tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39739471635175422242024-03-22T13:30:03.920-07:00LungJohn Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.comBlogger303125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-15644351617935029962024-02-15T12:05:00.000-08:002024-02-18T20:38:28.551-08:00Book Review: Starkweather<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3qipXt31iWZNkYE9ovkNsd0iOChX4eY0Mo6t8zso1lNVeg4kZO_jn0swCtt__fYzNEyQur96BHJDvqW5zq3J27fJJqiWNN3EH3_r1MNZCO8JxuU47SOR6sL7SACAtPtWUWXQWpBv68qrEUSr1dJXinD0XQHXjld0GHPfmmYLo8Srd1XuC2HtFfiQCiVM/s503/cover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="503" data-original-width="345" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3qipXt31iWZNkYE9ovkNsd0iOChX4eY0Mo6t8zso1lNVeg4kZO_jn0swCtt__fYzNEyQur96BHJDvqW5zq3J27fJJqiWNN3EH3_r1MNZCO8JxuU47SOR6sL7SACAtPtWUWXQWpBv68qrEUSr1dJXinD0XQHXjld0GHPfmmYLo8Srd1XuC2HtFfiQCiVM/s320/cover.jpg" width="219" /></a></div>T</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">he 1958 killing spree by Charles Starkweather and his fourteen-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate ushered in our modern era of senseless mass murder. That, at least, is a premise of <i>Starkweather: The Untold Story of the Killing Spree That Changed America, </i>by Harry N. MacLean.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Whether MacLean makes his case, and how much of the story really is untold, is debatable. But I did learn a few things from reading this book. Before, I had only a vague sense of these horrific crimes. I’d thought that 19-year-old Starkweather killed a few people in Lincoln, Nebraska for no apparent reason, and then he and his young accomplice fled by car across several states, murdering others along the way: a hitchhiker here, a guy with a flat tire there, and so on.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSbfkAFDHTPq3-qjXW637ORdwa5KOv_Z-COumCHISLtZ2KhhSNkKakpNFxlBT3Qppw_ASWt7_R6hnebsO76-d7brXSmenOh-Wsf1VDaI9cty1XbI4N74eyfeetCePPQAmkMt_4wUopq3z1wEAneFu_FY512XVWqJJnH0rqeJOhA1_AmZPSrNiTT6ik8fY/s403/06.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="307" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSbfkAFDHTPq3-qjXW637ORdwa5KOv_Z-COumCHISLtZ2KhhSNkKakpNFxlBT3Qppw_ASWt7_R6hnebsO76-d7brXSmenOh-Wsf1VDaI9cty1XbI4N74eyfeetCePPQAmkMt_4wUopq3z1wEAneFu_FY512XVWqJJnH0rqeJOhA1_AmZPSrNiTT6ik8fY/s320/06.jpg" width="244" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div>What really happened is that one day, Starkweather murdered Fugate’s mother, stepfather, and two-year-old sister. Then he and Caril hid out at the Fugate home for the next five or six days, before fleeing on their cross-country rampage. Only then did Starkweather murder seven more people, most of them in the Lincoln vicinity. Both were in custody within a few days.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The real question is: did Caril Ann Fugate participate in the murders? She insisted she did not – that she hadn</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">t even known her family was dead. But the legal system didn</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">t believe her, and gave her a life sentence. Starkweather got the electric chair.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf6ZNzEGRyQtQQ_kfe9vlSuYokzJ87_9XXQqSjPl-yAw7irw1UUHykQmxsiAPIjswWsy2jzjPKp6-6yIUUHruUYi475RfFsyFZbT6-OLfNxyNOD72cFUlQlZ8sUbu73jlIbecF0_ooRTh9K8sx5VQZfHZ2bb9uL4ApA9sac236dzHA0gdWu7vsLQDhvxo/s328/09a.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="208" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf6ZNzEGRyQtQQ_kfe9vlSuYokzJ87_9XXQqSjPl-yAw7irw1UUHykQmxsiAPIjswWsy2jzjPKp6-6yIUUHruUYi475RfFsyFZbT6-OLfNxyNOD72cFUlQlZ8sUbu73jlIbecF0_ooRTh9K8sx5VQZfHZ2bb9uL4ApA9sac236dzHA0gdWu7vsLQDhvxo/s320/09a.jpg" width="203" /></a></div>In spite of this book’s title, <i>Starkweather </i>is at least as much about Fugate, and perhaps moreso. She always maintained her innocence, and MacLean presents evidence for and against her. Though she was never exonerated, Caril Ann Fugate was released from prison after serving eighteen years. As of this writing she is still alive, but in declining health, living in a nursing home.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">There are flaws in <i>Starkweather, </i>clumsy ones. This susprised me, because according to a jacket blurb, Harry MacLean is a prizewinning writer of True Crime stuff. </span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">In spite of this credential he fails to explain certain things, and the book suffers for it. During that five to six day period between the first murders and leaving on their cross-country spree, for example, Starkweather and Fugate stayed at the Fugate home (the initial victims stashed in a shed behind the house). On several occasions people came knocking on the door, but Fugate got rid of them, explaining everyone inside was ill.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Among those calling were two cops. They left with the crimes undetected – but why were they there in the first place? MacLean doesn</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">t explain. Even in the context of a more innocent time, would two experienced cops really buy an “everyone is sick” story?</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The book also throws a lot of names and details at the reader, but there is no index. It is hard, in places, to keep everything straight. An index would be invaluable. The same is true of citations: there are no end notes, no footnotes, no page references – only a brief Author’s Note at the end.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">
If there is anything missing MacLean</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">s telling of the crime saga itself, it is motive. But it seems to be beyond us, at this late date. Starkweather gave conflicting accounts of why he did what he did, then went to the chair. Surviving records provide nothing conclusive.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">All that said, readers interested in a detailed account of this horrific murder case will not be disappointed by <i>Starkweather.</i></span></div><br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-77754486666729011942023-12-30T07:31:00.000-08:002024-03-20T04:18:45.424-07:00Wildfire: Two Years Later<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">his is a summary of how we escaped the Marshall Mesa wildfire that swept through parts of Boulder County, Colorado, on December 30, 2021 – killing two people, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, and upending thousands of lives.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie1mth3TzMmPjdI8bKRps3O_ZAMmxNMTwAc8wVLA69fBCUJ2bh5Ai2_OrNn_x5clQIrfdDwXwzIA5svu-Y6kCLBSYyhROnYlCwjWaGkpPKGErp-YFkZHYrGDBDFBpDRkZovoDm96GLM40q-FtJ29RDHL8ZprdxTDbQ_UZr7tUjTU5EbUnD_rp-FmsBEOg/s4032/Photo%20Dec%2030,%2012%2028%2008%20PM.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie1mth3TzMmPjdI8bKRps3O_ZAMmxNMTwAc8wVLA69fBCUJ2bh5Ai2_OrNn_x5clQIrfdDwXwzIA5svu-Y6kCLBSYyhROnYlCwjWaGkpPKGErp-YFkZHYrGDBDFBpDRkZovoDm96GLM40q-FtJ29RDHL8ZprdxTDbQ_UZr7tUjTU5EbUnD_rp-FmsBEOg/s320/Photo%20Dec%2030,%2012%2028%2008%20PM.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />“We” is my wife and me and our cat, while “upending” is a <i>very </i>imprecise term to describe the trauma, psychological and otherwise, to specific individuals </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">during and after the conflagration</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">, and to the community at large.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">It happened on a Thursday, the last day of the work week – Friday being the New Year’s Eve</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> holiday</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">. Sometime in mid-to-late morning </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">le spouse</i><span style="font-size: 16px;"> and I, both working from home, detected the unmistakeable smell of smoke – woodsmoke, like a campfire. As it persisted we looked out a front window, to see what was reminiscent of coastal fog.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">At some point my wife looked at social media. Someone had posted something about a wildfire that was burning across many acres of open space, a few miles west of our neighborhood. Winds in excess of 100mph whipped its</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> intensity.</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> We took solace in the knowledge that a six-lane highway seperated us from where the fire appeared to be burning.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvDKkl2p0XBYvjo4rj50hCiZnDtknS3FwJ3UPyIUUNGig30VLk1gadjcz21he3vmTaPR7ngCVMLNO7-wHz7mD2g6SoIk9t6gjlx3hGxJ5Qm1c_EPBI6QLjSIbGXkObgRk4LnR6XjXFEiwWPp2tuNfZx1ybjmcclbQ2P6YipAAXkp22ZsIRO-4PivCFnaw/s4032/Photo%20Dec%2030,%202%2010%2022%20PM.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvDKkl2p0XBYvjo4rj50hCiZnDtknS3FwJ3UPyIUUNGig30VLk1gadjcz21he3vmTaPR7ngCVMLNO7-wHz7mD2g6SoIk9t6gjlx3hGxJ5Qm1c_EPBI6QLjSIbGXkObgRk4LnR6XjXFEiwWPp2tuNfZx1ybjmcclbQ2P6YipAAXkp22ZsIRO-4PivCFnaw/s320/Photo%20Dec%2030,%202%2010%2022%20PM.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>A little later <i>le spouse</i> checked social media again. Now someone had posted video of flames burning across a wooden fence in their back yard. That wide highway hadn</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">t stopped the fire</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">s progress, after all.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">It became obvious that we might have to flee. </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">It felt premature – and in truth, unreal – but</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> I gathered a few things, like a toothbrush and a change of clothes. Also got my guitar and camera (photo ops), and the carrier our cat despises.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Meanwhile the smoke visible out the front grew denser and, presumably, closer.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Finally, a little after 1pm, we got the inevitable emergency robocall telling us that if we valued our lives, we would get the hell out. There are certain things you only need to hear once. </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">Amid ever-increasing fear and uncertainty, we piled our stuff into the car and pulled away.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Which way shall we go?” asked <i>le spouse.</i></span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">My first thought: you’re joking, right? To the west, towering columns of dense smoke. To east, clear skies.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">So I sang my reply: “Blue skies, smilin’ at me! Nothin’ but blue skies...”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixKrUkKatR8aWjWNNKsPL5Akk0khLi8GvEtEuQ8o77Q5zhyaRE2tjs4jLWgaBnsUqmf85YvYvxxulS2eT6m0CrkyZ3Ynik9zApGpy-zB7R5r8X_CcP-DijpCU7ghk6H6xkoK8gxGvn1EtTFIV8dkyPeZqJi67Go0mmjLTuwtw1iP2f2QmPDMrtfyGS8oE/s3008/DSC_0005.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="3008" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixKrUkKatR8aWjWNNKsPL5Akk0khLi8GvEtEuQ8o77Q5zhyaRE2tjs4jLWgaBnsUqmf85YvYvxxulS2eT6m0CrkyZ3Ynik9zApGpy-zB7R5r8X_CcP-DijpCU7ghk6H6xkoK8gxGvn1EtTFIV8dkyPeZqJi67Go0mmjLTuwtw1iP2f2QmPDMrtfyGS8oE/s320/DSC_0005.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>She was not amused.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Thousands of others fled, too. The usual five minute drive out of town became half an hour, maybe longer. Finally we reached relatively open road – but had nowhere to go, so we zig-zagged aimlessly. I don</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">t remember how long that lasted, or how we learned of the emergency evacuation center set up at the local YMCA. But once we did we headed over, and spent several tense hours there. Few facts were available at this point. But we did learn that our grown-and-gone kids had heard of the fire and were tracking our movements via the Find My Friends app.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">That night we wound up at a hotel, where we smuggled in the cat and got our first good look, on CNN, at the scope of the disaster: jaw-dropping video of familiar sites – buildings, shopping centers, neighborhoods – consumed by immense, wide-spread flames.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The next day I posted to social media that my wife and I were safe.</span></div>
<blockquote>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">We spent a largely sleepless night of profound uncertainty. I sprawled on the bed like a body with chalk lines not yet drawn. The cat kept nestling against me in this nook, that cranny, before emitting a stressful yowl.</span></div></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Returned home this morning to the immense relief of finding our abode unscathed. Reeks of smoke but our neighborhood survives. Yet we are surrounded by catastrophic, unimaginable loss.</span></div></blockquote>
<blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">One inevitably turns to truisms at such times: like the fleeting nature of life, and the difference between what is truly important and what only seems so.</span></div></blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The cause of the fire, ultimately, was pinned on smoldering, wind-whipped embers, and loose power lines. Many lawsuits are pending.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7nzLeSF8SWVUc43G85g0WQiHVCc4lMNxieu0NQi_6CpGllYRl65t56HJ69cr5p0XiExbLLUlqHKF43WITUPWHcelFyvN2FwZ2iogir6Qbwpfiq8Gkzyt80RqbKIWlljq1UVp1IfAQfxAR5KM3au3vgxiTmlTZJFgV3xHiv8LLv3OIt-t-I8xVHkcT8zs/s4032/IMG_0790.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7nzLeSF8SWVUc43G85g0WQiHVCc4lMNxieu0NQi_6CpGllYRl65t56HJ69cr5p0XiExbLLUlqHKF43WITUPWHcelFyvN2FwZ2iogir6Qbwpfiq8Gkzyt80RqbKIWlljq1UVp1IfAQfxAR5KM3au3vgxiTmlTZJFgV3xHiv8LLv3OIt-t-I8xVHkcT8zs/s320/IMG_0790.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>As the fire’s first anniversary approached, I talked to some people directly involved in these events. Can we ever recover? “We, as a community, are all irretrievably altered,” one said to me. “It’s a communal trauma.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">”</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;"> Recovery is a relative term.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Now, two years after that devastating event, the trauma remains. To a casual observer the worst may seem over: homes being rebuilt, </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">burned debris hauled off, once-charred </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">open space covered in new growth.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">But take a closer look, and the scars are plain as day. The wildfire is never far from my thoughts, and is never far, no doubt, from the thoughts of anyone else who lived through it. A windy day, common enough around here, is a psychological trigger. And probably always will be.</span></div><br />
John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-88999572238066692712023-11-04T08:31:00.002-07:002023-11-04T16:11:59.547-07:00Ham On Rye: A Book Review<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
E</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">arly in his career, the novelist William Kennedy was a journalist whose writing included book reviews. In an essay collected in <i>Riding The Yellow Trolley Car </i>he describes how he hated writing bad reviews – probably because, as a fledgling author himself, he knew how hard the discipline is.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUgzd3sW5mEJa2xETQKT2OAUY3zb4HEB9EBpgowbF_AGDGQCziYx0PTLw2-_s7qXaONj4rKf-P9KkjQMFmweiZRqZ9Roxqr6Da6G_BXhxI0uWoTib5Ln2fkBmS1dtPw7jkyTBSGjzCOVpATbAtAwluhyYxo5PkaDxOyseSaLzijW8v7Gq1Ld2WMNS2Iyc/s933/04a.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="933" data-original-width="761" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUgzd3sW5mEJa2xETQKT2OAUY3zb4HEB9EBpgowbF_AGDGQCziYx0PTLw2-_s7qXaONj4rKf-P9KkjQMFmweiZRqZ9Roxqr6Da6G_BXhxI0uWoTib5Ln2fkBmS1dtPw7jkyTBSGjzCOVpATbAtAwluhyYxo5PkaDxOyseSaLzijW8v7Gq1Ld2WMNS2Iyc/s320/04a.jpg" width="261" /></a></div>I find myself recalling this now as I begin my review of <i>Ham On Rye,</i> Charles Bukowski’s offensively ill-written novel from 1982.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">I’ve never read anything by Charles Bukowski before, and maybe this novel isn’t the best way to ease into the work of someone I’d always thought of as a poet. I understand that he is highly regarded by many people; that he is viewed as a sort of poet-laureate of the Outsider. Maybe that</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">s why my expectations, in terms of literary merit, were so high.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">There just isn’t much redeeming value to <i>Ham On Rye,</i> an autobiographical coming-of-age story. Bukowski had a crappy childhood. I get that. He grew up poor during the Great Depression, with an abusive father and almost no nurturing or encouragement. That much comes across. The novel</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">s big flaw is that its main character Henry Chinaski (Bukowski’s alter-ego) is nearly devoid of introspection, and is almost entirely unsympathetic.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGR0f_HwurtkdMfNJKDZn_4wsSkF7I0mg_1yxF80c9D3FIqgxh_ZAdQl__z6HUruqoWWtjz2_53R31138XU7AwhyphenhyphenhACWtPbGPxnjxx-4F8hELgnujHj6VzdAVN87LgpbLBLd8GaF-MRJ1rwNKI4OYCsrPLD6SR_RZWzGrzYMMel-kzsfusuCsGSM8Alvo/s1345/01a.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1345" data-original-width="1033" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGR0f_HwurtkdMfNJKDZn_4wsSkF7I0mg_1yxF80c9D3FIqgxh_ZAdQl__z6HUruqoWWtjz2_53R31138XU7AwhyphenhyphenhACWtPbGPxnjxx-4F8hELgnujHj6VzdAVN87LgpbLBLd8GaF-MRJ1rwNKI4OYCsrPLD6SR_RZWzGrzYMMel-kzsfusuCsGSM8Alvo/s320/01a.jpg" width="246" /></a></div>As I see it, Chinaski/Bukowski decided very early on to more or less devote his life to excessive drinking, and to life on the outside. An unanswered question is, why?</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">In Chapter 22 (there are 58 chapters in all, many of them quite short, in this ordinary-length book) he describes his first encounter with alcohol. He's around twelve years old when a friend shows him his dad’s stash of homemade wine, and goads him into trying some. After a few glugs, Henry says, “I like this stuff.”</span></div>
<blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">It was magic. Why hadn’t someone told me? With this, life was great, a man was perfect, nothing could touch him.</span></div></blockquote>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">This may be <i>Ham On Rye</i></span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’s most</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> worthy detail, even without accompanying exploration: Bukowski’s immediate reaction to, and affection for, alcohol. By now science may have answered the question of why some people are so drawn to alcohol, while others can take it or leave it. Bukowski’s recollection is a kind of case study, presented with elegant simplicity.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The novel ends in Chinaski’s young adulthood. On one hand, he seems to want to better himself – his education and station in life. On the other, he is critical of aiming too high, and happily devoted to self-destructive behavior. His greatest passion seems to be drinking. It may have been a choice, or it may have been surrendering to addiction. To me, it seems like a waste. Illustrating this may be <i>Ham On Rye</i></span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’s </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">greatest value</span><i style="font-size: 16px;">.</i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><i style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEZn7i5XtMmbAOEuDr2zXgKNc3SStO-PtGM2woc9FE4dUD8X7g5E3ZBlhQH1GdzwFiOvEDMHVBt2pvyIYjceZr8YcDXyYi3Yyvjw_7NTyTEmFp3oXBwz3TVU6ymzlRTz4uNztHg8Hr9Wz2C1vqmRmc7iWN1yyiUXwlhwQO9N4d6_gLD86UIMSXDbH72V0/s635/05.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="635" data-original-width="425" height="561" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEZn7i5XtMmbAOEuDr2zXgKNc3SStO-PtGM2woc9FE4dUD8X7g5E3ZBlhQH1GdzwFiOvEDMHVBt2pvyIYjceZr8YcDXyYi3Yyvjw_7NTyTEmFp3oXBwz3TVU6ymzlRTz4uNztHg8Hr9Wz2C1vqmRmc7iWN1yyiUXwlhwQO9N4d6_gLD86UIMSXDbH72V0/w375-h561/05.jpg" width="375" /></a></div><br /><i style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></i></div><br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-8463355878403275682023-09-11T08:42:00.015-07:002023-12-15T15:01:15.412-08:00Dream State<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb13n2wMONMgGbV5xsKd-CgBw7rAokn07cwQyixC2DTefPt46oAduoCAmb2NH1htGfPL46IXfDBTESoyfzJ6JLQOAQf3DHSCIxhYuPk58xJuixtCIsJ-iYDPnjG9C28k22I5ucfqGh-BtLzjqDBk1Au9iauZGPBbvrpQ2L-I7-hFmXKoCY5JE2QpLjE1k/s397/001.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="379" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb13n2wMONMgGbV5xsKd-CgBw7rAokn07cwQyixC2DTefPt46oAduoCAmb2NH1htGfPL46IXfDBTESoyfzJ6JLQOAQf3DHSCIxhYuPk58xJuixtCIsJ-iYDPnjG9C28k22I5ucfqGh-BtLzjqDBk1Au9iauZGPBbvrpQ2L-I7-hFmXKoCY5JE2QpLjE1k/w228-h239/001.jpg" width="228" /></a></div>Q</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">uite recently, I had very minor surgery to correct a potentially serious condition. I was in the OR, sedated and oblivious, for only a couple of hours.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">With most surgical procedures, even minor ones like mine, there is a void afterward, a gap in your memory. One moment you’re on a gurney with an IV in your arm. The next someone says, “We’re starting the sedation now,” and you’re invited to count down from one hundred. Few get below 95.<br /></span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Then comes the void – an indeterminate </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">period of </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">time. Long, short, who can tell? The surgeon tinkers on you. But at some point the void passes. You become aware, only vaguely, that you are creeping back; that you have more or less reached a semi-conscious dream state.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPhF1NeWjBo4YWHbkGwZsw-sZeIdLJ-mr5ZTyflAvEvQveEzETbRx8lCy9Yd6QwyJMb2rEK_sWbjJpXbIGtbevR9BcvS8e0Y5TCaGOFeypUAXlIEaiWlM_7q21AFmYwk_BYhyHWGW41FoSEEGfIM7_ZmdoabWp4L_0781cc-QZB64mEfQM8Ku6ZruN2VE/s1937/01.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1937" data-original-width="1233" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPhF1NeWjBo4YWHbkGwZsw-sZeIdLJ-mr5ZTyflAvEvQveEzETbRx8lCy9Yd6QwyJMb2rEK_sWbjJpXbIGtbevR9BcvS8e0Y5TCaGOFeypUAXlIEaiWlM_7q21AFmYwk_BYhyHWGW41FoSEEGfIM7_ZmdoabWp4L_0781cc-QZB64mEfQM8Ku6ZruN2VE/s320/01.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>I reached this state the other day, and drifted passively along. Then some dusty back room in my brain began to supply a weird mix of images. Most of them evaporated </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">quickly</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">. But one stayed with me: the vivid sense of having my </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">son</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">s dog </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">Gizmo in my lap. Gizmo (pictured) lives in Arizona. But I swear he was with me; </span><i><span style="font-size: 16px;">surely</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span></i><span style="font-size: 16px;">it happened!</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The dream state fades, though, and the next post-op phase begins. This phase involves gradually, groggily, becoming somewhat alert. I realized I was gradually, groggily, becoming somewhat alert. My brain beckoned. This made me think of the Mose Allison song, “My Brain.”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Before long a nurse named Bonnie came into my curtained off area. “How are we doing?”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal;">This groggy, semi-alert phase includes a near-total lack of judgment and inhibition. “</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal;">Listen to this,</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">”</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;"> I slurred. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">“</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">I’m going to sing you part of a song.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><i style="font-weight: normal;">My brain is always workin, my brain.<br />
</i><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><i style="font-weight: normal;">My brain is always workin, my brain.<br />
</i><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><i style="font-weight: normal;">My brain is always workin – long as you keep that coffee perkin
</i><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><i>My brain, cool little cluster that’s my brain.</i></span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Bonnie clapped lightly and laughed. “How nice! I</span>’ve never had a patient sing to me before. Do you want coffee?”</div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">I didn</span>’t, so she offered me apple juice and applesauce. These I accepted, in spite of the stitches in my mouth. Powerful anesthetic residue coursed within me but mental clarity crept closer. An hour or so later I was discharged.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><b>Mose Allison – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da3CTf1WC3Y" target="_blank">My Brain</a></b></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: normal; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoUB7TLR7q0u-iJhHK3XcV-zrJ4Hw6SIn91MvAwaHZiVoZFU45DavU4JPv653FY6nZNUDPGtX71ZJbQs5nCj7XDX4hUp4gGZgKJZTZgtd23m4b1ujnAfosKuLuDnkEcn6DK7nZuyI2JFGRFQ0UzRVniJQC8i1Otk8bZ3v4bhHwhHswNMVl9PRAdym6aF4/s2841/02.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2001" data-original-width="2841" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoUB7TLR7q0u-iJhHK3XcV-zrJ4Hw6SIn91MvAwaHZiVoZFU45DavU4JPv653FY6nZNUDPGtX71ZJbQs5nCj7XDX4hUp4gGZgKJZTZgtd23m4b1ujnAfosKuLuDnkEcn6DK7nZuyI2JFGRFQ0UzRVniJQC8i1Otk8bZ3v4bhHwhHswNMVl9PRAdym6aF4/w606-h426/02.jpg" width="606" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: normal; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></div></span></div></span></div></span></div>John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-4487116630814453392023-08-18T14:40:00.000-07:002023-08-18T14:40:11.998-07:00Leaving the House (eventually)<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">W</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">e expect to be in our house for a couple more years. But with the kidlets now grown and gone, there is too much room. Thus our time here grows short.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9SsFfLROfGsnDn0NAECMDtduFUdF41NtKx2BmBhpGojUUy7R1z4C8NBhQm2BGe5SD-CaSki4nMWIUJuULeYffRWIWjpiqKaGWb6ZCmsxqXdoke9u9eVJtA8OgerjbjMEQXJJrwcudRv7jFDmTeUCuYfn89Ui-kBmMRE2Gg4NU4DIoUTVaDPa2PtSshhU/s1661/house%2002.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1661" data-original-width="1237" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9SsFfLROfGsnDn0NAECMDtduFUdF41NtKx2BmBhpGojUUy7R1z4C8NBhQm2BGe5SD-CaSki4nMWIUJuULeYffRWIWjpiqKaGWb6ZCmsxqXdoke9u9eVJtA8OgerjbjMEQXJJrwcudRv7jFDmTeUCuYfn89Ui-kBmMRE2Gg4NU4DIoUTVaDPa2PtSshhU/s320/house%2002.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>I love this place. I’ve always <i>liked </i>it, but my affection has really grown. <i>Le spouse</i> and I sometimes dismiss it as a cheap tract house, which it is. But I love the floor plan, and a series of remodeling projects </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">(for which </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">le spouse</i><span style="font-size: 16px;"> gets 100% credit) </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">has improved many of its cheap tract house shortcomings</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">It is also, of course, where our kids grew into adults.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">We survived two natural disasters here: a flood and a wildfire. We have also lived through lesser catastrophes, such as hailstorms, snowstorms, and the like.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">But leaving this house behind is inevitable. It will be sad, but is utterly pragmatic – and at some point, the right thing to do.</span></div><br />
<center><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: -webkit-center;">•</span></div><br /></center>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">When I was in high school one of the guys in my immediate circle of friends had to move to a distant city. All of us in that circle were disappointed, to put it mildly. We were losing a friend. We were also becoming young adults learning to determine our own destinies, and this involved parental maneuvering beyond our control.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">But then: what seemed like a reprieve! According to reliable eyewitness reports, the friend’s dad was seen walking around their back yard, fondly taking it all in. Surely, we convinced ourselves, he was having second thoughts about leaving.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Now, approximately one ice age later, I understand what was happening. The dad was, indeed, fondly taking it all in. <i>That’s where little Billy used to play cops and robbers, </i>he must have been thinking. <i>There’s the tree he fell out of, and broke his arm. And right over there, we had a great birthday party.</i></span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">There was no reprieve.</span><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Such things our in our yard, too.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">I’ll miss this place.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsxwcvOaQtx5_Vb_bdCPJH_UJe2kHlFSdlHFj3y2pbgy2nFf-ndzg-mqyzDVnKNOwfFP3v1jD1e17uvS_vpy5DVWeAbTbkyml-ecsvB8-rjj9xEu2fK1xcNu-YR4P-foqZhAEJpBR5e0LNxVY3YlnvurK4M4hsdZ_2PGi15ow6EBuZQ2l46kg1PAxJ7jQ/s1504/house%2001.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1504" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsxwcvOaQtx5_Vb_bdCPJH_UJe2kHlFSdlHFj3y2pbgy2nFf-ndzg-mqyzDVnKNOwfFP3v1jD1e17uvS_vpy5DVWeAbTbkyml-ecsvB8-rjj9xEu2fK1xcNu-YR4P-foqZhAEJpBR5e0LNxVY3YlnvurK4M4hsdZ_2PGi15ow6EBuZQ2l46kg1PAxJ7jQ/w584-h388/house%2001.JPG" width="584" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-54620329714943435462023-03-18T08:13:00.001-07:002023-10-29T04:22:26.092-07:00Joseph Anton<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr-OAhcf4lC4loSKNg9nB3Sb0O55CtAacnxDCY9QCYh5WqS24dEAyT_uqAUy4wkeocnWdK4eu0McqGnMpq1rPpDfKkKuAYJfKA_g87AoIhJnTR638jvt098pW6xyhJwclJrZPdR0qYvXVokHa-krSiAtbXoC1iYQ9eY9l95-NIf9qUNI2yueuK_fvN/s1920/rushdie%2006.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr-OAhcf4lC4loSKNg9nB3Sb0O55CtAacnxDCY9QCYh5WqS24dEAyT_uqAUy4wkeocnWdK4eu0McqGnMpq1rPpDfKkKuAYJfKA_g87AoIhJnTR638jvt098pW6xyhJwclJrZPdR0qYvXVokHa-krSiAtbXoC1iYQ9eY9l95-NIf9qUNI2yueuK_fvN/s320/rushdie%2006.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">n February 2023 David Remnick appeared on the <i>Stay Tuned With Preet</i> podcast to discuss a profile</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">he’d just written about </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">Salman Rushdie</span><i style="font-size: 16px;">.</i><span style="font-size: 16px;"> Their discussion focuses on how the novelist has fared in the months since he was viciously attacked, and nearly killed, in Chautauqua, New York.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">That brutal assault resulted from a more than thirty-year-old <i>fatwa,</i> or death order, issued against Rushdie by Iranian hardline fundamentalists because of his novel, <i>The Satanic Verses.</i></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>In the course of the interview Remnick, a </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">New Yorker</i><span style="font-size: 16px;"> editor, mentioned </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">Joseph Anton,</i><span style="font-size: 16px;"> Rushdie’s nonfiction account of his </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">fatwa </i><span style="font-size: 16px;">years. Curious, I got it from the local library. It is astonishingly good. The prose is superb; within a page or so its hooks were in me. Why on earth have I never read anything by Salman Rushdie before?</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2liVPwKyYrrVVYdlEwNNRUeS2FFyC6r1ZBwlOL5JRSiXHkInAz_ai5env-Sn9tWznp_-ZVxn4qxhm5RUVdylt-nRAJIvGdJa9_vavdifOPN9JBEckKQpSkZ1nHRW0Nex5JE9T_dmWfnAP1xCNY8_59FtZH4J9F10zB0x1ez5Nr_tVVigXw5sPXRyS/s680/joseph%20anton%2001.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2liVPwKyYrrVVYdlEwNNRUeS2FFyC6r1ZBwlOL5JRSiXHkInAz_ai5env-Sn9tWznp_-ZVxn4qxhm5RUVdylt-nRAJIvGdJa9_vavdifOPN9JBEckKQpSkZ1nHRW0Nex5JE9T_dmWfnAP1xCNY8_59FtZH4J9F10zB0x1ez5Nr_tVVigXw5sPXRyS/s320/joseph%20anton%2001.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>Published in 2012, <i>Joseph Anton</i> describes life under the constant threat of violent death. It is riveting, chilling, and in places, even funny. In has, in short, all of the elements needed to grab the reader’s attention and hold it to the last page.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The book was published ten years before that murderous attack by a knife-weilding zealot, on a public stage before hundreds of eyewitnesses. Knowledge of the attack haunts the book, and from the perspective of 2023 makes for some disturbing reading.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">During the worst of the <i>fatwa </i>Rushdie lived under near-siege conditions, in a series of secret locations and with round-the-clock security. On a visit to New York his wife arrives at his hotel room unexpectedly. For security reasons they did not travel together, and she is confronted by a guard who doesn’t recognize her. “Elizabeth’s cool,” Rushdie quickly intercedes. “Elizabeth’s with me.”