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John Maxwell

Mark Schweickart

Jack -- Thanks for the compliment. I really appreciate it. 
Nonetheless, I am also confused. I know that I have memory issues these days, but I am baffled by your comment that back in the sixties I used to be into folksingers from the twenties and thirties. The only folksinger I can think of from that period might be Woody Guthrie, but I certainly didn't know about him back in our high school days. Jog my memory for me, or maybe your memory is becoming as fuzzy as mine. Regardless, thanks again for the compliment. 

Sheila McCarthy (Gardner)

Debbie, what a lovely tribute to your Mother .... 

Michael McLeod

to an english major nerd like me an extended metaphor is as glorious as a slam dunk is to a sports fan. I was too wimpy to even try one.

from a book review i just read:

Ron Chernow’s new biography of Mark Twain is enormous, bland and remote — it squats over Twain’s career like a McMansion. Chernow, who has previously written lives of financial titans, war heroes and founding fathers, misses the man William Faulkner called “the father of American literature” almost entirely. He demonstrates little feeling for the deeper and least domesticated regions of Twain’s art, or for the literary context of his era. His book is an endurance test, one that skimps on the things that formed Twain and made him the most lucid, profound, unpredictable and irascibly witty American of his time. Hardy will be the souls who tour this air-conditioned edifice all the way through and glimpse the exit sign.

Mark Schweickart

Mike -- Thanks for the review. I was thinking of getting this Twain biography, but will certainly pass on it. 

Jeanine Eilers (Decker)

Debbie--I remember your mother so well.  What a lovely woman.  She welcomed all of us with a warm smile and kind heart.  I miss my own mother terribly so I am very glad that one of us is lucky enough to still have Mom around.  Give her a hug for me.

David Mitchell

Love this video - special degree for intellectually challenged in the "Life" program at Clemson.

Dad is Clemson President - Grace is his graduating daughter.

Michael McLeod

I'm ordinarily no trump fan but if he can do anything to mollify the horrors of the middle-east on this junket i'm behind him a hundred percent.

And now that I've voiced my own opinion about the matter I'm sure everything will go a lot smoother over there from here on out.

David Mitchell

Mike,

I take the opposite point of view.

This trip - the "free" airplane -  and all these foreign governement gifts -  in exchange for real estate deals is such utter corruptiuon it boggles my mind.

Listening to an interview last week (before news of this trip broke) about all the billions of dollars of gifts in exchange for development rights in the middle east and the Balkins is enough to make one's head spin. It's just blatant conflict of interest with him and his two sons reaping huge benefits.

And they said Hunter Biden was corrupt - ha!

Maybe there can be some good comming out of this situation in Syria, but that's about all.

Michael McLeod

mark: i remember that awesome obscene stamp collection you used to have, and that crush you had on those siamese twins,and the day you came to school all scratched up from being attacked by a mountain lion, and that awesome tattoo you had across your back of the hindenberg blowing up. 

Mark Schweickart

Mike -- Well I am flummoxed. Since none of your latest post has any connection to reality, I am guessing that maybe this is some sort of ironic comment in response to me saying I appreciated your sharing this review of Chernow's Twain biography. Perhaps you thought I was being ironic, hence the tone of your respnse here, but I assure you I was not. I was in fact thinking of buying this new Chernow book, but given this reviewer's comments I was grateful to have been spared the cost, time, and effort in reading it. I assure you – no irony was intended . I was just genuinely thanking you.

David Mitchell

I wonder if any of you share my fond memories of Riccardi's Pizza restaurant? 

I had been there with my mother a few times as a child but when we were in high school it became a much more important part of my life. So many fun nights there after a ball game. More often in the parking lot than inside.

And the "walk" down there (after games) from Watterson - by way of mostly back alleys paralleling High Street. A walk that lent itself very well to a few stops along the way for a make-out session in the shadow of some garage. 

I walked a girl in the class ahead of us and we made the stop on the way. Clare Donavan and Ronnie DeLuca had become "big sisters"  to Tom Litzinger and I. They sort of pushed themselves on us and that walk was my first "encounter" with her. That didn't last long - she wasn't that interesting to me.

And I had a chance to walk one of my first real "crushes" - Donna Bain - down that path, and never kissed her. I think she complained to friends about our no kissing. I was too shy and embarrassed. I really lked her, but couldn't get up the nerve.

Anybody share those memories?

