As we hold our collective breath during the last pre-judgment month, we fear many plausible terribles. Such as Trump’s self-inflicted death from Covid-19 and the “morbid obesity” that Nancy likes to mention – or Melania mercifully assisting him along the lines of a theory advanced about Warren Harding’s wife Florence in “The Strange Death of President Harding” – or Trump ordering Iran nuked as he told Rush Limbaugh he might – or the kidnap, murder and assault on a Trump-disfavored governor and state capital – or a massive spike in Covid cases resulting in hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths and the suppression of conventional voting – OR any other terrible massive October surprise from Trump or the Id.  And far surpassing the mere plausibility of each such terrible scenario is the likelihood that one huge bad thing will happen. […]

With “volume” 113 HL returns from the August furlough to report what was saved, what lost and the sui generis at this year’s United States Open Tennis Championships.  This was the first U.S. championship HL did not attend since the 1962 tournament at Forest Hills.  But we watched closely along with other inhabitants of the Global Village. […]

With a post like this, a disclosure is obligatory.  The woke young cannibals at The New York Times will deem it a confession.  On the morning of March 13, 2020, preceding the evening when Trump proclaimed the Covid-19 outbreak a “National Emergency (that he proceeded to ignore and worsen immeasurably) we left our apartment near Lincoln Center for a house we’ve had since 1987 in the Chatham/Ghent/Austerlitz corner of New York’s Taconic Hills.  With the exception of five days spent downstate, burying a relative and having surgery, HL has lived upstate since. […]

It’s always amusing to watch and listen to TV and radio newscasters feign shock and squeamishness when reporting words such as those spoken by Representative Ted Yoho about Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the steps of das kapital.  We assume that like most of us, they hear such words many, if not most, days and have uttered such themselves.  AOC smartly admitted the frequency, but certainly not the propriety, of such language in her navigation of New York City. […]

In his January 29, 2020 New York Times opinion column, Charlie Warzel warned us to consider what to “. . . Do When The Culture War Comes For You?”  Charlie said no one would be spared by the inquisition but some were more able to survive.  “[F]oot soldiers” in America’s newsrooms needed and deserved protection by the owners, management and editors of news media outlets. […]

We are fortunate that it’s more complicated and will take longer to purport to grant the District of Columbia statehood than remove Winston Churchill’s name from a Maryland high school up the Potomac from the Capital.  During that elongation let’s think about what we are trying to do, why and the foreseeable consequences. […]

Today’s classic liberals like classic vinyl were pressed in the late 1960s and the 1970s.  They are thinking and acting during this inflection point of “The American Dilemma” with an overarching objective.  That more progress is made this time than at previous crucial moments and possibly more progress than in all previous. […]

Around midnight last Friday Chief Justice John Roberts issued a short ruling affirming district and circuit court denials of an injunction sought by a Pentecostal church against California’s limitations on public gatherings. California’s emergency measure limits attendance to 25 percent of capacity or 100 people at lectures, concerts, movies, theatres, spectator sports and religious services. […]

1917, not the flick that would have Oscared had 2019 not been the year of inclusivity in Hollywood and English the wrong language.  The 1917 that Trump incessantly declares the date of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918.  He knows when it actually occurred, because he was corrected after his first or second counterfactual pronouncement – the way Bush 43 was told “it ain’t New Q ler”.  But like W he continued to recite the wrong thing for a reason.  With Trump it is a reason that the electorate hoping to defeat him must understand or suffer the consequences. […]

A focal point today like most days during the last 50 has been Andrew Cuomo’s COVID-19 briefing.  I’m not alone watching, joined by family in this pod and millions of viewers and listeners around the nation and world.  In the background there’s noise, some emanating from a basement in Wilmington, Delaware.  I vaguely hear what Joe Biden woulda done, will do next year and right now is doing – appointing a committee to help him select a woman as running mate and letting one of the contenders conduct her own national campaign to pressure him. […]