I studied The Inferno in college, so I know something about the circles of Hell. Dante had nine, but I think he would have to add a few more to accommodate life in the USA these past few weeks.

*After being impeached by the House, Trump is “acquitted” by the Senate.

*It turns out that the last three champions of Major League Baseball – the 2019 and 2017 Houston Astros and the 2018 Boston Red Sox – all cheated in elaborate, illicit sign-stealing schemes.

*Writers are battling other writers over Jeanine Cummins’ novel AMERICAN DIRT.

*Rush Limbaugh got the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

*And Kobe Bryant died at 41 in a helicopter crash that shouldn’t have happened.

Very, very bad news, all around.

THE IMPEACHMENT COVER-UP

I watched a lot of the impeachment “trial” in the Senate, as much as I could stomach. I was heartened by the House Managers’ case, led by my congressman ADAM SCHIFF. I ridiculed the case for Trump, led by Ken Starr(!?!), Alan Dershowitz, and Pat Cippoline (a material witness to some of the shenanigans of the Trump White House).

When considering the charges against Trump, I think of the verdict rendered by the foreman of the jury in Mel Brooks’ THE PRODUCERS.

“We find the defendant very, very guilty.”

The various Trump defenses – “He didn’t do it!” … “He did it, but the call was perfect.” … “Get over it!” … “The president can do anything.” … “Hunter Biden!” – were all absurd distractions.

Imagine if John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, Robert Blair, and Michael Duffey had testified. Imagine if they told the truth.

Imagine if the Trump White House had released the relevant emails.

Imagine if Trump had to testify.

(Hell, imagine if Robert Mueller had questioned Don Jr. about his Russian contacts. “No collusion?” What do you call more than a hundred meetings and countless emails?)

Finally, history will have its say, and the truth will come out. No matter what kangaroo court Moscow Mitch McConnell conceived.

“No witnesses + no evidence = no trial.” Trump was “acquitted,” but so was O.J.

And now Trump is even more emboldened, with the entire GOP (minus a few people with some semblance of moral courage like Mitt Romney) in his back pocket. He was even crazier than usual in his “victory” speech and that “prayer” breakfast.

Worse times ahead -- guaranteed!

CHAMPION CHEATERS

The last thing that any sport needs is a cheating scandal. If a sport isn’t “fair,” it’s worthless. Part of the appeal of any sport is that it is a microcosm of the world, with its own rules and rituals, but one that renders a definitive result: a winner and a loser. There must be fair competition that leads to a creditable conclusion. So the better team/person wins.

But if the rules aren’t followed by all the participants, the purity of the sport is ruined.

And now Major League Baseball has three consecutive “ruined” champions, champions with, from now on, asteriskes next to their “victories.” They can’t take the rings away from the Houston Astros and the Boston Red Sox, but those World Series victories will now be seen in the same way as Mark McGuire and Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa’s home runs. Forever suspect; forever illegitimate.

I guess it was too much to expect that teams wouldn’t use the available technology (video replay in every clubhouse) to gain an advantage. But when you join that illicitly gotten information with good, old signal-passing (banging on a garbage can: once for a fastball, twice for a curve), you have cheating, pure and simple.

But what’s worse is that the Astro players who participated in the scheme aren’t at all repentant or remorseful. Good players like Altuve, Bregman, and Springer are now under a cloud … where they belong. I can’t wait to hear them booed all over the league, all season long.

And to think that the cheating Astros spoiled the careers of Yu Darvish and Brandon Morrow, and did further damage to Clayton Kershaw’s shakey post-season record.

Whatever the scandals, I can’t wait for this season to start. I already have tickets for two Dodger games.

And we have Mookie Betts (I think)!! That’s something good.

WRITERS FIGHTING WRITERS

The controversy over Jeanine Cummins’ AMERICAN DIRT is worth a whole blog, if not a whole book. I haven’t read the novel, but I’ve read about it, and the issues raised by the brouhaha are disturbing.

I did read the letter from a long list of writers wanting Oprah Winfrey to “reconsider” her choice of AMERICAN DIRT for her Book Club.

Here it is:

https://lithub.com/dear-oprah-winfrey-82-writers-ask-you-to-reconsider-american-dirt/

(Also check out the Comments section for a vigorous discussion of the issues.)

This whole matter is distasteful to me as a novelist. I suppose that writers have been fighting with each other since we used hammers and chisels, but this seems like a particularly stupid fight, one that diminishes both sides.

OK, it’s a tough time for writers in general, especially minorities who have an extra-tough time in this racist society. People are hurting – for themselves and/or the group they identify with – and they are angry. It’s hard to know who to hit. But when people get angry and vocal, our reaction can’t be – “They are wrong, they don’t know what they are talking about.” Instead, we should listen: not necessarily agree but listen and learn.

I’m sure that people can find flaws in the book, but it’s a novel. If you think she made mistakes, write your own novel or critique. But asking Oprah to take back her Book Club selection finally sounds like professional jealousy. I’m sure most if not all of the writers who signed that letter would love to have their books picked by Oprah and secretly think that they deserve her approval, not Jeanine Cummins.

