The Writer's Life 6/22 - Charles Krauthammer & Co.

RIP Charles Krauthammer, 68, a voice of reason among TV and print pundits. Recently, he had published a moving farewell in which he stated he'd lost his battle against cancer. While in Harvard med school he suffered an accident diving into a pool. It severed his spine, leaving him a quadriplegic. Despite this setback, he finished medical school, an inspirational example of fortitude for the entire human race. While serving his residency, a professor of his was appointed to an agency created by President Carter. Krauthammer went to work in the administration and eventually became a speech-writer for VP Walter Mondale. Soon he took a turn to the right, which years later he explained in his 2013 book, Things That Matter: "As I became convinced of the practical and theoretical defects of the social-democratic tendencies of my youth, it was but a short distance to a philosophy of restrained, free-market governance." He went to work for the Washington Post. His columns often appeared in the NY Post. In 1987 he won a Pulitzer for his commentary. Despite being a conservative, he was against capital punishment and for stem cell research, and he criticized President Trump severely. He was as unbiased as is humanly possible, an example rarely followed by his colleagues these days. Thank you, sir.

And from the very sad to the comically ridiculous, here's a gem from the Weird But True column in today's Post, in my own words: A beauty blogger claims to have found a wonderful elixir - her dog's fresh urine. She said: "Until I first drank my dog's pee, I was depressed, I was sad, and I had bad acne." She also believes it cures cancer. I guess Frank Zappa was wrong when he wrote and sang: "Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow."

Here's a headline from Yahoo Sports: "MLB bans all transactions with corrupt Mexican League." So far, the media hasn't blamed Trump.

Also from YS, in my own words: Basketball dad LaVar Ball has had a wrench thrown into his master plan to have all three of his sons play for the Lakers. In last night's NBA draft, number two son LiAngelo was not selected and it has been reported that the Lakers are not even inviting him to join their summer league team. Right now there seems to be zero interest in him at the highest level. As Robert Burns said in To a Mouse... "The best laid schemes of mice and men/ Go often askew..."

It was an unusually cool day in Brooklyn, perfect for hawking books on the street. I sold the largest and smallest in the inventory. My thanks to the gentleman who bought the massive pictorial on Far East art, and to the young mom who purchased the tiny book on ABC's; and to Arlene, who selected novels by Joan Collins and Barbara Michaels; and to the woman who chose a romance in Russian; and to the woman who showed while I was packing up and pounced on two works of
non-fiction: Isabella: The Warrior Queen by Kirstin Downey and The Tudors by Richard Rex.

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