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The guard replies that if he wanted him dead, she is exactly the type of person he would send to do the deed. He gestures toward a table, and its array of snacks and cutlery. “If she were to take one of those forks and stab you in the neck...”</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtJN2n1Ji8VUHL3n6aFymJXKh4KzjQ6nurLfj6yY89udMRS59bss7UCYUuDY1DHiPB3E0sYeQ23mHd2rfaiwbRV-KmiOhcJBCuynFlHtu9ussQ_pC-2PcpjEBHgODRoRXm7K4aUJI1Lkap0q9DXHIgNsGX0etJwSsru951TKkA1dlBo5nRXMqoKrDo/s2560/rushdie%2002.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1875" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtJN2n1Ji8VUHL3n6aFymJXKh4KzjQ6nurLfj6yY89udMRS59bss7UCYUuDY1DHiPB3E0sYeQ23mHd2rfaiwbRV-KmiOhcJBCuynFlHtu9ussQ_pC-2PcpjEBHgODRoRXm7K4aUJI1Lkap0q9DXHIgNsGX0etJwSsru951TKkA1dlBo5nRXMqoKrDo/s320/rushdie%2002.jpg" width="234" /></a></div>It’s presented as a light moment. But when the attack finally came in 2022, something very much like it happened. “He was stabbed in the neck, you know," David Remnick <a href="https://cafe.com/stay-tuned/salman-rushdies-defiance-with-david-remnick/" target="_blank">told Preet Bharara</a>. “A quarter of an inch, one way or another, he would’ve hit his carotid artery and he would’ve bled out immediately.”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Elsewhere, Rushdie describes coping with what, in ordinary circumstances, would be considered writer’s block. His inability to focus and create is completely understandable. Yet he overcomes it and writes several new books, along with various shorter pieces.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Rushdie’s protectors insist that he take a pseudonym for them to use. That way, they explain, if they inadvertantly refer to him in a public place, it won’t give anything away. He comes up with Joseph Anton (after Conrad and Chekhov), and because of this pseudonym (presumably), <i>Joseph Anton</i> is written in the third person. In places it confused me – the <i>he did this</i> and the <i>he said that</i> got me a little mixed up. But you back up a sentence or two, and are straightened out.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">A longing to be free of 24/7 security is one of <i>Joseph Anton</i></span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’s</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> through-lines. Toward the end of the book </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">Rushdie, by then in hiding for seven years, reflects on this. It “might not just be a phase of his life ... the rest of his life might be like this.” A few pages later high-ranking counterintelligence types tell him of Iran’s “long-term plan to find and assassinate” him.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3gYlC5l4FnlgshLbAkTstPmCsY96AbXZSD17o-9CZ8SG7aMcffmDoNpRbEabILl6KmNA0Ua4v9NzzyoNDRx-V2WXJelTHCFnIw6HgLd4QsXgmkoBVklE6yu7tzsCBtQ7Ex-fs8sP384VnMbeUwz2jHkiBJweivPGnJvJudwh6FJGfsxfI3t_Uf-Ex/s1525/rushdie%2007.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1525" data-original-width="953" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3gYlC5l4FnlgshLbAkTstPmCsY96AbXZSD17o-9CZ8SG7aMcffmDoNpRbEabILl6KmNA0Ua4v9NzzyoNDRx-V2WXJelTHCFnIw6HgLd4QsXgmkoBVklE6yu7tzsCBtQ7Ex-fs8sP384VnMbeUwz2jHkiBJweivPGnJvJudwh6FJGfsxfI3t_Uf-Ex/w266-h425/rushdie%2007.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>And sure enough, the attempt to murder Rushdie happened in the long term: more than three decades after the <i>fatwa </i>began. It coincided with the rising tide of fascist intolerance in the United States (and globally). There are book bannings and the suppression of free thought and intolerant fundamentalism – the very elements that nearly cost Salman Rushdie his life.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br />Salman Rushdie was attacked by a man younger than the <i>fatwa </i>itself, someone brainwashed into believing words printed on a page are so dangerous that the person who wrote them must forfeit his life. Rushdie is fortunate to have survived, though </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">Remnick</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> told Preet </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">he is now blind in one eye, one of his hands doesn</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">t work right, and he must surely cope with PTSD, among other aftereffects.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Yet (to pivot slightly) even as I write this, some think tank reports that a seventeen year, global decline in democracy shows signs of turning around. “This is, I think, some glimmer of hope,” says the president of Freedom House, which produced <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/09/1161966392/freedom-house-report-democracy-declines-slowing" target="_blank">the report</a>.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Be that as it may, <i>Joseph Anton</i> is a powerful book that deserves to be widely read. Next up on my reading list: <i>The Satanic Verses.</i></span></div><br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-51284650760754219712022-10-27T07:31:00.002-07:002022-10-28T15:19:13.396-07:00Strunk and White<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCamqVysLbjxqP5iHr65TJAUq5VvDOxjsfyzjM0l9USmRGu_q9BgcUf9_QWC6Uveq_xYTyda3u_Y5Ax7Rhk4K0iDqZy2_BcldEitiQhs3D59_FyQ5mZUHLgJzRJxn6np4617WUH-OxcXpaepnLV5aRjy40d0uy2-9C8uucZCi-iMWORLsEyxx3gR03/s617/cover%2001.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="617" data-original-width="387" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCamqVysLbjxqP5iHr65TJAUq5VvDOxjsfyzjM0l9USmRGu_q9BgcUf9_QWC6Uveq_xYTyda3u_Y5Ax7Rhk4K0iDqZy2_BcldEitiQhs3D59_FyQ5mZUHLgJzRJxn6np4617WUH-OxcXpaepnLV5aRjy40d0uy2-9C8uucZCi-iMWORLsEyxx3gR03/s320/cover%2001.jpg" width="201" /></a></div>T</i></span><span style="font-size: 16px;"><i>he Elements of Style </i>is a must-have resource for most writers. Grammarly may have its place, but the concise <i>Elements </i>has set the standard for decades. Millions of copies, in multiple editions, are in print.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The authors are William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White; thus the book is often referred to as Strunk and White. It has a curious history, of the sort that fascinates me. I must have known it at one point, but when I read its Introduction recently saw that I had all but forgotten it.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">As E.B. White explains, Strunk had written the original <i>Elements of Style</i> by 1918, when it served as the text for the English 8 class Strunk taught, and White took, at Cornell. Its purpose, White said, was “to cut the vast tangle of English rhetoric down to size and write its rules and principles on the head of a pin.</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">”</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZv7IwKyQy2iIXReYrsBrrleRpuj497b86yK0bY6jaY9t8OSRETz7V8ERx9JwFSTJ26XU0N-KjADvsYEWyf9Z3voHczTKDNA5jZDOm4AZLt-EKnR0CCuCFprWC0kF6HbeRdNOJ-_nO52bKykqSsqNpN8gOT2QaviARX7vEWPH_bK1BJ4F3YfOMi4Bh/s572/william-strunk-jr-6.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZv7IwKyQy2iIXReYrsBrrleRpuj497b86yK0bY6jaY9t8OSRETz7V8ERx9JwFSTJ26XU0N-KjADvsYEWyf9Z3voHczTKDNA5jZDOm4AZLt-EKnR0CCuCFprWC0kF6HbeRdNOJ-_nO52bKykqSsqNpN8gOT2QaviARX7vEWPH_bK1BJ4F3YfOMi4Bh/s320/william-strunk-jr-6.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>When White first encountered it as a student it was privately published. Many years later White was asked to edit and revise it for formal publication. By that time Strunk (pictured) had died.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Even after I got through tampering with it,” White said, “it was still a tiny thing, a barely tarnished gem. Seven rules of usage, eleven principles of composition, a few matters of form, and a list of words and expressions commonly misused – that was the sum and substance of Professor Strunk’s work.”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Vigorous writing is concise,” Strunk declares on p. 23, under the heading Omit Needless Words. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, he argues, “for the same reason a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The chapter called “Words and Expressions Commonly Misused” is probably my favorite. The subject is dear to me. Though written over a century ago it, and the book, remain valid and valuable.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Find <i>The Elements of Style,</i> read its fewer than 100 pages, and keep it nearby at all times.</span></div><br />
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<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><b>
Addendum:</b> E.B. White wrote <i>Charlotte’s Web</i> and a lot of other stuff. According to Ralph Keyes in <i>The Courage to Write</i> (also recommended), he “worried over every word ... and sometimes pleaded with the postmaster ... to return a just-mailed manuscript so he could punch up its ending or re-write the lead.”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH-hOAohmNaCSpPSZyW3oVbwk6dTgGQKlwsYs1dXYWvdOEkQqxCQDT8QHTyS0O2rU32IiOdr11WKvmIf-HYCl5ctRF72AH9jGVS9vl5I_E9SWkq827IMBXZ2YFbPyWttnU_nSioa9rd0t9FAUVw2ZzW0rCndOiyxrfZv1Mlco9feUIV1eGwRKS6yd1/s1440/book_stacked.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="1440" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH-hOAohmNaCSpPSZyW3oVbwk6dTgGQKlwsYs1dXYWvdOEkQqxCQDT8QHTyS0O2rU32IiOdr11WKvmIf-HYCl5ctRF72AH9jGVS9vl5I_E9SWkq827IMBXZ2YFbPyWttnU_nSioa9rd0t9FAUVw2ZzW0rCndOiyxrfZv1Mlco9feUIV1eGwRKS6yd1/w572-h215/book_stacked.jpg" width="572" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-10409499180787734942022-09-11T09:10:00.007-07:002024-03-07T07:58:44.056-08:00A Blankety-Blank Racist<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuQ8P5UQoOJnMTQqQQvTfAreLYmCIpPK08YevwmAKNX-bzcbYWfEuZTMc41lcqAtVsK3N8xPUnA9sBf12GmD_PvkFGmVvzaArKlXxFbRz4-2XYqzHAvSFT4LDGGKJ8B2yLAKpoQnph7KxhDKFr4Iu3cz7ro4vxHhnAdoQaQvKR9UKiPBPhzXRvQcW1/s1280/07.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1007" data-original-width="1280" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuQ8P5UQoOJnMTQqQQvTfAreLYmCIpPK08YevwmAKNX-bzcbYWfEuZTMc41lcqAtVsK3N8xPUnA9sBf12GmD_PvkFGmVvzaArKlXxFbRz4-2XYqzHAvSFT4LDGGKJ8B2yLAKpoQnph7KxhDKFr4Iu3cz7ro4vxHhnAdoQaQvKR9UKiPBPhzXRvQcW1/s320/07.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">n</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> 1967 long-simmering racial injustice reached a breaking point in the city of Detroit and exploded into what is sometimes called, rather clinically, a civil disturbance. It ended after five days with forty-three people dead, many times that number hurt, and some seven thousand people arrested. Even after more than fifty years, it is considered one of the worst riots in United States history.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">A Presidential commission appointed to investigate the riots in Detroit and several other cities concluded the primary cause was white racism. “Our Nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal,” it said in its report. “Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American.”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Things haven’t changed all that much.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGPdPOzm8Eud8BJZJ_7ET1z8d8AvPLaQUFKTebY4L0Z73xTrSNcwCbr2K1PtGHWseaj2_xusfdTCv7j9ypf8SWa-TZVyItAnb4LsrbD_TCfjSNZH1lUuWFWkEmSe9yZQsFzva4P4FeRVf45KIYSDU1DNSm7-oXhnZWDFAAwl-d7jVsoVGPiydsLBq1/s1665/02.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1508" data-original-width="1665" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGPdPOzm8Eud8BJZJ_7ET1z8d8AvPLaQUFKTebY4L0Z73xTrSNcwCbr2K1PtGHWseaj2_xusfdTCv7j9ypf8SWa-TZVyItAnb4LsrbD_TCfjSNZH1lUuWFWkEmSe9yZQsFzva4P4FeRVf45KIYSDU1DNSm7-oXhnZWDFAAwl-d7jVsoVGPiydsLBq1/s320/02.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In Detroit, in addition to local law enforcement, U.S. Army troops and the National Guard were deployed. Among the latter was my Uncle Dan. I was just a kid, but clearly recall that at least once during those five chaotic days he came out to our safe suburban home, pulling into the driveway in a pea green military jeep. He wore green fatigues with his last name stenciled over the left shirt pocket. Several other guardsmen accompanied him. I found their arrival both exciting and frightening: exciting because real, armed National Guardsmen were at my house, but frightening because real, armed National Guardsmen were at my house</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBD0W5DUPKtkhA862IMFuJ_9S0NdSLCgfLpQF4lBUc2KeHR9UxQaKB4wf6ppxhH55UPp7FlDZba2-VjcTNsusWoMN_tTwy1sKDQFuWzm-ovfUBKmvOVfiAghkX1oXlIpe93WZm07zcxFKX9RZ99-vcplaAm-dJXhzaswNAVj0ugHSbWEfQ05hhpA25/s595/01.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="559" data-original-width="595" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBD0W5DUPKtkhA862IMFuJ_9S0NdSLCgfLpQF4lBUc2KeHR9UxQaKB4wf6ppxhH55UPp7FlDZba2-VjcTNsusWoMN_tTwy1sKDQFuWzm-ovfUBKmvOVfiAghkX1oXlIpe93WZm07zcxFKX9RZ99-vcplaAm-dJXhzaswNAVj0ugHSbWEfQ05hhpA25/s320/01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>We lived twenty miles or more from the violence, but my Uncle Dan – my father’s brother – probably wanted to be sure we were all okay. He lived with his family, my aunt and cousins, in a small town about an hour away from us. I don’t know for sure, but he may have been attached to the National Guard in a spiritual capacity: in civilian life, he was a minister. Was he armed that day? It would seem contrary to his divinity school training. Even if he wasn’t, his comrades most certainly were.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">We invited them inside and my mother served coffee. Their conversation, surely, was guarded in my presence. After half an hour or so, they got back into their jeep and left.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">About a year later, the riots over, we visited Uncle Dan, Aunt Ruth and their kids. We were there in church when Dan delivered that week’s sermon. I don’t remember much about it, but do remember he urged his (presumably) all-white parishioners to look into their hearts, more deeply than they might wish to. Would they find traces of racism?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCVfSTiRSVB2OdarWpKfdQhhVoZbaUCrGIHkDHbfEo3YyP-fBudOrxgbcxzRp8heEpEL0YqmUjGw3LcyoXeeb_pKP9-OllNjgtbD8-VH3u8wTBNBYkN0gumBiY0yfhkgOFiVSJ4kXxOSn0KA7MdBefw7xgyaMNYwnzVuJxqi5AQcdYMlffkwqTliWD/s1341/uniform%2004.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1341" data-original-width="949" height="421" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCVfSTiRSVB2OdarWpKfdQhhVoZbaUCrGIHkDHbfEo3YyP-fBudOrxgbcxzRp8heEpEL0YqmUjGw3LcyoXeeb_pKP9-OllNjgtbD8-VH3u8wTBNBYkN0gumBiY0yfhkgOFiVSJ4kXxOSn0KA7MdBefw7xgyaMNYwnzVuJxqi5AQcdYMlffkwqTliWD/w297-h421/uniform%2004.jpg" width="297" /></a></div>To underscore his message, he related a personal experience from the riots. During a brief lull, he said, he and a few of his fellow guardsmen, maybe the same guys who came to our house, stood along the street. A car driven by a white man passed by. The driver shouted out, “Get one of those blankety-blank n-words for me!”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Uncle Dan shouted the words too, startling the congregation. Then he added, with an irony I could not miss, “But he’s a <i>good </i>man. He goes to church every Sunday.”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">He really did say “blankety blank,” sparing his parishioners offensive language. But he did <i>not </i>really say “n-words.” Instead he used the actual slur, in all its toxic, </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">pulsing</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> ugliness.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">It took a few years for the double standard to dawn on me. It was acceptable, from the pulpit, to use an undisguised racial slur, but not to use whatever “blankety-blank” substituted for.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">My uncle Dan died in the summer of 2022, decades after these events. While his fundamental decency and humanity has never been in doubt, that tiny slice of his sermon, that mental sound bite, has always stayed with me. No judgment is intended in recounting it here. One of the reasons he used that epithet, I think, was to challenge a complacent flock, and shock them into some soul-searching. In later life, in the same situation, he might have phrased things differently.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">A few days after Dan died I phoned my Aunt Ruth. Her sense of loss was palpable. “I feel so lonely,” she told me.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“It’s odd, the things you find yourself remembering at times like this,” I said. I did not describe that sermon, or even Dan showing up at our house at the height of the riots. Instead I recalled how, a year or two after that, she and Dan were in an automobile accident in which Dan broke his back. I remembered seeing the two of them soon afterward. Ruth was not much worse for wear, but Dan wore a metal brace around his torso, fastened with a tiny padlock – to prevent him, maybe, from removing the brace in his sleep.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Oh, yes,” Ruth said as I described this. She seemed almost pleased. “You’re right! I can see it now, in my mind’s eye…”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">I remember other visits too, unshared with Ruth in that call: one when Dan drove me around the block on his motorcycle (I wore a football helmet), and another, in winter, when my cousins and I were ice-skating on a pond. The skating ended abruptly after Dan heard some rowdy teenagers nearby, swearing – using some blankety-blanks. “I don’t have to listen to that!” he snarled to Ruth, as we kids were hustled away.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Before my call to Ruth ended, she told me the smallest things now could reduce her to tears, so she was trying to keep busy – contemplating, after sixty-four years of marriage, how to live the rest of her life alone.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Dan’s was not the only death in the family this summer, nor even the only death of someone close to us.</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">There are always too many departures. </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">It may be inevitable, but death is never welcome.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_V2DWqtctIlPONXym3cZ4pkfHLF3nQpo7fx5k2Xo0EnsFB5db39OCV16i75GmMy78l2TklHO6kuiM_L6jf5315vnVt26EXdVsO7Sbf2X73HFdeXhhyqpgvIjtSIYPpyTywgWRmH0T3mNg-2R4x33QZvmEpgJFaKyVUyy5N8DAduBDQCKi42BiDu_r/s1969/300829535_10159526019021633_77702405756055301_n.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1969" data-original-width="1678" height="625" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_V2DWqtctIlPONXym3cZ4pkfHLF3nQpo7fx5k2Xo0EnsFB5db39OCV16i75GmMy78l2TklHO6kuiM_L6jf5315vnVt26EXdVsO7Sbf2X73HFdeXhhyqpgvIjtSIYPpyTywgWRmH0T3mNg-2R4x33QZvmEpgJFaKyVUyy5N8DAduBDQCKi42BiDu_r/w533-h625/300829535_10159526019021633_77702405756055301_n.jpg" width="533" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><br />
