Here Are Your 2019 Chicago Cubs!

In the wake of perhaps the most disappointing 95-win season in baseball history, the Chicago Cubs begin another season today. Even with the ascendant Bears garnering disproportionate amounts of media attention, the Cubs remain the topic on everyone's lips.

Why didn't they pursue Bryce Harper? Why didn't they pursue Manny Machado? Why didn't they sign a front-line reliever? Why didn't they extend Joe Maddon's contract? Why didn't they can Joe Maddon? How are they going to compete by standing still?

Cubulous Nervosa generates many, many questions. The only known cure is to take a deep breath and slowly exhale.

Yes, last season was one of the most perplexing and aggravating on record. An offense that would vanish like a magician's prop. The disastrous signings of not one, but two, free-agent pitchers. A profound early-season slump by the usually reliable Anthony Rizzo and an injury-plagued, below-par year from Kris Bryant.

Not to mention late-season injuries to Brandon Morrow and Pedro Strop.

And yet the Cubs still won 95 games. Contended for the division flag until the last day of the season against the surging Milwaukee Brewers. A run here and a run there and that irksome wild card game against the Colorado Rockies never would have happened.

If Maddon didn't prove his worth and the Cubs their mettle last season, I don't know when they have.

Alas, we live in a microwave culture. Expectations rise like the temperature inside a parked car. 2016 might as well be 1908. 

And when these new expectations aren't met, the people take to social media and howl.

As your friendly, web-based contrarian, I'm going to suggest that 2018 was an aberration, not the beginning of a trend. I'm going to suggest that we should be praising Theo Epstein for resisting the public mania for brand name free-agents.

Not that Epstein is without fault. I'm not crazy about his public calling-out of Maddon. But as Maddon himself would admit, it's the manager's lot to take the blame for whatever perceived failure his team accrues.

Not winning the 2018 World Series doesn't constitute heresy in my book. And I'm not sure not winning the 2019 edition qualifies, either. I think the Cub nation needs to take a deep breath and consider where it is.

It has evolved from wondering if haplessness is a permanent condition to demanding world championships every year. It must remember the quantum leap the objects of its affection have made.

My two-cents says that if fans can't quit obsessing whenever the Cubs don't pitch a no-hitter every time out and if certain quarters of the media don't stop turning every molehill into a tabloid-worthy mountain, all assembled might have seen their last World Series trophy.

I'll say it again: the Cubs have scaled heights unseen at Wrigley Field since the Great Depression, and ones unimaginable as recently as 2013. You remember 2013, don't you?

But they need a little breathing room. They need a little less scrutiny. It's okay if Hendricks occasionally goes four innings or if Bryant is hitless in four at bats. It's not the end of the world.

Counter to Mr. Epstein's appraisal, consistently winning two out of three would be wildly and exuberantly splendiferous. My therapist assures me 108 wins would give the Cubs the NL Central title and home field for as long as they want it.

Last year was just.....weird. It's not going to happen again. And with the season-long presence of a fully rehabilitated Yu Darvish, the Cubs effectively have a new free-agent signee. Not to mention one of the best managers in the biz.

But Theo, we (that's you) need to let him be. Excepting Jussie Smollett, I've never seen anyone perform well with a noose around their neck.

Go Cubs!

Black Privilege?

Not so long ago, I didn't know who Jussie Smollett was. I wish I still didn't.

One of the most self-centered and unlikable celebrities ever to besmirch the city of Chicago, Smollett deemed it appropriate to utilize its overworked police force in a bid to extract a raise from his employer, the producers of Empire, after a homemade death threat failed to generate adequate concern for the attention-starved actor's financial well-being.

Deep in the me-first recesses of Smollett's brain, another scheme was hatched. Like any right-thinking American, he reasoned that if a death threat wouldn't land him a bigger paycheck, being the victim of a hate crime would.

The restless creative forces within Smollett were soon at work. He cast two forlorn brothers as his attackers and elected to stage the drama amid the upscale high-rises which populate the near-north neighborhood of Streeterville.

Then, on one of the coldest nights of the year, Smollett ventured out to visit an area Subway sandwich shop.

He never made it.

He was supposedly accosted by two men, who took exception to Smollett's seeking to satiate a nocturnal craving on such a chilly night. They bit, kicked and punched Smollett, shouted racial and homophobic slurs and poured an unknown liquid over him. Then they placed a noose around his neck.

