign of military conquest.  Already intent on conquering Asia, he decided to fulfill the prophecy.  He took a sword, and sliced the knot in two.

The United States spent $95 Billion on the nuclear weapons program in 2025, almost as much as has been spent at war in Iran.  And, US nuclear weapons currently have nothing to do with it.  But, one of the “casus belli” of Trump’s actions is preventing Iran from gaining an atomic weapon.  Of course, no one, not a nation-state or even a terrorist entity, has used a nuclear weapon in an act of war since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, ending World War II.   

Cut the Knot

Here’s the thing:  President Ford still took a political “hit” when the last helicopter left Saigon, even though it was really the culmination of Nixon’s plan.  President Biden definitely was damaged by the image of desperate Afghans falling from the wheels of a US Air Force C-17 and the 13 Americans killed by suicide bomb at Abby Gate.

Do we really think the Donald Trump would be willing to sacrifice politically to get the US out of Iran?  Or is he more likely to follow Alexander’s example, and somehow try to “cut the knot” he tied in the Persian Gulf?   The US is already low on advanced weapons systems; it will take years to replenish what’s been spent.  What’s left?

Would Trump use a “nuclear sword” to cut this knot?   A better question:  are you confident he won’t?

“♫Let’s drop the big one, and see what happens…♫”

Brave New World

We live in a “Brave New World” of gambling.  Sure, you can still go down to the nearby casino (here in Columbus there are two), or even hang out at the local Bingo Hall (but don’t go at the first of the month, the Social Security checks are in!!).  But there are so, so, many new ways to gamble.  You can place a bet on your phone or your computer, on almost any sporting event.  You can even bet on what formation, or pitch, or pass will be executed on the next play. 

And now, with platforms like Kalshi, you can bet on life.  What will Trump’s first words of the next speech be?  There’s a market for that bet. (So much so, that the guy who put the speech into the teleprompter made hundreds of thousands of dollars).  Who will get elected in the next primary?  Bet on it.  How bad will the storm flooding be?  Yep, you can put money on that one too.

By the Book

The old school guys like my grandfather, who used to bet the horses, learned to look at the “form”, the book of the racing history.  How many wins, how many shows, on what kind of track:  all combined to decide how the horse might perform on the next race.  Is he a “Mudder”, or a “sprinter”, or leads from the front of the pack?  They used the past performances to bet on the future.

All of us old-school politicos fall back on that same kind of thinking when we look at the coming elections in November.  Here’s some of the things we say:

• The President always loses seats in Congress in the mid-terms
• The opposition party’s success is based on how low the President’s approval rating is
• It’s the economy, stupid (thanks for that, James Carville).

And, maybe, some of those old tropes are still true.

Dewey Wins

But as we’ve found in the past couple of weeks, old-school techniques like polling are no longer accurate.  Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic Progressive, was supposed to win the Democratic Michigan Senate primary by double digits. Instead, he eked out a narrow victory.  Francesca Hong, a Democratic Socialist, was supposed to win Wisconsin’s Democratic Governor Primary by the same huge margin.  She lost to David Crowley, a moderate who literally dropped out of the campaign, then re-entered, a month or so ago.

Why is the polling so inaccurate “these days”?  For the same reason it was inaccurate in the first place.   Back in the 1948 Presidential election, a major polling agency, Gallup, predicted that New York Governor Tom Dewey would defeat President Harry Truman.  It was so clear, that the editors of the Chicago Tribune decided to print the election day headline, “Dewey Wins” early, and go to bed.  Truman held the front page up in glee as he declared his victory.

What happened?  Two things:  first the poll was done a couple of weeks before the election.  Minds changed as election day approached.  And second:  it was 1948, and it was a telephone poll.  Gallup determined that the poll reached a good cross-section of the voting public.  But in 1948, for many a private phone line was still a luxury.  Some didn’t have direct access to a phone at all.  And some shared lines,  called “party lines” (they still existed when I first moved here to Pataskala in 1978).  So the “cross-section” was slanted to those voters who could afford private lines, a group that would also slant to Dewey.

Who Will Vote

Modern polling still depends on that cross-section.  Who will actually turn out on election day is still a guessing game.  And the pollsters in Michigan and Wisconsin guessed wrong.  In all fairness, in our modern age of cell phones, it’s difficult to get responses.  We all screen our calls; that random number calling often doesn’t get a response.  So it might take 50,000 calls to get a thousand responses.  And those that answer are often “motivated” poll responders.  They feel strongly about the issues, or they are big supporters of a candidate, or they want to “mess up” the data by lying.  In the end, they may not really represent the “cross-section” at all. 

Or the pollsters got the “cross-section” wrong.  My (educated) guess is that pollsters underestimated the turnout of “regular Democrats” in both Michigan and particularly Wisconsin.  They didn’t see the motivation for those voters to show up, certainly not as motivated as those planning on voting for El-Sayed or Hong.  But they did.

