Say what anyone will of the good points of the show, some of the good films, why wasn’t there a terrorist attack on the Oscars? Because our Muslim enemies knew the show would be a propaganda coup for their cause. “Hey, don’t we keep telling you America is morally bankrupt and a nation glorifying sex, violence, and perversion!” We’ve come a long way since songs like “It Might as well be Spring” and films like “Gigi” were winning Oscars, since Sandra Dee was traded in for Brittney Spears.

Hitting people is wrong. And children are people! That is a good thing to keep in mind at all times. The large sign out in front of my place “IT SHOULDN’T HURT TO BE A CHILD!” means exactly that. And many people have thanked me for that reminder. Certainly a parent can lash out in anger and actually hurt their child. It is unforgivable, but it happens. And the loving parent will properly damn themselves for having lost their temper in such a fashion. The reminder I have posted is one we all need to have before us at all times.

While discussing my sign out front with a Jewish friend some time ago, one who had survived Hitler’s Germany, I asked her what might have been the result of good people posting signs in Germany when Jews were being targeted “IT SHOULDN’T HURT TO BE A JEW!” She was flabbergasted! “Why,” she replied, “I don’t think anyone thought of that, and if they had I doubt anyone would have had the courage to do such a thing.”

I’m inclined to believe those like George Washington, Elizabeth Stanton, and Sergeant York never thought of themselves as courageous. The proverb comes to mind, “Let another man praise thee, and not thine own lips.” Well, I’m more often damned than praised, but I have been around long enough to know better than to condemn those who take their own lives despite the fact it sometimes takes more courage to live than to die. My elderly Jewish friend certainly understood that.

Among what some would consider oddities in my library is an 1892 edition of “In Ole Virginia” by Thomas Nelson Page, publisher Charles Scribner’s Sons. The volume I have is one of the most beautiful examples of the bookmaker’s craft; handsomely bound, gilded, embossed with Cameo motif on the front cover center; carefully stitched with thin bookmark sewed in, an onionskin page inserted to protect a solitary W. L. Sheppard etching. For lovers of finely crafted books this small volume is a real delight to see and hold in your hands.

The Page family can be traced back to Jamestown in 1650 and both the Nelson and Page families grew to prominence in the arts, business, and politics, T. N. Page having a particularly illustrious career. However, being a southern gentleman his roots were in the antebellum South and his collection of stories while showing Page’s poetically masterful command of the English language attempts to capture that period of history in the Negro dialect of the time as well, which makes them difficult reading. But for an authentic recounting of actual events and people of the era he describes, Page’s writing is truly remarkable.

Opening the book you read: “To MY PEOPLE. This fragmentary record of their life is dedicated.” The people to whom Page is referring are those representing the finest of the old southern families whose descendants continued to uphold the best of the traditions and fine manners of the “Old South.” Of course, today the phrase “My people” is not allowed of Caucasians, only everyone that is not Caucasian.

While Page was a prolific writer, his works growing to eighteen volumes, In Ole Virginia is his finest attempt to authentically portray the Old South. The stories while difficult to read in the dialect Page attempts to use reflecting the Negro idiom of the era, you are transported by the stories told in such a fashion that you quickly forget the present and become engrossed in that time long ago Margaret Mitchell called “Gone With The Wind.”

Though there be “good” wars and “bad” wars, though winners write history and defend the difference and as Ma Joad and her son Tom affirmed the bad guys “need killin’,” to the rational mind war is the ultimate lunacy of our species, and I often refer to the Civil War as “Lincoln’s War” because is was unnecessary, as the more honest of historians like Professor Claude G. Bowers points out in his definitive work on the subject titled “The Tragic Era.”

But while wars evidence the lunacy of our species en masse the lunacy of individuals is evidenced by the antics of politicians. The Supreme Court is going to decide the issue of police chases. Are they going to tell the cops they can no longer give chase? What message will that send to criminals? But every time such a chase causes injury or death to either criminals or the innocent there are the lawyers lining up to sue. We recently had a politician in California that wanted a law to make criminals of those that spank their children, and now there is one in New York that wants to make using the “n” word a criminal offense. Well, to be on the side of the angels I oppose the beating of children and I oppose racial epithets of every kind. But at what point does a spanking become a beating and a racial term becomes hatred?

There is to be sure a slippery slope involved with all attempts to legislate the conduct of police agencies, to legislate morality including speech, and fortunately cooler heads often prevail. But there is no getting around the fact some things have an emotional part in the equation of the making of laws. A parent is not always guilty of brutalizing a child by spanking, though I support banning such a thing in all schools and anywhere else that does not directly and physically involve the parent, nor does the use of racial terms always betray a racist. And are we to “burn” the books by Page and Clemens because of their use of the “n” word? Of course not, but that does not excuse the use of the word intended as a racial epithet.

Some years ago a publisher returned a manuscript informing me the use of the “n” word was unacceptable. But it’s use was a significant contribution to the authenticity of the story. In this particular case, if you are writing authentically as did Page, Clemens, or Steinbeck and are prevented from using the terminology of that era you are describing what you are left with is a kind of Stalinist or Hitlerian revisionist “history.”

Another time an editor took it upon himself to change my use of the word “Negro” to “Black.” I informed the editor the term Negro is correct especially when writing of the era described in my column, but the term black as generic of Negroes is incorrect. Not all Caucasians are white and not all Negroes are black; but the terms white and black are too often misused and derogatory while Caucasian and Negro remain legitimately correct terms. I reminded him of Thoreau’s comment about a marker in a graveyard calling attention to the person buried there “a man of color, as though he were discolored.” But while some racial terms are blatantly offensive, when it comes to matters of race it is almost impossible these days to know what will give offense. And living in an America where hyphenation, something Marilyn vos Savant thought the greatest of dangers threatening America, blurs the very term “American” hardly promotes Utopian pluralism, multiculturalism, or diversity.

Admittedly, it does take courage to speak the truth when there are so many enemies of the truth about. But I can’t help wondering how it has come to pass that no politician today dares tell us the truth about anything? And could it be the same thing that prevented good Germans from putting up those signs? And does this compare with a politically correct America where the truth must give way to half-truths at best? If so, God help us! Some politician is going to propose a law. Worse, some of these proposals will become laws legislating morality where all that is needed are more good examples and reminders.

Watching the present crop of politicians pandering and posturing cannot but remind me of a precious comment by the newspaper reporter in “Bloom County” about the senator “leaving a trail of slime…” That pretty well sums up politicians as a whole; how they get elected and stay elected there is always that trail of slime.

No one trusts those in government to tell us the truth about anything. That’s a very dangerous position for Americans to find themselves in, especially when the civilized nations of the world are facing increasing threats of terrorism by Muslim fanatics, our treasonously porous borders inviting terrorists to enter and the jails and prisons of America being breeding grounds for Muslim fanatics. But current disaster preparedness propaganda reminds me of old films showing children how to dive under their desks in case of an atomic bomb attack, and not long ago jokes were being made about plastic and duct tape. That pretty well defined the kind of “expertise” We the People can expect from our leaders. Now, it’s IEDs on the Home Front being talked about. Unfortunately, these could be the real thing; simple to make and simple to deploy.

A younger generation views the propaganda films of WWII as quaint or anachronistic and has difficulty believing those my age could have ever taken such films seriously when we were young. But the threat of saboteurs for example was made very real to us as children during that era. While attending Mt. Vernon Elementary in Bakersfield, I recall teachers warning us not to pick up strange objects on the playground because booby-traps might be disguised as toys of some kind or even objects like fountain pens.

One day a couple of older pupils came into our classroom, one on crutches and wrapped in bandages daubed with red coloring to simulate blood. The other young fellow gave a short but very graphic speech about the dangers we faced on the playground and elsewhere because of the possibility of booby-traps specifically designed to attract children, then when picked up would explode.

Suppose such demonstrations were going on now in the classrooms of America. If you have children in school how would you as a parent feel about such demonstrations? Would you be worrying about how such a thing might impact your child’s mind, how it might cause your child to become paranoid, afraid of the dark, to have nightmares and awaken screaming in the night? Or would you encourage such demonstrations for the sake of your child’s safety? But these days, it is unlikely the schools would allow such demonstrations no matter how real the threat might be. There would be the ACLU and lawyers salivating over the prospects of lawsuits. I don’t doubt the IEDs are coming, I don’t doubt some will be designed specifically for the playgrounds of America; but neither do I doubt there will be no demonstrations in classrooms warning children of the dangers as there were when I was a child.

That’s a good line from “Armageddon” about the killer asteroid; the head of NASA says, “Well, it’s coming straight at us and there’s nothing we can do about it.” However, while the film has Bruce Willis saving our planet there is undoubtedly the “killer asteroid” of terrorism coming straight at us, but I don’t see any in our government the equivalent of Bruce Willis; nor for that matter any in NASA or any government agency capable of handling the threat. What I do see is a trail of slime as politicians posture and pander while that killer asteroid is coming straight at us.

The leadership of America will not put a face to our enemies, it will not put a face to those responsible for our treasonously porous borders; will not put a face to those that will be bringing those IEDs to the playgrounds of America and elsewhere, will not put a face to those making such a thing possible. To put a face to such enemies would alienate Big Oil and those supplying the oil; would put a crimp in corporate profits and cause “embarrassment” to many politicians.

Not long ago there was a news segment here locally deploring smoking around public playgrounds. There were pictures of toddlers picking up filthy cigarette butts from the sand around playground equipment. As a smoker myself I have never treated the world as my personal ashtray, and I applauded those who called attention to the selfish thoughtlessness of those that would leave cigarette butts where children are at play. But it did call to mind those warnings to us children during WWII about booby-traps designed to injure and kill children. And because of a failed leadership in America I believe it is only a matter of time when it won’t be cigarette butts in playgrounds but those booby-traps parents are going to be concerned about once more.

It’s easy to dismiss such a thing which is commonplace in Israel where children are continually warned of booby-traps in playgrounds. But it is my generation that recalls such a thing once upon a time in America, and it would be naive to the point of maliciousness to say “it can’t happen here.”

“Rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world.” It’s the fulfilling of boyhood dreams, and makes “The Mummy” with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz one of my favorite movies. But it’s the reaction by the British aviator to Rick telling him he probably won’t live through it “By Jove, do you really think so?” that makes the case for the romance of it all; “Captain Winston Havlock at your service!” And by golly, what red-blooded real man could possibly refuse such a worthy challenge!

Captain Havlock spoke for most of us who are the real romantics. Having been cheated of going down in flaming glory along with most of his friends during the Great War here was the answer to his prayers, “Rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world.” And best of all, he was assured he probably wouldn’t live through it! “By Jove, do you really think so?”

There is no doubt in my mind the script writers knew all about Tom Sawyer’s romantic thoughts of rescuing Becky Thatcher. Any boy worth his salt is going to dream of rescuing damsels in distress. But it must be done in the face of threats by evil-doers or other dangers, there has to be the real threat to your own life in the process of rescuing the damsel in distress to make it worthy of your efforts; only real derring-do in the face of tremendous odds will thoroughly win the heart of that damsel and the applause of all around. My hero! Ah, those words and the adoration shining from a pure and true beautiful girl’s eyes, these are worth risking your life for. And if you have been cautioned you probably won’t live through the anticipated rescue; why, it would be meaningless otherwise.

Ok, so The Mummy is a really funny movie; and I love all the supernatural elements brought into play, the themes of ancient Egypt with all the curses and artifacts that allow you to enjoy the characters and dialogue throughout. But the really serious part is the kind of romanticism Captain Havlock portrays. Now seriously, did he really miss not having gone down in flaming glory with his friends, did he truly relish the thought he might not live through the challenge presented him? Well, the chance to rescue a damsel, kill the bad guy, and save the world is certainly enough to inspire any man that considers himself to be a real man.