John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-77113799027815418662021-07-26T09:41:00.012-07:002023-08-18T15:06:37.699-07:00Anyone For A Beer?<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEupJOKc4Rf4ZCcqIvnSmOouQzUSRAVrAaL-kCEcuIlwPkHVctta6MBhY1QxawFeUPiT2YMWimdbFs2sHSmrrvBnoHWctnKFHA96wvgaMiILdBnMROc2Fmvebg47ZPRoMtmnYgGjATuO0/s500/04a.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEupJOKc4Rf4ZCcqIvnSmOouQzUSRAVrAaL-kCEcuIlwPkHVctta6MBhY1QxawFeUPiT2YMWimdbFs2sHSmrrvBnoHWctnKFHA96wvgaMiILdBnMROc2Fmvebg47ZPRoMtmnYgGjATuO0/s320/04a.jpg" /></a></div>D</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">o you know how to pour a glass of beer? Of course you do. Open the container and hold it in one hand. In the other, a glass. Tilt container. <i>Voila!</i></span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">And yet, there are experts who disagree on this simplest of tasks.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Consider the diametrically opposed opinions of two noted beer authorities: Garrett Oliver, who is also a brewmaster, and F. Paul Pacult, who writes about beer and booze.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Oliver edited and helped to compile <i>The Oxford Companion to Beer,</i> and wrote his own <i>The Brewmaster’s Table, </i>a lengthy tome about matching beer with food. In this latter volume, in a section called “Beer Service,” he offers pouring instructions.</span></div>
<blockquote>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">You’ll quickly get the hang of it: pour the beer slowly down the side of the glass until it’s two-thirds full, then turn the glass upright and slowly bring the head up above the rim of the glass. [It] is a striking sight...</span></div></blockquote>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM3GgCk3IyxIT0bLncDgYC6YR2HE18etBKv1k2Q-wOtYtZq9zn3geR4CoZEaAD970d3ViEB8jbUfxBrJkO3dlLDe_KxyPSSZzEg7geIzUsDPp-6brl5-7KWBJGj4wJ50w9iyIWf7HqfQ0/s742/01b.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="626" data-original-width="742" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM3GgCk3IyxIT0bLncDgYC6YR2HE18etBKv1k2Q-wOtYtZq9zn3geR4CoZEaAD970d3ViEB8jbUfxBrJkO3dlLDe_KxyPSSZzEg7geIzUsDPp-6brl5-7KWBJGj4wJ50w9iyIWf7HqfQ0/s320/01b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>F. Paul Pacult takes a different approach. He used to write something called <i>The Spirit Journal,</i> but put it on hiatus a few years ago to focus on new writing projects. In <i>The Beer Essentials: The Spirit Journal Guide to Over 650 of the World's Beers,</i> he says:</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">I pour beer the way most brewers have taught me, which is to start right down the center of an upright glass to establish an inch of foam, then tilt the glass at a 45-degree angle and continue pouring down the side of the glass until the glass is two-thirds to three-quarters full. This allows some room for the head to develop at the crown, as well as some space for you to insert your nose and appreciate the bouquet.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcKhlgH0vEKONiw9AJtqMzZBPTNefrt1wMrBvThJacg2lt9YPH4yMi79TzR4XBLVdS2RCCHT2GW2dsrlIwj8u0XDeA-d4obwdDqJUhuuU1QavmFvQcWs_KsFSlpc7jqexnnYgJNq9L7aE/s696/07a.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="696" data-original-width="673" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcKhlgH0vEKONiw9AJtqMzZBPTNefrt1wMrBvThJacg2lt9YPH4yMi79TzR4XBLVdS2RCCHT2GW2dsrlIwj8u0XDeA-d4obwdDqJUhuuU1QavmFvQcWs_KsFSlpc7jqexnnYgJNq9L7aE/s320/07a.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div>He adds, somewhat impishly, that it’s all in the wrist.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Both these guys emphasize using squeaky-clean glassware. (Pacult even says to never put your beer glasses in a dishwasher; it can leave detergent sediments. I do it anyway.) Generally speaking, both agree on serving lagers at 45 to 48 degrees Fahrenheit, and ales in the high forties to mid-fifties.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Wait – <a href="https://www.eater.com/2019/9/13/20863787/whats-the-difference-ale-lager" target="_blank">there’s a difference</a> between lager and ale?</span></div><br /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal;">A third beer writer, who might be considered “the other Michael Jackson,” is silent on the subject of pouring. Or at least he is in <i>Michael Jackson</i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><i>’</i></span><i style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal;">s Beer Companion, </i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal;">my first beer book. In it he calls beer a civilized drink and urges you to never, in a restaurant or bar, merely </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">“</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">ask for </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">a beer.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">”</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;"> There are so many styles; he says beer </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">“</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">can be equally varied, complex and noble</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">”</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;"> as its more exalted counterpart, wine.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">As I wrote these notes I got curious, so I googled Pacult. He has an <a href="https://fpaulpacult.com/about/" target="_blank">official website</a>. <br /></span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Garrett Oliver is the <a href="https://brooklynbrewery.com/our-story/" target="_blank">Brooklyn Brewery</a> brewmaster. I googled him, too. According to Wikipedia we share the same birthday! He has an <a href="https://www.instagram.com/igarrettoliver/?hl=en" target="_blank">Instagram</a> page.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The beer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson_(writer)" target="_blank">Michael Jackson</a> died a couple of years before his better-known namesake: in 2007, at the age of sixty-five.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFFRvSAP21wGQ5YN_iQvnaGmGmxjE_ISVcw2xB55QkaFNitQSbpcMiYRl_QpKlybOdPQuT0XqBRT8vC0pBtEE49KwVyLlQDe88hIr3HjqZl1MPrT57_aEKkaQboyb1zmaarePuILLyy8w/s890/09.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="890" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFFRvSAP21wGQ5YN_iQvnaGmGmxjE_ISVcw2xB55QkaFNitQSbpcMiYRl_QpKlybOdPQuT0XqBRT8vC0pBtEE49KwVyLlQDe88hIr3HjqZl1MPrT57_aEKkaQboyb1zmaarePuILLyy8w/w555-h333/09.jpg" width="555" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-36084164324495963142021-05-08T06:36:00.003-07:002021-05-24T03:14:01.702-07:00Mask On, Mask Off<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjBNmRy21f4bcPk38OPY72MHefRUW3FDvNUzCnnbrcoTPViBRyEWApV0hebkbO9NKrDuW8ES60K0r-CIskRtNLxVgDLZQofe6hF3YmppDSC4OYOX9XKd1UAkL4Qm5dLbvVmBGr0ZSn-R0/s703/mask_01a.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="637" data-original-width="703" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjBNmRy21f4bcPk38OPY72MHefRUW3FDvNUzCnnbrcoTPViBRyEWApV0hebkbO9NKrDuW8ES60K0r-CIskRtNLxVgDLZQofe6hF3YmppDSC4OYOX9XKd1UAkL4Qm5dLbvVmBGr0ZSn-R0/s320/mask_01a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>W</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">hen I had an eye exam the other day one of the first things the optometrist asked was whether I’d been fully vaccinated for COVID-19. I answered in the affirmative. “Me too,” he replied. If I was agreeable, he said, we could dispense with our masks.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">I was agreeable.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">It felt like a step toward normalcy. A baby step, to be sure, but taken in the right direction. As a society the overall goal during this pandemic era is herd immunity – as elusive as that may be. One of the last remaining obstacles is the resistence of a certain sub-set of our fellow citizens.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-weight: normal;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcv7toHFDH2GRStSr40T3SmrEMP4SPi-dzmGuMCDRqu6ZJbpr-__JnM_hPl3nTyyChlgdZ7xcfL8yyRl6gkqcpqGtRu8ZkuI2o6CZ0wj1L0l2aGdiAYRf6o96kJkjE95QzWS2DgD4C3M8/s546/glasses_02.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="466" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcv7toHFDH2GRStSr40T3SmrEMP4SPi-dzmGuMCDRqu6ZJbpr-__JnM_hPl3nTyyChlgdZ7xcfL8yyRl6gkqcpqGtRu8ZkuI2o6CZ0wj1L0l2aGdiAYRf6o96kJkjE95QzWS2DgD4C3M8/s320/glasses_02.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">My new glasses?</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">It’s distressing that the issue of masks and vaccinations is so politicized. This is not accidental, and I fear it is but a tiny piece in a larger, divide-and-conquer picture: one that has me all but convinced we are careening toward fascism.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><i>No one</i> likes wearing those fucking masks. <i>Everyone </i>is eager to return to some semblance of normalcy, however you might define it. It is difficult not to brand those who resist masks and vaccines as fools, and/or ignorant, deceived assholes.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">No one gets smallpox anymore. No one gets polio. The reason is science, of course. Vaccines.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv77eGwMbxf6zJcaAOET1D9KrDEHOx6wZ3cpQWkeSADFJUhbQJON_3JLQwNQxr6YWeaP8VF1ZOc2Saj4tyjw6QwyK957AcJvDu5Cct-wWTTx-9KjcyZ1YQEK1YQskh2uG8VtwXrVnS-eo/s575/mask_04a_burn.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="565" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv77eGwMbxf6zJcaAOET1D9KrDEHOx6wZ3cpQWkeSADFJUhbQJON_3JLQwNQxr6YWeaP8VF1ZOc2Saj4tyjw6QwyK957AcJvDu5Cct-wWTTx-9KjcyZ1YQEK1YQskh2uG8VtwXrVnS-eo/s320/mask_04a_burn.jpg" /></a></div>A few days after the eye doctor I saw my physician for a well check (garden variety physical). This time, the mask stayed on. The option of removing it never even came up. <i>Ah well.</i></span></div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">I’m still planning on a big mask-burning party, once this thing is over (or mostly over). If you’re reading this you</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">re invited, although proof-of-vax may be required.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The scene: A hot summer night. A big pile of masks in the street. An eco-friendly accelerant sprinkled thereon. A match is lit, and <i>whoosh!</i> It all goes up in flames. Everyone cheers.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><b>BYOB.</b> We provide potato chips and marshmallows, and the burnt weenie sandwiches. (Tofu dogs available.)</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">(Others have appropriated this mask-burning idea. That’s okay; the motif is so <i>very </i>obvious, and stolen from mortgage-burning parties!)</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCwU5tgR6sGhnUpWNWEwe5fKRzXyEYiU1bpJCrlkVazx9vgdiwa1uff_bkhBFp5tCJGVYVL6pnCU9ZeKyysaBarnBZlqcEdG2Z076JmJlju_UpHEoznaiqjQl0GhFs_3btL4_OPXXXOns/s656/mask_03a_burnt_weenie.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="656" data-original-width="629" height="562" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCwU5tgR6sGhnUpWNWEwe5fKRzXyEYiU1bpJCrlkVazx9vgdiwa1uff_bkhBFp5tCJGVYVL6pnCU9ZeKyysaBarnBZlqcEdG2Z076JmJlju_UpHEoznaiqjQl0GhFs_3btL4_OPXXXOns/w540-h562/mask_03a_burnt_weenie.jpg" width="540" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><br /></span></div>John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-74997300242943937772021-04-20T08:20:00.006-07:002021-12-27T06:21:23.022-08:00The Power of Photography<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg36GBvN98815fXsMjY1xcKySVtzDZc6GB0jeeNKiGgyMzOk-WYLa5CbbNucXF7tHGcNGuKcalaAewf0R5pshHhwkmAYG9gt-IXce4T9nJmGG9DyT_zCv2h0oIbxPOUju8tP4cK0sfahWE/s371/16a_vintage.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="351" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg36GBvN98815fXsMjY1xcKySVtzDZc6GB0jeeNKiGgyMzOk-WYLa5CbbNucXF7tHGcNGuKcalaAewf0R5pshHhwkmAYG9gt-IXce4T9nJmGG9DyT_zCv2h0oIbxPOUju8tP4cK0sfahWE/w248-h262/16a_vintage.jpg" width="248" /></a></div>S</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">omeone once said that you never really take a picture. Rather a picture presents itself, and <i>it </i>takes <i>you.</i></span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">That may be. Certain photographs, taken at just the right moment, have an element of divine intervention – especially in photojournalism.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">On the other hand, experience guides photographers to the places where a picture can present itself.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Maybe I’m splitting hairs.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Photography is an activity and discipline I have always loved; it</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’s</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">one of my several creative outlets</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">. What draws me to it may boil down to instant gratification: I love looking through a viewfinder and composing a shot. Certainly the results vary. Composing a shot and capturing a moment are very different (though not mutually exclusive).</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzJ-yYdMJh1SR6ElCMuAhMRrxNqOFiW4OzZ5fFuvHOia_xze6LrUKyv0CQ7LKAcS2dF7L_n-Wz2D7-i_PfjvWdFwGZt0pp5yIbWs-ZpJRFrE4AYquOrqX-HFOCCy3CX2b59eG1c5bszo/s825/DSC_0002a.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="735" data-original-width="825" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEzJ-yYdMJh1SR6ElCMuAhMRrxNqOFiW4OzZ5fFuvHOia_xze6LrUKyv0CQ7LKAcS2dF7L_n-Wz2D7-i_PfjvWdFwGZt0pp5yIbWs-ZpJRFrE4AYquOrqX-HFOCCy3CX2b59eG1c5bszo/w240-h214/DSC_0002a.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>My first decent camera was a Pentax 35mm. It shot old-fangled film. I can’t remember the model number (K-1000?) because I</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">m not a gear-head. A camera, to me, has always been a means to an end.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">That Pentax and I parted ways after I left it on a subway car in Washington DC. I replaced it with a better camera, a used Nikon F purchased at a camera store in metro Detroit, where I then lived. It was my main machine for many years, until I finally upgraded to a Nikon digital. The digital Nikon still gets plenty of use, though I take a lot of pictures with my phone, too.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">•</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMG7UVv9muDnytAIJo-p2vZoMCK-H-sQOa7q40_ZF3bjuCaVZhjBK8hFGHOMmbSTldvLxpyjPS2ttEzye4yxAZeUvv8FxrdeiSl-a8JT_p3sD_NCVX_3j-fWRN1JIdIJ-RUSbheUD18_I/s723/07a_kent.