Where were you? (I will always love Dolly.)

Where were you when you learned that Dolly Parton had died?

I was at my dentist's office, making my six-month-out cleaning appointment. I checked my messages and there was one from my friend Joyce. It just read "Dolly Parton."

I knew that it could only mean one thing, and I googled to find that Dolly was no longer with us. 

Tearing up, I immediately texted my sister Trish. Her response: "Noooooo..."

As Trish texted a second later, "She was a treasure."

Absolutely.

I also told the dentist's admins, and they put Dolly on right away. "I Will Always Love You." Who doesn't love "I Will Always Love You?"

I wasn't a super obsessive Dolly Parton fan girl, but like pretty much everyone else in this disunited country, I loved her.

I love her Christmas albums, which I play every December. I love her Trio albums with Emmy Lou Harris and Linda Ronstadt. 

I am no connoisseur of her music. I don't know every obscure song she wrote. I love the ones everyone else loves. "Islands in the Stream," her duet with Kenny Rogers (no relation). "Nine to Five." "Here You Come Again." "I Will Always Love You." Historically, I haven't been a big fan of "Jolene," but I had started to come around a month or so ago after watching a rerun on PBS of Dolly Parton: Here I Am. The only Dolly song I can think of that I heartily dislike is the sappier-than-sappy "Little Andy."

I admired Dolly for her brilliance. This dirt poor girl from Nowhere Holler, Appalachia, who built an empire. (Not that I'm ever going to visit Dollywood, but credit goes where credit is due.) Everytime she opened her mouth, it was pretty obvious that Dolly was one smart cookie. 

I admired her brilliant philanthropy, especially the Imagination Library, which provides books to children from newborn until starting kindergarten. This is an organization that Dolly set up in honor of her father, who never learned to read or write. 

She made a million dollar donation to Vanderbilt University for their work (with Moderna) to develop the covid vaccine. Dolly Parton, life saver! 

When Whitney Houston's insanely gorgeous version of "I Will Always Love You" became a superhit, Dolly devoted the royalties (about $10M) to help support business development in a historically Black neighborhood in Nashville.

Only God and Dolly know the full depth of her charitable work.

And speaking of insanely gorgeous, Dolly - underneath all that blondie wig and makeup - was insanely gorgeous. And I know that because I actually saw her in person once.

My husband and I were in La Jolla, California, having lunch outside whatever the name of the famous La Jolla restaurant is, on an insanely gorgeous day. And who walked by but Dolly Parton. And I was immediately struck by her beauty. (This was quite a celebrity-spotting lunch. We also saw Steve Garvey, the baseball player.)

So, physical beauty combined with beautiful heart, soul, and mind. 

Oh, Dolly.

When I left the dentist's office, I wanted to stop everyone I passed to tell them the news about Dolly - a compulsion I didn't act on, but which I have never felt before. 

When I stopped in the post office to buy some stamps - yes, I still put things in the mail, including get-out-the-vote postcards, which was what I was buying stamps for - I told the clerk the news. She had already heard, and we commiserated for a bit, agreeing that the world needs more Dolly Partons. Or even partial Dolly Partons, as even a partial Dolly Parton would be quite a gift to humankind.

When some person of note dies, someone I liked or admired, or who was a part of the background noise of my growing up - writer, actor, musician, athlete, politician, whatever - I often feel a momentary bit of sadness. Thus, the other day when I heard that the actress Shelley Fabares had died - she played daughter Mary on The Donna Reed Show, one of my childhood favorites - I had a rueful second or two. But it's different with Dolly. For Dolly, I shed a few tears.

What is there to say, other than that the world is a lesser place without Dolly Parton, but was a better place for her 80 years here on earth.

Oh, Dolly. I will always love you.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Image Source: Dolly Parton on Facebook

A Not So Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

In early May of last year, I was watching the news when a familiar-looking neighborhood appeared. The story - which was about local residents standing up to ICE when they came after one of their neighbors - was from Worcester, so of course it looked kinda-sorta familiar in the way that most blue collar 'hoods in old New England industrial cities kinda-sorta look alike. But there was something more than that. This 'hood looked pretty close to home. To me, it looked like Henshaw or Grand View or Eureka. Streets near where I grew up.

