How many people have uttered that phrase after slicing a ball in the trees, chili-dipping a pitch shot, or hooking a drive into the water?

My father-in-law used to say that golf is a French hooker. No matter how bad you feel after playing, there is always one shot that keeps you coming back for more.

Golf is unfair. It’s not supposed to be fair. Just like life. Sometimes you get the breaks, and sometimes the breaks get you. You can hit the perfect shot and end up in the sand trap or over the green. You can skull a 7 iron and somehow end up next to the hole.

That is one of the many ways that golf teaches you about life. Them’s the breaks. The more you cry about it, the dumber you look.

Lee Trevino used to say that trees are 90% air. If fate is on your side, your ball will escape the leaves and branches. If fate is against you, try to give the trees a wide berth.

Trevino also used to say that you can talk to a fade, but a hook just won’t listen. Always have a favorite shape to your shot. Knowing where the ball is going before you it is one of the greatest feelings in golf. It breeds confidence. And a confident golfer is a winning golfer.

When I was younger, I would throw my clubs after a bad shot. One time, I topped a three-wood and got so pissed, I threw the club into a tree and couldn’t get it back down. I learned a valuable lesson. Throwing your clubs is expensive. Don’t throw your clubs.

Golf is a game that keeps you humble. How many times have I hit the perfect drive, perfectly placed 100 yards away from the green, only to take three shots to get it on the green and then three putts to triple bogey the hole? More times than I like to mention.

Golf teaches resilience. It also taught me this valuable lesson. Great things can only happen after bad shots. Anybody can hit a shot in the fairway, then knock the approach shot on the green, than make two putts to par the hole. But only a special golfer can knock on the green from the next fairway or better yet, the trees.

It takes a lot of practice to hit a knock-down 4 iron under the trees, through the sand trap, and have it plop on the green. You can’t get that kind of practice on the practice tee. It requires you to hit a lot of drives into the trees.

I was playing the other week and had to par to break 40. The hole was a long par 3, with a road on the left and a big sand trap on the right. I hit a terrible drive out to the right. It was hole-high but 40 yards into a gulley, with the sand trap standing between me and the hole. I couldn’t see the green, but could see the top of the flag stick. I opened my stance and swung the sand wedge hard. The ball went straight up in the sky, barely clearing the trap, and then bounced in the hole, according to my playing partners. Birdie. Would I have rather put my tee shot close and made a putt? Sure. But somehow, this was more satisfying.

Two holes later, I blocked my approach shot into the trees after a perfect drive and then three-putted, double-bogeying the hole. The second nine was a complete disaster. I will keep thinking about the 38 though. Golf is an exercise in accentuating the positive.

I have had three holes-in-one in my life. After the first one, a par four at Hains Point (the golf course that Trump is trying to fix), I hit my next drive out of bounds. With the ball that I had holed out the previous shot.

Golf is humbling.

I was watching an Instagram reel of some of the greatest muffed shots of all time. The reel included Rory, Scottie, Jon Rahm and bunch of other big stars. It is fun to see the best get humbled just like me.

Golf is a thinking man’s game, but the more you think as you swing, the worse you will do. It is far better to have no swing thoughts than bad swing thoughts. Grip it and rip it baby.

Golf is a game of balance and rhythm. Ernie Els and Freddie Couples have the greatest modern golf swings. Tiger Woods, of course, is the greatest modern golfer, and his game was less about balance and rhythm and more about pure brute force. He changed the game of golf forever, but he paid the price for his aggression. His body has been forever damaged by doing unnatural things at unnatural speeds.

When Bobby Jones first witnessed Jack Nicklaus playing golf, he said about the soon to be 18-time Major Champion, “He plays a game with which I am not familiar.” The world was not familiar with the kind of golf that Tiger Woods played when he burst on the scene almost three decades ago.. We won’t see the likes of him ever again, I suspect.

Golf is a game of honor, and so if you are going to cheat, it is best to do it out of the sight of your friends.

