“If kids got raped at Denny’s as often as they got raped at church, it would be illegal to take your kid to Denny’s. Trans urinators aren’t a danger to kids. Youth pastors are.” —Dan Savage
What should we come to … if political denunciation is to be turned without check against art?
God’s Rightwing Terror Turn
This post on Reddit contains a lot. But, since I have such extensive (and deplorable, destructive) insider knowledge of Bill Gothard, his cult and his cultists and their oeurve, It rang true.
None of the Gothardites is more passionate and … well, cultish than the (in)famous Quiverful Duggers. And, of course, they are chock full of pedophiles and pedophilia and outrageous stupidity and lunacy.
“Amy, now 39, was not allowed to be alone with her grandfather at any point when she was growing up in Arkansas. ‘I wondered all the time. I asked. I asked my mom, I asked my grandma, and they obviously were going to protect the answer. They didn’t want me to know that information growing up,’ she says After his death, Amy’s mom sat her down to reveal the truth, that her late relative was a ‘predator,’ as Amy labeled it in her new book. “‘I honestly did not know why until my mom and I spoke after he passed away,’ she shares. ‘But I obviously assumed. I always had assumptions as to why, but it was never spoken about. It was a little difficult, but I’m one of those people that when I was little, I asked questions, sure. But if something was told to me, I just believed it.’ “‘I was very naive, and I’m a kid, so I was like, “Okay,”‘ she continues. “I knew grandpa couldn’t go to the trampoline with me. I knew grandpa couldn’t sit and watch a movie with me. I knew grandpa couldn’t be in a car with me. I knew grandpa couldn’t take me to school. There were so many things, and I just knew that that’s how it was.
And here are the two comments I most relate to:
The sole value of organized religion — and conservatism in general — is respect for and obedience to [one’s perception of] traditionally established hierarchy, and hierarchy dictates that those on top (in-groups) are rightfully idolized and receive privileges, credibility, and resources, while those on the bottom (out-groups) are demonized/dehumanized and/or bound by restrictions, scrutiny, and lack of resources. To them, the second-greatest injustice imaginable is for those [they perceive to be] on the bottom [of social hierarchy] to have access to the rights, credibility, and resources reserved for those on top. The first greatest injustice is for those on top to be bound by the restrictions, scrutiny, and lack of resources reserved for those on the bottom. It is never the act itself that upsets them, but rather, the social standing of the person doing the act, as said act is a privilege meant for those on top of [their perceived] hierarchy. (See also: pedophilia – Trump and Catholic church vs. LGBTQ+ and drag queens) To them, children are property of their social betters, and “know your place” is their mantra. Shido_Ohtori
And:
Exactly. They don’t have morality (this or that is wrong) nor ethics (what if everyone did this?). They are not built like that. And it’s deeper than just them thinking rape is right or wrong depending on who does it to who. It’s that they can’t even conceive of any harm as a crime unless it is against a social better. They won’t see it. Violence, humiliation, rape, exploitation, coercion flow down the authoritarian’s hierarchy in a way that’s so natural, so inherent to their worldview, that it would be like noticing the air and getting mad about it. Authoritarian types don’t resort to violence to put the hierarchy back in place, the way people imagine. Violence IS the hierarchy. It’s what it’s for. It’s what it’s made of. —DaBlurstofDaBlurst
But here’s the rub: These people are now in charge of the government. And this regime is completely destroying everything we knew. It’s a new world, and it’s run by the New Apostolic Revivalists, with billionaire tech boys tagging along and exploiting it for everything it’s worth.
I’ve said many times: Trump is irrelevant and almost dead. It’s increasingly obvious that he is not in control, is not in touch with reality, is fed what he wants to hear. The government head is nominally the vice president and the real players are Larry Ellison and Peter Thiel and some assorted funders/enablers with very deep pockets.
Democracy is done in this country. We are a religious oligarchy. Among other things. Cruel, venal, irreligious, hypocritical, ultra-violent. And I’ve been along for the long, slow, ever-steeper slide, courtesy of American evangelicals.
The only question is just what happens next. I can guess.
What should we come to … if political denunciation is to be turned without check against art?
Crashing and Burning the Drumpf Shuttle
The Apostle Paul said, “Having done all, stand firm.” After a lifetime of studying German history, and having been “raised up [as a child] in the way I should go,” this is my firm stand, based upon the way I was raised, which I am not departing from, and the deep study I have made. Silence no more.
Just now in the House: Over 100 Democrats are asking for unanimous consent to protect against cuts to SNAP and Medicaid by vote of the House on record.
North Carolina’s notorious Republican Rep Virginia Foxx has the floor and refuses to relinquish it to allow a vote to eliminate from Trump’s bill cuts that will close hundreds of rural hospitals, destroy health insurance for tens of millions, close hundreds of nursing homes with our elderly left with nowhere to go, destroy care for veterans, give a massive budget to the unaccountable secret police force called ICE that is bigger than the military budgets of most other nations on earth, and cause widespread hunger and misery … for a single purpose: Tax cuts for billionaires.
This bill goes beyond cruelty. This is wickedness in high places, immorality, and is fundamentally hostile to the mission and life of Jesus Christ and the American promise. It is a continuation and expansion of our long National Sin and Shame-our tradition of concentration camps, cruelty, segregation, slavery, and genocide.
Case in point: Just a bit ago, when Jim Clyburn of South Carolina invoked his request by (paraphrasing) for this nation to follow Jesus Christ’s absolute command of us to feed the hungry and care for the sick, Foxx refused to yield and the chair ruled that invoking Christ “constituted debate and is therefore out of order and cannot be entertained.”
But yes. Let’s continue to truly believe that this administration and its empty, immoral, indecent, and anti-Christian Republican party are, indeed, true Christians.
A family member memorably told me fairly recently I could not vote for a Democrat and escape going to hell. On the contrary, I dissent: It’s my firm, unshakeable belief no one can vote for Trump or any Republican on any level, and therefore for concentration camps, masked kidnappers, and white “Christian” nationalism and codified American cruelty and escape God’s ultimate, final, eternal, fatal judgment of hell. I would add that, as smirking folks are fond of telling me, “That’s not me saying it. It’s Christ himself.”
It’s time for actual, real Christians who are committed to follow and implement Christ’s main commandment: “Love one another” … and “Whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me” to rise up, leave the cult of Trump and truly implement those Christ-given commands.
You want a Christ-centered nation? Fine. Then remember: Jeff Bezos and his handful of billionaire friends and their supporters can pass through the eye of needle easier tan they can get into heaven. You’re worshiping the wrong gods.
Here is what a true Christian nation would do right now: Supercharge Social Security to provide full retirement for anyone older than 60. Fully fund universal healthcare and remove the profit motive from it. Feed the hungry. House the homeless. Treat the mentally ill and addicted. Fully take care of all veterans. Honor honest labor with real, livable wages. Take in the oppressed of other lands, no matter their skin color. FOLLOW Christ’s commands. Period. He meant what he said and it was very plain.
Then, and ONLY then, may you call this nation “Christian”. Until then, you’re enjoying the cruelty and setting your own path to perdition. Hurting others is not what you should be about.
This is my firm appeal to friends and family who are blind to wake to your peril. This is my firm stand. What’s yours?
What should we come to … if political denunciation is to be turned without check against art?
Crashing and Burning the Drumpf Shuttle
Wilhelm Furtwangler, defending composer Paul Hindemith in November 1934, wrote he was also bringing into the open the whole question of interference by political zealots in Germany’s artistic life. ‘What should we come to … if political denunciation is to be turned without check against art?’”
See also America then and now. Answer: We are become ruined, derelict, and empty.