Then the camera showed the Clark Manor Nursing Home. And my grandmother's house on Winchester Ave, just off Main. 

Eureka! This was indeed Eureka Street. 

My bestie in grammar school lived on the corner of Main and Eureka. I knew other kids on Eureka. I played on Eureka.

And then they mentioned that it was Eureka.

Although I've lived in Boston for a lot longer than I lived in Worcester, Worcester is where I grew up. And where my roots are deep. So news stories that take place in Worcester always capture more of my attention than if they took place in any number of old New England industrial cities. Especially when they take place in my old neighborhood. Main South. Webster Square. OLA. (That's Our Lady of the Angels to those not familiar with the old New England industrial city tradition of name checking your parish when someone asks you where in your city you grew up.)

So I have been all caught up in a terrible story currently in the news. 

A veteran Worcester police officer was killed in his home. Stabbed? Throat slit? Some of the details are a bit sketchy, but the presumed killer is the policeman's wife, who seemingly disappeared into thin air.

This story completely caught my attention when I read that the policeman and his family lived on Wildwood, that he'd grown up there. Wildwood Ave. I spent my first seven years in the second floor flat of my grandmother's aforementioned decker, after which we moved to a single family home closeby. On a street off of Wildwood. I was on Wildwood pretty much every day of my post-move childhood. 

So, Wildwood Ave. I know Wildwood.

Someone's Ring camera caught the wife - wearing flipflops, shorts, and a tee - heading towards Westcott. This was way up the hill. (This is Worcester, so almost everyone lives on a hill.) In a section called Forkey's Pasture. There was a girl in my grammar school class who lived on Westcott. 

Another security camera saw her near Coes Pond, where Worcester PD has been searching for her body, on the theory that the wife killed herself. 

Dead bodies in Coes? As if anyone needed another reason not to swim there.

While Coes Pond had the "beach" nearest to where I lived, I only went there once growing up. Coes was thought to be polluted. (This was before anyone monitored things like industrial pollution.) There was a factory - Coes Knife - not far from the rocky, narrow, thinly-sanded Coes Pond Beach we didn't swim at. Coes Knife made knives. And monkey wrenches. The one time I swam there, with my siser Kath and some friends, Kath ended up with an ear infection. 

When we went swimming it was somewhere else. Somewhere that required a car to get to, while Coes was walkable. Just not swimmable by our family.

So, Coes Pond.

My brother texted me. Jimmy S, a kid we'd grown up with, was quoted in a Boston Globe article on the murder.

Jimmy used to live in the house across the street from my grandmother, and his mother Jane was a good friend of my mother. A young widow with two boys, Jane had her driver's license and a beat up two-toned green car that looked like it had been given an amateur paint job. A couple of times a summer we'd all pile into Jane's beater and drive to some pond or other for a swim and an ice cream cone.

I first saw brightly colored aluminum tumblers at Jane's, and nothing tasted better than a glass of cold water from one of those tumblers. I am now the owner of my very own set of aluminum tumblers, and think of Jane whenever I drink out of one of mine. Still nothing like cold water from an aluminum tumbler.

I vaguely recall Mr. S, who I believed died of polio when Jane's two sons were still pretty little. (They were a couple of years young than I.) But i clearly recall Jane's mother, who must have lived with Jane and the boys at some point. 

On my sixth birthday, my mother came home from the hospital with my new baby brother, Richard. (Still the best birthday present ever.) There was no time for her to bake a birthday cake (not to mention how exhausted she must have been) and it wouldn't have occurred to my grandmother who lived downstairs to do so. Jane's mother made cupcakes and sent them over. She even frosted a couple of them blue, which I greatly appreciated.

He lives on Wildwood, and knew the policeman who was killed.

So, Jimmy S. I knew Jimmy S. 

