Happy Halloween

It's Halloween. And for reasons unknown to me we persist in celebrating the mad, the frightening and the macabre even with Donald Trump in the White House.

My low-cal contribution to the holiday is this retelling of my encounters with bombers.

For those fortunate-enough not to know what bombers are, read on.

I happen to live two communities removed from one featuring a gravel pit. Which means the area's roads are thick with what I call bombers—trucks with open, double-axled trailers infamous for spewing gravel and stones onto the vehicles behind them.

When they're not pounding our roads into dust, their drivers alternately menace and foul traffic. In my eight years in the region, no other type of truck (with the possible exception of pick-ups) makes driving so reliably frustrating. Or dangerous.

Like all truckers, they endure their share of impatient motorists who zoom around them with righteous indignation. But in first-hand accounts, they give far worse than they get.

Given their enormous weight, they are, by nature, lumbering. Traveling behind one on a two-lane road chock-full of traffic signals will excite even the most-serene bowel. Worse, when presented with a four-lane road, their drivers frequently opt for the so-called fast lane.

'Slow Traffic Keep Right' may as well be posted in Sanskrit.

As a result, they evoke mass panic in our driving population. This is amplified when one is trapped behind two bombers—one thoughtfully occupying each lane on a four-lane road. Given a choice between this and driving with a swarm of mosquitoes inside my car, I'll take the mosquitoes.

Alas, bombers do not always travel at such modest speeds. On roads not choked with stop lights, bombers reveal their true selves—frustrated BMW drivers trapped in seven-ton gravel haulers. Yes, they like to go fast.

As a bus driver, I'll never forget the two bombers that came roaring out of the pre-dawn darkness just as I began a protected left-hand turn. I hit the brakes with such force I activated the bus's event camera.

It was a very good thing no one was aboard.

Then there was the time I was headed to work, traveling a rural two-lane at my customary five-over. As I entered a sweeping right-hand curve, I became aware of a vehicle attempting to pass on my left.

No surprise—it was a bomber, trying to pass despite the double yellow lines and oncoming early-morning traffic. He nearly jack-knifed after slamming on his air brakes.

Just two weeks ago, there was yet-another bomber who forced me across the double yellow line after coming up on my right at a merge. He was going to get ahead of me or remove the passenger side of my car trying.

My mate and I were lucky there was no oncoming traffic, as a head-on collision would have been inevitable.

If asked, the bomber's driver would no doubt state he had checked for oncoming traffic before forcing me off the road. Because that's the kind of drivers they are.

Yeah.

I took the license number and filed a complaint with the local police. The owners stated the trailer had been leased to an independent owner-operator (of course) and as such they were unable to identify the driver.

I lacked a trailer number or any information from the cab, so like a visit to a government agency while I possessed information it wasn't the right information.

Sigh.

There are contrarians who would maintain that the bombers infesting our roads represents a healthy and thriving economy, and that I should be grateful for such. And I agree--in part. They're certainly good for the manufacturer of the dash cam I just purchased.

Yep—my next encounter with a bomber is going to be a hi-def spectacle which will be distributed to finer police departments everywhere with YouTube not far behind.

Smile, bro. Are you ready for your close-up?

Again with the Hissy Fit, Lindsey?

My joy is transcendent and luminous. Watching the Trump administration implode in a series of puerile tantrums is a wondrous thing for which words barely suffice.

But even in days stuffed with the petulant antics of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, William Barr and Rudy Giuliani, one support player reliably steps forward and—however temporarily—steals the spotlight..

Yes, I speak of the senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham. Ol' Lindsey is never, ever shy about opening his mouth, and sometimes even thinks before doing so. Thankfully, that was not the case Thursday.

Graham again entertained the hell out of me by issuing an indignant hissy fit about the Democrats and their 'closed' impeachment inquiry. I mean, seriously Lindsey? You're in a snit because the Democrats did something without inviting you and your fellow Republicans along?

Aw. Hey--weren't you supposed to be giving Charles Koch a hand-job or something?

I guess those big, bad Democrats plum forget how open and transparent your boss and his henchmen have been. You know, the whole ignoring subpoenas thing and the obfuscation and the cover-ups and the lies and the threats.

And that picture of you posing with the posterboard explaining point by point how respectful Republicans were of Bill Clinton while they attempted to impeach him for lying about a blow job? 

Yeah. Sure. 

Sorry Lindsey, but I was alive in 1998. So were lots of other people. That was a political smear. Character assassination. A hatchet job. If that's the context for impeachment, what's appropriate for Donald Trump? 

A firing squad? 

Come on, Lindsey. I'm sure this plays really well at Fox for the high school drop-outs who thought it'd be fun to turn the federal government into a reality TV-styled source of entertainment.

But to the majority of us who didn't vote for the Trump-whore, it is clear you've spent far too long in the Republican whine cellar.

Sober up.

Acquiescence

You never know which match is going to start the fire.

Take China. If there's one thing I liked about Donald Trump (and there was only one, trust me), it was his willingness to call out China.

Long the manipulator of its citizenry, ignorer of trademarks and an all-star violator of human rights, China has an astonishing ability to hypnotize its trading partners into believing it is a trustworthy and egalitarian one.

