Summer Returns from Vacation

 

by Pa Rock

Believer in Air-Conditioning

It's been almost two weeks since I wrote a piece for this blog bragging about the wonderfully cool summer that the Ozarks was experiencing.  I tried not to be too shameful in my boasting because it was only July, and we all knew that sooner or later summer would return. The abnormally cool weather lasted up through this past Saturday when we were inundated with heavy rains, but then on Sunday things began to heat back up and by Monday this area was under a heat advisory which is still in effect and will be at least through tomorrow evening.  The temperature has been climbing to the mid-90's F every day, and the humidity is as thick and heavy as cake frosting.

In other summer notes, a good friend who lives in Missouri wrote yesterday and said that he and his wife had just voted absentee in our state's primary election, and I know that I need to do that as well.  I always vote absentee because I will be "out of town" on Election Day - and I don't like rubbing elbows with the lowlifes who hang around the polling places. Missouri does not register voters by party, and voters are free to select the primary ballot of any party on primary election day.  I typically vote Republican in the primary because there are seldom any Democratic races in this part of the state - hell, there are seldom any Democratic candidates in this part of the state.   Also, voting in the Republican primary affords me two opportunities to vote against Jason Smith, the GOP Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee - once in the primary, and once in the general election.

(I wonder how Rep. Jason Smith, a forty-four-year-old childless bachelor who sleeps in his congressional office, feels about the JD Vance proposal to give extra votes to people who have children?)

A week from today I will be arriving in Chicago on a train from Kansas City.  I will be there four days and nights exploring the city from my base at the historic Drake Hotel in downtown Chicago, visiting with my niece and her family, and attending a performance of a musical play at the Steppenwolf Theatre based on the work of my son, Tim.   Tim has also been involved in the creation and production of the musical adaptation of his work.

I am looking forward to immersing myself in the Windy City, enjoying as much of it as I can cram into four days, and traveling in the gently rolling comfort of a coach car on America's rail system.

It's ten in the morning on Wednesday, July 31st.  Alexa says it's 86 degrees F in West Plains with an expected high of 95 degrees F.   The heat advisory remains in effect.   Summer has returned from its vacation - with a vengeance!  

Lt. Calley's Secret Departure

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

It was revealed yesterday that (former) Lieutenant William Calley, Jr, died quietly at his home in Gainesville, Florida, on April 28th of this year.  The family of the ex-Army officer had apparently tried to keep his death a secret, but it was discovered yesterday by a researcher who was digging through public records.

William Calley was, to much of the world, the ugly and bloody face of American involvement in Vietnam.  In March of 1968 while serving with the US Army in the South Vietnam, Lt. Calley led about 100 US troops into the South Vietnamese village of My Lai which was reportedly a sanctuary for enemy combatants who referred to themselves as Viet Cong.  During that incursion the US troops killed the entire population of the village - 504 individuals from 247 families, including 24 families who lost everyone, three generations with no survivors.

The 504 human beings who died on that terrible day in March of 1968 included elderly individuals, women, some of whom were pregnant, and 173 children - 53 of whom were infants.

Calley's troops used automatic weapons, grenades, and bayonets in their orgy of rape and mass murder.  Lt. Calley himself was accused of spraying a group of frightened villagers with automatic gunfire.

The atrocity committed by Lt. Calley and his troops went unreported during the war and was covered up by the Army, but after his return to the States and discharge from the military service, a GI who had not been involved in the incident but who had specific knowledge of it began writing letters.  Ron Ridenhour wrote letters to President Nixon, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, and thirty members of Congress.  In his letters Ridenhour told in graphic detail about some of the atrocities as they had been described to him.

Calley, who was by then a civilian, was brought before a military tribunal in March of 1971, three years after the massacre.  His first line of defense was that the destruction of the village and the killing of its entire population had been the result of a misguided air strike.  When that didn't work, he said he had been following the orders of his company commander.

Former Lieutenant Calley was found guilty of the premeditated murder of 22 South Vietnamese civilians, and was sentenced to life in prison.  Twenty-six officers and soldiers had originally been charged, but Lt. Calley was the only one convicted.  President Nixon had been accused of interfering in the trial, and he had Calley removed from prison and placed under "house arrest" while his appeals played out.  Several states and politicians rose to Calley's defense, including Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia who instituted an "American Fighting Man's Day" and asked Georgians to drive with their lights on for a week in support of William Calley who was at that time a Georgia resident.  There was a massive movement to get Nixon to pardon Calley, but the politician declined to go that far in his support of the former soldier.

Lt. Calley was paroled by the Secretary of the Army in September of 1975.  He married the daughter of a jeweler in Columbus, Georgia, and spent his working career designing and making jewelry in his father-in-law's jewelry store.  He died at the age of eighty this past April, and his family apparently chose to keep his passing a secret.

But some things need to be remembered.

Firing JD

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

It is no secret that by the end of Trump's presidency he was not pleased with his Vice President.  Mike Pence had openly refused to subvert the Constitution to keep Trump and himself in office, and Trump was offended to the point of encouraging insurrection and throwing food.  Trump had been strong-armed into choosing Pence as his running mate by political operatives who were concerned with capturing the support of conservative Christians.

This time was going to be different.  Trump knew that he had better political instincts that his entourage of political gnats and horseflies who were constantly buzzing around his heavily shellacked head trying to get his attention.  The pests were worried about "balancing" the ticket and choosing someone who would appeal to certain blocks of voters, such as suburban women or minorities, and Trump was looking for the ultimate brown-noser, someone whose loyalty to Trump would be unwavering.

Trump would be totally in charge of this year's vice presidential selection, and his commitment to that notion was strengthened considerably when Joe Biden tanked himself in the June 27th debate in Atlanta.  At that point Trump decided he was invincible, the certain winner in November, and he did not have to worry about pleasing any constituency with his selection.   He was completely free to choose anyone he wanted to be his number two.

Trump announced his selection of Senator JD Vance of Ohio on Monday, July 15th, just as the GOP convention was getting started.  Vance, who eight years earlier had referred to Trump as "reprehensible," "an idiot," "a cynical asshole like Nixon" and "America's Hitler," had morphed into a shameless sycophant whose brown nose was deeply lodged in Trump's adult diaper.  Vance had transformed himself from a seemingly intellectual author with a sociological bent and a unique understanding of Appalachian America to a mini-Trump who  could flawlessly parrot Trump's position on all major issues and seamlessly adopt them as his own.

Vance was an easy choice for Trump.  He was an echo and a reflection of Donald Trump who brought absolutely nothing new to the ticket except for the fact that he was half the age of the elderly head of the ticket.  Trump's voting base was not expanded by adding Vance to the ticket, it was just more of the same.  But that was fine because Trump knew he was going to win - and win big.   Those RINOs who wanted to put a woman or a Black on the ticket could just go pound sand.

That was July 15th - Monday - the day the Trump/Vance ticket was created.  Good times!

Good times for six days.

On Sunday, July 21st in the early afternoon, that sneaky Joe Biden yanked the rug out from under the elderly felon and his hillbilly sidekick by announcing that he, Biden, the man Trump KNEW he could beat, was dropping out of the race and throwing his support to his Vice President, Kamala Harris, to be the new Democratic nominee.  Then Harris, who proved to be far more politically astute than Trump had ever imagined, quickly began garnering support and enthusiasm - and lots and lots of money - for her campaign.

It was a new ballgame.  Suddenly Donald Trump was the old coot in the race, and issues that were especially important to female voters, like abortion, health care, child care, affordable housing, and education were going to be consuming a goodly amount of political oxygen.   JD Vance's positions on the issues didn't broaden Trump's appeal - all Vance amounted to was just more of the same.  He represented nothing but a wasted opportunity.

