Sunday Morning Coming Down

The title of this post is attributed to Bob Arum, a boxing promoter.  He went out for drinks with some reporters and told some stories that got published and left him a little embarrassed.. The quotation might be able to be used as a universal disclaimer for an awful lot of the political discourse that is going on. The corollary to Arum's quote is the newly elected officials statement upon getting elected: "things are even worse than we thought", and then they go on do whatever they want to do, regardless of any promises they might have made to their supporters.

Yesterday was an interesting one in politics.  The presumptive republican nominee for president was very critical of two sitting republican governors that happen to be women.  In addition, Susan Martinez, Governor of New Mexico is Hispanic, and Nikki Haley, is Indian. Neither were Trump supporters during the primary season and I suppose that was the reason for blasting them, rather than the fact that they were not white males. It is yet to be seen how much more damage if any will be caused by Hillary Clinton's e-mail issues, but the talking points are already out there politically and the Israelis, Chinese, British, French, Germans, and all our friends in the Middle East and elsewhere probably know more about what the U.S.A. is doing overseas than the average American citizen does. Folks would be well advised to follow polling that includes Libertarian Party Candidates, Gary Johnson and William Weld.  These two former governors my not be well known, but they will be o...

Professional baseball players that sign outrageous contracts will have their on field activities reviewed on a daily basis.  The games are on TV and the fans at the ball park have some serious expectations when the face of the franchise steps up to the plate or its is pitching. Saturday Night: Exhibit 1.  The Miami Marlins are playing the 1st place Washington Nationals at home. Giancarlo Stanton is 0-18 and he has struck out 15 times during this latest period of futility.  My untrained eyes see a slugger that is swinging at an awful lot of bad pitches.  GS seems to be a sucker for outside pitches that are not even close to the plate. Jose Fernandez, Saturday's starter batting average was around .270, Stanton's batting average is .216. Stanton is the club's clean up hitter and his 11 home runs are dwarfed by his 55 strike outs in 140 at bats. Obviously, if the Marlins are going to make any noise in the NL East the slump will need to end and be replaced my timely...

Ben almost Hudson is the publisher of Track Magazine which covers racing quarter horses.  He appeared on the cover of his magazine in April 2016 accepting an AQHA Hall of Fame Award.  Mr. Hudson proudly stood at the podium with a Trump Make America Great Again Poster. I'm not shocked that Mr. Hudson is a proud Trump supporter.  I was rather puzzled by the way the poster was allowed to be taped to the AQHA podium. He spoke about his life, career and his quarter horses.  He also filled three tables to the dinner that evening.  According to his column in April he did not speak of national politics. Mr. Hudson's support of Mr. Trump did not result in an AQHA official running up to the podium to remove the poster.  Maybe there were some Ted Cruz supporters in the audience but they restrained themselves.  I will continue to subscribe to Mr. Hudson's magazine in spite of and not because of his support of Mr. Trump.   Mr. Hudson took time in his May...

Actually we should be satisfied if we could only make a America a better place to live for everyone.  I listened to Donald Trump for a lot of years, watched golf tournaments at a resort he bought that have held golf tournaments that were just as entertaining as they are today. I'm not sure everyone who has voted for Donald Trump would agree on what needs to be done to make America great again and there are certainly things that he has said and done in his most recent campaign that should give folks reason to pause and think before they might ever vote for him to become the president. Actually running a golf tournament in Miami in March, at a fancy golf course isn't that big a deal.  The City of Doral and lots of other businesses all work together to make the tournament a success and give visitors to Miami something fun to do.  The tournament is on TV and the advertising for South Florida would be difficult to purchase.  Is this the best golf tournament on the PGA...

Buying beer at the grocery store just got a little bit more difficult. I'm 65 years old and probably look every day of my current age.  I'm pretty sure the clerk knows I'm over 21 years old. The clerk asked for my driver's license and then swiped it on their computer. Boy, am I glad I have a state issued driver's license.  And I thought this was only a problem regarding voter fraud.  Folks driving without a valid license is also a problem, but I never thought that buying a six pack would become the front line in the war against drunk driving, immigration reform, and a marketing ploy.  Isn't that what those customer reward cards are for.

I'm reminded of Kurt Vonnegut saying something like if this isn't nice, what is?  He was a speaker at a graduation giving out advice as commencement speakers do. An then I heard a guy on the radio talking about the mad rush to apply for college by kids in high school.  He also said something that will be heard by parents but probably not heard by their children. "Where you go, is not who you will be."  This is from Frank Bruni of the New York Times. It's a long time between 17 years old and retirement and there is a difference between life and advice about life. And then Mark Twain who is a lot older than most of us said, "Never let school interfere with your education." Work on that bucket before you kick it.

It's been a pretty long time since I took a cab in Miami.  I might have known a cab driver a long time ago, but I doubt he is still driving a cab. I've never used Uber or Lyft.  Given the technology out there when will Uber and Lyft do to their drivers what they have done to to the taxi industry.  I keep reading about driver less cars. This doesn't take much imagination. I'm getting longer in the tooth every day and for some folks it will be a race between technology or a family member saying I should give up the car keys. It won't be like they are just messing with your livelyhood.  This is going really jam up your lifestyle. I know folks that say there are lots of drivers that shouldn't be on the roads.  Some poor folks have crappy cars that should be off the road for evironmental reasons, poor tires, bad brakes or bad mileage. And when are they going to say people shouldn't drive their own cars because it is just too dangerous because they keep cras...

Nyquist won in California and won in Florida.  Beyond that I really can't say much for the rest of the field. The rest of the field are not stiffs but there are reasons that they might not be the best candidates to key on top of your Kentucky Derby ticket. Last year is in the rear view mirror but American Pharoah was so good, so dominant, and ran so easily he is hard to forget.  This is probably clouding my judgement. It's completely possible that Mohaymen might rally from his last race and really give Nyquist a run for the money.  If you think  the Florida Derby was a clinker, he should probably be on your ticket and from there you might put all the rest of the horse's names in a hat for the trifecta and superfecta. If Nyquist has problems on the track or with the crowd noise and you have the winner you will be rewarded well, and the exactas will be better than well, and the trifectas, and superfectas, will require social security cards and picture ids to get ...

Donald Trump is the presumptive republican presidential nominee.  Making America great is a good idea.  I'm not sure how the November elections will go but there will need to be a massive fence mending operation undertaken if he is to have any chance on winning the election and not taking down a significant number of down ballot republicans. Seems to me there are almost four parties out there.  Pissed off republicans, democratic socialists, and the establishment republicans and democrats. I ask myself on almost daily basis how did we get to this place. Sixteen inept republican candidates, and that group was left with a United States senator that nobody likes and stop Trump movement that was DOA. Meanwhile the most qualified democratic candidate with the most baggage that will bring out the worst in presidential campaigns as we remember them. If I were Donald Trump I would not like to run on my record during the primary season which has been long on personal attacks ...