Writer's Almanac: A Source for Great Reads

by Pa Rock
Reader

I maintain a pile of books on an end table next to my bed that I am constantly working through.  The current novel that I am reading is by a professor of writing named George Saunders.  It is entitled "Lincoln in the Bardo," and gives a fictional account of Abraham Lincoln's visits to a spirit-infested cemetery in Washington, DC, during the evenings following the death and subsequent entombment and later burial of his 10-year-old son, Willie, who passed away during the Christmas holidays of 1862.  There is a lot to ponder in Mr. Saunder's book, and it is like nothing I have ever read before.  I will be giving a fuller account of the work in this space when I complete reading it.

What I would like to discuss today is how I learned about this unique novel in the first place.  It was not on a notice from Amazon.com suggesting titles that their algorithm thought I might like, or any other similar publication from other sources.  I found a couple of references to the author and this particular work on a free website that I subscribe to called  "The Writer's Almanac" which is the creation of Garrison Keillor, late of Lake Woebegon, Minnesota.  

Keillor and his elves who stuck with him after he retired from "A Prairie Home Companion," a very long-running radio show that was another of his creations, put together this project to provide a daily literary stimulus for his many diehard fans.    Each day "The Writer's Almanac" discusses writers, poets, and other persons of note who have special connections to that particular date in history - a birthday, the anniversary of a notable work, or perhaps the day on which a person of interest passed away.

Over the years I have found several poems through "The Writer's Almanac" that I went on to feature in this blog on "Poetry Mondays," and I have also come across some excellent novels - like "Lincoln in the Bardo."   Some other exceptionally fine novels that came to my attention through the on-line "Writer's Almanac" include "An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England" by Brock Clark, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon, and "The Sheltering Sky" by Paul Bowles.  I have previously written about each of those in this space.

(I have Ernest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast" in my read pile as well.   It is also a work that discovered through "The Writer's Almanac.")

Regardless of one's literary tastes and persuasions, "The Writer's Almanac" is a great place to unearth some of the gems that might have previously escaped your attention.  And the knowledge (or even just trivia) that one acquires through those encounters can be quite amazing.  For instance, did you know that Christopher Isherwood took the surname for his most famous fictional character, Fraulein Sally Bowles, from his good friend and author Paul Bowles?  Well, now you do.

Literature by itself is not a complete education, but it does form the backbone of a good education.  I learn something from everything I read, whether it is historical fact or pure fiction, and "The Writer's Almanac" gives me a greater sense of direction in choosing what I read - which is important especially now that my time for reading grows ever more brief.

"The Writer's Almanac" is free and published seven days a week, but Keillor does use it to promote his merchandise.   I avail myself of his literary expertise, which is extensive, but let him keep his coffee mugs!

Queen's Gambit Is a Netflix Winner!

by Pa Rock
Television Junkie 

I can play chess, barely.  I understand the basics of how the pieces are arranged and how each is able to move, but the more sophisticated moves, such as "castling," are beyond my ken.  If I sit down and engage in a game of chess with someone, I invariably lose - and usually lose fairly quickly!

(My games' strength lies in dominoes and pinochle, games in which luck plays more of a determining factor.)

A few weeks ago I noticed that a new "limited" series called "Queen's Gambit" was trending on Netflix.  After learning that it was a fictional piece about a young woman's meteoric rise in the world of competitive chess, I decided that it would not be something in which I would have much interest.  But my son and his wife told me that they were watching the program and enjoying it.  (That would be the same son who has been beating me at chess since his age was measured in single digits!). So I still figured it was a show that would probably bore me.

Then I saw a tweet from screen legend Mia Farrow in which she offered high praise for the series - and I decided that perhaps I might also find something to like about a seven-episode endeavor focusing on international competitive chess in the 1960's.  At the very least there would probably be some great classic cars from that period driving back-and-forth across the storyline.

"Queen's Gambit" is a story about chess, but it is also a story about damaged people learning to cope, life in an orphanage, and struggling with addictions.  The central character is Beth Harmon, a girl who, at the tender age of nine, is a passenger in a car with her mother when the mother takes a notion to commit vehicular suicide.  She had been unable to find anyone to care for Beth and apparently intended to kill her daughter as well as herself.

But Beth survives and is sent to live in an orphanage, a place where each of the young residents is routinely given a daily tranquilizer in addition to any prescribed medications.  One day Beth wanders down a stairwell and finds herself in the janitor's workroom.  There she secretly watches the orphanage's custodian playing a game of chess with himself.  She makes a couple of these secret visits before approaching the old man and asking him to teach her the game.  He replies that chess is not a game for girls, but then she shows him all that she has learned from watching for a couple of afternoons - such as how the pieces move - and he relents and begins teaching her to play.

Fast forward and Beth is adopted by a childless husband and wife in Louisville, Kentucky.   The husband soon walks out on his wife and new daughter.   Beth borrows five dollars from her old friend, the custodian, so she can enter a local chess competition, and she soon finds herself as the new Kentucky state champion.   Her adoptive mother encourages Beth to enter more competitions because is represents an income stream - and it gives the mother an opportunity to travel as she chaperones Beth to the competitions.

And the process rolls on until Beth eventually finds herself in Moscow playing for the world championship.

The cast of this Netflix original limited series contained several dozen individuals, none of whom were familiar names.  The lead, Beth Harmon, was played by a twenty-four-year-old British-Argentine actress named Anya Taylor-Joy who seemed to slide seamlessly into the role of a sexually alluring chess wonk.  While Ms. Taylor-Joy has several previous credits on her acting resume, I suspect that the portrayal of Beth Harmon will ultimately be seen as her breakthrough role.

Anya Taylor-Joy was somewhat reminiscent of the amazing young actress who played the lead in "Rosemary's Baby" all those many years ago.

And yes, the cars were there also, including one highly polished, maroon, mid-sixties Chevy Corvair that triggered a flood of good memories!

Michael Flynn Slithers Back into the Oval Office

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Of all of the disgusting and reprehensible characters spawned by  the Trump administration,  Michael Flynn is perhaps the most disgusting and reprehensible of all.

Flynn, who spent thirty-three years (1981-2014) in the US Army, primarily in the field of intelligence, hit the summit of his career in 2012 when he was appointed to head the US. Defense Intelligence Agency.  During the two years that he served in that role, he became known within the Obama administration for his opposition to Team Obama's approach to conducting the wars in the Middle East.  Obama wanted to excise certain elements from the opposing forces, and Flynn was more of a mind to bring down the entire Muslim world.  Obama finally sent the general into retirement in 2014.

From retirement Flynn began doing private "consulting" on an international basis.  Upon leaving the DIA Flynn had been cautioned by the US government about not accepting payments from foreign governments.  In December of 2015 he gave a speech at a formal dinner in Moscow in which he sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Flynn was paid over $30,000 for that speech.  It was at about that same time that Flynn established contact with representatives from the Trump campaign.  Flynn had once been openly skeptical and wary of the Russians, but Trump impressed upon him his notion that cooperation with the Russians might be the best way forward for the United States in the post-Obama era.

When Barack Obama left office in January of 2017, one bit of sage advice that he reportedly gave Trump was that he should not appoint Michael Flynn as his National Security Adviser - advice which Trump ignored.

Michael Flynn served just 24 days as National Security Adviser before he was forced to resign in disgrace on February 17, 2017 - becoming what the New York Times referred to as the "first felon to emerge from this (the Trump) administration."  As a result of the Mueller invenstigation, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators about his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States prior to the Trump administration coming into office.  Flynn and the ambassador had reportedly talked about the sanctions that the Obama administration had placed on Russia because of that country's illicit involvement in the 2016 US presidential elections.

When Donald Trump was asked about Flynn's guilty plea, he responded "I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI."

