2017: The Worst of The Rant

Last photograph of 2017

Well now, wasn't that a year.  The following are highlights of 2017 as viewed from this site.  Show me a year in which one starts to look back upon the administration of George W. Bush with a sense of teary-eyed nostalgia, and I'll show you a very bad year.

 

2017 sucked.

***********************
 

January 7:

 

It's no longer a debatable point: Yesterday, Donald Trump was given an Intel briefing at his throne inside Trump Tower in New York City. The heads of every major intelligence agency in America confronted him with the incontrovertible evidence that he is only headed for the White House on January 20 because he was installed (via the hacking of the DNC computers) by the ruler of the former Soviet Union. Can you even imagine the mass freak out that would have ensued had Barak Obama entered into the presidency under similar circumstances? They would have lynched him on the spot.

 

January 13:

Do you have a thirteen-year-old daughter? Did you support and vote for Donald Trump? Are you perfectly content with the fact that she is within five years of going out - alone - into Donald Trump's America? If your answer is "yes", then what the hell is the matter with you? You're either a pervert or a fool. Give me some time to figure out which.

 

January 19:

 

Every day, the ramifications of this electoral catastrophe become clearer and clearer. I am no longer comfortable living in a country so civically irresponsible that it would send a man as horrifically corrupt, unhinged and unqualified as Donald Trump to the White House. I am so utterly depressed tonight I can barely articulate myself. And to think what we might have been....
 

January 31:

 

So there you have it, World. I hope you've been paying attention to the mass outrage that has been exhibited in the last eleven days - particularly by the women of America. This is all the evidence you need that the United States is not without hope (I think). I'm optimistic enough to believe that this tired old planet will eventually be saved, but it's only going to be saved by the women. We men have fucked things up so utterly and completely, that we have no right to ever expect to be taken seriously again. The twenty-first will be remembered as the century of the woman. This is as it should be. Get the heck out of the way, fellas!
 

February 7:

 

Is the damage done already irreparable? Possibly. It's difficult to imagine the world ever again looking at America through the same lenses when so huge a segment of the voters were unwise enough to elect the Donald on November 8. And it is not a salve on the national consciousness to attempt to rationalize this electoral catastrophe by reminding ourselves that Hillary Clinton did, in fact, win the popular vote. That doesn't matter. It should have been the biggest landslide in the history of the republic - bigger than Dick Nixon's still inexcusable victory over George McGovern in 1972 when he won every state but Massachusetts and the District of You-Know-Where.

This one should have been a no-brainer, kids.

 

February 11:

 

Elizabeth Warren is a godsend for many reasons - and one of those reasons is the fact that she drives the right wing in this country completely nuts. She was, in fact, my choice to be the Dem's nominee in 2016. Not to my surprise, that idiotic party blew it - yet again. Had she or Bernie Sanders been nominated last summer, either one of them would have destroyed Donald Trump at the polls on Election Day. Instead, they chose to cast their lot with Hillary Clinton, a candidate so inherently flawed, she was unable to defeat a common pervert like Donald Trump.

 

February 14:

 

Every day - in every way - the magnitude of the mass electoral blunder committed by the American electorate on Election Day 2016 compounds itself. If Watergate was a paper cut, this scandal will prove to be a bloodbath. The new administration is comprised of a collection of stooges, representing the interests of a hostile foreign government. This going to end very badly, campers - catastrophically so. Remember, you read it here. Our worst nightmare has come to fruition. The takeover of the American government by a cabal of deranged fascists, envisioned by Sinclair Lewis in his 1936 novel, It Can't Happen Here, has happened here.

 

February 17:
 

When Donald J. Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency nearly two years ago, no one with an IQ higher than a box of moldy Milk Duds (myself included) believed that the voters in this broken nation would ever send someone this obviously unhinged to the White House. We had lived through the eight-year trauma of George W. Bush's reign of madness, but there was never any serious doubt that we would survive him. The Donald was something else indeed. Throughout the primaries and campaign of 2016, the very idea of someone this deranged getting within a mile of the Oval Office was enough to send the most stouthearted of us into complete despair. When, in the days leading up to the election, it became clear that Hillary was not gaining an insurmountable lead against him, that despair turned into resigned depression. Early in the morning of November 9 it was all over.