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="643" data-original-width="723" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMG7UVv9muDnytAIJo-p2vZoMCK-H-sQOa7q40_ZF3bjuCaVZhjBK8hFGHOMmbSTldvLxpyjPS2ttEzye4yxAZeUvv8FxrdeiSl-a8JT_p3sD_NCVX_3j-fWRN1JIdIJ-RUSbheUD18_I/w231-h206/07a_kent.jpg" width="231" /></a></div>I’ve been thinking recently about the incredible power of photography. Images can stir a nation</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’s </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">pride and stir its horror. Consider two of America</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">s most iconic pictures: the flag raised by Marines on Iwo Jima, and the flag planted by the first astronauts on the moon. Then think of the shootings at Kent State, or children in cages along America’s southern border.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">Photography is also a powerful memory trigger. This is probably within everyone</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">’</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px;">s experience. How many times have you sat down with a stack of old photos, looking for one in particular, only to lose all track of time? (Admittedly, this is far less common now. Instead of prints stuffed into envelopes from the local drug store, pictures live on phones, social media sites, hard disks, and digital picture frames that hold thousands of images and display a new one every five seconds or so.)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUE17fc4lCbULetVG_5lcFoIOH3YpvTyFygaAs8ysQAqgB91AP31CxmJYDZ-ClF0bM8BBoZZ4RHyT28s2NOf48XPbH0fphO_gJPuvxbvU1nEFsUEjwcfsl_jzxpiP30RSBJwsKXaspOtU/s960/photo_gear_01.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="710" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUE17fc4lCbULetVG_5lcFoIOH3YpvTyFygaAs8ysQAqgB91AP31CxmJYDZ-ClF0bM8BBoZZ4RHyT28s2NOf48XPbH0fphO_gJPuvxbvU1nEFsUEjwcfsl_jzxpiP30RSBJwsKXaspOtU/s320/photo_gear_01.jpg" /></a></div>Those old pictures can be mesmerizing. Time ceases to exist as you flip through them, moved by image after image, none the one you were looking for, each capable of transporting you to an earlier time and place: faces and events from the past, some of them of people no longer in your orbit. You are immersed, losing all sense of the present. Suddenly half an hour, an hour, even longer, has gone by.</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br />One of the ways I’ve been filling surplus time during this relentless pandemic is by scanning old photos. More precisely I’ve been scanning negatives, which result in images much crisper than scanned prints. I have reams of them, thick binders filled with innumerable negative sleeves, mostly black and white, from an earlier, more carefree period, when I roamed Detroit photographing jazz musicians, cityscapes, friends and foes.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">More than just filling time during COVID isolation, scanning these old pictures also satisfies my inner archivist. I am preserving glimpses of an irretrievable past. They serve a more pragmatic purpose, too. I send digitized images, via text message, to distant friends and relatives, including my now-grown children.<br /><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">This last I do almost daily. We all live hither and yon. The no-longer-kids receive baby pictures (complete with drooling), photos from birthday parties, soccer practices, and even (heaven help me) the prom. It gets us talking, or at least texting. The images connect us to the present and to the past – another of the great powers of photography.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgepLEpgg7xPOkhq4xLT6wd3gbSiMVZBiMRzI8YaZCFP4slmqCjQBiFmrzcZsZVrXFNzo8Qq9G6gM3LFtgsdbu5-v28eDC-xBHSp-HJ7eSro8ywkT9X_AovVh6jCtu1yYD3wJQAQq7CwaM/s649/IMG_20140711_0020_A.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="649" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgepLEpgg7xPOkhq4xLT6wd3gbSiMVZBiMRzI8YaZCFP4slmqCjQBiFmrzcZsZVrXFNzo8Qq9G6gM3LFtgsdbu5-v28eDC-xBHSp-HJ7eSro8ywkT9X_AovVh6jCtu1yYD3wJQAQq7CwaM/w541-h371/IMG_20140711_0020_A.jpg" width="541" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN38m1_to64iRPR6KA75ug8SNiP-xXktwimvJEcXNiUQ-3QBDlm8FnQgHFikSCGp_Mq9lHkjavVTYftTyZGWMJmCVRC-vq54jcJJz8zET_l2vr_0yHVjNyNNcJM1QUbwruh2i1UU1eppU/s1668/IMG_20140301_0004_a.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1112" data-original-width="1668" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN38m1_to64iRPR6KA75ug8SNiP-xXktwimvJEcXNiUQ-3QBDlm8FnQgHFikSCGp_Mq9lHkjavVTYftTyZGWMJmCVRC-vq54jcJJz8zET_l2vr_0yHVjNyNNcJM1QUbwruh2i1UU1eppU/w542-h361/IMG_20140301_0004_a.jpg" width="542" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFDdWrrcOfm71C3uoNVr5wF_3K150q1SmNA65xKseXOaAGLF4psMmFqJY75Dl7CcwQI7tVf9NiNaI8IFnxqeyYx5MR7fACUsJWcQyGCN8-0TIq4fhan2ZTx0SHM4ToiWGsjb9qCc3f3sw/s836/IMG_20140726_0029.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="836" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFDdWrrcOfm71C3uoNVr5wF_3K150q1SmNA65xKseXOaAGLF4psMmFqJY75Dl7CcwQI7tVf9NiNaI8IFnxqeyYx5MR7fACUsJWcQyGCN8-0TIq4fhan2ZTx0SHM4ToiWGsjb9qCc3f3sw/w542-h361/IMG_20140726_0029.jpg" width="542" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTRzxNqJsyVLqj4eHgHbdneyrZFJ9n0puysWVJsKhsig6ps7kMdDRenCmOMz15gqt-wDtIOCrtZtkravrqY7qSYZT1DcLFgpgRRR1I7muWiNu9WVAC0YLOy6l_jxl8OeBqd8yyXbyRXM4/s1438/regina_hand_1a.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="927" data-original-width="1438" height="348" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTRzxNqJsyVLqj4eHgHbdneyrZFJ9n0puysWVJsKhsig6ps7kMdDRenCmOMz15gqt-wDtIOCrtZtkravrqY7qSYZT1DcLFgpgRRR1I7muWiNu9WVAC0YLOy6l_jxl8OeBqd8yyXbyRXM4/w541-h348/regina_hand_1a.jpg" width="541" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNqp-a8cFvrBGyTh9e-hDGSzoc1crVYYHPiBdiP0Bq0Fyp0iR7nuuz-sWGgh4-eJLt56tCB63dX_5RfLOi8VsugPqRHCG_-AjQ8dFEQx0XFLGJ-0JfsL9FFN1qWpM6vfXUetP5JLs-dlU/s1806/09_cameras.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1806" data-original-width="1200" height="605" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNqp-a8cFvrBGyTh9e-hDGSzoc1crVYYHPiBdiP0Bq0Fyp0iR7nuuz-sWGgh4-eJLt56tCB63dX_5RfLOi8VsugPqRHCG_-AjQ8dFEQx0XFLGJ-0JfsL9FFN1qWpM6vfXUetP5JLs-dlU/w402-h605/09_cameras.jpg" width="402" /></a></div><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></div></span></div></span></div>John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-47614222785286049102021-04-16T06:10:00.003-07:002021-04-26T08:59:21.910-07:00Set Pfizer To Stun<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRumbSx3evGpUN2njoqnQzbUhcVKQGLIb_RiSFi9ACzXXG6GzsiioLJ3031_r-p1fxDllDkGQB-yFqnTuQC-lt-l2y2gF3mxO9UOEIccvmfWI12M0ZODPRc66efOt7wifM0FcVvb-8olM/s1149/03a.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1149" data-original-width="917" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRumbSx3evGpUN2njoqnQzbUhcVKQGLIb_RiSFi9ACzXXG6GzsiioLJ3031_r-p1fxDllDkGQB-yFqnTuQC-lt-l2y2gF3mxO9UOEIccvmfWI12M0ZODPRc66efOt7wifM0FcVvb-8olM/s320/03a.jpg" /></a></div>A</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> bad vaccine reaction merits a bad pun.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">As I write this it’s been a little more than twenty-four hours since getting Round Two of the COVID vaccine, which as the title of this flight of fancy indicates was Pfizer. (Sorry about that title!)</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">My reaction has been no reaction, or nearly so.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">I was prepared for a day or two of flu-like symptoms: fever, chills, body aches, and all that. But I have dodged that bullet. Aside from the mildest ache where I got jabbed, there are no real side effects to speak of.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnjTIN-OLr_X6JWeJtJx3eI5_piPhpWQP8PV7YNDW8F_05_sRHJBjlsyT5ikHno-EkEFH81a03pQcELyQyBTNAIg6mLDzDrto4WGwyXtrEZEEqgRxCiRwccjg6qzyqxTNPJXXAuQPHO3I/s447/10a.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="292" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnjTIN-OLr_X6JWeJtJx3eI5_piPhpWQP8PV7YNDW8F_05_sRHJBjlsyT5ikHno-EkEFH81a03pQcELyQyBTNAIg6mLDzDrto4WGwyXtrEZEEqgRxCiRwccjg6qzyqxTNPJXXAuQPHO3I/w193-h295/10a.jpg" width="193" /></a></div>Same thing happened, or didn’t happen, with Round One.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The shots themselves were painless. No one enjoys getting stuck with a needle, and they usually sting a little. Not this time.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Scheduling the damned thing took some effort. After a fruitless and maddening attempt to find something at one of several chain store pharmacies, Google steered me to a local hospital’s signup form. Within a few days I got a text that a spot had been reserved for me. All I had to do was confirm it online and then show up. Which I did. Afterward, they gave me a sticker.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The pandemic is far from over and I’m still wearing a mask, socially distancing, <i>etc etc etc.</i> The end is not yet in sharp focus, but ever more in sight. My wife and son are also fully vaxxed and Daughter D has had Round One. I’m thinking about a trip to a distant city via airpline, and soon.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAO3nIsHGPhtySseCvj1lmkTaGxZDg0RGaTvMVZ-TcL6s-50ctFFtw8SYQ4aKOZtdGJdwSmGZMk0cssaNthTL-C0NavrYCksEsD7zHHUTug7Es5aBipTA3j2FNJOx964SzSWoSXgToeJM/s1417/covid_sticker_a.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1257" data-original-width="1417" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAO3nIsHGPhtySseCvj1lmkTaGxZDg0RGaTvMVZ-TcL6s-50ctFFtw8SYQ4aKOZtdGJdwSmGZMk0cssaNthTL-C0NavrYCksEsD7zHHUTug7Es5aBipTA3j2FNJOx964SzSWoSXgToeJM/w522-h464/covid_sticker_a.jpg" width="522" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-71365350777612806882021-01-08T07:26:00.015-08:002021-12-09T15:43:37.981-08:00Fix These Faces
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2S4_z19eyXHieMGDbZXdzaUQD8W9INIspS3Fo3AeFhKWtxMvbX2_Z33Qz6goFn1ON9sEVveK9zdL7NOxGlp6wayWiTawjSEKgiYbEkJNRBXyOeCCRfQojiffrsq-CQR4APix4hd8l2rg/s436/riot_02a.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="342" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2S4_z19eyXHieMGDbZXdzaUQD8W9INIspS3Fo3AeFhKWtxMvbX2_Z33Qz6goFn1ON9sEVveK9zdL7NOxGlp6wayWiTawjSEKgiYbEkJNRBXyOeCCRfQojiffrsq-CQR4APix4hd8l2rg/s320/riot_02a.jpg" /></a></div>T</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">he words used by politicians and media blowhards to describe the violence in Washington DC on January 6 include insurrection, uprising, rebellion, riot, sedition, violent occupation, and (attempted) coup.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br />All accurate enough, although attempted coup is easily the most dead-on. I’ve also heard it referred to, oddly and perhaps less accurately, as “sad.”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">It was an ugly, sickening, appalling outrage for which there must be swift and merciless payback. This was clearly a well-planned operation by MAGA minions with the short-term goal of taking and perhaps executing hostages (Pelosi <i>et al</i>), and the longer-term goal of using those left alive as leverage to keep Trump in power. Its failure was a matter of luck and does not minimize the attempt in the slightest.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYI5LPOyeUyq5hVDVU06Yo80HlHpxgNeC62Ojl3DcIu0jnMO0JWLCsIDgBUu1zNeSKobSsXGJQdEkZLpQ6dlJLQ-_Tvl7bZsL5NNUQAbBGiybhRYnE9EZlJwD7nLSWF4Lw3OJushGVpk/s545/06.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="537" height="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYI5LPOyeUyq5hVDVU06Yo80HlHpxgNeC62Ojl3DcIu0jnMO0JWLCsIDgBUu1zNeSKobSsXGJQdEkZLpQ6dlJLQ-_Tvl7bZsL5NNUQAbBGiybhRYnE9EZlJwD7nLSWF4Lw3OJushGVpk/w352-h357/06.png" width="352" /></a></div>A century ago eight MLB players were banned from baseball for life, because they conspired to throw the 1919 World Series. They took bribes to lose on purpose.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The scandal didn</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">t break for a year, and it took another year before the players were put on trial. As it developed, they were acquitted after key evidence (confessions) conveniently disappeared.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">And yet the players were all banned for life. A newspaper published their pictures along with this caption: “Fix these faces in your memory...”</span></div>
<p></p><center>•</center><p></p>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">And now treasonous Trump and his MAGA maggots, aided and abetted by treasonous Republicans in the House and Senate, have conspired in an attempt to overturn an election and subvert the United States Constitution, a document Trump and each of these lawmakers swore an oath to uphold. They supported this attempt to reverse the election results with a fascist fig leaf: zero evidence of alleged voter fraud, put forth by the most transparently corrupt, grotesque caricature of a politician to ever hold elected office.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Each one of these anti-democratic, anti-American lawmakers should be kicked out of office. Those who are lawyers should be disbarred, and all should be banned for life from ever again holding an office, elected or appointed. Each one of them – <i>including Trump</i> – should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and the judge should make an example of them</span> – should throw the book at them.</div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMBmE03Zv-I_5D8S2FWsIWuVosFnoS0FwX4mM8kblcdMFulnxeXlhe2AGZIKODlSbFMA1VSQk-Tk-hPWolC0PP3GbmIiCArd7gtJqwArnEGJAchFH6W-JbaqvWpXIGKltoRYHtR22NoVo/s565/01-04-21a_lawmakers_a.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="565" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMBmE03Zv-I_5D8S2FWsIWuVosFnoS0FwX4mM8kblcdMFulnxeXlhe2AGZIKODlSbFMA1VSQk-Tk-hPWolC0PP3GbmIiCArd7gtJqwArnEGJAchFH6W-JbaqvWpXIGKltoRYHtR22NoVo/w415-h183/01-04-21a_lawmakers_a.jpg" width="415" /></a></div>The following is a partial list of Republican lawmakers who participated in this insurrection, sedition, and/or coup. Their spineless leader was Trump. Co-conspirators include Rudy Giuliani and Trump Jr. There are others. The minions will be back.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><i>Fix these names and faces in your memory.</i></span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Hb6FsJzlhCFt2cqAEJxlM5UTLKhd7UTTAFIKoDakzwq1FeITGX2cLCdY9gc2LoO9kSIWm3kdK6MMxLfLw5wJrnX7jVw9N0OVXRap9ZC63QpUp0vSAi-RpNWCws80U34Iitubfd8HF90/s378/riot_01a.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="355" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Hb6FsJzlhCFt2cqAEJxlM5UTLKhd7UTTAFIKoDakzwq1FeITGX2cLCdY9gc2LoO9kSIWm3kdK6MMxLfLw5wJrnX7jVw9N0OVXRap9ZC63QpUp0vSAi-RpNWCws80U34Iitubfd8HF90/w342-h364/riot_01a.jpg" width="342" /></a></div>Rep. Ralph Abraham (R-La.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Rick W. Allen (R-Ga.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. James R. Baird (R-Ind.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpp1f31ZuDDToPo4fLrPzStplfl-rD68LbJLXLx9sj9d7_jaJRAvumIr1LSinDireZW7qb06BqFSfUyQfwXP4kuDksfUqC038RSQSg3-wt66XnLfWbBnZCwmfvVQrZyWtSgaYNCK5UUag/s640/riot_04.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="640" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpp1f31ZuDDToPo4fLrPzStplfl-rD68LbJLXLx9sj9d7_jaJRAvumIr1LSinDireZW7qb06BqFSfUyQfwXP4kuDksfUqC038RSQSg3-wt66XnLfWbBnZCwmfvVQrZyWtSgaYNCK5UUag/w338-h220/riot_04.jpg" width="338" /></a></div><br />Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-La.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz_D5vrskHwsI-EHO1T9EeoEBsmO2GXM0C7JGBED-FdmuXwYNy1Jf7XiuuLI_4kthQJeFkNDlHf7bEnChulHJqyZo4bhyCRZl7Ptz7u18hPmacBBebgSxIqJIiP2fepwapZMDMAJMS48A/s638/riot_03.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="638" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz_D5vrskHwsI-EHO1T9EeoEBsmO2GXM0C7JGBED-FdmuXwYNy1Jf7XiuuLI_4kthQJeFkNDlHf7bEnChulHJqyZo4bhyCRZl7Ptz7u18hPmacBBebgSxIqJIiP2fepwapZMDMAJMS48A/w339-h225/riot_03.jpg" width="339" /></a></div><br />Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Neal P. Dunn (R-Fla.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. A. Drew Ferguson, IV (R-Ga.)</span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmk9w3wpRCq-SD0zJL5PWVgWp-uO7rxtKzOq2YVLBq8S6jzJb7xkqot5L97oxJpZNN8SWloFcGHeBJihXpvcJQuXCQnmOEit-5or6UfE0pjdGldXXpUIcGQyFbwryLsWzIm8yAZG6KCKE/s1920/riot_05.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmk9w3wpRCq-SD0zJL5PWVgWp-uO7rxtKzOq2YVLBq8S6jzJb7xkqot5L97oxJpZNN8SWloFcGHeBJihXpvcJQuXCQnmOEit-5or6UfE0pjdGldXXpUIcGQyFbwryLsWzIm8yAZG6KCKE/w340-h191/riot_05.jpg" width="340" /></a></div><br />Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.)</span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Trey Hollingsworth (R-Ind.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Fred Keller (R-Pa.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Miss.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tenn.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Robert E. Latta (R-Ohio)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Blaine Leutkemeyer (R-Mo.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-Wash.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Carol D. Miller (R-W.V.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Alex X. Mooney (R-W.V.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Gregory Murphy (R-N.C.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. David Rouzer (R-N.C.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Ross Spano (R-Fla.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pa.)
