Well, it’s Tuesday, Marcy 15, in Ohio and Florida, and they’re going to the polls. It’s political showdown time … again! (Is this the sixth showdown, the ninth showdown or whatever? It’s getting hard to remember.) By tonight, we’ll know if Donald Trump will sail to the nomination or if there will be a convention fight. Most Americans have never seen a convention battle, and they’re a little bit frightened of it, but conventions used to be the Super Bowl of politics. I grew up with the words, “Mr. Chairman (in those days, it was always a mister), the Garden State of New Jersey cast its 39 votes for the next president of the United States, the honorable blah, blah, blah.” The smoke-filled arena, the bands, the demonstrations — it was great drama and even better television. It’s going to outdraw the Super Bowl. Is it good for America? Well, we’ll all know soon enough.
The Republicans have a terrible dilemma: Assuming Trump doesn’t come in with enough votes to clinch it on the first ballot, he’s still going to be the one with the most delegates. If they turn their back on him, he could walk, or his supporters could walk and split the party. Usually a split party means defeat. Alternatively, they could back him on the assumption that he would probably lose, which would keep the party intact, but still there is always the outside chance that he wins, which I think would scare the heck out of a lot of us, both Republican and Democrat. Trump has proved himself a very resourceful candidate, and he could change back, tack toward the middle, change his language and begin to sound moderate. In this election, anything is possible.
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The Russians are getting out of Syria. This should be an object lesson to all of us as to how to do it. Get into someone else’s war. Bomb around a bit. Keep you ground troops at home. Declare a victory — “mission accomplished” — and then get the heck out before they do any significant damage to you. You accomplish nothing but the PR is great and the world now knows you are a decisive leader.
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It looks like the enviro community has begun to take a second look at mountain lions. That warm and fuzzy feeling about nature and mountain lions that bought several hundred people out to a meeting about building a bridge over the 101 Freeway to give the mountains lions a more fulfilling sex life may be up for a second glance, I hope. The inescapable fact is that mountain lions are just that — they’re lions. Lions are predators. It’s not that they’re bad lions, it’s just that’s what lions do. They eat things like koala bears, llamas and little doggies named Muffy. The day we decided to turn the Santa Monica Mountains into a national recreation area, we passed a death sentence on those predators that formerly roamed free in the mountains. It’s pure silliness to believe we can inhabit the same space as they do and live in harmony. So it’s goodbye mountain lions, goodbye bears and goodbye anything else that’s big and eats meat.
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If you haven’t had a chance to walk in Legacy Park recently, I’d suggest you do it. Normally the park looks like a dried out mud hole, but once you add water (and they have), it’s an entirely different experience. The recent rains have provided the water, which turns Los Angeles back from a desert into a garden with birds, flowers and greenery. The recent rains may be taking the edge off the drought; the reservoirs are filling, the snow cap is rising, and, unless we get heavy heat that will melt the snow, we may be getting lucky and coming out of the drought, but it’s still a bit early to tell for sure.
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I don’t normally give stock advice, but I recommend to all of you that you invest in companies that make hearing aids. The last few times Karen and I walked into restaurants in LA and Malibu, we took four steps in, and immediately turned around and walked out. The sound was absolutely deafening. I am convinced that there is a generation coming up that will all be stone deaf by the time they are 50. It’s only a matter of time before OSHA comes in and says, “The decibel count is impossible, and just because your customers are crazy enough to sit in this noise, you still have to protect your employees.” So, in time, I think you’re going to see waiters wearing those big acoustical earmuffs the employees wear on airport runways, and they’ll give you an electronic pad to check off what you want to order.