Cory Booker has his Say

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I have been an ardent fan of Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey even since the evening thirteen years ago this month when, while serving as Mayor of Newark, Booker and two of his security guards rushed into the burning home of a neighbor and rescued a woman who had been trapped in the fire.  As a big city mayor, Cory Booker was known for rolling up his sleeves and being active in the community, often at street level.  And as a US senator he is  known for still being active and close to the center of things.

Senator Cory Booker earned a dubious distinction yesterday by becoming the longest-winded speaker in the history of the United States Senate.

Senator Booker had taken the floor the previous evening in an effort to bring attention the outrages being perpetrated against the American public by the Trump administration, a list of affronts whose enumeration and illumination took the senator twenty-five hours and five minutes to fully disclose and discuss.

The Herculean endeavor from the New Jersey senator was intended to inspire public resistance to what the Trump administration is doing to America, and in that effort, Senator Booker was highly successful.  The marathon speech was livestreamed on TikTok where some reports say that it received over 350 million "likes" from the international audience.

The record for the second-longest floor speech in the history of the US Senate is now held by the late Senator Storm Thurmond of South Carolina whom Booker knocked from the top spot.   Senator Thurmond, an old hardline segregationist, spoke for twenty-four hours and eighteen minutes in 1957 as he attempted to filibuster civil rights legislation.  Senator Strom Thurmond, his times, and his record are gone now, and it was a black man who brought some of that to an end.

In preparing for yesterday's ordeal, Senator Booker revealed that he had not eaten or drank anything for several hours prior to the speech.  He intentionally dehydrated himself so that he would not have to worry about bathroom breaks.  He said that he suffered stomach cramps for a while during the protracted oration, but persisted in speaking and ultimately prevailed in delivering his message and setting a record while he was at it.

The message was the core of Senator Booker's speech, and he stayed on that message throughout more than a complete day at the microphone.  He had prepared remarks and supplemented those by reading letters of concern about Trump policies from Democrats and Republicans across the nation.  His colleagues also stood to ask relevant questions at various points throughout the speech, small mercies which helped to keep the speaker focused and to give his voice an occasional bit of respite.

Senator Booker spoke for an exceedingly long time, but he spoke with purpose - and people heard him.  He helped to single out and shine a light on the daily crap that Donald Trump has been slinging against the wall for over two months - and he showed the world that in America we are not all dispirited victims content to quietly take what life throws at us.

Cory Booker stood up - for a long damned time - and he made some noise, or as the late Rep. John Lewis might have termed it - some good trouble.

Thank you, Senator Booker.  Salute!

Proper and Improper Ideologies

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

 

In his never-ending quest to re-invigorate American society with infusions of racism and class division, Donald Trump last week put a target on the Smithsonian Institution with claims that the venerable museum organization has an "improper ideology."   Trump signed an executive order last Thursday which directs Vice President JD Vance to work with Congress to rid the Smithsonian Museum and the National Zoo of "improper ideology" that is "inconsistent with federal law."  

Vice President Vance has a seat on the Smithsonian Institute's Board of Directors.

Trump's expansive order seems to specifically target a couple of the Smithsonian Institution's museums:  the American Women's History Museum and the National Museum of African American History.  Trump's order seeks to slash funding for exhibits or programs that promote ideologies which are deemed (presumably by Trump and Vance) inconsistent with federal law or policies.  Currently much federal "policy" seems to be coming from the dark recesses of the aging mind of Donald John Trump and from the extreme right-wing "Project 2025" handbook for lazy politicians with fascist tendencies.

According to news reports Vance and his museum cleaning team are to be on the lookout for anything which recognizes trans people, degrades shared American values (presumably those values shared by the cultural and ethnic majorities of Americans), and which divide Americans based on race.

The Trump team seems to regard the teaching of black history, including slavery and racial discrimination, as being particularly divisive in that it can tend to show white Americans in an unfavorable light based on their ancestry.   Conservatives, including Vance, have decried the Smithsonian as well some schools of higher learning as being "woke" and destroying patriotism with their realistic and historically accurate portrayals of American history through the perspectives of racial and ethnic minorities.

Accurate history would appear to be an "improper" ideology.

While Donald Trump wants to put limits on the Smithsonian's ability to tell certain key aspects of American history, he also used that same executive order to openly promote another seriously divisive measure.  Not only does he want to tone down or perhaps eliminate key portions of Black history, Trump is also calling on the Secretary of the Interior to reinstate national monuments and statues within his jurisdiction that were "removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history."  And by that he is pushing for bring back the Confederate statues and monuments that were taken down during the 2020 racial justice protests.

That action dovetails nicely with Trump's efforts to bring back the Confederate names of US military installations that were changed during the Biden administration.

Worshipping false idols of dangerous bigots from out nation's past would appear to be an example of "proper" ideology.

If it's all just a plot by the administration to "dumb down"America, as Trump's election itself proves, there's not further they can go!

Put a Cork in Your Outrage, Elon!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

A couple of weeks ago Minnesota Governor Tim Walz made a humorous remark regarding Tesla while speaking at a political town hall meeting in Wisconsin.  Walz, who was the Democratic nominee for Vice President last year, was commenting on how Tesla stock was falling precipitously as the company's CEO and major stock holder, Elon Musk, was becoming more and more involved in politics and the operation of the United States government.

During the town hall Governor Walz had the temerity to tell those in attendance that he checks his iPhone stock app during the day to watch the Tesla stock plummet whenever he needs "a little boost during the day."  Governor Walz made his remark in a humorous vein, but Elon, the touchy billionaire, was not amused.

In fact, the humorless Elon Musk was embittered and vitriolic in his response to the remark that Governor Walz made in jest.    In an interview on Fox last Friday the immigrant billionaire did not hold back in expressing his views on Governor Walz:

"I mean, you have Tim Walz, who's a huge jerk, running around on stage with the Tesla stock price, where the stock price had gone in half, and he was overjoyed . . . What an evil thing to do - what a creep, what a jerk.  Who derives joy from a thing like that?"

Maybe if Elon Musk can't handle good, old-fashioned political hazing he should pull his South African nose out of American politics and go home!

Perhaps it's good to see the humorless billionaire focused on "evil things."  Maybe that will help him to understand the suffering and death that he helped to loose on the world when his unofficial government agency, DOGE, tore into USAID in a move that led to it being dismantled.  Children around the world suffered and even died from that atrocity.  Or how about when his minions forced their way into the US Institute for Peace and helped to bring the decades-long good work of that agency to a complete stop.  What an evil thing to do!

And don't get me started on Gramma not being able to sleep at night as she lives in abject fear of losing her social security benefits because of  the actions of the DOGE team - cutting personnel in the social security offices, cutting the number of offices, and limiting ways in which people can effectively contact the social security administration, especially if those good, God-fearing elderly folks live in rural areas.  What an evil thing to do.  What kind of a "creep" would cause a thing like that to happen?  What sort of uncaring "jerk" could call the nation's premier program for keeping the elderly fed, safe, and well a "ponzi scheme."

Put a cork in your outrage, Elon.  Each and every starving child in the world, regardless of their skin color, is worth more than a damned car, or a thousand damned cars, and so is every elderly person who is carefully rationing their groceries - or their medications - in the hope of spending a little more time with their loved ones.

Your priorities are twisted - and embarrassing - and definitely not American!

Boycott Tesla, America!  It's the least we can do!

How Today'$ Democracy Work$

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

This coming Tuesday voters in Wisconsin will have the opportunity to tell immigrant Elon Musk to take a long walk off of a short pier.