 

February 28:

 

Did you ever think you would live to see the day when we would be looking back at George W. Bush with a feeling of tender nostalgia? At the Trump inaugural last month, Dubya seemed to be a man almost giddy in his cheerfulness. And why wouldn't he seem that way? His reign as the most corrupt, incompetent chief executive in the history of human mediocrity has come to an end. I'd be pretty damned cheerful, too, were I in his shoes.

 

March 6:
 

About a month ago my prediction was that we would have to wait two years for the Dems to take control again for this bat-shit-crazy thug to be removed via the impeachment process. Now I'm not so sure. There is no way in hell that this travesty can continue for any great length of time. It would seem that Trump's insurance against impeachment is Mike Pence. No one in his or her right mind would sleep very soundly at night knowing that someone possessing his perverted ideology was calling the shots. My only comfort in this scenario is that, although old Mike may be dumber than a box of dead snails, he's not insane....or at least, I don't think he's insane. Let me get back to you on that.
 

March 14:

 

I knew that this administration would end up as a rolling disaster (and constitutional crisis) but even I was unprepared for the speed with which it would come crashing down. The way I figured, it would take until the late spring or early summer for the unraveling to commence. Not at all, kind and gentle reader! Less than two months in and the administration of Donald Trump is falling apart - utterly so.  This is the darkest of comedies. For a politics/news junkie such as I, these are dandy times to be alive. 
 

March 17:

A few minutes ago the joint press conference in the East Room of the White House with Trump and Germany's Angela Merkel came to a merciful end. The tension between the two was fairly apparent. Merkel was probably wondering what the hell she was doing being seen on the same podium as this putz. The Donald was twice asked by German reporters about his wiretapping charge against Barack Obama. He denied making the charge and blamed it on Fox News. At an Oval Office photo-op, when asked by a photographer to shake hands with each other, both of them ignored the question. It was so awkward and uproariously funny. Say what you will about this president, he never fails to provide the unintentional comedy. In this respect he makes George W. Bush look like an amateur.

 

March 24:

 

The last week has been a breathtaking thing to behold. Not since Watergate over four decades ago has the American political situation gotten this strange and ominous. I'm ambivalent about it all. On the one hand, for someone like me who is known for no other reason than the fact that I get my jollies commenting on this stuff, it sure is an interesting time to be alive. On the other hand - Jeez Louise - it doesn't give me a particularly warm and fuzzy feeling to contemplate that the country I live in has been overtaken by a confederacy of people who not only aren't very bright, they're crazy to boot - a lethal combination that usually foreshadows catastrophe. Check the history books.

 

April 2:

I am in a unique position to say that I was able to witness to a few of America's years on the mountaintop. I really do feel sorrow for the kids who were born post-Reagan-Revolution. A lot of them are now coming into adulthood, most of them poignantly unaware of what it was like to be an American in the days when our infrastructure was second-to-none. We really did stand for something noble. Those days are gone. Long gone. Who personifies us now? Donald Trump.

Get used to living in a nation in ruins.
 

April 8:
 

There aren't any solutions to humanity's descent into chaos and barbarism; or at least there are no easy solutions. As long as men stubbornly continue to make  their earthly fortunes by mass-producing weapons designed to murder the innocent, this dilemma will continue to confound. It's unsetting to observe that, as far as I can tell, there has been little mention in the electronic or print media that two days ago marked the centennial of America's entrance into World War One (or "The Great War" a it was known then and for a generation thereafter. No one then ever dreamed that a second cataclysm of such magnitude would again occur). Donald Trump - and most of the people who comprise his inner circle - are just reckless and foolish enough to ignite a third planetary conflict.

 

April 18:

 

The people should demand that the House of Reprehensibles subpoena the  Internal Revenue Service and make those returns known immediately. It is within their power to do this legally. If there is nothing there - as so many of them are implying - then just let it all hang out and be done with it. If there is nothing there, show us. Those of us who lean leftwards have been freaking out about Trump's taxes for over a year. This is the perfect opportunity to shut us up and also make us look quite foolish in the process. It would be such a political score for him that he would be foolish not to do so. That's how I am certain that he is covering something up. He could have made us all look like a mob of pompous crybabies months ago! Why didn't he? Think about it, kids.