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisc.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Ron Wright (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Ted S. Yoho (R-Fla.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R-Minn.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Greg Pence (R-Ind.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. W. Gregory Steube (R-N.J.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.)</span></div><br />
<div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px="">Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.)</span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPnL3jk9CzsLYw4LkIv_lnuEwuUTiYtY1U9mPNkZhgyTzO2TwVHR0moKKt0I8KSIe8vJH8C8CxXPeaYtCU-A3WX3KJ9Gd0-F6vefJuiKmzhwm2VCLaHXqZeKcX71ZpNAaxf0V0xXrA2p4/s960/riot_06.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="960" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPnL3jk9CzsLYw4LkIv_lnuEwuUTiYtY1U9mPNkZhgyTzO2TwVHR0moKKt0I8KSIe8vJH8C8CxXPeaYtCU-A3WX3KJ9Gd0-F6vefJuiKmzhwm2VCLaHXqZeKcX71ZpNAaxf0V0xXrA2p4/w570-h335/riot_06.jpg" width="570" /></a></div><br /><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><br />
</span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDu-U3QEtpMvVvnl8RDb9Tz6nC9BwBD1JQFCWY9V9rtOeyeLN2I2eByHIZvnTDQSrLUGt0ZoJ2swwkt5TFeL7D81JwHGdHRIaa8iRg-BAMfY2CN0jQxv-2T4WViw8D_HQN2e7iSbH6XEQ/s554/03.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="551" height="451" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDu-U3QEtpMvVvnl8RDb9Tz6nC9BwBD1JQFCWY9V9rtOeyeLN2I2eByHIZvnTDQSrLUGt0ZoJ2swwkt5TFeL7D81JwHGdHRIaa8iRg-BAMfY2CN0jQxv-2T4WViw8D_HQN2e7iSbH6XEQ/w448-h451/03.jpg" width="448" /></a></div><br /><span 16px=""><br /></span></div><div 0px="" 19px="" font-variant:="" font-weight:="" georgia="" line-height:="" margin:="" min-height:="" normal=""><span 16px=""><br /></span></div></span></div>John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-16585739545586322282020-12-30T09:02:00.000-08:002020-12-30T09:02:33.797-08:00The Year of the * (Happy New Year)<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdrM_p52PA20kxwY-OR3CYTYgb3hYCNVr6swRgCOw_FXjRBPgj-hDu3KcKrbimO5RT54UA-eRLuFlJPEMKMQzWuLkKKVbPrviC3GyN3RV2kznygc2K8FxFc9dT6aJT_SpN9pUinoalf78/s388/santa_06b_mask.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="344" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdrM_p52PA20kxwY-OR3CYTYgb3hYCNVr6swRgCOw_FXjRBPgj-hDu3KcKrbimO5RT54UA-eRLuFlJPEMKMQzWuLkKKVbPrviC3GyN3RV2kznygc2K8FxFc9dT6aJT_SpN9pUinoalf78/s320/santa_06b_mask.jpg" /></a></div>I</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">n the years ahead references to 2020 will likely be filled with asterisks denoting that whatever is being mentioned took place against the backdrop of a global pandemic.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">
All those shuffled and shortened sports schedules, for example. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">And</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> all that death. As this is written and the year winds down, COVID-19 has claimed more than 320,000 lives in the United States and more than 1.6 million worldwide.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The last twelve months (roughly) have sucked – but it’s absurd, of course, to blame a calendar. And yet ... let</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’s hope 2021 is an improvement.</span><i style="font-size: 16px;"> Happy New Year.</i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 14px;">•</span></span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Inconsequential as it is, I’m still writing this dreary little blog. Here are some posts from the last twelve months that I have not yet disavowed. (Give it time!)</span></div><br />
<blockquote>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: 16px;"><a href="http://bluelung.blogspot.com/2020/02/neighbors-in-perpetuity.html" target="_blank"><b>Neighbors in Perpetuity</b></a> Paid a visit to my father’s grave, shortly before the pandemic became such a huge inconvenience.</span></li></ul></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: 16px;"><a href="http://bluelung.blogspot.com/2020/03/jade-visions.html" target="_blank"><b>Jade Visions</b></a> Semi-book review of a Scott LaFaro biography.</span></li></ul></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: 16px;"><a href="http://praisefrom.blogspot.com/2020/09/vincent-j-salandria.html" target="_blank"><b>Vincent J. Salandria</b></a> A few words about an early JFK assassination critic who made a difference in my life. (This post is actually from a second blog I keep.)</span></li></ul></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: 16px;"><a href="http://bluelung.blogspot.com/2020/11/priscilla-is-heard.html" target="_blank"><b>Priscilla is Heard</b></a> This has rolled around in the back of my brain for years. I finally wrote it down.</span></li></ul></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: 16px;"><a href="http://bluelung.blogspot.com/2020/10/bowel-prep.html" target="_blank"><b>Bowel Prep</b></a> As enchanting as it sounds!</span></li></ul></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: 16px;"><a href="http://bluelung.blogspot.com/2020/10/mesh.html" target="_blank"><b>M*E*S*H</b></a> Speaking of asterisks ... this, like the above post, describes a medical procedure.</span></li></ul></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: 16px;"><a href="http://bluelung.blogspot.com/2020/01/fewer-than-ten-albums.html" target="_blank"><b>(Fewer than) Ten Albums</b></a> A discourse on some recorded music that has meant a lot to me over the years.
</span></li></ul></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXaVPWiC0BIZtuWmPKl7STZ-zGruF5v9126O8jOHS92SSS5N70783kFSDRrt9c58zI2ibMMbd3togg32guu_wohfQxMRfHqeGZsMnRXaB13lHKSz92r_qixmyI5DO_fUtZX1HjI7rX4nQ/s699/mask_01.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="699" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXaVPWiC0BIZtuWmPKl7STZ-zGruF5v9126O8jOHS92SSS5N70783kFSDRrt9c58zI2ibMMbd3togg32guu_wohfQxMRfHqeGZsMnRXaB13lHKSz92r_qixmyI5DO_fUtZX1HjI7rX4nQ/w641-h414/mask_01.jpg" width="641" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKs4P4GjfHlTsi5pm1iJ5LSXqXSrZp8w90kKQ6SqP7vnpzfn8ZDTsq0rtsxEKH5dOKblCvDWDD1XGUJue9Q_mdLJs6D7VSj-coKmytgfj-r90Hjm61bOxyXrBjw8SCx9SApvn4gpDM0LU/s434/04.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="384" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKs4P4GjfHlTsi5pm1iJ5LSXqXSrZp8w90kKQ6SqP7vnpzfn8ZDTsq0rtsxEKH5dOKblCvDWDD1XGUJue9Q_mdLJs6D7VSj-coKmytgfj-r90Hjm61bOxyXrBjw8SCx9SApvn4gpDM0LU/s320/04.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiANk8kQ3hab7RKkufzmzg5tLV5H2sjhf6LI5DSKe9TLsChXLuhbUxZswZQ4AKqNpoJDD_I4tlgguKTXg3rAE_gZjBbjWpjNAqmEbASJcZaCyqJ6v-2dzGE2NE_uKDG0zUzJqmR90Imlz8/s500/new+year+03.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="365" height="576" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiANk8kQ3hab7RKkufzmzg5tLV5H2sjhf6LI5DSKe9TLsChXLuhbUxZswZQ4AKqNpoJDD_I4tlgguKTXg3rAE_gZjBbjWpjNAqmEbASJcZaCyqJ6v-2dzGE2NE_uKDG0zUzJqmR90Imlz8/w421-h576/new+year+03.jpg" width="421" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz9-L3WZ8n_Kr7Tc0b7FnZZNQPzp63jCZXMh4xJeJrUIk9Ma2GiCkACGMjgCOPSKlbqy79iIp6c1bpRLuIZVWPiayWQnAErQ9bPxKq-0EIc93DVy5dFAZUrGDSgSkbfrHlW7cCg8X6PiE/s960/santa_02.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz9-L3WZ8n_Kr7Tc0b7FnZZNQPzp63jCZXMh4xJeJrUIk9Ma2GiCkACGMjgCOPSKlbqy79iIp6c1bpRLuIZVWPiayWQnAErQ9bPxKq-0EIc93DVy5dFAZUrGDSgSkbfrHlW7cCg8X6PiE/w586-h330/santa_02.jpg" width="586" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-91816692895501970312020-11-18T11:06:00.006-08:002021-01-26T06:24:46.269-08:00Priscilla Is Heard<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>T</i></span><span style="font-size: 16px;"><i>he Muses Are Heard</i> is a largely forgotten book by Truman Capote. Published in 1956, it is a nonfiction account of an American company of <i>Porgy and Bess</i> and its visit to the Soviet Union.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzJ_aFM_iW7sZIkJNCCWWQk4au7Lxe7XmdR1IYBe152Cf3-aFyi0LRE_Aj8uugP3SW-DmxmXyVtgvg7H5d2I68SOYaZgYwz2KFYnjA3j000c0_XzwIqRGCQ0Ke14tTg5uyjUKEl7giCuPW/s320/03_tc.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzJ_aFM_iW7sZIkJNCCWWQk4au7Lxe7XmdR1IYBe152Cf3-aFyi0LRE_Aj8uugP3SW-DmxmXyVtgvg7H5d2I68SOYaZgYwz2KFYnjA3j000c0_XzwIqRGCQ0Ke14tTg5uyjUKEl7giCuPW/w279-h371/03_tc.jpg" width="279" /></a></div>When I first read it a dozen or so years ago I was surprised by the appearance of someone associated, indirectly, with the JFK assassination. To wit: one Priscilla Johnson, later Priscilla Johnson McMillan.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Johnson was ostensibly a journalist when she interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald at Moscow’s Hotel Metropole in November 1959, some four years after the events in <i>The Muses Are Heard. </i>She profiled Oswald, a supposed defector, for the North American Newspaper Alliance.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Right after the assassination, claiming she “had been thinking about him ever since” their 1959 meeting, Johnson wrote another article, “Oswald in Moscow.” It supported the argument that Oswald shot JFK largely because he was a publicity seeking lone nut.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Sometimes journalists get lucky: they’re in the right place at the right time. Was this the case with Johnson and her Moscow meeting with Oswald? Elements of her tale smell funny: she worked for John F. Kennedy in the early 1950s, when Kennedy was a Massachusetts Senator, and sought employment with the CIA, without success. So the story goes.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKVkeMtinfMWviix6rGLCoE2sxi23AhyXEr3cV6udsknnL6r2laeDm0YwHK1v9FcDEZ1KwZv9BVRebB-847VnwPBzAZXqmCNGSTUOt_uPUBtXMz5o0hSdwTDHRiW6bbY6gTOK7tv8rS7qR/s255/05_pris-marina.gif" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKVkeMtinfMWviix6rGLCoE2sxi23AhyXEr3cV6udsknnL6r2laeDm0YwHK1v9FcDEZ1KwZv9BVRebB-847VnwPBzAZXqmCNGSTUOt_uPUBtXMz5o0hSdwTDHRiW6bbY6gTOK7tv8rS7qR/s0/05_pris-marina.gif" /></a></div>Priscilla Johnson testified before the Warren Commission. Later she befriended Oswald’s widow Marina and began writing a book, <i>Marina and Lee. </i>After its publication in 1977 she became a persistent and reliable supporter of the lone nut scenario, drawing on her brief acquaintance with Lee Oswald and longer acquaintance with Marina to pose as an expert. (As this is written she is still alive at 92, according to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priscilla_Johnson_McMillan" target="_blank">her entry</a> in Wikipedia.)</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><center>•</center></span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">And lo! She makes a cameo appearance in <i>The Muses Are Heard.</i> This short work, remember, describes events that took place in late 1955 – some four years before Priscilla Johnson’s encounter with Lee Harvey Oswald.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Capote accompanied an all-Black cast of <i>Porgy and Bess</i> to Russia, part of an entourage that included the wife of the opera’s lyricist, Ira Gershwin. The trip was newsworthy as the first performance of an American theatrical company in the Soviet Union since the Bolshevik revolution. (<i>The New Yorker</i> magazine picked up Capote’s tab, and serialized <i>The Muses Are Heard</i> before it appeared in book form.)</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Capote wrote his piece in the first person – “observant, gossipy, bitchy, and always entertaining,” said biographer Gerald Clarke – inserting himself among his subjects. At one point he described how the cast, before one of their own performances, attended a ballet in Moscow.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><blockquote style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Sitting in the row ahead, there was one girl whose hair was neither plaited nor a sour bundle of string; she had an urchin-cut, which suited her curious, wild-faun face. She was wearing a black cardigan, and a pearl necklace. I pointed her out to Miss Ryan.</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“But I <i>know </i>her,” Miss Ryan said excitedly. “She’s from Long Island, we went to Radcliffe together! <i>Priscilla </i>Johnson,” she called, and the girl, squinting near-sighted eyes, turned around. “For God’s sake, Priscilla. What are you doing here?”</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Gosh. Gee whiz, Nancy,” said the girl, rubbing back her tomboy bangs. “What are <i>you </i>doing here?”</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Miss Ryan told her, and the girl, who said she was staying at the Astoria, explained that she had been granted a lengthy visa to live in the Soviet Union and study Russian law, a subject that had interested her since Radcliffe, where she’d also learned the Russian language.</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“But, darling,” said Mrs. Gershwin, “how can anyone study Russian law? When it changes so often?”</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Gosh. Ha ha,” said Miss Johnson. “Well, that’s not the <i>only </i>thing I’m studying. I’m making a kind of Kinsey report. It’s great fun, gosh.”</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“I should think,” said Miss Ryan. “The research.”</span></div><br /></blockquote><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><i>Gosh. </i>Johnson added that she was writing and submitting articles to American magazines. “Priscilla,” Miss Ryan whispered to Capote, “is sort of a genius.”</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">She also participated in a “pub crawl” through Moscow with Capote, Miss Ryan, and several others, “indulging [Capote’s] lifelong passion for ... foul-smelling, vile places,” </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">Gerald Clarke wrote.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><center>•</center></span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">An <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/11/the-only-person-who-knew-both-kennedy-and-his-killer/281712/" target="_blank"><i>Atlantic </i>article</a> about Priscilla Johnson McMillan, published at the time of the assassination’s fiftieth anniversary, called her the only person to know both JFK and Oswald – “his killer,” as the stuffy rag dutifully referred to him.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinKbcDx9maf15SftTSpDBPCt3U9NDHrIYrj2KXmVt-ATjcx5SArR2sGRTHSi_fKQkftSKHqPThHgfTPoZUcI9nyZTUCTqV4YYeOUEcI7MDJUhcVYVK8wUjecoaAPLjN1vJQtDOyHPDOz8j/s320/02_tc.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="234" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinKbcDx9maf15SftTSpDBPCt3U9NDHrIYrj2KXmVt-ATjcx5SArR2sGRTHSi_fKQkftSKHqPThHgfTPoZUcI9nyZTUCTqV4YYeOUEcI7MDJUhcVYVK8wUjecoaAPLjN1vJQtDOyHPDOz8j/w269-h368/02_tc.jpg" width="269" /></a></div>Not so fast! Capote made the same claim. In “A Day’s Work,” a story collected in <i>Music for Chameleons, </i>he said he was a guest at a dinner party hosted by then-Sen. JFK. Elsewhere in that collection he described meeting Oswald in Russia: this claim made in a story/interview with, of all people, Robert “Bobby” Beausoleil, who, when Capote talked to him, sat in prison for crimes associated with Charles Manson and his murderous “family.”</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Does that make you the only one that knew both of them, Oswald and Kennedy?” a startled Beausoleil asked, after Capote’s revelation.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“No. There was an American girl, Priscilla Johnson. She worked for U.P. [sic] in Moscow. She knew Kennedy, and she met Oswald around the same time I did.”</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">True? Maybe. I’m not sure the chronology adds up. More to the point, Capote had an uneven relationship with truth, and for me at least, has almost no credibility anymore. I have been an admirer of his in the past, and still think his oeuvre contains some very fine work. But you need a good bullshit detector.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Capote is, or was, an inveterate liar. “He took substantial liberties for the sake of lively reading,” Gerald Clarke wrote of <i>The Muses Are Heard.</i> </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">“</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">In one case he invented a whole scene.”</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Not only that, he fabricated sections of his acknowledged masterpiece, <i>In Cold Blood.</i> This, alas, is beyond dispute. As with any liar, once a falsehood is exposed it reflects negatively on everything you’ve ever done, said, or written.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">What, then, of Priscilla Johnson McMillan? I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the characterization in </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">The Muses Are Heard. </i><span style="font-size: 16px;">Am I using a</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> double standard? Maybe. Or maybe it’s a judgment call.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Priscilla Johnson applied to the CIA in the early 1950s, according to the <a href="https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKjohnsonPR.htm" target="_blank">Spartacus </a>website and other sources. Her application was supposedly rejected. Yet there she is, an American in Moscow during the Cold War. Seems highly unusual to me.