that I spend more time apologizing for not writing on TFR than I spend actually writing on TFR. I'm onto you perceptive types.

I was in Texas at the rodeo this weekend and one of my charges was essentially to tear through all my school binders from middle school onward and clear out the detritus that won't be accompanying my family on its move to a new house. This isn't my excuse for not writing, this is the preface for the following picture which is of the back of my all-subject binder for 8th grade.

This picture embodies age fourteen, 1995 in one thick meaningful image:

More to come soon.

It's a busy week before I head to Texas to write an exposé about the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, so I'd like to ask you a quick favor. As you know from that last unhinged-sounding/insomnia-produced post, I built a snowman with some friends on Friday.

Well, this is a picture of the snowman from Sunday afternoon. And today, well, today he is almost completely gone. I guess I want to say that life is short and that you have to cherish every minute of it. Tell your loved ones, you love them. Tell your readers that their comments are almost tolerable.

This snowman (I named him Willie, for Willie Loman [Snowman] from Death of a Salesman [Snowman]) reminded me of that, especially when I found his wet scarf and nutmeg nose on the ground and his zucchini mouth half-gnawed by rats. Keep in focus the important things.

Yours,
Adam
CEO, TFR

(reprinted without her permission. it's a little too late at night for me to phone her).

As it stands, I am in Woodbridge, Virginia. The sidewalks are coated in nasty, leftover snow. I already miss riding my bicycle to the Museum of Natural Science and rolling down the hill at Miller Outdoor Theatre. I am craving Frenchy’s dirty rice and enchiladas en mole from El Paraiso (it’s on Fairview, between Montrose and Taft). I know that the median of 288 is weeks away from turning blue with spring and at around 11 pm tonight, just like every night, the scent of roasting coffee will get caught up in the heavy clouds.

On a related note...cause we're related...I am mere hours from Houston and from El Paraiso (although I am partial to enchiladas at La Tapatia) and from Goode Company (barbecue and sentiment) and the sun (which is partial to red states) and yes, the rising stink of coffee and the necessity of cars and the tocsin (partial to new things) and my (partial, distant) history.

I meant to blog today but then this happened:

We didn't name him, there wasn't time because we were building and chucking and drinking hot cider. It kept snowing but it wasn't coarse. Nobody looked down from the windows wishing to be us. We should have put on music. I allocated a squash for his mouth. We used nutmeg for his nose. The glasses I lifted from my best friend in Chicago.

He belonged in Williamsburg, but settled in Chelsea. We tried to make him a rescue dog but it crumbled in construction. We took a break from the hockey game and missed its dull conclusion. It got too cold and we went back in.

Rarely does a blogger (or, more accurately, an occasional disseminator of nominally interesting online written matter) get to do what I am about to do. (Hold tight.)

Background: Bloggers are the emblem of what's wrong with Western culture; a writer with no credentials or credibility required, espousing whatever he or she chooses—no matter how self-absorbed or banal and without the instruction or guidance or critical voice of an editor—managing to affect the trends of his or her ambient collective (a phrase so vague that wouldn't get past an editor worth his/her weight in red pens), ending up on CNN for nothing, garnering book deals for nothing, judging people needlessly, inventing hipster parlance at the detriment to the florid majesty of a forsaken native language, and worse yet, wasting the time and goodwill of friends and family forced to read his/her writing out of guilt or familial duty (familiar?)...and so on and so forth...the litany is like a walk through Pol Pot's resume...rare is it the chance that a blogger gets to actually say (without some perverse irony behind it)...

I WAS RIGHT!

Well, I was. On November 11, 2007, I, as the sole voice (read: one hand clapping) of trustfundreporting.com, endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton as the best candidate for the 44th President of the United States, a decision I did not take lightly (well, in the post I did) and followed through ideologically all the way until her eventual eventual eventual concession after the muted conclusion of the Democratic primaries (the ones in which she won the popular vote) in June 2008. Abiding by her instructions to her supporters, I did jump fervently behind Barack Obama, but not without secretly fetishing (politically) about what might have been with a Hillary Clinton presidency.

I have given my thirteen months of good faith to President Obama. Following Obama's Cairo Speech, I said to myself, wow, that was something amazing, something that Hillary Clinton could not have ever done. There have been more than a few occasions (his thoughtful approach to Afghanistan for one) when I have been impressed and inspired by the actions of the President Obama.

However, I will now say that the Obama Presidency is a pop and fizzle. The objections that I had to his candidacy (what I considered to be its trendiness at the expense of the center-right of this country—specifically people who did not need to be told "I was right!" by a bunch of swooning celebrities) have now validated my worst fears about this smart and capable man: that his best day in office was January 20, 2009.

