​It seems Celine Dion, Garth Brooks, Gene Simmons, and others, didn’t want to perform for The Donald at his presidential coming-out party. Fair enough. That's their right to be wrong. Meanwhile rumor has it the Democratic Party is planning a YUGE anti-inauguration protest party to show the world that celebrities and fellow race-baiter party members like losers. But will the optics be bad if Donald has no A-List personalities or troupes to pump him up?

First of all, other than The Radio City Rockettes and teenage singer, Jackie Evancho, confirmed performers - who cares?

A party is noted the night of the shindig, but the next day is forgotten, helped by aspirin and water, a couch and remote. Second of all, he's the president: he's won even if movie stars and singing divas defer to Hillary and Bernie. Lastly, despite main-stream media scoffing at the possibilities of Donald's unpopularity with people they drool over - the very fact that the main-stream media thinks this is noteworthy, means exactly that it isn't.

But, for sake of argument here's what Trump should do to turn this "disaster" into a Trump-triumph. CNN, MSNBC, Politico and other leftie advocacy media groups will try to make hay from now until inauguration of President Trump's inability to woo A-list singers to strut in sequins or satin or spandex. His presidency will lie in the balance. The world security balance-of-power will be threatened. His ostracism - all of which will be declared his doing and downfall – AND HIS FAULT - will mean that the United States, worldwide, will be shunned diplomatically and will be left stillborn at any birthing initiatives the United Nations may conjure up to make the world even more perfect so....Donald Trump do this:
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Don't have an inauguration-party panoply. Forgo the evening circuit route of Official Ball dances. Stick to your knitting, stick to your tweeting; do the swearing in bit – The Oath of Office - as ordained by Article II Section I of the United States Constitution, show the public you are hard at work knowing (and glowing, if not showing it) that all Hillary backers will be trying to get a lust on for Hillary, backs to the wall, with Amyl Nitrate, and under threat at gunpoint. Granted, you would have had to disband your Inaugural committee you just set up on November 15th, and true the Chairman, Finance Co-Chairmen, followed by the 20 little Finance Vice-Chairs would have to find other ways to occupy their team, like getting plastered in the early PM but, so what?

There’s a bigger principle here:

Not partaking of inauguration drunk-fests will drive both Democrats and the main-stream media bonkers. Another tradition will have been sullied, another formality fouled. Another brick in the pre-presidential legacy wall will have been unceremoniously kicked out of place. The empire will be at risk, mother earth will have been politically poisoned, and it will be your entire fault, Donald T.

(For those, however, that have booked to visit Washington you can still have fun without the Trumpster around and about. You can tour the U.S. Capitol; check out the presidential pictures at the National Portrait Gallery; go slumming and visit - in an armored car - slum areas of the city...)

Where were we?

Basically, Donald himself should book from dancing with the also rans – it will clearly get under the Democratic Party, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, The Young Turks, Huffington Post, and Politico’s skin.
Which will drive them even crazier the next day.
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And any good hangover deserves a pick me up.

​The Princeton University Tigers aren’t pussyfooting around. They’ve suspended the men’s swimming and diving team for impure thoughts. The institution has to be embarrassed. Here they are espousing, in their website overview, that they are in “the service of humanity” and yet some humans at their very school don’t act in the approved way.

Shocking.

Actually it isn’t shocking at all – men were being men again (via email) treating women as objects of desire and derision, and the men were being people, adding in with racist comments too. So we have a double dose of ignorance and immaturity. For sure, it’s becoming clear that the Ivy League has its share of sophomoric saps. Harvard University cancelled the Men’s soccer team season for it being too randy and too racy when talking about women.

So while the men are probably bummed about the rest of their season’s prospects, and suspicious - given that Athletics Director Mollie Marcoux Samaan - would not publicly reveal the commentary, they’ve got to be freaking out about the metaphorical waterboarding torture tests awaiting them. First of all, they’ll probably get dunked with SHARE. This is an office at Princeton which tells everybody what’s what regarding: Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising Resources and Education. So they’ll be re-educated to think properly. Then they’ll be tossed in the deep end without water wings and will be forced to face up to their unacceptable behaviour via SCORRE. This program of re-programming deals with: Strength in Coaching on Relationships, Respect and Equality. “This program uses the bond between coaches and players to foster interactive dialogue...”

These kids are doomed to political correctness and risk drowning in unnecessary verbiage also. Isn’t, for example, dialogue - in and of itself - interactive? Or do they add the unnecessary word “interactive” because dialogue at PC universities and colleges these days is of indoctrination, of one-way speaking, of top down teaching, of a mindset that brooks no opposition in thought?

