On January 13 the media focused on the President giving the finger to a worker in Detroit who called him "a pedophile protector." Trump's response became the story, not the fact that Jeffrey Epstein's ghost had showed up to haunt him inside a Ford plant.
“Colbert Jokes That Trump Has Found ‘a New National Bird’”
Frank Bruni's essay in the NYTimes Jan 19, hedded "Donald Trump's middle finger," actually dissed the worker who dared to speak out in the President's presence. Bruni wrote:
"Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, responded to Trump’s Michigan meltdown by more or less praising it. He released a statement that said that a 'lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the president gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.'
"Unambiguous? For sure. Appropriate? Only if you believe in answering ugliness with more ugliness, bile with bile."
Yelling "Pedophile protector!" at Donald Trump was not "ugliness" or "bile." It was the exact truth, and it took a brave man to say it.
In a microsecond Trump realized that the accusation would be the story of his visit to the Ford plant. Releasing the Epstein Files is a working-class demand! That's the story he trumped with a flash of his finger.
Almost totally ignored in that day's news cycle was the President's sound strategic advice to political dissidents: “Keep protesting and take over your institutions if you can." That was his message to "Iranian patriots."
A Fan's Notes
On MLK day there were NBA games on TV from 11 am to 10 pm. During the last game, the Warriors against the Miami Heat, Jimmy Butler suffered a torn right anterior cruciate ligament. He had gone up for a rebound, fully extended. Damian Mitchell bumped him just enough to change his landing just enough… The following was written earlier in the day.
The Warriors have gotten boring. Acquiring Jimmy Butler last year blocked the development of Jonathan Kuminga and messed with his head. They play the same position. Butler, an established star, is 36. Kuminga, 23, sits on the bench, waiting to be traded. We fans, instead of watching as the future comes on, watch the elders descend.
The trade deadline is approaching and the reconfigured teams might renew our interest. The media is rife with rumors and possibilities. Fans have their own proposals. One I heard: "We need Giannis to give Steph and Draymond and Jimmy Butler a chance at winning it all. In addition to Kuminga, we can offer Podszemski, who's from Milwaukee, Santos, Moody, Post, whoever the Bucks want." Another idea: "Kuminga for Sabonis."
Whenever I suggest a personnel move, I'm told it won't work for financial reasons. There's something called an "apron" that I haven't tried to understand, and a "luxury tax" that baffles me even though I know how it's defined.
Team owners whose payroll exceeds a certain amount must pay this so-called "luxury tax" to the NBA (meaning to their fellow team owners). The media conveys the idea that paying the luxury tax is very onerous. On talk radio, knowledgable fans suggest trades that will enable the Warriors to avoid paying the luxury tax. These callers can cite the terms of each player's contract –how many millions they're owed, for how many years. It's as if they themselves were owners, or at least general managers.
(The fact that there are so many Black millionaires, and even a few Black billionaires, obscures the fact that the median wealth of White families in the US is more than five times the median wealth of Black families.)
The average net worth of an NBA team owner is $12 billion, says AI, and the highest-ever luxury tax outlay was $170 million (paid by the Warriors five years ago when Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson signed multiyear contracts).
A billion is a thousand million. In what way did Joe Lacob and his super-rich partners feel it when they shelled out that $170 million? Did they have to forego a new yacht? No. $170 million means less to them than $1,700 means to you.
So why do the owners and their minions in the media pretend that the luxury tax is so onerous?
Maybe because it creates an artificial ceiling on the players' salaries.
PS as we go to press… On Tuesday night the Warriors got off to a terrible start against the Toronto Raptors. Down by 20 points in the second quarter, Coach Kerr inserted Kuminga, who hadn't played in a month. After shaking off some rust, he scored 20 points in 21 minutes, got five rebounds, and obviously breathed life into the team. Can they call off the divorce?
Drawing a Blank
The great documentary maker Les Blank filmed the climactic Redwood Summer rally at the Georgia-Pacific mill in Fort Bragg back in '91. Wondering what became of the footage he shot, I put it to Google (too tersely). The response:
I rephrased the question and got:
But he did fasure. I'll have to pursue that footage the old-fashioned way.
Print Out
The New Yorker dated January 12 didn't have a single paid ad in what they call "the front of the book." On the inside front cover was a "house ad" for the New Yorker film festival. On page four, an ad for New Yorker anthologies of fiction and poetry. On page five, "Start your day by playing newyorker.com/shufflalo." On page six, a full-page ad for the 2026 New Yorker desk diary. "Talk of the Town" began on page seven, followed by the usual mix of articles and graphics.
The next-to-last page was paid for by a mysterious entity called "MSI United States" that did not describe itself or even provide a hint. The inside back cover contained ads for a New Yorker watch, a New Yorker chess set, a New Yorker tote bag, the New Yorker hundredth-anniversary baseball cap and hundredth-anniversary T-shirt. The back cover was paid for (apparently) by a San Francisco art dealer named Mitchell Johnson. Online income keeps the magazine in the black (supposedly).
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