We have ALWAYS been this. One example among countless: The Sand Creek Massacre: “An estimated 70 to 600 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho – about two-thirds of whom were women, children, and infants – were murdered and mutilated by Col. [John] Chivington [a Methodist minister] and the volunteer troops under his command. Chivington and his men also took scalps and many other human body parts as trophies, including unborn fetuses, as well as male and female genitalia.” [Wikipedia]
Captain Silas Soule refused to attack at Sand Creek, testified against Chivington and “within three months was murdered by a soldier who had been under Chivington’s command at Sand Creek. Some believed Chivington may have been involved.”
Chivington suffered … the end of his political aspirations (oh, the poor, poor man), but nothing else and died of cancer peacefully in bed in Denver in 1894 at the ripe old age of 73, unrepentant to the very end.
Thus has it always been, with more massacres certainly to come.
The following quote so accurately pegs the U.S. of the 2020s as it did the U.S. of the 1890s. Shirer writes of Upton Sinclair’s famous and seminal work, The Jungle, regarding the Chicago and U.S. in which he was born and raised.
As I know from being a reporter (and as opposed to the myth we all had agendas), all I had to do was let someone talk and then print a transcript. They showed their moral bankruptcy or stupidity or cupidity themselves without help. This reporter has done exactly that.
While outside the Irving trial and her bio I don’t know much about her or her path here, but this reveals serious, mealy-mouthed moral bankruptcy. She’s on board with the “both sides are good people” thought school and seems to have been bought off by an American embassy in Jerusalem.
While outside the Irving trial and her bio I don’t know much about her or her path here, but this reveals serious, mealy-mouthed moral bankruptcy. She’s on board with the “both sides are good people” thought school and seems to have been bought off by an American embassy in Jerusalem.
Have to wonder how she rationalizes an administration that celebrates a white Christian nationalist pastor, Joel Webbon. As I said, just print the transcript and they eagerly reveal who they are:
“I do think that there’s some level of not all Jews, but particular Jews in positions of political power in the West, outside of Israel, not their own country, but in our country or in England or this or that, and opening the door to Muslims to come and ravage the nation. …
“So I see Muslims, not as our friends, but doing this, destroying nations. But I see Jews holding open the door.”—Joel Webbon [Right Response Ministries livestream, 21-Apr-25.] “Oh, but that beautiful embassy in Jerusalem!” <ahem>
Back to Lipstadt: Her very weak response to the American GeStaPo snatch-and-grab mass arrests of non-Jews and their “resettlement” in the south makes me wonder: Would she have, voluntarily or not, served on on one of the Judenräten in the German-occupied East?
Sadly, for me at least, she gives her answer in her own words. Makes you wonder what she said off record. She has the serious career and credentials behind her, but ghat’s all the more reason not to falter now.
While her reticence might be down to worry about threats, she HAS way more to fear from the truly antisemitic American right wing, who have for centuries put down any Jew, fellow traveller or not. She now reminds me of the character Aaron Jastrow from “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance.”
Antisemitism is wrong. Full stop. The state of Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, & the West Bank, full stop. Fascism & genocide are wrong whether perpetrated by Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Communist, atheist or my Aunt Fanny. Both the above statements are true. No gray.
“If they don’t stand for something, they will fall for anything.” — Gordon A. Eadie, 1945
When you’ve done all you know stand, then stand there, to paraphrase Ephesians, which adds that your stand should be made while wearing the whole armor of your faith—your moral compass.
It’s trite, but never again is now. So as for me and my house, I stand. Wholly and on the record, unafraid.
We can’t afford it but it’s real. Don’t forget: Ignore outrages and DJT. Focus on Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, who remind me of Eichmann and Heydrich. Read the stories not only of Oskar Schindler and The Franks, but of Corrie ten Boom and the price of providing sanctuary for undesirables. Worth every penny. Corrie’s sister and father paid with their lives. Do the right thing for the foreseeable future, but be clear on the measure of yourself and whether you are preparedto pay “the last full measure of [your] devotion” to the cause of liberty from tyranny and the blasphemy of fascism.
“Instead of “Thank you for your service,” try, “We’re sorry you had to expend your blood, sweat, tears and toil to clean up our monumental failings.” Every time you meet one of the dwindling numbers of WWII veterans (and those of all the other magnificent little American wars we’ve fallen into), keep your mouth shut and your brain focused on peace. These “Greatest Generation” folks answered the bell and won the fight. We might not be as blessed next time.”
[A repost from the 75th anniversary. Yes, the pics are graphic. Look at them. Own them. Be glad they’re in black and white.]
Dead horses on a French street. Above: Dead American on a French Beach.| National Archives
Dead Americans on a Belgian street. | National ArchivesDead Germans on a French Street. | National ArchivesDead humans at K.L. Mulhausen. | National ArchivesDead US Coast Guard sailor on the USS Menges. Every thing suffers in war. | National Archives
As the 80th anniversary of the launch of Overlord arrives, it’s important to remember that it was just part of a very big picture, the beginning of the end of World War II. Up until that point, it had been a very long, very hard slog. But afterwards you could practically see directly from the beaches of Utah, Omaha, Sword, Juno and Gold on 6-Jun-1944 to the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2-Sep-1945. The war now had its expiration date.
No one cheered harder for the faint glimpse of the end than P.o.W.s in Japan, Korea and China. A few of those had survived four years of torture, starvation, beatings, illnesses such as beri-beri and even being bombarded by their own Army Air Force; they were the survivors of Wake Island, which resisted overwhelming Japanese invasion forces between 8-Dec and 23-Dec-1941. Had it not been for Overlord and Manhattan, those men would have died. Instead, they beat the odds thanks to Truman and Ike, Normandy and Trinity. (To quote directly: “Thank God for Harry Truman and thank God for the atom bomb!”)
I always think back to 1989, when as a newspaper reporter, I was privileged to meet just 11 of the Wake Island survivors, who gathered fairly often for small-scale reunions. That year, while working as a reporter who occasionally wrote some features about WWII vets, I got a call from a friend of mine, Marie Smith, (who had kept me sane during my cursed four months while we worked at <shudder> Wal-Mart), to tell me about an upcoming gathering of Wake Island survivors and their wives at the house of her and her husband John. These people were at that point closer than family, bound forever by what happened on a tiny atoll in the middle of a vast ocean.
The article below is what I wrote at the time, but there are two caveats: First, I apparently misspelled some names. I’ve corrected this at the bottom of this post with their bios. And second, this represents nowhere near everything I was told that day. I felt like an eavesdropper, someone who could watch and hear them, but who was so far removed from their time and experience that comprehension was impossible.
In 2016, the daughter of Tony Schawang of Falls City, NE, the man into whose soybeans Braniff 250 fell in 1966, told me an anecdote about her father, who landed on Omaha Beach 75 years ago. She said she once asked him about that day and he said, “Girlie, you don’t need to know anything about that kind of thing.” He was right.
A photographer took Tony’s picture the morning after the Braniff crash. He looks shell-shocked. I could only imagine the horror of seeing 42 dead people and a crashed airliner fall to earth in front of you. But after finding out that Tony had already seen way worse in 1944 made that picture clearer, more understandable. That’s a thousand-yard stare he has in that 1966 photo. I will now always wonder if he was seeing the wreckage of Braniff 250 … or the wreckage of Omaha Beach. Or a bloody mashing together of both. (As much as I respect Mr. Schawang, as the photos above attest, I disagree. We should always know, and see, the consequences of war.)
Now that we’re older, we can understand, and value, more of the meaning and reality of all this, but those Marines and their wives (and Tony Schawang) are now gone. We can’t have conversations with them just because we’re older and wiser and can now listen to them. They’re lost to history … and we’re much the poorer for it.
What do I now know? Don’t put D-Day in service to American (or British) exceptionalism or nationalism or patriotism, and don’t “thank” a veteran for his/her “service.” Man up, grow up and face up to the reality that no one wanted to “serve” us on the cold Normandy sand. They wanted to simply survive. The hard truth is that D-Day (and Wake Island) represented a failure. A failure to confront, contain and eliminate human anger, violence, and hatred in service to nationalistic ideologies in Japan, Germany and Italy. The failure to do that consumed, between 1914 and 1945 upwards of 150 million lives around the world. WWII soldiers HAD to “serve” at Omaha Beach because WE failed to protect THEM.