The really funny parts of the movie aside, Captain Havlock is not actually a parody of romantic courage; there are many like him who sincerely wish they had gone down in flaming glory rather than continue a life without meaning and die a meaningless death. True enough, but if you have stood at Arlington Cemetery, awed by the sea of grave markers stretching to the horizon, or seen that Vietnam Memorial Wall with its thousands of names inscribed you cannot help wondering where the romance is? There are some names that stand out, some with a claim to a meaningful death, a romantic death, made meaningful and romantic by some singular act of heroism. But for the greater part, who but loved ones left behind even recall the faces of so many thousands of the dead?

Stories of knights in shining armor rescuing damsels in distress are a real part of childhood for both boys and girls. While easily dismissed as fantasy, such fantasies are not easily forsaken in adulthood; there are always those like Winston Havlock in whose breasts the fires of romance continue burning brightly. I recall a florist, a very lovely lady, once telling me “It’s men like you that keep me in business.” But a cautionary word to you ladies; it takes much more than sex to inspire the real romantics, to keep them buying the flowers. There are many “damsels in distress” today, but where are the boys dreaming of rescuing them? I think it’s a tragedy for America so many boys and girls today have no idea what I’m talking about; and not a few adults.

Walt Kelly was one of our preeminent political philosophers, and as such much of what he said concerning politics and politicians continues to ring true. Understanding the politician can no more change its spots than can a leopard, in his “Pogo” strip Walt much like Al Capp’s “Li’l Abner” portrayed politicians for the amoral creatures they are. As We the People along with the rest of the world are “treated” to the furious back-peddling of politicians about their previous votes in Congress on Iraq, one scene from Walt comes vividly to mind. Congersman Frog is telling Ol’ Mouse how he had been gulled into voting for the Tompkins (Tonkin) Gulf Resolution of ’64, and was now telling any and all he had been “hoodwinked, soft-soaped, laundered!” Mouse is so impressed by this passionate disavowal he exclaims “I don’t see why we can’t get the (Nobel) Peace Prize for you on those grounds alone!” To which Congersman Frog replies, “For that kinda dough I’ll say twice as much, twice as brave.”

That accurately describes shameless politicians pandering for votes now that are trying to claim they were “hoodwinked, soft-soaped, laundered!” into voting for Caesar Bush’s wars, but in order to promote themselves and bring in the cash for their campaigns it only amounts to “For that kinda dough I’ll say twice as much, twice as brave.” But they will only do so because politicians no longer make speeches “to the sound of cocking pistols in their audiences.” However, the way things are going…

Cheney says “Al-Qaida can’t win in a stand-up fight.” Rhetorical question: Could Cheney? It’s a whimsical thought, that any of the ilk of Cheney, Bush, Clinton (him or her), would actually put their lives at risk in a stand-up fight. How easy it is, and has always been, for the rich and powerful to start the wars others will die in, for politicians to make the decisions sending countless numbers into harm’s way.

Oh good, politicians are “Outraged! Shocked, shocked!” about the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Don Imus really reamed those responsible in unmistakably clear language. But like the efforts of Lou Dobbs concerning our porous borders and the invasion of millions of illegal aliens from Mexico it’s like speaking into the air. Politicians will only do what they need to get elected and stay elected. And when the “opportunity” for war presents itself, politicians will vote for war. Why, perhaps because war is called by some “The ultimate aphrodisiac.” To be sure such a thing is insane, but this as much as anything explains why peace has never been an alternative to war.

Many of you will recall the scene from “Fail-Safe” where the professor confronts the rich, spoiled young woman, slapping her because he knows she is one of those for whom war is the ultimate aphrodisiac. She is bored with life and the very idea of a nuclear holocaust is so exciting to her she would push that button for the sake of an ultimate high. But she is far from being alone; too many wars have been waged out of what is no more than boredom. When Elmer Gantry is drunk, he wants to go out and use his fists. Of course, he loves using his fists drunk or sober; but somehow being drunk makes it easier to pick a fight, makes it easier for him to justify picking a fight. The cause is only secondary at best, if at all. And how very like those drunk with their own power. Caesar Bush? Iran’s Mad Mullah? North Korea’s “god?” Far from being alone in such a thing. Their “ancestry” goes all the way back to the very beginnings of humankind.

There are many historical precedents making the case for the romantic aspect of war. “War is hell” would seem to depend on the point of view. It may be Napoleon’s or Patton’s love of war on the grand scale, the Kamikaze diving his plane into a ship, that German soldier who after the war claimed “Under Hitler I really lived for twelve years and I haven’t lived since,” or simply “loving the smell of napalm in the morning.” There is a ferocity and predisposition to violence in much of humankind; and we are surrounded by the statuary and other commemorations exalting Mars. To the sensible and rational mind there is nothing of glory to die in the muck or be blown apart by a bomb. And it is the innocent in the millions that pay the price for the wars men make. But I often refer people to James Jones’ Pulitzer-winning “WWII” as an authoritative resource on the subject of war being either heaven or hell depending on the point of view.

It seems humankind demands its wars, demands its books like “War and Peace” and films like “Since You Went Away,” its heroes like the Sergeant York’s and Audie Murphy’s as though we humans were struggling to make some kind of justification for war; as though to say “since war is inevitable, let’s at least romanticize what we can of it.” In “The Wind and the Lion” those toasting the idea of a world at war, even though they may die in fomenting such a thing thought it “a glorious way to go out.” If these men were insane they have a lot of company in their insanity.

The history of humankind being one of wars the whole world is in need of the analyst’s couch, though analysts have proven no better than witch doctors in “curing” mental illness. Now I’m a reasonably rational human being and am all for peace rather than war. And I’ll keep on being an advocate for peace though there isn’t any Nobel on my horizon. “I’ll say twice as much, twice as brave” despite there being no dough in it. What I find despicable is politicians pandering for votes, talking “bravely” when their own lives are not on the line. But if Cheney were facing recuperating at Walter Reed… and so it goes.

Hitler should have been stopped at Munich. The bullies, the tyrants and despots will always be there as well as the Chamberlains. “Peace in our time?” Not when the world is filled with tyrants and despots. It is silly at the most charitable to talk of peace when the bullies are demanding others bow to them. Such bullies like those now in North Korea and Iran will no more than Hitler or Stalin do anything but take advantage of those who in their silliness speak of peace all the while trying to placate the bullies.

Let those that speak so glibly of peace do something about the monsters in human guise torturing and murdering children, about the members of gangs that prey on the weak and the law-abiding. In sum, let those that truly want peace do something substantive to cure what must surely be an infectious dementia, the most irrational act of humankind that has taken a greater toll on life than any disease or natural disaster: War. But like any bully or disease it won’t go away by simply talking about it no mater how “bravely” people speak of peace. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address makes for a lovely sentiment; but like all such it remains only a romantic sentiment denying the ugliness of reality attendant on all wars.

There is no “glory” in war; there is no “field of honor” or “noble dead,” there is only what people romanticize about war that gives such things any credence. But it is a most powerful element in any war, and to deny its allure is to deny the reality of it. For those of us who lived WWII we know the allure of such romanticism; and the fact it helped us win the war against the Axis Powers is the justification for such romanticism. Better there had been no Hitler or Tojo; but those were the ugly realities to be overcome by our own romantic reality of making the sacrifices necessary to overcome these bullies. Now, if those in power throughout the world were required to make such sacrifices there might be a chance for peace. But they aren’t.

I want the Gandhi’s not the war lovers to predominate. But they don’t. And so long as multiplied millions live in poverty and ignorance, so long will there be the need of those to confront the bullies in order to give the Gandhi’s any chance at all, to give the real romance of life a chance to prevail. The meek may inherit the earth, but first the earth must be made safe for the meek.

The Psalmist praised God because “He teacheth my hands to war.” But we assume the Psalmist was praising God for such instruction in waging war for a righteous cause.

It was while I was writing about the necessity of romance for promoting war it occurred to me that I hadn’t thought about Bobby Keillor for quite some time. He was a year older than me, but we were very close friends in high school and we often went hunting and fishing together here in the Kern River Valley before the dam was built. The last time I ever saw Bobby he came by the cabin and told me he had been drafted for the Korean War. He was positively ecstatic about it and I shared his enthusiasm, telling him how envious I was of his going into the Army and how I wished I was going with him, hating the fact that I was missing all the excitement by my being only one year younger than him.

Both Bobby and I were raised in the atmosphere of WWII, a time when the whole of America was immersed in the romance of war, especially children. We were dressed in those “cute” diminutive uniforms of soldiers and sailors, our comics and funny papers were filled with the romance of the heroism of glorious conflict against the Axis Powers. Why, it wasn’t just Hollywood screen stars, but even Bugs Bunny and other cartoon characters were caught up in the excitement and romance of war, the glory of battle against our foes.

America cannot win any war without romanticizing it. There must be the “glory” of war in order to attract an entire nation to a cause, the word glory being without meaning apart from romance. It was the romantic ideas of glory and excitement of war that so attracted those like Bobby and me to becoming soldiers. We were too young for the glory of WWII, but Korea was the chance to actually live the glory and excitement we had missed as children. And that we had missed something glorious and exciting, of that we had no doubt.

We humans are born with innate curiosity; we are genetically wired it seems to be a questioning species. But it would be many years after seeing Bobby that one last time before I began to seriously question why he and I were so excited about the prospect of becoming soldiers and going into battle? Certainly men would seem to be war lovers, but why? We know video games about flowers can’t compete with the games enabling players to knock planes out of the sky and kill any number of the “enemy” and blow things up. There is this seeming propensity to violence that makes such video games successful even as with Hollywood portrayals of violence. We know those that excel in sports while in school are far more exalted than the bookworms, than those that excel in academic achievement. It’s as though the schools were determined to make physical prowess the prime indicator of success; but success by what definition?

No amount of reading of “Johnny Got His Gun” will dissuade those like Bobby; he and I would never believe there was not something glorious about war, something we were willing to chase after like some illusive fantasy, something we believed would only be realized by facing some enemy gun in hand. It was the romance of the whole idea of war, just like the fantasies of “Shane” and so many other films; we were the good guys wanting to do battle in a righteous cause against the bad guys. Ah, the romance of it all. We trained while playing cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, and during WWII we trained with cap guns and slingshots against the Axis foes. People like Bobby and me were well-trained as children for the “real thing” when it came along. War was opportunity knocking to fulfill all the fantasies of heroic battles learned in childhood. The bottom line: Peace is boring; war is exciting. And human beings are easily bored.

It won’t do; what with all the talk about gang violence for example, just what is being offered that will take the place of the excitement of having a gun in your hand, terrorizing and shooting people? It’s a violent world, and America is a violent nation. We have had an unending stream of violence being taught children from our very beginnings as a nation; and during my own considerable years there hasn’t been any peace but only unrelenting wars.

You may be familiar with the SciFi stories of extraterrestrials being wary of our earth, of keeping a close eye on our technological advances, especially nuclear capabilities; that flying saucers may only be a means of keeping tabs on us earthlings. But it is a story steeped in the most ancient mythologies; certainly the Greeks and Romans made much of our being a warring species, and as such determined to kill each other for one reason or another.

I really like Gore Vidal’s “Lincoln.” When Lincoln and his wife are visiting a frontline of battle, there is Mrs. Lincoln shouting for someone to give her a gun so she could shoot back! I suffer no romantic delusions about the distaff side despite the fact men make wars while women attempt to make homes, and given the right circumstances the momma bear may do more than just fight for her cubs.