During Flynn's multi-year involvement with law enforcement, he actually pleaded guilty in court two times to lying to the FBI, and he was assisting with the Mueller investigation.

But then Trump fired the head of the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and replaced with Bill Barr who quickly began exercising more control over the FBI and it's on-going investigations.  In early May of 2020 Barr suddenly said his department would move to drop all criminal charges against Flynn - saying that Flynn's admission had been in response to an interview that had been conducted "without any legitimate investigative basis."

After Barr's dismissal of the charges, an ecstatic Trump, who had once "fired" Flynn for lying to the Vice President and the FBI, now crowed that the general was "an innocent man!"

However,  Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District Court of Washington, DC, was not having it,  and he moved to continue the case against Flynn.   The general secured new legal counsel, Sidney Powell out of Texas, and sought to have his guilty plea withdrawn.   Powell filed a "writ of mandamus" with the DC Circuit Court of Appeals asking that Sullivan be ordered to drop the charges, in line with the Justice Department's new position on the case.  The three justices who heard the case, on a vote of 2-1, agreed with the writ of mandamus and ordered Judge Sullivan to dismiss the case.  Sullivan then took the matter to the full Court of Appeals for DC which heard the arguments and declined to order a dismissal of the case against General Flynn.

After the dust from the court maneuverings began to settle, Donald Trump stepped in on November 25th and granted Michael Flynn a full presidential pardon for "any and all offenses" in connection with the Mueller investigation.

Then, this past Friday night - December 18th - Donald Trump hosted a "pity party" in the Oval Office with the primary focus of coming up with ways to hold onto his job as President.  Some of the people in the room included Trump's Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani,  and Michael Flynn and his lawyer, Sidney Powell.  The current National Security Adviser, Robert O'Brien, reportedly participated in the meeting by phone.

News reports indicate that the Friday night meeting in the Oval Office degenerated on multiple occasions to "screaming and yelling" among the attorneys in the room over who was doing the most to support Trump.  One idea that Trump floated was to appoint Sidney Powell, Flynn's attorney who has also been promoting a wide range of conspiracy theories about the election, as a special counsel to probe claims of election fraud.

Trump apparently also discussed the idea of seizing voting machines in certain states to try and ascertain if they had been tampered with.  Giuliani has also been pressuring Ken Cuccinelli, a Homeland Security official who formerly was a right-wing office holder in Virginia, to seize voting machines, but Cuccinelli has so far turned down those requests because he believes that he lacks the authority to do so.

Flynn, for his part, has been discussing the idea of invoking "martial law" in the United States until all of the election controversy could be settled - presumably in Trump's favor - a position he likely expounded upon during the White House meeting.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows may have been the only adult in the room and reportedly spent the evening pushing back against all of the crazy.

Meanwhile Michael Flynn, a man who five full years ago was speaking for pay to a group of Russian dignitaries in Moscow -  and who four years ago was, as someone outside of government, was meeting with the Russian ambassador to the United States and discussing lifting sanctions against Russia - and a man who pleaded guilty, in court, twice, to lying to the FBI - that Michael Flynn - was sitting in the Oval Office with the President of the United States and others as they actively sought ways to subvert democracy!   

And all of the while Michael Flynn was drawing a monthly check from the United States Government for his retirement from the military - a check roughly equal to what his full-time pay had been when he retired after as a Lieutenant General after thirty-three years of service.

That is an outrage of outrageous proportions!

If Michael Flynn cannot bring himself to support the Constitution of the United States of America, then the Treasury of the United States should damn well not support him!

Joe Biden likely will not attend to the matter of Lt. General Michael Flynn (Ret.) and his conduct unbecoming of an officer in the US military, but he should!

Death of an Old Friend

by Pa Rock
Class of 1966

I have basically sat at home hiding from the pandemic since word of its existence began leaking from our government back last March.  In the intervening nine months the furthest I have traveled is one hundred miles, and that was a highly focused trip to a necessary doctor's appointment.  I've cancelled one special trip to the East Coast, and missed two fairly regular outings to the West Coast to see grandchildren.   My poor old car will finally be going in for its three-month servicing next week, only about six months late.

There is a lot of COVID in my rural community, and even with my careful lifestyle I have been fortunate not to contract the disease.  I have known several people who weren't so lucky, though most of those were young and got over it quickly.  Two people that I know did get fairly sick, but they chose to take their chances at home and avoid hospital stays.  People die in hospitals.

So even though I knew COVID was out there and I was taking basic precautions to avoid the virus, the full impact had not touched me.  That changed a couple of weeks ago when I learned that one of my high school classmates, Doug, had been hospitalized with COVID and pneumonia - and was on a ventilator.  Over the next few days, the news continued to get worse.  I learned that my friend had been admitted to the hospital on Thanksgiving Day and that he was in a setting so isolated that family members were not allowed in.   This past Thursday news reached me that Doug had lost his battle with the disease that had once been dismissed by the highest levels of our government as "fake" and then as something that would be around only a couple of weeks.

We had been told to go back to work, to reopen our schools, to resume our normal lives.  Some government officials prattled on about something called "herd immunity," and indicated that the more people that caught COVID, the safer we would be in the long run.  We witnessed some of our leaders parading around brazenly without face masks - and even ridiculing their political rivals for wearing masks.  And, not surprisingly, we saw our leaders catching the disease and then receiving treatments that were not available to us mere mortals.  Nothing about the whole mess seemed honest or straight forward.

The only "straight truth" seemed to be the numbers, and they kept going "straight up."  Now we are somewhere north of 310,000 - and one of those represents a friend of mine.

Doug Morriss was seventy-two-years-old when he died from COVID and government incompetence.   He will be missed by his loving family and a host of people who had the pleasure of knowing him back when the world was normal.  

Rest in peace, Old Friend.

Blood Echo

by Pa Rock
Reader

Christopher Rice has been one of my favorite authors since the publication of his first novel, A Density of Souls" back in 2000 when he was only twenty-two-years-old.   Since that time I have read all of his books - save one which is currently waiting on the "read pile" next to my bed.  

In March of 2018 Rice published Bone Music, a book he indicated was to be the first in a thriller series with the same heroine, a young woman named Charlotte "Charley" Rowe.  Charley had been kidnapped as a young child by a family of serial killers who murdered her mother.   She was raised as a part of the serial killer family for several years until being rescued by the police and returned to her father, a man from who she and her mother had been estranged.  

Charley's father fabricated a history for Charley in which he portrayed her as having been an active participant within the serial killer family - and saying that she sometimes ran the furnace where the killers disposed of the bodies - hence her fan nickname "The Burning Girl."   Charley's father parlayed that fabrication into a traveling freak show that managed to make himself a nice income.    Charley realized what her father was doing, and she eventually left and went to live with her maternal grandmother in Altamira, California, a (fictional) small town located inland somewhere between Los Angeles and San Francisco.  The grandmother was a woman who befriended and protected Charley as a caring adult relative should.

When her grandmother died, Charley went into hiding in Arizona, trying to avoid fans and stalkers who had been drawn to the facts and fabrications about her former life in the family of serial killers.  She also used that time in the desert to try and establish herself as a functioning person through intensive therapy.  Unfortunately, her therapist in Arizona was aligned with an ethically-challenged scion of a family of pharmaceutical manufacturers who had an experimental drug that he wanted to try out on an appropriate test subject - a drug that would turn ordinary human beings into killer maniacs - and Charley unwittingly became weaponized and drawn into a plot to rid the world of many of its worst people.