Yesterday Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York planted his tongue firmly in his cheek and said on "Face the Nation" that Trump's selection of Vance as his running mate was "one of the best things he ever did for Democrats."   Then Schumer "dared" Trump to replace Vance on the ticket "before it is too late."

Senator Schumer is, of course, needling Trump just for the fun of it, but as Vance's oddball positions start coming to light, there are also Republicans expressing buyer's remorse at their party's selection for  the vice presidential spot on the GOP ticket.

Republicans with the ability to count know that their ticket has a very limited appeal with suburban women, and the election will not be won without significant support form that very important group of voters.

Trump might be smart to accept Schumer's dare and fire JD Vance, but he won't.  That would be an admission that he had been wrong, and Trump is never wrong, even when a jury of his peers says otherwise, unanimously, thirty-seven times.

The elderly felon has a problem.

Good.

Why Would a Candidate Not Need Votes?

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Candidates run for public office for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes they are in it for the power and control over their own lives and the lives of others, sometimes for the glory and recognition, sometimes for the money, or at a minimum, medical insurance and a good retirement, and sometimes people even run for office to make life better and provide more opportunities for those they were elected to serve.  Regardless of their motives for being in politics, the one thing that all office-seekers have in common is the pursuit of the almighty vote.  Votes are what ultimately get the politician into office and onto the public payroll - at least in a democracy.

But now we have a politician who is running for President of the United States who is telling his voters that they don't have to vote because he doesn't need their votes.  

Donald John Trump, the elderly convicted felon who is the GOP candidate for President, was on Fox and Friends last Thursday where he gave the following "instruction" to his voters:

"My instruction:  We don't need the votes, I have so many votes."

It was a sentiment that Trump had been expressing for months, going back as far as last October during primary season when he told an audience in New Hampshire:

"Don't worry about voting.    The voting - we got plenty of votes"

Trump also made essentially the same remark at rallies in Detroit and Virginia.

And this past Thursday he said it again on Fox and Friends.  What does that even mean?  Trump is seldom truthful about anything, and sometimes his stream-of-consciousness rambling drifts far off into weirdness like his oft-repeated and disjointed comments about sharks and the fictional cannibal, Hannibal Lecter.  

Last Thursday Donald Trump was telling his supporters not to worry about voting because he didn't need the votes.  But a day later his tune changed.

On Friday Trump was speaking to the "Christian" group, Turning Point USA at their "Believers Summit 2024" in West Palm Beach, Florida, and he told them that they would have to get out and vote, but that they would never have to do it again.   Trump said:

"You won't have to do it anymore, four more years, you know what?  It'll be fixed, it'll be fine.  You've got to get out and vote.  In four years you don't have to vote again.  We'll have it fixed so good, you're not going to have to vote."

Say what?  Trump almost makes more sense when he is prattling on about Hannibal the cannibal.

The media would rather overlook Trump's gobbledegook than examine it or try to determine what he is actually trying to say.   Is he saying that he is so extremely popular that he will have more votes on Election Day than he needs?  Is he saying that one of his nitwit Nazi Field Marshals from his last administration has told him that the election will be decided by something other than voters - such as the military - so don't worry about votes?  And is "We'll have it fixed so good, you're not going to have to vote." as ominous as it sounds?

What is behind a politician telling voters that he does not need their votes - or, that they will have to vote this time, but never again?   Is it senility, or delusion, or is it something sinister signaling an end to democracy?  

Why would a candidate not need votes?

We need to be finding out.

Kamala's Exclusive Eleven

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly has the Democratic nomination for President locked up at this point and the party will be formally nominating her by some form of "virtual" vote within the next few days.  Harris, who is in a time crunch - with early voting in some states beginning weeks before the actual Election Day of  November 5th, and the election itself only 101 days away - will immediately have to pivot from her own nomination and make a selection for a running mate, one of the most important decisions she will face.

Harris has a vetting team in place which is headed by former US Attorney General Eric Holder and staffed with personnel from two prominent law firms.  They have already sent out vetting materials, according to various news reports, to "up to a dozen individuals" and including one who is not is not in government service.    News articles available on the internet lists some of the twelve, but I could not find the entire list anywhere.  Using a metaphorical shovel, I dug through those articles and believe that I have unearthed eleven.  The list includes seven governors, one senator, two cabinet secretaries, and a celebrity billionaire who gets under Trump's thin skin.  

Kamala's Exclusive Eleven include (in alphabetical order):

1.   Andy Beshear  (Governor of Kentucky):  (age 46)  Very popular governor of a Red state.  Beshear will be termed out of office when his current term expires in 2027.  He is a former attorney general of the state and the son of a former governor.  Kentucky will not be in play in the upcoming presidential race, but Beshear on the Democratic ticket is seen as something which would detract from the supposed Appalachian relevance of GOP veep candidate JD Vance.  Beshear is young, photogenic, and a good public speaker.

2.   Pete Buttigieg    (US Transportation Secretary):  (age 42)   The former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, also served as an intelligence officer in the Naval Reserve and in Afghanistan.  Buttigieg ran for President in 2020 and did well in the Iowa caucuses (which he may have actually won) and the New Hampshire primary where he placed second.  He is gay, and he and his husband are adoptive parents to three-year-old fraternal twins, a boy and a girl.  Secretary Pete is known for his quick mind and penchant for taking a fight directly to the source.  He has often appeared on the Fox network.

3.  Roy Cooper   (Governor of North Carolina):  (age 67)   Democratic presidential candidates haven't won North Carolina since 2008, but Biden came close in 2020 - and Harris apparently sees it as a definite possibility for a pickup.  She has visited the state numerous times and reportedly has a strong friendship with Governor Cooper.  Cooper's drawbacks include his age, and the fact that the lieutenant governor in North Carolina assumes the governor's powers whenever the governor is out of the state - and the current lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, is a Republican currently running for governor who is known for his extreme, and often wacky positions.  That might make it hard for Cooper to leave the state for campaigning - although he does have the power to cancel the lieutenant governor's actions when he returns to the state.

4.   Mark Cuban   (Celebrity Billionaire)    (age 65)   Cuban, who has no history in politics, recently sold his controlling inteerest in the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and has indicated that he would be interested in delving into politics.  He has also said that he might run for PTA somewhere.  Cuban voted Republican in this year's Texas presidential primary for Nikki Haley.  He has said that in a contest between Biden and Trump, he would definitely vote for Biden.   Cuban has substantial name recognition and has been a regular panelist on ABC's Shark Tank.

5.   Mark Kelly   (US Senator from Arizona)   (age 60)   Kelly, a former astronaut, is known as a centrist in  the Senate and has successfully conducted and won two statewide contests for Senator in Arizona, a fairly conservative state.  Biden won Arizona narrowly in 2020, but now Trump is perceived as having a lead in the state, and Kelly on the Democratic ticket could secure the state for Harris.   Mark Kelly is an outspoken advocate for gun control and helped to found a national organization for that cause.  He is married to former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords, who nearly died as a result of a mass shooting.  His elevation to Vice President would also bring his very compelling and well-spoken wife back onto the national scene.

6.   Gavin Newsom   (Governor of California)    (age 56)   Newsom is the well-known and well-liked governor of the nation's largest state.  He appears to be intent on becoming a national figure, but he represents the same state that is home to Kamala Harris.  According to the 12th Amendment to the US Constitution if the President and Vice-President candidates are from the same state, electoral college electors from that state cannot vote for both candidates.  It is a hiccup that could keep him from being considered.  But, Harris seems to be vetting him regardless of the hiccup.  Newsom is the former spouse of Donald Trump, Jr's long-term finance, Kimberly Guilfoyle.