Instead of “Thank you for your service,” try, “We’re sorry you had to expend your blood, sweat, tears and toil to clean up our monumental failings.” Every time you meet one of the dwindling numbers of WWII veterans (and those of all the other magnificent little American wars we’ve fallen into), keep your mouth shut and your brain focused on peace. These “Greatest Generation” folks answered the bell and won the fight. We might not be as blessed next time.
Here are the original two Wake Island articles:
Memory Of WWII Still Vivid For Vets (Part I of the Wake Island Story)
‘Considering the power accumulated for the invastion of Wake Island and the meager forces of the defenders, it was one of the most humiliating defeats the Japanese Navy ever suffered.’ —Masatake Okumiya, commander, Japanese Imperial Navy
By Steve Pollock The Duncan (OK) Banner) Sunday, August 13, 1989
MARLOW – It all came back to them this weekend – the stark terror of facing death while kneeling naked on a sandy beach the stinking hold of the prison ship; the brutality of the Japanese; the obliteration of youthful innocence.
They fought and bled for a two-and-a-half-square-mile horseshoe of an atoll in the midPacific called Wake Island. They were United States Marines and they did their duty.
There were 10 [sic] men of that Wake Island garrison at the Marlow home of John Smith this weekend. With Smith, they talked, drank and smoked their way through the weekend, laughter masking deeper emotions of brotherhood, camaraderie and painful memories.
In the Smith kitchen, their wives continued the latest of an ongoing series of therapy sessions, attempting to exorcise some of the demons of the last 44 years of their lives with the hometown heroes.
In 1941, with war inevitable, the U.S. government began construction of a series of defensive Pacific Ocean outposts, including Wake, designed to protect against Japanese aggression. They were a little late.
Little Wake atoll, with some 1,616 Marines and civilians huddled on its three islands, was attacked at noon, Dec. 8, 1941, several hours after Pearl Harbor.
The Marines knew war was possible, but “didn’t think the little brown guys had the guts to hit us,” one of them said.
Jess Nowlin’s hearing aid battery is getting a little weak as the afternoon wears on, but his memory and sense of humor are still sharp.
He said the Marines were going about their business when they heard the drone of approaching aircraft.
“We thought they were B- 17’s out of Pearl coming in to refuel. They weren’t. They broke out of a cloud bank at about 1,800 feet, bomb bay doors open. They tore us up,” Nowlin said.
The Japanese attacked from sea and air, but the Marines held out until Dec. 23; only 400 remained to defend 21 miles of shoreline from 25 warships and a fleet of aircraft. Surrender was inevitable.
Through a haze of cigarette smoke, Robert Mac Brown, a veteran not only of World War II, but of Korea and three tours of duty in Vietnam, remembers the post-surrender scene on the beach.
“We were stripped naked and they hog-tied us with our own telephone wire. A squall came through, but lasted only about 10 to 15 minutes. One of my clearest memories of the whole operation is of watching the water run down the bare back of the guy in front of me,” Brown said.
Japanese soldiers lay on the sand in front of the prisoners, swinging machine guns back and forth. The click of rounds being loaded into chambers was ominous. Fingers tightened on triggers.
“There was an argument between the landing force commander and a guy with the fleet. They screamed at each other in Japanese, arguing about whether to kill us or not,” Brown said.
The Marines made their peace and prepared to die.
The argument to make prisoners of the Marines and civilians won the day. The prisoners were allowed to grab what clothing they could to cover themselves.
And then a living hell began which would only be ended by the birth of atomic stars over southern Japan nearly four years later.
Taken off the island on small ships, the prisoners were forced to climb up the side of the Nittamaru, a former cruise ship pitching about on rough seas.
As the men walked back through the ship and down to the hold, the crew beat them with bamboo sticks, in a gauntlet of brutality.
Packed in the stinking hold, several hundred Marines and civilians had only one five-gallon bucket per deck to hold human waste. For the 14 days of the Nittamaru’s passage from Wake to Shanghai, they could barely move.
The cold of Shanghai was felt through their thin tropical khaki. It was January 1942. Robert Brown was to have married his girl on January 12. She married someone else.
“I thought you were dead,” she later told him.
From Shanghai, through Nanking, Peking, Manchuria and Pusan, Korea, the group journeyed in packed cattle cars to their eventual destination, a coal mine on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, where they dug in the shafts alongside third-generation Korean slave labor.
They were slaves themselves until August 1945.
“Thank God for Harry S. Truman and the atomic bomb,” several survivors said, as the others echoed that prayer.
They went home to heroes’ welcomes, but the public ”’never fully appreciated or understood what we did,” Nowlin said.
They’re much older now — in their 60’s and 70’s — and it was a family reunion of sorts; they claim to be closer than brothers. They don’t miss their “get-togethers” for anything in the world; Robert Haidinger traveled from San Diego with a long chest incision after recently undergoing a major operation.
As they gazed through the Oklahoma sunshine, they didn’t see the cow bam beyond the lovegrass rippling in the August breeze; it was a Japanese destroyer was steaming close in to end their lives all over again.
“It was awful, terrible; I wouldn’t have missed it for anything; you couldn’t get me to do it again for a billion dollars,” Nowlin summed it up.
The men: Tony Obre [sic], Fallbrook, Calif; Robert Haidinger, San Diego, Calif.; Robert Murphy, Thermopolis, Wyo.; Dale Milburn [sic], Santa Rosa, Calif.; George McDaniels [sic], Dallas, Texas; Jess Nowlin, Bonham, Texas; Jack Cook, Golden, Colo.; Robert Mac Brown, Phoenix, Ariz.; Jack Williamson, Lawton; Paul Cooper, Marlow, and John Smith, Marlow.
The cost of the defense of Wake Island, from Dec. 8 to 23, 1941: Americans: 46 Marines, 47 civilians, three sailors and 11 airplanes; Japanese: 5,700 men, 11 ships and 29 airplanes.
A memorial to the defenders of Wake Island, including Marine Fighter Squadron 211, stands near the command post of Maj. James Devereux, who lead the defense of the island from Dec. 8-23, 1941. On Jan. 8, 2009, approximately 60 Marines from Marine Attack Squadron 211 returned to Wake Island en route to a deployment to Iwakuni, Japan. The visit marked the first time since 1993 the bulk of the squadron, nicknamed the Wake Island Avengers after the original defenders where killed or captured by Japanese forces during the islands siege, has returned to the remote Pacific atoll. VMA-211 is based in Yuma, Ariz. (Photo by Gunnery Sgt. Bill Lisbon)
Wives Cope With Husband’s Memories (Part II of the Wake Island Story)
By Steve Pollock The Duncan (OK) Banner Sunday, August 13, 1989
MARLOW – It all came back to them this weekend – fists lashing out during nightmares, the traumatic memories, the attempts to catch up on lost time.
The wives of 10 Wake Island survivors met in Marlow with their husbands this weekend for reasons of their own.
“We go through therapy every time we get together. We help each other with problems,” they said.
The wives: Florence Haidinger, Maxine Murphy, Opal Milburn [sic], Irene McDaniels [sic], Sarah Nowlin, Betty Cook, Millie Brown, Jo Williamson, Juanita Cooper and Marie Smith.
They did their own bit during World War II: The Red Cross, an airplane factory in Detroit, North American Aviation in El Segundo, Calif, Douglas in Los Angeles, the Kress dime store.
They married their men after the long national nightmare was finished, and their lives became entwined by one event: the Japanese attack on Wake Island Dec. 8-23,1941.
Since the first reunion of Wake survivors and their spouses in 1953, these women have been like sisters.
“We love each other, we’re closer than family,” Jo Williamson said.
In Marie Smith’s kitchen, therapy was doled out in a catharsis of talk little different from that of the men gathered on the patio. Talk is said to be good for the soul; these women heal great tears in theirs every time they see each other.