Michael McLeod

Mark: sorry for the goofy post just enjoy the book

Mark Schweickart

Mike -- I think I will check out a few more reviews before ordering this. 

John Jackson

Prior to Trump we haven’t come even close to governmental corruption on such a vast scale.  Dave mentioned  the “gift” (am I being uncharitable to call it a ”bribe”) of the $400 million luxury jetliner the Qataris want to make to Trump’s library. 

Another example - Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, makes a generous donation to Trump’s inauguration and stands just behind Trump at the inauguration and, in an amazing coincidence, iPhones get exempted from tariffs!   And Jeff Bezos has agreed to underwrite a $40 million documentary of Melania’s life for Amazon Prime for which she will be paid handsomely to “consult”  - am I cynical to suggest this has anything to do with the Bezos Blue Origin space company’s pursuit of government contracts?

But Trumps’s meme coins are the very currency of bribery.  There will be lots of American businesses who will be hurt by the tariffs and I’m sure many will pony up to buy $10 million (or whatever the going rate is) of these coins (which benefit Trump directly) to pay for a tariff carve-out for the items they import.

Final example - “A struggling technology company that has ties to China and relies on TikTok made an unusual announcement this week. It had secured funding to buy as much as $300 million of $TRUMP, the so-called meme coin marketed by President Trump”.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/us/politics/trump-crypto-purchase.html

It would be one thing if all this money went to the U.S. Treasury or benefitted the American people in some way but it’s going straight into Trump’s pockets.  And what’s even more outrageous is that it’s blatantly obvious and he makes no effort to hide it. 

John Jackson

From the Borowitz Report:

Trump Establishes New Cabinet Department            to Process Huge Volume of Bribes

WASHINGTON, DC — To process the avalanche of bribes offered him on a daily basis, on Friday the President created a new Cabinet-level department, Group Receiving Inducements For Trump (GRIFT).

“We’re getting thousands of beautiful gifts a day and we don’t have enough people to sign for them all,” Trump said. “Eric and Don Jr. can’t do it alone.”

In order to handle the administration’s soaring bribe surplus, GRIFT will have a workforce ten times the size of the EPA, officials said.

“The establishment of this agency is long overdue,” Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said. “Obama and Biden failed to create the infrastructure necessary to operate a world-class kleptocracy.”

Michael McLeod

wow, a national ice cream recall. this is a dark day indeed.

https://www.pennlive.com/food/2025/05/popular-ice-cream-company-recalls-over-17k-tubs-of-ice-cream.html

Timothy Lavelle

Dark Clouds with Silver Linings

I'd like to thank Bill Bellichik (and little bill) for totally eclipsing Urban Meyers in the lifetime award for dumbest older man.

...and in a recently updated interview with Orville and Wilbur Wright they teamed up in their best Mexican accents, saying "Ray-dar, we don't neeed no steenking Ray-dar". Those guys are such wits, huh?

Party on

David Mitchell

I'm thinking we could start a new evening news commentary team modeled after David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, but with an interesting twist.

It would star Tim Lavelle and John Jackson

(anybody at PBS interested?)

Janie Albright (Blank)

PBS? Unfortunately, I don't think it will be around long enough to pick up your show Dave. 

Michael McLeod

helluva final act being orchestrated by a lifetime global giver and humanitarian,

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/magazine/bill-gates-foundation-closing-2045.html?campaign_id=52&emc=edit_ma_20250517&instance_id=154699&nl=the-new-york-times-magazine&regi_id=81440061&segment_id=198114&user_id=2bc8a806c869a6b7c9358d96e8c8d355

Michael McLeod

Only review I saw was two thumbs down Mark.

David Mitchell

Mike,

Re: Bill Gates foundation.

Quite a contrast to another even richer man who gives a lot - but it's a tiny fraction of his total wealth.

Michael McLeod

Dave: wish I was rich enough to help people in need on that scale. I can only imagine what that would feel like.

Michael McLeod

I just ran across a great expression. I don't remember seeing it before:

"A stopped clock is right twice a day."  

The sentiment being even somebody you consider as wackadoodle has a point to make, at least on occasion.

That expression gets that idea across so beautifully and succinctly I wish I'd seen it years ago. I would have stuck it up near my desk to remind myself to listen carefully and with an open mind to everybody I ever interviewed. In all fairness as the years went by my experience at taking in hundreds upon hundreds of points of view about various subjects gradually taught me as much. Which is not to say I didn't I run into a lot of broken clocks along the way.