Ding Dong

 So, there I was, looking at a picture of the Space Shuttle Challenger exploding while clicking through Al Gore's Internet on May 30, 2024, and the caption below asked if it's any wonder that there is a generation of kids who were slightly bent by watching that unfold back in 1986. In their classrooms. As part of a celebration of education and space exploration coming together. 

Then I got a text from a friend, stating "gonna need a minute to process this actuality." She was referring to the jury in the former game show host and now convicted felon's trial returning thirty-four guilty verdicts. The only way it might have gone worse for him is if that same day the producer of the game show the convicted felon had once hosted noticed that his NDA had expired and he was now free to share evidence of the former "president" using the N-word. 

Because that happened too. 

Sometimes bad things happen to good people. That is not what happened on May 30, 2024. That generation that had grown up believing that we were always just an O-ring away from disaster finally got to see the good guys win. Not that this isn't going to make the road ahead any less fraught with dangerous oddities. We elected the weasel in the first place. We chose him over the sitting Secretary of State. A combover who had never held any political office. Who proceded to drive our Ship of State straight into the wall. 

This is why we can't have nice things: Teachers in space. Game show hosts in the White House. 

For several hours on May 30, 2024 I was happy that I hadn't let anyone talk me into leaving Twitter. Elon and his minions were not strong enough to hold back the floodgates. All those memes. All those pithy observations. All that schadenfreude whipped up and up and served in a delicious sorbet of I Told You So. 

It was a celebration even better than last year's Toyotathon. We put our flags out, the stars and stripes and our rainbow. We danced and sang. We rejoiced. 

Because we know there will be an appeal. And there are still miles to go before the orange sack of protoplasm will cease to be in our nightly news and our nightmares. Where was I went I heard that Donald Trump had become a convicted felon? Right here, ready to write what we can only hope is the beginning of the last chapter. 

Stay tuned. 

From A Distance

 Remember the blip? Well, it was more than a blip really. More like a pandemic. It is now far enough in the rear view mirror that many of the things that we invented to get through the prolonged isolation have become part of the firmament. For instance, I don't know if I can simply wait a week for a new episode of my favorite TV show to appear. Binging is now a staple of our household. We decide when we watch and if we want to watch the whole thing in one sitting, so be it. No network executives are going to tell us how to program our lives. 

The whole concept of streaming movies has become so de rigueur that the hassle of masking up and heading out to a movie theater to sit uncomfortably close to a bunch of strangers whose vaccination status is unknown makes sitting on the couch and waiting a few weeks infinitely more pleasurable. Not so much the masking these days, or even the vaccinations as much as a room full of strangers. Who needs all that interaction? 

Well, as it turns out, I do. I still love to have someone tear my ticket and encourage me to "enjoy the show." I like spending too much on popcorn and Junior Mints. I like that odd sense of community found in a darkened theater. When we all laugh or gasp as one. When we emerge out of that darkness, chattering away about what we just saw. 

Which is why I am so terribly ambivalent about the news that Safeway stores, along with many other retailers, are getting rid of the self-checkout lanes that became so much a part of life during COVID. As an affirmed introvert, I looked on this as a great advancement. Being allowed to scan my own barcodes and fill my own bags with the necessities of life seemed like a gift. No more idle chit-chat. No more wondering what mild judgements were being passed on my frozen pizzas and Oreos. My groceries, my business, thank you very much. 

But apparently in many neighborhoods, this was also a great big hole for inventory to simply walk out of the store without being paid for. Others, far less honorable than myself, were using this portal as a way to stretch their food dollars. Which makes sense to me now, not unlike the need for Netflix to tighten up their policy on password sharing. Nothing is free, after all. As those urban poets, The Dead Kennedys once asserted, "Give me convenience or give me death." 

Amen.

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Fatter

 Morgan Spurlock. If you recognize the name, then you probably already know that he went to those big golden arches in the sky last week. 

If you're not familiar with Mister Spurlock, I can give you the highlight of his resume: He made a documentary called Super Size Me back in 2004. It depicts one man's journey into the heart of McDonaldland. Morgan spent a month consuming only food from McDonald's and tracks the physical and mental effects of such a diet. 

Spoiler alert: The effects were not good. It was a shot across the bow of the fast food industry which at that time had become somewhat cavalier about the role it was playing in America's obesity epidemic. For those of you too young perhaps to remember when you could walk into Mickey D's and ask them to "super size" your meal by adding an extra large option to the already large portions available. Morgan Spurlock's first hand account of just what sort of abuse this sort of diet could dish out won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Not to mention the twenty-four additional pounds, increased cholesterol, mood swings, sexual dysfunction, and fat accumulation in his liver.

Mister Spurlock survived his self-imposed experiment, and lived to argue with critics who insisted that you could actually lose weight by eating only McFood. An interesting debate, perhaps, but the most telling reality is that McDonald's restaurants stopped offering the Super Size option six weeks after Spurlock's film opened. 

Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe McDonald's figured keeping their customers alive for a few more years might benefit their bottom line more than getting them to shell out a few extra bucks to get all the soda and fries that they could hold down. Considering the well-meaning documentarians who turn their cameras on the horrors of war or child labor who have yet to see the kind of cultural impact Mister Spurlock had with his feature, I would say he was a powerful force in society. Besides several other documentaries, he produced a TV show for FX called 30 Days in which he or surrogates undertook lifestyle challenges for a month to try and raise awareness around topics from living on minimum wage to life on an Indian reservation. 

Again, conditions on reservations have not changed much in twenty years, but minimum wage has finally made a step or two toward reality. Finally, Morgan Spurlock passed away at the relatively early age of fifty-three. My guess is that his Big Mac binging had little or nothing to do with the cancer that eventually took his life, but perhaps some young filmmaker will pick up the thread and investigate. Aloha Morgan, and thank you for stomping on the terra especially with those extra twenty-four pounds just long enough to bring a few more healthy options to our fast food lives. 

The Gathering

 We have a house full of teachers on a somewhat frequent basis. To be moderately precise, twice a year. Once at the end of the year, and again at the end of the year. To be even more precise, before winter break and before summer break. 

Usually, by the time December rolls around, most of us are coming up on the deep-fried setting. Many of those high hopes we had set for ourselves and our students have dimmed slightly and the idea of spending a couple weeks away from one another seems like a very good idea. But before we head off to our caves for that scheduled hibernation/rejuvenation, the folks at my school have made a tradition of gathering at my house to sluff off the work-related stress with one evening of mild frivolity before we make that big turn into the new calendar year. 

A word comes to mind: cathartic. 

When January arrives, we are once again prepared to face the rigors of teaching, and tuck away those regrets in order to focus on the potential that greets us every Monday through Friday, anxious to get onto the playground and happy to go home again when the bell rings at the end of the day.. We know that we can make magic happen, though sometimes it seems that we could use just a little more pixie dust or just a few extra days. 

Then, just like we drew it up, the end of the school year comes. Only now it's in May, and we turn in report cards that tell a story about us teachers as much as it does about our students. What did we leave out? What did we carelessly gloss over? What challenges await us in the coming year? 