Meanwhile the poor guy just wants to know: which one is my starting lane? Or, when do I dive?

Did they bargain for all of this, paying some $41,000+ in tuition fees yearly, to hear what know-it-alls think is best for them? Yet Princeton’s Mission Statement touts its “...teaching of unsurpassed quality...” so, going in, a prospective candidate might think that education, not indoctrination, would be the order of the day, right?  Wrong!

Listen, who wouldn’t be bamboozled, and be willing to get their heads screwed on right by Princeton, should their sexual desires and racial theories go off the rails, because the university offers: “a human scale that nurtures a strong sense of community...” Nobody with half a brain (and let’s face it, that includes every young man living) is going to admit they have NO IDEA what that offering really means, so yeah - they’ll slink in the corner and will not complain when they have to get taught correct thoughts by a school that writes bafflingly. More bafflingly is the school pledging “to learn from the robust expression of diverse perspectives” so long as, one might presume, those perspectives coincide exactly with the prevalent PC Group Think.

Otherwise you and your team will be suspended.

Princeton has not only the Princeton’s men’s swimming/diving team by the balls but has all undergraduate students in its sights with a recommendation/bombardment from the GETF (Princeton’s General Education Task Force) that kids “...be required to take at least one course on structural inequality and the “intersections of culture, identity and power. Classes meeting that requirement would focus not just on diversity, the task force wrote, “but rather the complex ways in which aspects of cultural identity (such as race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, indigeneity, sexual orientation and religious identification) are connected to the expressions of power within both contemporary and historical social structures.”

Again, nobody - or better said - only a nobody, but an ivory tower inarticulate academic, can make sense of that sentence: mish-mash stew. It doesn’t even sound good on paper: but this is the mood at PU.

OK, enough poking fun at Princeton. No doubt the men acted like jerks. And no doubt they should learn respect for females and some regard for other races. But to suspend their season because they lusted or loathed women and lampooned other types of humanity, come on. Let them be shamed in debate, let them be laughed at on campus and shunned by former friends and family and let them be verbally cut up to shreds by the perpetually pissed off snowflakes, and ostracized by the eternally aggrieved, but let the season continue.

It solves nothing to shut it down. It may make Princeton administrators feel tough, let them strut like they are the cock of the walk, but it won’t do anything but build resentment among those suspended - and doesn’t deal with the age old problem that often men view women, in sexually inappropriate ways. Nor does it address the possibility that some innocents on the team may be harmed by this blanket punishment.

Speaking of inappropriate, the juvenile yahoos on Princeton’s men swim-and-diving team must be criticized – but perhaps most of our opprobrium should be held for the University of Minnesota’s football team with 10 of its members accused of gang-raping a woman. Even though no charges were brought due to a lack of physical evidence, the woman was, being drunk, taken advantage of - with at least one player video recording the happenings. The 10 have been suspended indefinitely and the lack of judgment and morality shown by these guys is mind-numbingly disgusting and atrocious.  

OK, back to ridiculing Princeton. This is a place that, in an effort to be inclusive, has had its HR Department ban the word “Man” among staff.” Like, ‘cause, you know, men only occupy about 2-3% along the sexual spectrum so who cares about them?
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You know what? Princeton doesn’t need to distinguish itself with a men’s swimming and diving team. The place has already distinguished itself. It's all wet. 

​Pablo Sandoval made 17 million from the Boston Red Sox in 2016. He had 6 at bats, 0 RBI’s and a .000 batting average. Sandoval is portly.

Actually he’s fat. Nevertheless he can be a heck of a ball player: he was awarded the 2012 World Series MVP and has been a 2-time All Star. But for this past season he was a beached whale, laid up with a sore left shoulder.

So what looms for Pablo, AKA The Panda, this 2017? With Christmas fast approaching this 2016, he’d better not go home otherwise what looms is that he and the Sox are doomed. In 2011, over the holiday period, he gained 21 pounds in 21 days feasting it up with family and friends.

But, if this picture of Dec 7th of him and another other guy is real, Red Sox’s Panda has slimmed down a ton and has toned up a lot. Boston would love it if he could show his good glove work that he wowed the Giants with a few years back. And if he can increase his torque to offset a potential loss of power due to less body mass, he should be able to do what he does best: hit line drives and pop homers.