7.   J. B. Pritzker   (Governor of Illinois)   (age 59)   Pritzker, a hotel (Hyatt) billionaire, has been governor of Illinois since 2019.  He is a successful businessman who had the good fortune to have been born wealthy.  Illinois should go Democratic in the 2024 presidential race regardless of whether Pritzker is on the ticket or not, nevertheless, he is apparently being vetted.

8.   Gina Raimondo   (US Secretary of Commerce)   (age 53).  Raimondo, the former Governor of Rhode Island, has served in the Biden cabinet throughout his term of office.  She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with a degree in economics.   She is also a Rhodes Scholar who attended New College at Oxford.  She is married with two children.

9.   Josh Shapiro   (Governor of Pennsylvania)   (age 51)   Shapiro, a popular governor whom many believe could deliver the important swing state of Pennsylvania to the Democrats if he becomes Harris's running mate.    Shapiro is the only Jew on the veep list, which some see as an advantage for the party, but his strong support of Israel in the War in Gaza and his attitude toward student protesters in the US have fueled opposition on the party's left flank to his inclusion on the ticket.

10.  Tim Walz   (Governor of Minnesota)   (age 60)   Walz, a former public school teacher, coach, and union member who has strong support among labor.  He speaks effectively and is widely seen as a man of the people.  He has served as governor of Minnesota since 2019, a state Trump recently fantasized about winning.

11.   Gretchen Whitmer   (Governor of Michigan)   (age 52)    Whitmer is the co-chair of Harris's national campaign and has recently indicated that she is not interested in being on the ticket.  However, it does appear that she is being vetted for Vice-President.  Whitmer is widely seen as an effective governor, and her inclusion on the ticket could help to insure that Michigan lands in the Democratic column in November.  There is some concern among Democrats that exclusion of a white male on the ticket would be seen as a lack of balance.  If the Democratic Vice-Presidential nomination goes to Whitmer, Raimondo, or Shapiro, it will be the first time in history that a national ticket has not included at least one Christian male.

That's the Exclusive Eleven.  According to an article in USA earlier this week, the odds-makers have this to say:

Star Sports:  Mark Kelly in the lead followed by Shapiro, Cooper, and Beshear.

Bet 365:  Mark Kelly in the lead followed by Shapiro, Cooper, Beshear, and Buttigieg.

Bovada:  Mark Kelly in the lead followed by Shapiro, Cooper, Beshear, and Walz.

BetOnline:  Mark Kelly in the lead followed by Shapiro, Cooper, Beshear, and Walz.

Oddschecker:  Mark Kelly in the lead follow by Shapiro, Cooper, Beshear, and Buttigieg.

Place those bets!

In Support of Childless Cat Ladies

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

There is an old television clip from 2021 circulating across the internet which focuses on an interview of JD Vance by Tucker Carlson on the Fox News channel.  At the time Vance was running for the US Senate from Ohio, an election which he ultimately won.  In the clip candidate Vance was promoting the notion that the country should be run by people who actually had a stake in its future, and Vance viewed that stake in the future as being biological parents.  He derogatorily referred to some of America's political leaders as "childless cat ladies," or people without a biological stake in our country's future.

At other times JD Vance has enhanced his view on the importance of having children by suggesting that all children should be given votes, and that those votes should be controlled by their parents until the children reach adulthood.  If a couple has six children, and the neighboring couple has one, the first couple should control a total of eight votes and the other couple only has three votes - and the childless "cat lady" living down on the corner would only have one.  The future of democracy as hatched in the mind of JD Vance:

"Let's give votes to all children in this country, but let's give control over those votes to the parents of those children.  When you go to the polls as a parent, you should have more power - you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic - than people who don't have kids.  Let's face the consequences and the reality:  If you don't have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn't get nearly the same voice."

The problems with that statement are numerous.  Not everyone wants to have children, but the decision to remain childless has no bearing whatsoever on on the level of one's patriotism or on a person's interest in the future of the nation.  Childless people have links to the future through nieces, nephews, the children of friends and neighbors, and all manner of young acquaintances.

Even people without children benefit from good government, so why shouldn't they be allowed to participate at the same level as anyone else?

Blake Masters, a GOP politician who is running for a congressional seat in Arizona and who, like Vance, is nestled comfortably in the deep pocket of billionaire Peter Thiel, holds essentially the same view as Vance on the subject of childless politicians.  Masters is quoted in national media as saying:

"Political leaders should have children.  Certainly at least they should be married.  If you aren't running or can't run a household of your own, how can you relate to a constituency of families, or govern wisely with respect to future generations?  Skin in the game matters."

Vance's (and Masters') outrageous position, one that Tucker Carlson seemed to revel in, also gives short shrift to people who are unable to have children due toper-existing conditions or medical complications, and many conservatives, like JD Vance, favor doing away with options to help them conceive a pregnancy, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF).  Actress Jennifer Anniston tore into Vance's "cat lady" remarks and his position on IVF in a tweet this week:

"Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day.  I hope that she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option.  Because you are trying to take that away from her, too."

The internet blowback to Vance's "cat lady" remarks has been fierce.  Common rebuttals have included references to historical figures - like Jesus Christ and George Washington - who had no biological children of their own but still managed to have a considerable impact on the future of civilization.   It's also been pointed out that these comments are, at their base, sexist attacks on women that have originated in, and been nourished by, the patriarchy.

The focus on "cat ladies" is chauvinism writ large, and now it is up to Kamala Harris to show these sexist and racist blowhards that it is possible to love your country and be a highly effective leader without creating a child.

America is embracing the future while JD Vance is still stumbling through the backwoods of 19th century Appalachia.

Old Friends Talking

by Pa Rock

Neighbor and Friend

I don't get a lot of visitors at my place, a situation that is entirely my fault because I don't go out of my way to meet people or be social.  But this week I have had two old friends stop by to chat, and both served as nice breaks to my otherwise dull routine.

Good neighbor Rex came by on Tuesday.  I had just gone outside and discovered that he was bush-hogging the part of my land that I don't keep mowed.  Rex normally does that twice a year and has ever since I have lived here.  Rex is a year older than me and retired from a career of well-drilling and over-the-road truck-driving.  I pay Rex for the mowing and other odd jobs that he helps with, like snow-plowing and tree removal, but he is the type of guy who would work for nothing - just to be helpful and stay busy.  He proved that on Tuesday when he made it clear that he didn't want anything for that day's bush-hogging,  He said I always paid him too much anyway and that day's mowing was my "birthday gift."  (My birthday was in March - so now I have to figure out some way to repay Rex's kindness without the use of cash!)

Rex got off of his tractor and walked over to visit when he saw me outside.  He wanted to know about my drive-about to Canada, and we discussed that for awhile.  Rex has driven over much of North America, so we had a few road stories to exchange.  Then he told me about his brother.  I didn't ask the brother's age, but got the impression that he is older than Rex and in poor health.  The brother had read about the world's tallest building, which is in Dubai, on the internet and decided that he would like to see that building and ride the elevator to the top.  Rex's brother got his plane ticket, took the 14-hour flight to Dubai, and ascended the world's tallest building!

Rex said that he asked his brother before he left, "What if you die while you're gone?"  and the brother replied, "That shouldn't be a problem.  They've got shovels over there!"

Rex and I are very careful to never discuss politics out of a mutual assumption that we are probably not on the same political page.

The next day another old friend stopped by to visit.  Matt and I taught together in an area high school forty years ago, and today we live about twenty-five miles apart yet seldom see each other.  Yesterday was our first visit in at least two years.   Matt told me yesterday that he will be ninety next year.  When we get together one of the things we do is to run down the list of our old friends and try to figure out which ones are still vertical.    Matt informed me of several who have gone on since our last visit, including one who passed away only last week.