Which is why we all gather in my back yard, burning some hot dogs, burgers both possible and impossible, and sharing the trials and tribulations of the most recent semester with one another before we go our separate ways. Not for a couple weeks this time. But for a couple months. We share stories about moments that amused us and/or tested our patience. We ask about plans for the break, and for some what happens once they leave us. Not just for weeks, but for ever. 

There are goodbyes. There are see you soons. There are hugs. And a tear or two. Those who have entered into the parent portion of their lives leave earlier, because their kids are their focus now. Because they are starting their vacation. Hanging around with your own kids is different.

At least that's how I remember it. 

We'll be back at it soon enough. 

Moving On

 Remember your high school graduation? Do you remember the funny signs? Do you remember the guest speaker? Do you remember the streakers?

Do you remember the gunshots?

Congratulations if that last one didn't make your scrapbook. Graduates of the Class of 2024 from Skyline High School in Oakland will not be able to separate random acts of violence from their commencement. Last Thursday night, as the proceedings were wrapping up, shots rang out and the assembled crowd was suddenly forced into active shooter mode. A sign that had been hung near the assembly read, "We Have Amazing Educators." All those drills paid off, I suppose. 

The traditional recession from graduation ceremonies tends to be a little less solemn than the procession. It is not, however, composed of students, faculty and families running for their lives. 

So now the good news: A man and woman were found near the site of the ceremony, suffering from gunshot wounds. Both are expected to survive. Two suspects were in custody by early Friday morning. The shooting was apparently connected to a dispute unrelated to the events of the day, but will always be attached to the memories of those in attendance. 

We all know the bad news: Yet another moment that should have been a celebration, filled with joy, suddenly became a life or death situation. The lack of fatalities will keep this from being a media event that will stretch past the holiday weekend. The scars left by those seconds when gunfire broke out will not go away as quickly. For those clicking past the story, it will be simply a matter of "Oakland? Figures." 

On to the next tragedy. 

Make room for more victims. 

Nothing to see here. 

Except for those who were there that night when they close their eyes. 

Congratulations to Skyline's Class of 2024. Congratulations on making it out alive. 

A Win Is A Win

 The little victories.

Like how we kept paper on our bulletin boards for the entire year.

Or how we finally got the kindergartners to freeze in place when the recess bell rings instead of simply sprinting for their line.

And how we got Jesse, the challenge kid from each of his six classes here since he was in kindergarten to stand up at his fifth grade promotion to share the Principal's Pledge. Without cursing or mocking or making anything but a dignified addition to the ceremony. 

A victory. 

This came along on the same day as the report came to us from a review group that had spent some time interviewing and collecting data from staff, students, and parents this spring. The categories were graded on a scale from one to four. We did not receive any fours. 

But we also did not receive any ones. Every grade we received was above that. Not by a lot, but our over all grade would have been a C+, depending on the curve. During a brief meeting after students were sent home for the next to last time for this school year, I pointed this out to my colleagues. Some of them scoffed, perhaps believing that I was being sarcastic. My reputation precedes me in this case, but I was sincere. The progress we have made by pulling together and pushing that big rock up the hill should not be underestimated. Like so many others in the room, I looked first for the lowest scores. Then checked to see if we had any in that rarified air of excellence. 

Not yet. We still have a lot of kids who aren't reading at grade level. We have a lot of parents who aren't getting their kids to school, not just on time, but at all. Creating an environment where every student takes ownership of their education is still a little bit further down the path, but we are coming to a place where we can imagine how that can happen. 

This year our principal was promoting a fifth grade class that she came in with as kindergartners. The strides they have made along with everyone else in the building cannot be diminished. Which is why we are coming back in August to try again. 

Springtime For HItler

 The rhetoric that has been floating around for the decades since World War II ended regarding Nazis would make an interesting research topic. Starting from the old line about "at least the trains run on time" to quips about "ways to make you talk." These bits of dark humor sprang from the relief we all felt after Adolph Hitler was defeated and he became a  punchline for Mel Brooks. 

Last week, the forty-fifth "president" of the United States posted a video on his social media account that depicted what America might look like if he became number forty-seven. Just behind the banners were headlines that included, “the creation of a unified reich,” and “German industrial strength.” The former game show host's handlers were quick to point out that they did not create the video, and it had since been deleted. 

Still, you might think that a guy who complains about having shot himself in the foot by illegally paying hush money to an adult film actress would not reload and take aim on the other foot just to be sure he didn't miss anything. Imagining the conversation his campaign must have had with the man who once said there were "very fine people on both sides" in the aftermath of a clash between protesters and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia that left one woman dead makes my head spin.

"See, the Nazis, to put it simply, were the bad guys."

"You mean they were the bad guys."

"Well, yes sir. Our country went to war to stop them from taking over the world and exterminating millions of people."

"So, you're saying Nazis are bad?"

"Yes sir."

"Always?"

"Yes sir."

"Even now?"

"Yes sir."

"So I should take down the post about creating a new reich?" 

"Yes sir. I think it would be best at this time"

"Well, can I keep the stuff about Hannibal Lecter?"

Sigh. "Sure. Why not?"

"Got it. Nazis bad. Cannibals good."

Last Resort

 Your worldly host for these proceedings was initially confounded by the suggestion that the ICC would apply for arrest warrants for the arrest of several Israeli government officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar and his associates. 

Not because the warrants were being issued, but just exactly what the ICC was. Turns out there is an International Criminal Court, who "investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. As a court of last resort, it seeks to complement, not replace, national Courts. Governed by an international treaty called the Rome Statute."

I'm not completely clueless here. I had heard of "The Hague" before. A city in the Netherlands that just happens also to be the location of the court of last resort. This is the place where besides growing some truly spectacular tulips, crimes against humanity are tried. This is a place where cases like serial philanderer former game show hosts paying off porn stars take a back seat to genocide. You may be interested to know that the ICC has also issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for war crimes committed during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Like the forcible taking of Ukrainian children by Russian troops. 

Which is pretty awful, but the situation in Gaza is perhaps even more bleak. The charges against Netanyahu include  starving civilians, willfully "causing great suffering, or serious injury," willful killing and intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population. The warrants for Hamas stem from the terror attacks of October 7 of this year. ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan wrote, "We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Israel by Hamas and other armed groups pursuant to organizational policies."

So, now you know about the International Criminal Court. And what they do. And you can start wondering how the world will react to this news. The White House, for its part, had this to say: "Let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.” This comes from the leader of the only country to use a nuclear weapon during war. To attack civilians. Maybe our perspective is skewed.

A little bit. 

Reminder

 I am a Democrat. I have voted the party line in most every election local, state and national since I started back in a previous century. Full disclosure: I have related here before that I spent the first few opportunities I had after I turned eighteen on the bench. I used to spout indifference like "It doesn't matter. Some old guy with a red tie is going to win no matter what I do." 

That's about the time a friend of mine jiggled my handle when she said, "You know, all this time you spend fretting about Amnesty International? There are people across the globe who are fighting and dying for the chance that you have. All you have to do is stop pontificating and get off your couch once or twice a year." 