Sandoval, like José Altuve, hails from Venezuela. But there the similarities end. While Pablo is twice the size of Jose, he’s half the player. Whereas Altuve is all effort all the time, Sandoval picks his spots on that attribute, showing it for San Fran and showing none of it for Boston. But he vows that 2017 will be different. He says he’s been getting up at 6:30 to start sweating off the uglies at the Sox’s Fort Myers complex.  But his position at third is not guaranteed. He’ll be vying for playing time against Jack-Of-All-Trades-Mr.-Versatility, Brock Holt. If Pablo doesn’t win the starting position he’ll have to be the most expensive switch-hitting-switch-throwing bench warmer ever. (Brock, in 94 games in 2016 had 34 RBI’s a .255 BA and earned $606,000 smackers.)  

Perhaps the highlight of Sandoval’s lowlife production and play with Boston was, instead of belting homers he belted out his belt, bursting off his gargantuan gut. But pictures don’t lie and Red Sox President, Dave Dombrowski, avers (basically) that Sandoval is in great shape heading into spring training. Of course it will never happen, but wouldn’t it be great if Boston sued Sandoval for breaching his contract (5 years $95 Million with a 6th year option, exercisable by the team) for (pick a description) putrid performance; misrepresentation; lack of dedication; favoring buffets over baseball; making the wrong decision to leave the Giants for the Red Sox...

And Boston should be embarrassed at their “research” in deciding to make the wrong decision in signing Sandoval...

If he hasn’t got his act together this 2017 season, he might have April to October as his offseason, with his playing for the Magallanes Navigators as his regular season. The latter has been his offseason team these past few years.

He’s come a long way down from his declaration during his press conference in Boston upon his signing that his weight would not be a problem and that he expected to be the everyday third baseman. He said he was looking forward to working with the team’s fitness staff. He had talked of loving the game, respecting the game. He said he didn’t take the barbs about his blubber personally.

Perhaps he should have.

But perhaps what is even scarier than big fat people making big fat bucks in a professional sport, and what is even more shocking than Sandoval shedding the fat this off season - is the fact that baseball management sets such low expectations and are willing to pay WAY TOO MUCH for even those. John Farrell, manager of the team, just wants him to be a “...a very good, everyday Major League player.”

You should know, however, that it seems that the everyday Major League player is slimming down. Sporting charts has a list of the heaviest players – and the latest year any one of the 10 players played was 2012. (So obviously Panda isn’t anywhere on that list. That says something. Of course the chart tracks the heaviest, not the fattest – there is a difference. What is kinda surprising is that 4 of the 10 athletes were pitchers!)

Perhaps slimming down was not an accurate description of weight and fat trends in MLB. While no players have been as heavy as our top 10, as a whole since the 1990’s, according to research undertaken by Penn State and Northwestern University, only 20% of today’s players have what is deemed a normal Body Mass Index. Abnormally (or perhaps this is a normality, given society’s trend to bigger and fatter citizens) 70% of today’s players are overweight. Here’s the proof in the pudding of astounding midriff massiveness.

Therefore let’s cut Sandoval some slack. Let him wear the slacks he wants - let him carry on with his delusion that he shouldn’t consider being a designated hitter - and let us stew in our jealous juices - quietly knowing that his beer gut made him that 17 mill this season past - while our beer guts got stern warnings from our doctor and severe warnings from ourselves to pee late at night.

While Sandoval’s 2016 non-season is to be shamed, let’s not get into body blaming right now. The guy has lost serious fat and weight. But as all of us who have lost such pounds know, keeping it off is absolute murder. Sure, right now he can train all day, but what about when the season starts? What happens then? Will strength and conditioning coach, Kiyoshi Momose, be on call 24/7?

So Pablo’s 2017 could either be a boom - or a bust - or somewhere in between, in that great mushy, wasted/waisted middle. 

​The world knows the airplane crash on a mountainside in Colombia, has dashed the Cinderella Story of a Brazilian soccer team from Chapecó. The airplane was an unlucky 13-miles south of Medellin’s International Airport, when it buried.

Nearly HALF of Chapecó’s people witnessed the funeral, waving with flashlights and candle lights, for the 19 players and 6 coaches (with total people deceased at 71) who were killed flying to the finals of Copa Sudamericana to face the Colombian team, Atlético Nacional. The latter, shocked, graciously requested the South American Football Confederation award the Chapecoense, AKA Chape - the trophy as a “posthumous homage to the victims.”  This has been done.

The old goalie, Nivaldo, had been instructed to stay home and prep for the return match. He’s alive. The young, up-and-comer keeper, Danilo, who over a week ago, came up with a big save against Argentine club San Lorenzo - was on the flight. He’s dead.   