In the end, polling looks a lot more like gambling these days.  It’s an “educated” guess, not a scientific algorithm leading to an accurate solution.   So when you “hear” that Social Democrats are taking over the Party, or that Sherrod Brown is “up by two” in Ohio, or that Bengals Quarterback Joe Burrow will throw for 20 yards on the first play:  take it for what it is – a guess.

If polling is guessing, then what can you do to influence the election?  Do the hard stuff:  work for a candidate, educate yourself on the issues and convince your friends, even join the campaign.  And, if you can, financially support the candidates (or Party) of your choice.  

Or, you can bet on it.

America’s in Trouble

America is in trouble.  The cost of everything is going up, and wages aren’t keeping pace.  And if you think that’s bad, think about trying to live on 90% of what you made in 2013.  That’s what retired folks on fixed income are looking at, down 30% in purchasing power in the last twelve years.  (For a retired public school teacher; the promised thirteen years of 3% annual Cost of Living Allowance has turned into a total of only 5.5%.  That’s 30% less than what was promised – not that I’m complaining!!).

But one side of our political debate chooses to ignore consumer costs and spending, and focus on the tiny fraction (03.3%) of American teenagers that are transgendered (UCLA).  Those kids are used as a cudgel, a perceived “threat” to other children, and, according to some, the “The American Way of Life”!

Let me give you a current case, a distraction; demonizing this most vulnerable group of all, transgendered teens.  

Wrestling Coach

To start out, I need to explain that I wrestled in Junior High and High School.  I was also a wrestling coach at both levels for decades.  Like most wrestling coaches,  I got on the mat with the kids, it’s the most effective way to coach.  Wrestling is the ultimate full-contact sport.  One wrestler attempts to gain physical control of the other wrestler, forcing his or her shoulders to the mat for a long enough period of time that the official declares a fall, or what’s called a pin.  

Short of pinning someone, wrestling involves a series of actions to assert control over the opponent.  Certain actions are assigned points.  Taking the other wrestler down to the mat in control is worth two points.  Getting away from the controlling wrestler is worth one point.  Reversing from controlee to controller is worth two. Getting the opponent into a “near-fall” (nearly pinned) position can be worth two or three points, depending on how long they’re held there.

So you can win by pinning the opponent, or you can win by scoring more points.   Even if you have fewer points, a pin always wins. And there are technical rules:  you can’t choke, you can’t lock your hands around your opponent’s body down on the mat, you can’t twist against a joint to injury.  Violation of rules gives the other opponent points, or can result in disqualification from the match.

Parts is Parts

When I was wrestling and coaching, wrestling was a males-only sport.  Today that’s changed, and there is a growing movement of girls wrestling. Regardless, the rules are the same.  And whether a girl is wrestling a girl, a boy a boy, (or even, girls versus boys) there is an unspoken rule.  There are obvious places or parts that you don’t grab on your opponent.  Not only is it against the rules, but both wrestlers are equally vulnerable.  So, just because a hand comes across your mouth, you don’t get to bite it.  And just because an arm goes into the opponent’s crotch (there’s actually a move called a “high crotch”), it doesn’t mean you grab their private parts.

But it sometimes happens.  If you go on the wrestling mat, whatever form of “protection” you might wear, you could get hit in the privates.  It’s almost always an accident.  If it isn’t, and the official observes, it results in disqualification for unsportsmanlike conduct.  But the reality of the sport is:  when you’re struggling to gain or get out of control on a mat, things do accidently get touched, pushed, prodded or banged.  

 But when I was on the bottom, trying to escape, and the boy on  top thrust his fingers in my anus, it didn’t feel like an accident.   He later joked that he was “checking the oil”.  Today, we might call it sexual assault.  Back in “that day”, it was definite grounds for a fist fight.   And I haven’t forgotten.  It happened almost fifty years ago and I can still tell you that boy’s name (now an old man, like me).

Kallie’s Story

Kallie Keller was a sixteen year-old girl wrestling in the state of Washington.  She was in a match, down on the mat, when her opponent pressed fingers into her vagina.  Neither video of the action, nor the official, can see what happened.  But video of Kallie’s expression showed that something was going on that shocked her at that moment during the match.

It’s a different era, and fist-fighting during a wrestling match is even less likely.  After the match, Kallie complained both to her parents and the coach.

Like the incident in my match, it’s difficult to tell: was this an intentional sexual assault, or was it “inadvertent contact” in a wrestling situation.  The video is online: I can’t tell whether it was accidental or intentional.  Ultimately, the County Prosecutor didn’t think he could make a case, and charges were never brought.  But the county did bring charges of “failure to report” on both the school’s athletic director and the principal.  The prosecutor couldn’t bring charges, but he made it clear that it wasn’t up to the school administrators to make that same determination.