Matt and I do discuss politics because we are both in general political agreement.   We share the same concerns and dislikes about Trump, and we are both excited about Kamala Harris being in the race.

Not every old person is an automatic Trump supporter.  In fact, many of us are not.  Remember that, it's important!

I don't get much company, but I damned sure treasure the company that I do get!  

Old Friends / Bookends

by Simon and Garfunkel

Old friends

Old friends

Sat on their park bench

Like bookends

A newspaper blown through the grass

Falls on the round toes

Of the high shoes

Of the old friends

Old friends

Winter companions 

The old men

Lost in their overcoats

Waiting for the sunset

The sounds of the city

Sifting through trees

Settle like dust

On the shoulders

Of the old friends

Can you imagine us

Years from today

Sharing a park bench quietly?

How terribly strange

To be seventy

Old friends

Memory brushes the same years

Silently sharing the same fear

Time it was, 

And what a time it was

It was . . . 

A time of innocence

A time of confidences

Long ago . . . it must be . . . 

I have a photograph

Preserve your memories

There all that's left you

Nick at Fifty-One

 

by Pa Rock

Proud Papa

My most senior offspring, Nicholas Karl Macy, is fifty-one years old today.  (My God, how old does that make me?)    He was born overseas in a US military hospital on the Japanese Island of Okinawa and didn't arrive in the United States until he was almost two months old.  Nick was raised in southwest Missouri and grew up enjoying the outdoor activities that the Ozarks has to offer, particularly fishing, and still exhibits a strong preference for the quiet and solitude of nature.

Nick has one child, a son named Boone who also has a strong affinity for nature and is currently into spelunking.

Nick and I share a home in West Plains, Missouri, along with a pair of dogs, and we have learned to navigate our own lives in close proximity to one another without getting in each other's way too often.  Sometimes that's a tricky business, but we seem to manage fairly well.

Nick is a hard worker, and he is a very kind and out-going person.  He makes friends easily, and is quick to volunteer when somebody needs needs assistance.  He is an important fixture in his community of friends - and he is a big help to me in keeping things functioning around the farm.  Today, for instance, he said that when he gets home from work he plans on mowing.  (I'll be sure not to get in his way!)

Happy birthday, Nick.  I hope it's a great one - and the mowing can wait until tomorrow!

Parents Own Some Responsibility for Actions of their Kids

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

A few months ago I shared some thoughts in this space on the subject of parental responsibility, particularly as it applied to James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of 15-year-old school-shooter Ethan Crumbley who brought an automatic weapon that his parents had purchased for him to his high school in Oxford, Michigan, and murdered four of his classmates. Ethan Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and his parents were each charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter and received 10-to-15-year prison sentences.  Parents were finally being held accountable for the actions of their spawn.  It was a bold move forward by the American legal system.

Today I read about another case in which a child died due to, at least in part, negligent behavior on the part of another child's parents.

An unidentified 16-year-old boy from the Borough of Queens in New York City was out driving his parents high-performance BMW last year, apparently with the parents' knowledge and permission, when he wrecked the car and killed his 14-year-old female passenger.

But there is more to the story than that.

First of all the boy was not a fully-licensed driver.  News reports said that he had a "junior" driver's license and was only supposed to be driving with a supervising fully-licensed driver in the vehicle with him.  Second, he had a history of driving without being properly licensed, and school administrators were so concerned that they bad contacted his parents and told them that he should not be driving.  And third, during the same month that the school had contacted his parents, the boy was ticketed for driving without a license and for using a portable electronic device while driving.

The wreck itself in which the girl was killed was no ordinary fender-bender.  The teen driver was reportedly doing 100 mph in a 30 mph speed zone when his vehicle spun out of control and slammed into a UPS tractor-trailer.   The 14-year-old girl was thrown from the car and killed, the UPS driver was injured, the car was nearly split in half, and the 16-year-old driver walked away with minor injuries.

The driver, a minor, is facing multiple charges including 2nd degree manslaughter and faces up to 15 years in prison.     His parents, who according to news reports "frequently" allowed the boy to use their high-performance vehicle, pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child and were sentenced to three years of probation and twenty-six weeks of parenting classes.   

Children are not born monsters.  Much of who they become is taught and shaped by others, and parents are usually their first and most significant teachers and role models.  Kudos to the courts for finally beginning to give some credit where credit is due.

Democrats Get Ready for a Fresh Start

 

by Pa Rock

Democrat

The US presidential race is in the throes of a reset today after President Biden finally relented to increasing pressure from within the Democratic Party to withdraw as a candidate in this year's election due to infirmities associated with aging.  The other elderly candidate, Donald Trump, remains in the race as the Republican standard bearer.  Joe Biden has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the Democratic nominee, and she has vowed to "earn and win" the nomination and right to be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

Vice President Harris spent the remainder of yesterday, after the news broke about her boss, working the phones and speaking to over one hundred  movers and shakers in the Democratic Party.  She has already accumulated an impressive list of endorsements from prominent party members and even the endorsements of a few state delegations to next month's Democratic Convention in Chicago.  Notably absent from the list of early endorsements for Harris are the big four:  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and former President Barack Obama, all of whom brought some pressure to bear on Biden to withdraw as a candidate.  Speculation is that those four are standing aside from the selection process, at least temporarily, so as to not give the impression that the replacement nominee is being selected by the "party bosses."

But, selection process aside, Kamala Harris appears to be massing her strength and heading toward the nomination.   Former Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who recently became an Independent and has a long history of voting with Republicans, is making some noise about returning to the Democratic fold and challenging Harris for the nomination, but it seems unlikely in this day and age that Democrats would rush to embrace a conservative politician whose personal fortune and political career are rooted in coal mining and the fossil fuel industry.

I am personally enthusiastic about a Kamala Harris candidacy.  She has the background, experience, wisdom, and ability to lead the nation and is an all-around excellent choice.  We are heading into the most important election in modern times, and now we have a good chance of winning.

(This has been a very messy political year with regard to presidential politics.   Wouldn't it be great if democracy prevailed and every voter in America had an equal say in who the nominees were instead of the people in early primary and caucus states making those choices for us?  - Perhaps three regional national primary days  -  And wouldn't it be great if every vote cast in a presidential election was actually counted toward the direct election of the President, and the person who received the most total votes actually won  - without the electoral college bullshit!  Maybe if we pump some real democracy back into democracy, we could get it right the first time  But for now it is what it is.)

Give 'em hell, Kamala!

GOP Window-Peekers Take Aim at Divorce

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The looney fringe (and center) of the Republican Party doesn't like the government telling people how to live their lives, but they have no qualms at all about trying to impose their own values on others - often through the creation of laws that are then enforced by the government.  It's hypocrisy created and sustained by a straight, white, male-dominated, Christian mainstream that on the one hand paints the government as an enemy of the people, and on the other uses the government to impose its will on others.  Laws that reflect the beliefs and values of the mainstream are seen as necessary safeguards on society, and others which recognize or benefit those outside of the mainstream are portrayed as government intrusions on an otherwise free people.

There are those who fervently believe that their mission in life is to define and codify morality and to enforce their views on the rest of society, and they get especially intense when it comes to matters like marriage, gender, sex, and procreation, or what some might generalize as "bedroom" issues.