For so many years I thoroughly enjoyed the raw power of a gun in my hands. I loved shooting, and I loved making things blow up with dynamite. I enjoyed playing football but enjoyed boxing even more. Putting on those gloves and trying to knock your opponent unconscious! I loved it! And so did the other guys. The sheer romance of it all; the thrill of it all! Nothing like it; it makes for people willing to risk their lives in exploration of the unknown. Without that romantic risk Columbus would never have set sail; without that no one would want to fly a fighter aircraft or be strapped in atop a rocket and be blasted into space.

The philosophical conundrum has always been there to confront; how to make the very things that seem determined to make our species extinct work for our preservation, how to make peace as attractive as war? Even now the Muslim enemies of civilization know they have the advantage by being able to romanticize their wars against the “infidels.” But the civilized nations of the world have nothing the equivalent to counter the threat of Islam.

Money is no substitute for romance. It’s a hard sell trying to romanticize money. Neither Bobby nor I would have “joined up” for money; neither of us was willing to go to war just to protect corporate interests. There had to be some romantic ideal to make war attractive to us. Both Sam Clemens and Harper Lee knew there had to be romantic ideals involved to make sense of the games children play; the kinds of games that would translate into the ideals of adulthood that would continue to be dictated by the romance of those ideals even as Henry Thoreau interpreted them by claiming children play at life better than adults live it.

It’s a memorable scene from “Lawrence of Arabia” when he claims the best of the fighters will not come for money; they will come for him. Lawrence cut quite the romantic figure; but his peculiar genius knew how to make that romance work to his ends; the Founding Fathers, Theodore Roosevelt, all romantics that knew the power of romance, were moved themselves by that power in their own lives.

Most people would choose to live peaceably if they were allowed to do so, if the jobs and security for families were there to assure a future for their children. But America no longer offers those jobs and security for families, a future for the children of America. On the contrary, the leadership of America has sold out and betrayed our nation for profits. This leaves the door wide open for any that will make war a romantic option; it leaves the door wide open for gangs to recruit members, for crime and violence of every description. And the present leadership of America offers nothing that would make peace an attractive alternative to war. Nor do we see anyone on the horizon that would do so, but we do know all politicians lie to get elected and lie to stay elected.

There is a vacuum of leadership in America, and we are ready for a “strong man” to take the helm. Since peace does not appear to be an option, it can’t be a woman because no woman praises God for teaching their hands to war. It will take a man that can make the romantic case for war; that can appeal to those like Bobby and me thirsting for the glory of battle. Let such a man appear and there will be no want of volunteers. But peace is not an alternative; it never has been. It is always a case of good vs. evil, and the two will always be in conflict. Both can be romanticized, but Western Civilization has some catching up to do for us to entertain any notion the civilized will prevail over the barbarians whether in America or elsewhere.

It is patently ridiculous and a downright insult to hear about “efforts on the part of our leadership” to keep Afghanis from growing opium poppies and Columbians from growing coca plants when Mexicans are cultivating vast marijuana plantations right here in America’s national forests. It’s of the same to hear politicians talk about securing the borders of Iraq and Afghanistan all the while refusing to secure our own borders. The sheer hypocrisy of such things as these is obvious to the entire world, lending its weight to the loss of any credibility on the part of America’s “leadership.”

However, while no one can blame the poverty-stricken Afghani, Columbian, or Mexican trying to make a living by growing opium poppies, coca plants, or marijuana these poor need some means of marketing the product. And this is where the politicians come in. The Godfather needed those politicians and judges he “carried about like so much loose change in his pocket” to make his own enterprises successful. Without those bought politicians and judges The Godfather would have been out of business in short order.

It is gratifying to read and hear of attention being given to the problem of gangs terrorizing law abiding citizens; but the message was clear enough when Clinton pardoned all his sleazebag friends that crime pays. Clinton wasn’t unique in this; he was only unique in his blatant in your face pardoning so many at one time. But given the past history of the Clintons shrouded in so many dark deals they needed a lot of these sleazebags with their connections to continue being friendly to this infamous couple.

You have to be well connected for crime to pay well, as The Godfather or any CEO could tell you. Politicians and their CEO bosses have sent the message to everyone that crime pays. This includes not only those like Halliburton et al. but those that take advantage of the slave labor being provided from Mexico knowing politicians, the ACLU, La Raza, the universities, judges, the media, will continue to aid and abet this use and abuse of slave labor.

Republican or Democrat, they are of a kind when it comes to “follow the money;” it was Reagan that opened the floodgates to illegal aliens, and it was Carter that forbade the proper term “alien” to be used and substituted “immigrant” in his own financial interest, though the courts continue to use the judicially correct term alien. And it is blatantly obvious the government of Mexico will continue to encourage this illegal invasion of America; and why not, since there is no penalty for doing so. For the leadership of Mexico, using America as a dumping ground for its refuse population is a win/win deal.

But no knowledgeable person doubts the deal couldn’t work without politicians on both sides of the border cooperating and profiting from the deal. And politicians can depend on the ACLU, La Raza, the universities and liberal media to howl “Racist!” when anyone objects to this invasion of America by illegal aliens from Mexico, that dares raise the issues of anchor babies, social costs, crime, “Press one for English,” ballots in foreign tongues, the dangers of terrorists coming across our borders or the issue of our own national sovereignty demanding that our borders be secured.

There is a “mystery of iniquity” as the Scripture has it at work in the world, and many of the myths and legends of antiquity support the belief in such a thing. I have made my own opinion known, that I find it more believable to subscribe to a doctrine of Satan as found in Scripture than what would otherwise be a lunatic world. For my part, I see a world lying in wickedness, Satan’s domain as even Jesus concurred where the wicked prosper. As to a doctrine of hell, there is enough of this on earth without need of any other apart from a place for those that torture and murder children. I believe there must be a special place of torment for the Devil and his angels, for the monsters in human guise that prey on women and children and those like Stalin and Hitler. And how about a special hell for all politicians and lawyers; Dante would have them all consigned to a place reserved only for politicians and lawyers. Now that would be a real hell-hole!

I find no fault with agnostics or atheists; they are welcome to their point of view. In many ways one might conclude either the gods are crazy or resort to atheism to explain such prevailing lunacy throughout human history that promotes wars and suffering, that places scoundrels in places of authority where such wars and suffering are made commonplace.

Our own planet is replete with mysteries yet unsolved. It is interesting to note so many mysteries of our own solar system, so many that not a few scientists describe our solar system as “rare” in the universe; though none dare use the word “unique” for fear of losing their academic credentials. Still, to explain that mystery of iniquity one only has to consider politicians and lawyers in order to make some sense of such a mystery. And to explain politicians and lawyers, one only need follow the money.

But what about those appearing well-intentioned that say money is the answer to gang violence? These well-intentioned people all have their hands out, saying that if enough taxpayer money were given to gang-bangers they would leave off their criminal ways. But where is the accountability? Nowhere to be found. No one disputes poverty and ignorance breed crime and violence, but what politician can be trusted with money to solve the problem? It’s like the educational hierarchy howling it is a lack of money that is to blame for a failed system of education in America. But where is the accountability? Nowhere to be found.

The Godfather demanded accountability. In this the Mafia differed from government. For this if for no other reason one might be excused for thinking The Godfather had a better handle on the realities. But remember The Godfather’s goal was his son Michael would be “respectable” and go into politics. Was Michael’s father naïve? Hardly. He knew where the real money was to be made through the power of government. Given the truth of this, just who are the truly naïve but those that would have you believe there is some other way to handle gangsters than to meet force with force, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Mexico, or America?

My opposition to Caesar Bush’s wars from the beginning was the realization our troops were being told, once more, to fight a war not to win but for political expediency. Congress fell into line for the same reason. Those that believe there is some other way to win the war against gangs in America without fighting the war to win but for political expediency are of the same as Bush and Congress. We will watch and listen as the usual politicians and their toadies do all the hand-wringing and making empty promises, like Bush and Congress, our own local and state legislators saying “something must be done,” but it will not be fighting a war to win. That would take virtuous leaders, and America does not have virtuous leaders.

But don’t you wonder why English would be the universal language by agreement of the airlines of the world while Americans have to “Press one for English?” Having been a pilot I understand the wisdom of needing a universal language in the skies. My fear is it will take that terrorist nuclear bomb going off at LAX to bring politicians down to earth.

Many make the comparison between the fall of Rome and the very same things that are leading to the fall of America. But in both cases a lack of virtuous leadership is to blame, the kind of leadership that can be trusted to act in the best interests of the governed rather than their own. What we have now is a bunch of “fiddlers.” And whether it is Kern County or Los Angeles County here in my native state, what we have attempting to deal with gangs is a bunch of fiddlers. But even were they determined to make real music, there is the whole of Caesar’s empire, judges, lawyers, the ACLU, etc. to confront in any attempts to make music. And following the money will continue to be more realistic than expecting any music.

The day before yesterday I may have been witness to a kidnapping, but I don’t know. To explain that enigmatic statement, over the years the house next door to me here in the country has been a continuing saga of criminals coming and going. One day I returned to my cottage only to see three squad cars next door with six people standing lined up in handcuffs in the front of the place.

In my book “Birds With Broken Wings” I describe an incident involving the place next door where it was being used for making porno films, and the part I played in breaking up the gang including a pharmacist that was supplying the drugs for the “participants.” Thanks to me I was told he made a hasty exit to Jamaica. Unfortunately, the story also involved a very beautiful young woman with a three year old boy. This was an ongoing tragedy, the details of which are really stranger than fiction involving beauty pageants and very well known persons connected to Bakersfield, Hollywood, Las Vegas, and New York City.

Fortunately, because of my background I’m as comfortable wearing my Beretta as most people are with any article of clothing, and would not feel I was properly attired without the gun. But it takes considerable for any person to accommodate the actual necessity of such a thing, and being a civilized man I wish it was not an essential item, I wish I did not have to wear a gun just to walk about my place outdoors or sleep with a gun at the ready.

Though the place next door has often been vacant for months at a time going through various owners, a few years ago the situation had become so bad around here with my own place burglarized I finally called Carl Sparks. There were a number of squatters in tents, trailers, and truck campers as well as living in the house, so Carl and some helpers came up and with guns on their hips convinced my “neighbors” to move on. But while the squatters were displaced, the house continued to be inhabited by criminals of various descriptions. The present occupant and her boyfriend are doing some time in jail, but their friends continue coming and going at various times day and night.

To say I am used to strange happenings next door is putting it mildly. But I’m neither blind nor deaf so I see and hear things, and the day before yesterday I heard a vehicle revving up next door and glanced out my front window and saw a young woman walking out of the driveway onto the road and heading down toward Lake Isabella Blvd. She had only walked a short distance when a white low-rider pickup with two male occupants backed out of the driveway and took off after the girl. Pulling up next to her the man on the passenger side of the truck jumped out, picked up the girl bodily and got back into the truck with her. They then headed up the road out front in the opposite direction to which the girl had been walking. The fact drug involved murders had taken place up that road not far from me did nothing to soothe my fears for the girl.

I immediately reported what I had seen but heard nothing further. But what, exactly, had I seen? A kidnapping, or perhaps a girl on drugs and her “friends” trying to keep her from being picked up and arrested, possibly involving the two men also. I’m an experienced hand in such matters and know the scenario all too well, and aside from personal experience was reminded of the story about Patton “rescuing” a young woman gun in hand only to find out she was the fiancée of one of the men involved. I’ve seen a lot of strange things, even dangerous things and no one has to remind me that things are not always what they appear to be.

