Donald Trump: Definitely Not a "no-trump" Hand

I just hate to keep coming back to this man, but he keeps on getting so much lower, and so much worse even still, one would be compromising self-respect if one didn't say something, no matter how small or distant one's voice:

In bridge (technically, "contract bridge") when the first to bid says, "(any number) no-trump," like, for example, "one no-trump" or "two no trump," it's saying to the playing partner across the table: "I'm long on one suit with some high cards (including some tens), pretty long on another, also with some high numbers, and I think I have some stoppers." It's a strong opening bid, inviting one's partner to take risks and play aggressively.


Donald Trump is clearly not a "no-trump" bid, and so, he's a "not Trump" mandate. This post, then, is intended primarily for those still-co-opted and deluded people, those garden-variety angry ones (though they still may not know why), those who don't have what they want but think that (a) this guy can get it for them and give it to them and (b) in the process, they/he can take it away from those whom they fear, whom they just elementally hate for racial and/or religious reasons, and (c) who still don't realize, even now, that  the man is using them while he lies to them (how can that still not be seen, with the bankruptcy cheats? The lawsuits to beat people down and out of money they're legitimately owed? The luddite refusal to release tax- and income information? The really hollow explanation for his avoidance of military service and his gaming The Selective Service System to do it?), and is a person who, now more than ever, is showing signs of psychological imbalance, instability,  and probably, pathology (sociopathology; psychosis; a combination).  Who beside either a clinically immature or emotionally-stunted person uses negative names or adjectives ("Crooked." "Little." "Lyin'" "Pocahontas") to attach to someone's first name, or use instead, to insult them? (Answer: A school child, or, a bully; and therefor, Trump.)


Even the moneyed and the movers in his own party see it, now.


Since the last time one felt compelled to pay attention to Trump (no "Mister," for him, just as he insists upon addressing people who are his social and political betters by their first names, clearly intending disrespect and denigration) we all know - -  or should (hell, the whole world knows) of his most recent string of aberrant and inappropriate exercises in uncontrolled and impulsive and mean behavior:


His snarly, racist comments about the parents of a dead (KIA) military officer who truly died a hero - -  no, a real hero, when his father called him out, angrily and with an edge, saying that he's never made any sacrifice for anybody, much less the country he'd lead; his "explanation" for his racism: "he (the father) attacked me harshly;" his fallback and petulant retort (I've made lots of sacrifices. I've managed thousands or millions of projects [no, he hasn't] and created thousands upon thousands of jobs [no, he's taken away or destroyed far more than he's created]," as though using other people's money to try to recoup his own losses and in the process engage in yet further narcissistic self-aggrandizement with more names on more buildings - -  that he doesn't own or operate - -  were, in the aggregate, a "sacrifice;" and,


His exhorting the so-called "Second Amendment people" to be violent (clearly, lethally violent) against his opponent, Hillary Clinton to keep her from being able to appoint Justices to The Supreme Court, then saying, he was being sarcastic - -  and then saying, "well, maybe a little sarcastic," when it was obvious to all but the most shallow and blind, simply by his tone of voice and his facial expressions and the context in which he made the comment that he meant every word he said and intended the clear inferences to be drawn from then; and,


His saying, with a straight face (Dave Barry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning humor writer would say, "I swear, I'm not making this up!") that Barak Obama, the President of this country, was the founder (actually, in later versions, one of two founders, along with his opponent, Clinton) of the zealous, killer sect called ISIS or ISIL - -  and repeating it and standing by it and insisting that he meant the accusation literally; and,


His using his status as lessor of a meeting hall where he was putting on another "rally" or giving another speech (if you lease a place, whether it's a concert hall or a double-wide trailer, you get to say who can enter and who has to leave: that's why the guy rarely, if ever, appears in a publicly-owned and -controlled location) to eject yet another "undesirable," this time somebody with a squally kid that was irritating him by being a distraction.


