by Gary | Feb 22, 2019 |
To borrow corruptly from the Bard, “A wall by any other name would still be a wall.” Whether a barrier, a fence (barbed wired or not), circles of razor wire, steel slats, stone, hog panels, rock, solid cement, a line (as in the Maginot Line), with or without turrets and machine gun emplacements… it’s still a wall. I know, you’re as sick as of hearing about “the wall” as I am, and probably you’re as confused as I am about whether and how much wall we have, whether and how much wall is currently under construction, whether and how effective it is, whether there is a need for more wall, how much it would cost, and...
by Gary | Jan 13, 2019 |
A recent visit to St. Petersburg stimulated my recollections of the six or so encounters I’ve had with the evil empire and its minions over the years. Yes, I know, a few visits over 30 years does not an expert make, but it does allow me to have an opinion. I previously shared my observations of one early encounter in a blog titled “The People I Think I Know” in August, 2011. It didn’t involve my own personal interaction with something Russian, it described an encounter of Margaret Thatcher’s (then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) which she related to me at an engagement party for her son Mark. To get to the point, she...
by Gary | Jan 2, 2019 |
If you were surprised by the killing and dissection of Jamal Khashoggi by representatives of the government of Saudi Arabia, you have not been paying attention. Execution by beheading has been the preferred method of ridding the Kingdom of its undesirables for decades if not centuries. Even today, through the first four months of 2018, at least 48 souls have been dispatched to the great hereafter by the Saudi authorities wielding swords, often carried out in the town square at 9:00 in the morning. They are now working on their technique of executing multiple beheadings simultaneously. I guess this is what counts for progress in The Kingdom. And what were...
by Gary | Dec 8, 2018 |
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...
by Gary | May 8, 2018 |
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,...
