Month: June 2022

The conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) voided the 49-year-old Roe vs. Wade precedent on abortion this week, despite that fact that “a woman’s right to choose” is supported by most Americans (58 percent in favor, 28 percent against in the latest poll) and the anti-abortion campaign is basically a religious one.

Earlier in the week, the Court also determined that public funds can be used to support religious education, something that the Founding Fathers would be aghast at.

“Separation of church and state” was clearly the intent of the framers of the Constitution; however, this current Court seems Hell-bent to Christianize this Nation and everyone in it, despite the fact that most people do not go to church anymore and the proportion of “non-religious” families has risen three fold in the past thirty years.

The damning thing about the Roe vs. Wade reversal was that the most recent conservative appointees to the Court made it clear in their Senate confirmation hearings, when specifically confronted, that Roe was established precedent. As soon as they were confirmed, however, they quickly changed their tune. This “confirms” the reason why President Trump made these appointments: he needed to mollify his political base and these Supreme Court candidates agreed to do his bidding. The decisions this week were payback for their appointments.

SCOTUS has now taken the place of Congress as the de-facto legislative branch of the Federal government. Nine individuals, with lifetime appointments, are now set to do the work that 100 Senators and 548 Congressmen have failed to do for the past 50 years or so. These justices can now “interpret” anything they want to, for as long as they live, because they are not accountable to the citizens of the United States.

Our new SCOTUS leaders also decided this past week that a State cannot restrict the ability of a citizen to carry a gun.

Just when our country is attempting to heal from the latest mass killing by gunfire of innocent children in Texas, and Congress is attempting to gain some control over the “gun” problem, SCOTUS steps into the fray and gums it up with a clear victory for the National Rifle Association. It’s soon going to be necessary for every man Jack in our country to be strapped with a weapon just to protect himself from all the other nutjobs out there who will be packing heat. If we’ve learned anything in our Nation’s history it’s that the more weapons that are in people’s hands, the more they will be used. Industrialized nations with restrictive gun ownership laws see far less gun violence than we do, as do States like California and New York, which have (or had, up until this past week) the ability to regulate private gun use.

The Second Amendment right to bear arms had nothing to do with protection from common criminals: it had to do with hunting in those early times and the possibility that militias might need to be formed (again) to protect a family or community or State against aggressors (like the British). In 1783, there was no thought given to the eventual possibility that some village teenage idiot could possess an individual weapon (“arms”) that could kill scores of people in a matter of minutes.

It appears that the SCOTUS supermajority is more interested in parsing words than they are in saving American lives, more supportive of the gun lobby to make and sell killing weapons, and less interested in common sense. Supreme Court precedents over the past 240 years have made it clear that those rights we enjoy from our Constitution are not absolute. This particular bunch of conservative Justices seem to want to re-engineer this country back to the Colonial days.

The State of New York gun control law that SCOTUS gutted has been on the books there for 109 years. No previous Supreme Court found any issue with this safety measure. In fact, the supposed right of an individual to bear arms was unheard of prior to 2008, approximately 240 years after the Second Amendment language was adopted for the express purpose of protecting “a well-regulated State militia”. What has changed recently is that the Court has become politicized and the recent decision reflects the control that the NRA has on the Republican Party.

SCOTUS’ recent decisions are conflicting when it comes to conservative principles re: States’ rights. It appears that the Court majority wants States to be able to “do their own thing” when it comes to abortion and public funding of religious education but not be able to craft their own sensible gun regulations. The biggest problem in American society right now remains gun violence. Recent polls suggest that 65 percent of Americans want stricter gun controls while 28 percent don’t. SCOTUS is now saying that States have no power to do anything about the problem.

“What we have here is… failure to communicate!” was the famous quote in Cool Hand Luke. I think this relates completely to what we have going on right now: the “tyranny of the minority”, as writer Max Boot calls it. We have a Supreme Court supermajority that was made possible by the inordinate political power of smaller, Red States. For example, 42 Senators represent 21 States, all of whose population doesn’t exceed that of California, which only gets 2 Senators. Because the smaller Red States wield so much power, they determine who sits on the Supreme Court, even though most Americans don’t live in those States. It was a potential flaw in the Constitution that concerned the Framers back in the day and it has come to pass: a democracy in which the majority does not rule and the ruling minority doesn’t care to listen to the people.

What is going to happen now is fairly predictable: the political demarcation between Red (Republican) and Blue (Democratic) States is going to become even more sharply defined, with Red States being allowed to take draconian steps backward in time while Blue States will take necessary measure to support liberal laws which their citizens support. There will be more and more nasty politics, more domestic terrorism by enraged partisans, and there will eventually be civil strife that may make the BLM/George Floyd fracases seem tame in comparison.

As one comedienne noted this week, “Now guns have more rights than women.”

The SCOTUS decisions this week mark the end of this year’s judicial calendar. It would not surprise me at all to see decisions next year that expand on Red States’ abilities to restrict voting rights, possibly give cover to the responsible parties in the January 6^th Capitol Riot, and begin the process of reducing protections for same-sex marriages.

A Supreme Court which is a law unto itself will not stand if most Americans do not agree with their decisions: there will be blood.

The remedy for this is a Congress that does what it is paid to do: listen to all citizens and legislate.

I’m not very hopeful on that score.

We’re only a few days from hitting the road and taking our show to the Pacific Northwest for the Summer. Just in time, too, as the high temp here is predicted to exceed 103 degrees for the next ten days straight.

I got my “Vinnie” tattoo recently. My tattooist was the owner of Vamp Body Art in St. George, a guy named Adam. He’s a nice guy and we shot the bull for two hours while he worked his magic. Adam is a Mormon like many folks in St. George and I asked him if Mormonism, like some religions, forbids “desecration of body parts”. He told me that his church deacon has researched this and determined that the Bible does not have a problem with tattooing. Anyway, he has tattooed quite a few of his churchgoing peers and his wife (also a Mormon) does body piercing out of the same location.

(An aside: Two of the most successful businesses here in Mesquite, Nevada are Lee’s Discount Liquor (comparable to BevMo in Southern California) and Deep Roots Harvest dispensary (a place where one can legally purchase weed and similar products). Both liquor and marijuana are supposed to be verboten in the Mormon faith but that doesn’t stop the herd of Utahans who drive down here to Mesquite on weekends and buy enormous amounts of hooch and ganja. Like tattooing, maybe the Book of Mormon doesn’t specifically mention Don Julio tequila, Pacifico beer, Absolut vodka or Jim Belushi Estate CBD gummies?)

It appears that our good friend and temporary house guest Lloyd is having second thoughts about jetting down to South Africa at this time. Instead, he mentioned to us yesterday that he is considering renting a home here in Mesquite while he works out passport and visa issues. Lloyd is treating us to a nice dinner at the best steakhouse in Mesquite the night before we leave. We will miss him.