Those who are still deluded and enthralled by him love this stuff. But, let's look back:


Caligula (actually, one of the Caesars in a line of several), who ruled around the time of the birth of Jesus. He was a classic tyrant, a sadist, a killer, and a world-class opportunist. He would later come to be scorned for his extravagant use of public funds to build himself ultra-luxurious palaces and villas; he either caused the murder of, or exiled, members of his own family; and he bribed the army of Rome from one end to the other to keep their "loyalty;" and yet, he had a cohort of followers who absolutely loved him - -  while others plotted his own downfall in one way or another.


Want to go back a little further? Draco, known as "The Lawgiver," came into power in the 7thy Century B.C. All that need be said about him here is that, though he was initially elected by a majority, he quickly became know for his overly-harsh laws and their implementation (hence, "Draconian"). He was especially hard on people who were in debt: he ordered that they be sold as slaves. For stealing "a head of cabbage," people were executed.


Want to get more current? Maximilien Robespierre was credited as the leader of The French Revolution, but he's better known for creating "The Reign of Terror." Viewed as a hero by those who said they hated the monarchy (Louis and Marie Antoinette), Robespierre got more and more full of himself, leaving such formalities as trials for accused people in his wake, and keeping people imprisoned in the very Bastille he helped "liberate" without limit. He was one of the first true tyrants of modern times.


Oh, and leave us not forget Hitler. Or Mussolini (almost, but not quite, a matched set). We know how they both manipulated people, Hitler primarily, of course, playing to their prejudices and insecurities, and their anger at the drubbing the Germans had taken during and after World War I. Still, as we all know, he was blindly followed by millions - -  because he told them what they wanted to hear, and made promises that he couldn't keep. He created a class of "villains" (the Jews), demonized them, and whipped people into foamy-mouthed frenzies at "rallies" to mobilize both sentiment and action against them.


Sound familiar?


Even Trump's (former) supporters, both public figures and private citizens - -  including (and, especially) those with money and/or equally valuable endorsements, have now come to see the guy for what he is.  They're running away from him as though he were a disease-carrier. The Republican party is in a shambles, and in a panic. The question is: what to do about the blind ones, the uber-zealots who either can't, or won't, see him for what he is, and refuse to acknowledge that they're being callously manipulated and used, just as Trump used those who bid on his "projects" in Atlantic City and New York (remember The Plaza Hotel? In and out of bankruptcy how many times?); sold enrollment in his fraudulent "university," even lied about his steaks and cigars?

What to do? If you know any of them personally, grab them by the ears or shoulders or neck, and yell at them relentlessly. But if you don't (and most of us don't: they're a pretty Klannish group) . . . hell, wish I knew. One simply can't reason with the irrational.

Yayy! The Olympics Are Here Again! (But, Rio, We've Got a Problem . . . )

Ah, yes. The Olympics! That wonderful and historic tribute to amateur athletes and their skills and their purity, descended down from the very cradle of democracy and civilization as we know it, classic Hellenic Greece. How inspiring, how wonderful, to see these well-trained, idealistic, self-sacrificing pillars of the youth of our world, casting aside all nationalism, conflicts, and xenophobia, to compete as one. Only twenty-six miles to Marathon!





Uh, but wait. I think there are some clouds on the horizon - -  and some gunk (and body parts) in the water, and some blood in the streets, and a convocation of more malevolent microbes than ever to gather in recent memory under one polluted sky.With a little help from readily available news sources like ABC and Reuters, among others, let's see what's going on other than the classic and historic Olympic contests of women's beach volleyball and skateboarding:





Starting with Brazil itself (before we put the IOC under a looking glass), I've heard rumors of just a tad of corruption and back-stabbing (and yeah, some front-stabbing too). It's said, for example, that five (only five!) construction firms are and have been building virtually all of the eleven billion dollars' worth of "venues" for the games (la! The Games!) and the necessary infrastructure to support those "venues" and the games themselves (trains and boats and plains); and there is talk of the possibility (mind you, just a possibility) that some bribes have been paid to the local and municipal and state (Rio de Janeiro is a state in Brazil, and its capital city is . . . well, you know) and federal shot-callers who decided what got built, where, when, and by whom.






