Aiden Hutchinson and the Patients at Mott Children’s Hospital
When Aiden Hutchinson was a Wolverine, he was a regular visitor to patients at Mott Children’s Hospital. Now that Hutchison is recovering from surgery following the breaking of his fibula and tibia in Sunday’s game with the Cowboys, the young patients at Mott are returning the favor. Per the Detroit Free Press today.
Everyone in Michigan is pulling for injured Detroit Lions star edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson after he broke his leg Sunday during a win against the Dallas Cowboys — even the children at the C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor facing serious health issues themselves.
On Tuesday, the children’s hospital released a video with messages of support for Hutchinson…Hutchinson, a Michigan Wolverines and Dearborn Divine Child graduate, has been a long supporter of Mott’s Children’s Hospital, dating back to his college days.
The children he has supported repaid the favor with supporting messages of their own. In the 43-second video, the kids are shown with clear water jugs with “Hutch” written across. Hutchinson would carry around a large plastic water jug a lot of the time and made it a habit to write the kids’ names he visited in the past on a jug before games.
The Mott patients get my Orchid of the Day. Their video is my Video of the Day.
Regardless of what he does for the remainder of his career, Aiden Hutchinson has already made a lasting impact on our community through his work on and off the field.
The Huckster
For the last six months, my good friend Ernie, has been forwarding me emails on a regular basis promoting the various products our former president is selling. Every time I open one of the emails and see the product, I cringe.
Initially, my thought was this cannot be true. There is no way a former president, who is supposedly as well off as the former president wants us to believe, would ever stoop so low. Then I remembered The Apprentice.
Lately, I have come to ignore the emails other than to wonder how many products he has on the market, and who the hell would buy such a thing. Clearly, anyone with half a brain would know that the products are exorbitantly overpriced and not worth a fraction of the sale price. It is clear to me the former president has taken a page out of P.T. Barnum’s book knowing there is a fool born every day.
It turns out I am not alone in my thinking. Today, Nolan Finley, conservative editorial editor of the Detroit News, wrote an opinion article expressing many of my thoughts. Here is Nolan’s opinion article titled Trump’s Bibles Bring NIL Scheme to Politics.
Bible salesmen are synonymous in American culture with hucksterism.
Plying the country’s backroads, the charismatic con men of literature prey on the gullibility of the faithful with insincere pitches for an overpriced product their targets can ill afford.
Donald Trump is bringing those predatory characters to life. The former president, always oblivious to irony, is hawking $60 Trump Bibles in collaboration with country singer Lee Greenwood, whose “God Bless the USA” is Trump’s campaign theme song.
Leather-bound versions of Trump’s Good Book contain handwritten lyrics to Greenwood’s song, as well as copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Pledge of Allegiance. The book features an embossed cover and is printed in large type, a concession to the advancing age of his most ardent supporters.
In a Truth Social video, Trump declares, “All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It’s my favorite book. … We must make America pray again.” The marketing message also boasts this is “the only Bible endorsed by President Trump!” King James must be rolling over in his sarcophagus.
Trump has brought the name, image and likeness (NIL) scheme from the college athletic arenas to the campaign trail. The Trump Bible is just one of several items the politician/pitchman is touting as he tries to raise cash for his presidential campaign and to pay down his enormous legal bills.
Also available in the Trump product line are gold-colored high-top sneakers for $400, a series of coins ranging from copper to gold bearing his face and patriotic backdrops, digital trading cards and watches with price tags of up to $100,000.
I couldn’t find out whether Trump was reaping any benefit from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s “The Kid’s Guide to President Trump,” designed to “help your kids learn the truth about President Trump and celebrate America,” or from the blond-maned Trumpy Bear featured in the TV commercials, or the Trumpy Trout talking fish.
Fortunately for him, Trump is not cursed with self-awareness. Elsewise he’d recognize how perfectly he’s playing into the stereotype of a New York City real estate flimflam artist fleecing his adoring supporters of their money and their votes.
I’ll admit to having in my closet a very nice Trump signature necktie I was gifted years before Trump was a thing. It’s extra-long and I’ve been saving it to hang myself with should America’s political landscape become any more hopeless. This is my Quote of the Day.
In the film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Big Dan the Bible salesman, just before he robs the rubes and bashes them in their heads, advises them the key to “making money in the Lord’s service” is finding a wholesaler. Trump has — he’s importing his Bibles from China at three bucks a copy, for a mark-up of $57. Better get one now; should Trump win and impose the steep tariffs he promises on China, the price will go way up.
Writing about the Bibles, the Associated Press, with its typical sanctimony, points out the obvious, noting Trump has lived a life that “often seemed at odds with teachings espoused by Christ in the Gospels.”
Well, that’s some heavy-duty fact-checking. This isn’t about setting the nation on a more moral course. Again, quoting Big Dan: “It’s about the money, boys. It’s about the gol-danged money.” Which is my Second Quote of the Day
Bold emphasis is my editing of the article.
Only in American can a huckster and convicted criminal be the standard bearer of a major political party and be there candidate for president.
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Quote of the Day: See above in The Huckster
Second Quote of the Day: See above in The Huckster
Orchid of the Day: The patients at Mott Hospital. See above in Aiden Hutchinson and Patients at Mott Children’s Hospital.
Onion of the Day: The Huckster
Image of the Day: The Children of Mott Children’s Hospital paying it back to Aiden Hutchinson.