Here are the topics for this week's blog: The Donald vs. The House (of Commons); the real Mr. Conservative; she's baaaaaack!; the media; America's future.

Mr. Speaker.... The Washington Post's Dana Milbank recently wrote about the uproar in the British House of Commons as the MPs, even though lacking legal authority, considered the questions: "Is Donald Trump dangerous? Or is he merely a buffoon?" Milbank notes that Commons was moved to consider banning Mr. Trump from Great Britain after, Half a million Britons, reacting to Trump’s pledge to ban Muslims from entering the United States, had signed a petition calling for Trump to be banned from Britain. A travel ban is up to the Home Office, not Parliament, but legislators decided to have a debate because, as Labour MP Paul Flynn said in introducing the topic, “it is very difficult to ignore the vox pop.”
     One of the joys of the internet is being able to stream events from abroad and so you could listen to this very, very British debate in the Grand Committee Room in Westminster Hall. The discussion was, for the most part, so civilized, so understated that an American audience might not have realized they were watching British parliamentarians in action.

William [F. Buckley] where are you now? In his Saturday column, Milbank noted that the National Review, stalwart bastion of the Republican conservative establishment, had printed an editorial very critical of Trump. The difference between the urbane, thoughtful Buckley and the "unmoored" Trump calls to mind the Grand Canyon. Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones....a menace to American conservatism who would take the work of generations and trample it underfoot in behalf of a populism as heedless and crude as the Donald himself. In swift order, the national Republican National Committee withdrew its invitation for National Review to host yet another Republican candidate debate next month. One can only wonder who will be "eating crow" in a few week's time.
     Milbank concluded, That soft flapping sound you hear is the Grand Old Party waving the flag of surrender to Trump. Party elites — what’s left of the now-derided “establishment” — are acquiescing to the once inconceivable: that a xenophobic and bigoted showman is now the face of the Republican Party and of American conservatism.

A reprise for The Sarah. The late famed sports commentator, Howard Cosell, was often referred to as "the mouth." This past week "the mouth" of American politics, Sarah Palin, re-emerged on the 2016 presidential scene to endorse The Donald. Now the talking heads of politics, English grammarians, and late night talk show hosts all have a new -- and constant -- source for their latest comments, prognostications, and humor. Columnist Fareed Zakaria quotes an unidentified European chief executive whose comment on the world's economic situation seem apropos to our presidential contest: "We’re moving into a very difficult world. We need grown-ups in charge.”
     Columnist Kathleen Parker notes, "The challenge for those of us in the observation business is to illuminate what’s plainly obvious without offending those who prefer not to see. But there’s no winning once passions are engaged, and hating the messenger is a time-honored tradition."

The knight in shinning armor? Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the nonpartisan American Enterprise Institute, writes that a strong independent candidate in November  2016 might well be a nightmare.  "[A]t least theoretically, a strong independent candidate might attract some partisans on both sides who believe he or she has a better chance than their own party’s candidate to thwart the evil candidate from the hated other party"
     But, because our presidents are chosen by the electoral college, not popular vote, the election might well be thrown into the House of Representatives where states vote as 50 delegations, not individual representatives.  The current line up of state delegations: 33 Republican, 3 evenly split, 14 Democrat. Most likely result: a politically weakened president lacking a meaningful mantle of legitimacy.

And in closing, Jennifer Rubin lists "6 things the media needs to stop doing this election cycle." Not that it is likely to happen, but take a look at her column if you're interested.

What lies ahead? The NY Times headline for Edurado Porter's story is meant to get your attention: "America's best days may be behind it." Porter posits that,  "[this very idea] lies at the heart of the current political unrest. And it is about to elbow its way forcefully into the national conversation."           Further food for thought come in The Rise and Fall of American Growth, by Robert J. Gordon, professor of economics at Northwestern University, who writes in the introduction, that in the end he “[doubts] that the standard of living of today’s youths will double that of their parents, unlike the standard of living of each previous generation of Americans back to the late 19th century.”
     Gordon notes with apprehension these coming problems: less technological innovation; an aging work force, including women; fewer gains in education; growing concentration of income; declining total productivity. On the bright side, economics has few reliable long-term models and the future of scientific progress is equally hard to predict.