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Could the encounter between Johnson, Capote, and Miss [Nancy] Ryan have been just a coincidence? Or could Johnson have taken a seat one row before Capote and her erstwhile classmate in order to be spotted, thereby enabling her to keep surreptitious tabs on these Americans? Johnson, of course, dismisses the idea out of hand: “There’s a lot of stuff like that online,” she told <i>The Atlantic.</i></span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">I don’t know what to make of this. Maybe it’s only a literary curiosity, or maybe </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">it’s</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> absolutely nothing. B</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">ut it’s at least worth knowing about; the intelligence swamp surrounding the Kennedy case is legendary.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">________</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><b>Notes</b></span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Capote meeting</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> JFK is in <i>Capote, A Biography, </i>by Gerald Clarke. Also referenced in “A Day</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">s Work,” collected in <i>Music For Chameleons</i>. This collection includes “Then It All Came Down,” with the </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">Beausoleil</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> conversation.</span></div><br style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" /><div style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Gerald Clarke discusses Capote having invented scenes for <i>The Muses Are Heard</i> and <i>In Cold Blood</i> in his biography. Surprisingly, the bio makes no mention of Oswald. Capote inventions are also discussed in <i>Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee,</i> by Charles J. Shields, and <i>Truman Capote, </i>by George Plimpton.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMYcEegBYJLhYCu5ksmnYzixg-U3z-UvIsxNwwZVwRrZqlWMZMGChCS9dPFeCjgajKLJNgoebpaMRIzgW8hE5OvffwAUpqcpjDfHSGB22u56hgIRSQXFEvTRDVpvpp1LAqija8zCDAHlvG/s1964/IMG_3286.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1474" data-original-width="1964" height="457" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMYcEegBYJLhYCu5ksmnYzixg-U3z-UvIsxNwwZVwRrZqlWMZMGChCS9dPFeCjgajKLJNgoebpaMRIzgW8hE5OvffwAUpqcpjDfHSGB22u56hgIRSQXFEvTRDVpvpp1LAqija8zCDAHlvG/w610-h457/IMG_3286.jpg" width="610" /></a></div><br /></div></div>John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-71533500368778751102020-10-24T09:15:00.000-07:002020-10-24T09:15:51.942-07:00M*E*S*H<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">D</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">uring an ordinary physical five or six years ago, my doctor noticed I had a hernia – you know, uh, <i>down there.</i></span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Does it hurt?” she asked. Negative. “Does it cause any discomfort at all?” Negative. “Then let’s just leave it alone,” she advised. And we did.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Five or six years later, and five or six well checks later, it <i>did </i>begin to bother me. Long story short? I consulted a specialist and we scheduled surgery to fix the damned thing.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx_ZE_KmDn3p0QkfRPHa2VGJkAGsJUQzCVI7uyV5guwgVAvYhTBUIwn33KD1besdK1iD9YZ6Se0eHxLRFvOCX5XjzTRU1v7o_XkGoGGznwlxUt2u98hyphenhyphenHtlb1TjgRQpShk7RbR8p8yHKk/s300/03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx_ZE_KmDn3p0QkfRPHa2VGJkAGsJUQzCVI7uyV5guwgVAvYhTBUIwn33KD1besdK1iD9YZ6Se0eHxLRFvOCX5XjzTRU1v7o_XkGoGGznwlxUt2u98hyphenhyphenHtlb1TjgRQpShk7RbR8p8yHKk/s0/03.jpg" /></a></div><br />There are various types of hernias. Mine was inguinal, which according to a Google search is among the most common. The inner groin, if you’re curious. Nationwide about eight hundred thousand of these are fixed each year, and something like ninety percent involve a synthetic material called mesh. As I understand it, mesh is a kind of thin fabric used to reinforce the abdominal wall and is associated with a lower rate of hernia reoccurrence.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Interestingly, the surgeon did not use the word “mesh” during our initial consult. The surgery would be laparoscopic, he explained. Robotic. He sketched it out on a piece of paper and drew a rectangle representing the stuff he’d use to reinforce the repair.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Only after I got home and Googled it did I realize that what he was talking about was mesh. I’d heard of it. “Almost every mesh is made, at its base, of polypropylene,” an ambulence-chasing lawyer's website advised. Polypropylene is a petroleum-based plastic. Same stuff disposable water bottles are made of. </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">The potential for nasty side effects is high. </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">It can stiffen and harden in the body.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivBxoDGUWEHsUZqFmpjrbBoOixl_ktJroX0VUuFHKkqRHwTO7t5faZpl5JmqpVtwfLKvV7eW9BfSAh5QoZ_OEe-18UkDrActu-1aUlBMXtxB1xtN3QNfjzQkptbkFW9bOOZ8s4doqjlYw/s682/surgeon_a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="523" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivBxoDGUWEHsUZqFmpjrbBoOixl_ktJroX0VUuFHKkqRHwTO7t5faZpl5JmqpVtwfLKvV7eW9BfSAh5QoZ_OEe-18UkDrActu-1aUlBMXtxB1xtN3QNfjzQkptbkFW9bOOZ8s4doqjlYw/s320/surgeon_a.jpg" /></a></div>So I called the surgeon’s office and spoke with him again the next day, explaining my newfound reservation to having that shit put in me.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Look, I’ve been doing this a long time,” the surgeon said, with a hint of exasperation. “I’ve done hundreds of these things. Anymore, mesh is standard. If there was a serious issue with it I’d be sued left and right. I sure as hell don’t want that.”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">That was enough; I relented. We scheduled the surgery for a week later.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Then, a few days before, I learned my brother-in-law had a hernia repaired about a year and a half earlier. Mesh was used. Afterward everything was fine – at first. But within weeks he began suffering debilitating pain. My sister said he had to prop his legs up just to relieve the pain and pressure – a real textbook bad reaction, based on my Googling. He had just </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">undergone a second operation to remove the mesh.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Only sometimes does the moon enter its seventh house, and Jupiter align with Mars. This felt like one of those times. The cosmos sending me a message. I called the surgeon’s office yet again – this time, just one day before the procedure (by which time I had cleared the pre-operative COVID screening).</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">They were very accommodating, but there was a potential hitch. The insurance company had signed off on Plan A, and now I wanted Plan B – open surgery, no mesh. I won’t bore you with the details beyond saying I sat on pins and needles all afternoon, waiting for the callback saying the change had been approved.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">As this is written it’s the day after the surgery. There is no mesh in me. Since it was open surgery I’m left with a ghastly wound – if <i>wound </i>is the right term for a corrective procedure I submitted to voluntarily. Very hideous in appearance, with swelling and bruising. No obvious stitches; they are either internal (most likely) or not there. On the surface there is some glossy crap, as if the incision had been superglued back together. I have pain pills but am not taking them. Not because of <i>macho dementia,</i> but because of the known side effects. And maybe a few unknowns.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnIybfXP8Hb6KQTJUZsc0k7cnfO4tKXn0453Tg9abgjS2kPdkKlgKsaNTQSyXAfqDlw8tDd1ME69rfF1RmUOf5WJSmtwkYF-qImHURy6GT1XYFEZgFXwcv_VSAHvWDxgUaCrfXUmvOaVE/s808/hawkeye_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="808" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnIybfXP8Hb6KQTJUZsc0k7cnfO4tKXn0453Tg9abgjS2kPdkKlgKsaNTQSyXAfqDlw8tDd1ME69rfF1RmUOf5WJSmtwkYF-qImHURy6GT1XYFEZgFXwcv_VSAHvWDxgUaCrfXUmvOaVE/w528-h396/hawkeye_03.jpg" width="528" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><br />
John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-72385530102983954452020-10-01T09:19:00.004-07:002020-10-22T18:00:46.158-07:00Bowel Prep<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu2ukvZva_y7ezZZlnT8R5O7zkjiFXaaQFTxO1WPmG462YAQQnDQHy6tkWUEuHc-jAPepyaIdehoBuaY-Hf5nqEIa_fASGkP-d0QiBSscJW3QkfBcHNxLXygPGMRRvD6rAQQE2YWXzI8k/s451/04a.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="451" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu2ukvZva_y7ezZZlnT8R5O7zkjiFXaaQFTxO1WPmG462YAQQnDQHy6tkWUEuHc-jAPepyaIdehoBuaY-Hf5nqEIa_fASGkP-d0QiBSscJW3QkfBcHNxLXygPGMRRvD6rAQQE2YWXzI8k/w317-h243/04a.jpg" width="317" /></a></div>F</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">or most people the mere thought of a colonoscopy is frightening. As one who has had several I can assure you: they really aren’t that bad. One minute you’re lying in a hospital bed with a needle stuck in the top of your hand. Next minute the sedation flows and you drift away. Before you know it, you’re waking up and it’s over. You can eat again.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">So fear not; there is nothing to worry about. There is no lingering, post-procedure discomfort. </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">You barely know what happened. </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">As FDR said in a much different context, the only thing you have to fear is, </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">etc etc</i><span style="font-size: 16px;">.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwR4-bVDRQsm95u6OdcdoBNBOdc2IxTKUFHbIqc0Lf-eLdCk1eDNfswg9UDyian_pQS04poEt_UaVU1uEnqJqF89FzpThp18tlC4aIfHWWFhKHqGDDm2n-EbI2WUBdMBcc53LV6VIYXyE/s375/05.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwR4-bVDRQsm95u6OdcdoBNBOdc2IxTKUFHbIqc0Lf-eLdCk1eDNfswg9UDyian_pQS04poEt_UaVU1uEnqJqF89FzpThp18tlC4aIfHWWFhKHqGDDm2n-EbI2WUBdMBcc53LV6VIYXyE/s320/05.jpg" /></a></div>There</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">s a bad part, of course. There always is. It comes the day before, when you have to drink a magic potion known generically as a purgative.</span></div><blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Purgative. </b>Noun.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">|<i style="font-weight: normal;">pur</i>-guh-tiv| <b>1.</b> A purging medicine; stimulates evacuation of the bowels. <b>2.</b> A strong laxative.</span></div></blockquote>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">It</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">s evil stuff, and there are several liters to glug down. Drinking this brew, and enduring what happens afterward, is referred to as bowel prep.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><i>Bowel prep.</i></span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">I cannot say that enough. <i>Bowel prep.</i> It is <i>so </i>suggestive, and sounds <i>so </i>repulsive.</span></div><br />
<h2>Bowel Prep</h2>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">When you Google </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">“</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">bowel prep” you get hits like “Six Tips for Easier Colonoscopy Prep,” “Eight Expert Tips,” </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">“4 Steps on How to Prepare for...”</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">and so on.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Articles like this are not entirely useless. But they</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">re all pretty much the same, the number of tips notwithstanding. If you’ve read one, you’ve read ’em all.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibxpRPpzMkYk9t_PXXCzhwZszZ56NeVbifsdlinBs3J3_rzgVkR0-yxkU4tGUmRCOv1Hkr_EWMiw7dI1HGrAkCPvuFw6BflslEkJGTgUaLBlqfdnmHoFA8LAXyvBhwpl59u-A8iK905Xg/s497/02a.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="497" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibxpRPpzMkYk9t_PXXCzhwZszZ56NeVbifsdlinBs3J3_rzgVkR0-yxkU4tGUmRCOv1Hkr_EWMiw7dI1HGrAkCPvuFw6BflslEkJGTgUaLBlqfdnmHoFA8LAXyvBhwpl59u-A8iK905Xg/w352-h351/02a.jpg" width="352" /></a></div><br />The WebMD site, for instance, shares this pearl: “Your colon has to be empty and clean for your doctor to get a proper look at it. To make that happen, you’ll have to fast and use strong laxatives beforehand.</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Strong laxatives? </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">Pwah.</i></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The bowel prep is usually in liquid form: a noxious swill (mine was lemon-lime) that’ll give you diarrhea like you have never experienced – not in this life. You blast out hamburgers, <i>pâté de foie gras,</i> and pork rinds lite you ate six months ago. Talk about a world of shit!</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Why am I writing this? I just had another colonoscopy the other day. There is a history of colon cancer in my family, so it</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">s my pleasure to get one every few years. For most people ten year intervals is sufficient. </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">This time it got delayed twice, thanks to COVID-19. </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">I am pleased to report a clean bill of health.</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Colonoscopies really are the best way to detect and prevent a killer disease. But the <a href="http://bluelung.blogspot.com/2010/12/notes-on-colonoscopy.html" target="_blank">bowel prep</a> is a total drag. The procedure itself? A piece of cake!</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkAo8Nn0kn3iAMpstnVKdn0mTh5gdLfqzeDHnaFpJRBSwZipu0CK64-Iey2KKeD-MAz-51g4Wwjz0N0-Yzg6OxChqgmHYaWa2x-dPB7KvYU44u9_Lv_ym2pf4oPgT5NqVfF5lH-rQckPk/s803/07a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="803" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkAo8Nn0kn3iAMpstnVKdn0mTh5gdLfqzeDHnaFpJRBSwZipu0CK64-Iey2KKeD-MAz-51g4Wwjz0N0-Yzg6OxChqgmHYaWa2x-dPB7KvYU44u9_Lv_ym2pf4oPgT5NqVfF5lH-rQckPk/w563-h404/07a.jpg" width="563" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-1392013590083392020-09-26T09:19:00.000-07:002020-09-26T09:19:18.524-07:00Postcards With An Edge<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">t’s a rare surge of optimism that has me participating in something called Postcards to Swing States, a get-out-the-vote effort arranged by – well, I don’t know who. Or even what.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPg0dwFM6TkLPMP2J7dPycukfFF7Me-q2aqLMkKo4XY1FbuoFdz2f7OpRObZQBqcpudsOgK3PRw24wUEDZFTLdTP7jgqFd9wRUD02PHUOtg3OuTZ2UsD4WTf9VXgbjhjEynApg6Ea0uug/s1327/IMG_3123a.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1123" data-original-width="1327" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPg0dwFM6TkLPMP2J7dPycukfFF7Me-q2aqLMkKo4XY1FbuoFdz2f7OpRObZQBqcpudsOgK3PRw24wUEDZFTLdTP7jgqFd9wRUD02PHUOtg3OuTZ2UsD4WTf9VXgbjhjEynApg6Ea0uug/s320/IMG_3123a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />When I signed up to do it a few weeks ago I asked for two hundred postcards, the fewest you can request. They arrived a week or so later, with a long list of names and addresses of apparent fence-sitters, or others who have been identified (by whom?) as needing a little nudge to get them to vote.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">All the names on my list are in Texas. Texas is not usually considered a swing state, I don’t think, but it’s a target for possible flipping. T</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">he organizers claim to be “data-driven,” and say that</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">“</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">voters who receive handwritten postcards are significantly more likely to vote.”</span></div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">So far I have completed a little over half of the postcards. Zero imagination involved: you’re supplied not only with postcards and addresses but the text to write, and even the date to mail them. The closer they arrive to election day, I’m told, the better.</span></div><br />
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I almost always vote, but never with conviction. I don’t trust the process and I don’t trust politicians. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Democratic (or any other) party, aside from a brief flirtation with the Greens. But I’m voting blue, and hoping for a blue tsunami.
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<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><i>Optimism </i>is probably not the right word for my postcard involvement. <i>Fear </i>is closer to it: fear of what a second dump administration would do. I am convinced the votes are there to overwhelmingly defeat this bastard. I am not convinced they will all be counted. There will be cheating.</span></div><br />
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Nevertheless...