And she was right. Since then, I have made it my mission to participate in the Democratic Process actively. My initial foray into the big show was to support Michael Dukakis. Who lost ignominiously to George Herbert Walker Bush, Sire of Pinhead. I stayed in the game, in spite of the which was the aftertaste of that one. Eight years of William Jefferson Pinhead, the Impeached allowed me a couple of victory laps. 

Then things went dark. A couple terms of Pinhead washed away the memories I had of Bill and Al inventing the Internet and Fleetwood Mac playing at their inauguration. I really felt that the inventor of the Internet would have made a good president, what with his love of climate and trees and so forth. Instead we were treated to nearly a decade of gas and oil and a war that outlasted their administration and into two more. 

Hope and Change came, and this one felt fresh and new. I voted with my head high and my eyes clear. I could see a future that would bring something new. Something different. 

How was I to know that the something different would be the complete antithesis of Barack Obama? The creeping mound of orange flesh that took over was something we all had to live through, and in the middle of a global pandemic, Joseph R. Biden felt like a really valid if not vital choice. 

As I mentioned earlier, I am a Democrat. I will be voting for Joe Biden again in this election, succumbing just a bit to that old sentiment about old guys in red ties. My inbox is flooded each day begging me for support in the form of whatever I can give. Not just once or twice, but dozens of requests are made for my attention and spare dollars. 

What I can't get over is that this is a close race. And every vote will count. 

You can stop emailing. You've got mine.  

Fixing A Hole

 Standing on a ladder in my living room, I paused for a moment to reflect on my role as a homeowner. The moment came and went rather quickly, but it was centered on my wife's insistence that I did not have to climb up on that ladder. Not this past weekend, anyway. I could wait. There would be time. Later. 

But here's the thing: I happen to know that "later" is when everything else will need to be painted, clipped, fixed or removed from the premises. Our current reality had us adding insulation above our ceiling. Because we are nominally do-it-yourself-types, we told the gentlemen who were coming to shove hoses into the space between our attic and our ceiling that we would drill a series of three inch holes in all the rooms in our house to streamline the process. Which we did. And saved a bunch of money. 

And had holes in our ceiling that my wife initially decorated by placing a dozen of our son's stuffed animals from his childhood, peeking down from above. Which lasted about a week until the insulation truck came and that fun ended. Then we were left with holes that dribbled bits of non-toxic dunnage that slowly began to drift down in small tufts. To stem that tide, we placed cut up squares of manila folder in each hole. Until we could find the time to get up on a ladder and replace the divots we had created before. 

Which required drywall repair. Which involved spackling. And sanding. And painting. And because these things can't be done all at the same time, we were dragging plastic sheeting to a room, then fixing a hole or two. Then dragging plastic sheeting to another room. Fixing that hole, and then waiting for the spackle to dry. Or cure. Or whatever spackle does so you can then climb back up on a ladder and sand the excess spackle that will then need to be touched up before it can be sanded once again. And painted. 

While I was on that ladder, I was thinking about all the money we were saving. And all the time I have spent waiting for contractors of various types to show up and do the job that I probably could have done while waiting for the contractors to show up. 

My son, who was amused to hear that his former stuffed animals had served a purpose in our home improvement plans, has a rule of thumb when it comes to dealing with his major distraction: his cars. He will attempt most any repair from transmissions to brakes to all manner of fluid replacement. After he has done it once, he then decides if it is worth paying someone to do it the next time. I thought about this while I was standing on that ladder. 

I still don't change my own oil.

Then I got back to work. 

In Loco Parentis

 You may recall that there was a bit of a dustup within the dustup that is the former game show host's hush money trial. There was a fuss raised about a certain high school graduation and whether or not the accused would be allowed a day away from the proceedings to attend his son's high school graduation. At this point I feel it is important to mention that the accused's initial progeny had received their diplomas at some point earlier, having been spawned from relationships prior to his current marriage. This was a chance for him to lavish attention on young Barron, named one might expect for the magazine. 

So, when the big day came, the proud father was there for the photo op. He summed it up like this: "For a while, the judge said you can't go to your son's graduation. There was a lot of people not happy about that. It was beautiful to watch, but when you think about what we're doing, and what I'm doing, I'm being indicted for you. And never forget our enemies want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom." He made these remarks at a dinner, not in Florida where the graduation was held, but a couple thousand miles away in Minnesota where he performed his usual fundraising rant with a few mild echoes of his son's accomplishments. The accused was the featured speaker at the Lincoln-Reagan dinner in the Twin Cities. 

For the record, the judge in the case never ruled that he could not attend, instead leaving it open to decide once the trial was underway. Yet another dog-whistle of persecution on behalf of the accused, who continues to appear on television multiple times a day, often in front of crowds at rallies and just as often in front of his sycophants who have set aside their duties in government to show their support for the man of multiple indictments. 

One of these "ring kissers" was none other than theater fan Lauren Boebert. The Representative from Colorado showed up last Thursday like so many other MAGAts to mill about outside the New York courthouse for the opportunity to be seen in the presence of their dear leader. Which isn't exactly an exclusive club, but her presence was telling from the parenting perspective. Representative Boebert's son has had a few recent scrapes with the law, but she was unable to put in any of young Tyler's court appearances over the past few weeks. She did release this statement: "It breaks my heart to see my child struggling and, in this situation, especially when he has been provided multiple opportunities to get his life on track." Back in 2020, when asked about dropping out of high school herself, Ms. Boebert said, “I was a brand-new mom, and I had to make hard decisions on successfully raising my child, or getting to high school biology class. And I chose to take care of my child.” 

Four years later the focus seems to have shifted yet again. To that orange sack of protoplasm who, to hear him tell it, has suffered more than any other person. Ever. 

To hear him tell it. Maybe someday Tyler and Barron will go out and have a few beers together. That would be a fun evening. 

Commence To Commence

 From small things, big things one day come. At least that's what I learned from Bruce Springsteen. That whole acorn becoming a mighty oak analogy and so forth. 

Commencement is commencing at Horace Mann once again. This will be the twenty-seventh class of fifth graders I have shepherded through six years of elementary education in these hallowed halls. I say "hallowed" mostly because in a year or so, many of these youngsters will find their way back here for a visit, and they will look around. They will inevitably land on the same conclusion: "Everything looks so small."

That, I believe is the dictionary definition of "hallowed." 

This is the crew that felt the brunt of school closures, both COVID and district-imposed. Two teacher strikes and a pandemic year of distance learning, they persevered. There is a lot of discussion to be had about just exactly how they all fared in terms of the state requirements and expectations for promotion, but there is little doubt among those who helped them on their way that they kept at it. It was not always easy, but they kept at it. 

At the end of the day, that's what really matters. The families who send their kids to our school are hoping for the best, and the circumstances that got them to our front gate vary as much as the clothes on their backs. We send them on to middle school knowing that suddenly those clothes are sadly going to affect them in ways they had not fully realized. 