The really, really big snow. On several CLOSE UP government studies trips to D.C. with my students, we experienced just how little it takes to shut down the nation's capital. This last storm would have been "fun" for CO students; having come from Denver, they would have had the necessary outer wear to enjoy the snow, though for many this might have been their first wet, eastern, "non-powder" blizzard. Great for snow forts, snow ball fights, etc. On one past snowy trip, the CLOSE UP staff, stuck in the hotel with 400+ students, wisely called a mid-afternoon break to lose the cabin fever with fort-building and then snow ball maneuvers. Great fun!

Thank you for reading. If you were snowed in, go slowly when shoveling out.

Here is the lineup for this delayed blog: cruise notes; a gun gift; what/who is corrupt; word of the year?; pay for college athletic directors.

Cruise notes. This blog was delayed while I was taking my raditional early winter family trip to get my sister out of the northwestern PA snow belt. Everyone enjoyed the warmth and leisurely pace traveling round trip Miami, 4 sea days plus stops in San Juan (Puerto Rico), St. Thomas, and St. Maartin.

Win an engraved shotgun? We can begin to grasp the outrageous extent of the gun culture in the US when Sen. Cruz's presidential campaign is raffling off an engraved shotgun. Of course, the winner can chose the alternative gift, an autographed copy of Cruz's book, A Time for Truth. Want to bet on the winner's choice?

Really, should I? Columnist George Will's column last Thursday discusses the plight of former VA governor, Robert F. McDonnell. What should be the appropriate definition of "quid pro quo?" McDonnell's conviction on bribery charges has been upheld by an appeals court and the Supreme Court has taken his appeal to decide whether or not he was "one step over the line, sweet Jesus." Mr. Will includes these two quotes from the late Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis.

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.  and  Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent.


Thā? Singular "they," the gender-neutral pronoun, has been named the Word of the Year by a crowd of over 200 linguists at the American Dialect Society's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Really?

College education. If you thought college might be first and foremost about education, think again. The school's loftiest, most admired, world-famous professor may be paid not much more than a building custodian. The only comeuppance for the most colleges' athletic director may be that he is probably being paid less than the head football and/or basketball coach. Remember Forrest Gump: "Stupid is as stupid does"?

Thank you for reading.

Here are this week's topics: suburban problems; Christmas news best forgotten; a great height revisited; governmental absurdities; the new space exploration; a volcano story; your life's inspiration; a quiet disaster; how to fight ISIS; Roll Call's quips of 2015; the final season; wildlife photos.

Suburbia blues. It probably never occurred to those moving "up" to the suburbs that somewhere down the road, their new place of residence might become the proverbial two-edged sword. A recent Washington Post article dealt with the unforeseen problems when a suburbanite becomes unemployed and is forced to rely on public transportation to get to prospective job locations.
     A news item near year's end noted that middle class whites were dying at an alarming rate, that the only comparable statistic among white men was when the USSR faded to black and alcoholism rose alarmingly. Fareed Zakaria wrote recently, The United States is going through a great power shift. Working-class whites don’t think of themselves as an elite group. But, in a sense, they have been, certainly compared with blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and most immigrants. They were central to America’s economy, its society, indeed its very identity. They are not anymore. Donald Trump has promised that he will change this and make them win again. But he can’t. No one can. And deep down, they know it. 

Christmas Day mayhem. From the Washington Post comes this sad story about gun violence in America. The number of Americans killed in gun homicides on Christmas Day is comparable to the number of people killed in gun homicides in an entire year in places like Australia or Britain. The 27 people killed by guns in America on Christmas this year is equal to the total number of people killed in gun homicides in an entire year in Austria, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Estonia, Bermuda, Hong Kong and Iceland, combined. By the  bye, the total of 27 does not include the unreported number of Christmas Day suicides.


