My Beautiful Laundrette

by Pa Rock
Film Fan

In an effort to make up for the severe lack of new episodes of television shows and movies brought on  by the pandemic, the major streaming services are digging into the deepest recesses of their film vaults to come up with things that might hold our interest until new shows start arriving.  Last night I stumbled across one of these "sleeper" movies on Amazon Prime, the 1985 British classic, My Beautiful Laundrette - a film that I had last seen at least a quarter-of-a-century ago.

The movie, written by renowned novelist and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi (who is of British and Pakistani descent), tells the story of life on the streets in one of the rougher parts of London as it also explores the circumstances of the young Brits and Pakistanis who populate that world.

Most of the young Brits in the film are street thugs who are living rough and often "squatting" in abandoned tenements.  Many of these young toughs are bitter toward the Pakistani population because they - the Pakistanis - are focused on making money and moving up in the social order.  Some of the older, more successful Pakistanis are buying distressed properties and local businesses, often causing direct confrontations with the angry British youth, and some of the younger Pakistanis are finding quicker and easier ways to get ahead - such as by dealing drugs - again to the ultimate detriment of the British young people in the neighborhood.

Most of the Pakistanis believe that making money is the key to social advancement, and most of the young Brits view rage in the streets as their answer to what they see as a growing disenfranchisement from the country of their birth.

There are two main characters in this story, both young men in their late teens or early twenties.  They had been friends in primary school, but had apparently not seen each other in several years as the tale begins.

Omar  is a Pakistani who is living at home with his father, a dying alcoholic and academic who was at one time the teacher of both boys in primary school.  Omar's mother had killed herself a few years before by stepping in front of a train.  Omar's father, a chronically poor man, wants his son to go to the university and get an education, a path that he sees as preferable to just making money to get out of the tough economic conditions.  The father has a brother who is a successful businessman, and he gets the brother to give Omar a job to hopefully allow him to make enough money to begin classes and improve his situation in life.

The uncle and his family warm to Omar immediately and give him a series of jobs in the family business.  They also provide him with a car.  Finally the uncle provides Omar with a business challenge - he wants him to get one of his businesses - an old laundromat - back into a profitable condition.  Omar accepts that challenge, but says that he would like to rent the laundromat so that the profits he makes will be his.  An agreement is reached.

Soon after, during a street brawl, Omar reconnects with Johnny, his British friend from his youth.  Omar convinces Johnny to help him clean up the laundromat and make it a profitable enterprise.  Omar makes it clear that Johnny would be his employee, and not his partner in the enterprise.  But the young men "partner" in other ways and are quickly involved in a sexual relationship.

My Beautiful Laundrette was the first professional acting credit for Gordon Wamecke, the man who played Omar.  Wamecke has since appeared in many (primarily British) movies and television shows.  The other lead, Johnny, was played by Daniel Day-Lewis in one of his earliest film appearances.   Day-Lewis, the son of former British Poet-Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, has gone on to be nominated for six Academy Awards for "Best Actor" over the length of his career - and he has won three of those, and he has also been recognized as a "Best Actor" by the British BAFTA Awards and the Golden Globes.  Daniel Day-Lewis is known for being very selective in the roles that he agrees to play, and he literally becomes his character.  (As evidence of that, check out 2013's Lincoln for which Daniel Day-Lewis won one of his three "Best Actor" Oscars.)

The film, My Beautiful Laundrette, skirts across mores and taboos regarding sex, race, money, and social status.  It is an intense exploration into the clash of two cultures and the shared humanity experienced by both - and it is a completely engrossing film.  I appreciate Amazon Prime giving me the chance to see it again.

I highly recommend this movie!

It Can't Be My Grave

by Pa Rock
Reader 

"It Can't Be My Grave"  is the fourth Professor Neil Kelly mystery in the series of six that were authored by S.F.X. Dean (Francis Smith) in the 1980's.  In this volume, the college professor/amateur sleuth Neil Kelly has finally completed and published his biography of the English poet John Donne, and the book has not only been well received by scholars, but is experiencing some commercial success as well.  As the story opens, Neil is in London to attend post publication events that are being put on by his publishers.

Neil is sitting in a pub in the West End's theatre district when he runs into Hugh James, a British stage actor and old friend from their days as under-graduate students at Oxford.  They are soon joined in the bar boy Hugh's new wife, Sheila, also a stage actor.  Both Hugh and Sheila have just finished the afternoon matinees of their shows, and they invite Neil to their house where he winds up spending the night.

The next morning as they are enjoying breakfast, one of London's richest tycoons, Sir Gordon Fairly, drops in and joins the group.  Sir Gordon has a strong interest in 16th century literature and quickly forms a bond with Kelly, the American professor who specializes in that period.  Fairly tells Neil a tale about an ancestor of his, Lucy Goodman, whom he believes authored a famous 16th century play called "Arden of Faversham," a heretofore anonymous work that most believe was written by Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare - or some combination of those three.  

Sir Gordon Fairly has a theory that Lucy Goodman, an ancestor of his, wrote the play, later posed as a man so that she could be in the acting company - which at the time were always solely composed of men, and was ultimately murdered - probably by William Shakespeare.    Fairly is also getting ready to bankroll a contemporary production of "Arden of Faversham" which will star Hugh James.

(Note:  "Arden of Faversham" was an actual 16th century play whose author is unknown, but suspected authors are Kyd, Marlowe, and Shakespeare.  It is about a wealthy farmer whose wife takes a lover, and the wife and her lover hire some locals to murder the husband.  It is based on an actual crime, and the actual home of Arden of Faveersham still stands today.  The play is considered to be the oldest surviving domestic tragedy in English literature.)

As the morning progresses, Neil learns that not only does the ultra-rich Sir Gordon Fairly share his interest in 16th century English literature, Sir Gordon also owns, among many other properties and businesses, the publishing house that printed Neil's book on John Donne - and Fairly wants to hire Neil to research Lucy Goodman and "Arden of Faversham."  When their impromptu meeting at the home of the actors adjourns, Fairly offers Neil a ride back to his hotel.  His armored Daimler is sitting at the curb, replete with its 17th-century furnishings in the passenger compartment.   Neil is appropriately impressed with Sir Gordon's luxurious lifestyle, but he says that he needs more time to consider the rich man's very generous offer of employment.

One of the personal privileges that Sir Gordon enjoys as he travels about London in his chauffeured Daimler is the delivery of his mail to the car - wherever he happens to be.  The next day as Sir Gordon is being driven about town, the postman catches up with the Daimler and passes the mail to the lone passenger.  At least one of the letters - and possibly as many as three - in that day's post contain a letter bomb.  The blast blows the passenger and his 17th-century antiques to bits, and snarls traffic in front of the main offices of the Bank of England for hours.  The chauffeur, being beyond the armored compartment, is not seriously injured.

From that point Professor Neil Kelly becomes more and more involved with family members and business associates of Sir Gordon Fairly, many of whom have reasons for wanting the rich man dead.  He also becomes quickly connected with Thomas Bowie, a wise-cracking detective from Scotland Yard, who adds a strain of light-heartedness to the investigation.   Eventually the team of Kelly and Bowie manage to unravel the mystery and unmask the killer.

It is also in this volume of Neil Kelly's saga that he meets the next love of his life, his editor - Dolly Allen.

S.F.X. Dean (Francis Smith, who passed away in 2017) had a talent for describing characters and settings. His descriptions of the theatre and publishing environs of London's West End are realistic and beat with the pulse of the times, and the characters are quirky and believable, with some of those in the publishing business being every bit as dramatic as those who pound the boards of the London stages for their livelihoods.

The mysteries of who killed Sir Gordon and why are sound and well plotted, but in the end it is the colorful characters and the charming eccentricities of London's West End that make this tale so enjoyable - and the murder of Arden of Faversham is every bit as compelling as the violent death of Sir Gordon Fairly.

There is much to enjoy and ponder in "It Can't Be My Grave."  Strongly recommended!

Disrespecting the People's House

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Every President with the lone exception of George Washington has resided in the White House, with most using it not only as their home but as their office as well.  And while the official occupants have represented several political parties, until this week the building itself had never been expressly used  as a stage for partisan political politics.  

It was - and is - the People's House and it belongs to the nation - and not to one particular party.

This week the White House became a political backdrop for the Trump re-election campaign.   It was used for a naturalization ceremony and a presidential pardoning, both of which went on to become featured at the Republican national convention, and on Wednesday evening First Lady Melania Trump addressed the GOP convention from the White House Rose Garden.

The White House, a place of historic significance to all Americans, was getting quite a workout as a backdrop for one political party.

But the real coup de grace came on Thursday evening when Donald Trump used the South Lawn of the White House for his acceptance speech for the GOP nomination.    Non-socially distanced seating was set up for 1,500 individuals (most of whom did not wear face masks), and at least three lighted"Trump-Pence billboards were  erected on the lawn.  The speech by Trump was political in nature, with Trump mentioning his opponent by name forty-some times during the address.  After the speech an opera singer gave a performance from the Blue Room balcony - and there was a massive fireworks display on the National Mall which served to illuminate the White House in a party mode.