And yet, they will persevere. Because not everyone at Horace Mann will be the best, but they will all try to do their best. That's something that our principal and our staff has been working tirelessly to impress on them. There is a term that has recently come into vogue in education, it's called "rising." A fifth grader who is about to head into middle school is called a "rising sixth grader." It also helps us to remember that the journey for these kids is only beginning. Maybe it ends in a corner office with a view. Maybe it ends in an apartment of their very own. Maybe it ends with the understanding that there is no end. 

Back here at Horace Mann our journey continues. Those chairs are empty, for a while. There's more kids waiting outside to fill them. 

Rising.  

Offensive Game Plan

 Is there room for woke in comedy?

According to Jerry Seinfeld, a (checks notes) comedian, “You just expected, there’ll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight. Well, guess what—where is it? This is the result of the extreme left and P.C. crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people. Now they’re going to see standup comics because we are not policed by anyone.” This is a pretty edgy take from a guy whose most recent project was a no-hold-barred expose of the invention of the Pop Tart. Made even more so by his use of the word "crap." 

This complaint is nothing new. Comedy as a function of society since the days of the court jester has been a way to stretch society's view of the world. "Say, did you ever notice the king wasn't wearing any clothes? What's up with that?" That's right, Jingles, fight the power! 

In more recent times, funny guys like Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce and George Carlin have been held up as examples of genius that should not be muzzled. Pryor's meditation on the N-word. Carlin's seven words you can't say on television. Lenny Bruce normalizing heroin use and Yiddish. These were trailblazers, pathfinders searching for the nerve of this great land and trying to land squarely on it. Remember Andrew "Dice" Clay? 

Not everyone does, but back in the late eighties and early nineties, he was at the top of the comic heap, becoming the first stand-up to sell out Madison Square Garden. With his leather jacket, slicked back hair and deliberately abrasive persona, he took America by storm. Or chunks of it, anyway. Enough to sell out Madison Square Garden. 

And then he was gone. He packed up the Diceman character and admitted that it "may have gotten out of hand" because he couldn't get work in a business that was evolving under his pointy-toed boots. He kept his career going by being the first celebrity fired on The Apprentice 2 after he referred to his "boss" as "Donny Trump." And he got a role in a Woody Allen movie. 

Make of this what you will, it would seem that there are ebbs and flows in show business, and the boundaries that were broken in seventies do not need to be broken again. Being funny doesn't mean being offensive. That's always been a risk in comedy. Not everyone can be as cutting edge as the auteur behind that Pop Tart movie. 

Gag Order

 I want to make it clear that I did not create the following headline: 

Trump Suffers Yet Another Blow on Hush-Money Trial Gag Order

That came from the editors of The New Republic. At this point in the proceedings, it is difficult to accurately surmise exactly how intentional the double-entendre was, but it does paint a big red arrow on just how salacious things have become. Any trial involving an adult film actress in New York City would get its share of stifled giggles, but this one happens to involve the twice-impeached former "president" of the United States. 

I feel it is important for historical purposes to point out that there was a rather infamous trial that ended in the impeachment of the forty-second president of the United States, a rather tawdry affair with an intern with details involving a cigar as well as a stained dress that managed to derail the post-White House career of one William Jefferson Clinton. Ugly and unseemly, it reminded us all of the failings of the human beings we place in positions of power, and how that power can be a literal aphrodisiac. For the record, Bill Clinton was found guilty of committing perjury when he lied to Congress. He was ultimately called into account for his decades of playing fast and loose with the bonds of matrimony. 

This is not the case in New York City. The matter before the court is one of fidelity to the former game show host's wedding vows. This is a matter of public record, with innuendo that seems to drip from every orange pore. Instead there is this matter of how Ms. Stormy Daniels was paid to keep quiet. It is a matter of thirty-four felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. The man who managed to bankrupt several of his own casinos in Atlantic City. The man who was, frighteningly, left in charge of the United States for a brief period of time. 

All this talk of spanking and whether or not the orange one compared Ms. Daniels to his daughter Ivanka is immaterial. 

But it's all a part of the circus we all bought a ticket to when we elected this bozo.

Let's not make the same mistake again. 

Oh The Places You'll Have To Sit And Wait

 It's an interesting thing, this commencement speech. We bring in some old guy to talk to a bunch of people we have just spent more than a decade preparing to go out and think for themselves. We have them sit in nice orderly rows in identical robes and ask them to sit still for just one more lecture. The powers that be need one last shot at getting you to conform. 

Is it any wonder that some of these young people just get up and walk out?

Like they did at Duke University last week. As comedian Jerry Seinfeld took the stage there he was roundly booed and a stream of freshly minted graduates showed their disdain for his newfound stands against woke culture and Israel's war in Gaza. Jerry did not show up as the hip voice, ready to rap with these kids. He showed up as a relic of another time. He was, to put it mildly, a rerun. 

Then there was the address given over the weekend at Benedictine College, a liberal arts school in Kansas. They were able to line up local football hero, Harrison Butker of the world champion Kansas City Chiefs to talk to their graduates. When I say that it was a liberal arts college, I suppose I should include the other modifier: Catholic Liberal Arts College. I will pause here only briefly for you to ponder just what a Catholic Liberal Art might be. If that image is not already fixed in your mind, let me share with you some of the wisdom laid down by Mister Butker: “While COVID might have played a large role throughout your formative years, it is not unique. The bad policies and poor leadership have negatively impacted major life issues. Things like abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia, as well as a growing support for the degenerate cultural values and media all stem from pervasiveness of disorder.”

He addressed the women in the crowd directly: "I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolic lies told to you. Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world."

Congratulations on that college degree sweetums, now back into the kitchen with you!

All of which points to that most misunderstood notion: free speech. Sure, you get to sit out on the football field in the sun for an hour or two, listening to words that will soon be part of your past, but they aren't free. Cap and gown rental ain't cheap. And then there's the tuition paid and airfare to get your parents there to listen to this drivel. 

Say what you want, but I hope these kids won't turn around in ten years and want to lecture the next generation about how they ought to be. The speech is over. Go blaze your own trail. 

Spam, Lovely Spam

 Hello and thank you for tuning in. Again, or for the very first time. If you're a newbie, this might not mean so much but this little spot o'blog has been operating from this corner of Al Gore's Internet since May 6, 2005. It has been a daily occurrence since May 9 of that year. Once a day, just like a multi-vitamin. Unless you forget and then you have that rundown feeling all day until it occurs to you that you forgot to take your vitamins and now it's already past dinner and taking a vitamin after that seems a little ridiculous since you're gonna just get up tomorrow and do it all over again, right?

Except I haven't forgotten. Something has been here, waiting for those anxious to find out what sort of hijinks I might be up to over here in Entropical Paradise. A quick check of the stats suggest that I have even, on occasion, been known to publish a bonus blog or two over the course of a year. So here I am, congratulating myself once again for making the effort to grind out a page or so of what we here at EP Central hope is worth the time you spend reading it. 

All of which brings me to the topic for the day: Censorship. Happily, I have pretty much had my way with the words I cobble together here and while I have run afoul of a feeling or two, the benevolent owners of Blogspot have let me be. It's been a pretty good relationship for all these years, with nary a whisper of a complaint on their part, leaving little for me to complain about as far as my relationship with my cyber-landlords. 

