Dispatches from Vilnius

Donald Trump gave the closest thing to a policy speech during his campaign in what has been dubbed his " trade speech ."  It really is more an anti-trade speech, as he constantly referred to all the trade agreements he would rip up, opting for bi-lateral agreements between favored countries instead.  He focused mostly on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has yet to be ratified in Congress, but I suppose he would also ignore the EU and pursue direct bi-lateral agreements with select member countries, since he views the EU as a similar yoke around the neck of free trade. The strange thing about his speech is that it echoed the  trade speech Sarah Palin gave before a Milwaukee audience a few months earlier.  In that sense the recycled trash backdrop was very appropriate.  The only real difference is that Trump read from a tele-prompter while Sarah had some notes on the podium to guide her through her rambling discourse. NPR graciously fact-checked Trump's speec

If you look at the future through movies and television shows, it is pretty bleak.  There aren't many, if any, that view it in Utopian terms.  Things tend to fall apart, as Chinua Achebe noted long ago.  It is hard to hold together a society under any circumstances and even moreso when oxygen is running out, as is the case in The 100 . The show just finished its third season so I have plenty of catching up to do.  My daughter enjoys watching it the second time around, even if she gets annoyed by my comments.  These futuristic tales are mainly aimed at providing vicarious thrills. It is a mash-up of Lord of the Flies, Lost. and numerous other sources, pitting 100 kids essentially against each other as they struggle to adjust to life on earth after 97 years.  Most of them are delinquents of one form or another, yet two are the children of commanders aboard a hybrid space station called the Ark, which has managed to orbit the Earth all these years thanks to resourceful engin

and waking up with Boris Johnson in your bed With the pound continuing to plummet against the dollar I guess many Americans are thinking they might take a trip to jolly old England this summer to show their solidarity with the mother country, as it looks like UK could use the cash. At least 120 billion pounds was wiped out Friday and it looks like it will cost the UK much more this week as the pound and stock market continue to plummet.  It has cost the world much more.  What's worse, S&P has  downgraded Britain's credit rating. No matter, it seems the conservative party is going to take its time, with no plans on the immediate horizon to exit the EU, preferring an informal path for the time being.  It seems to be waiting for Boris Johnson and Michael Gove to assemble their " dream team " to lead the Brexit government.  That's almost as scary as a Republican dream ticket of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.  However, the EU is demanding the UK initiate p

Watching the US men's national team  make a run at the Copa America title had Americans thinking a Miracle on Grass might take place until the USMNT ran into Argentina.  The number one club in the world didn't even let the US team get a shot on goal in 90 minutes, cruising to a 4-0 win the semi-finals.  The US had a shot at redemption in the consolation match against Colombia but it was not to be.  They fell again 1-0. We should be pleased the US team got as far as it did as football (or soccer as we call it in the States) is not the number one sport in the country.  At best, it is a distant fifth as team sports are concerned, with ice hockey garnering much more attention.  Kids grow up playing soccer all over the country but by the time they reach high school they usually have switched to one of the big three: football, basketball or baseball, leaving soccer little more than a pastime.  As such, it is hard to generate much interest in these world events.  However, this

Donald Trump just happened to be in Scotland when the Brexit vote took place, using the morning to gloat in the English secession from the EU and show off his remodeled golf course.  I guess with David Cameron out of the way he no longer has to worry about being barred from Great Britain.  He's got Boris Johnson as the Conservative PM in waiting and Nigel Farage of the UK Independent Party as his second.  The interesting thing is that he spoke before either of these two Brexit champions did and then mostly about himself. David Cameron was forced to eat crow after fulfilling perhaps the only promise of his campaign by allowing a referendum on Britain's place in the EU when just about everyone advised him against it.  Back when David was struggling to put together a coalition to rule Parliament he promised UKIP, as the Independent Party calls itself, that he would let the people decide whether they wanted to stay in the EU or not.  When the Tories won re-election by a re

One almost gets the feeling that Trump wants out of this election.  May numbers show him with only $1.3 million left in the tank, as opposed to Hillary running on $42 million.  In May alone, she raised well over $25 million.  Trump almost nil  His campaign is in such disarray that he fired Corey Lewandowsky, best known for roughing up reporters, and staged a " Trumpathon " in which he would match e-mail donations dollar for dollar. He's already been called out for funneling much of the money he "loaned" himself back into his own enterprises.  It's an old story , but one being circulated much more now.  He finally donated money to Wounded Warrior and other veterans' organizations, when he was called out in the press, but it was far less than he initially claimed.  All this makes his campaign look more like a money laundering racket than a legitimate presidential candidate.  He continues to rely heavily on twitter to get his message out, which soun

The first stage of loss or grief is denial and we are seeing plenty of that in the aftermath of the Orlando shooting.  Rather than recognize it as a hate crime and deal with accordingly, Rick Scott, the governor of Florida, actually had the audacity to request the federal government for an emergency declaration so that the state would be entitled to federal relief.  FEMA denied the request stating that Scott didn't demonstrate a financial need and noted that no governor had previously asked for such a declaration in the wake of a mass shooting.  As it is, FEMA is covering the overtime costs of first responders. Then came the US Senate, which rejected 4 Democratic bills that included tighter background checks and a ban on sales to persons on terrorist watch lists.  Relative no-brainers, but it seems the NRA is calling the shots in the Senate and the bills failed to reach the 60-vote threshold necessary for ratification.  Apparently there are those who think the real victim

