What's Going On?

 Coming out of the tunnel that was my union's negotiations with our school district, relieved to not having to walk a picket line in order to receive a raise that will essentially keep up with the cost of living over the next two years, I find the sound of gears out of alignment keeping me awake. 

What is causing that irritating noise? The sound of the Pentagon, the newly minted "Department of War" scurrying about trying to figure out how to spend the additional five hundred billion dollars that the head of the Trump Crime Family has demanded for its upcoming budget. This goes on top of a trillion dollars already earmarked for the purchase of guns and bombs. 

Make no mistake: These guns and bombs are no longer being used in our "defense." These purchases are for weapons of war, which is precisely why some one hundred million dollars was spent on websites and documentation for the name change. 

That and to satisfy the blood lust of a group of people who wouldn't know actual war if it landed on their heads and started to wiggle. This is a cabal of individuals clustered together to support the ego and lies of one person. They are tasked with creating enough noise to drown out all the other distractions from uncovering the convicted felon for exactly what he is: A charlatan sociopath with delusions of grandeur. 

And we get stuck paying the bill. 

I contacted both my senators and my congressperson to let them know that I consider it the highest priority for them to stop this illegal war and to remove this snake-oil salesman from office. I would encourage you all to do the same. I still cling to the belief that there are more than enough sane Americans left to turn this ship around before it becomes an uninhabitable hellscape, regardless of the pittance offered up by the powers that be to keep us on our knees. 

I want free elections. I want peace. I want to let freedom ring. 

The Price Of Peace

 My wife insists that all responsible journalists should stop using the tag "said" when printing quotes from the Orange Worst. Instead, use a universal replace with the word, "lied." 

Like all that talk about peace. The Boared/Bored of Peace requires all permanent members contribute one billion dollars in cash in the first year of their enrollment. Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan,Bahrain, Bulgaria, El Salvador, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United States, and Uzbekistan have all poinied up that big wad of cash to be part of what is supposed to be promoting global stability, restore governance, and secure peace in conflict-affected areas. Like Gaza, a place the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist once hoped to turn into "The Riviera of the Middle East." Fellow real estate developer and son-in-law Jared Kushner sits at the top of the organizational chart for this Bored, so the chances are good that there will be a championship golf course installed, aided by the countless numbers of shell craters created by the three years of nearly incessant bombing of the area. 

You may notice that there are a number of countries missing from that list, partly because they can't afford the membership fee because they are currently under attack from other invading nations. Like Ukraine. And Greenland. And Veneauela. And Iran. Those last two are "our bad," since the peace that those countries might be enjoying was disrupted by (checks notes) The Trumpstein Regime. 

The suggestion that the former game show host and owner of four bankrupt casinos will be up to the task of promoting any sort of stability seems like a stretch if not a bald faced lie. The nominal purpose of the most recent attacks directed by the Chairman of the Board of Peace was to re-obliterate the nuclear capabilities of Iran, but also managed to target key member's of that nation's leadership. Not for capture and return to the United States for trial like we did for Nicolas Maduro, but the not-so-subtle attempt of regime change via high explosives. Meanwhile, Board of Peace member Pakistan called for the U.S. attacks to stop and ”an immediate halt to escalation through urgent resumption of diplomacy to achieve a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the crisis.” Russia also took time out of their invasion of sovereign nation Ukraine to complain about the United States' invasion of a sovereign nation. 

There was no immediate response from the guy who pulled the trigger and/or the Chariman of the Bored. 

That's what a billion dollars will get you these days. 

Tent To The Ively

 At three in the morning on what was essentially the last day of negotiations before the Oakland Education Association went on strike, a tentative agreement was reached. The rank and file, myself included, breathed a sigh of relief. Yet another in a series of battles for the right to provide education to the public school students of Oakland was won. 

"Won." 

With all the asterisks that come with a beast we call "tentative." Signing on to be a part of this machine, showing up every day and providing services to the community that stretch far beyond my job description provides me the security that can be best described as "tentative." The Oakland Unified School District is not sending a car for me each and every morning to drive me to the work I do, and my salary is determined primarily as an operation of things for which I have no active impact on with the possible exception of simply showing up. Every single day. 

I will be receiving an eleven percent raise, over the course of two years. I won't probably see the whole thing since I have plans to retire before those two years are up. But it's a nice bit of news as I head off into the sunset. 

It tends to displace a bit of the trauma experienced by the announcement just a couple days before the "tentative" agreement that the district will be laying off four hundred twenty-one people in order to close the one hundred million dollar budget deficit they find themselves with. Noting that none of the positions eliminated were School Board officials. One hundred forty-four additional positions will have their hours cut. 

To save money.

To give me a raise.

This comes somewhere in the midst of an additional flurry to get as many folks in the district to retire early. I don't claim to be an expert at labor relations, but something about all of this leaves me feeling like I'm running to stand still. 

And maybe the best part of this whole transaction is that I will most likely avoid walking a picket line one more time before I actually do stand still. 

Tentatively. 

We're Watching

 Several people were involved in the invention of the microphone. Initially it was developed by Alexander Graham Bell to make his telephone more useful. That was back in 1876. A year or so later, Emile Berliner sold his patent to a more refined version of the device to Bell. Another year passed and David Edward Hughes continued to improve on these initial designs, and coined the term "microphone." Thomas Edison, who didn't allow science to move too far without putting his stamp on a carbon button transmitter that became the standard for telephony. That was back in 1886. One hundred forty-years ago. 

Video cameras began their existence as movie cameras beginning shortly after those microphone inventions. A funny science joke might be made here about how this was a case of sound traveling faster than light, but I won't bother you with that now. Instead I will let you know that those first moving picture cameras were created to capture events as they happened in "real time." The Lumiere brothers produced the first black and white document of this kind in 1895, and clocked in at forty-six seconds. It showed workers leaving the brothers' factory. It was about the length of your standard TikTok video. 

In 1895, a seventeen second film of a man playing a violin was released with sound. The first music video, brought to you by William K.L. Dickson. Practical video tape recorders were still some decades off, with the creation of the Quadruplex, created by Ampex back in 1956. 

Seventy years ago. Sound and vision.

These days, we don't need tape or film anymore. We carry around more computing power in our pockets than was used to land astronauts on the moon. Things are being recorded all the time by everyone. And left on the vast storehouse of Al Gore's Internet. 

I just thought Donald Trump should know this, since he seems to believe that nobody can remember all his lies. That's what all those lights and cameras and microphones are for, you microcephalic jerk.  

How 'Bout Them Eggs?

 Watching an interview with author A. Mechelle Dickerson on The Daily Show a few nights ago, something that was discussed stuck with me: the idea of having us all down here in the middle looking to the left and right with an eye on who is getting what and why aren't we getting the same as them. We don't tend to look up. Up there are the ones who are content to keep us fighting for scraps. They would much rather have us a scattered rabble arguing amongst ourselves about the price of eggs while up there (insert gesture here) they have plenty of eggs. Ironically enough, they who are "up there" are often given eggs in the hopes that they will recommend the eggs to those "down there" so that more eggs can be sold.

It's not about the eggs, as it turns out. 

My wife was intrigued by the number of stars being offered travel shows, with destinations that we who are in the middle will likely never see. I pointed out the frustration I sometimes feel about these excursions, since these celebrities are being paid to take these lavish expeditions while we are left at home hoping that we can afford the subscription fee it costs to watch their exploits. 

Sometimes they are served eggs on these shows. In very special ways at which we can only marvel. 