One of my favorite golf stories is about the guy who went looking for his opponents golf ball in the woods. After some time wandering the woods, his opponent yelled out, saying that he found the ball. But the guy knew that wasn’t true, he had the opponent’s ball in his pocket. What would you do in those circumstances, call our opponent out while revealing your own calumny, or let it play out, giving the devil his due?

Sean Connery, an ardent golfer, once said,”if you cheat, you really are only cheating yourself. You will always know that you are a cheater.”

And Connery is right. Because when you cheat at golf and there is no money on the line, you are just cheating yourself. Being brutally honest with yourself and your capabilities is an essential part of the game of golf. Counting all of your strokes is sometimes a hard thing to do, but it helps you to inflate your handicap, which gives you a better chance at winning the Club’s Calcutta.

To be clear, I don’t do this. I am a fool. I am quite clear about that fact. At times, I don’t count every stroke. At times, I don’t putt them all out. As a result, my handicap is far lower than it should be. I am probably not a 13. I wish I were.

Golf is an individual game, played by individuals. But it can also be played as a team game. The Ryder Cup, example.

Team golf is fun. Playing the alternate shot format is an exercise in patience, especially when your playing partner dumps it in the trap after you hit the perfect drive.

If you are well-heeled enough, or if you are a professional golfer, you can afford a caddie. And the partnership between a caddie and his golfer is unique to golf. Caddies need you to do well, if they are to do well. The better a golfer plays, the better the golfer pays.

That’s the theory at least. You golf in Ireland and the caddies bet amongst themselves about the golfers they are caddying for. There is no guarantee that they are betting on you.

When I was younger, I caddied at Ravisloe Country Club on the South side of Chicago. I learned a lot about human nature when I caddied. I didn’t bet against my golfer, but there were more than a few I was rooting against.

Only if you have caddied in Chicago can you truly appreciate the brilliance of the movie Caddy Shack. Both Bill Murray and his brother Brian Doyle Murray caddied at clubs in the Chicago suburbs.

The caddy-golfer relationship is a special part of the golf experience. In no other sport do you have somebody who plays such an essential part of the team but has no responsibility to actually play the game. The teamwork makes the dream work, so to speak.

Sometimes in golf, you have to take your medicine. The wise golfer limits the damage when a bad shot takes him out of position. But it is a lot more fun to try to hit through the trees or over the pond. To the bold goes the glory.

Golf reveals a person.

A golfer who talks in your backswing cares more about themselves than they care about you.

A person who cheats at golf cheats at everything.

A golfer who yells at his caddy will never take responsibility for his own actions. Caddies, at times, give bad advice. There is no law that says you have to take it.

A golfer who takes too long, spends too much time lining up his, takes too many practice swings, stands over the ball for endless moments, that person is inconsiderate at golf and most likely is inconsiderate at life. They should be avoided at all costs.

Golf is a game that requires complete concentration. Looking at your cell phone will ruin your focus and screw up your round. Believe me, I know. That’s why I shot a 49 on the back 9 last week.

The best way to keep your focus is to bet. If you have nothing to play for, you have nothing to play for.

One final piece of advice. A drink after the round is more satisfying than several drinks during the round. Unless, of course, you need some swing juice to loosen up your aching joints.

I personally prefer walking 18 holes to riding a golf cart. It is better for your health and frankly better for my golf game.

It was Mark Twain who said that golf is a good walk spoiled. Maybe. But that makes the drink at the 19th Hole even more satisfying.

Everybody has a bad day on the golf course every once in a while, but a bad day on the golf course is better than a good day at the office, every single time.

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2024: Democrats +2

2022: Democrats +.05

2020: Democrats +7

2018: Democrats +8

2016: Democrats +2

2014: Republicans +1

2012: Democrats +2

2010: Republicans +8

2008: Democrats +6

The topic of the symposium was the real world impact of phones and social media on our nation’s children. This is not a trivial concern for millions of parents. Indeed for most parents who have children between the ages of 8 and 18, it is existential.