According to the wives, the men came home from the war, married, had children and tried to pick up where they left off.
They wanted to take care of their families and try to catch up. They were robbed of the fun times of their late teens and early 20’s, the women unanimously agree.
“They have also lived every day as if it were their last,” Sarah Nowlin said.
The men needed some help after their harrowing battle and brutal three -and-a-half-year captivity.
According to the women, doctors never realized therapy was in order: “They never got anything.”
One man lashed out with his fists during nightmares; after a few pops, his wife learned to leave the room. Another would slide out of bed and assume a rigid posture on the floor, arms and legs folded. Yet they have all been gentle men.
“I’ve never seen my husband harm or even verbally abuse anyone,” a wife said Reunions such as this help the men and women deal with life as they age. The youths of 16-22 are now grandfathers and grandmothers in their 60’s and 70’s.
Life today is a bit baffling to them.
Extremely proud of their men, the women have no patience with draft dodgers, flag burners, Japanese cars or foreign ownership of America.
They didn’t agree with the Vietnam war policy, but duty to country should have come first, they said.
“I didn’t want my son to go to Vietnam, but I would have been ashamed of him if he hadn’t,” one said.
The issue of flag burning stirs violent protest and emotion in the group: “Made in America”’ labels are on everything they buy.
And the younger generation does not enjoy the women’s confidence: “I don’t think they could do what we were all called on to do,” they agreed.
And as Marlow afternoon shadows grew longer, the women of Wake continued to cleanse their souls.
Updated bios (confirmed via findagrave.com):
• Cpl. Robert Mac Brown, USMC, Phoenix, AZ. Birth: 1-Feb-1918. Death: 21-Sep-2002 (age 84). Buried: Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA.
• Sgt. Jack Beasom Cook, USMC, Golden, CO.
Birth: 18-Jun-1918, Okmulgee, OK.
Death: 20-Nov-1999 (age 81).
Buried: Fort Logan National Cemetery, Denver, CO.
• Sgt. Paul Carlton Cooper, USMC, Marlow, OK.
Birth: 30-Oct-1918, Richardson, TX.
Death: 18-Sep-1994 (age 75), Marlow, OK.
Buried: Marlow Cemetery, Marlow, OK.
• Cpl. Robert Fernand Haidinger, USMC, San Diego, CA. Birth: 24-Nov-1918, Chicago, IL. Death: 7-Mar-2014 (age 95). Buried: Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, CA.
• PFC Robert Bruce “Bob” Murphy, USMC, Thermopolis, WY. Birth: 5-Oct-1920, Thermopolis, WY. Death: 5-Feb-2007 (age 86), Hot Springs County, WY. Buried: Monument Hill Cemetery, Thermopolis, WY.
• Pvt. Ival Dale Milbourn, USMC, Phoenix, AZ.
Birth: 23-Jul-1922, Saint Joseph, MO.
Death: 18-Dec-2001 (age 79), Mesa, AZ.
Buried: Skylawn Memorial Park, San Mateo, CA.
• PFC George Washington “Dub” McDaniel, Dallas, TX.
Birth: 23-Dec-1915, Stigler, OK.
Death: 14-Jul-1993 (age 77).
Buried: Stigler Cemetery, Stigler, OK.
• MSgt. Tony Theodule Oubre, USMC (ret.), Fallbrook, CA. Birth: 17-Aug-1919, Loreauville, Iberia Parish, LA. Death: 7-Feb-2005 (age 85). Buried: Riverside National Cemetery, Riverside, CA.
• Pvt. John Clarence Smith, Marlow, OK. Birth: 11-Mar-1918. Death: 19-Jan-1994 (age 75). Buried: Marlow Cemetery, Marlow, OK.
• Sgt. Jack Russell “Rusty” Williamson, Jr., USMC, Lawton, OK. Birth: 26-Jul-1919, Lawton, OK. Death: 12-Jul-1996 (age 76). Buried: Highland Cemetery, Lawton, OK.
The wives (I couldn’t confirm the details for all of them):
• Juanita Belle Sehested Cooper
Birth: 5-Dec-1920, Marlow, OK.
Death: 28-Jul-2001 (age 80), Beaverton, OR.
Buried: Marlow Cemetery, Marlow, OK.
• Florence A Haidinger
Birth: 31-Dec-1934.
Death: 26-Sep-2014 (age 79).
Buried: Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, CA.
“To me, as a gay boy, hugging another boy was perfectly natural. It always has been, it always will be. I always felt instinctively somehow that people would disapprove and say I was naughty. And I always felt instinctively that I knew what I wanted and I was going to have it and all those disapproving people could just go suck eggs and pound sand. Even at the height of the worst spiritual and sexual repression that Oklahoma and its churches could dole out, my inner belief has always been the same. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve known who I am and what I wanted since I was at least five. And everyone else who is not onboard with that can go over Niagra Falls without a barrel.”
21-Apr-64
Interviewer: So, tell me your story.
Steve: I was born in Roswell, New Mexico, one cold Saturday morning in December 1963. I lived in Roswell and Clovis, spent my teens and twenties in Duncan, OK <involuntary shudder>, and then lived in Dallas, TX; Pleasant Hill, CA; Highlands Ranch, CO; San Francisco, CA; Ann Arbor, MI; Brentwood, CA; and Nashville, TN. I was blessed with decades with the love of my life. I was a mensware salesman, a reporter and PR director, a run-of-the-mill temp, an internal communications manager, a substitute teacher, an author, a regular elementary teacher, a jack of all trades, a master of none. Then I died. What’s to know?
Int: It sounds like an entry in one of those old city telephone guides, you know, the ones like “City of Roswell, NM, 1966: 1616 W. Juniper 88201. Pollock, Marion E., service station mgr.; Janis W, bus driver, custodian; children Kathy, 10, Vicky, 8, Steven, 3. 505-623-1354.
S: Perhaps.
Int: There’s always more to the biographical entry. Even as biography, it’s rather skimpy.
S: Fine. How’s this: My mother went into labor at 2 a.m. on a Satuday morning, Dec. 14, 1963. Everything was closed on a cold winter night. They hustled my sisters over to my near-by aunt’s house, then headed for the hospital, Eastern New Mexico Medical Center, where a future actress who would be named Demi Moore had just been born the month before.
They didn’t really want the Catholic Poor Clare Nuns at St. Mary’s on the south edge of town to deliver a bouncing baby white Protestant boy and have him lie in a nursery sprinkled with Papist holy water surrounded by what my grandparents always called, “Mescans”—a deliberate slur, both literal and figurative, an all around great word for them and their purpose. Catholics were Mescans, Mescans were Catholics. If you went to St. Peter and Paul’s, you were Mescan. You went to the First Church of the Nazarene, you were good Christian white people destined to conquer heaven and have its fruits and riches yours forever and ever amen. The attitude when they moved from Oklahoma where negroes were to be found to New Mexico where there were few and far between negroes, but Mexicans abounded simply shifted their racism from black to brown. “We can’t say ‘nigger’ no more? Fine, we don’t need ‘nigger’ around here anyway, they ain’t that much of them here. But we got lots of Mescans. Wetbacks. Illegals. Mescans steal. Mescans lie. Mescans are pestilential. Somebody gets shot in Roswell, a Mescan done it. We keep loaded pistols under our pillows in case a wetback comes bustin’ through the front door. Thank god for Jesus and the NRA and Sig Sauer 9mms!”
[Can you see a theme, perhaps a thread, that will run through some of my family encounters? Let’s clear this up first. I quote racists. I don’t share their views. Even if they are among the people who created my existence. It doesn’t fly with me. Never has. How my grandparents and parents approached issues of race and sexuality will pop up here unexpectedly like this throughout.]