Then they announced that the policeman's body was removed by O'Connor Brothers Funeral Parlor. Which has been my family's go to since 1924, when my grandfather died. He had a home wake, and the gruesome story out of the grim day of his death is that one of the O'Connor brothers came to the house (the one on Winchester, on the corner of main) to drain all of my grandfather's blood out to prep his body for the viewing. 

The bathroom was right off the kitchen, and while my father (who was eleven) and his sibs sat at the kitchen table, one of the O'Connor brothers repeatedly walked past the kids carrying a basin full of their father's blood to dump down the toilet. (Ah, the good old days.)

So, O'Connor Brothers. Where my parents, my grandmother, my Uncle Charlie, and plenty of other people I knew were waked. And site of my very first wake. 

The police officer's funeral (and wake, I guess to manage the crowds) is being held tomorrow at Our Lady of the Angels. The parish I grew up in. The parish where the police officer grew up. From his obituary, I learned he'd gone to Gates Lane grammar school and South High. As did my father, a million years ago. ("We" went to OLA, which didn't exist when my father was a kid, but we all went to kindergarten at Gates Lane.)

So, OLA. Boy, do I know OLA.

I'm twenty years older, so I didn't know him, and his family wasn't proximate enough to be neighbors with a nodding acquaintance. (If his parents were active in the church, my mother would have known them.) The police fficer was ten years younger than my sister Trish. Maybe he trick-or-treated at our house. Maybe Trish put a Snickers Bar in his candy bag.

We don't yet know what went down in that house on Wildwood Ave where Kurt Solomon was brutally killed. We may never know the full story. But just all-round terrible, especially for the family, which includes two grown sons. (The wife, Karen Solomon, ran a well-known organization devoted to mental health for police officers and other first responders.) 

Karen Solomon's body was found, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, on Monday in a wooded area behind the Fairlawn Rehab. Fairlawn Rehab used to be Fairlawn Hospital.

I was born in Fairlawn Hospital.

So, Fairlawn Hospital.

Unlike politics, all crime isn't local. But this one sure happened pretty damned close to what used to be home.

A not so beautiful day in the neighborhood, that's for sure. 

--------------------------------------------

Image Source: Etsy

Red Scare

I don't know why anything should come as a surprise, but the R's trying to brand us D's as commies does somewhat take me aback. I suppose they're grabbing onto whatever straw they can to distract from their own stunning performance. I suppose that some of the pronouncements of the more extreme elements of the Democratic Socialists of America give them a bit of fodder.

But yikes-a-palooza. 

I don't know the Bible very well - it was never much of a Catholic thing - but isn't there something something something about taking the log out of your own eye so you can see the speck in the other guy's eye?

Given that the log in their eye seems to be contain elements that include fascism, dishonesty, racism, misogyny, corruption, grift, and incompetence, they might want to ease up on their messaging about communism, especially given that they probably couldn't find more than one or two card-carrying members in the entire Democratic party who believe that communism, as manifest throughout the 20th century and into the 21st wherever it manages to endure, is anything other than a discredited crock of hooey. 

But, hey, if you can find an audience credulous enough to embrace the blather, what the hell?

Anyway, commie this, commie that, has gotten me thinking about the Red Scare of the late 1940's through mid-1950's. 

I don't remember anything about it. When the Army-McCarthy hearings were underway, I was too busy watching Ding Dong School and Big Brother Bob Emery's noontime kiddy show, where each day he toasted the President of the United States by hoisting a glass of milk, and where we began each show singing "The Grass Is Always Greener" and ended each show with "So Long, Small Fry." Accompanied by Big Brother on the banjo.

But over time, I did - of course - learn plenty about the Red Scare: the hearings, the blacklisting, the lives ruined, and - of course - Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. And their two little boys, Michael and Robert. 

Ethel and Julius were both found guilty of espionage, of giving away atomic secrets to the Soviets, and were put to death in the electric chair at Sing Sing. 