Mt. Everest. The world's tallest mountain (known by many names, aka, Sagarmāthā [Nepalese], Chomolungma [Tibetan], Goddess Mother of the Earth, among others) has long been of interest to me. Everest's mountaineering history was the subject of my long-ago high school senior-year English project (1959). I recently came across a book note for The Keeper of the Mountains: The Elizabeth Hawley Story, (Bernadette McDonald, Rocky Mountain Books, 2012).
     I have long been fascinated by stories by/about women who have been world travelers. This book is a revision of I'll Call You in Kathmandu: the Elizabeth McDonald Story by the same author.
     Climbers are often asked why they climb. Of her long residence in Nepal, Mrs. Hawley says, "I came to Nepal. I never planned to stay. I just never left." She provides fascinating details about mountaineering, Kathmandu, and Nepal.
     Seems that Mrs. Hawley is the "....foremost authority on Himalayan climbing and 'a one-woman Nepal Himalayan mountaineering institution.' " She has compiled lengthy pre- and post-climb interviews with each expedition leader (sometimes members) for every climb originating in Nepal since September 1960. Where possible, she had added files for the climbs of the North Face originating in Tibet (China).
     Those expedition leaders who have been to Everest before are not at all surprised when their hotel phone rings just as they are checking in and find the 92 year-old Mrs. Hawley on the line wanting information about their upcoming climb. She goes to them because her humble abode is, she say, "rather hard to find."

Would you believe? Columnist George Will bid goodbye to 2015 with this column of governmental absurdities and overreaches. Oh, my! The line, "How low can you go?," came to mind as I read his list of ridiculousness.

The shoe on the other foot. Professor Bahrani (professor of journalism at American University in Dubai) presents a lucid, straightforward discussion of what the Muslim world needs to do to counter the west's all too prevalent "anti-" view.

Space X et. al. Columnist Charles Krauthammer writes that America's next space age will be increasingly in the hands of private enterprise. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and their other billionaire friends will be the new Fords, Wrights, Bells, Edisons, et. al. Later, as I read David Ignatius's column (The next president will face tricky military questions), I wondered,  "How will that president fare with a military establishment largely schooled in the past?" Ignatius writes, The first reality check for a new president will be the Pentagon. This generation of military leaders has been through traumatic wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They’ve cautioned President Obama about the potential cost in lives and money of new commitments in the Middle East, and they’ll do the same with the next commander in chief. If you want to hear arguments against deploying a big U.S. ground force in Syria, just ask a general.

Not Yogi's Y[J]ellowstone? The Last Volcano (John Dvorak, Pegasus, 2016) examines the life of the early volcanologist, Thomas Jagger, who studied the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelee in the Antilles. In his book review, Steve Donoghue, reminds us that, like Jagger, we live on a "quietly terrifying [and] tectonically active planet" and that volcanic eruptions have in the past "ended life on a truly massive scale." For me here in Denver, there is this simple fact: "If the so-called 'supervolcano' underneath Yellowstone National Park were to undergo a general eruption, 100,000 people would die, and half the [western] hemisphere would be blanketed in a foot of ash." I'll try not to worry too much in 2016.

J.Edgar Hoover's list. Read this column and in retrospect you can only chuckle about how Frank Askin (general counsel emeritus at the American Civil Liberties Union and the director of the Constitutional Rights Clinic at the Rutgers School of Law) occasionally profited from his FBI file. Did you do anything to warrant Jed-Gers's attention? (To those of you old enough to remember "Laugh In," my apologies to Lilly Tomlin.)

Methane leak. From the High Country News, "In the hills above suburban Los Angeles, a man-made natural disaster of sorts has been unfolding for nearly two months. One can't see it or hear it, and it's not leaving a trail of dead animals and plants in its wake. It's potentially catastrophic, nonetheless." A methane leak of gigantic proportions: more green house gases released in two months than a coal mine does in a year.

The necessary long haul. Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor for the Washington Post, opines about the ongoing contest with ISIS. He finds useful ideas from former Secretary of State of State, not from Republicans Trump or Cruz. Hiatt believes there is no "easy way out for the United States in the fight against terrorism." According to Secretary Clinton, the United States needs to wage both “an immediate war against an urgent enemy” and “a generational struggle against an ideology with deep roots. [This] will require sustained commitment in every pillar of American power. This is a worldwide fight, and America must lead it.”

2015, Capitol Hill in cartoons. Here is the link to the year in review from Roll Call. Have a final chuckle.

The fascination with things British.  Downton Abbey, the PBS award winning series, has begun its sixth and final season. One wonders, why are so many people worldwide drawn to this tale of the ups, now downs, of British aristocracy? Certainly the writing and acting are masterful, but I cannot help but feel there is more to it than this. Your thoughts?

Animals in the wild. Last, here are a series of rather amazing wildlife photos captured by trip-wired, hidden cameras. Had they been available, like CBS's Sunday Morning, I would have used them to close out 2015.

Thank you for beginning 2016 with me.