What Matters

Does it matter who was on top of Kallie when this happened?   Kallie’s opponent (it was later discovered) is a transgendered girl, but if she was cisgendered, would that make it OK?  I didn’t seem “OK” with that boy fifty years ago. I’m sure Kallie felt the same on the mat that day.  

As you might expect, all of a sudden this is about “boys in girls’ sports”, not the alleged inappropriate conduct of a wrestler of any gender.  The birth gender of the offender doesn’t make a difference. The intent absolutely does.

But for the political tinder fueling our social media fires, gender is really all that’s important.  And it distracts us from the very real and  serious issues that face our Nation.  

October 7th

It’s campaign time for the 2026 election, and you’re going to be hearing about this one.  Republicans are going to claim that some Democratic candidates are “anti-Semitic”, because they are horrified at Israel’s actions against Palestinians in the Middle East.  To Republicans (and by projection, for you), Israel’s actions in the Middle East since the October 7^th attack by Hamas should be totally justified.   And for the record:  I think that the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians that day was horrific, unjustifiable, and awful.  1200 Israelis were killed, including 364 massacred at the Nova Music Festival. 

But in response, Israel leveled Gaza.  73,000 Palestinians are dead, and more than 170,000 more wounded.   Two million Palestinians are homeless, roughly 90% of the population.  Republicans (and some Democrats) want us to consider this a “proportional response” from Israel, a nation-state, against Hamas, a terrorist organization.  

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear in both word and action that he considers that all Palestinians are Hamas.  He explains away his nation’s actions by comparing it to the United States use of atomic bombs against Japan, or US actions against Native Americans in the 19^th century.  Netanyahu is so committed to this destructive path, that clearly no settlement, even one negotiated by Trump’s own “Board of Peace”, is good enough for BeBe.  He refused another deal just this week.

False Equivalents

First, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not measurable against what’s happened in Gaza (accept, perhaps, in terms of casualties).  World War II was nation-state versus nation-state, and the atomic bombs were used as an alternative to a two or three year plan of invasion which would cost millions of lives.  The two situations are not the same.

Second, there are more realistic parallels to the American actions against the Native American population.  And while the United States still benefits today from the aggressions of the 19^th century, few of those actions are something Americans ought to be “proud of”.  Similarly the actions taken by American immigration control forces today echo the World War II internment camps, another black spot on our history.

Republicans want this to be a “black and white” issue.  They say if you’re not in favor of Israel, then you are abetting terrorists.  And if you’re not backing Netanyahu, then you are an anti-Semite, a hater of Jews. (In the same way, they’ll tell you that if you support Democrats who support some socialist ideas, then you support Communism).  Neither are “black and white” issues.  

In the Gray

There are a whole lot of grays.  First of all, absolute obeisance to Netanyahu isn’t even true in Israel itself.  Like Trump here in the United States, BeBe has a core support of around 37% of Israelis, and his re-election chances in the coming October 27^th election are currently less than 50% (Jerusalem Post).  So if Americans can’t question his actions without being anti-Semitic, what about over half of Israelis? Are they anti themselves?

In the same sense, much of the world is opposed to Donald Trump.  So, is much of the American electorate, with only a 34% approval rating (Pew).  So is the world anti-American, or simply against Donald Trump, along with a majority of the American people?  

Americans can be against the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu without being anti-Israel or against Jews.  Almost half of American Jews oppose his actions (Washington Post).  And Republican leadership, most of whom are not Jewish, don’t get to decide who is anti-Semitic and who isn’t.  But they’re trying to anyway. 

It’s About Arithmetic

This issue has a lot more to do with electoral politics than right and wrong.   “Gray issues” don’t make for good thirty second television ads, or billboard slogans.  But our clear political reality today is that Donald Trump has committed the United States to Benjamin Netanyahu. What happens to one impacts the other.  BeBe is already running an AI generated ad showing his opponent, Gadi Eisenkot, running past a Jewish youth with a T-shirt saying “Israeli Unity”, to embrace a Palestinian lawmaker (Twitter). And it’s not playing so well with the voters in Israel.

Michigan Democrats nominated Abdul El-Sayed for the US Senate. Expect Republicans will do all they can to link support for him to  support for “terrorists”.  But, even in politics, two plus two doesn’t always equal five.  Hopefully both the American and Israeli electorates can see the mathematical error, and get to the correct answer for the equation.

This is a “Sunday Story”.  No politics today, just a story of “modern life”.  Enjoy!!!

Old Can Openers

Our home is now a heavy consumer of can openers.  But for decades, I didn’t even own an electric can opener.   I had one of those (really) old metal ones, that required a grip of steel and a right handed person to manipulate.  Did you know that most manual can openers are “right handed”?  They require you to operate the twist/handle with your right hand.  There’s no way to use in a “left-handed” manner.  It’s just one of many commonplace objects where “handed-discrimination” is rampant:  try scissors.  Update – of course you can now buy a left-handed can opener – where were they all those years!