Blood Echo is the second novel in the "Burning Girl Thriller Series."   As it opens Charley has again left the security of the small California town of Altamira and is on an assignment for the ethically-challenged drug manufacturer in which she is preparing to deal with a serial killer of young women.  She completes that chore in relatively short order, with a maximum of pain and bloodshed, and returns to her new developing "family" in Altamira.  Central to that family are Deputy Luke Prescott, now her live-in boyfriend but who had once been a bully toward her when they were in high school - and Martin "Marty" Cahill, the man who had been her grandmother's longterm boyfriend.   Both Luke and Marty know about Charley's work for Cole Graydon and Graydon Pharmaceuticals as they (Charley and Cole) endeavor to rid the world of its very worst people, and both Luke and Marty are as wary of Cole Graydon as they are protective of Charley.

And as Charley begins to recover from the serious physical trauma that she endured while bringing down the serial killer, she and her friends inadvertently get caught up in a web of domestic terrorism!

Like every previous book by Christopher Rice, the plotting in Blood Echo is tight and so fast-paced that the pages almost turn themselves!   It looks as though Mr Rice, who has several fine stand-alone novels to his credit, now has a successful series in the works as well.    

Christopher Rice is one of the best writers working in America today.   His novels are always well crafted, creative, compelling - and first-rate entertainment.  Blood Echo, like all of Mr. Rice's other works, is a great read!

Molly Files: A Busy Mom at Forty-four

by Pa Rock
Proud Papa 

My middle child, and only daughter, Molly Miranda Macy Files, turns forty-four today.  She and her husband, Scott, live in Oregon where they lead very busy lives as they struggle to survive in hectic times while raising three school-age children.  Molly is a "stay-at-home" mom who seldom has time to even sit down and catch her breath, much less pay attention to her personal needs.

Most days Molly will make two round trips (80 miles per trip) up and down Oregon's busy Interstate 5 to take one of her kids to school and back, and she runs a "Mom shuttle" to various child activities around town.  Of course now, with much of school occurring at home, she also has to make sure that the technology is up and running and the kids are where they are supposed to be and focused on learning.  All of that - and being a part of an active family that has seen its world upended by the pandemic!

Last night Molly sent out a middle-of-the-night (at least in Missouri!) text alerting family and friends that her and Scott's oldest, Sebastian Files - aged 13, has had a book published through Amazon that is available on Kindle.  It is entitled "The Royce Agency" and involves a family-run crime-fighting agency.  (More details in this space after I have had a chance to read it.)    I understand from Sebastian that a sequel  is in the works!

Today is Molly's day, and her Dad hopes that she is able to schedule a bit of peaceful respite for herself sometime during the day.  She's earned some cake and ice cream - and maybe even a power nap!

Happy birthday, Molly!  I am amazed by all you do!

Arkansas Loves Trump More than Ever

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

West Plains, Missouri, and Mountain Home, Arkansas, are separated by a little over fifty miles of a curvy, meandering country highway that crosses the stateline approximately halfway between the two communities.   Both towns have a light industrial base, an agrarian hinterland, and a basic contingent of small national businesses - such as discount stores and fast-food joints - that are present in most American population centers.  Mountain Home, Arkansas, is also located very near Lake Norfolk and that stirs some tourist trade.  Both communities are similar in size, each being home to approximately 12,000 individuals.

A few of my doctors are in Mountain Home, which necessitates trips there several times a year.  My last trip south had been back in September or October, before the national election, and at that time I noted a lot of Trump signs on both sides of the border.  Yesterday I made my first post-election to Mountain Home and found that while most of the Trump signs had been removed along the roadway in Missouri, the Trump political fever had intensified substantially south of the Missouri-Arkansas border.

There were still sporadic Trump yard signs along the Arkansas roadways, but there was a marked increase in in yard displays where signs and flags were arranged in manners to catch the eye and attention of passers-by. When I got into Mountain Home one of the first things I came across was a "Trump Store" along the major thoroughfare - a commercial building apparently dedicated to Trump merchandise with flags and other paraphernalia flapping in the breeze outside of the store.

Further on there was a trailer of a semi-truck sitting along the side of the same busy road.    The trailer had a Trump-Pence "Keep America Great" sign covering its entire side along with portraits of the two politicians.   The advertisement was professionally prepared and obviously expensive - not counting the cost of renting the trailer and the prime spot of highway frontage.  Somebody had put some big money into the gaudy display.

Then I passed a largeTrump kiosk along the side of the road that was an open-air affair selling Trump-Pence merchandise - and even though the weather was cold, it seemed to be doing a brisk business.

(Significantly I had not noticed the two Trump businesses and the large trailer display during my last trip to Mountain Home just a couple of months ago.  They were relatively new.)

While passing all of those bastions of diehard support for Trump, I was also listening to Mitch McConnell on the car radio as he was finally acknowledging - six weeks after the election - that Joe Biden had beaten Trump in the election and was now officially the president-elect.  

Those Arkansawyers aren't going to be happy when they turn on their televisions on January 20th and learn that they have a new president!  Maybe they need to be listening to something other than Fox News!

How to Quit Smoking: Pa Rock's ICE Plan

by Pa Rock
Ex-Smoker

January is on the horizon, the month when portly slobs like me traditionally head to the gym and put in a couple of weeks aimed at reshaping ourselves for a healthier New Year - and usually cancel our memberships by the time the March bill is due - if not sooner.  This year, of course, many of the gyms are closed due to COVID, so we either have to remove the clothes hanging from the home treadmill that hasn't been used more than a dozen times since Sears delivered it, or find some other way to feel invested in developing a healthier lifestyle.

It might be the perfect time to try to quit smoking.

I noticed a "tweet" yesterday from a man who was preparing to quit smoking tobacco.  He said that he had quit once before and was off of cigarettes for four years when some situation led him to smoke "just one," and, not surprisingly, he had then quickly fallen off of the wagon and resumed his unhealthy vice with a vengeance.    But he was determined to give it another try.  The tweeter said that as soon as he finished his current pack he would once again quit and this time he would win the battle.

I tweeted back a couple of suggestions based on my own successful attempt at quitting.

I have not had many big successes in life - other than my wonderful children and grandchildren - but back in the 1970's I did manage to quit smoking.   At the time I quit I was a young lieutenant in the US Army who was often working eighteen-or-twenty-hour days, and during those long days I consumed a great many cigarettes.  In fact, by the time I quit I was sucking down a minimum of three packs a day.

One reason that I quit was the cost.  The price of a pack of cigarettes had recently climbed to around fifty cents a pack, money that could be put to better use elsewhere.  Also, my oldest was a baby when I quit, and I knew that the smoke that I could see lingering in the air inside of our army housing was not good for him.

Once I determined to quit smoking, I just sort of stumbled into a three-step approach that actually worked, at least for me.  I call it my "ICE Plan," and it has no connection whatsoever to immigration enforcement.

First of all, I threw away cigarettes, an "investment" factor.  I didn't wait to finish what I had on hand, and opted instead to endure some immediate financial hardship by throwing several packs in the trash and not looking back.  Second, I quit with a friend which set up a bit of "competition" and a "challenge" effect.  Sadly, my friend later started up again, but I was able to stay off of the killer weeds.  I won the challenge!   And third, I told everybody within shouting distance that I was quitting, so that if I started back up dozens of people would know what a loser I was.  That was an "embarrassment" factor.

So, to recap, "invest" in the plan by throwing away some actual cigarettes, set up a "challenge" or a "competition" with someone else as motivation and to firm your resolve, and arrange to suffer some serious "embarrassment" if you fail.

No guarantees - but it worked for me.

(And, if you are successful in the effort, don't turn to eating to fulfill that lingering oral fixation with cigarettes.  Take up walking, jogging, and other good cardio-exercises to begin cleaning out those poor abused lungs.   I have a walking goal of 10,000 steps a day - and there is no gym membership fee or equipment purchase required!)

Monday's Poetry: "Holding Lady Liberty's Hand"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

The Electoral College, an arcane political device that some of the founding fathers managed to embed in the US Constitution, meets today - in the various states - to officially "elect" the next President of the United States based on which candidate won  each of the states.  When all of the electors have cast their votes, and if each of those electors are "faithful" to the actual vote totals of their various states, Joe Biden will be officially elected as our 46th President by a vote of 306 to 232 electoral votes.

