Since January 20, I find:

It takes way less time to read the newspaper. During the Trump years, I’d start The Washington Post and an hour later not yet be done with the first section. Today I whisk though it. I’ve always, and still do, love newspapers. But I think this development is a good one.

I spend far less time on Twitter

It’s been weeks since I’ve blurted out, “did you hear what he just said? Idiot!”

When I started this blog, I intended to write about various topics of interest to me — grandkids, language, and politics. Since…

When I was in my third year of Hebrew school, the rabbi asked to see me after class. I wasn’t that good a student in my normal English grammar school and I’m afraid I was that much worse when reading right to left instead of left to right — so I figured I was in some kind of trouble.

I knocked on the rabbi’s door after class and heard him say, “come in, and please close the door.” Fortunately, he said al that in English.

I entered, closed the door and he told me sit in the chair in front…

Many people think politicians say and do things aimed only at getting elected. They don’t really believe what they’re saying but they think they need to say it to get your vote. An old saw maybe but widely believed. And (too) often true.

Finally, there is a politician who says what she honestly believes: Marjorie Taylor Greene, the new Congresswoman from Georgia. There’s no trying to figure out where she’s coming from. She lays it right out there:

She is a racist and anti-Semite.

A lot of politicians “play to the base.” In today’s Republican Party they play to former…

I have come around to thinking this entire Trump presidency has been, and is, far more than a grift.

I’m not one who buys into conspiracy theories. And I’ve not seen this one circulate anyway so maybe it’s just the result of five years of focused attention on Donald J. Trump.

I’m beginning to believe, though, that the last four years have not been a rambling, unfocused presidency led by a moron but an ever evolving conspiracy at taking over this country by Trump and other forces.

I doubt the Russians were involved because I don’t think Putin is stupid…

Yesterday’s display of attempted revolution by Donald J. Trump’s supporters was about the most frightening, disgusting and horrible things we have witnessed in our country.

And that covers a lot of ground.

We should not be surprised though.

Trump, if it wasn’t clear enough before, is a dictator wannabe. He is a narcissist who is never wrong and will never be the worst thing in his limited vocabulary — a L-0-S-E-R.

Indeed, though, that’s what he is and always has been.

Other politicians (hello, Sen. Mitch McConnell) used him to achieve their own ends. …

The next 48 hours or so will be the most consequential political hours in the nation’s history.

First, we have the two special elections in Georgia that will determine control of the U.S. Senate and, largely, how successful legislatively President-elect Joe Biden will be.

Then, Wednesday we have the Republican challenge of electoral votes. That challenge will fail to change the election results.

The Georgia election, as they say, is what it is. Who wins is up to the voters in Georgia. And as the state’s election officials have demonstrated, they know how to run a fair election.

The Wednesday…

I have a friend who recently lost his father to COVID.

His dad followed all the government guidance. He wore a mask, socially distanced, washed his hands, stayed inside his family pod. Yet, he caught the virus obviously from someone who didn’t follow the guidance and who went about his or her carefree way denying the science and ignoring that part of the guidance is to wear a mask, etc., to protect others from you giving them the virus. As with hundreds of thousands of others, his dad died for no good reason. Government leaders and many fellow citizens have…

I’m not all that old. I mean, I turned 70 on my last birthday and in the crazy year that is 2020, they tell me 70 is like the new 50 or some nonsense. Fact is, I am 70.

Heck, couple of weeks ago my 26-year-old grandson and his partner had a baby making me a great-grandfather. At 70.

How can that be, you ask? I’ll tell you: I had kids when I was young and my kids had kids when they were younger. …