The question of what can be done to curb the gang violence taking over the cities of America requires only a one word answer: Nothing. And the ACLU with a phalanx of attendant lawyers of every description, the universities, the media, politicians and judges will continue to make sure nothing can be done about gang violence. Thanks to these and a government that favors the drug trade and illegal aliens for slave labor among a host of other insanities the laws favor criminals and punish the victims. Cops are not stupid; they know every time they give chase, make an arrest or draw their guns they are immediately open to lawsuits, censure, losing their job and possibly serving time in prison. Who needs the grief? Ask those border patrol agents now in prison for attempting to do their jobs how they now feel about trying to protect our borders. Ask any cop that has suffered for attempting to do his job how he now feels about “Serve and Protect.” Ask why Caesar Bush calls the new Minutemen “vigilantes,” and why our National Guard is in Afghanistan and Iraq instead of on our own borders in force.

“Those brave troops fighting in Iraq” is the catchphrase used by both the well-meaning and politicians without souls. I refer to politicians as being without souls because those that want power and authority over others must first make that Faustian agreement with the Devil to gain political position and power. The well-meaning remain only the well-meaning.

The fact is those troops should not be in either Afghanistan or Iraq at all. Whether the gang wars in America or the wars abroad, no politically correct war is winnable whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Los Angeles, or Bakersfield. I have a granddaughter in the Navy serving in Bahrain. I want her here at home. From the very beginning of Caesar Bush and Company’s wars this should have been abundantly evident, that politically correct wars would be unwinnable. The gang wars in America are unwinnable for the very same reason. Whether of religious fanaticism or barbarism born of greed and inhuman cruelty such wars are only won by hurting enough of the bad guys until they cry “Uncle!”

But political correctness will not allow of hurting enough of the bad guys. For example, the vast preponderance of jail and prison inmates is Mexicans and Negroes. But just this statement of the fact is bound to create howls of “Racism!” for even daring to state the fact. The illogic of such a thing would have you believe this disproportionate jail and prison population consisting of Mexicans and Negroes is due to racism rather than a disproportionate number of crimes being committed by Mexicans and Negroes. No politician can or will give an estimate of the number of illegal aliens in America though we know the number is in the millions or for that matter how many occupy our jails and prisons. But none dare dispute the fact they are vastly Mexicans by the numbers.

Nothing was done about the violence in Watts in the 60s because it was only a matter of “those people” killing each other, and now the violence has spread outside the ghettos and barrios of America. And now those who cared nothing about those people killing each other are saying attention should be paid because the violence has spread outside of the ghettos and barrios.

You don’t have to be astute to figure out as I wrote years ago that if the violence in Watts should spread to Rodeo Drive, Malibu, and Beverly Hills attention would have been paid. But neither do you have to be astute to know when the jobs are not there, the meaningful jobs in industry that were once plentiful and by which means families could be supported have been shipped to places like Mexico, India and China people are not going to simply roll over and play dead; they will in increasing numbers get a gun and take what they can no longer earn honestly.

Certainly I don’t need to distinguish between barbarians that have no intention of being anything other than barbarians and those who would choose to live quietly and honestly doing no harm to others. But things are becoming increasingly desperate for the honest citizens of America, and when things become desperate enough there is no doubt in my mind even the best of people will resort to whatever means necessary to put bread on the table even as did the honest citizens of Germany under Hitler, especially when we are confronted by the bald fact those in power don’t give a damn about America or We the People! At least Germans believed Hitler cared about them; that he cared about Germany. God forbid it will take a Hitler to put America first, but when the circumstances of organized oppression, tyranny and robbery on the part of government become intolerable… those in government may lie about many things like JFK, 9/11, and UFOs, but they can’t get away with lying about the crime and violence, about proliferating gang graffiti marking turf as do dogs, the failure of education and growing poverty in America increasingly impacting so many lives.

Those in power care nothing if your car is totaled by an illegal alien and you have no recourse, if an illegal alien murders a loved one and skips back into Mexico. It may take the barbarians beginning to kill or kidnap and hold for ransom some politicians and judges, some of their family members before we can expect any action to be taken on behalf of the honest citizens of America. But when the ordinary citizens of America have had enough, when the answer to what can be done about the growing problem of illegal aliens and gangs terrorizing at will is “Nothing” perhaps this answer will no longer be one We the People will continue allowing to stand.

February 13, 2007

The Weedpatch Gazette

ANN

In Ann’s case, as with so many women I have known, the music, the love letters and flowers are probably missing in her present relationship. The growing hurt of this loss, a loss such women as Ann recognize in their lives, may follow a course of growing resentment, and finally, the death of the relationship; a senseless loss for both Ann and her boyfriend. In many cases, romance requires women to pay attention to things like weight control, to their appearance and mannerisms, their language and the showing of their appreciation for things like fixing the car or washing machine. It is just too easy for both men and women to begin to take such things for granted and, consequently, taking each other for granted.

Valentine’s Day is nearly here as I write and I wonder how many women will receive the attention they should get on this day? How many relationships will be encouraged by this day in honor of real lovers? I wonder. I hope women like Ann will find their desires fulfilled by such acknowledgment from the men in their lives. But women like Ann know that in spite of the commercialism of the day, in spite of the flowery cards and letters, nothing will take the place of genuine love and romance, of that cherishing that is proved by living it the other 364 days of the year.

I can hardly fault other men for not listening to women unless I make a conscientious effort to get their point of view myself. That this leads to some interesting things in my life comes with the territory. Unhappily, women are not used to being asked by men for their point of view. And, when asked, are understandably reluctant to say what they really want to say or have great difficulty articulating those things for any number of legitimate reasons. A primary reason being the fact that women have seldom been taken seriously by men when it comes to philosophy. Yet, philosophy fails by not taking women seriously.

As I just wrote a dear lady friend we believe things on a multiple of levels, but prioritizing them requires study and meditating on these things. We cannot anticipate what may change the way we think about some things, but The Great Conversation has to do with exchange of ideas and sharing not only thoughts but discoveries. When anyone thinks of Philosophy there is no female Socrates, Confucius, Locke, Hume, or Bacon leaping to people’s minds. Historically, women in general were not to be educated on the same level as men. It was not until very recently women had any voice or opportunity in the schools and society at all, and at that only in the most advanced and enlightened cultures.

That women have had some outstanding role models, women of real courage in leading the way is a relatively recent phenomenon in academia and elsewhere. This is what made “To Kill A Mockingbird” so vitally important to women. Unfortunately men were quicker to see the threat it posed to them than women were to understand the possibilities. And it is easy for me to understand Harper Lee’s profound disappointment that this should be the case. I hope those like the new president of Harvard will understand and take the initiative in promoting what women really need to do in order to become part of The Great Conversation, but it is a faint hope such will prove to be the case. Too often the prejudices of women against men, rightly deserved or not, remove them from the process required for true philosophical speculation leading to new ways of thinking about things and putting their ideas into the required systematic organization of their thoughts.

But there is one area where women could make a very needed contribution to the body of knowledge and that is the subject of romance. However, it is not a subject that lends itself readily to the stringent requirements a systematic organization of thought required of the King of Disciplines.

Concerning philosophy and the paucity of contributions by women there is always the possibility of doing a solo when the music requires a duet; in this respect men like Soren Kierkegaard come immediately to mind. He, as with many like him, wrote a great deal about marriage, love and romance. But he did a solo when the music required a duet. And, lacking any real, pragmatic and empirical knowledge and experience of the subject, the “music” intended results in nothing but pontifical, egotistical noise. And this leads to a major factor in the problem between men and women: Romance. I write a great deal about this and my book “Birds With Broken Wings” is a romance book; but it is factual, not fiction. And it is a graphic representation of that rule of writing: The difference between Reality and Fiction is that fiction has to make sense. The difficulty can be understood by the following excerpt from the book.

I was at the Club the other evening with my good friend Larry when she walked in. I’ll call her Ann. She is a beautiful, vivacious, petite woman with dark hair and eyes that a man could drown in. Seeing me at the bar, she took a seat next to me. We were delighted to see each other. We have known each other for quite some time but have never dated because she has a boyfriend. Yet, from the moment we first met there has been something between us. For some reason, Ann was willing to talk openly about this. The music was playing and we decided to dance. She was wonderful to hold. Soft, warm and sweet-scented as a woman should be, so small the top of her head barely reaching my chin she moved closer into my arms as we danced. Magic!

Then, a remarkable thing. As we move slowly and gently to the music in a warm embrace, she says, “Sam, I can’t give you what you want. But we can have this as a compromise, can’t we?” It hit me full-blown! I knew what was missing between Ann and her boyfriend, what that something was between us: Romance!

Ann has a need, as do all men and women, for romance in her life. She is an honest woman and would never betray. In that honesty she says, “Sam, I’m sorry for using you.” She is trying to tell me that she intends to be faithful to the boyfriend, and yet she wants and desperately needs that romance in her life, the romance that he is failing to provide in the relationship. It is such a tragic, familiar story. It is the reason for the phenomenal growth of romance novels among women as they seek to feed their impoverished hearts and souls.

We continued to dance, holding each other tightly, both of us needing someone to fill that void in our lives that sex alone will never satisfy. Ann, like all women, was made to be the music, poetry and inspiration in the right man’s life. And that right man should fill her need for the romance she deserves in her life, that part of romance that is the responsibility of such a man.

I ask myself the all too familiar question of why the right man and woman have always had such a seemingly impossible task in finding each other? But I have to remind myself that it takes two artists working together to make it happen and keep it alive. I know Ann needs the music in her life, I tell her she has the music in her and I feel it as we move together in an embrace. Her whole body responds to the music and it is magic, a magic that we both realize is working in us together in each other’s arms.

Ann finally has to leave. But it is difficult for her to go, leaving such magic and go home to what? If I could only get the message to her boyfriend (and all the men out there of whom he is all too typical) that he better get his priorities straight, he better start showing his appreciation for the undiscovered treasure of such a wonderful woman like Ann.

That graveyard of shattered dreams of love and romance seems never to be filled. Yet women like Ann, with so much love to give, wanting and needing to give that love, seem never to have this love nourished and tended like the garden of delight she represents. Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times and be thou ravished always with her love (Proverbs 5:19) is a message lost to the majority of men.

It cannot be legitimately denied women need, desperately, to be the softness and gentleness, the virtuousness men need to inspire romance. But we live in a violent world and society that is the antithesis of such things, and women are made to be hard and tough in areas where women were never intended to be so. American society is teaching women they should be competitive and combative in regard to men, rather than striving for the compatibility of differences.

While it isn’t very romantic, there is another common part of the problem of which the following story is all too typical as well; that exemplifies a failed American society that encourages permissive sex and the resulting babies without accountability. I was sitting in the living room of a beautiful young woman. She has three, small children and no husband. The ubiquitous tube as baby sitter was not working properly. A real cause of concern when you are trapped in a low-rent apartment complex.

A vicious chain of circumstances has robbed her of transportation. A common problem with the poor. When California passed the law requiring insurance for motorists to renew their driver’s licenses she had been cited for not having such. Nor, like most people in her circumstances, could she afford it. And while there is no excuse for people driving without insurance and the responsible are made to pick up the tab for irresponsible uninsured drivers, this is the system we are forced by politicians to live with.

Her failure to provide proof of insurance resulted in the suspension of her license. She later got pulled over and the outstanding citation resulted in her car being impounded. It would cost her over $800 to get it back, an impossible sum of money. And the old junker isn’t worth it. As a result, like so many others she loses her car and cannot get her license renewed. With the care of the children, she has to prevail on others to go anywhere like shopping at the grocery store. This makes her especially vulnerable to predatory men who will take advantage of women and their welfare checks.

This lovely girl has only one outlet for entertainment, for some escape from the hopelessness of her situation. The local bar across the street. Here she knows and meets others in similar circumstances. She can play pool and visit. For a quarter, she can attempt to get a stuffed toy from the toy machine. And she has become adept at doing so. This enables her to give the children something when she returns; though she understands what they really need is a father.

