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Twenty more days

That’s how many days we have until Election Day, when the majority of Americans who are politically engaged will go to the polls and cast their votes for President.  Of course, in many states, voters are able to vote by mail (my daughter and her husband have that convenience in their home state) or vote early, as we’ve seen happening in record numbers in the state of Georgia. So now we’re seeing both candidates make concerted efforts to get their messaging out with increased television advertising and by appearing at public events but also taking advantage of non-traditional media sources like podcasts and satellite radio programs like Howard Stern’s.  Given the number of people who say that they don’t consume traditional news sources like network and cable news broadcasts and newspapers, that’s one of those ideas that’s a good one but it took a long time for political operatives to acknowledge their importance. Objectively, though, I have to say that the former President and Republica
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The end of an era

Happy Friday, one and all. We’ve almost made it to a hard-won weekend! Before I go further, let me express my hope that everyone who visits here is safe and dry, given the severe weather some parts of our country have experienced.  I have been fortunate throughout my life not to have experienced a disaster like the recent hurricanes, so I am certainly thankful for that. So I stopped by this morning because, as the kids say (sorry, when you are in your 60s that applies pretty frequently), I did a thing yesterday. Over the past few years my travels have caused my approach to on-the-road entertainment to evolve somewhat.  Part of it was buying our newest car, which is equipped with a dedicated connection for your phone to then play the contents of that phone via the car audio system.  Another part of it is that I rent cars for about half of my travel weeks, when the distance is such that I want to keep those miles off my car. But the real reason I did what I did was that it was time for a
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Threat level ORANGE

By my rough count we’re five weeks out from Election Day, and probably another week from learning who the winner of this highly unusual campaign will be. I don’t think anyone who visits here regularly doubts that my allegiance is with Vice President Harris, as it was for President Biden previously.  We have benefited from steadiness and experience in the White House and our economy has shown the positive effect of this leadership for quite some team.  Lest we forget, the country also had to come out of the worst period of COVID spread before any of this would be possible, and while former President Trump green-lighted the development of our vaccines, his administration really wasn’t able to do much in terms of distribution, so the Biden team did that as well. I bring this up because the hate and dishonesty and downright absurd accusations about nearly everyone by Mr. Trump have apparently kept some people from fully embracing the possibility of electing our first female President.  The
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Strange days indeed

Hello, friends.  It's Monday, or at least it will be for a little while longer.... This post is gonna be an assortment of things, some of some importance and some not.  As always, bear with me, I'm going as fast as my 64 year old brain will allow! If you're a sports fan and enjoy a professional football game broadcast once in a while, you've probably heard former quarterback Tom Brady as a game analyst on Fox Sports.  He's paired with the excellent play-by-play man Kevin Burkhardt, who is among my favorites.  I'd rate Burkhardt second only to Mike Tirico and Ian Eagle these days. Anyway, Burkhardt and his former partner Greg Olson has become Fox's top booth team after Joe Buck and Troy Aikman departed for ESPN and Monday Night Football.  They had developed a great chemistry over the years they worked together. And now that's gone.  I have not heard Olson work a game since Brady was added to the "national" game squad with Burkhardt, Erin Andrews
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One thing, then another

Happy Monday, everyone.  Hope you had a good weekend. I suppose that the former president has had better days, as another assassination plan was foiled by Secret Service agents at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida yesterday afternoon. The "former guy," as he's often referenced, stated a short time after this attempt was announced widely that it had been an interesting day.  He managed to build fundraising e-mails and social media posts around this alleged assassination attempt. And let's face it, he promised so much to so many who voted for him in his two previous campaigns and has failed to make good on many of those commitments.  He pledged to remove illegal immigrants from the country and to stop more from entering.  There were not large-scale deportations during his administration and the wall that he promised that Mexico would fund was constructed only in a few places and was not even close to completed.   Contrast that to the 1% of the population that
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…and after

Back for a little summation of what most of us watched in real time….   Seems that all of the back and forth about muting or unmuting microphones was for naught, because the former President insisted on interjecting numerous times and was accommodated each time.  The Vice-President also did this a couple of times, but not to the extent that former President Trump did. It seemed there were two consistent approaches here….Vice-President Harris spoke to camera much of the time, except when she was explaining things to former President Trump, and that showed a keen awareness of the split-screen nature of these debates and how they’re shown. Donald Trump seemed like a feeble old man to me most of the time, ranting at various points and reacting negatively to most of what Kamala Harris had to say about him.  He could not look at his opponent, he failed to distinguish between previous lies and newer positions he had taken on race, foreign relations, tariffs, immigration and a host of other su
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Before….

The day is here, friends, when we see former President Donald Trump do what he’s made an awful lot of noise about NOT doing…..debating his political opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris. I am going to post again after it’s over, so thought I’d send out some thoughts about where we are and how we got there.   Let’s start with former President Trump…. I don’t think I’m alone in sensing that Mr. Trump has been veering further and further from the mainstream over the past couple of months.  He first postulated how unfair it is that he “beat” President Biden and now has to do the same with Vice-President Harris.  Unless I’m mistaken, the campaign did not end with President Biden’s relatively poor debate performance, and it’s not over yet.  Trump also seems to really be leaning into several ideas, not the least of which is that he plans to get even, one way or another, with those who oppose him.  In addition to the camps into which he plans to force all illegal immigrants, there may well b
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