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My First Blog Post

The Biden crime bill and Crack
— Oscar Wilde.

In the late 1980’s, cities in this country were confronted with a new drug fad involving cocaine; namely, “freebasing”. Traditionally, cocaine is abused by “snorting”; the user inhales the powder up the nose. This can be somewhat uncomfortable, In that the individual crystals are rather sharp, and repeated use can damage the septum, the membrane between the nostrils.

I hate to do this, but we need to consider some chemistry here. Cocaine, along with most other drugs, fall into a category called “nitrogeneous bases”, substances that contain nitrogen in the molecule. These are frequently messy, smelly liquids (think of ammonia). As such their physical properties render them unfit for ingestion. What is generally done about this is to convert them chemically to acid salts, usually the hydrochloride (HCl). This dramatically alters them to a more suitable form for use in the body. For instance, the conversion makes them dissolve better I n water, which makes up most of us. Another property which changes is the melting point; it is much lower in the freebase form. One can smoke the stuff, which gives a quicker high, and avoids damage to the nose. Win-Win!

In a pervious life, I worked in DEA forensic labs. I was once called upon to do a dog-and-pony show for agency higher-ups. I took a gram of cocaine HCl , added an ounce or so of water and a teaspoonful of baking soda, stirred briefly, and a white solid dropped to the bottom of the beaker. I poured out the water, and voila! Crack cocaine!!

In so doing, however, I increased the penalty for dealing the mere gram of coke (as the HCl salt) to what it would have been for a kilo. Talk about value added!

Evidentally, Joe Biden, then a senator, had some responsibility for drastically increasing penalties for trafficking on crack, vis a vis cocaine as the HCl salt. This had the unintended consequence of filing jails with low level druggies, mostlyminorities, with no effect to speak of on cocaine trafficking by the organized crime cartels, who rarely fooled with crack.

The crack epidemic was a crisis in many large cities at the time. Whether this did any good to deal with the problem is well above my pay grade. The law was modified in 2010 to reduce the sentencing disparity from 1,000 to 18. It is probably still too great, but a baby step in the right direction, maybe.

American Gestapo

Are we living a domestic version of Nazi Germany? The current version – ICE? Naw, it can’t happen here. But consider: Several high ranking officers have issued a warning that service members are not obligated to follow illegal orders. The ringleader, a retired Navy captain currently serving as a U.S Senator from Arizona, is being threatened with reduction in rank for daring to point out that blindly following orders issued by our current SECDEF is not obligatory. In several cities, we have our updated version of the Keystone Kops spreading fear and loathing among citizens by sending some of them to gulags in El Salvador without any semblance of due process.

Recent happenings in Minnesota: We seem to have American skinheads, aka Ice, trying to “protect” the citizenry from themselves. No, the elected, (presumably democratically), trying to protect themselves from marauding bands of ICE (that word, again). How many citizens, or mere humans, do we need to sacrifice?

POTUS, in a previous role, played a hard-nosed executive whose principal utterance was, “You’re fired”. Where is this guy now, when he’s so needed? Nowhere, it seems. We need someone to fire….the list goes on…how ‘bout Secretary Noem? The new man in Minnesota, the one who gathered $50 grand in a paper bag in an FBI sting a few months back? Secretary Gabbard, maybe? Then, again, the old man seems to be in a permanent fog, these days. And you thought Biden had lost it?

A fay of hope: A federal judge recently ordered release of a five year old desperado from a DHS slam in Texas. ICE, again! Do you feel protected, safer, now?

Looks like a long, cold winter, indeed…..

The Unfinished

I was into a screed about the recent election, near the end, when a hit on the wrong set of keys caused it to disappear. Happens. For what it’s worth, I’ll try to reconstruct.

To call this a Democrat sweep is both obvious, and largely besides the point. As I’ve said, it doesn’t really matter that much in the first year of the Donald’s second try at destroying what’s left of our democracy. Remember:

-They may impeach him yet again, but I cannot envision the next step, conviction/removal

– There’s only Hillbilly Elegy as a result. Even were it to happen.

The GOP has a year to have most of us forget. We need a similar result in the 2026 midterms, Voters have short memories. It will require a lot of work by the Dem majority (hopefully) in the new Congress to begin reversal of damage already incurred.

All that said, the election results seem to track what appears to be an overwhelming rejection of the Trump presidency, writ large. There have been several mass demonstrations, largely peaceful, against it.

