I’ve written several articles about Kamala Harris over the past 5 years, and another few about Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.  But not until this week had I connected the two as, potentially, the most powerful Democratic ticket for 2024, which could win in a national landslide.

Long before Biden showed the world that he, in the words of his former COVID Advisory Board Member Dr. Zeke Emanuel writing this week in The Atlantic (“There Are Exceptionally Sharp Octogenarians.  Biden Isn’t One.), that President Biden has “clearly deteriorated” since as recently as his State of the Union address earlier this year, I was hoping he’d live up to his 2020 promise of being a “bridge to the next generation,” and gracefully pass the torch of leadership, as Nancy Pelosi did.  Before it was too late.

For months I’ve been telling friends that Kamala Harris at the head of the 2024 Democratic National Ticket would be a far better candidate than Biden, since few are as passionate and articulate as she is on the essential issue of reproductive rights, and the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade.  Harris’ sweet spots on the issue of reproductive rights, Voting Rights, and her tough questioning of Trump’s Extreme Right Wing Supreme Court nominees, from 2017 to 2020, have made her history’s hand-picked candidate this year, as all of those powerful waterfalls of justice and individual rights have collided this year.

Biden certainly was not as articulate as Harris would have been, when he staggered through an incomprehensible answer on abortion, during the Trump debate, demonstrating to many of his supporters, “a staggering failure of fluid intelligence,” as Dr. Emanuel phrased it in The Atlantic.  Few people are as loyal to Biden as Dr. Emanuel, whose brother, Rahm, was appointed by Biden as Ambassador to Japan. 

Bright red “danger” signs began flashing in the homes of Democrats, Independents and voters across the country, who care about personal freedoms and democracy’s future.  If Biden couldn’t hit it out of the park on such a softball question against the person most responsible for the Repeal of Roe, it was time for Joe to go.

 Not an early Kamala Harris fan when I moved to California 15 years ago, she won me over with her tenacious, fearless and seering cross-examination of  Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett—and of the bulbous, bloviating Bill Barr—during the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings.  Harris was a skilled prosecutor, at the top of her game and was excoriating Right Wing extremists on an enormously important national stage.  Of course, she could prosecute the case against Trump better than an incoherent Biden could.

I argued with friends that Kamala—as the first mixed-race female candidate, and daughter of immigrants, to head a national ticket—would electrify the electorate.  Despite poor press since she was elected Vice-President, a Democratic party that owes it’s success to woman, and in particular, women of color, could never, ever hopscotch over Harris, especially when reproductive rights, and an overreaching, extremist Supreme Court, are as central to this year’s campaign as the Convicted Felon and sex abuser heading the GOP ticket.  For added value, as a local prosecutor, Harris has put away her share of felons, and is not easily intimidated by criminals, whether they committed sex crimes or white collar fraud—both of which Trump has done.

When Biden withdraws as a candidate for re-election (by any number of methods), the only productive exercise for Democrats, or anyone serious about saving democracy from Christian Nationalist extremists peddling an updated 2025 version of Mein Kampf and the Felon Trump, would be to focus on a Vice-Presidential running-mate for Harris, who would bring the most to national ticket, and sweep in a Democratically controlled Senate and House. 

Much of my early attention went to Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona as the perfect running mate for Kamala Harris.  A Navy Captain and former astronaut and genuine American hero, married to Gabby Giffords, another American hero, from a key swing state, Kelly, beat multimillionaire and Trump stooge Blake Masters in 2022, carried moderate Arizona voters by 30%, and independent voters by a margin of 55-39%.   

My thought was that his moderate appeal would balance ideologically with Harris’ progressive record, and Kelly’s partner, Giffords, would help galvanize young voters passionate about gun violence.  However, one mitigating factor against Kelly might be that if the Ike-look alike were tapped to run with Kamala, the Democratic Governor of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, would have the opportunity to fill his Senate seat temporarily with another Democratic, until a special election could be held to fill out the balance of his term through 2028, and another Democrat might not be able to keep that seat.  Additionally, having the US Senator from Arizona—a border state– on the Dems National Ticket would elevate border control and immigration to the same level as Roe, Christian Nationalism, and the Fourth Reich Project 2025. Plus, that ticket would lack regional balance.

Which is why a Harris/Shapiro ticket has become far more appealing to me. 