It was one helluva partisan political party - and it was given in a house that belongs to all of us.

The White House is the People's House, and it has been hugely disrespected by Donald Trump and the Republican Party.   For that reason alone they deserve to be driven from power!

Trump-Inspired Murders in Kenosha

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

One evening late last January Donald Trump was haranguing a crowd at a hate-infused rally in Des Moines, and there, soaking it all up like a thirsty sponge, sat a young man on the front row who had turned seventeen only a month before.  That youngster, a kid by the name of Kyle Rittenhouse, seemed to have had two causes in his life - guns and support of police - or three causes if you count Trump.

Kyle's family had taken a photograph of him as a preschooler holding a large automatic weapon with his finger on the trigger.  The gun was almost as big as he was.  And in high school he had been involved in a police "cadet" program where he was supposedly schooled in some of the basic tactics used by law enforcement officers.

That night at the rally in Des Moines he paid rapt attention as Donald Trump snarled out his standard stump speech with its focus on dividing America into "us" and "them," and with with all of the Trump dog whistles in support of racism and white supremacy.  Kyle returned to his home in Antioch, Illinois, the following day undoubtedly more committed to serving his country through the active support of its police.

Last week after riots broke out in Kenosha, Wisconsin, when one of that city's policemen shot a black man in the back seven times as he was walking away and trying to get in his vehicle, Kyle responded to a Facebook post asking that armed civilians rush to Kenosha to protect property from vandals and looters - an act supposedly in support of the police there.  

Kyle was on "patrol" with his large automatic rifle as the situation began escalating.   At some point he began firing into the crowd of protesters.  One young man, Anthony Huber, a 26-year-old from Silver Lake, Wisconsin, known for his love of skateboarding, rushed at Kyle and attempted to knock the rifle from his grasp with a skateboard, but Kyle fired and killed the man.  Then he shot two more.   Thirty-six-year-old Joseph "Jojo" Rosenbaum of Kenosha, the father of a two-year-old daughter, was killed, and 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz was wounded in the arm.

Kyle, who described the evening's carnage as his "job," then ran toward the police line with his weapon strapped to his back.  He was captured on video telling someone over his phone as he ran that "I just killed a guy!"

It was definitely a big night for the teen cop wannabe!

When Kyle got to the police line, he made his way through it, with his rifle still strapped to his back, and got to his vehicle, and managed to drive the twenty miles back to his home in Antioch, Illinois, on his suspended driver's license.  He was arrested the following day for "intentional homicide" by Illinois authorities and is awaiting extradition back to Wisconsin.

Presidential spokesperson Kellyanne Conway denied any Trump responsibility in the murders in Kenosha noting that some Joe Biden speech could have just as easily provoked a murderous rampage - and that Trump bore no responsibility for the consequences of his words.  And Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson told his audience that the state of Wisconsin had essentially abandoned Kenosha to rioters, and then added:  "How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would."

Kyle Rittenhouse has grown up inside of a bubble where the police are always right, and people who oppose or stand up to the police are always wrong - especially if those people happen to be black.    He is about to enter a different reality, a world of concrete barriers and steel bars and armed guards - and a world where the social order will be markedly different from the world where he grew up.  He will never become a policeman, he will never own another gun, and his days of freedom have dried up and blown away.

Kyle Rittenhouse destroyed his own life and the lives of several others in service to Donald Trump's vision of what America should be.  He is going away for many years and perhaps for the rest of his life, and others, those who put him on his path to infamy, should damned well be made to follow!

Ozarks' COVID Update

by. Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

I visited one of the local "dollar" stores yesterday to pick up a few grocery items, and while I was there I witnessed  a young man trying to instigate an argument over the subject of face masks.  There were only about a half-a-dozen people in the entire store, and all were wearing face masks except for this one individual and his wife.  Even the store clerk was wearing a mask.   As the guy's unmasked wife stood at the register checking out, the husband positioned himself by the door and began verbally sniping at the clerk. He said, "You're going to feel really silly when this is all over and we learn that it was just a hoax!"  The guy's wife looked up and said , "What did you say?"   He replied, "I wasn't talking to you.   I was talking to him (the clerk), and he's not going to answer me."  

The clerk ignored him - and so did the rest of us - and the disgusted shopper left the building, no doubt unhappy that he had failed to stir some controversy with his out-sized wit. 

"Hoax" is a Trump word.

School started this past Monday throughout most of Howell County where I live.  One independent elementary school located nearby switched to an all-virtual approach at the very last minute and will reconsider returning to their campus in two weeks, but all of the other schools are at least offering an on-site option so that parents can return to their jobs and have a place to leave their kids. 

Another local school district, that of Alton, Missouri, held classes at school on Monday, and then switched to all-virtual the following day after it was learned that a staff member had tested positive for COVID-19.  The district may resume on-campus classes in two weeks, after the Labor Day holiday.

Howell County has had a total of 210 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic got rolling in March - and 14 of those (over 6% of the total) were reported on Monday and Tuesday of this week - after the school year began.

This past week the local city council of West Plains, Missouri, met and discussed a proposed mandatory mask ordinance that two members of the council (one of whom is a doctor) had drafted and submitted.  My primary care physician, an exceptionally bright individual, showed up at the meeting and was the only local person to speak in favor of the ordinance - which failed on a vote of three to two.  The council punted and said they felt an anti-mask ordinance should  be initiated by the local health department rather than by a political body like the city council.  The local health department is under the auspices of the state - which is under the control of a Republican administration - which does not believe in science.

So, for the time being, face masks are optional and people who wear them may be ridiculed for promoting a hoax, and most of the school buses are rolling - but a few renegade germs could drastically change everything, whether people believe sin science or not!

It's Hard to Keep a Con Man Down

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

At the very time that attorneys general from three states - Missouri, Arkansas, and New York - were investigating and filing complaints against television preacher Jim Bakker for deceptive advertising, the shameless "man of God" was busy filling out forms in an effort to bilk the federal government out of funds through its pandemic-related Paycheck Protection Program. 

 In a process that did not involve any pre-approval by the Small Business Administration, Bakker, a convicted felon who served five years in a federal penitentiary for financial fraud, received approval on April 28th for government loans through the PPP program for an amount between $650,000 and $1.7 million.  

The government loans were eventually paid to Bakker and his company through Arvest Bank of Bentonville, Arkansas, an institution wholly owned by the Walton (Walmart) family of Northwest Arkansas.

At the time all of this was going down, Bakker was being investigated by three states for his television promotion of a  product called "Silver Solution," something that a guest on his program claimed would kill strains of coronavirus, though she admitted that it had not been tested on the COVID-19 strain.

As the attorneys general fought in court to obtain financial records for Bakker's church operations, one of his primary lawyers, former Missouri governor Jay Nixon,  framed the entire matter as a First Amendment and religious freedom fight.  It was Nixon's contention that the minister and his followers were being persecuted because of their religious beliefs.

It now appears as though the Small Business Administration, a government agency that rushed to get the paycheck bailout money into the hands of needy business and religious institutions, may do some after-the-fact investigation into the legitimacy of the applications that were submitted in order to obtain the funds.  If that happens, Reverend Bakker is likely to once again find himself in the crosshairs of a government inquiry into his business practices - but for televangelist that is just a standard cost of doing business in America.

Jim Bakker has spent the better part of his eighty years on earth living large off of the generosity of others - and he appears to be getting better at it.  Now he can fleece his sheep with one hand, while he snips the government's wool with the other.

The old television huckster is definitely evolving!

Return of the Pool Boy

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

He has risen!

After an absence of several months, Jerry Falwell, Jr's handsome young pool boy is back in the news - and his ascension into the national spotlight is threatening to bring about the permanent removal of Jerry Junior from the leadership of Liberty University, the religious school founded by the evangelical leader's late father, Jerry Falwell, Sr.

Earlier this month Junior was placed on a leave of absence by Liberty University's board of trustees from his position as President of the University.  The board took that action after a photograph circulated in the press which showed Junior and a young woman standing next to each other grinning with their pants partially unzipped.   The political preacher said that photo had been taken as a "joke," but members of Liberty's board were apparently not amused.

Junior Falwell  was having a rough month, but now that has changed - for the worse.  Now he is officially having a disastrous month!

Yesterday, in what was reportedly an attempt to get out in front of a story that was about to come out through other sources, Junior Falwell went before the press and declared that he had been the victim of blackmail by a "former business associate."  Falwell said that the man had been having an affair with Falwell's wife, Becki, and was threatening to go public with the story.

But there was so very much more to the story than what Falwell released to the press.  The "business associate" turned out to be 29-year-old Giancarlo Granda, the former Miami pool boy who had made news with the Falwell's previously when it was revealed that the family spent a very large sum of money to help Giancarlo set up a gay-friendly youth hostel in the Miami area - a hostel that had an on-site liquor store and was described by Politico as being a "flophouse."