As I write this, Marjorie Taylor Green’s resignation may be the start of a stampede toward the exits on the part of GOP House backbenchers. In the meantime:

The Epstein Files. What part did POTUS play? What does he have to hide?

What does Putin have on him?

How much has the First Family been enriched by his presidency?

Is he for real about paying his family $250 million (or is it billion) to pay for his legal defense related to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection?

Don’t know ‘bout you, but I’m sick to death of la famille Trump. Can’t the GOP find us another whipping boy? Historically, most U.S Presidents have profited by their exposure to this office (I can think of one exception last century: Harry S Truman, who never even owned a home. One of our most consequential, according to historians). I can’t help thinking Trump’s greatest triumph may have been his cameo in the movie “Home Alone”. Had to louse it up by being President.

Buyer’s Remorse

Donald Trump was recently elected to a second term, narrowly defeating Kamilla Harris. For the first time, The Donald actually won more votes than his democratic rival. In the first year of his second term, however, there.have been three “No Kings Day” demonstrations, the last one involving in excess of seven million people. And we’re not even at a quarter of his (hopefully) last term!

The Founders of this republic designed a brilliant Constitution, with,in my view, a significant weakness: they set an excessively high bar to ridding the nation of an unsuitable Chief Executive. Trump was impeached three times during his first term, none of which came close to removal from office. Obviously, no attempt would be made with his party controlling both houses of Congress, despite his currently unpopularity, Buyer’s remorse!

Remorse from what? Let’s start with his cabinet. Pete Hegseth, reformed drunk,( maybe), at Defense ( no, it’s not War, at least not yet). Master of the open mike. Dragging top brass halfway around the world, for a dog-and-pony show starring Himself and POTUS. The coverup with Justice regarding good buddy Epstein. At HHS, we have RFK, Jr., inviting measles and other diseases back that we thought we had eliminated. Buyers remorse!

Then, we have Donald the Builder. Didn’t need the East Wing, anyhow. I guess he’ll put his name on whatever gets built – old habits die hard, after all. No, we didn’t need to wake Congress up with this trivia. By the way, are there any plans to open the government any time soon? I know, I know, private money is financing this boondoggle. What has been promised to whom? There is no such thing as a free lunch. Buyers remorse!

The centerpiece of the Trump economy seems to be tariffs. What this moron doesn’t seem to grasp is who pays the tariffs. Yes, he earned an MBA from an Ivy League school, but there is a belief out there that Daddy paid someone to take several exams. Buyers remorse!

Yes, I mentioned some structural weakness in our Constitution, namely, the near impossibility of correction of a mistake once a President is elected. In many other countries some parliamentary procedure exists to declare a “no confidence” vote to remove a chief executive. Even then, we are stuck with Hillbilly Elegy. Buyers remorse!

This by no means comprises all the stuff we’re entitled to regret. Yes, we have a long way to go. One more time, now: Buyers remorse!

Eggheads I Have Known

I taught chemistry, back in the day, and learned some, which I was subsequently privileged to share as a teacher. As an old coot, let me share some thoughts about some of the folks I learned from.

By the way, I will never forget one thought about learning chemistry I received on my first day teaching high school, to wit: “chemistry is the hardest course in high school”. Say what? Made me think about some of my professors back then.

Chester Kremer, my freshman instructor, commenting about an exam he had graded, “Slaughter on Convent Avenue”. Ha Ha. Seems like bragging. Did the poor result by chance have anything to do with his teaching?

David Perlman, organic chemistry, senior year. I was looking for a job

with the Food and Drug Administration, and had requested permission to list him as a reference: ”Why didn’t you tell me you were looking for a job?”, like, why would anybody want to work for the government? For an inexperienced tyro, it turned out rather well, thank you. Professor Perlman was an excellent teacher, BTW.

Professor Julius Kuck: Had him on Saturdays, starting at 8AM. Yuck! Turned out to be one of the best I ever had. For each class, he bought doughnuts and “soluble coffee”, aka instant. We brewed a few liters in beakers used solely for that purpose, a total No No! Professor Kuck was unusual in that he had a real job with a chemical company

Professor Sylvester Liotta: Taught physical chemistry, whenever he felt like it, which wasn’t often. Was, instead, a walking indictment of what’s wrong with granting professors tenure. He taught, mostly, lab courses. Easiest place to hide non-performers in those days.

