The Death Knell for Public Education

 

by Pa Rock

Former Teacher

Donald Trump must have some interest in education because he has a history of disparaging others for what he believes is their lack of it.  Trump routinely berates political opponents or people he just does not like as being "stupid," " or "dumb as a rock," or having a "low IQ."    But if Trump truly values education, why did he nominate a wrestling promoter to be the US Secretary of Education? 

Linda McMahon, one of the founders World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), was confirmed this week on a 51-45 party-line vote in the US Senate to be the next US Secretary of Education, a position she accepted with the full knowledge that her primary mission would be to shut the department down, a major goal of the Republican Party ever since the department was created by Congress during the Carter administration in the 1980.

Trump is expected to issue an executive order within the week to begin dismantling the US Department of Education.   It's a vengeful plan that will "return" the power of running public education to the states - where it has historically resided anyway.  But now the federal government will no longer be overseeing and funding programs which provide services to low income students or those with special needs, nor will it be involved in setting education standards and determining best practices, or even in testing to determine which schools are producing the best results.  The states will run will those areas (or not), and needless to say, without national standards or oversight, some states will fail miserably at the task of educating their children.

Many of the red states, those that form Trump's conservative rural base, have already been racing to defund their public schools by lowering school funding levels and redirecting public funds to religious and private schools.  Much of the money the feds release to the states to run their special programs is also likely to find its way into private schools.  The losers, of course, will be the students who remain in the traditional public school systems, some by choice and others by the economic reality of not being able to afford private schools, or those in areas where there are no other choices than the underfunded and understaffed public schools.

Some people seem to believe that an economic underclass is necessary in society so that others may live in better circumstances, and structuring education so that the poorest among us have the least opportunity to receive an education is one sure way to insure an abundant and continual source of people to perform the drudge work.    

It will take an act of Congress to officially eliminate a department that Congress created, but a mean-spirited President can choke and starve it to death and leave Congress to deal with the corpse.

Another day, another major loss for the American people.

The Wind, She Blows - and So Does DOGE!

 

by Pa Rock

Weather-Watcher

March came in peacefully this year in the Ozarks, but by yesterday morning there were signs of the Lion's imminent arrival, and by last night he was here and in full-roar.  The forecast was for strong winds to begin around midnight (they were early) and to last throughout the day today.  Now, from the window next to my typing table, I see trees swaying forcefully in the breeze.

My house is old, but solid, built by a master-carpenter more than sixty years ago as a home for him and his family.  He had a large family - a wife and four boys - but they got by on just two bedrooms and two bathrooms, so it is not large.  It does have a nice half-basement where we can go when the tornado siren goes off in the middle of the night - something that might happen once or twice a year.

I am not concerned with the house blowing away, because it is so solid that is unlikely to happen.  What does concern me, however, are the very large trees on the acreage surrounding the house.  There are several pines that are forty-feet or more in height that could blow over onto the house in a bad storm, and a couple of massive oaks that are also within striking distance.

I worry about wildfires, too, the chances of which increase drastically during windy conditions.  They can spring up from downed power lines, people carelessly flipping lit cigarettes out of car windows, the frugal folks who burn their trash rather than pay the trash collector to pick it up, and the total morons who think a windy days is the perfect time to burn leaves or brush.

So when the weather is windy, Pa Rock pays attention.

March may have gotten off to a slow start, but it is roaring in now - and I'm not lyin' about that!

(I understand that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - NOAA - which is involved in long-range weather predictions - is one of the agencies that Elon is kneecapping.  I''m going to miss reliable weather-forecasting.  Of course, not all is lost because we will still have the trusty Farmer's Almanac, and Elon's Starlink will probably also provide weather forecasts - for a fee, of course.)

The wind isn't the only thing that blows!

One Key to Success: Learning a Second Language

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Yesterday in this space I mentioned a small, rural Missouri school where several years ago the principal briefly tried to make his fiefdom a one-language institution by issuing an edict that only English could be spoken at the school, even among students on the playground, although half of the student body spoke Spanish at home.  Community pressure brought about the end of that policy - almost immediately.  

The school was a K-8, one of five within the school district, all of which fed into one high school.  But this particular K-8 was unique in that it's primary economic engine was a large poultry processing plant which drew in many Hispanic families from out-of-state to work beneath constantly running lines of cold, dripping chickens.   (As a young adult I had worked in that same "chicken plant" for several months and knew firsthand the soul-wrenching drudgery that it involved.)

While living and working on the Japanese island of Okinawa a few years earlier, I had watched in amazement as little Okinawan and American children played together in my neighborhood, and they jabbered freely among themselves in an ever-evolving combination of both of their native languages.  They picked it up so easily.

I had also taken multiple Spanish courses while in college and found the language very difficult for me to master.  It occurred to me, and research bears this out, that learning a second language is easier for young children than it is for adults.  The younger a child is, the easier it is for him or her to absorb and acquire a second language.

So when the problem arose with language issues at the rural school in Missouri, I wondered why there wasn't some effort being made to formally teach Spanish to at least some the English-speaking students.  They would have many children around with whom to practicing their new language skills, and in the process, the Hispanic children would undoubtedly learn more English.

One day, after I had left the field of education, I encountered one of the local school board members in a social setting, and I asked her if the Board would be open to such a radical idea.    She told me that it had been discussed among members and that some of the board was ferociously opposed to the notion teaching Spanish in the schools.  They would rather eradicate the foreign language than do anything to promote it.

And that is a sad reflection of the provincial mindset in rural America, or at least in the Ozarks.  There is a desire to keep the culture, and by extension the language, pure and free of any outside influences

But here is the catch.  Children who grow up in a setting like that, with one major employer, will witness both groups of young adults, English and Spanish, feeding into the workforce at that plant.   Who will get the quick promotions to line-foremen and supervisors, where the better pay is at?  It will be those young people who are bi-lingual and have the ability to converse freely with anyone who happens to be working on their line, and because of deeply-held community prejudices, those supervisory personnel will be Hispanics, the ones who had to learn two languages while growing up.

The school was, in fact, preparing many of their children who grew up in English-speaking households to be second-class citizens in the local economy because they had been denied the opportunity to acquire a second language as elementary school students.

The world of today is international, and leaders recognize the need for diversity in cultural awareness and understanding.   A knowledge of languages expands horizons and opens many doors.

The Problems with an "Official" Language

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The United States used to take pride in our multi-cultural, melting-pot heritage, but with Trump now back in office we are quickly retreating to those good old xenophobic days of yesteryear with the emphasis back on European heritage, white privilege, and speaking God's chosen tongue, English.  We want English spoken throughout our society so that those of us who are not bilingual will still be able to understand everything that is going on around us.  It's less about the needs of others than it is about the convenience of the majority.  It's about "us" - not "them."

We seized and cleansed this savage land through God's grace and brute force, and anyone who tries to sully our title to it by speaking in another language can just go back to where they came from - one way or another.

This week Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring English the "official" language of the United States.  That is legislation by presidential whim without the involvement of a bothersome Congress with its expansive expertise and many viewpoints.  It is the viewpoint of Donald John Trump which reigns supreme.

