Perspective from the 19^th Hole 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.

Regarding the word “homophones:”

What does it mean anyway?

Here is what the dictionary says:

“Each of two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling: for example new and knew.”

Or, for this blog – “peace” and “piece.”

New York Times opinion writer Thomas Friedman made a good point this week as he wrote about the two words.

His reference was to the extended telephone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which led to some reports suggesting there could be a pause in the Russian-Ukraine war, though later reports suggested that a pause could be too good to be true

Back to homophones. 

Think about this for just a minute – when Trump and Putin talk, they do so through interpreters and those individuals may not understand the difference between “peace” and “piece.”

From Friedman:

“Ever since Trump returned to office and began trying to make good on his boast about ending the Ukraine war in days, thanks to his relationship with Putin, I’ve had this gnawing concern that something was lost in translation in the bromance between Vlad and Don.

“When the interpreter tells Trump that Putin says he’s ready to do anything for ‘peace’ in Ukraine, I’m pretty sure what Putin really said was he’s ready to do anything for a ‘piece’ of Ukraine.

“You know those homophones — they can really get you in a lot of trouble if you’re not listening carefully.  Or if you’re only hearing what you want to hear.”

More from Friedman:

“The Times reported that in his two-and-a-half-hour phone call with Trump on Tuesday, Putin agreed to halt strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, according to the Kremlin, but Putin made clear that he would not agree to the general 30-day cease-fire that the United States and Ukraine had agreed upon and proposed to Russia.

“The Kremlin also said that Putin’s ‘key condition’ for ending the conflict was a ‘complete cessation’ of foreign military and intelligence assistance to Kyiv — in other words, stripping Ukraine naked of any ability to resist a full Russian takeover of Ukraine.  More proof, if anyone needed it, that Putin is not, as Trump foolishly believed, looking for peace with Ukraine; he’s looking to own Ukraine.

“All that said, you will pardon me, but I do not trust a single word that Trump and Putin say about their private conversations on Ukraine.

“What also smells wrong to me is that Trump appears to have no clue why Putin is so nice to him. As a Russian foreign policy analyst in Moscow put it to me recently:  ‘Trump does not get that Putin is merely manipulating him to score Putin’s principal goal:  Diminish the U.S. international position, destroy its network of security alliances — most importantly in Europe — and destabilize the U.S. internally, thus making the world safe for Putin and Xi.’”

So, it appears that Trump, who calls himself a supreme negotiator, is being taken for a ride by Putin.

And, homophones may be partly to blame, though I’ll keep saying that, regardless of words, Trump is trying to sell out Ukraine.