Congress has slow-walked any real reforms aimed at the social media companies who have made billions of dollars exploiting the minds of adolescence children. The House passed legislation that did the bare minimum in holding these companies accountable and the Senate has yet to consider legislation that passed overwhelmingly in the last session of Congress, but stalled in this one.

I have walked around with parents who told harrowing stories about children who killed themselves because of online bullying, sextortion, or were bombarded with algorithms that taught kids how to starve or hang themselves.

These are extreme examples, sure, but the overall impact on kids has been terrible even for those who haven’t taken their lives. We all know that statistics. Since the dawn of the iPhone, kids have gotten dumber, fatter, are more anxious about their appearances, and are largely in much worse shape than previous generations.

The Surgeon General of the United States warned “Harmful screen use, particularly on social media is linked to developmental, mental and physical health challenges and poor educational outcomes.”

The warning continues: “Screen use may be harmful when a child loses control over use and warning signs of such compulsive behavior may manifest as:

• Spending too much time on screens or constantly thinking about them.

• Repeatedly asking to use screens, often whining, crying or sulking.

• Using screens to feel better and becoming upset and moody when screen time ends.

• Hiding or lying about their overall screen use.

• Getting defensive when asked about their screen us.

• Trying unsuccessfully to reduce screen use.

• Showing symptoms like emotional withdrawal when screens are not accessible

• Not fulfilling their responsibilities by prioritizing screen time.

• Not engaging in in-person interactions or activities.

• Continuing use despite negative consequences.

Hmmm. Does any of this sound familiar?

Dr Jay Battacharya, the hero of Covid and now the Director of NIH had a funny story about phone use. He said that when he was a kid, he had heard about the evils of tobacco use and when his father smoked a pipe, he used to try to hide the pipe form his father. He said that recently, his children, after hearing about the evils of screen time, now try to hide his phone from him.

Screen use was a problem before Covid. It is a disaster post-Covid.

The public health system actually did everything it could to poison our children with the modern day equivalent of tobacco during the Covid shutdowns. It force-fed screen time onto our kids. It closed playgrounds. It enforced social distancing rules, made up in the head on Anthony Fauci. It closed down all recreational sports. It imposed isolation. And it allowed children to be bombarded by bad apps.

The social media companies and their employees made billions. Our kids got sick, fat, became dumber and developed terrible habits based on social media memes.

The science on all of this still being discussed, analyzed and researched by our national experts, many of whom were the biggest proponents of the lockdowns. But parents know the truth, even if they don’t know how to pry the phones out the hands of their kids. They know that the algorithms need to be changed and that the social media companies need to be held accountable.

There is a reasons that META settled a lawsuit from a group of State Attorneys General last week for $17 billion. They know that in a jury trial, they would have been forced to pay a lot more. They know they are not on the winning side. And they know that settling is good for profits. Their stock went up the next day by more than enough to pay the fine.

It’s a mystery why Congress hasn’t taken any real steps to make all social media companies accountable for the filth they are filtering to our kids. Well, maybe not that big of a mystery. After all, Google and META are among the biggest spenders on K Street and they have a lot of power in the halls of Congress.

But I have walked the halls with parents and have even met with the President with the same parents. They have a powerful story and they have the facts behind them.

I don’t know if banning kids from all social media and all phones is the right approach. But there is a way to hold tech companies accountable without banning everything. Just make them liable when their products kill children. That’s not a First Amendment Issue. That just plain common sense.

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Thy waters seem the same, — yet ever new —
‡‡Fed by a thousand streams on either side ;
The same clear sky, the same thy depths of blue,
‡‡Free as the nations bord’ring on thy tide !

Vast upper-lakes feed thee with lib’ral hand,
‡‡From higher lands as new as thine hath been ;
Where still the Indian and his wigwam stand.
‡‡He half amaz’d with what his eyes hath seen !

To thy embrace — like gallant lover bold —
‡‡Niagara rushes in his mad career.
Till tir’d and spent, past whirling eddies cold,
‡‡He calmly sinks to rest when thou art near !