For years, there were true believers who maintained that the Rosenbergs were innocent, including their sons. And there's little denying that the prosecution was flawed. But as more documentation was released, the brothers came to acknowledge that their father was guilty of spying for the Soviets. (But that he never gave away atomic secrets, which is what both parents were convicted of.)

Julius was, however, spying. 

Naive? Idealistic? A dupe? Someone who bought into the wonders of communism myth without figuring out the Stalin was a psychopathic maniac responsible for killing millions of people? 

(As an aside, an aside putting me a couple of degrees of separation from the Rosenbergs: During World Word II, my childhood dentist was stationed at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, where and when Julius Rosenberg was working as an engineer (and stealing info for his handlers). I don't know if Dr. Wigdor actually knew Julius Rosenberg - or just knew of him - but on more than one occasion, he told me quite vehemently that Rosenberg was "guilty as sin.")

There was little or no evidence tying Ethel Rosenberg to spying. Yet when given the chance to save her own life - maybe by admitting she knew (or suspected) her husband was a spy, or offering up a name or two of people she and Julius were friendly with who might have been in cahoots, she chose to die. She could have lived to take care of her boys, but wanted to keep maintaining that she and her husband were innocent. 

Anyway, over the years, I had kept an occasional eye on what became of Michael and Robby Rosenberg, who became Michael and Robby Meeropol after they were adopted. I read their book, We Are Your Sons, when it came out in 1975, and would occasionally see articles on them.

The most recent article I read was in The Atlantic, an article which recounts their lives and how they've grappled with finding out their father was guilty, and that their mother wasn't - but chose to abandon her boys (who were by all accounts beloved by their parents).

The Rosenberg boys ended up with careers that were pretty typical of Red Diaper Babies - the children of old lefties who were caught up in the romance (unimaginable today) of communism. Michael became an economist of the lefty variety, Robby a lawyer of the lefty variety. Both have been involved with civil rights, the environment, and a non-profit organization that supports the children of parents who have been targeted for their progressive activism. 

Both men married and had children. 

And led what seems like pretty typical old lefty lives.

While unfortunate when it came to what happened to their parents, the boys were plenty lucky when it came to the couple who adopted them.

After spending time with their grandmothers, and time in an orphanage, Michael and Robby were adopted by Abel and Anne Meeropol, who first met them at the home of W.E.B. Dubois, of all things. 

Abel Meeropol was a high school teacher (who had James Baldwin as a student!) and a song writer, and the family pretty much lived happily on the residuals from his songs, which included Strange Fruit (a song about lynching, made famous by Billie Holiday) and the lyrics to The House That I Live In (a pro-diversity anthem sung by Frank Sinatra, Paul Robeson, Mahalia Jackson, and Sam Cooke, among others). No need to mention that the Meeropols were old lefties, is there?

Once the Meeropols normalized the childhood circumstances of the Rosenberg brothers, they have had lives that seem - to this outsider - to be happy, successful, and fulfilling, the overhanging scrim of their parents' lives and deaths aside.

Anyway, given the current red baiting, interesting timing to read about the Meerepol/Rosenberg brothers, no? Just hope that the red-baiting powers that be don't start rounding up those whose political thinking is not to their liking. Never mind looking for spies who are "guilty as sin," they've certainly shown themselves to be capable of going after anyone they don't like. 

----------------------------------------------

Image Source: History

The Gambler

From the long list of possible vices, gambling was never going to be my vice of choice. 

Oh, I'm still capable of yelling 'wanna bet?' when some factoid is in question - and I'm 100% sure I'm right. Of course, other than the small smug satisfaction of winning the bet, nothing material ever materializes. But other than buying an occasional lottery ticket, betting has no appeal to me whatsoever.

I've been to casinos, but my limit was always a roll of quarters for the slots - or whatever the electronic equivalent is these days. But once that ten bucks is exhausted, I'm out. In my twenties, I went a couple of times to the track (Narragansett, Suffolk Downs) with friends, where I'd make a couple of two-dollar bets on some nag, based on whether I liked its name or the jockey's colors. 

But gambling to me is one big meh, and I'm about as likely to get sucked into playing one of those betting apps as I am to go skydiving. Is there a probability that's less than zero?