I spent maybe 2-1/2 hours yesterday soaking the plants in and around our property. It has been an unseasonably hot June in Mesquite and even the cacti have been looking parched. As I sprayed them, I could almost hear them saying, “Thank you, Man!” In addition to the artificial monsoon rainfall that I administered, our landscaping maintenance guy “Kenedy” upped the drip irrigation doses to two a day. All native vegetation can survive drought conditions, but they do much better with water, so we expect to see a Garden of Eden/Desert Edition when we return in three months.

(I feel somewhat guilty about doing so much watering in the midst of a drought, but our local water district honcho continues to tell us that our community is flush with groundwater. I think he’s lying, but I’m going to assume that he knows what he’s talking about… for now.)

I read yesterday that there is a nationwide shortage of lifeguards. Community pools and beaches are opening up short-handed because there are not enough certified water safety staff, another casualty of the long battle with Covid-19.

Lifeguards must be certified, and most pools were closed for more than a year due to lockdowns. Therefore, no lifeguard certification programs were conducted, and now there is a gap that cannot be filled quickly. It’s a potential liability problem for municipalities if they throw some unqualified folks into the breach.

I know a bit about this subject, as I was competitive swimmer, a certified lifeguard, a swim instructor, and a Water Safety Instructor (a guy who certifies lifeguards) back in the day. I worked as a lifeguard for four years (age 16-19) and then managed a municipal pool in Monterey Park for a summer. During my final year, I taught swimming and W.S.I. for four hours per day and managed the operation during swimming hours when we would handle up to 500 swimmers. We also hosted A.A.U. swim meets. There were lots of long days, a number of life-saving rescues, lots of laughs with staff, and I made sufficient money to fund books and tuition at Cal State Los Angeles.

(My lifeguard years were fun ones because they coincided with my “dating” years. I was a late starter in romance but made up for it during my college years. I met a lot of girls through my job at the pool in the Summer; in fact, I dated many of the gals who worked at the two municipal pools in Monterey Park.

I was also in Delta Chi fraternity during this time at Cal State, and we had parties with sororities often. I recall meeting a gal at one of those parties, then dating her once, and deciding that she wasn’t right for me. I moved on to other prospects. Later, at one of those A.A.U. swim meets that we hosted, I was walking past some female swimmers who were lying on towels when one of them said very audibly to another, “He’s pretending that he doesn’t know me!” I really hadn’t noticed the girl but then I realized that she was a sorority gal from St. Mary’s that I had dated one time only. I was kinda embarrassed but that’s what happens when your busy socially. I think I counted once and realized that I had dated something like 40 women during my college years. Lots of them were one-shot deals, although I did have a few steady girlfriends over the four-year period.

I learned a lot about women, for sure, but I wasn’t a Hugh Hefner by any means. Just sayin’.)

We are hoping to entice a few visitors up to Oregon while we’re there. It is possible that our friend Lloyd might drop by for a spell, as he visits his mother in Reno from time to time and that’s about half-way to Coos Bay. So, maybe we can see him there or possibly in Brookings. Also, we have invited our son Tim and wife Shanon to drop by while we’re in Coos Bay. That would be cool, as they will someday be driving our RV and they need all of the experience they can get living in and managing the rig.

Otherwise, me, Charlie and the dogs will be chillin’ on the beach and looking for adventures wherever we can find them.

I did my last hike today with Lloyd and another friend today along the bottom of the mesa that overlooks our city. We’ve been on this trail many times before and happened to pass by a familiar spot: Lloyd’s Camel Toe. It is a prehistoric camel footprint that was left on a since-concretized sedimentary layer when this area was an inland sea. Lloyd reported the find to a paleontologist at the University of Utah when he found it, the professor visited the site, and confirmed that it was real and approximately 6 to 8 million years old.

When we turned around to leave the Camel Toe, Lloyd spotted a Desert Tortoise, which are hard to find these days. All of the “badlands” topography in our area is being graded down to make way for homes and industrial sites. The Desert Tortoises, which are the State Reptile of Nevada and are supposed to be “protected”, are quickly losing all of their burrowing habitat. So much for progress.

It will take us several days to get up to Coos Bay. We will spend one night in Tonopah, one night in Reno, one night in Weed (California), and four nights at the Seven Feathers RV Resort in Canyonville, Oregon on the way to the Oceanside RV Resort, where will stay for a month.

In August, we move to At River’s Edge RV Resort in Brookings and will be there for a month. After that, we will head south through Northern and Central California, arriving in Southern California (Paradise by the Sea RV Resort in Oceanside) on Labor Day. We will be there for a month.

We expect to arrive back here in Mesquite on October 7^th, just in time for some nice Fall weather.

Our good friend Lloyd Chartrand has been staying with us for the past several weeks while he plots his next adventure in life. We will be leaving him, at our house, when we head off on our 3-month RV road trip in a few days.

Lloyd returned to the United States from Progreso, Mexico awhile back, following a 9-month stay down there. He got his residency card, bought a house, and had his South African girlfriend Juanita join him for six-months. Her visa expired, she hit the road and, by that time, Lloyd had seen enough of Mexico, its culture, and government. He sold the house for what he bought it for plus improvements.

Our friend is now thinking of moving to South Africa to be with Juanita. He’s familiar with the country from his days as a financial consultant; in fact, that’s where he met Juanita. Lloyd is 73 and Juanita is 59 (I believe), she is a nice and attractive lady, and being with her probably boosts his ego. One might call her Lloyd’s “arm candy”.

Our friend has been through several wives during his life and is bitter about those experiences. He has two grown daughters, of which he is estranged; neither of them called him on Fathers’ Day. I believe that he has grandchildren that he has never seen. His 92-year-old mother lives in Reno (where he is this week, visiting her) and he is estranged from is 92-year-old father.

It is a sad thing for a 73-year-old fellow to have virtually no family at this stage of life. He is a lonely guy and is lucky to have us in his life right now providing shelter and companionship while he plots his next move. We are pleased and honored to do this for him.

I consider Lloyd to be my best friend, however he is not like me at all. He is, without a doubt, the most racist individual that I’ve ever met. He despises Latinos, Blacks, and Asians, equally. He is also a virulent anti-Semite. To top it off, he is politically an arch-conservative, despising communists, liberals, and Democrats and blaming them for most of the world’s problems.

Although Lloyd is a smart guy, he is in denial about lots of things and prefers to look at everything in terms of black and white: he seems incapable of seeing the gradations between extremes or wanting to acknowledge that they exist. It’s a character flaw.

My buddy is a Vietnam vet who has PTSD issues. He regularly goes to the V.A. for treatment (medical and counseling) and has significant anger issues, particularly toward the Federal government. I think this is because of the poor treatment that our veterans receive, in his opinion, from the V.A. and also because of the rejection he felt by his fellow citizens when he returned home from the Vietnam War.

