Super Tuesday was a trip back to the future. Everyone thought Bernie Sanders would would be the overwhelming favorite this morning for the Democratic nomination with a commanding lead in delegates after yesterday. Then people voted and showed they weren’t ready for a revolution. The theory that moderate Democrats had to unite around one candidate to stop Sanders proved true. After Joe Biden showed his muscle in South Carolina, Amy, Pete, and even Beto realized Democrats had to stop fighting each other to come together to first stop Bernie, then beat Trump. Elizabeth Warren is still hanging on with no chance of winning. She is probably helping Biden by taking votes away from Bernie. But eventually the money will dry up for her. Mike Bloomberg spent $500 million dollars to win American Samoa and a few delegates. He realized this morning that money couldn’t buy him love and he dropped out. He’s committed to beating Trump and his millions can help buy love for Democratic candidates around the country as he did in 2018.

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A street fight broke out at the Democratic debate last night. There was the smell of desperation which lead to chaos. Seven adults yelling, talking over each other, raising their hands as we used to in elementary school to get the teacher to call on us because we knew we had the right answer. They expanded the time for an answer to 1:15. The moderators found it impossible to get the candidates to shut up. The pack was clearly after front runner Bernie Sanders. They also turned on each other to try to show they were the only real alternative to a Social Democrat who is too far left to win a general election against the crazy “very stable genius” president. Trump has to love what he’s seeing. Frank Bruni of the New York Times wrote “… if I were Trump, I’d edit into a campaign commercial and blanket the airwaves. It’s tag line would be: “Even Democrats don’t trust Bernie Sanders. Why should you?”

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This is the time we look back on the past year and talk about all the good and bad, losses and gains, hopes and dreams. Most of us were probably not aware of two things that happened in 2019. We have all heard about climate change and preserving our natural environment from the real scientists, and even a teenage girl. We’ve heard from the deniers who refuse to believe the obvious. Unfortunately, the current administration is lead by the worst denier of all. Back in June, his administration issued a “clarification” of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. I know what you may be thinking, I’ve got more important things to worry about than bird policy. It’s the twisted reasoning that is behind the “clarification” that should concern us all.

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Enough! I can’t take it anymore. Watching sports on television has become almost impossible. The games are consumed by over analysis, opinion, insight, and obvious explanation, that has developed into white noise. Now I understand why they torture prisoners by playing round the clock loud music to make them give up information. They are driven to a breaking point by the non-stop noise. That’s what televised games are doing to us. First, there’s the one hour, or even two hour, pre-game show. Five people, usually former players and coaches, led by a sportscaster talking about what they think about the game, the players, the coaches, strengths, weaknesses, and funny highlights. Have you ever sat through “C’mon Man” on ESPN? The same bunch of guys will be back at halftime with highlights and tell you what they thought of the game. Have you ever learned anything from one of those guys?

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We entered Rome from the west. It was not very impressive. The buildings looked like they were built in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. It was what I would call grungy, and graffiti was everywhere. Things changed dramatically when we got to the center of Rome behind the what used to be the old wall that protected the city. We drove through a beautiful park to our hotel on the Via Veneto. The city is full of energy. There are very small, even tiny, cars zipping along the main boulevards and the narrow cobblestone streets. They are parked bumper to bumper from one corner to the next. People must be experts at parallel parking. While the cars are parked in the street, the motor scooters line the narrow sidewalks on every block. The traffic is frenetic. One tour guide told us traffic regulations are just “a suggestion.”

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The goal of all writers is to get people to read what you write. When you self publish, there are no agents, or publishers helping you get your book out there. It’s all up to you. That means tell every family member and friend, try not to be obnoxious about it, that you’ve written a book they can easily buy on line. Use social media. Try to get a local bookstore to sell it. I’ve checked all those boxes, but it was time to make a pitch in person to people I didn’t know, a Meet the Author-Book Signing. You have to put yourself out there, even though you risk standing in a room with a pile of books, and no one shows up. With the help of Pete, the head of the Social Committee in my community, we set one up at the clubhouse.

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At first, I was surprised. Then, I was angry. I was kneeling on a grassy patch by the curb  on the corner of our house at the Jersey shore. It was a couple of days after 9/11. Local school kids had planted small American flags in the ground on just about every corner to commemorate the day. They were those small flags attached to a wooden stick with a gold point on top. My wife noticed it had fallen over the night before. She picked it up, and stuck it in a flower pot in the front yard. The ground by the street was packed hard, and the flag wouldn’t stay. She asked me to dig a better hole the next morning.

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The beginning of September used to mean the last holiday weekend of summer, back to school, the beginning of fall, and the kickoff off the football season. It’s still means all those things, but there is also the shadow of the day that changed everything. That bright, blue sky Tuesday morning was shattered by the unthinkable terror of crashes, explosions, fire, death, and mountains of smoldering rubble that are still killing firefighters and police officers today. It shocked us like no other event in our history. We were vulnerable. How could this happen? How could we not stop it before the plot got off the ground? It made us afraid.

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I was 18 years old on the summer Sunday night 50 years ago when man landed on the moon. I was in my father’s office at ABC News where he worked as the Assignment Manager. I was working down the street as a summer Desk Assistant at WABC Eyewitness News. He was behind his desk as Neil Armstrong descended the steps of the lunar module. He instinctively reached for a pen, and began to write on a small pad, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, as the words came out of Armstrong’s mouth. I guess it was his newsman’s instinct. It was something that the millions of people around the world watching would remember. While it was one of great accomplishments in history, it was also the last great, good thing we did together.

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Everyone wants to win. To quote former New York Jets coach Herm Edwards, “You play to win the game.” A win, a great play, a goal are reason to celebrate. Not so fast. The Women’s World Cup has raised the issue among some that celebrating can go too far, and seem “arrogant”, overboard, and unsportswoman-like. It started when the US women beat Thailand 13-0 and didn’t let up when the game was clearly out of hand, and they had the nerve to continue to celebrate after every goal. Have you ever watched a men’s soccer match? After every goal there is the long knee slide, the running around the field, arms flailing, hugging teammates. And this is after every goal in every regular season game. This is not once every four years like the World Cup where some of these woman get one or two chances in their life to compete in a world wide championship for their country.

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