Those votes will then be transmitted to the President of the Senate (the Vice President of the United States) and the National Archivist by December 23.   On January 6th Congress will meet and officially tally the votes and will declare Joe Biden the winner.

Or at least that is how it would work in normal times.  This year the country is saddled with a President who decisively lost his bid for re-election yet refuses to admit defeat - and he is being propped up in his bid to illegally maintain his office by other officeholders of his same political party.  The losing side has been to court, repeatedly, and failed to present a winning argument or even much in the way of "evidence" other than just their unhappiness over the way some states allowed too many of their qualified citizens to vote.

But Joe Biden won the electoral college vote - or he will officially win it today just as Donald Trump won it four years ago.  Significantly, Trump lost the popular vote four years ago by over three million votes - and this year he lost the popular vote by over eight million votes - yet he yammers on about how the election was "stolen" from him in a few swing states - with absolutely no evidence to back up his claim.

People voted - and clearly millions more cast their votes for Joe Biden than others did for Donald Trump.

Democracy happened!

Today's poetry selection is  "Holding Lady Liberty's Hand" by Paul Lee, a tribute to American democracy.

Holding Lady Liberty's Hand

by Paul Lee

You would think that holding Lady Liberty’s hand

Would be like holding a hand of stone.

A hand warmed only by the tears from her motherly eyes.

 

When I asked to hold Lady Liberty’s hand

She said in a soft voice that only thought could hear:

Tell me that these are times for love.

 

When I asked to hold your hand you said:

No. These are not times for love or for babies.

These are times when tides and tears overflow.

 

Then I said: there were better times when

We had jfk and rfk and mlk.

Before they were struck down, they taught us

To dream big and dream of babies.

 

Lady Liberty danced with our past heros, who built

Our foundation with stone and words. Now, she is a widow

And she dreams with us, her children,

As we repair those stones and remember those words.

 

She no longer waits for a hero. But she waits for us

To learn from the past and make the future

In our own image

With our dreams and with our votes.

Missouri Legislators Move to Legalize Vehicular Homicide

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Anytime I see my state - Missouri - trending in the news I go into automatic "cringe" mode because whatever news the "show me" state is stirring up, it is seldom of the "good" variety.

In particular, news from our state legislature is seldom positive and it is usually of the type that makes Missouri look foolish to the civilized portions of America.  Our legislators, primarily a ripe assemblage of farmers and white businessmen, generally have three areas of focus.  First, they try to come up with ways to insure that the poor and working classes are the primary funders of government -  with things like sales taxes, lotteries, and other maneuvers to keep the tax burdens off of the people with money.  Second, they are always open to any national fad legislation that would put more guns in the hands of more white people.  And third, they will move Heaven and Earth to come up with ways to limit women's freedom to control their own bodies.  

Most Missouri legislators worth their white table salt will go to the wall to protect a fetus - and then sit smugly next to a warm fire while hungry children sleep in the streets on cold winter nights.  It's just how they are.

Yesterday, however, our esteemed state legislature took some initial steps in a new direction.  Now we have legislators who want to want to focus on limiting people's constitutional First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly.  Two legislators, one state representative and one state senator-elect, introduced similar bills that would give motorists the protection of state law if they were to run over protestors with their cars.

State Representative Adam Schnelting, a Republican from St. Charles, filed a bill that he titled the "Fleeing Motorist Protection Act" to protect motorists who are "trapped in their vehicle during a riot."   In defending his intent, the GOP representative talked about the horrors of having your grandparents trapped in a car and surrounded by a "riotous assemblage," and saying they needed some state protection in case they hit someone with their car as they were trying to flee the scene.

That brings visions of the "stand your ground" laws which roared through state legislatures a decade ago.  Their stated intent was to allow people to protect themselves, but they quickly degenerated into legal excuses to shoot anyone who came to your door.  Today Rep. Schnelting is concerned with terrified grandparents trapped in cars, but if his legislation is enacted it would soon be seen as a legal right to drive a vehicle into crowds of protestors for no other reason than to injure or kill as many as possible.

It's not about protecting motorists, it's about disrupting protests.

The representative's bill discusses drivers who are "fleeing unlawful or riotous assemblage," but the companion bill being introduced in the state senate is more plainspoken.  The bill introduced by State Senator-elect Rick Brattin of Harrisonville declares:

"Any person operating a motor vehicle who injures another person with the motor vehicle shall not be liable for any damages if, at the time of the injury:  (1) The person operating the motor vehicle was exercising due care;  and (2) The person injured was blocking traffic in a public right-of-way while participating in a protest or demonstration."

Bottom line:  Republicans, at least Missouri Republicans, are not comfortable with the First Amendment and right of people to peacefully assemble and protest.  These bills open the door to violent responses to peaceful protests just as the "stand your ground" laws opened the door to unprovoked murder based on such non-threatening things as the volume of music or skin tone.

America was founded on protests, demonstrations, and "riotous assemblages" like the Boston Tea Party, but leave it to today's GOP to try and turn back the clock and save the tea!  They talk freedom and liberty, but they walk in lockstep with the world's authoritarian regimes!

Real freedom is being able to talk back to your government without fear of being shot for your thoughts or being run down by a lunatic in a car!   Not having that ability is oppression and a mile-marker on the road to tyranny!

The Hotel New Hampshire, the Movie

by Pa Rock
Film Fan

There was a time back in the early 1980's when all of the cool people were carrying around a large, cumbersome novel by John Irving.  For some, that novel was The World According to Garp (1982), and for others it was The Hotel New Hampshire (1981).  (A few of the more pretentious types bragged of reading both!)   I was a young working stiff at the time with a young family. I spent my days managing the rolling insanity of students and teachers as a school principal, and many of my nights riding shotgun on school athletic buses where I continued to manage students until the wee hours of the next day.  And while I dearly love to read, I had little time for it back then.  I was not one of the cool people.

In addition to not reading either of John Irving's blockbuster hits of the 1980's, I also did not manage to catch either of the movies that were made from those two novels.  This past week I corrected some of that glaring cultural omission when I came across the 1984 movie, The Hotel New Hampshire,  streaming on Amazon Prime.

The Hotel New Hampshire is a family-life saga that centers on the Berry family of New Hampshire.  Mr. Berry and his wife worked together at a hotel when they were young and it was there that they met Sigmund Freud when he and his acrobatic bear stayed at the hotel where they worked.  Years later as the father of several children, three of whom are almost grown, Mr. Berry (Beau Bridges) decides that he isn't happy being a school teacher, and he and his wife (Lisa Barnes) manage to buy an old seminary which they turn into a hotel and  name "The Hotel New Hampshire."  It is basically accommodations for parents visiting their children at  the private school where Mr. Berry teaches.

After the new hotel venture begins to be successful, Sigmund Freud contacts the family from Vienna and asks them to come manage a hotel that he has bought there.  Later they return to America after the youngest daughter writes and publishes a book, and upon the family's return they buy yet another hotel.  They manage to name each of the hotels, including the one owned by Freud,  "The Hotel New Hampshire."

The story is simple, almost a fairy tale, about the pains associated with growing up and bears riding bicycles.  The movie version, which was scripted by the film's director, Tony Richardson, and John Irving, stands out for its stellar cast, perhaps moreso than for the story or the film itself.  In addition to Beau Bridges and Lisa Barnes as the parents, the film also presents Wilford Brimley as the grandfather and the athletic coach at the private school where his son teaches, a very young Seth Green as Egg, the youngest child in the family, and young Rob Lowe and Jody Foster as John and Frannie, the two oldest children in the family who are students at the private high school where their father and grandfather work.