It's still not about the eggs. 

It's about working a job for decades and hoping that negotiations with the school district allow us a raise that keeps us on pace with the cost of living. In California. 

Right. Good luck with that. 

And yet, here we are once again having testy debates with a school district that struggles to pay its bills while the Second Trumpreich "struggles" to find ways to spend five hundred billion additional dollars on war. 

Five hundred billion dollars would buy a lot of eggs. 

And they all seem to have a way of finding their way up instead of spread out like you might expect eggs to do. 

Once again ladies and gentlemen: It's not about the eggs. 

Great Expectations

 Betty White was very close to one hundred years old when she died. Just another couple weeks longer, and she would have made it to a century. The comedy legend passed away on New Year's Eve 2021. Her birthday was January 17. There was quite a bit of hoopla leading up to what became essentially a non-event. Please understand that I mean this as no slight to Ms. White. I remember watching her on Password with her husband, host Allen Ludden. They were quite the pair. Allen went to that big TV studio in the sky in 1981, and in all those years after Betty never remarried. 

But she didn't last until one hundred. Bob Hope did. So did George Burns. And, as comedian Bobcat Goldthwait once observed, they kept getting funnier every minute. Mister Bobcat meant that sarcastically, but the argument might be made that Betty White experienced a renaissance in her career as she grew older, rather than simply riding on the wave that is, "Really? Almost one hundred?" Her last film role was the voice of the owner of the eponymous animated dog, Trouble, in 2019. 

I could go on and on here, but I am actually creeping toward a potentially larger point. There were those who believed that these United States might not last until its one hundredth birthday. Happily, the skeptics were wrong, admitting the great state of Colorado to that union in 1876, marking it as The Centennial State. A hundred years after that, even as the wounds of Watergate and the war in Vietnam were still healing, America celebrated its two hundredth anniversary with parades and celebrations and collectible quarters which are now worth (checks notes) twenty-five cents. 

And now we find ourselves on the brink of our semiquincentennial, a word that had to be cobbled together to pump up the importance of the pending event. Two hundred fifty years is quite a run: two and a half Betty Whites. Here's the thing: Wouldn't it be awful if we didn't manage to hang on that long? A catastrophic event of some stripe that brought about the end of our great republic? The loss in swag sales alone would be devastating, while the great nations of Europe might cough and say something along the lines of, "What a pity. And so young." 

World War. Economic Collapse. Civil War. These were the kind of scenarios that used to be the stuff of dystopian science fiction novels. Now they're all on the board as we teeter toward our two hundred fiftieth birthday. 

Or maybe we'll just die peacefully in our sleep after a prolonged Trump. 

Reckoning

 I want to reiterate my stance here and now before I begin my tirade: No one deserves to be shot. I am firm in this belief much in the same way that I am a supporter of this thing called Restorative Justice. All of the loopholes like the "Stand Your Ground" laws found in some states, including the one in which I live, No one should have to die. 

Now I hear a voice from my past, the one that shouted in my ear insisting that if someone raped and murdered my mother I would surely be locked and loaded for that individual. A pause, a deep breath, and then the question that I did not ask at that time in response, "Why would you even think of this as some kind of litmus?" Like the sickest possible version of "Never Have I Ever," a co-worker of mine whose politics skewed several degrees to the right of my own seemed to take a certain degree of pleasure mining my resolve. Eventually I replied that I would hope and expect that as difficult as that situation would be that I would rise above my simian urges for revenge and instead seek out a resolution that didn't involve taking one more life. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that my mother would back me up on that. 

So the stage is set. Now I will say that I can understand why the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has had as many attempts made on his life as he has. This past weekend a young man carrying a gas can and a shotgun attempted entry into the "Southern White House" and was shot and killed by Secret Service Agents. This brings the alleged attempts on the convicted felon's life to three in the course of less than two years. While my disapproval jives pretty consistently with the poll numbers found  in and around this great land of ours. I will say that the white guy with a gun model hasn't done much to conflate the images put out by the twice impeached "president's" handlers of Antifa assassins coming to assassinate the last best hope of making 'merica great again. 

As a a matter fact, the current occupant of the ruins of the White House has been the target of more assassination attempts than any other previous chief executive of the United States, especially when you include the envelopes of ricin sent along in that first term. It does seem as though there are quite a few people who would like the former game show host dead. 

Again, I cannot stress this enough, no one deserves to die. That is not up to us as mere mortals. The reckoning awaits, not from those with access to guns and ammo, but to a ballot. 

But more on that later...

In Charge

 I've been in charge a few times. 

I was pep band president when I was in high school. Much of my orchestrated tomfoolery became legend, at least for a compact group of individuals. Eventually all that anarchic energy proved to be my undoing. As it turns out, being the authority in an anti-authoritarian group is a pretty tight rope to walk. 

I climbed the ladder at Arby's all the way to closing manager. They gave me the keys to the register and a nice brown polyester vest. I enjoyed it as much as I suppose anyone could enjoy a job in fast food, and my managerial style was modeled on which I saw around me. Roast beef sandwiches with a side of silliness and never ask anyone to do a job, even cleaning the shake machine, if you haven't done it yourself. I came back from a week's vacation just as the old guard was being phased out, and a quick perusal of the back room showed me two things: I was not on the schedule for the next two weeks and all the amusing/gross cartoons I had drawn and tacked up around the bulletin boards had been removed. Aloha, Arby's. 

Eventually I found my way to a video store, a setting which suited my needs for a job during college: Flexible hours and plenty of time to watch movies. Friday and Saturday evening rushes were tolerable when balanced out with the doldrums of a Sunday afternoon. That was when I instituted "theme days," during which each employee was encouraged to pick a film from a particular category. Like "rubber suit monsters" or "sweatiest movie ever." We traded free movie rentals for pizza from the place up the sidewalk in the mall. A change in ownership made all that fun go away. 

I used all that experience to my advantage when a spot on the warehouse management team opened up. Turns out that I was the responsible one: newly sober and a newlywed, I was going to build a family out of the tiny margin that book wholesalers made. Until the employee-owned company expired under its own counterculture weight. 

Now, some thirty years into my teaching career, I still get asked, "Why didn't you ever become a principal?" Well, as you can see, I had my share of time wandering around with a clipboard, checking other people's work. Watching the intensity of the interactions between management and customers in this realm gave me pause. I don't shy away from student or parent connections, but I also know that somebody else has the office, and the metaphorical brown vest and keys to the register. I understand that offering someone a two-for-one coupon at an elementary school won't bring the same result that it used to get in fast food. I have carefully massaged my job description to be as helpful and supportive as I can possibly be just before taking on an actual title. 

And every so often, I get some leftover pizza. 

It's What's Inside

 They stopped selling Sugar Frosted Flakes. This doesn't mean you can't get flakes of corn covered in sugar for breakfast. You just have to buy them under the oh-so-clever name "Frosted Flakes." Now, it could be that these flakes are now coated with a mixture of kale and other superfoods, supplying your body with all the nutrients you might need for a day in the world. Or perhaps the folks at Kellogg's figured out that back in 1983 people didn't want to be reminded of all the sugar they were sitting down with Tony The Tiger to consume. 

Much in the same way Post's Super Sugar Crisp disappeared from shelves back in 1985. That cute bear in the turtleneck sweater who sounded a bit like Bing Crosby didn't go away, they just didn't call him Sugar Bear anymore. And the cereal shifted to being called Super Golden Crisp and then to just Golden Crisp in order to distance themselves from all of that added sugar. 

