Mitch's Gears are Slipping; It's an Age Thing

 

by Pa Rock

Senior Citizen Journalist

I am seventy-five years-old and I notice signs of a decrease in my mental alertness almost daily.  Moving from one room to another in my own home requires more time and care than it did just a couple of years ago.  Even just standing up can be a physical ordeal with joints popping and the attendant grunts and groans that leave me sounding like a jalopy that has been parked out in the weather for too long - and if I rise too quickly, I'm going over - that's just the way it is.

Over the course of the last three years I have managed to fall and break each of my arms.

I still know who I am, and where I am, and I can organize my thoughts to where they make some semblance of sense, but that process takes longer than it once did.  A lady whom I dated many years ago and who was three years my junior, passed away recently from complications with dementia. The last time I saw her, a couple of years ago, she had been fine and her quick wit had been impressive.  Health issues can appear and escalate quickly when a person in in their seventies.  I recognize that, but tomorrow I may not be able to recognize it.

I am too old in my mid-seventies to hold a key position in any occupation.  It is time for me to begin limiting my activities and focusing on personal matters and life issues that need my attention while I still have the time and ability to get things in order.  My time for running the free world has passed, and I am cognizant enough of my own abilities to know and admit that.

Unfortunately, however, some people do not know when it is time to hang it up and step aside to let the next generation have their rightful turn at making the world go round.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the United States Senate, is obviously a case in point.  McConnell fell at an event at a hotel in Washington, DC, last March, and was away from "work" for several weeks as he went through in-patient physical therapy and an extended recovery process.  Then last month he suffered a fifteen-second brain fart while holding a press conference, a lapse in his ability to speak or appear cognizant in which he had to ultimately be led away from the podium by a staff member.  Yesterday, at a press conference in his home state of Kentucky, McConnell again zoned out, this time for thirty-seconds, and again an aide had to step in an help him through the situation.

And those were just the public instances in which he happened to be speaking and was the center of attention.  It would be highly likely that other instances have occurred at home or in his office when he was not in the direct public eye.  Mitch's cognitive gears are slipping, and at eighty-one-years-of-age that is entirely normal and to be expected.

Eighty is too damned old to be serving in critical public leadership positions, and hell, so is seventy-five!

Tell me I'm wrong!

Leadership Versus Pettiness and Spite

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

"Idalia" has intensified into a Category 4 hurricane and will be coming ashore in the Big Bend area of Florida sometime this morning.  It's a big damned deal!  Some low areas that are normally dry are going to be inundated with up to fifteen feet of water.  Homes and businesses are going to be blown away and washed away, and, most importantly, people are going to die.  The devastation is going to be massive, and the state of Florida, which leans strongly Republican and has one of the most repressive state governments in America, is going to have its hand out to the federal government, a political apparatus currently controlled by the Democratic Party.   Florida will be asking for personnel, equipment, and funds to help in relief and rebuilding - and the federal government, which represents every state in the union and not just the ones that voted for their guys, will respond positively with military aid, money, supplies, and massive amounts of general assistance - as it should.

That is the purpose of an overarching federal government.  It is there to protect and assist all of us in our daily lives regardless of our political leanings, religious beliefs, skin color, or even who we love.

Joe Biden has already sent federal support to Florida and he has publicly told Florida's governor, a politician who is running for Biden's job, that the government of the United States of America is ready and eager to help in the relief and recovery that will be necessary in combating the devastation of Idalia.

That is leadership.  Biden has his sleeves rolled up and is saying that the rest of us are here to help Florida.  Politics do not play into his equation.

But it wasn't that way in the previous administration.

Donald Trump had an evil habit of gauging emergency responses to the political support that the affected states had given him.

That approach was not leadership, it was spite.

Trump's former Chief of Staff for the Department of Homeland Security Miles Taylor described Trump's presidency as one that was "terrifying" and did "active damage" to US security.  In discussing the wildfires that ravaged California during the Trump administration, Taylor, the former Trump official, is quoted as saying:

"He told us to stop giving money to people whose houses had burned down from a wildfire because he was so rageful that people in the State of California didn't support him and that politically it wasn't a base for him."

 

Compare that to the Biden team's on-going response to the inferno that consumed much of Maui.  

But with Trump the response was always political, and often spiteful:  Here is a tweet that he put out himself in response to the California wildfires:

"Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!"

Joe Biden didn't threaten or harass Florida as Hurricane Idalia approached.  He told the governor, a political opponent, that the federal government was ready and eager to help.

Biden acts, while Trump whines and threatens.  One is leadership and the other is just pettiness and spite.

United we stand, divided we will definitely fall.

Tyson Foods Prepares to Abandon My Hometown.

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

When I was ten-years-old in 1958 my family moved to the small town of Noel, Missouri, which was, at that time, a summer tourist destination located on the banks of the beautiful Elk River.  Noel had an abundance of "resorts," motels, and cabin courts that catered to summer tourists from places like Tulsa and Kansas City.  My parents had purchased and eight-unit cabin court on the Elk River about four miles north of Noel, and it was an enterprise that kept everyone in the family busy during the summer months.  To supplement our income in the winter, my Dad leased a DX service station in Noel where he sold gas and did engine repairs.  (DX was a brand of gasoline.)

Living, working, and playing on the Elk River in the late 1950's and early 1960's was an idyllic existence, and I have many wonderful memories of those years.

But tourism in southern Missouri began to change in the 1960's as tourist enterprises started springing up around large manmade lakes that offered more in the way of boating experiences than the area's small rivers ever could.  The city fathers of Noel saw the writing-on-the-wall as to the future of tourism, and decided to start preparing for a post-tourism era for their town.  Unfortunately, their first foray into industrial development resulted in a very large poultry plant being built on the edge of town.

The new facility was built by the Ralston Purina Company out of St. Louis.  It provided many jobs  in the production of processed chicken ready for market, and the production of pet food from the waste by-products of the chicken.  The new plant was also an environmental disaster that quickly fouled the air of the entire community and polluted Noel's primary natural asset, the Elk River.

But the "chicken plant" brought jobs and money into the community, and for that nice benefit, the locals could tolerate the rotten air quality and occasional chicken guts found floating in the river.

Sometime in the 1970's Ralston Purina managed to unload the Noel chicken plant onto Hudson Foods.  Red Hudson, the head of the company, had married into the Danforth family, the owners of Ralston Purina.   Hudson ran the plant into the ground, and in the 1990's it was snapped up by Tyson Foods out of northwest Arkansas - the current owner.

The Noel chicken plant began drawing in large numbers of immigrant workers during the 1990's, at first from Mexico and south Texas, and later from places as far-flung as Somalia, Sudan, and Micronesia.  Many came to America due to dangerous situations in their homelands such as armed conflicts, and many did not speak English.  Their presence in rural Missouri - and in rural communities across America - placed burdens on local schools and public assistance agencies that many were unable to adequately meet.

It has been a very rough situation, and is now suddenly on the verge of becoming much worse, at least in Noel (current population 2,124) and five other communities which are largely dependent on Tyson Foods for their very survival.  