A lot of the focus for the older children is learning about sex. A third older sibling, Frank (Paul McCrane) is gay, John (Rob Lowe) is learning about sex from a prostitute who works as a waitress in the restaurant in their hotel, and Frannie (Jody Foster) is enamored with a local high school athlete who leads his friends into gang-raping her.  And to complicate things even further, John and Frannie have feelings toward each other which leads to a prolonged afternoon and evening of incestuous sex.

But the bear riding the bicycle is great, and all-in-all The Hotel New Hampshire, as a movie at least, is an escape back to the 1980's when Rob Lowe and Jody Foster still looked like high school students and life, in some respects, was simpler.

 The Hotel New Hampshire is not a great movie, but it is one that is easy to enjoy.  And watching this movie is a whole lot less straining than lugging the book around - even if it is not as cool!

GOP Stooges Try to Overthrow Democracy

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Aside from serving as the Attorney General of Texas and dealing with all of the business associated with that public office, Ken Paxton also has plenty of stuff of a personal nature on his plate that he could be dealing with.  He was indicted on charges of felony securities fraud in 2015, a case which has yet to go to trial - and recently several members of his staff accused him of bribery and influence-peddling in a letter that has stirred an FBI investigation.

But Ken, who may be auditioning for a Trump pardon, has pushed all of that other bother aside and is now resolutely focused on a legal effort that he initiated to to have the electoral votes of four swing states thrown out and the electoral votes of those states decided by their state legislatures - all of which are Republican.  The four states in question - Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan - were all won by Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

While many elected officials, including John Cornyn, the senior US Senator from Texas, have been critical of Paxton for trying to interfere in the elections of other states, some GOP officials from around the country have latched onto Paxton's effort in what looks like an attempt to curry favor with Donald Trump - or at least to avoid his unhinged wrath.

Paxton's suit seeks to get the US Supreme Court to involve itself in the 2020 election by throwing out the results of the elections of those four states - Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan - and allowing the state legislatures in those states to decide who gets their coveted electoral votes - and thus to decide who is officially elected President of the United States.  The suit alleges that the states instituted pandemic-related changes to their election procedures that allowed for fraud (things like easier access to absentee ballots and voting boy mail).    Joe Biden received over eight million more votes than Donald Trump and a clear majority of the electoral votes according to the state laws that covered the elections in the fifty states as of November 3rd, 2020.

But the rights of those states to set and enforce their own election procedures are being challenged by a whole raft of people from other states.

Seventeen state attorneys-general have signed onto Paxton's Hail-Mary attempt to overturn democracy in the United States, and so have one hundred-and-six members of Congress, again all Republicans.  (By today that figure had grown to 126, still all Republicans.)   Noticeably absent among the Republican members of the House of Representatives who signed onto the lawsuit were House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the Republican Conference Chair, Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

As a Missouri resident, I find it troubling that my state attorney general, Eric Schmitt, finds merit in Ken Paxton's political ploy and that they both have enough free time on their hands to allow them to dabble in the politics of other states.   As a resident of Missouri's 8th congressional district, I also find it troubling that my congressman, Representative Jason Smith, himself an attorney, also finds merit in this blatantly political maneuver whose obvious intent is to subvert democracy.  Congressman Smith has an abundance of local matters that are in need of his attention.

The people have spoken through the ballot box.  Joe Biden won the presidency and Trump lost - decisively - and no amount of pretending otherwise will change those results - nor will the courts.   That's the real world, and those who cannot tolerate life in the real world need to hop in their clown cars and go someplace else. 

Meanwhile this Missourian is pleased with the results of the presidential election and anxious to see our country once again headed toward greatness!

Celebrity Healthcare

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

The US Food and Drug Administration could rule as early as today to approve Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for distribution in the United States, and if that happens people could start receiving inoculations for the dreaded disease within a very few days.  Supposedly there is a distribution scheme that will insure that the first round of vaccinations go to emergency healthcare workers and people in nursing homes, and the next round will go to the elderly who are not yet in nursing homes.  From there it will head on down to younger and healthier individuals.  

Right now the plan is for all inoculations to be voluntary, with people having the right to refuse the shots if they so desire.  Current estimates are that approximately half of the country is ready to roll up their sleeves and submit to the needle.  Former Presidents Obama, Clinton and Bush have all said that they will take the shots publicly in order to serve as role models encouraging all Americans to get vaccinated.

The new COVID-19 vaccines being developed by several pharmaceutical companies are preventative measures, not cures.    Their purpose is to keep people who are exposed to the coronavirus from getting the disease.  People who have already contracted the disease are not looking for a prevention strategy, they are after something entirely different.  Their goal is to receive a medicine that will cure the malady.

There are some curative measures on th market, treatments which seem to enhance the survival rates of those who are infected with COVID-19.  Unfortunately, the best "cures" are expensive and in short supply.  From a medical ethics perspective, those medicines should be available to the general public on an equitable basis.  Any one person should have as good of a chance of receiving a miracle medicine as any other person.  An individual's wealth, class, race, or political status should have nothing to do with whether they get the best treatment available or not.

But, of course, this is America and things do not always follow an ethical curve.

There is a rare treatment available to fight COVID-19 called a "monoclonal antibody cocktail" that was developed by Eli Lilly and Regeneron that is one of the few treatments proven to be highly effective in battling the disease.  Not surprisingly, it is the treatment that Donald Trump received while he was an in-patient with COVID-19 at Walter Reed Hospital this past October.  It is a drug cocktail so rare, expensive, and in such short supply, that hospitals who receive doses of the treatment routinely distribute them by lottery.

Donald Trump probably did not win a lottery at Walter Reed.  An argument could be made, one must suppose, that a nation's leader should receive the best treatment because the health of the nation is dependent to an extent on the leader's health - at least in theory.

But others not so essential to the nation's health also seem to be winning the treatment lottery.

Rudy Giuliani is a 76-year-old male who also happens to be Donald Trump's personal lawyer.  Monday of this week Giuliani was diagnosed with COVID-19 and admitted to a hospital in New York City even though his symptom's did not warrant hospitalization at that time.  While Giuliani was in the hospital he had a telephone interview with a New York City radio station in which he said "If it wasn't me, I wouldn't have been put in the hospital, frankly.  Sometimes when you're a celebrity, they're worried if something happens to you they're going to examine it more carefully, and do everything right."    According to Rudy, his hospitalization was the result of his celebrity status rather than his medical status.

But that wasn't all.  Apparently Donald Trump intervened on behalf of his personal attorney and got the hospital to give him the same treatment that Trump got at Walter Reed.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Ben Carson, the US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and an advisor to Donald Trump, also won the COVID-19 treatment lottery - with an assist from Donald John Trump, of course.

Rudy Giuliani was sent home yesterday feeling  "100% better," and on that same day 3,243 Americans died of COVID-19.   What a shame all of those people didn't have friends in high places, or were "celebrities," or at least had a fair chance of receiving the best treatment available.

And now the vaccinations to prevent COVID-19 are about to roll out, and we can all rest assured that their delivery will be fair and equitable because this is the United States of America and we don't play favorites - unless, of course, some of our betters need to buck the line!

 

COVID's Political Roots

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

While COVID is an extremely dangerous disease that has been contracted by people inhabiting the full socio-economic and political spectrums, it can be slowed and even controlled to a large extent by taking basic safety precautions such as masking-up, avoiding large gatherings, and social-distancing when you must be in the vicinity of other people.  People who stay at home as much as they can and follow those commonsense guidelines are far less likely to catch the virus than those who ignore precautions.

It should not be surprising that some groups, based on their specific beliefs and philosophies, are more susceptible to the disease than others.  People who have a natural predisposition to rail about freedom and liberty as they stubbornly resist any attempts by government officials or agencies to control their behaviors, even if those behaviors lend themselves to the spread of disease, are far more likely to become infected than those who quietly submit to the advice of experts.

