Findlay Bridge for 2/27/26

Five full tables, meaning each hand was played five times.

Board 1. Our 4S was set by one, for middle board.

Board 2. Our 4S was again set by one. All our competitor pairs made part scores, so we simply overbid.

Board 3. This time they made 4S. Same result at two other tables.

We scored 3 points vs. Ann & Nancy.

Board 4. We bid 4H, making 6. One pair bid the slam, while another bid 3NT, making 7. I felt at the time that we sould have been in NT, & I was right.

Board 5. We set 3NT by one, tying for top board.

Board 6. The set our 4H by one, for middle board.

We scored 6.5 points vs. Clarence & Teresa.

Board 7. They made 4S. Three other boards made 5, so good defense on our part.

Board 8. They played 5D, making 6. Three of the opposing pairs did not even bid the game, so we tied for bottom board.

Board 9. Ron made 1NT, one of three times he had to play this difficult contract. One of our opponents suggested I should have used a transfer bid to get us into 2S, but I had only one Ace and 6 spades. When we opened the scoresheet, we saw that the other boards had gone down at 2S, so my critic had to sheepishly eat his words!

We scored 6.5 points vs. Bill & Ralph.

Board 10. We played 4H, making 5. Same result at 3 other boards.

Board 11. We set their 3NT by one. Same at 2 other boards, while the other 2 got set by two (or perhaps by one doubled).

Board 12. We made 1NT, but only tied for bottom board as 3 others made 2 or 3.

We scored 4 points vs. Jim & Kathy.

Board 13. We bid & made 3H. Only one competitor pair, Jim & Kathy, bid and made the game.

Board 14. We set 4H by one. Same result at 2 other boards.

Board 15. We bid & made 4S. Problem was that 3 other boards made 5!

We scored 4.5 points vs. John & Ken.

Board 16. They bid & made 6S. Same result at 3 of the other boards.

Board 17. They bid & made 4H. We tied for bottom board.

Board 18. They played 1NT, making 3. We got bottom board.

We scored a woeful 2 points vs. Mike & Arlene.

Board 19. An odd hand indeed. I doubled their 4S bid, but they inexplicably went on to 6, which I also doubled, and we set them by one. The scores were all over the place, with no ties. Had they made the 6S they would have scored 980 points. But had they simply redoubled after my first double, they would have scored 1,080 points for making 5. So, going on to 6 was a huge blunder for them. Perhaps they didn't notice that I had doubled?

Board 20. We went down one at 1NT.

Board 21. We played 3NT, making 4.

We scored 7 points vs. Ruth & Gene.

Board 22. We played 4s, making 6 when they failed to cash one of their winners. All the other boards made only 5.

Board 23. This is my favorite hand of the day. When they foolishly failed to stop at 3NT and continued on to 5D, I doubled, based on holding 4 trumps to the Q and and an outside AQ. We set them by 2 for 500 points, but even without the double we would have had top board. Two pairs played 3NT & made 4.

Board 24. We bid 3H, making 4. I was kicking myself for not going to game, but we got top board anyway!

We scored 12 points vs. James & Tim, undisputed first on all three hands!

Board 25. We bid 2C, making 4. The top board bid 3NT, making 4.

Board 26. We set their 2NT contract by one, tying with 2 others for top board.

Board 27. We set their 3C by one, for second-top board.

We scored a healthy 8 points vs. Ed & Linda.

"Five Bullets", by Elliot Williams

The title of this book refers to the five bullets which subway rider Bernhard Goetz used to shoot four black youths who requested (or demanded) money from him in 1984. Williams adroitly explains all aspects of this case which so captivated the nation at the time.

Williams describes the relevant background for the case, which is that crime in New York City was rampant in the 1980s, due in large part to the crack cocaine epidemic. Indeed, a chatgpt check reveals the conclusion that "The homicide rate in New York City today is roughly 4 to 13 times lower per capita than in 1984." This is an incredible reduction; it's the difference between night and day. So, we learn that the incident of 1984's "subway vigilante" has to be understood in the context of its unique place and time.