Lloyd has lived a big life. He grew up in San Francisco in the 60’s and enjoyed live performances of Janis Joplin, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, and others. After the Vietnam War, he got a degree in Accounting and became a C.P.A. with Deloitte, Haskins and Sells, one of the Big Five accounting firms. Later, he became a financial consultant, traveling all over the world, advising investors, and helping businesses grow. He made a crapload of money. Later, he bought and ran (for 25 years) a Merlot wine grape ranch in the Napa Valley. Along the way, he went through several wives (I think four) and they went through his money. He still has plenty, but he has no one to share it with.

It is sad.

Lloyd exhibits a simmering resentment against California state government which, he says, stifles businesses. On the other hand, he got rich in California and the only reason that he got out of the wine grape business was because the price of Merlot grapes dropped dramatically when the “Sideways” film hit the movie screens and hip wine connoisseurs shifted their loyalty to Pinot Noir. The California state government had nothing to do with that but he blames those pesky Democrats anyway.

Like I said, there are aspects of Lloyd Chartrand that I dislike a lot and, yet, he is a cherished friend. We enjoy hiking, golfing, playing cards and table games, and bullshitting together. He and Charlie and good friends and he likes our three dogs, too. Lloyd’s a very generous person and, although he jokes a lot, he is a serious person. We talk about important news events and philosophize, to an extent, until he goes completely off the rails and starts to raise conspiracy theories. Lloyd is really into those, blaming bad thing on Jews or minorities or bureaucrats or Californians or George Soros, ad nauseam.

He wears a large, gold cross on a chain around his neck but Jesus would be embarrassed to hear him curse everyone and everything. The poor are certainly not “blessed” in Lloyd’s world: they are lazy bums who elect to collect welfare rather than work.

It is almost like he finds himself in a rage when discussing social issues, and I have to tune him out. I feel sorry for him that his cranium is so filled with anger. It must be tortuous to have to live like that, always on the verge of throwing a temper tantrum.  It is no wonder he’s had difficulty in marriage and family relationships.

Charlie and I focus on the Good Lloyd that is in him and we enjoy that aspect of his being. And I think he sees in our 49-years together that a man and woman can peacefully coexist and have some fun while living together. Maybe we are teaching him some lessons that he can take with him to South Africa and try out on Juanita?

We will miss our friend when we leave for the Summer in less than a week. Unfortunately, it’s not certain that we will ever see him again once we say goodbye on the 29^th. Hopefully, he will find that elusive happiness in South Africa.

We love Lloyd and we will miss him for sure.

This past week, the state Republican Party of Texas adopted a resolution claiming that the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden was fraudulent.

Of course, those G.O.P. politicians did not claim that the Texas Republican Congressmen elected in that same election were fraudulently elected. And, yes, it is true that zero evidence has been made public by Donald Trump or the Republican Party of Texas that any of the “stolen election” hogwash has merit.

However, just the implication by a political party that fair elections can be deemed to be fraudulent is scary stuff because this policy position empowers politicians to “do something about it”, even when there is no real problem to resolve. For example, changing voting procedures to make sure this dadgum problem never surfaces again.

Like a Democrat winning an election.

This may seem like silly gamesmanship between political parties, but it is not. Instead, it is one more step in the process of de-legitimizing elections and making them irrelevant. These are calculated moves by people who crave power and enjoy wielding it. When someone in power can determine who wins elections, then elections become superfluous.

And when that happens, the governed become powerless. Ask the Chinese, the Russians, the North Koreans, etc.

Even though most Americans are “fed up” with what has become democracy in our country, We The People still retain the right, through elections, to replace power-hungry or totally-inept leaders. We’ve had that right all along in our Nation, so we just assume that we will always have it.

Not so.

If we allow politicians to determine the outcome of their own elections, then we have lost the ability to affect change when change is needed.

Consider for a moment the Social Security program. Every American worker knows that this benefit will be there when he or she retires after a long working career to help them survive when they get old. It is a very expensive government program, taking up about one-quarter of the Federal budget. Politicians of both parties would like to trim Social Security back so that they could spend the freed-up funds on pet projects, reward campaign contributors, and so forth. However, those politicians never cut Social Security funding.

Why? Because they would face the wrath of voters.

In non-democracies, those in power do what they please, how they please, and when they please while the citizens endure the outcome of those actions.

We citizens must never let ourselves forget that politicians don’t think like we do. We assume that our elected officials exist to identify and solve societal problems and improve our health, safety, and prosperity. Politics, on the other hand, is all about the acquisition and use of power. If we citizens can’t control which politicians are elected, then we cannot control their use of power and they will do whatever they wish. As British historian Lord Acton said, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

No truer words were ever spoken.

The hearings going on in Washington D.C. lately are all about our sacred right to elect our leaders. The January 6^th Capitol Riot which occasioned these hearings was an attempt to nullify the results of an election and to allow an incumbent to hold on to his governmental position despite losing said election.

American citizens need to be serious about this matter because power-hungry politicians are watching this drama very carefully.

My buddy Lloyd and I are watching the U.S. Open golf tournament this weekend while Charlie reads some books.

The tournament is an interesting one because it is the oldest in the United States (127 years), it is the national championship of golf, it is “open” to professional as well as amateur golfers, and any golfer can play in the tournament if he can qualify in a regional tournament. The course that the contestants are playing this week is The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, the oldest country club in the United States.

As usual, the first day featured remarkable scores from relatively unknown pros and amateurs. In the second day, most of those wannabes petered out and the best professionals began to move up the leaderboard. There are two days left in the tournament and it appears that one of the top ten golfers in the world will win the thing, which is expected and appropriate. It’s fun to watch these guys do things with a golf ball that regular Lunchbucket Joes can only dream about when they are hacking the ball around their local public course.

Golf is a unique game because the player is also the referee: it is a game of honor, where a rules violation is expected to be called by a player on himself. It has been said that you can learn a lot about a person simply by playing a round of golf with him, because the game tests skill, determination, ingenuity, composure, and honesty.

Another aspect of golf that attracts followers is that it takes place out in nature, with the game itself being conducted on grass, dirt, sand, weeds, forests, and sometimes beaches. That wonderful day in the outdoors is easily ruined by struck balls that can’t be found, find a body of water, end up in trees, or leave the confines of the golf course entirely. Windy days bring their own measure of torment to golfers. Cold weather and rain can make holding a club and swinging one difficult. Some frustrated wag described golf as “a good walk spoiled”.

Speaking of spoiling, I believe that competition/gambling really ruined the “game” of golf because it took something that is basically a test of man vs. nature and turned it into warfare between human beings on a battlefield that just happens to be a beautiful golf course. The game of golf was meant to test a player and reveal what stuff he is made of. Formal competition and gambling introduced the need for rules, referees and such, and took much of the magic and fun out of the game (in my opinion).