Donald Trump, the leader and the emblem of the Republican Party, has been trying since May to completely reopen society - businesses, schools, and churches - in order to keep the American economy pumped up and to limit the psychological effects of the pandemic.  In June he was back to holding large, essentially mask-less rallies and encouraging those around him to pretend that the world-wide health emergency was essentially a delusion.  During the fall presidential campaign he ridiculed his opponent for wearing a mask, and when the holidays came into view Trump was encouraging travel and family gatherings inspite of advice from government agencies to the contrary.

Trump set the tone for his family, his administration, and his political party.  The best way to defeat the pandemic was to pretend that it just did not exist.  All of that profound ignorance, of course, came with a price - and that price was, at least in part, that the pandemic seems to have had a far greater impact on Republicans than it has had on Democrats.

In June former GOP presidential candidate, Herman Cain, died of COVID after he apparently caught the disease while attending (unmasked) a large Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Trump and First Lady Melania were themselves diagnosed with COVID in early October, and his case was serious enough that he was admitted to a luxury hospital suite at Walter Reed for four days.

Eight United States Senators, all Republicans, have been diagnosed with COVID.  The list includes Rand Paul (Kentucky), Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), Ron Johnson (Wisconsin), Thom Tillis (North Carolina), Mike Lee (Utah), Kelly Loeffler (Georgia), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), and Rick Scott (Florida).  Twenty-five members of the House of Representatives have also been diagnosed with COVID including sixteen Republicans and nine Democrats - even though Democrats hold the majority of seats in the House.

Others who either work in or around the White House and have contracted COVID include presidential son Donald Trump, Junior,  White House Chief of staff Mark Meadows, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, White House Senior Policy Advisor and resident bigot Stephen Miller, the Vice President's Communications Director Katie Miller (Stephen's wife),  Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway, and HUD Secretary Ben Carson.

Two of Trump's lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, are both currently down with COVID and Giuliani is hospitalized.   Giuliani's son, Andrew, whose government job involves arranging the visits of sports teams to the White House, has also been diagnosed with COVID.

Former Florida attorney general and Trump advisor Pam Bondi has had the dreaded diagnosis, as has former New Jersey governor and Trump advisor Chris Christie.  The primary assistant press secretary at the White House, Chad Gilmartin, has been diagnosed with COVID, and so have Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien and campaign advisor Corey Lewandowski.   Ncholas Luna, the Director of Oval Office Operations has also tested positive for COVID.

And finally, Ronna Romney McDainiel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Party, in an effort to stay relevant within her political organization, has herself tested positive for COVID.

COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease that should spread readily across the lines of man-made social groupings, like political parties, but in the United States the denial within the Republican Party is making that group an especially fertile field in which the disease can flourish.   

But for them it's not about illness and dying, it's about the freedom to make their own choices and the complete lack of social responsibility toward others.  A person should be free to do what feels right for himself - and screw everybody else.

That's what Trump would do - and his lemmings will continue to pay the price for his deceitful and evil folly.

Bob Dylan Sells Out

by Pa Rock
Dylan  Aficionado

There was big news in the music world yesterday when it was revealed that the greatest and most prolific songwriter of the rock era, and perhaps of any era - Bob Dylan - had just sold his complete songwriting catalogue of more than six-hundred songs to the French-owned Universal Music Publishing Group.   The sales price of the catalogue was not announced, but most educated guesses put it somewhere north of $300 million.  Dylan will still retain all rights to his recordings.

As I understand it, each time some artist covers (records) one of Dylan's songs, they will have to pay a fee to the music's owner - Universal Music Publishing Group.  Also the new owners will profit by selling the rights to use Dylan's songs in movies, commercials, and other business endeavors.  On the other hand, if a radio station chooses to play,"Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan, the artist himself will receive a payment for that.

My oldest grandson, Boone, plays guitar and sings a bit.  A few years ago I bought him a very weighty songbook (at Costco) which supposedly contained all of Bob Dylan's songs - and while it was all I could do to lift it into the shopping cart, the songbook ran me far less than $300 million!  

Bob Dylan is seventy-nine-years-old.  If he avoids the con-artists who prey on the elderly and stays out of casinos, that ought to be enough money to ride out his golden years in style - especially in rural Minnesota!  And if it isn't enough, he can always pull a "Cher" and start performing annual farewell concert tours!  Or maybe they could do a farewell tour together and lead off with a duet of "It Ain't Me, Babe."

And if that were to happen, Dylan could sing it free because he still has rights to his songs, but Cher would have to pay a fee to the Universal Music Publishing Group because they own the material.  It's all so confusing, but the answer as to how it will all work is out there somewhere - probably blowing in the wind!

Congratulations on your retirement plan, Bob.f. It looks like a winner!

Monday's Poetry: "Pearl Harbor"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator 

Today is Pearl Harbor Day, the 79th anniversary of the surprise Japanese attack on the US Naval Air Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, an attack that sank several large American navy vessels and killed more than 2,000 US servicemen.

This posting is respectfully dedicated to all of the military members who died or were wounded in that attack, and specifically to the memory of brothers Donald Lapier Lakin, Jr. and Joseph Jordan Lakin, both Navy Seamen First Class who were serving aboard the USS Arizona that fateful morning.  The Lakin brothers were born in Marion, Kansas - Donald on June 7, 1917 and Joseph on October 17, 1919 - and were the sons of Joseph Jordan and Blanche M. Lakin.  The Lakin brothers were working together shining "bright work" on the Arizona from a motor boat when the attack began.  Donald died during the attack and Joseph died a couple of days later from wounds sustained during the attack.  Both of these American heroes are buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punch Bowl) in Honolulu.

I had the privilege of being able to visit the Pearl Harbor Memorial in early 2018 and to set foot on the hallowed portion of the USS Arizona that remains above the ocean surface.  At the time of my visit one of the seaman who had survived the bombing had recently passed away as an old man, and his remains had just been interred with his shipmates who are entombed in the sunken vessel that was their home on that tragic morning.

When poet Mike Dailey heard that survivors of the attack were choosing to have their ashes left with their old shipmates onboard the USS Arizona, he sat down and wrote the following tribute.  Mr. Dailey's beautiful words honor that solemn burial request.

Pearl Harbor

by Mike Dailey

Bury me not

In an old church plot

Back in my hometown

No, bury me

Beneath the sea

Where my Navy mates went down

Please take me back

To the day of attack

Pearl Harbor in 41

I'd like my remains

With all those names

When my time is finally done

I fought beside

So many who died

There on that fateful day

Just grant me this

As my dying wish

That I rest where my shipmates still lay

Sam and Dean Roar on Down the Road

by Pa Rock
TV Junkie

I have been a fan of Sam and Dean Winchester since first encountering the monster-hunting brothers on Japanese cable television back in 2010 while I was living and working in the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa.    Japan, the home of Godzilla and the island nation that suffered two atomic bombings by the United States during World War II, has a long history with science fiction and the horrors that may yet be unleashed on the world through science and sources unknown.  In addition to becoming an acolyte of the Winchesters through their television series, Supernatural, the same Japanese cable company which specialized in English-speaking programming also introduced me to Eureka, Haven, and Fringe.

After returning to the United States, and with the technological advent of the ability to "stream" entire television series, I eventually was able to go back of view all of those shows in their entirety.  Yesterday evening I finished the last two episodes (numbers 319 and 320) of Supernatural.

Backstory:     Sam Winchester was an infant and Dean was a young boy living with their parents, John and Mary Winchester, in Lawrence, Kansas, during the 1980's when Mary was attacked and killed by monsters who came into their home.  John Winchester immediately set out on a quest to hunt monsters with the hope of bringing down the ones who killed his wife.  When Sam and Dean were still young boys they sometimes accompanied their father on these hunting missions, often staying alone in motel rooms while Dad was chasing his demons.