The growing threat against women, the LGBTQ community, people of color, and non-Christians, from Christian Nationalists—on the Supreme Court, in Congress, and the Totalitarian blueprint for a Christian Nation—will require an all out campaign against those dire threats to democracy by every Democrat and independent voter in the nation.  Two skilled prosecutors—like Harris and former Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro—can effectively and relentlessly bring that case home.

 In fact, Shapiro already has, when he trounced the Ultra Right Wing Extremist Christian Nationalist and Trump apologist Doug Mastriano by 15% points in the 2022 Gubernatorial race in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state in the national election.

I wrote about that election in my piece entitled “From Here to Harrisburg: Josh Shapiro is Frank Sinatra & Mastriano is the Bully Borgnine,” in May, 2022. My article on Josh Shapiro was one of my top half-dozen most widely read pieces on social media, putting it up in the thousands of readers category with stories about Billy Joel, Mario Cuomo, E. Jean Carroll, John Gotti, and Trump’s Relationship with Organized Crime. Maybe it was the comparison of Shapiro to Frank Sinatra that pushed it into such rarified readership company.

In it, I compared the madman Mastriano—a gnarly mix of Donald Trump and the Heritage Foundation’s (and Pat Buchanan’s acolyte) Kevin Roberts—to Ernest Borgnine’s bullying character “Fatso Judson,” in From Here to Eternity, who kills Sinatra’s truth-telling character “Maggio,” because Fatso doesn’t like “wops.”

I researched Mastriano’s Christian Nationaist fanatical diatribes—a precursor to the Fourth Reich Project 2025—and they reminded me of the other-world screeching of Savonarola, the puritanical Dominican friar of 15th Century Italy who headed “bonfires of the vanities,” to destroy of all things condemned by religious authorities.

Throughout the pages of his parade of prejudices—a 65-page Masters thesis at a Military college– Mastriano expressed his “disgust with anyone who doesn’t hold his view that homosexuality is a form of ‘aberrant sexual conduct,” said former George W. Bush Administration White House official Peter Feaver, who was horrified by what Mastriano wrote.

The Christian Nationalist’s fevered fetishes over “homosexuals in the military, “ and a “morally depraved and relativistic populace”, gushes from his pen, like a crayon-scrawled edict nailed to a church door, rather than a “research” paper.   His apocalyptic vision of a decaying world and military is obsessed with “moral anarchy,”  “worship of Hedonism,” and the consistent theme that the “assault started with the insertion of homosexuality in the military.

Foreshadowing the forthcoming fury of the Fourth Reich’s Project 2025, declaring war on “Awokeness” (sic), Mastriano railed against “homosexuality sensitivity training.”

“The political correctness of the 1990’s established moral relativism as the norm, “ Mastriano wrote.  Ironically, Mastriano, much like the Fourth Reich Project 2025,  blusters about the “duty to uphold the Constitution,” as opposed to “overzealous loyalty to one person,”—the exact opposite of what he, MAGAites, and his fellow  “Stop the Steal” sycophants did for Trump on January 6, ^, and in campaigning for high office, despite the evidence of 60+ court decisions debunking claims of election fraud.

That’s the kind of untethered-to-reality extremism and bigotry, Shapiro, a devout practicing Jew, was up against when he made mincemeat of Mastriano in Pennsylvania in 2022, carrying many key counties by 14 to 20% more than Biden/Harris did in 2020.

Shapiro’s impeccable record of integrity and accomplishments as Pennsylvania’s Attorney General for two terms—and his unyielding campaign in defense of the rule of law, constitutional rights, reproductive rights, voting rights, and racial and religious equality, has won praise from all parts of the political spectrum.

 Even progressive writer and founder of The Lever News David Sirota wrote a glowing piece about Shapiro entitled “The Democrat Who Picks Fights with Bad Guys,” ((https://www.levernews.com/the-democrat-standing-between-america-and-fascism/), calling Shapiro “the cheery mensch your Jewish grandmother wanted you to be.”

Many of my fellow Jews have expressed concern about having a prominent Jewish elected official on the national ticket, teamed up with a bi-racial woman, and running against Trump and his crazed Christian Nationalist supporters. They worry that it will increase anti-Semitic attacks against all Jews, by fanatical Trump supporters known for threatening peoples lives, and committing acts of violence.

