brainsplotch

In a news conference (of sorts) yesterday, Trump reverted back to the nonsense he blurted on Saturday, blaming "both sides" and essentially apologizing for the alt-right (i.e. racists). He even compared famous traitor Robert E. Lee to non-traitor George Washington. (Sorry Confederate apologists, I don't give a damn that he was fighting for old Virginia. I don't care that "life was different" in the 1860s. He took an oath to protect the United States of America and he betrayed that oath). I can't keep up with the lunacy coming out of the Trump White House on a daily basis. The narrative seems to constantly change. Is Trump truly a racist or just that stupid? I don't know, maybe a bit of both. (Actually, there is no doubt in my mind that Trump is a racist).  How the hell does the president of the United States excuse the behavior of white supremacists? If you're Donald Trump, that's what you do. At least Trump has made it perfectly clear wh...

First of all, it seems that something crazy happens almost every day under the Trump regime, so it's hard to keep it straight. Whether it's James Comey getting fired as FBI director, Sean Spicer getting fired as press secretary, Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci--the most cartoonish character in an already cartoonish administration--getting fired within about a week as White House Communications director, Trump inciting North Korea to the brink of a nuclear conflict, or Sunday's tacit approval (or, at best, non-scolding) of neo-Nazis and other racists in Charlottesville, literally something nutty, frightening, and/or infuriating happens essentially every single day under this reign of terror/reign of error. Trump had an opportunity to condemn racist violence in Charlottesville, and he failed miserably. We have a president who will not condemn Nazis. Stew over that for awhile. As the events in Charlottesville unfolded on Saturday morning, and it was clear that t...

Working at the library, I make a point of going downstairs to the basement to check out our "Book Burrow" from time to time. That's the store that our Friends of the Library runs, and they sell books, CDs, LPs, cassettes, magazines, and a few other sundries that are donated mainly by people trying to unload crap out of their houses. For this reason, there's not usually anything there that I can't live without, but every once in awhile I find something good. On Friday, I poked around the $1 CDs and found De La Soul's Three Feet High and Rising , the original release on Tommy Boy Records. I've had this on cassette for many years, but I barely listen to cassettes anymore so it's been languishing in my basement for years. I'm happy to report that Three Feet High and Rising is still a great album, and about the most perfect summer listening I could imagine. Not that I'm any kind of rap/hip-hop expert, but it's definitely part of wha...

I'm taking a break from politics to switch gears entirely, (though it could be argued that this post is somewhat political). First a little background. In 1988-1989, when I was a junior at Michigan State, I took a particular interest in the 1961 Detroit Tigers baseball team. The '61 Tigers were quite possibly the greatest 2nd place team in baseball history, winning 101 games but still finishing 8 games behind the pennant winning New York Yankees. '61 was also the first year that the Tigers had prominent black players who made significant contributions to the team. The Tigers were, unfortunately, tardy to the integration of baseball. Almost every evening from autumn 1988 through almost all of 1989, I spent a minimum amount of time on my school work and trudged over to the MSU Library to study microfilm. I took voluminous notes on the '61 team, from infomation gleaned mainly from microfilmed back issues of the Detroit Free Press and a few other newspapers. I have ove...