Handicaps, for example, were created by the U.S.G.A. so that golfers of different ability could “compete” with each other on a supposedly equal footing. A handicap works thusly: If a pro will shoot 72 on a course and an amateur will shoot 85, then the amateur would get a 13 handicap so that he could theoretically compete fairly with the pro. Handicaps facilitate gambling among the players. Both the equal playing field idea (handicap) and gambling itself assume that players will be honest about their handicap. Dishonest people lie, and these folks commonly abuse the handicap system, to the point that good golfers abhor playing in competitions that are handicapped. I’ve known of country club members who are shunned socially when it is discovered that they are handicap cheats: one couple had to move from our Jack Nicklaus golf community because of the shame. Another cheater was blackballed from Country Club membership.

I’ve golfed at a relatively high skill level in the past but really enjoy the game when I’m out playing with friends, for no money, no championship on the line, simply for fun, etc. I enjoy hitting a few good shots among the bad ones, high-fiving my buddy who has just made a tricky putt, and razzing someone in the group who just jacked a ball out of bounds. Golf is supposed to be fun, not the Bataan Death March; it’s having some laughs, maybe discuss business and politics, and an excuse to drink a few beers afterward at the 19^th green pub.

I don’t play much anymore nor do my friends: maybe a half dozen times a year. Accordingly, our games suck, with a lot of bad swing mechanics, horrid shots, lost balls, and three- (or four-!) putts on the greens. And, still, we enjoy ourselves because we’re out there for sun, exercise, and male bonding (i.e. laughing at ourselves, telling nasty jokes and busting each others’ balls).

The official “Rules of Golf” take a back seat to camaraderie when we play. We’re old, so we get to take advantage of the Senior tee boxes (which makes the distance from tee to green closer), and we give ourselves Mulligans on the first tee if we dribble a shot down to the Women’s tee box or jerk our drive out of bounds. We’ve been known to allow Shapiros as well. That would occur when a player hits a bad shot, declares a Mulligan, re-tees his ball, and then hits a WORSE shot. The Shapiro allows the player to choose between the two poorly-struck golf shots… with no penalty. It’s genius, obviously devised by a shyster lawyer.

Professional golf rules are very anal about “playing the ball as you find it”, even if your shot ends up in someone’s divot in the middle of the fairway, comes to rest in some asshole’s un-raked sand trap, or perhaps rolls up against a tree root or rock. “Tough luck” says the Rules of Golf. We geezer golfers don’t play like that. No matter the season, “Winter Rules” are in effect at all times, which means that the player can move his ball a club length, without penalty, if it has come to rest in an unfortunate spot. And, because we don’t play on the manicured courses that the pros do, there are lots of unfortunate lies that our balls seem to find.

We also “give” putts to our buddies and ourselves, meaning that a putt which misses the cup by a distance of less than a club length is declared a “Gimme” and the next putt is considered made without having to putt it and go to the effort of bending down and taking it from the cup. Very considerate, huh? Particularly since all 70-year-old duffers have bad backs…

When I was playing a round with my buddy Lloyd the other day, and neither of us had shot a round of golf in a very long time, we employed the Defective Ball Rule, meaning that any shot intended to hit a fairway or green that veers off said part of the golf course (like into the bushes, into a lake, out of bounds, etc.) was obviously caused by an improperly manufactured golf ball and the player may then be entitled to a free drop on the fairway nearest the site of the unfortunate incident without penalty. This rule is not only humanitarian but it also speeds up the game and, in our part of the country, lessens the chance of being bit by a rattlesnake. The Defective Ball Rule is a No-Brainer that should be adopted by the PGA Tour, in my opinion, particularly in Florida.

(Update: We watched the third round of the U.S. Open yesterday. The course that they are playing is a very old and cunning layout, with all manner of trouble just waiting to torture the players. Yesterday, it was windy and most of the professionals took a beating. It was lovely to watch, to be honest, because these elite golfers ended up in places that we duffers see every time we play and those pros had some difficulty extricating themselves from the poop.

As I mentioned earlier, the official U.S.G.A. Rules of Golf are a bit over-the-top anal about playing the ball “as it lies”. Yesterday, Justin Thomas, one of the world’s greatest pro golfers, fell victim to those rules when his perfectly struck drive off of the tee landed in the middle of the fairway, right where it should have, and rolled into a small depression where a 12’x12” drainage grate was situated. Clearly, it was unfair to make Justin play the ball from that peculiar spot, as it impacted his stance and, therefore, swing. But, the rules official said, “Tough luck, play it as it lies.” Justin did, flubbed his shot, and cursed out loud.

Later in the day, another contender hit a ball practically out of bounds, behind some bleachers, on grass trod upon by spectators, with a blocked view of the fairway and green. He was allowed by the rules officials to take a “free drop”, giving him a chance to hit his next shot onto the fairway.

A good shot penalized and a bad shot rewarded. Doesn’t make sense, does it? That’s the Rules of Golf in a nutshell.

Had my friends and I been playing with Justin Thomas, we would have congratulated him on his tremendous drive and told him, “Drop the ball away from that fucking grate and hit away, Sir”.)

I’ve have many great memories from my golfing addiction over the years. Like I said, after I retired and took some lessons, I dropped my handicap from 14 to 6, which meant that I regularly shot in the upper 70’s. I won some trophies, played team golf, had a hole in one, and enjoyed my weekly Saturday morning round with my closest buddies, when we gambled a few bucks. Probably my fondest memory was the time that Charlie and I joined six other couples in a one-week Hawaiian golfing vacation. We stayed in Maui, at Country Western singer Randy Travis’ compound (seven suites in one massive house!), played tournament golf and barbequed every day, and partied at night. I played horrible golf in Hawaii and had a WONDERFUL time because of the wonderful camaraderie.

Golf is incredibly hard to master. It requires a very high degree of coordination to do properly, something that I’ve never come close to. The difference between a decent hacker (me at my prime) and a professional is huge in terms of skill. The game looks easy on TV because everyone that you’re seeing is at that professional level. If an average hacker would tee it up with PGA pros, on TV, you would see the difference: Joe Sixpack hits his driver 200 yards, while the pro uses a wedge… and flies that guy’s ball by 15 yards. The pros are also used to putting on greens that are as slick and hard as glass: an everyday golfer, at the local public course, would four- or five-putt those slick greens.

I said before that I had a hole-in-one one day at Bear Creek. I’ve also had four 300 games in bowling. Which is the harder game? Golf by a long shot. I’ve seen 300-pound beer bellies, chomping on pizza and quaffing beer between shots, average 225 in bowling. It’s one uncomplicated, repetitivre motion that even handicapped people can master. I rolled my first perfect 300 game within one year of taking up bowling, while I spent 30 years (and lots of lessons) trying to become proficient at golf… and never mastered it. Golf requires a complex set of physical acts, concentration, and imagination.

