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Gretzky the Vacant

One of those vulgar Facebook posts that claim to be enlightening you about the amazingly consequential achievements of some celebrity or another called Wayne Gretzky a “national treasure”.  A talented athlete is not a “national treasure”. It’s just sports.  It’s just an individual with extraordinary physical gifts who does well in a sport.  Sports are not important or consequential.  They are fun, when done well, and toxic when not.  They are sometimes toxic when they are done well, as when the U. S. national women’s football team starts to act like they are entitled to the championship every time.

Gretzky was always kind of a blank slate, a super-talented athlete with very little depth of character. He was a master of the sports interview, giving his 100%, thanking his team-mates, making the obligatory charitable gestures, hauling his money off to the bank.

Now we see more of his character and it’s not pretty.  It’s tacky and tasteless and self-serving and tone-death.  He did not have to endorse Trump, or show up at Mar a Lago to hang out with him or conspicuously salute the American team or hand out hats to the Canadian team that seemed inspired by MAGA.   I am mystified that a man with Gretzky’s profile didn’t have a smart PR agent to tell him how bad all of that would look.

Maybe Gretzky never cared all that much what Canadians thought of him anyway.  He lives almost exclusively in the United States.

What idiot made him “honorary captain” of the Canadian team at the Four Nations tournament?  (Answer: someone in the NHL League Offices.)

For the same reason that people should not make too much of any professional athlete people should not make too much of their faults.  Big deal.  Big deal that he scored a lot of goals.  Big deal that he’s all cozy and snuggly with the appalling Mr. Trump.

Move on.

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The Peacemonger Trump

I don’t think enough attention has been paid to one of the truly most remarkable aspects of President Donald Trump: his aversion to war.

This turns traditional American politics on its head: the Republicans have almost always, in my lifetime, represented the party of military aggression.  The party that was eager to send the marines in whenever American foreign interests (usually oil) are threatened, or whenever there was an opportunity to install a friendly proxy administration somewhere.  Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait.  The U. S. had limited involvement (mainly equipment supplies but with some troops) in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Morocco,  Niger, Senegal, and Tunisia.  You never heard about these?  There’s a reason for that.  The government generally would prefer you not to be too concerned about these secret interventions because they think you may not appreciate the necessity of subterfuge in the process of keeping Americans safe.

Or you may not believe these activities are actually keeping you safe.

To be fair, there have also been the occasional intervention on humanitarian  grounds, as in Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia.

 

 

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Extorting Favorable News Coverage

Bill Owens, a “top producer” at “60 Minutes” has resigned, saying that his independence is being threatened by ownership.

‘Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, is eager to secure the Trump administration’s approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of her company to Skydance, a company run by the son of the tech billionaire Larry Ellison. She has expressed a desire to settle Mr. Trump’s case, which stems from what the president has called a deceptively edited interview in October with Vice President Kamala Harris that aired on 60 Minutes.

‘Legal experts have dismissed that suit as baseless and far-fetched…’

From NYTimes. 60 Minutes has long been one of the finest programs on TV, a wonderful monument of excellent, first-class, heavily-researched, accountable journalism. They do something foreign to Trump-World called “fact-checking”. Of course Trump would go after it. Using manipulation of the FTC to try to strong-arm Paramount into coercively censoring a popular news program is beyond impeachable. He is making similar threats to PBS and NPR.

It’s vulgar, and distasteful, and despicable. And yes, it is incipient authoritarianism.

The surest sign of weakness in any argument is when it resorts to attacking dissent because it doesn’t have faith in the credibility of it’s own “truth”.

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Chewing Gum Justice

Canada’s homicide rate (2023): 1.94
U.S. homicide rate (2023): 6.3

It would seem a little counter intuitive to bring in more U. S. style “justice” to Canada.

The cheapest election campaign promise is to “reduce crime”. We always want less crime, and there will always be enough crime to imagine that there could be less of it. Nobody I know of has managed to reduce it the way they promise except El Salvador which hit upon the novel solution of locking up all the young men with tattoos, or Singapore where you can go to prison for importing chewing gum.