Which did not make the sugar go away. It was right there in the ingredients that were printed on the box. It should also be noted here that Crunchberries have seventeen grams of sugar in one cup serving, and a cup of real blueberries has fifteen, so we're keeping it real here. The cups of cinnamon Chex cereal that we feed the kids at my school for breakfast has eight grams of added sugar, and the cinnamon in the name comes along with an additional gram of fiber for our young charges. 

All of this is to make a point that this is essentially common knowledge, most of which can be discovered by simply turning the container away from the bright cartoons found on the front and back and perusing the jumble of percentages and measures on the side. 

What if the same could be said for public figures? If the label on the side of your standard politician listed the percent of racism, homophobia, pedophilia and felony convictions like we do with breakfast cereals, wouldn't that make it easier to make our choices come election time?  Let's not get distracted by the cartoons of casino owners and cosplaying former governors. Let's stick to the main ingredients. And I'm not talking about sugar here. 

A Prince Of A Guy

  “They [the police] have our full and wholehearted support and co-operation. Let me state clearly: the law must take its course."

These were the words that the King of England used to describe the situation with his brother Andrew Nottaprince. Mister Andrew, as he is currently known in Great Britain, was arrested this past Thursday on charges of "misconduct in office." It makes me wonder how many of our our own United States government officials might stand up under that kind of scrutiny. And as a certain amount of meringue on top, this all took place on Mister Andrew's sixty-sixth birthday. 

But back to this "misconduct in office" business. British law defines it as: Willfully neglecting to perform one's duty and/or willfully misconducts themselves to such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public's trust in the office holder without reasonable excuse or justification.

Again, this gives me pause. I believe this particular bit of jurisprudence could use a spin around Washington D.C. And Mar-A-Lago. And not just the whole Epstein thing, though that seems to be a great place to start. Public trust in the former game show host, who has already been convicted on thirty-four felony counts of falsifying business records. The business records that were falsified in order to obscure the payments made to an adult film star, Ms. Stormy Daniels, with whom the adjudicated rapist had an affair just after his third wife had given birth to his son, Andrew. 

Excuse me: Barron. Not a real Baron, just a name that sounds like royalty. 

Which he isn't. 

And neither is the father.

But it would seem that even royalty can be brought low when they exhibit misconduct in office. Like for example if the "person" in question was impeached. Twice. And appeared more than a million times in the dossier I like to call "The Trumpstein Files."

This is how we, in America, like to do things apparently. There have been no arrests made in the murders of Renee Good or Alex Pretti, while citizens of all sizes, shapes and colors are being snatched up off the streets of our country without anything resembling probable cause. 

There was a time when the British tabloids used to cheekily refer to Andrew Nottaprince as "Randy Andy." Maybe it's time to remember how we were all introduced to the convicted felon currently tearing down the White House and our constitution. Misconduct? Where do we begin? 

A Crack In The Ice

 What is the surest sign that a thaw is coming? 

A break in the ice. 

Not ICE, necessarily, but that's just part of the tumbledown of the once all-powerful Orange Wurst. 

On Friday the Supreme Court struck down the convicted felon's oppressive and periodically whimsical tariffs that had served as the backbone of the concept of a plan he had apparently dreamed up while taking one of his office catnaps. The highly touted one hundred thirty-three billion dollars raised from this tax on imports has long been described as a tax on consumers and not on foreign countries, but that didn't keep the Magical Misery Tour from rolling across the country spouting how other countries would pay. 

In a word, "no."

The Supreme Court, most of which was bought and paid for by the former game show host, gave him the same answer. Which must come as something of a shock to an administration that has up until now been rubber-stamped by the highest court in the land to do pretty much whatever came into its tiny, nasty collective head. Want to lock up brown people for absolutely no reason? Go right ahead. Want a new plane from your friends in Qatar? Don't mind if you do. Want to tear down a third of the People's House to build Barbie's Dream Ballroom? Sure, why not? 

At the end of the day, this is all about survival. Please don't imagine that somehow those Supreme Court justices installed in a rush by the adjudicated rapist have your best interests in mind. They'll still be able to buy the name brand of peanut butter. But what happens when the Awfulness finally recedes, and they want to avoid being removed with the rest of the cabal? The spine they seem to be exhibiting is merely a flex in the direction of keeping the job they are supposed to have for life. 

As witnessed twice prior, presidents can be impeached. Especially this one. 

And so can Supreme Court justices. 

Bye Bye Bobbie

 Hard as it is to pin down a "favorite role" of an actor who spent most of his career in "character" parts, I would have to go with Bull Meechum. You might know him better by the sobriquet The Great Santini. It was from this film that I snagged the phrase, "Hey, sports fans," when referring to innocent bystanders. It was also a starring role for Robert Duvall, who had spent decades showing up as the name just below the title. Or maybe even a little further down than that. 

Lieutenant Colonel Meechum won't probably make the finals for Father of the Year, but that was not the story. It told the story of a dinosaur stomping his way into a world that had passed him by, and the family that loves him in spite of the nasty roars and pointy teeth. This role was obscured for many by the much showier version Duvall played in Apocalypse Now, Lieutenant Colonel "Bill" Kilgore. You might remember him from his "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," speech. Very memorable, but not much of an arc.

Not everyone remembers that Robert Duvall was the original Major Frank Burns in the movie version of M*A*S*H. It seems that he spent a good deal of his career in uniform. As a cop or a military man, Robert Duvall's presence brought instant cred to most any movie in which he appeared. This might be his association with The Godfather and its sequel, which created a pedigree of sorts to which American actors could aspire. Having Bob around your set just added a little class to the production.

All that energy made it possible for Robert Duvall to extend his reach into smaller films, allowing him to win his second acting Oscar for Tender Mercies, the tale of a country music star who has left the big time. That was kind of the godfather, if you'll pardon the pun, of Crazy Heart, the tale of a country music star who has left the big time.  That one ended up winning Jeff Bridges a best actor Oscar. 

Of course, not all the films of Robert Duvall were Oscar Bait. Some were just straight up popcorn buckets, like Days of Thunder and Deep Impact. This would be expected from a career that spanned some sixty years. Mister Duvall lived to be ninety-five years old and his last screen appearance came at the ripe old age of ninety-one. How about that, sports fans?

To say that he stomped on the cinema Terra would be an understatement. There will not soon be another like him. Aloha, Robert Duvall. You will be missed. 

Punchline

 A very long time ago, in the scheme of things relating to my employment in an elementary school, I worked with a very nice lady who taught fifth grade, then second grade. She found her way to the teaching profession much in the same way I did: via the intern credentialling program sponsored by the Oakland Unified School District. She had come from the world of middle management, not unlike me, her experience being more corporate having spent years in the Hewlett Packard machine. Interestingly enough, she got her job through the same organization that recruited me. I suppose she figured if the partnership worked for me, it could work for everybody. 

And so we began a partnership, of sorts, with her classroom just a couple doors down from my own. When things went sideways, like another teacher being absent without a substitute or rainy day recess, her admonition was always the same: "Keep hope alive." 

This was some years ago, mind you, and I used these opportunities to lean on a bit that I had heard a comedian use once upon an even longer ago: "Keep Hope alive? Bob Hope is like a hundred and ninety years old, and he hasn't bee funny for a hundred and fifty of those. I think it's time we let Hope go." 