Sam had aspirations to go to college and pursue some sort of normal life, but his plans changed while he was a student at Stanford.    Sam and his pretty female roommate were living normal student lives when Dean showed up and let Sam know that their Dad was missing and Dean needed his help in finding him.  Then the girlfriend was killed by a monster, and, spurred on by that tragedy, Sam joined his brother in the family business of monster-hunting.

As the story developed across seasons, the audience eventually learns that Sam and Dean come from a long familial line of monster-hunters, a line which came down through their mother, Mary.  The audience also quickly becomes aware that few dead people manage to stay dead on this show.  John and Mary Winchester both come back and help their sons hunt monsters years after their initial deaths.

Supernatural first aired on the CW Network on the 13th of September, 2005 and the final episode was fifteen years later on the 19th of November, 2020.  It was created by a fellow named Eric Kripke who wrote and directed many of the early episodes and was responsible for providing the basic structure to the show that lasted throughout its fifteen-year-run.  Many memorable characters came and went throughout the show's history, but as the series ran down, most of the action centered on four main players:  Sam (Jared Padalecki), Dean (Jensen Ackles), Castiel "Cas" (Misha Collins), and Jack (Alexander Calvert).

During Season Four while Kripke was still associated with the show, the series took a sharp turn into Christian religious lore.  Castiel, an "angel of the Lord," came on board as a permanent cast member during that season, and many of the monsters had some relationship to God or Satan.  Castiel aligned himself with the Winchesters and worked with them in sifting though cases that were mired in Christianity.  Subsequent episodes included Christian all-stars such as the Archangel Michael, Adam, Eve,  Satan, and even a wrathful God named Chuck.    Some segments of the show took place in heaven and in hell.

Jack, the son of Satan, joined the cast in Season Thirteen.  While he was unintentionally responsible for the death of Mary Winchester - her second death -  Sam and Dean, who at this point were beginning to more closely resemble a fussy old married couple that a pair of young fraternal monster hunters, took Jack underwing and he became like the son they never had.

The final season, fifteen, was a difficult one for production.  Twenty episodes were planned, and thirteen were completed when the coronavirus outbreak began raging and production was halted.  The CW released those first thirteen episodes and then the public had to wait several more months before the final seven episodes were completed and released.    Much of the final season centered on episodes which allowed some of the more memorable characters from the long series to appear one more time for their "goodbye" performances.   By the end of the next to last episode (#319), the cast had been reduced to just two:  Sam and Dean.

The show ends on a very satisfying note - if you stop with Episode #319 and ignore the final episode.   As #319 ends, Sam and Dean are climbing into Dean's shiny black 1967 Chevy Impala ("Baby") and heading on down the road to more adventures with Jackson Browne's "Runnin' on Empty" blasting away in the background.

But some on the powers behind the show could not be satisfied with a satisfying ending.  They wanted one more episode which would spell out the ways that the brothers lived the rest of their lives - and so tedious Episode #320 was created.  That final episode did nothing but detract from the overall high quality of this long-running hit television series.

I, for one, will remember Sam and Dean roaring on down the road to more adventures as they rid the world of monsters and battle the excesses of religion.  Baby is in fine fettle and Jackson Browne is singing:

"If it takes all night, that'll be all right
If I can get you to smile before I leave
Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
Look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes, I see them running too

Running on (running on empty)
Running on (running blind)
Running on (running into the sun)
But I'm running behind . . ."

More Metallic Monoliths Come and Go

by Pa Rock
Alienologist

A few days ago in this space I wrote about a strange metallic monolith that had recently been discovered in a very remote setting in the Red Rock region of rural Utah.  Nine days after its discovery, the mysterious object suddenly disappeared.   A study of aerial images from Google Earth revealed that the object had been at home in the mountainous region for about five years prior to its discovery and subsequent removal by parties as yet unknown.

Last week a similar structure also appeared in Romania, but it, too, has since disappeared.

And now this week a third metallic monolith of unexplained origins was found along a mountain trail in a park approximately halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, California.  This latest mystery structure was three-sided, ten-feet-tall, and weighed approximately two hundred pounds..  It had apparently only been up a couple of days when a group of commandos descended on the site Thursday night and tore the monolith down.

The commandos, who were decked out with night-vision goggles, drove five hours from southern California in order to reach their objective before daylight.  In a video which was shown on-line, they chanted "Christ is King" and "America First" while toppling the monument.  One man in the group also stated that they did not want illegal aliens from Mexico or outer space in their midst.

The commando-vandals replaced the monolith with a large wooden cross, but that, too, soon disappeared.

Two extreme sports athletes said that they helped in removing the monolith because they were concerned about the damage to the area caused by tourists who were coming to see it.  Many local residents, however, were not happy that it had been torn down.  Heather Moreno, the mayor of Atascadero near where the monument was located said, "We are upset that these young men felt the need to drive five hours to come into our community and vandalize the monolith.   The monolith was something unique and fun in an otherwise stressful time."

Matt Cadaret, a gravedigger at a local cemetery who had planned on hiking up to see the strange attraction, described the situation as a "bummer."  He added, "It's too bad it's gone.  People were real exited about it.  Anything that gets people excited is a good thing."

So that makes three, so far, and at this point their origins and purposes remain unclear.  Are the monoliths works of renegade artists using the great outdoors as their galleries, or are the tall metal structures something more utilitarian, such as property stakes in a soon-to-be-revealed cosmic land rush?  Or perhaps they are inter-stellar cell towers to enable ET and his traveling companions to phone home?  

Whatever their purpose, tearing these cultural anomalies down seems to be an overreaction born out of fear and ignorance.   Someone has been trying to make a statement, and I, for one, would like to hear it!

Word of the Year: Pandemic

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

I subscribe to two dictionary sites on the internet for their "word of the day" services.  Every morning MerriamWebster.com and Dictionary.com have a new word of the day waiting in my inbox, services that help to expand and strengthen my aging vocabulary.   In addition to "words of the day," both sites also cough up a "word of the year."  This year both organizations, for the first time ever, have chosen the same word as their "word of the year," and, not surprisingly, that word is "pandemic."

"Pandemic" is a word that was not used much in everyday conversation until this year, and now it is a word that everyone understands and uses frequently - and correctly.  Perhaps the last time that an unconventional word had that much of an impact on the English language would have been back in 1999 when everyone was talking about the upcoming new "millennium."

Below are the "words of the year" for the past decade.  The first listed for each year is the Merriam-Webster word, and the second is the Dictionary.com word:

2010    (austerity)                      (change)

2011    (pragmatic)                    (tergiversate)

2012    (socialism/capitalism)    (bluster)

2013    (science)                         (privacy)

2014    (culture)                          (exposure)

2015    (-ism)                              (identity)

2016    (surreal)                          (xenophobia)

2017    (feminism)                      (complicit)

2018    (justice)                           (misinformation)

2019    (they)                               (existential)

Dictionary.com also has a "word of the month" feature, and the words that it selected for 2020 serve as sort of a historical outline for this memorable year.  As you read through them, remember that the pandemic did not become common knowledge until late February and early March, and that during the first two months of the year the nation was still coming down from the Donald Trump impeachment trial in the Senate.  

Here are the Dictionary.com words of the month for 2020:

January:      pettifogging 

February:    acquit

March:        quarantine

April:          social distancing

May:            conspiracy theory

June:            defund

July:             Karen

August:        doomscrolling

September:  absentee vote

October:      superspreader

November:  unprecedented

December:  People's Choice

Those words help to illuminate the year that we have just endured, but the overarching word that describes the year 2020 is "pandemic."  It spread across borders and social classes with as much ease as the coronavirus itself.  Not everyone knew what a pandemic was when the year began, but by the time the year ended most did know the word because it had reached out and touched their lives.  