That’s precisely why its so important that, Shapiro, who has never backed away from a fight, will be the perfect addition to a Kamala Harris ticket.  Just as he did in his campaign for Pennsylvania Governor, Shapiro, has stood forcefully for the protection of personal liberties, like religious freedom, LGBTQ rights, and a women’s right to make her own health care decisions.  He is, in every way, the Anti-Trump, with a reverence for the Rule of Law, and a track record for enforcing it, and protecting the public.

Not only is a Harris/Shapiro ticket geographically, racially, religiously and gender balanced, but there is an added advantage among Democrats this year: the split among American Jews concerning Israel and the War in Gaza, will be mitigated as a factor in this election with a prominent, and proud, Jew on the national ticket.  Jewish grandmothers from Boynton Beach, Borough Park or Beverly Hills, will find it hard to resist wanting to pinch the cheeks of Shapiro, the “cheery mensch,” and wish him well.

Coupled with fellow prosecutor and former California Attorney General Kamala Harris, the very existence of a Harris/Shapiro ticket makes several bold statements:

First, that no one is above the law, especially the President, regardless of what a jaundiced Supreme Court might think, and that two tough prosecutors are determined to make sure of that;

Secondly, that defending the rule of law, the Constitution and Democracy, fighting for human and civil rights, and individual personal freedoms has been their life work, and will be the priority of a Harris/Shapiro Administration;

And, third, that the United States is not a Christian nation, but a nation where Christians and all faiths, or people of no faith, are free to practice their beliefs.

The very presence of a non-Christian on the Democratic National ticket makes the declaration of Religious Freedom, loud and clear; the very presence of a woman of color at the top of the ticket, lifts every voice to acknowledge the equality and justice for all races, genders, faiths and people—in direct defiance of the Fourth Reich’s Project 2025 explicit efforts to erase them.

I’m reminded of the Academy Award winning short film from 1945, The House I Live In, made during this country’s last life-and-death struggle with Fascism.  In it, Frank Sinatra sings the song “What is America to me?”a powerful anthem against discrimination of all types. 

It ought to be the Harris/Shapiro campaign’s theme song.

Last night I had the strangest dream,

I never had before.

I dreamed I was a Democrat,

And, took up the tools of war.

I dreamed we had a President,

Unafraid to stretch the law,

Who, using his new Immunities,

Pushed his powers with Impunity.

I dreamed he finally understood,

The Blood Lust of this sport,

And used the Insurrection Act,

Against the US Supreme Court.

I dreamed he told the IRS

To investigate Thomas’ trips,

And directed the FBI & DOJ,

To lacerate Trump’s lyin’ lips.

I dreamed he was fearless,

In rounding up Democracy’s foes,

And put together Arya’s List,

To test how far he’d go.

I dreamed that boldness filled his eyes,

To where they’re clearly glistening;

Absorbing every lesson to learn,

From “Godfather 1’s” fair Christening.

I dreamed he took “Project 2025,”

A Hitleresque list of enemy actions;

And sent in Federal Marshalls,

To sweep up the Fascist factions.

Arrest DeJoy, Seize the PO,

And issue wanted posters;

Immune! Immune! Immune! Immune!

Now, round-up Democracy’s ghosters.

Trump, The Alitos, Clarence & Ginny,

Bannon, Miller and Leonard Leo;

Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, MTG,

And, Harlan “The Nazi Collector” Crow.

Everything’s an “Official” Act,

When it comes to protecting the nation;

Now, Use the Force, you’ve been given, Joe,

Before the Freedom Train’s left the station…

Look, Biden’s performance in the last week’s Presidential “debate” was terrible AND Trump’s very existence as a national political candidate is terrible. Those two things are true at the same time. That doesn’t mean we have to settle for the status quo.

I’ve taught debate; I’ve coached people for debates; I’ve written speeches; I’ve run for public office; I’ve engaged in public debates on policy issues. I worked with and closely observed Mario Cuomo, perhaps one of the finest public speakers and debaters of our time. Admittedly, I pictured him eviscerating Trump, lie by lie by lie, the other night, leaving The Convicted Felon gurgling for help from his mental cell-mate, Hannibal Lecter.

By every single measure, Biden’s appearance on the CNN “shooting gallery,” — where the President of the United States allowed himself to be exposed to a firehouse of flagrant lies from a convicted felon, while moribund “moderators” Jake Tapper and Dana Bash failed to do their jobs — was the worst “debate” performance I have ever witnessed in my lifetime.