Harper promised it. When he took office the rate was 1.86. When he left it was 1.71. I suppose that .15 % was something. If it wasn’t due to some other random demographic fluctuation.

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Promises Made, Promises Wrecked

Really? Do Trump supporters really have the stomach for watching his cabinet take turns debasing themselves by lavishing obscenely ridiculous praise upon their glorious leader in front of the press? Is Trump himself not nauseated by it?

I wonder if they at least worry that the man who negotiated himself into bankruptcy six times is now negotiating the entire nation’s economy?

Looks like he has deported lots of people. However, he has actually deported fewer in the first month than Biden did in his last month.

On his other election promises (score out of 10):

    • Lower grocery prices? 0
    • Stop the war in Gaza? 0
    • Stop the war in Ukraine? 0
    • Cap credit card interest rates at 10%? 0
    • End birthright citizenship? He can’t do that.
    • Bring new investment in manufacturing to U. S.? -5
    • Restore respect for America around the world? 0
    • Stop advertising for pharmaceuticals? 0
    • Healthier foods at schools? 0
    • Shut down TikTok if not sold to a U.S. owner? 0
    • Balance the budget? -10 (deficit increased by 4 trillion, at last count)
    • Make government more efficient? -10 (firing random federal employees does not increase efficiency).
    • Stop the attacks on shipping in the Suez Canal: failed.

So perhaps pundits blathering about “promises made, promises kept” could identify the ones that have been kept.

Meanwhile, Congress is actually trying to erect monuments to him, even proposing adding him to Rushmore and putting his face on currencies.

If the most valuable company in the world, Apple, moved production of the iPhone from China to the U.S., consumers will have to pay over $3,000 for it. If the “genius” sticks to his tariff policy, Apple is in big, big trouble.

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Douglas is Cancelled

Perverse but sometimes brilliant short series about a pair of newscasters (presenters, or what have you), Madeline and Douglas, who, outwardly, at least, have “chemistry”, until some anonymous person tweets that Douglas made an off-color “sexist” joke while drunk at a wedding.

The first mistake in this series is Douglas seeming to admit that he made the joke without remembering what it was (he is asked to repeat the joke over and over again). The second major mistake is having Douglas– supposedly a well-known media personality– be completely clueless about how to manage a softball lob from an anonymous hater (or, as far as we know, a prankster) until, when necessary for a plot twist, he suddenly and dramatically seizes the moment. His sudden assertiveness is as if from a different character altogether.

Douglas and Toby, his producer, immediately act as if the tweet will be believed by everyone and can’t be readily disputed. The most obvious path, to simply dismiss it as fake news, doesn’t seem to occur to them. If he doesn’t remember the joke, why confirm it at all? Add to this the ridiculously preposterous suggestion of crafting an actual anodyne joke of mild offensiveness for Douglas to admit, and one begins to lose faith in the narrative.

Then we go back in time to have the scintillating conversation in Toby’s apartment between Toby and ambitious young presenter Madeline. Toby, like Harvey Weinstein, suggests (without saying so directly) that Madeline will get the position she lusts for if she has sex with him. Spoiler alert!!! This is big problem for the series. Madeline doesn’t leave, in disgust, even when Douglas appears at the door to invite her down to the bar. Douglas, seeing “Do Not Disturb” on the door handle, assumes, without judging harshly, that Madeline has accepted the proposition and goes away. Madeline later blames him for not rescuing her. From what? Herself? She could have walked out, obviously, at any time. Why is Douglas at fault here, as the story obviously firmly decides?

And here is where the series is, finally, gutless: the story would have made sense and could have been powerful if Madeline had, in fact, made the bargain. But “Douglas is Cancelled” wants it both ways. They want to condemn Toby for making the proposition and Douglas for not stepping in, while preserving Madeline’s dubious virtue by having her reject Toby’s advances and then, ridiculously, photograph him naked in his bathtub as if that could be used to blackmail him.

