All Stirred Up

 With all due respect to all of the folks who gathered last weekend to participate in the fourth in a series of No Kings protests, they may not have been pushing the panic button as hard as they might. One need only to look across the pond at France to see just how a nation that knows its riots carries things out. Last Saturday, more than half a million French folks, primarily students  took to the streets to protest the staff shortages and dilapidated facilities in the country's lycées, secondary schools attended by fifteen - to eighteen -year-olds.

What started out as mostly peaceful demonstrations turned more chaotic as the sun went down. Buildings and vehicles were set ablaze and there were reports of looting. Protests such as these have been bolstered by trade union members and other factions. Many see this as a prelude to the kind of disruptions that may occur during next year's presidential election in France. 

The politics of right and left are being felt in Gaul, and not for the first time. Faux News Talking Head Brian Kilmeade argued with California Representative Ro Khanna, insisting that it was useless to "wreck a city" in order to make your voice heard. Brian wanted his viewers to know that France's problems could be ours. 

Hard to argue that point in a global economy that has seen the actions of one country's leader disrupt an entire planet. This is the guy who has decided to shutter his country's department of education. Massive tax cuts for the wealthy have ramped up the already ridiculous effect of the rich getting richer while the poor get to pay six dollars for a gallon of gas. And when it comes to wrecking a city, few are as good as that as the guy who tore down the East Wing of "the people's house."

Let them eat cake, indeed. 

Red, white and blue cake. 

Negative Action

 It should probably not come as a surprise to any sentient being out there that the number of women who have left, voluntarily or otherwise, the Second Trumpreich stands in stark contrast to the number of men who have been shown the door. 

Kristi Noem, known enemy of puppies everywhere and former "ICE Barbie" was let go back in March of this year.

Pam Bondi, who once suggested that the Epstein Files were on her desk, just waiting to be released, was dismissed shortly after Kristi. 

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who was Labor Secretary, was fired after she got tangled up in an ethics and misconduct investigation. That was in April.

The Director of National Intelligence used to be Tulsi Gabbard, but in May she got the heave because she couldn't meet the policy expectations of Dear Leader. 

Kimberly Guilfoyle, who once dated the convicted felon's son and was married to California's Governor, lost her job as Ambassador to Greece after she begged for a Republican donor to pay her American Express bill. Unlucky in love, unlucky in the Second Trumpreich. 

And let us not forget the glorious five day run Katie Zacahria had as press secretary. This one redefined "short term employer." Even Sean Hannity struggled to put a good face on that one. 

If you were to list the departures of all the rats leaving this sinking ship, the lady rats still lead eight to seven over their Y chromosome counterparts. Which is interesting given that men in the Second Trumpreich outnumber women at a ratio of five to one. 

If I didn't know better, I would say there's a bit of misogyny going on in the adjudicated rapist's second term. 

Shocked. That's what I am. 

This Shouldn't Be So Hard

 So, Congress passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 on September 16. This bipartisan effort is perhaps most notable because it marks the one hundred twenty-third law passed by what has been one of the historically least productive groups legislatively. But there you go, history buffs, even a blind pig can find acorns if he roots long enough. In the memory of the late Lindsay Graham. The bill gives the "president" a free path to impose tariffs and sanctions against Russia for their continued aggression against the sovereign nation of Ukraine. 

You may remember back in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, or maybe even the annexation of Crimea back in 2014. Since then, the world has watched as Vladimir "Puppetmaster" Putin kept winding back the clock to a time when there was a union of Soviet socialist republics. And assuming that his military would overwhelm that of Ukraine. 

That didn't happen. 

Instead, the world watched and tried to figure out how to help Ukraine without actually confronting the Puppetmaster. The United States sent weapons to Ukraine. Or at least they did when Joe Biden was president. When the convicted felon found his way back to the Oval Office, he did everything he could to keep that from happening. While his DOGE buddy conspired to throttle down Internet access to Ukraine to keep them from launching their attacks on Russian refineries and data centers, the least popular "president" of the United States started to reimagine the history of this conflict and how negotiations have progressed. So it makes the sort of sense that we have come to expect from the Second Trumpreich, with the Putin Puppet choosing to waive the sanctions against the man pulling his strings. Congress wants you to make things harder for Russia? Get your Sharpie out and scribble an Executive Order exempting Russia from the sanctions suggested by Congress.