Biden’s constant lost look, frozen in place on camera shot after camera shot, reminded me of the vacant look I’ve seen on elderly relatives wandering the halls of nursing homes, searching for the rest room, or for someone who is not there.

How Biden’s incredibly intelligent and qualified staff allowed this to happen — the “debate”, the format, the camera shots, the “no-fact checking” — astounds me. Even worse, when Editor & Publisher reported on the day of the CNN cage-match that no journalists from Black Owned media outlets were credentialed by CNN for admittance, that alone should have been cause for Biden and his team to blow apart the ticking time bomb of a sur-reality show. In fact, I worried that Trump would cleverly use that reason to bow out of the debate, boxing Biden in. Neither happened.

Despite all of that, the most egregious result from that horror show where CNN happily handed a convicted felon and pathological liar an unfiltered megaphone for 90 minutes, was that Biden himself has become the central issue of one of the most important Presidential campaigns in this country’s history, with our very Democracy and individual human rights at stake.

Biden himself, a good man with an excellent record as President, asked and answered the most telling question, as CBS’ John Dickerson said in a brilliant analysis on CBS Sunday Morning, June 30, 2024:

(https://youtu.be/avgypNGS6Aw?si=ClpAv9snGRhIhncM):

“When President Biden has been asked about voter concern about his age, he has said, ‘Watch Me.’ They did. Now he must look in the mirror…and see whether he wants to be an agent or an impediment to Donald Trump returning to office.”

The issue — commanded by the merciless camera angles and an abandonment of all journalistic standards by CNN — quickly became Biden’s frighteningly weak look and tepid performance and not the abject criminality, venality and volcanic flow of lies erupting from Trump’s bottomless, bile-filled mouth.

Yes, Trump is a convicted felon, a serial liar, a convicted sexual abuser, delusional and lives in a dangerous fantasy world totally untethered from reality. Yet, all of that, coupled with Trump’s horrendous record as President regarding jobs, the economy, COVID, family separations, reproductive rights, and his poisoning of the Supreme Court, has not been enough to stuff Trump into the garbage can of history where he belongs, poll after poll tells us.

Biden’s age, and continued ability to carry on, keeps cluttering up people’s minds, and turning what should be a slam dunk election on values, issues and character into one that’s too close to call. But, please, don’t take my word for it — the word of a 75 year old man who has watched in pain as friends have slipped into mental and physical decline. Judge for yourself. A quick comparison of tapes from Biden’s 2020 Presidential debates vs. Trump, and last’s weeks, holds the answer. One look and you can see the huge difference between Biden’s communication abilities — never great to begin with — between age 77 and age 81.. Just watch the tapes. Neither this nation, nor the world, can afford the luxury of Biden’s age nor his health becoming the central issue of the campaign.

Or, as John Dickerson puts it, “Ego can get in the way of the greater good.”

In fact, at the very same time the country was distracted by the fallout from CNN’s pseudo-debate, the Far Right controlled, and corporate-owned US Supreme Court dismantled the ability of key federal administrative agencies (EPA, FDA, SEC) to enforce reasonable regulations against corporate excess, putting that responsibility in the hands of extremist judges (like Judge Kacsmaryk of Texas, a Christian Nationalist who tried to ban the drug mifepristone), overturning 40 years of precedent as recklessly as they repealed Roe. Singlehandedly, and without answering to anyone, Justices Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, implemented a key provision of the GOP’s Project 2025, a blueprint for the destruction of Democracy, which calls for erasing all Federal Agency enforcement power, as well as the Civil Service.

While the incumbent President was looking hapless and feeble on national television before 48 million viewers, the US Supreme Court, turned into a mirror of MAGA by the three grotesquely ideological appointments of Donald Trump, was disemboweling the Executive Branch of the federal government of a tremendous amount of power in public health, environmental protection and accountability in financial institutions.

As long as Biden remains the focus of this campaign, and not the Felon Trump and his Fascist followers pushing a Reich-like agenda, everything is at risk. Contrary to the arrogant arguments of Biden’s inner-circle that “he alone can fix it,” since he defeated Trump once, there are far more articulate and effective advocates for the values and policies at stake, who can bring the case to the American people far, far better than Biden does.

