The Republican Party is dead and buried. So says Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. Only Donald Trump can save it but Ryan doesn’t realize it, lionizing instead GOP goners Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and Jack Kemp. 

Jack Kemp?

Ok, Lincoln we “get” – and some of us, via TV, “met” President Reagan - but we’re all wet about – who knew - Jack Kemp. Jack of who? He was something called the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. To Ryan he’s a stalwart, a star, a stirring soul - which tells us more about Paul’s embarrassingly evident wackiness than it does his supposedly inherent smartness.

Basically, Ryan’s Daffy Duck - proven by his quacky position, as of May 6th - and continuing through to at least May 25th - in his position of not backing Republican Party presidential nominee, Trump.

Donald displeases Ryan. So, possibly do the 2 million more voters Trump brought into the primary than Romney did in 2012 – and do the 11 million Trump backers - after accounting for the Nebraska and West Virginia primaries too.  

Let’s review.

Ryan should recall he was the Romney VP nominee on that year’s ticket that got slaughtered by Barack Obama – and BO, Republicans are fond of bitterly recollecting, stunk the house out as president in his first four-year reign.

Ryan should realize that Trump fights – fights to WIN.

So while Trump’s a big success, Ryan’s a big sourpuss, withholding his “approval” while upholding and extolling long-gone gamers: Abe, Ronald, and Jack. Ryan’s lousy thinking is sadly and sickly symptomatic of the views of many traditional GOP members. No wonder Democrats, Independents and the largely uninvolved laugh at Romney, Ryan, McCain, Jeb and mommy Jeb - though they deem “The Donald” a side-show carnival act with nothing to offer but his hair and hare-brained solutions.

Ryan, full of despair, accuses Trump of sullying the GOP reputation but Ryan, and before him Speaker John Boehner - and their establishment Republican cohorts made the Grand Old Party into a puling pack of rank appeasement artists.

If Ryan, and Trump for that matter, expect the party to reunify under “core principles” that will never happen. (And a  45-minute meeting on May 12th – with a joint statement to boot, changed little.) Trump is flexible in the face of changing realities while the GOP is servile in the face of any Democratic Party caterwauling or mainstream media complainings.

Ryan and Republicans know that Republicans are “all over the map” in their opinions of Trump but they should take solace in this immutable fact. So far, so are his supporters , all over the map - the one map that counts - the American one.

Trump has got the world’s attention – no matter that he’s not respected “on both sides of the American aisle” and no matter that Paul Ryan doesn’t know what’s what – or no matter, for that matter, that ardent smug, liberal lover, comic Bill Maher, is doing his best spew-screw-you reviews about the Trumpster...to no discernible effect.

His latest diatribe was for Maher, almost, shockingly – in the political vein, mentally sound and sane - in which he put the blame on conservatives, as opposed to liberals, for the rise of Trump – and, get this, his normally and unusually sick-in-the-head adulating audience could barely rise to a half-hearted token hurrah and applause – because they know (as much as they can know anything - as opposed to “feel” everything) deep down,  that Trump - Trumps - in not only saving conservatives - for whatever they’re worth, and in not only saving the Republican Party – for the little they’re worth - but in that he’ll first, stop the seemingly inexorable decline of the States accelerated under Obama’s rule and, second, save the USA, the salt of the earth,  that it so may, third, rise and shine again.

Thus, Donald deserves the winner’s berth. Jack Nicklaus lauds him - hardly par for the course - and as for Ryan and the Republicans pre-Trump, or without Trump going forward, they deserve being buried as a bump, as a pile of dirt.

So they can truly, finally, be with Jack, Abe, and Ronnie.
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Party saved.
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The Indy 500 is around the corner and racing fans wonder when will one driver win three in a row? It hasn’t been done. Yet.

But this is the 100th edition of the Indy so everyone knows all 33 teams will be bringing their “A” game.

Sure the 152+ pound, sterling silver, Borg-Warner trophy, awaits - as does a slurp from a bottle of refreshingly cold milk, a custom from the late ‘30’s - and, sure, the winner, tired and triumphed from the 800-turn grueling race, swerving – to avoid crash-car melee and debris, knowing open-wheel car racing is risky as hell, will be hard pressed to hoist it (the trophy, not the bottle) but if he or she drops it, they probably know it’s insured for over 1.3 million. The victor gets a “Baby Borg” to take home, the following January. The big baby stays at the Speedway, and is guarded by two or more guards that racing-May.