Actually, I’m just as interested in reading Cummins’ Afterword to the book, a pre-apology. I guess she sensed that some blowback would come her way: her book is about a very sensitive subject and, these days, people are ready to attack … anything.

But, really, why apologize? She put in four or five years of research and then wrote the book with her heart. It’s FICTION! If it’s not perfect, too bad. It’s just another book. People who don’t like it have every right to complain, but it just looks to me like a whole vineyard of sour grapes.

“Cultural appropriation?” That’s what writers DO. They appropriate other people’s lives and realities, and turn them into stories. If you wrote only about what you experienced as a person, then a man couldn’t write about a woman, nor a woman write about a man. It’s called “imagination.”

Some writers get lucky. Oprah liked this book: good for the author. (A lot of people seem to like it.) Don’t hit Oprah when you’re really aiming for Trump.

Instead, hit Oprah for backing out on the Russell Simmons documentary.

“EL RUSHBO”

So Trump gives the Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh, who is dying of lung cancer.

Hmmm…. I try to be a nice, kind person in my life and works, but in this case, I’m rooting for cancer. (Before you tell me, “That’s too rough!!” listen to all the Rush clips below — all of them, if you can stand it — and tell me what he deserves.)

For many years I listened to Rush Limbaugh (Yes, I did, Mr. Snerdley. Who could not be amused, at least at first, by his “talent on loan from God?” And I like to know what “the enemy” is doing.) It was during the heights/depths of his oxycontin addiction – the addiction that blew out his ears and required him to get two cochleal implants -- and he was flying high on the air. He sounded like a carnival barker crossed with a particularly sodden W.C. Fields, spouting his nonsense with perfect certainty. Lie after lie after lie, but he has such joy lying and twisting the truth that you can feel the rage and resentment he instills in his low-information listeners. Limbaugh is a happy warrior, even if his weapons are deceit, exaggeration, prejudice, and nastiness. Listening to him, I was appalled, thinking, “People actually believe this bullshit???” I guess they do: he has millions of listeners. How sad for our country? His show is intellectual pollution in our public information stream.

After a while I got tired of his act and hearing him repeatedly say things like “we have the greatest health care system in the world.” Finally, his LA radio station changed so I never followed him. But, make no mistake: he is the ideological head of the Republican party, its “heart and soul.” Isn’t that pathetic? A college dropout, a junkie, four-times-married with a creepy personal history: that’s their hero.

In cases like this, I like to summon the words of Clarence Darrow who said, “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”

Rush Limbaugh is an evil man. A racist, a demogogue, a liar, a misogynist, a bigot, and a source of hatred and deception. He has been a bad influence on our country, and it would have been better if he had never been born at all.

Politifact’s rating for “El Rushbo” – 85% of what he says is “False,” “Mostly False,” or “Pants on Fire”

https://www.politifact.com/personalities/rush-limbaugh/

Some of Rush’s racist comments – from 2008

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiLVTzljOjA

More of Rush’s racist comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrOEFmDuE7E

A caller traps Rush into a talk about his illicit drug past

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBFA7HKQn7I

KOBE

The fog was as thick as cotton candy that morning. I couldn’t see the house across the street from me. Granted we’re miles from Calabasas, but not even the police helicopters were flying that morning.

One bad decision, and now all those people are dead. His daughter and those seven other people. What a waste.

I probably watched Kobe Bryant play more than any other athlete in my lifetime. I am married to a Laker girl -- (Check out my Blog #25 – “She Likes Basketball”) – and I can’t count the number of games we watched in Kobe’s 20 seasons. She always said if everyone did their job like Kobe does his, this would be a great society.

When I think of all the pleasure and thrills he gave us – five championships, and there should have been more -- it makes me happy to have seen him at his glorious peak and sad that he’s gone so young. He had a great playing career and was on his way to a super-successful career afterwards. What a waste. Forty-one is too young.

At least there are the highlights and memories.

Kobe’s career – in his own words

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvJY5REnJ6Q

Kobe Bryant’s 100 Best Plays

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTTWedyp37o

Kobe’s Top 40 Plays

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiSJoypBvls

Kobe vs. Michael – who was better?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPg1FXl1xpk

Boy, I had trouble writing this blog. I hate contemplating all these horrible things, but they are What’s Going On and I can’t ignore them.

So here’s some salve for the soul, courtesy of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II:

Jerry Hadley and Frederica von Stade sing “Make Believe” from SHOWBOAT – recreating their legendary recording of this magnificent scene (from Avery Fisher Hall, 1990)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6dpVCqrO6g

Sierra Boguss and Julian Ovenden sing “Make Believe” from SHOWBOAT – from the BBC Proms 2010 – pure, young goodness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDsS7zydUXs

Jerry Hadley, Sam Ramey, and Flicka sing a medley from SHOWBOAT, that same 1990 concert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU20v8x9Cd0

#WHENIGOTOUT

#adultromanticthrillernovel

#adultromanticthrillerstory

#adultromanticsuspensenovel

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