…kicking a week off where I’ll be traveling back to Massachusetts for the equivalent “chew and screw” starting with a Tuesday night red-eye and a three-night stay. I’ll be back in the (hopefully) sunny confines of the Valley of the Sun (although it hasn’t been much of an “Arizona winter” this year!) Saturday night and then back to working on taxes next Sunday.

I read this and couldn’t believe my eyes. Chris Berman??? That blow-hard helping to call Red Sox games this year? Are you kidding me? Why, the ghosts of (Ned) Martin and (Jim) Woods must be rolling in their graves.

Along those same lines, if there’s a San Diego Padres game on the MLB Network being called by the San Diego announcers, I’ll watch just to hear former Sox announcer Don Orsillo call a game. Even with a new team and a different partner he’s still a joy to listen to. He’s just perfect for the laid-back pace of a ballgame.

I GUARANTEE you won’t read anything as concise and accurate in the mainstream media as this series of tweets by the usually spot-on Larry Schweikart. The Democrats don’t know it yet, but they got played by the White House over the recent deal and national emergency declaration signed by the President.

…how do I know that? When you’ve got like likes of “conservative” screed Ann Coulter and the Washington Post on the same side of Trump’s decision. Whoever put this plan together at the White House is likely a genius, but let’s just see how this all plays out, shall we?

BTW, I used to like Coulter a lot but nowadays she’s the political analyst equivalent of Madonna (or Chris Berman, for that matter) – the only thing she’s interested in is being heard and published. She’s always looking for ways she can get herself quoted by the usual Beltway media outlets, and that means being “controversial”, even it means being a patsy for the national mainstream media. Most conservatives I interact with stopped paying attention to her a long time ago; she’s become a parody of herself.

Speaking of the wall, I really don’t think – no matter what Trump does and how this national declaration plays out – their stand on this issue paints the Democrats in a positive light. Think about it: in just a few short weeks they’ve moved all the way from “San Fran Nan” Pelosi not willing to go higher than a single dollar for new wall construction to tearing down the wall either partially or completely. Are these people nuts? What voters (beyond, of course, their own rabid, frothing anti-America base) do they actually believe would support such an irrational political stand?

Grab the popcorn, this is gonna get interesting.

Just another reminder why the whole “Russia collusion” thing was a useful distraction to just how bad things are at the FBI. The whole organization needs to be disbanded and salted over as a stain on the American intelligence community. Efram Zimbalist, Jr. must be turning over in his grave.

Sorry, Chris Sale, after last year’s tightrope ride me and my heart are willing to give another Red Sox reliever a shot at being closer. Just as long as it’s not Heath Hembree. Hey, if at the end of spring training nothing is working and Craig Kimbrel hasn’t signed with anyone, bring him back on a one-year deal. Winner winner chicken dinner!

If this is what counted for news during the NBA’s All-Star weekend I guess I’m just too old to understand. Or care.

…ditto, I guess, when it comes to “orbiting”. Why, back in my day “orbiting” meant riding my bike an hour to and from the street where the girl I was infatuated with at that time lived. How times have changed, and not for the better.

R.I.P. Patrick Caddell, veteran pollster of the political wars. Always liked him, seemed a man of unusual sanity in an insane business.

Ditto Bruno Ganz, the actor who starred in “Downfall”. He may be gone but the hundreds of YouTube video Hitler rants will remain for posterity. Here’s one of my favorites. May he rest in peace.