An unexplained death

What happened in Angels Stadium in Anaheim on Friday, July 12 was pretty doggone storybook crazy. It was the baseball club’s first home game since the death of their beloved teammate Tyler Skaggs in Dallas the week before, and the team, quite cornily, went out and beat Seattle 13-0 and—oh, yeah—didn’t allow the Mariners a hit. Whoa. You got your 13 to zippo no-hitter to say good-bye to Tyler, and there’s no way that script ever gets written for a movie because it’s Total Toxic Corn. But when it actually happens in real life, it turns out to not be some hyper-groaner, but way real, way special. and just kinda neat. I mean, Tyler’s mom got up there for the ceremonial first pitch, and she threw a killer strike and it perfectly kicked off what turned to be an awesome emotionally powerful night and—I still wanna know why this guy died.

I mean, a 27 year-old professional athlete goes to bed one night and doesn’t wake up, and we’re not supposed to wonder why the heck this guy goes toe-tag? There’s not a peep of info available on cause of death—nada. Not one word as to why this ultra-healthy young man mysteriously expired. That’s kind of weird. So if it’s up to us to fill in the blanks, fine. Leading off, you gotta roll with some kind of meds accident, Heath Ledger-style. Right? The standard guess, which is correct 90 percent of the time, points straight at opioids, maybe some oxy for a sore arm, combined with two too many beers, something like that? It wouldn’t be a surprise. The report comes out in—8 months? Say what?

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This past Monday was a drag. And it was a gorgeous summer morning in the high desert! But there was no escaping the ponderously heavy, incredibly ugly, nation-wide buzzkill stifling the United States with its dark vibe from sea to shining sea, courtesy of the Grand Dragon Imperial Wizard of the United States. Thanks for the massive bummer, Your Horribleness. (It was but three years ago that a reasonable, respectful, decent, intelligent man lived in the White House.)

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“What is most striking about the Republican Party is the total abandonment of any pretense that kindness or compassion are admirable human qualities. Donald Trump has spend decades proving he sees these as weakness, and now, the GOP has eagerly embraced the same.” Stuart Stevens, a strategist for Romney, on how Republicans have quickly morphed into a sadopopulist horde of pitiful pugnacious Putin Punks.