HE OR SHE WHO DENIES ENDS UP BY TELLING LIES — IT'S THAT SIMPLE!

By Edwin Cooney

I probably take too much pride in bragging about my positive and forward-looking nature. I'll probably continue to insist, despite what I'm about to relate to you, that optimism is one of the "better angels” of my nature.

My visit to Northern California to see my two lads, their ladies, my three granddaughters and one great grandson was supposed to go from Wednesday, April 13th through Tuesday, April 19th. While there, I also hoped to have meals and "some good cheer" with several friends. Much to my chagrin, Covid violated my denial system, thereby causing me to put the health of some mighty precious people at risk.

Between Wednesday and Saturday, I began to feel sluggish and a tad achy. The feeling was the most intense on Saturday and I should have asked my son to test me for Covid that day, but I didn't so he didn't. All the family came for Easter dinner and we all had a good time. There were hugs, much nearness, and numerous photographs taken all day. Sunday night, feeling less than energetic, I asked to be tested for Covid after all had left and was twice obliged. The results were positive and I had to face the very unpleasant reality that I had carelessly exposed my most precious people to Covid-19. Naughty! Selfish! Self-indulgent dad, granddad, great granddad, and friend! 

Of course, I had fully exercised my freedom to decide for myself whether or not I was sick, but in so doing, I endangered the health and safety of others. I had no constitutional or other moral right to endanger anyone else’s well-being!

My symptoms were minor. I had no shortness of breath, I coughed little if at all, and I certainly did not need to be hospitalized. Fortunately, even now, a week later, I haven’t heard that any friend or family member has also come down with Covid.

It's possible and even likely that had I been tested the day of my departure, I would not have tested positive for the disease, but I'm certain that had I been tested on Easter Eve, I would have.

The only upside for me is that I got to spend two additional days with my lads and with my younger son's very sweet lady Alondra who, as of this week, is a reader of these weekly musings!

My sad and sorry behavior requires me to ask this inevitable question once again:

How often, when we take into account our demand for individual freedom, do we concern ourselves sufficiently with the freedom and comfort of others?

This last week I badly failed as a good citizen and as a human being! What I wanted to be real wasn't at all real! My intentions might have been both genuine and good, but both you and I know that the road to disaster is paved with good intentions!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

IT'S ALL ABOUT YOU — IT'S GOTTA BE — IT'S BASEBALL, AFTER ALL!

By Edwin Cooney

Who says Americans hate to be snookered? Every time a baseball fan turns on a radio, or television or signs on to a computer or phone, he or she is welcomed to the broadcast of “your" New York Yankees or Mets, or “your” Dodgers or Angels, Giants or Cubs. Hence, for at least the next three or four hours, "your" major league baseball team either thrills you with its inevitable winning destiny or, like the old Brooklyn Dodgers between 1941 and 1955, insists that you “wait till next year!”

Even more than a "game of inches" (as some call it), baseball's inevitably a game of personal identification. According to a recent Forbes magazine statistic, there are only 442 billionaires currently living in America. Hell! That won't even fill Yankee Stadium! There are, however (I’m guessing, of course), say 50,000,000 baseball fans at least and several million believe that they listen or watch their “own” Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels, Cubs, Giants or Cardinals on a daily basis.

I've “owned” the Yankees since my far from wealthy Uncle Joe gave them to me in the summer of 1954. I've only met two Yankee players: I met Elston Howard in February of 1964 when he spoke at a Robert Morris School sports dinner in Batavia, New York. Then, in 1981, I met Billy Martin when he was managing the Oakland Athletics to a remarkable season that ultimately took the A’s to the playoffs where they lost to — you guessed it! — the New York Yankees. Once, as a teenager when Roger Maris hit a homer, I jumped up and down yelling, "That's my Roger!”  Well — he wasn't “my” Roger any more than the Yankees were “my” Yankees. Even today, in anticipation of the new season, I'm longing to hear that Aaron Judge, the 6 foot 7 inch, 282 pound slugger and defensive phenomenon, has signed a long-term Yankees contract that will keep him in pinstripes for another six, eight, or even ten years. It hasn't occurred as I write this and I'm anxious.