Then Giancarlo, who reportedly met the Falwell's in 2012 when he was 20-years-old and working as a pool boy at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, had his turn with the press.  After turning over some photographic evidence to Reuters, the former pool boy went on to tell about a long-term sexual relationship that he had with in Mrs. Falwell that had lasted seven years and had taken place in numerous locations - a long-term affair that he said had involved participation by both Becki Falwell and Jerry Junior.  

The pool boy's version of the affair was that he and Becki would engage in sexual activities while Junior sat in a corner and watched.

Jerry Falwell, Jr, has denied that he was a "watcher," and presents as a distraught husband who was just trying to protect his straying wife's reputation.  He describes the affair between is wife and the pool boy /business partner as being a "fatal attraction" type of relationship.

Yesterday afternoon Falwell reportedly let the board of trustees at Liberty University know of his intention to resign as the University's president, but sometime later in the day he had a change-of-heart and announced that he was not resigning.  Clearly more news is likely to follow today.

And, in a related story, the Republican National Convention began yesterday.  

Bannon and Friends Separate Fools from their Money

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Steve Bannon, the executive director of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and a former political strategist with the White House, and three associates were arrested last week by agents of the US Postal Service and each charged with one count of committing wire fraud and one count of money laundering.  If convicted the four men, all conservative political activists, could each face up to twenty years in prison.

Bannon, age 66, is the former head of Breitbart News, and has a history of working in show business projects as well as with right-wing political projects.   Also arrested were Brian Kolfage (38) of the state of Florida, a motivational speaker and military veteran who lost both legs and an arm in Iraq, Timothy Shea (49) of Colorado, who sells a Trump-related energy drink, and Andrew Badolato (56) of Florida, a venture capitalist.

The four had started a crowd-funding site on the internet called  "We Build the Wall" to supposedly raise funds to help build a section of wall along the US southern border.  They had reportedly raised over $25 million and were still collecting money a few days before their arrests.  The government complaint contends that they used fraudulent business practices to redirect portions of that money to themselves.

The group had promised to build as much as a hundred miles of new border wall, but they only managed to complete less than five miles.  Donors had been filing complaints about the group with the state of Florida and the FBI for the past year.

The "We Build the Wall" effort had been praised by Donald Trump, Jr., but his father had complained about the project saying that he felt it was being done to make him look bad.

Steve Bannon is out of jail after having posted a five million dollar bond, and he is labeling his arrest as a "political hit job."  Meanwhile thousands of donors to the project are undoubtedly feeling that they have been hit with a political con job.

Some things never change, and this is one of them:  fools and their money are soon parted!

Local Schools Open Tomorrow: A Crapshoot with Bad Odds

by Pa Rock
Retired Teacher

I am fortunate to have an available younger family member who can do most of the grocery shopping, but occasionally I have to run to one of the local "dollar" stores to buy basics like milk, bread, and canned chili.  The grocery stores are too crowded for my my comfort.  

I was at one of those "dollar" stores last week grabbing a few quick items - and wearing my face mask - when I rolled my cart to the check out and got in line behind a mother and her young son - both of whom were also wearing face masks.  As they were being rung up, the clerk innocently asked the little boy, who appeared to be about six or seven, if he was anxious for school to start.  However, the kid never got the chance to respond because the mother snapped back, " He's not going to school!"  The flustered clerk then changed tack and began mumbling about how she thought opening the schools during the pandemic was really a poor decision.

I was surprised to learn that school was about to start.  I had assumed that with the current medical crisis engulfing the country that even local schools would put off opening as late as they could - surely at least until after Labor Day.  So I went home and got on-line to see what was happening with the local schools.  I quickly learned that they would be opening on Monday.

My own community, West Plains, Missouri, appears to have a dual track in place and families were given the option several weeks ago of choosing to send their children to the actual schools for classes, or choosing to use an on-line option at  home.   Parents who chose to keep their kids at home for the on-line option had to agree to commit to that plan for at least one semester.  Students at every grade level, K-12, were given that basic choice.

The school system said that it would implement safety recommendations provided by state and federal resources for students who took classes at their respective schools, and that they would try to minimize "cross-contamination" by keeping students in groups and with the same teachers as much as possible.

Apparently students in either setting, school or home, can participate in athletics and most extracurricular activities, but band students cannot do on-line instruction because band requires  co-curricular classroom instruction.  

I did see in the local press where a clothing company has donated several thousand face masks to local schools, and the West Plains Schools will be able to offer two masks each to students who want them.  There was also an article detailing that the local schools would have more in-depth cleanings between sessions.

I am a retired school teacher and administrator, and I understand some of the pressure that the schools are under.  Working parents need a place to leave their kids during normal work days, and the schools have traditionally filled that role.  Also, there has been a lot of political pressure put on schools to open from people like Donald Trump, our governor, the local congressman, and others.  Everyone wants things to be normal again, and open schools will help people to feel that things are getting better.

But I also listen to competent news sources and I am aware that the number of COVID-19 cases is still on the rise in the Midwest - and things are not yet getting better.

Schools in this area will open tomorrow, that question has been resolved.  The next question is how long will they be able to remain open?  Unfortunately, it may not be long before we know the answer to that question as well.   If cases of COVID-19 flare up in our schools, they will quickly spread into the wider community, and we will be right back where we were last March when everything, including the schools, had to close down.

I hope that I am being unduly pessimistic, but my gut feeling is that the lady in the "dollar" store made a good decision regarding her son.   Things are unlikely to get better until there is a proven vaccine readily available to all.  Until then it is all just a crapshoot with really bad odds.

Ceremony of Innocence

by Pa Rock
Reader 

Francis D. Smith, a college literature professor in Amherst, Massachusetts, wrote a series of six mystery novels in the 1980's about a fictional literature professor and amateur sleuth by the name of Neil Kelly who also taught in a small Massachusetts college.  As one might guess, the similarities between the author and his amateur detective were striking.  The books were popular, and for a while the professor maintained his anonymity through the use of a pseudonym, S.F.X. Dean, but the wily professor was eventually outed as the mystery author by one of his own students.   Francis D. Smith retired as a professor in 1986 and finished his final Neil Kelly novel soon after, at which point he apparently retired from writing as well.  He passed away in Amherst in 2017.

"Ceremony of Innocence" is the third volume in the Professor Neil Kelly mystery series.  In the first two books Neil Kelly was planning a sabbatical in England where he intended to write a biography of the English poet, John Donne, but each time that he was about ready to depart his plans were interrupted by inconvenient murders of people who were close to the professor.  In this third volume the literature professor finally arrived in England to begin his project.

After his arrival in London, Neil set off to move into the cottage that he had rented, sight unseen, in a rural English town, a quiet place which he hoped would be suitable for his writing.  When he arrived at his destination he learned that his landlady has received some erroneous information from a relative in America that indicated he'd would not be coming after all, and she had rented out his cottage to someone else.  Upset at this new development, the hapless professor moved on to another rural English town of which he was familiar.

Neil wound up in a small town on the coast of the English Channel, a place that was once frequented by John Donne and Sir Walter Raleigh.   While sitting in a local pub deciding what to do next, he looked up and saw an old friend from his youth walk in.

Although there are only six novels in the complete Neil Kelly series, the author managed to reveal significant portions of the personal history of his main character in each of the books.  In "Ceremony of Innocence" he illuminated young Neil Kelly, around the age of ten, as he spent a few years in Peking, China, with his parents - where the father, an amateur meteorologist who called himself "the Commander," worked for the US Embassy.  While in China in the 1930's Neil had two close childhood friends, a British lad named Gus Van Duren and a Chinese boy called Francis Li.  Together the boys learned each other's languages and made the streets of Peking their playground.

It was Gus Van Duren whom Neil encountered in the pub in the small English village, and they quickly renewed their old friendship.   Gus provided Neil with the use of rental property that he owned - and Neil was asked to serve as the godfather to Gus's infant son.  A couple of weeks later as Neil was shopping for gifts for his new godson, he was in a London kite shop where he inexplicably encountered the third member of the "Our Gang" group from those early days in China, Francis Li, now a Chinese government official.

The coincidences were piling up!

And then there were house break-ins in America and England, the theft of Chinese trunks in both countries, and several murders - including one of a baby - and the lives of three young friends from the 1930's once again became tightly knotted in the 1980's.

"Ceremony of Innocence" is, like the other Professor Neil Kelly mysteries, clever and tightly plotted.  The author tells his tale and keeps readers guessing throughout his presentation of the story.   He also shares a deep and involved development and history of the major characters - as well as some engrossing Chinese culture and history along with his usual insights into a few of the less-well-lit recesses and alleyways of English literature.

A professor writing about a professor will hopefully be entertaining - and it almost certainly will be educational.  "Ceremony of Innocence" does not disappoint in either regard.

Trump Attacks Another American Business

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Two years ago as part of the Trump administration's ill-advised trade war on the world, Trump and his genius advisers implemented a series of tariffs on goods coming from the European Union, including EU steel.   Quite predictably the EU struck back quickly and imposed counter tariffs on several American exports, including Harley-Davidson motorcycles.  Harley-Davidson, being put in an uncomfortable (and unprofitable) position by Trump's know-nothing economic policies, then took the logical step of announcing that it would move some of it's production overseas to avoid paying the extra taxes on motorcycles bound for the European Union.