So about my debut. 2 a.m. I’m screaming (stupid idiot that I was) that it was time to get the hell out of this vag and never, ever, never acquaint myself with one in a personal way ever again. Dad fumbles for some matches. Probably ice on the road, he’s driving with a finger while trying to light his 900th Lucky Strike of the day. He doesn’t have any matches left. She sighs and orders him to turn around and go to the house and get some. Nothing open at 2 a.m. in Roswell, NM, USA, during the deep dark nights of December 1963. So he turns around, grabs some matches, starts the drive back to the hospital.
ENMMC is up in the swankier northern end of town. The fashionable side, not like the ugly, poor Catholic side with all the Mescans. ENMMC is located on West Country Club Road, just off North Main Street. I was BORN on Country Club, motherfuckers and don’t forget it.
So, let’s see … 2 a.m. labor, time of arrival, 06:12 a.m.
Basically the story is that thanks to America’s tobacco companies, their addictive drugs within deadly products, two things were fated for me: One, to almost have been born in the back of the family 1958 Rambler station wagon. Two, to make sure that Dad dies of COPD and heart failure, his body destroyed just as he crosses the 80-year mark.
So, see what I mean? Boring. As. Fucking. Hell.
I: Let us and our readers be the judge of that.
S: Great. Editors and the “people” … fine, I’m sure everything will be just peachy. Go on?
I: For now, if you’re not too tired.
S: Fine. There were years of attending exhausting get-togethers at the Roswell First Church of the Nazarene, W. Eighth Street. I can still taste the sloppy joes from the kitchen in the “family center” (gym). Mom was invited to a service there in 1952 by one of the extended family cousins. She prayed the prayer and joined. And believed, at least, that is until about 1976, when her everlasting war with her oldest daughter shifted into high and serious and everlasting gear.
We moved to the ancestral home of Duncan, OK, in 1974. After a couple of years, the oldest sister rebelled against the “not-with-it-ness” of the Church of the Nazarene. There also weren’t enough husbands on the hoof at the small church in Duncan we attended. She and the more malleable middle sister decamped for the holy rollers. Mom muttered something about slowly changing herself, and promptly dragged me off to the a place that called itself “Gospel Beams” church. A perfectly cromulent word, but in that context … odd and weird. It wasn’t “First Church of the Whatever,” or “Fir Street Baptist,” it was …. Gospel. Frickin’. Beams.
I suffered so many indignities there. For starters, I didn’t buy the bullshit. Here was my 12-year-old self’s perspective: On one Sunday, I’m going to Oak Avenue Church of the Nazarene, the exact church my dad’s grandmother and her twin sister had propped up for decades, and in which my parents had been married. Wherein there was a disapproving Chuch Lady, predating Dana Carvey’s performance on Saturday Night Live by years, named Mary Mahan (isn’t that a perfect name for smarmy self-righteous Sunday School teachers who conduct warfare on teenage girls who have the temerity to wear not just pants, but horrors! Blue. Jeans. when they are to be seen in the public square. The Church Lady had, of course, her Church Man complement but who wasn’t her husband, the preacher. Charles Stroud meant well, I’m sure, but he agreed with Church Lady and was just as conservative and NOT WITH IT to my sisters, one of whom at that point was about to be a senior in high school, and the other was out of school and doing nursing and office work. And this in 1975-76, a supposedly freer and happier time.
Come one Sunday morning Oldest Sister sits in parking lot of Hypocritical, Self-Righteous and Husband-Material-poor Church, where had sat our ancesters in the pews, still sprinkled with the rice from our parents wedding. They talk it over. Sister 1 says she just can’t bring herself to go in that place ever again. (She didn’t … it burned down in 2009, surely a sign of the removal of God’s blessing if there ever was one.) Sister 2 agrees, but she has other more nefarious plans afoot. They pull out of the parking lot and head to the east side of town, the locale, ‘mongst the poor Rednecks living near the original Chisholm Trail, of Gospel. Frickin’ Beams. They’ll get married there. Husbands on the hoof are far, far more plentiful.
Meanwhile back at the Church of the Nazarene, we get a spiffy little sermon. Follow me here. This is quite crucial to my future. The sermon runs like this: “Speaking in tongues is evidence of demonic possession!!!” <Amens, claps, whistles, “Kill the Devil!” Great-grandma shouts from the grave>.
Fast forward a week later. Mother’s heart has been burdened (poor Mother) with the information given her by the Holy Spirit, who at certain propitious moments in my life has acted more like Mercury, the winged god of speed and messenger boys everywhere, than a sober, deliberative, slow-moving force. So this time, the message is, “Oldest Daughter shouldn’t be defying your religious authority woman! Do something!”
Mother does. She immediately yanks me out of the Church of the Nazarene, where, remember, I’ve just been told on the authority of the church into which I was born and raised and had memorized the 1960 Church Manual so I could know how to perform weddings and funerals because … get this … I thought I would become a Church of the Nazarene preacher, [HA!] and had informed Mother of this when I was about 11.
Given a choice about which church to attend would have been lovely. Alas, it was not to be. I was the young, stupid child who couldn’t possibly be trusted to know what was good for him. So, after one hour of being exposed to “Gospel Beams”’ … shall we say, bizarreness and cultish overtones … I’m confident I would have scurried back underneath the skirts of the mother church (of the Nazarene), even if those skirts did belong to a pants-hating biddy who had a hand in every Oak Avenue C of the N pie.
But I wasn’t given a choice. Remember the previous sermon, supposedly delivered by a stern god to church leaders possessed of “utter sanctification” and who are therefore qualified to speak on subjects most weighty: “Speaking in tongues is evidence of demonic possession!”
I was 11. Puberty was dawning. Teenage outrage, hatred of hypocrisy, self-righteousness, inflated sense of injustice, and general all-around questioning and boundary-pushing are imminent.
The next Sunday, we don’t hightail it over to the other side of town with the sanctified who hate devilish tongue-speaking. Instead, we head straight for “Gospel Beams.” “We’re going here from now on,” says Mummie Dearest.
What happened? Well, last week the church of my birth told me speaking in tongues is evidence of demonic possession. This week at “Gospel Beams”? FRICKIN’ HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH POPE PAUL VI AND ALL THE SAINTS AND DEAR GOD WHY ARE THESE WOMEN DRESSED IN EXPENSIVE ULTRASUEDE DRESSES RUNNING UP AND DOWN THE AISLES SCREAMING THEIR FOOL HEADS OFF???!!!!!
Then: The kicker. If I am to understand through the gibberish, the complete lack of any catechism, any order of service, regular communion or a multitude of things, there is one clear message: If you do NOT speak in tongues, God is withholding His greatest blessing from you and therefore there was something wrong with you if you didn’t immediately babble in “the presence of the Lord.”
In other words, NOT speaking in tongues was evidence of God withholding his favorite gift from you and therefore you opening yourself up to … you guessed it, demonic possession.
It was perfect. This nonsense lasted for next six (!) years until I got a car and a paper route with lots of Sunday morning deliveries to make, and therefore could make my mumbled excuses of “having to work on Sunday mornings” and thus avoid “Gospel Beams” like the plague.
Admittedly, this was convenient. How many times can you watch emotionally and physically repressed women have the greatest outbursts and then run up and down the aisles screaming, with tragic stains of tears spotting their impeccably tailored UltraSuede outfits?
It was the only time in their lives where they could say anything in their gobbledy language and get away with it. They could have been calling their husbands “black holes of emotional needs with cocks the size of pencil erasers”; they could have been yelling about how the very church around them was suffocating all of us, burying us in a cloying smell of death and fear and weird ritual “call and response” exercises, all done up in a format that claimed that the Holy Spirit was in charge of the church bulletin’s list of the order of the service; He and He alone decided which songs to sing, which verses to recite, whether to let the congregation leave before 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon because the pot roast would burn or whether to just meld it with the 6 p.m. service, which had it’s own weird rituals.
