Even if you don't like hockey -- or sports -- this is a total hoot.

At every home game, the NHL Washington Capitals have an event between periods where they let a lot of little kids play, and then select one of them to be the "Mite of the Nite."  On this particular night two weeks ago, the winner was young Jackson Friedlander who, as is the custom, got interviewed and waxed eloquent on Alexander Ovechkin (pronounced oh-vetch-kin) and pet tarantulas, among other subjects.

How fun was it?  Even the team itself notes this this might be "the greatest Mite of the Night interview EVER.".

For the past three weeks, the country has been pretty-well inundated with Trump, Ukraine and impeachment.  And though we're all getting largely the same news, the challenge has been keeping up, missing some and hearing how different people analyze it.  So, it was sort of weird and refreshing yesterday to get an aspect of the story from a totally different perspective. 

Not a deep, substantive perspective, just one skimming across the surface.  Still, though,when a different angle shows up in a sea of All the Same, you appreciate it.

I was talking with a cousin yesterday, when a thought occurred to me.  "Your wife," I said, as the little light bulb went on above my head, "she's from Ukraine, isn't she?!"

Actually, I knew she was from Ukraine.  We'd discussed it briefly a year ago or so, but on a totally different story at the time, of course.  Back then, the news was about Paul Manafort, his coming trial and how his PR company had been paid over $60 million by Ukraine.  What bemused her about it all was that that may have been more than the entire military budget of the country.

And I knew, too, that my grandfather Morton Leviton was from Ukraine. He was born in Odessa, and came to the United States early on, getting his naturalized citizenship in 1912 at the age of 27. He became an architect though passed away long before I was born.  He was my mother’s father, and she absolutely, totally adored him, naming my brother John’s middle name was after him.  His wife, my Grandma Rose, was one of the utter joys of my life.

But much of that sort of stayed resting in the back of my mind, relaxing amid the Trump circus. I certainly remembered my grandfather's connection to Ukraine, but that was such a minor part of everything, it fell mostly in the Bemused Category.

So, it wasn't until yesterday talking with my cousin that the far greater connection he had -- and far greater connection his wife has -- bubbled to the surface.  (The two of them actually met in Ukraine, for that matter, so his knowledge of the country was more than tangential.  And hers is continual, still with family there and in regular contact.)

What I was curious about was how this story -- one that is so profoundly consuming on a non-stop hourly basis to the United States for it being centered on the likely impeachment of the president and which is focused entirely on Ukraine as the foundation of it all -- is seen in Ukraine.  Was something this overwhelmingly impactful to the United States as big a news story in Ukraine...or of so little interest that it doesn't even register much.

And the answer, he said, is the latter.

It just isn't much of a story there.  And there are two reasons -- one thoroughly understandable, the other a bit bemusing.  The first, he said, is that the far, far, far bigger story there is that the country is actually in a war with Russia, and the survival of the country is at the core of people's lives. Not a constitutional issue 3,000 miles away.  (Although of course it's worth nothing that at the heart of that constitution issue of impeachment is the matter of holding up $391 million in military aid to the country in their fight.)  The other reason, more on the whimsical side, is that given how totally corrupt Ukraine is, another country's corruption is meaningless to them.  In fact, in many ways it's just a given.  Not even remotely headline news.

As I said, this is not earth-shattering, deep perspective on the story.  But it certainly is intriguing to look at this swamp from a different angle.  And even, when it gets a bit overwhelming, somewhat nice...

There are a handful of TV ads that have caught my eye recently -- a couple of them very good, and a couple that bothers that I think are...well, less so.  I figure that I'll start today with the good ones.

Of these good ones, you probably know the first since it's been playing a lot.  The other though could have slipped through the cracks.

I think the first for two reasons -- one is that I've always liked the song by the Vogues, though that's not a substantive reason for liking the ad.  That's because I think it makes an absolutely great social point, and does so in a very subtle and very funny -- and impactful -- way.

The other is an ad for YouTube.  (I'm not quite sure why YouTube is advertising, but it's hardly a bad idea for any company.)  I don't think it's been seen all that much -- the only place it's touched down for me is during the baseball post-season playoffs. And given the subject matter of the ad, that might be the only place that they've bought air-time for it.  So, if you've missed it, I think you might appreciate how charming and evocative and whimsical it is.

If you can avoid reading the description of the ad on the embedded video below, do try to avert your eyes before clicking on the thing.  It's not a big deal if you do happen to read it, but it gives away someone that makes the ad a bit more fun to discover as it plays out.  But you learn that very early on, so it's fine if your eyes wandered...

So, here then is the second ad currently running that I love.  I'll post the two others that bug me upcoming soon.

"Canines -- or as I call them, 'dogs.'"
-- Trump, demonstrating how he truly does know All the Best Words

The rest of us call them "pooches" and "hounds" - or mistakenly "otters."

From the man who said, "Nancy, or as I like to call her...'Nancy.'"

You may have seen the news of fans at tonight’s World Series game booing Trump and chanting “Lock him up!”  But what leaped out so notably to me beyond the reality of that – on national television – is something most people haven’t commented on.  And it’s that the team colors of the Washington Nationals are...red!  So, you have a sea of red caps and red shirts looking like a Trump rally shouting "Lock him up!" and booing.

Anyway, this is what happens when Trump attends a massive crowd event when it isn't a rally of his acolytes --.

Something occurred to me that I think shows how deeply at risk Trump knows he is to the charges against him of sexual abuse.

As you likely know, Ronan Farrow has a new book out now, Catch and Kill, about the behind-the-scenes story of his reporting on sexual abuse, notably of Harvey Weinstein, but much more than that.  And a large part of the story is that he was initially doing his story for NBC which he says made his reporting difficult and ultimately dropped it.  That's what caused him to take his story to the New Yorker, ultimately sharing the Pultizer Prize.

What you have, therefore, is a book that makes NBC look bad and, as a result, so too its news division. (To be clear, the decision to block things appears to be from NBC corporate, but as much as many news reporters helped Farrow and wanted the story, reported, ultimately it all fell on the news division that had to follow the corporate end.)

Now, under normal conditions, when a news division -- and most especially here, NBC -- has a major story about it falling down on the job, Trump is the first one to leap all over that, and shout to the rooftops that this shows how supposedly corrupt the news division is and therefore how "fake" their reporting is.  Yet, though NBC has its underbelly open to such an attack...Trump has been totally silent.

If anything shows how terrified Trump is of serious investigative reporting about sexual abuse, I would suggest that his silence and total reticence to chide, let alone slam NBC News about them not reporting this story and even seemingly blocking it not only speaks the loudest volumes but also borders on "guilt by silence."

Consider, after all, a Trump tweet that would read, "Ha, ha, look at the fake NBC News being shamed for not reporting about..." as the sort of thing we know he would normally write -- and write with exuberance.  Now, however, fill in the blank with the words, "sexual abuse" and it's all a totally different dynamic.

No, it's not proof of anything.  It just leaps out as, I believe, something deeply telling.