Before I credit the two goon's diligence in keeping a liquid in liquid form in sub-zero weather (the temperature at the time of the attack was zero degrees, with sustained winds of fifteen to twenty miles an hour leading to a wind chill of twenty degrees below), I have to marvel at such a highly-personal attack happening on what Smollett maintains was a spontaneous, unplanned trip to grab a sandwich.

Is there a bookie in Vegas who could even lay odds on that?

Regardless, Smollett fought them off, ending up in an emergency room where he was later released in good condition. Despite the brutality of the two-on-one confrontation, Smollett had only a fine, horizontal scratch beneath his eye to show for the assault.

Within hours, the knee-jerk wheels of the social media court were in motion.

Poor, poor Jussie! Bad, bad Chicago! Among the most-commonly expressed sentiments was “Give that man a raise!”

Alas, as the mass of CPD detectives assigned to this high-profile case went to work, Smollett's contentions began to unravel like a sweater from K-Mart.

It being very, very late on a very cold Monday night, pedestrian traffic was, as you can imagine, light. Pedestrians armed with unidentified fluids and nooses were especially scarce. In fact, the area's network of public and private security cameras didn't detect them at all.

Despite maintaining that he had spoken with his manager on his cell phone just before the attack, Smollett refused to surrender his phone as evidence. Which was certainly curious for someone victimized to the extent Jussie claimed to be.

And then there was the $3,500 which had recently changed hands, and the footage of the Nigerian brothers buying the rope and ski masks used in the attack. It wasn't long before the unavoidable conclusion could no longer be avoided.

In the aftermath, Smollett was rightly charged with sixteen felony counts of filing a false police report. He was dumped from Empire. All seemed right with the world.

Until yesterday. Out of the blue, Illinois state prosecutors announced they were dropping all charges against Smollett. While they maintained this didn't amount to an exoneration, Smollett's record has nevertheless been expunged and the case files sealed.

Hmmm.

If your eyesight happens to be better than mine, could show me where the part about it not being an exoneration kicks in? Because I can't see it.

Somewhere, an uneaten Subway sandwich molders. And we are again left to wonder whether our traditional notion of justice belongs on the endangered species list.

A Government Free to Govern

In countries that don't enjoy the benefit of a trade organization writing its gun policies, their higher callings, their better natures are free to be acted upon when a random, violent threat to its citizenry is uncovered.

When such threats are revealed in the United States of America, instead of acting upon those concerns, we must first wring our hands and wonder how acting upon that concern will displease that trade organization and rile its addled membership.

Which is certainly interesting for a country that spends as much on defense as we do.

See for yourself what life is like without the NRA:

https://youtu.be/IV4jr7J4cPE

What's Really Bothering You?

Perhaps my misanthropic streak is a bit overdeveloped. But, speaking as a white man who has been one for the majority of his life, I have to ask this of white supremacists: what is so blindingly great about white people?

What is it that is so inherently superior about us that it drives you to extremes like mass murder to advance your point of view? Why do you feel we and we alone should rule the world? Even worse, why do you feel that we and we alone should populate the world?

Yes, white people have contributed some wonderful things to world culture: Democracy, baseball, classical music, penicillin and Stand 'N Stuff taco shells.

But does hands-free taco preparation really qualify us to rule the world?

We have participated in genocide. We have imposed brutish regimes upon people, subjugating them for commerce and political power. We have ruthlessly exploited and degraded planet Earth, even when we knew better.

We have raped—and pillaged.

So what is it?

Could it be that you suffer from some sort of sensory issue? Do you identify with the band Van Halen, who couldn't handle the sight of brown M&Ms in their post-concert candy dish? Is it a case of homogeneous or hell for you?

I'm guessing you feel like a failure. You feel everyone has it easier than you. You resent any competition for your victimhood, which in this case are immigrants. Never mind they are frequently attempting to escape deprivation and abuse you can't imagine.

Like a middle child, you rail at any attention not directed at you, and seek to harm its recipients.

In a perverse sort of over-compensation, you also feel superior to immigrants, if only because you don't look like them. And the ignorant society in which you live sees more potential, diverts more resources and seems to care more for these inferior beings than it does for the likes of you.

It's an outrage, isn't it?

And only you have the answer.

One of the great quirks of humanity is its belief in qualitative monopolies. Only this demographic is qualified to lead. Only this demographic can be trusted. Only this demographic is intelligent.

The inconvenient truth is that no group has a monopoly on anything, expect perhaps its skin color.

Humanity is an impossibly complex and unpredictable mass of abilities and prejudices and dreams. Despite the alluring simplicity that encourages us to believe that A is always and unequivocally this and B is always and unequivocally that, it simply is not true.

Non-whites are no more a scourge than whites are a godsend.