Namely: In that evening Sunday service, one went into the church at 6 p.m., sang some choruses the music for which hadn’t been written down; instead, the music dwelled in the brain of the church organist and music director. This system relied on obscure verses to provide lyrics to songs. If you were a newcomer, well, tough shit. You should just KNOW the tune to Psalm 63:3-4: “Thy lovingkindness is better than life. Thy lovingkindness is better than life. Thus will I bless thee, while I live; I will lift up my hands unto they name.”
The choruses, and many other things, will come upon you stealthily. Some day, you’ll stand and belt out, “They lovingkindness is better than life.” with the best of them. And you won’t have to look up the text to Psalm 63:3-4 in the King James.
After the choruses were sung from memory, there would be the show stopper. It was time for the crowd to “testify.” They would get up (as the Spirit moved them to jump) and they would testify: “I thought about that lady in the cubicle next to mine at Halliburton and how she wore that black dress to work on Tuesday and I also thought of about 18 different things I would do to her if I weren’t shackled to the ol’ ball-and-chain and if the sexy lady didn’t think I was a toad with three heads. But the Lord spoke to me and said, “Hey dumbass! You’re married under solemn holy vows and cannot think with your cock anymore, so put it away!” and He saved me right then and there from committing the grave sin of dissing my wife who hasn’t put out since 1957!” And so on.
But “Testify Time” often came with a built-in hazard that almost every Sunday hoisted the Beams of the Gospel by its own petard. The idea was that anyone could speak as the Spirit moved them. But the fatal flaw was that “Testify Time” could be easily hijacked by someone claiming to be moved. And the beauty of that was that no one else could stop him ’cause then they’d be speaking against the mysterious ways and movings of the Lord!
This always led to a brilliant, albeit stultifying, interlude every Sunday night. And some Sunday mornings. See, this dude named Joe Who-Wanted-Desperately-to-be-a-Preacher would get up and start to speak spontaneously and randomly and boringly about … God alone can remember what. Joe Who-Wanted-Desperately-to-be-a-Preacher tried all the words and phrases and everything, but … dear lord, he just wasn’t good. He did NOT have the showmanship, the theatricality, the ability to get Ultra Suede-ed women screaming in tongues, of the father-son team that pastored that church.
So Joe Who-Wanted-Desperately-to-be-a-Preacher always brought the place to a standstill. People would get bored. Some would drift away thinking, “I gotta get up at 6 a.m. to go to work, I can’t sit here all night! Don’t judge me!” The organist would sigh and eventually close her hymn book and leave the stage. I would engage in an hour-long seesaw between fighting off sleep and wondering if I did those goddamn Algebra problems in my homework. The relatives would later tut-tut and cluck-cluck about Joe Who-Wanted-Desperately-to-be-a-Preacher and his Showstopping Show. And I would always wonder, “What are you bitching for? He’s perfect for that place and it’s crazy rituals! They’re both bizarre, rambling, byzantine, stultifying, yawn-inducing, and completely ridiculous!” And I would always keep those opinions to myself.
Invariably, by 7:30 or so, even Mom would give up and give the signal and THANK YOU JESUS we could leave. The evening was over, I was a little over an hour from bedtime with school the next day during half the year, and only a little light left out during the rest of the year, so the evening was always ruined completely. Until I was 16, got some wheels and started working a little, and therefore had built in excuses, Sunday nights were the most miserable time of my entire existence. Thank god for K-Mart; when I started working there at 17, I had to often work Sunday afternoons from 12-6. Church started at 6, leaving me to drive myself straight home. Oh, the glorious freedom!!! Money, wheels and a Get-Out-of-Church-Free card!!!
Rapture. [Get it? Rapture? See what I did there?]
S: Fun religion-related fact: Sister #2’s extensive geneology research uncovered the origins of the Pollock clan in Scotland at the House of Pollok near Glasgow. In the house is a lovely, very faggy portrait of the Duke of Buckingham, in the full froppery of the age. The story is that King James was a complete fag: a fanny pounder, an ass bandit, an artist, funny, confirmed bachelor who managed to fuck enough to produce some offspring … in otherwords, a light-in-the-loafers Mary, Friend of Dorothy, honest-to-god poofter Mariçon fanny bandit bugger poofter pansy fruitcake Uranian Nancy Boy who is also a pillow biter and shirt lifter, Molly/Maryann, cocksucking, ass fucking, limp-wristed Son or Daughter of Bilitis, who just happened to be the King (and queen) of England when the most famous post-Reformation English translation of the Bible was put together … and then dedicated to … His Pansyness.
I can even remember the start of the dedication to the King James Version of the Bible. It is a translation which inexplicably remains sacred and inviolate to millions of Americans who believe that all other translations are the Devil’s Work—especially that 1960s New International Version, which was authored, obviously, by Satan in a futile attempt to tempt you away from the KJV, the One True Bible. Never mind that the KJV is the one translation commissioned by the biggest fruit and nut to hold the British Throne since King Edward II, a poofter whose poof hole was made poofier with red hot pokers and thus he expired. That is, the biggest fruit and nut until at least, oh, Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson. Yes, I’m well aware they are prime ministers. It’s just that the British throne is no longer occupied by monarchs. The actual Queen (and whatever king succeeds her) has no power and prefers to remain well above sordid political affrays. At the moment, in fact, she is having nothing at all to do with the nasty, muddly mess of Brexit, and wishes to keep herself and the Royal Corgis (who possess more brains than all the prime ministers of the last 75 years put together) clean and well above the fray of sordid power wielding.
Ahem.
Sorry.
Fair warning: There will now be an incredibly long, massive digression. Feel free to skip ahead over the following King James Bible bit. I always did growing up; you should have the same privilege.
I said I clearly remember the KJV dedicatory. If you’ve never had the privilege of growing up in a true, Bible (KJV)-believing household, here’s your chance to get a feel for what it’s like.
The dedicatory is the way the holy priests of the church decided to flatter their fluttery sovereign: They gave him his new Bible and wrote him the most fawning letter in recorded history. This flattery of the fluttery King James is peerless. It took them longer to think of this short paragraph than it did to translate the whole book. And if you’ve ever read the book of Numbers, you KNOW how long it must have taken.
This introductory bit of the monks were so far up His Nibs ass that they could see out his nose. It is officially known as “The Epistle Dedicatory.” It was included in almost every KJV Bible until the latter part of the Twentieth Century.
An aside: Of COURSE!!!!! the Dedicatory was eliminated out of Satanic, Popish ignorance and dishonesty and thus “distorts the intent of the preparers … hides the flavor and meaning of the time in which it was prepared, and presumes that we know better than the preparers. It also changes history by withholding vital historical information,” says the New Albany-Louisville Bible Students Ecclesia. Which appears, interestingly enough, to be an … organization, shall we say … dedicated to pure things such as Gay King James’ Very Own Bible.
The comment quoted above is followed by a longish screed against erasing history and goes on rather tiringly about the scourge of political correctness (quelle horreur!). They end their rant with “We are not critical [underlined not critical] of Catholics! We are critical of Catholic doctrine. The distinction is ENORMOUS!”
Insert “blacks” and “black culture” for Catholics and what do you have? “We are not critical of Black people! We are critical of Black culture. The distinction is ENORMOUS!” “I don’t have anything against blacks, but I just hate Rap, welfare and breeding like bunnies!”
And you can play this white, cis, heteronormative, privileged, etc., game with any group from history: “We are not critical of Jews! We are critical of Jewish culture. The distinction is ENORMOUS!” “We are not critical of Gays! We are critical of Gay culture. The distinction is ENORMOUS!” “We are not critical of Mescans! We are critical of Mescan culture. The distinction is ENORMOUS!”
<AHEM> Sorry for the digression from the digression. Back to the main digression:
“The Epistle Dedicatory’ [Gird your loins, girls, it’s gonna be a long read. My pithy, snarky, sarcastic comments attempting to spice up this lickspittle fawning are in brackets.]
“TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY PRINCE [Get HER!], JAMES, by the Grace of God [and Elizabeth’s shriveled up ovaries], KING OF GREAT BRITAIN [until the Twenty-teens Brexit fiasco], FRANCE [“I fart in your general direction”], AND IRELAND [As if! He wishes!], DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, etc. [Yadda yadda yabba doo] The Translators of the Bible [groveling in the mud] wish Grace [Definition: “Unmerited divine assistance …” “unmerited” certainly fits the description], Mercy [“compassion or forbearance.” Question: Was a man who could have someone beheaded at a gesture capable of being particularly compassionate?], and Peace [oh good lord, the man waged wars right and left and north and west] through JESUS CHRIST [whoa, all caps, don’t shout, my dear monks] our Lord [finally, the end of the sentence].
“(1) Great and manifold were the blessings [We kicked in the teeth of the Welsh and a chicken showed up in our pot, miraculously!], most dread Sovereign [the man called his male lover his “wife” and indulged in very quite un-Dread-Sovereign-like activities], which Almighty God, the Father of all mercies, [who could mercifully strike us down and end this nasty, brutish and short existence—now THAT would be true mercy!] bestowed upon us the people of England, when first he sent Your Majesty’s Royal Person to rule and reign over us [Sorry, that was due to the Scots … and to Henry VII the usurper of Bosworth, and to Elizabeth I’s shriveled up womb, and to other strange oddities of history, but whatevs, good monks].
For whereas it was the expectation of many [oh, the foolish Many with their expectations!], who wished not well unto our Sion [“He’s a faggy Scot! Of course we don’t wish him well!” said the Many], that upon the settling of that bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth of most happy memory [she of the most happy, arsenic-laced, white-ass makup], some thick and palpable clouds of darkness would so have overshadowed this Land [you mean Boris Johnson was floatin’ around the Strand back then too?!], that men should have been in doubt which way they were to walk [to the altar? to the nearest other man? what to do?!]; and it should hardly be known, who was to direct the unsettled State [wherein there had just been Much Slaughter: Catholic by Protestant, Cavalier by Roundhead, sluts by wrothful fathers, and WITCHES by everyone]; the appearance of Your Majesty, as of the Sun in his strength, instantly dispelled those supposed and surmised mists, and gave unto all that were well affected exceeding cause of comfort [“NOW is the Winter of Our Discontent made Glorious Summer by this Son of York! And all the clouds that low’r’d upon our house, In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visaged war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front; And now, instead of mounting barded steeds, To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber, To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.” C’mon, boys, you totally stole all this from frickin’ Shakespeare!]; especially when we beheld the Government established in Your Highness [No Papists or Demoncrats in Your Ministries, no sirree odds bodkins!], and Your hopeful Seed, [Well, now about that seed … something quite wild shall happen with that unhappy seed, but we won’t tell these monks; let ’em be surprised] by an undoubted Title, and this also accompanied with peace and tranquility at home and abroad. [“Undoubted Title” traced all the way back to Edward the Black Prince, we swear! Also, yay, peace and tranquility at home and abroad! Now let’s go burn witches and slay some Spaniards! Also the Dutch! Kill the Dutch!]
“(2) But among all our joys, there was no one that more filled our hearts, than the blessed continuance of the preaching of God’s sacred Word among us; which is that inestimable treasure, which excelleth all the riches of the earth; [Quick, can you esteemed bros name the 33rd chapter of the Book Ezekiel, verses 15-20? No? Anyone?] because the fruit [heh—they said, “Fruit” when writing about James the Light Loafered!] thereof extendeth itself, not only to the time spent in this transitory world, but directeth and disposeth men unto that eternal happiness which is above in heaven. [Nothing but misery here on earth is possible; you must die in agony and obedience to an perhaps invisible spaghetti monster in order to have mansions and True Happiness(tm) in the next world, which we totally swear exists and where there shall be no Papist witches of any kind. Also, no gophers. We hate gophers ]
“(3) Then not to suffer this to fall to the ground, but rather to take it up, and to continue it in that state, wherein the famous Predecessor of Your Highness [The Virgin Ice Queen Elizabeth I, if you’re keeping score] did leave it: nay, to go forward with the confidence and resolution of a Man [And oh, what a Man Jamesy was!] in maintaining the truth of Christ, and propagating it far and near, [and boy do we know how proper non-Papist Christians can propagate themselves far and near] is that which hath so bound and firmly knit the hearts of all Your Majesty’s loyal [Loyal? Ding-dong! It’s Guy Fawkes at the door and he wishes a word with you!] and religious people unto You, that Your very name is precious among them [as it still is among King-James-Version-of-the-Bible-ONLY folks in His Majesty’s former colonies]: their eye doth behold You with comfort, and they bless You in their hearts, as that sanctified Person who, under God, is the immediate Author of their true happiness [He spread his gay-ity far and near and made EVERYone happy!].
And this their contentment doth not diminish or decay, but every day increaseth and taketh strength, when they observe, that the zeal of Your Majesty toward the house of God doth not slack or go backward, but is more and more kindled [okay, now this is all sounding just plain naughty-naughty, you cloistered bro-bros!], manifesting itself abroad in the farthest parts of Christendom, by writing in defence of the Truth, (which hath given such a blow unto that man of sin, as will not be healed,) [James is writing Truth-defending tracts! Take that, Satan!] and every day at home, by religious and learned discourse, by frequenting the house of God, by hearing the Word preached, by cherishing the Teachers thereof, by caring for the Church, as a most tender and loving nursing Father [that loving Father who goes to church every time the doors are open when he’d rather be back at the castle playing ring-around-the-bedstead with his wife, the Duke of Bedford, and who pays for those church doors out of his dwindling purse, (God smack Elizabeth in her pancake-madeup face for spending all that money on ships) and who suffers through many sermons about the perils of the bare female ankle <yawn> and the heartbreaking, sinful evil of teaching peasants to read].
“(4) There are infinite [seems a bit hyperbolic] arguments of this right Christian and religious affection in Your Majesty; but none is more forcible to declare it to others than the vehement and perpetuated desire of accomplishing and publishing of this work, which now with all humility we present unto Your Majesty. [We worked DAMN hard to do this for your Royal Gayness, so you DAMN well better appreciate it … er, if it please Your Grace!] For when Your Highness had once out of deep judgment apprehended how convenient it was, that out of the Original Sacred Tongues, together with comparing of the labours, both in our own, and other foreign Languages, of many worthy men who went before us, there should be one more exact Translation of the holy Scriptures into the English Tongue; [Good, plain, white, Anglo-Saxon English, as it should be, not in those dirty Jew, brown-skinned Aramaic and oily Greek languages, no sir!] Your Majesty did never desist to urge and to excite those to whom it was commended, that the work might be hastened, [“So, Abbot, can you have your bros draw like, 100, capital letters a day so we can get this done in my lifetime, huh? 100 a day, don’t leave out the naughty bits in Song of Solomon and chop-chop, there’s a good lad, or We’ll chop-chop your head!”] and that the business might be expedited in so decent a manner, as a matter of such importance might justly require. [Tote that barge! Life that bale! Or get Thine scribbling ass in jail!]