But I really didn’t open cans that much, so it wasn’t that big a deal.  And thanks to a buddy who served in the Marines, I always had the military alternative.  It was a “GI can opener” that hung on my keychain for decades.  If the “right-handed” one wouldn’t cut it (hah!), the GI can opener would do the job. 

But with the dogs, especially our dogs with a mix of dry food, canned food, and green beans; we open cans a lot.  So we bought electric can openers to ease the process.  At first, I considered buying an industrial, counter-mounted can opener, the kind I used at cross country camp.  That would open any can of any size or condition.   But Jenn really wasn’t interested in having that big lunk in our kitchen – and besides – we have granite counter tops.  I was afraid the clamp would somehow damage it.  ( I wanted a restaurant dishwasher with the big casino style handle – but it would take up too much room!!)

Automation Strikes

We get our canned dog food in bulk from Chewy.  Sometimes the cans arrive in pristine condition, but just as often a row of cans is dented or semi-crushed.  Getting a regular electric can opener (even a Cuisinart) to circumnavigate a can that wasn’t close to even was a challenge.  Sometimes, I’d just get a portion of the top open, then take pliers and tin-snips to open it the rest of the way.  But even that partial process was still too much for the Cuisinart, breaking the tiny gears that turned the can under the blade.  We went through three of them over a couple of years.  When the last one broke a few weeks ago, it was definitely time for a change.

Amazon is, of course, the savior for all things in the kitchen.  Don’t have what you need?  It can be at the front door by sundown, with just a few keystrokes.  So I perused all of the varying can openers, and decided to go with a “heavy duty” Hamilton Beach model.  As advertised it arrived that evening, in time for the dog dinner hour.  I was anxious to try it.

Where’s the Edge

Now my whole life, opening a can meant putting an “edge” into the top of the can, then traversing the rim of the can, leaving a “top” that is just slightly smaller than the circumference of the can.  Each of the first four openers pictured above worked that way.  The major “danger” was that top, which might have sharp edges.  So removing it was sometimes tricky (though the Cuisinart included a magnet to pull it out of the can).   

And the Hamilton-Beach seemed the same.  You press the can against the front, push down the top handle to lock it down, and the can turns.  But once the can had turned a full 360 degrees, I looked at the top.  It wasn’t open!!!!  There was no edge, no top to peel out of the can.  I ran the can through again, but still no opening.  I felt – foolish.  How old am I?  Old enough to fail at working a can opener!!!

A Better Mouse Trap

I swallowed my pride, and asked Jenn to join in on the task.  We both tried again, but nothing changed.  Then we switched from dog food to a can of baked beans.  Again, no top opening, but I did notice that “bean juice” was running all over the place.  Something was open!!!!

There’s an old phrase, “Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door”.  Hamilton-Beach has a better “mouse trap”.  Their can opener doesn’t open the top of the can.  Instead, it de-capitates the can, cutting through the side just below the top.  What we were doing was decapitating the cans over and over again.  It just took lifting the top off to now get it open.  No dangerous edge to remove finger tips, and no worrying about how bad the top of the can is beat up.  If it’s too beat up, go to the bottom of the can.  Hamilton-Beach doesn’t need a can edge to “grip” as it carves through the side!!!

Who knew?  I still marvel at the “outside the box” (outside the can?) thinking at Hamilton-Beach.  And, I’ve discovered once again:  there’s always something new to learn in the world, even if it’s as mundane as how to open a tin can.  

And, I know. There haven’t been real tin cans since pennies were copper.

The Sunday Story Series

2021

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21

2022

• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22

2023

• Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• End of an Era – 6/25/23
• Paybacks – 7/2/23
• Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
• Being a Goat – 7/23/23
• Toy Truck – 8/20/23
• Medical Terms – 8/27/23
• Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
• The McGowan – 9/10/23
• Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
• The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
• A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
• Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
• Out in the Country – 12/10/23
• Christmas Eve – 12/24/23

2024

• Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
• Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
• A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
• Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
• Your Safe Spot – 3/17/24
• Easter Dawn – 3/31/24
• Swarms – 4/14/24
• Lowest Common Denominator – 4/28/24
• Seniors – 5/12/24
• Season’s Over – 6/22/24
• Camp Morning – 6/30/24
• Jeeping – 7/7/24
• How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost) – 8/6/24
• Fifty Years of the McGowan – 9/8/24
• A Walk in the Woods – 10/22/24
• Smokin – 12/6/24
• Coal for Christmas 12/16/24
• Provenance – 12/22/24

2025

• Lost and Found – 2/22/25
• Catching Cars – 3/2/25
• PV Mentor – 3/31/25
• Dogs, Jeeps, Fireworks and Beer Coolers 7/6/25
• It’s About Time – 7/27-25
• Gas War – 11/30/25

2026

• The End of My Nose – 1/18/26
• The End of the Jeep – 1/25/26
• Fat Chipmunk – 2/15/26
• A Flash of Unity – 2/23/26
• Lessons Learned – 4/12/26
• Blue Sky Rain – 5/10/26
• A Union Dog House – 8/2/26
• Thinking Outside the Can – 8/9/26

Alligators

The state of Louisiana is known for a lot of things.  There’s gumbo, bayous, New Orleans, and the LSU Tigers football team.  And, down in the bayou, there are lots of alligators.  There are supposedly three million in the wild, and another million on alligator farms.  And while there are almost as many alligators as people in Louisiana, the one thing there “ain’t”, is crocodiles.