Gambling, however - whether micro wagers on Fan Duel or other sports betting apps, or in the 'when's the next forest fire' prediction makets - has become a huge industry. And what it's doing in the process of growing the businesses, the industry, is getting a whole lot of folks ensnared in gambling. I.e., becoming addicted. And their lives can be pretty much ruined when they go into big, hideous debt. 

One ruinee is a fellow named Terry Thompson, whose road to financial perdition was via FanDuel. 

He began innocently enough, betting on the Philadelphia Eagles to win, but soon found himself "placing microbets, which are in-game wagers on something as small as whether the next play would be a pass or run."

Soon enough, he had wagered $18.5 million on the app. This figure does not, of course, represent total losses. Thompson was making his bets, rewagering his winnings, and (mostly) covering his losses. While FanDuel was taking their cut. 

Meanwhile, having been identified as a Big Spender, Thompson started getting comped. Tickets to Eagles, Flyers, and Sixers games. A couple of fully paid for trips to the Supoer Bowl with perks like invites to swank parties and pregame field access. 

Thompson was assigned a FanDuel relationship manager, Bryttanni Morgan, his VIP host for events like the Super Bowl. She also stayed in contact with Thompson via text, pretending to be his friend - with convos about family, etc. - while always turning the encounter around to urging Thompson to place more bets. 

But the house always wins, and the losses were getting steeper. 

Thompson was losing big time, mortgaging his home. Mortgaging it again. Selling share in a business he ran. He was desperate for the funds to keep fueling his addiction.

Then, one afternoon [in November 2024], he flicked open his phone and received a FanDuel reward that momentarily distracted him from his debts: a personalized video message from Philadelphia Phillies superstar. (Source: Philadelphia Inquirer)

Bryce Harper is a very big deal. He's a future Hall of Famer, playing his way through a $300M plus multi-year contract that nets him about $25M a year. He has a ton of endorsements as well. But there's never enough money, and if you can earn some extra coin by making a bunch of personalized video calls for your fans while you're sitting around with nothing to do but Scrooge McDuck count your money, why not add to the pile o' lucre?

So Harper recorded a video that Morgan sent Thompson that name checks Thompson's son, thanks Thompson for his support (support for Harpef? for FanDuel?), and wishes him a Happy Thanksgiving. 

The video was made through Cameo, the outfit that sells celebrity greetings. You can get an Englebert Humperdinck vid for $345. (Didn't know he was still alive. He's 90, and will be performing in the Boston area in December. Who knew?)

Red Sox great (and Hall of Famer) will give you a shout out for $600. And the price for Kevin O'Leary, Shark Tank ahole supreme, starts at $1,500. 

So Harper wasn't doing directly promotional work for FanDuel. It was via Cameo. But:

Harper mentions that he was reaching out at the request of Thompson’s VIP manager, “your host Bryttanni at FanDuel.” 

So he kinda shoulda known that Thompson was a pretty big gambler to have a FanDuel "host" looking out for him.

You'd think so, no?

Anyway, Thompson ended up owing over a million bucks and spending time in "a psychiatric facility to undergo treatment for gambling addiction."

He's suing FanDuel and Morgan, and I hope he wins big (and that the winnings go into a trust that someone else manages for him). Sure, there's such a thing as free will, but these rotters knowingly prey on those who've become addicted to gambling. 

As for Harper, he's not named in the suit, but he's getting some heat for working with a betting outfit. He's blah-blah-ing about not doing anything directly with FanDuel, but since his message mentions the company, it's not as if he should be "shocked, shocked that gambling is going on in here," as Inspector Renault famously says in Casablanca, while accepting a bag of loot from the croupier at Rick's. 

Oh, FFS. Nothing he did was illegal, but we're sure on the border between ethical and unethical here, no?

I can understand the lure of doing Cameo videos. It's almost free money. And I looked on the site, and a lot of the videos are offered for lesser lights than Bryce Harper. Plenty of them are for "celebrities" I never heard of. And I can understand why fans of celebrities would get a kick out of receiving a "personal" video, even if they know it's hooey.