"Millennium" may slip back on the shelf of general disuse for another thousand years, but "pandemic" is a word that seems destined to be with us for a long time to come.  

Goodbye, Fiona

by Pa Rock
Farmer in Autumn 

Fiona, a small brindle feline who has been a fixture at Rock's Roost for the past five years or so, died on the road that runs in front of my house the night before last.  She was the victim of a hit-and-run driver. 

Fiona, a barn cat, leaves behind a daughter, Cammie, who is a house cat in Merriam, Kansas, and at least two other offspring in the Kansas City area along with some grand-kittens.  Four of her offspring are also living at Rock's Roost:  Jimmy, an adult yellow tomcat who regards the entire neighborhood as his home, and a nameless adolescent yellow tomcat and two half-grown nameless kittens of undetermined gender, one yellow and one black.   Fiona also has descendants who are working barn cats across a wide swath of the Ozarks.

She was a great "mouser," and from several reports, so are many of her progeny.

I retired to The Roost in late March of 2014.  At the time I arrived back in the Ozarks, snow and ice were on the ground and much of the land surrounding my house was overgrown and in dire need of a mowing.  I soon learned that the fields were full of mice in the warm months, but when the cold set in, the mice began looking for better accommodations and headed into the barn, chicken coop, garage, and even the house.  I would need a cat!

My niece, Tiffany, brought me a young cat from her home in northwest Arkansas, but the cage that she was transporting it in fell apart as she was bringing the cat to the house, and the scared kitty ran for the hills!  I saw it once or twice later, but the poor cat eventually moved on.  I hope that he found a place that he liked better.

Then my neighbor, Doug, brought by a young brindle kitten one evening.  Doug grew up in the house where I live, and when it came time for him to leave home, he went across the road and built a house there - so he is anxious to see that his boyhood home gets all of its needs met.  I don't know if the kitten Doug brought over that night was Fiona or not, because the next evening he brought over a second one, identical to the first, from the same litter.  Soon one of those kittens disappeared (that happens a lot in the country), and after the remaining one proved to be a girl, I named her Fiona.

I feed the cats twice a day, once in the dark at 4:00 a.m. and a second time at dusk.  They know their schedules and are always at the feeding spot waiting impatiently for their grub.  Yesterday Fiona missed breakfast, something that never happens, and then I did not see her throughout the day.  I did look up and down the road a couple of times, but didn't spot her.  When she missed her dinner I went out looking for her.  As I got to the road, I met Doug bringing her stiff remains from he far end of his property.  We talked for a couple of moments, and then I brought the old girl home for the final time.

Fiona was an outdoor cat who basically kept the mice away from the buildings.  She was very good at her job.

Fiona would march around the farm with her tail straight in the air with a curl at the end - like a long, thin question mark.  I named her after Fiona Gallagher of Shameless, another cat who was always prancing around with her tail in the air.

This has been a hard autumn at Rock's Roost.  The little red hen died of old age several weeks ago, and now Fiona.  That is the nature of life in the country, animals are born here and they die here.  There is joy and there is sorrow - and life and the seasons go ever onward.

Fiona left her mark on this neighborhood and on my meager existence.  Rest in peace, Old Friend, and know that you will be missed for a very long time.

Judah, Age Eleven

by Pa Rock
Proud Grandpa

My grandson, Judah Files, was born eleven years ago today in Oregon.  He was my third grandson, and at that time I had no granddaughters.  I was beginning to think that all grandchildren were boys!

My father (Judah's great-grandfather Macy) passed away when Judah was only twenty-three days old, so I met my new grandson when he and his family flew to Missouri for the funeral.  Later, the following July, I visited with him and his family in Oregon, and then a few days after that I got on a plane and flew to Okinawa for a new job.

Judah made one other trip to Missouri.  In July of 2017 he and his family flew to the Midwest to vacation and visit with several relatives.  When they arrived at my little place in the Ozarks the farm geese raced up to their rental car to bid them welcome.   Judah was out of the car in a flash and in full chase mode as he ran after the fleeing geese yelling,"Ducks!  Ducks!  Ducks!"  It was an exciting afternoon!

Judah likes the "Cars" movies as well as actual small cars that you push around on the floor and on tracks. He may have more toy and model cars than any other kid in the whole state of Oregon.  He has tracks for racing, car transports, and even car parking garages!  If you're looking for a particular type of car, Judah probably has one in stock!

My eleven-year-old grandson is also into computer games.  Not too long ago he told me about a game called "Minecraft" that he was enjoying.  (The last time Pa Rock played a computer game it was "The Oregon Trail" and he played it in a covered wagon!). But "Minecraft" sounded like fun, especially the way it was being explained by an excited grandchild!

Happy birthday, Judah - and party hearty!  Enjoy being eleven!

Pa Rock will see you in the spring!

December Daze and the Four Stages of Santa Claus

by Pa Rock
Calendar Watcher

This is December 1st, the start of the month that will bring an end to 2020, one of the most difficult years of my lifetime.  It is also the month that will usher in the official end of autumn and begin preparing us for the rigors winter weather.  Winter is an especially hard time for the elderly.  Both of my parents passed away during the month of December.

December 1st (today) is significant in my family because it is the day that separates the birthdays of two of my favorite six grandchildren.  Willow was nine yesterday, and her brother, Judah, will be eleven tomorrow.

Today also marks the beginning of Donald Trump's last full month in office.  (Can I get a "Hell yeah!"?)  His forty-eight months as President of the United States certainly qualify as a prolonged low-point in American history, but that aberration will mercifully come to an end on January 20th.  

This December is part of a period the dictionary calls an "interregnum," or the time between kings.  King Donald of the Loaded Diaper is preparing to leave - whether he realizes it or not - and King Joe of the Brittle Bones is waiting to charge into the palace and take over.  Crown Prince Mike is on his way out as well and his place on the little stool next to the big golden throne will be assumed by Crown Princess Kamala, the first woman to ever get that close to the seat of power and well as the first person "of color" to attain the vaulted rank of first-waiter.

King Donald of the Loaded Diaper has been very vocal about having to leave the palace.  He has complained long and loudly that he was cheated out of being re-elected, though he he has yet to reveal exactly how that happened.  Crown Prince Mike, on the other hand, has been quiet about his impending departure from government.  One suspects that perhaps his wife, Mother, has had her fill of living in Sodom and Gomorrah and yearns to be back home again in Indiana!

But there is more to December than just birthdays, the hardships of winter, and politics.  December is also home to the annual religious and secular celebrations known collectively as the Christmas holidays - or what Lucy Van Pelt referred to as "the gift-getting season!"  It is the merriest month of the year, and as any child old enough for speech will happily attest, it is the month when Santa comes flying down from the North Pole with his sleigh full of toys for all of the world's good little girls and boys.

Yesterday I learned - on the internet, of course - that people relate to Santa differently across four different stages of life.   Stage One is when you are young, and innocent, and view Santa Claus through eyes of wonder as someone who is very real.  You hurry downstairs on Christmas morning to check the plate and glass where you left his cookies and milk - and then rush to rip what wrappings off of the packages that he brought.  

Stage Two comes about as you age and start becoming cynical.  Suddenly you realize that Santa Claus is not real and that your parents have been shamelessly  exploiting your childlike innocence and ignorance for their own enjoyment.  

Stage Three is for young adults and the parents of young children.  Suddenly you discover that now you are Santa - as you stay up late on Christmas Eve assembling toys, wrapping packages, and carefully remembering to consume the milk and cookies that the kids left our for Santa.   This stage often lingers into the early years of grandparenthood.  

And finally there is Stage Four.  That is when you step in front of the bathroom mirror at your senior living facility and are shocked to realize that you have physically turned into Santa Claus!

I'm in Stage Four!

Alexa, play some Christmas music!