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Jack is a graduate of Rutgers University where he majored in history. His career in the life and health insurance industry involved medical risk selection and brokerage management. Retired in Florida for over two decades after many years in NJ and NY, he occasionally writes, paints, plays poker, participates in play readings and is catching up on Shakespeare, Melville and Joyce, etc.

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

January 9, 2024 - Four Political Questions, Rarely Discussed Truths, the Diet Bowl, Loyalty, and More

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 Four Questions

One - How many million American voters do you believe fail to recognize the dangers to representative democracy as we have known it in this country since 1789 presented by Donald Trump and by those Republicans hanging onto his coat-tails who blindly follow him, hoping to end up in Congress or on a public payroll somewhere?

Two - How many million American voters, dependent upon TV and the internet for news now that newspapers are dying, do you believe understand that Donald Trump is not just a defeated (he still won’t admit it four years later) former president running for that office again, but someone who wants the power of a dictator for himself and for whatever Republican, Libertarian, or Fascist follows him in office, should he win election in November?

Three - How many million American voters do you believe think the lies that come out of the mouths of Donald Trump and those that support him are just normal, meaningless, political statements made in the heat of a campaign and that those warning the nation of the danger he and his Republican followers represent (like this blog) can be ignored because they are just playing the same political game that he is playing?

Four - How many million American voters do you believe dismiss the charges brought against Donald Trump in Federal, New York, and Georgia courts as just mere politics, a ‘weaponization’ of our legal system against Trump?

My guess, recognizing that Trump received about 70 million votes in losing in 2020, is about that number, perhaps a few less.  And that is terrible.  What are you going to do about it?  The nation’s future is in YOUR hands.  

Don't miss the cartoon further on in this posting!  


JL

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Rarely Discussed Truths

When Donald Trump talks about mass deportation of immigrants, some of whom he recently referred to as ‘vermin,’ retribution against those who have not shown loyalty to him and using the military and the Department of Justice to carry out his punishment of them and those behind any civil or criminal charges against him, you get a picture of who he really is.  And it is not a nice picture.  It is that of a tin pot dictator.

But that picture appeals to a significant number of Americans who, although they will not readily admit it, includes those who feel that our government spends a disproportionate amount of its tax-funded resources to benefit people of color who number only between 13% and 14% of our population, and that too many of its decision-makers are Jews who number only a little more than 2% of our population. 

Trump claimed that there were 'fine people on both
sides' in the 2018 Charlottesville rioting giving credibility
to racists and antisemites like this fellow.  I worry
about those that are not so public in their feelings.

They don’t come out and say these things. They don’t boast about their racism and antisemitism in public, but that’s what they mean when they talk of ‘welfare queens’ and disparage ‘Critical Race Theory’ and ‘Diversity-Equity-Inclusion’ ideas without even attempting to understand them, and repeatedly refer to our country’s ‘Christian’ founding, exemplified by the current House Speaker who puts his evangelical religious beliefs ahead of the Constitution that he is sworn to uphold.

And of course, these folks always vote Republican.  These are rarely discussed truths.

JL

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The Diet Bowl!

Okay, we know that the top college football team in America belongs to the University of Michigan which defeated the University of Washington on Monday evening.   In about a month, the Superbowl will crown the top team in the NFL.  But it will be almost two months until the NCAA’s college basketball ‘March Madness’ takes the stage.  And the flowers will be blooming all over this country and Canada before the NBA and NHL champions are crowned.

What is the sports enthusiast to do between these playoff events?  Well, I have an idea:  The Diet Bowl!

The four finalists will be Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, GOLO, and that old standby, Weight Watchers.  Each will name a team of a man and a woman in their thirties, each about 150 pounds overweight but otherwise healthy.  During a five-week period, each will follow their teams’ regimens, weighing in at the end of each week on national TV. The team that loses the most weight after five weeks will be crowned the Diet Bowl champion.  (It might be a good idea to ban the losers from TV advertising for six months.) 

Online wagering on this competition will be available each week in States where sports betting is legal, with odds being monitored and calculated on a ‘pari-mutual’ basis by a consortium of Las Vegas casinos, with about ten percent of the total amount wagered nationwide being taken off the top and donated to a recognized charity such as the American Heart Association. 

Any takers?  Or are you content with watching Ball State shoot baskets against Toledo in the MAC or re-runs of Michigan beating Washington?  Hey, baseball spring training games start at the end of February!

JL

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A Recent Posting Supplemented


Coco Gauff

When I suggested back on December 29 that the water in Palm Beach County might be the reason so many great athletes come from hereabouts, I named a few (Lamar Jackson and Trey Turner).  Of course, we must add tennis champion Coco Gauff to that list … and also a significant number of NFL linemen from high schools out in the Everglades whom we just take for granted. 

JL

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Loyalty Defined

An old business associate of mine often referred to the willingness of  clients and customers, well-served for years (and athletes) to switch to a competitor when a better deal turned up, and pointed out that, ‘loyalty is just a word in the dictionary between lox and lozenge,’  And that is true! 

My trusty old 1986 Merriam Webster ‘Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary’ (that replaced an earlier edition from my college years) does back up this witticism on its page 708 as reproduced below.


(The dictionary definitions above ran onto a second column on that same page.  I have taken the liberty of cutting and pasting the columns together.)

JL

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A Timely Cartoon Published on Monday

'Born Loser' cartoon (by Art & Chip Sansom) published Monday morning,  January 8,  in many newspapers before the Michigan-Washinton football game.  It really makes a statement, as good cartoons should.  

JL

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

Email Alerts:  If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address annoughd we’ll see that you do.  And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.

If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you are now seeing it, with all of its bells and whistles, you can just tell folks to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by providing a link to that address in your email to them.   I think this is the best method of forwarding Jackspotpourri.

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though!   Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible.  If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a comment from you.  Each will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you are now reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the 'sidebar' features such as access to the blog's archives.

Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting, but I recommend sending them the link.

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.

 

JL

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