But there were plenty of crocodile tears in the US Senate chamber this morning, cried by the lame-duck Senator from Louisiana, Dr. Bill Cassidy.  He was so sad, choked up, driven to tears, by his decision to vote for Todd Blanche as the next Attorney General.  Cassidy is the deciding vote.  With Mitch McConnell out on extended (and perhaps terminal) sick leave, President Trump could only lose two Republican votes, if all the Democrats held firm. 

Hamlet 

Lisa Murkowski made it clear early that she found Blanche unacceptable.  And Susan Collins, facing a tough Maine re-election contest, had to go farther than her normal “concern” and actually pledge to vote against as well.  Meanwhile John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Tillis of North Carolina accepted a “blank check” from Mr. Blanche, to mollify their spoken concerns.  All of that left Cassidy as the “last man standing” between Trump getting his chosen personal attorney as his Attorney General, or not.

Cassidy played out his “Hamlet” routine for all it was worth.  He talked about everyone who advised him, from Cornyn and Tillis to former Attorney General Bill Barr and the two US Attorneys in his native state.  He even mentioned Democratic stalwart and Blanche opponent Sheldon Whitehouse.  

Then he noted that Trump could keep Blanche as an interim appointment for months anyway.  And that Trump could have chosen a nominee “so much worse” than Blanche.  All of that sounds like a solid reason for something.  Blanche is better than worser, and he’s already there.  Trump “trumps” America once again.

Providing Cover

Then the tears came out:  “People aren’t going to like what I decide.”  But crocodile tears or not, Hamlet or not, unfettered by re-election concerns or not, Cassidy did exactly what we expected him to do.  He saved Blanche’s appointment, and showed once again that, while he might have been a gastro-intestinal specialist, he definitely can’t identify a spine;  at least from personal experience.

I think it’s really a deal to provide cover.  There are five Republican Senate members who “talk the game” of standing up to Trump:  Cornyn, Cassidy, Collins, Murkowski and Tillis.  When McConnell was around, it took four of them together to stop a pro-Trump vote is in the Senate.  (Note:  there are 47 Democrats and 53 Republicans in the Senate, with a tie decided by Republican Vice President JD Vance).  

And in vote after vote, three, usually Murkowski and two others, would gain political cover by opposing Trump, while a rotating list of the other five “showed concern” but stuck with the President.  The net result:  Trump got what he wanted, and two Senators could “show their independence” to their constituents.    

But with McConnell missing, the number was down to three.  Collins and Murkowski already had their opposition positions staked out.  That left Cassidy, facing the wrath of Trump.

Wrath is Real

That wrath is real. There are states unable to get Federal disaster aid, because they voted for Harris instead of Trump in 2024.  So it really is a possibility that repairing the damage from the next hurricane to come up the Mississippi Delta might depend on Cassidy’s vote (though his Senate brethren from Louisiana, John Kennedy, is a Trump stalwart).  

It’s not the fact that Dr. Cassidy is spineless, it’s the tears that makes me boil.  How dare he, a United States Senator, one of one-hundred in all of America, not have the courage of his decision.  If he has to cry, then he’s admitting he’s doing the wrong thing, for the wrong reason.  And that doesn’t make him a sympathetic victim of Presidential bullying, it makes him coward.

If you’re going to be spineless, a coward, at least make a good show of it.  The Trump Administration has a lot of people in this country crying for good reason.   A US  Senator who can’t stand up isn’t one of them.

Can’t Shoot

I’m not a basketball guy.  In fact, I was cut from the fifth grade basketball team at Southdale Elementary School in Kettering, Ohio.  And they were right.  No matter how many shots I took at the basket hung over the driveway at home, I didn’t improve.  Hours of time, dribbling from the garage door to the pole, usually ended up with me in the next door neighbor’s yard, finding the ball.  And while I was often the fastest kid on the court, there was no need to guard me.  Leave me open, I’ll miss the shot all by myself.

So I found another sport in the winter, wrestling.  

But I stayed around basketball long enough to understand the rules.  You can’t walk without dribbling. And while it’s a physical game (did you see the NBA Finals, or any WNBA game?), there are some things you can’t do.  In high school and college basketball, you get five personal fouls, and then you’re disqualified from the game.

