Author Archives: Paul Steven Stone

WE ARE ALL UKRAINIANS

When the cowards come for you they will come with tanks, missiles and overwhelming force. They will jail or torture you for daring to speak the truth. They will shoot your neighbors from rooftops as you attempt to bury your dead. They will bomb and shell your homes into rubble, then sift through the twisted steel and crumbling concrete lest anyone come out alive.

At night, when you are all alone and waiting for the cowards to rain hellfire on your world, or break down your door, you will tremble as you’ve never trembled in your life. You will look at your frightened family and realize how fragile is the world and the dreams you were foolish enough to believe in. Any hope or plans you nurtured for your children’s future will be crushed like ants beneath the bloodstained boots of these cowardly murderers.

When the cowards break down your door and rudely snatch your sons from your arms you will fight like you’ve never fought before. You will struggle against all odds to keep them alive and free. You will struggle in vain to safeguard the only treasure worth defending with your dying breath.

When the cowards kill your children—your wives, husbands and brothers—you will feel more alone than you’ve ever felt before. And you will wonder how it could be that no one who witnessed the brutal killing spree had come to your defense. You will marvel how the possession of nuclear weapons turns humane and powerful nations into inconstant and powerless straw dogs. 

And in the darkness of your nights, you will question why your pleas to God and humanity fell on deaf ears. Why your plaintive cries for rescue were like embers from a fire that only rose to vanish into the darkening sky. 

When the cowards come for you they will come with tanks and overwhelming force. And they will kill with defiant impunity; raining down destruction in front of a world that can only stare in frozen disbelief. A world that sadly must learn once again that each death of a defenseless civilian not only strengthens the cowards but diminishes the cowardly onlookers.

Look not upon the victims of Ukraine, friends, lest you see yourselves. Then, all you have to do is sit silent and wait. 

Sooner or later the cowards will come for you.

MY VOTER’S LITMUS TEST

NEVER VOTE FOR ANYONE WHO SAYS THE 2020 ELECTION WAS STOLEN. 

For two good reasons:

  1. Either they’ve made their own pact with the dark side, abandoning their honor, integrity and pride to curry favor with the mob and drink at the fountain of power. 
  • Or else they’re too dumb to serve as anything more consequential than a doorstop.

In either case, why would you vote for someone who is clearly okay telling lies every single day of the week? Why would you vote for someone whose daily lies bolster the leader of a failed coup d’etat?

Oh well, win or lose, they’ll probably declare themselves the winners anyway.

POPS ON TRUMP, SORT OF.

My grandfather, Pops we call him, asked me to write this post on account of he is too upset to say the things he wants to say.

First thing he would tell you, if he wasn’t too upset to talk, is that Vladimir Putin won.  By that, Pops means that Mr. Putin, the dictator of Russia, set certain forces in motion that have resulted in a seriously weakened and humbled American adversary. 

An America divided as it has never been divided before.

By that he means an America that has lost its way, lost its north star as the moral leader of the free world, only to fall beneath the shadow of greed, hate and self-adulation as they morphed into the earthbound guise of morally bankrupt Donald J. Trump. 

“How did Americans become so dumb?” Pops repeatedly asks of anyone who will listen. “And when will the 40% that foolishly believe in Trump, who stupidly believe he cares about anyone other than himself—When will they get wise?” 

What he means, is when will Trump’s supporters see that it was all a lie? From the smallest detail of Trump’s fabricated legend as a business genius, to the traitorous porkers he told when he and his Republican co-conspirators tried to steal an election and kill our constitution? Lies they are still repeating!

“Yes, Putin won!” Pops likes to repeatedly point out. “How many Americans died unnecessarily because Putin helped elect Trump? How many died because Trump and his Republican cohorts grievously mishandled Covid-19? How many still have to die because Republican governors and politicians will carry Trump’s water and stupidly treat Covid like something to be ignored?

Pops is too upset, like I said, and so he cannot say the one thing that makes him really crazy.

“What the hell is Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice waiting for, goddammit?” Pops would say, spittle flying everywhere. “The longer they delay in charging Trump and Company with sedition for their failed coup d’etat, the more trouble, division, lies and overall bad behavior Trump and crew will stir up.”

Which means it’s a bad idea not to quickly punish Trump for turning the presidency of the United States into a shoddy favors-for-pay clearinghouse and sub-agent of both Russia and the Trump Organization.

If you ask me, my Pops knows what he’s talking about.

Yes, We Are This F*#ked Up!

The United States is broken.

Not just a little, but a whole lot.

So broken, especially in spirit, that for seven months this sovereign nation has limped along badly after a failed coup d’etat. Not since the Civil War have we been this divided and distrustful of each other.

So broken, that one of our two major political parties is actually an accessory to that failed coup mentioned earlier. Members of the Republican Party in Congress who assisted the insurrectionists remain unchallenged and uncharged, and continue to exert their power and prestige as members of Congress.

So broken, that that same political party continues to obfuscate, minimize and lie about the events of January 6th. More than a cover-up, the Republican Caucus’ total denial of a reality that threatened their very lives is behavior more shameful than even the worst politicians could imagine. 