The leadership of our nation, the leaders in churches should spend some time in the bars frequented by people like this young woman. Until they have observed and talked to such people, until they have listened to the music and danced in such places, until they have heard the tragic stories first hand, they will never understand the real needs of the people they are elected and sworn to serve.

Insane laws such as those of drugs and prostitution making criminals of otherwise law abiding citizens are to blame in many cases for the desperate situations many of the poor find themselves in. An insane society that demands virtue without virtuous leadership is to blame for welfare and prisons being growth industries. But if money alone could buy happiness, could buy real romance there wouldn’t be any Anna Nicole Smiths.

So, to repeat, women have a real but untapped contribution to make to the King of Disciplines; but it cannot be based on competition and combativeness with men, but on their own distinctiveness as the other half of humankind, the softer and gentler half of humankind that more than just a contribution to Philosophy will be a contribution to Wisdom.

February 14, 2007

The Weedpatch Gazette

Romance: The real power and greatness of America

Charles Schulz understood Valentine’s Day; he knew how to make Charlie Brown’s disappointment reach out to all the boys who wished they would receive a Valentine from some little girl whatever the color of her hair. But, alas, poor Charlie Brown never got that Valentine.

However, when I was a kid we all looked forward to this special day at school. Our teacher would supply the red construction and white lacy paper and paste with which we would all make Valentines. There would be those small, heart-shaped candies with the tiny mottos on them like “Will you be my Valentine?” Boys with real courage might give one of these to one of the girls in class.

Children are transparent in their likes and dislikes, so despite there being a lot of Charlie Brown’s who won’t get that Valentine from the little red haired girl today such disappointments won’t dilute the importance of this special day dedicated to romance, and Charles Schulz certainly understood this. And I believe he would have agreed “Casablanca” is the consummate romance film.

Today being Valentine’s Day it’s appropriate to mention Casablanca being thought by many the most romantic film ever made. In fact, I’m delighted to learn the FOX Theater in Bakersfield is having a special showing of the film, a tribute to the high regard so many of us have for the film, most especially those of us who remember seeing it when it first appeared in the theaters of America. Three years ago I wrote a column from which I quote the following excerpt:

A new movie was getting some attention toward the end of 1942 titled Casablanca. Mark Hellinger in his column “Best Bets” appearing in the Los Angeles Examiner of December 6, 1942 as a first anniversary issue of the attack on Pearl Harbor said of it:

A gripping and timely film is heading your way under the title of Casablanca. Here are Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid and Clara Rains heading a superb cast in as fascinating a movie as has been turned out by Hollywood in some time. A skillful blending of spy stuff, action melodrama and intelligent romance, Casablanca is guaranteed to bank the box office bell the nation over - and it rates all the praise that will unquestionably be heaped upon it. The Bergman lady has never been better in her entire life, and Bogart’s performance is brilliant throughout. Henreid and Rains are also excellent. And Mike Curtiz’ direction is outstanding. I recommend Casablanca to you most heartily.

Readers may note the typo “Clara” for Claude Rains, but I use the article as it actually appeared in the paper. Thanks to my mother, who was in Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack and was nearly killed by a shell landing and exploding in her kitchen, I have a complete, original Pictorial Review section, all twelve pages in the Los Angeles Examiner of December 6, 1942 she kept for so many years as a keepsake. As the first anniversary edition of the Day of Infamy, this section has pictures of the devastation of the ships at Pearl Harbor including the actual photo of the explosion of the U. S. S. Shaw at the very moment of being bombed. But it also contains the film review of Casablanca by Mark Hellinger below a large picture of Ingrid Bergman. One of the unique features of this article by Hellinger is the typo I mentioned of “Clara” instead of Claude Rains.

Mark wrote even better than he could possibly know at the time when he said the film was “guaranteed to bank the box office bell the nation over- and it rates all the praise that will unquestionably be heaped upon it.” Can you imagine what he would say today of his insights about the film? I find it amusing that there are people who think they know something of films and try to tell me Casablanca was not very notable at the time of its release. Wrong! Like GWTW it got a running start and never stopped!

As to Casablanca being voted number 2 by the AFI of the 100 best films ever made and nearly as old as GWTW, I can only wonder what the original Best Bets column by Mark Hellinger in the December 6, 1942 Pictorial Review section of the Los Angeles Examiner complete with the large picture of Ingrid Bergman is worth to a collector. But it belongs in a proper collection of such memorabilia to be preserved.

This issue of the Pictorial Review is unique. It is twelve pages and filled with events and pictures of the attack on Pearl Harbor, as well as the usual film and entertainment sections such as Hellinger’s reviews with great pictures of Rita Hayworth, Cornel Wilde, and Ida Lupino among others, along with the various advertisements of the time. The first page with a full color photo is of the actual strike on the U. S. S. Shaw,”The uncensored U. S. Navy official photograph hailed as one of the most remarkable pictures of all times. It shows the U. S. S. Shaw at the exact moment it blew up during Jap attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Dec. 7, 1941.” The caption: “Remember Pearl Harbor.” There are other pics of the actual harbor following the attack, and the devastation of the battleships. (End)

Before she passed away and my being the last member of the family to whom she could entrust the various photos and mementos mom held so precious all her life I was given her scrapbook of WWII memorabilia along with the edition of the Los Angeles Examiner mentioned. But with the passing years and no one left to whom I could pass these things on, some of real historic value, a decision had to be made, especially, what to do with this very important edition of the paper? Selling it on eBay was one suggestion since it would undoubtedly have fetched a princely sum, but I knew it was too important a historic document to simply sell it to strangers.

My family had strong ties to Kern County; I was born in Weedpatch and have made contributions of my own writing to the Weedpatch Memorial Library, much of my other writing is steeped in the history of Kern County, of life in Bakersfield and here in the Kern River Valley. So some of the photos and other artifacts my mother left in my trust might properly belong in some museum. But when I began to make inquiry about the special edition of the Los Angeles Examiner it was Mike Jenner of the Bakersfield Californian who suggested I contact Ken Hooper, a Bakersfield High School history teacher. As I understood it, Ken was deeply involved with such historical documents and his classes were being instructed in their importance and preservation.

Whatever the disposition of the paper and other things, I believed my mother would be pleased to know something she had faithfully saved for so many years would find a home in Bakersfield and serve such a noble purpose in preserving what was now a valuable historical document of the time that had been of such monumental importance to both my mother and America.

After exchanging emails and phone calls, Ken agreed to come to my place and look at the paper. In the meantime my friend Mike Turner came over and took digital photographs of the entire paper so I would have them available to share with others online, the Mark Hellinger blurb for Casablanca being one example, and when Ken arrived he agreed to be the caretaker for the paper and I entrusted it to him where it is now being put to good use as a historical document in memory of my mother India Joyce Caldwell. My decision on behalf of my mother was not the “smart” thing to do since I did not profit from it; but it was the romantic thing to do, and by that measure the right thing to do.

This may seem an odd Valentine’s Day story, but for those sensitive to such a story the romance of it cannot fail to reach the hearts of such people. Casablanca and my mother belong to an America that saved the world from the Axis Powers, an America steeped in the culture and heritage of the Founding Fathers and Norman Rockwell. But as Margaret Mitchell wrote of her beloved antebellum South, a time that would be “Gone With The Wind,” never to return, so did Harper Lee in capturing and preserving a vital part of our history. But it takes the real romantics like these women and my mother to realize the historical importance of those things that made America what it was to win the war against the Axis Powers.

A younger generation cannot view Casablanca through the eyes of those of us who lived the events described in the film and were drawn to it in droves when it was first released. A younger generation can be excused for seeing the film as unbelievably altruistic and naive, but those of us who lived the time of the film certainly did not see it as such. For those of us at the time it was a living and breathing document of our era ever as much as the newspaper my mother saved for posterity. And it took Americans who believed in the message of Casablanca and that special edition of the Los Angeles Examiner, who believed in the America these represented to win WWII. Such an America is now gone with the wind never to return, betrayed by politicians and their corporate bosses; but that America now betrayed and gone believed in the power and greatness of romance, and that more than anything was the real power and greatness of America.

But for you ladies out there on this special day who are the romantics and understand my telling this story: “Here’s lookin’ at you kid.”

February 16, 2007

The Weedpatch Gazette

Will Bush be made “an offer he can’t refuse?”

The Bank of America is quite comfortable betraying America for profits. Our government is quite comfortable betraying America by not only refusing to secure our borders for the sake of profits, but will punish those sworn to protect our borders if they do their job. Caesar Bush and Company, corporate bosses may be laughing all the way to the bank, but there is going to be a reckoning for their being without a soul, and without a soul being without romance.

Since it is abundantly clear our government is run like The Godfather’s Mafia why isn’t someone stepping up to the plate and making Caesar Bush an offer he can’t refuse? What We the People need is someone with the courage and properly placed, someone like Don Corleone to put a gun to his head and tell Caesar either sign a contract in favor of America instead of nations like Saudi Arabia, Mexico and China, to do what is right for America, things like securing our borders and expelling illegal aliens used for slave labor and punishing those that hire them, that either his signature or his brains will be on that contract!

Of course it’s whimsical, but in my whimsy I can well imagine George Washington having the whole bunch in the White House, Congress, and Supreme Court tried for treason and hung! But it is far from whimsy to acknowledge our Triune Federal Dictatorship is run for profit benefiting only the wealthy just like Don Corleone’s Mafia, but without the romance.

Hey, did I say “romance?” You bet I did; but my use of the word must not be confused with some simplistically smarmy starry-eyed nonsense. The element of romance runs throughout the whole of The Godfather trilogy, and the saga would be nothing without this element of romance. Take away the romance of those involved in our own War for Independence and it would never have happened. The Sons of Liberty, the Founding Fathers were all consummate romantics, romanticizing all the ideals that were to be turned to calling all in whose breasts burned the intense flame of freedom, the flame of freedom from tyrants and despots, the freedom to live in liberty from the oppressor! What are Betsy Ross and our flag but symbols of the power of romance. It does no good to wrap yourself in that flag or wave the bloody shirt unless these are done in the surrounding aura and undiluted power of romance!

In “The Crossing” when Washington refuses to meet with the dying Hessian leader because he would not honor those who fight for profit he is confronted by the words of his aide, “In the end we all fight for profit.” It was the politically correct thing in the film, but could not have been further from the truth. The truth is found in the romance of that sacred honor of George Washington, that sacred honor never the handmaid to profits pledged by our Founding Fathers no amount of profits could displace. It was not profits that caused so many to suffer for the cause of liberty at Valley Forge, to respond to Thomas Paine’s cry to fight for liberty, but the romance of a promised America that was to be!

But the dark side of romance, ah, there is Lincoln’s War that would never have happened without “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” romanticizing the plight of Negroes held in slavery while conveniently ignoring the even worse wage slavery of “northern overseers” at the time as Henry Thoreau pointed out; and as Henry admitted while opposing the war with Mexico even he “could spit a Mexican with a good relish” when the martial music is playing loudly, “the trumpet that sings of fame” being a siren call, there is the basis of most wars that are propagandized by romanticizing the call to arms. In this sense even Hitler succeeded in romanticizing his vision of a thousand year Reich complete with all the art and architecture of his romantic vision for Germany. And to counter Hitler the Allies had to successfully romanticize their own call to arms.

Boris Pasternak’s Noble Prize-winning “Doctor Zhivago” brought to the screen certainly showed the romance of the Russian Revolution, and “Lawrence of Arabia” certainly romanticized the plight of Arabs. One might well say that without being able to romanticize something all other efforts to move the hearts of people to a cause, especially to the sacrificing of their lives for a cause would be in vain. And it is here where all the efforts of Caesar Bush and Company are doomed to fail. They have nothing to work with when it comes to romance.