If you were under the impression that the Russians were the bad guys, and even a limp Congress wants to stand up to them, and since we don't want to be involved of the actual shooting in Ukraine because we seem to be busy shooting in the Strait of Hormuz, why not make it harder for the bad guys? 

Unless it turns out that this guy is really the bad guy? 

Please vote. 

From The Outside

  My older brother and I went to see This Is Spinal Tap on its opening weekend back in 1984. We laughed all the way through. Hard. We were in on the joke. Many of the other patrons, some of whom seemed to be there in hopes of catching the true story behind heavy metal legends no one had quite heard of, seemed to be confused by the tone of the film. Was this a documentary? Was there really a band called Spinal Tap? Why were those two guys over there laughing so hard? 

Imagine all of our surprise when, against most all odds, the subjects of this "mockumentary" went on tour in support of their album, Break Like The Wind. They even landed a spot on the bill for the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. 

This experience set off echoes in my head as I recalled Luis Buñuel’s Land Without Bread, a short film from the director of Un Chien Andalou. Which makes me quite clever, of course, but remembering thahere was once a "mockumentary" made about the intense poverty in central Spain way back in 1933, long before Sacha Baron Cohen ever slapped a brush of a mustache on his lap and began annoying people with his Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

In yet another attempt to impress you with my cleverness, I will point out that any attempt to "document" real life in the presence of outside observers, especially those with a camera and sound crew, is never going to record anything but an imitation of that life. We clever people call this "the Observer Effect." Which brings me to the subject of Nathan Fielder's new, we'll call it a documentary, You Can See Everything. To say that it tells the story of the days leading up to Elizabeth Holmes' imprisonment for defrauding investors. 

And then it does something that Rob Reiner and Luis Buñuel and Borat never did. It peels the onion of what we know until we don't know anything, leaving us with more questions than when we began the journey in the first place. Living as we do in a world where information is as available as it could ever be, Nathan Fielder askes us to take a trip back through the veil of make-believe and into a funhouse version of what we thought we knew.  

Because it turns out that we really don't. And though I can't say that I laughed all the way through, I can say that I found the whole experience to be funny. Not exploding drummer funny, but what did I just see funny. 

Living In The USA

 The numbers and names change, but the hits? They just keep coming.

I considered the idea that perhaps the amount of gun violence in the United States could be traced to lefty bloggers such as myself. Maybe the "alleged shooters" and disgruntled idiots with guns who perpetuate the narrative of this country as a place where the ugliest forms of violence are carried out on its own people are simply trying to prove me wrong. In some horribly twisted way. A way in which children continue to die needlessly so that those on the other side of the political spectrum from me can continue to push their version of reality. The one in which an amendment written nearly two hundred fifty years ago is more important than the lives of three students and a teacher. 

Bend, Oregon joined the club last Thursday when a sixteen year-old forced his way through the locked doors of  Silver Rail Elementary School, killed three small children and a teacher before being shot by a bystander who followed the teen into the building after witnessing shots fired outside before the carnage began. The bystander is now the hero of this story. The person who shot the sixteen year-old. The killer of a child rescued other children. 

Except the five, eight, and eleven year-old who were not as lucky. And the seven year-old and another teacher who were injured. And all the human beings inside and outside Silver Rail Elementary who will be living with those horrible minutes in which an ordinary day was turned into another chapter in America's ongoing love affair with guns. 

And, as Jimmy Buffett once suggested, it could be my fault. If I stopped reporting these events would gun violence slip from that top spot of the cause of death for children? If I held my tongue every time some idiot chose to "solve" his or her problems with a gun, would it wind down the sound and fury. If we simply accepted this as our path, would the allure leak out and a new preoccupation could creep in. 

The day after the massacre in Bend, my school held an assembly honoring not just local author Jerrold Conners, but a fourth grade student at Horace Mann who helped write his own book for young readers. I understand that CNN will not be on hand to document the event, nor will our fourth grade author be interviewed about his creative motivations. 

Because that is not the story in which we are currently living. 

Danger Dead Ahead

 I used to attempt to annoy/frighten the people with whom I was riding on most any carnival or amusement park attraction. Generally, my bit went something like this:

"Wow. Did you ever consider the potential of catastrophe on any one of these rides? How many people a day do you suppose get on one of these things without a care in the world, not knowing that there is a loose bolt or a faulty weld? Some sort of hidden defect that will eventually fail under the stress and strain of repeated use. The kind of breakdown that could only happen when a scheduled maintenance was skipped or a simple check was overlooked."

I would pause, for effect. Then after looking up toward the structure that would soon be hoisting us up and jostling us about, I would continue: "But that type of thing happens so infrequently." A sigh. "I guess that's why they call them 'accidents.'"

Inevitably this would lead to moans and groans from those trapped in the cattle chute that would eventually lead us to our destiny. I am sure that at some level this was a way that yours truly could deal with his own morbid fears and anxiety. Speaking them aloud, especially when the ride was located in one of those dodgy parking lot fairs that seemed to spring up in front of K-Marts, one step ahead of the state inspectors. 

Inspectors like the ones who uncovered maintenance issues, such as a train derailment, faulty restraint bars and guest injuries including dislocated joints and concussions. These concerns were not found in any traveling carnival, but rather at a dozen different Six Flags parks across three states. The latest "infraction" resulted in the death of forty-two-year-old Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem who fell to his death and several others were injured while riding the Goliath rollercoaster at Six Flags Over Georgia. 

Additionally, the powers that be at Magic Mountain, a Six Flags park in Valencia, California permanently closed their X2 Hypercoaster after more than a hundred riders reported brain injuries after experiencing the flips and twists and high speed turbulent turns generated by this three hundred foot tall beast.  

Whee. Sounds like fun. 

I just like a little vertigo with mine. And when the actual effects of the ride turn out to be more perilous than the ones I used to spout in line, I guess the thrillmeisters have won the day. 

Impressions

 There are days like this past Tuesday when I realize I am making the correct decision to retire from teaching. 

The image I hold in my mind of a classroom filled with expectant upturned faces, hanging on my every word is a fantasy. I should know that this is precisely the reason for the gentleman who interviewed me for the credential program to laugh when he asked why I would make a good teacher and I replied, "Because I'm good with kids."

For the record, I maintain this opinion of myself. In groups smaller than five or six, or one on one, I am able to run rings around the average five to ten year old. These are the opportunities I have begun to anticipate over the course of what we are currently describing as my final days. 

Aside from the concern of being outnumbered, I have surrendered to the idea that my own experience has yet to prepare me for the children I encounter on the mean streets of Oakland. The life they have lead in their first decade of existence makes my own childhood look like a boring fantasy. 

You want complications? How about the looming threat of ICE descending on your neighborhood? How about food insecurity that makes every morning an opportunity for moms to stop by their kids' classroom to see if there is a little leftover breakfast that they can take home with them. It's not stealing. It's survival. How about housing insecurity? We have a large percentage of our students who either leave before a year is complete or show up at our school midway through a term because they had to move. 

Had to move. 

That one sticks with me. "Will I have my own room at the new house or will I still have to share with grandma?"

I am not making this up. 

So I have tried to make a safe and sane landing place for these families. A place where they can feel comfortable if only for six hours a day. Three more if they are enrolled in the after school program. With another meal tossed in for good measure. You don't often get families to come to events like Science Fair unless you promise to provide them with pizza. 

It has not taken me thirty years to come to all these revelations. When I started, after I was able to brush off the mild derision of being laughed at for being "good with kids," I truly believed that I could make a difference. 

Now I believe that anyone who steps into my place will make a difference. It's time to get some fresh blood. Someone who is good with kids. And the lives they lead.