But a few years back, my wife got it into her head that it would be nice for some of those folks who like their daily feedings to come through one tube, she created a Facebook page that would serve up your daily dose of Dave without having to go looking all over Al Gore's Creation to find it. Which was a very thoughtful thing to do, since I have avoided making regular trips to the Book of Face when I could avoid it myself. 

And that was fine. Until somewhat recently, when the Robot Overlords decided that some of my content was violating a Meta protocol that seemed aimed squarely at my prodigious output. It was determined by Mark Zuckerberg's monitoring software that I was generating spam. Because I was posting every day. Something must be wrong with that. Nefarious. Annoying. Conspiratorial. They blocked two different posts, so if you're one of those who prefer to have your Entropical Paradise to come to you with a piquant of Facebook, you may have missed me prattling on about feeling burdened by the media coverage Kristi the Puppy Killer was receiving, And back in April I was wondering about the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Columbine shooting. Mark's robo-minions felt that I was generating spam then too. 

Not the ones in between. Or the ones before that. Something about the way I hit the keys on those occasions set off an alarm. It would be flattering to think that there is someone whose job it is to read every single one of my blogs to determine their worthiness for Facebook. But we know that that would be ridiculous. Who has that kind of time? 

Well, dear reader, it would seem that you do. And I appreciate you for not reporting me. 

Cinema? We're Making Movies Here!

 The King is dead. Long live the king.

Last week Roger Corman, self-proclaimed King of the B Movies passed away at the age of ninety-eight. But not without leaving great giant footprints which so many others would follow. Academy Award winning director Ron Howard, after becoming tired of playing second fiddle to Fonzie on Happy Days went to work for Mister Corman and made a little film called Grand Theft Auto. That was back in 1977. In 2002, he won best director and best film Oscars for A Beautiful Mind. As a producer and director, his films have grossed more than six billion dollars. A pretty nice run for a guy who started by making a low budget comedy with car chases. 

Francis Ford Coppola, the man who brought us The Godfather saga, Apocalypse Now and helped spawn the careers of so many other filmmakers got his start directing a little slice of horror called Dementia 13. He got this job from Roger Corman. Francis has seen fit to pay it forward, helping to launch the career of his pal George Lucas in addition to putting out a very nice Cabernet Sauvignon. 

Did you like Silence of the Lambs? The director of that movie, Jonathan Demme won an Academy Award for it. All made possible by his early work at American International Pictures for, you guessed it, Roger Corman. He showed up on the scene in 1977, not unlike Ron Howard, with a little car crash movie called Breaker, Breaker! Mister Demme is also the director of one of the greatest concert films ever made, Stop Making Sense, and also a little movie called Philadelphia. Not bad for a "cult director." 

The list goes on, but I think my favorite bit of the Roger Corman legend comes from 1963. After directing a lavish, by Corman standards, adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, he realized he still had horror legend Boris Karloff under contract for two more days. The slated golf outing was put off because of bad weather, and so using the left over sets along with the estimable talents of another protege young Jack Nicholson, the gang set to work fabricating a feature film over the weekend. The result was The Terror, If you have an hour and twenty-one minutes to spend trying to unravel the somewhat nonsensical plot I can almost guarantee you will want an hour and fifteen minutes back. 

But such was the genius of Roger Corman. The list of folks who began their trip to Hollywood working for him is immense. Robert De Niro, Joe Dante, John Cameron and the ubiquitous Dick Miller all got their start thanks to the King of the B's. To say that Mister Corman stomped on the Terra might be selling his influence a little short, but since we're on a budget, let's just say that he will be missed. For a long, long, time. 

Snapshots

 Twenty-seven is a kind of nowhere birthday. 

Not that this will stop us all from celebrating my son's most recent trip around the sun. We gathered this past Sunday, coincidental to Mothers Day since so much of that event had an essential bearing on the whole birthday thing. There was a cake. There were presents. 

Then he went home.

To his house. 

But it wasn't always that way. We used to get up early and stay up late. I came home from my work as my first year as a teacher was winding down just in time for putting together his green riding tractor. There was a room full of the kids from across the street, all of whom were older and ready to have a hand in the care and feeding of our one-year-old. And have some cake and ice cream. 

Subsequent years had a similar theme. The cakes became more elaborate, and the wheels became more complex. The guest list changed as he grew. Eventually he started having a say about who was invited. Then one day it was announced that he would be going out. Thanks for the cake. And the presents. But I'm going to meet some friends. By this time the wheels had become motorized, and the addition of a driver's license expanded his world. 

And shrank mom and dad's. Just a little. Now don't think that there's a trace of bitterness in this. I fully understand. Birthdays with your parents tend to skew almost immediately into "remember when" territory. Just like I am doing right now. But since the whole goal of raising a kid is to have them grow up, this development shouldn't come as any sort of surprise. 

Yet I can't help but remembering my son's life as a series of snapshots. Age five. Age ten. A series of cakes that continued to press the bounds of creating with sugar and eggs and flour. The bikes. The Legos. The parties in the back yard. 

But my son's life no longer fits in our back yard, much to his parents' chagrin. We raised a clever young man who has a world to whom he needs to be introduced. If you see him, tell him we said Happy Birthday. He's really quite a guy. 

Make A Monkey Out Of Me

 Another Planet of the Apes movie is now showing at a theater near you. Perhaps you may have seen some of the promotions. If not, I am here to let you know that the saga of intelligent apes has now reached the ten-film plateau with no real sign of slowing down. 

Now you probably want to know if I will be buying a ticket. This one is an itch that I have been scratching, hard, since before there were ever Wars in the Stars. I grew up with Zira, Cornelius and their pet human Taylor. I sat transfixed as the budgets were throttled back with each new iteration until we were left with a weekly live-action TV series on CBS. Then quickly after the show's mid-first season cancellation, a Saturday morning cartoon was the last-ditch effort to catch on to those hard-core Apes fanatics who were willing to lap up those thirteen half hour episodes. 

And if you believed that this beaten horse was dead, pardon the non-simian metaphor, you were wrong. Tim Burton, whose sensibilities often crossed paths with mine, brought us what was at the time a new notion: A Reboot. Tim's magic was not enough, or perhaps too much, to revive the story of a future where those intelligent apes end up making many of the same mistakes as their human forbears had made. Almost as ironic as, spoiler alert, finding a Statue of Liberty half-buried in the sand. It might have had something to do with having Marky Mark Wahlberg cast as an astronaut. Or maybe it was just time for this once clever notion to die. 

Meanwhile, Twentieth Century Fox was becoming a nostalgic notion itself in the new century. Thirteen years ago, Rise of the Planet of the Apes came along, with its CGI chimps and orangutans and gorillas, with Andy Serkis using all his motion-capture performance skills to bring us an ape for the digital age. It made almost half a billion dollars in its theatrical run. 

Spawning the now oh-so-familiar series of sequels just waiting out there for when the bottom line at Fox gets a little red. 

Because Dave will pay to see it, right? 

Formulaic dystopian future flicks are my bag. Don't hate me for it. 