The incident in question happened on December 22, 1984. One of the youths leaned in close to Goetz and asked how he was doing. Goetz replied "fine"and avoided eye contact. A little while later the youth asked for, or demanded, five dollars. When Goetz saw "the smile on his face and the shine in his eyes", he snapped. He unloaded the five bullets into the four youths.

After the shooting, Goetz left the subway and fled the state. Nine days later he walked into a police station in Concord, New Hampshire and turned himself in, giving a complete statement of the incident.

In January prosecutors asked a grand jury to consider four counts of attempted murder against Goetz, but the grand jury refused to indict, choosing to indict only on some minor gun charges. In March prosecutors were permitted to reopen the grand jury on the basis of new evidence coming to light. The "new evidence" was that two of the four youths were now willing to testify.

After hearing eight days of testimony, it was time for the grand jury to apply the law to the facts. The issue was whether Goetz's use of violent force was "reasonable". New York law at the time did not define this term, leaving two possible interpretations. The subjective test would look at whether the defendant sincerely felt threatened at the time he used force. The objective test would look at how society would expect a normal person to have behaved in the same situation. Neither approach was palatable to the prosecution, so the prosecutor presenting the case steered a middle course between the two possible interpretations.

The second grand jury then indicted Goetz on all requested counts, but the presiding judge threw out the indictment, adopting more of a subjective standard. He concluded that the reasonableness of Goetz's actions depended on how he felt at the moment, not on how anyone else in his shoes would have acted. The state appealed, and in July of 1986, more than a year later, the appellate court by a 7-0 vote reinstated the indictment. The appellate court found that a "reasonable belief" contained both a subjective and an obective element.

The case finally went to trial, with jury selection taking four months. On April 27, 1987 the trial itself got started. On June 16, 1987 the jury returned a verdict of acquittal on all of the assault and attempted murder charges.

It is interesting that the jury selection process took more than twice as long as the presentation of evidence, and indeed, this was the most important part of the trial. The selection proess was quite nuanced. Normally the defense will strike any prospective jurors who have been victims of a crime. But here, the defense lawyers sought to portray Goetz as a crime victim, rather than a crime perpetrator, and so they permitted six crime victims to sit on thejury, with three of those crimes happening on the subway.

The landmark case of Batson v.Kentucky had just been decided, prohibiting prosecutors from striking black prospective jurors simply because of their race. But nothing would have prevented the defense lawyers from doing so. However, the defense lawyers judged that blacks were just as fearful of crime as whites were. Plus, it would have been a bad look to strike all the blacks from the jury pool. Consequently, two blacks were permitted to serve on the jury.

In concluding remarks, Williams expresses doubt that the case would come out the same way today. He points out that "The country is objectively much safer today than it was in 1984....Moreover, society overall is more willing today to try to understand people, their backgrounds, their motivations, and their behaviors. Today Goetz's victims would not have been reduced to caricatures; Goetz's oddities would have been regarded with concern, not eye rolls."

There is a principle in torts law that "you take your plaintiff as you find him." So, if you are out driving and get rear-ended, the other driver is responsible for all of your injuries, even if those injuries are more than what would be considered "normal" due to a special condition you have that makes you more vulnerable to being rear-ended. This principle was applied by the Goetz jury, in that they considered Goetz's idiosyncrasies in finding him not guilty. They took into account that he had been a victim of a prior mugging, and that the doorman at his apartment building had also been so victimized. The four youths who accosted Goetz are responsible for the consequences of their actions. They picked on the wrong guy.

"Five Bullets" is a highly readable and important book which examines the troubling issue of vigilantism in American life. There are frequent references to "Death Wish", the 1974 Charles Bronson movie which explores these same themes. There are no easy answers, but it is an issue which merits further exploration.

Findlay Bridge for 2/20/26

A total of 5.5 tables. We finished at 49%.