 

April 25:
 

Idiot Nation

Not to my surprise, recent polling shows us that only about two-to-four percent of the people who were naïve enough to cast their ballots for this unhinged and blithering twit regret their choice. I suspect that by year's end, that number will rise somewhat - but not too much. These statistics are a sad reflection of what America has become. There is no longer "an informed citizenry", cognizant of the issues and their own interests.  We're just a nation with enough unhinged and blithering twits to keep us in a perpetual state of ruin for generations unseen. Fold up the chairs, strike the tent and go home.

 

Crappy Days are Here Again.

 

April 29:
 

Let me state for the record that in most cases, the Trump administration's lack of success has been a very good thing for the country. The only thing they have been successful at is keeping the public's attention diverted from what is gradually evolving into the worst political scandal in the history of this country; I am referring, of course, to the covert collusion with a hostile foreign power during the 2016 presidential campaign. That affair is metastasizing by the day. The problem is that we'll have to wait until the GOP no longer controls both houses of congress in 2019 for this maniac to be removed from office via the impeachment process - that's assuming they'll be defeated on Election Day 2018. You never know.

 

May 3:

 

Over the past weekend it has become clear to the most casual observers that there is something seriously, psychologically wrong with Donald Trump. This has been obvious for decades to people who have studied this guy. But his scattered thought and speech patterns have become even more alarming than usual. Donald Trump personifies what we've allowed ourselves to become as a nation. He is the roadmap to where we are heading. I've got a little hint for you: It's not a good place.

 

May 9:

 

You have to wonder why Trump would appoint someone like Flynn (who, after all, was so tight with Putin) to be his national security advisor. Why would he appoint someone like Rex Tillerson (who, after all, was so tight with Putin) to be his secretary of state? Do you see a pattern here? Could it be that these two guys were picked for no other reason than the possibility that they may have been Putin's choices? If that is case, what I want know is simply: How many others in this disgusting administration were vetted by Vlad?

 

May 10:
 

I was of two minds yesterday when I got the breaking news over the car radio that Mein Trumph had fired FBI director, James Comey. It was his bungling back in October that was more responsible than anything for this disgusting administration's very existence. Ten days before the election, when he made known that there was a new (nonexistent as it turned out) angle to Hillary Clinton's e-mail probe, a lot of people in middle America got severely spooked. But by all accounts he appeared to be sincere (or as sincere as it is possible to appear in Washington) in his desire to investigate what, if any, connection the 2016 Trump campaign had with agents of a hostile foreign government in influencing the outcome of the election. I think it is interesting to note here that the three independent players who have been investigating this president (Comey, Sally Yates, and Preet Bharara) have all been fired by him. I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

 

May 17:

 

Trump is black comedy personified. I'm almost at the point of feeling sorry for the poor bastard. His week got off to a rather deplorable start a few days ago when he hosted a press event in the oval office that was covered exclusively by the Russian news/propaganda service, Tass. The American press was barred from the event. To make matters worse for the Imbecile-in-Chief, it was later reported that, at this very moment, he revealed classified intelligence to the Russian ambassador and foreign minister. In his own defense, Donald sought to put our minds at ease by informing the country that, if a president declassifies anything, it is no longer classified. I feel so relieved. How 'bout you? The info he handed over to the two Russians pertained to Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu is not amused.

 

May 20:

 

No, I can't get too worked up over the death of Roger Ailes. The damage the old bugger did to the country he professed to love so well is too immense to be catalogued in this limited space. Fourteen years ago, at a time when an appalling number of Americans believed Saddam Hussein to be responsible for the carnage of September 11, 2001, polls proved conclusively that around seventy-five present of the citizenry who believed such nonsense described themselves as habitual viewers of Fox Noise. In addition to Dick Nixon's, Roger Ailes - more than anyone - may take credit for the administrations of George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump. He is not solely responsible for the atrocious dumbing-down of this doomed nation in the last fifty years, but he at least deserves a dishonorary mention. All of us today find ourselves stewing in the juices of Roger's sick vision. His success was due primarily to the fact that his entire career depended upon his appealing to the most appalling angels of the American nature. That's some legacy, huh?