The United States Census Bureau, which Trump and Elon are in the process of fixing, or gutting, has reported that a language other than English is spoken in more than 20 percent of American households, or by more than 68 million individuals, with Spanish being the primary language spoken in 13 percent of American homes.  Many of those homes have at least one or two residents who are bilingual and have English-speaking skills (and often those are children), but many also contain household members who speak no English whatsoever.  And while English-speaking Americans may wax indignant and declare that everyone should learn English, learning a foreign language to the point where one is conversant in that language, is not an easy matter - particularly for people who are aging and whose mental acuity is slowing.

Just "declaring" English to be the national language is not the major issue.  English has been our unofficial language since colonial times.  The problem lies in how this new edict is enforced and plays out across society.  If English is the "official" language, does that mean that it will no longer be necessary - or even allowed - to print official government forms in another language, or to have someone on staff to translate for people who speak no English?  Will schools even be allowed to provide special assistance to children with limited or no English skills? 

Society and our social order are becoming more cruel under the Trump administration, and it is happening at an alarming rate.  Making English the "official" language seems like a plan that could be specifically designed to make our laws more difficult to navigate and our educational systems harder for our immigrant families and communities to access.  Assimilation into American society is a much more complex process than just flipping a switch.

Having an "official" language is also something that could be misinterpreted by low-level bureaucrats and education officials, allowing them room to weave their own biases into their dealings with people who have come to our shores to start a new life with a safer and more secure future.  Here is an example from my own past when I was working in county-level child protection, and had come into that field from a background in public education:

Over recent years part of the county in which I was working had seen a steep increase in Hispanic residents who were employed at a local poultry processing plant.  Those immigrants into the community were, for the most part, American citizens from south Texas who had brought their families with them to our (until recently) lily-white rural community.

Many had been there several years by the time the following incident occurred and were adapting to the culture, with lots of the children quickly acquiring English skills.  Our child protection office had fewer contacts with the Hispanic community than their local Anglo neighbors, primarily because the Hispanic households were very often multi-generational with an adult always at home to manage and care for the children, while in Anglo households where both parents worked, that was not always the case and unsupervised children had more opportunities to be harmed or cause harm.

One morning two obviously upset Hispanic ladies showed up in my office.  Their grievance was with their local school, a place where I had once worked and was very familiar with the facility and the educational program.  They said that the principal had threatend to throw their sons out of school (a suspension) because they had been speaking to one another in Spanish while they were on the playground.  An older teacher had complained and taken them to the office.  In response to the teacher's complaint, the principal had quickly issued a rule that "English only" was to be spoken in the school.  

It took one phone call on my part to remedy that situation.  I knew the superintendent and also knew that he was smart enough to recognize a civil rights violation when it plopped down on his desk.  The matter was corrected before the ladies even had time to get back to their homes.

But what if that same incident would have happened in today's political environment, especially if school administrators chose to view an executive order making English the "official" language as a legal bypass

of the Constitutions's guarantee of Freedom of Speech?   Would our increasingly weak courts roll over and deny children the right to converse freely in their native tongues?

It's been less than a hundred years since children who were kidnapped into Indian Boarding Schools in the US and Canada were being beaten, tortured, and killed because they could not or would not learn English.

We are in ugly times.  Never doubt the Trump administration's ability and desire to get even uglier.  An "official" language could be another doorway leading into that downward spiral.

There is strength in diversity - and decency in caring.

Saturday Night Take Out

 

by Pa Rock

Man About Town

Most days I am at home taking care of a couple of entitled dogs and typing at the computer during their nap times while my son is out enjoying his relaxing day at work.  Yesterday after he got home from his job and I had had my fill of canine-sitting for the day, I decided to drive into town just to get away for a few minutes.  Nick had made supper the past several nights, so I told him as I was leaving that I would pick up something for our evening meal while I was out.

I was thinking about food options as I headed into town.    West Plains has a population of 12,000 which is large enough to attract most of the most of the standard fast food chains.   We have four Casey's, two McDonald's, two Subway's, two Taco Bell's, and one each of Hardee's, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Arby's, Steak 'n Shake, and even a new McCallister's - so finding something to eat would not be a problem.  By the time I got to town a few minutes later I had settled on KFC, a pint of livers and enough pieces of Original Recipe to last a couple of meals would hit the spot.  Cardiac rehab be damned!

West Plains is an elongated community with the northern half of the town sitting along Porter Wagoner Boulevard, and the southern half lining Preacher Roe Boulevard.   Those two primary segments of the town are connected by the Jan Howard Expressway. Porter and Jan were country music stars and Preacher Roe earned his fame playing professional baseball.  All three were from this humble little berg.   

I live just outside of the city limits on the northern edge of West Plains, and the KFC is in the southern segment of the town, so it took me a few minutes to get there.  I spend more time in the northern part of town where my doctor's office, pharmacy, and the hospital are located than I do in the southern section which is dominated by Walmart, a place I never frequent - and consequently when I travel into the southern part of town I am leaving my comfort zone.

It had been a month or more since I last visited the Kentucky Fried Chicken establishment, and I noticed as I pulled in to park in the farthest space from the door - something I always do to increase my daily number of steps - that the parking lot looked different, and I decided that the parking spaces which had been outlined in white had now been repainted yellow, making them more distinct.  Nice move, I thought, as I headed for the side door where I always enter.  As I reached that door, I noticed that it, too, looked to have been recently painted a deeper shade of red and that it opened easier than it had in the past.  Nice, again!

But it was not until I got inside that I realized the full extent of the renovation.  They had painted, acquired new furniture, and the tile floor was also not the same as it had been on my last visit.  As I stepped to the counter and was trying to focus on the new curved ordering menu displayed above the counter, a young lady approached seeking my order.

"The place looks really good," I told her.  "You have changed it up quite a bit since the last time I was in just a few weeks ago."

"What'll you have?"  She said for a second time, obviously not in to mood for some old person's chatter.  

So I began to study the menu, but instead of seeing quantities and varieties of the colonel's chicken, I saw a list of "Arby's Classic Sandwiches."  Well, that explains it, I thought, the Colonel has acquired Arby's and the new company has upgraded the building.  But Arby's be damned, I still wanted chicken, so I shifted my gaze to the other side of the menu - and there was still no chicken!

I was lost in space!  Pa Rock had driven to the wrong damned building!

Not wanting to appear more confused than I already was by walking out, I ordered a couple of sandwiches and went home!

Maybe next week I can have some of the finger lickin' good chicken!

Ambush at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

President Zelenskyy of Ukraine was summoned to the White House yesterday to formalize an extortion of Ukraine's mineral wealth by the United States and to open a negotiating process to end the war between Russia and Ukraine - at least that was what Zelenskyy was led to believe before he arrived.  What quickly became apparent as the President of Ukraine seated himself in the Oval Office was that humiliating him was to be the first order of business.

What followed was undoubtedly one of the most embarrassing incidents to ever take place in the People's House.  Vance lectured Zelenskyy on the importance of saying "thank you," and then Trump latched onto that and launched into one of his gaseous and meandering diatribes in which he seemed to be saying that Ukraine had already lost the war and needed to be making a settlement.

It was obvious ambush, a pre-planned beatdown and public humiliation of a respected world leader by a pair of entitled bullies who were in the throes of implementing a new US policy toward that leader's country based solely on the personal beliefs and whims of Donald Trump.