The unusually high number of players made for some awkward scoring. Nine pairs had to sit out a round, while two played every round. And each pair had one or two other pairs who they didn't get to play. The result was that sores had to be adjusted: our score of 47 points was adjusted to 52.88 to adjust for us having to sit out a round.

In our 24 hands, there were only 3 games bid and made, 8 part scores bid and made, and 13 sets. Here are the specifics.

Board 1. We went down 2 at 3H doubled, for bottom board.

Board 2. We got top board as our opponents stopped at 3S, while the other opponent pairs all bid and made 4.

Board 3. They bid and made 4C, as did 3 other boards. One pair made 5.

Total of 5.5 points vs. Tim & James, the eventual winners.

Board 4. They bid 2NT, making 4, for top board.

Board 5. They bid 4H, making 6. Same with 2 other boards, while 2 only made 5.

Board 6. We set their 4D by 2, for middle board.

Total points of 3 vs. Bob & Greg.

Board 7. We bid & made 4S, tying for top board.

Board 8. They bid 3NT, making 6. We tied with 2 others for bottom board.

Board 9. They bid 3C, making 4. The other competitor played & made 3D for top board.

Total of 6 points vs.Dennis & Brent.

Board 10. We set 5D doubled by one. Our competitors all got the bid, either making a part score or going down.

Board 11. They set our 2H bid, but our -50 was good for top board!

Board 12. We went down 2 at 6H, tying for bottom board. We used the new 1430 system after 4NT.

Total of 8.5 points vs. Bruce & Johanne.

Board 13. We set 3S by 2, for middle board. The top board bid & made 4H, getting rewarded for their aggressive bidding..

Board 14. They bid 2D & made 4. One competitor pair scored a rare 550 points by making a 3NT doubled game.

Board 15. We set their 4S by one, for 2.5 points.

Total of 6.5 points vs. Mike & Arlene, the eventual second-place finishers.

Board 16. We set 3NT by 3, for top board. Good defense!

Board 17. We played and made 3S, again for top board. Good declarer play by Ron.

Board 18. We set 3S by one. Same result at 3 other boards, while the 4th made a part score.

Total of 9.5 points vs. Ken & Ruth.

Board 19. They played 2D, making 3. One board played 2NT, getting top board due to the extra 10 points.

Board 20. We played 3S, making 6! Only one of our competitors bid & made the game.

Board 21. We went down one at 2D.

Total of 5.5 points vs. Ann & Nancy.

Board 25. We went down one at 3D.

Board 26. We set their 3NT. Our competitor pairs all got the bid, 3 making a game and one going down. We didn't bid enough!

Board 27. We went down 2 at 3H.

Total of a paltry 2.5 point vs. Dave & Gary

MLB Predictions for 2026

My predictions for last year fared well, with only 20 positions off. This was my second-best ever, behind only 2022 with 18.

I was perfect for the AL Central, when the Guardians overtook the Tigers for first with a strong finish. I would have been perfect also for the NL West, but for the Giants overtaking the D-Backs for third on the last day. Thw worst divisions were the AL West and NL Central, with 6 off for each.

My last-place picks were disappointing. I picked all 3 of the sick franchises (Rays, Marlins, & A's) for last, but they all did better. I also made an idiosyncratic pick of the Cardinals for last, based on no off-season improvement, but they finished ahead of the woeful Pirates. The Marlins surely were the most surprising team in 2025, finishing third in the NL East, 13 games ahead of the last-place Nationals, and only 4 games behind the 2nd-place Mets.

And now for 2026.

AL East: Blue Jays, Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, Orioles

The Blue Jays seem committed to excellence, so I pick them to repeat. I refuse to pick the Rays for last again, as historically they have usually done better than expected. The Orioles have improved but still may finish last in the strong AL East. They may well become only the fourth team to ever finish last with a .500 or better win rate, after the 1987 Brewers, 2005 Nationals, and 2023 Yankees.

