Author: A.T.

My first TV appearance was at 6 in the Peanut Gallery of the Howdy Doody Show.

My next was at 19 on the Today Show with Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters.

Hugh Downs was in a neck brace; Barbara Walters was in the early stages of her trail-blazing career; I was plugging Let’s Go: The Student Guide to Europe.

Fast forward 25 years to Barbara Walters’ interview with Trump.

A fitting tribute.

R.I.P.

Up until now I’ve not bothered writing about George Santos, the incoming Republican Congressman who lied about graduating from college and working for Goldman Sachs and pretty much everything else.

Yet now, it seems, he lied about having attended my high school, and that’s just a bridge too far.

Now it’s personal.

Read his story here and then consider:

Should the incoming Republican Congress seat him?

It would be the easiest win in the world to declare themselves a party that does not tolerate blatant, breathtaking fraud.

A way of tacitly moving on from Trump (a blatant, breathtaking fraud).

They would lose the seat to a Democrat but still control the House, so why not?

If they’re smart — let alone if they do not accept breathtaking frauds as colleagues — they will deny him the seat.

Most of my friends think they’ll seat him.

Oh!  AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Here’s a question:

Is it more patriotic to (a) ransack the Capitol calling for the death of the Vice President or (b) investigate efforts to overturn an election that more than 60 judges, many of them Trump appointees, unanimously found no evidence of having been stolen?

To millions of Americans, the answer is not obvious.

Here’s another:

Do you know how long Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is?

It depends on the edition, of course, but the first one I Googled weighed in at 1,168 pages.

The full report of the bi-partisan January 6 Committee runs just 845.

Have a great long weekend and a Happy New Year!

Is it safe to eat freezer-burned food?

I ask because my refrigerator needed help after 20 faithful years (thank you, GE) and I had to take everything out of the freezer so the repairman could replace the heater assembly (in a refrigerator? yes, apparently it cycles on every 12 hours to defrost)  . . .

. . . including the last of a three bagels packed on March 29, 2014.

As long-time readers know, this is the kind of thing I enjoy.

I sent the photo to the guys who try to keep me from going off the rails.

“Don’t DO it!” they responded, as they knew I knew they would.

When I was a kid, my mother tried to get me to eat freezer-burn-afflicted food that I refused.  Now that I better know the value of a dollar, the meaning of “waste not want not,” and the power of ketchup or, in this case, fake butter, to overwhelm freezer burn, I don’t think twice in such a situation.

Even after defrosting, the bagel was rock hard, but that’s why God invented microwave ovens.

Thirty seconds later, it was soft, hot, and chewy.  (This is true of any stale baked good.  Don’t toss it — nuke it!)

I sent my guys this photo:

They responded predictably, which made me feel great, because it means they care.

That’s when I thought it would be fun to ask Google whether it’s safe to eat freezer-burned food and found the link above.  (Answer: yes.)

By which time there was this:

Shortly after which there was nothing left at all.

One should always be wary of stocks paying outsize dividends, but a smart guy I know thinks UNIT, yielding more than 10%, is misunderstood.  I bought some in my IRA.

APE suggested here three weeks ago at $1.05 last traded at $1.80, while AMC, its slightly less-preferred twin, which I suggested might be overpriced at $7.43, had dropped to $4.33.  Sooner or later, the two should converge, although the convergence could eventually be at $0, so some profit taking may be in order.

I missed this in January, but it remains a great read — The Moral Calculations of a Billionaire.

An interesting juxtaposition with an equally great read — The Moral Calculations of a Good Ol’ Boy. 

Each struggling to make sense of the world from opposite ends of it — though both grew up poor — and each succeeding pretty well.

As opposed, perhaps, to these guys?

Or surely the two on the right?

Your fellow reader Matt Ball — whose wonderfully idiosyncratic book you can download free — reacted to Wednesday’s “Six Impossible Things” with this Seventh Impossible Thing.

And, boy is it ever.  Holy Toledo, Batman!

It’s Christmas time, which is magical, too.

I recently encountered someone who hasn’t seen It’s A Wonderful Life.

Crazy, no?

On the remote chance you are similarly deprived, please promise to give yourself that gift sometime before Sunday night.

It’s #8 on Variety’s admittedly somewhat odd list of the 100 greatest films of all time. . . . a film about our common humanity.  (Also: bank capital adequacy.*)

In which spirit I offer two Christmas-appropriate quotes.

> The late Congressman John Lewis famously said:

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“We may have come here on different ships, but we are all in the same boat now.  So it doesn’t matter if we’re black or white, Latinos, Asian Americans, or Native American, gay or straight, we are one people, we are one family, we all live in the same house. Not just an American house but the world house.”

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> Your fellow reader Ed Costello penned this tag-line for all his emails:

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We are NOT “all in the same boat.” We are in the same “storm.” Some have yachts; others canoes; and others are drowning. Help when and where you can.”

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To which I’m all but certain John Lewis would have responded: “Amen.”

I count myself awfully lucky to have readers like Matt and Ed — and you.

Happy last days of Channukah . . . and Merry Christmas, one and all!