But Madeline did not– when Toby’s intentions became clear– reject the offer and leave. The writer (Steven Moffat) also seems to have forgotten that Toby is single. Why should he give a damn if a young ingenue broadcaster posts pictures suggesting that she was in his bathroom while he was taking a bath? It’s plainly ridiculous. And it would still be his word against hers as to how the circumstance came about. It would also look like Madeline had accepted the bargain. It also definitely shows that Madeline did get her position through manipulation rather than merit (Moffat seems to assume the audience will believe that she automatically has the merit). And it is also clear that Madeline has manipulated events to get rid of her co-host, Douglas, to have the program platform all to herself.

For all it’s flaws, the one brilliant segment, Madeline’s dialogue with Toby in his hotel room, is remarkable, daring, and provocative. Too bad the rest of the series doesn’t live up to the quality of this sequence.

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Trevor Milton’s Pardon – The Easy Con

If you are going to commit fraud in the U.S. make sure you make a healthy donation to the “Trump 47 Committee”. Trevor Milton, who bilked investors out of millions by making phony claims about the performance of his Nikola electric trucks, made the “donation” and just got himself a full pardon.

His investors are sure to be grateful: he is now off the hook for paying restitution as well. That is particularly vile. But not as vile as Milton practically chortling with glee on a video he released, claiming he was “persecuted” by the same corrupt deep state that went after Trump because he was a supporter.

It looks pretty easy to con the supposed genius. Take your pick.

But then, there are so many scandals with this administration. How do you choose any particular one to pay attention to?

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Berube

Update (2025-03-31):  Wouldn’t you know it?  Right after I wrote and posted this, the Leaf power-play went on a tear, scoring in 12 of 16 opportunities, or something like that.  Just devastating, quick passes, constant motion, accurate shooting.  We’ll see if it lasts.

It is very difficult to assess the impact of a coach upon the performance of any particular NHL team.  Scotty Bowman is the most obvious avatar of success in this position after leading Montreal to four consecutive Stanley Cups, and then, after leaving Montreal (due to a dispute with management over promoting him to General Manager), coached Pittsburgh to it’s second consecutive Stanley Cup,  and then Detroit to two consecutive Stanley Cups.

Bowman was not successful everywhere or all the time, but he was certainly among the most successful coaches in NHL history.  But was he really a brilliant mastermind of strategy and player development or did he just happen to inherit teams that were stocked with great players and on the cusp of elevated achievements– no matter who was coaching?  It’s impossible to know.  His success in Montreal led Pittsburgh (and other teams) to want him, but he also knew that Pittsburgh had Sidney Crosby and a host of other very good players and he was able to write his own ticket.  From 1979 to 1987 he coached Buffalo with limited success (1st, 3rd, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 5th) and was finally fired after they finished fifth in 1986.  He didn’t seem to have the magic then.  He moved to Detroit in 1996-97, which had Steve Yzerman,  and Sergei Fedorov, Nicklas Lidstrom, Larry Murphy, Brendan Shanahan.  They later acquired Dominick Hasek.  So it was a team stacked with very good players, especially Fedorov and Yzerman, and, later, Hasek ( who replaced Chris Osgood).

Teams have won with brilliant, speedy offense.  They have won with steady, tough defense.  They have won with a combination of both.  There is no one consistent formula.  Montreal, with a mediocre team, made it to the finals a few years ago almost solely on the strength of their goalie, Carey Price.

I suspect that coaching shows up the most in three areas:  the power play, the penalty kill, and defending a lead.  (No amount of good coaching can get you a lead if you don’t have skilled players up front, but a well-disciplined team can frustrate a more talented team if they want to.)  This is where I am least impressed by Craig Berube’s work with the Leafs.  They don’t do particularly well in any of those three areas, especially lately (March 2025).  They have had the lead in five of their last six games and lost five of their last six games.  They keep pulling the goalie and giving up empty net goals (they have only twice scored while 6 on 5 all year).  They persist in believing that Morgan Rielly should get lots and lots of ice time even though he is -19 on a team with most players on the plus side.  Contrary to the evidence, they think Mitch Marner is an effective penalty killer, even while Berube obviously discourages counter-attacks while shorthanded, which I believe is a mistake.  They keep putting Max Domi on the ice though he doesn’t check all that well, almost never scores, and doesn’t even seem to have any idea of what he should be doing out there.  He is getting about $2.9 million a year.  For what?

