Quote of the Day (Lord Bertrand Russell, on the Three Great Passions of His Life)

“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.” — British philosopher, mathematician, social critic, and Nobel Literature laureate Lord Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1956)

TV Quote of the Day (‘Yes, Prime Minister,’ on a Looming Financial Scandal)

[The investment bank Phillips Berenson has collapsed, and rumors circulate in “The City,” London’s central business district and financial center, that it’s due to financial chicanery. Another bank, the more venerable Bartlett's, is also in trouble, having lent it so much money. Its chair, Sir Desmond Glazebrook, confers with Prime Minister James Hacker about a government bailout for his institution.]

James Hacker [played by Paul Eddington]: “What do you know about Phillips Berenson?”

Sir Desmond Glazebrook [played by Richard Vernon]: “What do you know about Phillips Berenson?”

Hacker: “Well, uh... only what I read in the papers.”

Glazebrook: “Oh, good. Yes, well, they're in a bit of trouble, that's all. They lent a bit of money to the wrong chaps. Could happen to anyone.”

Dorothy Wainwright [Hacker’s political adviser] [[played by Deborah Norton]: “So you haven't heard any rumors?”

Glazebrook: “Oh well, there are always rumors.”

Dorothy: “Of bribery, embezzlement, misappropriation, insider dealing?”

Glazebrook: “Oh, come, come, dear lady, those are strong words.”

Dorothy: “So they're not true?”

Glazebrook: “Well, there's... there are different uh, different ways of looking at things.”

Dorothy: “What's a different way of looking at embezzlement?”

Glazebrook: “Oh, well, of course, if a chap embezzles, you have to do something about it.”

Hacker: “Have a serious word with him?”

Glazebrook: “Absolutely. Usually it's just a chap who's advanced himself a short-term, unauthorised, unsecured, temporary loan from the company's account, and, uh, invested it unluckily. You know, horse falls at the first fence, that sort of thing.”— Yes, Prime Minister, Season 2, Episode 4, “A Conflict of Interest,” original air date Dec. 31, 1987, teleplay by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, directed by Sydney Lotterby

You can keep your Benny Hills. When it comes to British TV humor, Yes, Minister, and its equally waggish follow-up, Yes, Prime Minister, are the shows for me. These UK political satires aired in the Eighties, and the closest we’ve had stateside has been the more potty-mouthed Veep. I wish they would be broadcast as often this side of the Atlantic as The Honeymooners.

The government bailouts of risk-happy financial institutions at the heart of the above dialogue is something that has rightly enraged American taxpayers, with the Bush I-era savings and loan scandal and the Global Financial Crisis of the “oughts.” But something else intrigued me about this episode: that title, “A Conflict of Interest.”

That concept has been a part of American life since the founding of the republic, including the establishment of the First National Bank and, more starkly, slaveowning lawmakers who passed legislation benefiting themselves at the expense of other human beings.

But these ethically questionable interactions of government and business have ramped up, to an unprecedented degree, under the current administration.

President Trump, his family, and his Cabinet have profited so abundantly and shamelessly from such transactions—and following their trail has been so complex—that many, if not most, Americans have given up trying to keep track of it all. It’s much easier to follow the Epstein files (though, truth be told, financial interests are an often-overlooked part of this still unresolved scandal).

The outcome is what you might expect. None of the departments in the executive branch make even a pretense now at the relatively gentle coaxing of the truth from Sir Desmond employed by PM Hacker and his aide Dorothy. The regulatory agencies that could have raised alarms were emasculated by Trump and Elon Musk’s Orwellian-titled Department of Government Efficiency.

The path was paved for this through three Supreme Court decisions that gave the Trump Administration virtual carte blanche to transform the government into an endless slot machine for themselves and their allies:

*In Trump v. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Trump v. District of Columbia) (2021), the justice vacated lower courts’ rulings involving allegations that, as president, Trump benefited from the hotels and restaurants that he owns, violating two anti-corruption provisions of the Constitution known as the emoluments clauses.  