There's plenty of other reasons to hate me. Like giving away that Statue of Liberty thing without a spoiler alert. 

With Much Appreciation

 It's a celebration of mother. Not unlike the celebration of the celebration of teacher that I experienced this past week. The conversation out in front of the school at the end of the day started something like this: "When they have a day of appreciation for your job, they're definitely not paying you enough." Not that we teachers didn't end up feeling appreciated by our principal. There were donuts one day, nachos on Tuesday, cookies another. We were awarded nice cards with little tchotchkes attached to remind us of the value she places on our work. 

But all that attention got me to thinking about Mother's Day. We set one day aside each year to give out flowers and cards and housewares to show our appreciation for the one who brought us into this world. 

Once a year. There's something a little off about that math. Each day on earth is a gift from mom to you. Why is it that we pick this one Sunday to be the day we show our appreciation for the gift of life? Some might argue that the appearance of Father's Day just a month later cheapens the moment just a little. 

Not that fathers don't deserve their own day in the sun. 

But mothers? How about those nine months of carrying you around while doing their daily chores, and then once you appeared she still ended up carrying you around only now it was in her arms, making those chores even more challenging. Yes, I believe that sending along a bunch of posies to the woman who picked you up and kept your life in order while hers became quantumly more challenging is the least we can do. 

The mother of my son continues, all these years after that initial spark of "hey, let's have a kid," devoted to the life she brought and nurtured through preschool and served as room mother and eventually PTA President once he landed in high school. She checks up on him. She wonders how he's doing. There's always a sense of relief when he gets home safe. 

Always. Even though his home is far away now. These are the ties that bind, to borrow a sentiment from Bruce Springsteen. Make some time to stare with wonder and awe at your mother, wherever she may be. What she has done is amazing. 

And always will be. 

Change Of Season

 The grass on the hillside is growing high, partly because of the season, but also because the buildings and grounds crew for the district are taking the same tack that many of the rest of us are: The year is almost over. Currently, if a ball was errantly kicked up into the standing weeds above our playground, we would have to put a picture of it on milk cartons in hopes of finding it before next fall. 

The flurry of standardized testing that is taking place is another sign of the creeping close of the school year. Everyone's skills and capacities are being measured one last time in hopes of defining a line that creeps up from left to right. See kids? You haven't just been taking up space for the past one hundred eighty days or so. 

You learned something. 

If they started the year without a sense of letters or numbers, hopefully they have more now than when they first took a seat in their classroom. In between calls for quiet and fire drills and copious amounts of recess that were extended by extra trips to the bathroom or water fountain or leaving early or not coming to school at all, the arrow somehow ended in the up position. 

Just before we turn them all loose again for two months with our fingers crossed that the inevitable "summer slide" won't set them back too much once the call goes out for them to return to these hallowed halls. 

All of this was accomplished during a year that we had at one time been asked to close our doors. No classes. No recesses. No balls kicked into the weeds. All of these kids would have been shuffled up and dropped into different schools with different teachers and all those new faces. 

And who knows how tall the grass might have grown on those hillsides?

I can complain about how things went down this school year. We have a lot of work left to do with the kids that come back next year. One hundred and eighty days to try and squeeze it all in, give or take. 

Mostly give. 

Fashionistas

 A few mornings back, I had a choice of headlines: Israel seizes control of Rafah border crossing, and See what all the stars wore at the Met Gala. 

On the one hand, I am always fascinated by the world of fashion. 

On the other hand, I am always fascinated by the world of war. 

A tough choice that. 

Essentially, it all comes down to the way I want to approach the coming Apocalypse. Do I want to know when the missiles are coming, or would it be better to dance while Rome is burning? In this particular model, Rome will be the United States. The missiles might come from Russia. Or North Korea. Or Pakistan. Or some corner of the planet that decides to up their game when it comes to those vague "Death to America" threats. 

Why would anyone on this musty old planet of ours wish harm to us, or in this case, U.S.? How about the strained opulence of events like The Met Gala? While so much of the rest of the globe is starving or shooting at one another, celebrities assemble on the first Monday in May to prance about in fantastic costumes in hopes of raising money to fund the part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's (checks notes) department of fantastic costumes. Individual tickets to this event are prices at seventy-five thousand dollars. Each. 

Competing for my attention on the morning after the big costume party, or rather the big expensive costume party, were photos of the whimsical creations of designers who create outfits to be worn for one night and tanks rolling into Rafah. The line was blurred briefly by the appearance of protesters outside the Gala, but they were kept blocks away from the event by police blockades ready for anyone who might try to crash. 

Or blow up. 

And the division between fantasy and reality was maintained for one more night. 

Sleep tight, America. 

A Long Time Ago

I hope the Fourth was with you. 

Lisp notwithstanding, I vicariously enjoyed the fabricated holiday celebrating the Star Wars franchise. This experience stemmed primarily from the time I spent in front of my computer looking at clips and memes created by the legion of superfans and snarkmeisters alike. Star Trek fans especially seemed to delight in poking fun at the relative newcomer to the space opera scene. 

Then there was the fifteen minutes my wife and I watched The Empire Strikes Back. I was reminded once again of the ride we all went on starting in May of 1977. Before VCRs. Before streaming. Before the wide brush now used to spread even the thinnest paste of pop culture. 

I stood in line to see Star Wars. More than once. 

By the time the prequels began to be churned out, some of the specialness of those first three bits of magic was being drained away. These films were my son's trilogy. He was taken out of school early to see The Revenge of the Sith. This was a new century and a new machine was cranking these stories out from a galaxy not so far away. 

It would be another ten years before The Force was Awakened. Two more features followed in quick succession and voila, the third trilogy was completed. By March of 2020, you could purchase the whole megillah on DVD and watch all nine with just a break now and then to cool off the machine and take a potty break. 

Around this time the owner of all this intellectual property began to spin off additional splinters of story through a magic portal that allowed many of us to binge stories from a long time ago that were fresh and new. 

Not everyone showed up at this new galactic trough. My wife and I, from a generation that was much more prepared to wait chose to let our son keep us apprised of any new developments out there. The kids at my school started showing up with Baby Yoda backpacks and Mandalorian water bottles. 

I could remember when Yoda was an old Jedi, not a baby. My "you kids get outta my yard" button was pushed and the wonder that I felt all those years ago was harder to access. 

Not impossible. Just a little more difficult. 

What did it take to bring it back? Those fifteen minutes of Empire, when Han tells Leia, "You like me because I'm a scoundrel. There aren't enough scoundrels in your life." Suddenly, there I was, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."

After Effects

 Okay. 

I've had enough.

Turn them off. 

Turn them all off.

All the cameras. All the microphones. Stop recording these imbeciles for playback later. Are we really expecting that the level of discourse will suddenly shift and the rumored moral center will return? 

Let's start with America's Mayor, or at least that's how he used to be known. Rudy Guiliani recently announced that Saturday Night Live “got intimidated of saying anything that might be suggestively racist,” which, he says, is racist “in itself.”

Get it? Okay, blah blah blah First Ameendment he can say whatever he wants to. But do we have to listen? Stick microphones in front of him? 

Care?