Donald Trump retaliated against the motorcycle manufacturer by goading the beer-guzzling, biker element of his base into the notion of boycotting Harley-Davidson - and then he took to Twitter to support the boycott that he was helping to engineer.  Trump had this to say in 268 characters or less:

"Many @harleydavidson owners plan to boycott the company if manufacturing moves overseas.  Great!  Most other companies are coming in our direction, including Harley competitors.  A really bad move!  U.S. will soon have a level playing field, or better."

The price of Harley-Davidson's stock fell sharply and never fully recovered after Trump's attack, and sales of its motorcycles have declined.

This week Trump again turned his ire on an American company after he saw a segment on Fox News which reported that the company, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, showed a training slide at its Topeka, Kansas, plant saying that Black Lives Matter and LGBT apparel were acceptable in the workplace, but that "political" matter such as Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, and MAGA attire was not acceptable.

Goodyear responded later saying the visual training aid was not created or used by them, but by then Trump had already declared war on the American company.  He tweeted:

"Don't buy Goodyear Tires - They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS.  Get better tires for far less!  (This is what the Radical Left Democrats do.  Two can play the same game, and we have to start playing it now!)"

News organizations were quick to point out that the armored White House limo, nicknamed "The Beast," runs on Goodyear tires, and Goodyear is the official tire of the US Secret Service.  They also noted that Goodyear is headquartered in Akron, Ohio, a state that Trump must win if he is to retain his free housing in Washington, DC, come this November.   The company has thousands of employees both in Ohio as well as across the United States.

And most MAGA hats are made in China.

Just sayin' . . .

Olive and Sully Stop by the Roost

by Pa Rock
Happy Grandpa

Even in the best of times I do not get to see my grandchildren nearly enough.  Most years I get out to visit the three in Oregon - Sebastian, Judah and Willow - twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall, but this year the spring visit had to be put off because of the pandemic.  In a good year I might see Boone, the college student grandchild, two or three times.  I saw him briefly over Christmas last winter, and in February I spent a night at a hotel in southwest Missouri where he was a desk clerk - and then the pandemic hit shortly after that.  I manage to see Olive and Sully in the Kansas City area more than the others because Rosie and I are able to drive up there several times a year.   We had our last visit with them in January, never suspecting as we drove off that weekend that it would be the better part of a year before we would see each other again.

As of yesterday it had been more that six months since I had seen any of my six grandchildren.

That changed yesterday evening when Olive and Sully showed up and the back door with their parents in tow.   The family had been on an outing with other relatives to a lakeside retreat in rural Alabama - and their trip took them right through West Plains.   They stopped by The Roost briefly yesterday evening on their way home.

We had pizza outside on the deck, keeping social distancing in mind as best we could, and spent an hour or so visiting outside and walking around the yard.   Right as darkness was almost complete a small group of deer (ten or so) strolled across the lawn toward the pond.    The deer let the kids get fairly close before they jumped the fence and headed off toward the neighbor's farm.

Rosie was ecstatic the whole time our company was here - and Riley was much perkier than usual also!

Our visit was too short, but it was so nice getting to see the Kansas Macys!  Tim emailed later in the evening and said that they had arrived home safely!

Come back again soon, guys - Pa Rock misses you!

Political Conventions Try to Capture American Values

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

As political parties struggle to identify themselves to the voters,  clues to the character of each party lie in the people they invite to speak to their conventions.   This week the Democrats have tried to paint a picture of itself as a party that is moderate and inclusive to the point that Republicans who are offended by the vulgarity and corruption of the Trump administration can find a comfortable home with the Democrats - at least for the current election.

To that end, a host of Republicans have been scheduled to speak at the Democratic convention and offer support for the Biden-Harris ticket.  The list of GOP Biden supporters include politicians like former governors John Kasich  of Ohio and New Jersey's Christine Todd Whitman, former army general and Secretary of State Colin Powell, former presidential candidates and business CEO's Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, former congresswoman Susan Molinari, John McCain's widow Cindy, and even Trump's former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci.

And that list of Republican speakers is augmented by a strong cadre of speakers from across the very wide spectrum of Democratic politicians and activists.  Bernie Sanders was a speaker at this year's convention where he gave a full-throated endorsement to the ticket.  Both Clintons spoke, so did Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Speaker Pelosi.  Michelle Obama was the clear star of Monday night, and Barack Obama will speak this evening.

The Democratic Party planned a convention that showed the itself to be a welcoming safe-harbor for a wide variety of Americans.   Republicans who are disgusted with excesses and outrages of the Trump administration can seek shelter with the Democrats until the GOP has time to right itself and return to normal.

The GOP, on the other hand, seems to be planning a convention designed to prove that it remains out-of-touch with the American mainstream.  Over the last two days some "unusual" speakers have been announced for the Republican convention.    

Donald Trump has been less than subtle in his efforts to stoke racial tensions in American's suburbs, apparently feeling that the burbs are, like himself, stuck somewhere back in the late twentieth century.  He has referred to the Black Lives Matter movement as a "hate group,"  and he has had his administration roll back fair housing practices claiming that eliminating the anti-discrimination measures would prevent low-income housing from coming into the suburbs.  It was all part of a "dog-whistle" process to tell suburbanites that he was fighting to keep their neighborhoods white.

At about the time Trump's battles both Fair Housiing and the BLM were making headlines, a St. Louis couple, both lawyers, also grabbed a few headlines and a fawning appreciation on Fox News when they stood, armed, on the front porch of their mansion as a group of Black Lives Matter protesters marched in a nearby street.  That couple, spirited representatives of privileged (and armed) white America, have been invited to speak at the GOP convention.

And more than a year ago, an exclusive Catholic boys' high school in Kentucky transported a bunch off their students to Washington, DC, to participate in a "right-to-life" demonstration.  During their public outing a small group of the boys got into a confrontation with a black Jewish group.  At some point an elderly, and very photogenic, American Indian male showed up to try and de-escalate the situation.  One of the boys, also photogenic, appeared to get in the Indian's face, and several news cameras began snapping rapid photos.    The ensuing stories reported that the kids were harassing the Native American - and  the parents of the young man at the center of the photos decided that a lawsuit might right the grievous wrong that they felt had been done to their son - and perhaps make a few bucks in the process.  The family sued several news outlets for amounts in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

That young man has also been invited to speak to the GOP convention.

If the political parties are selecting convention speakers who represent their values, then the Democrats value opportunity and diversity - and the Republicans continue to value wealth, privilege, whiteness, guns, and opportunism.  

In November we will learn what the American people value.

Americans Celebrate 100 years of Women's Suffrage

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Today officially marks the 100th anniversary of American women having the legal right to vote across the entirety of the United States.  Congress had drafted and passed a proposed Amendment to the Constitution in the late spring of 1919 and sent it to the states where three-quarters (36 of 48) would be required to ratify it for inclusion into the Constitution.  The 36th state, Tennessee, voted in favor of the proposed Amendment one hundred years ago today.

Several western states were already allowing women to vote well before the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920.  Women had been voting in Wyoming since 1869 while it was still a Territory, and they continued to vote even after Wyoming became a state.  Montana had even elected the first female member of Congress (Jeanette Rankin in 1916) before ratification of the 19th Amendment.  But it was the 19th Amendment - officially passed by the states one hundred years ago today - that extended voting rights for most women nationwide.   (Native American women were banned from voting until 1924, and many women of color were stymied in their attempts to vote by Jim Crow laws for decades.)

When this day began a century ago, 35 states had ratified the 19th Amendment and one more was needed to complete the process.  At that point the list of possible converts to the cause appeared to be limited to one - Tennessee - which was scheduled to vote that day.  As the vote proceeded, the outcome came down to the decision of just one member of the legislature.

Harry T. Burn, age 24, the youngest member of the Tennessee Legislature, was serving his first term.  The young Mr. Burn, who was unmarried, had vacillated on the issue and was reportedly unsure of how he would vote up until the actual vote was underway.   At some point during the vote, he reached into his pocket where he discovered a note from his mother, a school teacher, encouraging her son to vote in favor of ratification - and the smart son decided that he should listen to his mother!

It has taken almost a full century for women to begin making serious inroads into the American political process.  As of this fall four will have appeared on national ballots (three Democrats and one Republican), and the current Congress has 26 female Senators and 101 female Representatives - including the first woman Speaker of the House.  Nine women are currently serving as governors in the United States, and the US Territories of Guam and Puerto Rico also have female governors (although the governor of Puerto Rico lost her primary election this week and will be leaving office).  Also, the highest ranking political official in the Distict of Columbia is its mayor - a position currently held by a female.

Politics in the United States is still predominantly a man's affair, but voting trends and growing numbers of female office holders indicate that change is afoot - and at this particularly sordid time in our political history, more women participating in the system can only be a good thing!