A bowling alley is just a wooden lane with some pins at the end, situated in an air-conditioned building. Golf courses have different kinds of terrain, lakes, shapes of fairways, elevation changes, and TEMPERATURE, PRECIPITATION,  and WIND to deal with. The same golf hole can play completely different from one day to the next depending upon where the tee box and the pin (the hole on the green) are situated. Golfers must use their wits; bowlers, even good ones, can be nitwits.

Maybe that’s why I like to watch the U.S. Open: an opportunity to watch the greatest golfers in the world match wits with Mother Nature. Yesterday, the pros got spanked.

(Update: The U.S. Open was won by Matt Fitzpatrick, an Englishman who won the U.S. Amateur tournament at this very same Boston, Massachusetts course back in 2013. The guy was rock-solid all week, using his course knowledge to keep out of trouble. On the final hole, he had a very difficult shot to make (156 yards uphill, blind, out of a sand trap) and he put the ball about 15′ from the cup, something that a true champion might do.

The runners-up, Will Valatoris and Scottie Scheffler, also played in that same U.S. Amateur back in 2013. The rest of the 155-man field had never played the tricky course, demonstrating how different golf is from other professional sports. As implied previously, much of the game is played “between the ears”.

Another aspect of the sport is that it is dominated these days by young players. Many of the younger players are involved in pro-level competition while in college and are at peak physical and competitive condition when they begin to play on the PGA Tour. The winner, Fitzpatrick, is 27 years old and the runners-up are both 25.

In contrast, the 15 players from the upstart LIV circuit (the professional tour being funded by Saudi Arabia) are mostly in their mid-30’s, some are in their 40’s, and Phil Mickelson is 52. Fifteen LIV players started the 155-man U.S. Open tourney, only four made the 74-man cut on Friday, and the highest LIV finisher came in 24^th (Dustin Johnson). This extremely poor showing by LIV golfers underscores the reason why a bunch of PGA Tour pros jumped to the LIV tour: a lot of guaranteed money that these old-timers wouldn’t make if they had to compete with the young bucks. You can’t blame them for that, even though they must wear a Scarlet Letter because of the Saudi blood money.)

It appears that we Americans have a couple of ugly years to look forward to.

There will be a recession.

If you’re an old fart like me, you’ve been through a few of these. The economy will cool down, people will lose jobs, and families will have to focus on the basics. Fancy cars, vacations, etc. will have to be forgone in lieu of rent and food on the table. Wages could decrease, as employers will be interviewing lots of desperate folks for limited jobs. Business owners will raid retirement plans. Unions will go into hibernation.

The inflation that is alarming us right now will probably ameliorate a bit as the Fed funds rate increases put a halt to the “easy money” that has driven the stock market, bidding wars for housing, and profligate credit card spending. We will be hearing about business and personal bankruptcies a lot, as folks who got way ahead of themselves will now have to pay the piper. Gas prices will remain high, though: I think $5.00 per gallon will be the new normal.

Lots of sad human interest stories will fill the newspapers daily.

Joe Biden is, essentially, a lame duck President right now. This recession was overdue and, unfortunately for him, it landed during his watch, just like Covid-19 impacted Donald Trump’s last year in office. Shit happens and citizens must find scapegoats.

The mid-term elections that are happening this year will likely give Republicans majorities in both houses of Congress, as G.O.P.  candidates will gleefully use the Biden Administration as a punching bag while riding on a wave of populist anger toward things that they cannot control.

When the mid-term dust settles (and, trust me, no victorious G.O.P. candidate will claim that the election was tainted in any way), the new Republican Congressional and Senatorial majorities will be stuck with the same problem: Joe Biden will still be President for another two years. And, so, there will be two more years of gridlock in Washington D.C. Anything that the Democrats want to accomplish will be squashed, and President Biden will veto as many G.O.P. initiatives that he can.

We will be back to the usual D.C. stalemate.

Or so it will seem.

There is something new in the air in America that may change the “normalcy” that infects our Federal government. It is the general public’s feeling that maybe democracy itself doesn’t work, cannot work, and shouldn’t work.

Public polls now indicate that a majority of Democrats and Republicans don’t feel that democracy will last and that maybe something else should be tried. It is a feeling of disgust, dismay, hopelessness, and anger with the business as usual in Washington D.C. while important problems remain unaddressed or even undiscussed. Angry Republicans feel this way regarding their hot-button issues as do Democrats about theirs.

Democracy only works when elected officials talk about problems instead of talking at each other. Communication involves listening, and there is none of that anymore in U.S. politics. Just a bunch of grown-up juveniles publicly shooting spitwads at each other. Not exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind back in the day.

We currently have some televised hearings going on relative to the January 6, 2020 Capitol Riot. Everyone who was alive at the time knows what happened, why it happened, who caused it, and so forth. It was an amateurish, slow-mo coup d’etat engineered by President Trump and his band of misfits in the White House and Congress. The rationale for the insurrection, led by the President of the United States, was the “stolen election” that had no basis in fact.

Everyone knows this in their hearts, but this knife strike to the gut of democracy has been conveniently overlooked by G.O.P. partisans… because they continue to be frustrated that they cannot get their way in Washington D.C. with the Democrats clinging to power.

This same hard-core base of the Republican Party continues to be unhappy, stoked by the ghost of Donald Trump, who is determined to avenge his ouster in 2020 and wreak havoc on the Democrats and Republicans who he feels sabotaged his imperial Presidency.

On his way out the door, claiming a “rigged” election and his determination to legally fight the allegedly fraudulent voting (for President only; the Republicans who won re-election in 2020 were elected fair and square, of course), Donald Trump and his team of con artists engineered one of the most spectacular grifts in the history of the United States, bilking $250 million from loyal Trumpists under the guise of legal costs to challenge his “stolen” Presidency.

That grift is ongoing and it is fueling Trump’s several P.A.C.s that are designed to benefit Republican candidates who swear fealty to the ex-President. In other words, candidates for public office who oppose democracy.

Trump the would-be Kingmaker is enjoying modest success thus far in weeding out Republican candidates and current officeholders who have defied him, did not publicly support the “stolen election” lie, or said some things about him and his Presidency that annoy him. I suspect that the army of loyal Trump supporters will elect a number of bomb-throwers in November who will spend the next two years making everyone’s life in Washington D.C. a living hell.

Maybe that’s what it needs; it certainly deserves it.

In the end, however, after the next couple of ugly years, it is highly unlikely that these would-be patriots are going to see Mr. Trump returned to the White House. If the Republicans are stupid enough to nominate the ex-President in 2024, then they will have squandered the opportunity of a lifetime. Trump is not popular except with his rabid base; he’s lost both Presidential popular elections that he’s run in. He would lose again if he ran again. Besides, he will be a 78-year-old narcissist in 2024, one who proved his incompetence while a younger man.