* In Trump v. United States (2024), the GOP-appointed majority ruled that former presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within their core constitutional powers, and at least presumptive immunity for all other official acts—a decision opening the door to Trump lawlessness in his return to power.

* In Murphy V. NCAA (2018), the court invalidated a federal ban on states legalizing sports gambling—opening the way to, as Drew Hutchinson’s May Bloomberg Law article noted, is opening companies to “questions about insider trading, reputational and legal risk, and whether internal policies address this new environment.” And what do you know—Donald Trump Jr. is an adviser to Kalshi, one of the two major prediction market platforms, and a major investor in another, Polymarket.

As Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett noted, “If Trump dictates how prediction markets develop, while his family profits, it will make Washington look (even more) like a corrupt casino. So, too, if insider trading goes unchecked.”

Over the last 560 days, the Trump family has taken in an estimated $2.7 billion, according to “Trump’s Take,” a real-time financial tracker documenting the cash and gifts that the President and his family have received by selling the presidency.

All the money-making schemes—ventures that would have been certainly regarded as undignified under all his predecessors, and even unconstitutional—have just kept coming: Trump Bibles, fragrances, gold cell phones; the $TRUMP Meme Coin; "America's 250th Anniversary" hats; and a luxury resort proposal by son-in-law Jared Kushner in Albania that has drawn more than a week’s worth of protest in that nation over the potential environmental damage it may cause.

Then there is the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) scheduled for the White House South Lawn on June 14—not so coincidentally, Trump’s birthday.

Leave aside whether this tacky $60 million spectacle would have been better staged in the Roman Coliseum under an ancient emperor’s gaze, or even whether the event offers Trump ally and UFC chief executive Dana White direct access to the White House for a prime marketing opportunity.

Lost in all of this is that Trump bought between $15,000 and $50,000 of stock in the parent company of UFC, TKO Holding Group—a little more than two weeks after he began promoting the event.

Conflict of interest, anyone? Well, as Sir Desmond might say, there are “different ways of looking at things.”

Though they will never be able to overtake their lord and master when it comes to quantity and audacity, the Trump Cabinet is doing its best to do well financially at the country’s expense. This online resource from the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) itemizes all the ways that each Trump Cabinet member has engaged in conflicts of interest. They are worth exploring in depth, but I’ll just highlight some of the more egregious ones:

*Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (who, after his evasive talk about his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, should change his surname to “No-Good-Nick”) is now coming under scrutiny for his relationship with Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer.

* Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earned around $2.5 million in referral fees from 2022 through September 2025 from Wisner Baum, a law firm suing Merck, the maker of the HPV vaccine Gardasil—putting RFK Jr.’s vaccine skepticism in an ever worse light, if that’s possible.

* Education Secretary Linda McMahon was required to divest from financial holdings that posed possible conflicts of interest, but does not appear to have done so as of July of last year, according to a complaint filed with the Office of Government Ethics by the CLC.

In keeping with PM Hacker’s question—“Have a serious word with him?”—if the “him” in question is Trump, I say “Yes.” And let that word, as soon as mathematically and electorally possible, be “impeachment.”

Quote of the Day (Jayne Anne Phillips, on How ‘Writers Defy Time’)

“Do writers hate to write? I don’t think so. The sense of difficulty arises from the fact that writers defy time, writing words against the erasure of things and lives. We stand in an avalanche of forgetfulness, resisting the sway of disappearance. Faced with mortality, we mourn what we might have understood and communicated, not in opinion or advice but in the delivery of an invented world we might have saved. Writing, we cross the divide between self and others word by word. In the very act of completing the work, we are separated from it. One way or another, the writer loses writing: the writer loses the book. Opposing oblivion, we begin to understand: language is the way in and the way out.”—American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer Jayne Anne Phillips, Small Town Girls: A Writer’s Memoir (2026)

The image accompanying this post, of Jayne Anne Phillips reading at the 2024 Gaithersburg Book Festival, was taken May 18, 2024, by Frypie.