AL Central: Tigers, Guardians, Royals, Twins, White Sox

The Tigers were only one game out of first last year, so I have to pick them over my Guardians. The Tigers' strong starting pitching staff gives them good chances this year for post-season success. The White Sox were ten games out of fourth, so they seem to be destined for the basement again this year.

Al West: Mariners, Astros, Rangers, A's, Angels

The Mariners surprised last year by winning the division over the cheating Astros, and there is no reason they can't do it again this year. I feel sorry for Mike Trout, whose Angels have made the playoffs only once during his career, and they were swept 3-0 the one time they did. He deserves better.

NL East: Phillies, Mets, Braves, Marlins, Nationals

The Phillies won the division last year by 13 games, and seem poised to do it again, with an owner committed to winning. The Nationals finished last by 10 games, and should repeat.

NL Central: Cubs, Brewers, Reds. Cardinals, Pirates

My biggest mistake last year was picking the Brewers third. I can't pick against the Cubs, one of my favorite teams, so I'm going with the Brewers for second this year. The Pirates seem destined for last place again, and with an attendance of the fifth-lowest in MLB they are certainly a sick franchise.

NL West: Dodgers, Padres, Giants, Diamondbacks, Rockies

I so want to pick the Psdres over the Dodgers for first, but I can't bring myself to do it. I hope I'm wrong. The Dodgers made a huge blunder in signig Kyle Tucker for $240M for four years. Tucker has led his league only one time in any category, when had 112 RBI in 2023. A Cubs staffer commented that in the clubhouse Tucker "checks his phone more than he checks the scouting report. He has all the talent in the world, but the motor? It's not there." The Rockies had the worst record in all of MLB last year with only 43 wins, but still drew 2.4 miilion fans, good for 16th in MLB. Kudos to their loyal fans! The Giants are enthused about their new manager, the only manager to ever jump from the college ranks directly into an MLB manager's position. The players like his hands-on approach in contrast to the typical big-league manager approach.

"The Widow", by John Grisham

John Grisham has written many best-selling legal thrillers since his first book was published in 1989, but this is his first attempt at a a mystery. His protagonist is a small-town lawyer who finally gets a client who (he thinks) is rich, and the guy gets accused of murdering her to get his hands on her money. When he gets convicted on circumstantial evidence, his mission becomes one of discovering who the real killer is.

Murder mysteries work best when the reader is presented with a cast of characters, and then has to guess which one is the killer. That is not the case here, unfortunately. The real killer is not introduced until near the end, in a way that strikes the reader as too abrupt, and we feel blind-sided as a result. Grisham clearly is out of his element here.

Grisham does a good job of presenting the trials and tribulations of a small-town lawyer. This is based on his personal experience, as he discussed in an October interview with C-SPAN's David Rubenstein. Grisham described getting word from his agent that his first book had been optioned for a movie, for more money than he had made in his ten years of practicing law. When Rubenstein asked him how long after that he abandoned his law pratice, Gisham replied, "Oh, about fifteen minutes. I left the office, and didn't even bother turning out the lights. To Rubenstein's question of "What about your clients?", Grisham replied, "Most of them were not paying me anyway, and the others could easily find anothr lawyer."

Grisham deserves credit for dispelling the common notion that a law degree is a ticket to easy street. But then he turns around and exacerbates the problem by using some ridiculous amounts for lawyer hourly rates. The idea that a general practice lawyer in a small town could charge and collect $250 an hour is ludicrous. And then the lawyer drafts a will providing for a trust in which he will be getting $500 an hour as executor of the will and as trustee of the trust. And then at his trial, amounts of $1,000 and $1,500 an hour are quoted for high-end tax lawyers. Sheer lunacy. The proscutor got it right when, in closing arugment, she turned to the defendant and said "Nobody is worth $500 an hour". I would add that anybody who pays this kind of money to a lawyer is a fool.

Grisham mires us in unnecessary detail. For example, he describes in detail every one of the dozen lunches which the lawyer treats his client to. The result is a book of 404 pages which should have been much shorter.