Stupid Fouls

I did watch a lot of high school basketball. As part of my “duties” as Dean of Students, I was at most home games, usually keeping an eye on the student section of the stands.  We wanted our kids to be excited and involved, but not to do anything stupid.  The “stupid” part was where I came in as “the Dean”.  

In a close basketball game, coaches protect their best players from fouling out of the game. They save the final foul so that their critical skills are on the game floor until the last seconds.  But in a blowout, when no special talent was likely to change the outcome, a coach might leave their best “out there”, playing with four fouls.  It’s a good experience for them to play under the handicap, and if/when they get tossed, it doesn’t really matter.

Max

Congressman Max Miller, is a thirty-seven year old Republican from Shaker Heights, a wealthy suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.  He represents the Seventh Congressional District, a carefully gerrymandered area including the Cleveland east and south suburbs, parts of suburban Akron, and huge swaths of Northeastern Ohio farmlands.

Miller was a staffer in the 2016 Trump Campaign. He transitioned to a Treasury Department job after the election, then moved to the White House staff.  There, he became a Trump “favorite”.  After Trump left office in 2021, Miller went back home to run for Congress.

He opposed Republican Tony Gonzalez, who was one of the ten Republican Congressmen to vote for Trump’s impeachment.  In fact, Trump’s first campaign appearance after leaving office was at a rally for Miller. Gonzalez withdrew from the race in the fall of 2021, and Miller defeated his Democratic opponent Matt Diemer in 2022. He then won re-election against  Diemer and Independent Dennis Kucinich in 2024.

Miller’s a flawed candidate.  He has a history of physically abusing women, including during his short marriage to Emily Moreno, the daughter of current US Senator Bernie Moreno.  They had one child together, and continue to wage an ugly custody fight over her.  The battle has spilled over into the public arena. Just last week, the Senator weighed in stating that Miller was so violent that he wasn’t qualified to be a Representative in Congress. Miller responded by accusing Moreno of trying to distract from his own political problems. That includes a profane rant against Dr. Anthony Fauci in a formal Senate committee hearing.

Technical Issues

Ohio Republicans face a problem.  Miller is the candidate for re-election in 2026.  He is faced with a Progressive Democratic opponent in Brian Poindexter, and without a known independent like Dennis Kucinich to siphon off thousands of votes.   And the more information that comes out about Miller, the less likely it seems that he can hold the Seventh.

There are technical issues.  If Miller were to resign from office today, Ohio law requires a special election be held, and then the regular election in November.  If Miller stays in office, but withdraws as a candidate by Monday, August 10^th, Republicans can replace him on the ticket for November.  But if Miller holds on until after Monday, his name will appear on the ballot in November, no matter what else occurs.

It’s not often that a Republican Senator from the same region comes out against a Republican Congressman.  And while it’s more common (these days) to find Congressmen embroiled in bad behavior than it used to be, the evidence about Miller looks strong enough to cost him the seat in November.

Still in the Game?

So it comes down to this.  Republicans do not want a special election.  But they do not want Miller on the ballot in November.  He won’t resign from the Congress, but will the powers of the Republican Party have enough to push him out of the campaign by Monday?  

Will they pull him with “four fouls”, or allow him to “foul out” in November?

The answer may have more to do with what National Republicans really think about their chances of holding the House of Representatives for 2027.   If they’ve already decided that Democrats will take the Speaker’s gavel, maybe it’s not worth a fight with Miller, and perhaps Trump, over Ohio’s Seventh District.  After all, if Republicans are going to lose control, one more seat doesn’t matter much.  But if Mike Johnson is really “in the fight” to keep the House, then Miller needs to go.

The clock is ticking down.  Time runs out for the Seventh and Republicans on Monday. 

Old Phrases

It’s an old phrase, one that my coaching mentor, John McGowan taught me:  “If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got”.   It explains the irrational expectation that doing the same action without change will result in a different outcome.  Run the same first mile of the race, get the same finish.  Use the same bad technique in the pole vault, clear the same height.  

Of course there’s the alternative to this.  If what you “always got” is good, then why change what you’re doing?  If the sprint workouts produce great 400 meter runners, then don’t throw them out and try something completely different.  Maybe “tweak” the workouts, trying to find an even better outcome.  But don’t “…throw the baby out with the bath water”. 

And to push the coaching analogy one more step; I also learned that every workout doesn’t work for every kid.  You have to build your team, your process, around the individuals you have, not the individuals you used to have.  Change is inevitable.  Back in the early 1970’s, I ran my workouts in low-cut Converse All-Stars.  My only alternative was to use my racing spikes, with no arch support at all.  Kids today have specialized shoes for longer runs, racing flats for sprinting workouts, and racing spikes for competition.  The pounding that gave me an aspirin addicting case of shin-splints, now can be prevented with the right equipment.  They train harder and smarter.