Of course, it won’t be easy, but it won’t be as chaotic for the Democrats as Biden’s apologists — some of them who don’t work for the campaign, like Nancy Pelosi and James Clyburn, are over 80 years old themselves, are trying to persuade us. Just because the Democratic Convention is in Chicago, doesn’t mean it’ll be 1968 all over again, and Biden’s team should stop advancing such a shallow, simplistic and inaccurate analogy, and instead, focus on how this can be achieved smoothly and positively. Everything is different now.

Despite the War in Gaza, the National Democratic Party, and its elected officials in Congress, the Senate, and State Houses, are remarkably unified against Trump and the Extreme Right Wing, Christian Nationalist Agenda. There is a deep bench of Democrats — moderate and progressives from every region of the country — who can articulate the issues — and the Biden Administration’s record — much more aggressively than Biden himself, removing the shadow of age and diminishing ability hanging over the President’s own candidacy. That would assure the focus on values and issues — and on the Felon Trump — without the matter of Biden’s age or cognitive ability muddying things up.

Those candidates include, but are not limited to: Kamala Harris, Senator Mark Kelly (Ariz), Corey Booker (NJ), Andy Beshear (Gov. Kentucky), Josh Shapiro (Gov, PA.), Gina Raimondo (Sec. of Commerce), Pete Buttigieg (Sec. of Transportation) Gavin Newsom ( Gov, CA.), Gretchen Whitmer (Gov, Michigan), Tammy Duckworth (Illinois), and Julian Castro (TX, former Secretary of HUD).

The key element in all of this, is whether, and how gracefully, Biden decides to withdraw from the race, and concentrate on his achievements in his one, extraordinary term. If he does, his long record of loyalty — and his desire for “continuing the job” — would point to his supporting Kamala Harris as his successor.

In my judgment, few Democrats — with the possible exception of Gretchen Whitmer — can articulate the issues of Reproductive Rights, Voting Rights, and the preservation of civil and human rights, better than Kamala Harris. As a skilled prosecutor who put felons behind bars, she can advance the criminal case against Trump as well as anyone. Unless Harris chooses to remain as the Vice-Presidential candidate, or announce she will not run for re-election if Biden is not on the ticket, her continued presence on the ticket must be guaranteed, or risk justifiable outrage from Black and female Democrats — especially with Roe v. Wade looming as an enormous issue this fall.

Pairing Harris with a strong, white male candidate — Kelly, Beshear, or Shapiro — would be the kind of ticket-balancing usually done behind closed-doors at National Conventions. It could be an uplifting, public process in Chicago, to showcase the depth and breadth of the Democratic party and its national leadership.

For months, I have been in favor of a national Democratic ticket of Harris and Senator Mark Kelly — with either one heading the ticket. A Kamala/Kelly, or Kelly/Kamala, ticket would communicate ideological balance, as well as the elevation of a charismatic and heroic Astronaut and US Navy Captain to the international stage, sending a powerful message of unity and strength domestically, and abroad, underscoring our commitment to our Allies.

The added bonus to this would be giving the remarkable Gabby Giffords, Kelly’s lifelong partner and a crusader against Gun Violence, a bigger national platform at the very moment the US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has declared Firearm Violence to be “a public health crisis in America.” With Gabby Giffords and Gun Violence coming to the forefront in the 2024 campaign, younger voters, led by Marjory Stoneman Douglas survivor David Hogg, born in 2000, and other young leaders of March for Our Lives, would have another compelling reason to organize and vote in record numbers, in the most important election of their lifetimes.

Biden, of course, holds the key to all of this, and to whether, as John Dickerson said, he wants to be “an agent or an impediment to keeping Donald Trump from office.”

We’ve watched you, Joe. We’ve voted for you. We applaud your achievements. Now it’s time to gracefully pass the torch of leadership to a new generation of good people who will protect democracy at home and around the world, and advance justice and human rights.

(Illustration by Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Nick Anderson, of the Reform Austin News.)

I’ll be looking at Donald Trump during Thursday night’s debate, in all of his smug flatulence producing crapulence, but thinking of John Gotti. 

No, not because Gotti was as physically grotesque as Trump, nor as gargantuan in his ignorance and stupidity. 

No, because I can see Gotti (a former associate of my brother’s) and a gathering of the Gambino gang seated around a small television at the Ravenite Social Club as they ridicule the repulsive and ridiculous Republican candidate for President of the United States—just as they mercilessly mocked him as a mushy mobster wannabe in New York for years.

“Look at that hair, “ I could hear Gotti say.  “He looks like he stuck his fucking tiny little fingers into some putana’s mattress, grabbed a handful of whatever wiry shit was in there and pasted it on his head.”