Yes, we needed a transformational figure to guide us out of the spiritual morass of the past eight years, but the will to govern (at least in a democracy as polarized as this one) has to be forged with deference to those conceding power, lest one alienate those whose 41st vote might, say, block our health care reform. It wasn't a dithering movement that Candidate Obama bested, it was a bloc with regenerative powers, a "silent majority" who were willing to consider new ideas but were not willing to buy a ticket sold by someone claiming to know the way to El Dorado.

Collectively, we, America, comprise a small child, one that needed coaxing into new changes; if anything, America is like a child of divorce. Obama, in being the revelation, sat America down and said to the child "pack your stuff, we're moving to a new house, you're going to a new school, and we're getting you some new friends as well." Obama, in being so eloquent and deified, offended a lot of people who thought the compass was askew and not the entire map. Those people would be nice to have on-board right about now. (I should add that this is only mostly Obama's fault, but since he allowed his candidacy to be staked on messianic deliverance and the effect was meant to make up for his lack of credentials, I don't feel bad for him. I feel bad for us.)

Now, a responsible writer would enumerate the reasons why the conservative talk radio/Fox News/Tea Partiers and anyone else with their knives out against Obama would have failed against Hillary Clinton. Fortunately for me, in this venue, I am a blogger and therefore do not have to give my arguments that kind of cover. I am actually already on to the next meme about irrational hatred of Bermuda shorts even though spring is still six weeks away. Cranberry vs. Nantucket? We know what President Scott Brown would say! Fail!

BUT, even being semi-invested in the pursuit of a convincing argument (and with at least a third of a cup of my fair trade coffee left [jk about fair trade] how could I not be?), I am going to aver that I don't need to defend what I believe would have allowed Hillary more immunity against the forces plaguing President Obama right now. The reasons Obama voters gave for not supporting Hillary Clinton are reason enough:

She is too much of an insider. Read: Pragmatist. Read: Dealmaker. These are things we needed; did we really earnestly buy that Washington (entrenched to the nines with lobbies and special interests) was going to be unmade without an actual revolution?

Her vote on the Iraq War was poisonous. She bought the same intelligence by which we were all duped. She criticized the war as a lie and a failed policy once revealed.

Yes, Obama gets a ton of credit for seeing it as a mistake, BUT how strangely palliative might it actually have been for consensus building if our leader believed what most of us believed and then felt the outrage that most of us felt at being duped? This goes back into the ever-alienating I-Told-You-So Syndrome. This is why people (not me, but plenty of others) feel talked down to by Obama. Remember, America is a small child. It's nice that we elected a President who governs based on how things should be and not how they really are. I mean it. I just have to ask if it was worth it.

Hillary is not an inspirational figure. If I can cram in one more parallel from the Howard Wolfson playbook: Civil rights would not have advanced without the work of Martin Luther King. Yes. True. Poignant. Meaningful. But the Equal Rights Amendment would not have passed without a legislator, a dealmaker, like Lyndon Johnson.

I am sure there are more bases for me to cover, but my coffee and my hour are both up and as a blogger I cannot invest anymore in this topic or else it might show that I care about something more than site hits, becoming viral, and all the rest of the rot.

To the voiceless dozens reading, thank you for acknowledging how I am right. I hope I'm wrong. I really sincerely do. But even if I am, I'll never have to admit it.

P.S. Bloomberg 2012. I see no other way.

Read Evan Bayh's op-ed piece in the New York Times about how he's leaving the Senate because it doesn't work anymore.

Of course, he makes some wonderful, meaningful points about government dysfunction, but I'm not sure resigning is the answer. This was a man on the shortlist for VP. It also seems like the real reason may be Dan Coats.

Forgive my absence, I recently had a bout with food poisoning.

A word to the wise: never let a Jewish girl make you shrimp paella. Even if she is from Florida. Somehow God was in the cards on this one. Or at least in the punishment.

More to come soon.

Sun sneezing is a real phenomenon and not just a myth. The usual cause of a sneeze is an irritation or blockage in the nasal passages; when we sneeze, air is forced from the nose and mouth to get rid of the irritant or blockage. When we look at the sun, the increased intensity of light in our eyes causes a high-frequency electrical signal to run through our optical nerves. The neighboring nasal nerves pick up some of this signal and send the message to the brain, triggering a sneeze. It is a reflex similar to the one triggered by having an irritant or blockage in the nasal passage. Studies have shown that approximately 20% to 30% of people sneeze when exposed to sunlight or other bright lights. Sun sneezing can also be referred to as "photic sneeze reflex" or "Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome" (ACHOO Syndrome).

Author's Note: I generally don't write straight journalism (or gay journalism for that matter), but I initially did this piece for the Israeli paper Haaretz. The subject was double booked, so what you're about to read is what no one in the industry but me calls "journalistic afterbirth." Enjoy!

When Omri Casspi was introduced at Madison Square Garden on a snowy Tuesday evening, a large section of the New York crowd did something unthinkable by local standards: it rose to its feet and cheered for an opposing player. With Israeli flags unfurled and waving, hundreds of New York Knicks faithful chanted “Omri” across the arena, surprising even themselves with their volume.