They are peeking in bedroom windows looking for marriage licenses that reflect a spiritual and legal union between one man (who was born a man) and one woman (who was born a woman).  They want to know if God's will that men and women have sex to conceive children is being interfered with by contraception, and if those babies, once conceived are being allowed to develop to full-term where they can exist outside of the womb, or are they being "murdered" by would-be parents and abortionist doctors.   The people peeking in the bedroom windows and taking copious notes are not concerned with whether the fetus - which they insist is a child - is viable or not or whether the birth will harm or even kill the mother or the child.  They just want God's will to be allowed to proceed without outside interference. 

The bedroom monitors want to make sure that people who feel they were born into the wrong bodies - or as the wrong gender - remain in the bodies that God provided them.  If God made him a boy, then by God he remains a boy, and if God made her a girl, then Hail Mary she's a girl!

The window-peekers are also concerned with people who practice appropriate sex but can't get pregnant.  Are they resorting to "unnatural' remedies like surrogacy or fertilizing eggs outside of the womb, or are they doing the responsible thing and searching for healthy white babies to adopt?

The bedroom police work to ensure that when people are once married, they stay married.  There is a move on to do away with the concept of "no fault" divorce - a divorce where no blame is assigned and no objections offered.  People just decide the marriage is not working and one or the other files  to end the marriage.   Some on the right think that divorce has become too easy and they favor ending "no fault" and making people show and prove grounds for divorce.  (All states currently recognize the concept of no-fault divorce, but a majority of states still have procedures in place which make divorce more difficult in the event that one of the parties objects.)

Nearly three-quarters of people currently filing for divorce are women, and the concept of "no-fault" is widely seen as a safety issue that makes it easier for women to flee an abusive marriage.  Seventeen states and the District of Columbia are currently "no-fault" divorce states where anyone who wants a divorce can get one without a costly or dangerous court entanglement.

Divorce, like abortion and contraception, is widely seen as a women's issue, and social conservatives have a penchant for attacking women's issues.   One of their primary arguments is that divorce, even in violent households, harms children by placing them in less stable and more dysfunctional settings.  The reality being ignored there is that little boys who witness, day-in and day-out, Dad beating the crap out of Mom, often grow up emulating their primary role model and become spouse abusers themselves - and little girls growing up in those households seek out spouses who are controlling like their fathers were.

Those are facts, but window-peekers aren't looking for facts - they just want to preserve the world in which they grew up, a world designed and run as their God intended.

(Hypocrisy in action:  JD Vance has spoken out against divorce even in cases of violence in families.  Donald Tump is twice-divorced and has a history of extra-marital affairs.  Go figure.)

Summer Goes on Vacation

 

by Pa Rock

Observer of Nature

Summer has come and gone a couple of times already this year in the Ozarks. There have been a few odd occurrences when the temperature reached into the nineties and brought along humidity that felt like it had come from Equatorial Africa, but those instances have seemed to last no more than three or four days before nicer weather swoops in and blows the heat away.  In general terms this is the nicest summer that I have experienced in the ten years that I have been back in the Ozarks.

What's going on?  As the rest of the world bounces around in the tumbler of climate change, did I get lucky for once in my life and settle on an oddball sliver of the planet where the climate is actually getting better?  I don't understand what's happening, but I'll take it!

The sky is blue outside of window where I sit typing this blog.  There are a very few clouds floating by and the sun is shining, but it is not July hot.   The temperature right now is in the high sixties and the predicted high for today is 81 degrees F.  The birdbath is full and it has been days since I've added any water to it.  There is a squirrel scampering through the thick green grass, roses are blooming in the front and back yards, the surprise lilies are up, the sunflowers are at about three feet and adding inches every day, and I can see a large zucchini squash in a flower pot that needs to be harvested.

It's a beautiful day - and it feels more like April than July.  I haven't heard the air-conditioner kick on once today.

Summer will return, I know that.  It has been here several times already.  But today is not summer, today is something else.  And every day that we have like today is one less day of trudging through the stifling heat of summer.

Summer seems to have taken a break.  Perhaps it has gone on vacation.

Thunderstorms are predicted for tomorrow with a high of 77 degrees F.

Do my friends in Phoenix know they have options?  They don't have to live in an oven just above the main furnace of hell.  They can always invest in a lawnmower and join me in the beautiful green Ozarks!

Lou Dobbs Signs Off

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Television personality and vocal Trump supporter Lou Dobbs died yesterday.  Dobbs, a business reporter who was part of the original CNN team when the network formed in 1980, was forced out of his position there in 2009 when he began using his on-air time to spout "birther" nonsense and pushing claims that Barack Obama had actually been born in Kenya, views also espoused by Trump.   

Lou Dobbs joined Fox in 2010 as an on-air personality, but he was fired from that perch in 2021 when he was named in a 2.7 billion dollar lawsuit which claimed that he and other Fox News hosts had defamed a voting machine company while perpetuating Donald Trump's election lies.  He had recently been broadcasting his  show "Lou Dobbs Tonight" over an internet streaming service owned by My Pillow's Mike Lindell, another leading Trump supporter.

Dobbs was a chronic complainer about immigration across the southern US border, the central issue of the Trump's political career.

Lou Dobbs was seventy-eight at the time of his demise, the same age as his political hero, Donald Trump.  There was no cause of death given, but he had missed work for the past week.

Today the world is just a little less angry, and Donald Trump is down one more vote.

Biden Deals with COVID and Abandonment Issues

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Yesterday while Joe Biden was on the campaign trail struggling to stay relevant and remain in the race for President, he was diagnosed with a mild case of COVID and chose to self-isolate at one of his homes in Delaware.  Biden needed to be out pressing the flesh, stirring the masses, and exhibiting his physical stamina and mental acuity while leading the team toward victory, but instead he was sidelined with a malady that most of the country would like to forget.

It was a lousy day, and it came on the heels of a lousy week.

News reports this morning state that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the man who would be Speaker if the Democrats were to regain control of the House of Representatives this November, met with Biden last Thursday and told him that  he should drop out of the race.  On Saturday Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer traveled to Biden's summer home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and made the same plea to the President.  Both prominent Democrats, Jeffries and Schumer, made it clear to the President that their conversations with him about the need to drop out of the presidential race would not remain confidential.

There is also a report out this morning that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has confronted President Biden to his face about the need for him to exit the race, and Pelosi's lap poodle, Rep. Adam Schiff of California who is running for the US Senate, yesterday publicly called for Biden to leave the race.

But the more pressure that party leaders exert on Joe Biden, the more stubborn he seems to become.  They want him off of their ticket, and he wants them off of his lawn!

Getting to Know JD

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Seeing as how cranky old  Joe Biden seems to be more determined than ever to stay in the presidential race, trash his legacy, and hand the Oval Office back over to Donald Trump, I decided that I should start becoming acquainted with the young man who appears destined to be at the center of American politics for years to come:  JD Vance.

Vance, who is currently thirty-nine, will be the youngest Vice-Presidential candidate of a major party since Richard Nixon who was also thirty-nine when he was selected by Eisenhower to be his veep candidate in 1952.  Nixon went on to run on national tickets five times, and was elected to office four of those times, a record only equalled once, by FDR, who was thirty-eight when James M. Cox selected him as his running mate in 1920 on the Democratic ticket that eventually lost to the Republican ticket of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge.  FDR went on the win the presidency four times.  (And the moral of that wad of political trivia is that sometimes when candidates hit the national scene at a very young age, they stay around for a long, damned time!)

I first heard the name "JD Vance" seven or eight years ago when National Public Radio (NPR) was airing a review of his book, Hillbilly Elegy, the memoir of the 31-year-old Yale Law School graduate and former Marine who had grown up in a dysfunctional family in America's highly impoverished Appalachian Rust Belt.  His story was compelling, and on impulse I ordered the book.