 Everyone else around the Boss burst out laughing.

“Check out his shoes, “ offered Angelo Ruggiero, a childhood friend of Gotti’s,  pointing at the TV.  “Does he have any toilet paper stuck to them bottoms again this time?  You’d think a guy with as much fucking money as he says he has wouldda learned to wipe his own fat ass the right way, by this time.”

Ruggiero did an imitation of Trump tipping over while he tried to twist his torso to see his own backside.  The others roared. 

John Cody, former head of the NYC/LI Teamsters’ and a prodigious Gambino Family earner who gave Trump fits on multiple construction sites, shook his head, once he stopped shaking from laughter. 

“Money?” That loser don’t have no money,” Cody said.  “That’s all bullshit.  Everytime we shook him down for more, or threatened to hold up one of his construction projects if he didn’t pay up, he squealed like the overstuffed pig he is.”

Cody continued:  “Trump talked tough.  But as soon as you confronted him, he cowered like a frightened little girl.  All talk, no action.  When I got my cumada Vernia Hixon a penthouse in Trump Tower—right below the bullshit artist’s own place—he was like a little lap dog, covering himself with drool.”

“Whadya need, John, Whadya want.  Anything!  Anything! The puffed up patsy  pleaded with me and Vernia ,” Cody said.  “He was a pathetic wimp; literally begging us to grab him by his pussy and wring him dry. Anything, John.  You name it.”

They all sneered, while Cody made the motion of being jerked-off.

“Imagine this fucking wimp comparing himself to Al Capone,” Gotti said.  “Did you hear him bragging before a bunch of his red-hatted guffoons last week, that he was indicted more times than Capone?

 “What a bunch of jadrools those dumbfucks are,” Gotti continued.   “As if that whiney wannabe was tougher than Capone because he got 34 Criminal indictments, and Capone only got 22.  What does that make me?  The fuckin’ feds only got me on 13 counts of murder and racketeering.  Does that fat fuck-face think that makes him almost three times as tough as me?  What a stinking pile of shit.  I didn’t see him taking out McBratney or Paul Castellano….”

Gotti motioned to the TV as Trump was blabbering on about the FBI, and the DOJ.

“That fuckin’ gasbag wouldn’t even last 60 seconds in Otisville, the goddamned Taj Mahal of Federal Prisons, “Gotti said.  “If someone farted near him, he’d asphyxiate himself on it to grovel for favor.”  

Cody picked up on Gotti’s cue and staggered to his feet, imitating Trump gasping for air:  “Ugh, ugh, anything for you, John; anything, you name it.  Suck the stink out of your fart?  You got it.”

Gotti and his entire crew doubled over with laughter.  Trash-talking Trump did that to them.

“I gotta give it to him– although it was probably the Russian Mob which deserves the credit for it,” Gotti said.  “They figured out that the best way to get a lot of their guys out of jail was to prop up the fucking pansy in the White House, so he could roll over and give ‘em everything they wanted, and pardon his friends who committed felonies for him.”

“Jeez, why didn’t we think of that?” Gotti asked, waving his hand at the TV.  “I coulda been the First Felon President, and walked in 1992, instead of getting a life sentence from the fucking feds 32 years ago this week.”

“Just think, “ Gotti said, standing up, and motioning his arms in a big sweeping gesture.  “MAGA woulda meant:  “Make America GOTTI’S Again!”

They all stood, clinked their glasses of wine and said “Salut,” in unison, as Trump drifted off into a rhapsodic riff about another multiple felony-committing  role-model of his,  Hannibal Lecter.

·

Lou Gehrig has been on my mind a lot lately.

No, not because his birthday is coming up on June 19; a birthday he did not live to see in 1941, when he would have turned 38 years old but didn’t, because of a progressively debilitating disease called Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), or more commonly known now as,  “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”

Gehrig gave his farewell address to baseball—after playing 16 spectacular seasons with the New York Yankees—on July 4, 1939, before a packed house at the old Yankee Stadium, two weeks after his diagnosis with the disease.

The Yankees’ “Iron Horse,” who set Major League Baseball records for consecutive games played and grand slam homeruns which stood for decades, told the nearly 60,000 people in attendance that “ I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot of life to live for.”