Tuesday's big political race in Wisconsin is for an officially non-partisan seat on the state's supreme court, a seat which will determine whether liberal forces will keep their bare majority of power in the court, or if the power will switch to conservative forces.  Even though the seat is officially non-partisan, the state's Democratic party is supporting one particular candidate, the liberal, while the Republicans are in bed with the conservative.

The central issue in the Wisconsin appears women's health care and their right to abortion services.

The race has drawn in around $73 million (possibly as much as $81 million) in contributions with the liberal candidate, Circuit Judge Susan Crawford of Dane County currently leading in the money chase over Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel.  But just because Judge Crawford is leading in contributions at the moment, Schimel's side is also relying on some very deep political pockets, one of which belongs to the world's richest man, Elon Musk.  Musk and his political protege, Don Trump, have endorsed Schimel throughout the campaign and have been active on his behalf on social media.   Musk, in the current Wisconsin effort, is pulling out one of the shadier tactics that he used on the 2024 Trump campaign:  he is slathering cash directly upon potential Schimel voters.

The way the Musk money dispersement directly to potential voters works is like this:  Elon's super pac has drafted a. petition against "activist" judges.  ("Activist" in this case is intended to be a derogatory term referencing judges who maintain and practice a liberal judicial philosophy - and conservative "activists" are apparently not a problem, at least to Elon and Trump.). Elon offered voters who signed his petition one hundred dollars, along with an extra one hundred dollars if they got someone else to sign the petition, too.  It's a gambit to whip up enthusiasm among conservative voters in the hope they will then turn out and vote.

The crafty immigrant also announced that he would be awarding two checks of one million dollars each to two individuals to act as spokesmen for his petition.  One person, a man from Green Bay, Wisconsin, has already been selected as one of the spokesmen.

Musk will be giving a "talk" in Wisconsin on Sunday, and the only actual spectators who will be allowed in for his performance will be people who have signed his petition.  Presumably the second "spokesman" (winner) could be announced there.

Musk performed a similar gambit in the 2024 general election where he offered a million-dollar giveaway per day to people in seven key swing states who signed a petition in support of the First Amendment.

Both of the giveaways, last year's and this year's, have the feel and smell of being a sweepstakes, but in point of fact the winners in the first were pre-selected for their ability to influence others in the 2024 venture.  The money was intended to go to people who would be useful to the campaign.  That appears to be the same strategy with the giveaway in Wisconsin, with one "winner" already having been selected.

The Democratic attorney general of Wisconsin went to court to try and stop Elon Musk's latest money shower, but an appellate court has ruled that it can continue.

Current estimates are that Elon Musk has contributed in the neighborhood of $10 million to the state supreme court judicial race in Wisconsin - so far - making him the largest individual contributor. That is probably not how our nation's Founding Father's envisioned democracy working - and certainly not through some sleight-of-hand scheme where potential voters are led to believe that they have as good of a chance as anyone else of "winning" a million dollars.

Votes should be earned, not purchased.

Law and Order It Isn't

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The law and order President who continually boasts about his administration rounding up and deporting  gang members and criminals appears to have a blind spot when it comes to dealing with one very notorious criminal gang - the gang of 2,000 or so who smashed and forced their way into the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021.  In fact, Donald Trump pardoned those criminals, even the ones whose actions led to the injuries of more that 140 members of the Capitol Police and the subsequent deaths of five Capitol Police officers.

Unbelievable but true!  The thugs and miscreants who broke windows and stormed doors to gain entry to the Capitol and then ran amuck once they were inside - destroying property (to the tune of a million-and-a-half-dollars), occupying offices, terrorizing and physically assaulting people who worked in the building, and even defecating on the floor -  those full-fledged domestic terrorists were pardoned for their crimes almost as soon as Donald Trump got back into office.

(But anyone who keys a Tesla is headed straight for El. Salvador!)

In an interview with the right-wing news organization, Newsmax, earlier this week, Trump had the audacity to say that those individuals who were in the Capitol on January 6th,  were there"peacefully and patriotically."  (The injured and dead police officers would probably beg to differ.)

But even after his outrageous pardons of the January 6th criminals, Trump was still not content.  In that Newsmax interview last Tuesday he said that the Capitol invaders could also wind up receiving compensation for their time in jail - the government would give them monetary payments (our tax dollars!) for the indignity they suffered by being locked up.  Trump told the interviewer that there is a lot of talk among people in government right now (his people) about compensating those individuals, and he added that is because they "really like that group of people."

One of the people who stands to be compensated for being locked away as a reesult of his involvement in the January 6th riots at the Capitol is a young man from North Carolina who was found to have child pornography in his home, pornography which he had produced himself involving two young girls, one pre-pubescent an the other under the age of twelve.  That pornography was discovered while police searched his home looking for materials connecting him to the January 6th riots.  A news story this week indicated that since the discovery of the pornography was linked to the January 6th investigation, the man's lawyer plans to use the presidential pardon in an effort to get his client free of the pornography charge.

Meanwhile there is another young man who is in a hellhole prison in El Salvador whose only two crimes were:   1.) being Hispanic, and 2.) having a tattoo supporting autism awareness which the ICE agents who snatched him were too damned dumb to understand.

And the person responsible for all of this "law and order" is an elderly politician who less than a year ago was convicted by a New York state Supreme Court jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover-up hush money payments to a porn star.

Maybe we should compensate him, too!

The hypocrisy is stunning - and outrageous!

Quackery Compounds the Measles Epidemic

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Doctors at Covenant Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, which is near the epicenter of the current Texas-New Mexico- Oklahoma measles outbreak, are finding abnormal liver functions among some of the measles patients at their hospital, a probable sign of too much consumption of Vitamin A.  

That particular situation, the consumption of too much Vitamin A and the resultant toxicity that is affecting liver functioning may be rooted in remarks by US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, who has been touting Vitamin A as possible protective and preventative measure for measles.

The only way to prevent measles is  with two doses the MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccine, which is 97% effective.  Kennedy, who is not a physician, has said that he encourages the MMR vaccinations, but that it is a personal parental choice.  He has also continued to promote the use of Vitamin A as a way to limit the severity of the highly contagious viral disease,  or prevent the infection entirely.  Kennedy's promotion of Vitamin A as a preventative measure or a treatment for measles may have led some parents to believe that they should choose between the shots or the vitamin treatment.   The hospitalized children with the Vitamin A toxicity were all unvaccinated - a clear sign that their parents made the wrong choice.

According to the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control, the controlled use of Vitamin A can play a role in the treatment of measles in serious cases, but it should be under the care and supervision of a physician.  MMR shots remain the only effective prevention measure .

Keep you children safe.  If you have questions about the effectiveness of a medical treatment, consult with a physician.  Don't take medical advice from a politician or some quack huckster.

Signal-gate and the Innocent Bystander

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

In a rapidly developing national political scandal that is now in its third day, White House and Pentagon officials are working at warp(ed) speed to control damage to their public personas.  When news broke earlier this week that top government officials had met a few days earlier over a public group chat service called Signal to discuss military attacks on Yemen and Houthi rebels and pirates in the Red Sea, and that they had somehow inadvertently invited the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine into their conversation, a tsunami of bad press went surging across the world's media landscape.

Donald Trump, being a politician who is only responsible for good news, quickly denied any knowledge of, or involvement in, the public relations fiasco that was also a likely breach of national security and was definitely rocking his administration.   In fact, Trump seemed to be trying to lay the blame at the feet Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic editor who had been included in the high level discussion and briefing.  After the incident occurred and had been made public, Trump, a master of projection, referred to Goldberg as a "sleazebag."