As for the 32 also-rans, they can take solace having been honorary grand marshals in the huge Indy parade the day before.

The race does reward those that persist in their pursuit of excellence. Juan Montoya won his first Indy in 2000, his second in 2015 – and some 6,394,097 Americans glued to ABC TV saw his latest win. He had left IndyCar for Formula 1 and NASCAR but returned in 2014, at the age of 38, after losing 12 pounds. Indy cars, though much lighter than NASCAR’s, exert tremendous pressure on the neck and head. He wanted to be in tip-top condition before coming back.

Of late, this race has sped up with time as the fastest races, run under three hours, well - of those nine - the 2013 was the fastest at 187.43 mph and the 2014 was the second fastest at 186.56 mph. In the first Indy, Ray Harroun sped around, with the first rearview mirror at that, at a dashing rate of 74.6 mph!

Pushing the envelope will be Ed Carpenter Racing and AJ Foyt Racing. Both will field three cars. Brazil’s Hélio Castroneves of Team Penske is going for his FOURTH Indy 500 victory. And all hope new wing flaps prevent cars from flying, like the three cars that went airborne in practices last year. And, according to Doug Boles, president of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the crowd will be “Mega” numbering over 400,000. Tickets start at $40. (And don’t you attendees push the envelope. Don’t you bring selfie sticks, lasers, or promotional flyers. Just bring your coolers with food and drinks and chill to the thrills – even if cars don’t rocket into outer space.)

Get this - the rulebook starts at 24 rules, cut down from the previous approximately 45 stipulations that governed IndyCar. Also, many warnings have been tossed out as superfluous.

Not superfluous to the shebang has been Jim Nabors. Unfortunately he will not start things off singing “Back Home Again in Indiana.” Josh Kaufman has the honor this 2016.

Of course if you have a burning question, you absolutely need answered, well, talk to the man, British guy, Donald Davidson. He’s the historian for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and teaches classes on the nuts and bolts of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”

(Has anyone asked Mr. Davidson how golfers playing the Brickyard Crossing Golf Course, which lies along the right-hand side of the track, can concentrate with engines roaring to the tune of 140 decibels – the equivalent to standing approximately 50 feet behind a Boeing 737 during take-off?)

Here’s one HUGE take-off: Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.

That’s why both Honda and Chevrolet spend millions on their engines - so their vehicle sales rev up because of Indy-winning publicity. The Honda engine, theoretically, won nine years in a row, from 2002 to 2012 – but from 2006 to 2011 it was the only engine in play - but Chevrolet has made it a game again, sporting best engines in 2013 and 2015. And what is learned, either by failure or success, in the “Racing Capital of the World” makes its way into dealership showrooms.

Yet the main ingredient to an Indy-best formula is: no engine breakdown. As Honda bigwig, Art St. Cyr stresses you want to “...Just put gas in the car and go.”

And for those who (for $60 to $500) want to go and feel G-forces pushing at five times their body weight while seated in an actual (two-seater) Indy car, speeding at 180 mph, thanks to the Indy Racing Experience Driving Program, you can.

Fans will be wondering when will a female driver better Danica Patrick’s 3rd place finish, set at the 2009 Indy. She was so determined to be great, epitomized by her leaving for England at age 16 to train and learn, and race in national series events there...In 2008 she became the first woman EVER to win in IndyCar, taking the 2008 Indy Japan 300.

If you do take in the Indy 500, watch closely. Things can change in a blink of an eye. Two-time second place finisher, Scott Goodyear, can attest to that. Remember he lost the 1992 race to Al Unser, Jr. by .043 seconds.

Is the Indianapolis 500 America at its best? Granted, it isn’t replete with caviar, cocaine, or champagne as is the Monaco Grand Prix (but it will have 100,000 bottles of milk to be swigged – and will come complete with the Rock-IN-Roar 500, the Indy Film Fest and Fast Friday) and, granted, it isn’t in glitzy, glamorous Monaco, but takes place in the north-west Indianapolis suburb of Speedway, but it, nevertheless, will have, for starters, a new 2016 Indy 500 logo and does, throughout, unite the average Joe and Jane, the grandstanding politician and the pleasing comedian, and people famous for just being famous - as well as singers (Blake Shelton is a definitely performing) bands (Journey will be featured for sure), actors, and other sports stars of every stripe and hue. Indeed, it would be hard to argue that the Indy 500 doesn’t best represent Americana.

So,
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“Ladies and Gentleman, Start Your Engines!” 