Perhaps this segment of our population, immersed in a simmering rage as it sees itself marginalized while another portion of our population pull farther and farther away economically, will one day understand who the real enemy is.

Per usual, I'm not holding my breath.

Really? There's an App for That?

When they're not plowing their cars into counter-protestors at white supremacist rallies or mailing letter bombs to prominent Democrats, conservatives are chewing their nails to the quick wondering which businesses they can patronize without fear of being brutalized by thuggish progressives.

At least that's the theory behind 63red Safe, an app designed to keep conservatives out of harm's way.

Even more remarkable is that the app's creator, Scott Wallace, felt the need for this despite living in Oklahoma, a place no one would ever confuse with San Francisco. In fact, a January, 2017 Gallup poll identified Oklahoma as the nation's fourth most-conservative state, behind Wyoming, North Dakota and Mississippi.

After narrowly returning home unscathed from a visit to a local gun and ammo shop, Wallace and two co-conspirators developed the app around four questions designed to reveal whether a business was MAGA-friendly:

Does this business serve persons of every political belief?

Will this business protect its customers if they are attacked for their political beliefs?

Does this business allow legal concealed carry under this state's laws?

Does this business avoid politics in its ads and social media postings?

With the exception of question three, I have to confess to being puzzled at what any of the remaining questions reveal. I've never seen a business identified as conservative-only or liberal-only. I've never seen a business that would stand by while a physical confrontation developed between its customers.

And aside from the occasional 'Fuck Trump' spring clearance event or 'Let's Wipe That Pelosi Bitch off the Face of the Earth' tire sales, I rarely encounter businesses using politics in their advertising.

So. Not exactly a litmus test, is it?

Which brings us to question three.

Even in the conservative and heavily-Republican county in which I live, no guns stickers routinely appear in store windows. It is my belief these stem from liability concerns, and do not necessarily indicate whether a business owner is pro or anti-gun.

But as a tribe-building device, I'm sure the 63red Safe app will appeal greatly to the lizard-brained paranoids among us. To be perfectly honest, I can't blame them for having tired of being bludgeoned by sledgehammer-wielding liberals as they shop for milk and laundry detergent or dine at their favorite restaurant.

It's just not right.

For my part, I have issued myself a cease and desist order. It's true! I hereby abstain from shooting, stabbing, clubbing, punching, kicking, striking or otherwise harming my conservative countrymen.

Which is a pity, because no one could remain coiled behind a kale, black bean and avocado burrito bowl and cup of fair trade coffee, face obscured by the latest issue of Socialism, Now! and waiting until the time was just right, than I.

Good times.

Spring-ish Cleaning

For reasons known only to my computer and Blogspot, previous attempts at publishing 'Spring-ish Cleaning' resulted in it appearing in microscopic type visible only to birds of prey and Generation Z.

I have re-written and re-posted it, hopefully in legible type.

The calendar is a liar. Despite its insistence that March has begun, it is 37 degrees (F) outside, with cold rain and persistent twenty miles-an-hour winds. The sky is as drab as a Soviet-era housing block.

A local TV station reports the 'real feel' is just twenty-seven degrees.

Displaying the impeccable sense of timing that has earmarked much of your life, you have chosen today to sort through your outdoor storage unit. Leaving the inviting warmth of your home and stepping outside is akin to being assaulted by an industrial-strength air conditioning unit after a hot shower.

Your genitalia is fortunate. They can shrink and draw closer to your body mass, minimizing the effects of the cold. Your extremities, hereafter known as evolution's victims, aren't as fortunate. Existing as they do at the outer edges of your circulatory system, they are the first to be assaulted by the brutish weather and can only hope for a death that is as quick as it is merciful.

Shrugging-off imminent foot and hand loss, you resolutely tear into the mass of half-forgotten possessions. There is a large plastic tub filled with audio and video cassettes never donated. On top of that rests a nineteen-nineties relic of automotive security, known as The Club. It is sans key.

You ruefully consider any remaining usefulness, and are briefly heartened when you realize that with the right-sized steering wheel it could again be of service. You are disheartened in equal measure when you realize this thought places you at the very precipice of hoarderdom.

You are rewarded for disposing of things in either the trash or recycling bins with an unending assault of porcelain-bladed knives disguised as rain, which lacerates exposed flesh. An army of miniature drones soon follows, depositing salt into each crimson aperture.

The initial sting soon morphs into a numbing, cold burn. The brilliance of this weather's sadism is revealed in the fact that it doesn't completely numb.