Nixon and Erlichman 45 years on and we still are no closer to solving the "drug problem" than we were when Richard Nixon first launched the "War on Drugs."  His ill-fated campaign came under fire recently when a former top aide, John Erlichman, said that the principal targets were "blacks and hippies."  It never really was about drugs, but about disrupting these communities, according to Erlichman.  I guess it was a "success" in this regard, as there is a disproportional number of blacks and minorities in prison, although it is hard to quantify what a "hippy" is. Most Americans favor decriminalization of marijuana and many would like to see it made legal, which is why so many states now condone marijuana to one degree or another.   Libertarian presidential candidate, Gary Johnson, would go even further and decriminalize all drugs.  He was recently on CNN defending his position .  He believes that this will actually lead to les

Between flesh eating bacteria , wayward alligators , unwanted pythons and lone gunmen , Florida has had a troubled history of violence, both natural and man made and has become a rather dangerous place to live.  Yet, the state is literally bursting at the seams with nearly 20 million inhabitants plus the endless stream of tourists to mega-amusement parks like Disney World. This is a state that is constantly being remade anew ever since Henry Flagler ventured southward to establish his railway line along the Atlantic Seaboard, opening up the beaches to the rest of the country.  Gone were the Seminoles and other tribes that once controlled South Florida.  A 40-year Indian War initially led by Andrew Jackson expelled them, leaving only a docile band of Miccosukee behind.  Some Seminole ventured back, claiming land rights in the Everglades, but this was a hybrid tribe that included survivors of other decimated tribes, notably the Creek, and even runaway slaves.  As a result, they

It doesn't matter that the shooter was born and raised in the US, he is being treated as an alien.  Someone outside our society despite the fact that he lived and worked in Fort Pierce, Florida, as a security guard for G4S.  Before that he had been a prison guard, according at Marin Correctional Institution.  Omar has already secured his own  wiki page .  It would be nice if the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting page focused more on the victims.  At least wiki took the time to name them. None of that matters in the eyes of the GOP presumptive nominee and numerous conservative pastors and pundits.  Omar is a "radical Muslim" and should be called such, claiming that his faith is largely responsible for his radicalization.  Trump has revived his "Muslim ban."  Others have called for the immediate deportation of all Muslims.  Others felt the LGBT community got what was coming to them.  It is pretty hard to distinguish between two evils, but Trump seems to be t

Leave it to Donald to drag Pocahontas into the mix by making fun of Liz Warren's presumed Native American heritage.  Everything is fair game in Donald's world, it doesn't matter that he has ticked off more Republicans with his ethnic slurs, notably Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, who is a member of the Chickasaw Tribe.  Rep. Cole felt that this slur should have never entered the conversation, referring to the current twitter war between Don and Liz. To be fair, Elizabeth Warren hasan't exactly distinguished herself either, goading Trump with all the pot shots she has taken recently.  I'm not quite sure what Liz's game plan is here, other than to act as Hillary's surrogate.  She has made some pretty crude remarks herself.  The problem is that when you play these games with Donald, you usually end up losing.  Just ask Marco Rubio who was forced to take back all his hand jokes. Trump's latest twitter attacks stem from Liz claiming she was part Cherokee ,

Reading this piece by Hunter S. Thompson, written three months after the notorious first fight between Ali and Leon Spinks, brought back a flood of bad memories.  Ali had already succumbed to a number of highly questionable fights, including one with Chuck Wepner , who Ali couldn't put away and became the basis for the movie Rocky.  He had also fought some dubious exhibition fights like the one with Antonio Inoki , a Japanese mixed-martial-arts fighter, who spent virtually the entire fight on the ground kicking at Ali's legs until the Champ could barely stand by round 15.  However, nothing could prepare us for that awful night in Vegas when Ali looked every bit the haggard old man in losing his belt to a toothless light heavyweight with only seven fights under his belt, none of which against any fighter of note. Ali looked so lethargic in the early rounds that you began to wonder if he was throwing the fight.  After all, he won a unanimous decision against Earnie Shave

Mike Judge and Alec Berg with the cast of Silicon Valley Every once in awhile someone gets it right.  That's certainly the case with Silicon Valley , an HBO sitcom that has given life in the "valley" a Seinfeld-like quality, largely because Mike Judge has teamed up with Alec Berg, who was both a writer and producer for arguably the greatest sitcom of all time.  These two are naturals for television.  Their movies have bit hit and miss, largely because their brand of humor needs room to play out.  Their quirky characters need time to develop until a natural repartee emerges that makes the jokes click. People forget that Seinfeld bombed in its first season and was very much in danger of being cancelled.  It took a while for these four seemingly mismatched characters to come together and learn to play off each other.  That was pretty much the case with Silicon Valley in its first season although it had the benefit of being about something that captured viewers'