Then there's the ASPCA's poster person for all the wrong reasons, Kristi Noem. After spending a week defending the release of her upcoming memoir, titled with supreme irony No Going Back, she landed on a number of different chat shows to explain why she is still in any way relevant. When asked about her account of meeting North Korea's Kim Jong Un, she said that she had been made aware that there were several edits being made for inaccuracies but stopped short of saying that as senator or governor of South Dakota that she had never met with the Beloved Leader of a communist country. Then when she was asked about the remarks she made at the end of the book about coming after Joe Biden's dog Commander. "Say hello to Cricket," she enthused in her book referring to the fourteen month old dog she shot and killed. Rather than back off the canine American tumult she had created, she doubled down: “Joe Biden’s dog has attacked twenty-four Secret Service people. So how many people is enough people to be attacked and dangerously hurt before you make a decision on a dog,” Noem told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “That’s the question that the President should be held accountable to.”

The question I have for CBS News and every other media outlet: Can we just stick a metaphorical fork in this one? She's done. 

After Class

 There are moments when my teaching momentum gets waylaid by some little thing. Then there was this moment last Friday. 

Some fifth grade boys were taunting one another, as fifth grade boys will, as turns were being taken during a PE challenge. As one of them was getting up, I heard another say this to his friend: "Dirty Jew."

Suddenly, the rest of the class disappeared and I could only see this eleven year old sitting in front of me. Just as abruptly, he was aware that I was staring directly at him. The disjoint was as powerful as the feelings that rushed through me. I had become familiar with the overly casual use of the "N word" by students at our school. I had a prepared speech for such occurrences. But this one? I didn't have a quick response. 

Which is when the rest of the class came back into focus. The boy to whom the epithet was delivered didn't seem to have noticed or cared what his pal had called him. So I made a choice to move on, but not without taking this young man aside and letting him know that we would speak. After class. Not enough of a gesture so that the rest of his classmates would get all Jerry Springer about it, but the message was sent: After class. 

When I sent the rest of the fifth graders off to recess, I was glad to see that one didn't need to be reminded to stay behind. I started by double checking, "Did you say 'dirty Jew?'" I wanted to be sure.

I was relieved when there was no wide-eyed denial of what was said. Instead, there was a sad shrug of the shoulders, as his gaze turned to the ground between us. 

"Do you know what that means?" 

He looked up for a moment. "Yeah." Then a pause. Then, "No." 

"You know it's not nice." His eyes went back down. "It's a mean thing. A very mean thing." I went on to deliver the quickest version of the Holocaust I could, reminding him that hate of any kind was not okay. Muslim. Christian. Jew. Boys. Girls. Black. White. Brown. Rich. Poor. Fourth grade. Fifth grade. I wanted him to get that his casual diss of his friend had roots that were historical. And tragic. 

I have known this kid since Kindergarten. I know that he had no understanding of what was coming out of his mouth beyond the fact that he was repeating something he had heard one of his buddies say. So I asked him. "Where did you hear that?"

"Jason." Still looking at the ground.

Jason made sense. Jason was a kid who could assimilate that kind of put down in a school full of Latino, African-American and Yemeni students with scarcely a Jew on site. It would be a page of the scrapbook of hate that Jason was assembling for purposes that no one could fully understand. 

I waited for my young charge to meet my eye. "Let that go. There's no good in it." He nodded. "Go to recess." 

He left, leaving me with the question of how to deal with Jason. That would take a little longer than "after class." 

Your Song

 Phil Collins used to refer to "that song," the one that he performed on both sides of the Atlantic during the day-long Live Aid concert back in 1985. If you don't have a recollection of Mister Collins or his music, be assured that the term ubiquitous was coined for his presence on the music scene in the mid eighties. He was the only performer to appear both in London and in Philadelphia that day. And in case there should be any mistake, he played his signature song, "In The Air Tonight," on both sides of the pond. Phil was Elvis two years before Mojo Nixon decided it was Mister Presley that was everywhere. 

But I didn't drag you here to talk about Phil Collins. Instead, this is about a song that was endemic for me and the mix tapes I made. It started out simply enough. My high school girlfriend mentioned that a song by Jimmy Buffett from his Volcano album reminded her of one of the stories she wrote. That song was Chanson Pour Les Petits Enfants. It was a departure for Mister Buffett, known primarily for his odes to mixed drinks and the challenges of dealing with their after-effects. "Chanson" was a lullaby of sorts, and I began to slide it in to most every mix tape that I made for her, along with whatever new music I happened to be sharing at the moment. At one point, that song callously got left out of the playlist and I was asked why it was omitted. I made a point of squeezing it in from then on. On every tape. 

And there were a lot of them. 

Ninety minutes of a potpourri of the tunes of the day, with that familiar refrain just to keep it personal. 

But like so many things good, I may have overdone it. Now, in another century, listening to those tapes and converting them to digital files for posterity, it became apparent that that poor little song had suffered and withered from overexposure. With all the songs available to us in this world full of sounds and rhythms, how had I managed to crush the life out of this happy little ditty? 

I am guilty of the crime of death by repetition. It shows up in my writing, my comedy, and yes in my music tastes. I will drag out "that song" until someone says "stop." And all these years later, that request came oh-so-politely from my high school girlfriend from our past to our present, where we stay in touch and sometimes reflect on the what things used to be. Just a little embarrassed, I made note of the way I simply could not let a good thing go. 

Of course, the magic here is that I don't have to. It's always there, if I want to hear it. If I want to share it. If I want to remember that time. 

I can also push the fast forward button. There's got to be a Phil Collins song on there somewhere. 

Contemptible

 Once again, the twice-impeached former game show host is being hauled in front of a judge on charges of contempt. 

Specifically, this is the second time he is being held accountable for his statements about the judge, jury and witnesses connected to his trial in New York City. The first time he was fined one thousand dollars for each of the nine posts he made on his social media site, the always deathly ironic "Truth Social." How much truth is roughly comparable to the amount of actual socialization to be found there. Mostly this is a dumping ground for whatever rambling invective his tiny hands can muster between naps and tee times. The "really good stuff" he saves for his rallies, where he injects the faithful with his own personal brand of reality. 

The trouble is this: This is a guy who can and will continue to spread whatever bits of false wisdom he chooses to, even at one thousand dollars a pop, because he is certain that his minions will fully fund this enterprise. 

And they will come back for more. 

Instead I believe that Mister Multiple Indictments should be fined for every instance of his contempt. The way he drapes himself in the First Amendment is as repugnant as the way he embraces the American Flag. 

And the crowd cries out for more. How about the time he called for shoplifters to be shot on sight? “Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store, shot.” In his own personal brand of justice, he has called for release of those who have been convicted and jailed for their part in the insurrection of January 6, 2021. "Some people call them prisoners. I call them hostages. Release the J6 hostages, Joe. Release them, Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe." HIs tawdry complaints about the witnesses, prosecutors and jury of his initial criminal trial are just more of the same. 

Contempt. 

And the crowd cries out for more. 

Once More Unto The Breach

 Hello dear readers. It seems like weeks since we gathered together here to discuss gun violence. 