As I’ve said before, I think the G.O.P. will run Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. He’s a Conservative, he’s a smart guy, and he’s running his State as a populist, gaining support by attacking things considered to be near and dear to Democrats.

What happens before DeSantis is elected?

It could get ugly, my friends. Once the momentum shifts to the Republican Party after the mid-terms, the rabid base of the G.O.P. (the same crew who felt empowered to attack the U.S. Capitol) will feel entitled to scuttle the last two years of the Biden Presidency. There will be endless Congressional hearings on all manner of dubious conspiracy theories. This will inflame more violence, more right-wing militias strong-arming State governments, and more individual acts of terrorism under the banner of The Army of Jesus Christ or something similar.

No kidding.

Heaven help us if we experience another national emergency like the Covid-19 pandemic.

I foresee anarchy in the next two years followed by four years of extremely strong Executive Branch governing by the Republicans under DeSantis. It may appear to be autocratic government, quasi dictatorial in fashion; it won’t be the democracy that the Founders had in mind back in 1883.

Everything has its time, and democracy has squandered its opportunity.

On Tuesday, Lloyd, Mac and I drove up to Pine Valley Recreation Area in Utah. It is a beautiful valley located behind Pine Mountain, the 10,000’ peak that is the backdrop for the city of St. George. The valley up there reminds me of Big Bear in Southern California or maybe some nice place in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

It’s been hot here in Mesquite (high 100 to 110, low 80), so not much fun for hiking. Up in Pine Valley, where we started our hike at elevation 6,800’, the temperature was 48 degrees at 8:30 a.m.

Sweet!

We hiked up to and then along an old earthen canal in the woods that the original Mormon settlers built about 150 years ago. Back then, they did a lot of lumbering in the Valley and Lloyd said that some of the old growth Pine trees were used to build the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake. The canal originated at the head of a damned-up canyon and the water was used to power the sawmill.

(An interesting thing: many of the walking and hiking trails in the Valley are named after those early pioneers. I was amused by the old first names like Ebeneezer, Hezekiah, Ezekiel, and so forth: first names that no one uses today unless they’re Amish farmers in Pennsylvania. Lots of women’s first names have disappeared as well: Mildred, Gertrude, Edna, and my grandma’s Pearl. Time moves on, I suppose.)

We walked through the Pine forest for six miles and then stopped for lunch alongside a creek that had some Rainbow Trout in it. (Quite a beautiful valley, it is, and they have a campground there (no hookups) that accommodates Class A rigs. So, Charlie and I are thinking about going up there from time to time for a few days. Pine Valley is located only about 90 minutes from out home, so it is convenient.)

On our way back to Mesquite, we stopped for a minute at an old stagecoach rest stop (actually an old mine entrance that people could go into to get out of the heat adjacent to the Old Spanish Trail (which has been replaced by Highway 91). I went into the mine entrance about 30 feet but didn’t have the cojones to venture deeper: who knows who’s napping back in that cool lair!

Later that afternoon, Lloyd, Charlie and I went over to Casablanca Hotel and Casino for dinner and a spot of gaming. Dinner was good (General Tsao Chicken and Rice) and the gaming was even better, as I hit a Straight Flush on a video poker machine and won $76.25.

Sweet!

Today, I get to visit a dermatologist about a little growth just inside my right nostril. I hope he can snip it off or zap it with liquid nitrogen or something and make it go away. Tomorrow, I have an appointment with my tattoo artist up in St. George. And then, Thursday thru Sunday, Lloyd and I are going to enjoy the U.S. Open golf tournament on TV.

Happy Fathers’ Day to us and to all other fathers!

It’s mid-June here in Mesquite, Nevada and it’s f’ing HOT!

Our temperatures have been well over 100 degrees for most of the past two weeks. Yesterday and the day before, hit 112. Eeeeeeck! This is why we skedaddle north to the Oregon coast in the summer.

Not much going on around here, at least outside. Our friend Lloyd is staying with us right now, plotting his next life adventure. There is a possibility that he will relocate to South Africa to be with his on-again, off-again girlfriend Juanita. I think he already pays some of her expenses so maybe if he moves there he can get some return on investment. His house in the Yucatan, near the beach, was nice but not enough to entice Juanita, I guess. I hope he finds some happiness soon: he’s a good guy.

Lloyd, Mac (a neighbor) and I hiked up on the Arizona Strip yesterday morning. The Strip is an area of land that is right where Arizona, Nevada, and Utah borders come together. We hiked in a fairly nondescript mountainous area that was around 5,000 feet in elevation, plus or minus. What with the Megadrought affecting all flora and fauna in the area, we saw a few lizards, a chipmunk, one bird, a lot of very dry sagebrush, and many parched Juniper and Pine trees. No snakes, no deer, and only a few coyote footprints. There’s lean pickins out there right now for native wildlife.

The area that we hiked is traditionally a free-range cattle location. However, no cattle are there now because there is no water and no grass of any kind. It reminds me of the desolate Australian outback in one of those Mel Gibson dystopian Road Warrior movies.

You wouldn’t think that there would be many flies out there (no moisture of any kind!), but you’d be wrong. I had to make an emergency potty stop en route and deposited a nice, fresh turd in an arroyo. Before I could get my pants zipped up, there were about 500 flies that had come in from the surrounding area to feast on the steaming pile. “Spill on Aisle 4!!! Free picnic!!!” A humanitarian effort on my part; always thinking of the  not-so-fortunate.

You’re welcome, my friends!

We stopped after our 2-1/2 hour hike to roast some hot dogs and tell war stories. Lots of fun until the air started reaching 90 degrees; then we hopped into the air-conditioned car and headed 70 miles back to my scorching property in Mesquite.

Lloyd and I are going to do something stupid tomorrow afternoon: golf. I have a free pass for two at Conestoga Golf Course and it expires in August. This week will be my last chance to use the freebie, so we’ll go out into the 100-degree heat and wind tomorrow and roast ourselves. I last played more than a month ago and have only played twice in 2022. Conestoga is a tough layout, so I’ll be lucky to shoot in the low 90’s. Lloyd hasn’t played in a year, so the two of us are going to go through a few golf balls. (We will also be near death when we finish the 18^th hole at around 4 p.m.)

Charlie, Lloyd and I have been playing a lot of cards and Spinner dominoes lately in the cool confines of our dining room. It’s fun, we enjoy adult beverages, and many four-letter words are thrown about during the games. I’ve been on a winning streak lately; Charlie and Lloyd hate me.

By the way, Charlie recently got a photo of her long-lost biological father from some of his relatives back in New York.