Consider the religious fervor of our enemies; this is whipped up by romantic notions of a promised paradise to the martyrs of the Muslim religion. But America having been betrayed of its Christian heritage and culture, its Christian ideals there is no romantic appeal to counter the propaganda of Islam. When Caesar Bush made that first attempt using the word “Crusade” he was very quickly shouted down. The Crusades of old were romanticized, but the religious connotation aside no one was going to buy into a “crusade” for profits further enriching Caesar Bush and Company. But while abuses continue in the name of the Christian religion, it is patently ridiculous for detractors to make any comparison between the ideals of Jesus and those of Mohammad.

Caesar Bush and Company cannot make bricks without straw, they cannot gather Americans together in common cause without the romance of such a cause. And there is no romance to be found in calling for the sacrifice of lives just to make the wealthy even wealthier. Where is “glory” to be found in wars without romance? Consider all the books and films that glorify the sacrifice of lives in a cause based on romantic ideals. But take away that element of romance, and what have you? What you would never have is a film like “Casablanca.” And it would take the romance of a Casablanca to unite Americans once more in a cause.

However, WWII was romanticized for all the right reasons. We flocked to see Casablanca and delighted in Norman Rockwell’s America that accurately romanticized the America so many were sacrificed for at the time. But those many if called from their graves now would say “What was the point?” For those sacrificed to Korea and Vietnam, these would say “What was the point?” As Jesus made emphatically clear, there is nothing romantic about money except in instances like the widow’s mite, the story of the beggar and the wealthy man, and Judas betraying the innocent blood for money. In all such instances the romance is found in the sacrifices that distinguish between good and evil. But in the end the verdict of Jesus is to render to Caesar and to God based on the romantic concept of what belongs to either.

When I wrote “Romance: The real power and greatness of America,” I knew this was the motivation and the basis of the success of our Founding Fathers, of our War for Independence, America’s success in WWII, and I knew this seems to have escaped the notice of those like Caesar Bush and Company. You cannot pull Americans together in common cause without this element of romance being the decisive factor. Take all the words like good, fair, just, honorable, and they are all meaningless without that element of romance. And if the romance of America is betrayed by allowing the invasion of Mexico and the colonizing of America by Mexicans just to satisfy the greed of the wealthy for slave labor, if America continues to be betrayed by politicians and their corporate bosses for oil and to other nations like China for the sake of profits, no one in power can expect Americans to support such a government as we have now. There is no soul in such a government, and having no soul there is no romance.

From the time of Shakespeare on the English language is unsurpassed in expressing romance. But that most beautiful and expressive of languages is now betrayed in America by “Press one for English” and ballots printed in foreign tongues. Our very existence as a nation is threatened by those without a soul, without romance, willing to betray America for money ever as much as Judas did of Jesus.

This is not to say romance can flourish without bread; that is patently ridiculous, and despite his preaching a doctrine of simplicity in living most people would agree with Henry’s remark that “Economy is a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot so be disposed of.” But I believe many people would be happier if they would not spend so much of their lives “to keep bright the devil’s door-knobs” only to discover in the end all they were really seeking and wanted was the fulfillment of the romantic promise of “Rosebud.” Wisdom dictates it isn’t who has the most toys in the end who wins, but who you have helped along the way that really counts toward a life with any purpose and meaning, a life filled with the romance of living.

There are many helping philanthropic organizations, but philanthropy should never be confused with kindness. For example, it is no act of kindness to encourage irresponsible unproductive mouths whether in America or elsewhere to be fed at the expense of the responsibly productive who limit the number of babies to that which can be properly cared for with prospects for a future not dependent on welfare. But as to politicians that pander for votes I suffer no illusions they will pound the drum for birth control, that they will in any way attempt to interfere with the “reproductive rights” of multitudes feeding at the welfare tax trough, including illegal aliens though nowhere in our Constitution are any such “rights” to be found.

It is a pronounced hypocrisy on the part of those preaching against abortion to refuse to point out the fault of those in power refusing to encourage contraception and birth control. Were they to direct their energy to prodding politicians in this direction rather than abstinence there would be far fewer abortions. Human nature does not lend itself to abstinence, but if our nanny Federal Caesar and its legions in the various states would encourage contraception and birth control rather than reward illegitimate births at taxpayer expense the abortion problem would soon be a moot point. And it is here where economics rather than a sinister “philanthropy” at the expense of taxpayers should make its power felt.

Who doesn’t get a laugh out of Eliza Doolittle’s father telling Professor Higgins he is one of the undeserving poor and intends to keep on being one of the undeserving poor. But when any politician begins mouthing the phrase “Family values” I immediately want to ask them why they are not taking any responsibility for the millions of children born to unwed mothers, why they encourage at the expense of taxpayers the undeserving poor to continue to be the undeserving poor?

No, romance cannot exist as an orphan without bread. But when romance is betrayed for a superfluity of riches, as America is being betrayed by those without a conscience, without a soul but rather an insatiable appetite for wealth and power there is no room for romance. And being without a soul, thereby being without romance our present leaders are doomed. Someone will make these Judases “an offer they can’t refuse.” It may come by that terrorist nuclear bomb going off at LAX or DC, but that “offer” is going to be made.

As I expected the recent meeting by officials in Kern County trying to get answers to the problem of Isabella Dam, listed as number one in the nation in danger of failing, was an exercise in futility. What the fix is and when remain unanswered questions. But if the dam bursts it will be as I also said, to use the old phraseology, “A melancholy accident,” and, compared to the “big picture” only a local problem. But the biggest problem with issues concerning those of Isabella Dam and elsewhere in America is want of the truth.

The reason To Kill A Mockingbird is considered by many including me to be “the novel of the century” and my writing a critique of the novel on behalf of children is not only her remarkably gifted writing ability, but the fact that Harper Lee did not spare anyone’s sensitivity or prejudice based on race, gender, or religion. She skewered all alike wherever she found hypocrisy and prejudice, even pointing out that Scout’s teacher, a Jew, was as prejudiced against Negroes as any “cracker.” For this reason among many others the film while being great in its own way, earning the distinction of being a “very particular film” not only falls short of the novel, but betrays the message of the novel in its entirety. Not the least reason, I am certain, Harper Lee never wrote again.

But for those determined to find anti-Semitism on the part of anyone telling it like it is, there is Harper Lee. However, Harper Lee is too much a venerated writer and her novel too much a world-acclaimed literary masterpiece for anyone to accuse her of anti-Semitism lest they risk making themselves out to be a kook looking for “a Red under every bed.” Understandably Hollywood wasn’t about to touch this part of the novel, and considering the era of the early 60s it was understandable Hollywood would portray Atticus Finch as though he was a card carrying member of the ACLU, another pointed betrayal of Harper Lee’s masterpiece and a betrayal of her own father who served as the model for Atticus. As I have said many times, if you have only seen the film you have a much distorted view of Harper Lee’s real story, and it is not a world-acclaimed literary masterpiece because Harper Lee took the side of Negroes or thought Caucasians “owed” Negroes and should apologize for being Caucasians, more particularly Southern Caucasians. It won the Pulitzer and won such acclaim because Harper Lee told her story in such a masterful way sparing no one’s prejudices in the process. Reading the novel one cannot but come away without realizing Harper Lee was telling the truth about people, and the truth has a way of making its own case. Tragically for humankind truth has ever been on the scaffold while liars prosper.

The story by Jesus of the “Unjust Judge” has it he did not fear either God or men, but only dispensed justice because he was weary of hearing that widow continuing to demand justice. Not a few of us as ordinary Americans find ourselves in the same case as that widow; and it is one reason I continue to write as I do. Not a few of us find ourselves being lone voices in a wilderness of political correctness that attempts to punish anyone daring to tell the truth about the enemies of America and knowing our nation cannot possibly survive without a national identity based on heritage, culture, common language and secure borders.

A conspiracy of evil whether of Satan or not has to consider those like George Soros calling for a certain “de-Nazification” process of removing conservatives from government. Of course, the first question that came to me was where are those deserving of the title “conservative” in government? And after reading his remarks in full I’m not at all sure who the Nazis are he has in mind, but I’m uncomfortably sure he would include Harper Lee or anyone that believes America should have secure borders and English be made our national language by law and ballots no longer be printed at taxpayer expense in foreign tongues to accommodate the slave labor those like billionaire Soros favor. On the basis of just these things Soros would label me a “Nazi.”

I want the DNA of every criminal, and especially that of illegal aliens that are criminals by definition on file in a national data bank. That, of course, is enough for many like Soros to label me a “Nazi.” The problem with such labels in an attempt to demonize is that when they become too generic they lose any force of meaning. But they have much to do with blackmailing into silence the voices of dissent from those that disagree with forcing an agenda of political correctness upon America. Were it not so tragic in its consequences I could have laughed about a blogger in the Bakersfield Californian expressing wonder over why conservatives were not contributing to the blog. Who needs the grief? Especially when it is perfectly permissible for those flaunting their “liberal” credentials to label those that disagree “Nazis, racists, anti-Semites,” etc. ad nauseam but conservatives dare not react to such attacks.

It has gone far beyond being simply tiresome to be demonized for those of us born Caucasian Americans, to be told we should feel guilty for this accident of birth, that we somehow “owe penance” to all minorities and the rest of the world and to be demonized by those demanding special privileges by fiat of laws intended to punish all that do not agree there should be special privilege by laws attached to race or perversion, that any of us who want to maintain a national identity based as are all nations of the world on heritage, culture, language, and secure borders. Only in America are people being punished and demonized for demanding these common sense things all other nations of the world take for granted and recognize as essential to their very survival.

Consider the lunacy of Muslim fanatics that continue to commit murder for the glory of their peculiar deity and prophet. But there is no concerted outcry against such barbarism on the part of Muslim leaders; on the contrary hatred of England and America goes on apace in the mosques of both nations, and it has been openly exposed the leaders of the mosques in England are preaching a doctrine of hatred toward Western Civilization and demanding England be made a Muslim nation by force. And it is naive at the most charitable to think mosques in America are teaching love for America.

Because I have been a supporting member of BAMPAC since its inception, because I spent four years teaching in Watts and write about many things pointing out the plight of Negroes in America some call me a “N----- lover.” The “N” word is not allowed even for the sake of accuracy in writing. But if you defend Bill Cosby’s criticism of Negroes and you are Caucasian you are “racist.” Because I favor Israel’s right to defend itself against that tiny nation’s enemies and even donate money to that purpose some call me a “Jew lover.” I can write that since the term “Jew” is permissible. But if I am critical of Jews bullying others in Hollywood, the universities, the media, or through their ACLU I am labeled by those who refuse to acknowledge the truth but take pleasure in lies and attacking those like me for telling the truth “anti-Semitic.”

If anyone sticks up for traditional marriage and opposes the homosexual agenda of same sex so-called “marriage” they are labeled “homophobic,” though the term is patently ridiculous in view of the fact a phobia is an irrational fear and who is actually irrationally afraid of homosexuals? The normal revulsion sexually normal people feel for perversion is just that; normal. The words perversion and normal are still there in ordinary dictionaries apart from dictionaries of Behavioral Science and no amount of laws passed are going to make sexually normal people well-disposed toward perverts or accept perverts can be “married” in any normal sense of the word.

Who expects Mexico to launch a space shuttle, build a base on the moon and go to Mars? That this kind of scientific and technological expertise is the purview of only the most educated and advanced nations should speak volumes to the logical mind. And are those who do not expect Mexico or the nations in Africa to participate in launching space shuttles or colonize the moon and Mars all “racists?” I don’t think so. But where was the logic to be found in a Supreme Court that for the sake of “equality” demanded the schools be desegregated when such a Draconian decision was bound to have the unintended consequence of white flight and the attendant evils visited upon an entire system of education throughout America?