But especially for the rich folks making these vids, why don't they do it through a charity? Let the Make a Wish Foundation, Saint Jude's Hospital, Habitat for Humanity make some money peddling these videos. They need the money more than Bryce Harper does. 

Sheesh.

Meanwhile, if it's okay wish best of luck to a gambler, best of luck to Terry Thompson. 

As for Bryce Harper, why not pay closer attention to what you're doing in your free time to make even more money than you'll ever possibility need.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Image Source: Fantasy Costumes

Take a nice big gulp, Zuck.

The other day, I was at my volunteer job - basically, hanging out in the expressive therapy room in a large day shelter - and we started kicking around ideas for the title one of the art works. Our brainstorm was running on empty, when a fellow volunteer - a retired businessman who's roughly my age - decided to ask ChatGPT for a suggestion.

I kiddingly yelled at him - we've worked together for years, and I really like this guy - for using AI, but damned if AI didn't come up with a pretty good name for the picture.

Still, I stand by my opposition to using AI so cavalierly. 

There are times and places for AI, but this - IMHO - isn't one of them. I keep trying to turn AI search off, but every time I think I've figured it out, Google manages to sneak it in. (It's been easier to turn of text predictions and Microsoft's odious CoPilot.)

There are a number of reasons for my (mostly) fear and (mostly) loathing of AI. Promoting teen suicides. Providing wrong information - oops, that mushroom actually is poisonous. Job elimination, often just because some C-suite is enamored of the promise of saving big bucks by getting rid of humans - damn the short term and long term implications. And, of course, the environmental depredation that these AI data centers are causing. 

AI uses too damned much energy. It sucks up water resources, and the wastewater is often a pollutant. The noise pollution is driving folks with the misfortune to live close to one of these monster AI data centers nuts. 

And to what end? So a bunch of amoral tech bros can become even more billionaire-y? So the Family Trump can keep up with their cyber-grifting?

Given the havoc AI data centers are wreaking, I really shouldn't be paying any attention to what happened when a big ol' AI data center was being built in Wyoming. Which is really not causing mega problems.

And why not Wyoming as a great location for data centers, one might well ask? It's a big state with virtually no people. So what if those data centers hum all night? And Wyoming has wind. And natural gas. And oil. So they can probably power up without raising the electric bills of the 600K or so cowpokes who live in the state. (The relative handful of tech bros and Hollywood types who live in the Jackson Hole enclave can afford to pay more, so I won't waste any of my personal, finite supply of energy worrying about them.)

But what captured my eye about this Wyoming data center is that it belongs to Meta, a company that happens to be owned by one of the tech-bro-iest of 'em all, Mark Zuckerberg. 

Meta is building a mega data center in Cheyenne, which is slated to become operative in 2027:

...but its contractor has come under fire after city officials traced wastewater containing a rare bacterium to the project.

By bacteria standards, Cupriavidus gilardii (scary name aside) isn't all that awful, but:

While harmless to most healthy people, it can cause severe pneumonia, bloodstream and lung infections, and, in rare cases, death among people with weakened immune systems.

Officials stressed that it did not contaminate the city's drinking water, but said it disrupted the municipal reclaimed water system and required months of cleanup. (Source: Daily Mail)

And Meta has now permanently lost permission "to discharge wastewater from its fill-and-flush operations into Cheyenne's treatment system, where the water is recycled and later used to irrigate parks and other public spaces."

This is by no means the worst thing that one of these data centers is going to be responsible for. Some towns are experiencing low water pressure; sediment build up the gives residents brown water - just what you want to brush your teeth and wash your hair with, let alone bathe your baby; a whining, skull-piercing noise running 24/7. (Some of the sound levels aren't just annoying, they're harmful to hearing.) Oh, and the home values for those living in a data center neighborhood are declining. Which might be offset if data centers produced high paying jobs for folks living in the hood. But once construction is finished, data centers don't require a lot of employees to keep the centers humming. (And some of their jobs are going to - you guessed it - AI.)