"Sleazebag" or not, when Goldberg finally realized that the correspondence he was receiving was not some elaborate prank in which he was a victim being"punked" by persons unknown, he withdrew from the conversation, and subsequently notified officials that he had been accidentally included in the chat.    Most of the players, Donald Trump included, quickly made their way to news outlets to announce that no classified material had been discussed in the group chats.  

Some of those players included in the actual conversation included Vice President Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard,  National Security Adviser Mike Waltz - who set up the group chat, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, (presumed) White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff - each and every one of whom was handpicked for their critical and highly sensitive jobs by Donald John Trump.

Atlantic Editor Jeffrey Goldberg was identified in the messaging as "JG," and no one in the group questioned his presence or identity.  Goldberg observed the group interaction but did not participate.

After listening to the caterwauling of the players for a couple of days, as well as their insistent denials that classified material had been discussed, Goldberg and his magazine, The Atlantic, decided to release the transcripts of the group chat.  There could be no conceivable harm in that if the cyber-meeting was as innocent as the participants - and even Trump - said that it was.  Yesterday that transcript was published by The Atlantic, and chief among its contents were specifics of an attack on targets in Yemen that took place two hours after Defense Secretary Hegseth posted the information on the group chat.  Even some Republican politicians are struggling to explain why those plans would not have been classified.

Steve Witkoff was in Moscow meeting with Putin at the time of the attack.  It is unknown whether he had access to his messaging app while he was in the Kremlin or not, but the proximity of that information to the nerve center of Russian intelligence should be extremely troubling to American intelligence - to say the absolute very least!

The bombing plans seem to have been carried out effectively, which is amazing because the preparations were comical and slipshod from the get-go.  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth entered specifics about targets and the timing of airstrikes two hours in advance on an app that the Pentagon had instructed military personnel not to use for classified on sensitive material.

Signal is not an approved government platform for sharing classified information.

Part of the reason that Mike Waltz (or whoever made the actual decision) chose to use Signal is that it can be set to delete messages at a specific time, and it could be used to contravene the Presidential Records Act of 1978 which established public ownership of records created by Presidents and their staff in the course of discharging their official duties.  Over the years there seems to have developed a reticence on the part of presidential administrations and some of their members to  follow the law and dutifully preserve all records, particularly those that history might find to be incriminating.  

Some are arguing that Signal was used by that particular working group to circumvent the Presidential Records Act.   The government has servers which are encrypted and secure for sending and receiving classified information, but those would result in official records that would have to be kept in accordance with the Presidential Records Act of 1978.   Using apps like Signal and private email accounts is one way to circumvent that pesky law.   Signal and private email accounts also pose serious  threats to national security - and everyone involved in that particular group chat should have been well aware of the risks involved.

The scandal is building and politicians from both parties are demanding answers. Right now the only obvious fact of the matter is that Donald Trump was just an innocent bystander - as he always is.

The Ultra-Wealthy Are Already Freeloading!

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Louis DeJoy, a Republican mega-donor with a net worth somewhere in the neighborhood of nine-figures - but shy of the current GOP benchmark of being worth a billion dollars or more to be a top government appointee - was appointed leader of the US Postal Service by Donald Trump during his first administration.  DeJoy, who came to government service from the private sector, quickly earned the enmity of many postal service employees and much of the public sector with his cost-cutting activities which resulted in slower and curtailed service from the USPS, a government service seen by many as the bond that holds the country together. 

Joe Biden, during his 2020 presidential campaign against Trump, made political noises about firing Louis DeJoy, but once Biden was elected he apparently removed that item from his "to do" list and was supportive, or at least tolerant, of DeJoy's aggressive business style.

There was political chatter at the time of DeJoy's appointment to head the Postal Service, that he was there to cripple the agency in an effort to get it under private control, and that may have well been the case, but somewhere along the way he seems to have developed a sincere interest in helping the over-burdened and under-funded agency succeed.

Enter Elon Musk and his co-conspirators in DOGE at the beginning of the second Trump administration, and attention once again turned to crippling the US Postal Service with the obvious intent of eventual privatization.   DeJoy apparently agreed to an initial DOGE mandate for his agency to cut 10,000 jobs, but he roared in protest when Elon and his boys wanted access to highly confidential information on his agency's computer system.  DeJoy had already announced his intention to resign as soon as the USPS Board of Governors found a suitable replacement for him, but this past Monday he adjusted that timeline and said that he would resign at the end of the day.

What Joe Biden either couldn't or wouldn't address, Donald Trump managed to accomplish in just over two months.  He got rid of one of his own employees in a move that appears intended to hamstring an important government service to the American people.

Folks, Elon and Trump and their boys have already been swinging hard at Social Security by slashing the employee rolls, closing offices, and making communication with the agency much harder - if not completely impossible.  The end game is to make certain that Social Security is unable to function effectively so that our overlords can rush in with a privatization plan to "save" the program.    The same is true of cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, the end game of which is to force participants into "advantage" programs - which would result in benefits being approved and administered through private insurance companies.  For those who think dealing with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is too hard as it is, pick up the phone and just try getting a human being at United Health Care (or any other major insurer) on the line.  I double-dog dare you!

Now, just as it looks as though we are going to be needing the US Postal Service even more, it, too, will be headed for the auction block. And plans for increased rural access to internet also seem to be evaporating.

Education, too, is being rapidly privatized through the funneling of public tax dollars to private and religious schools, with an end game being the collapse of "free" public education.  Soon, very soon, securing a basic elementary and secondary education for your child will be like going to the store for groceries.  Shoppers will be strictly limited by what they can afford - and - to frost that cake - they (we) will go right on paying taxes anyway!

We have a government that is rapidly disengaging from its role in providing basic human services to the population.   The attitude emanating from On High seems to be that if a service does not directly benefit billionaires, it is a waste of the money that working people send them through taxes.

Shame on the Grand Old Party for turning its back on the people whose blood, sweat, and tears built this once-great nation.  That rumble in the distance is the sound of collapse, and the GOP owns it!

No tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy!  They are already freeloading as it is!

The Narcissist-in-Chief

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The whine is on!

Donald John Trump, a man who literally grew up wallowing in privilege, loves to complain ad nauseam  about how unfairly life treats him.  The starchy old politician is now in a major snit over the way artist Sarah Boardman depicted him in a portrait which is hanging in the Colorado State Capitol next to a portrait of Barack Obama that was painted by the same artist.

Trump regards the painting of himself as unflattering while complaining that the one of Obama looks "wonderful."

(Hey Don, cut the artist some slack.  Consider what she had to work with!)

Trump had apparently just become aware of the painting which has hung in the Colorado State Capitol since 2019.   He described it as "purposefully distorted" and demanded its removal.  The executive committee of the state legislature has acceded to the petulant demand and said that it will be removed.

IMHO the painting looks remarkably like Trump with a couple of glaring exceptions:  his face is somber, containing neither his trademark smirk nor sneer, and his color is somewhat pallid because Ms. Boardman chose to paint him without his makeup, rendering his face substantially less orange.  But Trump should have been happy with the improvements that the artist made to his hair.  It is full and thick, a far cry from the whispy combover that perpetually struggles to stay atop his large, follically challenged head.

Republicans in the Colorado state legislature paid for that painting (the one that is coming down) with a GoFundMe page that generated over $10,000.  They may not have to beg money for its replacement because Illinois Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker has offered to buy the old one.  Pritzker, a real billionaire, would be certain to give the disparaged painting a prominent display space that is worthy of its subject- perhaps in a railroad car on The El, on a restroom wall at O'Hare, or perhaps above a vending machine in a snack bar at the Obama Presidential Library.

Governor Pritzker and Illinois would be sure to show the narcissist-in-chief the respect he so rightly deserves.