Use that vote, ladies - show us our better selves!

John Hannah Ascends with Poetry: "Funeral Blues" and "The Park in the Dark"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator 

Poetry is like a literary equivalent of food - it is meant to be shared and consumed.  Often times a poem appears as words on paper, or some other medium, and it is read and enjoyed on an individual basis.  It is taken in by the eye and then resides alone and under-appreciated within a flesh-and-bone shell of humanity.

But poetry can also be an audible experience where one person reads or recites - and interprets - a poem for the enjoyment of others, and that reading can magnify the experience for those who consume it through the ear.

John Hannah is a Scottish actor who rose to fame in the 1994 film "Four Weddings and a Funeral," a well deserved recognition that was in large part based on his recitation of a poem during the film.  Hannah played Matthew, a young man who was in a gay relationship with Gareth, a much older man played by Simon Callow.  Gareth died during the movie, becoming the "funeral" alluded to in the title.  At his funeral, Matthew steps forward and recites the poem, "Funeral Blues," by W. H. Auden.   His benediction is sudden, unexpected, and very forceful as Matthew reveals the deep extent of his survivor's pain. It is one of the most beautiful parts of the movie, made even more tender by John Hannah's deep, resonant, sonorous voice.

Auden's "Funeral Blues" was featured in this post on April 16th, 2012.

A few weeks ago I had another John Hannah moment when I was watching him in an episode of the Scottish television show, "Rebus," where Hannah portrays the show's title character.  In one of the first season shows (2000) Rebus's daughter was lying in a coma in an Edinburgh hospital with her distraught father at her bedside.  Suddenly the detective  starts reciting a compelling poetic verse from memory:

"When the sun goes down

and the moon comes up

and the old swing creaks

in the dark,

that's when we go

to the park,

me and Loopy 

   and Little Gee

      all three."

And he went on for several verses trying to establish contact with his unconscious child.  It was every bit as haunting and compelling as the "Funeral Blues" had been in the movie.  After the show ended, I got on the internet and sought out "me and Loopy and Little Gee."

It turns out that the the "poem" John Hannah recited was the text of a 1989 British children's book, "The Park in the Dark," that was written by Martin Waddell and illustrated by Barbara Firth.  It is the story of three stuffed animals - a monkey, an elephant, and a puppy who venture out to a local park each evening after their little girl goes to sleep.  The story is hauntingly beautiful as the trio brave the dark streets of London to get to their park and then home again before daylight - and it is enhanced many-fold as it resonates through the voice of John Hannah.

John Hannah's powerful voice could garner applause reading the ingredient list off of a soup can or the names in a telephone directory.  But he is the master when it comes to reading poetry aloud.  Hannah takes the words of the poet and interprets them in such a way as to deliver their full punch directly into the heart of the listener.  

When John Hannah recites a poem, he will be heard - always!

Trump's War on the Post Office

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Necessary background:   

1.   The U.S. Postmaster General is a Trump political appointee by the name of Louis DeJoy.  Mr. DeJoy is a rich political supporter of Donald Trump and the Republican Party. 

2.    According to an NBC/PBS/Marist poll released last week, 62% of Joe Biden's supporters say they intend to vote by mail -  and 72% of Trump supporters say they plan on voting in-person at the polls.

3.   The United States and the world are in the midst of a deadly pandemic, a situation which makes voting by mail a prudent,  life-saving measure.

This month the US Postal Service (USPS) has been in the news almost daily with stories relating to budget shortfalls, cuts in service, and concerns that the operation of the service is being intentionally hampered in an effort to thwart voting-by-mail in the November election.  The stories which are circulating in the press state that mail-sorting machines are being removed from post offices across the nation, and that mail-collection boxes are being locked in some cities (such as Seattle and Los Angeles) and removed in other locations.   Photos of men with trucks removing the mail-collection boxes are becoming commonplace in the press and on social media - and now their are clips of postal delivery trucks themselves being trucked off by larger vehicles.

Hours of service are being cut in some locations, and Postmaster General DeJoy has issued orders that forbid overtime pay and will curtail delivery of mail rather than to pay any overtime to get it delivered on time.

All in all, postal service in the United States of America seems to have suddenly shifted into reverse - and many see that reversal as being a purely political strategy that is being put forth by the Trump administration in an effort to sabotage the November election or at least to rig it in favor of Donald Trump.

Donald Trump has long railed against the idea of voting by mail declaring repeatedly that he believes it will lead to massive voter fraud - even though some states have been using mail-in voting for several years with no problems to back up Trump's claims.  Trump votes by mail himself, as does most of his White House staff and administrators who are located in Washington, DC, and he recently went on record and encouraged Floridians to vote by mail in their primary election.  (He stated a belief that the state government of Florida knew how to handle vote-by-mail - and left the impression that other states did not know how to do it, or would do it dishonestly.)

To add to the vote-by-mail drama, on Friday the USPS warned most states and Washington, DC, that mail-in ballots may not be received by election officials in time to be counted.

A true crisis is at hand!

Congress is trying to relieve pressure on the postal service through new funding, but the Trump administration has opposed moves to ease financial pressure on the USPS.  Congressional Democrats want to provide the United States Postal Service with an additional $25 billion as a part of the new stimulus package, with $3.5 billion of that specifically directed toward helping with mail-in voting.  Trump told Fox News last week that he opposes additional funding for the postal service because he believes that it will encourage mail-in voting, and he fears that mail-in voting will favor Democrats.

And Trump's fear of a process that will allow more people to vote in a safer manner in the time of a worldwide pandemic seems to have inspired his big-donor political appointee, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, to do what he can to put the brakes on democracy.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is threatening to bring Congress back from its August vacation to deal with the postal mess that Donald Trump and Louis DeJoy are foisting on America - and she damn well needs to do it!

Rob Lowe Crosses the Atlantic

by Pa Rock
Viewer

After re-reading yesterday's post on the Irish television program from the late 1990's, "Ballykissangel," I realized that there was still a bit more I wanted to say about British television.  I noted in that piece that a couple of actors in that show, Colin Farrell and Robert Taylor, had gone on to wider acclaim after the series ended, and I wanted to further stress the fact that some very talented actors have their roots in British television.

Dame Judi Dench and Dame Helen Mirren both gained fame through their work with the BBC, and both went on to stellar international acting careers, as did David Tennant who spent a couple of seasons portraying "Dr. Who" for the BBC.  All three of those fine actors, as well as numerous others, are almost as familiar to American audiences as they are to the Brits.  It is understood and accepted that a good portion of America's cultural roots are British.

What isn't as well known, however, is that sometimes that cultural movement across the Atlantic works in reverse.  A British police drama that was filmed in 2019 recently began airing on Britbox.   The show has a well known American actor in the lead role.  Rob Lowe, whose American film career goes back thirty-seven years to the role of "Sodapop Curtis" in 1983's "The Outsiders," plays an American police chief who has gotten into trouble at home for some aggressive behaviors, and takes a job in England where he hopes to get his life and career back on track.  He is accompanied to England by his adolescent daughter who has her own set of issues.

In the show, "Wild Bill," Lowe's character, Chief Bill Hixon, presents as a police administrator focused on bringing down crime rates and solving cold cases through statistical analysis and related means.  His methods initially clash with the more in-your-face tactics of the British police, but eventually the two extremes begin to meld and positive results start to accrue.

So far the Brits have only made one season (six episodes) of "Wild Bill," but the show is entertaining and compelling, so at some point they might decide to do more.  And if they do, and if Rob Lowe is no longer available, there are many more under-employed American actors who would rush across the Atlantic for a chance to star in a good television series.

In this world of instantaneous global communication, the notion of "international" stars is likely to become more commonplace as actors develop worldwide fanbases and are able to scurry quickly across borders and oceans and get to where the work is - and increasingly the work is no longer anchored in Hollywood.

Ballykissangel

by Pa Rock
TV Connoisseur

I first became acquainted with British television and the wonderful programs of the British Broadcasting Company through watching Public Television in America where British programs were often aired late and night and on weekends to fill-in the schedule of American programming.  It was on PBS stations where I first became aware of comedy classics (Britcoms) like "Are You Being Served," "Keeping Up Appearances," and "Absolutely Fabulous."   I also became an ardent fan of British mysteries and particularly their police dramas, programs such as "Inspector Lynley," "Daziel and Pascoe," "Inspector Morris," and "Foyle's War."  

I eagerly consumed all of the British television which I was fortunate enough to come across.

When I was living on Okinawa (2010-2012) my television provider was a Japanese cable company that offered American and British television series in about equal measure.  After returning to the states, I was soon rid of the cable/satellite dependency, and began using streaming devices for television viewing.   Initially I used Netflix and Prime as my primary streaming providers, but then the BBC also started its own streaming service - Britbox - and I was able to acquire that as well - through Prime - and today Britbox is my primary source of home entertainment.

