Here are the topics for this week: Olympic news; b--- s--- vs. lies; conventional warfare; the Purple Heart; political time out; globalization; job retraining.

Rio, 2016. Let the games begin, but as columnist John Feinstein notes, the games may well be saved,  yet again, by the athletes. 

But the Olympics have jumped the shark. They are too big, too corrupt and far too expensive. Countries that agree to host the Games go into massive debt to build facilities and infrastructure. Many of these facilities, built to satisfy the IOC’s need to feed its collective ego with sparkling new buildings, will become white elephants the instant the torch is extinguished on Aug. 21.

I can attest to the truth of his two last comments. Some times the results are even worse than mere "white elephants." On a visit to Moscow in 1982, I witnessed the total dismantling of all the athletes' 1980 Olympic apartment buildings. I asked my Intourist guide, "Why? Surely there are Muscovites who could use them." "Poor concrete," she said. Upon closer examination she appeared to be correct: the massive pre-cast slabs being discarded would never have passed building inspection in Denver.

Rio, TV coverage. Washington Post columnist, Sally Jenkins, takes TV executives to task for their "packaging" strategy. Why, she wonders, is coverage of an Olympic event tape delayed, shortened, and packaged, but not the second quarter of an NFL football game? It may well have to do that there is simply so much going on -- all at once and in different venues. It is not physically feasible or economically worthwhile to broadcast every event in it's entirety.

Rio and doping. In another Olympic story, Ms. Jenkins floats what can only be classified as a sure-fire, highly controversial trial balloon: consign athletic performance enhancing drug (PED) testing to the same dust bin as our failed prohibition experiment.

It’s a failed social experiment that has yielded nothing but a larger form of corruption, a crooked self-dealing bureaucracy headed by a bunch of careerist drones trying to legislate a morality they themselves do not possess....[A] portentous bureaucracy that exhibits more pratfalls than a Charlie Chaplin film....Prohibition warped law enforcement and overburdened the court system and created all kinds of needless harm and black market poisons. The doping movement has done the same. Athletes should be permitted to consider performance enhancement as a matter of personal conscience and moderate it as they choose, with the above-board advice of their doctors and trainers. It would be a cleaner system for all.

BS vs a lie, a crucial difference. I leave it to you to judge the content of what you hear/see from the presidential and down-ballot candidates, but Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria is correct, BS and outright lies are not the same.

The new Cold War. One of the notable "non-events" of the now passed Cold War was any outright conventional battles between the USSR and the US. Yes, there isolated clashes. Yes, civilians trying to flee East Germany were shot. Yes, armed uprisings behind the Iron Curtain were brutally suppressed. Yes, armed military units were poised several times, in divided Berlin and along the East and West German borders. However, there was no open large-scale conflict.
     In this little noted article, retired US Army Lt. Gen. Scales, looks at the recent Ukrainian conflict, pointedly noting the absolute effectiveness of Russian artillery. In "the July 2014 Battle of Zelenopillya, in which a single Russian artillery 'fire strike' almost destroyed two Ukrainian mechanized battalions in a few minutes.....“You know, guys,” I mused in the moment, “this is the first time since the beginning of the Cold War that an American {supplied] war-fighting function has been bested by a foreign military.”
     General Scales unwittingly draws an unmentioned parallel with the Spanish Civil War. In helping Franco's fascist forces defeat the (not too democratic) Republicans, Germany tested/perfected some of its later WW II tactics.

The Purple Heart, Wednesday, August 7, 1782. President George Washington created the Order of the Purple Heart, the nation's oldest military decoration. It was originally designated the Badge of Military Merit.

Political reset time? In an op-ed column, Barton Swaim wonders, should "2016...make us rethink our approach to politicians?" He begins,  

Those of us on the right who oppose Donald Trump’s candidacy are, in one sense, to be pitied. The choice between clownish and vitriolic populism, on the one hand, and Clintonian knavery, on the other, is not one we ever wanted to make. We are bewildered and, for this election year at least, [enviably] emotionally detached.

Perhaps he has a point for us all, right and left. A necessary adult "time out?"

Demean at your own peril, empathy needed. E.A. Dionne Jr. notes that everyone need take note of the open and consequential "rage" that motivates many Trump's supporters.

[U]nderstanding what still attracts many voters to Trump is important, not only to those who want to prevent Trump from staging a comeback but also to anyone who wants to make our democracy thrive in the long run. Those of us who are horrified by Trump’s hideous lack of empathy need empathy ourselves.

     The comments of Dionne, Samuelson (following store), and others all point to a largely unaddressed need for America and most other nations: expanded educational opportunities and retraining for woefully under-prepared work forces for whom their "old" jobs simply no longer exist. Politicians and candidates who blather on and on about "job creation" beg the question, "what sort of jobs?" Unhappily today's reality is all too often, "under educated, low paying and service sector."

Globalization, the culprit?  Economic columnist Robert J. Samuelson thinks not.

Though trade has helped reshape U.S. manufacturing, it is only one force of many. The appeal of making it the prime villain is political and psychological. We can blame manufacturing’s problems and dislocations on foreigners and disloyal American multinational firms. If they behaved better, the U.S. economy would improve. There is some truth to this, but it is hardly the whole truth — as the case of steel shows....Though trade has helped reshape U.S. manufacturing, it is only one force of many. The appeal of making it the prime villain is political and psychological. We can blame manufacturing’s problems and dislocations on foreigners and disloyal American multinational firms. If they behaved better, the U.S. economy would improve. There is some truth to this, but it is hardly the whole truth — as the case of steel shows.

Retraining and male nursing. Some years ago I remember a story from the Pittsburgh [PA] Post-Gazette which talked of the early days when steel jobs were disappearing and there was that initial flood of unemployment. A registered supervising nurse, whose husband was now unemployed, noted the shortage of nurses in the area and boldly began recruiting some rather unlikely nursing candidates, her reluctant husband included.
     Initially it was a "tough sell," but she slowly gained ground. Many of those unemployed "steelers" were happy, proud to be learning new skills, finding jobs, and fulfilling a need in the area hospitals. Male nursing found traction in other areas around the country.

Thank you for reading.