The country's president - -  the first woman to hold the position, one Dilma Rousseff, has lately been impeached, for (guess what) dipping her populist hand in the country's books of account while in the process of "bringing the games" to Rio and Brazil, in order to make the place seem economically stable enough to be able to afford them (which is to say, The Olympics themselves), and one can only wonder why she was so fervent about it. Oh, I get it: national pride, yes? Nothing like self-interest or self-dealing, huh?




There's also talk of just a teeny-weeny little security- and public safety problem (oh, no! Can't be!). There are more armed police and military in the streets of every Olympic city (and they stretch all across the country) than there are stray dogs and cats and chickens and goats, and there are millions - -  no, billions of those. People ("private citizens," are they now?) are getting robbed and ripped literally at every corner. There's an aerial tramway to take visitors on a nice, idyllic ride over the favelas (slums, but really, the worst of the worst), so that people can, as one article put it, "gawk" down at them, kind of like when El Gallo in the famous off-Broadway play "The Fantastics" admonished the ingénue young girl he was seducing to " . . . put up the mask! The mask!" so that, through her eyes, everything was oh, so lovely! Competing athletes are finding that the accommodations in "The Olympic Village" are unfinished, or worse: plumbing deficiencies, lack or furniture, or simply insufficient space. (Our American super-jocks on the B-ball team have come up with a work-around: they've pooled together a few chunks of their multi-million dollar salaries and have chartered a cruise boat to live on, which they're keeping moored in Rio's harbor, far from the madding (and unwashed) crowds.)






It may long since have been safe to go back into the water off of Montauk (the shark went south), but it sure as hell isn't safe even to get near the water in Rio (including Copacabana Beach, where the girl from Ipanema is still lolling around in her string/thong bikini): there's raw sewage pouring into the ocean, and the bay that's intended to be the principal site of the water-sports contests, and both competitors and tourists are being warned not to go in. (No, the competitors are being lied to, and told that it's safe - -  as long as they wear masks over their mouths. Can you see it? Michael Phelps wearing a hoodie while doing the medley?) And the body parts. I can't wait to hear the first TV announcer say that somebody's won by a head . . .  A new event has been added: mosquito-swatting, in the hopes that that's the way, finally, to deal with the country's national virus, Zika. No medals there, though, just bejeweled fly-swatters (and the jewels are fake, though the manufacturer charged for the real things, with a little help from some friends at IOC). That's a bonus, as it were, in addition to the highest per capita incidence of STDs anyplace in the western world, anyway: that's the Brazilian way of accomplishing population control. The plan is to infect all of the indigenous and aboriginal peoples in and around the Amazon basin (the Brazilians think those natives can't resist white-ish young women) and wipe them out incrementally, kind of like Columbus and his brave crew did when they "conquered" their brave new world. 






And then there's the redoubtable IOC itself, and its sub-agencies: forget, for now, the craziness of the prior games in Tokyo (pay-offs), Russia (doping at home, in Moscow) and Beijing (doping) and before that, Seoul and Mexico City. Just look at the stern, forceful, effective way it's dealt with the all-but-universal current doping problems . Russia has been exposed this time around  as actually having used the FSB (the successor to the KGB) to further and protect  state-sponsored doping across the board: track and field, obviously, but also swimming, hell, even equestrian events (stoned ponies, right?).  Secret doors and hidden panels in the walls of gyms and work-out rooms. The switching (by agents, for God's sake) of urine samples. And how has IOC and its country-level surrogates handled it? Well, they've all said (with but a few individual exceptions)"Never mind! It's okay. Go ahead. Come out to play!"





In April, just after the torch was lit in Greece, an absolutely-unheard of tidal wave came ashore off of Rio and ripped up the bicycle lane created just for the games (for a measly twelve mil). The stalwart and fatalistic Brazilians don't believe in omens. Bet some of them are rethinking their smugness, now.