Trump isn't a lawyer, but plays president on TV
By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist
San Francisco is where I learned the art and craft, the calling and commitment to life as a surgeon.
Except for a detour to Southeast Asia arranged by my draft board, we lived there for seven years. Time for fun was scant, but we did manage, thanks to a couple of surgery professors and their heavy-keeled sailboats, a couple of exhilarating sailings on the Bay. We got close to Alcatraz Island, the occupation of which by American Indians was still going on, but the first time we took a tour was many years later, when, on a return visit, our young son announced he wanted to.
It was impressive. Among other niceties was a self-guided audio tour, voiced by prisoners and guards who’d been there. “Now go down ‘Broadway’ and stop in front of cell 120 … Me and Mugsy was in here when we wasn’t in solitary.” Stuff like that. Sounds of yelling and taunting, clatter of silverware. Eerie, but impactful.
As part of the National Park Service, Alcatraz brings in over $60 million in tourism revenue a year. With characteristic brilliance aforethought, His Majesty has revealed plans to resurrect it as a prison. Because, doncha know, he’s tough on crime. (Not his and his family’s (New Republic: tinyurl.com/crimefam4u), but there’s only so much crime a guy can tough on.)
A recent retrofitting of the dock cost around $36 million. Refurbishing and modernizing the buildings to current prison standards would be huge. Not to mention future operating costs for an island accessible only by boat, three times that of other prisons, which was among the reasons for shutting it down. Might that money be better spent reinstating Trump’s reckless funding cuts to life-saving medical research, or consumer protections, or Medicaid? But, as always, his reasons were succinct and thoughtful (X: tinyurl.com/4therock).
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/schwab-trump-isnt-a-lawyer-but-plays-president-on-tv/