As I've written in these pages in recent years, the more I know about any player, the closer I feel to the game. I don't know as much about Aaron Judge as I'd like to and some of what I've heard lately has been a little disheartening. First, he says he wants to be a Yankee until he retires. The Yankees (unofficially, of course) say they want him to be a Yankee as long as he plays. Yet, they haven't agreed on a one-year extension of his contract and may even have to go to arbitration to settle it. So, one wonders, if they can't agree on a one-year extension, what would help them agree? Then there's the fact that Aaron Judge hasn't gotten the vaccine to prevent Covid. One has to wonder if this is a matter of religion versus science or, even worse, if my hero is a “Donald Trump” type? Finally, on the subject of Aaron Judge, I'm pleased to know that he got married to his longtime sweetheart, 28-year-old Samantha Bracksieck, last December 12th in Hawaii.

I'm far, far from alone as I anticipate the season's first pitch of 2022. There's so much to look forward to since the designated hitter has finally encompassed all of baseball making more jobs for older players who have the blessed gift of hitting but who don't run or field as well as the average player. After all, Ted Williams asserted throughout his career and life that hitting a baseball is the hardest single thing to do in sports! It's only right that an older player who has the ability to hit a baseball get to play until he is as old as football quarterback Tom Brady who may well be playing until he's 70! Other changes include wider bases. Also, more teams will be eligible to participate in the playoffs. Then, there's the introduction recently of PitchCom, a wearable communication device that enables players to send encrypted signs to each other during games which can't be “stolen” by the other team. A manager can signal a baserunner when to run and when not to, for example. (This is potentially game-changing technology.)

For some years now, women have been entering major league baseball through the broadcast booth and the public address systems in the big league ballparks with Yankees’ broadcaster Suzyn Waldman probably the most prominent among them. Finally and most dramatically, on Monday, January 11th, 2022, the Yankees announced that Rachel Balkovec will manage the Single-A Tampa Tarpons, the Yankee's affiliate in the Florida State League.

Like everything in life, baseball is both old and new, thrilling and disappointing, all at the same time. Since I began writing this two days ago, I've learned that Aaron Judge and the Yankees were unable to strike a deal and therefore my favorite Yankee may play with another team beginning in 2023! I'll just have to let myself enjoy to the max the time he remains with the team and pray that he decides before 2023 to continue being a superstar for the Yankees! As I asserted at the outset, baseball is very, very personal!

I have a friend who reads these columns from time to time. I'll call him “Massachusetts Ken.” He thinks his father gave him the Yankees around 1958, but he's since become a Red Sox rooter. So, they're all mine now, Ken!

Part of being a fan or  “fanatic” is the submergence and then the return of reality. It can at times be as personal as a body blow, but that's up to you! That's what makes it so personal!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY  

WELCOME TO THE ERA OF POLITICAL PAYBACK!

By Edwin Cooney

I hope you often wonder why Congress isn't generally working for you and me! I'm convinced I know the answer, but before I tell you, I will first make my case with a set of questions.

(1.) Why does the party which is out of executive power offer their version of the State of the Union? After all, the Constitution requires the president to give such an annual report. According to senate.gov, until 1966, following President Lyndon B. Johnson's moving the State of the Union address from afternoon to evening thus tripling the national audience through television, Senator Everett M. Dirksen and House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford took advantage of equal time rules for national radio and television to respond to LBJ thus politically institutionalizing the president's constitutionally required obligation. It was indeed an advantageous breakthrough for the national political circus! 

(2.) What were the political forces that prevented LBJ from successfully confirming Abe Fortas and, later, Homer Thornberry to the Supreme Court in 1968? Besides the fact that both men were political and social rogues, Southern Conservatives and GOP Conservatives were determined to blunt the “progressive" agenda and power of the Warren court.

