“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Donald Trump is not my spiritual adviser, but I find myself on an enlightening journey with the man.

From the beginning, Trump hasn’t exactly acted like a statesman. In fact, he makes Ferris Bueller look like John Foster Dulles. But then, he beat my guy fair and square. So unlike the Republican establishment, I got behind him.

My doubts grew as I learned more. The disclosure of his shabby words about women was the last of a whole bale of ugly straws, and it finally broke me.

Initially, it felt good to break with Trump. He’s just not a gentleman, I sniffed. I’m better than him, I boasted to myself.

Moral sanctimony is a buzz, and it’s addictive. I was not just high on my horse; I was just plain high.

But I thought more about it. I talked with friends I’ve made in other journeys, with professional women and with religious people. I even prayed a little, which for me is praying a lot. Continue reading →

“And everybody’s high–ighhh–ighhhhh!!!” — John Denver, “Rocky Mountain High.”

When state legislators decided a few years ago that Colorado needed a state song, they chose “Rocky Mountain High.” When they later decided Colorado needed a state weed, they chose weed.

Yes, pot is now legal in Colorado. Even here in Aspen we’re infested with nearly a dozen seedy pot stores. I’ve wondered, is getting high on pot better than getting high on mountains?

To answer that question, I recently slipped into a Colorado pot shop. I imagined I was cool.

All hell broke loose. I thought maybe I’d walked in on a robbery. But no, it was just reefer madness. Continue reading →

The conventional wisdom is we have two weak presidential candidates, and that’s bad for America.

The conventional wisdom is wrong.

Yes, the candidates are weak. The one who wrote a book called “The Art of the Deal” is anything but artful and doesn’t know how to deal. The other is a money-grubbing, coattail-riding, establishment-kowtowing liar.

But that’s not necessarily bad for America. One of these weak candidates will become a weak president. It sounds odd, but that’s exactly what the country needs.

Bear with me. Continue reading →

Taxpayer-subsidized Colorado Public Radio likes taxpayer subsidies. I know from personal experience that they even like Aspen’s taxpayer-subsidized housing program, where residents making as much as $186,000 receive million-dollar houses for dimes on the dollar.

Here’s the background. One of Colorado Public Radio’s reporters contacted me a few weeks ago, saying he’d seen my columns on the problem-plagued program. He wanted to talk more and asked to have a telephone conversation. I agreed, and we did.

In our short conversation, I mentioned some of the problems. He said he planned to visit Aspen to investigate a story and would like to meet with me to talk more. Again I agreed, and we left it that he would call me when he arrived. He never did.

His story was broadcast on Colorado Public Radio last week, is reproduced on its website and was circulated on social media. The gist of his story is that the taxpayer-subsidized housing program is a success but needs more taxpayer money for more houses for more young people because the existing residents are aging and never move out. (Why would they?) The article concluded that the program will become a taxpayer-subsidized retirement home unless the taxpayers cough up even more money.

That’s all true. But the CPR piece failed to mention many other problems that I touched on in my conversation with the reporter and would have detailed in our follow-up conversation. Continue reading →

I tried a new job here in Aspen.  I was a panhandler.

I made a cardboard sign saying “SURVIVED CANCER BUT LOST MY JOB,” which happens to be true (albeit a little misleading) and put on an old pair of jeans and a work shirt.

Then I moseyed over to the police station.  The police had no money for me, but did have advice.  They advised me Continue reading →

I came across a big runaway lawnmower as I recently walked along a country road in Switzerland. Or so I thought.

On further inspection, I saw a distant worker with a joystick controlling it remotely. Safely away from passing traffic, he used this remote-controlled lawnmower to neatly mow down weeds on the shoulder of the road. As I gazed slack-jawed at this contrivance, he must have thought, “Oh, another backward American.”

Switzerland is famous for its banking and pharmaceutical industries, but it’s also a technology center. It’s especially well-regarded for its machinery. The machine-tool industry of the northeastern United States Continue reading →

What do you call an exclusive eight-person club whose secret debates control the country and whose members are ages 68, 83, 62, 61, 56, 66, 77 and 79?

In America, you call it the Supreme Court.

The justices are old because they have lifetime tenure. Most never retire. Instead they die in office, as one did last winter at age 79, often after extended illness.

I’m not exactly young myself. In fact, I’m older than Continue reading →

A former Republican candidate for president and current political pontiff, Mitt Romney, recently took to the pulpit here in Aspen to pontificate at one of those sacred Aspen shows where stale old people recite stale old ideas, as pontiffs do, while the congregation obediently genuflects.

Romney’s particular idea was that as an upstart unapproved by anyone except the people, Donald Trump might destroy the Grand Old Party that is run by the Romney-approved regulars of the Republican establishment.

Other Republican establishmentarians are also tsk-tsking. George Will says Trump has driven him out of the party. Bill Kristol is recruiting someone to run on a third-party ticket. The Bush dynasty has withheld its endorsement.

To them I say: Spare me your sermonizing.

It is you, Republican establishmentarians, who have destroyed the Republican Party. Continue reading →