I liked that Grisham told the story in chronological order. I mention this because the book I read immediately before this one, "The Viper", by Brad Meltzer, was a hopeless mess, jumping around between different time periods and locations so fast my head was swimming.

Findlay Bridge for 2/13/26

Four and a half tables showed up for bridge on Friday the 13th. Ron and I had a good result, finishing only half a point from 50%. The play featured many part scores, few games, and no slams, at least at my tables. Here is the board-by-board analysis.

Board 1. Our opponents bid and made 3 of a major. Same result on two other boards, while the 4th N-S pair went down at 4.

Board 2. We were set by one, tying for bottom board.

Board 3. We bid and made a major suit game. One pair made 5, while the other two had minor suit part scores.

We scored 3.5 vs. Bob and Karen.

Board 4. We set them by two. The one pair that beat us doubled.

Board 5. We bid 6NT and went down 3. The other pairs bid and made games.

Board 6. We set them by two for top board.

We scored 5 points vs. Ruth & Ken.

Board 7. We all bid and made minor suit part scores, but the others took more tricks.

Board 8. One opponent pair bid and made 3NT, while the others all went down. We set them by one, but the others did so by two and three.

Board 9. We got top board, as the other opponent pairs all bid and made a major suit game, while ours stopped at a part score.

We scored 4 points vs. Bill and Johanne, the eventual winners.

Board 13. We went down two for bottom board.

Board 14. All of our fellow E-W pairs defended against part score contracts. We got one point.

Board 15. We tied with two others for top board at 110 points. One pair scored only 80.

We scored 3 points vs. Dave and Gary.

Board 16. We went down for bottom board.

Board 17. We bid and made 2 of a major, tying for 2nd. One pair made 3, while one bid 4 and went down one.

Board 18. We set them by one, for 3rd board.

We scored 2.5 points vs. James and James.

Board 19. We made 4 of a major, but 2 other pairs bid 3NT and made 4, to beat us by 10 points!

Board 20. We set their game bid by one, to tie for top board. Two other pairs made the game.

Board 21. Our 110 points tied with two others for top board.

We scored 5.5 points vs. Bill and Ralph.

Board 22. We made 3NT, but one pair beat us by 20 when they made 4 of amajor.

Board 23. Our 3NT bid and made tied for top board.

Board 24. Our 100 points was second-highest.

We scored an impressive 6.5 points vs. Mike and Arlene, the eventual second-place finishers.

Board 25. Our 110 was good for a point and a half.

Board 26. I luckily made a major suit game, when Teresa led a card toward the end that gave me a sluff and a ruff. Top board.

Board 27. They bid a major suit game and made 7. One pair bid the slam, but the other two only made 6.

We scored 4.5 points vs. Clarence & Teresa.

"Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked", by Chris Matthews

This book provides an in-depth account of the period of 1981-1987, when Tip O'Neill was the Houde Speaker during the first six years of the Reagan administration. Mathews, who has since become one of the most insightful poitical commentators we have, presents an informative first-hand account as he was O'Neill's Chief of Staff during this six-year peiod.

The narrative starts with Ronald Reagan's landslide win over the hapless Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election. Reagan campaigned as a Washington outsider, just as Carter had four years earlier. But the difference between the two was that, unlike Carter, Reagan recognized that he would have to get along with the Washington powers that be in order to function effectively as president.

Consequently, he and Nancy moved to Washington after the election, and accepted dinner party invitations. After he took office, his first White House guests were Tip O'Neill and his wife. He coninued building his close relatonship with O'Neill throughout his presidency. The result is that he was far closer to O'Neill than Carter ever was, even though Reagan and O'Neill were far apart politically. As they used to tell each other, "politics stops at 6:00".

The rift between Carter and O'Neill is illustarted by snubs Carter was guilty of on his way in and on his way out. On the way in, he denied O'Neill and his wife seats at the inaugural ball, an inexplicable snub. And on his way out, he turned a deaf ear to o'Neill when O'Neill begged him not to concede to Reagan before the polls in California closed. Carter ignored him, and at least two incumbent Democratic congressmen lost their seats as a result.

