Dispatches from Vilnius

Once again Donald ducks out of a debate.  This time to stage a rally at a non-union auto plant in a lame effort to show his support for "working-class Americans."  Only what followed was the usual gobbledygook we have come to expect from Trump.  After all, how can you be a Republican and pro-union?  His opponents went to great lengths siding themselves with the auto companies at the debate, blaming the UAW strike on Biden, who actually joined the picket line on Tuesday.  It was hard to tell from Trump's crowd how many were actually auto workers. At this point, it amazes me that any working-class American supports the Republican party.  The GOP has done everything possible to undermine their income, safety standards, health care and pensions in the name of record corporate profits.  Republicans made Michigan and Wisconsin into "Right-to-Work" states so that companies no longer have to hire union workers.  It was only this year that Michigan repealed this law a

I had been waiting for Coco Gauff to break through and she finally did at the US Open!  She had been taking quite a few knocks recently, many of them from opponents like Karolina Muchova, who called her play one-dimensional after going down in straight sets.  Well, there was nothing one-dimensional about the way Coco overcame Aryna Sabalenka in the finals.  It looked like the Belarussian would simply overpower Gauff after cruising through the first set, but Coco readjusted her game and swept the remaining sets to capture the title much to everyone's delight except Sabalenka who was filmed destroying her tennis rackets in the gym after the match. It was a tough loss for Aryna, who felt she was being unfairly discriminated against because she hails from Belarus.  Not that she spends much time there but it isn't an association you want to have in the wake of the war in Ukraine.  She has tried to distance herself from it but to no avail.  She is viewed as the "bad girl." 

It was a rough week for the Republicans.  They thought they had the Democrats over a barrel on the budget, imagining they could strong arm the White House into making concessions, only to have it all blow up in their face.  Bitter infighting ensued.  It was soon learned that the game plan all along was to defund the Justice Dept. so that the notorious Jack Smith wouldn't be able to prosecute Donald Trump.  Apparently, Trump himself spearheaded this effort or so he boasted on his Truth Social.  I have to think this only adds to the obstruction charges against him. If that wasn't bad enough one of MAGA's most visible House representatives got caught with her hand down the pants of her date at an all-ages musical in Denver.  That's right, you guessed it - Lauren Boebert - the 36 year-old "grandma" from Colorado's third district. She tried to deny it at first but then it was pointed out that the theater had cameras and so she blamed it on her "Democrati

Walter Isaacson considers himself a man able to recognize genius, whether in historic or contemporary figures.  He's written biographies on Da Vinci, Franklin and Einstein, and now Steve Jobs and Elon Musk.  He tries to link them all together in this lengthy interview.   It's a pretty tall order but Walter makes his best effort.  The thing is with the historic figures, they actually invented things or pioneered new ideas.  Jobs and Musk invented nothing nor are any of their ideas new.  They were very creative in repackaging already existing products, the personal computer and the electric car, and turning them into something people wanted to buy.  In short, very successful entrepreneurs. All the heavy lifting had been done by those who came before them.  In Jobs case, it was IBM that had already come up with the personal computer, designed by Gary Kildall in 1974.  The only problem was that it was prohibitively expensive and people opted for the cheaper computers on the market,

The Republican field in 2024 certainly is  diverse .  While there is only one woman running for office there are five persons of color, including three Black men, two of whom serve in Congress.  On the surface, you would think the Republicans have moved beyond race, as Tim Scott has repeatedly said on the campaign trail, but then recently he got called out for being single .  Rather than say his sexual orientation had been called into question, he claimed it was a racist attack from his "opposing campaigns."  He wouldn't say who issued this scurrilous attack.  One assumes it wasn't Larry Elder or Will Hurd, both Black. Neither Nikki Haley nor Vivek Ramaswamy, both Indian.  So, who is racist, Tim? This kind of victimization isn't going to play well among Republicans, who don't consider themselves racist, especially when you see Vivek and Nikki polling well among likely voters.  It also flies in the face of the "color blind" society Republicans have be