Interconnections

 

by Pa Rock

Road Warrior

Rosie and I were having an uneventful ride home from Kansas City yesterday when a couple of events happened in quick succession near Seymour on Highway 60, a major and very busy four-lane highway that stretches across southern Missouri.  There are two stoplights, about a mile apart, along the highway at Seymour.    That happens to be Amish country, and it is not unusual to see Amish buggies being pulled by large Percheron horses along the highway's right-of-way.  It's not the safest of circumstances for anyone, but it is a place where two cultures merge, and everyone tries to be extra careful and respectful.

As I was driving along between the stoplights, I passed two young Amish boys around the age of twelve or so who were riding bareback on pair of large black horses, galloping down the right of way, going east like Rosie and me.   The Amish who travel the roadways in their carriages, sometimes with children sitting in the back facing the on-coming traffic, always appear dour and serious, but these lads had broad smiles and may have even been laughing, no doubt delighted that church was over for the morning and they were flush with exuberance for the day awaiting them.

I'm fairly certain that their names were Tom and Huck.

They were in a grand mood, and so were their horses.  I had been in a bored funk from driving several hours, but the enthusiasm radiating from those two youngsters brightened my mood considerably, and, I suspect, uplifted many of the others who drove past them on that glorious afternoon.

I stopped at the next light to fill my little Kia with gas and to take Rosie out for her constitutional.  After Rosie had done her business, I put her back in the car and headed into the Casey's to do mine.  As I got close to the door, a young man exiting the store pushed the door open, and then recognizing a grandpa when he saw one, held the door open for me.  But before I could reach the door and thank him for his courtesy, he stared toward the gas pumps and got an odd look on his face.  I followed his glance and noticed a large woman, who was struggling to walk with a cane in the headwind.  She was also heading for the door but a few feet further out than myself.

The woman was progressing slowly against the wind and toward the door.  The guy holding the door open looked perplexed as he debated how to handle the two old people heading his way from different directions.  He was in the center and obviously going to be in the way of someone.  But I was still feeling light-hearted from seeing the two Amish boys as they reminded the world of what joy was all about, and I reached out and grabbed the door from the impromptu doorman and told him that I would handle it.

The woman smiled at both of us as she reached the curb, and the other guy stepped out of the way and went to his car.  "Thank you," she said, standing at the curb but making no effort to step up onto it.  "Can I help you?"  I asked, though I was not sure of what I could do to help.  "No," she replied, "I just need to stand until the wobblies go away."   I have a history of falling and understood exactly what she was feeling.  

The woman regained her balance and gingerly put her right foot onto the 6-inch curb, and then slowly followed with her left.   But as he was trying to defeat the wobblies from atop the curb, she swayed, exactly the way I had swayed the previous week on the church steps at a family reunion and almost tumbled into oblivion.  As she was swaying she began leaning backward.  I was in the right place at the right time, and my right hand instinctively shot out and grasped her left hand and she regained her stability.

"Thank you," she said, as we were entering the store.  "I'm fifty years old and I'm beginning to lose it."

"I'm seventy-seven today," I told her, "and I've already lost it several times.  But we bounce back, don't we?"

The point of this tale is "interconnectedness."  While you may not believe in some magical being who sits on a cloud all day smoking a hookah pipe as She pulls the puppet strings of more than eight billion individual people on Planet Earth, I believe it is evident that all of our lives impact the lives of others and that we are connected as a species and as a life force.  We are ripples in a pond, or an ocean, threads in a fabric.  Each of us touches more lives in more ways than we can possibly imagine.

Two young Amish boys, Tom and Huck, saved a woman from grievous bodily harm yesterday, and neither she nor them have a clue as to how they connected.  And today that same woman is out in the world, upright and mobile, and through happenstance, or design, or example, has already done something that will impact the lives of others, and they, in turn, will impact still more.

Enjoy the world around you, and share it with others.

They Say it's My Birthday!

 

by Pa Rock

Old Fart

Another year - another birthday, and now I am finally as old as Ranger Bob  -  and I only feel a few years older than I did at this time last year!

It's been a good trip, and I think I may have broken a one-day store sales record at Costco, but Costco employees are good, well-treated and well-paid people, so I like sharing with them.  Also, Costco is one of the few major retailers to have actively maintained its DEI policies in spite of the dangerous bigots who are now running our country.

And here I am, a paragraph further along and that much older than when I began this post.  Time is a river, and the more of it you navigate, the more rapidly the water flows.

Rosie and I are fixing to leave Roeland Park and head back to our little place in the Ozarks.  We brought her bed along on this trip, so she should sleep comfortably for most of the 279 miles.  I probably will, too!

Enjoy my birthday - I know I will!

Adventures in Bed

 

by Pa Rock

Nocturnal Warrior

It's been awhile since I was last attacked in my sleep.  I did ride out a couple of earthquakes on my old iron bed during my last stay on the Japanese island of Okinawa more that a decade ago, but the last time I was physically assaulted while slumbering was in Arizona in around 2008 when I woke up tangled in the sheets and fighting like hell to get away from an angry scorpion.  The little bastard got me three times before I finally snuffed him.

Rosie and I are in Kansas City for a short visit.  Normally it is hard for me to get to sleep in a different environment, especially if I am tired - such as after a long drive - and last night was no exception.  I had laid in bed for more than an hour when I finally started to get drowsy.   I was just on the cusp of that magic moment of sleep arriving when my world suddenly exploded.  As I lay there in a strange bed, in a dark room, from literally out of nowhere a very surprised cat landed on my face.  I was, of course, equally surprised and knocked the late-night marauder to the floor.

Re-run, the family cat, is a stealthy creature who never goes outside, and consequently does all of his big game hunting darting from room to room and cleverly hiding during the hunts.  Unbeknownst to me or Rosie, the sneaky cat had secreted himself somewhere in the bedroom before I closed the door and turned off the lights.  But by the time he jumped on the bed and landed on my face, Re-run had apparently forgotten about me or misjudged where I was at on the bed, and he seemed every bit as surprised as me when I sat up and knocked him to the floor.

Rosie stayed quiet and apparently slept through all the excitement - or maybe she was too terrified to get involved.   I elected just to stay in bed, cover my head, and forget about the damned cat because I knew that if I got up, turned on the light, and began looking for furry marauder, Rosie would join in the free-for-all.  An hour or so later, just as sleep was about to arrive for a second time, I heard a soft mewing and could see the bad kitty sitting in front of the door asking to be let out.  I got up and obliged him, ending an evening that neither of us is likely to forget.

America Don't Need No Stinking Teslas!

 

by Pa Rock

Road Warrior

I wanted to spend some time today talking about Tesla.

A couple of years ago my son and I pulled up behind a Tesla here in Kansas City.  I saw a few in a showroom in Hawaii, but the Tesla in Kansas City is the only one that I have ever seen in the wild.  I was somewhat impressed - but not nearly as impressed as the day the same son and I drove up behind a new Lamborghini on the streets of Los Angeles.

I am no longer impressed by Tesla - at all.   There is no way that I would ever channel my my monthly Social Security pittance into the pocket of the immigrant who is trying to take it away from me.

The past few days there has been a trifecta of power plays coming from the White House pushing people to buy Tesla automobiles as well as to purchase Tesla stock.  And yesterday there was also a not-so-subtle threat from the Attorney General warning people against protesting outside of Tesla dealerships and damaging vehicles, things she referred to as "domestic terrorism."

I don't remember a time when a President of Our United States has ever publicly endorsed a particular commercial product, yet a week ago there was Donald John Trump standing on the South Lawn of the White House along with his top campaign donor (and founder and CEO of Tesla), Elon Musk, filming an informercial for the car company using our White House as his backdrop.  Not only was the sales pitch tawdry, it was highly unethical.  If Trump wants to be a pitchman for Musk-mobiles, let him do it at Mar-a-Lago after he leaves office!  