This is a classic case of the blind leading the - everybody else. What should we make of Randy Pierce, a blind man who has run a Boston Marathon, earned a second-degree black belt in Karate, skied Sugarloaf, competed in a Tough Mudder event and scaled Mount Kilimanjaro?

Sure, Randy’s pissed at turning blind at 22, in two short weeks, due to a mysterious neurological disease, and he initially felt sorry for himself - who wouldn’t - but he now doesn’t view himself as handicapped, and proves that through athletic adventures most of us don’t have the guts to think about, let alone the balls to try. He candidly admits he wishes he could see. But he’s more than making the best of a situation, a situation unfairly thrust upon him.

Randy’s motto: I see no obstacles. (Though he probably wouldn’t have been afraid of the heights in the Mudder.) Catchy and cute, but essential to his essence. He believes his way of looking at things, seeing opportunities instead of obstacles, is the way we should all go. Rather than largely lounging around he’s living large. He doesn’t idle, he incites. And excites.

Of course he may be blind but he’s not stupid. He realizes that he needs supports. For the Tough Mudder torture test, 20 obstacles over a 10 mile maelstrom, he had a Team Randy group helping him along, along with booming chants of “Randy, Randy” from others...But without his slim, strong body he could not even contemplate such an undertaking. Watching him, hands completely extended over his head, gripping one handle, and using his torso to swing his legs out, and then back, to get to the next rung, is an exhibition of complete determination. Boy, does he have “it.”

For his climbing quests, like tackling the biggest and meanest mountain in New Hampshire, Mount Washington, similarly, he’s not trying to be a hero (though he is stubborn.) He takes it slow. He wants to be safe and not put himself, or others, at unnecessary risk. His dog, Quinn, gives him “tree warnings.” Good god, it’s not only footholds, but what stands smack straight ahead, that has to be accounted for. One of the guides says the physical exertion Randy goes through to climb is triple what others put out.

And in the WINTER of 2012 he put out, unbelievably so. He climbed all 48 mountains in New Hampshire, higher than 4,000 feet. I shoveled the driveway...

Oh, forget to mention the other colossal catastrophe that whammed Randy along the way. As if being robbed of sight wasn’t awful enough, when he turned 39 that same, sinister neurological malady robbed him of walking. He was wheelchair bound. At this point most would be oozing self pity on the way to suicide, but he worked to get out of that wheelchair. It took two years. (Let’s not try to figure out why he’s been savaged with these inexplicable ailments, we’d only wrap our heads around a telephone pole, trying to rationalize it all.)

So Randy Pierce has courage, fortitude, guts, moxie – yet these words seem too weak to define dealing with sheer terror that comes from living in the dark. I know this. I closed my eyes for 20 seconds and freaked.

Pierce is inspirational. His acts speak volumes. And he's well spoken and can succinctly summarize his thought processes behind his actions. He's easy to understand on an intellectual level, even if nearly impossible to follow on a physical one.
 
When he’s not facing arduous barriers testing mind and body, he’s helped create an organization: 2020VisionQuest. Its goal is to help others reach their dreams through “...outreach, education, and support.”

With all the miscreants, publicity hounds, mischief makers and general screw-up sorts amongst us, it’s refreshing to have this guy as a role model. He may be going a little overboard with his choices, but at least he’s going. If we emulate only half of what he’s doing, in whatever shape or form, we could consider our lives’ well lived.

Finally, let’s close with Pierce’s piercing insight:  

“And vision is always going to be way more important than sight.”
​
Let’s open our minds and hearts to his philosophy. That would be a sight surely, he’d like to see

Camel racing. We need it. It’s essential, beneficial, integral; it’s all that is good about society.

No, no, no. It’s all wrong, written from your perspective as humans.

Let me set the record straight. I am a camel (a one lumper) who will remain anonymous. I’m hiding behind my words, for good reason, as you shall see.

We originally bedded and bred in North America during the Palaeogene period and somehow made our way to Africa, God knows how ...later. By 2,000 BC Somalia’s nomads were taming us.

So we adapted. Folks don’t think we are the sharpest arrows in the quiver but when we took a look at the heat, and the sand, geez, the sand across North Africa and the Middle East, we decided our hooves had to go. And, somehow, we ended up not only in those scorching (and freezing) places, but got to Mother Russia and the Gobi desert, besides. We pick the toughest terrains to live in, where predators like lions, don’t. Lord love a duck.

Back to the hooves thing. You read it right.