So broken, that today, seven months after a small circle of conspirators tried to reject and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, not a single charge has been filed against anyone suspected of inciting the crowd or organizing the well-planned assault on the Capitol.

So broken, that one of the two political parties that enjoy a shared monopoly over our democratic institutions is no longer committed to protecting and sustaining those institutions. And by withholding their vote to certify the results of the 2020 election, many Republicans in Congress turned their backs on the Constitution they swore to serve and protect. 

So broken, that Republicans in almost all states where the party holds a majority, are acting as if the Big Lie of the 2020 election gave them a self-anointed moral authority to write new laws restricting voting access and ensuring a more ‘favorable’ election outcome next time. 

“If we lost the last election fair and square, let’s win the next one by hook and crook.”

So broken, that the dictates of Truth, Honesty, Tradition and Democracy no longer reign supreme in a country where the Laws and False Gods of Trumpism hold sway over 35-40% of the electorate. It is no longer merely a house divided against itself, but also a country attempting to turn against its better instincts, its better angels, its more benevolent self.

If we are to fix our broken country, we must act decisively to bring to justice those responsible for the Coup of January 6th. And those who by deed, word or support either helped plan or enact the January 6th attack upon our nation’s capitol. That means bringing to justice anyone who acted to obstruct the wheels of democracy or to further the reach and impact of Trump’s naked grab for power.

The United States of America needs to see justice. And needs to see it now while we are still a semblance of our former self.

That’s how f#@ked up we are!

I WILL PICKLE BALL NO MORE

Have you had The Conversation with yourself yet? 

If you’re over 70, you know exactly which conversation I mean.

“To Pickle Ball or not to Pickle Ball?”

My first inclination to Pickle Ball came when the Town of Plymouth’s Recreation Department sent me an innocent looking flier listing all the summer activities to which the unsuspecting elderly population of Plymouth were invited to participate. 

Lest there be any doubt, Pickle Ball was boldly listed in the flier. Without warning or caution, I must add.

Having a publisher whose Pickle Ball prowess had taken her to the national championship playoffs, I felt as though I had an obligation to uphold the honor of Eifrig Publishing authors everywhere. 

And so I told myself, “I WILL PICKLE BALL!”

The other Pickle Ball elders were already arriving by the time I arrived at Stephens Field. I scouted their ranks to assuage any concerns that I was being foolish to offer up my questionably fit—and unquestionably old—body to the Pickle Ball gods for disposition as they saw fit. No worries though; the others appeared to be my age of 75 or older. 

Or so it seemed.

My brother Bob warned me against Pickle Ball. I will admit that here and now, so I cannot plead ignorance. Bob had his first and last Pickle Ball experience on a pebbly Pickle Ball court surface that caught at the tread of his sneakers and caused him to fall and bang up his knee. 

From then on, Bob swore profanities whenever the name Pickle Ball arose in a conversation. Or, as Bob would put it, “That f#%king, sonuvabitch Pickle Ball.”

I let my eyes run across the asphalt surface of the three tennis courts with Pickle Ball court lines overlaid, and felt secure this was no more dangerous than all the basketball games I had played as a child in Bronx playgrounds. 

Never slipped or tripped once. As far as I could recall.

Which brings up the question of how reliable was my memory anyway? 

No matter, I blinked my eyes and blithely walked onto the non-pebbly asphalt playing surface. Any hesitation on my part was set aside. 

This morning, I WOULD PICKLE BALL!

As far as I recall, my group of four warmed up for ten minutes or so before I abruptly stretched to my right to return the Pickle Ball ball, which has even less bounce than a whiffle ball. That paucity of bounce causes one to jump abruptly, at the risk of several ligaments, tendons and muscle groups. Having recently swung at balls that were no longer airbound by the time my racket SWING came around, I was focused on getting to the ball more quickly than before.

The Pickle Ball ball. If you can find a deader ball in creation,
you’ll surprise the heck out of me.

Funny how the mind works. I have no memory of whether my swing arrived in time to return that inert sphere or whether the crying pain from my right leg’s hamstring and left leg’s Achilles tendon felled me to the ground even faster than the lead-weighted Pickle Ball ball dropped.

Unfortunately, there was no one present at the Pickle Ball courts to record official times. I ‘m certain I set a new world record for the shortest time on a Pickle Ball court. Less than 10 minutes!• 

And without playing in a single game!

For the rest of the day, and through the night, I was plagued by two separate phenomena: first was the searing pain racing up both legs; second was the answer I would give if ever again I heard The Conversation in my head.

“I WILL PICKLE BALL NO MORE!” 

And just to make sure, I wrote my children asking them, if in my dotage I ever declared an intention to play Pickle Ball, to stop me in my tracks, tie me up, and send me to a retirement village where there were no courts. “Basketball, tennis, squash, handball, racquetball, or Pickle Ball,” I listed, just to make sure there were no exceptions. 

As a final request, and my last word on the matter, I asked for my cemetery headstone to offer this simple declaration…

“I WILL PICKLE BALL NO MORE!” 

• My Brother Bob insists he beat my record by three or four minutes at least, but admits he has no way to prove his record-setting score, or to disprove mine.