I’ve got a date with a tattoo artist this coming week. He’s going to squeeze in a photo of Vinnie on my left bicep to go with the other dog tats that I have on that left upper arm.

And then, that’s it: no more dog tats. In fact, no more dogs. We have plenty (and we love all three of them).

I got the RV back from Freightliner in Hurricane, Utah last week. Everything seems to be in running order, all set for our 1,700-mile jaunt beginning on June 29^th.

I started a letter-writing campaign with the local water district General Manager. Not that it will make a difference, but I want he and his Board to know that they are irresponsible tools (of the big housing developers), mining the underground aquifer that we residents depend upon for survival. The G.M. assures everyone that the District has lots of “water rights” to take care of everyone now and in the future. The only problem is that there hasn’t been a study of what those water rights actually contain (like underground water) since 1968. It’s like the 22-year megadrought that we’re currently in has not been brought to their attention.

In the desert, actual water, not water rights, is what determines life or death.

We are ready to get the heck out of this oven. I like Oregon: lots of water and green living things.

(Update: Lloyd and I participated in the golf death march at Conestoga on Tuesday. Actually, it was only about 102 degrees with the wind blowing at 15 to 20 mph when we teed off… so it cooled us a bit. We were quite rusty and didn’t play that well for the first 9 holes. Then, Lloyd wanted to get “serious” about the scoring, thinking that he could beat me. I told him that I would play the back nine with only a 6 iron, tee to cup, while he could use all clubs.

He didn’t beat me.

We had a great time and we survived. Maybe we’ll try the Jack Nicklaus course before the 29th.)

I cannot remember in my lifetime any more consequential event than the Covid-19 Pandemic and all its consequences, in terms of health, economics, and societal repercussions.

The impacts of the Pandemic are still resonating, like aftershocks from a great earthquake, even as the medical emergency abates around the world.

In the United States, which suffered much more medical trauma than any other country, the economic rebound has been problematic. Businesses have reopened and customers have reappeared, but the labor market seems to be short (by some estimates) at least 4 million workers from pre-Pandemic levels.

No matter where you are in America, “Help Wanted” signs are plainly visible, particularly in businesses that traditionally paid low hourly wages. The hospitality industry has been particularly hard hit: hostesses, waiters, servers, cooks, dishwashers, etc. are sought by virtually every restaurant in the country.

Where did all these hospitality workers go? Why? Nobody knows for sure, but everyone has a theory.

A popular Conservative political answer is that the lost workers can make more money on “unemployment” and welfare than by working, so they’re living off the sweat of others. This is unlikely, as the unemployment benefits and impact of Federal stimulus checks ran out quite a while ago and employers are offering more hourly wages than they did before. There is no evidence that the welfare rolls have swelled, and jobs are plentiful.

A more likely scenario includes a combination of things, like folks permanently dropping out of the workforce (retiring), laborers not returning from Mexico because of work disruption, able-bodied workers changing to more dependable and better paying jobs, and some people, having had to work at home during the Pandemic, deciding to quit 9 to 5 jobs and do “gig” work or start their own home businesses.

Of course, we can account for around 250,000 Americans of working age who are no longer in the workforce: they died from Covid-19 during the Pandemic. But that’s only about 6 percent of the “missing” labor force.

The social impact of family members being cooped up at home during the Pandemic was frustrating and irritating for all involved. However, it is possible that this forced intimacy (between spouses, and between parent and child) had some positive impact, like reinforcing the family bond and reevaluating family function and economics. Some working Moms (and perhaps Dads) in a two-income family have decided to spend more time rearing the kids, perhaps home-schooling them (as many had to do during the school shutdowns). It is possible that newly-engineered family dynamics have impacted the workforce in this manner. Besides, those stay-at-home parents can now explore home business opportunities.

When the Pandemic began to wane and the economy regained its swagger, the stock market and home prices began a swift climb. The added equity in the portfolios of many Americans, particularly middle-aged ones, made it possible for them to consider early retirement. (Our youngest son Jeff and wife Carol, in their mid-50’s, are in this group.) Lots of older folks who were still working, but were eligible for Social Security, probably dropped out of the workforce during the business closures and never returned, deciding to put themselves out to pasture and enjoy their well-earned retirements before they croaked of Covid or something else.

It has been said that if every illegal Mexican working in California was to disappear tomorrow, the economy there (the eighth largest in the world) would collapse. That may be an exaggeration, but the dependence on Latin American laborers by American businesses is critical. Politics in recent years has made it more difficult for employers to hire these low-wage workers. And then came the Pandemic and the closed businesses, which forced many of these folks to return home to the farms in Mexico. It is very possible that a significant portion of our labor shortfall right now, particularly in the low-wages hospitality industry, stems from this problem. Many of those workers might want to come back but will have to deal with greedy “coyotes” (human smugglers) to return. And then, with a recession coming on, how long will their new employer stay in business?

One problem that we’ve noticed (my wife Charlie is a bookkeeper and tax preparer) is the impact that government policy has had on individuals who depend on “tips” for their income. To maximize income tax withholding, in the past several years the Feds and State governments enacted tax code requirements that targeted tip income. This reduced the income that these very-low-wage earners could take home, making their jobs (usually hospitality and salon work) marginally viable. When tips were run through the cash registers, some business owners would rake off a portion of the tip income or not honestly report it to their workers,  further screwing them. At some point, the overall take home pay for these workers hardly made ends meet. And then, the Pandemic came along, with many of these workers having no income for a very long time. What has probably happened is that these hard-working folks have simply moved on to more economically-viable blue collar jobs, leaving restaurants and salons chronically short-staffed even though they are now advertising higher wages.

One of the byproducts of this movement of low-skilled, low-wage workers up the food chain is that marginally-qualified people now occupy positions that require self=motivation and dedication. It is very common lately to experience bad service from these ex-burger flippers and landscapers. We had two experiences this week (and it’s only Wednesday!): (1) At the finest restaurant in our town, a classy steakhouse, we got poor service and an improperly cooked Prime Rib; and (2) Today, I drove 55 miles up to Hurricane, Utah to pick up my RV, which was being serviced at Freightliner (diesel truck repair). I called in the morning to make sure it would be ready, “Oh, yes, it’s ready!”, I drove for an hour, and then was told when I got there, “It’s not ready and the mechanic has gone to lunch; she’ll be back in an hour and a half.” I was highly annoyed. Also, the part that the mechanic had yet to install was identified as an “air dryer filter”. I asked the French-fry chomping, overweight Service Tech what that was. He called back to the shop and asked, “Is that part for the motorhome Air Conditioning system?” The guy in the shop almost laughed. “No, it is the dryer cartridge for the diesel engine compressed air system!” Holy crap, Freightliner has inexperienced doofuses working at the Service desk who don’t know anything about diesel engines! This out-of-his-league “Service Tech” needs to be sent back to Taco Bell.

Alas, that problem is cropping up everywhere.