Then, speaking in a strong and steady voice at a stand-up microphone behind home plate, Gehrig spoke the words etched into the minds of millions of men, especially, when repeated by Gary Cooper portraying Gehrig in the movie “Pride of the Yankees,” just one year after Gehrig’s death: 

“Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

No, Gehrig’s been on my mind, because I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

At age 75, I’m not battling against a serious disease, which many good friends are at much younger ages; I’m not mourning the death of a spouse or partner, as several of my college friends have found themselves doing over the past few years; I’m not caring for a precious family member with dementia, watching helplessly as his or her mind just slip slides away.  I am grateful each day for still standing, as we walk through the eye of many storms each day, and mindful of my responsibility to use my mental and physical health to help those I love.  I am acutely aware, that although I may feel like one of the “luckiest” men on earth right now, there are countless others without such good fortune.

Preternaturally optimistic, I was raised by a mother who lived her 92 years with Polio, and was ever grateful that her paralysis wasn’t much worse, and that she didn’t  “end up in an iron lung,” like many of the other children she saw on her visits to Polio wings of hospitals.

I also suspect that having both of my parents take their last breaths in my arms has something to do with perspective. Every time I am about to complain about a personal issue, I think of that.  It has a great leveling effect.  So many other people have so many more daily life-and-death issues weighing on them—whether in war zones, or just struggling to survive—than I do. 

Still, there are certain things that knock me for a loop, and remind me clearly why I have thus far been, largely, spared.  Sure, I attempted suicide when I was a college freshman, but I survived, determined to do all I could to save others from being sucked into the belly of that sandworm, like in Dune. 

I wrote about my suicide attempt seven years ago in my book, Tightrope: Balancing a Life Between Mario Cuomo and My Brother,” and then again, just a few years back on both Substack and Medium, in an article entitled, “Reflections of Suicide: Living to Write About It.”  My purpose in writing about my suicide attempt was to show other young people struggling with questions of their own existence, that things can get better; that you can survive and grow, help others live their lives, and improve the lives of other humans around us, by sharing your story, and listening, listening, listening to theirs.

Little did I foresee that the greatest test of my own experience with depression and attempted suicide would come from our oldest granddaughter, a brilliant, compassionate and beautiful child, born with her own unique set of health challenges.  On the nights we kept self-harm watch for her, and held her hand to comfort her to sleep, I understood clearly that my own experiences had simply been preparation for that moment.  No matter what she did or said, I saw and heard her with great clarity, and understood that despite a lifetime of professional achievements and high level personal connections, this was what I had been put on earth for:  this moment, this child, this circumstance, this role—to save and nurture this child’s life.  I saw myself as clearly as I saw her.   We were, as she would frequently say, “soulmates.”

This weekend, after six months away, my granddaughter, now 15, came home from a residential school out of state, where she has shown enormous personal growth, courage and tenacity.  For her, for her father, and for her grandmother and me, it’s been a long six months. 

I missed taking her “thrifting”, and standing back and observing her get lost in the pleasure of meticulously picking through rows of clothing, kibitzing with the sales people with the wildest hair styles, until she found just the right piece to try on.  When she fell in love with vinyl records, I delighted in taking her from record store to record store, in search of the newest releases from Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, Boy Genius, or Taylor Swift.  To me this was Nirvana, and for her, there was such comfort in the soothing rhythms of the search.  We both loved it, and part of me wanted it to last forever.

Yet, we both knew, this routine could not substitute for a school/learning routine, in a supportive environment that could accommodate her unique talents, personality and needs.  We talked about anything that crossed our minds, without judgment, knowing that there was nothing either one of us could ever do, that would jeopardize the other’s love.  We created a very safe space, and we both cherished it.

Through all of her ups and downs, my “soulmate” always expressed a strong desire to go to college, to be a therapist—since so many had helped her—or, an animator or artist, because that gift came so naturally to her, and often served as a great elixir.  We knew that as 9^th grade began, things would need to become more structured, and targeted toward her academic and therapeutic best interests.

When she left for school, which we both agreed was best, I was lost.  For weeks, I struggled to find my purpose again, immersing myself in my writing, fiction and non-fiction; learning the music of her favorite groups, and scouring the news for items about everything that interested her.  Still, my son, our granddaughter’s father and a writer as well, sensed that I needed something more.

He came up with a tangible “project” for me, to redesign and re-landscape his front and back yards—something I had been badgering him to do for years.  I proposed doing a desert landscape, knowing that, once completed, it required the least care for him and that my granddaughter, when she returned, would love the succulents, cacti and rock-gardens I was envisioning.

