This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

This is one of four departments I run as director with a free hand to manage as I see fit.

The others are the Department of Pet Peeves, the Department of Inquiring Minds Want to Know, and the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering.

So, “just saying:”

ON RUDY GULIANI:  His fall from grace has been remarkable and, further, he has done the deed to himself.

After a stint as the “nation’s mayor” for the solid way he responded to the 911 attack, Guliani “extinguished” himself as a pawn for Donald Trump.

And, now, in the facing mounting civil judgments against him, including the most recent $148 million, he has declared bankruptcy. 

To me, just saying, this is not just financial bankruptcy.  It is mental bankruptcy.

ON THE WORLD’S LARGEST CRUISE SHIP, ICON OF THE SEAS:  Just think about the statistics for a moment…

• Icon of the Seas can hold 5,610 passengers.
• It’s nearly 1,200 feet long.
• It has more than five times the tonnage of the Titanic.
• It has more than a dozen decks.
• There’s a pool for every day of the week.
• It has the biggest water park on the water.
• There are 40-plus places to eat and drink yourself silly.

Just saying, I told my wife not to book us on this behemoth.

AND MORE ON CRUISING:  Just saying that a story in the Wall Street Journal under this headline – “The 3-year cruise was canceled.  Enter the 3.5-year cruise” – is not for me.

Here’s more from the Journal:

“Sailing on the Villa Vie Odyssey during its first circumnavigation will start at $115,789 before taxes and fees

“About a month after Life at Sea Cruises canceled its debut three-year voyage because it couldn’t secure a ship, another company has done just that.  Villa Vie Residences, which plans to sail the world in 3.5 years, announced last week it has purchased a 924-passenger ship that is expected to launch in May.

“It’s a continuous cruise that will really never stop,” said Mikael Petterson, Villa Vie Residences’ founder and CEO.  “Our goal is to make this more of a lifestyle and residence, more than your typical cruise.”

So be it.  Just saying, not for me.

ON HARVARD’S PRESIDENT:  Claudine Gay got herself in trouble first when she appeared before a Congressional committee and did not answer well when antisemitism came up as a subject. 

But her Board of Directors supported her.

Then, she got caught in an increasing number of plagiarisms in “her” writing.  So, just saying, it appears likely to me that those lapses may end up costing her the top job at Harvard. 

Just saying it’s hard to treat the president any different than Harvard students who, if caught plagiarizing, will suffer a penalty.