 

June 6:

Incredible as it may seem (at least for my purposes) the administration of Donald J. Trump has been a mixed blessing. While I'm fully aware that this is the worst thing that could have happened to a country as comically dysfunctional as the United States, it also has been oodles of fun to watch the clown car bursting into flames. It's no longer being discussed in whispers behind closed doors. Today on the Morning Joe program on MSNBC, more than one talking head was openly discussing the president's obvious "mental illness" and "instability" - something that has been apparent to me for decades. You could not have possibly missed it if you were paying attention. I was paying attention. You were, too, I'm sure.

 

June 10:

 

One of my many guilty little pleasures is my daily check on what is happening over at Fox Noise. I equate it to watching an episode of Three's Company. It's so mind-bendingly awful that it can be an amusing experience - as it was on the morning after Jim Comey's riveting testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Not to my astonishment, the hosts of that fest of misinformation and mediocrity were besides themselves over Trump's "vindication" (a word they actually used). It shouldn't surprise anyone the complete and utter cluelessness of so huge a segment of Idiot Nation when so many of them rely on Fox as their principle source of news and information.

 

June 22:

 

In the days leading up to the unveiling of the GOP's secret healthcare plan, Mitch McConnell refused to meet with representatives of the American Medical Association or any accredited group that is dedicated to the humane care of and treatment for people who are seriously or mortally ill. True to form, old Mitch had plenty of time for lobbyists for the pharmaceutical  companies.

 

June 28

 

The right wing politicians that currently pollute the halls of congress are always surprising me. Whenever I come to the conclusion that they couldn't sink any further into the depths of the ideological sewer than they already have, they cheerfully lower the bar even further just for my benefit. Isn't that nice of them? Their current healthcare bill - which I don't think is going to pass, by the way - is nothing less than a scheme to be rid of Medicare and to provide a tax break for a class of people whom already possess more cash than they'll be able to possibly spend in three lifetimes. Most of them profess to be good and decent Christians, but I'm not buying that for a minute. In fact I think that most of them are atheists. It's obvious to me that not one of them have a fear of eternal damnation.

 

July 1:

 

In seventy-two years we've gone from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Donald Trump. Darwin was wrong. And for the record, it is the height of folly for Donald Trump, the most physically repulsive chief executive since Andrew Johnson, to make crude remarks about the appearance of  anyone. Mika Brzezinski (who I think is beautiful, by the way) showed perfect grace and poise when she stated on the air yesterday that, with the recent passing of her father and the death of her daughter's best friend, she has more important things to worry about than the chaotic ramblings of an obviously disturbed despot. She was a bit more dignified in her wording than I am here, but you get the idea, I'm sure.

 

July7:

And why shouldn't people like me get some serious schadenfreude out of this perfectly beautiful political catastrophe. We were laughed at and mocked, publicly and privately, in the months leading up to Election Day 2016 when we vainly tried to warn our more conservative contemporaries the utter disaster that would befall this doomed nation if the people were naïve enough to elevate Putin's stooge to the presidency. An acquaintance of mine, in making an excuse for his support of Trump a year ago, recently said to me: "No one could have foreseen this". My response: "You obviously weren't reading my blog." I'm not going to lie to you; that sure felt good. I had no idea gloating could feel so good. It's oodles of fun being me these days. It really is.

 

July 20:

 

We have stupidly saddled ourselves with a president who is not only an agent of a hostile foreign government, he has financial ties to the Russian mafia that go back at least two decades. Does that sound a tad extreme? It's already been revealed. The story is unfolding bit by bit, day by day. You've missed it? Turn off Fox Noise. It'll do you a world of good.

 

August 5:

 

The bells of doom are being tolled by Special Council Bob Mueller. When it came to light a couple of days ago that he had impaneled a grand jury, I knew then and there that it was the beginning of the end. Son-in-law Jared Kushner no longer bears the serene disposition of a choirboy on opioids. He is a man tormented and desperate. Daughter Ivanka Trump has been keeping to herself in recent days. One wonders if she is terrified that Jared is going to turn on Daddy in order to ingratiate himself to Mueller and company in return for  bit of leniency. That would make for an awkward Thanksgiving dinner, no doubt about it. It's almost a given that, with their elite educations, they have studied Shakespearian tragedy to a degree that eludes the rumpled and filthy masses. I wonder if they aren't being bogged down by the analogies at this very moment. Can  you even imagine? It's a safe bet that it couldn't be much fun being Jared and Ivanka these days.