On the Brink

As a Democrat in the United States today, I see a Nation on the brink.  America is making so many choices:  billionaires or working class,  uncontrolled Artificial Intelligence or “guardrails”, health care based on need or on wealth, great education for all or for the few, free elections or voters chosen by those governing. It’s not just about Trump or even MAGA.  Here in Ohio a billionaire is running for governor, bringing his values to the table.  He’s made it clear:  Ohio should be only for those who excel, not for those who don’t or can’t.  It sounds good for those few, I guess. But is that the state or the Nation we want:  one that only benefits the few, not the many?   

The Supreme Court is in the pocket of the billionaire class.  So is the Congress.  The President, a billionaire himself, is enriching himself daily, often at the expense of the American people.  Congress chooses not to enforce its own powers, ceding authority, even the power to make war, to a President who recklessly risks lives and world peace.  

Old Days

Democrats thought this existential crisis was over in 2020.  We won, then governed like it was “regular” times (to quote Prince, like it was “1999”).  Instead of holding those responsible for Trump’s excesses accountable, they mostly were given a pass.  Though some Insurrectionists of January 6^th were punished, the leaders who brought them to the doors of the Capitol were not.  There were no institutional changes to alter how temporary appointments were used to dodge Congressional oversight or other executive expansions of power.  Trump was considered an aberration, not a trend.  The Democratic establishment went blissfully along like it was the “good old days”. 

How wrong we were then. And now, even more importantly, we don’t know how many more chances will we get to make it right.  What happens this November may be the last, best opportunity to alter the trajectory of the Nation.

Always Got

Democrats have run “regular” candidates for office.  We spend millions of dollars trying to match the billionaires, even run billionaires ourselves (Governor Pritzker of Illinois).   The “establishment” of the Democratic Party has a pretty straight line, Clinton to Obama to Clinton to Biden to Harris.  Today, Democrats in many places are faced with a choice.  We can  “do what we always did”, and risk getting what we always got.  We can support “establishment candidates”, like those currently in Michigan and Wisconsin, and hope (irrationally?) that we’ll get something different.  Or we can risk “throwing the baby out with the bath water”, and support candidates aligned with the Progressives, the (OMG!!) Democratic Socialist Party (the DSP).

Here in Ohio I think our Democratic candidates are following a “middle path”.  Sherrod Brown and Amy Acton are more “progressive” than “establishment”, but neither is a DSP member.  They are not leading a working class “revolution”.  They are trying to reach both. (There’s another catch-phrase about what happens to those who sit on the fence – I hope it doesn’t apply to them). 

But tomorrow in Michigan Democratic voters may be deciding the fate of the United States.   The Michigan race for the US Senate is crucial:  the current Senator, Democrat Gary Peters, is retiring.  The “establishment” candidate, supported  by Peters, current Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, is Congressman Haley Stevens.  But she’s running behind in the polls.  The “insurgent”, Abdul El-Sayed, a DSP member and supported by Bernie Sanders and AOC, is leading by a pretty wide margin.

Tomorrow

So, if tomorrow Michigan Democrats choose El-Sayed as their candidate, to use a different catch-phrase, they are taking the Nation, “all-in”.  Will a bluish-purple state like Michigan elect a DSP and Muslim candidate?  Or will the balance of the Senate shift, as a Democratic seat falls to a Republican candidate?

I can say with reasonable certainty that a DSP candidate could not win in Ohio.  The balance of elections here is in the hands of the suburban Republicans turned independent, the “Red, Wine and Blue” voters (they used to be called “soccer Moms”).  Democratic candidates are making in-roads in this group, but the DSP would be a bridge too far.

But I can’t say about Michigan.  Perhaps the Detroit vote is so overwhelming, and for El-Sayed, the huge Islamic vote, that he can overcome what might be unifying MAGA moment.   What I can say is that we are at the cusp of two different catch-phrases:  getting what we always got, or throwing the baby out. 

Tomorrow will set the stage – and tell us where we might be going in America.

It’s been a while since I wrote a “Sunday Story”.  So what better way to get back to it than one about dogs – our dogs – and the “Dog Union”!!!

A Dog House

We are a “union” dog house.  Our dogs are charter members of  “Dog Meals United”, local number 200.  And, as a former union President myself, I understand their organizing.  After all, there are four of them, and only two of us.  They need to express their feelings about the “working conditions” here at 200 Linda Ave in Pataskala (thus, Local 200).  

Equity is a major issue for the Local, led by the “shop steward”, Keelie, loyally followed by Lou. Keelie isn’t the oldest dog in our pack, but she’s definitely both the wisest and the most independent.  And Keelie is a stickler of equity at mealtime.