Britbox, as its name implies, offers more than just television shows from England.   The service also has programming from other areas of Great Britain.  Through it I have enjoyed police procedurals from Scotland (Shetland, Rebus, and Taggart) to name but a few, Torchwood, set in Wales, and a police drama or two from Ireland.

Recently I began watching a very popular program about a fictional small town in Ireland called "Ballykissangel" (Bally-kiss-angel).  The program dealt with daily life in the small community, and its two primary focal points were the community's large Catholic Church and the town pub, a place called "Fitzgerald's."   The series ran from 1996 through 2001 and produced a total of fifty-eight episodes.  The program, like the town, was called "Ballykissangel."

The cast of the show referred to it in the press as a "soap," but actually each episode had a complete storyline that stood basically independent of other episodes.  The characters in the stories came and went, with only two (Donal and Liam, the town handymen) managing to appear in every episode.  By the time the program ended, the church had had three different priests, and the pub three different owners - with the third owner of the pub also being the third priest at the church!

The show's creator and primary writer, Kieran Prendiville, said that he was looking to create an Irish experience that everyone would recognize, and in that he was wildly successful.  The television program was an international hit, and before it's run was over filming became difficult because of all of the tourist buses that were clogging the streets where the show was being filmed.

Balluykissangel was filmed in several locations, but the town exteriors were all from a small Irish community called Avoca in County Wicklow, less than a hundred miles from Dublin.  Avoca began pulling in tourists early on during the shows' run - and the streets were often so packed with gawkers and tour buses that residents had trouble getting from place to place in their once remote village.

Most of the actors in the series were from the Irish stage and well known in that country.   Two experienced prominent careers in international film after the show had run its course.  Colin Farrell, who played a young drifter who showed up in Ballykissangel to help his aging uncle run his very rustic farm, has gone on to star in other television productions as well as many movies.  And Australian actor, Robert Taylor, who played the final priest in the series - a charming alcoholic named Father Vincent "Vinnie" Shehan - later found fame as Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire in the Netflix series Longmire.

Ballykissangel was a simple place, one where every resident reminded viewers of someone they knew in real life.  It was peopled with good, honest Irish folk who could evoke laughter or tears by just being themselves as they plodded along in their daily lives.  And it was - and is - a treat to experience!

By Frequent Anguish

by Pa Rock
Reader

Francis D. Smith was the first Dean of Faculty at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, an institution that he had helped to found.  He also taught at that college as a professor of humanities and the arts.  During his lifetime Frank Smith authored seven novels:  "Harry Vernon at Prep" (1959) and a six-volume mystery series in the 1980's featuring an a middle-aged college literature professor, Neil Kelly, as an amateur sleuth who works his way through homicides that each have a personal connection to his life.  Smith wrote the Neil Kelly mysteries using the pseudonym "S.F.X. Dean."  

"By Frequent Anguish" is the first novel in the Professor Neil Kelly series.  It was described by the author as "a love story interrupted by a murder."

As the series opens Neil Kelly is a middle-aged widower with two grown daughters who have left home and married.  He is a tweedy academic who is preparing to go on a well-earned sabbatical to England where he plans to work on a biography of the English poet John Donne.   Professor Kelly is also in the beginning stages of a serious romance with one of his students, twenty-year-old Priscilla Lacey, who happens to be his God-daughter as well as the daughter of two close friends from his days in college.  Kelly had dated Priscilla's mother while in college and was a close college friend of her father - and her father went on to become the chairman of the board at Old Hampton, the (fictional) Massachusetts college where Kelly teaches.

Priscilla "Pril" Lacey had barely been introduced in this novel before she was murdered one evening in the school library.  Neil Kelly is awash in grief and the entire college community is stunned at the incomprehensible killing of this popular and well respected student.  Pril's distraught parents arrive on campus and take charge of her affairs, and her father, a campus power in his own right, convinces Neil to take charge of a private investigation into Pril's death.  He lets the college and the local police know that Professor Kelly will be representing the family and is to be included in all aspects of their investigations.

From that point on the story revolves around the investigation of a murder and it wends its way through life in a small New England college.

The most powerful aspect of "By Frequent Anguish" is the emotional catharsis that Neil Kelly goes through after learning that his new-found love, Pril Lacey, has been murdered.  Smith's description of the grief and anguish sweeping over the suddenly hapless professor is intense and unrelenting, pulling him into a vortex of grief that threatens to consume all that is left of his life.  It is a masterful description that allows readers deep inside the professor's private hell.

Frank Smith was an accomplished plotter and writer.  His character descriptions are wide and deep with careful insights into physical qualities, backgrounds, and motivations that provide readers with a comfortable knowledge of each character.  Smith's Professor Kelly novels are also rich in literary allusion, undoubtedly leaving many readers with the notion that they have been educated while being entertained.

"By Frequent Anguish" more than satisfies as a mystery, with a gripping storyline and enough clues to keep readers guessing, but it is the rich character descriptions that pull the readers onward and ultimately serve to complete the story.  It is a mystery that shines with a high literary polish - and it opens the door to the entire Professor Neil Kelly experience.

I recommend the novel and the series without reservation or hesitation!

Biden-Harris 2020, a Perfect Vision!

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Joe Biden and his campaign showed some uncommonly good sense yesterday by announcing the selection of Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate in this year's presidential election.  Senator Harris, a fifty-five-year-old political dynamo, is a former San Francisco District Attorney who also served as Attorney General of California before being elected to the US Senate in 2016.  

As a lawyer with a strong prosecutorial background, Kamala Harris has been quite effective in grilling witnesses and presidential nominees who come before the Senate.  Yesterday, after the announcement that she would be on the Democratic ticket in November, Donald Trump lamented that she had been the "meanest" senator to interview his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.

Aside from Trump's rather tame evaluation, other Republicans have also been quick to label Senator Harris as "ambitious" and a "radical left-wing liberal."

Harris, who identifies as black and Asian, was the child of a mother from India and a father from Jamaica. The senator and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, have no children of their own, but he has two from a previous marriage who are Kamala's step-children and refer to her as "Momala."   Emhoff is a partner in a Los Angeles law firm.

Kamala Harris will bring energy and enthusiasm to the Democratic ticket.  Her sharp intellect and command of the facts will stand in bold contrast to both Pence and Trump, as will her life story which is more in tune with those of average, working-class Americans.  

This year the Democratic ticket looks and sounds like America, while the GOP ticket continues to resemble something that was culled from a corporate boardroom - or the set of The Apprentice.  If Americans truly want a return to normal times and a government that works for Main Street instead of Wall Street, the Democratic Party is providing them with the way to get there.

The ticket of Biden-Harris 2020 clearly embodies the great potential of America and stands ready to lead us into a better future!

The Politics of Face Masks

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

I don't leave the house and go to town very often, but when I do one of the things that I like to observe is how many people are wearing face masks - and how the ones who are not wearing the masks react to those of us who are.   In fact, I am beginning to think of my informal observations as research - and my "research" has led me to conclude that there is a strong political component at play in each individual's decision whether or not to wear a mask in public settings.

How odd that something as rudimentary as wearing a face mask to avoid catching a disease should become a political statement!

What seems fairly obvious - at least in my area - is this:  those who are staunch in their determination not to wear masks - and seem disdainful of people who do - are on the right politically and are likely to be outspoken in their support of Donald Trump,  a man who has been reluctant to wear a mask himself or to encourage others to do so.  And conversely, those who always wear a mask in public are more likely to be on the left politically and will be voting against Trump in November.

I don't have any numbers to back that up, just my own observations of people I know and who are not shy about expressing their political opinions.  But it would be an easy research project to design - and I suspect that social and political scientists are already at work on confirming the odd phenomena. 
 
The irony is obvious.    One of Donald Trump's most dependable voting blocks is older Americans, people who are most at risk from COVID-19.    Yet Trump and his people are encouraging a behavior by their supporters that could result in their deaths - and fewer Trump votes in November.

But if that's their election "strategy," so be it.

The low number of people wearing face masks in my area would indicate - by my theory - that Trump will do quite well here - just as he did four years ago.    But I strongly suspect that in other parts of the country people are more health conscious and better informed - and those voters will not be as kind to Trump as my neighbors down here in the woods.

Many of Trump's supporters maintain solidarity with their president by refusing to wear a face mask.  They rose together four years ago, and now, if they go down, it will also be together.  But because of their refusal to adhere to good medical practices, some may be about to lose more than just the presidency.

Not wearing a face mask is their choice - but it is a poor one.

Healed! Healed, I Tell Ya!

by Pa Rock
Successful Patient

The visit with my orthopedist this morning was all good news.  She had me flex my recently-broken arm in several directions and then pronounced me "healed!"  While my full range-of-motion has not yet returned, it was obvious to her that it is improving and that I am well on the way to complete recovery.  The doctor not only told me that I don't have to schedule any more visits with her, she also informed me that the physical therapy would no longer be required after my next appointment later in the week.

All of that is, of course, very welcome news.  My primary care physician had done his best to scare me into working hard at the physical therapy by telling me tales of shoulders "freezing up" and horrendous surgeries that had to be undertaken when they did - so I worked very hard at the physical therapy - and will continue it at home ever after the final session at the clinic later this week.