 

August 19:

 

There are no statues of Hitler anywhere on this troubled planet, and yet our historical knowledge of him has not been "washed away". We know about him today just as they will know about Robert E. Lee a century from now. A statue is not a history lesson. It is a remembrance of honor. Lee was an officer in the United States army, educated at West Point, who led a counter army in war against the government he had sworn allegiance to. In that ensuing war, 624,000 human beings were slaughtered. Where I come from, Bobby Lee would be labeled "a terrorist"; Where I come from, he would be disparaged as "a traitor". He killed more people at Gettysburg than Osama bin laden killed on September 11, 2001.

 

September 1:

Darwin was wrong

There is no way this unacceptable situation can possibly continue until New Years Day - let alone January 20, 2021. The damage that this mentally ill knucklehead is doing to this country might be irreparable before we know it. It's almost beyond the point of being unintentionally funny - although it's still a scream. Every morning for the last eight months and twelve days has been like waking up and finding one's self deep within a Paddy Chayefsky satire. However, as amusing as these times are, they're also ominous in a way that's hard to describe. The fact of the matter is that Donald Trump's very presence in the house that was once the home of John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, both Roosevelts and Harry S Truman is a fairly accurate reflection of what America has become. It used to amaze me when people would say that they voted for Trump "because he's one of us". Today I understand it perfectly. He really is one of us - in ways that are too unsettling and weird to articulate. Donald Trump is America. If that very fact doesn't depress the bleeding mortal shit out of you, then you might as well go back to sleep. I'll wake you when it's over.

 

September 18:

 

The tragedy of 2016 is simply that Bernie Sanders was offering the voters of this doomed country the type of a historical vision that they had not been offered since the second campaign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936. Four years earlier, during the '32 campaign, FDR kept his cards close to his vest, revealing very little of the broad and drastic changes he would make in regards to the American peoples' relationship with their government. The difference between then and last year is that Bernie had the courage to represent himself, at the starting gate, as the true progressive he really is. Bernie Sanders is a radical. At a time when radical change is desperately needed, that's not such a bad thing. I'm a radical. If you examined your soul close enough, you'll probably find that you are, too!

 

October 8:

 

In the meantime, the damage that these clowns are doing will probably take untold years to undo. We'll have a lot of difficult days to endure for the simple reason that too many people in this country are not informed enough to make the right decision at their polling places....Did I say "Right"? I beg your pardon, I meant to say, the "Correct" decision. There are too many of us who can be accurately compared to Pavlov's dogs, salivating at the right wing scream machine's bells of impending doom that progressives would unleash on the poor and helpless inmates of Idiot Nation.These sure are interesting times to be alive, you'd better believe it.

 

October 16:

 

To be honest with you, I'm not sure that Donald Trump's presidency is survivable. I do hope it is, but I'm not absolutely certain of that. It will take a long time to recover from what right wing governance has done - and is doing - to this once-great nation. There's room for optimism. In the life-span of people who still walk among us, Germany endured twelve years of Hitler and the Nazis. Today they survive as one of the most stable and thriving nations on this troubled planet. It might take years; some of us might not be around to see the ultimate transformation, that "new birth of freedom". Still, as the adage says where there's life there's hope, ay?

 

October 19:

Donald J. Trump, on the other tiny hand, is....umm....let me be as polite and as gentle as possible here....Incurious? Every day, it is becoming more-an-more painfully obvious that Trump is completely out-of-his league intellectually and psychologically. In fact (the hell with politeness) if Trump is not the dumbest president in history, he's a cinch to be tied with Andrew Johnson - who served a century-and-a-half ago. In 2016, the American people (or enough of them to turn the tide) wanted to "experiment" with a "different" kind of president. Well, I think that by now it's apparent to everyone that their little experiment failed disastrously. Each day that this unhinged jackass and common pervert remains in power is a day that further seals the fate of that other "experiment" known as "democratic governance". Trump needs to be removed. The sooner the better. If nothing else, think of your children.