Professor Bembry, first name lost in the fog of memory. Had him for organic chemistry, and quantitative analysis. Rumors at that time were that he had suffered a trauma involving a child of his, and never recovered. Only teacher I ever had who lectured totally without eye contact. Another tenure case.

George Weiner. CCNY downtown (an exile from the main campus, UPtown), who probably saved my bacon: he, in effect reversed Kremer’s grade D by granting a grade of B (really should have been an A, but I was in my screw-up freshman phase). Professor Weiner‘s approach to teaching actually made the course work intelligible. To say nothing about his dry wit.

Perhaps you have noticed: No females, not in the “hard” sciences, anyway. Not that uncommon back then. As I have observed recently, more women than men are receiving advanced degrees in science these days. T’aint funny, guys. Having had the pleasure of teaching many women, I am thrilled at their work ethic. I am pleased that we are, finally, making use of the talent available in the other half of the human race.I taught chemistry, back in the day, and learned some, which I was subsequently privileged to share as a teacher. As an old coot, let me share some thoughts about some of the folks I learned from.

David Perlman, organic chemistry, senior year. I was looking for a job

The Garden State

If we’re into misnomers, my native state is, of course, The Empire State. Across a certain river nearby lies another famous piece of real estate officially known as The Garden State, or, New Jersey. As a city boy in the 1940’s, I spent several summers there.

These days, the state is better known for its more contemporary contributions to American society such as Bruce Springsteen, “New Joisey” and, of course, The Sopranos. To a city kid of postwar Queens, NY, however, it was “the country”. It was home to a couple of French resorts a few hours drive from NYC. I spent a couple of summers there following my junior and senior years of high school. Not exactly the Jewish Alps.

One such establishment was owned by a French couple, Henri and Jeanette Diage. They ran a restaurant with a limited menu, and several rooms for lodging. Nothing fancy; catered to folks who were French, or, French descent, in the decade following the end of WWII. We Franco-American kids staffed the restaurant, without too much regard to liquor, or for that matter, child labor laws. Typically, my folks negotiated with the Diages for my services. Nothing in writing, or any such nonsense. For a stretch of 10 weeks in the good ol’ summertime, I could make a minimum of $160! Imagine that! Wouldn’t see a nickel of it until end of summer; maybe a few bucks more, mais, on verra.

For this princely sum, we washed dishes. During my final summer, I was promoted to breakfast cook. I learned to make scrambled, fried and boiled eggs, as well as pancakes. (Learned at the feet of a master, I might add). Seven days a week.

We working stiffs mingled freely with guests. Every two weeks, the kitchen help went to the movies, along with guest kids, on the house. Boys and girls together, me ‘n some neat girls. I even fought my one-and-only bar-room brawl. Talk about a rite of passage (proved to be useful experience in a later gig as a naval officer).

Hard to believe what has become of the American dream, summer, and all kinds of stuff. No one was afraid of global warming (or, do I mean climate change?). Don’t recall any school shootings, either. Yes, the Russkies had acquired The Bomb, but weren’t they the gang that couldn’t shoot straight? For some reason, we kids weren’t particularly scared. Maybe we shoulda been.

Computers & I

This mirrors my experiences with these devices which, they say, might, in the form of AI, rule the world. They might do a better job. T’aint sayin’ much. I don’t pretend to know a great deal, but here is my take (and history) with them, such as it is.

Back in the 1960’s when I went to college, we computed stuff using slide rules. Some of these, known as “log log deci trig” cost as much as a cellphone in 2025 currency. I owned a simpler, cheaper device. The fancy (engineering grade) could do natural logarithms, base ten logs, trigonometric functions, and brew a cup of coffee (just kidding). They had serious shortcomings: you had to supply your exponents and decimals; they were only good for 3 significant figures, at best.

Fast forward to my years with FDA. We actually had a couple of Frieden electric calculators!

Near the end of my Federal career (circa 1987) I needed to work, for

the first time, a real PC: a Leading Edge. I retired a few years later, and had a neighbor kid build me one, since I no longer had the use of my Government PC. I had obtained jobs teaching chemistry in high school and college. I taught myself, then classes, how to calculate results obtained from experiments.

Over the next few decades, we bought PC’s , every couple of years, learned some stuff along the way. We learned how to prepare tax returns, utilize banking sites and perform rudimentary searches. We have even downloaded apps. Imagine that!!