Omri Casspi, the rookie small forward for the Sacramento Kings, threw out a gesture of recognition from the floor. As the first Israeli player in the NBA, he would now compete in its most hallowed venue, Madison Square Garden, the veritable Kotel of basketball arenas. “To play in front of 20,000 people...and in front of so many Jewish people, more than any city in Israel, it’s a great feeling,” Casspi said before the game.

Casspi’s presence at the Garden, however, was not just a symbolic gesture for Jewish fans. Picking up the slack for fellow teammates, Casspi impressed early, hitting four of his first five shots, which included a slashing dunk over fellow European Danilo Gallinari and the conversion of a three-point play after being fouled on a eight-foot jumper. By halftime, Casspi led all players on either team with 16 points.

In preparation for Casspi’s arrival, the evening was billed as Jewish Heritage Night. To the confusion and delight of many, a Jewish a capella group sang Hatikvah before performing The Star-Spangled Banner. Madison Square Garden even offered a ticket package that allowed fans to meet Casspi before the game. While the teams warmed up on the court behind him, Casspi took questions from fans on topics ranging from his three-point shooting to his adjustment to life in America. Boys clad in yarmulkes and basketball shoes begged Casspi repeatedly to dunk the ball for them. Handwritten signs, posters, and Israeli flags all awaited his autograph. A young girl presented him with a tub of Israeli hummus and a bag of pita while her father related a recent news story about how Casspi had not been able to find good hummus in the United States.

Despite the affection for Casspi among Jewish Knicks fans, there were still many who did not want to see Casspi’s team to pull out a victory. “I hope Omri has a huge game, but I still want the Knicks to win.” said Marc Stern, a Knicks fan who traveled from New Jersey for the game. Stern almost got his wish.

With Casspi’s team trailing throughout the game, the Knicks seemed assured of a victory when they took a 98-83 lead with just over seven minutes left in the fourth quarter. But the Kings took advantage of sloppy play by the Knicks and came back to tie the game late. Eventually forcing overtime, the Kings pulled away in the extra period for an unlikely win. As Knicks fans filed out of the Garden, Casspi fans stayed, twirling yellow Maccabi Tel Aviv scarves above their heads and screaming his name while a reporter interviewed him on the court. Not only had Casspi made a rare start for the Kings, he also played 45 minutes, the most in his NBA career.

That hundreds of fans were willing to buy tickets for a basketball game between two struggling teams—despite a February storm and an economic recession— just to see an Israeli play, doesn’t fully justify the Omri phenomenon. That Casspi is a Jew, an Israeli, and a viable NBA player all at once isn’t really astonishing enough to warrant such attention. But as fans watched Casspi collect the game’s final rebound and clutch the ball until the buzzer sounded, he reminded some of a more elusive joy: the joy of belonging.

Take half an hour or however long it takes you to read one of those sprawling New Yorker articles (it actually takes me weeks to finish one issue) and settle yourself into Jane Mayer's excellent piece about U.S. General Attorney Eric Holder's battle to try terrorists in civilian courts.

In it, she essentially frames how this political melee--despite being a continuation of Bush 43's policy viz. captured combatants--has played a massive role in delivering Scott Brown to the Senate, the Republicans to their base, and Obama deeper into the political doghouse.

Holder told me that he was frustrated by much of the criticism over the handling of Abdulmutallab [underpants bomber guy]. “What we did is totally consistent with what has happened in every similar case” since 9/11, he said. “There’s a desire to ignore the facts to try to score political points. It’s a little shocking.” Without exception, he noted, every previous terrorist suspect apprehended inside the country had been handled as a civilian criminal. Even so, critics such as Krauthammer were denouncing Holder for failing to send Abdulmutallab directly to Guantánamo. As a senior national-security official in the White House put it, “It’s a fantasy! Under what alternative legal system can Special Operations Forces fly into Detroit, and take someone away without court oversight?”

The article also shows how this policy has been more effective in turning out actual convictions in these trials as well as helping with the information gathering process than military courts or Gitmo lockaways. The writing and the reporting are stellar (obviously) and Rudy Giuliani, as expected, comes out looking like a complete asshole.

If you're less inclined to read this awesome piece of writing (thanks for being you), check out the conversation between Jon Stewart and Newt Gingrich on the topic. In it, Gingrich asks Stewart if he'd want the trials in Lower Manhattan to which Stewart replies (paraphrasing): I lived through 9/11...in New York...blocks from the World Trade Center. I would be proud to show the world our values and our fearlessness.

If you didn't already know it, Jon Stewart is not only funny, but insanely smart and strangely attractive to me.

Or to bastardize Voltaire: If this person didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

Thanks to TFR reader Jason for sending this (as well as many other things) my way.