While yesterday's meeting in the Oval Office devolved into something less than a dignified occasion, it was not without hard consequences.   Ukraine was left in a weakened position, the security of Europe is more precarious now than ever, Russia was empowered to the point that, as one commentator put it, they were probably drinking vodka straight from the bottle in the Kremlin last night, the pro-Russia wing of the Republican Party is more empowered, and Zelensky left the White House without signing away the rights to Ukraine's rare earth minerals.

The meeting was an embarrassment, a real shit-show that has rocked the world order and placed our own nation at greater risk.  It brings to mind Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev's dark prophecy from the 1950's:

"We will take America without firing a shot.  We do not have to invade the U.S.  We will destroy you from within."

GOP Budget Poses Harm to Children

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Most conservatives, and almost all Republican conservatives, get righteously indignant when the subject of abortion is addressed, and they are quick to declare anything from a two-cell embryo on up to be a living human being.  Fetuses have some sort of inalienable right to be nurtured and protected until the moment they slide down the birth canal and gasp their first breath of delivery room air.  

But it is at that same point, as the babies are leaving the safety of their mothers' wombs, that the protection and caring suddenly collapse.   The same people who had been adamant in their protection of them as fetuses, begin a long onslaught of harm to them as children.

Two blatant Republican attacks on children were evident earlier this week when the GOP barely passed a budget plan in the US House of Representatives which coughed up steep cuts to Medicaid  (even though Trump and his party had said there would be no cuts to that important program), and to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or the modern version of the "food stamps" program.

The vote on the cruel budget outline passed by the House was 217 to 215, with every Republican except one voting for it, and every Democrat except one (who was absent) voting against it.

How do Medicaid and SNAP impact children?  I'm glad you asked.

Today over a third of children in the United States receive their medical care through Medicaid, and more than ten percent of the remainder are covered by CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program - another government form of assistance.  Medicaid is the largest source of health insurance coverage in the United States.  It covers children in poverty, foster care, and about half of children who have special health care needs.  Most Americans, even if they themselves don't have to rely on Medicaid for their health care needs, know someone who does.

But Republicans now want to make steep cuts to Medicaid and leave it up to the individual states to figure out ways to provide medical care to their citizens and children living in poverty, or with disabilities, or in state care.  

(Medicaid is also used to meet the needs of the impoverished and disabled elderly people in our society, paying for things ling nursing home care.  Many of our senior citizens rely on Medicare and Medicaid just to survive.)

The GOP members of the House Of Representatives this week also imposed steep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as another mark of their cruelty.   Over twelve percent of US households currently are assisted in purchasing food through SNAP, and of those household members, forty percent are children.).  SNAP helps to pay for school lunches for children in eligible households.  The program also benefits US farmers by providing a market for their produce.

Is there any moral high ground to be claimed by sitting idly by and watching children go hungry?  Or to oppose programs that help to feed children in need?

Cut their health care, cut their food supply, and then defund their schools - all so that America's wealthiest individuals can save on their taxes.

Force women to give birth and then do everything possible to insure that they and their babies stay hungry, lack medical care, and live in abject poverty.  Is that what Jesus would do?

Protecting the fetus and attacking the health and welfare of the child is Republican hypocrisy writ large.  It's been that way for a long time, and it's getting worse.  Being a valued and protected member of society should extend beyond the womb.

President Wonka's Golden Ticket

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Of course US immigration policy is about class and race.   

Donald Trump has no problems with wealthy white immigrants, people who know how to behave in country club settings and have the means to rent condos in his buildings and pay membership dues at his fancy private clubs.  Those are good immigrants.  Hell, his mother was an immigrant who had the good sense to marry well, two of wives were immigrants, and his little immigrant, Elon, follows him around faithfully and even sits in on Cabinet meetings like FDR's little dog, Fala.

Trump just doesn't want Juan and Maria swimming the Rio Grande and then walking across seventy-five miles of burning sand to clean toilets, dig ditches, and pluck chickens - jobs that could be going to hard-working Americans.  He has said that he does not like having immigrants arrive in the US from "shithole" countries (from places like Africa and Latin America) and would instead rather have immigrants from "nice" countries.  At various times Trump has used Switzerland, Denmark, and Norway as examples of "nice" countries - all of which also happen to be primarily caucasian. 

(Of course, if Denmark gets in Trump's way on the seizure of Greenland, he may have to drop it from the "nice" list.)

Poor immigrants from "shithole" countries are not welcome in Donald Trump's America, but our arms are open wide to rich people fleeing the tax policies of foreign despots.

Yesterday Donald Trump announced a plan to try and attract some of the those he regards as the world's better people into the United States.  The very rich who would like to sample life in America will soon be able to.purchase a golden entry ticket into this great nation - for a simple fee of just five million dollars,

The sale of the gold cards will begin in about two weeks according to US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.  Gold cards rights will be similar to the old green cards (used by poorer people from not-so-nice countries), and , like green cards, they will offer a path to citizenship.    Of course, holders of gold cards will undoubtedly experience fewer lines and delays as holders of green cards do.

Trump said that he believes "millions" of these gold cards will be sold, and it seems as though he expects them to attract a nicer sort of people than the green cards traditionally have, and if criminals slip in through this new program, they are sure to be nicer sorts of criminals.

In fact, Trump was asked yesterday if Russian oligarchs would be allowed to buy the gold cards for admission to our nation and he responded, "Yeah, possibly.  I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people."  (Probably the ones who rent condos in his buildings and pay membership fees at his clubs.)

Commerce Secretary Lutnick cautioned that people who want to purchase a golden admission ticket to live in the United States "will have to go through vetting, of course, to make sure they're wonderful world-class global citizens."  (Or at least to make sure their checks will clear.)

America Aligns with the Bad Guys

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

This past Monday, the day before yesterday, during a session of the United Nation's General Assembly, the United States ditched its long-term alliance with the democracy of Ukraine and voted against a European-backed Ukrainian resolution which condemned Moscow's aggression and called for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.  This stunning betrayal of a country that two months ago was one of our strongest allies, comes just days after US President Donald Trump publicly referred to Ukraine as the aggressor in that war.   Trump also called Ukraine's leader, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy  a "dictator."  Both of those statements are bald-faced lies, a Trump speciality.

Last week Trump sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Saudi Arabia to meet with Russian diplomats and begin negotiating a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.  The meeting did not contain representatives from Ukraine or Europe, the continent that Russia will begin rolling over as soon as it seizes Ukraine.

Trump also recently stated his own view of how the war in Ukraine would end - with Russia retaining control of lands that it seized during the siege and the United States gaining control of Ukraine's rare mineral resources as payment for money that the US has spent in defense of Ukraine.  The country was to be raped from both ends of the peace conference table.

The vote in the UN Monday on the resolution to condemn Russia's aggression in Ukraine passed 93 to 18, with 65 countries abstaining.  Other countries besides the United States who voted in support of Russia included authoritarian states like Hungary, North Korea, and Russia itself.  China was one of the sixty-five nations which abstained from the vote.

The United States of America has been the world's leading democracy for almost 250 years.  We should not be aligning ourselves with authoritarian despots.

The old saying, "you are judged by the company you keep," can and should be applied to nations as well as individuals.  Once shiny American ideals seem to be rapidly losing their luster and their meaning - and it's obvious who is to blame for that.

