Fri Musings

This AM I spoke with my physician, who is retiring at the end of the month.  After thanking him and wishing him well, I joked, "I hope you aren't as busy in retirement as I've been."  He laughed and said, "I think I'm already getting that feeling."  Yep, "retire from retirement."

Last week I spent a couple of minutes watching some of the Tiger game.  Victor Martinez hit a rope for a home run.  Isn't it cool to watch the smiles on the faces of the home town crowds when one of theirs reaches the downs and does the Cadillac Trot?  Yep, it is.

Speaking of baseball, in sports, is there anything more fun than shagging fly balls?  My dad would often take me out after dinner and hit me flies for hours on end.  I loved it!  It was a lot of fun.  One night I ran into a light pole at the nearby park, my eye quickly closing.  The next AM, it looked like a plum, that purple!  Or, so I was told.  I had a game that day and, I suppose foolishly, I played.  As luck would have it, maybe bad luck, a bad bounce smacked me in the same eye.  The city ran me up to the local medical clinic for x-rays.  No permanent damage was done.  And we didn't stop with the fly balls.

OK, I've reconsidered.  Taking BP was also great.  After working in the dining hall in college, I'd go down by myself two hours before team practice, set the pitching machine, and take BP until my teammates arrived.  That was great fun, too.

I hope the Tigers don't clean house.  I know the reasoning behind all the trade talk.  But I enjoy watching most of the players whose names are being thrown around regarding trades.  I'd hate to see these guys go.  But, it's not baseball; it's a business.

I see former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Young has thrown his hat in the ring for the November '18 election for US Senator.  He's a very intelligent man.  I heard him on the radio one day last week driving to class.  In addition to some good ideas, he also was right on the money in criticizing current Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow.  He cited her "spend, spend, spend" history and, if there isn't enough money, just put more spending "on the credit card," leaving others to pay for her boondoogles later.  I know the Republicans have run some very mediocre candidates against her in the past.  But, then, I still couldn't understand anyone voting for her.  Now, especially, I cannot imagine, not in the least, anyone choosing Stabenow over Young unless voting blindly for the party; still, someone voting like that once again conjures up IQ tests for voters.  OK, I'm just kidding, but......

A Michigan state Supreme Court justice, elected last November, has been nominated for the US Court of Appeals.  Joan Larsen, in a several candidate race, managed to win about 60% of the vote in gaining her seat.  She scored nearly twice as many votes as the runner-up.  Yet Larsen's appointment is being held up by Michigan Senators Peters and Stabenow, who haven't given the "blue slip" approval.  "Blue slip" is a practice that allows Senators in whose states the nominee(s) will serve to be review and submit opinions (approval or disapproval?) before the Judiciary Committee in the Senate allows hearings.  It's a version,  I guess, of Senatorial courtesy.  What is holding up Peters and Stabenow?  It must be politics, pure and simple.  In addition to Larsen's overwhelming popularity in the election, she has a vast amount of experience, even clerking for a past US Supreme, Antonin Scalia I believe.  (Regardless of one's political agreement with Scalia, the man was brilliant.)  She has the overwhelming support of the Law School at U of M, hardly a bastion of conservative thought.  And the ABA has given her its highest rating.  So......  Are Peters and Stabenow being lackeys for the Democratic Party leadership?  Why doesn't that surprise anyone?  Is this evidence they are more concerned with what the Democrat leadership wants than what Michigan's citizens want?  Why doesn't that surprise anyone?  Of course, I often stay the same thing about Establishment Republicans.

Speaking of politics, someone the other day, in a rare, but welcome serious discussion, began referring disparagingly of Republicans.  I understand.  I'm not a Republican and often speak disparagingly of Establishment Republicans myself.  Of course, I also criticize Democrats and can't imagine voting for many, if any, of them.  Yet, this person was focusing only on Republicans.  I wanted, but didn't, to ask why there was no similar vehemence toward Democrats.  I think for every rotten and stupid thing the Republicans, esp the Establishment Republicans, do or enact, one can be found among the Democrats.

I didn't vote for Don Trump--and never would.  My views on him are not secret.  But all I feared of him becoming President seems to be coming to fruition.  Yet, I fully understand why people voted for him.  See the above paragraphs.  I don't know if our Establishment politicians are stupid, arrogant, so self-confident they can manipulate the system to their advantage, or what.  But they don't listen to what is being said loudly and clearly.

I don't like what I hear on some radio commercials.  There are companies out there that claim they can fix it so people who owe money, to the IRS or even private firms, don't have to pay their full debts.  I don't like that!  One guy claimed he paid about 10% of what he owed.  Why?  It's yet another instance of people who live by the rules get rotten deals while those to don't get the advantages.  After hearing such ads, why wouldn't someone go out and buy more and more, refuse to pay their income taxes, etc.?  More and more we seem to encourage bad behavior and punish good behavior.  This is like the auto bailouts.  They made crappy products, had lousy labor-management deals, etc. so much so they were about to go belly up.  Yet, they were salvaged.  Funny, when Karen and I were eating Chunky Soup on rice--bulk rice!--three times a week, going for terrible all-you-can-eat Little Caesar's spaghetti for $1 on Weds, etc., nobody bailed us out.  When our health insurance premiums started costing us thousands of dollars a year more than previously, nobody offered to bail us out.  (For that matter, Stabenow and Peters have gone on the record about the terrible effects on some groups of the current Republican plans to scuttle Obamacare, which doesn't do that at all.  They weren't at all concerned about the terrible effects of Obamacare on people like me--higher premiums, higher co-pays and deductibles, making the mandated insurance impractical to use.)  Yep, I didn't vote for Trump, but I understand why so many did.  (And that doesn't even consider his rotten opponent, H. Clinton.)