Last of the inland seas ! — yet nearest home —
‡‡Thy waters soon shall swell the mighty deep,
And mingle with the ocean’s briny foam,
‡‡There shalt thou rest — and there for ever sleep !

Trump is well-liked in the golf community and beloved in the area around his golf course, because he is a good boss and his club is doing quite well. Trump is not that well-liked among the Irish elite nor among Irish government leaders. His poll ratings in Ireland are about where they are among the American people, if not a bit lower. One notable exception is among the Unionist community located in the North of Ireland, where Trump has much better approval ratings.

Trump should make some news as he meets with Embassy staff and with Irish government officials, outside of the usual golf patter. He should say it is time for the North and the South to finally unify and that he will host talks in American to make that finally happen.

Irish unification would be very popular among the American people and would be a good legacy item that would build on the accomplishments of Jack Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. I think it will help Republicans politically. And frankly, only Donald Trump could pull off such a grand gesture.

The time is right for Ireland to unify. The demographics in the North have given Catholics, who have long been discriminated against and who have long wanted to join their brethren in the Irish Republican, a solid majority. Should it be put to a vote, there are enough Catholics to make it happen, as long as they stay unified.

The new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham hails from Manchester in England, long a destination for Irish expatriates and his Labor Party is much more favorably disposed towards Irish unification than his Conservative Party opponents. Burnham knows the upsides of finally leaving Ireland to the Irish. British domination of Ulster once may have made sense as part of power-hungry Empire, but those days have long since past. Northern Ireland is a financial drain on Great Britain’s Treasury and so there is a financial incentive to finally cut ties. Its conduct during the Troubles was shameful and closing the book on the English occupation of the North of Ireland is the only real way to move past the legacy issues that came with state-sponsored terrorism.

Brexit has also provided a good excuse to make Ireland whole again. Many people on both sides of the unification debate didn’t want to leave the European Union in the first place. What has been left in Brexit’s path is awkward for everybody in Ireland. Ireland and Northern Ireland now have a seamless border that makes it easy for commerce and people to cross. The only thing you really notice when you cross the border is a change in cell service, and when you stop in a pub, a change in currency. But keeping the border frictionless was a hard won product of intense negotiation between the UK and the EU, and that status could change at any moment. The best way to navigate to border issues is to get rid of the border in the first place.

The Dublin elite are not so gung-ho on a united Ireland. They look down their noses at their cousins to the North and they find the endless arguments between the nationalists and the unionists to be tiresome. Dublin has grown into an international hub of business and culture and frankly, it doesn’t have time to deal with the North’s nonsense. Trump coming in a demanding the Ireland finally unify would be the ultimate way for him to stick it to the political establishment. And it would expose many of them for being the phonies that they tend to be.

Ireland is doing quite well, thank you very much. It is the most prosperous country in Europe and its economy is booming. The Celtic Tiger is back. Ireland is so rich, that when it comes to who owns American debt, the Irish, a country of less than 5 million people, comes in 9th place. It is extraordinary how well the country is doing. In other words, Ireland can afford to expend some resources to re-absorb the six counties that were taken from it by Winston Churchill a century ago.

They said that only Richard Nixon could open up relations with China. In my view, only Donald Trump can unify Ireland. Only he has the ability to talk to the Loyalist Community into laying down their rhetorical arms and start building a better life in a United Ireland. Only he can go to Congress and get them to sign off on a financial package that will help Northern Ireland with the transition costs. And only he can tell the government of Ireland to drop their neutrality and join the rest of the west in standing up against the bad guys.

The time is right for Ireland and Northern Ireland to join together once and for all. And the time is right for Donald Trump to make it happen.

9. My Tennessee Mountain Home

8. Please, Please, Please (with Sabrina Carpenter)

7. The Bargain Store

6. Coat of Many Colors

5. Here You Come Again

4. Islands in the Stream

3. Why’d you come in here looking like that

2. Jolene

And the number one Dolly Parton song

I Will Always Love You

The examples are manifold.