During the first year of my stint at Bishop O’Connell, the school administration became aware of car phones. Convenient way to inform of traffic glitches, lateness, and other morning catastrophes. We were encouraged to buy one (at our expense, of course). These were followed by flip phones, then cellphones (I was most fortunate to end my teaching career before these became commonplace).

Then, Al Gore invented the Internet (not really). I always remember, in the early ‘90s, polling parents on Open School Night as to Internet availability in the homes of these (usually quite affluent) folks. The first year: 20 percent; second, about half. By the fourth, almost all. Being anxious to exploit this as a teaching tool, I assigned a project requiring kids to research something using the Internet. At least one wrote something advocating legalization of marihuana. He cited an authoritative source: NORML (National Organizational for the Reform of Marihuana Laws). Aha! Teachable Moment: The Pope may be infallible. But the Internet is not. You need to be able to tell the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. You can’t trust everything that appears on it (and, more than some of the time, even peer-reviewed journals).

I never got to know much about these devices (usually just enough to learn what I needed to do, but not much else). Did, however, get to know some general, useful factoids:

Kids and younger people know much more about them. When you need to know more, ask one.
What the hell is a QR code? Did find what an App is.
Software used to come with comprehensive written instructions. No more. However, the software will usually come to you, sort of.

Brave new world, indeed! As a comic strip once told me, I was born 30 years too soon.

Book Review

“As Dark as it Gets

from Chains to Grace”, is the title of an autobiography by Laura Dunavent, a resident here, and our friend. But it’s more than that. It is the story of a troubled family in these United States, circa now, but it’s more than that. It is an improbable story of survival against seemingly impossible odds, but it’s more than that. It tells of God lifting Laura on a few occasions when she needed it, which essentially saved her life.

Laura was born in mid-century America to two individuals who should never have become parents. The cruelties inflicted on Laura and another, a few years younger sibling, Rodger, are almost graphic. Laura survived, but Rodger, after bouts of drinking and drugs, took his own life in middle age. The parental relationship (I hesitate to call it a marriage) produced two more children, one of whom, a daughter, also died young. The children were subjected to sitting hours in an unheated car while Daddy enjoyed pleasures with women not his wife. Besides all that, Laura’s mom constantly belittled her, privately and in public. How she managed to acquire an education, become a health care professional against seemingly impossible odds, and hold it together is a near miracle.

This is by no means an easy or pleasant read, but feels like an accomplishment once you get through. I highly recommend it.

As Dark as it Gets, by Laura W. Dunavent, MS, BSN, RN, Parker Publishers, 2025

Way Back in the Day (continued)

Growing Up

We all went to public school. Kind of ironic, given that Flo and I, later in life, taught in Catholic schools. My first (before we bought the house) was PS 151 Queens. Let me decode this. “PS” stood for Public School. There were lots of elementary schools in the five boroughs-so many that they went by numbers, rather than names. “Queens” was the borough (there were public schools in the Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and, even, Staten Island). Later, I transferred to PS 102, also in Queens.

The Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn also operated schools. The nearest to us was Resurrection Ascension in nearby Rego Park. They were staffed mostly by nuns. Not surprisingly, there was much rivalry between kids going to RA, as opposed to PS, whatever. They looked down on us, although compared to today, there was little or no violence-just digs and insults. No biggie. Catholic school boys tended to be Irish, Yankee/Giant fans, while we lowly PS guys would mostly root for the (Brooklyn) Dodgers.

A few decades later, I had retired from civil service and got a job teaching science in a Catholic high school in Northern Virginia. This is before the cellphone was invented. Even then, at the end of the last century, I was being warned that kids had changed since mine grew up, and not for the better. For the most part, yes, they had changed, but if you treated them with respect, they were not that much different. Nonetheless, I’d hate to be teaching in the era of cellphones and AI.

Way Back in the Day

Housing

It was 1945. My parents were renting an apartment in a two- family. We later called arrangements like these “mother and daughter”. Anyhow, the Putnams, from whom my parents rented, were expecting their two sons, George and Jack back from the war, which was, thankfully, ending. One of the sons was getting married, and the landlord needed the apartment.

