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.