While it made for a good propaganda film about Thurgood Marshall and as with TKM I continue to enjoy the film, while the problems of segregation were very real and cried out for redress, we have every right to expect more wisdom on the part of those reaching such exalted positions as to sit on our High Court. Such social engineering by activist judges has much to do with dismantling the America that saved the world from the Axis threat and the threats America is now facing. Even now local school boards have to face the same conditions that prevailed during the time of segregation. Just how, do you suppose, are the L. A. Schools to be “desegregated?” You might as well expect the jails and prisons of California to be “desegregated.”

I’ve had the experience of teaching in ghetto and barrio schools, of being the minority member on the faculties of such schools. I know what the cruel poverty and ignorance endemic to such communities does to children and young people. But I also know those like the members of the Supreme Court live in an insulated world of privilege separated from the reality of what their decisions do because of their ignorance to harm the very people they try to help, an ignorance that is not dispelled in the universities like Yale, Harvard, or Stanford.

As with the wealthy, politicians are going to find the best schools for their children; and every parent that can afford to do so is going to try to find a school where their children will at least be safe from gangs and the attendant violence. No one in their right mind without an “agenda” is going to call such parents “racist.” When activist politicians and judges make laws and decisions without regard to reality there is an enormous price to be paid for such folly.

But those clamoring for open borders for the sake of slave labor from Mexico for example have only their own selfish agenda, and it is not one of improving the lot of Mexico, of increasing the standard of living or scientific expertise of that nation, teaching birth control, nor least of all curing the endemic corruption in that nation’s government that uses America to dump its illiterate refuse population; something everyone in the White House and Congress knows to be the facts of the case, but for the sake of the wealthy in both Mexico and America profiting from slave labor will not confront. Far simpler to call those of us who call attention to the facts “racist,” which, of course, has nothing to do with any legitimate attempts to alleviate the suffering of the people in Mexico or stop the exploitation of illegal aliens in America.

Whether the organized systems of hatred to be found in religion and politics, the organization of hatred toward those of us who believe our Founding Fathers were men of genuine character and George Washington’s picture belongs in every school and home of America, wherever demonizing labels are thrown around willy-nilly by those attempting to further their agendas of making America into their image rather than that of the nation that rose to such prominence based on the values of Christianity and the Bible, a nation the product of Christian Western Civilization in the best sense capable of producing an Emerson and Harper Lee we are being torn apart by these special interests that have no intention of preserving such an America; but seem hell-bent on having things their way or like Hitler’s attitude toward Germany at the end to destroy America.

One would think the very real threats to America would be enough for our politicians to do what is right and best for America. But such is not the case. They lie to get elected and lie to stay elected; this is why we now live in a “Press one for English” America. I am not being cynical when I say I don’t expect to hear the truth about Isabella Dam here locally. I don’t expect to hear the truth about why Kern County schools are failing, and in too many cases parents are increasingly afraid to send their kids to school and children are afraid to go to school because of the preponderance of illegal aliens, gangs and racial strife. But if the dam bursts that will be a local problem; when Bakersfield schools are struggling to educate children in the face of impossible odds that is a local problem. But if that terrorist nuclear bomb goes off at LAX, that will not be a “local” problem, but one due to a failed government impacting our entire nation! And no matter what the agenda of those attempting to dismantle America and make it over into their image “The Morning After” will determine what America emerges from such an attack. Of this much we can be certain: It will not be a politically correct America!

That such an attack is coming very few in a position to know doubt. While we might wish for Klaatu or Jesus to save us, the demise of the America that was once a beacon of hope to the rest of the world will disappear for want of the truth, for want of those willing to tell the truth because of their own selfish agendas. And faced with so many enormous problems of enormous complexity I can easily sympathize with those who simply do not want to hear the truth, and in the words of Paul to the Galatians “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” is all too often the case as well.

I just received an email from my friends at “silentlambs” reminding me of how the tyranny of religion continues here in America as well as in places like Iran and Iraq: “This message was sent to us last night through silentlambs. We are passing it on. When a person is at stake of losing everything and everyone they know they need our support in every way. It’s terrifying! So please pass this on if you will to any who will be willing to pray for all those who feel trapped and afraid to get out of the JW cult as there are thousands!”

You can read the message for yourself at silentlambs and it cannot but tug at anyone’s heart when facing the fact there are religious organizations like that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses that so tyrannize with threats, even threats of litigation when anyone attempts to cut themselves free of such organizations. It isn’t only the Muslim religion that treats women and children as of lesser value than men, even as the chattel of men that holds so many in bondage to various religious superstitions.

It is hard to write of the evil men do, and like many of you I often resort to TV to try to find some means of escaping so much evil at least for a time. While TV remains largely a wasteland for many I very much appreciate the Turner Classic Movie Channel together with the productions of the novels of Jane Austen and the old mystery whodunits of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Nero Wolfe. Often lavish with marvelous scenery and good acting, the periods of the times involved faithfully reproduced are truly of real entertainment and escape into the stories told. I still enjoy watching the old Thin Man movies with all their improbabilities. Movies of that era were just plain fun and helped many of us forget the worries of a work-a-day world, they even helped us get through WWII and some continue to be of benefit today, one could say even therapeutic, especially the great musicals, as an alternative to drowning in so much bad news being repeatedly endlessly.

Though I appreciate the great old films and have a good collection of them I also have many of the old SciFi films on tape, among them the classic “THEM!” to mention but one of many, but for true SciFi reading the prophecies of Ezekiel and other prophets of both old and new testaments concerning Israel read like SciFi. Being a Biblical scholar himself Isaac Asimov took full advantage of the stories found in the Bible for his prolific writing of science fiction stories, as did Ray Bradbury and others. I continue to find Asimov’s commentary on the Bible of great interest and recommend it to others.

Most of the great writers including SciFi writers have been very knowledgeable of the Bible. And when you consider the fact no one can be truly educated without having read the Bible and know somewhat of its history and tremendous influence throughout history as the single most influential book throughout the world this is understandable. That the Bible continues to exert such a powerful influence in an age of science and technological marvels speaks of its enduring qualities as a study in human history, behavior, and literature. And while versions and translations of the Bible have proliferated in recent years the King James Version reigns supreme as a book in the English language.

It is most regrettable the Bible is no longer welcome in the schools of America, having once been the basic textbook of America, Congress even ordering it be disseminated throughout the schools early in our history as a nation. But the difficulties of taking the Bible simply on its merits of historical importance and as literature without falling into various interpretations of religious sentiment are there and not to be discounted. To be sure there are fabulous stories to be found in the Bible as there are to be found in most ancient literature. Some of the stories of the Bible are metaphorical and to be understood as such, but there are also stories beyond credulity and though interesting are not to be taken seriously.

Still, there are large portions of the Bible that read like foretelling rather than simply preaching or “forth-telling” of events difficult to understand unless you do take them seriously; which of course lends these to the genre of SciFi. How better to capture the end of America for example than a film depicting our nation as that Great City Babylon of Revelation? Sinclair Lewis was no SciFi writer, but in his books like Main Street, Babbitt, and Elmer Gantry he in many ways described that Great City Babylon of Revelation, the business of America being business and the destruction of that “Great City” causing great lamentation by the merchants of the world crying out: “Who will now buy our goods?”

And why should such a minuscule number of people like the Jews, hardly enough to be a blip on the total population of the world, figure not only so prominently in the Bible but throughout recent history? Certainly no one would have thought there was any chance whatsoever of there ever being another “Nation of Israel” after the Babylonian Captivity, after the Diaspora notwithstanding the “Israel” of the time of Jesus. But there it is, and how to account for so many nations now calling the geographically microscopic modern State of Israel the greatest threat to world peace? But this “threat” would not be considered such were it not for Israel’s “Big Brother America.” How that came about reads like science fiction. And how is it that a Jewish dominated ACLU figures so prominently in the affairs of America as a nation? Now that, folks, makes for real science fiction!

Among the anomalies of history I consider how Jews, how tiny little Israel can figure so prominently in America, so prominently in world affairs and there is no reasonable answer to the question. How could a man like Hitler figure so prominently in being the cause of Israel “resurrecting?” No one disputes this being the reason, the “guilt factor” motivating the UN voting in favor of creating the State of Israel. But this does not prevent me being a supporter and member of The Israel Project dedicated to that tiny nation’s right to exist and defend itself.

Then there is so much to support the view the earth is Satan’s domain as the Bible has it and Jesus not disputing this claim in The Temptation, the world lying in wickedness, violence throughout, evil ever in the ascendancy the good seeming never able to overcome the evil and the entire creation “groaning for its redemption.”

When I consider so many mysteries like those of ancient civilizations that seem to have disappeared, so many twists and turns in the way humankind has been represented throughout our history as a species, the ancient structures like the pyramids and Sphinx, various structures and carvings in stone, the anomalies and paradoxes to be found not only in our universe but right here on earth it boggles the mind!

And what if science eventually discovers there are in fact “monsters” among us as the Bible declares; a distinct species apart from Homo sapiens or children of God, children of the Devil that prey on women and children? Perhaps Greek mythology is closer to the truth of this than science allows? But if this should prove to be the case would it fall into the category of UFOs, kept from us for the sake of “national security?”

Ah, there’s the rub. When we have been lied to so often by our leaders over the years, by those wealthy having the rule over us what’s to believe? But I consider the monsters without conscience, those creatures that torture and murder women and children and I have to wonder. How can such creatures be “human?” I think they must be something other than human; that they must surely be of another species.

Certainly it invites criticism to even write of such things, but I tell myself that if I wonder about such things others must also. And if SciFi is an outlet for the artistic expression of such questions, such wonderings, perhaps it comes closer to the truth of the matter in many instances than what our leaders and those of other nations are telling us.

There are those moments like Thoreau going to fetch a pail of water wondering “if that be not a dream” when the sheer magnitude of the threats to our planet and the growing violence in America and the rest of the world seem so overwhelming we are quite beside ourselves with the wondering. Were it not for the ordinary tasks demanded of us to just get on with living, were we left to ourselves to only wonder and speculation we might all go quite mad.

So, it is my good fortune to have a friend calling and we find ourselves talking about Punxsutawney Phil, and we share our delight with a local TV weatherman who had a hamster playing the role of groundhog here in Kern County. I’ve often said we need more critters on TV to take the bad taste of so much bad news out of our mouths. Show me more pictures of people rescuing baby ducks rather than killing each other.

There are friends that send me delightful pictures of bunnies and duckies, even one of a momma cat nursing six baby skunks, the cute little stinkers making themselves quite at home. But if you saw that picture of the bobcat in Kansas that was trapped, the feathers of its latest victim like that of Sylvester with Tweety proving its guilt you are made aware of Nature red in tooth and claw.

Ok, so even nature does not always accommodate itself to baby ducks, but with so many things we humans have done to mess up our planet and each other I still want the baby ducks and even the baby skunks. The world seems led of lunatics and “significant others” may fail us, but it is the baby ducks, a momma cat nursing baby skunks that help us maintain our sanity in a world that too often seems to be quite mad.

Among a few of my treasured books is the Harry T. Peters beautifully illustrated 1942 edition of “Currier & Ives, printmakers to the American People.” National recognition began with “Awful Conflagration of the Steam Boat Lexington.” In what may have been the first illustrated extra in history “The Extra Sun” edition of the New York paper of January 13, 1840 was followed by Currier & Ives becoming truly Printmakers to the American People.

Then there is my beautifully illustrated large volume “The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics” reaching back in time to headlines of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, but kids were looking in newspapers of that era for the Katzenjammer Kids, Happy Hooligan, and Buster Brown.