Players Alan Ruschel, Jackson Follmann, who has had part of his right leg amputated, and Helio Zampier reportedly survived the crash, a crash described as one commentator as “gliding into oblivion’ what with no fuel or electricity...

And one of the survivors was found by an alert do-one-last-check policeman AFTER the official search had been temporarily stopped due to bad weather.

Why has this team so captured the world’s imagination and attention?

Well, if it wasn’t the simple “playing for us” it surely was the team’s seemingly insurmountable rise from 4th division in 2008 to Série A a few years later. (And during parts of that period it had been broke.) And if it wasn’t the team’s incorruptibility, unlike BRAZIL’s soccer leadership, what with José Maria Marin, the former president of Brazil’s soccer federation, being arrested in Switzerland on corruption charges, or Marco Polo Del Nero being indicted by America’s Justice Department on corruption charges – it was that the team was efficiently competent, winning against clubs with deeper pockets – while stocked with players, most of whom had no international fame, and all of whom who had never earned a spot on the Brazil National Team roster. Heck, its best scorer, Bruno Rangel, was a 34-year-old journeyman with more than a dozen stops in his soccer career.

“The Champion Is Back” chanted supporters as the military brought coffins into the Arena Condá, a small green-and-white concrete stadium – thus immortalizing this team.

So the 210,000 tail-of-a-town is wagging the over-200 million big-dog country of Brazil and the canine is crushed. The town’s city hall declared a 30-day period of mourning. Local schools were temporarily closed and even Christmas doings there will not be celebrated. (What makes these reactions even more heartfelt is that the town loves this team, though none of its players came from it.) This mostly agricultural area of the state of Santa Catarina is withdrawing into itself, reaping only sadness from sown seeds of such promise.

It has been nearly decided that the team will have its spot for the next three seasons in Brazil’s top league-guaranteed, with athletes being loaned to the team for free, for next season. And Ronaldo de Assis Moreira, Ronaldinho, has reportedly offered to play for the squad next season.  At no charge.
From Brazil’s champion soccer team, Sao Paolo’s Palmeiras, asking  the Brazilian Football Confederation if its players can wear Chapecoense colors for the last match of the season to Colombia’s Medellin filling its 40,000 seat-stadium with citizens in a “massive display of soccer solidarity” the team has struck a sad, but powerful chord. (Brazil was very appreciative Colombia’s outpouring of sympathy, twittering with the hashtag #GraciasColombia.)
 
The future? Chapecoense is/was/will be a community club. So community, not chicanery, will prevail again and honesty, not hijinks will again be the way of things. The town vows to rebuild the group, basing its hopes on these ennobling and enabling characteristics plus those of unity, transparency, and competency. It is sure it can again be toast of the town, and the belle of the Brazilian fùtbol ball.
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Now, alas, comes controversy. 

From the aforementioned electrical failure, radioed to controllers at 10 PM local time,  to the BAe146 regional airliner, Avro RJ85 charter flight, operated by Bolivian charter company, LAMIA, also radioing that it was running out of fuel – thus requesting a priority landing - surely this reaction – of firing his country’s national aviation authority - by Bolivian President, Evo Morales, would seem an overreaction. But is it? The government is also suing LAMIA. The CEO of the company has been arrested. The pilot on the fateful flight had an ownership position. And one Bolivian Air Traffic controller, Celia Castedo, who claims her warnings were ignored in Bolivia BEFORE the plane had taken off, has fled to Brazil, and seeks asylum there.  

The dramatic reaction of the Bolivian government stems from the fact that the company may have disregarded aviation requirements about fueling regulations with respect to flight duration(s).    

On the horizon, due to Chapecoense’s winning all 6 of its last 2018 World Cup qualifying matches, giving merriment to this town, before crashing in this high-altitude rugged terrain, was to be this match, the first of  a 2-match “home-and-away” showdown, in South America’s second largest club tournament. It was considered with glee to be its most significant battle, its biggest game yet, in the plucky team’s 43 years.

Instead, days after, in the dark of night, in the rain, waited, for caskets, the home-town folk, with kids in clear plastic ponchos huddling close to parents, with some teens singing – all heartbroken, all lost – but finding among their team’s deathly disappearance, some hope...

...that perhaps this catastrophe will help show Brazil, a country many of its citizenry feel has lost its way, epitomized by Operation Car Wash, involving then President Dilma Rousseff’s government and state-run oil company Petrobras (of which she was chairman from 2003-2010) how to find its footing, and how to forge itself anew – by building a proper path, politically and athletically, to values – and victory.
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Lord knows, it’s not a free kick. But Brazil – and the world - knows, it’s another shot.