Ever since the Caiman died this summer, Pooty has been looking for a new BFF and seems to have found one in Little Kim.  The two exchanged rifles recently in a show of fidelity.  Putin had to travel much further for this formal ceremony than did Kim which has bemused critics far and wide.  After all, Russia is perceived as the stronger nation, yet here is their Czar forced to travel to the outer reaches of his own country to secure a weapons deal that will potentially give Russia more long-range missiles to fire at Ukrainian civil targets. For Kim it is a diplomatic coup as Putin made all sorts of promises.  None of them binding of course.  However, the very fact that Kim had to do little more than cross the border from North Korea into Russia in his bullet-proof train firmly suggests who was in control here.   It is much like the time Kim  forced Trump to meet him on his own terms in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. This is how far Russia has sunk in the last y

22 years on and this is pretty much how I feel about 9-11.  It is as remote to me as the day I took our son to get passport pictures taken and viewed the first hit on the World Trade Center on televisions in a Sony shop on Gediminas Ave. in Vilnius.  We were planning to go to America the following summer but decided to put it off a couple years and didn't go until 2008. As it turns out these persons weren't so detached as the photograph appears to indicate.  Walter Sipser, one of the men in the photo, later said he was in a profound state of shock and disbelief seeing it happen and that the photographer simply captured them talking.  Yet, the picture was interpreted by many as representing them totally aloof to the crisis unfolding.   Whatever the case, I just don't have much feeling toward those events anymore and avoid posting or commenting on the numerous images my friends continue to post on facebook.  One of my friends even went so far to ask his followers to post wha

Not like I give two hoots about the Rolling Stones.  The last album I bought of theirs was Some Girls , which came out in 1978.  Here we are 45 years later and they release a new album on the Tonight Show for all their adoring fans who can't seem to get enough of these octogenarians.  They're the same age as Biden but you don't hear anyone demanding they take cognitive tests. They look as spry as ever and have partners half their age.  Their songs still play to eternal youth as seen in their video for Angry , although the red Mercedes-Benz traveling down what I assume to be Rodeo Drive looks hopelessly dated.  First thing that came to mind was the Aerosmith video for Crazy with Alicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler in the mid 90s.  Nothing like a "Little T&A" to spice up your song.  In this case a nubile Sydney Sweeney.  I find the whole thing sad really as these guys try to defy their age.  They're not the only ones.  Recently, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro a

This will be the last year of the Pacific Athletic Conference as all but two of their teams have signed new contracts with other conferences starting in 2024.  Colorado put the Big 12 on notice with a stunning upset of TCU in Fort Worth.  The Buffaloes hired Deion Sanders last year and he used the transfer portal to rebuild this team from top to bottom, bringing in his son at QB.  Shedeur Sanders passed for over 500 yards, picking the porous TCU defense apart.  Colorado will join the Big 12 next year. With the transfer portal, it is a whole new ball game which is why I thought it was funny hearing Lee Corso speaking out against Sanders' approach.  He thought Sanders should have retained more players but the Buffaloes went 1-11 last year so there was little reason for Sanders to hold onto anyone from that team.  With all these realignments due to take place next year, it is hard to call these conferences anything other than B1G, which the Big 10 now calls itself after luring USC,

The chatter on the left keeps increasing.  Cornel West has been the most vocal as of late as he is upset Bernie isn't endorsing his independent presidential bid after he supported Bernie's Democratic bid last election cycle.  He also thinks AOC is just "window dressing."  I suppose if you have spent your whole life speaking out against the social inequality in the country it is pretty tough to accept compromise, which is what Bernie and AOC are doing.  That unfortunately is the nature of politics. Although I'm not sure where all this disenchantment comes from.  Biden has actively involved the progressive wing of the party in his administrative decisions.  Biden even charged Bernie with drawing up a spending bill in 2022 only to be met with resistance from Manchin so that that two were forced to reconcile their differences.  Biden has also used his executive authority to provide student debt relief and other progressive measures that were non-starters in Congress.