Mom and Dad decided to buy a house – not so simple in an economy

about to welcome 12 million servicemen home. They finally found a bungalow (we’d call this a rambler these days) further out in Queens, in a section called Elmhurst. This was not exactly their dream house. Two bedrooms, one bath, and a boiler room, adjacent to the kitchen, which housed the coal burning heating plant. 1946 was an exceptionally cold winter, and the furnace ran, well, constantly. So much so, that the flue (the pipe that led to the chimney) got hot enough to ignite the insulation (consisting of newsprint!). Somebody was obviously paid off to grant the place a Certificate of Occupancy. Ya think??

O.K., well, Frank Canaff, aka Harry Homeowner, had to deal with this. My father was a room service waiter in a Manhattan hotel, with zero experience with construction. He was also, due to the timely birth of his two sons, a non-veteran. My folks bought the place for $6500, put 3K down (all the money they had), and managed to get a mortgage (if I recall, correctly, paying $71.37 every three months). Oh, did I mention the house had a partially excavated basement (called a cellar), with wooden beams and trusses resting directly on soil. The termites were having a feast.

So. The object of the game was to dig out the cellar (by hand), replace the rotted beams, bolster the foundation (such as it was) with poured concrete, and eventually relocate the heating plant to the finished basement. My father taught himself to:

Dig dirt out by hand
Replace flooring and support structures
Mix by hand, and then pour, concrete

And do all this singlehandedly, while holding down a full time job!

I recall my mother, discussing the rather slow progress with a family friend. She poured out the contents of a sugar bowl, and described to the gentleman how it was analogous to refilling the bowl one crystal at a time. Without, of course, the callused hands and sore back!

Oh, the boiler room was eventually converted to a dining room. With knotty pine walls, which my father also figured out how to do.

And do all this singlehandedly, while holding down a full time job!

The First Hundred Days

This became a milestone during FDR’s time in office. Rating presidents is sort of a hobby with historians. I am nothing of the kind, but for what it’s worth, I rank George Washington the best of the 18th Century, Abraham Lincoln of the 19th, and Franklin Roosevelt of the 20th. It is Roosevelt who popularized the “first hundred days”, and set the standard, as it were.

Donald Trump has just completed this period of his second term. Whereas FDR arguably saved our bacon during this time, Trump has wielded a wrecking ball. However you choose to look at it, he has caused untold suffering among his de facto governing partners in the civil service. He would never characterize them in this fashion, of course, but it is what it is.

Let’s look at some lowlights, starting with economics. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 43,487 on the last day of Biden’s term. One hundred days later: 40,227. How’s your retirement nest egg doing?

Let’s flood the zone with tariffs. This Wharton School MBA doesn’t get it. The American consumer pays the tariff. Further, the inconsistency by which they are imposed, then removed, then reimposed, causes confusion, making it all but impossible for businesses to plan. As usual, if you know the right people, and are too big to fail, carve-outs are provided. What about the rest of us?

Doris Kearns Goodwin once described Lincoln’s cabinet as a Team of Rivals. Trump’s crew is, at best, a Team of Toadys. In a Washington Post op-ed (May 4, 2025), VP Vance described this bunch as “world class”, including SECDEF Hegseth, who can’t seem to assemble a group of observers for briefings who are cleared to receive battle plans.

Have we managed to deport a million or so dangerous illegals? Don’t think so. We have, however, managed to rid this country of a father of small children who the White House admits was sent to El Salvador by mistake. Trump says he can get him back, after saying he couldn’t – you gotta be kidding! Rather than photoshop M S 1 3 on pictures of his fingertips, couldn’t we get him back and try due process the old fashioned way? The Supreme Court, unfortunately, has no means of enforcement of its decisions. Never needed them before, but times change, after all.

Meanwhile, POTUS seems to have enhanced his wealth by selling cryptocurrency and other forms of merchandise. It’s what he does. I know, I know, U.S. presidents usually leave office richer (there are exceptions: Mr. President, you’re no Harry Truman), but Trump has run the table much more than most. Not to mention Get Out of Jail Free. Do some of these schemes amount to corruption? Who am I to say?

Then we have the Art of the Deal. Deal making, Soviet style, seems the polar opposite of the “Art”. Boy, did Putin see this one coming. I’m only sorry that Ukraine seems to be the latest victim. Unfortunately, Zelenskyy has rubbed Trump the wrong way. No coming back from that.

Looks like a long four years. I’m sure the Dems will give impeachment/conviction the ol’college try, assuming they get both houses back. Even if this were to be successful, we’ed still end up with Vance (I even look forward to a new motto: Take a Chance with Vance) – oops, sorry about that!