Headline for the lead story in the NYT today: Trump Concedes He Doesn’t Know What The Fuck He’s Doing; Doesn’t Care.

His divorce from reality has been finalized. My favorite recent pronouncement (not kidding): Trump says we’ve pretty much worked out an agreement with Iran in which we get everything we want.

Kaitlin Collins: They are giving up control over the uranium?

Trump: Yes.

Kaitlin: They agreed to open the Strait of Harmuz?

Trump: Yes.

Kaitlin: When?

Trump: Immediately.

Kaitlin: Oy, I need a drink. This schmuck has really lost it.

I’ll give him this much — his stand-up routine has gotten pretty crisp.

Stop in to fill up lately? How’s the 401(k) doing? Who’s benefiting from your pain?– Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the wealthy investors clued in to the Trump-induced market manipulations (per Paul Krugman). It certainly ain’t me or you.

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Unlike most teenage girls in America, our Robin is pretty serious about her appearance. (That was a joke.) She generally dresses in a rock band’s black t-shirt, appropriately torn black jeans, and various (and numerous) bracelets, belts, neck things, what-have-you. She makes much of her stuff herself. In the coming days, I’ll try to get a more current shot without incurring her wrath. Here’s one from not too long ago.

Anyway, I mention this because we were tasked with driving her and boyfriend Diegan around a bit yesterday (with their friend Derek). Diegan is also pretty cool-looking. One of our stops was for ice cream (the cost of which ran to over $32 for four). School had just let out and we were in Summit, so the shop was teeming with middle school girls. (Not complaining.) As we were out on the sidewalk deciding how to proceed, a girl came out of the shop, walked over to Robin and Diegan and said “I just want to tell you my friends and I think you guys really look cool.”

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If you are Jewish and you love someone, your expressions of worry far outweigh and outnumber your expressions of affection. The ratio of “Are you alright?” to “I love you” — roughly five-to-one, I’d say. And that’s okay. With us, “Are you alright?” is an exact equivalent.

My mother could have written this song. It’s a paean to worry. It should be part of the Shabbos service.

At 22A in the puzzle today, the clue was “Do we have a problem here?” and the answer was ALL OK? It did not ring true for Rex: I do not believe in the phrase “ALL OK?” Like, at all. Cannot hear it. “YOU OK?” I can def hear. “ALL GOOD?” I can kinda hear. “EVERYTHING OK?,” sure. “ALL OK?,” no. No.

Rex’s note on 56D was even more pointed: The clue was “NFL coach Quinn,” and the answer was DAN. Here’s Rex: “NFL coaches, esp. their first names, there’s just no way. I do not care. ‘Some guy’s first name’ may as well have been the clue for DAN. The clue doesn’t even tell you the team he coaches. It’s a really underwritten clue; we don’t even learn any potentially interesting trivia. Meh.”

I took it upon myself to defend the constructor (Zachary David Levy). My comment: DAN did rattle around in my brain when I saw QUINN. You must not be wasting enough time watching football on Sundays, RP. He’s not a run-of-the-mill NFL coach, historically. He was the head coach of the Falcons in Super Bowl LI when they held a 28-3 lead over the Pats in the third quarter and still managed to lose (in OT). For Atlantans, it’s a close call between that game and the Civil War.

Did someone mention the Civil War? Here’s a shot from the Dirty Old Man’s Guide to the Confederacy (Owl Chatter Press, 2024).

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Speaking of dirty old men, at 25A the clue was “Epithet for Bill Clinton.” Five letters. I put down SLICK. Slick Willie, right? But it was BUBBA. D’oh! I shared this note with the gang:

One of my first thoughts today was “Clinton has an epithet? When did he die?” So I looked up epithet to make sure I wasn’t confusing it with “epitaph.” (I was.) It’s defined as “an adjective expressing a quality characteristic of the person mentioned.” And the example given for it was: “Old men are often unfairly awarded the epithet ‘dirty.’” (I’m not kidding.) It’s certainly not “unfairly” in my case.

Here’s Monica.

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When my cousin got shingles, he didn’t know whether to go see a doctor or a roofer.

Whoever said laughter is the best medicine didn’t have very good insurance.

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Wilma’s been after my ass to talk about yesterday’s puzzle: the one about birds. Okay, girl, don’t get your feathers all ruffled! Sheesh!

I loved it. The theme was tipped by the revealer: “Make a rude gesture.” Answer: FLIP THE BIRD. Then in the four theme answers a bird was embedded, but it had to be in reverse (“flipped”). Wow. So, e.g., one theme answer was POL[EGRET]IST. See the egret in there? Well, you had to read egret backwards to get POLTERGEIST. (The clue was “Literally, ‘rumbling ghost.’”)

Another example was FALL[CRANE]HES. Reading crane backwards yields FALLEN ARCHES, for the clue “Flat feet.”

The other birds in the puzzle were HAWK and TERN. No owl!!

On the theory that one good TERN deserves another, I made up three on my own, taking a slightly different approach. In mine, the bird was embedded backwards. (Wilma says: sounds painful.)

1. They populate the WNBA. Answer: TAL[LWO]MEN. See the owl in there backwards? Sure you do.

2. Hot-dog-themed amusement park: WIE[NERW]ORLD. (See the wren in there?)

And my favorite: State of being tired of gawking at women at the shore: BIKI[NIBOR]EDOM. (Robin)

Commenter Gary took me to task, saying: This is no such thing as bikini boredom.

Point well taken, I conceded.

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It’s only Opening Day and I’m already disgusted with players standing at home plate to admire their home runs instead of running hard out of the box. Our beloved CJ Abrams did that against the Cubbies yesterday only to watch the wind keep his ball in the park. He was tagged out at second and it cost the Gnats a run. C’mon man! The damn place is called The Windy City, for Pete’s sake.

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Well, you gotta hand it to Hegseth and Trump. At least they are openly racist and sexist. The dog lovers don’t have to worry about their four-legged friends being bothered by dog whistles. It’s blaring for all to see and hear. In his latest move, Hegseth removed four military officers from a promotion list: two Blacks and two women.

According to the NYT, Hegseth had been pressing senior Army leaders, including Army Sec’y Driscoll, for months to remove the officers’ names. But Driscoll, citing the officers’ decades-long records of exemplary service, had repeatedly refused. So Pete took the matter into his own hands and removed them himself. He appears to lack the authority to do so: He can approve or disapprove the list but only in its entirety.

Since taking office, Hegseth fired or sidelined at least two-dozen generals and admirals so that, currently, the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all five service chiefs and nine of the military’s 10 combatant commanders are white men, a return to the status quo that existed for decades.

Last summer, Hegseth signed off on a sweeping overhaul of how officers are selected for promotion. To lead the process, he tapped Anthony J. Tata, a retired brigadier general, who once called President Obama a “terrorist leader,” and who has a documented history of making Islamophobic comments.

Why aren’t military leaders resigning in protest to support their Black brothers and Black and white sisters? When Gen. Milley’s portrait was removed from a gallery by Trump in a hateful and childish act of retribution, why didn’t every other living General with a portrait in the gallery ask to have his portrait taken down as well? Easy for me to say, so I did.

It’s hard to take an ethical stance when your career and/or paycheck is on the line, but it boils down to how fundamental your principles are to your life. Remember Pacino in Scent of a Woman?

“I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard.”

Here’s Milley. I hope we have enough like him. It’s going to get ugly out there before it’s over. See you tomorrow.

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