Philistines Take Over Kennedy Center

 

by Pa Rock

Culture Vulture

The idea which later evolved into the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was first conceived in 1955 under the Eisenhower administration as a new auditorium in which to provide public performances of a cultural nature to residents of, and visitors to, our nation's capital.  It was originally to be known as the National Cultural Center, even before construction had begun.  President and Mrs. Kennedy were early supporters and fundraisers for the project.  After Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon Johnson gave the soon-to-be-constructed super-auditorium it's current name.  Construction began in 1965, and the Center opened with a production of Leonard Bernstein's "Mass" in 1971.

The Kennedy Center, which sits on the east bank of the Potomac River near the Lincoln Memorial, is a 100-foot high complex that includes a concert hall, opera house, theatre, lecture hall, and meeting rooms.  There is a walkway along the roof of the building which includes magnificent views of the river and many of the monuments and tourist destinations of Washington, DC.  It's a great place to get an overall feel for our nation's capital.  

I had the good fortune to spend the better part of a day and evening at the Kennedy Center in 2003.  My friend Millie and I traveled to Washington, DC, for the express purpose of watching the performance of a short play that my son Tim, who at that time was a graduate student at the University of Kansas, had written.  Tim's play was titled "The Attack of the Asians," and it had originally been entered in a writing contest for plays which were ten minutes or less in length.   

The contest was sponsored by the Kennedy Center, and Tim's play won for his region.  There were several other finalists from around the country, and Millie and I were in the D.C. to enjoy the finals.  Tim's play did not win the final competition, but I know that all of the young college playwrights involved gained writing and productions skills from the experience, and all can forever boast that they had a work produced at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts!

(Tim has gone on to write two successful feature films, "The Brass Teapot" and "Lost Child," and he is currently involved in a musical stage adaptation of "The Brass Teapot," and has written another movie which appears to be heading toward production.  Yes, papa is proud!)

But, all of that family chatter aside, The Kennedy Center, which is funded through private donations, ticket sales, and the federal government, and whose board members are appointed by the President of the United States, suffered major harm this week when Donald Trump appointed fourteen new members to Board of Trustees and then had himself appointed CEO of the Organization.  The move, which had immediate adverse effects including loss of talent and loss of patronage, appears to be part of Trump's on-going war on the status quo and what he regards as a culture of "wokeness."

(Did you see where Jane Fonda, at the Screen Actor's Guild Awards this week, defined "woke" as "just giving a damn about other people."  I'm with Jane!)

Trump's fourteen appointments to the board consist primarily of political allies, billionaires, and other rightwing extremists or their spouses.

Membership in the Kennedy Center's Board of Trustees now stands at thirty-one and includes such partisan notables as White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and her chief deputy, Dan Scavino.  Usha Vance (JD's wife), US Attorney General Pam Bondi, Allison Lutnick, the wife of the current Secretary of Commerce, country music singer and prominent Republican Lee Greenwood, former Secretary of Labor and Secretary of Transportation (and Mitch McConnell's wife), Elaine Chou, and, of course, Donald John Trump, the First.

The first losses to the Kennedy Center in this new dystopia include resignations from the board treasurer, Shonda Rhimes, National Symphony Orchestra artistic adviser Ben Folds, and artistic adviser at-large Renee Fleming.

Other losses include the election of Donald Trump as the Kennedy Center Board chair, replacing David M. Rubenstein, and the termination of Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter who had already announced her intention to resign from that position at the end of 2025.

Insiders at the Kennedy Center told the Washington Post that ticket sales dropped by one-half during the week following the Trump takeover of the cultural center.  Perhaps the man once known for having his butt spanked by a porn actress with a rolled-up magazine has yet to impart his full vision of culture to the American public.  

Maybe when Linda McMahon gets the Department of Education shut down, she and Hulk Hogan could liven the Center up with some good ol' "professional" wrestling!

And who wouldn't pay for big bucks for an evening of watching porn stars spank politicians!

Carpe diem, Philistines!

Giving Elon the One-Finger Salute

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Yesterday in this space I wrote about the memo that Elon Musk sent out through the Office of Management and the Budget (OMB) to all federal employees on Saturday instructing them to respond with a list of five things that they had a accomplished at their jobs during the preceding week.  He gave them until midnight tonight to meet his demand.   Later he added an element of threat to his email by tweeting on his own social media platform, X, that failure to respond to his email would be regarded as a resignation.

Musk may have been responding to chiding by Trump to get more assertive in his quest to cut the size of government, and he certainly was operating under what he thought was the cover of executive authority coming directly from the White House, so he had to be surprised at the amount of pushback that he has received from department and agency heads, all of whom were placed in their positions by Trump.

There are reports in Politico's Playbook this morning the US State Department (under the control of Trump buddy Marco Rubio) is telling its employees to ignore Musk's request for the time-being.  Kash Patel's FBI is telling their employees the same thing, as are the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, Energy Department, Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Security Agency and even Bobby Kennedy's Department of Health and Human Services.

What the hell is going on?  Which inmate is actually in charge of the asylum?

Those departments and agencies represent a sizable chunk of the federal workforce.  Who's left besides the woke cops with the Capitol Police and the lunch ladies in the White House cafeteria?  People had best be paying attention to Elon and showing him the proper respect because he paid good money to be in charge of their lives - and he has the receipts!

Elon, GO HOME!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist  

The disruption of government services intensified yesterday when the faux government agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) issued an ultimatum that appears to be designed to intimidate government workers as well as waste their time - time in which they could be making life better for the taxpayers who actually fund the government.

But it's not about taxpayers and making government more efficient, is it?  It's about the power trip that Elon Musk is on as he tries to fashion himself into a dominant political force in America, and the revenge trip that Donald Trump is on as he stumbles across one golf course after another trying to come up with ways to inflict maximum pain on anyone who has ever failed to bow their head or bend their knee in his magnificent presence.

Pettiness in, bullshit out.

Yesterday's disruptive load of bovine manure came in the form of an email from the Office of Management and the Budget (OMB) to federal workers with the subject line:  "What did you do last week?"  The email, which was an obvious product of the DOGE assault on government being carried out by Elon Musk, instructed employees to reply with five bullet points on what they had accomplished in the past week.  The list was not to include any classified work, and it was to be sent to an email address at OMB and to each employee's supervisor.

The email did not include a threat of forced resignation, but Musk followed up with a post on his social media platform, "X," saying that failure to respond would be taken as a resignation.  Federal employees have until Monday at midnight to respond to the email and the threat.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the "chainsaw" billionaire, a non-government employee who may or may not be the actual head of DOGE (depending on how Trump is feeling at the moment), is wearing sunglasses indoors and mugging for cameras as he wrecks careers and destroys lives with wild abandon.  It's a rush of power and self-gratification that can only come from having more money than God.

Elon, take care of your children, pay your taxes, and GO HOME!  South Africa is lovely this time of year!

Gutsy Ladies Speak Truth to Power

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Neither Elon Musk nor his babbling sidekick, Donald Trump, like being talked back to by mere mortals, especially if the people challenging them are something other than privileged white males.  That's why it was especially satisfying to many when a pair of successful women punctured a pair of world class windbags this week.

