Ken Lay is Alive ...and so is Dan White!

by Pa Rock
Conspiracy Theorist

Yup, that's right, I'm a conspiracy theorist. Oh, not one of the really tedious ones that corner people at cocktail parties and go on and on about some typo that they found in a court document that proves the Rosenberg's were railroaded. I don't even go to cocktail parties.

But my boring social life aside, I do have some opinions on historical occurrences that don't measure up to the official line. I went to college and learned to think critically while that lying weasel, Nixon, was in the White House. And since then I have survived under Ronnie Raygun, two Bushes, and a yokel from Arkansas who "never had sex with that woman." In fact, the only two Presidents, prior to Obama of course, who weren't pathological liars were Ford (who pardoned a liar) and Carter (who kept it in his pants but lusted in his heart).

Our government, its leaders and mouthpieces, have shamelessly lied to the American public for at least half a century. How could anyone not be a conspiracy theorist?

Seymour Hirsch, the award-winning investigative reporter who broke the story of My Lai during the Vietnam War, recently let a comment "slip" at a symposium that there have been executive assassination teams who answer only to the President or his designees, and that these teams blatantly go into foreign countries and kill with impunity. Apparently these teams were used frequently in the most recent Bush administration. Who's surprised? Certainly not me. What can you expect from a despot who thinks that God has anointed him to save the Republic?

It used to take a lot of work to be a conspiracy theorist - finding resources to fit theories and then getting people to listen to those theories. But now the Internet has made the fine art of conspiracy theory a whole lot easier to commit. As an example, I have believed since Ken Lay's "convenient" death and quick cremation that he obviously had made a quick stop at a plastic surgeon's office and is now living large in some tropic hideaway. Lay's timely demise came after his conviction, but before his sentencing and incarceration - and apparently in time that the inheritance went to his wife who was not liable for his losses.

So, let's review: a lying, scum-sucking piece of crap bilks individuals and state governments out of millions, rat-holes most of it away in secret accounts when he realizes that his financial contraption is about to sink, and then conveniently dies before he can be imprisoned and have to give up the assets that he couldn't get hidden quickly enough. Yeah, that's sounds just a tad suspicious!

(I remember his wife, Linda, lined up with some of their children on a morning show just after Enron imploded. She was sniffling that all of their money was lost in Enron - that's how much Ken believed in the company, and how those awful accountants had done him wrong. Poor Linda said that all they had left was their home. It was almost too much to take - until the media found out that they actually had eleven homes left!)

How many people would have to be paid off to make that happen? Four or five, tops: two paramedics, an ambulance driver, the coroner, and the crematorium operator.

And Dan White is the other death that I found to be just a tad convenient. White, the San Francisco city supervisor who murdered Mayor George Moscone and fellow supervisor Harvey Milk - in cold blood - got off with just a five-year prison sentence because of the "twinkie defense" - too much sugar and junk food impaired his judgement. (You can't make this stuff up!) He was also a martyr to the city's police force and other homophobic elements.

White got out of prison and returned to San Francisco where he was living under an assumed or assigned identity. He quickly committed suicide by asphyxiation in his car to avoid the gay brigades who would have liked nothing better than to hunt him down and out him for the murdering bastard that he was. Convenient? You betcha! His buddies on the police force "handled" the suicide.

And then there is my favorite conspiracy - the murder of John F. Kennedy by elements of his own government. But that is a very heavy topic that will have to wait for another posting.

The truth is out there!

Milk

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

If you are planning on entering an Oscar Pool this year, here is a freebie: Sean Penn will win Best Actor for the title role in Milk - and Josh Brolin will be a strong contender for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Harvey Milk's assassin, Dan White.

I took in this amazing film earlier today expecting to see little more than two hours of something like a History Channel presentation. I knew the story, in fact, the actual murders of Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone of San Francisco occurred after two of my children were born. Director Gus Van Sant weaved thirty-year-old news footage and exemplary contemporary acting into his dramatic retelling of a chaotic episode in America's past. And the timing of his film's release could not have been more poignant: it dealt with the defeat of a California hate law that targeted gays and lesbians - and its release came on the heels of the passage of anti-gay hate legislation in California just a few weeks ago. Comparisons between the two measures cannot be avoided, nor should they be.

The primary hero of this true tale is Harvey Milk, a San Francisco city supervisor and the first openly gay male elected to a major public office in the United States. But beyond that individual, the activist gay and lesbian residents of San Francisco and their relatives andc friends give heart to this important historical era. Milk's fellow supervisor, Dan White, is the front-line villain, but it is Anita Bryant, a bitter crone and shill for the orange juice industry, and a nation of Christian Fundamentalists, who are the overarching villains.

Knowing the story of the events that led to that awful day in San Francisco didn't spoil the magic of this movie. Van Sant and his stellar cast brought the events of the early days of the gay rights movement to life. Sean Penn was Harvey Milk, body and soul. He skillfully moved from a closeted insurance administrator in New York City to a successful businessman and political dynamo in San Francisco's Castro district. His flaw, an addiction to power, was only starting to present itself as problematic when he was gunned down by ex-policeman White.

Josh Brolin played Dan White as a deeply closeted male who was struggling to support his family on a meager supervisor's salary. There was a point in the tale where White reached out to Milk with some potential political deal-making, but the gay supervisor reneged at the last moment, earning him the fateful enmity of White. Brolin bestowed more humanity on Dan White than he probably deserved, and definitely more than the press did three decades earlier.

James Franco also gave a standout performance as Scott, Milk's partner throughout much of the period covered by the film. He is shown as the anchor in Milk's life, and the foil for his occasional bouts with grandiosity. It is Scott who clears their apartment of all of the political operatives and campaign workers so that Harvey is able to eat supper in peace. As Harvey becomes more consumed with politics, Scott quiety and peacefully withdraws from his life.

Milk chronicles a turbulent time in American society, a time that should be behind us, but unfortunately still rises occasionally like a festering boil in need of lancing. Dan White is dead (presumably), and Anita Bryant has been silenced and is probably drooling in a home somewhere, being spoon-fed gruel three times a day by a gay orderly too young to know just what an awful person she was in her prime. But the Christian fundamentalists still rage on, consumed by the fear that somewhere people are laughing, loving, and enjoying life on their own terms. Until these hate-riddled zealots figure out what Jesus was really about, civilization is doomed to be mired down in their intolerance and bigotry.

"There are few things in life more evil than a 'good' Christian." ~ Pa Rock

Milk is serious history wearing the cloak of exceptional drama - as history so often does. People who see this movie will not leave the theatre unaffected, of that you can be certain.