Yes, dear readers, this was a time when show business legend Bob Hope was still alive. He lived to see a few years of the twenty-first century, which I used as an ax to grind whenever anyone who was even slightly younger than show business legend would pass on. There were plenty of those. At the same time, I knew that she was reiterating a statement made famous by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, a voice that was familiar to me as well, but I could not pass up the chance to make some dark fun of the experience. 

Bob Hope went first, followed a few years ago by my friend and co-worker Brenda Mapp. And just a few days ago, the Reverend Jesse Jackson went to that big revival meeting in the sky. At least I'm pretty sure that's where they hold those things. Jesse was a civil rights leader with a passion to make things right. I know this primarily because my father was entranced enough by the Reverend to become a delegate for him at the 1984 Colorado Democratic Convention. In many ways, he paved the path for Barack Obama some twenty years later. His business was all about keeping hope alive. Jesse perhaps more than my father, but it was enough to leave a cultural mark.

One that would give me a sarcastic punchline whenever I needed it. 

My dad is gone too. 

And now I find myself asking you all to keep hope alive. 

Life is funny that way. 

Jesse Jackson stomped on the Terra. He will be missed. 

Eyes Of The Beholder

 The Olympics are on. 

The ones that take place during the winter: skiing, bobsled, luge, and plenty of ice skating. I read somewhere that this kind of thing takes place very four years or so. Recently the powers that be in Olympia, where such a things are determined I guess, decided to move the summer version of this sporting Cavalcade up by two years so some version of the Olympiad will take place every two years in an alternating fashion.

This means the swimming and running and basketball stuff will happen just about the time the average viewer wonders, "Hey, are the Olympics on this year?"

There is some sad news to report from the frosty hills of Milan, Italy where the twenty-fifth Winter Olympics are being held. Apparently there are some questions about the accuracy of the judging involved in certain events. Some of the contests have pretty clear outcomes, like downhill skiing. If you strap slippery boards to your feet and hurl yourself down a mountainside faster than the other slippery boarded speed freaks, you win. Contrastingly, there are a whole passel of events that rely on scores for style and grace which have been left to be argued about for the past hundred years or so. Like whether or not someone "stuck the landing" or if their music choice somehow didn't resonate with the finicky "experts" sitting at the edge of the rink. Lately there has been some discussion about whethere or not artificial intelligence might do a better job of discerning whose triple axle is better than whose. 

This sort of talk probably has its origins way back before there were machines that could do it, but memories of the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan debacle back in 1994 make it seem all the more likely that attempts to manipulate the scoring in figure skating are probably going on all the time. Only now the emphasis might not be on breaking your challenger's kneecaps to win the gold medal. 

All of which brings me back to the lack of patience we humans have with other humans. Leaving one of us in charge of watching a group of athletes to determine the outcome of any sporting event is a fool's errand. Referees, umpires, judges and officials of all stripes are the recipients of all manner of hate and ridicule based on their split second in the moment observations. So much so that have felt compelled to supplement their eyes and ears with electronic eyes and ears to make things "better." You can't argue with instant reply, but I'll be darned if we don't all give it a shot on a regular basis. 

Which for me begs the question: How much longer before we start sending machines out on the ice to compete so that there can be no question about the mechanics of the Salchow just witnessed? And why not fill up the stands with humanoid robots that won't boo and jeer when things don't go the way they had hoped? 

This is exactly the kind of thing that would keep Elon Musk out of trouble for a few years. 

Just sayin'. 

Sale-A-Bration

 For a while, there was a festival in the mountain town of Nederland, just up the canyon from where I grew up called "Frozen Dead Guy Days." It continues its celebration of "life" in the slightly larger tourist haven a little further up the road in Estes Park. This three day fiesta centers around the story of Grandpa Bredo, whose frozen remains were shipped to the United States from Norway back in 1989 to a cryogenics firm in Oakland, California. Eventually Grandpa was moved to Nederland, Colorado where he was cared for by locals. As much as a frozen dead guy needs care. It was in 2023 when the still very stiff Mister Bredo was moved to the old ice house at the Stanley Hotel, the inspiration for the Stephen King best seller, The Shining. 

So?

It was Grandpa Bredo to whom my thoughts began to wander as I approached Presidents Day. Most of these guys are dead. As far as I know, few if any of them were kept on ice. And yes, perhaps more to the point, these were all guys. Hopefully it won't be too long before this epithet needs some sort of inclusionary reworking, however it should be pointed out that I am one of those people who routinely refers to a group of people of various genders as "guys." 

Sue me.

But after years of celebrating the Best of the Best, Washington and Lincoln, it was decided in 1971 that we should acknowledge the dozens of guys who had held the office with the inclusion of such luminaries as William Henry Harrison, who only managed thirty-some days in the Oval Office before succumbing to pneumonia. If you're keeping score at home, he was the ninth in a series of chief executives of the United States, but even his stubborn insistence to brave the elements at his inauguration without a coat still doesn't qualify him as "frozen." Joe Biden loved him some ice cream, but his choice of dessert does not qualify him, especially since most reports suggest that he is still alive. 

Reaching Out

 This May my son will celebrate his twenty-ninth birthday. I expect that his mother and I will have something to to with that mark in his book. He will be three hundred forty-eight months old, so we may have to add a few pages to his baby book. 

Or not.

Over the past decade we have spent less time together on those actual dates of his entrée into this sphere. He has a life of his own, after all. 

But why twenty-nine, and why months ahead of the actual nativity? 

Glad you asked. I was out running around the city streets where so much of those earlier years prior to his twenties were spent. A mile or two to the east where he went to preschool. Up the hill to elementary school. Down the street to middle school. Over another hill across town to high school.  By the time he was in high school he graduated from taking the bus to driving his own car. On a line, those institutions could be visited in six miles. Returning to my running brain, I noted a vanity license plate on the back of a shiny black SUV. EKKA20. A birthday gift, perhaps. A prize for completing undergrad studies early. 

We helped our son buy his first car. Since then, he has bought, traded and swapped titles for any number of vehicles via his own wiles and automotive knowledge. I can say without fear of reprisal that I had nothing to do with those. Swapping cars with a neighbor for a weekend makes me nervous. My son has learned to negotiate and navigate the Department of Motor Vehicles, an entity I consciously avoid. 

So as our little boy rounds out his first three decades, I wonder what is left for me to give him. On trips to Target his mother and I still send him pictures of Hot Wheels and Nerf guns that we think he might like. He takes this all in with good humor and aplomb, as he charts his own course into the adult world that includes things like health insurance and appliances that just stop working. It is his parents who are now calling him for help. We try to make it sound better for us by reminding him to eat more vegetables or wear a raincoat. 

He's got this, but every so often the phone rings and my son will ask me for the tiniest bit of advice. I try not to spend too much time going on and on about how glad I am he called to ask me about whatever minor inconvenience has him stuck. I am the boy's father, after all. Why shouldn't I be impressed with the job his mother and I did getting him this far? 

Even if we didn't get him that Black SUV. With vanity plates. 

Glimmer

 My very thoughtful older brother sent me an article from what is now his, and what was once my, local newspaper. It came to them via a Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Fresno named Andrew Fiala. It suggested that the worst outcome of the "Trump Era" might be pervasive cynicism. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I stand metaphorically here today to suggest to you that this may be exactly right. 

As a lifelong cynic, I have always attempted to keep my underbelly slightly soft in the event of an actual need for human connection. I will say that potential weakness in my otherwise impermeable scoffing attitude has become smaller over the decade. I have been worn down with the seemingly exponential expansion of suffering among those who don't happen to have the same last name as the convicted felon and winner of the “undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal" award for the (checks notes) first time ever. 