Next is a sullen stack of magazines. Carefully ordered from largest (Rolling Stone) to smallest (National Geographic), they resemble a pyramid; a triangular tribute to publishing no one is especially interested in—except you.

The writing, the photography. All carefully and painstakingly presented on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. And then reduced to landfill. You ache. But not entirely because you're a sensitive aesthete.

Picking up a magazine requires the pressing of two fingertips against the magazine itself. As noted earlier, fingertips are an extremity. Also noted earlier, they aren't entirely numb. So the act of pressing them against a magazine opens the door to a pain you haven't experienced since Tatiana, a tall Russian blond with ice-blue sapphires for eyes and a mouth like ripe fruit, left you at the altar.

Blindly clawing through the pile, you uncover bags of charcoal. A container of lighter fluid. A butane lighter designed expressly for grills. There is a fleeting thought of setting something on fire, if only for the warmth.

There is an insulated tote bag from Sam's Club filled with all manner of ephemera: pencils, a tire gauge, brochures, a rack for holding mail and a cassette of Ray Charles' 1985 Christmas album The Spirit of Christmas.

Desperate for a glimmer of positivity, you salute the foresight that led to its placement in an insulated tote bag.

There is more. Hands not too numb to feel the tiny rubber spikes on the underside lift a set of salt-encrusted car mats from the pile. Fittingly, they belong to a car no longer in your possession. A creeping sense of hopelessness begins to envelop you.

An item with actual potential appears. A first-aid kit. You examine the contents. You remove a band-aid and attempt to peel the paper backing off. Your rapidly devolving motor skills make this impossible. Your brain is sending impulses your fingers are incapable of acting on.

Mankind can be grateful there is almost no chance you'll be called into surgery today.

You sigh. It is a long, mournful one. You sneer at the naivete which led you to believe this would be a good use of your time in a productive, Marie Kondo kind of way.

The wind and the rain and the cold and the suffocating blanket of grey skies are unending.

So is the pile in the storage unit.

There is a garden trowel. An impressive array of ice scrapers. A jug of windshield washer solvent. A container of Animal-B-Gon. And a clay flower plant—with dirt. You lift a half-filled can of primer. Its warning KEEP FROM FREEZING stares at you in mute, unblinking recrimination.

This is your breaking point. Those portions of your cerebrum still functioning inform you that this is a task best left for a sunlit spring day, when it could be construed as an invigorating leap forward, and not as punishment for sustained inaction.

With this ability to kick the can down the road, it is clear you have a future in politics. While not quite a closet full of skeletons, you do have a storage unit full of....stuff.

You still can't call it junk.

The Public Prescription for Private Wealth

I have to hand it to our pharmaceutical manufacturers. While I watch my hometown's transit agencies struggle to make a go of it even with a virtual monopoly, the nation's pharmaceutical conglomerates are raking it in like Goldman Sachs on steroids.

And no wonder. Aided and abetted by the most-cunning corporate attorneys money can buy, Big Pharma enjoys a legislative branch more than a little reluctant to ruffle the feathers of its golden goose.

With campaign financing more critical than ever, the power of those able to supply it grows exponentially. And god bless 'em, Big Pharma has no qualms whatsoever about wielding it.

In a refrain that has been sung for years, Americans pay dearly for their medical care. And their drugs. Without any certifiable data to support the commonly-held assumption that we enjoy the best of both, this is troubling, indeed.

So why do Americans pay so much more for their prescription drugs than people in other parts of the world?

Is it because we're wealthier?

Not quite. While most Americans still enjoy a fairly high standard of living, it isn't a quantum leap from the rest of the globe's first-world nations. Using per-capita GNP as a measure, the United States is routinely outranked by nations in the Middle East and Europe.

Nations which, I hasten to add, pay less for their prescription drugs than we do.

Maybe it's the advertising. I don't remember the last commercial break that didn't include at least one advertisement for a prescription drug.

But according to industry reports, pharmaceuticals rank ninth amongst TV's largest advertisers. In fact, their annual expenditures are dwarfed by the retail and automotive sectors. Hmmm. Maybe their spots are just more annoying.

So if it isn't because we live in a wealthy nation or because Big Pharma is spending ginormous amounts on advertising, what is it?

For decades, Big Pharma has maintained that the reason prescription drugs are so expensive is their development costs. The cost of products which fail in the marketplace. And the arduous waits required for FDA approval.

This remains the official party line as evidenced by recent congressional hearings.

But when you stop and take a moment to think about it, what manufacturer doesn't have development costs? What manufacturer doesn't have products that under-perform in the marketplace? And what manufacturer doesn't have to wait for one kind of certification or another?