We no longer have hooves. Over millennia we whittled them down to, basically - nails. Then we flattened our soles and whipped up webbing between our toes so we wouldn’t sink knee deep in sands. Listen, we knew if we were to be the beasts of burden in your caravans, we’d have to have the perfect foundation in which to cross deserts. We don’t like it, but we put up with it. We’ve done our part. And when we get to shores we swim! On top of these feats of feet we give you milk and meat.
And the thanks we get?

We lumps get schlumped. Into camel racing.

And in Mongolia, just this past March, 1,108 of us Bactrian camels (two lumpers) hot-footed it in the biggest camel race ever. How inglorious and ignominious is that?

We are prodded, primped, and paraded - plainly being (mainly) - put out as ornaments, all so painful to our personas spiritually, but, uh, more than that we hurt - physically - with arthritis, sore shins, wonky knees, and broken bones.

Despite these ailments our speeds have increased some 30% in the past 50 years. We can max out at about 40 miles per hour - for a short burst, of course. For a longer course, we can run 25 miles per hour. Not bad, huh?

And you might not have known this: we females run faster than males! We females are choice because males are largely uncontrollable. (That’s also a human characteristic, right?)
Note, too, we run differently from other four-legged creatures, like Arabian horses, for example, in that we, whether in drifts or dunes, whether walking or trotting, with both legs – in tune - on each side – work in unison, rather than in an opposite leg – way.

Now, back to you for forcing us to race. Your disgrace makes us a wildcard. We, perchance, are a happenstance of circumstance. When you organize your racing pageants we, whimsically become predictably unpredictable. Running straight is boring to us and often we’ll veer off – just for the heck of it. Our ambivalence towards decorum neither pleases or displeases us, but from the reactions of spectators to this “sport” you love it when we go off the grid. (Oh, by the way, stop embarrassing yourselves and humiliating us with exhibitions like having us race midgets.)

We’re not stupid. (Our smirk makes us look above-it-all, doesn’t it?) We know, so far as the Middle East goes, why you race the dickens out of us.  We’re aware our “intrinsic value” rises after a win. We hear owners brag, and discern they get big monetary bumps.

Thus our bosses are impelled to have us fly right, while they, rightly or wrongly, swear on the Qur’an of our origin and age, bespeaking of a clean operation - clean of stimulants.  Blood samples are often taken from us winners, just to make sure…

Speaking of blood, camel racing has had a bloody, messy history. This centuries-old “Sport of Sheikhs” had the U.A.E banning jockeys in 2005 because boys, as young as 6, mind you, had been press ganged into service and the kids - not only missed their childhoods, they missed their meals – all to lighten their racing load.

So, shoot, enter the Robot Jockey. They cost a few of hundred dollars. Kudos to the decent among you humans and congratulation too, we suppose, must go to UNICEF for forcing the switch. 
Unfortunately, as our relatives in Dubai warn us, these robots are armed with stun guns.

To jolt us.

How awful is that?
A couple of people ratchet on that miserable gadget - to only then go off the matrix, driving like banshees - in their own crazy car race/chase - exhorting, via radio, us to keep in our lane – and win.
Where is PETA when you need it? And stop with the muzzles (knitted toques) to prevent us omnivores from eating everything in sight.

There is one plus to racing in Dubai, however. When we’re hospitalized there a therapy room awaits at the Dubai Camel Hospital.

But we “ships of the sand” hate it when our inner plumbing is sabotaged by trainers feeding us too many carbohydrates. Sure, this helps boost our racing energy but a bad side effect is acidosis.
But the show must go on. In Qatar camel racing is the most popular sport. But even in Australia we race in something called the Lions Imparja Camel Cup. It’s in Alice Springs. It’s not like we want to race there. Geez, we didn’t even set up shop in the Land Down Under, until we were sent packing there back in 1860 when a couple of guys, Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills, decided to trek about.

Sorry, got a bit off track. We even race in places like Sam Houston park in Houston, Texas, USA and, get this, we dash madly in the Astrakhan region of southern Russia on behalf of crazy, kooky owners who catch us wild, double humps a week before a race. They then attempt to teach us the rudiments off a civilized society in a crash-course. What a joke. Small wonder we get rude and unruly when crowds crowd.

Waste not, want not: you say. We say: Race not, want not.
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Until then, we, figuratively and LITERALLY, from our prehistoric parent, Protylopus, to us kids - calves – all 17 million of us, spit at you humans!