Tyson has recently announced that it will be closing six poultry processing plants in four states.  Two of those plants are in Missouri, and one of the two Missouri plants that will be shut down is the one in Noel.   That plant is scheduled to close its doors for the final time on October 20th.  A representative of the McDonald County Commission (the governing body of the county where Noel is located) said that this move by Tyson Foods will eliminate one-fourth of the entire county's jobs.  That substantial loss of income and revenue will ripple through the town's and the county's other businesses.

Tyson will be laying off a total of 4,600 working individuals with its plant closures.

The community of Noel suffered another crippling blow two years ago when the town's only bank, Arvest, part of a midwestern chain of banks owned by the Walmart Walton family, closed.  Today the town's "bank" is an Arvest ATM.

I feel extremely sad for my hometown, but I suspect that as long as the Elk River runs through it, there is always hope for a reincarnation of that joyous place along the riverbank that I remember so well - a place beyond the greedy grasp of the Tyson and Walton families.

Noel, Pa Rock has wonderful memories from a long, long time ago, and he wishes you well.

Beulah the Buzzer has Sounded for Bob Barker

 

by Pa Rock

Television Junkie

One of America's most famous television game show hosts, Bob Barker, passed away this past Saturday at the age of ninety-nine, less than four months shy of his one-hundredth birthday.  Barker was best known by people younger than me for the thirty-five years that he hosted the daytime show "The Price is Right," but he was also the host for the "Miss USA Pageant," for twenty years (a one-time-a-year job), as well as the host of the daytime television version of "Truth or Consequences" for nineteen years.  All-in-all Bob Barker was a regular fixture on American television from 1956 until 2007, a span of just over half-a-century.

If ever there was an instance where a person's name may have directed their life choices, Bob Barker could be that person.  He essentially spent his entire working life - from his early days as a radio broadcaster up through those decades on television - in much the same role as a carnival barker, stirring enthusiasm and selling excitement and merchandise to a gullible public.  Also in later life he became a loud an insistent proponent for the rights and humane treatment of animals - barking for the cause, so to speak.

Bob Barker is best known for his many years with "The Price is Right," (1972-2007), but those were the years in which I spent my daylight hours at a J-O-B, so I didn't see too many episodes of his masterwork.   (I remember the older, original version with Bill Cullen better.). My best memories of Bob Barker were his early days in which he and "Beulah the Buzzer" ran "Truth or Consequences."  The show had plenty of ridiculous situations and loads of laughter, a lot of which seemed to carry over into the newer Bob Barker version of "'The Price is Right."

Bob Barker was born in the state of Washington and grew up on an Indian Reservation in South Dakota where his mother taught school,   It was Springfield, Missouri, however, that he always seemed to regard as his "home."  Barker went to high school in Springfield, and attended Drury College in the same midwestern community.    He was a member of the college basketball team.   Barker left college to join the Naval Reserves during World War II where he trained as a naval fighter pilot.  He returned to Springfield after the war ended and resumed his studies at Drury earning a bachelor's degree in economics.  His first broadcasting job was at radio station KTTS in Springfield.

Beulah the Buzzer from the old "Truth or Consequences" television show is described on various internet sites as simply being a sound effect that signaled the end of a person's time in coming up with the answer to a nonsense question (the truth) portion of the show - and then the person was faced with performing some ridiculous task (the consequence).  But I remember a couple of episodes where Beulah was given a physical form.  The camera would pan around to a different location and show a chimpanzee in a dress with some sort of party-favor horn making the noise.  I really liked that Beulah!

But regardless of whether Beulah actually existed or was just a noise, she has sounded for Bob Barker and he has moved on to a different state of being - one where, if the past truly is prologue, he is doing wacky things and having a wonderful time!

May Bob Barker's heaven be an exceptionally wild and happy animal kingdom - and may Betty White have been the guide who greeted him at the gate!

Just an Echo, Yoo-hoo - - - - - - - In the Kia, Yoo-hoo!

 

by Pa Rock

Road Warrior

Rosie and I have been in Kansas City the past two days and are heading back to West Palins this morning. We came with a “to do” list and managed to accomplish most of our chores.
 
One of the things I did was to get a haircut.  (Rosie didn’t need one.)  The haircut that I got was a really good one that I expect brought my weight down by several pounds.  I told the barber that she should keep all of that old gray hair piled high on her floor and perhaps stuff a pillow with it, or perhaps a big teddy bear.
 
Another big event was my son successfully installing an “Echo Auto” (Alexa) in my little Kia - and it works beautifully!  I’ve been told that I can get all the same wonderous things that this new gadget will provide by simply  using my phone without the Echo, but the phone is far too complicated for my simple mind to navigate, and Alexa and I are already simpatico.  Today she will be riding shotgun on our trip back to West Plains while Rosie snoozes on my lap – and all the music will be by my favorite artists – and all the news will be a reliable source – NPR!
 
The Echo works through my phone’s wifi, and if you want to know more specifics about that, you will have to find a twelve-year-old and ask because I don’t have a clue!
 
Look out, West Plains.  Me and Rosie and Alexa are on the road and headed home!

Doin' the Cattle Call

 

by Pa Rock

Constant Victim

Just about every year I publicly vow to never get back on board a passenger airplane.   I've made two trips to far-flung destinations this year, North Carolina and Oregon, and the travel aspects of both were awful.  Passengers are treated like cattle in the airports and on the planes, though with fewer comforts than the cows would likely have, and the brand new Kansas City Airport (MCI), which I flew out of and back to both times, is a sprawling, freaking mess - on its very best days.  So no more flying damnit, and this time I mean it!

But I have one more trip that I really need to take this year, a pilgrimage to Salt Lake City where I can work at the Mormon Library for a week to finish up two family history books that are on my bucket list of things to complete before the Grim Reaper shows up.  Yesterday I started looking at travel alternatives that could get me to Salt Lake City.

The Biden campaign team talked about expanding national passenger rail service and moving toward high-speed rail back during the 2020 election campaign, but that's all it was - just talk.    After almost three full years in office, if anything at all has been done toward those goals it has been in the busy northeast corridor, the same train routes that Biden himself used for all those many, many years that he was in the Senate.  Nothing has been accomplished on the very few other passenger lines that service the rest of the nation.

I could only find one way to contact the US Department of Transportation other than by sitting down and writing a formal letter - which I will do, perhaps later today - and that was an email form on its website.  So I used the email form a few weeks ago to ask about progress on rail transportation and did not get a response.  We will discuss that @SecretaryPete when you start organizing your campaign to give Kamala Harris the short shrift and come begging for campaign donations.

Currently to get to Salt Lake City from Kansas City by train, I would have to drive to Omaha and leave my car - on the street, I guess, because Amtrak apparently has no long-term parking facility in Omaha. I would board a train there in the middle of the night, and I would arrive in Salt Lake City the middle of the next night.  Cost packages vary, but trains are generally more expensive than planes.

So I moved on to Greyhound which offers bus service, with its best option being a bus that leaves KC late at night, has one layover in Denver, and arrives in Salt Lake twenty-five hours later - for around $220 one-way.

So I thought about driving.  It's around 1,100 miles and, for me, would involve spending two nights on the road.  So the cost would include gas, motels, meals, and time - lots of time.

A flight out and back could be had for under four hundred dollars and could be accomplished in a few hours each way.  Of course, if I wanted to take luggage, sit someplace other than a middle seat, or be treated like a human being, that would be extra!

Maybe my grandchildren will have real travel options when they are my age.  An old man can only hope.

Keep them doggies movin', Rawhide!

The Donald Went Down to Georgia

by. Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Late last night I got my first look at Donald Trump’s mugshot which was taken yesterday at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta.  It was Trump’s fourth arrest in five months, a record for ex-presidents that is unlikely to ever be broken, and yesterday’s booking also featured the first official law enforcement mugshot ever taken of an ex-United States President.
 
The photo itself is memorable, and you just know that America’s most vain president must have spent hours in front of a mirror perfecting that sinister glare.   His make-up crew did an amazing job creating a flawless skin tone which was not too orange.   The Donald's tie was perfectly knotted tie, he was wearing a nice jacket.   And his hair (which should have been gray for many years now)  was spun around like tufts of blonde cotton candy and managed to cover every inch of his basically large, bald head.  Leonardo da Vinci would have been amazed at the fine silk purse which a group of extremely talented make-up artists were able to create from an old sow’s ear.  But it worked well and conveyed the image that Trump undoubtedly wanted to present.

The entire effect of the carefully planned visual came across as an aging television star from the 1960's who was hoping to land a role in an upcoming remake of The Sopranos.

As soon as the quick booking procedure was over, Trump went back to the airport and got on his private jet and headed off to . . . you guessed it . . . New Jersey!  Bada-bing, bada-boom!

 
I know that by now the whole world has seen this photo of Donald John, and many undoubtedly laughed outright as I did, but I want to post it here anyway for posterity – and as a reminder of how bad things can get if we start taking democracy for granted and stop paying attention to what is happening around us.
 
Crap happens, and Tony Soprano wannabes weasel their way into the halls of power.  Stay vigilant, America or we will have something like this again!

                                                    Tony Soprano Wannabe

Another 'Accident' Eliminates Another Putin Critic

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

American politicians (primarily MAGA Republicans) who relentlessly fawn over Russian leader Vladimir Putin might be well advised not to ever make their political idol angry.  People who piss the Vladster off seem to be at risk of dying before their time.

There was a time when people out-of-favor with Putin and the Russian government appeared prone to fall victim to mysterious poisonings.   Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian Federal Security Officer who had defected to Great Britain, was poisoned and killed in his host country in 2006.  In 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian Military Intelligence Officer and defector, was also poisoned in Great Britain, but he survived.   But perhaps the best known Russian poisoning victim was Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption activist, who was poisoned while on an in-country flight in Russia in 2020.   After his difficult recovery in Germany, Navalny returned to Russia and was promptly arrested for breaking the terms of his parole, and today he is incarcerated in a Russian prison.  A couple of other prominent Putin critics, including a performer with the band "Pussy Riot," were also poisoned but recovered.

With the effectiveness rate of poisonings clearly leaving something to be desired, a new approach to the elimination of political troublemakers in Russia came to the fore.  Critics of the government, and particularly individuals who seemed to aggravate Putin, started falling out of high-rise windows.  In April and May of 2020 two Russian doctors who had complained about working conditions at their hospital during the pandemic were killed after falling out of the windows of their hospital - and a third was seriously injured.    In December of 2020 Alexander Kagansky, a Russian scientist working on a COVID vaccine, was found dead of a stab wound in St. Petersburg, Russia, after falling from a window in a high rise building.  (A stab would AND a long fall.  Someone really wanted to make sure on that one!)

Krill Zhalo, a Russian diplomat died in Berlin on October 19, 2021, after a fall from his embassy window.   Ravil Maganov, the chariman of Russia's second largest oil company - a company which had officially criticized Russia's war against Ukraine - died after falling out of a high rise window while on a visit to India on Christmas Day of 2022.   And in February of 2023, Marina Yankina, a Russian defense official, died from a fall out of a high-rise window in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Obviously, falls out of the windows of tall buildings were far more effective than poisonings in handling political malcontents, though still not 100% effective.

If there was ever a Russian who was almost certain to meet an early death through some nefarious means, that man would have been Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group which had been performing most of the actual combat in Ukraine.   Prigozhin, who harbored some animosity toward Putin and was unhappy with the way the Russian military officials were using his men, suddenly turned a large contingent of his troops toward Moscow this past June, and for several hours they appeared to be garnering strong public support as they headed toward the capital of Russia.  Many Russians cheered the uprising while many others were in a panic.  Prigozhin called the march off after six hours, but it had received a wealth of international press coverage, and Putin came out of the prolonged affair looking weak and indecisive.   The Russian leader needed time to assess his own power, and he held his wrath toward Prigozhin in reserve.

But Putin would have his day, and everybody knew it.

Yesterday a private jet dropped from the sky north of Moscow.  The passenger manifest listed one of ten people on board as Yevgeny Prigozhin.  Onlookers said the plane appeared to be missing a wing as it slammed into the ground and burst into flames.

Russian justice, it would seem, does not always come with an appeal process.

It's Time to End Battleground States by Ending the Electoral College

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The National Democratic Party and the Biden-Harris Campaign are laser-focused on just a handful of 'battleground" states and routinely ignore ones like the "show-me" state of Missouri where I live and vote.  I religiously drive into town every two years to vote in elections where I have darned few actual choices on the ballot.  In Howell County, Missouri, when someone wants to oppose an established Republican office holder, and ALL of our office holders are Republican, as are ALL of our state office holders, they will often choose to do so as an "Independent" rather than as a Democrat.  One of the reasons the Democratic Party takes it on the shins in Missouri, and particularly in rural Missouri, is that the national party has written Missouri off and routinely ignores the state during every election cycle - choosing instead to focus its money and fire on the "battleground" states.

And when money (the "lifeblood" of politics) and support is withheld, enthusiasm wanes or disappears altogether and the sad reality of Missouri being a "red" state is even more real.

An old friend and I exchanged a few emails on this subject earlier in the week, and I surmised, as I probably have done previously in this blog, that the only way Missouri would get a visit from Joe Biden or Kamala Harris during the general election cycle would be if they experienced plane trouble while flying over the state and were forced to land for repairs.  In fairness, the same undoubtedly will hold true for Donald Trump and his running mate.

The game is afoot and nobody cares about the voters in the states that lean too heavily toward the red or the blue.  Yes, both candidates would probably like to have our votes just so their popular vote totals would be higher, a prestige thing, but popular votes don't choose presidents - electoral votes do.  The states have more say than their residents in choosing who leads our nation.  American democracy is buried in the fine print.

But it's wrong of me to say that the national parties have no interest in rural Missouri voters.  The national parties do inundate us gullible hillbillies with relentless requests for money - money which they will then turn around and spend in "battleground" states.

I have a long history of donating money to political causes and candidates, but I no longer blindly throw money into some national bucket.  Now, with my fixed income, I very carefully select the recipients of my limited largesse - my own battlegrounds, if you will.

Donald Trump, the fake billionaire-on-the-beg, will never get a dime from me, and if Joe and Kamala truly need my money, they need to make plans to stop by and pick it up.

And if Americans really want their votes to matter, they need to dismantle the Electoral College and consign it to the scrapheap of history.  Then the entire nation would be the battleground and every person's vote would be equally important.    I would donate to that cause.

GOP has been Dead for Seven Years

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I came across an old tweet by comedienne Jane Curtin on the internet yesterday which she had posted as her New Year's Resolution for the year 2019.     The original cast member of Saturday Night Live resolved to make sure that 2019 was the year the Republican Party would die.  

My thoughts when I read Jane's tweet was that it had been a waste of a perfectly good resolution - because the Republican Party died in 2016 when it permitted obnoxious Donald Trump to remain in its race for the presidential nomination after his infamous remark about grabbing women "by the pussy" had been heard by millions.  A real major political party would have tossed that onerous windbag out on his ear right then and there, but not the Republican Party.

The Republican Party failed to stand up for decency, American values, and women.  The party curled up and expired, allowing Donald Trump to steal its election regalia and desecrate the American ideal of democracy.  

Today the ghost of the Republican Party blows across the land belching noises about witch hunts and crime families and retribution.  It's policies are a mishmash of attacks on basic human rights, women, transgender kids, LGBTQ+ individuals, ethnic and racial minorities, immigrants, the poor, voting rights, freedom of speech and a free press, anyone who dares to promote any commonsense gun safety measures, books they've never read, teachers, schools, libraries, American history, Black history, electric vehicles, amusement parks, Barbie, and Bud Light.  They support the Second Amendment to murderous extremes, the police (but only the ones that aren't "woke"), and traditional family values as long as those values are straight, white, nominally Christian.  They have no desire to make anything better, and are focused only on maintaining privilege.

The Republican Party is dead, and now its corpse is hopelessly entangled with the corpse of a corrupt politician who tried to overthrow American democracy.  Their rotting stench will be around for a few more election cycles, but someday that, too, will be gone.

I have faith that something far better will sprout from their compost.

(Be sure to come back tomorrow when I plan to disparage the Democrats!)

Moron with a Gun Kills Over Gay Pride Flag

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Laura "Lauri" Ann Carelton, 66,  died defending a gay pride flag and her Constitutional right to free speech this past Friday.  Carelton. a  mother of a blended family of nine children and who had been married to the same man for twenty-eight years, was an entrepreneur near who owned two clothing stores, both called "Mag Pi," in the suburbs of Los Angeles.  She was shot in front of her store in Cedar Glen, California, which is approximately sixty miles east of Los Angeles, while defending an LGBTQ+ flag which was flying on a pole in front of her store.  

Others had vandalized Carelton's pride flag in the past, and she had always responded by replacing it.  She was regarded by those who knew her as a staunch ally of the LGBTQ+ community.  

On Friday a man showed up outside of the clothing store and began making offensive remarks about the flag being on display there.  Ms. Carelton stepped out onto the sidewalk and confronted the man who was making a scene, and he pulled a pistol and shot her.   She died on the sidewalk beneath her flag.

The shooter, who has yet to be identified, fled the scene but was soon cornered by police.  Gunfire ensued and the man who had shot and killed the storeowner was himself killed.  No police were reportedly injured in the shooting.

And there we have one more day in America in which hate-fueled morons and bigots continue their relentless pursuit of national greatness through intimidation and violence.  Lauri Ann Carelton didn't plan on dying for for basic human rights and dignity when she went to work last Friday, but when a situation developed which required someone to stand-up for others, she did not hesitate.  More people like her truly would make America great again.

Rest In peace, Lauri Ann Carelton, and thank you for your service to humanity.

Phoenix Comes Calling

 

by Pa Rock

Appreciator of Conditioned Air

It was just this past Wednesday, a mere four days ago, when I was bragging about the mild temperatures that were visiting themselves upon the Ozarks - and how nice it was to be experiencing autumn in August.  But I also tempered those remarks with an acknowledgment that summer was certain to revisit the area before autumn arrived for good.

And I was right.  Summer has returned, and it is back with a vengeance!  

Yesterday the high temperature was in the low nineties, and I went out just before dark and carefully watered the outdoor potted plants, rose bushes, and young trees.  Today the temps were supposed to reach into the high nineties, and we had been placed under an "extended heat warning from today until Thursday night at 10:00 p.m.  But when I crawled out of bed this morning, before daylight, Alexa had already changed her tune with regard to the forecast.  Now she was saying that the high temperature where I live will be 105 degrees F. today, and the extended heat warning is still in effect.  

One hundred and five is Phoenix hot!   But I know how to handle it.  Rosie and I will be sitting in the air-conditioning today, and we won't worry about how to pay the electric bill until next month.

One crisis at a time, that's my motto!

Stay hydrated, wear that hat when you are outside, and remember to provide plenty of water for our friends who live out-of-doors and don't have access to conditioned air and water on tap!  

The World's Most Dangerous Animal

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Bill Gates is a billionaire, a real one, and instead of being focused on personal self-indulgences like cage fighting, operating personal submarines, or flying into space, Gates chooses to use his time and money to explore ways to help humanity survive and thrive.

Gates has been writing, of late, about mosquitoes, insects which he refers to collectively as "the world's most dangerous animal."    The Microsoft founder said in a posting last week that he is far more afraid of mosquitoes than he is of Great White Sharks, and in support of that position he noted that mosquitoes are responsible for the death of more humans in a single day than sharks are in one hundred years.

In the brief article that I read by the tech-billionaire-with-a-conscience, he discussed several research fronts which are currently being pursued to counteract the impact that mosquitoes are having on the health of the world's human population.  One company is studying fragrances, trying to find one that is pleasing to humans yet repels mosquitoes.  Another company is at work developing genetically-altered mosquitoes to attack and combat an existing strain of very dangerous mosquitoes.  (And we all have seen enough science fiction horror films to understand the dangers posed by mutant life forms run amok!)   Others are researching more effective insecticides, and some are focused on increasing the effectiveness of malaria vaccines.

Combating mosquitoes and their impact on world health is a very complex operation that is at work on a variety of battlefronts.

(The only time in which I was brought so medically low as to fear that death might be imminent, was due to the evil machinations of another tiny animal, a member of the arachnid family that is commonly known out in the woods where I live as a "tick."   I remember the doctor snapping at me, "No, you can't go take your car home first.  I want you in the hospital NOW!"  So I have a firsthand understanding of the very real power of some of nature's smallest creatures.)

A thought struck as I was pondering what Bill Gates had written about the current attempt to  counteract the ravages of mosquitoes.  What would be the result, I wondered, if all of the earth's mosquitoes were to suddenly just disappear?  Even though I had gone to a rural high school in the middle of the 20th century whose science curriculum would make today's school boards in Florida and Texas proud, and even though I took only one science course in college (Botany), I had still read enough over the years to suspect that the total elimination of "the world's most dangerous animal" would have strong unexpected consequences of the negative variety.

I consulted ChatGPT regarding the consequences of all mosquitoes suddenly disappearing, and my concerns were borne out.  The chatbot felt that such a scenario would result in food chains being disrupted when some animals that consumed large quantities of mosquitoes (birds fish, and frogs, for instance) might suddenly be faced with starvation - and entire ecosystems could eventually begin to collapse as a result, the disruption of pollination of certain plant species could also be impacted, invasive species could gain a footing with the disappearance of mosquitoes and thrive - bringing new negative impacts to the environment, and there might even be a rise in the spread of newer and more deadlier forms of disease which could flourish in the absence of mosquitoes.

Nature, it seems, is a great balancing act of many components.  When it is in-balance things run fairly smoothly, but when the balance gets out-of-whack, problems arise.  The things that seem to most consistently throw nature out-of-balance are the activities of man - something that most of us instinctively know regardless of our educational backgrounds.

Bill Gates and good people like him are working at the fringes to make our lives better, but even they know that a bulldozer approach to nature will yield unintended bulldozer impacts.

I would argue that Bill Gates is wrong about the mosquito being the most dangerous animal in the world.  The most dangerous is not the six-legged mosquito, nor is it the tick with his eight legs.   The most dangerous animal in the world is the creature with two legs who burns fossil fuels with wild abandon, consumes nature ravenously without making efforts to replenish what he uses, wantonly pollutes his own land, sea, and air, is constantly at war with members of his own species, and works tirelessly at trying to come up with ways to speed his own extinction and end all life on earth.

Man is the most dangerous animal, Bill, and until we can figure out a way to curb his rush to self-annilhilation, everything else is just distraction.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

Ivana Trump, at Rest in the Weeds

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Last week London's "Daily Mail" newspaper published photos of what it claimed was the grave of Donald Trump's first wife, Ivana,  the mother of the three oldest Trump "children:"  Ivanka, Don, Junior, and Eric.  Ivana had passed away at the age of seventy-three in her Manhattan apartment in July of 2022 following what appeared to be an accidental fall down a flight of stairs.  She was buried two weeks later near the first tee of Trump's Bedminster Golf Course at Bedminster, New Jersey, a favorite haunt of the Trump family and where Trump spent the better part of every August during his presidency.

Trump reportedly received a nice tax break for burying his ex-wife on his golf course in a one-and-a-half-acre section of land that he has set aside for a small, and very exclusive, cemetery.  So far, more than a year later, Ivana Trump is the only person buried in the new cemetery.

Actually, the word "cemetery" is a bit of a stretch.  A much larger section of the golf course has been roped off to keep tourists at bay, but during the recent Saudi golf tournament hosted  by Trump at Bedminster, the "Daily Mail" apparently sneaked a photographer under the ropes and out to take a few snapshots of Ivana's final resting place, and what that photographer found would have shamed most families, though obviously not the Trumps.  Ivana Trump's grave was overgrown with weeds and tall grass, and had not been landscaped, or even recently mowed, and a permanent tombstone had not been installed.

I first saw a meme on the internet about  the sad condition of Ivana's burial site last week.  It was a clever meme which paired the photo of her weedy grave with a beautifully kept grave of a member of another presidential family.  The other grave had a large stone marker and was a well manicured site that has been the final resting place of Richard Nixon's famous dog, Checkers, for the better part of seventy years.  Checkers' grave looked like a dignified spot where a decent person would be proud to bury their grandparent.  Ivana's grave looked like a spot where Checkers might take a dump, if a better spot was not available!

When I saw that meme, my first reaction was to disregard it as just a clever joke.  But yesterday "Snopes," the site that debunks phony celebrity stories and internet memes, came out with a story about the photos of Ivana's grave and said that the photos were real and her grave truly is overgrown with weeds and has not been properly maintained.

I don't think anyone really expected Donald Trump to show his first immigrant wife any more deference or dignity in death than he did while she was alive - because he is self-absorbed and focused solely on meeting his own needs.  But what is sad is that Ivana's children would tolerate such an outrageous disrespect of their mother.  That says almost as much about them as it does about about their egotistical father.

The High Cost of Interfering with a Free Press

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

In a posting in this space three days ago entitled "First Amendment Under Siege in Marion, Kansas," I recounted some history from Phoenix, Arizona, in which uniformed goons working for Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County had raided the homes of the two owners of a local newspaper in the middle of the night and arrested those individuals.  The bit of bravado on Old Joe's part wound up costing the taxpayers of his county a cool 3.75 million dollars.

The main thrust of that blog posting dealt with a similar incident that had just occurred in the city and county of Marion, Kansas, in which five city police, including the chief of police, and two county deputies had raided the offices of the local newspaper, "The Marion County Record," as well as the publisher's home, and seized records, computers, and even cellphones.  That raid happened last week and quickly resulted in a national outcry regarding the historic right of freedom of the press as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the US Constitution.  Threats of lawsuits began flying immediately.

In the intervening days a couple of newsworthy things have happened int the Kansas case.  The county prosecutor has withdrawn the search warrants used in the raids stating that there had been insufficient evidence for the original issuance of the warrants.    The local prosecutor has stated that all seized equipment must be returned to the newspaper and its four-person staff.  The equipment was subsequently released by the local police who attested that they had not accessed any of it, but, at the request of the newspaper's lawyer, it was all turned over to a computer forensics expert in Kansas City who will examine the equipment to see if the newspaper's records were accessed while the equipment was in the custody of the police.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation which is under the control of state attorney general Kris Kobach, a national conservative icon, has said that it will continue to pursue its investigation of the newspaper's activities, apparently regardless of the local prosecutor's new position on the matter.

Also connected to the case appears to be the fact that the newspaper publisher's 98-year-old mother died the day after the raids which included the home that she shared with her son, the publisher.  The mother and her husband had purchased the newspaper twenty-five years earlier to keep it from being gobbled up  by a national chain, and she was still a co-owner of the newspaper at the time of her death. After the raid on her home, the lady had called the action of the police "Hitler tactics."  Her son, the publisher, is expressing the view that his mother's death was brought on by the trauma of the police raiding their home.

Staff worked through the night this past Tuesday to recreate stories and ads that had been stored in the seized equipment, and the weekly newspaper came out late on Wednesday with a 5-inch tall headline that read "Seized But Not Silenced!"  One unexpected benefit that the "Marion County Record" has apparently reaped from all of this unexpected and unwanted notoriety is that it has seen a sudden increase in subscriptions from across the nation.  An employee for the paper said that she was having trouble keeping up with the new subscription activity.

Clouds and silver linings, one must suppose.

One must also suppose that the damages eventually awarded over this police fiasco in Kansas will be substantial, especially when a collateral death is added to the mix of allegations.  Flaunting the First Amendment comes with a cost,  just ask the taxpayers in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Autumn in August

 

by Pa Rock

Weather-Watcher

Summers, and in particular the month of August, are generally hot as hell in the Ozarks, and that is one of the reasons that I was particularly dismayed to hear that my Kansas grandchildren were starting school this week.   But schools today are air-conditioned, so it is no where near as bad as forty years ago when I was teaching and the only air-conditioning that most schools had was the window unit in the superintendent's office.  I used to tell the sweating students to just hang tough and things would be tolerable by the middle of September.

All of August and the first half of September were awful in the Ozarks, year after year after year.  Last summer the grass in my yard began dying in June and by August grass was uniformly brown and crackling underfoot.  I carried water for up to two hours every day in order to keep the outdoor flowers and young trees alive, and I constantly worried that the big trees in my yard, which number fifty or more, would begin dying.  Somehow everything survived.

This summer began with plenty of traditional heat in June and July, though the yard did not appear to suffer as much as it did last year, but by August a definite change was in the air.  This month has been marked by plenty of nice, slow rainfall and unseasonably mild temperatures.  Yesterday, August 15th, the midpoint of the month, the high temperature where I live was 75 degrees F.  This morning at daylight it was 58 degrees, and right now, at 11:00 a.m it is 74 degrees at my home in southern Missouri with an expected high of 80 degrees, later this afternoon.

The weather is delightful!  August in the Ozarks is suddenly autumn in the Ozarks!  And yes, I know that summer could come roaring back without much warning, but every day of this wonderful weather is one less day of traditional August heat that we won't have to endure this year.

It's closing in on noon, and there is still dew on the grass - in the middle of August!  

I'm happy with this wonderful weather, Rosie is happy and so is the guinea, and the deer look healthier than I have ever seen them at tis time of year

It feels like autumn in the Ozarks - and I am very good with that!

Reed Smith Lifts the Dinnie Stones!

by Rocky Macy

Proud Uncle

Reed Smith, a middle school science teacher and basketball coach from Rogers, Arkansas, is an amazing individual, and he is one of my two favorite nephews!
 
Last week Reed was in Aberdeen, Scotland, where he successfully completed a goal that he set for himself several years before, and in the process got his name into a very exclusive book of record-holders.  In his spare time Reed is an amateur weightlifter who has held multiple Arkansas state records.  He traveled to Scotland in order to take part in an annual challenge to lift the famous “Dinnie Stones.”
 
(I suspected that Reed might one day become a serious weightlifter when he was around fourteen years old and visited a little farm that I owned at the time near Noel, Missouri.  On the day of that visit, I was doing some rehabilitation work on a small pond about halfway down a very rough hill.  The work involved carrying eighty-pound bags of cement from the barn down to the pond site, perhaps a hundred-and-fifty yards or more - over rough terrain.  Reed stepped up and placed one of the eighty-pound bags on his shoulder and carried it to the pond.  Then he returned to the barn and somehow managed to lift two eighty-pound bags, one onto each shoulder, and started to walk toward the pond, but after a few steps he wisely stopped and sat one of the bags down, leading this uncle to surmise that successful lifting relies on strength and intellect!)
 
The Dinnie Stones are two very large granite stones that had handles attached to them in the early 1800’s and were used as counterbalances for the scaffolding that was employed for the construction and maintenance of the Potarch Bridge over the River Dee in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.   One of the original workmen at that site was Robert Dinnie, who lifted the two stones as a part of his labor on the bridge.  Robert’s son, Donald Dinnie, also worked on the bridge in his youth and went on to become a world-famous athlete.  Donald Dinnie lifted the stones and carried them bare-handed across the Potarch Bridge in 1860, seventeen feet and one-and-a-half inches, a feat that has, to date, only been accomplished by seven men (without weight-lifting straps).   Those seven men include both Robert and Donald Dinnie for whom the stones were ultimately named.
 
The Dinnie Stones were lost sometime after World War I, but were relocated in the River Dee in 1953.  Now there is a “grip-lift” challenge each year in which weightlifters from around the world gather near the Potarch Bridge to attempt to life the stones, one in each hand, and keep them off the ground for at least two seconds.
 
Reed Smith took that challenge last week – and beat it.   I’ve seen the video, and Reed looked relatively at ease while he accomplished the feat.  Reed’s name will be entered into a record book that is dedicated solely to the lift, and he will be among just over two-hundred-and-fifty individuals who have been enshrined on that distinguished list over the course of many years.
 
Reed called his successful effort in Scotland “The lift of my life.”
 
Reed Smith is five-feet-and-seven-inches tall.  At the time of the lift last week he weighed 233 pounds.  The stone that he lifted with his right hand weighed 414.5 pounds, and the stone in his left hand weighed 318.5 pounds – for a total lift of 733 pounds.  Reed had been training for this challenge for over four years, and, at one point, he and his older brother, Justin (my other favorite nephew), traveled to Ohio so that he could practice with a replica set of stones maintained by the Rogue Fitness Company.  Reed said that he had difficulty lifting the stones in Ohio, but that he learned things from that experience which helped him to be successful in Scotland.
 
Reed was accompanied to the event by his wife, Jamie, who is an elementary teacher in Rogers, and Jamie’s sister, Stacy.   Reed’s older sister, Dr. Heidi Pfetcher and her husband, Jason, were also in attendance.   The entire family is very proud of our world renown strongman!

Reed Smith during his successful

"lift of my life!"

Reed standing between the famous

Stoltman brothers.  Tom (left) is a former

two-time "Strongest Man in the World," 

and Luke (right) is a one-time

"Strongest Man in Europe."

First Amendment Under Siege In Marion, Kansas

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

(Note:  As a former part-owner of a small town newspaper, this is a story that resonates deeply with this blogger.)

This past Friday officers of the police department of Marion, Kansas, a community of less than two thousand individuals, raided the town's newspaper office and the home of the newspaper's publisher, seizing computers, records, and even cell phones.  The police produced a warrant signed by a local judge which stated they were investigating "identity theft" and "unlawful acts concerning computers."    

That police action brought an immediate response from a host of national news organizations acting under the auspices of the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press which sent a four-page letter to the local chief of police requesting that all seized materials immediately be returned to the newspaper, any newspaper records that had been accessed by the police be purged, and that the police chief begin an independent and transparent review of his department's actions in the matter.  Among the thirty-four signatories to the letter were CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times.

Eric Meyer, the owner and publisher of the Marion County Record, said that the town's entire five-member police force as well as two county deputies had participated in the raids an had seized "everything we have."  The newspaper goes to press on Tuesday evenings, and the publisher said that it wasn't clear how they would manage that deadline, but he indicated that they would publish something.

Eric Meyer is no country bumpkin of a publisher.  He has twenty years of experience working for The Milwaukee Journal - and twenty-six years of experience teaching journalism at the University of Illinois.

The escalating incident seems to have begun last week when a local restaurant owner kicked reporters for the newspaper out of her business during a public forum with the local GOP congressman.  Meyer, who reported on the incident in his newspaper, said that the congressman's staff were "apologetic" over the incident.  The business owner, however, was not apologetic and responded to Meyer's reporting with what one Kansas newspaper called "hostile comments" on her Facebook page.

At that point a confidential source provided the newspaper with information of a derogatory nature about the legal history of the restaurant operator, information which the newspaper verified through official sources.  But the publisher suspected that his paper was being "set up," and he notified the local police of the anonymous report - and Meyer decided not to publish the material.

But the police notified the restaurant owner of what had been transpiring, and she went before the city council to complain that newspaper had illegally obtained and disseminated sensitive documents about her.  Her complaints to the council caused the publisher to rethink his position of restraint, and he published what had been learned on Thursday.

And the following day the raid occurred.

(To complicate the matter even further, it now appears as though the Marion County Record has also been conducting an investigation into alleged past misconduct by the local chief of police.)

The Executive Director of the Kansas Press Association, Emily Bradbury, had this to say:

"An attack on a newspaper office through an illegal search is not just an infringement on the rights of journalists but an assault on the very foundation of democracy and the public's right to know.  This cannot be allowed to stand."

That foundation of democracy of which the director speaks is embodied in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and it was "First" for a reason.  If the press falls, so too will democracy.

Stand strong, Marion County Record!  You are standing for all  of us - and for America!

(Footnote:  On October 18, 2007, deputies working under the command of Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio arrested the two owners/publishers of the Phoenix New Times Newspaper in late night raids at their homes over an article that they had written which included, among other information, Sheriff Arpaio's home address - information that was readily available through other sources including a local government website.  The aggrieved owners sued Sheriff Arpaio in Federal Court, and on December 20, 2013, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a 3.75 million dollar settlement to the newspaper owners.  

At the time of the settlement one of the plaintiffs said, remarking on the original arrests:  "This is outrageous!  Where in America do you arrest journalists for what hey write?"  Well, apparently in Phoenix, Arizona, and Marion, Kansas, but it could be very costly!)

Sully's Gone Fishing!

 

by Pa Rock

Proud Grandpa

(Grandpa's Note:  I have been blessed with six grandchildren and am very proud of all of them.  Over the last several months Grandson Boone (age 24) has graduated from college, Grandson Sebastian (16) has learned to drive, secured his license, and is currently burning up the highways and byways of Oregon, Grandson Judah (13)  is learning business skills including how to operate a cash register, Granddaughter Willow (11) has sung and acted in a play, and studied and preformed improvisational comedy, Granddaughter Olive (11) has also performed in a play in which she belted out a song in a manner that would have made Ethel Merman sit up and pay attention, and Olive, along with her younger brother, Sully (7), had the good fortune over the summer of being able to visit both coasts where they kayaked in the Atlantic and played in the big waves of the Pacific, and between those adventures even saw a musical on Broadway!  So it has been quite a summer for the entire troupe of grandchildren!)

My Kansas grandchildren, Olive and Sully, start back to school this week, and I learned a couple of days ago that Sully is cramming in one more big adventure before his summer comes crashing to a close.  Sully, who will be entering second grade on Wednesday, has taken up fishing!  His dad takes him to a private lake somewhere near their home in the Kansas suburbs of Kansas City where he spends time basking in the sunshine of youth and pulling fish out of the water.  (Sully told me that there is a rule at the lake that he has to throw back all that he catches.  One day he caught five - that's a lot of "throwing back!")

Here's a picture of Sully with a perch that he pulled in the other day.  Boy, did that bring back memories for his old grandfather!

The summer after my fourth grade year, when I was ten, my parents bought an eight-unit tourist court  just north of Noel, Missouri, on the banks of the Elk River.  The whole family worked hard in the summers running Riverview Court, but in the afternoons, after all of the daily work was done, my sister and I were free to play and swim in the river - often with the children of the guests who were staying there.  And when I wasn't swimming in the afternoons, I could usually be found fishing from our boat dock or from one of the flat-bottomed aluminum boats that we maintained for use by the guests.  I had a simple rod and reel along with several cane poles, and I would sit for hours catching beautiful blue and orange sun perch and tossing them back into the river.  I have no doubt that I caught many of the same ones over and over!

I spoke with Sully on the phone yesterday about fishing, and he asked me what type of bait I had used.  Shrimp was the most common bait that I used.  A below-food-grade type was sold in a small white box in the frozen foods section of our local grocery store.  Worms and grasshoppers were also good bait.  There were unpaved parking spaces between some of the cabins, and those were always backstopped with railroad ties.  I learned early on that if I lifted the end of one of those ties and moved it a foot or so, the ground would usually be damp and covered with large worms.  It was much easier than digging!  And it seems like grasshoppers were always plentiful.  Also, wherever I was lucky enough to come across a soft-shelled crawdad, it would be sure to attract a hungry fish.

We were at that cabin court for six years and I loved every minute of life on the river.

I wish Sully the absolute best of memories as he learns to fish and enjoy the outdoors - it is so much healthier than time spent in front of a screen.

Happy fishing, Sully!

Driverless Cars: One More Way to Eliminate Jobs

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

This past Thursday the California Public Utilities Commission which is headquartered in San Francisco voted to allow the two "driverless" car companies currently operating taxi-like services in San Francisco on a limited basis to expand their services.  The specialized vehicles are also referred to as "autonomous vehicles" and "robotaxis" in various news stories and transportation literature.  Four of five commissioners were present for the meeting and vote, and only one of the four voted in opposition to the proposal.  

The one commission member who voted in opposition to the expansion cited protests from area first responders as her reason for opposing the move.  Apparently driverless vehicles are not always at the top of their game in emergency situations, and they sometimes fail to recognize emergency tape barriers.

The two companies involved in the decision are "Waymo" owned by Google and "Cruise" owned by General Motors.  Waymo is apparently not currently permitted to charge for its rides, and Cruise has to operate in a restricted area on a restricted time schedule.  Waymo told the commission that it currently has a wait list of 100,000 individuals wishing to make use of its service.

One of the three commission members who voted to allow the two companies to expand their service tire-print in the San Francisco area cited an improvement in service to customers - people in the area who require transport.   It was noted that the service would be less expensive than traditional taxi service and would in some cases be less particular than ride-share options like Uber.  (An argument was made that some ride-share drivers declined service to the blind because they did not want to transport their assistance dogs.)

One thing that did not seem to work its way into the conversation at the meeting on Thursday was the impact that driverless cars have on jobs in the city.   I'm not a math genius, but it would seem to me that every driverless car working the streets of San Francisco as a taxi would be one less employed San Franciscan who could be working either as a licensed taxi operator or in an entrepreneurial role as a self-employed ride-share operator.

The same principle applies to automated checkouts at grocery stores and big box stores.  I don't use them, but the people who do are taking food off of somebody else's table.  Those are jobs that could be done by humans.

And just in the last couple of weeks Oregon, or at least parts of Oregon, went back to allowing customers at gas stations to pump their own gas.    A couple of decades ago Oregon had prohibited customers pumping their own gas - by state law - an innovation that gave work to thousands of individuals as gas pump attendants, but now the state is backtracking and those jobs will be quickly disappearing..

Nobody is coming for my job, because I don't have one - but they may be coming for yours.  Think about that the next time you hop in a driverless taxi, pump your own gas, or check yourself out at Walmart!  All of that convenience and savings comes with a cost, and while it may not come out of your pocket today, some day it just might.

Corruption, Thy Name Is Clarence!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

If Cheech Marin were a Justice on the US Supreme Court (I wish!), he might put it this way:  "Ethics!  Ethics!  We don't need no stinking ethics!"

Yesterday ProPublica, the first on-line news source to ever win a Pulitzer Prize, published an investigative piece on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his dubious relationships with a small group of billionaires who have, for years, showered the Justice and his politically active wife with expensive travel and vacations which the Thomases have largely failed to report.  ProPublica uncovered evidence of 38 luxury vacations and other travel-related excursions which were gifted to the Thomases by extremely rich individuals, many of whom had business, at one time or another, before the Supreme Court.

After an extensive review of social media posts, interviews with people associated with the travel, and even perusing photo albums, ProPublica was able to document 38 destination vacations, 26 private jet flights - and eight by helicopter,  12 VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, two stays at luxury resorts, and one standing invitation to an ultra-exclusive golf club.  The investigative group believes that list is just a minimum accounting of gifts the Thomases have received from their filthy rich "dear friends."

(I am three-months-to-the-day older that Clarence Thomas, and I have been on some nice vacations - but no where near thirty-eight.  The best ones were when the kids were young and we would spend the nights in sleeping bags  in our family tent at various KOAs around the country.  I'm doubting that Clarence and Ginni even know what a KOA is, let alone have ever stayed in one.  That is their loss.)

Clarence Thomas was reported as saying during a speech in 2001 in which he discussed his position on the Court:  "The job is not worth doing for what they pay."  Perhaps not, Clarence, but it seems to come with a helluva a perks package!

Several political leaders (Democrats, of course) are saying that enough is enough, and that Clarence Thomas  needs to resign.  Congressman Ted Lieu of California posted the following to "X" (Twitter) yesterday:

"Justice Thomas has brought shame upon himself and the United States Supreme Court with his acceptance of massive, repeated, and undisclosed gifts.   No government official, elected or unelected, could ethically or legally accept gifts of that scale.  He should resign immediately."

Hear!  Hear!  Corruption, thy name is Clarence!

There is currently a lot of noise in the press and on Capitol Hill about the need for some sort of ethics reform in the Supreme Court, something that will keep major embarrassments at bay, but that appears unlikely to happen any time soon.  The Senate Judiciary Committee has been trying to come up with a plan, and, in response to that effort, an angry Justice Alito made a big splash in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by declaring that "No provision in the Constitution gives (Congress) the authority to regulate the Supreme Court - period."  Chief Justice Roberts has also been trying to come up with ethics guidelines that all nine justices could agree on - and he bas apparently failed miserably.

So, as Lucy Van Pelt would no doubt put it, "the gift-getting season" will continue unabated at the United States Supreme Court.

The Roberts' Court remains a national embarrassment!

Pelosi's Pawn Hangs On

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Let's see if I got this right.   

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the 90-year-old legislator who is senior to every current member of both Houses of Congress, the entire membership of the age-riddled US Supreme Court, and the two executives (the President and Vice-President) of our Executive Branch - that Dianne Feinstein suffered a minor fall in her home this week and was taken to the hospital where she was examined and released. Good for her!  As an aging senior citizen myself, but one who is fifteen years younger than Feinstein, I appreciate the seriousness of falling.  I have fallen at home twice over the past three years and have unfortunately suffered a broken bone on both occasions.  I am glad that Senator Feinstein did not have to endure that painful hell, and I wish her health, safety, and balance in the future.

That was this week.

Last week a story broke in the national news about Senator Feinstein which revealed that she has granted a power-of-attorney to her daughter to handle her legal affairs.  A sitting United States senator, one who in involved in many issues which are central to the safe operation of our government, has to appoint someone to handle her legal affairs.  Dianne Feinstein is herself a lawyer, having graduated from Stanford with a Juris Doctorate in 1955 and being admitted to the California Bar in 1956, yet she requires a family member to handle her own legal matters.  Interesting.  

(I can remember 1955 and 1956 - barely!)

And it was only a few days before that revelation that one of her aides had to publicly tell Senator Feinstein when and how to vote on a bill?

A picture is beginning to form.

And before that, when Feinstein was bullied in returning to Washington, DC, by a rabid press after spending two full months back in California dealing with a case of the shingles, she indicated to a reporter that she was not even cognizant of the fact that she had been away!

Not too long ago it was revealed in the press that one of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's daughters was residing with Senator Feinstein in her home and helping to take care of her.  Feinstein and Pelosi are both members of the San Francisco elite class and their family friendship is undoubtedly firm and long-standing.

Sometime over the last couple of months Senator Feinstein's office announced that she would not be running for re-election in 2024, but she apparently has no plans to retire before the end of her current term.

So now, let's see if I have this right.  Dianne Feinstein, a 90-year-old US Senator who has provided a great deal of very good service to her country, but whose current level of cognition is at least a matter which should be available for public discussion, is hanging onto (or perhaps not being allowed to leave) a position that she has held for decades, and it looks as though she will remain in that position for at least another year-and-a half.  What the hell is going on?

Here's one theory which has seen the light of print of late.  California is a Democratic state, and Feinstein will likely be replaced by a Democrat.  There are currently three big names in the Democratic race to succeed the aging legislator:  Congresswoman Katie Porter (she of the "white board" fame) of Orange County, Congresswoman Barbara Lee of Oakland - one of San Francisco's less elite neighbors, and Congressman Adam Schiff of one of the trendier and tonier sections of Los Angeles.

Governor Gavin Newsom, who would appoint the replacement for Feinstein should she choose to retire early, has said that he would appoint a black woman to the seat - a perfect description of Congresswoman Barbara Lee.   "Speaker Emerita" Pelosi, however, has a stated preference for Adam Schiff.  Some journalist wags seem to be suggesting that Pelosi may be "encouraging" Feinstein to remain in her senate seat in order that Newsom won't be able to appoint Lee to the position and thus give her an advantage over Schiff in next year's Democratic primary race to fill the senate seat.

Surely not!  Surely to goodness Nancy Pelosi would not use her power, influence, and closeness to Senator Feinstein to rig an election!  Nonsense, I tell you!  Pure unadulterated political nonsense!

Have I got that right?

(Full Disclosure:  This poor typist has sent a small donation to Katie Porter's campaign for the US Senate, a campaign which the congresswoman began even before Senator Feinstein announced that she would not be running for re-election.)

The Worst Was Yet to Come

 

by Pa Rock

Witness to History

Forty-nine years ago today Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, the only chief executive in our nation's history to ever take such a drastic action, although (IMHO) several others should have considered the option.  

Nixon ultimately resigned as a result of a series of political and criminal misadventures known collectively as the "Watergate Scandal," which began coming to the public's attention when a group of burglars were discovered and arrested late on the night of June 17th, 1972 while breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters in the new Watergate complex in Washington, DC.  As the story unfolded and unraveled over the next two years, it started becoming apparent that the burglars were connected to the Republican National Party and the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP).  

The Nixon administration went into full battle mode and tried to cover-up their involvement with the Watergate burglars, and that cover-up ultimately led to investigations in the House and Senate, and the beginning of an impeachment process in the House.   As the scandal grew, Republican Senators started abandoning Nixon, and his impeachment and removal from office began to be seen as a foregone conclusion.   Richard Nixon chose to resign rather than go through the humiliation of being kicked out of office.

I was a twenty-six-year-old lieutenant in the US Army and stationed at Ft. Eustis, Virginia, when all of that was going down.    We lived on base, and I had gone home for lunch and watched the whole the spectacle on television.  It was a bright and sunny day both at my military home in Virginia as well as not too far up the road in Washington, DC.

Nixon had announced the previous evening that he would be resigning at noon the following day.   At about 11:30 a.m. he and his family emerged from the White House and walked to a military helicopter. There he turned and spoke formally to the crowd of friends, family, staff, government officials, and well-wishers.  Pat, his loyal wife, looked on, as did his adult daughters, Tricia Cox and Julie Eisenhower, and their husbands, and a pall of great sadness prevailed.  Everyone knew that the Emperor had been brought down by his own hand, and even the Emperor himself knew it.

Richard Nixon and Pat got on that helicopter forty-nine years ago today, and they flew to Andrews Air Force Base where they boarded Air Force One for their final free flight home to California.   An hour or so later, reportedly while they were over Missouri, the clock struck twelve and the Nixon presidency officially ended.

I remember thinking at the time that I had just lived through the worst presidency that would ever befall our great nation.  I was wrong about that.