Not that I was never capable of a high degree of snark before 2016, but there was always that secret wish to be proven wrong melted into my candy coating. I truly enjoyed the Obama presidency, coming as it did as a palate and spirit cleansing sorbet after the Bush years. And yes, when I cast my ballot for Kamala Harris in 2024, I truly believed that we were on our way to electing our first woman president and flushing all the rot connected to the MAGAts down the drain. 

Whoops. 

Since that last election, I have learned to expect disappointment from elected officials, courts and companies as Project 2025 has been taken as a literal handbook for tearing up the Constitution. Watching all of this, I find it difficult to come up with a different response that one hundred percent Grade A cynicism. 

Which is where I need to remind myself, and you dear reader, to remember that there still is an up out there. It is very difficult to find, but the protesters on the streets of frigid Minneapolis risked life and limb to kick ICE out of their city. 

And they prevailed. 

Each new voice from the right that begins to break ties with this broken shell of a dictator is a glimmer of hope. Each red baseball hat burned in rage and disappointment from the snake oil they were sold is a turn back toward reality. 

My older brother is not one to send out a lot of links and memes, so when he sends me something, I listen. 

I hope you do too. 

Who Watches The Watchmen?

 Apologies for anyone out there who was inconvenienced by last week's closure of the El Paso Airport. 

It might have been that alien forces had returned to nearby Area 51 to retrieve fallen comrades lost in the Secret War against Altar VII. You remember when there was all that fuss and hubbub? Not then. The time when there was all that fuss and hubbub that no one heard about?

Right. 

That was the one. 

Anyway, it seems that the Customs and Border Protection goons were in charge of the protection of our airspace and it seems as though they may have gone a little overboard on the protection part. What they assumed was Altar VII spacecraft approaching our planet from billions of miles away turned out to be four Mylar balloons. To their everlasting credit, they did so with "lasers" with weaponry recently cleared by Pete "War Pig" Hegseth during a late-night tequila binge. It could be that in his altered state, Pete may have gotten the gun before the horse, or however that old saw goes. 

Citizens of Earth! You no longer need to live in fear of an alien invasion from Altar VII or debris from some kid's birthday party. The goons can take care of that. Meanwhile if you're scared of drones being sent by Mexican Drug Cartels to mess with the airspace in and around El Paso, you're probably going to have to wait until that actually happens to see if the "lasers" are as effective on drones as they are on party balloons. 

Also, you might want to keep an eye out for any of the masked goons patrolling the streets of several U.S. cities. They might just be packing heat. Like ray gun heat. 

Sleep tight, America. 

End Of List

 I don't like kale

I don't like bananas

But I love you

I don't like fascism

I don't like oligarchy

But I love you

I don't like waiting in line

I don't like mornings

But I love you

I don't like soccer

I don't like figure skating

But I love you

I don't like four-way stops

I don't like metering lights

But I love you

I don't like poodles

I don't like hairless cats

But I love you

I don't like maps

I don't like lists

But I love you

End of list

Staring Into The Sun

 Made it to the other side. 

No more football to distract us to the mission at hand.

Wait. 

You say we need to delve more deeply into the "controversy" surrounding the halftime show? 

Puh-leeeze. 

As a football fan in good standing, having run my school's fantasy football league for more than five years and the guy who made "a deal" with Comcast to get NFL Redzone pouring into his house every fall, I figure I owe it to everyone else to tell you what the halftime show is for: 

Potty break.

Oh, I understand that the organizers of this particular extravaganza went out of their way to provide viewers with something they could be watching on MTV, if it existed anymore. I appreciate the demographic study that went into bringing Bad Bunny to the nation's TV screen. And I applaud Mister Bunny on his showmanship. I do wonder just a bit about how this episodic montage appeared from the seats in Levi Stadium, but that's not the point.

The point is for thirteen minutes, the ax we all felt the need to grind was about the most streamed artist on this planet was given a showcase for his music and brought along some special guest stars. And he had the temerity to sing in a language other than English.

A side note here: Rolling Stones' front-man Mick Jagger has allegedly been singing in English for several decades now, and when his band played the Super Bowl XL in 2006 I didn't catch a word. And, if I may point out still further, Mick and his crew are not U.S. citizens. 

Bad Bunny is.

But for those thirteen minutes, the singing, and dancing and fireworks made me forget about the Trumpstein Files.

Almost. I felt no compulsion to peek in on the "alternative" halftime show, just like I didn't switch to the Puppy Bowl. I was there for the spectacle. 

And the potty break. 

Whimsical

 Would you buy a used space shuttle from this man? 

The world's only paper trillionaire has decided to scale back his plans from colonizing Mars to building a city on the moon. 

In my head, I started picturing Space X employees working the phones and knocking on doors, not unlike Glengarry Glen Ross, trying to sell investors on how great this change will be for them, even though the moon is much closer and already has a certain amount of debris left there by previous landings that will need to be cleaned up before the tennis courts go in. That's a difference of thirty-five to one hundred forty-five million miles, depending where the moon is in its orbit around the earth. And, as previously mentioned, the moon is kind of played out. 

More than fifty years ago Apollo missions landed humans on the moon's surface where they picked up rocks, drove around in a moon buggy and played a little golf. That last bit might be enough to get the Mar A Lago crowd excited, but I'm not sold. 

As I have mentioned here previously, I am immediately suspicious of any vehicle Elongated Mush is selling for fear that they might explode. Add to that the lack of oxygen during the trip and once you get there there won't be any atmosphere so you'll be subject to whatever price Mister Mush decides to charge you. And hitchhiking back to earth seems like a stretch. 

It was just six years ago when everyone's favorite nearly-human insisted that he would have human beings landing on Mars right about this time. Since then, he's been "busy." Getting his pal the convicted felon into the White House so he would be encouraged to take a chainsaw to parts of the government that he wanted to mine for data as well as giving up interest on saving the planet with electric cars in favor of building robots so he would have someone to talk to. 

And again, who is to say that once the first space cabins have been pieced together near Mar A Luna that Mister Mush would decide that he was really more interested in making a perpetual motion machine, leaving the colonists stranded on the moon. Just like all those Cybertruck owners who decided to take their new vehicle to a car wash. 

Dare To Be Great

 Someone online made this observation: "Remember when Sarah Palin was the dumbest person in politics? Good times."

This got me to thinking about this whole "Make America Great Again." It sounds like a boast, but I have decided it is actually more of a dare. 

If you believe that those we entrust to guard and defend our Constitution and Institutions should be subject to the same laws that the citizens who vote for them are, Make America Great Again by getting rid of the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. 

If you believe that America is the land of opportunity and that as a nation of immigrants we should welcome the tired, the poor and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, then the dream that this country has always embodied isn't just for a select few. Make America Great Again by ending the persecution of those who have come here for many of the same reasons all those boatloads came before us. 

If you believe that politicians are elected for their capacity to bring a better life for their constituents and not to feather their own beds, then Make America Great Again by getting money out of politics and stop pretending that corporations are people. 

If you believe that convicted felons have no place in our government and anyone bragging about the results of their cognitive test is already past their use-by date, Make America Great Again by voting for those who will usher hope and change and not business as usual. 

If you believe that health care is a right and not a privilege and that women should make decisions about their own bodies, Make America Great Again by making health care affordable and free of judgement from those who pretend to know.