*Nearly 50 years ago I wrote a piece for New York Magazine on that topic.  Not wanting to lose all our subscribers, we titled it “Will The Banks Fail?”  A few days later I got a call from John Reed’s secretary at Citibank — he would go on to be the Citi’s chairman and CEO, and then to chair the New York Stock Exchange — saying “Mr. Reed has read your article and wants to know who you are.”  I was the 27-year-old smart-ass who had written a book about being gay back when almost everyone was closeted (s0 I used a pen name).  “He wants to know who I am?”  “Yes, he’s giving a speech next week and . . .” All about giddy at the absurdity of the coincidence, I came this close to blurting out, “I’m John Reid!”  Which was my pen name.  How times have changed.

Three Decembers ago an amazing young magician took me to see SIX IMPOSSIBLE THINGS in a basement on the Lower East Side . . . an experience limited to 20 guests of master magician Joshua Jay.

The six things that ensued were impossible.

Now you can see them without flying to New York or waiting in the freezing cold for the unmarked door to open or paying the whatever the ticket price was; paying, instead, just $25.

If you like magic, step right up.

And what an environmentally friendly last-minute gift.  No wrapping required.

Magic is not fraud (unless, like Uri Geller and some others, you claim to have supernatural powers).

But fraud is.

Which brings us, of course, to the former president.

Yesterday I linked to the executive summary of the January 6 committee report.

Today, a summary of his tax returns.

Among the things to note are that he lied when he said he would “absolutely” release them if he ran for president, lied when he said they were under audit, lied when he said he couldn’t release them because they were under audit (nothing prevents a taxpayer from doing that).  One presumes he also lied on his taxes, although unless they are audited, we can’t know for sure (only that his company was criminally convicted).  His returns were not audited because he installed a head of the IRS whom he knew would not audit them.

You know all this — and so much more.  He faked his SAT scores by getting someone else to take the test, faked an excuse to dodge the draft, faked his golf scores, faked his investigation into Obama’s birthplace, faked a plan to provide everyone tremendous health care at a tiny fraction of the cost (“and it’s going to be so easy”) — we could go on for  days.

Newly-elected Congressman George Santos, seems to be giving him a run for his money.  But he may not even get to take his seat in the House, let alone the Oval Office.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  Bundle up.

Read the executive summary.

It’s not even a little bit boring.

As Professor Lawrence Tribe points out, a bipartisan majority in the House and Senate has already examined the evidence and voted to convict.

1. A story from WWII you may not have known.

The Even Greater Titanic Tragedy

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Twenty-five years ago, the blockbuster film “Titanic” premiered in the United States, kicking off a historic run that would bring in a record $1.85 billion worldwide and win 11 Oscars.

But 54 years earlier, in 1943, another film titled “Titanic” hit cinemas. It made history in a different way — by spreading Nazi propaganda, costing the director his life and using a ship for filming that would itself sink and kill far more people than the actual Titanic disaster. . . .

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2. A story from the Vietnam War you may have forgotten.

The Christmas Bombings

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“They’re going to be so god damned surprised,” US President Richard Nixon replied to Kissinger on December 17, the eve of the mission. . . .

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3. A tragedy from 1948 we never heard of.

Tantura

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When Israeli graduate student Teddy Katz meticulously documented a massacre of Palestinian civilians surrounding Israel’s independence, he was initially celebrated for his groundbreaking work. But soon, he was stripped of his degrees and was publicly shamed as a fraudulent traitor. Decades later, incendiary new evidence emerges to corroborate Teddy’s initial findings, not just vindicating him, but raising profound questions about how Israelis — and we all — deal with the darker chapters of history.

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Watch the trailer.  And perhaps the whole film.

I promise to get into the Christmas spirit very soon.

For now, this is the song that comes to mind.  Two senseless world wars, the second started by a megalomanic . . . just like today’s in Ukraine.  The disastrous Vietnam and Iraq wars.  The insane civil war in Rwanda.  It’s important, I think, for kids around the world — be they German, Russian, or American; Japanese, African, or Israeli — to learn history, even when some of it gives pause.

At 1PM Eastern.

Pre-empting all the soaps.

FOX may even cover it — who knows?

BONUS

He is a strong and brilliant leader whom Trump admires and trusts, but . . .

Russia Can Finally See That Putin’s ‘Days Are Numbered’

Dare we hope?

Have a great week.

Here’s something you won’t get just anywhere.

Dotson Rader is not your ordinary interviewer.

Pal of Nancy Reagan, pal of Tennessee Williams, male hustler, playwright, novelist, skyscraper tall . . . Dotson has kept the raw tapes from which, decade after decade, he fashioned profiles for PARADE (may its print edition rest in peace).

For example, this interview with Hillary Clinton.

As of last night, just 14 people had listened to their conversation.

Feel free to listen in.

(A friend  hopes to package an edited compendium of all Dotson’s tapes into a podcast.)

And speaking of podcasts . . .

David T.:  “OK, you roped me in.  I have avoided taking your repeated suggestions to listen to Rachel Maddow’s ULTRA, because I hate podcasts.  It’s hard to listen to/focus on them while doing other thought-based work, and they take too much time to listen to on their own.  But I listened to the first and was intrigued, and then I noticed that you could read the transcripts instead of listening, and so I started doing that.  I’m not finished yet but I’m hooked.  It’s pretty blockbuster stuff that I’d expect to read in a spy novel.  That it’s all true and almost nobody knows any of it is remarkable.  So my suggestion is that the next time you plug ULTRA, mention that transcripts are also available for those who prefer to consume information that way.”

→ Good idea.  I liked listening, but to read them instead, just click the link above and then, for each episode, the word transcript.

Have a great weekend!