Popular music icon Sheryl Crow took a jab at Elon Musk earlier in the week when she announced that she was selling her Tesla and would donate the proceeds to National Public Radio (NPR).   Musk, who has controlling interest of Tesla, has had a troubled history with NPR, and Crow's statement hit him twice, as a shot at Tesla and as support for NPR, an organization which has been a target of Musk's ire on multiple occasions.

I'm proud to say that Sheryl Crow is a fellow native of southern Missouri, having grown up in Kennett, the largest city  (pop. 10,500) in the Missouri bootheel, to parents who were school teachers.   She comes by her good sense and altruism naturally.

The rural Missouri translation of "I'm selling my Tesla and giving the money to NPR" is "Blow it out your tailpipe, Elon!"

The state of Maine is not currently in compliance with a Trump executive order that bans transgender athletes from playing on girl's teams because the order conflicts with a state law.  Yesterday at an event for state governors at the White House, Trump was speaking to the group on that topic when he asked if Governor Janet Mills of Maine was present.  Yes, she spoke up, she was there.  Trump then asked if the state of Maine was going to comply with his order.  She replied that Maine would follow state and federal law, to which Trump responded, "Well, we are the federal law.  You'd better do it because you're not going to get any federal funding if you don't."

"See you in court," the governor of Maine, a tenacious woman, snapped back at the gaseous politician in front of a room filled with her peers.

That had to hurt, but Trump will undoubtedly take comfort in the fact that the woman is obviously a DEI hire.  How else could she have become a governor?

Thank you Sheryl Crow and Governor Janet Mills for speaking truth to power and standing up against the bullies.  You are inspirations to us all!

US Betrayal of Ukraine Is Shameful

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

There has been a lot of incoherent garbage flowing through the political tap of late, and most of it seems to be coming from the mouth of Donald John Trump.   This week Mr. Trump fouled relations with our European partner, Ukraine, by attacking the country's president and warrior leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, as a "dictator," while also accusing Ukraine of starting the war with Russia.  

Both of those statements are patently ridiculous, and both serve to show that Trump is trying to align our country not with the victim nation in the war, Ukraine, but rather with the aggressor, Russia, a nation with whom he once harbored personal business aspirations.

For his part, Zelensky responded by noting that Trump was parroting Russian talking points and seemed to be living in a "disinformation" bubble.

Trump made a vow during his recent campaign to quickly negotiate a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia shortly after assuming office.  Last week, still within his first month in office, Trump had two of his top administration officials on the ground in Europe taking about a peace deal.  There was a top level meeting in Berlin in which Vice President Vance proceeded to stir up our European allies - and not in a good way - by accusing our them of censoring free speech and doing nothing about immigration.

That was followed a few days later by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had also been at the meeting in Berlin, flying on to Saudi Arabia where he and his American delegation met with a top-level Russian delegation to discuss preliminary plans for ending the Russia-Ukraine war.  Absent from that meeting were any representatives from Ukraine or from any of the European countries, some of whom are at a direct risk of invasion from Russia.

Word quickly leaked to the press from the meeting in Saudi Arabia that a potential peace deal might include Ukraine ceding land that Russia had captured (grabbed) to Russia, and ceding some of its mineral reserves to the United States in repayment for US assistance during the war.  For Ukraine it was to be a lose-lose situation.

Then, to frost the cake,  Trump himself  took swipes directly at President Zelensky with his comments about Ukraine starting the war and Zelensky being a dictator.  If Trump wanted to create an open wound between our nation and our ally, Ukraine, he was successful.

Here is some truth:

Russia first invaded Ukraine, a former part of the old Soviet Union, in February 2014, and it was during that occupation and siege that Russia annexed the part of Ukraine known as Crimea.  Russia and Ukraine existed in a lesser state of conflict, with both still claiming Crimea, until February of 2022 when Russia launched a pre-dawn invasion of the nation, and that war continues to this day.   Many argue that Vladimir Putin, the political leader of Russia and a man for whom Donald Trump seems to have a great personal fondness, is trying to re-create the old Soviet Union, and that Russia poses a direct threat to several Baltic nations as Putin tries to achieve his land grab.

Putin and Russia started the war - not Ukraine.

As for Zelensky being a dictator, the Ukrainian leader was elected President of Ukraine in 2019 with 74% of the vote.  Donald Trump, on the other hand, has run for President of the United States three times and only won the popular vote once - and even then it was less than fifty percent of the total vote.  Trump's envy of Zelensky's popularity in his own country undoubtedly gnaws at him.

Trump, who is often truth-challenged, claimed this week that Zelenksy's current popularity rating in Ukraine is 4%, but a university poll within the country in December show it at 52%.  Trump's dictator remark is apparently based on the fact that Zelensky's five-year term ran out last year, but the elections have not been held because of the war which is still raging in Ukraine - and the postponement of elections is not uncommon in wartime.  Great Britain suspended their own elections during World War II while they were being bombed by Germany.

Turning our backs on Ukraine and Europe not only poses a big risk to our own long-term security, it is a betrayal of our allies who helped make the world safe for democracy in the Second World War.  Turning our national back on Europe is short-sighted, wrong, and very, very shameful.

Volodymyr Zelensky is a Ukrainian patriot, a freedom-fighter who has worn his country's uniform and knows the true price of freedom - and he has never been sidelined by bone spurs.

Why the hell don't people study history anymore?

Cold AF

 

by Pa Rock

Popsicle Man

The Polar Vortex began arriving in the Ozarks on Tuesday with plunging temperatures and light snow.  The snow was accumulating by late afternoon.   Yesterday the ground was covered in the frigid white stuff, roughly six-to-eight inches at my place, and temperatures were in the single digits.  Nothing melted, of course, and the birds at my feeders were in a feeding frenzy the entire day.  All of the bird feeders were empty by late afternoon.

This morning, well before daylight, Alexa whispered in my ear as I was waking that it was minus four degrees outside,  I groaned and went back to sleep.  The next time I opened my eyes daylight was streaming through the bedroom window and Alexa said the temperature had soared to minus two.

"We're having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave!"

After pulling on as many layers of clothing as would fit over my flabby old body, I grabbed Rosie and headed out onto the front porch and tried to get her to do her business.  But poor little Rosie, who was wearing only one layer and no shoes, immediately stood in front of the door demanding re-entry while I began walking through the snow to fill the damned bird feeders!  I quickly relented and let Rosie back in the house while I continued to trudge through the snow like Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.

I saw Good Neighbor Rex driving his very nice farm tractor (blade attached) past my house at noon yesterday, and two hours later he pulled into my drive and cleared it with a couple of quick swipes.   When he left he was headed in the direction of his home after being out in the ferocious cold for over two hours clearing neighborhood drives.  I will be taking something nice to Rex and his Missus just as soon as I can build up the stamina and energy to get in my cold car and drive to town to shop.  

Rex is almost two years older than me.  

The first time I met Rex he was bush-hogging a strip of roadway adjacent to my land that county should have been maintaining,  (I learned later that he does quite a bit of the county's work on a volunteer basis.)  He had cleared some of mine while he was at it, so I paid him for his work, we became friends, and now he bush-hogs for me twice a year.  We have a system:  he under-charges so I overpay him, and we get along just fine.  I live in constant fear that Rex will pass on before me and I will have to buy my own tractor and learn how to operate it.  Rex is the best neighbor in the world, and I am just one of many who feel that way!