When the book arrived I skimmed it and then set it aside, meaning to get back to it at some point.  Eventually it got shelved and forgotten.  Today I dragged it back out with a new determination to get the book read.  It is 257 pages of moderately sized and spaced type that I should be able to consume in only a few days, even at my lackadaisical reading pace, and the author seems to write in a manner that is very accessible to us ordinary folk.

The book that I haven'r yet read was apparently made into a movie that I haven't yet seen.   The book is suddenly back at the top of the best seller lists, and the movie is also enjoying a revival.  Political organizations often buy large quantities of books by candidates in order to give them the prestige of being a "best-selling" author, but JD Vance captured that honor on his own,   I'm anxious to get into Hillbilly Elegy and expect that it may provide a few honest insights into who this young man actually is, the person who will be one Big Mac away from running the world's most powerful country.

A brief pass through the internet reveals that Vance has a young family.  His wife, Usha, is a corporate attorney who was his classmate and best friend at Yale Law.  Usha, who is 38, is a first generation Indian American who grew up in San Diego.  She is a practicing Hindu.  She and Vance have two sons, ages six and four, and a daughter who is two.

JD Vance was born James Donald Bowman. but after his mother divorced Mr. Bowman and her ex gave up his parental rights, she changed her son's name to James David and updated his last name to that of her new husband.  James David was called J.D. throughout his early life, and at some point as he was growing up and getting tired of trying to make this last name match that of his mother's current partner, he adopted Vance, his mother's maiden name and the surname of his maternal grandparents - the stability in his life - as his own surname.  Now JD Vance is the candidate's professional name, and he does not set the JD part of with punctuation.  The Associated Press "style" on the name is also JD Vance, without punctuation.

When Trump chose Mike Pence as his first Vice President, he famously did not get the man that he thought he had.  Hopefully, he did not get what he intended this time either.  

I'm anxious to get into Hillbilly Elegy and try to suss out who this Vance character might actually be.

Spare Me the Sanctimony

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

We live in mean, angry times, and violence seems to have become a staple of American society.  Why waste time discussing your concerns with family members, friends, a counselor or a minister, when you can just pull an automatic weapon out of the closet and make a public statement that will resonate through the pages of history.

Violence, and especially gun violence, is wrong and it's evil, but as long as every troubled and angry young man in this country has ready access to weapons of war, there will be blood in the streets, and classrooms, and on the public stages.

I wasn't going to comment on the political shooting in Pennsylvania last Saturday because I had nothing to add to the conversation.  The United States is a diverse political nation, and of late our political differences seem to have polarized the population.  But we address those political differences, regardless of how extreme they become, through democratic processes like campaigns and elections, and not by making politicians, the message-carriers, pop-up targets in a shooting gallery.

Politically I am not a fan of Mr. Trump, but I am very thankful that he was not injured more seriously in the attack on Saturday.  We are the United States of America - and not some third-rate, banana republic.  We use ballots to resolve our differences, not bullets.

That was how I saw the situation, and others, of course saw it differently.  Some tried to make it political and blame it on the national press or the other political party for stirring anger against their candidate, and still others were quick to involve God.

Sunday morning church services across the nation apparently saw throngs of Christian ministers rushing to praise God for interceding in the shooting and saving Donald Trump from more serious injury or death.  Trump had been saved by "divine intervention."  God had somehow reached down from Heaven and nudged that bullet just enough to keep it from hitting its intended target, the head of the candidate.  I didn't watch the Republican Convention last night, but news reports indicate there was "divine intervention" talk bouncing around there as well.

One is left to wonder why God only intervened with Trump.  Why didn't God also slap down the bullet that killed the retired fireman who was at the rally with his family?  The fireman was there cheering on Trump.  Why did God overlook him?  And how about the other two people attending the rally who were critically wounded?  What was the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful God doing while they were stopping bullets with their bodies?

And why wasn't God kicking down the classroom door in Sandy Hook in 2012 and protecting those 20 first-graders who were savagely gunned down and killed by a 20-year-old monster.  Surely to God those precious six-and-seven-year-olds were deserving of some divine intervention!   Was that God's day off?

Or what about the 19 fourth-graders who were slaughtered in their classroom in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022 when an 18-year-old opened fire on them with an automatic rifle?  Why the hell wasn't God intervening then?  Or on Valentine's Day in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 when a 19-year-old with an automatic weapon gunned down 14 high school students.  God was AWOL then, too!

And then there were the thousands of children who have starved to death or been otherwise brutally murdered in Gaza.   Was the ultimate peace delivered through death their divine intervention?

One man died at a rally on Saturday while another man lived - and two more lives hang in the balance. The fates of each of them and of countless others may have been the result something as insignificant as a shift in the breeze, a bird squawking, a fly landing on the shooter's nose, or a muscle spasm.  Who knows?  

It was a shooting, the American bloodsport.   One man lived and another died.   There was no intervention, divine or otherwise.

God didn't have a hand in it.  God avoids shootings.

Spare me your sanctimony.

Bunnies Beneath the Holly Tree

 

by Pa Rock

Retiree

By the time the trash man got here at  7:30 this morning on his weekly run, I already had almost half of my 10,000 total steps in for the day completed.   That's not great, but I am on track to make the daily goal.  I have just barely been back two weeks from my drive-about, and and it took most of that time to work myself back up to ten thousand per day.  I finally hit it two days ago, and today should mark three successful days in a row.  

The weather here is officially hot and humid, so mornings are the best time to be outside hiking up and down the driveway and watching the world fly by as my neighbors rush to work - or Walmart.

I was pleasantly distracted during this morning's walk by two bunnies who hopped, about ten minutes apart, from behind the garage and over to a holly tree that is twenty-five feet or so from that building.  My son planted the young holly tree over the corpse of a pet goat five or six years ago.  The tree, conical-shaped, was about five-feet tall at the time.  The goat was un-embalmed - a green funeral - and his body fed the tree during its early years at The Roost.    Now that evergreen is over ten feet in height and still growing taller and stronger with every passing season.  It's goat-tough!   The tree's lowest branches are on the ground, and it forms and impenetrable refuge for small animals.   Beneath the holly tree is a safe place for little bunnies to relax and play.  I'm glad  they have discovered it.

We were still having rain up until a couple of days ago, so everything remains lush and green. That could quickly change, of course, but for today things outside resemble the green, green summers of my youth.  This afternoon would be a wonderful time to sit on the riverbank, perhaps with a line in the water, and pull cold beers from an ice chest until the sun sets peacefully in the west.

Or maybe just take a nap in the air-conditioned comfort of my small room in my small house.

But first I have to get those steps in:  Hup, two, three, four.  Hup, two, three, four!

A Random Act of Kindness Revisited

 

by Pa Rock

Today would have been my mother's 103rd birthday.  I try to always remember my parents' special days and use those times to reflect on their lives.  Sometimes I even commit a few memories of them to this blog, something for posterity.  But not today.  Today I want to remember a lady whom I just met once and spoke to only briefly nearly a dozen years ago.

Today is also Bastille Day, or the French "Independence" Day, a day that resonates with me because it falls on my mother's birthday - or, more correctly, her birthday fell on Bastille Day.  And with that nugget of knowledge, my train of thought has left the station and is meandering out across the Sonoran Desert toward the urban sprawl of Phoenix.   It will stop in the city of Goodyear on the western edge of Phoenix, and I will be disembarking into a parking lot that is adjacent to several shops and the only movie theatre complex in Goodyear.  

The day is Tuesday, January 1, 2013, and I am beginning the New Year alone, taking in a movie.  I got to town late and am now standing in a rather long line that extends out into the parking lot - but I am in no hurry.  As I am standing there, probably sifting through emails on my cell phone, a lady who is visiting with someone else walks over and inadvertently gets in line in front of me.  January is one of the very few months of the year when the weather is decent in the Phoenix area, so I am enjoying the sunshine and am not bothered that the line in front of me just got a little longer.