China is the con man who can bedazzle the world into believing, well, practically anything. Like all successful cons, it uses the greed of its marks to compromise them.

And when hypnosis doesn't work, there is always the bludgeon of cheap labor and those 1.3 billion potential consumers.

We pretended Google wasn't kowtowing to China's oppressive leadership and constructing search engines that prevented Chinese citizens from reading anything their government didn't want them to read, making Google one of the world's most powerful and wealthiest corporations in the process.

We ignored it when Beijing suppressed Olympic coverage it didn't deem consistent with its public relations campaigns, and pretended that Beijing's air quality was great, its citizenry free to express any degree of dissatisfaction with their government they wished and that Tiananmen Square never, ever happened because, after all, no one could find proof of it on a Google search.

Gosh. I could go on and on and on.

In our corporation's desire to make ever-greater amounts of money, and in our own unfortunate acceptance of it, we have shown our true colors. Yeah, democracy is nice and everything, but more than that we prize abundant and inexpensive labor. Corpulent profit margins. Expanding market share. Wealth creation with ceilings like the Sistine Chapel.

That's what we really want.

And China is only too happy to supply it—as long as we turn a blind eye to things like currency manipulation, intellectual property abuses and the Muslim internment camps in western China.

The very corporations who have gone hand-in-hand with Republican policies that diminished the American worker (and subsequently, their ability to consume) now turn to China to keep those bonus checks rolling into the executive suite.

And so it goes.

In our greed, we have ceded the manufacture of practically everything to China. This includes our prescription drugs and the weaponry which constitutes our national defense. The geniuses in the corporate penthouse have eagerly unzipped their flys and allowed China to grab their testes and give them a good twist in exchange for ever larger stacks o' cash.

And who doesn't think that's a good thing?

But every now and then there's someone who didn't read the memo.

I have only to point to Houston Rocket's GM Daryl Morey, whose earnest tweet in support of the Hong Kong demonstrations upset the apple cart. Instead of following protocol and politely ignoring the fart in the elevator, Morey essentially asked “who farted?”

And after so many years of blind obedience, China is upset with us. Is America discovering its conscience?

NBA commissioner Adam Silver, caught between the NBA's expanding business and defending a core value of the United States, wisely choose the latter, further exacerbating the Chinese.

They are burning NBA jerseys and pulling the plug on NBA telecasts and all sorts of horrible things.

Bad America! Bad!

Perhaps. But I'm fine with it. The NBA needs money like I need an elevated cholesterol count. As a radicalized socialist (per our president), it is my opinion that our relationship with China stinks. It is nothing but a museum-worthy exhibit of our hypocrisy.

I am both shamed and highly-concerned by it.

And speaking of shame, I only wish LeBron James had an ounce or two. 

Despite his highly-publicized Twitter exchanges with President Petulant, James is as complicit as any other businessman. When faced with re-thinking his relationship with a plainly amoral government or sustaining his already-exorbitant revenue stream, he chose the latter.

You sure you're anti-Trump LeBron? 

The season doesn't start for another six days. Like James, many of us should take some time off and get a clue and calculate exactly what those low prices and our relationship with China costs.
 

Joe Maddon

It's hard to see anything clearly without the passage of at least a little time. It has a way of settling the raw emotions that frequently cloud an event, its causes and ultimate impact. Which is why we should be grateful for a thing called history. It puts things in perspective.

Take Joe Maddon's dismissal from the Chicago Cubs last Sunday.

Initially, I was upset. I was a fan. Maddon exuded an affable charm as he molded his young Cubs and inspired his veteran ones to a world championship in 2016. He led the Cubs to successes not seen since the Great Depression—which, if you're counting, was over eighty-years ago.

And to his bosses gratification, he kept the turnstiles spinning.

But things evolve quickly, and while he was the ideal manager to shepherd that team to the top of the National League Central and baseball in general, he wasn't the guy to keep them there. Rumors of an overly-permissive clubhouse made their way through the MLB grapevine, and it soon became obvious these Cubs were satisfied.

Houston Astros pitcher Dallas Keuchel observed as much even before the 2018 season began, stating “We're not the Cubs” when asked about his team's ability to repeat in the American League West.

Many teams came of age alongside these Cubs. The Cleveland Indians. The Los Angeles Dodgers. And the aforementioned Astros. All sustained a far-higher level of competitiveness than did the Cubs. Their managers were able to transition from inspiring youthful teams to motivating and preparing them for the mounting challenges of staying on top.

It was something Maddon couldn't do.

After GM Theo Epstein's ultimatum essentially turned Maddon into a lame duck, the Cubs got sloppy. Mental mistakes on the basepaths. Home run-or-bust at bats, especially with men in scoring position. And fielding more typical of a company softball game than a major league baseball one.

None of those are the hallmarks of a team laser-focused on winning a title.

The front office shorted Maddon on bullpen support and the farm system dried up without ever yielding a starting pitcher. But I can't vanquish the thought that if Maddon had kept these guys in fighting trim, they'd be vying for a World Series slot tonight.

Alas, he did not. These Cubs grew fat and lazy, and for that Maddon must be held accountable. 

Nevertheless, you will always have a place in our hearts, Joe.Good luck to you.