(3.) Why were Judges G. Harrold Carswell and Clement Haynsworth, President Nixon's first two "strict constructionist” nominees to the Supreme Court, rejected by the U. S. Senate in 1969 and 1970? The answer is that Democratic Senate leaders were suspicious of President Nixon's political "southern strategy” when it came to both politics and jurisprudence.

(4.) Why did Congress reject President Nixon's “Family Assistance Plan” which included a strong healthcare program? The primary reason was because Senator Edward M. Kennedy considered healthcare his bailiwick, not Nixon's! Hence, Senators Birch Bayh, Mike Mansfield, and others were determined to keep healthcare a Democratic issue rather than a Republican one!    

(5.) Why, primarily, did the Democratic Senate block the confirmation of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987? There were two reasons for that. The first was Bork's opposition to Roe vs. Wade. More importantly, Robert Bork as acting Attorney General in 1973 had done Nixon's "dastardly dirty work" when he officially dismissed Archibald Cox and William Ruckelshaus during the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” of October 20th, 1973. (Note: Though I now shamefully bare this prejudice against Bork's Saturday night skullduggery, during the confirmation hearing I thoroughly enjoyed Bork's scholarly explanation as he steadily puffed on cigarettes throughout his testimony. He should have been confirmed because he was highly qualified and intellectually honest. Besides, he was legally within his right to dismiss Cox and Ruckelshaus not having been a part of the original agreement that appointed Cox as Watergate special prosecutor and Ruckelshaus as his assistant in May of 1973.)

(6.) What lay behind the Congress’s chronic opposition to President Bill Clinton's presidential incumbency? The answer is twofold. Bill Clinton was a draft evader. He was also a womanizer. Republicans insisted throughout his presidency that one of these tendencies was unpatriotic and the other was immoral. All Republicans were thus patriotically and morally superior to President Bill Clinton.

(7.) Why did the Conservative-oriented Supreme Court stop the vote counting in Florida in December of 2000? Since Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was planning to retire, a Democratic president may well have endangered the Conservative majority on the high court.

(8.) Why did the GOP Senate (which had considered itself the “guardian” of constitutional law and order since the days that FDR sought to pack the court) deny Merrick Garland even a hearing for confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2016? The answer is pure and simple politics. They did it because they had the votes and the will to do it. It certainly had nothing to do with patriotism or national security!

(9.) Why did the United States Senate twice declare President Donald J. Trump not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors? For the same reason that the 1999 session of the Senate declared Bill Clinton not guilty of the same: because they had the votes and the will! (Note: I'm convinced that President William Jefferson Clinton was guilty of obstruction of justice and Al Gore should have been the 43rd President of the United States of America!)

(10.) It's likely, unless the Democrats make a huge political issue of it during the coming campaign, that the GOP —  with majorities in both houses — will stop pursuing what occurred on January 6th, 2021, thus freeing Donald Trump of all responsibility and, above all, accountability for clearly conspiratorial sedition!

During this past week, we heard a Republican Senator admit that although Ketanji Jackson Brown is fully qualified to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, he won't vote for her — probably because QAnon won't support her either. NUTS!

Moral and political objectivity and judgment have, during recent decades,  been literally choked to death by both hands of all parties.  The fingers of these choking hands have been conservatism, liberalism, progressivism, isolationism, imperialism, materialism, greed, and ambition. The thumbs of these hands have been fear and prejudice. The palms of these hands have been hatred and self-centeredness.

Perfection is, of course, beyond human capacity. Still, we're at this sorry pass because we've become disciples rather than mere advocates of our rights. Even worse, it often appears that no one else's rights, feelings or even existence much matters to us!

Here's an irony for you! Robert Bork's most famous — or infamous — book is 

“Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline.” Personally, I'd substitute the word “liberalism” with the phrase “self-righteous-ism.”  

"Slouching towards Gomorrah: Modern Self-Righteous-ism and American Decline."

Robert Bork's identification of "liberalism" being the cause of American decline is way too narrow a charge. Unfortunately in 21st century America, too many of us have substituted love of political doctrine and even our favorite political party for love of country and love for one another!  

What say you?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY