Willow Is Nine

by Pa Rock
Proud Grandfather

Willow Midnight Seraphina Files, my Oregon granddaughter, is nine-years-old today.  She shares her birthday with my favorite author, Mark Twain, who was born a mere one-hundred-and seventy-six years before Willow.

I have six grandchildren and was fortunate to have met three of them on the day they were born.  Two of the others I met during their first month of life.  But little Willow, who was born while I was working overseas, was almost a year old before I had the pleasure of meeting her.  

Because Willow and her brothers, Sebastian and Judah, live so far away, I am only able to see them a couple of times a year - and over the past twelve months I have not seen them at all because of the pandemic.  But on those times when I do manage to get to Oregon, I try to spend time with the kids and experience what they are doing.  I have mentioned in these birthday posts about the time Willow met two real Disney Princesses - Snow White and Cinderella - and I was lucky enough to have been there and gotten to watch her interact with them.  Oh, that was an exciting evening!

Another favorite memory of mine was watching Willow play soccer.   There were hundreds of kids playing several soccer games that Saturday morning at an outdoor soccer complex in Salem, Oregon, but my granddaughter, young Willow, seemed to be the fastest one there and was intently focused on running to wherever the ball was!  Pa Rock exhausted himself just watching her!

This past year Willow made a name for herself in the arts when a cheetah that she drew and colored as a class project was chosen to adorn the cover of her school's yearbook.  Pa Rock bought a copy of that yearbook and shows if off to all of his friends!

All of my grandchildren, from Sully who is in a pre-school to Boone who is in college, have had a hard year with school due to the pandemic.  Willow is a third-grader this year and really likes school.  It bothered her a lot last year when she went to school one day, and the next day, with no warning, learned that school was over for the year.   She and most of the rest of the country were suddenly being schooled at home and learning at their computers.  I looked Willow's school up on-line this morning to see if they were having in-person classes yet, and the school's homepage said that it would be "opening soon,"  What a mess!

Willow, it's important to stay safe and defeat that nasty old coronavirus.  Things are going to get better - and soon you will be back at school with all of your friends and teachers.

But until then, study hard at home!

Pa Rock loves you and wishes you the very best on your ninth birthday!  May your day be filled with ice cream and cupcakes aplenty!

Utah Tourist Attraction Disappears

by Pa Rock
Fan of Roadside Attractions 

Biologists from the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources were flying around southeastern Utah a week ago this past Wednesday (November 18th) counting bighorn sheep when one member of the team spotted something odd on the ground and insisted that the pilot turn the helicopter around so that he could get a closer look.  Then, as the copter slowly circled back, the astonished crew and researchers all saw it.  A shiny 12-foot tall metal monolith was standing in a very isolated spot on the public lands of Utah's redrock country.

The helicopter pilot was quoted as saying that the structure resembled the black monolith that had been featured in 2001:  A Space Odyssey.  

As the story of the discovery began circulating, Internet explorers using old maps and  Google Earth were able to determine that the structure had been in place since sometime between August of 2015 and October of 2016 - or in the neighborhood of five years.  The futuristic television show, Westworld, was being filmed nearby at about  that same time.

The area where the strange monolith was located was so remote and inaccessible that state officials would not release it's exact location and tried to discourage people from looking for it out of a fear that they would get lost and require the state's rescue services.  The state was quick to label the monolith as "manmade," and the Utah Department of Heritage and Arts referred to it as "vandalism," although admitting that it exhibited "better craftsmanship than graffiti."

A spokesman from the Utah Department of Public Safety noted that it is illegal to install structures or art without authorization on public lands "no matter what planet you're from."

Despite the state of Utah running interference with would-be tourists, a few people were able to find the monolith which was located in a "redrock slot canyon" south of the city of Moab.   The coordinates to the monolith were soon posted on Reddit, though none of the users could confirm that they were correct.   

A young man from Moab named David Surber set out to verify the location for himself.  Surber found the structure, arriving one morning before anyone else was on the scene.  He examined it and determined that it was made of a metal that was non-magnetic - like aluminum - and was made by three riveted pieces in the shape of a long, narrow box.  He tapped on the monolith and determined that it was hollow, and he also noted that a couple of rivets were missing along the top edge.

David Surber, the young explorer, viewed the strange monolith as a positive statement in a troubled time.  He remarked to CNN:

"At the end of the day, extraterrestrial or made through artistic expression, the monolith provided an opportunity for thousands of people to rally behind something positive again.  It was a good escape from all the negativity we've experienced in 2020."

This past Friday night (November 27th) the strange metallic object that had been discovered a mere nine days earlier suddenly disappeared.  In its place was a small metal triangle lying on the ground along with a few of the area's redrocks.  The Utah Bureau of Land Management said that there will be no investigation into the disappearance of the artifact because it was "private property."  

Maybe, like the traveling gnome or Greta Thunberg, it will soon show up somewhere else and quickly become a moveable rallying point to bring the world together for the common benefit of all mankind.

Or maybe it's standing in a dusty corner of Warehouse 13 serving no useful purpose whatsoever!

And to whichever artist or alien was responsible for the monolith, thank for the distraction.  It could not have come at a better time!  The good people of Earth appreciate your thoughtfulness - and the bad people of Earth don't appreciate anything!

Stop in again anytime! 

Trump and Barr Rush to Clear Out Death Row

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist 

Donald Trump and his trusty attorney general, William Barr - each a paragon of virtue - are in a rush, almost a panic, to leave as much of their stain on the presidency and the country as they can before Joe Biden boots them out of office on January 20th.  Trump and Barr know that Biden will move quickly to reverse the damage that they have perpetrated on America, and will probably spend much of his first few days in office signing executive orders that reverse Trump's executive orders from the past four years.

Biden, however, will not have a presidential power of resurrection, and any federal prisoners that Trump an Barr manage to kill before Inauguration Day will remain dead.

This past July the Justice Department under Barr's direction announced that a 17-year moratorium on the execution of federal prisoners was at an end, and between that time and the present eight federal executions have been carried out.  Now Attorney General Barr has announced that the US government intends to put five more individuals to death before Joe Biden, a man who opposes the death penalty, is sworn into office in less than eight weeks.

One of the eight, Lisa Montgomery, is a mentally ill victim of sex-trafficking who is to be put to death eight days before Biden comes into office.

As a way of adding a little kink to this blood frenzy, yesterday Bill Barr announced a new rule regarding federal executions.  Lethal injection of a three-drug cocktail had been the method of execution used in the recent spate of death row housekeeping, but now the Feds will be able to use any method that is legal in the states where their executions will take place.  In addition to lethal injections, some states still permit use of the electric chair and firing squads.  If an execution is to occur in one of those states with alternative forms of killing prisoners, the federal government will have the option of turning to the state for "assistance" in the matter.

Line 'em up and shoot 'em down!  And if one of the targets in the Trumpian shooting gallery happens to be a mentally ill former sex slave, well, that's just gravy!

Donald Trump has this thing about killing.  He seems to regard it as macho, like himself.  Back in 1989 Trump, then a self-described New York City businessman, spent $85,000 to run full-page ads in four New York City newspapers that called for the execution of a group of young men who were known as the Central Park Five.  The five were black and Latino teenagers who were accused of raping a white jogger in Central Park.  Trump's ad featured the large headline "Bring Back the Death Penalty.  Bring Back Our Police."  He said that he received over 15,000 letters in support of his position.  More than twenty years later when all five of the young men had been completely exonerated, Trump still refused to apologize for his open hostility toward them - and his race-based outrage was voluminous when the city of New York agreed to pay the wrongfully convicted men damages in excess of forty million dollars.

Today Donald Trump still likes the permanent solution of death.  Joe Biden can sign executive orders until his hand quits working - or falls off, but any prisoners that Donald Trump and William Barr manage to snuff before January 20th will be dead - and they will stay dead.

And the Trump stain on America will be just a little more red!

Insider-Traders Used to Go to Prison

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Celebrities haven't always been immune from the law.  Back in 2001 television personality and cultural icon Martha Stewart was reportedly among several people who received private information that a US drug company in which they had invested was about to be turned down by the FDA for a patent on a new drug.  Stewart quickly sold 4,000 shares of the company and netted a profit of $45,000.    The price of the stock dropped sharply a few days later after news of the FDA patent rejection was announced.  Three years after that, in 2004, Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison for crimes related to insider-trading -  and fined $195,000.

Martha Stewart served her time scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets in a women's prison in West Virginia, and then re-entered society where she was able to slowly regain her business and celebrity status.

On January 25th of this year, several members of the United States Senate were briefed in private on the impending COVID-19 pandemic that was about to hit the United States.  Immediately after that briefing, four Republican senators and one Democrat began making stock transactions that appear to have been based on the information that they received in that briefing.  To wit, it looked as though they were trading stocks based on insider information, or, what is known as "insider-trading."

Those five senators - Burr (R-NC), Perdue (R-GA), Loeffler (R-GA), Inhofe (R-OK), and Feinstein (D-CA) - all indignantly proclaimed their innocence, with most saying that other people routinely made all of their transactions for them without any personal input from the senators.  Most expressed a desire for their friends on the Senate Ethics committee to investigate their alleged indiscretions, but William Barr's Justice Department stepped in and took the lead in the inquiries.

Senator Burr, who appeared to have been personally involved in 33 stock transactions immediately after he was briefed on the pandemic, received most of the bad press during the heyday of the scandal.  The FBI seized his cell phone, and Fox "News" pundit Tucker Carlson went on-air and called for Burr's resignation from the Senate.  As a result of the stock crisis, Burr stepped down, at least temporarily, from his chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and he had already announced his intention not to run for re-election to the Senate in 2022.

(To Richard Burr's credit, insider-trading in Congress did not become illegal until the passage of the STOCK - Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge - Act of 2012, and Burr was one of three US Senators to vote against that act - so he was not being hypocritical, at least in that sense.)

In May William Barr's Department of Justice closed out its inquiries into Loeffler, Inhofe, and Feinstein without action, a move that Loeffler and Inhofe went on to refer to as "a complete exoneration," even though the matter was simply dropped.  The Justice Department also eventually declined to press charges against Perdue.  The matter against Richard Burr is still pending.

No member of the Senate has been officially charged with insider-trading or related crimes.  No fines have been paid and no time has been served.   Martha Stewart paid for her crimes with a big fine, time behind bars, and a serious blow to her professional reputation.  She admitted her mistakes and got on with her life.    America can once again respect Martha Stewart.

Perhaps one day we will be able to respect our political class as well, but that day is not here yet.

This Time Next Year

by Pa Rock
Traveling Fool

I used to have two definitions of "hell."   One involved being at sea on a Disney cruise ship with a thousands of screaming kids - and the other was being trapped on a tour bus crammed with complaining old people.  About a dozen years ago I survived my first foray into the bowels of hell when my son, grandson, and I took a Disney Cruise across the Caribbean, a trip that was far less awful than I had anticipated.  In fact, if I am going to be completely honest, I would have to admit that it was a lot of fun watching Nick and Boone each experience cruising and exploring the islands of the Caribbean for the first time in their lives.

Now, several years on and well established in retirement, I am looking toward another encounter with hell.  This adventure will be a senior citizens' bus tour to New York City next Thanksgiving to see the famous Macy's Parade.

My sister (who is also retired) and I, both being Macys and cousins (many times removed) of the founders of the famous department store, tried to take that same tour back in 2016.  We registered with a tour company out of southwest Missouri, paid all of our fees, and were a couple of months short of departure when the company suddenly cancelled the tour and refunded all payments.  There had been some terrorist activity in New York, and a couple of fellow travelers had backed out - leaving the company short of the number of people that it needed for the trip to be profitable. 

For the next couple of years the tour company never offered the Macy's Parade tour again, but this year the new catalogues revealed that the trip would resume over Thanksgiving of 2021 - and those who wanted to go needed to start getting their names on the roster.  Abigail and I each still had the trip on our "bucket lists," and she elected me to call the company and get our names on its roster.

I made the call earlier this week and spoke to a nice lady who sounded to be in about my age range.  I requested a flyer regarding the trip and told the lady that my sister and I were interested in going along with the tour.  She spent about ten minutes going over the details with me - mentioning the name "Macy" a dozen times or so.  Then she asked if she could put our names on the list.  I agreed, and she said, "Okay, Rocky, I will need your last name."

"Macy," I told her.

"Yes," she replied, "And is that M-A-S-S-E-Y?"

"I't's "M-A-C-Y," I answered back, with a bit of a chill in my voice.

"Oh.   OH!   OH, MY!  Like the store!  Well, you MUST go on this trip!

But she stopped short of giving me a family discount!

Gail and I have travelled together before.  In 2015 we took a cruise along part of the Alaskan coast, and we had plans to go to Nantucket - with our favorite cousin - last March just as the pandemic broke out, but cancelled those at the last minute.  Hopefully we will be able to get that one rescheduled.  We are also talking about driving to Pacific Northwest this spring to see my Oregon grandchildren.

All of that upcoming travel is, of course, dependent on the COVID pandemic being brought under control.   We've all been at home too long now and it's time to go out and kick up some road dust!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Biden's Government: Experienced, Qualified, and Looks Like America

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist 

Joe Biden has begun announcing his picks for national security posts and a few cabinet positions, and it is seriously looking like real human beings are about to retake control of the government.  Two outstanding Biden choices, IMHO, are former Senator and Secretary of State John Kerry who will assume a new position as "Climate Envoy for National Security," and Antony Blinken who will be the next US Secretary of State.

John Kerry, who was the Democratic candidate for President in 2004, helped to establish the Paris Climate Accord while serving as Secretary of State in 2015.   Donald Trump, in one of his many fits of pique, pulled us out of that worldwide climate agreement, but Biden and Kerry will quickly correct Trump's folly. The new position is being described as a "cabinet-level" job that will also have a seat on the National Security Council, both strong indicators that concern regarding climate change will be a driving force in the Biden administration.

Antony Blinken, the in-coming Secretary of State, has a long history of working in the upper echelons of government as well as plenty of experience working with Joe Biden.  During the latter years of the Obama administration Blinken served as a Deputy US Secretary of State and was central enough in the Obama presidency to have made it into the famous photo of the group in the White House hovered around the television watching the SEALs take out Bin Laden.  Blinken's spouse, Evan Ryan, was also a State Department employee who served as an aid to Hillary Clinton.

In addition to having government and diplomatic chops, Antony Blinken also exudes some star power.  In 2016 he starred in a public service television spot with Grover the Muppet where they talked about refugees and the importance of children accepting these strangers into their schools and their lives.  And Blinken may become best known for being the first US Secretary of State to ever front his own rock band. Blinken is the guitar-playing lead singer of a band that he formed - and apparently named -  called "ABlinken."   (Say it out loud for the full effect!)   Critics have described the band - some of whose music is available on "Spotify" - as a cross between Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers.   Blinken, who plays a Martin guitar,  refers to his group as a "wonk rock" band.

(Mike Pompeo's security detail had to deal with things like taking the family dog to the groomers and picking up dry-cleaning.  Hopefully Blinken's won't be bothered with having to clean up trashed hotel rooms!)

Other Biden announcements show the President-Elect's interest in forming a diversified government.  Biden has selected Alejandro Mayorkas, whose Jewish parents emigrated from Cuba when Alejandro was only one-year-old, to be the next Director of Homeland Security, the first Hispanic American and the first immigrant to ever hold that position.  Biden has chosen Avril Haines, a former deputy director of the CIA to be the first female Director of National Intelligence, and Linda Thomas Greenfield, a black woman who was a former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, to be the US Ambassador to the United Nations.  And Biden's most recent announcement is that former Fed Chair Janet Yellen will become the first female US Secretary of the Treasury, a position that has been held exclusively by males for its entire 230-plus-year history!

And, of course, President Joseph R. Biden will be ably assisted by Vice-President Kamala Harris, the first female - and black person - and Asian American to ever hold that position!

Joe Biden is piecing together an American government that is experienced, well qualified, and looks like America.  Better days are definitely ahead!

Rock on, Joe!  You are off to a terrific start!

Trump in Full Sabotage Mode

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

People who know Donald Trump well, from the time before he fancied himself a political messiah, warn that hie is, at heart, a childish bully who will destroy things that he cannot have.   Some had already cautioned that if he lost his re-election to the presidency he would "burn the place down" on the way out the door.

Joe Biden will be able to fix some of the damage that Donald Trump has perpetrated on America, but as Trump heads to the door, he now seems to be intent on making Biden's emergency repairs as difficult as possible.  As a case in point, Trump announced back in May that the US would withdraw from the "Open Skies" treaty that the US had joined nearly three decades ago.   Leaving that treaty required six months notice, so our withdrawal became effective this week.

The "Open Skies" treaty was first proposed by President Eisenhower more than sixty years ago following the US involvement in World War II and the Korean War.  It's premise was that member nations would have authority to fly over each other's territory to monitor military movements and activity.  It was a joint exercise in keeping everyone honest.  A treaty to that effect was finally signed by twenty-six countries in 1992, and by 2002 when it went into effect it had thirty-four signatories.  The United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia were all among the original members.

Between the years 2002 and 2019 members of the "Open Skies" treaty flew over 1,500 observation missions.  The United States, which flew about a third of this missions, operated with two special observation planes  that were housed at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha.

As the Trump administration announced this week that we had officially ceased membership in the "Open Skies" treaty, it also announced that the two observation planes were now excess military equipment and would be given or sold to our allies.  Special cameras and sensors aboard the planes were also being  sold or given away.

Some are suggesting that this rush to get rid of the planes and equipment is being done so that the Biden administration will not be able to easily rejoin the agreement.  Some are also suggesting that the primary benefactor of this military garage sale will be Russia who will no longer have to worry about being monitored by the Americans.

Some are even going to far as to suggest that this is all a great big glorious twofer for Trump.  He gets to stick it to Biden on his way out the door, and he also hands Putin a very nice parting gift!

It will be such a relief to once again have a decent human being heading our government!

Monday's Poetry: "A Litany in Time of Plague"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

My congressman, a forty-year-old Republican bachelor by the name of Jason Smith who sleeps rent-free in his office any of those rare times when Congress is in session, sent out his weekly e-mail newsletter this morning.  Congressman Smith used his lead piece in this week's newsletter to gripe about government officials who shutter businesses and limit the size of public gatherings to fight the spreading pandemic.   He seems to feel that those awful bureaucrats are killing free enterprise and stomping the joy out of the holidays!

My congressman is thankful for Donald Trump because he sees Trump as the person who caused the new vaccines to be created, and he also sees Trump as making America safer from the pandemic by keeping diseased immigrants on their side of our southern border with his expensive picket fence that he calls a "wall."

My congressman is, of course, full of baloney.

Here are the facts:

The COVID pandemic has taken hold and flourished under the Trump administration.  Trump and his team got rid of the White House plans for dealing with a pandemic in their rush to throw out all things Obama, and then when an actual pandemic surfaced, they were slow to admit its existence and to respond.  The administration's tardy response and constant stream of denials hampered contagious disease professionals from gearing up to effectively combat the looming threat to our nation's health.  National efforts to contain the disease were half-hearted at best, and soon the White House was openingly fighting state and local efforts to regulate businesses, schools, and gatherings in an effort to control the spread of the virus.  

Now, less than a year into the crisis, the United States of America leads all countries in the world in both the number of positive cases of COVID-19 and in the number of deaths due to the disease.  Over 20% of the world's known cases of the rampaging disease have come from the United States, and over 18% of the deaths have been in our country as well.  Those are shocking statistics for a country that was, until recently, regarded as one of the most scientifically advanced nations on earth.

If Congressman Jason Smith wants to acknowledge Donald Trump for something, perhaps he should recognize him for increasing the medical vulnerability of the entire nation by ignoring the perils imposed by a national health crisis - and for trying to relieve twenty million Americans of their health insurance during the crisis.

Today's poem was penned by 16th century English playwright, poet, and satirist Thomas Nashe.  It is entitled "A Litany in the Time of Plague."  Nashe wrote the poem in 1593 as an outbreak of bubonic plague was invading London.   The poem makes the point that the plague does not discriminate - it can kill anyone - then or now.  

A Litany in Time of Plague

by Thomas Nashe

Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss;

This world uncertain is;

Fond are life's lustful joys;

Death proves them all but toys;

None from his darts can fly;

I am sick, I must die.

    Lord, have mercy on us!

 

Rich men, trust not in wealth,

Gold cannot buy you health;

Physic himself must fade.

All things to end are made,

The plague full swift goes by;

I am sick, I must die.

    Lord, have mercy on us!

 

Beauty is but a flower

Which wrinkles will devour;

Brightness falls from the air;

Queens have died young and fair;

Dust hath closed Helen's eye.

I am sick, I must die.

    Lord, have mercy on us!

 

Strength stoops unto the grave,

Worms feed on Hector brave;

Swords may not fight with fate,

Earth still holds open her gate.

"Come, come!" the bells do cry.

I am sick, I must die.

    Lord, have mercy on us!

 

Wit with his wantonness

Tasteth death's bitterness;

Hell's executioner

Hath no ears for to hear

What vain art can reply.

I am sick, I must die.

    Lord, have mercy on us!

 

Haste, therefore, each degree,

To welcome destiny;

Heaven is our heritage,

Earth but a player's stage;

Mount we unto the sky.

I am sick, I must die.

    Lord, have mercy on us!

Party at the Pence's!

by Pa Rock

Party Pooper

This week is Thanksgiving, a time when extended families usually gather to celebrate the start of the holiday season with feasting, football, and lots of family fun.  But like just about everything else in 2020, this year's celebrating has been modified due to the COVID-19 pandemic that is surging across the nation and around the globe.  The Center for Disease Control (CDC) is recommending that families do not travel and assemble in large groups for this year's celebrations, and the national coronavirus task force, which is headed by Vice President Mike Pence, has said that all indoor gatherings should be limited.

But Pence is not a regular attender of the meetings of the task force that he heads, so he may have not gotten the memo.   And whether or not his wife, Second Lady Mother Pence, knew of the official government guidance or not, she is not letting it spoil her holiday fun.

Yesterday Mother sent out invitations to members of the "Congressional Club" for a soiree at her and Mikey's official government housing - the old Naval Observatory in Washington DC.  The event, dubbed a "Christmas Craft" party, will be on December 9th at 1:00 p.m.  The email invitation recommended guests dress in "holiday attire," but it failed to address the topic of face masks, so they must be assumed to be optional.

The Pence's are very uptight upright and religious individuals, so perhaps they have arranged for divine interference to keep the rampaging disease at bay during Mother's party.

The "Congressional Club" is a social club for the spouses of senators, representatives, cabinet members, and Supreme Court justices.  It was founded more than a century ago and is located in a distinctive classical building with a domed rotunda that sits at the corner of 16th Street and New Hampshire in Washington, DC.  It is listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings.

Back when the Congressional Club was founded, all of the spouses were "wives," but that is no longer true today - so several "husbands" of prominent government officials may also be in attendance.  Mother is open-minded enough to probably handle that, but her holiday spirt may fade in the event that any same-sex spouses try to join the festivities.

If only they all were wearing masks, then at least she could act like she didn't know!

Hang tough, America.  The craziness ends on January 20th! 

Money Talks, Rittenhouse Walks

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Last August police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shot a twenty-nine-year-old black man, Jacob Blake, in the back seven times while his three horrified children watched.  Blake, who was unarmed, did not die from the incident, but it is doubtful that he will ever walk again.  National outrage developed over the shooting, and a few nights later a large public demonstration took place in Kenosha.  Three demonstrators at that protest were shot - all by one shooter - a seventeen-year-old youth from Illinois who was running the streets with a Smith and Wesson AR-15 style rifle and a 30-round magazine - a weapon that the youth was not legally allowed to own.

That young shooter, who felt that he was there to defend property rights and the local police, was named Kyle Rittenhouse.   He was the only person at the protest to actually fire shots at anyone.  Rittenhouse had used his government stimulus check to buy the weapon, and a friend had made the purchase for him.

As Rittenhouse rampaged with his fully-automatic weapon, two protesters, both white, tried to take him down.   One man, Anthony M. Huber, aged 26, tried to disarm the boy using his skateboard, and the other, Joseph "Jojo" Rosenbaum, may have been armed with a chain.   Kyle Rittenhouse killed them both.  The young shooter also wounded 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz.

After gunning down his three victims, Rittenhouse fled to the police line and held his automatic weapon in the air as he passed through the blue line to safety.  After that he got his his truck and drove home to Illinois - along with his gun.  Rittenhouse was arrested the following day in his hometown of Antioch, Illinois, and kept in juvenile detention until finally being extradited back to Wisconsin last week where he was booked on a pair of homicide charges.  Bail was set at $2 million because he was considered to be a flight risk.

Yesterday a group of conservative activists presented the court with the $2 million bail money, and accused murderer Kyle Rittenhouse was set free - at least for the time-being.  A major portion of the bail seems to have been provided by Mike Lindell, the showman CEO of "My Pillow," and former child star Ricky Schroder also appears to have been a contributor.

Some had opposed offering any bail to Rittenhouse for fear that some of the nation's extreme militias might take him into hiding rather than risk seeing him get a lengthy prison sentence as a result of the two murders.

The decision whether to grant bail or not, as well as how much, both appear to be arbitrary and capricious.  Rittenhouse walks free because of the availability of bail and moneyed supporters - after allegedly committing two murders - and others whose crimes are more political in nature - and not deadly - like whistleblower Reality Winner, remain under lock-and-key because bail is denied.  

To some it might even appear that the whole notion of bail is class-based.    Those with money or connections can stay in the comfort of their own home (or go on vacation) while they wait to go to trail, and everyone else can cool their heels in a cell - even though they have yet to be convicted of anything.

If Kyle Rittenhouse had been black, would any bail have been set -and would it have been attainable?

Is it any wonder that the people sometimes rise up in protest?

Trump Tries to Rig Michigan Vote

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist 

It's been two-and-a-half weeks since the presidential election, and tomorrow will make two full weeks since the major news services called the election for Joe Biden, but yet Trump clings on and refuses to acknowledge the reality of his not-even-close loss to Biden.  Trump has tweeted about massive vote irregularities and railed that the election was "stolen" from him - and he has gone to court in multiple states to wage his claims of being the victim of fraud.    

However, Trump's lawyers who lie with ease outside of court are more cautious in front of judges - and they generally show up in court without anything more substantial than Trump's unhinged ravings.  The "evidence" of election fraud is slim to non-existent - and the cases are routinely crumbling in court and being dismissed or bounced out.

So Trump tweets, and tweets, and tweets - and spreads his message on social media like liquid hog manure on a fallow pasture.  He was robbed, dammit, robbed - and his people must rise up and forcibly take back their democracy!

But the courts have failed Donald Trump, and so far the farmers with their pitchforks have not marched on Washington, DC, so now he is looking at committing his fraud through the governing bodies that have a role to play in the elections.  

This week there was a brouhaha in Wayne County, Michigan, when county canvassers deadlocked 2-2 on certifying the county vote.  The county, which is predominantly black, had voted heavily for Biden.   After the county board of canvassers deadlocked, a public outcry seemed to pressure the county canvassers, and the two republicans changed their votes to confirm.

Donald Trump picked up the telephone and personally called one of the two Wayne county canvassers who had balked at certifying Wayne County.  He said that he was concerned and just checking on her safety.  At that point both of the wavering canvassers decided that they wanted to rescind their votes in favor of Wayne County's certification for Biden, but their votes had been cast and the recensions weren't accepted.  Now the state canvassers, again two Democrats and two Republicans, will meet next week, and if they certify the results, the state electors officially belong to Biden.  But, if there is another deadlock, the matter will go to court.

So Trump pivoted to Michigan's GOP-controlled legislature.   This morning two GOP leaders of that body - the Speaker of the Michigan House and the leader of the Michigan Senate - are enroute to Washington, DC, at the invitation of Trump, to meet with him at the White House.  That's quite a coup for a couple of members of an obscure state legislature to be invited to the White House to meet personally with the President of the United States.  What could he possibly want to discuss?  

It almost feels as though Trump may be trying to assert himself into the state's selection of which electors will represent Michigan in the Electoral College count.  One thing is absolutely certain, Trump is not checking on their safety - or well-being.   Other people's problems have never been any concern to him whatsoever!

One former Michigander, Utah's Republican Senator Mitt Romney, had this to say on Twitter this morning about Trump's meddling in Michigan's electoral process:

"Having failed to make even a plausible case of widespread fraud or conspiracy before any court of law, The President has now resorted to overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overthrow the election.  It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting President."

So far Mitt Romney's tweet has not drawn a response from Donald Trump or from Mitt's niece, Ronna Romney McDaniel, the Chairwoman of the National Republican Party.  Ronna Romney McDaniel is a resident of Michigan, and her grandfather - and Mitt's father - was George Romney, a nationally-known Republican governor of Michigan back in the 1960's.

Thank you, Mitt Romney, for exhibiting the honor and courage to call it like it is, and for being an on-going proponent of fair and honest elections.  You do your family and our country proud!

My Friends and Neighbors

by Pa Rock
Rural Resident

I waited until this morning to dig through the Missouri election vote totals.  I knew the results would be depressing, but they were even worse than I had anticipated.  Missouri cast around three million votes for president, and Trump took 1,717,974 of those - or 56.8%, and Biden captured 1,253,660 or 41.4%.   The Republican ticket carried every part of the state with three exceptions:  the metropolitan areas of Kansas City and St. Louis and the liberal area around Columbia, the home of the University of Missouri.  The "outstate" rural areas were all extremely red, and the percentages of votes in those areas tilted much more solidly toward Trump.    

As a case in point, my county, Howell (Howl!), cast a little less than 20,000 presidential votes.   Trump and Mother's boy, Mike Pence, garnered 15,174 of those votes or 81.41% of all votes cast for president in the county.  Biden and Kamala Harris pulled only 3,214 votes or 17.24 percent (and one of those was mine!).  The Libertarian pulled a little over one percent, and a few other minor parties got a handful of votes.

Howell County was particularly disappointing, at least to me, because there are educated people living here.   The county has two fairly nice hospitals and several smaller medical clinics, a four year branch of Missouri Southern University in West Plains, and public schools in every community.  In fact, the city of West Plains has one of the better rural school systems in the state.  Yet four out of five Howell County voters cast their ballots for Trump!

I'm concerned that many of my friends and neighbors - and other local residents - still have not processed the fact that Trump actually lost the election - just as Trump himself seems to have not processed his loss either.  The Trump signs are still up in many yards, and yesterday a pickup truck supporting two large Trump flags blew past my house.  What happens when these delusional diehards wake one morning soon to the realization that Trump really did lose - and he is really moving out of the White House?  Will they accept reality and move on,  or will their paranoia and delusions metastasize into something tangible and sinister -  like overt acts of hatred and violence?

Hillary Clinton spent four years being relatively quiet and staying out of the limelight after her loss to Trump in 2016.  The Obamas, as well, kept low profiles at a time when much of the nation would have liked to have seen them voicing opposition as Trump moved openly to destroy all of what President Obama had achieved while in office.  Unfortunately, sitting quietly on the sidelines does not fit the Trump profile, and there is a real possibility that he will work to disrupt a Biden presidency - and one way to do that would be to keep his supporters stirred up and angry.

And his supporters are my friends and neighbors - the people who keep this little community working.  

The future may be unnecessarily - and unfairly - difficult.  Trump will own that, but he won't care - and America will have to live with it.

Trump Continues to Deny Reality

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Yesterday Donald Trump fired the top cyber security official at the Department of Homeland Security because the man had the effrontery to say that the recent US elections had been relatively problem-free, a sentiment that flew directly in the face of the baseless accusations of election fraud that Trump and his GOP tools had been making.

Christopher C. Krebs, a young lawyer who had been appointed by Trump to head the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS as its original director, was widely recognized by members of both parties as handling the job well.

Trump fired Krebs "effective immediately" over what he regarded as Krebs' "highly inaccurate" statement regarding the security of the recent election.  His statement on the firing read in part:

"The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud - including dead people voting.  Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, 'glitches' in the voting machines which changed...votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more.  Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency."

Trump's many legal maneuvers and lawsuits challenging the election results are quickly crumbling in the courts, and his mainstay of support in his struggle to remain in the White House now seems to be Republican politicians and office holders, many of whom live in fear of what his wrath could do to them politically if they broke ranks.

My own congressman, a GOP brass-plated Trump tool named Jason Smith (MO-8), sent out a newsletter over the weekend whose lead article was on election fraud along with a defense of Trump's claims of fraud.  The congressman, like Trump himself, was light on specifics to back his spurious assertions.

It's more than a bit ironic that these proponents of "free and fair elections" which cater to "legal voters" had nothing to say four years ago when Russia actually was compromising the integrity of our nation's elections.

Concede, Trump.  Your time at the head of this reality show is fast drawing to a close.  You have been voted out  by a clear and overwhelming majority of the electorate.  The United States of America is moving on - and you will as well - whether you want to or not.

Lindsey Graham Takes his Election-Meddling on the Road

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist 

While the term "honorable Republican" may sound like an oxymoron and is obviously a political rarity, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certainly seems to be one.  Raffensperger, the chief elections officer for the Peach State, has come under increasing scorn from fellow Republicans for his failure to throw this month's presidential election to Donald Trump.  With all votes counted, Joe Biden has a 14,000 vote lead in the state, and a mandatory hand-recount is underway.  Raffensperger, for his part, expresses confidence in the original vote totals and publicly doubts that the recount will make much difference.

But the level of party pressure being applied to the Georgia Secretary of State is remarkable, and it seems to rooted in - or very close to - the White House.

Several days ago both of Georgia's United States senators called on Raffensberger to resign over what they  said were election irregularities - although they senators were noticeably light on specifics.  The incumbent senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, are each involved in run-off elections on January 5th which could end their political careers - and it would seem that pissing off the state's top election official might not be the smartest move they could make, but that's what they chose to do - in tandem.  (More than a few people familiar with Georgia politics have suggested that the senators may have been encouraged by Donald Trump or close associates of Trump to go after Raffensperger or risk some wrathful tweets from Trump that would interfere with their January run-offs.)

But Brad Raffensperger would not be bullied by a pair of United States senators, even if they were from his own state and his own political party.  He had run an honest election and he stood his ground.

So Team Trump coughed up another U.S. senator to run interference in the Georgia vote recount.  Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee and also a Republican, rang up the Georgia Secretary of State for a little chitchat.  Soon after that call concluded, Secretary of State Raffensperger contacted the Washington Post and reported that Senator Graham had encouraged him to throw out some legally cast absentee ballots in order to help Donald Trump carry Georgia.  

Senator Graham denied that he had asked Raffensperger to throw out any ballots, but he did admit asking about the subject of "signature matching."   Raffensperger said that Graham has asked about his ability to throw out ALL absentee ballots in counties that had higher rates of mismatching signatures.

Some are now wondering if Lindsey Graham has used his political clout to influence the election outcomes in other states, and there are even suggestions being made that perhaps Graham's own election victory in South Carolina two weeks ago should be questioned - and perhaps audited.

Attempting to use one's political stature to influence a vote count in a neighboring state almost sounds like a federal crime, doesn't it?  

Maybe a resignation is in order, Lindsey.

Trump Abandons U.S. to COVID

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Remember the good old days back in early spring when we only had a dozen or so cases of COVID-19 reported and Trump was promising that those would disappear within a few weeks?   When the numbers began growing he eventually created an official government "task force" to deal with it, and he put Mike Pence in charge of that, a choice that seemed to insure noting substantial would get done.  But people began looking to the task force for guidance, and particularly for advice from a couple of doctors who were serving with the group.  The regular briefings of the task force became so popular that Trump decided that perhaps he should run the briefings and soak up the available limelight himself.  Those briefings quickly drifted away from information about the pandemic and toward the self-promotion of Donald John Trump - and eventually people became disinterested and Trump quit attending

Yesterday we learned that Trump has not attended a coronavirus task force meeting in more than five months.  Oh, the group still meets, and Mike Pence is sometimes in attendance, but not Trump.  The man who has been encouraging us all along to behave as though the virus was not real, or at least not as big of a threat as some would have us believe - and the man who himself spent four days in the hospital when he contracted the virus - that man has abandoned us to the killer pandemic!

The United States is now officially into the third wave of the pandemic.  Winter is coming on, more people will be spending time indoors, and this wave looks as though it will be a real doozy.   A week ago today, on Monday, November 9th, the United States hit the 10 million case mark for COVID-19, and yesterday afternoon, just six days after that record was set, our country hit 11 million cases.  According to information gathered by Johns Hopkins University, we are cranking out in excess of 150,000 new cases a day - and we added a million cases in just over six days!

Currently every state is experiencing an increase in COVID-19 cases and thirty-eight states are seeing rapid increases with over 1,000 new cases reported each day.  The numbers are soaring, the cold weather is setting in, and the big family holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's are all looming just over the horizon.  This could truly be an horrific winter!

But Donald Trump has lost interest in fighting the pandemic and he has abandoned us to COVID.  Trump is focused on playing golf, and maintaining his hold on the White House so that he can . . . play more golf.  COVID-19 just does not have a place in his busy schedule!

Those of us who manage to survive until the next administration takes office on January 20th will no doubt see brighter days than those we were forced to endure under Trump.  Two vaccines have done well on initial tests, and the end is, at long last, in sight.  The United States of America will have survived COVID-19, and it will have survived Trump - with no thanks at all to Donald Turmp!

Glory be!

Million Maggot March and Other Tales from the Darkside

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Yesterday massive crowds of red-capped Magats, race-baiting Proud Boys, anti-maskers, conspiracy theorists, and all manner of Trump cultists were supposed to meet-up in Washington DC, for a million-person march in support of Donald Trump, an event that was to highlight their belief that somehow the election had been stolen from the man who - with the help of Russia - had stolen the one before that.  Some news accounts put the number of people who actually did show up at closer to 10,000 - or roughly just 990,000 short of the organizer's goal.  Of those who did show, some were counter-protesters from various elements of the Antifa movement, and quite a few were members of the press who were hoping to see some confrontation between the two groups and maybe even get to witness the police busting some heads.

But everything stayed relatively quiet.

The crowd size may have been diminished because the city government of Washington, DC, does not allow the open-carry of weapons on the streets of our nation's capital - and what fun would marching be if you couldn't show off your penis-extenders?  Others may have taken their cue from the grand silence that has settled around Trump and decided if the boss wasn't that fired up, why should they be?  There are lots of other things that you can be doing on a nice Saturday in November.

Trump hasn't been totally silent since Election Day, and especially since the Saturday after the election when the major news outlets began calling the election in favor of Biden.  His lawyers have filed suits challenging various aspects of the election in several states, but most of those suits have either been bounced out of court or soon will be.  Trump has fired off a few angry tweets maintaining that he won and will not concede no matter what the press and the states have to say, but other than tweeting he has remained noticeably out of public view - and blessedly silent.

Yesterday was Saturday, and Saturday is one of the days each week when Trump feels entitled to a golf outing.  He was in his motorcade yesterday heading for his golf club in Virgina when his official procession came within sight of the protesters who were in DC supporting  his claim that he had won the election.  When the group saw Trump's motorcade, they swarmed across a busy thoroughfare to wave greetings at the slick, black government cars, and Trump waved back.

He didn't stop his procession and get out of the car to address the demonstrators and fire them up, but he did wave.

That's a memory that can keep them warm this winter.  

Trump waved at them.

What a man!

Will President Pence and Mother Flotus Be Trump's Final Outrage?

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Social media is abuzz this morning with speculation that Trump will resign before his term officially ends at noon on January 20th, and that his replacement, President Mike Pence, will immediately grant him a full pardon for any and all federal crimes that he may have ever committed.  A slick move like that would take a fair bit of legal worry off of Trump's table.

And while the notion is somewhat shocking, those of us of a certain age can remember much the same thing occurring in 1974 when Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace and his replacement, President Gerald Ford, granted Nixon an unconditional pardon.  The public didn't like it, and Ford's press secretary, Ron Nessen, resigned over the matter - and the pardon was also thought to have been a crucial factor in Ford's loss to Jimmy Carter when he ran for President two years later.

But a Trump resignation and pardon would be different from Nixon's in that it would occur after Trump has already lost his re-election bid and it would be within weeks of the new President being sworn into office.   There would be little pretense of Mike Pence being an actual President, and, in fact, the egomaniacal Trump would probably wait until there were just a few days left in his term, thus denying Pence and Mother time to unpack in the White House.

(William Henry Harrison had the shortest tenure of any US President. After giving the longest inaugural address ever - in a cold rain - he developed what was likely pneumonia and died 31 days later.)  

Of course before Trump submits his resignation he would also be likely to pardon his adult children and any of his administration misfits whom he deemed worthy of his divine intercession.  He has also made noises at various times during his administration of pardoning himself, but that appears to be something that the courts (even those he so carefully stacked) would not tolerate.

There is also a question of state crimes which presumably would not be covered under a presidential pardon.  There are potential battles looming with the state of New York for Trump and his family organization - and there may also be international legal matters as well that have to be addressed.  Yesterday it was revealed that Scotland is investigating Trump enterprises within its borders.  A pardon from Pence would lighten the load, but other legal dangers would still abound for the aging grifter and his family.

So if you see any of those commemorative plates celebrating "Joe Biden - Our 46th President," snap them up because they will be collector's items if Biden instead turns out to be our 47th President.  Trump may be down, but he is not out - yet - and clearly he is good for at least one more world-class outrage!

And what could be more outrageous than President Pence and Mother Flotus?

Have mercy!

The McRib is About to Rise Again!

by Pa Rock
Junk Food Junkie

Mark those calendars!  The McRib, McDonald's McMessiest sandwich, will be making its much anticipated return engagement at US locations on Wednesday, December 2nd.  The McRib, which first appeared on McDonald's menus nearly forty years ago, will be featured this year in all 14,400 of the company's US restaurant locations.   In times past the speciality sandwich - an all pork patty shaped like a rack of ribs and smothered in barbecue sauce along with a generous helping of onions and pickles (Can't you just taste it!) - has been featured at only select locations, causing long lines salivating customers.    But this time all of the outlets will carry the novelty sandwich, shortening the lines during the pandemic.

The price will vary by location - but not the quality - or the great taste!

McDonald's was founded in 1955 by California entrepreneur Ray Kroc after he discovered a pair of brothers - Dick and Mac McDonald - operating a hamburger joint in San Bernardino that was known for quick service because of the limited menu - burgers, fries, and beverages.  Kroc soon bought the borothers out, and his new hamburger chain caught on quickly.   Within a few years it had spread into numerous states and had sold over 100 million burgers.

Today McDonalds has a worldwide presence in 120 countries with 37,855 stores - and well over 200,000 employees.

The McDonalds corporation owns some of its own stores, but most are franchised out to others to own and manage, while always using McDonalds products and maintaining the company's high standards of quality, service, cleanliness, and value.  Today there are several speciality sandwiches that are always on the menu, items like the Filet of Fish and the family of McMuffin breakfast sandwiches, and most of those speciality sandwiches were developed by the company's franchisees.  However, the company has an on-going policy of only releasing its famous McRib sandwiches sporadically and in varying locations, a business practice which they believe helps to keep the McRib's popularity high through the principals of limited availability and anticipation.

Well, anticipate no more.  The McRib will be back on December 2nd - at every McDonald's location in the  United States of America!  God bless it!

Wayne

by Pa Rock
TV Junkie

Last week I came across a new series streaming on Amazon Prime that quickly captured my attention.  "Wayne," at this point, has only one season (10 episodes) completed and available, but it has plenty of room to expand into several more seasons.

"Wayne" is the story of a sixteen-year-old boy living in the depressed Boston suburb of Brockton, Massachusetts, who seems on the surface at least, to be an incorrigible youth who has no interest in staying in school and is prone to violence.  But Wayne (Mark McKenna) is a much more complex character than his outlaw exterior would indicate.

Wayne lives alone with his father, a factory worker who is bed-ridden and dying of a cancer which he contracted as a result of his work.  Wayne has an older brother who fought overseas and now has no contact with the family,  Wayne's mother ran off with another man when Wayne was five and moved to Florida, leaving young Wayne in the care of his dad.

The company that developed this program describes Wayne as "a young Dirty Harry with a heart of gold."    He is clearly not afraid of anything, and obviously has a high tolerance for pain - if he can even feel pain at all.    Wayne, who takes it on himself to defend the world's victims, is constantly being beaten down - and always rises for more.  In scene in the first episode Wayne is preparing to fight a group of young thugs outside of what appears to be an abandoned factory.  Before the brawl can commence, however, Wayne throws a piece of ice through one of two factory windows.  An angry young man emerges from the building and proceeds to beat the hell out of Wayne, much to the delight of the local gang who now no longer have to do it themselves.  As the man turns to re-enter the building, Wayne takes another piece of ice and breaks out the remaining window.

When Wayne's mother abandoned the family eleven years earlier, she and her boyfriend took Wayne's dad's mint '79 Trans AM.  Now, every year, the boyfriend taunts Wayne's dad by sending him  a picture of him (the boyfriend) polishing the car.  Wayne's dad had intended on someday going to Ocala, Florida, and retrieving his car, but, now with the cancer, it is too late.

Wayne's dad dies during the first episode and Wayne burns down their rental house with the corpse of his father inside. Wayne then visits the landlord who lives in an adjacent house and who has been giving them grief over the rent and threatening an eviction - and he points the fire out to the enraged landlord.  The young avenger then streaks away on his father's old two-stroke 70's Yamaha road bike and heads over to the home of Del (Ciara Bravo), a fifteen-old girl from a highly dysfunctional home of her own whom he has just met - and Wayne, after physically subduing her two teenage brothers (by dropping a television from an upstairs landing onto one of them - and then biting off most of her father's nose - takes Del and they head out on the bike to Florida where Wayne plans on righting an old wrong by  taking his father's car back.

And at this point Wayne and Del become some modern variant of Bonnie and Clyde, raising hell - though often unintentionally - wherever they go as they make their way slowly down the east coast heading to Ocala, Florida.  But they are being followed as they go.

Del's drunken father and her two juvenile delinquent brothers report her "kidnapping" to Officer Jay of the Brockton PD.   Officer Jay is a kind-hearted and fairly quiet cop who looks into the matter and decides that Wayne is a troubled youth who deserves saving.  He and one of his sergeants take time off from the Brockton PD in order to travel to Florida as civilians to intercept Wayne and Del before they get into serious trouble there.

Also Wayne's high school principal, a man who has thrown Wayne out of school on numerous occasions, decides that he, too, will drive to Florida and try to intercede on Wayne's behalf.  The principal takes one of Wayne's friends along for the ride.

And then, of course, Del's father and two brothers, also decide to head out to Ocala!

"Wayne" is not a show to enjoy with the whole family, especially if the family contains young children.   About every third word begins with the letter "f," and the violence is graphic and usually shocking.   At one point, for instance, Wayne nails the hands of  a villainous day-laborer contractor to his transport van with a nail gun, and at another he pours a pan of boiling ravioli over the head of a kid who had been blackmailing Del - and then there was that biting-off-the-nose thing.  But extreme language and barbarism aside, "Wayne" is also a very, very funny show with strong messages about friendship, love, and commitment.  It can be grossly shocking one minute, and touchingly endearing the next.

In some ways "Wayne" is more Romeo and Juliet than it is Bonnie and Clyde.

The writing is highly original, the plotting intense, and the overall product unlike anything that you have probably ever seen before.   "Wayne" is satisfying on both an intellectual and a visceral level.   Those who have the stomach to make it into the second episode will very likely get hooked.

Here's hoping that a Season 2 is forthcoming!

America Does Not Like Sore Losers!

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Emily W. Murphy is a lawyer and a political hack who currently serves as Administrator of the General Services Administration, the agency which controls our nation's civilian workforce.  Murphy was appointed to her job by Donald Trump in 2017, and she apparently feels a deep and abiding loyalty to Trump and his presidency, a loyalty so profound that she is allowing it to interfere with the performance of her job.

One of Emily Murphy's job functions is to provide transition assistance in the form of money and office space to incoming administrations once it becomes generally accepted that a new president has been elected.  But Murphy has refused so far to recognize the obvious win of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and she is currently wallowing in her fifteen minutes of fame by declining to offer any assistance to the team that will be running the government that she purportedly serves in just a matter of weeks.

Emily Murphy isn't the only ostrich refusing to pull her head from the political quicksands surrounding Washington, DC.   Several prominent members of Congress and government officials are still pretending that Donald Trump has some path to victory - a few out of a blind allegiance to Trump, and others due to fear of what he might tweet about them if they jump ship - even after the ship has already sunk.  

As an example of the Trump fear factor:  Georgia's two Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler both called for Georgia's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger,  to resign over his "mishandling" of last week's election, an election that leaves both Perdue and Loeffler facing run-off elections in January.  Raffensperger denied that he had mishandled anything and refused their request that he resign, essentially telling both esteemed US senators that they could go piss up a rope.  News stories out this morning indicate that the senators were doing the bidding of Donald Trump out of an abject terror that he would come after them on Twitter and damage their January election chances if they didn't attack the secretary of state and his election process.

Others have been vocally supportive of Trump hanging onto the presidency as ways to advance their own political careers.   Senators like Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton, who both have presidential ambitions, have made forays out to stir the rabble in Trump's defense, and, to a large extent, for their own political advancement among the stalwarts of the Trump cult.

There has even been some blatant dishonesty in support of keeping Trump in the White House.  According to Donald Trump's least favorite newspaper, TheWashington Post, a fellow named Richard Hopkins made a sworn statement that a postmaster in Erie, Pennsylvania, had instructed postal workers to backdate election ballots that had been mailed in after the election.  Senator Lindsey Graham had one of his hissy fits and sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr demanding an investigation - which Barr promptly ordered.  But, Mr. Hopkins then had a change of heart and recanted his false statement.  He said that he had been paid $130,000 by Republican donors to make the false claim.

And when the measure of the entire matter has been taken, Donald Trump still has nothing.  He is cranking out lawsuits, and many of those have already been dismissed by the courts.  He is a bully and a sore loser - and he is making full-throated demands that he be allowed to have his way!

The ever-petty and resentful current leader is even denying the incoming President and his team the right to have daily national security briefings.   Trump, who has been openly disdainful of those briefings himself, and reportedly gets bored with them if they lack pictures, doesn't want Biden to even have access to information and materials that he will need on Day One of his administration.  

Biden, on the other hand, has not been slowed by the roadblocks that Trump is pushing into his path.  His team is hard at work crafting a response to the pandemic, and the President-Elect is reportedly making decisions on White House staff appointments and has indicated that he will have some cabinet secretaries named by Thanksgiving.  He is busy transitioning from private citizen to President of the United States without any transition assistance from the government that he will soon lead - and in spite of strident resistance from the man he will soon replace.

This promisees to be a "transition" like no other.

Yesterday Joe Biden referred to Trump as an "embarrassment" over the way he is handling his solid defeat at the polls, and he noted that Trump's sad behavior will follow him into the history books.  Trump is an embarrassment, and more than that, he is a very sore loser --- and America does not like sore losers!

The Ozarks Cling to Trump - Mostly

by Pa Rock
Road Warrior

The last time my little dog Rosie and I went on a road trip was this past February when we drove to Rogers, Arkansas, to visit my sister, a drive of close to two hundred miles each way.   Then the pandemic set in, and not too long after that I broke my arm - so Rosie and I haven't done much more than just drive to town and back since last winter, and even those trips are rare.

But yesterday we finally hit the road again - and again it was to see my sister.  Rosie loves "Aunt Gail," and gets very excited when she knows that's where we are going.  Yesterday, however, instead of driving the nearly 200 miles to Roger's, Arkansas, we arranged to meet Gail halfway, in the town of Harrison, Arkansas, for lunch.

(I have written about Harrison, Arkansas, in this space on previous occasions.  It is sort of the "Klan" center of northern Arkansas and it is not unusual to find a large billboard or two with KKK messaging within the city limits of Harrison.)

We met at the local Arby's, arriving within minutes of each other and just as the place was opening.  The fast-food restaurant was empty when we got there, so we elected to eat inside -  but, alas, poor Rosie had to stay in the car.  (My sister, who is the most pandemically-conscious person that I know, would take raise her mask over her mouth to take a quick bite of her sandwich, and then lower the mask again while she chewed.)    Eventually we finished our lunch and then went out to the cars so that Gail and Rosie could  have their visit.

Gail and I talked about the things we had seen on our drives to Harrison.  I told her that I had passed three dead deer along the roadway, and several Trump yard signs - and a couple of expensive Trump billboards. One stated that it was put up by "Businessmen for Trump," which in that part of the world probably referred to meth cooks.  I also encountered several Confederate flags along the Arkansas highway.  Gail said that she has also passed quite a bit of Trump signage as well as one dead deer.  The beautiful fall foliage was just ending,  but we both had enjoyed some of autumn splendor along the road to Harrison.  .

When Gail's kids were young, she and her family lived several years in the north-central Arkansas community of Mountain Home, the county seat of Baxter County.  I came through Mountain Home on my way to Harrison yesterday, and when I stopped at the local McDoanld's for an iced-tea I noticed a newspaper rack with copies (only two) of the town's newspaper, The Baxter Bulletin.  That edition of the paper, which serves a veey conservative community, had a two-inch headline declaring "Biden Wins" along with the entire front page focused on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.  I purchased the last two copies and took them to Gail to share with her kids.

Rosie and I were with Gail for less than two hours before we all headed home.  On the way back to West Plains I listened (briefly) to a fundamentalist minister on the radio who was encouraging his listeners to pray for a change in the election results, and then I came across a conservative commentator who said he had been willing earlier in the week to give Biden the benefit of a doubt on the dubious vote count, but after much reflection he had decided that the voting had been a massive fraud.  Like Trump, however, the commentator offered no evidence to back up his claim.

The conservative commentator also said that Trump people are sick and tired of being called "fascists" and "racists,"

Oh, well.  Some of us are sick and tired of Trump people.

But better days are coming!

Veterans Are an Important Part of America

by Pa Rock
American

A few years ago Congress moved several federal holidays to Mondays, a move that provided federal workers with some three-day weekends.  At that time, however, Congress did not mess with a few special holidays.  Thanksgiving would remain on Thursday, and Christmas and New Year's would remain untouched for obvious reasons.  Veterans Day, November 11th, also remained untouched, and there was a reason for that as well.

Veterans Day is tied to the day the armistice that ended World War I was signed:  the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918.  November 11th became the day that our nation would pause in remembrance of its veterans, and nothing would dare to change that, not even Congress.

That is why your mail will not be delivered this Wednesday.

Veterans have been used to holding a place of honor in American society, but during the Trump interlude they have suffered the occasional indignities of being mocked and ridiculed, and even forgotten by our nation's leader.   A couple of years ago Donald Trump skipped a ceremony at a veterans' cemetery in France because a light rain that was falling would have mussed his hair.  Other leaders of the allied nations that had fought in World War I did stand in the rain and pay tribute to their nation's fallen that morning.  And then, unbelievably, Trump, himself a draft-dodger who had mocked Senator McCain for being captured in the Vietnam War, was quoted in a major US magazine as referring to America's war dead as "suckers" and "losers."  

And at about the same time, when news stories appeared alleging that the Russian government had placed bounties on the lives of American military members serving in Afghanistan, Trump and nearly all GOP members of Congress chose to handle that outrage by completely ignoring it.  Trump, a close ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, never even raised the matter in any of his subsequent dealings with Putin.

Trump's disregard of the military and veterans undoubtedly cost hims support in the recent election.  Cindy McCain, if fact, a prominent Arizona Republican and the widow of POW and senator, John McCain, endorsed Joe Biden as a result of Trump's "suckers" and "losers" comment - and Biden went on to carry her state - barely.

Because this Wednesday is Veterans Day, I felt that it would be appropriate to start the week off with a poem about veterans.  World War I produced a number of very good poets, and one of the best was a Canadian doctor and soldier named John McCrae who penned the most famous poem out of World War I, "In Flanders Fields," after a close friend was killed in battle.   It revolves around a military cemetery in Belgium where the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row.    I ran this poem in this spot in 2010, but it bears sharing again.

God bless those who have given so much in order that we can still choose our leaders through elections.

In Flanders Fields 

by LTC John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) 
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow 
Between the crosses row on row, 
That mark our place; and in the sky 
The larks, still bravely singing, fly 
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago 
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 
Loved and were loved, and now we lie 
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: 
To you from failing hands we throw 
The torch; be yours to hold it high. 
If ye break faith with us who die 
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 
In Flanders fields.

 

The Buddha of Suburbia

by Pa Rock
Reader

Having recently come across the 1990's film, "My Beautiful Laundrette"  streaming on a subscription channel a few weeks ago, I was inspired to delve back into other writing's by the movie's screenwriter, Hanif Kureishi.   That connected me with another of his excellent works, the novel "The Buddha of Suburbia" which I had originally read not long after it was first published in 1990.  I ordered the book, reread it, and was perhaps more impressed this time than I was with the first reading all those years ago.

The central character of his novel is Karim Amir, a young man who is just finishing his public schooling and whose parents hope that he is headed toward enrolling in a university.  Karim is an English youth living in the suburbs of London with his English mother, "Mum," a plump, unassuming woman who manages the house and takes care of the needs of Karim and his younger brother, Ali, and their father, Haroon.  Mum also works part-time at a shoe store to help supplement the family income.  Karim and Ali have never been to India, the birthplace of their father, but they have dark skin and Indian features and are  home in the British Indian community.

Haroon, Karim's father, is the title character of the novel.  He was born in Bombay as one of the younger children of a wealthy doctor, and emigrated to Britain on his own as a teen.  Haroon, who grew up privileged with a full assortment of servants, found work in England as a paper-pusher in a government office, but when he is home he is content to relax and let Mum wait on him hand-and foot.  As the story opens, Haroon has been studying the teachings of the Buddha and has been attending upscale parties hosted by his new friend, Eva, and ambitious social-climber.   Haroon sits on the floor at these parties and, in the character of the Buddha, begins imparting Indian and Buddhist pholosophies on the entranced guests.

Karim, who has a habit of falling enthusiastically in love with women or men, as long as they are interesting and attractive, is in love with his old schoolmate, Charlie, who is Eva's son.  Charlie is a singer with his own band - and he has dreams of becoming a rock star on the order of David Bowie.  One evening after Karim and Charlie have had a close, but not quite overtly sexual, encounter in Charlie's room in his mother's attic, and while Haroon has been doing his Buddha thing for Eva's guests downstairs, Karim goes outside for a solitary walk in Eva's garden.  It is there that he sees Haroon and Eva having sex on a garden bench, and it is there that Karim realizes that his life will soon change forever.

"The Buddha of Suburbia" is a beautifully written story that explores life and love in Great Britain as the country is slipping from it Victorian grandeur into the graffiti-sprayed world of modern times.  It explores the suburban existence, immigrant communities, life in London and New York,  youth culture, the theatre scene, rock culture, communal living,  the drug culture, and life in "squats."  But perhaps more than anything else, "The Buddha of Suburbia" is a treatise on race and classs written at a time when walls appeared to be crumbling.

Hanif Kureishi is an amazing writer.  You will not be disappointed in any of his works.

Biden Is Victorious!

by Pa Rock
Happy Camper!

Just minutes ago as I was finishing up today's blog, an old friend from college phoned bursting with the news that CNN and MSNBC had called Pennsylvania for Biden - and with that he had officially won the presidency!  Hooray!

On January 20th, 2021, Joe Biden will become President of the United States of America and Kamala Harris will have the distinction of becoming the first female Vice President of the United States of America as well as the first Vice President of Black and South Asian heritage.

It's a great day for the USA!

"Donald Trump, you're fired!"

It's Saturday: The Fourth Morning After!

by Pa Rock
Anxious Citizen

It's Saturday, and still we wait.  Many pundits predicted that the final vote would take several days, and possibly longer, to reveal itself.  As of 6:00 p.m. yesterday evening  Joe Biden had a comfortable lead in the popular vote.   At that time CNN had Biden with 74,039,941 votes (50.5%) and Trump trailing with 69,927,649 (47.7%) - meaning that 4,112,292 more individuals had voted for Biden than had cast their ballots for Trump.

But our presidential elections are not run by popular votes.  In the United States presidential elections are won by weighted votes from each of the fifty states, a system written into the Constitution are popularly referred to as the "Electoral College."  The states generate a total of 539 electoral votes, and whichever candidate receives a majority of those votes (270 or more) will become the next President.  If no one receives the majority, the election goes to the House of Representatives which will then select the winner.  That has happened once in our nation's history, in 1824, when John Quincy Adams was elected by the House over popular vote leader Andrew Jackson.  Jackson won the presidency outright four years later.

State electors meet on December 14th and cast heir votes for president, usually in line with how their citizens voted, but every now and then there are a few exceptions.  Also, two states determine electors by votes of the congressional districts rather than by the votes of the entire state.  The state results are transferred to the President of the Senate by December 23rd.  Those results are then transferred to the new Congress on January 6th where the winner of the presidential election is officially announced.

Whew!  That's quite a process!   A popular vote sounds so much simpler.  

But for now we are stuck with the archaic Electoral College, and that is why no one seems willing to predict a winner four days after the election - even though Joe Biden is comfortably ahead in popular votes and is the country's clear favorite to become President on January 20th.

Currently Joe Biden has either 253 or 264 of the 270 electoral votes needed for election - depending on whether one counts Arizona (11 electoral votes) in Biden's column, which some national news sources have and others have not.)    Of the remain four states - Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, Biden in leading in three, and his majorities are currently expanding in each.  Trump has the edge in North Carolina.

Joe Biden is calmly and wisely waiting to claim victory until more states have been decided, but the numbers are leaning strongly in his favor to win the thing.  Donald Trump, meanwhile, sees the writing on the wall is is attempting to sow confusion with baseless claims of vote fraud and ballot manipulation - without any evidence to back up his claims.

And so we wait, relatively secure in the notion that slow and steady wins the race.  But at this point it certainly feels like the citizens of the United States are on the verge of placing an intelligent and presentable adult back in the White House.

The election of 2020 was not all that many of us wanted, and certainly not a "big blue wave," but it does look like we will succeed in cutting the core of the rot out of the government.   And with Trump gone, hope and decency may once again flourish across our nation!

(Post Script:  As I finished typing this post, an old college friend phoned to say that CNN and MSNBC have just called Pennsylvania for Biden.  That would make Joe Biden the next President of the United States, and Kamala Harris the first female Vice-President of the United States!  Woo hoo!)