If you believe this truly is the land of the free and the home of the brave, Make America Great Again by being both. At the same time. 

I dare you. 

Starfleet General Order 1

 Hear me out: I believe this all started with the distress call from Sigma Iotia II. When the Enterprise arrived, they were told that the inhabitants of that planet had knowledge of the Federation's exploration ship, Horizon, lost some hundred years before. This Iotian, Bella Oxmyx, suggests that a team from the Enterprise beam down to the surface so that he can hand over the information personally. Chief Science Officer Spock reminds the Captain that this could lead to a violation of the Federation's Prime Directive that prohibits its members from interfering with the natural development of alien civilizations. Though exceptionally imitative, the Iotians lack many of the components of a culture that would allow them to achieve warp speed and interplanetary travel. Their culture seems based primarily on gangster movies from the 1940s. 

Not to belabor the point to those of you who have seen A Piece Of The Action, but the gangsters of Sigma Iotia II eventually get some sort of order impressed on them via the manipulations of the wily Captain of the Enterprise, much to the chagrin of Mister Spock. Then once the crew is safely back aboard the Enterprise, satisfied with their handling of the situation, it is revealed that Doctor McCoy has left his communicator back on the planet. From the basis of the technology found in that communicator, it is feared that eventually the Iotians will find their way more abruptly to space travel, and warp speed. From there, Kirk imagines it's only a matter of time before the Iotians show up asking the Federation for a piece of their action. 

And what I'm suggesting here, expanding briefly on plot points found throughout at series subsequent iterations that were spawned from Star Trek that it's only a matter of time before the Iotians can figure out how to travel in time as well as space. And somehow, the ancestors of Bella Oxmyx and his kin found their way back to Earth in 1947 where they influenced the birth and raising of their spawn here who would eventually become a real estate tycoon and game show host. 

And eventually find his way into the White House. 

It's the only explanation that makes sense. 

Dog Whistle Or Air Horn?

 "This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public."

These were the words the spokesmouth for the "president" of the United States used to explain away the video the convicted felon and still only twice impeached pedophile in chief posted on his "Truth" social media account. The post depicted the superimposed faces of Michelle and Barack Obama on the bodies of two apes. The fake outrage of which Ms. Leavitt spoke was the voices calling the images racist. 

Once again, it should be pointed out that the mild cleverness required to create such a meme is beyond the seventy-nine year old former game show host. It is not, however, beyond his capacities to mash on the "repost" button. And it is definitely not beyond the capacities of this despot to make or promote racist images or commentary. This is a cretin with limited understanding for world beyond his tiny fingertips, but what he knows is that his slavering minions seem to go for this kind of thing in large ways. 

Of course this kind of thing tends to play in the background while Nero fiddles and Rome burns. The Pressed Secretary has a full time job making excuses for all the somethings "actually matters to the American public." As proven time and again with this herd of cretins and their nominal "leader," the bar that was once set to be cleared above now required a trench of some depth be dug into the ground in order to find it, let alone get over it. 

Because getting over it is not what we should be doing. Each day's outrage is a reaction to the poison being spewed by the deranged Cheeto knocking things down across our nation's capital. He is attempting to sue the IRS and the Treasury department for ten billion dollars. An economist who happens to know about such things was asked where the money for such a decision might come from and the answer that most viewers of Schoolhouse Rock could probably come up with was easy: The American Taxpayers. 

Meanwhile, I don't expect the Obamas to get into a battle of wits with an unarmed racist. I will point out that Michelle's documentary has a ninety-three percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Melania's has yet to break out of the single digits. Barack has a Nobel Peace Prize. With his name on it. 

I could go on and on, but I have to prepare for today's outrage. 

SportsBall

 Hey sports fans!

If you read this sentence it means you're not my younger brother because he's pretty decidedly not a sports fan.

He did, however, accompany his idiot brother to San Francisco ten years ago to soak up all the festive goings-on in Super Bowl City. That was just up the road from where the actual game was going to be played in Santa Clara. To be completely transparent, the San Francisco Forty-Niners played on the outskirts of the city from which the team took its name, some sixteen miles from the center of all that truly is San Francisco. Cable cars. Rice-a-Roni. 

Candlestick Park was not where I dragged my sports agnostic brother ten years ago. Instead we took a BART train under the Bay and wandered up to the surface to see armed guards patrolling the streets. The Streets of San Francisco, a Quinn Martin Production. Recent terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino had created a heightened sense of imminent danger surrounding special events. 

Like the Super Bowl. 

But once we were inside the relatively friendly confines of the armed perimeter, we found the carnival-like atmosphere of Super Bowl City to be every bit as consumer-driven as we might have expected. The whole area was bathed in a soft blue haze brought on by the pervasive beer sponsor, Bud Light. We encountered many different opportunities to both stand in line and give up ridiculous amounts of cash to experience standing in line and giving up ridiculous amounts of cash. 

Eventually, after only being separated half a dozen times by the milling throng, I made my way to the one attraction that truly held my interest: wading through a sea of like-minded individuals to get a chance to buy my Official Super Bowl Fifty baseball cap. At this moment, typing those words, I understand the full absurdity of buying a baseball cap to support my favorite football team, but that's how we learn. 

Sometimes it takes a full decade. Sometimes it takes just a few sentences. And if you happen to see my younger brother, let him know that I was thinking about him. 

Discontented Winter

 Way back in the winter of '25 I attended the Eagle Court of Honor for my brother-in-law's girlfriend's daughter. She had attained scouting's highest honor, and I appreciate the time, energy and commitment it takes to do anything outside of getting to class on time in high school. Wilderness adventures like the ones I heard described during the ceremony are the kind of memories that last a lifetime. 

Not that I would know. I was an Indian Guide. This was a father and son organization formed under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association. YMCA for those of you who like your acronyms set to the Village People. There wasn't as much wilderness retreat as there were hanging out in friends' living rooms eating brownies and making craft projects. My older brother gave the Boy Scouts a try, making it all the way to First Class. This required a weekend sleepover camp, and I wasn't having any of that. I'll stick to my brownies and soup can rattles, thank you very much. 

Back to the winter of '25: I was struck by the amount of pomp and pageantry involved, and then at the length of the tangents the scoutmaster was able to spin. Later, once the presentations had been made, there was some discussion of just how recently the Boy Scouts had dropped the "boy" and started letting girls in. This change came about officially in 2019, so given the time it takes to earn all those merit badges, what I had witnessed was still a pretty fresh experience. 

Insert doom chord here.

Now Secretary of War and Cocktails Pete Hegseth wants Scouting to return to "common-sense core values." Pentagon Spokesmoron Sean Parnell burbled the following statement: “For more than a decade now, Scouting America's leadership has made decisions that run counter to the values of this administration and this Department of War, including an embrace of DEl and other social justice, gender-fluid ideological stances. This is unacceptable.”

So unacceptable, in fact, that the War Pigs are considering cutting funding to Scouts unless they start providing "boy friendly places" once again. Maybe they were unaware of the precedent set back in 1971 when Marcia Brady decided to join Greg's Frontier Scout troop. The settlement apparently involved a certain amount of Brady tit for tat when Peter was cajoled into joining the Sunflower Girls. Hilarity ensued. 

But those were simpler times. Not like the winter of '25.

What's Next?

 I suppose I should appreciate the Machiavellian manipulations of the Second Trumpreich, hopping as they do from one crisis to another like a dealer in subway three card monte game. Will it be the demolition of the Kennedy Center? How about a military invasion of Trinidad and Tobago? Or maybe taking out a lawsuit on the estate of Jeffrey Epstein for doing "political harm?"