Another captivating book is “The Faith of America” illustrated by Norman Rockwell. The Guideposts edition of the book has many of the most famous of the Rockwell paintings beginning with his “Looking Out to Sea” of 1919. For a trip down “Memory Lane” few things are as evocative of America as it used to be than looking at the Norman Rockwell paintings.

As a kid I was a genuine connoisseur of the funny papers, comic books, and film cartoons. I have a photo my mother took of my brother Ronnie and me sitting in the yard of our home on the corner of Cottonwood and Padre in Southeast Bakersfield with the funny papers of the Bakersfield Californian unfolded on our laps. The picture is dated 1940. But prints like those of Currier & Ives were also captivating to me, and no issue of the Saturday Evening Post was complete without a Norman Rockwell picture gracing the cover.

During that bygone time of Currier & Ives before everyone was accorded victimhood status of one kind or another in a politically correct America gone loony with litigation and run by lawyers where no one is accountable for anything but demanding unearned bread from the tax trough or lawsuits, to turn the pages in this beautifully illustrated book is to step back in time to an America before Lincoln’s War and the years immediately following. But talk about politically incorrect! There is enough in the book to make the ACLU go ballistic! Not that those old comics and Norman Rockwell’s paintings wouldn’t have the same effect. I doubt you will find a book of Currier & Ives prints in any school library today, and if so it will doubtless be heavily edited.

By now most people are aware American History is no longer taught in our schools. In many schools the old civics classes have been omitted as well. But to play the Devil’s attorney for a moment, teachers in a “Press one for English” America would be hard pressed today to teach with a straight face what it means to be a “good citizen,” especially when so many pupils don’t even speak English. This together with what poses as “leadership” in America today would seem to make any attempts to teach “civics” passé.

During the 60s when I was a high school teacher at Jordan in Watts it was difficult enough to talk to pupils about American History and good citizenship. I was teaching in a hopeless community to hopeless pupils, none of whom was ever going to trust “the man.” Cops and authority figures in government were the enemy, and it would have been laughable to attempt to tell the young people in my charge “I’m from the government; and I’m here to help you.” At a time when these same young people could see Ozzie and Harriet with wonder asking themselves what kind of world such people lived in I was expected as a teacher to uphold the “values” of America Ozzie and Harriet represented.

There is a parallel to my experience in Watts and that of nations like China. By now most people are aware China is building coal-fired electric plants at the rate of nearly one every two days. Scientists have issued their verdict global warming is caused by such burning of fossil fuels, but no matter how America reduces emissions China will outpace America in pollutants and there seems nothing to be done about it. Iran sits on a pool of oil but insists it needs nuclear reactors for electrical energy. Right. The rain forests continue to be devastated for economic reasons and there is nothing to be done about that. Our oceans are increasingly polluted and there is nothing to be done about that. And when we ask ourselves why nothing is to be done about these things threatening our planet the answer invariably comes down to economics, the kind of economics where the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer. And what is to be done about that?

Those years ago while teaching in Watts I faced the same conditions prevailing in third world nations. The young people knew their prospects of a future were extremely limited, surrounded as they were with cruel poverty and rampant crime and violence. Now these many years later I have seen the conditions prevailing in Watts begin to prevail outside the ghettos and barrios of America, conditions robbing young people everywhere of hope for a future. Utopians dream and futurists give forecasts. But the kind of cooperation needed to save our planet is beyond the kin of either.

Sometime ago I stood at my backdoor looking at the mountains, the trees and rocks here around my little place in the Kern River Valley and the thought came to me “This is no longer my America, this is not the America I was born and raised in. It has become a foreign land to me.”

Leafing through the history of America to be found in Currier & Ives, the old funny papers and comics, the paintings of Norman Rockwell and to have lived in an America these things represent seems a fairytale. And had I not lived in such an America it would indeed seem a fairytale. But I lived the America of WWII, of “Gidget” and “To Kill A Mockingbird.” I’m not a person given to believing in fairytales; I’ve had full immersion in the good, the bad, and the ugly of America.

But I knew an America that other nations trusted, an America that stood tall, that stood for the virtues to be found in our history as a Christian nation with Biblical foundations, I knew an America where our history and citizenship classes were taught by teachers that believed in these things, and I will continue to write of that America as well as what America has become. Why? Because I am a writer; this is what I do, this is what I am.

I do wonder about people like Edgar Cayce; if not charlatans what function do such people serve? I wonder about Atlantis and all the myths of ancient literature and stone monuments, I have books about unknown mysteries, witchcraft, ghosts, the paranormal and such, so very much to wonder about. The world is full of mysteries and wonder, and to look up at the stars is to look into the face of mystery and wonder. I think to myself; that might be where we come from, that might be our heritage, to reach the stars someday. But the world does not seem to share that thought.

It takes education, it takes freedom from want and poverty to dream the large dreams filled with the possibilities of humankind at its best. The America I used to know held promise of leading the way to the stars. But that America no longer exists except to the memory of those like me who lived it. And too many other nations, especially the nations of Islam seem determined to eradicate America altogether. But nowhere do we see the nations of the world agreeing to cooperate in overcoming ignorance and poverty, and the world is too small now with half its population living in ignorance and poverty to succeed without the cooperation of all nations.

It is a melancholy journey, my leafing through the books and looking at the photographs declaring the America I once knew. And it has been my melancholy task to write some of the chronicles of that America despite such stories in so many cases reading like a fairytale. But like my critique of To Kill A Mockingbird on behalf of children, it seems a duty to do these things, both a duty and a responsibility though truth to tell I don’t know why. Just to read my largely autobiographical novel “Donnie and Jean, an angel’s story” about two children growing up in WWII Bakersfield is to step back into a time that may as well be of fabled Atlanteans. The story of the two children is true, but who can say such stories will join those of Atlantis.

“Take me to your leader” is enough to make anyone shudder at such a thing today. Not that I believe it is likely, but imagine what Bush might say to an emissary from space of such superior knowledge and intelligence during such a meeting. That image of Jack Nicholson in “Mars Attacks!” comes readily to mind. Now I grant you the film didn’t make the cut as of the quality of the really great campy B films, mostly black and white, we SciFi aficionados have come to know and love despite the effort of Jack Nicholson, but the comparison to Bush is an uneasy one.

Then too, what if Klaatu were to find Hillary in the Oval Office? The mind boggles! Perhaps it could be worse; suppose the request to see our leader should cause Klaatu winding up with Pat Robertson? “The Day the Earth Stood Still” in 1951 held a lot of us spellbound when first seeing it. We were greatly impressed with Gort and repulsed by the way things were bungled by the military and government officials, the ego and greed of that idiot betraying Klaatu with his phone call to the military authorities telling his girlfriend “You’ll feel different when you see my picture in the papers.”

But we were hopeful the scientists of the earth like Professor Barnhardt would prevail and save our planet from being “cinderized.” However, most of those in authority in the film elicited from Klaatu that great line “I’m impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it.”

For a younger generation viewing the film it would be difficult to understand how anyone could have found it entertaining let alone taken it seriously in any fashion. Nevertheless, at the time we were only six years away from the end of WWII. The atomic age had ushered in many uncertainties and fears, not to mention credulity, and there was room for a lot of imagination regarding science and things like UFOs. Hollywood certainly gave close attention to our fears, credulity, curiosity, and imagination. But having sensed a goldmine in SciFi, Hollywood would soon be producing films like “Forbidden Planet,” films that began to give some legitimate stature to the genre.

Apart from early SciFi, to view the films of the 40s during WWII is to understand Norman Rockwell’s America. Even at my age I can watch “Casablanca” and other films of the time during the war for example without wondering how we could have been so simply altruistic in our patriotism because for those of us at the time there was nothing of altruism about it. We believed in God and Country, we trusted our leaders and came together to win the war against the Axis foes. And having won that terrible war that sacrificed so many millions of innocent lives to tyrants and despots we were hopeful of a future filled with the hope that wars were now too horrible for the world to take any chance of those atomic bombs ever being used again.

But by the time of Klaatu and Gort we had begun to question many things our government was telling us and we were no longer so trusting of our leaders. We had begun to realize those in government lied; and for the most base of reasons, for power and wealth and we had begun to question stories of cover-ups in many directions. The Korean War was on, the Soviet threat was there now and these mixed with Roswell and UFOs made things quite “interesting” for us in many different ways far removed from Norman Rockwell’s America. So it can be said The Day the Earth Stood Still was timely; the film did strike a responsive chord with us, and we had begun as a society to understand Klaatu’s “I’m impatient with stupidity.” But the problem of the kind of stupidity Klaatu encountered remained and only worsened. And the tyrants and depots now have both the power and stupidity to annihilate all life on earth without Gort!

For my part I don’t want robots like Gort making the decision whether the earth should be incinerated. I wish those like Professor Barnhardt would prevail, and like him were I to meet a “Klaatu” there would be many questions for which I would want answers. But unlike Klaatu’s civilization, we earthlings have not learned to live without stupidity, not even the kind of stupidity that seems relentless in pursuing the extinction of life on earth. Gort may have been a robot, but human beings have no excuse for the kind of stupidity that may result in a nuclear Armageddon.

The efforts of those pursuing things like finding Atlantis, the efforts of so many good people striving magnificently to fill in the blanks of life and civilization, trying to uncover the meaning of ancient stone monuments and the markings in stone, peering into the universe through telescopes and marvels under microscopes, exploring ice caps and the depths of our oceans are truly wonderful, even at times heroic. But if Klaatu were to park his flying saucer in DC now, I have to suppose he would encounter an even greater fund of stupidity than that which was to be found in 1951. We have more knowledge, enough to destroy the world many times over; but wisdom is an orphan from knowledge, so much so as to equal what may well turn out to be terminal stupidity!

Maybe some of you recall a SciFi story where a scientist accidentally discovers a very simple method that if made known anyone handy with tools and chemistry could destroy the world. He is horrified that something like this should ever become common knowledge, knowing there were any number of mad persons whether of religion or politics, or simply determining in their madness all life should be wiped out that would choose to destroy the earth.

But this scientist was a homely man and had never found romance, had given up on finding a mate, and because of his introverted personality didn’t even have any friends. However, he had one love in his life; a vintage racing car upon which he lavished all his love and attention. Leaving his laboratory following his astounding and horrifying accidental discovery he went to where he parked his beloved vintage car only to find it vandalized, tires slashed, glass broken and hammer dents in the body. Pausing only long enough to mourn his loss, he immediately returned to his laboratory and began sending messages to every publication he knew including newspapers explaining in detail his horrifying discovery.

Here at my desk where I write, the sun now streams through my windows and I watch the quail, other birds and beautiful gray tree squirrels, I have several beautiful trees about my cottage here in the country and a marvelous rock garden provided by nature, and it makes me wonder all the more how world leaders can act so stupidly as to risk it all by the selfishly stupid decisions they make that put our entire planet at risk. But because of this kind of stupidity, I won’t be surprised to look through my windows sometime while writing and see that mushroom cloud rising over Los Angeles. I sadly realize there is no appeasing the bullies of Islam, and I’ve lived long enough to realize that for the wealthy in power there is never enough wealth and power to satisfy these. And I doubt Klaatu would be any more successful with the leaders in other nations than ours.

Compounding the evil men do is how entire religious organizations like the Roman Church, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others go to great length to protect those within these organizations that prey upon children, the most innocent and vulnerable of all human beings. There are the organizations like the ACLU ready to defend any and all monsters together with the growing numbers of monsters that would destroy all that do not bow to their peculiar deities and prophets; the organized systems of hatred religious and political seem on the ascendancy with no end in sight.

I don’t wonder that among my Christian friends there are those hoping Jesus will return and make things right. I don’t wonder there are those hoping Klaatu will show up and give world leaders the ultimatum “Shape up or else!” But folks, it does seem we are on our own; and that being the case, looking about even atheists may be excused for crying “God help us!”