Realizing that people recover from broken bones every day, this is still very big news to me.  Being an antique (72-years-old), I was anticipating a much lengthier and more difficult process.

Morals of the story:  Be careful in your daily activities, and follow medical advice to the letter and beyond.   There are no shortcuts to good health - and it is much easier to grow old gracefully in a functioning body than it is in an impaired one.

Riverdale Changes with the Times

by Pa Rock
Watcher

The fine art of television viewing has changed considerably since my youth.  Instead of watching one episode of a favorite show once each week on a particular day at a regular time - with reruns in the summer - now many of us stream - or find a show that we like and then watch all of the episodes of each season in a reduced period of time - often just days.  Viewers take in an entire season in a short bursts and then sit by for months-on-end until the next season is out and ready to watch.  It is easy to lose the storyline and sense of continuity in a situation like that.

A couple of years ago I decided to check out the CW series "Riverdale" which I understood was a modern take on the old "Archie" comic strip, one of the favorites of my youth.   I started the first episode but was quickly repulsed when the action focused on Archie, a popular high school student, having sex with his teacher, Miss Grundy, in her VW Beetle.  That's right,  Miss Grundy,  once an old maid English teacher,  had now morphed into a hot young music teacher who was providing individual, in-car tutoring to a strapping high school jock.

That just ain't right, I thought, and abandoned the series before I had completed the first episode.   I was smart enough to know that this new "Archie" was never going to last.

Fast forward to this past spring:  the pandemic was moving across the land, production of new shows was slowing, and I had already watched most of the shows that sounded promising.   "Riverdale" was still in production with four seasons (seventy-seven episodes) in the can and waiting to be viewed.  I decided to try it again.  It was going to be a long project that would undoubtedly be a challenge to some of this old high school principal's core beliefs, but I determined to give the viewing my best effort.   I persevered, and yesterday I finished episode number seventy-seven.

The "Riverdale" of my youth, the one where Archie, Veronica, Betty, and Jughead - and all of their friends lived - and never aged - was an idyllic community that I assumed was somewhere in the Midwest where all of the "normal" people lived.  They rode around in Archie's jalopy, relaxed at Pop's Malt Shop, enjoyed school dances, experienced small problems with their parents, and were perennial nuisances at school frustrating the work of Principal Weatherbee and teachers like Miss Grundy.   It was a happy life without any of the "darkness" that seemed to crowd in on real life.

Change came slowly in that "Riverdale," and basically life stayed happy.

But the darkness that avoided the "Riverdale" of the comics is a steady presence in the contemporary "Riverdale" of the television series.  This new "Riverdale" features all of the regular characters from the comic series - at least with their original names and general appearances - but beyond that the new group bears very little resemblance to their comic book ancestors.

In the first four seasons of the series, Archie is a red-headed romantic who likes the women, playing guitar and singing, playing football, and boxing.  Not only does he bed his music teacher, he also has a prolonged sexual relationship with Veronica, as well as a brief affair with Josie (the lead singer in "Josie and the Pussycats"), and tries a couple of times to set up a relationship with Betty.  Archie is a mediocre student who may not get to walk with his class at graduation, but his mother and her girlfriend have somehow managed to get him on a shortlist for admission to the Naval Academy.

Veronica Lodge and her family are basically a Mexican drug cartel that is in the process of branching out into more legitimate interests.  Veronica begins breaking from her criminal family and eventually becomes the owner of Pop's Malt Shop.  It turns out the Pop's sits above a large basement room which she turns into a "speakeasy" and gambling den - with Reggie acting as her manager and bouncer.  By the time the fourth season has ended, Veronica's own small criminal empire is beginning to grow - and all of this is occurring while she is still a student in high school.

Betty Cooper is the daughter of the town's newspaper owners.  She becomes a de facto investigative reporter as Riverdale's unique mysteries and criminal activities begin piling up.  Betty's boyfriend is Jughead Jones, Archie's best friend.  Jughead aspires to be a writer, and his relationship with Betty provides plenty of fertile ground for plot development for his stories.

"Riverdale" is dark - exceedingly dark - with storylines involving cults, serial killers, gangsters, evil nuns, gambling, murder, suicide, drugs, sex, satanic role-playing games, prison life, necrophilia, organ harvesting, bear attacks, and even a brief nod to cannibalism.

Music is also an important element of the new "Riverdale," but it, too, has dark overtones.   One year the high school musical was Stephen King's "Carrie" and the following year it was a musical adaptation of the movie "Heathers."  During the fourth season there was a student effort to present a show built around music from "Hedwig and the Angry Inch."

At other times the musical interludes are lighter and more fun - somewhat reminiscent of the teen musical productions in the old series "Glee."  The kids in "Riverdale" always seem to know when the time is right to change things up a bit.

There is also a lot of humor mixed into this dark dramedy, with much of the humor being slipped in as clever references.  One local prison, for instance is "Shankshaw," again with a nod to Stephen King and his "Shawshank" prison.  Archie, who falsely admits to killing a young man, is sentenced to the "Leopold and Loeb" Youth Correctional Facility - an institution undoubtedly named for Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, a pair of wealthy University of Chicago students who killed a fourteen-year-old boy in 1924 just for the thrill of it.  Another exapmple is "Brett Weston Wallace," the psycho student leader of the private school, Stonewall Academy, whose name is strikingly similar to "Brett Easton Ellis," the acclaimed real writer and author of "American Psycho."

There's a lot to like in the CW's current version of "Riverdale."  It takes an old and familiar group of friends and transports them into a modern (albeit a bit dystopian) setting.  The storylines are contemporary and compelling, and the moral dilemmas profuse.   "Riverdale" is one of those rare shows that that seldom has a dull moment, and if one seems imminent, the kids step in with a lively musical number.   The constant fast action and steady stream of surprise situations can also be a bit mind-numbing - so again, cue the music!

The show is worth a watch.  Old people, like me, will see a few familiar faces such as Luke Perry, Molly Ringwald, Robin Givens, and Skeet Ulrich, and younger viewers will be introduced to a broad group of actors who will undoubtedly go on to define their generation on the screen and in pop culture.   And what rattles and shocks today will certainly be viewed as commonplace and even mundane by film watchers in the decades to come.

It's not my "Riverdale," and I'm not comfortable there.    But I am smart enough to realize that my role in the world is diminishing, and that coming generations may inhabit the places where I roamed and lived, but they will experience those places in far different circumstances and ways than  I did.

"Riverdale" had changed - but so has the world - and it's all going to keep changing.

I accept that.

Social Media's Powerful Influence in Schools

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

A girl was suspended from her high school in an Atlanta suburb yesterday for posting a photo of a crowded hallway at her school on Twitter.  The photo showed a hallway clogged with young people during a class change, and not only were the young people crammed together as they tried to move through the halls, many were not even wearing masks.

The school's embarrassed principal quickly danced around the First Amendment and came up with a short list of non-free-speech reasons for suspending the female student - while throwing down his marker to the rest of the student body that airing the school's dirty laundry on social media would not be tolerated.

The principal informed the errant student that she was being suspended for violating multiple parts of the school's code of conduct including using a cell phone during school hours, using social media during school hours, and violating the privacy of other students by posting photographs of them on-line.

The girl's mother came to school later in the morning and expressed her displeasure over the principal's action.  Then the superintendent became involved - likely after having visited with the school's lawyers - and by the time the school day ended the suspension had been lifted and the school was deep in the process of re-evaluating its operating procedures.

Georgia, like so many other states, is bowing to pressure from the federal government to get schools up and running.  It is a next-to-impossible task for the schools that is made even harder by a lack of guidance and resources from the state and national governments.

The federal government has an expectation and flexes that expectation through policies of the US Department of Education and the control of funding streams.  The state governments have expectations and also use administrative policies and funding to get their expectations enacted by the schools.  The communities have expectations which they express through policies of their local school boards, the actions of school support groups and private citizens, and the media.  And the teachers have their own expectations which move forward through faculty organizations and initiatives.

But when all of those varying expectations are finally synthesized into a working school routine, it then faces the final challenge:  the students.  The students in the classrooms - and in the halls - and on the buses - are at the absolute point at which the rubber hits the road - and if they suddenly realize that they are all just pawns in a dangerous charade - well - then it's time to go on-line!

And by the time the principal finds out there is a problem, it is already being discussed on an international level - and the New York Times is on the phone seeking comment!

Freak Accident at Crematorium

by Pa Rock
Collector of Tales

I love a good urban legend, and in my time I've heard several beauts.  Twenty years ago when I was living in southwest Missouri one blew through our area about a young couple who had been on vacation somewhere down in Mexico.  After returning home, they sent the film of their trip off to be developed, and when the prints came back they discovered a few that they had not taken.

The couple was shocked to find pictures of some of the hotel staff going though their things.  Of particular interest were a few shots of the staff placing the couples' toothbrushes inside of various body orifices.

