BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THE WEEKEND EDITION JUNE 9-11, 2018) — Rounding up the flotsam, jetsam, an unclesam of a writer’s notebook:

Oh Say Can You See? — As a matter of fact, we can’t. THE PLANET, however, can propose an equitable solution to the NFL’s kneeling dilemma. That would be to simply not play the Anthem prior to games. What purpose does it serve except to provide the sort of nationalistic litmus test that, if you consider it objectively, is anti-American? No more anthem before sporting events, a tradition that’s more recent than you realize, solves the non-issue through elimination. By the way, for those few hours on Sunday (or Monday or Thursday nights), football players are at the office, on the job. An employer has the right to set policy for workers. If the boss says no kneeling, then don’t kneel. He doesn’t have a gun to your head. You accepted the job and the money, and it’s your responsibility to live up to the terms. If you want to kneel, do it on your own time or go to morning Mass. Besides, haven’t we had enough of the Anthem’s Hohmlande Uber Alles?

What Heroin Bags? — You have to love how circular be the wheels of justice. State troopers stopped a car after it got off at the Turnpike Exit 2. The vehicle had broken brake and tail lights, plus illegally tinted windows. Troopers ran a check on the driver. He was from Holyoke and had conviction for firearms and drug offenses, and he had done time. Police said the driver gave them permission to search the vehicle. A drug-sniffing dog led them to the trunk, where troopers say they found 2,000 bags of heroin. Officers charged the driver, whose lawyers claimed illegal search.. The courts denied the claim, but on appeal, the vaunted state Supreme Judicial Court threw out the arrest and dismissed the case. Now the man, Gabriel Cordero, has filed a lawsuit asking $30 million each from the troopers, the state police, the Pittsfield Police Department, Chief Michael Wynn, the entire city of Pittsfield, and the whole of Massachusetts. If it were up to THE PLANET, we’d tell Cordero to get back on Affirmed and ride the hell out, lucky to be escaping without a new suit of tar-and-feathers. Ah, but this is America. ‘Nuff Ced.

Bobby, We Hardly Knew Ye — On June 6, 1968, THE PLANET found himself in the drafting training room under the tutelage of the late, great Paul Deame, Building 42, General Electric Co. The news quickly circulated that the evening before, an assassin or assassins gunned down Robert Kennedy in a Los Angeles hotel corridor just after declaring victory in the crucial California primary. The old gut punch hit us again, the same we felt on Nov. 22, 1963. Bobby would have gone on to win the nomination and, likely, the presidency on his promise to get out of Vietnam pronto. Instead, the war went on another five years and countless more deaths and injury. We knew that June morning that America had for certain jumped the rails, and that the violently silent coup that took place in Dallas three years earlier had well taken command. All of U.S. history after 6/6/68 serves as a footnote. The RFK killing made of cynicism not optimism’s final refuge but an essential survival tool, especially for one coming of age in that pivotal year.

LeBron and Everybody Else — Watching the great LeBron James unable to singlehandedly lift the Cleveland Cadavers from falling into a 0-3 hole in the NBA finals drives home the point of “t-e-a-m.” Not even LeBron can do it alone. At his post-game press conference Wednesday night, James said trying to beat Golden State was akin to “trying to beat the Patriots.” It can be done, he said, but you can’t make any mistakes. You have to be perfect and also have Lady Luck as your sixth man. We rank James in the NBA all-time pantheon this way, in this order: 1. Bill Russell … 2. James … 3. Wilt Chamberlain … 4. Michael Jordan … 5. Bob Cousy. It’s a privilege to watch players like James and Tom Brady. It makes the sickness of sports in America momentarily tolerable.

A Win for the First Amendment — When the Supreme Court considered the case of the gay couple suing a baker because he wouldn’t make a custom cake for their wedding owing to his religious beliefs, the “experts” were predicting either that the Supremes would side with the couple or, at best (worst) a 5-4 vote along ideological lines. It didn’t happen that way. The Justices upheld the action of the baker, 7-2, overturning a lower ruling by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Writing the majority ruling, Anthony Kennedy said “The [commission’s] treatment of the case has some elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs that motivated [the baker’s] objection.” Perhaps the Bill of Rights has a few last gasps in it. If so, a revival is possible. Sanity, for once.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

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“A writer who pleases everybody will neither be sitting nor standing, and there will be lots of flowers around” — Sir Tiberius Fruitjuice.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

The Usual Disclaimer.