Two of those are real things, and if you had to go back and check to see if there are warships steaming toward Port of Spain at this minute, then the scheme seems to be working. With each new crackpot revelation, the realm of disbelief grows smaller and smaller. 

Did he actually send the Federal Bureau of Investigation to the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in Georgia? And why was  Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has no authority over the FBI, seen there poking around? What could she have been talking about to her boss from the scene? 

For heaven's sake, at least the Watergate Burglars snuck into the Democratic National Committee offices at night. Not exactly James Bond, but classy by comparison. 

What was Watergate, you ask? Probably because that slice of history has been conveniently wiped from history curriculum along with any other references to Republican malfeasance before or since. 

Not to distract from the Worst's call to "nationalize" elections, “We have states that are so crooked and they’re counting votes. We have states that I won, that show I didn’t win. Now you’re going to see something in Georgia where they were able to get with a court order, the ballots, you’re going to see some interesting things come out.” 

He continued, “Noah, a total loser, better get his facts straight, and get them straight fast,” Trump continued. “It looks like I’ll be sending my lawyers to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless, dope of an M.C., and suing him for plenty$. Ask Little George Slopadopolus, and others, how that all worked out. Also ask CBS! Get ready Noah, I’m going to have some fun with you!” 

Okay, it wasn't during the same rant exactly, but you've got to be quick to catch that switch...Look out Trinidad and Tobago!

Blunt Force Trauma

 I am curious, after years of discussion about legitimate use of force by law enforcement, why people are being shot, pepper sprayed, beaten and mistreated by "officers of the law."

That first part, being shot, is really a mystery since lethal force is a last resort after all other means have been attempted. For those who have received more than a week's worth training, this should be one of the first lessons learned by someone who will be carrying guns around. Private citizens who wish to carry concealed weapons in most states are required to complete a sixteen hour course before they are permitted to wander the streets with a death machine tucked in their belts. One of the things they teach in such classes is threat avoidance, de-escalation, and mindset.

For just a moment, let me step outside the gun realm and shine a light on the ethics of force. If you earn a black belt in martial arts, part of the ceremony involves taking an oath that says you will use your skills only in self defense and you will avoid conflict, rather than inciting it. 

This is with your bare hands. When they start putting guns in your hands, you had best check your head as well because there is something systemically wrong with the use of lethal force on unarmed protesters. For that matter, the use of any sort of force is uncalled for unless the peaceful protest turns violent. Time and time again the aggressors in these ICE scenarios have proven to be the over-hyped poorly trained goons who seem to be ready to bust heads long before they change minds. 

Former Border Patrol commander in Minneapolis Greg Bovino regularly exhorted his troops in his SS trench coat chanting slogans such as "Whose streets? Our streets!" looking for a place to toss tear gas cannisters, including a preschool.  

Our tax dollars at work. Domestic terrorists. Born and raised paid for right here in the Good Ol' USA.

Sleep tight, America. 

Patience?

 There is an old proverb that suggests, "With the rich and mighty, always a little patience." While there is some confusion as to whether this saying originated in Spain or China, I became familiar with it while watching the seminal romantic comedy, The Philadelphia Story. Katherine Hepburn is reminding reporter Jimmy Stewart of the class divide so prevalent throughout the film. 

If only the sordid events that occurred on the private island of Jeffrey Epstein at the beginning of this century could be so blithely dismissed. 

The "secrets" behind one of the most notorious sex trafficking rings in history have been slowly leaking out since 2005 when a fourteen year old girl and her parents reported that she had been molested at Epstein's Florida mansion. In 2008, Epstein was taken into the most refined version of custody in which he was allowed to hang out in the private wing of the Palm Beach stockade. With his own security detail and was allowed to go to work six days a week. He "served" eighteen months. 

By 2011 he was registered in New York as a sex offender, and in 2016 a woman claims that when she was thirteen she was raped by Donald Trump at a party at Epstein's New York residence back in 1994. 

In 1998, Little Saint James, heretofore knows as "Epstein's Island" opened for business, where the rich and mighty were treated with more than just a little patience. All of this abuse of underage girls was public knowledge, but kept "quiet" with the assurance that it would never be used to slow the rise of those involved in the ruling class. 

The Rich And Mighty. 

After decades of keeping things "quiet," Mister Epstein was taken into custody when his private jet flew in from Paris and landed in New Jersey. This was July of 2019. Donald Trump had since been elected "president." A month later, Jeffrey Epstein is found dead in his jail cell before ever going to trial. For the past seven years the Amerian public, not the rich or mighty, have been anxiously awaiting anything that looks like justice for the victims of the "rich and mighty." Each little ugly morsel is devoured by the media and then seemingly digested without any sense of the whole picture. The money needed to keep things "quiet" has begun to run out and the evidence that could put this whole thing to rest once and for all is being doled out with an eye dropper as the crimes of those in the so-called upper class go unprosecuted. 

Enough patience. Time for the rich and mighty to be brought low. 

Yes And

 The most amazing thing about Catherine O'Hara was not that she made her comedy seem effortless. When you watched her perform, you could see the effort. And you might be amazed at how daring and difficult being that silly really was. 

Seeing her walk a very fine line between tribute and parody, her Katherine Hepburn impression was flawless in that it made the viewer consider "what would it be like if Kate Hepburn did..." It was as if she was real life intelligence channeling a spirit to take our imagination along for the ride. 

I used to stay up into the wee hours of the morning to catch Ms. O'Hara and her Canadian Crew on SCTV after Saturday Night Live had finished up. I watched Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas in the Great White North, and John Candy bursting through any and all scenes he shared with anyone else. I reveled at the wry smarm of Eugene Levy and Joe Flaherty, and the goofy charm of Andrea Martin. Eventually I was able to marvel at the kinetic silliness of Martin Short. And then there was Catherine. 

It was easy to get the idea that she had been hustled in as "the pretty one," the one who would take all the parts for the "pretty" ingenues who would be put off or frightened by the chaos that surrounded her. Not so. Catherine O'Hara could bring the goofy and her characters were always carefully drawn and often very brittle. But hysterically funny. 

Some will remember her for her role in Home Alone, a wacky tale of parents who should have been put in jail for leaving their child behind when they run off to Europe. But she was also the mom in Beetlejuice. And she was also the autoharp half of the folks duo of Mitch and Mickey in A Mighty Wind. In the midst of all the arch and sometimes sarcastic moments in this film, the pair's final number, A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow, brings an emotional catharsis to a film filled with memorable performances but none as tender as Mitch and Mickey. 

Catherine's gone now. She will be doing improv nightly somewhere in the ether I'm sure. But she won't be forgotten. She stomped on the Terra for seventy-one years and made me laugh for most of it. 

She will be missed. 

Tin Soldiers

 What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground - How can you run when you know? Ohio, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

No one knows exactly who fired the shots that killed four students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. Sixty-seven shots rounds were fired in thirteen seconds, killing students Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Schroeder, were killed and nine more were injured. Eight of the twenty-eight National Guard soldiers involved in the murders were eventually brought before a judge. They were all acquitted. 

Lawrence Shafer, a sergeant in the Ohio National Guard at the time, admitted to firing his weapon, stating he felt his life was in danger and firing in the direction of demonstrators.

"In the direction." Hold on to that. 

