Opinion

President Donald Trump has turned a narrow electoral defeat into a bid for infamy.

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Just a little less than a month following Christmas 1971, my brother and I were off on another adventure to “The Tube City” of McKeesport.

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The sun did come out this week. Well, at least, for a while. The dreary weather seems to fit with the dreary times that are around us. By the way, being a weatherman (excuse me, weatherperson) on TV must be a great job. You can miss on your forecast badly, people will still watch you, and you will still get paid.

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President “only I” committed political suicide during the final days of his term.

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It’s been a terrible year for the American worker, with a notable bright spot courtesy of one of the tech firms in the crosshairs of regulators and lawmakers.

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Soon after the picture show at the 1972 New Year’s Eve after party concluded, the parishioners began to head out into the elements as they made their way back to their respective homes throughout the Bentleyville area.

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On Jan. 1, 1863, one hundred fifty-eight years ago this New Year’s Day, with the issuance of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, black American slaves officially became the arsenal to defeat the South, also known as the Confederacy, led by Lincoln’s counterpart, Jeff Davis. And to this very day, the American nation has yet to fully recognize the impact black Americans had on saving the Union during the “tragic years”of the American Civil War.

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While watching a football game recently on TV, I heard the game analyst comment about a coach whose team was having a bad season. He said he would be reluctant to fire any coach this year because of all the craziness of 2020. He said, unless there was very good reason to let a coach go, he would give them a mulligan because of the difficulties in coaching this year, primarily due to COVID-19.

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During the long history of human existence, we have relied on belief. It was the only system that existed for most people. There was no repository of reliable information. Belief is embedded in our heritage. Belief gives us psychological comfort. Belief can be based in fact or based on rumor or imagination or deliberate falsification. Beliefs can be harmless, but they can also be detrimental.

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Former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s famous axiom is that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. It’s an even worse thing to manufacture.

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“Five, four, three, two, one… Happy New Year,” shouted the Price brothers simultaneously as they continued to practice the most infamous line spoken during the last few seconds of the year.

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