Name Dropping

WHEN DONALD TRUMP recently bragged about having received phone calls from "hundreds" of governors, up went the red flags among Trump supporters, Trump detractors, and mathematicians alike. Not so much Trump supporters, for whom math classes are no more relevant than chemistry or ethics. Hundreds of governors. Was the Wharton grad referring to some other country, or does he harbor the mistaken notion that some or all of the fifty nifty are governed by executive committee? We can derive comfort from reflecting that this latter day faux pas ranks, on balance, among Teflon Don's least flagrantly amusing mental verbal blunders. But give credit. It ranks right up there with Geroge Washington "taking over" airports and windmills possibly causing cancer. Then too, words may mean things, as Rush Limbaugh, if you happen to remember him, told us from behind his golden EIB microphone. Whatever Trump says, however banal, must be true, because, after all, it was he who said it. One might recall the days when you could buy one of those day to day tear off calendars, with an idiotic insipid quote of the day froom George Bush the first, and then another for George Bush the second. We were never disappointed. Every dqy was a new laffer. My favorite might have been from George H.W.: "The United States is the greatest nation in the country." Wasn't there also a Ronald Wilson Reagan tear off verbal inanity calendar? If not, there certainly should have been. Give credit where credit is due; Republicans do not have a penchant for electing intelligent articulate national leaders, but they sure know how to keep the electorate entertained. What they lack in intelligence and moral integrity they more than make up for in material for late night television. Richard M. Nixon now looks more like a genius among Republicans than ever before, and that's goin' some. All word salads aside, while we patiently await the publication of the 2026 Donald J. Trump inane quote of the day tear off calendar, musing that Trump's declining mental state promises to offer more of the same in increasing quantity and quality, we note with anticipation that he seeems to be gaining momentum, not losing it. Now he wants professional sports teams to retrogressively rename themsselves, to return to old familiar monikers. His delusion is that native Americans are honored by becoming mascots. Maybe some of them are. Can you imagine the reaction among western European-Americans in the unlikely event that the North Carolina Crackers or the Honolulu Honkies take to field? The San Antonio Spics. The Wllmington Wetbacks. The Nebraska Negroes. By now you get the point. It may well be that indigenous American prefer being called "Redskins". Maybe not. Personally, I would rather be called a "native American" or "an indigenous person" than an "Indian". No disrespect intended to the very confused Christopher Columbus, but I sure as heel wouldn't want to be even remotely confused with people who live in India. I am assured by traditionalists that the terms "Indians" and "redskins" are widely considered a great honor among those so dsignated. As Festus Haggen sometimes said: "I have my doubtfuls." But Festus never learned how to read, despite receiving offers of help. You sometimes suspect that neither did those among us - and we know exactly who they are, and their political affiliation - who insist on abandoning politically correct renaming in favor of the presumed comfort of insulting tags. Festus once hung a "Barn Dance" sign upside down and didn't even know it. And my beloved New York Yankees were once upon a time called the "Hilltoppers". So much for tradition. Thank the dear lord for name droppers.