Dispatches from Vilnius

It was an eventful Sunday with Ricky Gervais seeming to want to end his run of hosting the Golden Globes by offering his most acerbic and uncensored comments yet.  He was merciless, but then that's what people love about Ricky.  What can you say about the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which awards Best Musical or Comedy to The Martian ?  I suppose because the soundtrack was principally derived from disco music of the 70s. No sooner did the Golden Globe awards come to an end than we were dealt the sad news that David Bowie had died .  Ridley Scott actually used Starman in The Martian , when Astronaut Mark Whatney wasn't playing Abba and the Ohio Players from a playlist left by Chief Officer Melissa Lewis.  Not exactly the Mars David Bowie imagined back at the peak of the Glam Rock movement in the early 70s. But none of this topped Sean Penn's published interview with El Chapo, which has received almost universal condemnation, including that of ...

Not a day goes by without a scandal involving Donald Trump.  If his inflammatory first television ad wasn't bad enough, it has now come to light that the Donald cheats at golf. The latest to accuse him is Samuel L. Jackson, who said in an interview for a United Airlines magazine that Trump doesn't play fair.  In typical Trump fashion, Donald fired back that he doesn't recall ever playing Jackson in golf and finds him boring.  Adding that he is "not a fan." It didn't matter that Jackson produced a receipt from that time they played together and said that Trump's golf club actually tried to hit him up for membership dues, even though he never asked to become a member.  Seems Trump signed him up just the same. The Washington Post investigated the matter a few months ago, and found a great number of irregularities in his ball lies and scoring, pretty much confirming what Samuel L. Jackson said.  The Donald may be a "very good golfer," but ...

or The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight Ammon Bundy, eldest son of Cliven Bundy, the ranching freeloader who refused to pay 21 years in back grazing fees, fines and penalties, has seized an Oregon Fish and Wildlife Service office in the name of the Hammond family, which he claims was unfairly prosecuted by the federal government for range fires they set.  The only problem is that the Hammond family wants nothing to do with the Bundys, even if they feel the father and son were unfairly sentenced as terrorists for two fires they claimed were meant to protect their property.  You can read the whole story here . This has set the blogosphere ablaze with many calling for the forcible removal of the Bundy gang, but federal authorities don't want another incident like the one that took place in the spring of last year.  That one blew up all out of proportion with Sean Hannity and Fox News taking the side of the Bundy family, turning it into a three-ring political...

On a humorous note, it was nice to see year end episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee .  Of course, they didn't go very far in this episode.  The President seems remarkably relaxed, but that has been his hallmark throughout his tenure.  He took to the '63 Stingray as if it was his own. I was a bit surprised by the banality of the coffee break room in the White House.  One would think this place could be jazzed up a little with one of those vintage espresso makers  with a bald eagle on top, but I guess Mr. Coffee is tres americain . President Obama has received a lot of flack over the years for engaging in talk shows and humorous interviews, including a memorable episode of  Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis early last year.  It's OK to appear on Laugh-In or the The Tonight Show if you are campaigning for the Presidency, but there are those who consider this beneath the office of the Presidency to engage in such chatter while ...

John Danforth thinks that if President Obama had just invited members of Congress to dinner we wouldn't have all this acrimony we have in Washington.  He imparted these thoughts and others in a lengthy interview for Salon, mostly to plug his new book, The Relevance of Religion , in which he thinks religion can serve as a reconciliation force in politics.  Late in the interview, he points to George Bush being an example of this, saying "I don't see him as being an in-your-face, full-of-himself type," which is apparently how he sees Obama, who is too arrogant to invite Congresspersons to dinner. Obama had been accused of aloofness before, so at the beginning of 2015 he made a New Year's resolution to have a drink with Mitch McConnell and let John Boehner beat him again at golf.  Typically, dinner time is family time, which he said would be the case when he entered the White House with his young family. At 79, I suppose we can forgive former Sen. Danforth ...