But it gets worse - of course it gets worse.  Yesterday Howard Lutnick, the US Secretary of Commerce, a Trump appointee, appeared on a Fox News show, and, in what seemed like extraordinarily strong terms, urged the show's host - and the viewing public - to invest in Tesla stock.  Lutnick said (correctly) that the stock is cheap right now, and he encouraged people to load up on it.   

(Tesla stock is low for a reason, just as Tesla cars are experiencing low sales for a reason - and that reason is Elon Musk mucking about in the US government putting things like peoples' health insurance, retirements, and general financial stability at risk - or perhaps people have just not warmed to the idea of the United States of America being turned into a racist, homophobic, and uneducated hellhole.)

And now we have the Attorney General of the United States, Pam Bondi, another Trump appointee, warning Americans that they will be regarded as "domestic terrorists" for things like demonstrating outside of Tesla dealerships or, God forbid, actually damaging a car.  Ms. Bondi smiled as she said the punishment for such evil acts could be as much as twenty years in prison.

If we had a US Department of Justice or a Congress that actually worked for the people, they would be waist-deep into investigating these unethical political shenanigans by now.

There have been memes all over the internet reminding us that killing a couple of dozen young school children in their classrooms, in the United States of America, garners little more than "thoughts and prayers," but now standing outside of a car dealership or damaging a car can result in twenty years behind bars.  If it's a child, how sad - but if it's a Tesla, send in the Marines!

Children are our bridge to the future, the world yet to come - and a Tesla is just a car!  Get a grip Pam!  And you, too, Donnie and Howard.  The world is about a lot more than just you and your rich friends.  Human rights should have at least as much value as property rights.

For those who haven't figured it out yet, the Tesla demonstrations and boycotts have definitely hit a few raw nerves.  The price of the stock has tumbled - and it fell again after Lutnick's shameless promotion of the stock, and people are shying away from the growing stigma of owning a Tesla.

Don't buy Teslas - and don't buy Tesla stock!   Be better than that, America!

A Mighty Wind

 

by Pa Rock

McBlogger

Another day, another trip to McDonalds to bang out a blog.  The winds hit again yesterday, God almighty did they hit, but this time there were no twisters.  However, the internet  at the Poor Farm did, of course, go down.  I have called to make sure that the company was aware of the outage, and they were, and there is an estimated repair time of 7:00 p.m. today.  I am taking it all very calmly because I know people who are still without power from last Friday night's storms.  Their issues need to be addressed first.  My problem is a trivial inconvenience compared to being without power for nearly a week - and no relief in sight.

Yesterday I saw a utiility crew out next to Highway 63, our major thoroughfare, struggling to keep a power pole from falling down onto the highway.  Whatever compensation those people are making is undoubtedly inadequate.

I don't remember wind being much of an issue before Trump came into office.

Here is my mot recent senior moment:  I am thinking about possibly going to Kansas City this weekend - haven't been there since before Christmas.  In preparation for the trip which may or may not happen, I stopped at a gas station yesterday on my way to cardiac rehab and filled my car's gas tank.  Then, later in the day when I got home from rehab and sat down to the computer  and discovered the latest internet outage, I thought to myselt, hey Pa Rock, why not use this sudden "free time" to go to town and fill the gas tank.  So I did - and when the pump stopped at less than two dollars and I couldn't squeeze any more out of it, the poor pump got a good cussing..  To my credit, I apologized to the pump before getting back in the car and going home - where I obviously belonged!

I blame Trump for that, too!

Musk, the Next Generation

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

One of Elon Musk's thirteen (or is it fourteen?) official off-spring made an interesting claim this past week.  Vivian Jenna Wilson said that her estranged father uses in vitro fertilization (IVF) and gender-selection when creating new members of his family - and that he uses gender-selection for the purpose of creating boy babies.  

The process of gender-selection in IVF consists of identifying the gender of the embryos, and then using those of the preferred gender for the actual pregnancy.  (Enquiring minds would probably like to know what became of the embryos which were not selected by the picky billionaire.)

Musk and his first wife, Justine Wilson, had six children, the first of which was a baby boy named Nevada Alexander.  That infant passed away at 10-weeks of age due to Sudden Death Syndrome (SIDS).  After that very sad experience, the couple decided to use IVF for future pregnancies.   They became pregnant two more times:  first with a set of twins: Griffin and Xavier, and then with a set of triplets:   Kai, Saxon, and Damian.  All five were boys, lending some credence to Vivian's claim.

In 2022, Xavier Musk petitioned the court to have his name legally changed to Vivian Jenna Wilson and to have her gender officially recognized as female.   She explained in court documents that she no longer wanted to be related to her biological father "in any way, shape, or form."  

Musk, for his part, claims to have a good relationship with all of his other children and blames Vivian pulling away from him on the supposed takeover of elite schools and universities by "neo-Marxists."  Musk said of his situation with Vivian, "Can't win them all."

Musk went on to father seven or eight more children.  He and the singer, Grimes, had a son in 2020 whom they named "X AD A-Xii" who is more commonly referred to as "X."  (To her credit, Grimes seems to be very supportive of Vivian.)

The next year Musk had three more children:  a set of twins, a boy named Strider and a girl named Azure with Shivon Zilis, an executive with Musk's Neuralink company.  Shortly after that he had another child, via surrogacy, with Grimes, a girl who was named Exa Dark Siderael.

In 2022 Musk and Grimes had their third child, a boy named Techno Mechanicus who goes by "Tau."

Two years later Musk and Shivon Zilis had a daughter whom they named Arcadia. A year after that, in February of 2025, Musk and Zilis had their fourth child together (and luck number 13 for Musk),  Seldon Lycurgus.

But, little Seldon may not be number 13 after all.  A woman named Ashley St. Clair, has recently posted on "X" that she and Elon had a child together last September.  She said they kept the birth secret to protect the child's privacy, but she came forward because tabloids were preparing to break the story.  That child's name and gender have yet to be made public.

So, jumping back to the claim made by Vivian Wilson that her father, Elon Musk, has a preference for boy babies:  it looks as though he has fathered at least 10 boys and 3 girls by three women and possibly another child, gender kept private, by a fourth woman.  

That should be fodder for some good Christian fundamentalist discourse.

It's a wonder he has time to run the government!

Shattered Lives

 

by Pa Rock

Kibitzer 

Our area of the Ozarks suffered massive winds all day last Friday, and several tornadoes that evening.  My little place suffered no physical damage, and for that I am grateful, but many of my friends and neighbors were not so lucky.

My only loss was the wifi connection at my house which went out just before daylight on Saturday morning.   I know that because my bedside alarm, which is controlled by Alexa, went off at its regular 5:15 a.m. time that day, but then when I asked Alexa for the morning news update a few minutes later, she was no longer connected to wifi.  It stayed off for two full days, coming back on Monday morning.  

Not being connected to the rest of thr world through wifi is damned inconvenient.   Something which I had not even heard of thirty years ago is now so central to my life that I felt lost and helpless without it.  My routines were upended.  My alarms and news updates were gone, so was the ability to surf the internet and type the daily blog updates.  There was no music during the day, nor any television to fall asleep in front of in the evenings.  I was shocked at how dependent I have become on wifi.

Not having internet service had wrecked my life, or so I thought until I got out and about yesterday and started hearing from others - those who had suffered real hardships.  I talked to people with damaged homes, people who knew others who had lost their homes entirely, people whose electrical service was down and they had no idea when it would be restored, some whose yards had been stripped of trees and outbuildings, and many who were obviously still shell-shocked at the violent destruction which had suddenly upended their lives.