Gypsy just went outside to do her business.   She loves the snow but hates the intense cold, so our big girl came right back to the house when she finished.  On nice days I have to take her out on a leash because if she is loose she likes to gallop around the neighborhood barking the tune to "Born Free."

The bird feeders are literally black as they are covered with a big flock of what I believe to be red-wing blackbirds.  (The photos which I have seen on the internet show red-wing blackbirds with sploches of red and yellow on the outside of thier wings, but these aren't all sploched, and those that do have a spot of red have it on their bodies beneath their wings.  They eat the bird feed with a vengeance and keep the more colorful winter birds - read: cardinals - away from the feeders.  (What am I dealing with here, Ranger Bob?)

The black birds are thick, the traffic is light, the snow is ubiquitous, and the air is cold as . . . well, never mind.   My son is at work, the dogs and I are in the house trying to stay warm, and I hope that everyone caught in this Arctic mess are playing it smart and staying warm and safe - and Rex, that means you, too!

Peltier Is Home; It's About Damned Time!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

More than forty-nine years of captivity came to an end yesterday for Chippewa Native American activist Leonard Peltier when he was released from the Coleman Federal Corrections Complex in Sumter, Florida, and put on a plane to fly home to his family and loved ones in North Dakota.   Peltier was convicted of "aiding and abetting" in the murder of federal (FBI) officers in 1977 following a shootout at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  

Peltier, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence in the murders of the two armed government agents, and was never convicted of their actual murders, had sought a pardon or commutation of his sentence from eight Presidents, and was finally allowed to go home by President Biden.  The commutation was announced by the White House on the morning of January 20th, Biden's last day in office, and the prisoner was freed to get on the plane and fly home yesterday, February 18th, twenty-nine days after the presidential action.

Biden commuted Peltier's sentence to "home confinement."

Peltier, who has been regarded by many as this nation's most prominent political prisoner, has been supported in his appeals for clemency by international religious and political leaders, as well a host of prominent celebrities from around the globe.   In January, 120 tribal leaders in the United States called on Biden to grant clemency to Peltier.

But members of law enforcement have been steadfast in their opposition to Peltier's release, and one of those urging President Biden not to commute the Native American's prison sentence was Christopher Wray, who served as head of the FBI under Trump and Biden.  South Dakota's lone representative in Congress, Republican Dusty Johnson, also criticized the move by the President.

Leonard Peltier landed at Devil's Lake, North Dakota, yesterday afternoon and was taken in a 90-minute caravan to the entrance of the Turtle Mountain Reservation at Belcourt, North Dakota, where he will live out the remainder of his days surrounded by friends and family, and have the ability to step outside and breathe fresh air whenever he desires.  More than eighty vehicles were lined along the highway near Belcourt when Peltier's caravan arrived, and many supporters were standing beside those parked cars carrying homemade signs that greeted the happy traveler when he arrived.   The newly freed man held his fist out of the SUV window in which he was a passenger, and told members of the crowd who were standing in frigid 20-degree weather, "Thank you very much.  I'm home.  I've come home."

Leonard Peltier who is elderly, frail, and in declining health, takes pride in the fact that he survived and his spirit was never broken.  (He had also survived time in one of those horrific residential Indian schools when he was a child,)

The aging activist has returned.  He has finally outlasted the vengeance of his government.  As one of the homemade signs that greeted him upon his arrival in his North Dakota community yesterday said, "It's About Damned Time!"

Amen to that.

More Government Waste

 

by Pa Rock

Concerned Taxpayer

A week ago today I wrote an unkind piece in this blog about the taxpayer-funded trip that Donald Trump, members of his family, political sycophants, and a large secret service detail had taken to New Orleans the previous Sunday so that the royal party could watch the Super Bowl.  The trip included not only round-trip transportation in one of the fanciest passenger planes on Earth, but also a motorcade across the Big Easy, seating for God-alone-knows-how-many in a skybox at the stadium, food and refreshments, and on and on - and they didn't even stay for the whole game!   The trip was not about Trump seeing the game, the trip was about the game and the spectators seeing him.

Most estimates on the cost of that sports' junket were between fifteen and twenty million dollars.  But not to worry because while Trump and his entourage were in New Orleans partying like there was no tomorrow, Elon stayed back in Washington poring over Gramma's tax returns and Social Security records trying to figure out a way to pay for it all.

Elon must have tapped into a rich vein of things to cut because this past Sunday Trump and company were back in the air headed to another sporting event.   This time it was a trip to Florida to watch the Daytona 500 at the Daytona International Speedway.  Again it was about Trump being seen.  Air Force One flew low over the racetrack before landing, and when Trump reached the track he paraded around it in his armor-plated presidential limousine.

Among the many freeloaders aboard Air Force One on the Daytona Trip was my congressman,  House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri.   Jason, like Trump and Elon, is sick with worry about government waste and fraud.

But again, no one should worry too much about Trump's weekend outings because Elon is hard at work slashing the bloated federal budget with a vengeance.  Who needs frills like free lunches for school children or Meals on Wheels for our elderly, or even Medicare and Social Security, when we could be using that money to send our leader on vanity outings?

March Madness is just around the corner, and golf's famed Master's Tournament will be held in early April in Augusta, Georgia.  The Kentucky Derby is in Louisville at the start of May, and the Indianapolis 500 will be at the end of that same month.  There are numerous upcoming events where Donald Trump could show up for public adoration, and if our government has to sell a few national parks for that to happen, so be it.  

It is our patriotic duty to tighten our belts and skip a few meals each week so that our President may impress the world with his limitless trappings of wealth and privilege - and if Elon can pocket some for himself along the way, well - that's just gravy!

Don't worry, America - Trump and Elon are going to be just fine!  

See you in the bread line!

Polar Vortex Number 10

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I was a school teacher and administrator when I lived in Howell County, Missouri, from the fall of 1977 until the spring of 1983.  During the six years that I resided up the road in Mountain View, there was at least one time every year in which the local schools were closed due to snow for a week or more, and one of those years there was no school for nearly three full weeks.  The snows were formidable with young, snow-covered trees bending across the country roads blocking the passage of vehicles, and especially big ones like school buses.    Teachers, parents, and even students had more quality time at home than they could literally stand.

Then I left the area, helped raise a family, and traveled the world before returning to Howell County to retire in early March of 2014.  There was ice on the back porch the day that I arrived at my new home in West Plains and a smattering of snow on the ground, but winter was essentially over.  The following decade brought no more than a couple of inches of snow on only two occasions, and those snowfalls were gone after just a few days.  I didn't keep track of the local school calendars, but it was obvious that "snow days" were not nearly as common as they had been four decades earlier.

Now the age of mild winters seems to be coming to a sudden stop.  This year has been colder than normal for longer periods of a time, and area residents have awakened to snow-covered landscapes on multiple occasions.  Just a couple of weeks ago we had snowfall that was eight to ten inches deep and which took over a week to disappear.  We have also endured rainy stretches across multiple days, a rare occurrence in winter.  

Weather patterns are changing drastically and quickly, even in the Missouri Ozarks.  Climate change is real, no matter what some elderly politician riding around the Daytona International Speedway in the back of a presidential limo would like for you to believe.  Climate change is real - and so is science.