Not that the masters of the universe clamoring for these data centers give a damn. Frankly, my dear, they don't. 

But I sure would like to see Mark Zuckerberg and his pals spend a night in humming distance of one of their data centers. And take a nice big gulp of water from the local taps whille they're at it.

________________________________

Image Source: Red Bubble

Diamonds (and rubies and emeralds) are a president's best friend?

You don't need me to tell you that the Grifter-in-Chief has vastly increased his wealth during Round Two of an administration that will live in infamy. Or is it ignominy? The latest in griftorama: charging $100K for a service through which subscribers get early releases of Trump's Truth Social market-moving pronouncements, so they'll have a jump on Wall Street (betting on actual instruments) and the prediction markets (betting on nothing). 

I'm old enough to recall the the radio payola scandal, in which record labels bribed dj's to play their records. How. Quaint.

And you don't need me to tell you that the gilt-obsessed (but apparently guilt-feelings-free) Decorator-in-Chief has the design sensibility of Liberace, without Liberace's sense of humor. The word tawdry doesn't do Trump's taste justice. (I'd say that his taste is all in his mouth, but given his daily ingestion of fast food and Diet Coke, I don't think he has much taste there, either.)

The gift to Trump from the Antwerp World Diamond Center may not be the most valuable that Trump has received. It's a ring worth an estimated $25k-35k, which is probably about what Trump spends per month on fast food and Diet Coke. 

But in terms of tackiness, it's gotta be right up there. 

Dozens of diamonds spell out two giant letter T's next to the Stars and Stripes and "1776" and "2026." Dozens more frame the numbers 45 and 47 in the shape of Superman's logo. A diamond-winged eagle carries a ruby shield and clutches an olive branch of emeralds, below a radiant "250" and atop the phrase "250 YEARS USA" etched in 18-karat gold.

All told, 321 diamonds, 56 sapphires, 13 emeralds and six rubies encrust the watch-sized gold ring presented this week to Bill White, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, to give to U.S. President Donald Trump. (Source: PBS)

Atypically, this was something of a tat for tit gift, a quo pro quid reversal, in that Trump had already removed tariffs on diamond imports before the diamond merchants sent him this bauble in thanks. Most of the bribes gifts bestowed on Trump yield a benefit after the fact. Donate a couple of million to some Trumpian effort - his inauguration, the building of the new ballroom - and get a big little something in return. Pave the way for a deal. Get awarded a major contract.

From a corporation's point of view, the return is beyond belief. You'd be crazy not to pay to play.

The ring was given to Ambassador Bill White at some sort of 250th celebration/fundraising event, during which over $5.5 million was collected from mega (MAGA?) US corporate sponsors like Lockheed Martin, Intel, Google, and Meta. And smaller Euro organization like chocolatiers Leonidas and Ferrero, and the Antwerp diamond-eers. 

After the ring was presented on a star-spangled stage in Brussels, musician Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel, sang the U.S. national anthem to more than 8,000 people drinking Budweiser and bourbon from Tennessee and Kentucky.

That must have been some treat. I've never had a boilermaker - a glass of beer combined with a shot of whisky - but if I'd had to be at this "star-spangled" event, I might have had to down a few.  

Presidents can, in fact, accept personal gifts from "friends" both domestic and foreign, and can decide for themselves whether the gift is personal or to the nation. (I can just imagine the current decision-making process.) An exception is foreign governments, whose gifts require congressional assent - as if that Constitutional nicety is still operative. Presidents can keep a gift if they reimburse the Treasury for the full value of it. As if...(As in the Qatari jet...)

Hope Trump enjoys his new ring. (/s)

What a colossal embarrasment this regime is.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Image Source: PBS

And now, on the election fraud front...

Anne Manning Martin and Michael Walsh were both hoping to appear on the ballot in the upcoming Massachusetts primary, Martin as a candidate for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, Walsh for the Republican nomination for attorney general. 

