My Oligarch

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the term “oligarch?”  Lemme guess:  a rare butterfly, distress in the small intestine, the nth power of zero, or, or, or… a really rich Rooskie who has a palatial estate in the south of France and an 8000 square foot flat in Trump Tower.   Okay, I know I shouldn’t use an ethnically pejorative term to describe a person, but, by golly, I can’t help myself.  Be honest, you thought of a Russian, too.  In fact, I don’t believe there is any such thing as a Canadian oligarch or a Uruguayan oligarch.  To be an oligarch you just gotta be a Rooskie, er, I mean Russian.  And...

If Everyone Had a Gun

I recently had the good fortune to be out of town when some 80,000 worthies joined one another in Dallas in singing a paean to the gun, the pistol, the long rifle, the six shooter, the single-shot-pump-action-semi-automatic-automatic-shotgun with a few Bowie knives thrown in. Yes, the NRA had their annual convention in Dallas. Politicians were falling all over themselves to pay homage to that never-runs-dry fountain of political power…filthy lucre. They were all there. The Governor, both Texas Senators, assorted Congressmen, county and city officials, and wannabes too numerous to count. And yes, the Veep and The Trumpster his-own-self were there. Now,...