This Day in Baseball History (Ryne Duren Sets League Consecutive K’s Record)

June 9, 1961—With a new team and new pitching role, Ryne Duren—a right-handed hurler with a reputation for having as little control of himself as over his overpowering fastball—looked on the verge of turning over a new leaf, striking out an American League record seven consecutive Red Sox on his way to 11 in 6 2/3 innings, in the veteran’s first start in his major-league career.

An All-Star reliever with the New York Yankees, Duren had been traded the month before to the expansion Los Angeles Angels when his off-the-field behavior became increasingly erratic. His new manager, Bill Rigney, saw enough potential to convert him to a starter.

For a while, the experiment worked splendidly. Three weeks later, he earned some revenge against the Bronx Bombers, not only fanning a career-high 12 batters in eight innings on his way to a 5-3 victory but even uncharacteristically contributing to his own cause by singling in two runs.

But the emotional vulnerability afflicting Duren even when batters feared his fastball returned when he was at his zenith in 1961, while getting ready to play in his third All-Star game in four years. The news that his two-week old infant son Craig had died sent Duren on an alcoholic spree that ended his marriage and, four years and three teams later, his professional career.

In a way, Duren’s notoriously poor eyesight (his Yankee catcher, Yogi Berra, observed, “he had several pair of glasses, but it didn’t seem like he saw good in any of them”) was symbolic. 

An alcoholic in deep denial, he did not see how much his drinking was endangering his performance, his livelihood, his teammates, and his family for too long. Out of baseball after 1965, he was reduced to a series of dead-end jobs and living in a flophouse and made two suicide attempts.

Fortunately, the story of Ryne Duren doesn’t end there. After a 22-month treatment in DePaul Hospital in Milwaukee, he became sober, and from 1968 to his death at age 81 in 2011, served as an addiction counselor, advising not only youths about how to avoid or forsake alcohol and drugs but also many current and former major leaguers.

One, Yankee teammate Mickey Mantle, was in denial when Duren initially tried to coax him into recognizing his problem. But when the slugger finally embraced sobriety in 1994, his decision to publicly reveal his registration at the Betty Ford Clinic was influenced by his fellow ex-carouser’s public example.

“That guy [Duren] when he was playing ball, was a wreck and he whipped it,” he told friend Bill Hooten, according to Jane Leavy’s Mantle biography, The Last Boy. “He got around talking, and he does a lot of good. If I can go out there and come back and the fact that I’ve whipped the drinking can help somebody else, then sure, I want that known.”

Duren was one of a small but significant group of ex-ballplayers who, after recognizing their problem, went on to help others as substance abuse counselors, including, most prominently, Don Newcombe of the Brooklyn Dodgers, “Sudden Sam” McDowell of the Cleveland Indians, Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and 1970s journeyman Michael Jackson. I am sure there are others who played different positions, but all of the people I just mentioned were pitchers.

I became interested in this subject for several reasons: a couple of friends who are substance abuse counselors, my long-time fascination with everything related to the New York Yankees, and my interest in baseball history.

In the case of the latter, I have thought often about another friend who, through his career, has become a mother lode of baseball history. He told me once that the incidence of alcoholism in America’s pastime was high. It was possible, he thought, that as many as one out of four Baseball Hall of Famers had drinking problems. 

One, “Big Ed Delahanty,” died from a fall into the Niagara River after a drunk-and-disorderly incident; other past members, such as Mantle, Babe Ruth, and Hack Wilson (whom I profiled in this 2010 post), are well known; and more recent ones have not been publicized, so to protect their privacy I will leave that to disclosures by themselves or their eventual biographers.

Quantifying substance abuse among past ballplayers is difficult, but my reading indicates that the problem was common. 