New Orleans woke up to several inches of snow one month ago today.  There were kids sledding down hills and ice skaters performing on Canal Street, on the actual damned street, in New Orleans, in southern  Louisiana, within spitting distance of the Gulf of Mexico!

This evening the tenth polar vortex of the winter season will push into the United States from Canada.  That's a record for a country that normally experiences no more than two of three of the major Arctic cold blasts in a year.  Polar vortex number 10, and it's only mid-February!

My area in extreme southern Missouri is under a winter storm warning from midnight tonight until 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday and heavy snow is expected.  This is a truly awful time to be under the thumb of people who don't believe in science.

The dogs and I are not happy.

I blame Trump.

An Angry Toddler with a Loaded Gun

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

There are several common ways to get a beverage, or any liquid, out of a container.   It might, for example be poured or dumped out, pumped out, lifted to the lips and genteelly sipped or gulped out,  or left in the sun to evaporate, or sprayed out, or, as is very common especially with beverages, it might be sucked out through a straw.  

The process of removing liquid from a container can be very complicated, so it should not be surprising when a politician, imposes his will, and makes a complicated situation even worse.

Much of the world has moved away from plastic drink straws over the past several years to those made of paper, and they have done so for environmentally sound reasons.  Plastic straws don't decompose and they may lay along roadways and litter landscapes for years - and years.  As they accumulate on our lands and in our waters, they are unsightly debris that pose a constant danger to wildlife.   Scientists and environmentalists criticize plastic straws as extreme waste being generated for minimal convenience, and hence support the logical alternative of paper straws which are biodegradable.  

But Donald Trump is a man who feels threatened and put upon by anyone with a social conscience.  He is opposed to things like paper straws, LED lighting - and don't even get him started on low-flush toilets!  The current President is out to "own the libs" as part of his appeal to his under-educated, low-income voter base, and he vilifies science and environmental measures in order to gin up enthusiasm from those who see him as some sort of anti-government Don Quixote. 

The US federal government is the country's largest purchaser of drink straws, and under President Biden an initiative was started to require the US government to purchase only paper straws for use by its employees and at its facilities.  When Trump came into office, he quickly issued an executive order saying the government would purchase only plastic straws, and he has a committee at work to end the use of paper straws nationwide.

I'm (obviously) not a fan of plastic straws.  I live on a scenic country lane where people who regard Donald Trump as a messianic figure, delight in pitching their trash out of their car windows so they don't have to deal with it when the get home.  Plastic straws abound.

Last year I drove across much of southern Canada, a country which has banned plastic straws.  Usually on break stops if I ordered a drink, I would have to request a straw - and the straws were always paper.  Also steel straws  could be found for sale in many locations.   There is a world beyond plastic, and it works quite well, thank you very much.

But Donald Trump is not part of that world.  His move against paper straws has no scientific or environmental justification, it is just his pettiness, petulance, and ugliness running wild.  Donald Trump is an angry toddler with a loaded gun.

I hope that I am smarter and nicer than him when I'm his age.

Whale of a Tale

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

(Note:  Today's posting is dedicated to Cristian Lund Duchylard, my favorite Chilean.)

This story has been all over the news the past few days, but it is so unique that I wanted to preserve it in The Ramble as well.

Last Saturday Dell Simancas and his 24-year-old son, Adrian, who live in the Patagonia region of southern Chile, headed to ocean for a day of kayaking along the infamous and often icy Straits of Magellan.  It is currently summer in Chile, but the sea water at the southern tip of the country is still frigid with air temperatures ranging from the thirties to the sixties - Fahrenheit.

The men were in wet suits and paddling in their individual inflated kayaks, and Dell had a camera and was filming his son as he maneuvered his craft in the waters of the Strait.  Neither man had any inkling that something horrific was about to befall them.  As Adrian was paddling just a few feet away from his father, a large humpback whale emerged from the water just behind the younger man and closed his mouth around the man and his kayak and dove back into the water before releasing the his captive and the kayak moments later.  

"Stay calm!  Stay calm!"  The father yelled as his son swam to get back to his kayak.  The parent kept his camera filming throughout the bizarre and terrifying ordeal.

The son said later that as he swam for the kayak was worried that the whale would hurt his father, or that he, Adrian, would die of hypothermia.  He said that while he was in the mouth of the whale he felt a slimy texture rubbing against his own skin and was enveloped in darkness.   After the pair were safely back on shore the young man who had been trapped inside of the whale's mouth told the Associated Press, "I thought I was dead.  I thought that it had eaten me, that it had swallowed me."

In its coverage of the incident, CBS News noted a similar incident that occurred four years ago off of the coast of Avila, California, when two women, who were also kayaking, were  briefly captured in the mouth of a humpback whale that submerged with them in its mouth.   The women were wearing life vests, and when the whale opened its mouth underwater, they floated free and popped to the surface of the ocean.

The moral of these stories is obvious: if you are ever enjoying a day in the ocean and are suddenly scooped up by a whale, stay calm.  It will be alright.

Yeah, right.

Adrian, you have been spit out by a whale.  Make the most of your second chance in life!

Soldiers Making Valentines

 

by Pa Rock

Retired LCSW

Two decades ago while I was working as a civilian social worker with a large Army base in the midwest, one which sent most of its soldiers to the Bush Oil Wars in the Middle East every other year or so, I started a Men's Divorce Support Group which addressed the issues and stresses of separation and divorce with men in the military, most of whom were just a few years out of high school.  A female social worker from the same mental health unit worked with me in directing the group's work and keeping it from devolving into just a general bitch session, and another staff member started a similar group for spouses who were experiencing marital trauma or break-ups.

Young soldiers, many of whom had already put their lives at risk in combat, were under immense pressures both in their work as well as in their private lives, and a long separation from a young family was traumatic not only for them, but for the spouses and children whom they had left at home.   Unstable and dysfunctional marriages were the norm.

More than a few of the spouses that I counseled on an individual basis would tell stories of their husbands who had returned from twelve or thirteen months in "the desert" and would wake up in the middle of the night screaming or sometimes even fighting and striking the wives.  The men had subconsciously returned to the war zone in their sleep, and when they awoke in the night and found someone else in their "bunk," their survival instinct was to fight and repel the invader.

The young wives, many of whom were also just out of high school and now had a husband who tended to be gone for long periods of time, and often an infant or two to care for as well, had plenty of issues related to the separations due to deployment which played out across the marriages, with infidelity often becoming as issue for both of the spouses.

There were also general issues of loneliness and feelings of isolation for the men and the women.

Our group met once a week, and with planned topics as well as things the group members brought up, we always had more than enough to stay busy and productive.

One year the date of the weekly group meeting happened to fall on Valentine's Day, and, as an old school teacher and elementary school principal, I had an appreciation for homemade valentines.   I suggested to my co-group leader that  we bring in some materials for making valentines and let the guys in the group express themselves with an art activity during the discussion of whatever topics were on tap for that day.  I went to Target the night before the group meeting and bought crepe paper, crayons, ribbon, glue, glitter, and other art paraphernalia, and my work partner brought homemade Valentine's Day cupcakes to the group meeting.  

We told the guys at the beginning of the meeting that they were free to make valentines for anyone they chose, or that they could choose not to participate in the endeavor.  Some were reluctant to join in, but by the time the group discussion really got rolling, each of the battle-hardened warriors was cutting, pasting, and having a grand time.  As the group was winding down most chose to show their efforts to the group and many had personal stories to tell about the meanings their valentines carried.

