There’s an art to the put-down, but it seems to be vanishing. You know, if you say someone’s brain is the size of a pea, you get the point across, but it’s not as memorable as, say, the approach taken by Will Rogers, who once said of a politician that “if his brain was gunpowder, he wouldn’t have enough to blow the wax out of his ears.” That, folks is rhetorical art.

As they enter a second week of late budget negotiations, Governor Hochul and the state’s legislative leaders reportedly are focusing on their top budget priorities: funding for K-12 education, Medicaid, and housing. An important looming issue that has drawn little media attention is the effort to put the largest fossil fuel companies on the financial hook for New York’s burgeoning climate damage costs.

I don’t feel depressed. I’m actually sleeping more soundly than normal. My appetite remains robust. I’m able to focus. Energy is good. My self-esteem is relatively sturdy.

I was moved to tears watching a discussion on television about the six immigrant workers who lost their lives filling potholes on the Key Bridge in Baltimore when that giant container ship lost power and knocked the bridge down. I thought of the loss of crucial bread-winning family members. I was impressed that all of these men were immigrants specifically from Central America and Mexico. I was impressed that they were deep in the fabric of American society many having been here for 18 yeas or more, yet, at the same time, they were regularly sending money back to “the old country,” just as countless European immigrants did in the 19th century.

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For women’s college basketball, this year has been the best of times, and the worst of times. But mainly the best of times. That was illustrated Monday night when Iowa defeated LSU in an Elite Eight game of the Women’s NCAA Tournament, a rematch of last year’s title game that was watched by 12.3 million viewers. That is officially the most watched women’s basketball game in history, narrowly eclipsing the 11.8 million that watched the 1983 championship game that featured USC’s Cheryl Miller.

Most think guns should be banned because various psychopaths shot kids in schools, fired into concert crowds or attacked religious services. Horrible enough to justify banning guns. The NRA’s solution, of course, is more guns. They claim that putting more guns in more hands will stop or dissuade vicious killers.

Whoever established the date for the beginning of New York State’s fiscal year must have had an ironic sense of humor. April 1st is the first day of New York State’s fiscal year, meaning that it should be the day that a new budget is supposed to be in place. The April Fool’s joke is that in modern times it almost never is.

I spent a career in journalism, but I’m not above gossip. So here’s a juicy bit: Goofy is gay. Yes, that pal of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck? Gay.

The recent closing of Kozel’s, a Columbia County restaurant that had been around since 1936, felt like a death in the family. Maybe not an immediate family member, but a family member nonetheless.