Gardening had always been a great stress reliever for me, from my long days of working in government, media and public health, and from the excruciating tension between my brother’s life and mine. To get lost in the simple pleasure of gardening connected me back in time with my mother, who also loved it, but was unable to actually garden because of her Polio paralysis in one arm.  In practice, I became her “good” arm in the garden.

Serendipitously, at the same time I began this project, the New York Times ran an article on “Why Gardening is So Good For You.”

The article focused on the good exercise results of gardening (“Gardening gets you moving again,” and the mental health benefits (“Gardening does wonders for your mental well-being.”)  For me, the effects in both cases were terrific and tangible.

Over the course of my six-week landscaping project (timed to culminate over Father’s Day weekend), I lost five pounds, dropping to my lowest weight in a decade.  Each day I moved shovel by shovel of blue/grey gravel—12 Cubic yards in all—to give me the clean desert palette I needed to design from at my son’s Sonoma County, California home. 

While I started the project as a Father’s Day Gift to him (which came in ahead of schedule and way under budget) it morphed into a fun and creative design project to have finished in time for my granddaughter’s first visit home from residential school in six months.   Each Blue Agave I planted in a symmetrical line, was intended to bring a smile to her face when she saw it, since she previously found their weed-wounded yard to be “sad.” 

I repurposed thousands of dollars of unused “river rocks,” strewn on the side of my son’s home, finding enough of them to create several rock gardens, including a Pride-colored Rainbow of Rocks, at the lower bottom of the front yard.  Since my oldest granddaughter proudly identified as part of the LBGTQ+ community, I knew this would make her smile.

To add to the joy of doing our “Rainbow Rock Garden”, our youngest granddaughter, aged 8 ½, spray-painted most of the rocks for me, and came up with the inspired notion of placing the Rainbow on a “cloud” of white rocks, since she said, “whenever there are rainbows, there are clouds.”

For days after, I was humming Jim Henson’s “The Rainbow Connection,” a song which he wrote for Kermit the Frog, in The Muppet Movie, in 1979, just ten years after Stonewall, and four years after our son was born.  Over and over again, the Spotify in my mind kept playing the lyrics to me, in Kermit’s pure innocent voice, while our youngest granddaughter and her grandmother worked on the colorful masterpiece:

“Someday we’ll find it,

The Rainbow Connection,

The lovers, the dreamers and me…”

I could not stop looking at our finished Rainbow Rock Garden, laughed at the sight of our youngest granddaughter draped in a smart-looking smock carefully spraying-painting each one, and smiled when I thought of the look of wonder our oldest granddaughter would have when we welcomed her home.

I am, without question, the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel’s Alito’s wife, Martha Ann Alito, has become so obsessed with making America more “Godly,” that she’s taken to designing Flags in her head, to be flown when her husband “is free of all this nonsense” — of being one of nine US Supreme Court Justices. Yes, she actually said that.

Martha (Alito, not Mitchell) let all the world see the worm holes in her head at a Christian Nationalist cult-meeting, when asked what kinds of Flags she’s thinking of:

“They’ll be all kinds. I made a flag in my head. This is how I satisfy myself. I made a flag. It’s white and it has yellow and orange flames around it. And in the middle is the word VERGOGNA.” (Editors’ note: “Vergogna” means “Shame” in Italian, and has been used on flags protesting Italy’s “shameful” immigration policy, to movie titles by Enrico Morricone, for “Vergogna Schifosi,” literally translated as “Disgusting Shame.”)

While her husband Sam has cast a crazed Savonarola-like spell over the Supreme Court on matters of personal autonomy, women’s rights, sexuality, racist reapportionment, and matters of “godliness,” and faith, Martha has been dreaming of becoming America’s new Betsy Ross.

Here are some of the Alito’s real and imagined flags they’ve either already flown, or are dreaming of flying once Sam’s Supreme Court “nonsense” is over, and he has made America “godly” again. That is, of course, in the image of the fundamentalist Christian God, not the God of Jews, Muslims, progressive Christians, or of any other faith.

(NB: The Swastika flag may be on loan from Right Wing Billionaire Harlan Crow, benefactor of Alito’s fellow Far-Right collaborator on the Supreme Court Clarence Thomas, and collector of Nazi paraphernalia.)