Any genetic susceptibility to alcohol was worsened by the environment of past decades: clubhouse drinking as a means of celebrating or even simply unwinding after games; late-night games followed by after-hours companionship; travel and isolation from family and friends on the part of young men who still feel invulnerable; and stressed-out managers in no condition to preach after leaving their own difficulties in the bar.

Today’s players struggling with addiction, though, benefit from changes in the game and society since Duren’s time in baseball:

*Alcoholics Anonymous has become a better known and recognized form of help;

*Awareness of fitness and nutrition includes substance abuse prevention and recovery, as well as liquid alternatives such as cherry juice, smoothies, and protein shakes;

*Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement has formalized the process of evaluation, treatment and recovery;

*High payrolls have increased the incentive for owners and general managers to become proactive about abuse, including some teams that have banned alcohol use in clubhouses and on planes;

*Social media decreases the likelihood that alcohol-fueled indiscretions will be hushed up and perpetuated;

*The stigma of admitting to substance abuse has lowered;

*Many players see marijuana as an acceptable alternative to alcohol.

Other Yankees had longer, more consequential careers than Duren, but even while playing—well before his great contributions to substance abuse awareness among athletes—he had impacted the game as a pitcher.

When he entered games, the slang used for his position was “fireman,” the relief pitcher designated to prevent or contain the damage from mound emergencies. Nowadays, with the use and responsibility of these hurlers refined and defined, they are called “closers.”

After being acquired from the Kansas City A’s midseason in 1957, Duren took over the fireman/closer niche that Joe Page had once occupied for the Yankees. He soon became a fan favorite, with his routine recounted vividly in Marty Appel’s Yankee history, Pinstripe Empire:

“…scaling the low right-field bullpen fence, glancing at the auxiliary scoreboard to check the situation, tossing the warm-up jacket to the waiting batboy, kicking the dirt off his spikes against the rubber, and then firing his first warm-up pitch into the backstop (to frighten the waiting hitter).”

Quote of the Day (Arnold J. Toynbee, on How Man Achieves Civilization)

"Man achieves civilization, not as a result of superior biological endowment or geographical environment, but as a response to a challenge in a situation of special difficulty which rouses him to make a hitherto unprecedented effort."—English historian Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975), A Study of History: Volume I: Abridgement of Volumes I-VI (1987)

Quote of the Day (Jason Roeder and Mike Sacks, With a ‘Realistic’ H.S. Yearbook Inscription)

“I'm the kid you'll see on CNN talking about changing the world and you'll think, Wait a minute, isn't that the same guy who threw up on his sneakers in Algebra II and then cried so hard his mother had to pick him up? That guy became successful?! —Ronnie.”— American humorists Jason Roeder and Mike Sacks, “Shouts and Murmurs: Realistic High-School-Yearbook Inscriptions,” The New Yorker, May 25, 2026

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Reinhold Niebuhr, on ‘The Illusion of Strong Men and Nations’)

“It is the illusion of strong men and nations that power is the basis of security. There is some justification for the illusion, for, in so far as human society is governed by physical force, obvious strength, whether it be military or economic, may be counted upon not only to defeat the actual foe, but to reduce the potential foe to the impotence of fear. The strongest bully in a gang is rarely challenged to prove his prowess, and a nation which possesses obvious economic or military advantages may indulge in idiosyncrasies and commit errors which would prove fatal to less favored nations…..Power is dangerous both to those who wield it and to those who are affected by it. It gives those who wield it a false sense of security which absolves them of the necessity of thinking carefully upon the issues involved in their action.”— American Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), “Perils of American Power,” originally published in The Atlantic Monthly, January 1932, reprinted in The American Idea: The Best of “The Atlantic Monthly” (2007)

Niebuhr wrote this passage not long into the Age of Dictators that ensued in Europe after the bloodshed of World War I and the resulting socioeconomic collapse. The truth he propounded is emerging ever more strongly now, in another period when strongmen learn that the omnipotence of mortals, even those with seemingly absolute power, is an illusion.