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<a href="www.postcards2swingstates.com ">www.postcards2swingstates.com</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk7diqRlHjv-u2kC7Kz6XAB2DRPzhE7LSrp44hv9611Sh7FhhnjWX5y2V1EpWWkt3wHr6s5AihyEAMV66DKQtB9QtTNwYek4oOHxiU5u37klh-1gdJB6ks8QkDKpFVhDwohTGYZ96DCvA/s1970/IMG_3124.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1478" data-original-width="1970" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk7diqRlHjv-u2kC7Kz6XAB2DRPzhE7LSrp44hv9611Sh7FhhnjWX5y2V1EpWWkt3wHr6s5AihyEAMV66DKQtB9QtTNwYek4oOHxiU5u37klh-1gdJB6ks8QkDKpFVhDwohTGYZ96DCvA/w529-h397/IMG_3124.jpg" width="529" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-40990971273526313002020-08-31T10:28:00.004-07:002021-11-03T06:11:56.093-07:00Drop Dead<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">S</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">omewhere on this blog I wrote something along the lines of, “I hope I am never so self-debasing as to applaud the death of another human being.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">I stand by that statement, in principle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">But I have to admit that every time I hear the news alert chime on my phone, part of me thinks: maybe Trump has dropped dead!</span></div>
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So far, I have been disappointed each and every time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">I don’t actively wish for his death. But I don’t think it would be a bad thing, even if there is a long line of MAGA maggots ready and willing to immediately take his place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Forecasting his sudden and unexpected death isn’t all that unrealistic. In spite of his absurd claims four years ago that he’d be the healthiest person to ever assume the presidency (merely another of his countless lies, and perhaps one of the more benign) he is obviously a gross and grotesque human specimen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">He is severely overweight, morbidly so; all those rounds of golf haven’t helped a bit. He is said to be partial to McDonald’s burgers, as well as meatloaf with a lot of ketchup. Probably hates his vegetables and loves his deep-fried French fries.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">He</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’s also in his mid-seventies, and</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> looks like the kind of guy who would be felled </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">suddenly</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">by a massive coronary – dead before he hit the ground. Part of me might like it if he cracked his skull on a rock first.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">But it probably won't happen. He also seems like the kind of guy who will keep on living; keep on making everyone in his sphere miserable and corrupt; keep on exacting his psycho-sicko revenge on society for years and years, until he finally dies in his sleep.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;"><i>Ding!</i></span><br />
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John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-54684795375784203512020-07-26T05:08:00.001-07:002021-02-06T04:50:06.728-08:00Righteous Rage<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">T</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">he spectacle of unaccountable federal cops in major U.S. cities, still unfolding as this is written, is the most frightening development in the Trump era. It seems inevitable. Not sure how best to label this blatant abuse of civil liberties: fascistic, authoritarian, autocratic, despotic, tyrannical? Martial law?</span></div>
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Scary stuff. But it’s happening. Scary words, too: <i>fascist,</i> and the rest. It’s been ramping up at least since June, in Lafayette Park in DC.
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Since Trump was elevated to the presidency (not elected – remember that <i>he lost</i> in 2016) I have written a series of anti-Trump blog posts here – unfocused rants, for the most part. In <a href="https://bluelung.blogspot.com/2016/11/life-in-fascist-lane-or-will-of-what.html" target="_blank">the first one</a> I said the Trump era would not end well. Elsewhere I have predicted <a href="https://bluelung.blogspot.com/2017/06/civil-war.html" target="_blank">civil war</a>. With such a blatantly divisive imbecile in the oval office these were not particularly insightful observations, but seeing them on the brink of realization is terrifying, indeed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">The present unrest (sorry for the cliche) is a direct outgrowth of George Floyd</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">s death, and the logical culmination of the thousand-plus days of Trump. The World Socialist Website (WSWS) says that by sending federal paramilitary forces into major U.S. cities, the ruling class is preparing for war. They </span><a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/22/pers-j22.html" style="font-size: 16px;" target="_blank">may be right</a><span style="font-size: 16px;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">For a time I thought that if dump loses the 2020 election it would be his followers instigating insurrection. Now I’m not so sure. The widespread demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by the Minneapolis cops tells me where the rage really is: not in fringe right wing lunatics (even though they rage, and are heavily armed) but with the majority of us decent people in cities large and small, who have been unalterably opposed to this fraudulent menace, this malignancy, this useless idiot – and who understand a second term spells the end of the United States.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Yes, dump is losing in the polls. I have no doubt the vast majority of us may vote him out. Will the votes count? I’m certain that he and his minions will try to steal another election via voter suppresion and other unconscionable means that decent people would never even think of, let alone actually do.</span><br />
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<br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-39334551950972213332020-07-18T08:30:00.001-07:002020-10-21T07:25:06.666-07:00John Lewis: A Great American<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">R</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">ep. John Lewis already had my deepest respect and admiration when he announced he would not attend the January 2017 inauguration of Trump.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">“I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president,” he said, adding, “You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">The Georgia democrat, first elected to the House of Representatives in 1986, died from pancreatic cancer on July 17 at the age of eighty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">He had my deepest respect and admiration not only for unimaginable acts of courage, but for his obvious integrity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">That courage – in the sense of functioning in spite of fear – was demonstrated repeatedly by Lewis and countless others during the civil rights era. He was among the “Freedom Riders” who in 1961 challenged a racist southern custom. <i>Custom </i>is too polite a word for it: communities across the south ignored a Supreme Court ruling (Boynton v. Virginia) that made it illegal to deny services at bus stations along Interstate routes due to race. Over a period of weeks, and in several deep south states, Freedom Riders used these “services” (waiting rooms, rest rooms) – or attempted to – and were attacked and beaten by white mobs, and arrested and jailed by racist cops. Buses were firebombed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">There’s a well-known photograph, quite sickening, of Lewis and another Freedom Rider, James Zwerg. It was taken shortly after both were brutally beaten at a Montgomery, AL bus station. They are battered and bloody. Zwerg also had some teeth knocked out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">In 1965 John Lewis was with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many others in voting rights demonstrations in Selma, AL. These culminated in vicious attacks by mounted police at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Ordered to disperse, demonstrators walked across that bridge anyway with the full expectation they would be beaten.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal;">The cops also fired tear gas. “If you’ve ever been in tear gas, it makes you feel like, you just feel like giving up, you know,” John Lewis told Howell Raines in the 1970s. “I thought it was the end.” There’s a picture of Lewis on the ground, taken as one of the cops clubs him. “I was hit [in the head] almost in the same spot that I was hit on the Freedom Ride in 1961 by an officer, by a state trooper.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal;">This trooper just kept hitting.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal;"> He was hospitalized for three days with a brain concussion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Meanwhile Trump was in a formative period of his own, learning to covet money, power, and himself above all else. I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” as the Selma violence came to be known, John Lewis received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barrack Obama.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal;">He also spoke at the 1963 March on Washington. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal;">So I</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal;">ll say it again: John Lewis already had my deep respect and admiration when he announced he would skip Trump</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 16px;">s inauguration.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">“I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected," Lewis said shortly after the 2016 election. “And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">In late 2019, as the House debated Articles of Impeachment against Trump, Lewis told his colleagues they owed it to future generations to vote to impeach. “We have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Unfortunately the fix was in, and Trump wriggled out of conviction. He continues to debase whatever he touches. May he keep his big mouth shut, and his Twitter finger still, in the aftermath of the death of John Lewis, who unlike Trump is a truly great American.</span><br />
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<br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-7264777494179638222020-06-06T08:18:00.001-07:002020-10-06T11:57:02.777-07:00General To Specific: We Knew This Was Coming<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">fter the first Women’s March in 2017, when millions of people the world over demonstrated against the newly-sworn-in U.S. president, someone – possibly Stephen Colbert – quipped that never in all recorded history had one man been rejected by more women in one day than had Donald J. Trump.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 16px;">Looking back to that period now, it seems almost harmless. The days immediately after the inauguration (the Women's March being the next day) were scary, but the threat was unfulfilled, if not altogether benign. Maybe that’s because it was still new, and because a lot of people still thought Trump might “grow into the job.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">One impeachment, one mishandled pandemic, and more than one sickening abuse of power later, that’s all gone. We have morphed from the general to the specific; from potential to consummation; from benign to malignant; from scary to downright terrifying.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Trump is now a cornered rat. Someone once said something about always betting on the cornered rat. I don’t remember the context.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Even before Trump took office there were riots in the streets of American cities: the very night, thanks to the electoral college, after he was elevated to the presidency. (He lost the 2016 election. He <i>lost</i>. We must <i>never </i>forget that.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">At that time I was among the last to brand Trump a fascist, in a flight of fancy I couldn’t resist calling <a href="https://bluelung.blogspot.com/2016/11/life-in-fascist-lane-or-will-of-what.html" target="_blank">Life in the Fascist Lane</a>. How quaint. As the world witnessed in DC’s Lafayette Park on June 1, these early musings have also gone from general to specific.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">I went to that first Women’s March, the Denver edition, and found myself unexpectedly inspired, if not optimistic. We were 100,000 strong. I may not really believe that the future is female. I believe it <i>should</i> be; that a world run by women would probably, <i>probably,</i> be more equitable (at least at first, since power corrupts, since ideals are seldom realized, etc etc).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Donald J. Trump. The J stands for Judas. He is utterly divorced from reality. That he must be removed from office is a given. That it will actually happen, in spite of what any survey says, is not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Vote anyway. If you have not registered to vote, do so. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Democratic party – or the Republican party, or the CPUSA, or the Socialst Party, or the Greens, or you-name-it. I don’t care for Joe Biden all that much. My vote is not so much for him as it is against Trump. It may be futile, but I shall cast that vote anyway. By mail.</span></div>
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<br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-60229414283885239892020-05-12T06:43:00.000-07:002020-05-18T08:54:10.957-07:00Howl<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTQMNOoa1THT0RlC3yBJDpHP5MHCHXVyavwQ5aSbI8yUeiYddHPmmP3k8ArOxJxXCltY_jJYvopds4JA8Qw0VMkxFIn5h-AGhoE8Ss7O7lsm1T77_Cg1ppoWLOJP1xL1fkzG493rMQbP8/s1600/06a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="668" data-original-width="749" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTQMNOoa1THT0RlC3yBJDpHP5MHCHXVyavwQ5aSbI8yUeiYddHPmmP3k8ArOxJxXCltY_jJYvopds4JA8Qw0VMkxFIn5h-AGhoE8Ss7O7lsm1T77_Cg1ppoWLOJP1xL1fkzG493rMQbP8/s320/06a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by enforced isolation, dragging themselves </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">maskless </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">outdoors at dusk to howl – not at the moon and maybe not to each other, but to declare </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">I am here! I am real! I am alive!</i></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 16px;"></span>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">
Or something like that.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 16px;">Maybe I’m laying it on a little thick.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">And maybe they aren’t the best minds of our generation. Not theirs, not yours, not mine. In fact most in this quasi-wolfpack are probably quite ordinary.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Yet they howl nightly into the wind. In the midst of our shared, enforced isolation, howling has become a cultural phenomenon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Have you heard it in your town? Weather permitting, it happens here every night at eight. In an era where the nearest clock is your phone, synchronization is not a problem. The first distant yips are heard </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">at precisely 8pm</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">, and quickly swell into a howling chorus (though some nights are more active than others). The howling is well-distributed, spread far and wide, though by no means is it universal</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Howling is not in my nature, so I don</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">t do it. But I walk out on the back deck each night to listen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Different howling styles are identifiable. Some people just open up and let loose a sustained, single-note cry. Others imitate our wolfean brethren: ow-ow-<i>oooowwwww!</i> Still other </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">forms are recognizable: </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">yips and yaps and barks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">One might expect a few comprehensible words (<i>I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!)</i>, and someone somewhere must actually verbalize. But I’ve not heard any.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Meanwhile, the communal ritual during this generation-defining health crisis continues.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">
______
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<i><span style="font-size: 16px;">With apologies to <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl" target="_blank">Allen Ginsber</a></span><span style="font-size: 16px;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl" target="_blank">g</a></span></i></div>
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<br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-43170362261703076712020-05-06T08:19:00.002-07:002020-10-21T07:29:02.745-07:00Wear the Fucking Mask (With Digressions)<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">n the midst of this COVID-19 era, I don’t always wear a mask in public. Things have gotten a little out of hand, when it comes to covering up your mouth and nose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">This morning I had a checkup with my doctor – the most ordinary thing I’ve done in a long time. For that I wore a mask. So did everyone else in the place. My doctor wore one not much different from mine, a very generic type from Walgreen’s. No N95 for her. She said that due to shortages, she must wear the same thin mask for a week before replacing it. “It used to be that you could be written up for wearing the same mask for two consecutive appointments,</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">”</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> she told me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Not so long ago this same practice had a stash of masks for patients to wear during appointments, if they were sick. Now they cannot keep them in supply. Ordinary masks, I told the doctor, are the new toilet paper. She laughed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Don’t get me wrong, I take the pandemic very seriously. I wore a mask to the doctor and I wear one to the grocery store, which is about the extent of my contact with the outside world. But when I’m out for my daily stroll around town, or out on my bike, I do not and will not wear a mask.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">A local bicycle advocacy group takes a strong stance on this. “Wear masks while riding!</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">”</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> they said on social media. “We are getting lots of complaints about bicyclists not wearing masks!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Twaddle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Yet this seems to be the consensus – and a growing issue. “Face masks ... have become a new fault line in America,” CNN recently opined. “The decision to wear or avoid them [has] taken on political dimensions.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">I absolutely agree with the need to flatten the curve by isolating as much as possible. The “protesters” who have made very public, very menacing displays in Michigan recently are ostensibly arguing their rights are somehow violated by the isolation. They are not a spontaneous bunch; they are provocateurs, <i>paid </i>provocateurs in some cases, whom President Parasite called “very good people.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Sound familiar? These fake protesters, these “very good people,” are neo-Nazi types cut from the very same cloth as the “very fine people” whose actions led to the death of <a href="https://bluelung.blogspot.com/2017/08/blood-on-his-hands.html" target="_blank">Heather Heyer</a> in Charlottesville in 2017.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">But I digress.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">The thin mask I wore to the doctor may have been all but useless. “A trial has revealed that regular thin cloth masks are highly susceptible to the virus,” according to Dr. Dimitar Marinov, Assistant Professor at the Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Bulgaria. “They can get penetrated by up to 97% of the viral particles from the air.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">When I wear one – and again, I do at the appropriate time – I feel a little bit like Groucho Marx with his fake mustache. The mask is a ruse, something to deflect potential criticism from zealots.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Meanwhile,</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> Trump is prepared to let you die. “We’re going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100 thousand people,” he told Fox News in early May, in reference to the pandemic. And masks? <i>What </i>masks? Reopen the economy. Improve his reelection chances. The people he so blandly dooms are an abstraction to him – but as I write this they are alive and well, people with families and friends, jobs, pet dogs they play with. Trump is prepared to let them all die, along with you and me – in exchange for an improved economy and a second term.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">But I digress.</span><br />
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<br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3973947163517542224.post-48580029353269638052020-04-20T09:22:00.001-07:002020-09-18T07:39:40.181-07:00Pot Shop<div style="font-family: Georgia; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">
year elapsed between the time Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2012 and the first pot shops began opening for business in my town. Another year went by before I ventured into one. Smokin</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’ dope</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> had long since lost its allure and I hadn</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">t indulged in years. But having grown up buying it as contraband from one shady character after another, my curiosity about over-the-counter marijuana, sold in stores like any other product, got the best of me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">I don’t want to identify the place by name, so let’s call it GoldenBuds. It’s located in a strip mall about half a mile from my home, alongside a credit union, a dry cleaner, an Indian restaurant, a Tae kwon Do place, a hairdresser, and a DMV office. A second pot shop, within the proverbial stone’s throw, competes for its customers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">The first thing I noticed walking into GoldenBuds was a cheerless front room with pale green walls and faded, threadbare carpet. The whole set-up felt temporary, like an election headquarters or a Halloween costume store. But this is no fly-by-night operation. Recreational marijuana is a growth industry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Nor could I help noticing the security. An employee waited behind a window of thick plexiglass. I shoved my driver’s license through a slot at the bottom to prove I was at least twenty-one (as if there could be any doubt). The guy looked at my ID, looked at me, then shoved the license back through the slot and buzzed me in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">An array of marijuana products awaited in this main room: edibles and drinkables, and the sort of paraphernalia common to what used to be known as head shops. My attention was drawn to a glass case, like in a jeweler’s, which held a dozen or more lidded glass jars. Each contained various strains of marijuana, with names like Purple Haze, AK-47, Agent Orange, Hindu Kush, and Northern Lights.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">“May I help you?” asked the guy behind the counter, a young man with the requisite tattoos and piercings of his age group.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">I wanted to say: “I’d like a dime bag.” I wanted to say: “A lid of your finest, please.” But he might not have understood these antiquated terms; this is not your father’s marijuana.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Each strain costs the same, he said – twenty dollars per gram. (There is also under-the-counter </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">“shake,</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">” the less-desirable loose stuff, at reduced cost.)</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">He lifted a few of those jars onto the counter. “What do you want it for? Pain relief, or just ordinary recreational use?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">To get high, you nitwit! That</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">s what I wanted to say. But good manners prevailed. “Just something I can relax with, and play guitar.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">The guy recommended a strain called Sour Grape. “Very mellow. Good for jamming.” He removed the lid from one of the jars, and the familiar aroma of potent marijuana wafted up to my nostrils. Obviously, this was strong stuff.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Like most produce, you can buy Colorado marijuana in bulk. I had him weigh a tiny amount. GoldenBuds does not accept credit cards, debit cards or checks, so I paid in untraceable cash – just like in the old days.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Outside, I jumped on my bike and rode home. What happened next? Did my dedication to truth insist I sample the purchase?</span><br />
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<br />John Kelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11730334097307972636noreply@blogger.com0