So here’s the problem.  We have Atticus, the “six million dollar” Lab (more like $30,000), who’s allergic to almost everything.  He can’t eat meat, he can’t eat fish, he can’t eat buffalo or reindeer or whatever exotic food is available.  He has to eat “hydrologized protein” food.  That means that the proteins in regular food have been put through a homogenization process, which fracture the proteins into their component parts.  He still gets needed protein, but it has the consistency and taste of chalk (Jenn tried, not me).

But he can eat carrots, lots and lots of carrots.  Oh, and green beans too, preferably fresh and just “cracked”, but he’ll take canned green beans over none.  So we mix the “chalk” with carrots pieces and green beans, so he actually has something that tastes like, something.

Equity and Diversity

Well, that creates an equity issue with the rest of the union membership.  After all, he gets “special food” (which the youngest, CeCe, actually seems to like).  So what’s “special” for them?  They used to eat Pedigree chicken and vegetables.  It came in a thirty-two pound bag for about a dollar a pound.  And we mixed in canned beef and gravy, to “sweeten the deal”.   But “Steward Keelie” determined that management wasn’t providing an equitable distribution of diverse food.  So there was a work stoppage.  Keelie and Lou refused to eat their regular dinner.  

Now don’t think this was a starvation strike.  They ate carrots, and they ate treats (dog bone biscuits).  But they wouldn’t eat their breakfast or dinner.  After intense negotiations, lasting for several hours, management (Jenn) determined that we’d switch them to salmon based food, that cost about $60 for a twenty-four pound bag.  And for a while, that upgrade worked.

But then there’s CeCe, the youngest.  She’s as stubborn as a pit bull. (Well, she is a pit bull.) And she decided that she wanted Atticus food, plus canned food, plus something else.  We went a couple of days with minimal eating, and finally her “wildcat strike” (wild-dog strike?) ended with the addition of a little bit of lunch meat, first turkey, then ham.

Union Noses

But the other union members recognized the change. After all, they are Union dogs, with Union noses.  They filed a “unfair feeding practice” complaint. It stated;  “We’re getting salmon dry food (with a few green beans), he’s getting carrots and beans, and she’s getting canned food, hydrogolized food ($137 for thirty pounds) and lunch meat?” They soon came up with the “Hell NO” strategy.  First they held out for canned food too.  And while that got them back to the duties for a minute, soon the smell of lunch meat was too much to overcome.

This morning, Keelie and Lou got their salmon dried food, mixed with canned beef and gravy, with a smattering of green beans on top.   They walked over to breakfast, sniffed it, then walked back to the gate at the entry to the kitchen.  Keelie looked me in the eye:  “No meat, No eat.” If they only had fingers to make signs, they’d be picketing the kitchen.

Capitulation

As management, I felt frustrated.  After all, eating is our business, and to fail means total disruption to 200 Linda Ave. But, my hard-headed unionized pack knows what they want, and they’ll stare at the gate, waiting, for as long as it takes.  And my former Union President sense kicks in.  After all, I am proud they stick together, proud that they are an American Made Dog Union.  And, I am a pushover anyway.

So they got a bit of sandwich turkey.  And all of a sudden, it was the best meal they ever had!!!

I’ll try again, tomorrow.  After all, we go through a lot of dog food, and adding lunch meat to every meal seems a bit much.  

Maybe if I can get them through breakfast, we can try some ham at dinner.

The Sunday Story Series

2021

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21

2022

• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22

2023

• Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• End of an Era – 6/25/23
• Paybacks – 7/2/23
• Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
• Being a Goat – 7/23/23
• Toy Truck – 8/20/23
• Medical Terms – 8/27/23
• Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
• The McGowan – 9/10/23
• Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
• The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
• A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
• Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
• Out in the Country – 12/10/23
• Christmas Eve – 12/24/23

2024

• Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
• Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
• A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
• Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
• Your Safe Spot – 3/17/24
• Easter Dawn – 3/31/24
• Swarms – 4/14/24
• Lowest Common Denominator – 4/28/24
• Seniors – 5/12/24
• Season’s Over – 6/22/24
• Camp Morning – 6/30/24
• Jeeping – 7/7/24
• How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost) – 8/6/24
• Fifty Years of the McGowan – 9/8/24
• A Walk in the Woods – 10/22/24
• Smokin – 12/6/24
• Coal for Christmas 12/16/24
• Provenance – 12/22/24

2025

• Lost and Found – 2/22/25
• Catching Cars – 3/2/25
• PV Mentor – 3/31/25
• Dogs, Jeeps, Fireworks and Beer Coolers 7/6/25
• It’s About Time – 7/27-25
• Gas War – 11/30/25

2026

• The End of My Nose – 1/18/26
• The End of the Jeep – 1/25/26
• Fat Chipmunk – 2/15/26
• A Flash of Unity – 2/23/26
• Lessons Learned – 4/12/26
• Blue Sky Rain – 5/10/26
• A Union Dog House – 8/2/26