It was a shocking story, one that drew people into conversations and caused many travelers to begin taking extra care in cleaning their personal items.  No one seemed to actually know the couple in question, but almost everyone did claim to know someone who knew them.   And strangely the story of the unfortunate travelers began springing up all over the country.  It was shocking, and purient, and just too good to be restricted to one particular part of the country.

And it was also totally fictitious, a big, fat urban legend!

Several years ago a film crew came to the town where I currently live and produced a very good low budget movie.   Quite a few local people were involved in the project and many knew what was going on, but some others only knew that there was something occurring in town that involved the making of a movie - and that was fertile ground for an urban legend to germinate.

A story soon began circulating that Brad Pitt was in town to make a movie.  (Pitt grew up in Springfield, Missouri, a hundred miles from our little town.)   Lots of people were telling tales of Brad sightings, though none of the talkers had actually seen him - but each and every one knew someone who had seen him.  One night he was spotted having dinner at the local Ryan's Steak House, and one hot afternoon he had been seen drinking beer by the pool of a seedy local motel.

Brad was everywhere - but according to the internet, he was in England attending a wedding at the exact same time that people were insisting that their friends had seen him in our little town!

Now there is another great urban legend spreading across the land.

A couple of days ago a friend told he about a horrible incident that had occurred in the rural town of Marshfield, Missouri.   A man had fallen asleep at a crematorium and a worker at that facility mistakenly thought that he was a body waiting to be burned - and slid him into the furnace.  A moment or two later the screaming from the furnace alerted the worker to his mistake, but by the time he got everything shut down all that was left of his unfortunate victim was a pile of warm ashes.

The fellow who told that story did not know the people involved, but he absolutely knew someone who did know them.

I realized as soon as I heard that tale that it was a big ol' urban legend, and I determined to go to Snopes.com and prove to myself and my friend that the story was phony.  But before I could get to Snopes, the site came to me with its daily newsletter - and in that newsletter was the crematorium story.     Snopes reported that it had made the rounds before, and was again flaming up in various parts of the country.  And yes, it was as fake as a degree from Trump University.

Usually sniffing out an urban legend is just a matter of commonsense.  If Brad Pitt comes to your small town, chances are the local press will pick up on it before he is spotted at local restaurants or drinking at neighborhood parties.  And the disposal of a body, by whatever means, requires preparation and paperwork.  Bodies aren't just left lying around waiting on workers to pick them up and toss them into the furnace.

But commonsense is one thing, and a really good story is quite another!

Hiroshima, a Remembrance

by Pa Rock
Peaceful Wanderer

It was on this date seventy-five years ago that the world witnessed the first use of an atomic weapon against human beings.  On August 6, 1945, in an effort to bring about a quick end to World War II in the Pacific, President Harry S. Truman ordered the US military to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese coastal community of Hiroshima.  The crew of a B-29 Superfortress bomber under the command of Colonel Paul Tibbets followed Truman's order and unleashed the age of the atom early that morning - and with that action the world changed forever.

The bomber from which the bomb was dropped was named the "Enola Gay" in honor of Enola Gay Tibbets, the colonel's mother.

The devastation was massive, opening to world to visions of horrors that had been unimaginable just days before.  Of the 350,000 Japanese who resided in Hiroshima, at least 70,000 were killed outright by the blast, and some estimates put that number almost twice as high.  Many of those who were not killed on the morning of the blast received grievous injuries or suffered slow deaths through radiation poisoning.

The blast was so monstrous and unexpected that many had trouble believing the United States actually had a weapon that powerful.  Perhaps it had been an industrial accident and the US had rushed to claim credit.  To show the reality of the situation, Truman ordered a second atomic bombing three days later, this time on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.  Again thousands were killed amidst unimaginable, massive destruction.  After the bombing of Nagasaki, Truman threatened that if Japan did not surrender, US troops would deliver more atomic strikes on the country.

Emperor Hirohito announced six days later - on August 15th - that Japan would surrender "unconditionally."

That rapid end to the war began with the bombing of Hiroshima - seventy-five years ago today.

A little over forty-seven years ago, in the spring of 1973, my wife and I were able to visit the city of Hiroshima for a few days.  At that time the city was just over twenty-seven years out from the bombing.  We were a young couple, not long out of college, and living on the Japanese island of Okinawa where I was stationed with the US Army.  We took advantage of a "military hop," a free flight aboard a military plane, to visit Tokyo for a couple of days, and while we were there we decided to take the famous "Bullet Train" south, with Hiroshima being our ultimate destination.

Having been a history major in college, I had an interest in seeing the city that had played such a pivotal role in World War II.

At the time of our trip the Japanese high-speed rail - the Bullet Train - did not go all the way to Hiroshima.  We went south, through the ancient capital of Kyoto - and then at some point had to transfer to a train which was called a "Cattle Car."  Instead of the roomy comfort of the Bullet Train, travelers were literally packed into the Cattle Car by people standing at the doors whose job it was to push as many riders as they could into each car.  We were physically forced in and then had to stand by helpless as we watched out luggage being passed overhead to the far reaches of the car.

To complicate matters even more, my wife was pregnant with our first child who would be born on Okinawa that July.

Being an anglo-centric couple, I suppose that we assumed that when we got off of the train we would find an abundance of Americans and others who spoke English and could help us find a room and learn our way around the city.   That was not to be.  We got off of the train and encountered crowds of people who were busy scurrying to their cars and cabs and daily lives - and they all appeared to be Japanese.  We tried talking to several but were unable to find anyone who could speak English.

Finally, out of desperation, I stopped a young uniformed policeman.  After chattering at him for a few moments, he grinned, without comment, and signaled for us to follow as he led us to a police station.  At the station we stood by helpless as several officers discussed our obvious plight in Japanese, and finally one picked up a telephone and dialed a number.  He talked to the person who answered for a couple of minutes and then handed the phone over to me.  A nice lady on the other end of the line told me that she spoke English and Japanese and would act as our translator.   After some discussion she said that she was sending a "mamasan" over who would take us to a room.

An older lady quickly showed up at the police station and took control of our situation.   She led us on a short walk to her place where a large, fairly bare room was waiting for us.   The lady brought us a pot of green tea which we enjoyed while she began rolling a series of mats out in the center of the floor.  The mats eventually formed our bed for the evening.  We spent two nights in that room before getting on another train for our return trip to Tokyo

We dedicated one full day to exploring Hiroshima - a Saturday, I think.   Most of the day focused on walking through "Peace Park," the area around "ground zero" of the infamous bombing.   The absolute center of the targeted area was a large building sitting beneath the iron skeleton of a dome - left exactly as it was after the bombing.  The landmark is called the "Atomic Dome."

Not long after we got to the park and began exploring the various monuments placed there by most of the world's countries - but none from the United States - we were approached by a young Japanese man who introduced himself as "Hiroshi".  He said that he was learning English and asked if he could show us Peace Park so that he could practice his English.  We went on to spend most of the day in his company.

One of the things that I remember Hiroshi pointing out to us was the research laboratory on the crest of one of the hills overlooking the city.  He said that  people had been studying the effects of the blast ever since the day it occurred.  At the time of our visit there were still many people living in Hiroshima who had been there or close by at the time of the bombing.

Hiroshima sits in a "pocket" formed by a small group of mountains forming a "U" and connecting to the sea.  The US chose Hiroshima for this initial blast because the mountains would concentrate the effects of the blast and show exactly how much power their new bomb had.

Our little group also spent a lot of time in the museum at Peace Park.  Visitors picked up recorded guides with earphones at the entry in various languages which led them through the various exhibits at the museum.  One of the more memorable stops on the tour was a slab of concrete outside of the building which contained the shadow of an old man sitting and eating a sandwich.  The shadow had been burned into the concrete at the moment of the blast, and the old man's delicate act of eating his morning meal had been captured in cement for all time.

That evening we strolled through what was then modern Hiroshima and had dinner at a nice restaurant.  After that we visited a couple of the many pachinko parlors that  were so prevalent in the downtown area and learned to play vertical pinball with the goal of winning small ball-bearings!  The pachinko parlors were busy, and noisy, and lots of fun!

And then on Sunday we were pushed back onto the train and began our journey back o Tokyo - and ultimately back to Okinawa.

A few years later while I was teaching history to high school students, I used my memories of that visit to underscore the horrors of war as we discussed the war in the Pacific.  To complement that experience, I had the students read John Hershey's "Hiroshima," a brief accounting of the day of the blast that he gleaned from interviews with six Japanese who lived through it.

Hiroshima was an innocuous Japanese city that became, through a savage act of war, a symbolic low point in the history of civilization.  The city and its story have since weighed heavily on the conscience of the world.   Hiroshima was on the mend by the time I visited there forty-seven years ago, and today it has gradually transformed into an eternal symbol of hope and healing whose message of peace extends around the globe.

For anyone who would like to know more about this important chapter in Japanese, American, and world history, please consider beginning with John Hershey's "Hiroshima."  It will take you back to the very moment the world changed forever - seventy-five years ago today.  It was a moment that we should endeavor to never forget.