But then the lady's husband steps up, and he is bothered.  He berates his wife in my presence pointing out that she had just crashed the line in front of "this guy."  I assure them both that I am in no rush and everything is fine, but the guy is still somewhat pissed - at her - and walks off.  As the line moves ever so slowly forward the lady and I exchange a few comments and strike up a passing friendship.  One of the things we talk about is movies, and she asks me what I am there to see.  "Les Miserables," I say, pointing to a poster of the newly released film of Victor Hugo's book about the French Revolution.  She tells me that would have been her choice, too, but that her husband wants to see something else.  

My new friend is at the window now getting her tickets, and I am pulling my wallet out getting ready to make my own purchase.  But before I have the opportunity to buy my ticket, she turns around and hands me one.  "Here," she said.  "This is my random act of kindness for the day."    Later, in the lobby, I had in mind to buy her a random bag of popcorn, but as I got to the counter of the concession stand I found myself behind her husband who was already buying two.

When I think about my mother's birthday, my thoughts sometimes drift on to Bastille Day,  and  "Les Miserables," and the very sweet lady who bought my ticket to the show.  My mother would have liked her!

There are a lot of good people in this world.

Happy birthday, Mom!

Unwavering. Christian Conservatives Fight Jeff City Swamp

 

by Pa Rock

Missouri Voter

"Clowns to the left of me.  Jokers to the right.

Here I am, stuck in the middle with you."

(Stealers Wheel, 1972)

Saturday, the 13th of July.  It feels like a good day to splash a little ink on the subject of politics - national, state, and local.  I will try to keep it brief and to the point, but only where there is a point, of course.

Nationally, it has been over two weeks since President Biden mumbled and stumbled his way through the season's first presidential debate with Foghorn Leghorn ex-reality television personality Donald Trump.  Biden's miserable performance in that debate shocked the nation, but, in reality, it was just an eighty-one-year-old man struggling to remember his talking points.  He did the best he could while standing up to an ignorant wall of noise.

There has been a lot of pressure on Biden to drop out of the race based not only on that very embarrassing performance on national television, but also on the fear that he could again mentally drift away at some critical point in the campaign or his presidency.  We all remember the spate of fade outs that befell Mitch McConnell, an elderly gentleman of the Republican persuasion, several months ago.  And Dianne Feinstein, another Senate veteran, was so far gone during her final months that she literally had no idea where she was at.   Sooner or later old age comes for us all.  

The United States remains so bitterly divided along political lines that new national polls are showing the race is still statistically tied.  Nationally it's a squeaker.  But national votes mean diddly-squat when it comes to electing a United States President.  Those guys are elected by the voters in "swing" states, and Trump's advantage in the swing states has increased since the debate.

But Joe will not be deterred.  He is in it to win it, the only person who has beat Trump, the only person who can beat Trump, and yada, yada, yada.  Joe will remain in the race until the Lord Almighty tells him otherwise.  He and Lady Macbeth will weather this tempest - and in the end he will know that he did the best he could.   That is so special!

There is only one Democrat running in Missouri statewide politics with any chance of winning, it is an admittedly slim chance.  Lucas Kunce, a Marine combat veteran, is in his second try at taking a US Senate seat.  This time he is challenging incumbent Republican Senator Josh Hawley.  Hawley should have an easy time getting re-elected in this solidly red state, but he is a showboat (and a fast runner) whose political antics have offended some old-timers in the Republican Party (such as former Missouri US Senator Jack Danforth), and Hawley's support among Republicans is lagging.  Still, unless Trump implodes in some comic or cosmic fashion, Hawley will probably defeat Kunce by a few points.

All other statewide races in Missouri are headed into the Republican column in November, but there is one very interesting state race that will play out in the August primary, and that is the one for governor. There are two major candidates.  Jay Ashcroft is our current Secretary of State and a member of one of the state's more prominent political families - though he is far from being the political heavyweight that his father, a former US Attorney General, was.  Ashcroft is opposed by the state's GOP lieutenant governor, Mike Kehoe.  Ashcroft is leading in the polls, and Kehoe is ahead in campaign donations - and money is extremely important to politicians.

But it is at the local level of politics where things are often the most interesting - and fun.   Democrats rarely even bother to run for public office in the rural counties of Missouri.  I suspect one ran for office in my county two years ago, but she was on the ballot as an "Independent."  And she won!  

The two hot races in my area this year will be for seats in the state legislature, and they will both be decided in the August primary.  Our incumbent state representative, who was a former circuit judge and relatively intelligent compared to the average Missouri state representative, decided not to seek re-election this year, and his seat came open.  Three Republicans and one Democrat are vying to fill it, and whoever wins the GOP primary in August will ultimately fill the position.  Our incumbent state senator, who was a former area school superintendent, was recently appointed by the governor to be the state's Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, and she is consequently not running for reelection to the state senate. Her seat is being pursued by two Republicans who are both currently serving in the Missouri House - the House of Representatives, not the Big House!

Yesterday I received three expensive-looking, slick, campaign mailings - one from a GOP candidate for the state representative position, and one each from the two state senate candidates.  They are all worth a mention.

The state representative candidate is an older gentleman who has held local office before and who was accused in a prior campaign, one which he lost, of running to enable a state retirement and of being one of the local "good ol' boys."   His full-sheet mailing was particularly colorful and entertaining.  The back side contains a caricature of Donald Trump dressed as Uncle Sam with the heading:  TRUMP NEEDS YOU!  HELP PRESIDENT TRUMP ELECT TRUE CONSERVATIVE FIGHTERS HERE IN MISSOURI!  

The front side, while not as much fun as the back, is more directed to the local candidate than it is to his God, Trump.  It features a large smiling photo of the candidate, his name, the office he is seeking and this, in large letters:   NEVER BACK DOWN TO THE JEFF CITY SWAMP!   And in small lettering in the upper left-hand corner it also contains the name of the political action committee (PAC) that paid for the advertising along with the PAC's address - in Jefferson City, Missouri!   I guess the candidate figures that folks down where he comes from can't read - or think for themselves!  His soul, bless it, appears to already belong to the "Jeff City Swamp!"

The advertisements from the two state senate candidates were both large postcard size.  One of the candidates emphasized law and order, and had his picture on one side of his card along with three local law enforcement officers.  The back side of card had the heading "JOE BIDEN'S AMERICA IS LAWLESS"  and had a couple of headlines about crime in Kansas City.   We have plenty of crime in rural Missouri that he could be emphasizing, but that might not go over too well with the grinning cops who were pictured with him on the front of the card.

The other state senate candidate is a preacher, and his primary emphasis was on God.  One side of his card showed a church steeple topped by a Christian cross along with the words:  "PRAY FOR MISSOURI, PRAY FOR AMERICA.  The other side had the candidate's picture along with the heading "UNWAVERING CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVE".   He also mentioned that he fights "the Jeff City Swamp."  

There was a qualifications list, of sorts, for God's candidate which included (in order):  being pastor of his church, a lifelong resident of southern Missouri, a devoted husband and father, a conservative state representative, and a sponsor of the "Border Security Enhancement Act."   A special block also stated that he was endorsed by Missouri Right to Life.  There was no mention of support for public education, housing for the homeless, food for the hungry, health care for the ill or infirm, or any other service that might reflect actual Christianity.  

That's it.  That's how politics look this morning from just inside of my living room window.

My head hurts.   I guess I'm done.

Nourishing the Earth While Speaking from an Empty Grave

 

by Pa Rock

Elderberry

I have a short list of things that I need to get done before my Grand Exit, and so far this year I have been able to check a couple of important items off of that list.  In January I penned my obituary, and while I will still probably tinker with it on occasion, the basic document is complete, and, if I go tonight, a couple of select newspapers will be receiving a very brief version of my life story as told by me, and in the manner in which I wish it preserved.   I also had some inheritance issues that needed attention, and over the past month I managed to make some important adjustments that should leave less room for confusion or squabbling when I am gone.

But there are two more items weighing heavily on my mind which are directly tied to my ultimate passing.  The first is funeral-related.  I want a simple graveside service at a plot next to my parents at the cemetery in Noel, Missouri.  There will be a stone, which I need to design and get ordered.   It will contain information on me, my parents, and children that should aid family researchers a century or two from now.  The only thing that I do not want at my "burial" site is me.

I have a strong desire that my body be composted and the resulting plant food be used to make the earth greener and more habitable.  Pumping a body full of poisons and then burying it to slowly pollute   the ground instead of fertilizing it seems like a very destructive and self-centered waste of a wonderful natural resource.  If someone wanted to pour a bag of my compost over my gravesite, that would be fine, but use the rest to feed flower beds, or start an orchard, or develop an urban garden.  Just let me have one last shot at being useful and making the world a better place.

Right now the composting of human remains is only legal in a handful of states, and facilities which actually perform that service are up and running in just Washington State and Colorado.  I had intended to visit one in Seattle during my recent drive out west, but by the time I had the opportunity to swing on over to Seattle, I had already been lost in the urban nightmare of Calgary and was not up to another crazy city commute.  However, that does not mean that I won't get it done, hopefully before this year, or I, have ended.

The other thing that weighs heavily on my mind is the preservation of this blog.  The wit and wisdom of Pa Rock has been accumulating, day-by-day, in this space for almost seventeen years.  I have tons of verbiage piled up here, and much of it is stuff of which I remain proud.  I would like it saved.

While I don't believe that Larry Page and the gang at Alphabet would ever dispose of anything that might ultimately make them a buck, I would like to have some control over how all of my hard work is preserved and used in the future.  I had originally imagined just simply saving the massive amount of writing on storage devices and passing it on to a grandchild or a library.  But that would likely be lost or discarded after a generation or two.  Then I heard about chatbots that specialized in certain fields or specific authors, and could answer questions based on limited and defined fields of input - and I thought "Why not put it all in a chatbot specifically geared to the accumulated "Rambles" of Pa Rock.  My good friend, Ranger Bob, enhanced that vision by suggesting  a chatbot and speaker within a tombstone where descendants could speak with their dead ancestor.

Silly, right?

Yesterday I saw a piece on the internet talking about almost that very thing,    The article said that "ghost bots" are becoming a cottage industry in China.  Ghost bots are computer representations of dead relatives that speak in the voice of the deceased and spout favorite sayings or advice from beyond the grave.   They are selling for as little as a hundred dollars and reportedly providing a level of comfort to those who have lost loved ones.

The ghost bots, through artificial intelligence, use recordings of the voices of the dead relatives, often just snippets, to recreate that person's voice in standard conversation.  The sayings and advice that the bots use are apparently provided by family members..

Great.  Almost like a talking tombstone!

I'm not sure how much actual recording of my own voice exists, but I would think that anyone contemplating saving their personal records to a voice-generating chatbot could read some of those records into a recorder and create plenty of sounds from which artificial intelligence could go on to recreate the same voice saying any word in the English language.

It all sounds like science fiction, but it also sounds like so many Amazon packages sitting on the doorstep just waiting to be unwrapped and put together.  The future is here, and now ordinary fools like me must figure out how to assemble it - as the clock goes on tick, tick, ticking.

(I no longer face the daily drudgery of working for a living, but that doesn't mean that I don't have plenty to keep my simple mind occupied!)

Hello Dolley!

 

by Pa Rock

History Buff

It seems like I have always had a strong interest in US government and history, something I credit to the teaching skills of an exceptional high school instructor many years ago by the name of Buddy Powell.  He made such a formidable impression on me that when I went on to college, I made history my undergraduate major, with a minor in political science.   My emphasis in the major was United States history, and my classes in the minor focused on US government.  As an adult out in the workforce, some of those historical and political inclinations transposed themselves into an interest in my own family history, and I became fairly consumed with genealogy - again, all of which is rooted in the efforts of one extraordinarily good high school teacher, Buddy Powell.

As an established fan of history, I am always on the lookout for nuggets of historical interest, and this past week I came across one that really captured my attention for a variety of reasons.  It was a very early photograph of a person who played an important role in one of our nation's earliest conflicts, the war of 1812,  The subject of the photo (a daguerreotype) was former US First Lady Dolley Madison, the wife of our nation's fourth President, James Madison, and who was also the chief author of the US Constitution.  The photo was taken in or around 1846 by photographer John Plumbe, Jr., when the art of photography was in its infant stages.  Mrs. Madison, who was born in 1768 and was seventeen years younger than her famous husband, would have been in her late 70's when it was taken.

The photograph of Dolley Madison is the oldest known photo of any US First Lady.  It was only recently discovered in the basement of a deceased individual as the room was being cleaned out.  Sotheby's managed to auction it for a pricey $456,000 to the US National Portrait Gallery which has a collection of around 230 photographs of US First Ladies.  The National Portrait Gallery also has a photo of US President John Quincy Adams that was taken in 1843 and is the oldest known photograph of any US President.

One of Dolley Madison's most noted achievements as First Lady was managing the White House during the War of 1812 when her husband was off leading the fight against the British.  As the British were advancing on Washington, DC, Dolley gathered as much as she could from the White House's furnishings and art collection and sent it off in wagons into the countryside.  She is remembered for saving the portrait of George Washington that had been painted by Gilbert Stuart.  When the British troops finally arrived in Washington, DC, one of their first acts was to burn the White House to the ground.  (Today all that survives of the original structure is part of the kitchen which was located in the basement.)

Up until the emergence of this photograph, our vision of Dolley Madison was limited to the renderings of artists, but with this photo of the famous First Lady in her senior years, we now have a clearer indication of what she actually looked like.  As an elderly person in her late seventies, Dolley Madison presented as an alert, clear-eyed, handsome woman who looked to be comfortable with her place in society, and probably with her place in history as well.

In the photo Dolley Madison was wearing a white silk(ish) wrap around her throat and a hat that appeared to be made of the same material.  She had on a dark, horizontally striped knitted shawl over a satiny black dress.  The former First Lady also wore short, dangling earrings, and had a short crop of dark, curly hair extending below her hat.  (Did people color their hair in the 1840's?)   The daguerreotype process requires an extended time of posing, and due to that people rarely smiled in early photos because it was too hard to hold the pose - so Dolley Madison was not smiling in this photograph, but neither was she offering that somber glare that was common in early photographs.)

There is something about a photograph that makes a person seem real, and my first thought on seeing the actual photo of Dolley Madison was that there she was, the real Dolley.  I smiled and said the first thing that came to mind, "Well, hello Dolley!"  

(It's so nice to have you back where you belong!)

Another bit of our nation's long and proud history had been revealed!  I'm glad that I was still around to see it!

(And yes, I know that "Dolly" from the song and the stage musical is spelled without an "e," but Dolley Madison used one, so I took the liberty of morphing her name, as she spelled it, with the song.)

(The photograph is available at several news sites on the internet and may be accessed by searching "Dolley Madison" and "photograph.")

(One extraneous tidbit:  Tomorrow will mark the 175th anniversary of the death of Dolley Madison.  She passed away on July 12th, 1849.)