The first crisis of the new Reagan administraton was the March 30, 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan's life. When O'Neill visited Reagan in the hospital, he got down on his knees and prayed for the president.

The scond crisis began on August 3rd, when the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) went on strike. Reagan acted decisively, issuing a statement that anyone not returning to work in 48 hours would be fired. Matthews says that "by breaking PATCO, he showed in a single executive judgment call how different he was from his recent predecessors." Dwayne Andreas, a prominent American businessman with close ties to Moscow, came back from a visit to the Soviet Union and told Tip that the Soviet top brass "credited Reagan, io contrast to his predecessors, with the strength of will to qualify him as a true leader."

Reagan's decisiveness stands in sharp contrast to that of our most recent president, the feckless Joe Biden. Two wars arose during Biden's presidency, and Biden's rsponse to each was characterized by a lack of the requisite decisiveness. With regard to Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, Biden continued to provide military support to the Israelis, when he should have been firm with them and denied them any aid so long as they continued the genocide against innocent Gaza residents. How he could stand by and watch little kids starving to death because of lack of nutrition is unforgiveable. And with regard to Russia's war against Ukraine, Biden refused to provide the military support to Ukraine that would have allowed them to attack inside Russia.

The key issue for Reagan in his first year was the passage of of his 25% tax cut, which passed the House 238-195. O'Neill opposed this but decieded not to fight it when he realized that many in his caucus were going to support the bill. He figured that it was best to let Reagan have his cut, and then bear the responsibility for the consequences. Despite the adverse consequences (the deficit ballooned), Republicans since 1981 have pursued this bad policy ever since, pushing through similar tax cuts under George W. Bush and under Donald Trump. The theory of "trickle down" economics has proven to be bogus time and time again, but the American people are too ignorant to understand this. During the 1980 primary campaign, George H. W. Bush had aptly called Reagan's trickle down theory "voodoo economics".

On a more positive note, O'Neill and Reagan worked together to pass two major bills--comprehensive immigration reform and comprehensive social security reform. Reagan's approach to the latter was sheer genius. He formed a 15-member bi-partisan commission to address the fiscal crisis social security was facing. The result was a bi-partisan bill passed in 1983. Similarly, in 1986 comprehensive immigration reform was passed, giving undocumented people a path to legalized status if they'd been here since before 1982. Both of these accomplishments were possible because of the mature cooperation of Reagan and the House Speaker, cooperation we have rarely seen since in Washington. These two reforms remain to this day the last time either of these key issues has been addressed in any sort of comprehensive way. Indeed, cooperation betwen the two parties seems out of the question in the highly partisan environment we live in today.

One of the most important services Matthews provided to O'Neill was to get him to be more available to the TV cameras. Tip would hold 15-minute press conferences every day before the House opened for the day's business, but cameras were prohibited. O'Neill thought he didn't come across well on camera, unlike the photogenic Reagan. And O'Neill never went on the Sunday shows, as is so popular today, preferring instead to spend his weekends at home in Massachusetts with his wife. Matthews and the other staff members convinced O'Neill to open up to the cameras, and the results were quite positive. O'Neill had always seen himself as a "wholesale" politican, meaning he was an expert at one-on-one interactions. Reagan, by contrast, was a great "retail" poitician, reaching out to millions at a time by playing expertly to the cameras. Credit goes to O'Neill for being wise enough to change with the times.

Democrats have perhaps not internalized this lesson fully, as Joe Biden had fewer press conferences during his term than any of the prior six presidents. And when he declined the opportunity for twenty minutes of free air time on the Super Bowl pregame show when he was running for re-election, his campaign was doomed. Had Biden interacted more with the press, he might have been better prepared for the infamous debate that ruined his campaign.

Kamala Harris made the same blunder when she declined a chance to go on Joe Rogan's top-rated podcast. This would have given her a chance for people to get to know her as a person. When she declined, her campaign was toast.