Why did the Leafs bring Berube on board?  Because he won the Stanley Cup with St. Louis in 2019?  His record since then is rather mixed to say the least: 1st, 4th, 3rd, 6th, then fired.

I don’t see how he was an improvement from Keefe, who actually had one of the best winning records in the history of the Maple Leafs.  Keefe was obviously fired because of the Leafs’ failure to move past the first or second round in the playoffs, in spite of rather good regular season performances.   Berube’s current record is mostly, I think, the result of better goal-tending.  Up to now, Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz have been excellent.  They were a big improvement on Frederik Anderson and Jack Campbell and the inconsistent Ilya Samsonov.

Woll and Stolarz were brilliant in goal for a time.  Lately, not so much.  Marner generates a lot of offense but four times in the last two games– 4 times!– he  entered the opponent’s zone during a promising power play set up and gave the puck away.  These were not bad passes that didn’t work: they were bald-faced giveaways, throwing the puck right onto the stick of an opponent.  These happened as the power play squad was taking up positions and so were out of position to deal with a break-out.   They also robbed the power play of crucial zone time.

Nylander scores a lot of goals, because he poaches up by the blue line.  He rarely goes into a corner and emerges with the puck.  He often skates by  opponents with the puck and kind of waves at them.  When he does have the puck, he can be very skilled, and very fast, and he has a very good shot.  I’m not sure how big of a trade-off his defensive lapses are, given his offense.  And I don’t understand why Berube doesn’t demand that Nylander make more of an effort to defend when he doesn’t have the puck.

Matthew Knies gets better and better every game.  Matthews is a thoroughbred, a terrific two-way player.  Tanev and McCabe are okay on defense– not often brilliant but not a liability either.  If Woll and Stolarz can recover their mid-season form, the Leafs have as realistic a chance as any of the other top 8 to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Rielly is the Cal Ripken of the Maple Leafs, and that is not a compliment.  Ripken was  subpar short-stop with limited range who got to play every day because he could be a decent hitter.  But ultimately I think he hurt the team by refusing, as he aged and lost mobility, to move to third-base or DH where he belonged.  Rielly is thought to belong to the number one pair of defensemen on the Leafs but he is clearly a liability.  I would move him down to the third pair and give him a lot less ice-time.  He is -19 at the moment: that is terrible for someone earning his salary.

[As an aside:  while Cal Ripken was in his pursuit of the all-time consecutive games played record, I firmly believed that the Orioles would never win a championship.  They had become Ripken-centric.  He even stayed in a separate hotel when they were on the road.  And, of course, the Orioles remained a mediocre team through the latter years of Ripken’s career.]

I don’t believe in the idea that the Leafs have some fatal weakness that plays out every playoff season.  They have made the playoffs seven years in a row, and they have been very close to advancing several times.  Several times, they ended up losing to a very good team that went on to the finals.  The factors that play into the decisive win are rather random– a bad play in overtime, a lucky bounce, a deflection, a post instead of the corner of the net, playing the eventual Stanley Cup winner in the first round.

One of these times, the Leafs will take the big game, or they may not.  But they are legitimate contenders and in a few years Leaf fans may look back on this era as time of high expectations because they are really quite good, and disappointing achievements because they have been unlucky.

 

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Cuomo’s Franken-sense

With Eric Adams on the outs Andrew Cuomo, former governor of New York State, has stepped in to run in a primary against Adams for mayor of New York City.

Adams is on the outs because he sucked up to Donald Trump in an obvious attempt to extract a shutdown of the investigation into charges of bribery against him which almost certainly would have resulted in conviction, according to insiders at the Attorney-General’s office of New York.

Well, a lot of people have stepped up to demand that Cuomo extract himself from the primary because, well, everybody knows he’s a sexual abuser.

Do they?