The oddest thing about the Republican Party today is that it has become more diverse despite becoming increasingly conservative.  It now has a number of young Latino, Indian and Black leaders pushing its rigidly conservative agenda at the local, state and national level.  The staunchest opponents to immigration and expanded social services have been Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal, despite the fact their parents were immigrants and relied on social services at one time.  It really is hard to figure what draws them to the Republican Party other than an opportunity for quick promotion up the ranks. The GOP's outreach has been nil since recognizing its shortcomings in 2012.  The House purposely held up immigration reform legislation despite there being the votes to carry it in 2013.  Its leaders felt there would be enough backlash in the 2014 midterms to run the Democrats out of town.  Since then, immigration reform has been a dead issue and s...

This article is from last year but it popped up on my facebook page this morning.  Scientists have been trying to figure out if there is a biological imperative to conservatism and it seems they found one from the Pleistocene period 12,000 years ago.  Basically, it seems conservatism is a recessive gene that is a throwback to earlier years as hunters and gatherers.  It allows us to to sense danger and react quickly, which would help explain the gun cult that has arisen in America, if nothing else. John Hibbing calls it a "negativity bias," which makes some persons more attuned to threatening or disgusting stimuli in their environment.  These persons respond more rapidly to aversive stimuli like spiders than apparently do more liberal respondents, who probably just say, "oh spider."  This experiment would definitely put me in the second group as I've learned to live with spiders and feel no threat at all. However, my daughter is particularly adverse to ...

We made it through another Christmas without too much anxiety.  Donald managed to eat most of the Christmas pudding with his attacks on Hillary , giving Fox little time to trot its usual stories of how Christmas was hijacked by the politically correct police.  We were treated to the great news that Bristol Palin gave birth to Sailor Grace.  This is her second child out of wedlock, although some think it is her third . While we react to the "disgust" of Donald Trump and wonder if Bristol still considers herself a virgin in the eyes of the Lord, spiteful legislators managed to slip in visa restrictions on Iranian nationals into an omnibus visa bill, which Obama signed.  This has Iran screaming foul in regard to the nuclear deal they signed with the US and other countries earlier this year.  John Kerry tried to smooth things over by saying the President can bypass the law for high-ranking officials, but the whole purpose of this deal was to open Iran up to...

"You can't con people, at least not for long.  You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole.  But, if you don't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on." -- Donald Trump from The Art of the Deal Donald Trump has now officially inserted his " schlong " into this political campaign.  Just when you thought the bar couldn't be lowered anymore, Trump finds a way .  His comments concerning Hillary Clinton come after she claimed ISIS was using him as a recruiting tool in their videos.  No such video could be located, just like that one of Jersey City Muslims cheering in the streets, but the Donald wasn't letting Hillary off lightly on this one.  Not only did he deride her for her long bathroom break during the last Democratic debate, but said that she got "schlonged" in the 2008 primaries by Barack Obama. Bernie's response was probably the bes...

One can only imagine what Jim Brown felt watching the Browns take on the Seattle Seahawks this past Sunday.  The young Cleveland quarterback Johnny Manziel offered some hope on an opening drive that led to a touchdown, but after that it was all Seattle and the Browns may wind up with the worst record in the NFL. The Cleveland Browns have always bit a bit of an enigma .  The history surrounding their nickname is shrouded in mystery.  Some say the team was named after Joe Lewis, the legendary "Brown Bomber," who dominated heavyweight boxing for many years.  Others say the team was named after its first owner Paul Brown .  One might be forgiven for thinking the moniker belongs to Jim Brown, who carried the team on his shoulders back in the late 50's and ealry 60's, but the Browns' best run was a few years before when they were led by Otto Graham, winning the NFL Championship in 1954 and 1955. The team came up through the All-America Football Conference , rep...

Riviera Beach residents can now say, "at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and President Barack Obama Highway" I imagine the folks of Riviera Beach had been wanting to take down Old Dixie Highway for a very long time.  This is a vestige of history that doesn't sit well with the predominantly black community of 30,000 residents near Palm Beach, Florida.  In its place is President Barack Obama Highway. Florida has been phasing out the old  Dixie Highway system .  It's kind of odd it stretched so far south, as there wasn't much connection between North and South Florida during the antebellum era, or even in the early 1900s when this highway system was inaugurated as a long corridor between the Midwest and Southern states. Henry Flagler was the first to connect the two halves of Florida back in the 1890s with his East Coast Railway , connecting St. Augustine to Palm Beach.  It had less to do with rekindling Southern pride than it did exploiting ...