Unfortunately, there were a number of signatures on their nominating papers that weren't quite legit. Names appeared to be "written by the same person" and were listed on the papers for both candidates in "identical order." 

Moreover, both candidates also had nomination papers that listed signatures in the order they appeared in a voter database used by the Massachusetts Republican Party to help candidates find supporters. (Source: Boston Globe)

An expert - himself a signature gatherer - determined that:

...the mathematical likelihood of this occurring is zero and that these signatures are likely fraudulent.

Oh. 

When the Globe reached out to some of those whose signatures were falsely included on the nomination papers, one voter - who no longer lives in Massachusetts - said, "'I don't trust anybody anymore. It stinks.'" Another non-signer said "'I didn't write that. I don't even vote.'"

As a result of the chicanery, Manning Martin (who was campaigning as the de facto running mate of Mike Minogue who is odds-on likely to win the Republican gubernatorial primary come electionday on September 1) was tossed off the ballot. Due to a complaint-filing technicality, Walsh is still on.   

I can't really blame the candidates here, other than for procedural carelessness in not having someone on their team take a close look - or any look - at the signatures on the nominations petitions they submitted to appear on the ballot. And not notice that an awful lot of folks had the same signature.

Now, in a state where a lot of us olds went to parochial school back in the day, it is not entirely outside the realm of possibility that a lot of John Hancocks would show up, not with John Hancock's flowing script, but with drilled-in, never-forgotten Palmer Penmanship.

And you can't blame the candidates for hiring a signature gathering outfit to collect names for them. Yes, the magic number of 10,000 signatures can be gotten via grass roots efforts, but that's a big number, especially for a Republican in Massachusetts, where D's out number R's three-to-one. (Independents, which are the majority of Massachusetts voters, can sign nomination papers for candidates in either party. Thank you, Secretary of State Bill Galvin for your very informative web site.)

But some signature gatherer Joe Bronske, who "was paid thousands of dollars by Walsh and Manning Martin’s campaigns to collect signatures on their behalf, according to state records," turned out to be. 

When confronted, Bronske took the Fifth Amendment, as is done.

Bronske, a Republican operative who has served on the Board of (Election) Registrars in his town, of all things, has also been implicated in collecting bogus signatures for Republican secretary of state wannabe Anne Brensley. Many of her signatures were tossed, and she ended up not getting enough to appear on the ballot. She's now running as a write-in candidate.

Bronske's pitch to Brensley's campaign was:

For your campaign’s 10,000-signature requirement, I can:

• Map and target registered voters to ensure every collected signature is eligible and verifiable
• Recruit, train, and coordinate circulators across required districts
• Verify signatures against official voter registration databases
• Conduct internal audits to identify duplicates, errors, or incomplete entries before filing
• Coordinate filing with local election officials and the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth
• Prepare documentation and records to defend against potential challenges by focusing only on certified voters and using a rigorous accuracy-first process, the campaign maximizes valid signatures while avoiding wasted effort or risk of disqualification. (Source: New Bedford Guide)

Which all would have been fine and dandy if Bronske had actually delivered on his proposal, which he apparently did not.

I'm quite sure that it's not easy to collect 10,000 signatures. That's a lot of spending a lot of Saturdays standing outside the Market Basket trying to get harried shoppers to stop and sign papers. People are in a rush. People are suspicious, they're wary of fraud. People don't want to be bothered.

Everytime I'm asked, I sign papers for candidates for office. It should come as no surprise that I'm a registered D, but frankly I'd be mostly okay with signing for an R, if allowed. (Or at least I would have been back in the day when Massachusetts R's were mostly palatable to this D's sensiblities.)

In any case, I feel bad for these candidates who trusted (and paid) Bronske to find the signatures they needed to get on the ballot.

I suspect that he'll be out of the signature-gathering biz. Brensley for one was considering legal action against him. There may be civil penalties for Bronske. And there's been some tiny mention of jail time. 

 What a nasty scammer he turned out to be. We really don't need any more a-holes underminng the integrity of our elections, that's for sure.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Image Source: AAWU