If you answered none, feel free to enjoy a celebratory adult beverage with my blessings.

Not every movie that comes out of Hollywood is a blockbuster. Not every vehicle that emerges from Detroit or South Korea or Japan leaps to the top of the sales charts. And not every miraculous time-saving app turns its creators into billionaires.

None of those products are developed for free. None are guaranteed success. And with the possible exception of the app, none came to market without some sort of regulatory oversight.

Dare I say, this is the nature of things. Even more brazenly, allow me to suggest it is part of the cost of doing business.

(Gulp)

Except in the gilded world of the drug-maker. In their world, there are no losses. Only profits. And that's because they're God.

We have yet to enjoy the spectacle of a drug CEO actually admitting this publicly, but enough internal communication has emerged that indicates this is the Big Pharma mind-set. We hold the power of health and illness, of life and death, in our sweaty little hands. Please pay accordingly.

And we do.

Thanks for the corporate whoredom known as Washington DC, industry-friendly protections that enable ever-longer copyrights and exclusivity are the name of the game. As a result, drug prices continue to spiral, far exceeding any cost-of-living marker you care to name.

Three-digit spikes in the prices of decades-old drugs isn't recouping development costs. It's an arbitrary screwing of the American consumer. Sorry to go all socialist on you, but I'm not okay with that.

When confronted with the idea of a government-imposed price ceiling, drug manufacturers petulantly suggest that under such ceilings they might be, how do I say this...disinclined to research and develop new drugs.

To which I counter that drugs no one can afford are worthless.

The Empty Soul of Donald Trump

I have always hated Donald Trump.

I hated him when he was a self-styled New York City businessman preening for any camera within sight. I hated him when he was a reality TV star, reveling in the sadism his mantle on The Apprentice afforded him.

And I hate him as President of the United States of America.

This is because the most contemptible example of humanity is the person who loves to dish out abuse but can't take it themselves. While they gleefully smear reputations, engage in rumor-mongering and relish the opportunity to pile-on, they erupt in self-righteous indignation whenever the snark and the humiliation is directed at them.

And while this dynamic has reached epidemic proportions in 2019 America, one figure towers above all in the wholeheartedness of his embrace: our president.

Even beyond the taxing demands of issuing a non-stop barrage of childish nicknames for anyone who doesn't worship at the altar of Donald, the Trump-whore is perpetually on guard for slights and insults; accusations that every word falling from his tiny, pursed mouth isn't necessarily the soul of truth.

Or suggestions that in the manifold obligations of his office, Donald might be, um, bereft.

When he isn't puffing out his chest and extolling his great and innumerable accomplishments, the Trump-whore is belittling and accusing. That's it. That's all he has. Two speeds. Two dimensions.

Which, I hasten to point out, is one less than you and I and just one removed from Scooby Doo.

After a recent sketch on Saturday Night Live (which, like all satire worthy of the name, contained more than a grain of truth), Donald again took to Twitter and issued another puerile attack, suggesting that anyone with the temerity to mock a giant like himself ought to be investigated.

He went on to suggest that the show's less-than-flattering portrayal of him was “one-sided” and that it was potentially illegal.

As a radicalized socialist, I'll admit it was one-sided. It was the complete opposite of Donald's appearance last night at CPAC, where he pleaded with the nation to take an objective look at our media and consume it responsibly.

Where he urged his base to move on from the manufactured scandal of Hillary Clinton's e-mails, put aside its knee-jerk hatred of immigrants and consider—if only for a moment—how a pending real estate deal in Moscow might have compromised his campaign's integrity.

But the night's high point occurred when the Trump-whore revealed previously-unknown depths of honesty. He fell to one knee and like a sinner prostrated before the cross, admitted it was possible more people may have attended Barack Obama's inauguration than his own.

Sniff.

Instead of sober reflection on his failed summit with political despot Kim Jong un or laying out a plan to consolidate the nation's strengths and how best to shore-up its weaknesses, the Trump-whore whined and complained about the same things he's been whining and complaining about for more than two years now.

A one-trick pony running the only course he knows.

It was a pitiable, one-hundred twenty-minute howl from the forlorn wilderness of Donald's empty soul. The lashing-out of a petulant bully who doesn't understand why everyone doesn't do what he tells us to do and believe what he tells us to believe.

Why can't we take him at face value, they way he does Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un? What is wrong with us? Why can't we see Donald the way he sees himself?

If there has been a sadder figure ever to occupy elected office, I'd like to see them. But even as a recipient of what is often termed the world's best health care, I don't think I'll live that long.