Here’s a summary of the claims made against Cuomo:

    • Lindsay Boylan: described several years of “uncomfortable interactions”.  He once “forcibly” kissed her and even compared her to a former girlfriend.  Yes, that’s it.  Cuomo’s former aide Melissa DeRosa claims Boylan never complained about it while working for Cuomo.
    • Charlotte Bennett: Cuomo once asked her about her sex life.
    • Anna Ruch:  Cuomo placed a hand on her back and once asked if he could kiss her.  Yes, that’s it.
    • Ana Liss: Cuomo once called her “sweetheart” and kissed her hand.  (I’m not making this up: this is Liss’ complaint.  Check it out.)
    • Karen Hinton:  Cuomo once hugged her.  “Unethically”.  That’s it.
    • Brittany Commisso: Cuomo once groped her breast.  She told Cuomo that his actions might get them into trouble.  Did she mean the two of them or the two of them.  Either way, this is probably most serious charge levelled against Cuomo, if it is true.
    • Kaitlin (mystery accuser): Cuomo made her feel uncomfortable, more than once.
    • Jessica Bakeman: Cuomo went crazy here– he touched her arms, shoulders, back, and waist and once held her hand for some time.  Again, I am not making this up.
    • Alyssa McGrath: Cuomo “ogled” staff and commented on their appearance.
    • Someone else said that Cuomo, noting a diet drink on the employee’s desk, asked if her goal was to look like a Playboy Bunny.

All of the allegations are evidence of a distasteful personality, immaturity, and poor judgment.  They shouldn’t be dismissed, entirely, as complaints, but, at most, they deserve a very stern letter to the administrator. 

None of these are serious.  None of them really rise to the level of “sexual harassment”.  None of these are sufficient to demand the resignation of  the governor of a state.  But most prominent Democrats– terrified, I think, of offending the feminist wing of the party– immediately piled on.  Biden, Harris, Schumer, Pelosi, and dozens more.  The party must be purified!

All the righteous denunciation of Cuomo by Democratic Party leaders and staffers for these minor offenses plays right into the hands of voters who kind of mostly shrug at this kind of behavior in the real world and don’t respect hard-core feminists for what they perceive to be hyper-sensitivity to minor issues.  It’s plays into the hands of conservatives who describe liberal feminists as snowflakes for presenting themselves as suffering victims of slight offenses.

All of the allegations are in that fuzzy area of “inappropriate” and “uncomfortable”.  None of them are really serious enough to justify the “cancellation” of Cuomo, though they do reveal that he was a compulsive flirt who obviously did hit on women in his orbit.  He was probing, obviously, for a favorable response, to see if one of them might like to go further.  Some of them (who aren’t part of the cabal) might have.

Why is he the target?

Because the Democrats have a habit of forming circular firing squads.  They know they can’t take down the long list of womanizers in the Trump Administration so how do you rally the troops and proclaim your own virtue when the enemy won’t willingly capitulate?  You attack someone in your own party, like Al Franken, or Eliot Spitzer, or Andrew Cuomo, who actually, on the whole, are on your side, but might also be standing in the way of an ambitious woman (like Kathy Hochul) who could use a leg up.

When Cuomo resigned, Kathy Hochul, as Lieutenant Governor, became Governor of New York.  She barely won re-election in 2022.  She has flip-flopped on some major issues (like a congestion tax for Manhattan) and seems afraid to commit to a position on others.

 

 

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The Trump Marathon

There are lots of movies that evoke the character of Trump’s hold on the Republican party and the republic– “The Godfather”, “Kingfish”, “Handmaid’s Tale”, “Succession”, “Peewee’s Big Adventure”– but the one I like the most– though it is a dark, unnerving film– is this one, “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” (1969). Trump as ringmaster of a dance marathon (they really did have them during the depression), offering desperate, unhappy people, a long-shot chance at money and fame, only to reveal to a contestant that expenses will be deducted from the prize money leaving the “winner” with nothing.

The ending is something only an adolescent could admire.  Heavy-handed, is the word.  It wasn’t necessary to make the point and though it has some narrative credibility the film would have been stronger without it.