Event though the soldiers were acquitted, the judge said in his decision, "It is vital that state and National Guard officials not regard this decision as authorizing or approving the use of force against demonstrators, whatever the occasion of the issue involved. Such use of force is, and was, deplorable."

"Deplorable." Hold on to that as well. 

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming. Four dead in Ohio. 

Fifty-six years later, ICE soldiers and Trump is coming. How many more will have to die?

All these years later, it's time for a change. 

I leave you with the words from another Neil Young song: There’s one more kid that’ll never go to school - Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool. - Rockin' in the Free World.

What Could Go Wrong?

 Don't you worry about incipient trillionaire Elongated Mush. He might still make it to that thirteen-digit plateau, even if his plans for jury rigging the government of the United States government have fallen by the wayside. 

To get to that place where no one else can touch his wealth, the genius behind MechaHitler is hoping that it will be humanoid robots that will move his company's stock out of the red and into the black. He's asking that we put away our foolish notions about electric cars saving the planet as Tesla will stop manufacturing their models S and X in order to free up factory space to construct droids. No specific mention was made about the future of what was touted as the future, the industry punchline known as Cybertruck. Soon, we are told, those electric vehicles will be just an afterthought as Mister Mush moves on to creating an army of automatons to serve us. 

Avoiding for just a moment that a great many of Mush's projects seem to blow up and/or burst into flames, can we focus on the science fiction trope that swirls around any endeavor such as this? I would imagine that someone inside Tesla has a copy of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot stashed in a drawer in their desk, next to some twelve-sided dice and a few Rush CDs. Or maybe one of the flesh and blood employees has spent the ninety minutes it takes to watch Westworld. The movie, not the HBO series that would take far too much of their precious time. 

We could spend time here discussing the merits of the HBO version versus the 1973 original, but the sentiment expressed in Michael Crichton's amusement park gone nuts follow-up, Jurassic Park stand as a reminder to all of us when we start putting too much trust in our droids. “Yeah, but John, If the pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists." That was Ian Malcolm, an expert in chaos theory, speaking to John Hammond whose clever idea to turn dinosaurs loose on a remote island turned out rather poorly for many of the invited guests and spawned a seemingly endless number of sequels. Very rich people seem to have a penchant in these movies for messing with the defined order of things in order to expand their wealth by bringing about the aforementioned chaos. 

Judging from the track record of Mister Mush, I would expect things to head in the direction of cannibalistic pirates. Or maybe he's hoping that by making a legion of humanoid robots he can finally build something he never had: a friend. 

Here You Are Again

 Most, if not all of the things I am telling you are not news. I am no reporter. I am a filter. 

I believe that everyone who reads more than six words of Entropical Paradise gathers this in. The most obvious reckoning of this is the way it takes three days for "current events" to show up here for your reckoning. This digestive cycle allows me not only the chance to stay ahead of the daily demands of writing a daily demanding blog, but also gives us all a chance to reflect for ourselves on what is laid out here for readers to consume. Once it creeps inside your brainpan it's entirely up to you, dear reader, to choose what those freshly fired synapses do. 

You might nod in quiet agreement. 

You may wonder where I get the impressions that I serve up. 

You may skip to the end just to see if I ever stop talking about my marginally misspent youth. 

I do not expect to change any minds here. The evidence I present is primarily of the "have you heard" variety. I understand that this is the choir to whom I am preaching, and I don't expect any actual blowback when I say that the pedophile-in-chief ought never to have been elected in the first place and the effort it will take to remove him from office is wholly out of scale with the seemingly effortless way he slid down that escalator into our political lives more than ten years ago. This event alone should have shown the convicted felon up for what he is: A grown man afraid of stairs. Why walk when you can ride? 

Perhaps you drop by this corner of Al Gore's Internet to see if my opinions on things have shifted in some dramatic fashion. This might be disappointing for you. If instead you stop in to see if you want to hold the ax while I grind, then we've got a pretty good thing going. 

And maybe, just maybe, you're tired of reading about how much I detest the dark places this world is sliding. Which is understandable. I just write this stuff. 

I don't have to read it. 

Crossing Over

 I don't know if it was someone's pet or just a stray. Just like a year ago, when I rode past the lifeless body of a cat who had apparently made an ill-fated attempt to cross the street, I stopped. 

As I did a year ago, I moved to the sidewalk and got off my bike. Then I waited for the traffic to pass before I went out and made the worst possible rescue of a black and white cat that was not as lucky as I have been all these years on that hundred yards of High Street. It is the busiest stretch of my commute, and I try not to experience it too often during the rush of the day. The nocturnal amble this feline took didn't seem to keep him safe, and it is quite possible that whatever or whomever struck him was blissfully unaware of the collision. Radio on, thinking about the coming day, on their way to or from work.

Or simply out for a drive that ended tragically for a cat. 

I picked up the carcass and laid it on the sidewalk, only a few feet from where the end came. I thought of some words and was suddenly thrust into a world that doesn't always stop when someone dies. 

I thought of Alex Pretti, and how a nation stopped for him when he was struck down. I wondered, not for the first time, how many others had been abused, beaten, tortured and killed when there wasn't a sea of cell phones tracking the tragedies in real time. I thought of Renee Good whose last words to the officer who seconds later ended up shooting her three times in the head: “That's fine, dude. I'm not mad at you."

I'm not guessing my little Oreo Kitty friend was harboring any ill will toward the driver of the car or van or truck that stopped him in his tracks. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He used up one of his nine lives trying to get across the street. I didn't want whoever loved this cat to find an ugly mess where their pet had been. Just like I wish that those who knew and loved Alex and Renee want to believe someone or something will help them get to the place where they belong. 

Wherever that is. 

Haunted

 I read somewhere that Denver Broncos' coach Sean Payton is haunted by a decision he made during his team's loss to the New England Patriots. For those of us whose next six or seven months will be spent wondering if choosing to go for a touchdown rather than a field goal was what kept our team from a trip to the Super Bowl it's good to know that there is a conscience associated with the alternatives presented to someone in charge in the heat of the moment. Or in the middle of a blizzard. 

But I didn't come here today to discuss professional football. I will have an offseason for that. Instead I present Coach Payton's response to making a decision that did not work out well to that of the Trumpreich's various and sundry misfires over the first year of their second term at the controls of this big machine we call democracy. 

Shall we begin with the "twenty-four hours" needed to end the war between Russia and Ukraine? I don't get the impression that our Dear Leader is losing any sleep over that hyperbolic promise. Much in the same way that things in Gaza continue to deteriorate. Add to that the millions of barrels of oil that he stole from Venezuela after kidnapping their "president," or the continuing flurry of threats directed at various established world leaders who were under the mistaken impression that they were dealing with a rational human being. Spoiler alert: They were wrong on both counts. 

Then there is the domestic situation. Eggs continue to cost just a little more than they did the week before. The promised "concepts of a plan" to bring health care to Americans continues to hold little or no metaphorical water. 

And people are being murdered in the streets of our country by federal agents. The supreme irony being that this program of "enforcement" is intended to weed out the "worst of the worst." Yet another ugly reminder of looking for trouble and finding it in the mirror. His own "justice" department has driven past the deadlines set forth by law that he signed to ensure the release of all the Epstein Files. By more than a month. And no particular sense of urgency to get those accounts of sexual trafficking by our Dear Leader out in public view. 

For now we have to be content with imagining just how awful the contents of those files must be to keep stacking up invasions of other sovereign nations and murdering his own people in the streets. The worst part of all of this is that there is no offseason to reflect. Just another day in these "united" states.