You can’t fault the Taco Bell employees for wanting better pay and working conditions. It’s apparently the Year of the Worker, and unions are sniffing blood in the water. Employers are taking notice and upping the ante to shanghai other firms’ workers promising big raises. We noticed the other day a local restaurant that was offering $18 per hour; that’s probably 50 percent higher than pre-Pandemic.

Worldwide industry slowed to a crawl in 2020 and only got back up to steam by the end of 2021. So, there was a shortage of consumer goods. Then, when the Pandemic was easing, there was a pent-up demand for those goods, resulting in… manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers asking more money for those goods… INFLATION.

Adding fuel to the economic fire was the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Ukraine is a major player in the production of wheat and Russia is the world’s number two producer of oil. The politics of this war have driven the prices of wheat and oil skyhigh. And, so, we have even more… INFLATION. Higher energy costs impact every business and household.

With increasing inflation, family income doesn’t go as far as it did twelve or twenty-four months ago, so workers are even more anxious to find higher paying jobs. Hence, lots of job turnover as people are hopscotching around to the tune of the highest bidder.

The Federal Reserve Board is attempting to ameliorate inflation by increasing the cost of money, making business loans, consumer credit, and mortgages more expensive. This seemingly-inflationary tactic is designed to be like a backfire started by the Forest Service to stop a forest wildfire: theoretically, it will cool the overheated economy, there will be less production, less demand, and hopefully the whole situation will calm down. How long this will take is anyone’s guess… if it works.

Not that we need this problem right now, but the long-overdue corrections in the stock and housing price markets appear to be in the works. The Fed’s actions to increase lending costs is chilling enthusiasm by Wall Street speculators and higher interest rates will weed a lot of prospective buyers out of the housing market. Stock prices (therefore I.R.A. equity) and home values will stop rising and may actually drop, blowing up the financial planning dreams of many households.

There will be anger and a responsible party will have to be found. The “usual suspects” will ge those in power, so Joe Biden and the Democrats are in for an ass-whipping during the mid-term elections of 2022.

This kind of bloodletting is normal in American politics. What is different this time is the fact that the Nation is still healing from the disastrous four years of Donald Trump. Not only did he do a poor job as President, but he instilled a mistrust of government and democracy in general.

There exists in our country right now a despair that I have never seen regarding citizen confidence in their leaders. The two political parties are so consumed with finger-pointing and harsh rhetoric that absolutely nothing is getting done to solve any of the Nation’s pressing problems. The most popular politicians out there right now are the ones throwing the most gasoline on the fire.

It is doubtful that any leader will emerge in the next few years to rescue us from this shitstorm.

Is there any way to resurrect Abe Lincoln?

“Sportswashing”… have you heard the term?

It’s a play on whitewashing something, i.e. trying to cover up what’s underneath. In the case of sportswashing, it is a recent term that describes an effort by the sheikdom of Saudi Arabia to mask or clean up their filthy human rights image by hosting an international major sporting league. In the current case, a professional golf tour with enormous purses and guaranteed money for the players has been designed.

Instead of the PGA Tour, where the best players in the world compete against each other with no guaranteed payday each week, the Saudi International League (LIV) players will get regular paychecks supplemented by bonus money based on performance, so it will function more like the NFL or NBA.

That is to say they will be entertainers, rather than competitors, kind of like golfing Harlem Globetrotters. (Question: Can we then expect entourages, platinum teeth grilles, and after-hours exploits at strip-bars from these well-heeled golf celebrities?)

Who is going to want to be associated with this barnstorming tour funded by tainted lucre?

Well, it appears that there is a market for this league: used-to-be-good PGA and European Tour golfers in the 35 to 50 age range who cannot realistically compete with the young flatbellies and who are too “young” for the PGA Champions Tour, which starts at age 50. LIV “competitors” will be guys on the downhill side of their career.

Such a league, to fit in between the PGA and Champions tours, is probably an idea whose time has come. The only bad thing about LIV golf is that it’s a publicity stunt by the Saudi government sovereign wealth fund for the purpose making the robed princes of the desert seem more legitimate than they really are.

Dustin Johnson, who is 37 and was the world’s Number One ranked player just a few years ago, is the key hireling of the LIV of the operation and was guaranteed $125 million to legitimize the league. (His father-in-law, hockey great Wayne Gretsky, must be proud.)

Phil Mickelson, a 51-year-old who won the PGA Championship in 2021, was previously slated to be the centerpiece of the LIV Tour but was shamed by the PGA and the media when it was announced a while back. He’s disappeared from public view, trying to figure out how to rehabilitate his image or come up with a new get-rich-quick scheme. Other “names” who are going to dip their beaks into the Saudi money trough include Sergio Garcia and a bunch of British used-to-be’s from the European golf tour.

I can see why washed-up players might be attracted to this Tour: oodles of money at a time when their earning potential from golf is limited and not-guaranteed. However, the source of the money makes decent people cringe.

These once-famous guys could also make money from doing porn movies, stealing Social Security checks from mailboxes, participating in Ponzi schemes, or becoming born-again televangelists… and hold their heads higher.

I wonder how they will sleep at night, knowing that they are being used to legitimize a shamelessly corrupt regime of bloodthirsty killers. Does anyone remember that 90 percent of the 9-11 bombing terrorists were Saudis, funded by Saudi royals.

Sportswashing is not exactly a new phenomenon. It was first done by Adoph Hitler in 1936 when the Nazis hosted the Olympics, trying to focus attention on his “superior” Aryan Race, while his Brown Shirts brutalized Jewish citizens in Germany.

Had the idea for a new, Washed-Up-Players League been sponsored by Nike, Rolex, or Elon Musk, I think it would have been welcomed by the PGA, the press, and the public. Why not give these used-to-be-famous guys a chance to make money while awaiting eligibility for the Senior (Champions) Tour? It makes sense in that way.

It would have been just the ticket for Rickie Fowler, a one-time hot shot now in his Thirties who can’t seem to get the ball into the cup anymore. Rickie, a handsome, engaging fellow liked by everyone, was a darling of the press and was in hundreds of commercials when he was younger. He’s an average player now, perfect for this exhibition league. And he likes money, fancy things, and notoriety.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Rickie, who once attended high school with my grandchildren in Murrieta, soils himself by signing up for the Blood Money Tour.

I hope he doesn’t.

However, maybe I just don’t get it, being the traditionalist that I am. Money has never been that important to me; I have never considered as the Measuring Stick of Life. Many people do, I guess, and will do whatever it takes to “succeed” in this way. If I had to make my income hawking phony “blessed” trinkets to gullible 90-year-old, TV-watching Christian spinsters, I’d shoot myself.

I may re-evaluate this position when Social Security and my County pension go down the tubes during the upcoming recession.

Hard times call for hard decisions, I suppose.