There were stories of fear and anxiety and desperation, of freezers filled with spoiled meat, of uprooted trees blocking roads and driveways, of downed power lines, of keepsakes which had blown away, of shattered lives. 

It will be awhile before things get anywhere near back to normal in this area.

My internet outage wasn't even worthy of a mention, so I kept it to myself.

No More Kings - Or - Game Over?

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I favor living in a society with enough structure to keep people safe.  I am not a fan of mayhem and chaos, and, at the same time, I am certainly opposed to iron-fisted authoritarianism.  When it comes to governance, give me the basics:  a constitution which outlines our rights and privileges as citizens, along with a mechanism for creating and enforcing laws to keep us safe in accordance with the constitution.

(I also support full suffrage and representation for all citizens including those living in Washington, DC, and United States Territories.)

Constitutional Democracy is a simple process, one that has served our nation well for nearly a quarter of a millennium.  But now our entire system of governance appears to be at risk as our executive leader, backed by a compliant Congress, seems focused on carrying out a radical agenda without the approval of the third branch of government as outlined in the US Constitution, the courts - and failure to abide by the rules of our government, as set forth in the Constitution, is a mortal threat to American democracy and our way of life.

A person living in the United States who has been issued a "Green Card" has the same rights and responsibilities as a US citizen,  yet over the past few weeks there have been several high-profile cases in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) agents have forcibly detained and imprisoned Green Card holders without providing them their constitutional right to due process.

The best known of these cases is that of Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University in New York City who had helped to lead the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia last spring.  Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent was seized and removed from his home in New York in the middle of the night on March 8th by ICE agents.   At the time of his removal no charges were filed.  When his wife mentioned that he was a Green Card holder, she was told that it was being revoked.  The Department of Homeland Security said later that Khalil had been removed because he had led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.

Khalil was removed from New York to a detention facility in New Jersey, and soon after that to one in Louisiana, moves some suspected were to keep him from quickly retaining legal counsel.

Fabian Schmidt has been a US Green Card holder since 2008.   He is a German citizen who lives in New Hampshire and works as an electrical engineer.   Schmidt was picked up by ICE as he reentered the country after a visit to Europe, and although ICE was being cagey regarding the reason for his arrest, it appears as though it might be related to an incident where he was found with marijuana in his car several years ago - a misdemeanor, but the family says there are no current charges - even by ICE.  His mother told reporters that her sone had been "stripped naked" and "violently interrogated" by ICE agents upon his arrest.  When reporters tried to learn more from ICE, they were put on the information merry-go-round and referred to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) - and a spokesman for that agency said the arrest might have to do with drug charges.  But again, no charges seem to have been filed.

Rasha Awawieh, a 34-year-od doctor (kidney specialist) who is based in Rhode Island and holds a valid US Visa, was deported to Lebanon by Customs and Border officials over the weekend despite a court order prohibiting them from doing so.  And now the White House has also apparently chosen to ignore an order from a court that two planeloads of ICE prisoners headed to future confinement in El Salvador be returned to the US until their fate can be adjudicated in US courts.

The Trump administration is currently saying that they are not violating court orders, although press reports strongly suggest otherwise.

Some of this is likely to begin landing before the Supreme Court very soon.  When that happens, and when a Supreme Court decision is ignored or defied by the Trump administration - an Andrew Jackson moment - we will have a true constitutional crisis on our hands and democracy will be in danger of being snuffed out by rich demagogues who care only for themselves, their personal wealth, and organizing the world to fit their prejudices.

It will be "game over" as far as our centuries-old democracy is concerned.

There, that's my cheery thought for the week.

No more kings!

Sreaves Reunion 2025 Highlights.

 

by Cousin Pa Rock

(Note:  Still no internet service due to the storms.  This is another McBlog from the local Mickey D's.)

A reunion of descendants of Daniel "Dan" Alexander Sreaves and Nancy Jane "Siss" (Roark) Sreaves was held this past Friday, March 14th, at the Swars Prairie Baptist Church in rural Newton County, Missouri, not far from where Dan and Siss raised their seven children.  Siss had been born in that area in 1889, and Dan, who was born in Madison County, Arkansas, in 1888, arrived as a young adolescent in a covered wagon with his family in 1901.

Six of the Sreaves children went on to have children of their own, and all those families lived close by in the two-county area except on outlier family who were in the Kansas City area most of the time that the cousins were growing up.  Siss liked to cook, and it was a common practice for the various kids and grandkids to gather at their home on Sunday afternoons and holidays for large family dinners and social visits that would often last until late in the day.  As a result, the cousins all knew each other well, and even the two from Kansas City were able to be around enough so that they were also closely connected to the group.

The Sreaves cousins numbered twenty-four at one time.  There were twelve with the surname Sreaves (from two families), eight who were named Macy (from two families), two whose last name was Dobbs, and two with the surname of Marble.  Of that big group of twenty-four grandchildren of Dan and Siss, ten have now passed on, including three in the last year alone, and of the fourteen who are left, seven were able to make it to the reunion along with one great-granddaughter of Dan and Siss and one great-great-granddaughter.

Though the group who attended was small, the chatter and camaraderie seemed to go remarkably well, with everyone encountering someone they hadn't seen in years.  There was plenty of reminiscing and a great deal of catching-up.  Cousin Joyce came the farthest to be there - from her home in Tucson, Arizona - and Pa Rock probably clocked in second with his four-hour drive from the Poor Farm in West Plains.  

I had a particularly good visit with Cousin Danny Joe, someone I had not been around in many years.  (Our mothers were sisters and our fathers were first-cousins, making Danny and I first-cousins on the Sreaves side of the family, and second-cousins on the Macy side.). Danny Joe is now the eldest of the Sreaves cousins, and I place second by two days.  Cousins Nedolyn and Joyce, who are  a little over two months younger than Danny and I, place third and fourth in seniority, respectively.with Nedolyn being one day older than Joyce.  (1948 was a big year for Sreaves' grandbabies!)   The "kids" at the reunion were my sister, Abigail, Cousin Brenda, and Cousin Wallace "Wally." 

I had spent the previous night in Bentonville (Sam Waltonville), Arkansas, where I had dinner and a nice visit with Abigail and Cousin Joyce, and also had the opportunity, while at dinner, to see and briefly visit with Abigail's oldest son (and one of my two favorite nephews), Justin Smith and his wife Lisa and their son, Graham.  

I left Bentonville early in the morning because the traffic there is always awful, and  made a couple of necessary stops in Neosho, Missouri, the place where I was born and once lived and worked, and then headed out to the church where the reunion was being held.  I arrived at 11:00 a.m., a tad too early for the reunion which was to begin at 1:00 p.m.  My plan was to spend most of that extra time walking through the large church cemetery where several generations of Sreaves' family members are buried, which I ultimately did do. My arrival at the church and cemetery, however, was accompanied by abnormally high winds that blew across much of Missouri and Arkansas and were most unwelcome.  The winds were blowing so hard that it was difficult to even open the car door - but I prevailed and made it out to the burying ground where I stumbled along the rows trying to hold my hat on with one hand, and my pants up with the other.   It was a scene worthy of a Benny Hill skit!

The wind was a defining event of the reunion.  There was also a scattering of rain.   The church had been reserved for four hours, but I left at about the two-hour mark realizing that my four-hour drive across half of southern Missouri was likely to be difficult in the wind and rain.  That proved to be a serious underestimation of the situation.  While driving home not only did the continuing winds push my little car and the huge trucks around on the busy interstate highway, but I also had to drive through three or four torrential downpours where it was difficult to even see the road, much less stay on it!  Benny Hill or the guys from Monty Python could have done a lot with that situation, too.