 

October 30:

 

News accounts emanating out of the District-of-You-Know-Where are informing us that the Donald is staying away from the Oval Office today, and is keeping himself hunkered-down in the family living quarters of the White House. Apparently he is monitoring the rapidly expanding implosion of his administration from there. That's probably just as well, I suppose. The fewer the eye-witnesses the better. For the many decades I've been following this knucklehead, I always got the strong feeling that he was having oodles of fun being Donald Trump. He can't be having that much fun any longer. In fact, I can easily imagine that being Donald Trump these days is a complete drag. It was never supposed to get this weird. He must be tearing his hair out at this very moment. Sad.

 

November 9:

 

It was easy to predict one year ago today that this was going to end badly. A tip of the hat to Fox Noise for conning so many people into believing that a Trump administration would be a grand thing for this utterly fucked republic. The damage that that network has done to this country can barely be assessed. The very fact that it is still thriving is ominous and disturbing. It won't be going away any time soon, and the harm it will continue to inflict upon our national political conversation is incalculable. One can only speculate that they would have made Josef Goebbels proud. The only positive thing I can say at this point is that Roger Ailes is gone and he's not coming back.

November 22:

Some of us are wondering out loud, "How could something as vile and  as disgusting as this be happening in the United States"? You shouldn't wonder at all. Donald Trump is us. He is who we have become as a nation. The handwriting is on the wall. It is as clear as can be and you have to be blind and illiterate not to be able to read it. The American people deserve Donald Trump. The people of Alabama deserve Roy Moore. They deserve no better. They deserve no less.

December 3:

The Donald is starting to see the handwriting on the wall. For someone who has never scored particularly high in the self-awareness department, this is a monumental moment to be sure. Mike Flynn is covering Bob Mueller's evidence table with a truckload of rancid beans he is spilling to the detriment of an administration that was self-destructing at the starting gate. As someone who has been studying this disgusting and corrupt mob of incompetents very closely for the better part of three years, this complete implosion was a foregone conclusion - in fact, it was predicted on this site many times before the election and inauguration. But even I was taken aback by the speed with which they hurled themselves - headfirst and smiling - into the proverbial toilet. If I hadn't seen it all with my own eyes, you would not have been able to convince me that it was anything but fiction....Cheep, tawdry fiction.

 

December 13:

 

I come from the Hudson Valley, sixty miles north of Manhattan. Having lived all over America, I don’t think I could ever again move away from here - at least not permanently. Although there are counties in northern and western New York state that can be described as somewhat “”backwards” (there were an awful lot of “Trump for President” signs in the region during the 2016 campaign) my neck of the woods is a fairly enlightened place when compared to a lot of other parts of this doomed republic. Where I come from, someone as utterly unhinged and as damaged as Roy Moore could not even have received the GOP nomination. Even conservative Republicans have a bit more sense than that - at least here in New York. I can’t remember in my lifetime when someone as overtly racist as Roy Moore was even nominated by either of the two political parties in these parts. Too many people in Alabama would rather elect a child molester than a moderately liberal Democrat. What the hell is the mater with them?

 

December 25:

 

Santa Claus has not sent me a single thing in forty-nine years. Late on the night of Christmas Eve 1968, when I left the traditional milk and cookies for him, I spiked the milk with Old Granddad bourbon. Santa, although being a rather large person, apparently doesn't handle his liquor too well - in fact he doesn't handle it well at all. He took off from our rooftop and proceeded to crash into the Finkle home across the street. Four of his eight tiny reindeer were permanently paralyzed - horrible carnage. Since that ill-fated Christmas Eve, regardless of how naughty or nice I may have been during any given year, I’ve been permanently consigned to Santa’s “naughty” list. My intent that year was not at all malicious. I sincerely believed that I was doing the man a favor. Christmas Eve 1968 was a cold night, and I thought the dude might need a little something to warm himself up. So much for good deeds.

 

December 28:

 

Race is an illusion. There is no such thing as "race division"; it is something else entirely. It's simply the conscious effort of wealthy white men (and a few wealthy white women) to paralyze us into fearing each other. This comes at a time when the American chief-executive is the most polarizing leader since before the Civil War when it comes to the subject of cultures and skin color. We should not let him win that argument. The future of our race - the human race - is in the balance. Resist.

 

Happy New Year, everybody!

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Indeed. 2017 is not a year we'll be forgetting any time soon.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY