Jharrin4's Blog

Have you been paying attention to the 2016 political campaigns, especially for President? I have seen a few of the Sanders/ Clinton show-downs (and for awhile Martin O’Malley was in the race). Bernie has surprised the Democratic movers and shakers who arrogantly presumed Hillary was a shoe-in to get the nomination, especially since the DNC, headed by Debra Wasserman Schultz, attempted to bury all of three originally scheduled debates in time slots meant to result in a minimal number of eyeballs and ears attached to those whom might be interested.

Ms. Schultz was excoriated by more than a few credible political watchdogs whose audible barking about blatantly strategizing for Clinton started to resonate more forcefully as time went by. And in spite of Debbie’s effort to limit debate exposure for Bernie or Martin, the general polling numbers kept showing Senator Sanders gaining momentum and garnering millions of dollars from individual donors. He was not going away. Martin O’Malley did drop out. Bernie’s voice was now all but impossible to ignore, and more debates were scheduled between Hillary and Bernie. The mainstream media, with its pathetic pandering to Donald Trump and his xenophobic, misogynistic blathering, has now had to give candidate Sanders more than a passing acknowledgement and assessment of his ideas. We, the people! seemed to be assuring he’d keep his polling numbers too high to be dissed or dismissed.

As of the here and now, Hillary still appears to benefit from a lot of mainstream media propelled  presumptions that Sanders can’t actually overtake her as the front runner, that she is going to get the nomination, and pay no attention to those who doubt such, a mantra of sorts that could eventually have to resort to a Big Lie strategy if she loses a few more primaries to her only remaining opponent. This “spin” is initially channeled by the status quo elements the national Democratic echo chamber: Hillary is going to win. Hillary is Oval Office ready. Hillary will be the first female President. Hillary knows blah blah, First Lady, Secretary of State, blah blah. Bernie is just a cantankerous, white-haired, one-issue socialist! Gasp!

Hillary the hypocrite.

She insists she not beholden to Wall St. But she has Super Pac money from that financial sector. Bernie takes only donations from regular folks, an average $27 hand-out that has totaled millions of dollars. Hillary’s daughter, Chelsea, is married to a mega wealthy hedge fund mojo. Gee. I’m sure mommy will bust her ass to bust up Wall St. if elected. Sanders asserts he will do just that. In fact, Bernie frames his candidacy on what we need to do to stop the income inequality created by 35 years of Reaganomics; how we all CAN bring about positive change. We can…we can…we can.

Hillary responds to Sander’s proposals with we can’t…we can’t…we can’t asserting that she knows it’ll be difficult to alter the legislative landscape in any expedient manner, and that “I will…I know…I have…”  As such, Mrs. Clinton doesn’t seem to be talking to the people, as much as talking at them. We, the People? Not so much.

Hillary is a dove. Ha! In that last debate she sang the praises of Henry Kissinger, upon whom Sanders heaped nothing but scorn after Hillary invoked Henry the Hawk as a confidant, of sorts. Ever seen the documentary The Trials of Henry Kissinger? Cambodia. Chile. Indonesia. Regime change. Millions of dead civilians. Our historical, creepy CIA modus operandi for getting a user-friendly leader inserted here and there, one who’ll will play political paddy cake and bake up a cake that tastes great to our geo-political interests, and not at all intended for the taste buds of the locals, many of whom get government offerings laced with arsenic. And recall, Hillary voted FOR the invasion of Iraq in 2003, buying into the the fear-mongering prevarication of either we fight them there, or we fight them here!  Bernie voted against it, clearly smelling the bullshit being shoveled by Bush/Cheney et al. Their smell now lingers but it’s the residual funk of a failed foreign policy that helped create the terror-states that didn’t exist in the region prior to that invasion. Can you say ISIS? But only a few brave souls in congress had the conviction to say no to that disastrous invasion. Hillary the dove, huh?

Well, having just bashed Hillary Clinton, I have to admit that she is still better than any of the Republicans running for the Oval Office. Trump, (see above); Cruz (the Messiah!); Rubio (the redundant, robotic, vapid mouthpiece). Yeah, Hillary is better in orders of magnitude than any of those loose cannons. But that says far more about the freak show of Republicans seeking the Oval Office than it does Mrs.Clinton, marinated in corporate money and admirer of the likes of Henry Kissinger.

No, it’s Bernie who resonates with we, the people! And when he says we all whom does that not automatically include? But what about the African-American voters? The Hispanics? They are somehow not part of that first-person plural pronoun, is that it?  The media beats that current drum. Just like that dubious drumbeat for war in 2003. But I, for one, am hearing the beat of a different drummer, one that resonates in its refutation of business-as-usual. Yeah, it’s that democratic socialist! I’m sensing that he’ll get respectable support from across the board, from those who understand that WE automatically includes them, regardless of their skin color.

Bernie is talking to you, and we all can win, if everyone listens and thinks, perhaps for a change, perhaps for once, for themselves.

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Okay. Duly noted: a lot of folks dig Star Wars, the 38 year-old spaced-out franchise whose latest installment has now become the all-time box office ( $852 million, domestic) champ. Have you seen it? If not, does that make you a pop culture snob? I mean, if you haven’t seen it and don’t intend to see it. I’ve read some reviews, most of which are favorable. But those critics who dislike it really trash not just the movie itself, but its decades-long ethos as some type of cutting-edge example of sci-fi mojo. But, the box-office numbers speak for themselves (though I’m a bit discouraged as to what is being said, the movie’s intrinsically science fiction, technical and narrative elements aside; see below).

For my money, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, a Space Odyssey is much more of an engaging visual and narrative wonder. To give Harrison Ford a clear case of sci-fi genre gravitas, so is Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.  Ford’s character in Scott’s film occupied a more complex character in a much more provocative, edgy offering for filling up a couple hours of a viewer’s time. This entry might read as a “it’s just your opinion, so what?,” but I am weaving a thematic thread here, okay? How’s this?: I suppose Star Wars vs Blade Runner is analogous to a James Patterson or Janet Evanovich mass consumption approach to writing/storytelling and say, the likes of Jim Harrison, Chuck Palahniuk or William Gibson. Those last three writers are likely not household names as far as readership goes, but each has had Hollywood turn at least one of their books into films that visually articulate a respectable amount of their exceptional (and I’m not just spouting personal opinion here, believe me) literary talents. So, what they don’t accrue financially in total book sales, they get a boost from selling the rights to a studio. In this respect they thereby, seemingly, are not much different than George Lucas or Janet E. or James P., though not  quite occupying the rarified commercial air as that at the highest rungs of the profit-generating ladder that occasionally, in print or movie-making (see above, per the current cinematic rage) can reach astronomical heights. But I sense Harrison and other writers such as he, want to make money, if not by a public cultivating a larger appreciation for their writings, then cashing in via Hollywood in order to be financially stable enough to keep writing without their publishers expecting their work to become blatantly, formulaically commercial. You know, like Tom Clancy, Stephen King, E.L. James and Janet and  James, some of the authors whose products are, in my humble opinion, trafficking in the fast-food franchise lane of the commercial, cultural highway.

But, of course, to each their own. Back to that latest cinematic money monster, Star Wars, for the record, while visiting a friend in Dallas in 1977, when the first installment in the franchise hit the big screens, we decided to check out the big buzz hailing it as some kind of movie marvel. After less than an hour, we walked out, not giving a damn about Han Solo and the gimmicky robot tandem, or any of what met our eyes and ears that crowded the cheesy story. I guess we reviewed the movie with our feet, after putting money in the Lucas coffer that entitled us to stay until its end. We figured our time was better spent doing something else, not knowing what that was as we headed to her car in the mall lot. I can’t recall what we did. But no regrets!

So, I contend that there are movies, then there are films. There are books, then there is literature. Right, right, it’s all subjective. Opinions are like assholes; everybody has one! Yeah, yeah. And some people believe climate change is a hoax. And that the Kardashians matter. And Elvis faked his death. It’s right here, in the National Enquirer!

Different strokes and all that.  It’s a free country, and we’re free as to what we consume as cultural calories.  With actual food-based caloric intake, we are encouraged to eat healthy. Read the nutrition labels. Avoid the artery clogging junk. Get some exercise. Walk. Bike. Mind and body. They’re connected, right?

Cultural calories work the same way, methinks. You want to see Star Wars a few times? Do it. A couple of viewings in 3D (while dressed as one of the movie’s characters) and maybe one last fix in 2D. And ummm, that hot, buttered popcorn by the free refill buckets! Then you buy the dvd. The box set! George Lucas loves you. The costume shops love you. I’m a snob, no doubt, because this Star Wars, the Force Awakens, event suggests to me that too many people get all worked up about things that really don’t matter but for the brief fix it provides that takes them away from external and important realities. While we’re rarely able to get more than 40% of the eligible voters to actually vote (sometimes in mid-term elections maybe 30%, tops) there’s apparently intense involvement with media content that keeps folks entertained, but not very well informed about the local or global world in which they live.

For many reality is visited on a tourist-level of involvement. Elections? Debates? Gun control? Ugh! Too real. Where’s the remote? The media provides so many empty calorie dishes that plenty of people eat up at a rate that apparently precludes not trying for something that could give their brains a better workout, you know, just once in awhile. And that includes programs–if one looks for them–about our brains and the body that contains it. But who has time? We’re busy with our lives! Jobs. Kids. Bills. Wait did someone say Jobs? Oh, yes, Apple products are so fascinating. Look! My watch! I can watch movies and tv programs on it! I’m so connected with my Google glasses.

Or, alas, if not Star Wars, part 7, it’s the umpteenth iteration of a cop drama, a canned-laughter sit-com, the zombie and vampire narratives that have everyone from Sherlock Holmes to Abe Lincoln somehow now being part of the modern take on those horror genres. Are you ready for the zombie apocalypse. No?! What the hell is the matter with you. Are you wasting time watching PBS? Reading who? What? Never heard of it…

The horror. The horror! says the reclusive, paranoid Colonel Kurtz near the end of the film, Apocalypse Now! Yeah, well I’m increasingly inclined to share his feelings about the shape of things, but in a different context. The horror I see and hear is present in our  short attention span, instant gratification, mindless consumerism and preference for easily digested information and cynical persuasive pitches that are at the surface of a mile-wide, half-inch deep cultural landscape.

Margaret Atwood. Cormac McCarthy. Jerzy Kosinski. Aldous Huxley. George Orwell, if only you knew! Richard Wright. Ralph Ellison. Rachel Carson…

Bonfire of the Vanities.

Absurdistan…

Hey. It’s been awhile. Hmm. Let’s see. I’d say about a stretch of time equal to several alarming videos being released having to do with mostly white police officers killing black people. Call them “gotcha!” videos that capture what almost always appear to be police with itchy trigger fingers when encountering their African-American “subjects,” to use the lingo of police officials. This is an old story, and by that I don’t mean just the past few years or so. Seriously, what is really old about this story is just how far back the”gotcha!” moments go. As where before the hand-held camcorders became readily available in the marketplace, replacing bulkier, cumbersome equipment, by the early 1990s more and more people could use their easy-to-carry-around, video recorders. Hey. Instant video journalists! Find those video moments. Ready. Aim. Action! The world finally seen…through a viewfinder.  Cute animal moments. Even cuter kiddie moments. At the ballgame. From that hilltop. By the river. The beautiful birds landing on the backyard feeder. The family cat pouncing… (never mind); Uncle Ernie’s birthday bash…smashed…trashed.

Wait…did I say bash?

Hey…that guy, over there. What the? What’s happening? That’s no party! It’s a lively urban street scene, yes. Some black guy seems to be getting the shit beat out of him by several cops, apparently taking turns whacking him with their nightsticks. The guy seems defenseless. He’s groping about on his hands and knees. What the hell?! Camcorder, don’t fail me now!

When did that happen?

Remember, Rodney King being beaten senseless in March of 1991 in Los Angeles, as a nearby member of John Q.Public had a camcorder capturing the four officers treating Rodney like a pinada? The officers were charged with abusive actions, but their trial ended with all four being acquitted. In spite of the “smoking gun” video.

Then came the riots and the looting of mostly inner city L.A. as a response to the perceived miscarriage of justice. When the riot ended there were 50 dead, 2000 injured. $1 billion in property damage. This post-acquittal action was captured on video as well, but on live video from news choppers. It was bloody, ugly and angry.

Fast forward 23 years, and Rodney King’s beating seems almost an act of restraint by the L.A. police. Now, with dash-cam and body-cams on police personnel and vehicles, as well as seemingly everyone with video capture on their smart phones, we have seen a disturbing number of near-instant fatal encounters by young black men with officers of the law. Shoot first, sort it out later, seems to be the police force modus operandi.

And these days, the various video sources serve as near-literal smoking gun evidence.

Some video “gotcha” moments come to light quickly, others not quite so. It depends on the source of the video. In the Chicago area, there’s the now notorious case of Laquan McDonald being shot sixteen times by one officer. By the time the dash-cam video was handed over to the media, after legal action forcing its release, mayor Rahm Emanuel had survived a run-off election against a Hispanic opponent. Now, the prevailing opinion of a lot of people, of various races, is that the video was held back for political reasons. Hmm. Playing politics with justice?!  Say it isn’t so!

And of course these videos, whether from back when or occurring as I write this, are all about politics. Racial, most obviously. In the city of Chicago, where I have lived most of my life (and I have memories of the Mayor Richard J. Daley  years, starting in the mid-50s) the plight of  “people of color” on the South and West sides has seemingly not ever changed for the better. At all. Their schools are underfunded by a rotten, state-wide taxing process based on an area’s revenue generation by (in some places) a healthy business district. Most of the South and West sides have few, if any, major businesses. Lots of liquor and dollar stores, for sure.  Property values are very low. The term “food desert” connotes this dearth of branded big business where the residents can shop–or find decent employment opportunities. And, instead of well maintained public spaces, there are countless encounters with the broken glass glitter of empty, littered lots. Gang violence is a daily dose of bitter reality on the streets around these trashed out empty spaces. Decades and decades of socio-economic stasis. City government at work. Well, for some. And so it goes, on and on, as if that is simply the way it was meant to be. Mayor after mayor, police chief after police chief.

I don’t have the formal expertise or mental energy required to intricately, concisely, analyze my direct, long term, observations of the dubious conditions of above noted parts of Chicago. But one certainly need not have a doctorate in social science, psychology, political science, economics or public policy  to see this particular reality and assume that the lack of progress for the West an South sides is quite intentional. Social planning? Sure, building cookie-cutter, drab, poorly managed and barely maintained high-rise public housing was some urban planner’s most inspired project. After several decades of their mismanagement and governmental neglect, and becoming natural nesting grounds for gangs, drugs, violence and despair, they’ve all been imploded. So, the skyline looks a bit different. But the basic view from ground level is still the funk and flotsam of Chicago’s mean streets. City Hall? Any new ideas?

Not really. Except to have police answer dramatically to those pesky 9-1-1 calls coming from Desolation Row. Make no mistake about it, the police are weary of the residents of the South and West sides as much as the residents are weary of the men and women sworn to serve and protect.
As noted above, this has been a loooonnnng running situation. The conundrum of “chicken or egg?” comes to mind

Back to that Laquan McDonald video. Caught on dash-cam from a police cruiser. The African-American community, taking up the “black lives matter” mantra that has been echoing around the country, are demanding that Mayor Emanuel resign, along with Cook County prosecutor Anita Alvarez.  Sure, why not? The accusation that the video took about a year to be released for media viewing reeks of mayoral and prosecutorial covering up. I agree, in principle, with the activists taking to streets. Presumably,  those who reside in Chicago and live in those Chi-raq battlegrounds should be fed up.  Articulate your disapproval and disgust! You’re mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore! Grrr. Argh! Professional camera operators are there to capture your moments. Keep calling for the mayor to resign. A mayor with this kind of kiss-my-ass stink on him just has to go. And now! Resign! As for Ms.Alvarez, well all the protesters have to do is go to the polls next year and VOTE HER OUT. Democracy at work! Vote all the bums out!

Vote? Wait a minute! This arrogant Rahm guy who is now having many fingers pointing at him as no friend of the minority victims being shot dead by the police, didn’t he just have to run for re-election? Right. Just earlier this year, 2015. And if memory serves, I believe he was forced into a run-off with one Chuy Garcia. Rahm needed more than 50% of the vote but garnered only 45%. Chuy got 36%. A handful of others got the other 19%. Hmm. That means that 55% of those who voted in the mayoral election in Chicago early this year did NOT want Rahm returned to office. So, those who went to the polls sent a clear signal that Rahm wasn’t cutting that metropolitan mustard. Of course! The VOTER speaks! And as we all know, when the run-off election came around a couple months later, all those 55% voted against Rahm again, with others who sat out the initial election from the battered and bloodied mean streets joining in and Chuy became mayor of Chicago! The power of the ballot! Hell yeah!

Wait. Wait. I re-call my re-call! That was what I assumed had to happen. Rahm was political dead meat and he sensed it by his mopey apologies to those 55% of detractors. But I’ll  be damned if  Rahm didn’t win the run-off. It wasn’t even close. Now, what in tarnation happened?! Didn’t all these protesters/voter-citizens band together before the run-off, take to streets and urge their fellow citizens to make a change? But I can’t recall any media coverage of big rallies to that effect. In fact, barely anyone went to the polls for that run-off. Those who did certainly couldn’t have been mostly from the South and West sides. Not to mention the Hispanic neighborhoods. Didn’t they come out in droves for one of their own? WTF?

I guess not. Gee. And all they had to do was think for themselves, and not let prevaricating political ads put them in a stupor. Or not take their ballot-box marching orders from their righteous local ministers. Most of the ads were for Rahm. Sure. He had deep-pocketed corporate backers. But still, Chuy must have gotten donations from regular people. Maybe not wheelbarrows of money but still… just seize the goddam ballot booth. Wake the fuck up on run-off day and go VOTE! Remember what happened when you DID let your actions speak louder than your words, as in getting African-American Harold Washington elected Chicago Mayor 30 years ago? And Richard M.Daley was his high profile, well financed  opponent!

But the Rahm defeat did not happen. And now the protesters want a “re-call” vote. The protesters march and have “die-ins” and  block pathways to Mag Mile retailers, seemingly oblivious to the blatant irony and ineptitude that frames their cries for urgent action. You had your re-call chance and blew it. You blew it really bad. But now you want another re-call.

You’re making it hard for me to not to wish you’d all go away.

Dash cams, chopper cams, body cams, smart cams, it’s cinema verite, all right. Reality TV! And if it bleeds, it leads. CSI: USA. The news cams will give the at-once beleaguered and befuddled Chicago citizen-activists attention as they continue demanding to have happen what they could have made sure happened months ago.

For other communities fed-up with their police and local governments, I wish them well in their demands for change. But we still do have elections, and if enough people get to the voting booth…things could…maybe…possibly…somehow…someway…change?

Yawn…have you checked how local and national government is doing lately? Uh, we voted for this? Who’s “we”, pale face?, to quote Tonto. We the People. Ugh. Never mind.

Time to see the news. Oh, no! Another “gotcha!” video. This story needs a re-write.

Robert Pirsig has authored two great novels: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila. The narrative substance of either book is considerable and I would recommend them to anyone who likes to think.  But I mean only now to point out the subtitle of each. Zen was “an inquiry into values,”  Lila “an inquiry into morals”. Along the way, Pirsig discusses the concept of quality, as in how we sense one thing having more of it than others, and how it is virtually impossible to explain how various perceptions of quality of a particular entity/idea can be radically different from person to person. He asks, essentially, what is quality and how does one describe its features?

I preface this blog entry with a tip of the virtual hat to Robert Pirsig’s iconic literary efforts as an entrée into the rather bewildering, if not disturbing, state of our current political and pop culture landscapes. At the top of what I consider to be a hybrid trash heap are Donald Trump and the mainstream news’ obsession with his cartoonish, hot air machine pronouncements, and in pop culture the continued mass appeal of reality TV (from whence came candidate Trump!), trash TV, (think Maury Povich) the myriad variations on Judge Judy, endless CSI spin-offs and similar sappy police dramas, the usual assortment of canned-laughter-infested sit-coms,  vapid late-night, can-you-top-this? shows hosted by “Jimmy” this or that, and now even Steven Colbert, bailing on his clever, creative cable show to sell-out for stodgy, cookie-cutter, network programming. Quality, anyone? What am I missing here?

Social media?  Have you had your Facebook fix today?

Old school, TV. The “vast wasteland,” as asserted fifty years ago (!) by Newton Minow, then head of the FCC, remains ever-more-vast and still mostly a massive waste of time. You know, “900 channels and nothing to watch!”.  In this 21st century, however, TV is but one fragment of media’s myriad outlets. Finding this seemingly undefinable “quality” amidst our digital options for content is, in my opinion, quite the challenge. There are guilty pleasures, sure, and I have mine from time to time, but most of what my eyes and ears encounter or have learned of, emanating out of every device from giant I-Max screens to surround sound 65″ plasma TVs to iPads, laptops, watches, Google glasses and of course ever-smarter smart phones, providing endless content, compels me to ponder: how much more constant empty calorie consumption can the public ingest before digital diabetes and computer-coded coronary artery disease sets in?

Currently, there appears to be a glut of Trump spewing forth on our gizmos. Obviously, a lot of people apparently must value Donald Trump’s bluster as he chides women and vilifies people from south of the border, to name but two of his headline-grabbers. But he’s an “outsider” as the media spin proclaims, and people are sick of beltway insiders. So I guess that matters most and he’s allowed to get away with denigrating others while offering no substantive ideas on how he’ll realistically solve any problems facing the U.S.  His poll numbers are high enough that many of the consumer public must like his renegade brand of political sausage, regardless of the toxic ingredients contained in it. So, he has quality?

These days, anything is possible as far as media content goes, be it “entertainment” or “news” which has morphed pretty much into infotainment. What I sense is the cultural bar has been lowered dramatically over time, regarding the content being transmitted and waiting to be received by one device or another. Over at least the 50 years since Mr.Minow uttered his pejorative proclamation of television being a vast wasteland, that bar certainly hasn’t been raised!

So, besides 24/7 Trump-vision what’s up? Who’s this Sanders guy? Bernie, right? Hmmm. I think he’s running for President too, but he must never, EVER have much interesting to say. Besides, he’s an insider, a sitting U.S. Senator. I think he’s for the working slob. Dreamer! Trump is the real deal. He’s the oft bankrupt-filing real estate mogul who inherited $200 million as kick-starter funds, AND he had that reality TV show! What did he say today?! Paging CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR,  and newspaper coverage and their commentators. Trump said what? STOP THE PRESSES!

Hillary? Clinton, right? Isn’t she the one who has an email issue? Sure. Must be. That’s all I hear about her presidential aspirations. No, actually what I keep hearing about Hillary also has to do with that Sanders guy. The media do notice Bernie, but only insofar as he is getting decent poll numbers and thus the cameras and mics immediately are turned to Hillary, so she can explain this “problem”. Oh, right. Must be those emails. Or Benghazi. Or are those two “problems” one and the same? I have no idea what Hillary’s actual campaign proposals are. She must not have any…

Whatever, eh? Enjoy the steady stream of mass media content, delivering pop and  political cultural encased sausage. Be happy! Consume! Watch, listen and enjoy the latest Trump-isms, and those compelling dramas and sit-coms, as the world churns. You might feel woozy and bloated when you de-couch, but you likely won’t stumble over our cultural bar, the one that has been lowered so much that by now that it’s flush with the floor. The wasteland is as flat as Kansas and about as scenic.

Time to check those Twitter feeds…

I must make comment on an evolving news story. Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk whose job responsibilities include the issuing of marriage licenses. Kim, in her deeply felt Christian beliefs, had for weeks been refusing to issue said licenses to same-sex couples. Then, she was finally shown the door…to her jail cell, after being held in contempt by the judge presiding over the legal showdown between Kim’s faith and the constitutional right of same-sex marriage.

There’s been plenty of hoohah on both sides of this matter, with those believing she got what was coming to her seeming to be the prevailing opinion. Count me among those who have no pity for Kim. She was asking to be held in contempt, implicitly, by ignoring the law of the land as she invoked her faith as reason enough to be determinedly, derelict of duty in a governmental position beholden to other’s constitutional rights.

The intransigent attitude Kim holds stubbornly to thereby reeks of arrogance and ignorance. C’mon, woman! Just step aside and let another, less religiously fervent, clerk issue the license and then pray for the souls of everyone involved without sitting in some slammer. Of course, the knee-jerk reaction from right-wing blowhards include Mike (wannabee President) Huckabee, who likens the jailing of Kim to “judicial tyranny”. Really? No, really? Well, Mike is a one-time Baptist preacher. He’s thus a de facto expert of this type of “tyranny”

Kim is in jail because she believes an invisible man who lives up in the sky tells her she must do what he commands (more or less what she has stated in her defense). And this voice from above apparently forbids Kim from issuing those same-sex couples their marriage licenses. Okay, lots and lots of people have their religious beliefs, and perhaps they believe they’re “instructed” by some invisible entity. Most of the time, however (and thankfully), such guiding spiritual principles are practiced quietly, internally digested, kept safe by seclusion from all but their parish’s other true believers and not trotted out at their workplace or public to crate controversy or spotlight their righteousness. Do you know many such zealots in your circle of friends or extended social network? Me neither. There’s plenty of craziness in this world already. Religious-oriented misfits are the worst of the lot.  Why would any sane person claim to have some direct, personal, cosmic hot-line with their god? It’s irrational. It’s scary.

Perhaps Kim needs to be in the psych ward, the special wing reserved for religious wacko martyrs-in-the-making.

Better there than back in her position as a county clerk.

Sadly, another disgruntled person with access to a gun made a dramatic, ugly statement today. Oh, not that he had any verbal prefacing remarks before releasing his anger . It was visual only. And graphic. He took video as he went ballistic. He knew the news wires would get the alert on the shootings, and send out a satellite truck, a reporter and a camera operator to “get that story!”

Television news programs, whether big market or small market will, unless some stunning, natural or man-made mass disaster demands full attention, likely lead each broadcast with whatever the news editor deems be a most attention-getting story. You may have heard the derisive phrase if it bleeds, it leads invoked regarding such choices for the news anchors to breathlessly proclaim as “breaking news!” or “developing story!” before jumping to the on-the-spot reporter rushed to that fire, that drive-by shooting, a horrific traffic accident. Get video! Sure. I saw this first hand when I briefly interned at a Chicago news station years ago.

In a most bitter, ironic twist on this news media modus operandi aimed at immediately grabbing the attention of the viewers, this morning’s crazed gunman’s victims were, of all possible victims, a female reporter and her male cameraman, working for WDBJ in Roanoke, Virginia, out shooting a routine story on tourism in Moneta, Virginia. Those viewing this sedate remote news segment watched the  24 year-old reporter and the woman she was interviewing get shot. The shooter, wearing a video camera, captured his own actions and the cameraman being shot and then posted it on social media. He then fled, was cornered by police, at which time he turned the gun on himself and then took a couple of hours to die at a nearby hospital. The shooter, as it turns out, was an ex WDBJ reporter himself. His left-behind “manifesto” indicates he felt unfairly dismissed by the station.

One can only imagine the WDBJ news viewer’s shock, revulsion and disbelief of a typical, live remote “fluff” piece of general interest reporting perversely transformed into it’s own crime scene.  The shooter’s POV video briefly being available on social media added to the surreal aspect of this profoundly regrettable instance of what has otherwise become a rather not-so-unusual news story in the United States: gun violence and deaths, in varying numbers of victims.

It’s really not shocking that this emotionally twisted person killed two people. It’s not shocking that he was able to get guns. Sad, but no longer shocking. The only people for whom unadulterated “shock” ensued from this particular crazed gunman story would be those who watched it on live TV, rather than in the usual after-the fact, news reporting of a now common type of crime. Also, those working at WBDJ had to have been quite personally devastated on a few dizzying levels. Try to maintain an objective sense of electronic journalism when the blood and death being mulled over happen to be your own reporter and cameraman, killed while on the air! Their world turned inside out and upside down. And, by professional extension, broadcasters everywhere feeling a little less secure about that next remote assignment.

So, what to make of this latest shooting tragedy that took the lives of two young people? Beyond the fact that this gun-toting man with a mentally deranged mission had a live TV audience and another one in social media land (ever-so-briefly), it surely is not inherently a story that will change the non-existent debate on gun control.  Let’s face it, when 20 six and seven year-old children can be slaughtered, along with six adult staff members at Sandy Hook elementary school in December 2012, and our political “leaders” can’t muster the will to stand up to the NRA lobby, then there is no further debate on the issue. The NRA has won. Each time another wacko with a reason to feel slighted grabs a gun–or an arsenal–takes down a couple, a few, a dozen or twenty-six or more people, the NRA can etch another notch on its pearl handled metaphorical pistol it holds to heads of virtually every gutless member of congress. Every disgruntled spouse who walks into his/her (usually it’s a gunman) former lover’s place of work or stalks his prey and shoots and kills said ex; every gang-banger who picks off a kid sitting on the stoop, whether that stoop-sitter was the intended target or not; every time a convenient store clerk gets whacked by some junkie, or not if but when the next domestic, born-and-bred citizen plans and carries out mass carnage, the NRA will issue their pathetic dogma about guns not killing people, but criminals getting guns illegally doing all the harm, and how we need to arm the store clerks, the teachers, the ushers at the movie houses and live performance venues, arm the wait staffs at every restaurant from Alinea to Arby’s, and now even the news reporters sent out to cover the dead and wounded resulting from access to everything from Saturday night specials to AK-47s and shoulder-mounted rocket launchers need to pack some heat of their own. Each of these seemingly inevitable breaking news! stories will further resound with the deafening silence of the non-existent gun control issue.

Get the body bags. Mark off the crime scene. Start the investigation of how and why. Investigate the mental health records of the shooter (who usually commits suicide afterwards). It’s a mental health issue, not a gun issue, you see.

At this rate, we will all succumb to the NRA’s utopian desire to have any and all good citizens armed to the teeth. How else to feel safe? After all, there are guns, guns, guns galore to fulfill this fight-fire-with-fire fantasy.

When that flood of firearms becomes reality, I predict the most common manner in which relationships will be broken up will be a murder/suicide scenario. We humanoids are so emotional! We get very angry and descend into mental imbalance. And to quote a character from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, “there’s nothing as sweet as revenge!” And recall that, as the saying goes, “revenge is a dish best served cold.” Hot heads, but cold-blooded all at once.

So, when will we address the issue of so many mentally ill people in our society? I’m sure that will be a huge campaign issue in next year’s elections.

Or never mind. Nothing to see here.  Move along. Clear the street! Go back to watching TV. You’ll might get a real bang out of it.

2015? Let’s see, if you are a member of the Boomer generation (especially the late 40’s editions) you were born, as the Chinese proverb wishes to all, into interesting times. Count me as one such member, brought into this world during the Harry Truman (the buck stops here) administration, and ever since, much has happened, although the word interesting may not be the most precise adjective to describe what has come to pass. Feel free to highlight your adjectival acumen.

Not many days ago marked the 70th anniversary of the United States dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Never since has any country used the The Bomb on another country. The nuclear country club now has many members, although one was one too many for starters. That nuclear Genie can never be put back in its lab-created lamp, and so all generations born during and after its creation have been delivered into a nuclear age pestered by a perverted usage of that word interesting. As in “wouldn’t it be interesting if we just nuked the… (fill in your perceived evil empire here) …and just got rid of the problem? Hell, use ’em or lose ’em, right? The U.S. has nukes the way the Crips and the Bloods have AK-47s and Glock 9’s.

Be careful with that extremist jive, though. Recall Einstein’s quote about not knowing with what weapons World War Three might be fought but being certain World War Four would be settled with sticks and stones. But who cares what Albert E. ever said when we have Trump’s daily pronouncements to deconstruct and plumb the depths of his  profundity?  SO interesting…

So far, so good, and Japan has made it all the way back from their atomic ashes.  Damn right. I drive one of that country’s recent vintage cars, and it’s the most reliable ride I’ve ever had. It gets pretty good gas mileage, too. But I digress. Please forgive. Don’t shoot! Damn. Does everyone have a gun?

Interesting times. Yeah, beyond the never-ending nuke threat, we’ve had the Cold War (featuring those no-win Korean and Vietnam proxy wars against the now defunct USSR, plus our ironic one-time financial and military support of Osama Bin Laden, when Afghanistan battled the invading Reds in the 80’s), civil rights and women’s movements. Now, with the Communist boogeyman of the Soviet era caput, and post September 11, 2001, (transforming Bin Laden into public enemy number one) we have the Terrorist threat. Hmm. Isn’t all of that historical, global nastiness, well, interesting?

Then comes our Iraq invasion and Saddam gets the same Bin Laden comeuppance. As is we snuff them. But still the Terrorist lurks. He/she now occupies the space beneath your bed or in the closet, where you once were told the godless commie was hiding. Shit, can’t we all just get along. to quote Rodney King. I guess not. So, when and how will the fool for Allah strike next?, as in the recent incident aboard an Amsterdam to Paris bullet train, wherein several passengers, mostly Americans (we police the world!), jumped into action and likely, by beating him into submission, thwarted a possible barrage of bullets on that bullet transport. Bravo for our good guys.

Not that the U.S. need fear only foreign terrorists. Tim McVeigh? Columbine? The Cineplex massacres. Newtown/Sandy Hook.  And counting…

Interesting times? Xanax times? Wild Turkey 101 times?

Then there’s the current market convulsions. Blame China! Blame Canada! Blame Brazil! Blame Hillary! Nuke ’em all. No, wait. Chill!

Okay, take the Xanax, and wash it down with a jigger of 101. Try not to think about any of it. Space out. Commune with nature. Walden Pond. Spoon River. The Blue Lagoon. Ah, that sunset. Never mind, too ominous a symbol, no?

Check out that Beatles cover band. Let the Synthetic Fab Four take you away… Heed the advise of Tim Leary: turn on, tune in, drop out.

Or, see a ballgame. By some peanuts and Crackerjacks. And don’t give a crap if you ever get back…Or just do some crack (Leary-esque). Read a good book. Maybe a Scandinavian thriller. But stay away from the mainstream news media. It markets in anxiety and fear, fluff and piffle. As Mark Twain said, “Those who don’t read newspapers are uninformed. Those who do read the newspaper are misinformed.”

Well, this has been very interesting, dear reader, no? Whatever. Pardon me, I have to check under my bed and in the closets, and hope I don’t find a Cold War commie and a terrorist, both hugging a nuke.

Beam me up, Scotty! And have an Old Crow and Seconal ready to serve to settle my nerves..

The United States apparently will not tolerate crime! According to the Bureau of JusticeStatistics, 2,266,800 people were behind bars at the end of 2011. As a percent our population of approximately 320 million, the U.S. has a greater percent of its population in prison than just about any other country in the world. In fact, as of July of 2015, only Seychelles, one of a group of small islands off the coast of East Africa, had a higher percent of its population behind bars than the U.S.; Seychelles has a population of about 95 thousand.

Okay. Think you know where I’m going here?

Also, the majority of U.S. prisoners have black or brown skin, in spite of the vast majority of the population being white. According to the website The Sentencing Project 60% of the U.S. prison population is a racial or ethnic minority.

You might think you know where this is going, but wait…

I’m a white male. That works in my favor in the larger picture. Also, I do not lead a criminal lifestyle (honestly). Being white, while simply walking or driving or sitting around in public has never gotten me into a “flash” confrontation with police. Or behind bars. Or suddenly suffering from the condition of being deceased.  Hmm. What, but what type of crime puts so many “people of color” in jail? Murder? Rape? Arson? Grand theft auto? Pedophilia? Cyber hacking? Jaywalking? Oh, wait, probably drug crimes. Sure that good ol’ war on drugs. Many such drug crimes are of the so-called “victimless” class, like possession of and/or smoking a bit of weed.

Do you see where…?

Ok. I’m not doing a sociological study here.

You don’t have to be an academic of any sort to look at the afore-noted numbers to wonder why such a large percent of our minority and non-minority population end up incarcerated. I have a theory being that increased privatization of prison operations (i.e. for profit) may be a significant factor in so many being locked up for even petty crimes.

Privatization? Hmm. Isn’t that a special aspect of conservative, less-government, more market based fiscal policies? That would be the neo-con wing of the Republican Party. Right. Or, as Sarah Palin would croak: you betcha! Tough on crime, that’s part of the neo-con ideology. But is it tough on any and all who cross the line? Little fish, and even some big fish?

Now do you see…?

Well, crime is crime, regardless of the perpetrator’s status, race, influence, connections, blah blah. Isn’t that the supposed manner in which our system of justice works? Sure! But that would seem not to be the case. Well, maybe at times it would appear so, as in President Nixon resigning from office due to his illegal cover-up of the botched Watergate hotel burglary (he was immediately pardoned, however, by Gerald Ford, who replaced him in the Oval Office). A President was, nonetheless, held to account. Sort of. Kind of…

That was then (1974). Fast-forward 20 years…

There’s been a constant rule of law! mantra coming from the Republicans, especially when a democrat is in the White House. Recall their eight-year effort to pin something, anything, on Bill and Hillary Clinton during President Clinton’s administration? He was impeached, but not convicted, as you may remember. Of all the trumped-up accusations against the Clinton’s, Bill did give them the Monica Lewinsky scandal on a platter. 24/7 hearings, sworn testimony. Fine, but while getting oral sex from a twenty-something year-old White House intern may be morally repugnant, it is not a crime. Hell, Hillary still is with the guy! What a gal! But like a snarling dog with a bone…

Hillary? Hmm. Isn’t she running for President? I do believe so. Another Clinton in the White House? Possibly, but not if the same breed of self-righteous Republican, crime fighting, truth-seeking, rule of law bloodhounds have anything to say about it.

So, what do they now have on this hellion, this scamp, this she-devil of deceit who disdains decency by tolerating her hubby getting blow-jobs from a bimbo, and thus tarnishing our democratic ideals? Well, take your pick:

Number. One. Benghazi!!!

Number Two: Benghazi, the Rogue Email Server edition!

Supposed criminal accusation, the first,  refers to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya. Almost three years later, the Hillary Hounds won’t let go of this bloody bone of contention. Bloody as in four Americans were killed in the attack, including our Libyan ambassador at that time. Four. Americans. DEAD!!! What did then Secretary of State Clinton know about the attack and when did she know it? That blood is on her hands! Ruff ruff! It’s all her fault. Ruff, ruff! Hillary must be held to account. Ruff.

And she’s hiding her guilt by scrambling her email trail. Was she using a personal, rather than a “classified”  server. Gasp, gasp! Where are those emails? They prove she caused the attack and the death of those FOUR patriots. That treasonous bitch! Ruff, ruff, ruff, woof, WOOF!

It’s the tough-on-crime, rule of law, being held to account, world of the GOP, relentlessly accusing her of wrong-doing; Benghazi represents Hillary’s asserted corrupt, collusive, conspiratorial actions. And she wants to be what? President?! She must be brought to justice! Using a personal server to cover up emails that PROVE she planned and coordinated the Benghazi attack, WOOF, RUFF, and is thus responsible for those four dead Americans. Or, well, at the very least she was so self-absorbed, secretive, and incompetent, she is still responsible for those four dead Americans. Or, well, she’s been lying about something about that attack and her emails, and where there’s manufactured smoke there’s fraudulent fire. Or something…

Ok. Maybe none of it will ever stick, so let’s just admit  that it’s simply that she’s goddam, fucking Hillary Rodham Clinton! What more need be said, apparently? Ipso facto, she’s gotta go! Ruff, ruff, woof, drool, snarl, grrrrr…

Still think you know where this is headed? Hint:

Oh, thy hypocritical, asshole, vile, venal, chicken-hawkish, squawking, screeching, sniveling, snarling, prevaricating, creepy, control-freaky, misogynistic, xenophobic, misanthropic, cruel,  jag-bag, dispassionate, Republican Party, over-taken by Tea Bag sociopathic blowhards.

Go after Hillary, but never mind their own kind, with exhibit A being George W.Bush.  They seem to find no fault in his Presidency, especially that Iraq matter, and the now clearly proven prevaricating propaganda about either we fight them there, or we fight them here; never mind that Iraq had nothing what-so-ever to do with the 9-11 attack.

But what about another September 11 attack, eleven years prior to the one in Benghazi, with its quartet of casualties. Hmm. What did George know about that 9-11 attack and when did he know it? Fine, we’ll assume he knew nothing. We’ll go with that. Sure. Defies belief to even consider that level of evil. But it sure serviced that run-up to the Iraq invasion, with all its bogus “evidence” about uranium tubes, weapons of mass destruction and Saddam being tied to 9-11. Where are the right-wing truth seekers on that steaming pile of doggy-do?

Let’s see. nearly five thousand  dead G.I.s and countless wounded. Tens of thousands in dead Iraqi civilians.  Tens of billions of dollars tossed into in this military fiasco/sinkhole that has left Iraq a sectarian nightmare of suicide bombings and social chaos during and after our occupation. I guess there’s no way to blame Hillary on this score (other than she misguidedly voted for the invasion, but that incriminates plenty of those who are now out to get her). Never mind… But imagine if it was a democratic administration that presided over this disgraceful waste of life and taxpayer dollars, and the now seemingly perpetual destabilization of part of the Middle East. Imagine the wild pack of mad dogs barking incessantly over the catastrophic carnage, as they relentlessly sniff about to snuff out crime in the name of Justice, which as we have all been told, is supposedly blind. Sure it is.

Until it isn’t expedient to keep that blindfold on. Hmm. Let’s take a peek, a look-see before we do/do not push for “justice”.

So, there’s all those people packed in prisons, and some surely belong there. But not all. And as crowded as our prisons appear to be, I’m sure there’s still room for a certain someone who’s considered a “war criminal” by numerous foreign countries, where this certain ex-President is also considered to have committed “crimes against humanity” as well. Here, though, in the Home of the Brave and Land of the Free, Mr. Ex-President is forever free to have Texas tollways (the irony!) named after him. He has his own library, too. And he writes books and goes on book tours, revising historical fact. Paging Oprah…

Never you mind. Benghazi. Four dead. Emails. Grrrrr!

Were we headed in the same direction here after all?

We all know the saying: dog is man’s best friend. And women’s too, though they seem slightly more feline-oriented in choosing a house pet.

That’s a positive expression, man’s best friend (and women’s, too, whether or not they own a kitty ). And it rings true.

But which brooding philosopher opined hell is other people? Roger that, too, except we are all someone else’s hell at one time or another (but of course). People come, people go. Oh, do they. Someone in particular comes along and you mutually agree to open a relational door, be it platonic, emotional, intellectual, romantic/physical (let’s skip the drunken/stoner flighty one-night stands and escort options ok?). This newfound connection, possibly, improbably, might be initialized in person, spontaneously, in the public sphere, and not mediated by Match.com or eHarmony or any cyber profiling, not even two lonely web surfers by chance eyeballing one another in a lingering glance up from a lap-top screen at some coffee shop; call me old school/fashioned. Social media do connect people. Sure. Dating sites are like playing a slot machine: sometimes, but not very often, JACKPOT!

Aside from dating apps. consider the Facebook addicts and their alleged 1,793  “friends,” those Instagram-ers, Twitter-ers, Pinterest-ers and the rest typically relying on such cyber mingling to see the world and along the way possibly making a real connection. Really? Pinch yourself. Reality check. Sure you’re not simply Linked-in? Never know, maybe you’re actually in the Matrix, where the computer code that’s being transmitted by cable connection into your brain as you obliviously bathe in goopy dystopia, convinces you that believing is seeing, tasting, smelling, touching, hearing. Over there, that yummy looking babe or dude. Mmm. Take the red pill or the blue? Free your mind. Disconnect.  Go down that reality-show of a relational rabbit hole.

Love is everywhere and nowhere, from here or there or even outer space (just ask Jenny Hayden about her Starman).

And speaking of pills, if you are carrying a lot of reality-based relational baggage, be it of your own making, or it was gifted to you by one of those other people, there’s likely a prescription drug with your name on it, or a non-prescription, street vendor pharmacist who can take your mind off that ache, that sad, sappy melancholy, the festering mind-funk resulting from thinking you had something real (as in, kismet!) with someone real; except time can steal all swoons, sadly. Can’t be on the ascent forever. Level off and work hard to maintain. Or crash and burn. It happens, no? Regardless, all relations must–and shall–pass, little by little, whittled away by relentless turns of the calendar, relational corrosion often eroding the eros: drip. drip, drip…; or it’s gone in a shocking flash, the blink of an eye, the malevolent magician jerking away the velvet curtain to reveal the cold emptiness behind which once there was warmth, substance, that very special someone…who…once…mattered…

But we forge ahead, lugging our variable baggage every step of the way. Some disguise the psychic load well, but everyone has some. Best be stoic. Be strong. Persevere. Be relentless. Be Ahab! Or maybe not. A bit too obsessive. However, fishing for that right find starts with throwing in that fine line. Then be on guard. Feel a nibble? Reel in, slowly. Be open to what surfaces; a keeper? Catch and release is always an option. It’s a vast ocean of opportunity.

It is not meditation that brings you to those waters.

Temptation. Sensation. Leave that love boat and trek that sunny beach and beyond. Find a meadow full of fragrant wild flowers. Get lost in the lush forest. Listen to the quiet,  calm, tranquil landscapes of nature. So solitarily very relaxing. For awhile, at least. Then…

If only someone with which to share it. You’re not a lone wolf. Back on the road to join the rest of the pack. Proceed with caution. Humanity awaits. Jack or Jenny Hayden awaits, there on the side of the road, needing to hitch a ride to nirvana. Reduce speed. Curved road ahead. Slippery when wet. Watch for falling rocks.

Grab the binoculars. Scan the skies. Love is down, around, left, right, or up. Take flight. Soar. Search. Glide. Time to descend. Getting some chop. Brace. Be careful, as upon landing, open that psychic overhead cautiously as emotional baggage may have shifted during your flighty mental fugue.

Paging Hayden…gate 35B…

Dog: best friend.  So did you get that furry friendo? The frisky one somehow programmed to wag that tail and lick your face and not give a crap about your baggage. If that’s not love, then what is? Humanoid’s best friend. Sure, it might dump on the floor while your out waiting for Kismet, looking for Jenny or Johnny, fishing or star-gazing, but it won’t bite the hand that feeds. Just walk that dog. Your pooch can be a real conversation starter out there in the urban jungle or the verdant suburban forest preserve. Go fetch! And not just that stick you just flung. Bring back some real bounty. Who knows? Your Fido might find his or her Rover. And while the doggies both duly sniff one another’s fannies, maybe you, its Master who picks up the poop as part of the price that must be paid while otherwise breaking the conversational ice with pooch-owner-the-other,  might just make your own connection.

Hell is other people? In that case, your caring canine might be enough to ride out your days feeling loved and wanted. But only if you are wired as a Lone Wolf. Wolves of any ilk don’t play go fetch. They know there’s no point to it…

Woof. Woof.

Memorial Day, 2015. Speeches. Parades. Visits to military and civilian cemeteries . Or simple personal remembrances, in one’s home, or strolling alone in a park, warming a bar stool, still trying to sort it out, the how and the why.

I’ve been to Arlington National cemetery. I’ve watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown. Very somber. Regardless of where a member of our military killed in the line of duty eternally rests, these fallen are of equal status, if not equal rank. They gave their life to the United States of America as members of its military.

Depending on what military deployment into which each was sent to meet his or her ultimate fate, there is–in my mind, at least–the question of not just how they died, but most importantly where. And the “where” is something treated ceremonially as a virtual irrelevance. The praise for their service and sacrifice is expected, but the solemn observances preclude much of any specific deployment context. WWI. WWII. Korea. Vietnam. Gulf I. Gulf II. Afghanistan. Oh, there’s a lot of other deployments, historically, but who’s alive to remember much of what they were all about? Were they all that necessary in defending the American Way of Life?

If there’s a living veteran of WWI, he’d be somewhere in the 115 year-old range. Maybe there’s plenty of children of such veterans, and they’d be deep into their 80’s and 90’s, I suspect. A good friend of mine lost her WWII veteran father 18 months ago when he was 95. She is now 58. Do the math. Another twenty years and the oldest WWII vet will be lucky to be alive at 110 or so. Then the historians can chase their ghosts. The U.S. WWI fallen are currently pretty much a dusty abstraction of global warfare. It was fought. The USA saved its Democracy! If it was ever in jeopardy in the first place. We read about that “war to end all wars” and it’s reason for being fought, and somehow it never makes much sense–to me, anyway. Especially the U.S. participating in it for its second-half, as it were. Arch Duke Ferdinand is assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in 1914. The U.S. enters the fray in 1917. There are theories. Millions and millions and millions dead. 116,000 of them our soldiers. Want to read one scorching anti-war novel about WWI? Try Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.

It was not the war to end all wars, obviously.

WWII. Now, that’s a no-brainer as to why the U.S. fought in it. Pear Harbor shocked us out of our “stay neutral” mind-set. The reality of the Axis powers intentions to invade and conquer, and not simply in Pacific/Asian or European spheres, became more dramatic and disturbing as that war went on. It started in 1939, and after Pearl, the Yanks were all-in by early 1942. This was, unequivocably, a war in which the ominous expression, “to the victors goes the spoils” was just waiting for an outcome.

And the Allies prevailed. Over 400,000 American casualties and somewhere in the range of 60,000,000 dead  combatants altogether.

World War Two. Somehow, on this and any other Memorial Days, we Americans must realize that if the Allies had lost to Germany and Japan, our way of life would not be the same in its aftermath. What? Hitler and Hirohito were going to provide their version of a Marshall Plan for the U.S. of A? I think not. It’s hard to imagine what a twisted new world order was awaiting humankind if our side didn’t get that Ultimate Weapon first, or that the Allied armies (especially the Red Army)  didn’t crush the Third Reich in order to finally push Japan into the Hiroshima showdown. One Nagasaki nuking a few days after Hiroshima’s mushroom shaped holocaust failed to bring Japan to its knees and victory for the Allied Armies was assured.

Nothing since comes close to what was at stake for the U.S. and the world-at-large.

So, while we salute all of the fallen , in all of the wars in which Memorial Day seeks to honor, this son of a WWII vet, and Vietnam era veteran himself, always finds something disingenuous about what I feel is the exploitation of one-size fits-all patriotic bombast about certain of the unfortunate casualties of post-WWII deployments. After all, I served (drafted) as part of the several million men who were in uniform during 10 years of the Vietnam conflict. My fellow Vietnam era vets now have the dubious distinction of being part of a deployment in which our military and political leaders decided to finally declare defeat! and simply bring the surviving troops home. To the victor went the spoils? Hardly. Remind me again, why did we deploy to Vietnam? What, exactly was on the line? The Pentagon’s pride? The military contractor’s bottom-line? Other than for those American service personnel who fought and died, or were seriously wounded, there was virtually no blowback to our national security or way of life. That’s not theory, either.

Gulf I and II? Iraq? Ten years and we declare what? Futility, and bail out. Now we have ISIS as a result of the vacuum left there. 13 years and counting in Afghanistan. Why are we still there? It’s a drone war now, in many ways, so I guess we’re there and not there all at once. Isn’t it time to cut and run as in Iraq? Oh, right. “Either we fight them there or we fight them here.” That was the Bush II rallying cry. Be afraid, be very afraid!

Naturally, we have fallen and wounded heroes from all wars. They answered a call to duty, but not since the Second World War should that call to action ever have been made. If only our military and political “leaders” would stop victimizing those who volunteer to serve by sending some of them to premature graves for deployments that inherently have no truly profound military/national security downside, as in our way of life somehow being threatened. Yes, it’s a fearful world full of terror threats, so bulk up our borders, and have our warriors on alert within our borders. Stop sending them into no-win strategies in far-flung regions looking for a threat that, over the past 25 years, has resulted in not much to celebrate, other than in those ceremonies honoring the inevitable casualties of war.

We regret all of their their passing on this and future Memorial Days. Sadly, it’s difficult to understand why, since 1945, so many were where they needn’t ever have been at all.