Vermont gun shop I guess if Bernie has a soft spot it is guns.  O'Malley and Clinton both tried to draw him out on the issue, but the Bern was having none of it.  On the campaign trail, his opposition to gun laws hasn't seemed to hurt him.  In fact, it rarely comes up.  It is only at the debates where his opponents challenge him on his apparent soft stance .  Yet, Bernie proudly boasted of his "D- rating" from the NRA and noted that he was for the assault rifle ban.  What he wants is "common sense gun legislation." Bernie has a more pragmatic view of gun control than his opponents, particularly Martin O'Malley, who trumpets the tough gun laws Maryland adopted when he was governor.  At a previous debate, Bernie shot back saying how difficult it is to get any gun legislation through Congress given the demographics of this country, noting that it is a rural v. urban issue, and the rural votes outstrip the urban votes. Maryland has become a favo...

Trump scores his biggest endorsements yet in Tom Brady and Vladimir Putin , while Ted Cruz has the blessing of Sarah Palin, who looked like she was going to have an orgasm on national television.  Putin was less emphatic than Sarah, but nonetheless heaped praise on the Republican front runner, calling him, "a bright and talented person without any doubt."  Oddly enough, this endorsement might drive a wedge between Donald and Ted, as Ted is ardently anti-Russian, and we all know what Sarah thinks of Russia . The Republican nomination process has now become a veritable cluster fuck.  This was just the capstone to a crazy week that saw the Republicans go at it again on the Las Vegas strip, pitching limited nuclear war, cluster bombs and any and all means necessary to bring ISIS (or ISIL) to heel.  Ben Carson compared fighting ISIS to taking a tumor out of a child's head, some lives will undoubtedly be lost but Syria will thank him in the end.  Assuming ...

Alan Taylor doesn't describe the Oglethorpe plan for Savannah in much detail, as it is worthy of a book in its own right.  From the start the British social reformer imagined something different for Georgia that would set it apart from the other colonies.  Part of that was comprehensive town plan that remains the predominant feature of Savannah today. Oglethorpe was probably the first of the transplanted English nobleman to be a product of the Enlightenment, unlike the religious Puritans, the unscrupulous speculators and land barons that came before him.  As such, he imagined a colony built more on a strong ethical philosophy rather than religious dogma or speculative interests.  Key to this vision was a distinct city plan that encouraged the kind of fraternity he imagined among the new colonists. The Oglethorpe Plan is simple in concept.  Each super block was essentially designed to support itself, looking a bit like a Chinese trigram.  Over the...

What began as a begrudging respect for Vladimir Putin has grown into a full blown bromance .  The Donald thinks he is the only one who can communicate with the Russian strongman.  It's hard to say whether this great admiration is reciprocated, but there are signs that the Kremlin is pleased with its new point man, who has mostly good things to say about the Russian president at the expense of President Obama and other "weak, ineffective" leaders around the world. Trump had dealings with Putin in 2013 when his Miss Universe contest was staged in Russia, claiming an intimacy that he has echoed repeatedly.  It's unsure whether they have each other's private cell phone numbers or whether Putin has privately invited Trump to his mystery mansion on the Black Sea.  We can only speculate at this point. It is equally hard to say who is using who as a wedge in this election cycle.  It suits Trump to play the strong, resolute Putin off the weak, ineffective O...

Citizens United v. FEC unleashed a flood gate of money into the election cycle that had many fearing that the little guy no longer stood a chance with corporations pouring in millions to their favorite candidates and causes.  But, who would have thought billionaires could be so stupid? To read this article in New York magazine, you have to be a complete idiot to put your money behind Newt Gingrich, as Sheldon Adelson did in 2012, giving the former House Speaker a blank check.  Sheldon outdid himself this time around by initially bankrolling Lindsey Graham.  Sheldon has since auditioned other candidates, but apparently it is pretty easy to find your own billionaire, as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have done, so you don't need the Las Vegas gambling mogul behind you to win. With so many billionaires looking for a would-be President to have in their pocket, it has become a field day for Republican strategists and pollsters cobbling together Super Pacs in the name of ...