But, I made it home, basically unscathed, and brought many good memories of a day with the cousins with me.  We all seemed to realize that there won't be many more, if any, get-togethers for our group.  Seeing them once again was worth the challenges of the drive through the awful weather.

It was a very nice visit.  Thank you, Abigail, for planning the day and getting us all together!  

It was wonderful to see everyone!

McBlogging After the Storms

 

by Pa Rock

Survivor

This evening finds me in the parking lot of one of the local McDoanld's typing what will be a very short blog entry.   There were high winds in the area all day yesterday, and last night a series of tornadoes danced around Missouri and Arkansas.  

The governor is saying that nineteen tornadoes touched down in Missouri last night and at least twelve people were killed.  I have heard that there was extensive damage in Bakersfield, a wide spot in the road twenty-five miles from where I live, and quite a bit of damage in Alton, which is about thirty miles from here. 

My home internet is down, and the anticipated time it will be back up is tomorrow afternoon by 4:30.  I'm not complaining - as long as Mickey D's doesn't run me off - because I'm one of the lucky ones.  There was no damage in my area even though we were were under a tornado warning most of an hour, and my power didn't go out - just the internet service.    I didn't even lose any trees or big limbs.  Many in the area without power, and the fast food places in town have all been hammered with hungry customers today.

If McDonald's sends someone out to run me off, I will act like I am at Sonic and place an order.  Old people who act confused can get away with all kinds of crap!

Thank you to the good friend from the Kansas City area who keeps up on weather emergencies and called last night to advise me to head to the basement - which my son and I and the two dogs did.  I appreciate you, xobekim.  And today my son in Kansas City, good friend Marjorie from Phoenix, Cousin Wayne, and Ranger Bob all called to to check on Pa Rock and the situation in West Plains.    I love you all.

I did hear that an abundance of Trump signs had blown away during the storm.  God reveals herself in remarkable ways!

Tomorrow I will try to post about the Sreaves family reunion and my interesting four-hour drive home through several downpours and constant high winds.  That was a drive that I won't soon forget.

Stay safe - and always take weather warnings seriously!

Sreaves Family Reunion 2025

 

by Pa Rock

Sreaves Descendant

I am at a motel in Bentonville, Arkansas, this morning.  Later today my sister, Abigail, and our visiting cousin, Joyce, we will all be attending a SREAVES family reunion that my sister has organized.  It will be held at the Swars Prairie Baptist Church in Newton County, Missouri, (near Seneca), where most of our Sreaves relatives are buried - even most of the ones who were Methodists.

Abigail lives in Rogers, Arkansas, a city which is connected to the south end of Bentonville and to the north end of Springdale.  Springdale, in turn, is connected to the north end of Fayetteville, home of the University of Arkansas.  Woo . . . Pig . . . Suey!  From Bentonville, home of Walmart, south through Fayetteville, it's all just one big, traffic-clogged city - urban sprawl across land that was cow pastures in my youth.

Abigail has three grown children and four grandchildren living close by.  Cousin Joyce resides in Tucson, Arizona, in the winter, and Sandpoint, Idaho, during the summertime.  I have visited her twice in Idaho over the past few years - Sandpoint is one of the most beautiful towns in America.  Abigail dropped in on Joyce in Tucson last year during the winter.    Our mother and Joyce's mother were two of the four Sreaves girls who grew up on a farm near Seneca, Missouri, and there were also three Sreaves boys in the same family.  Six of those seven Sreaves youngsters went on to produce 24 children of their own.  Of those 24-grandchildren of Dan and Nancy Jane "Siss" (Roark) Sreaves, ten have already passed on including three during the last year alone, and the remainder have been invited to attend the reunion.   We are hopeful that most will.  I guess we will see how many show up.

As an unofficial family historian, I prepared five handouts for the cousins who do make it to the reunion.  Those documents include:  

• a pair of 5-generation family trees for each of our grandparents, Dan and Siss.  The include 21 ancestors for Dan, and 18 for Siss.
• "Recollections of Fannie Matilda Sreaves."  Fannie Sreaves Ulmer was one of our grandfather's younger sisters.  She was born in Huntsville, Arkansas, in 1898, and filled a notebook of her memories of growing up more than eighty years later.  One of the highlights of Fannie's story is her recounting the four-day trip by covered wagon that the family endured when they moved to McDonad County, Missouri, very early in the twentieth century.  Typed, her notebook covers six full pages.
• "Made from Scratch" by Mary Sreaves Clotfelter, a niece to my grandfather.  Her article was a piece that was published in the Crowder College literary magazine, "The Quill," forty years ago.  In it Cousin Mary talked about visiting in her grandparent's (Alexander and Mary Jane Sreaves) and some of the wonderful special dishes that her grandmother made from scratch.
• "Sreaves Relationship to Benjamin Franklin" which I compiled listing all of the connecting relatives between the famous founding father and our remaining cousins.  Our group members are first cousins, ten times removed to Ben.
• "Alexander Sreaves" Something else which I compiled giving biographical information on the father of our grandfather, Daniel Alexander Sreaves.  Alex, our great-granfather, was a family mystery until recently with no known history prior to the time when he married Mary Jane Ellis in Madison County, Arkansas, in early 1888.  I have made two trips to the Family Search (Mormon) Library in Salt Lake City over the past few years and each time I learned more about this unique ancestor.  I have now identified his parents and grandparents - as well as a few individuals beyond even that.  The document that I compiled will introduce the cousins to their great-grandfather and provide some highlights about his origins.

If anyone reading his blog entry feels that you might have a connection to the Sreaves family of southwest Missouri (it was originally spelled "Shreeves" and came from West Virginia through Ohio to Arkansas and Missouri) please contact me through this blog.  I would be more than happy to answer questions and share what I have collected.

That's the day that I have planned.  I will be heading home to West Plains in the evening.

(One more note:  I stayed at a chain motel in Bentonville last night.  It was a nice room, and above my bed was a framed black and white photo (about five feet by six feet) of a river scene which I immediately recognized.  It was taken on Elk River just north a Noel, Missouri, where I grew up.  The scene is an empty canoe parked next to a small gravel beach across the river from a massive bluff.  The bluff has a sordid history.  The movie, "Jesse James" was filmed in and around Noel in 1939.  It starred Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, and Nancy Kelly, all of whom stayed in private homes in Noel during the filming.  Several horses used in the movie were run off of that bluff while the movie was being made, and all, of course, died.    I told you the story was sordid.   The big framed photo brings back many memories of float trips down the Elk River, and most of those memories were of really good times.)

Influence Peddling 101

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Tesla has been on a tough run recently, and it couldn't be happening to a more deserving individual than Tesla's CEO and majority shareholder, Elon Musk.   Ever since Donald Trump became President (again, ugh!) nearly two months ago and brought his major campaign donor, billionaire Elon Musk, into the White House with him, Tesla sales and share prices have plumeted.  Trump has placed Elon in charge of cutting the size of government through mass firings and layoffs, as well as targeted firings of people whom Trump regards as his enemies.  It'ss not a popular job from the point of view of government employees, but it is one that Elon charged into with a vengeance and seems to relish.

But the cruelty that Elon has enjoyed dishing out over the past several weeks has come with a cost.   The price of Tesla stock has dropped 50% since Trump and Elon assumed office and began wrecking government and the economy, and this past Monday the company lost 15% of its value in that one day alone.  Tesla sales have slumped, celebrities are excoriating the company, and protesters are demonstrating outside of Tesla dealerhsips nationwide.  The situation is so grim for the electric vehicle manufacturer that Elon had to turn to a professional huckster for help.

