Summer changes
It has been over a week since my last blog. Now that the golf courses are open and it stays daylight until 9:30 and later, I find it very hard to stay motivated to write my blog on a daily basis.
Last year I took a hiatus from the blog during the summer. This year, being an election year and with all the turmoil going on, I will be doing something different. I will be writing my blog on Wednesdays only.
I will continue with the same format, but the blogs may be a little longer because I will include items of the week. I may have multiple Quotes, Orchids, and Onions. I will limit the blog to one Question and one Video unless there is a compelling reason to have more.
If there are any changes in this plan, I will let you know.
Holding AG Nessel accountable for her political prosecution on the Flint Water Crisis.
Multiple media outlets have reported that Rich Baird, who served as former governor Snyders “transformation manager” has submitted a notice of intent to file a $1 million malicious prosecution lawsuit against the Attorney General and two members of her Flint water criminal prosecution team.
BAIRD, who served mostly as a behind-the-scenes operative became the point person on the Governor’s stickier issues, seeks an additional $800,000 in attorney fees, which he told MIRS he spent defending himself from the criminal charges.
“I’d like my $800,000 back, and I’d like some consideration for all of the other things financially and emotionally that have happened to me,” he said. “But beyond that, the biggest travesty in all of this is that people do not want to be either elected or appointed to public service because of the potential of being penalized . . . brutalized is probably a better word.
“The same thing is true with a social worker. What if you make a good-faith decision to keep an individual with their family and that was the wrong decision? You operated on the best data that you had at the time, but you didn’t get it right. Should you be behind bars for that?” Baird asked. “I can’t speak for what the AG had in her teams’ mind. All I know for sure is that Democrats should not do this to Republicans and Republicans should certainly never ever do it to Democrats. If, at the end of the day, the good thing that comes out of this is we shine a bright light on demonizing government employees and elected officials for things that they did that had bad consequences but were done in good faith.”
I am sure the other defendants who were politically prosecuted in the Flint Water Crisis will be watching this suit very closely as they decide whether to also file suit. I know I will be watching this very closely.
Unimaginable
How did we get to the point that the Republican nominee for president is a former president who has been found guilty of sexual assault and rape in a civil court and is now on trial for trying to influence the 2016 presidential election by providing illegal payments to a porn star to buy her silence for an alleged affair he had with her while his wife was four months pregnant with the former president’s son?
When this happened to other political candidates, they usually fell off the political cliff.
It is unimaginable to me that he remains the standard bearer for the former Republican Party, now known as the MAGA Kamikaze Party.
Horse racing.
I had no intention of watching the 150th Kentucky Derby on Saturday May 5. I was so disgusted with how too many trainers, owners and veterinarians had let greed enter into how they treated the world class athletes, otherwise known as thoroughbreds, I was boycotting watching the Derby, Preakness, and Belmont for this year.
Per the NY Times, Last year, beneath Churchill Downs’s iconic twin spires, seven horses died during the week of the showpiece event — two of them in races in the hours leading up to the Derby. In the days after, five more sustained fatal injuries, prompting Churchill officials to move their races to another Kentucky racetrack.
It got worse. A colt trained by the sport’s most recognized and controversial trainer, Bob Baffert, died at Pimlico Race Course hours before Mr. Baffert saddled the winner of the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown. Two more horses not trained by Mr. Baffert died in races surrounding the Belmont Stakes, the third leg, in June.
At the historic Saratoga Race Course in New York, 13 horses died while racing and training at the sport’s signature summer meet, including two who seemed poised to win their races before breaking down near the finish line on nationally televised broadcasts.
I shared the full NY Times article with my best friend George who has been a horse racing fan for as long as I can remember (we spent many an evening at the track during college years, including attending the 100th running of the Derby 50 years ago. George’s response to the article is my Quote of the Day.
How sad and disgusting it is that someone could be so desperate for success that they would jeopardize the trusting beings (yes, by ‘beings’ I mean the horses) who must do their bidding. I have long been a fan of horse racing and I guess I just wanted to believe that anyone training a racehorse would certainly know better than to use drugs on a horse simply to improve their performance or mask their injuries so that they could race (and pay the price afterward.)
As a college athlete, after tearing my rotator cuff and labrum in my right shoulder (my throwing arm) in a tackling incident during a practice in my sophomore year, I had cortisone injections (plural!) in my shoulder every week during football season throughout my sophomore, junior and senior year at MSU.
I accepted and took these steroid shots knowingly in hopes of masking the pain of throwing a football thousands of times per week each season. And I knew there was research showing there could be, and likely would be, long-term consequences from prolonged use of cortisone. But I was young and wanted to play, so I accepted it and let the consequences be damned. And there have been serious long-term consequences. But the point is that I KNEW what was happening…and in my case, the only risk was that my shoulder would grow progressively more useless, as it, of course, has.
Racehorses DO NOT know or have any choice about what’s being done to them. And the decision by owners or vets or trainers or doping them so that they can perform on a short-term basis even when they shouldn’t be racing at all, with little regard for the risks to their long-term health and/or actual risk of death is undeniably brutal and abhorrent. When they are being put under the massive physical and biological stress that training to run at maximum levels of exertion and even beyond their natural capacity requires, the risks of doping can be lethal…as we’ve so tragically seen.
The trainers, owners and veterinarians get my Onion of the Day.
Kentucky Derby like no other
Although I had no intention of watching the Derby, it happened to be on TV as Leah, and I were celebrating her birthday at the Vintage Restaurant at Bay Harbor. Since Leah and I attended the 100th Derby in person 50 years ago, we couldn’t help but watch the 150th Derby as it was playing out before our eyes. I was glad I watched. There is something special when watching 20 world class athletes performing at the highest level. As the horses came around the last turn heading down the stretch, you could tell it was going to be an exciting finish. Never in my life, have I seen a photo finish in a triple crown race that involved 3 horses. It took over 2 minutes to determine Mystic Dan was the winner by a flared nostril. I have watched the race on video at least five times and it still gives me goosebumps. The race is my Video of the Day.
If you have not seen the race, it is worth your time. As you are watching it enjoy the majesty of these beautiful athletes as they perform in the most exciting two minutes in sports. To be there live and on the rail as Leah and I were 50 years ago was something I will always remember, especially since the horse Leah bet on finished first.
College graduation and the end of the semester cannot come soon enough.
Hopefully, graduation and the end of the semester will lead to peace on our college campuses. I hope by the time the students return in late August and early September, the situation in the Israel/Hamas war will change to the point that a ceasefire exists, humanitarian aid is readily available. and the rebuilding of Gaza has started. Anything less will result in continued unrest on our college campuses.
Feel free to share my blog. To receive it in an email, please see the subscribe button below the Video of the Day.
Quote of the Day: See above under Horse Racing
Orchid of the Day: Mystic Dan, for winning the 150th Kentucky Derby
Onion of the Day: See above under Horse Racing
Question of the Day: Did you ever think you would see the day when a former president and current Republican Party nominee would be under trial for paying off a porn star?
Video of the Day:
👍👍👍