How Did Republicans Become the Pro-Russia Party? So long, Mike Johnson.  It sure was nice knowing you, or not knowing you, as the case may be.  Turns out you weren’t around long enough to share a cup of coffee with, which I assume you do not drink for religious reasons.  By the time I go to publish this piece, I am guessing that you will already have been ousted as Speaker of the House, a position you have held for just over 6 months.  But don’t feel too badly about being only the second Speaker of the House to be removed from the post.  You almost lasted as long as ..read more

I choose Hell If there really is a Heaven and a Hell after we die, I’m pretty damn sure we all know where I am headed.  In fairness, it doesn’t matter if it’s Dante’s Inferno or just a Heaven or Hell-themed cocktail party: Either way, I’m generally veering straight for the lowest floor.  As my literary and personal hero Oscar Wilde once said, “I don’t want to go to Heaven.  None of my friends are there.”  Or, in the immortal words of Billy Joel, “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.  The sinners are much more fun.”  But if you can’t tell b ..read more

Where Do Caitlin Clark, and the WNBA, Go From Here? It is no exaggeration to suggest that Caitlin Clark  has become the most impactful female athlete of this generation.  Leading Iowa to the NCAA Championship Game in both of the last two seasons, Clark has become the all-time leading scorer in college basketball history.  That’s for men or women.  I mean, this girl rains down 3’s like she were a tropical depression.  Yeah, Caitlin can shoot alright, but if you have watched her play, she is every bit as adept as a passer, leading the NCAA in assists at nearly 9 per gam ..read more

Let Your Kids Get Boo Boo’s We all know that cranky, old men have a tendency to bitterly lament the way things aren’t what they used to be, that we might have a slight tendency towards false perceptions of then versus now that overly romanticise the hallmarks of an earlier era.  Remembering our past with a wistful nostalgia that vilifies the present, we have a predilection for pining sentimentality.  But sometimes us old guys are just plain right.  And when it comes to the way we spent our youth as compared to those of modern kids, I will unequivocally state right here and now ..read more

The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love I became a father for the first time seventeen years ago this January.  No one could have told me then, though they certainly tried to in varying forms of both inspirational hyperbole and threatening menace, that my life would be dramatically transformed from that day forward.  Flash forward all those years and home-based tragedies later, and I count myself blessed to be the parent of two breathtaking humans.  I took my son for his first college tour last week, and it occurred to me that my life was set to change again, that my relationship wit ..read more

The Meritocracy of Sports When it comes to watching television, my girlfriend and I are often at an unmitigated impasse.  I like watching sports, and she wants to watch cooking shows.  For the life of me, I cannot understand devoting my leisure time to watching others performing a household chore that I absolutely hate doing.  She, meanwhile, is entirely baffled at the exact opposite prospect in that she cannot fathom watching someone playing a sport instead of just going out and doing it oneself.  Clearly, she has not seen my golf game.  Either way, we are both livi ..read more

The Day That Justice Died I don’t mean to tell you that I told you so, but, man, I freakin’ told you so.  When Republicans literally stole a Supreme Court seat in the wake of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s passing, I told you that it would have vast, wide-ranging implications for decades to come.  I told you that we couldn’t just allow a party that has won the popular vote in only one presidential election since I graduated high school in 1989 to nominate six of the nine justices to the Supreme Court and not have dire implications for our country and its democracy.  I told you that per ..read more

The 2024 Election May Look Better Than It Seems Just the other day a friend of mine asked me what I thought Trump’s chances were of winning the presidency later this year if he is not criminally convicted of charges prior to the election.  First, I had to remind them that I completely blew the 2016 election call when I proceeded to dance on Trump’s campaign grave after the “Grab them by the pussy” video came out.  So maybe I’m not exactly the best person to ask here, but I put his odds at 40% absent a criminal conviction (numerous polls show that any criminal conviction would doom ..read more

Make the World a Better Place “What is success? To laugh often and much;  to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;  to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate the beauty; to find the best in others;  to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;  to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.  This is to have succeeded!”  ― Ralph Waldo Emerson   Each morning at our school, we as teachers take ..read more

Unconditional Love is Not Unconditional Praise Several years back now, I had a student who proceeded to give one of the absolute worst video presentations in the long annals of horrendously bad student presentations.  Now, I know you’re thinking that I certainly must be involved in some playful hyperbole here, that there is no way that his presentation could have been as bad as I am making it out to be.  But trust me when I suggest that no matter what your imagination could possibly conceive of, no matter how preposterously bad you might think it could be, that  Aiden’s Greek ..read more