On Tuesday there was a row of shiny new Teslas parked along the drive on the South Lawn of the White House where Trump held a combination press conference and infomercial for the cars.  Elon, and his four-year-old son, X, were there as well.  Trump used the event to praise Musk and pimp his cars.  Trump whined that Musk had been treated unfairly, and he referred to protesters at Tesla dealerships as "domestic terrorists."   The elderly politician said that he had bought a new Tesla "Cyber Truck" for his granddaughter, and that he would be purchasing a Tesla car for himself.  Then Trump and Elon climbed into a Tesla together.  It looked very cozy.

Who knew that Donald Trump could drive?  And who knew that he could even fit into a Tesla?

All in all, the sales pitch was a success and Tesla stock climbed 3.8% that day, clawing back a tiny bit of the ground that it has lost since Trump and Musk took office.

It's called "influence peddling," and Trump was using some of his poloitical influence to peddle a few cars;  The man and the job seemed to be a good fit.  Trump looked at though he was born to sell cars.

Stand strong, America.  Boycott Tesla!

Access Peddling 101

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

According to a story which broke last week in "Wired" magazine and was picked up and repeated across various news sources, it is now possible to buy private access to the President,  A wealthy person who has business that he would like to bring directly to Donald Trump's attention may purchase a private one-on-one candlelight dinner with the politician at his Mar-A-Lago club in Florida.  And for those on a budget, there is also an option of purchasing a seat at a small-group candlelight dinner with the President for the bargain rate of just one million dollars.

The meal itself certainly would not be worth that level of expenditure.   (Trump famously served a "Big Mac Buffet" to the Clemson football team at the White House.).   But people who shell out millions of dollars to attend aren't going for the food - they are going to be seen and appreciated by the President of the United States, a man who has the power to make or break their business interests.  It's not a meal, it's a business investment

It's also one more example of the privileges that wealth can purchase.

Trump held two of the small group dinners after he was elected to his second term last November, one in December and one in January on the night before he was sworn into office.   Invitations are going out to America's ultra-wealthy, the people Trump serves, from a Super PAC called MAGA, INC, and  those who RSVP are expected to do so with the appropriate "donation."    It seems to be unclear at this time exactly how the proceeds are being used.  But what is very clear is that for a seven-figure donation, the big hogs at the trough can get some quality "me" time with the old boar himself.

And if the wealthy diners want to take home a keepsake from the big event, there will probably be a table close by where they can purchase their fill of Trump meme coins, imaginary trading cards, Bibles, stickers, chocolate bars, and clothing.  Just imagine the adoration and envy that will come from wearing a pair of Trump golden sneakers into the next board meeting!

P.T. Barnum, a big fan of the grift (and clowns), would have loved Trump!

Political Sleight of Hand Used in Renaming Ft. Bragg

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, a US. Army base, was established in 1918 and for decades has served as the home of the 82nd Airborne Division.   It was named after Braxton Bragg, a general in the Confederate Army.  In 2020 following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police, a national outcry ensued which inflamed racial tensions throughout the country.  As a part of the response to the nationwide protests, Congress passed legislation renaming nine military bases in the United States that had been originally named for Confederate officers.  Donald Trump, a victim of bone spurs who was President at the time, promptly vetoed that measure.

The legislation to rename the bases was brought up again in the Biden administration, and in 2023 President Biden signed the bill which changed the names of the nine bases.  At that time Ft. Bragg became Ft. Liberty.

One of Donald Trump's many campaign promises when he ran for the presidency again in 2024 was that he would change the name of Ft. Liberty back to Ft. Bragg, a move which looked like a nod to racist elements within his base - and a feat which he was able to accomplish within his first two months in office.  In February former Fox sports broadcaster and current Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued a memorandum directing that the base's name be changed back to Ft. Bragg, an act which was completed last Friday, March 7th.

But the name change was not as straight forward as it sounds.   Instead of resurrecting the honor of Confederate General Braxton Bragg, a man who was not necessarily revered for his military prowess nor respected by his troops, this time the base name was changed to honor a different Bragg.    Now it was being named for PFC Roland Bragg of Maine who served as a paratrooper in World War II.   Private First Class Bragg saw service in the Battle of the Bulge and was a prisoner of war for a time before escaping his Nazi captors and rescuing some wounded fellow prisoners in the process.

Roland Bragg received the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts for service to his country.  He died in 1999 at the age of seventy-five after spending his post-war life working in construction and physically moving houses from one location to another.

Members of Roland Bragg's family were reportedly shocked to learn that Ft. Bragg was being named after their father.  But it was a clever move on the administration's part, one that fulfilled a campaign promise for Trump, served as another blow to the "woke" culture (whatever the hell that is), and probably left more than a few Trump supporter's feeling (mistakenly) that the South had risen again.

PFC Roland Bragg was certainly far more deserving of the honor of having a major military base named after him than the slave-holding and militarily inept Confederate General Braxton Bragg, but Roland's elevation in the annals of American history has more to do with his last name than it does with his very distinguished military service.

If Roland Bragg had been born Roland Smith or Roland Jones, he would still be lost in the dark tides of history.

Congratulations, PFC Roland Bragg, on the honor of having a major US military base bearing your name, regardless of how that honor ultimately came about. 

And thank you for your service, sir, in defense of the free world.

Salute!

Quackpot Medicine: Measles Parties

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Measles is a childhood disease caused by a virus.  It can be deadly, and before the advent and ready availability of measles vaccines, most children caught the disease and hundreds died from it each year - not a staggering number unless one of those who died happened to be a member of your family.  A vaccine was developed to ward off measles in 1963, and by the 1970's most children were being vaccinated with a series of MMR shots (measles, mumps, and rubella) that began when they were around a year old. 

Most states require a series of vaccinations for children to attend public schools, and those include the MMR vaccines.

Measles shots work, and by the year 2000, the disease was thought to have been eliminated in the United States.  But then the internet happened and people who had once turned to medical professionals for their medical advice began using other sources of information, and some of it was malarky.    Measles began a slow comeback.  In 2003 there was one death in the United States attributed to measles, and the next death did not occur until twelve years later 2015.  Then there was a ten-year-break, and this year there have been two more deaths - an unvaccinated adult and an unvaccinated 6-year-old child - as a measles outbreak takes hold in western Texas and eastern New Mexico.  In addition to those two deaths, more than 190 cases of the disease has been reported in that area, an there have been at lest twenty hospitalizations.

This new surge is a result of people choosing not to avail themselves, and more importantly, their children, of measles vaccines.  There has been a strong anti-vax movement festering on the internet for years, and it came of age during the COVID pandemic when the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and others who should have known better, were promoting quack remedies for keeping COVID at bay.  (Remember drinking bleach and using the horse medication Ivermectin?)   Interestingly, Trump got the vaccine for himself but still heaped scorn of health leaders like Dr. Fauci who promoted it. 

Today the on-line medical quackery is still running rampant.  There are medical "experts" all over places like "X (Twitter)" and "Facebook" and QAnon who are trying their damnedest to shield Americans from the  medical advice of "woke" medical institutions like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The current hot trend appears to be something called "measles parties" which were a thing before measles vaccinations came about.  Some parents in those early days would intentionally expose their younger children to the disease in order to build up an immunity so that they would not catch it at an older age when it would supposedly be more dangerous.  Measles parties spread the disease, and the more people who catch it, the more opportunities there are for serious outcomes - and deadly outcomes - and many of those deaths will be children.

If there is something contagious making the rounds, there will be bad advice readily available on how to deal with it.

Good health outcomes are the result of healthy lifestyles and being examined, treated, and advised by trained medical professionals.    When it comes to treating health issues, see your doctor and stay off of the damned internet!