1. Why do so few Americans see live events? Here’s why: affordable tickets ( well, sort-of affordable) get bought up by bots and scalpers who then jack up the prices. I’m a theater guy, but on general principles (and habitual penury) I will not pay over a hundred dollars for a decent seat for a show at a regional theater. Music concerts, sporting events and theater are rapidly becoming elitist activities. Way back when, Ralph Nader complained about the trend, some of which is driven by greedy unions, but not all of it. For some strange reason, the Times uses tennis tournament tickets to flag the issue, complete with a headline that provides no clue regarding what the article is really about (“Something About the U.S. Open Doesn’t Add Up”)

U.S. Open tennis tickets are too expensive? Talk about the problems of the rich, white and privileged!

2. Here’s a great law vs. ethics vs. common sense issue: in the Times real estate advice column a reader asks, “My Neighbor Installed a Camera Pointing to My Yard. Is That Legal?” The questioner begins, “In January, my spouse was walking our dog on our wooded property in Carroll County, Md., when our neighbor’s dog came onto our property, killed our dog and injured my husband….”

Wait, what? The letter indicates that the neighbor’s dog is still extant and that the neighbors are hostile to this family? Why hasn’t the killer dog been put down and the dog’s owners been sued into oblivion? The victims of this attack are worried about a camera?

But I digress: the letter continues, “…our landscaper came upon a camouflaged camera pointed directly into our totally secluded and private backyard, which we believe was put there to intimidate us or spy on us. Is this legal? What can we do?” Wait (again): this family has a landscaper and can’t figure out how to block an intrusive neighbor’s camera? We had a neighbor who was constantly staring into our “secluded and private backyard” and I grew a bamboo grove that worked nicely. But a bush would work. The Times columnist goes into detail about how incidental camera coverage of a neighbor’s yard for security (my neighbor’s security system does this) is benign, but depending on the state, deliberately intrusive or harassing camera coverage may be illegal. It is definitely unethical. Here’s the legal advice:

Maryland prohibits the use of cameras to conduct surveillance of others’ homes (including their yards). The offender must receive a “reasonable warning” or a request to stop, and continue with the surveillance, for the behavior to be considered a violation of the law. The infraction is a misdemeanor and can result in fines or time in prison…If the camera was placed to harass, annoy, alarm or intimidate, you could pursue legal action to have it removed, but proving ill intent could be difficult. The law may be interpreted and applied differently across the state, depending on the jurisdiction…To establish that the camera is part of a campaign of harassment, keep a log of negative encounters with your neighbor. You could speak with a lawyer about your case, and receive guidance on pursuing criminal charges or filing for a peace order, a civil action that could ensure the neighbor stays away from you. Such orders need to be requested within 30 days from the instigating episode, and they generally last for six months. For both criminal and civil cases, your neighbors will be notified so they can present a defense.

Or you could talk to the neighbor, explain (nicely) why the camera is objectionable, say you are reasonable and assume the intrusion is inadvertent, but conclude by saying that if the neighbor is determined to be an asshole, you will come after the camera, the dog, and the neighbor big time, and that you have the resources, the resolve and orneriness to do it.

3. Bike path ethics meets journalism ethics…The Times tells us,

“…many American communities, regardless of politics, have embraced bike-friendly policies, on the grounds that bikes are good for the planet, for the body, and address congestion by taking cars off the road. Often inspired by bike-friendly European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam, the moves are a major shift in the way American communities approach transportation planning. There are now 4,400 directional miles of protected bike lanes today, up from 108 directional miles in 2000, according to PeopleForBikes, an industry trade association and advocacy group. (Directional miles are miles that can be traveled in one direction; with a two-way bike lane one mile long counting as two directional miles.)”

The Trump Administration opposes this fad, as it should, because it is driven by climate-change, environmental activism, “Why can’t we be more like those virtuous Europeans?” BS. The title of the Times piece is bias exemplified: “Do D.E.I. Bike Paths Exist? The Trump Administration Says Yes.” Nothing, literally nothing, in the story or the discussion of the controversy over the lanes suggests “DEI,” except this unsupported statement: “[T]his administration has begun acting on its deep aversion to cycling, revoking federal grants for what it calls “D.E.I. bike lanes.” I know many community activists in my almost totally “blue” neighborhood who object to the lanes because they are seldom used, a waste of infrastructure funds, narrow the roads, and worst of all, encourage the use of e-scooters and bikes by teens and younger who are always a risk to swerve into traffic. The “DEI” smear suggests, as usual, that the Trump Administration is racist. But that’s literally made-up spin. The Times:

But [Secretary of Transportation] Duffy and his colleagues have also deployed rhetoric that suggests the bicycle is hopelessly lefty, belonging in the same category as green-haired baristas, Rosie O’Donnell and yard signs professing that love is love.Last month, the Transportation Department told National Public Radio that liberals believe “that everyone should ride a bike to their shoebox-sized apartment to eat crickets to achieve a phony climate agenda.”

But what does that have to do with DEI? Moreover, the climate agenda is phony. The bike lanes is government virtue-signaling, paid for by taxpayers. The ballroom is a better expenditure of funds, by far…

4. Guess what reliably progressive op-ed columnist Frank Bruni’s “damning retort” is in “Democrats Have a Damning Retort to Republican Gotchas”? Oh, go ahead, guess…it’s easy. Here, I’ll give you 30 seconds:

Give up? Shame on you! It’s “the bloody events of Jan. 6, 2021!” For example, when Republicans accurately point out that the Democratic (Socialist) Senate candidate in Michigan’s supports transwomen in women’s sports, defunding the police, open borders, and eliminating the Second Amendment among other indefensible positions, the “damning” rebuttal for the Axis is that GOP Senator Mike Rogers supports Donald Trump today even after condemning him in 2021 after the riot that was worse than Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust and 9-11.

Well, I condemned Trump’s handling of his suspicious loss to Biden in 2020—still do, in fact. But the matter at hand is what his Presidency is accomplishing in 2026. While the riot was certainly triggered in part by the irresponsible manner in which the President expressed his objections to the loosey-goosey voting processes and wide-open opportunity for Democrats to cheat, he did not incite the rioters and it was no “insurrection.” Nonetheless, Democrats have exploited it beyond all justification (because they have little else), and the issues in the mid-terms must be what the crypto-totalitarian Left has on its agenda for the U.S., not that typical, poll-driven, cowardly Republicans (Hi, Nikki Haley!) piled on Trump in 2021 when they assumed he was cooked, then flip-flopped when he pulled off the biggest political comeback in U.S. history.

At least Bruni didn’t stoop to “But Trump once hung out with Jeffrey Epstein!”