There was an abundance of revelations, and many old wounds received some much needed fresh air and comfort.  It was one of our most productive sessions, and one that the group members talked about throughout our remaining sessions together.  We also heard reports on the positive impacts that the homemade valentines had on their recipients.

When the subject of Valentine's day comes up, that's the one I always remember.

(Note:  As with nearly every public school teacher in America, the expenses involved in buying art supplies and making cupcakes came out of the social workers' own pockets - just so you know!)

Elon Needs to Go

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Elon Musk and his merry band of teenage mutant ninja nerds have been working overtime and literally sleeping in federal offices as they ruthlessly eliminate whole agencies and programs, drive workers from their jobs, and shred contracts with wild abandon, and so far the DOGE boys show no signs of relenting in their gang rape of our government.   But Musk, an oligarch who is a world economic force in his own right and a major contractor with the United States government, is so personally enmeshed in the US budget that conflicts of interest between his DOGE power trip and his own economic interests are sure to arise on a regular basis. 

The comminglings of Musk's personal business ventures and the operations of his adopted country, the United States of America, rose into evidence this week when news stories broke about a line-item in the current US State Department budget for FY 2025 which revealed $400 million being set earmarked for the purchase of "armored Teslas."    The budget, which had been drafted during the reign of the previous administration, was nonetheless an apparent embarrassment to Marco Rubio's State Department, and after the news story broke ,the word "Tesla" was quickly removed from the budget document.

(Will the Musk team void that contract and render the matter moot?  Or will he withdraw Tesla from the list of potential providers?  Or will he leave it all alone and hold his pocket open just in case?)

Another conflict between the businesses of Elon Musk and those of our government also emerged this week when news began breaking of the new "X Wallet," a way for the general public to send and receive money and handle transactions online.   The service would be much like Paypal, Venmo, and Apple Pay.  Those services fall under the supervisory control of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CPFB), a government watchdog that was essentially gutted and shut down by Elon and his crew this past week.  What a great time to start a financial service company, just after you've killed the government agency that would have overseen its operations!

Maybe the best interests of the nation require the purchase of a fleet of armored electric vehicles, and perhaps Tesla is the best and most logical provider, I honestly don't know.  I do know that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has saved consumers billions of dollars from predatory lenders and shady financial services providers, and I also know that billionaire oligarchs who generate much of their income off of the American government should not have unfettered access to the levers of power of that operate that same government.

As long as Elon Musk is worming his way through the intestines of our national government, corruption and self-dealing are certain to be a major focuses of public concern.  If public faith in government is ever to be restored, Elon will have to go.

X's Daddy

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Yesterday the man who has near total control of the US government took his young son, X, to the White House to watch Daddy's gibberish-speaking ape, Old Flatterpuss, sign executive orders that gave Daddy even more power over the government and the lives of all Americans.

It's great to be rich, hog-nasty rich, the guy with more money in his wallet than most people have in their retirement plans, and X's daddy is that guy.   X's daddy already has the most money of anyone in the whole world, but he wants more.   Right now Daddy's money is stacked in "billions," but soon he will have enough to stack it in "trillions."  Daddy's money is what makes him happy.

X's daddy knows that he is going to make lots more money soon because he is a government contractor, a person whose companies sell goods and services to the government.  Last year Daddy bought control of the United States government for the bargain price of just $288 million.  Now he has the ability to say how the agencies and departments of government award contracts and spend their money.  Daddy says he is "the fox in the henhouse," whatever that means.

X enjoyed his day at the White House, but he would have rather been outside playing in the snow.  His daddy has forgotten how much fun it is to play in the snow.

Hail Caesar, and the Horse He Rode In On

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Donald Trump and his entourage of shiftless family members and political bootlickers, as well as a legion of Secret Service agents, flew to New Orleans Sunday afternoon for a football game.  The outing, to attend and be seen at Super Bowl LIX, has been reported in various press accounts to have cost American taxpayers between fifteen and twenty million dollars, a startling amount of money considering Trump's government is currently slashing and burning hundreds of programs which offer life-saving assistance to people whose means of basic survival were already in peril.

Slather that taxpayer money on me, but not on thee.

It was a show for a showman.   Air Force One swooping into the Big Easy, a motorcade across the city, a perch atop an enormous packed stadium where thousands upon thousands of his adoring fans could look up  between plays on the field and stare at his utter magnificence.  All hail Caesar as he tries to stay awake!

Even if it was just a paltry fifteen million, that's still a considerable expense for a vanity outing.   But what good is money if not to pleasure the Emperor?   This trip did provide the almost-carnal gratification of getting to indulge in one the potentate's favorite pastimes:  mocking a successful woman.    He was gleeful in talking about Taylor Swift getting booed at the game.  Absent from his ridicule, of course, was any mention of the numerous catcalls and one-finger salutes which were directed toward him.  

The man with the long red tie sees only what he wants to see.

The Emperor did have to give up his Sunday round of golf in order to bring his show to New Orleans, but with his less-than-grueling schedule he should be able to catch up on the course next week.  And by then one of Elon's adolescent tech advisers should have also covered the cost of the Super Bowl outing through the elimination of something frivolous like free school lunches or Medicare.

It is vitally important in a free market that some of us work and pay taxes so that others may wallow in the fruits of our labor and live in pampered comfort amid glittering opulence.

Hail Caesar, and the horse he rode in on!

"Stranger Things" Heads to Broadway

 

by Pa Rock

Theatre Fan

Theatre productions have a long history of making their way into film:  Oklahoma!, South Pacific, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and West Side Story being just a few examples, but the return process of a film making its way to the stage is much more rare.  And the notion of a television show elbowing its way onto the professional stage is certainly a unique occurrence, but that is exactly what is happening next month as the hit Netflix series, Stranger Things, opens a run on Broadway.

 

The play, Stranger Things:  The Firxt Shadow, was written by Kate Trefry and is based on the television work of the Duffer Brothers, Jack Thorne, and Kate Trefry.  The director of the Broadway production is Stephen Daldry with Justin Martin as the co-director.

Stranger Things:  The First Shadow, an Olivier Award-winning play, will have its preview performances, both of which are already sold out, on March 28th and 29th at the Marquis Theatre on 46th Street.  The play, which has won an Olivier Award for "Best Entertainment," is set in the same universe as the original television show and involves some of the same characters, but none of the actual television series actors are in the production.  It is a prequel to the story that was presented on Netflix, and is set 24 years before the first season of the show.

The stage version of Stranger Things is geared toward an adult audience with it being recommended for ages 12 and up, with  anyone under the age of 16 being required to be accompanied by a parent, and children under 5 not being admitted.  It has trigger warnings which include:  gunfire audio, loud noises and explosions, haze and smoke, flashing lights, strobe lights, and strong language.

I enjoyed the television episodes immensely and I know that at least some of my grandchildren did also.  It was a unique experience to have something in common with them.  (At one point granddaughter Olive and her friends each adopted and channelled characters from the show.  Olive assumed the identity of Max.  I never got that far into it - I guess I am just old!)

But I'm not too old to enjoy a really good stage production if I get the opportunity.  Break a leg, New York cast, and have a great run!