Well, let me toss another log on that fire: shootout with police.

And if that doesn't pique your interest, let's just go ahead and say four dead on the heap. Five if you count the shooter. 

How's that for conflagration? 

While attempting to serve warrants on a suspect, officers were fired upon by the now deceased suspect. Four of them were killed. Another four were injured. I don't know how this fits into the "good guys with guns" narrative, but it seems to me that the score at the end of the volley was four to one. 

Let's try this angle: The "suspect" had a rap sheet that went back more than twenty years, having spent time in prison as well as being in and out of jail during that time. His time in prison came after he was sentenced as as a felon in possession of a firearm. 

In what might feel like irony this was the same charge for which the warrant was being served when the felon with the firearm shot and killed four law enforcement officers. 

We'll just call him guilty on that last one to save on paperwork. 

Since the convicted felon is dead, it may be difficult to figure out how he came to possess a high powered rifle, a handgun, and more than five hundred rounds of ammunition. The next dance that will be interesting to watch is how gun-rights advocates choose to spin this story. For those keen on the "god-given" right to keep and bear arms may be left making excuses for the way this played out. Do those "stand your ground" laws apply to convicted felons? 

There are four families left wondering how things could have been different. Five if there were any questions from the family of the guy doing the shooting. 

And why wouldn't there be? 

Seeing Is Believing

 You might think that having all this access to information would make us smarter.

You might think that having security cameras at every corner of our planet would make us safer. 

You might think this. 

You'd be wrong. 

Let's address that first issue: With all the different and varied sources at our disposal, we should be the most well-educated monkeys on earth. Streaming this, clicking on that, flipping up and down the list of available news sources, we should certainly be able to find an objective truth into which we can sink our inquisitive teeth. Unless we simply take that first easy bit and consume it whole, never mind the tasty bits of news right next door. Which is why we now have whole articles generated to remind us just how easy it is to take whatever comes down the pike as "news."

A case in point: USA Today felt compelled to run an article letting us all know that the picture of Michelle Obama, the former first lady, wearing an anti-Trump T-shirt was "altered." Certainly the use of photoshop and other digital tools make such fakes easy enough to slip by the casual observer. Enough so that it might incite those of smaller minds to get all up in Michelle's kitchen wondering how the lady who once said, "When they go low, we go high," could trot out such a demeaning image. Well, just a click away from the denial from USA Today is another "Fact Check." This one is dated not from just a week or so ago, but from November 2023. In this one, the full journalistic power of Reuters News Agency was brought to bear on an incident involving a (checks notes) T-shirt pasted onto a photo of Michelle Obama that was passed of as "real." Do we need to reminded every six months of the existence of photo-editing software? 

And now the issue of security. if you're like me (and for the leventy-seventh time, why aren't you?) then you have noticed a proliferation of those eyes affixed or dangling from walls and lampposts on most every corner of every city. And if you happen to be the clever sort that I continue to believe that I am, you have probably surmised that we are only seeing a fraction of the devices set about for the purposes of keeping an eye on our behavior. For some this is a comfort. For others, it would seem, this is a challenge. 

Then there's the third group who have no reason to doubt that there is always someone watching but they have chosen to ignore the existence of surveillance and have gone ahead with whatever idiot schemes they have in store for an already suspecting public. 

Which presents us with a bit of a double bind: Should we believe everything we see and hear or should we assume that someone or something is altering our perception with the intent of confusing our already tumultuous reality? 

That reminds me: Did you see the video of Michelle Obama breaking into a Cybertruck? You could tell it was her because she was wearing a "Nope, Not Again" T-shirt. 

Final Exam

 Go ahead and try. I dare you. Come up with a middle of the road position for the Israel-Gaza mess.

I'll wait. 

While we're all waiting for those common sense  propositions to come flooding in, I will relate an observation made I heard over the weekend: Wait until summer vacation. In a couple weeks, campuses will empty out on their own, and the "trouble" presented by protesters at U.S.  colleges will wither on the vine all by themselves. Not that these folks won't carry their idealism wherever they go, but hanging around an empty quad when the Jamba Juice across the street is closed for renovations and your girlfriend has left for her internship at Goldman Sachs may put a damper on one's commitment to tent city. 

Again, this is not to say that there is still plenty that needs to be resolved here. My wife has pointed out to me on numerous occasions that divestment is a strategy that can be used to force governments to make changes they might not feel like making. Money, or lack thereof, has a way of changing policy when public opinion is roundly ignored. Initial calls for divestment in South Africa began as early as the 1960s but it wasn't until 1986 that the United States went all in, or all out, in response to dismantle Apartheid. 

How many years do you suppose it will take to rearrange the power structure of the Middle East? 

As I have mentioned in this space before, I appreciate all the effort that goes into finding solutions. Meaningful solutions. Not just making signs and screaming at the top of your collective lungs. While I have been typing away here I have yet to see anyone making those kind of suggestions. "Death to Zion" is not probably the best way to go about freeing Palestine. That particular crossroads of humanity has been up for grabs since civilization began, and finding a way for everyone to have a home and to live in peace will not be a quick fix. 

So take your time. This is not a timed examination. We've got all summer. But for now let's agree that killing people in the name of freedom is a pretty weak thesis. 

Darkness

 About a week ago, I wrote about Max Azzarello, the gentleman who set himself on fire outside of the courtroom where the twice-impeached former "president" was on trial for misuse of funds to pay hush money to the adult film actress with whom he had a clandestine affair while his third wife was at home with their new son. I prefaced this story with that of my father's untimely accidental death. 

I compared the ends of my father with Mister Azzerelo's and expressed my distinct lack of sympathy for this guy who set himself on fire. On purpose. At that time, I was struck more by the tragic waste of life than I was trying to imagine what must have driven a thirty-seven year old man to do such a thing. I was angry at the void left by this act of self-violence and the way it rubbed up against the pain I still feel about the way my father passed. 

It was not, as a friend and constant reader pointed out, my most graceful moment. Specifically my penultimate line: Good riddance. 

That was uncharacteristic of me in general, but not completely out of character. I continue to own that sentiment, and have not bothered to go back and edit or reframe it. It was my reaction to the moment in time. Upon further reflection, I can understand how this might have raised an eyebrow or two. Especially since I spend so much time making sense out of so many other's failings or moments of weakness. There certainly might have been a time when I can imagine that I would have made the case for this guy going out in a literal blaze of glory. I might have pointed out that this kind of high profile failure of our mental health system is the kind of thing that could bring much-needed attention to the plight of those suffering from similar afflictions. 

I might have extended my heart. 

In many ways, I failed myself and you readers out there who may be looking to me for wisdom and insight into some of the darker corners of the human psyche. Instead, I opened up the id box and let my own conflicted feelings fly without much, if any, explanation. There it was: my misanthropic snark on display for anyone to see. 

Anyone who stops by here with any frequency, anyway. This is not an apology so much as a check on what I must be thinking. I must be thinking about what happens next. So much of what I see and hear lately puts me on a path where laughter and forgetting is not the easy one to take. I appreciate the reminder that I can be better. 

Sometimes it takes a little more effort.