In Florida, Democrats nominated a former Republican Congressman, David Jolly, to be their nominee for Governor. Jolly won because he hated Donald Trump. That is the only reason.

They also nominated a socialist, Angie Nixon, to represent them in November’s Senate election. The socialist beat another former Republican, Alexander Vindman, who thought he could waltz into politics fresh off his campaign to undermine President Trump.

Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor of Florida, got first place in a race to become mayor of St Petersburg, Florida, almost avoiding a run-off in the process.

In Florida, Democrats are either socialists or former Republicans. There are only a few traditional Democrats left.

In Arizona, Katie Hobbs, the Democratic governor of the state who won under controversial circumstances in the last election, has selected a former Republican, Mesa Mayor John Giles, to be her running mate. Hobbs is considered to be the most vulnerable incumbent governor in the country and has been dogged by an ethics investigation that raised questions about special breaks she gave to a nursing home company after it gave $100,000 to her inauguration. Since Hobbs narrowly became governor four years ago, Republican registration has soared well past the Democrats. Republicans nominated a close ally of President Trump, Andy Biggs, to be their nominee. Hobbs obviously believes that running solely as a Democrat is a liability as she bids for independent voters, who typically have a more jaundiced view of MAGA.

Speaking of independents, Democrats have decided to ditch their own brand in Nebraska and tried to talk one of their own off the ballot in Montana. Dan Osborn calls himself an independent and narrowly lost to Senator Deb Fischer in the last election. Osborn hopes that Nebraskans believe he is somehow related former coach Tom Osborn and campaigns as a radical centrist, but most voters and most Democratic leaders believe he will caucus with them in the Senate and vote for either Chuck Schumer or Brian Schatz for leader.

In Montana, Democrats actually tried hard to get their Democratic nominee off the ballot to clear the way for Independent candidate Seth Bodnar. Alani Bankhead, who won the Democratic primary fair and square, resisted efforts by her own party to get her to leave, and now it looks like the Republican, Kurt Alme, will win easily.

In Idaho, there is no functional Democratic Party, and independents are now the only challengers for both the Senate and governor’s race.

In Alaska, Democrats are hoping upon hope that their little gimmick, to put a Dan Sullivan who is not the Dan Sullivan, up for run for election, siphoning votes from the incumbent Senator in hopes that former House member Mary Peltola can sneak through the Byzantine ranked voting system. And polls show that the gambit might work. The more time the real Dan Sullivan has to tell voters that he is the real deal, the less time he can spend defining Peltola for who she really is, which is a left-wing environmentalist who hates the oil and gas industry.

In Maine, Democrats turned their backs on the establishment choice, Governor Janet Mills, in favor of an independent-sounding, wife-beating, Nazi-tattoo wearing Graham Platner. He kind of sounded and looked like a MAGA Republican, but he was forced to withdraw because it turns out Democrats couldn’t stomach the scandals any more. They then turned to a candidate who, Troy Jackson, who lives with and has had children with one of his cousins. Maybe that’s the image that Democrats have of the typical Republican, but Jackson has many more flaws than his choice in co-parents. Despite these flaws, the Trump trade war with our Great White neighbor to the North might give him a leg up in the election.

In Michigan, Democratic primary voters couldn’t stomach the establishment candidate and chose to go with a radical Islamist whose wife casually sports a Hijab and whose buddy Hasan Piker has expressed his clear hatred of the United States. Abdul El-Sayed is certainly not a member of your Daddy’s Democratic Party.

Given the state of the Democrats, maybe that’s a good thing. At least for him.

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I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I’ll concentrate more on my work,”
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

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1. McLean High School, 8/24

2. D.C. Public Schools, 8/24

3. Arlington Public Schools, 8/31

4. Montgomery Public Schools, 8/25

5. Gonzaga, 8/21

6. Visitation, 8/31

7. St. Alban’s, 8/31

8. St. Peter’s on Capitol Hill, 8/25

9. St. Johns High School, 8/26

10. Prince George’s Public Schools, 8/25

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