“(5) And, now at last, by the mercy of God, and the continuance of our labours, [but mostly our labours, ’cause we didn’t see no finger of God coming out of the clouds above Canterbury inking no thee’s, thine’s, thy’s and begat’s … oh, dear God, all the begats that we had to write!] it being brought unto such a conclusion, as that we have great hopes that the Church of England shall reap good fruit thereby [good fruit coming from a book dedicated to a good fruit! These just write themselves]; we hold it our duty to offer it to Your Majesty, not only as to our King and Sovereign, but as to the principal Mover and Author of the work [thanks for all the lashings and breads-and-waterings!]: humbly craving of Your most Sacred Majesty, that since things of this quality have ever been subject to the censures of ill meaning and discontented persons [unless you send us some troops to protect us after this, these ignorant Papist hayseeds around here are gonna try to burn us at the stake], it may receive approbation and patronage from so learned and judicious a Prince as Your Highness is [again, we’ll need some troops and firefighters, which you just have to send because this was all your idea and now the Papists are all pissed at us], whose allowance and acceptance of our labours shall more honour and encourage us, than all the calumniations and hard interpretations of other men shall dismay us. [The same calumnarious men, in fact, who are going to cut off your son’s head so cleanly in 1648.] So that if, on the one side, we shall be traduced by Popish Persons [Catholics! Shudder! The horror! Also, don’t you just LOVE them actually writing “Popish Persons” unironically and all that?] at home or abroad, who therefore will malign us, because we are poor instruments to make God’s holy Truth to be yet more and more known unto the people, whom they desire still to keep in ignorance and darkness [Popish plots to keep the masses ignorant! They’re different than our plots to keep the masses ignorant because the Pope is the Beast (see Revelation, re: the Beast) and only we are true Christians!]; or if, on the other side, we shall be maligned by self-conceited Brethren, who run their own ways, and give liking unto noting, but what is framed by themselves, and hammered on their anvil [Oh, that conceited bishop over there in Lincoln or somewhere, we know his kind! He thinks he knows everything, the mary!]; we may rest secure supported within by the truth and innocency of a good conscience, having walked the ways of simplicity and integrity, as before the Lord [the Bishop of Lincoln wears pink bloomers under his red stole and reeks of Chanel No. 5! We only wear hair shirts and the manly, simple scents of our own unwashed bodies!]; and sustained without by the powerful protection of Your Majesty’s grace and favour [Again we ask: Having made us do this book thing, which took like 20 million man-hours and enough ink to stain the North Sea purple for centuries, you WILL protect us from egotistical bishops and Popist Poopheads, won’t you? Please?], which will ever give countenance to honest and Christian endeavours against bitter censures and uncharitable imputations [and burnings at the stake for buggery and witchery and encouraging the plebes to learn to read].
“(6) The Lord of heaven and earth bless Your Majesty with many and happy days [21,466 days, to be exact, if you’re curious], that, as his heavenly hand hath enriched Your Highness with many singular and extraordinary graces [yeah, his “graces” included dressing in silk frocks and playing “hide the tarse in the furse”], so You may be the wonder of the world in this latter age for happiness and true felicity, to the honour of that great God, and the good of his Church, through Jesus Christ our Lord and only Saviour.” [Dear great God, his church, Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the prophets and saints, you monkly bros were long winded! It was like that long-winded inauguration address by William Henry Harrison, who ranted on for two hours in a cold rain and caught his death of pneumonia or typhus or both and died after 31 cough-filled days as President. Dedication?! It takes dedication to even read one convoluted phrase! Ahem. Amen!]
—Epistol Dedicatory, King James Version, Holy Bible, 1611
That’s some fawning, long-ass shit, huh? Geezus H. Bro monk noses were so far up His Nibs’ ass, he looked around and said, “Is that you, Buckingham?” But yes, I just adore the fact that all this time the fundies have insisted on the King James version being the One, Only and True Bible, they’ve been worshipping with something created for a big, ol’, fuh-laming faggot. Delicious irony does indeed exist in the world.
I: That was quite a digression. Long-winded much? Um. Sorry. Any chance we might get back on track? Say, perhaps, to the 1960s when you were but a wee lad in Roswell?
S: Sure. Why not. In fact, let’s go back farther and note some genealogy, shall we? Welllll, speaking of dead relatives, I recently found out a juicy little tidbit that scrambled my bacon. It’s not a DNA test that revealed I was … somebody else’s child or something … but. I got an email from familysearch.org. You know them, that’s the exhaustive genealogy repository presided over by the Mormons so they can posthumously baptize you and all your forebears and Anne Frank and Popes John Paul I and II as Totally We Swear Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Now, I normally ignore them but looked at this e-mail because they had a bunch of marriage records of the line of me great-grandparents. One was for James Holmes, who my sister has documented as being part of our family, and who was married to … Sarah Sally Donelson. Oh lordy. Yup, as in her daddy was John Donelson, as in Donelson, TN, as in the co-founder of Nashville, as in the owner of the Clover Bottom Plantation and its buncha slaves and as in the dude who was also that asshole Andrew Jackson’s father-in-law and was undoubtedly an asshole himself with the whole killing Injuns and buying and selling shackled negroes. Yep, that guy. Me great-whatever-grandpappy. Sigh. It’s like a stab in my liberal, bleedin’ heart.
I:And they undoubtedly had many descendants, so I would anticipate the guilt is spread around quite a bit. So how do you figure in the mass of all those descendants?
S: You WOULD ask. So here’s the lineage: John Donelson, who founded Fort Nashborough with James Robertson, now known as Nashville, married Rachel Stockley.
John and Rachel had two kids: John Patrick and Rachel, Jr.. Rachel Jr. married Andrew Jackson. John Patrick married Mary Purnell and John Patrick and Mary had Sarah Sally Donelson. So my great-great-great-great-great grandmother was Andrew Jackson’s niece. And now I want my piece of the action from Donelson’s Clover Bottom mansion being hired out for all those expensive weddings, and from the city of Nashville. Given how many other relations there are, my share should be at least $1.98.
To continue: Sarah Sally Donelson married William Holmes, birthed James Holmes (who had, and I am totally not making this up, a brother named Welcome. Welcome Holmes! Isn’t that a gas?! You just can’t write gags that good!). James-the-brother-of-Welcome-Holmes married Mary Denton. They had a daughter named Sarah Holmes. Nothing jokey and hilarious for their kid, just “Sarah” period.
Then Sarah Holmes married John Yates and they had a daughter named Malvina Yates and Malvina married a dude named Joseph Starr. Joseph and Malvina had twin daughters named Mittie and Minnie Starr (not much imagination for a great-niece of Welcome Holmes). Mittie and Minnie were my relatives who built and propped up the Oak Avenue Church of the Nazarene aforementioned. Minnie then married Lee Robert Teague.
Minnie and Lee then had a daughter named Lorene Teague, who married Curtis Pollock, who had a son named Marion, who married Janis, who had, on that cold December night that was outlined in such detail at the beginning of this narrative, me, myself, I … moi.
Like I said, where’s my share of the revenue and land value of Clover Bottom? Since my house is on what was originally the land stolen from the Injuns to create Clover Bottom, my mortgage should be wiped out at least, and $1.98 ain’t gonna cover it. We queens gotta look out for our interests, you know?
I: Lord. <sigh> Let’s back up. Way back up. You skipped from barely escaping being born in a car to being yanked between fundamentalist churches when you were 12 to lengthy digressions on King James, Bibles, foppery, popery, and genealogy. Wasn’t there anything that happened in between, say, your birth and the whole church thing?
S: You mean all the screaming and crying? The Battle Royale that was the parentals’ attempts to get me to go to Kindergarten? The abject terror of everything from fireworks and sirens to teachers and heights, elevators and roller coasters? The seduction of my best friend from across the street when we were five years old, and I would get him to raise his shirt so we could hug barechested for as long as I could get him to do it, and how sometimes I bullied him into doing it and that one time, sheltered at the side of the garage surrounded by the back yard fence, I got him to raise his shirt and laid on top of him barechested and it was the most sublime feeling I ever had, one that I’ve tried to replicate my entire life? You mean all that stuff?
I: Well, er, uh, well, yes, that “stuff” would be good to hear about, yes.
S: Okay, you asked for it. So, the first time I went to the movies in my entire life, my sisters took me to a horrific horror film at the Plains Theater on Main Street in Roswell, New Mexico. Unfortunately, the Plains is no more; the building is infested with the world’s tackiest displays of silliness and its marquee now touts it as the “UFO Alien Research Center and Museum” and the pics I’ve seen of it are incredibly horrible. The place where such sublime cinema as American in Paris and Beach Blanket Bingo and Bonzo Goes to College now defines tacky. Look up the definition of “so tacky it doesn’t even qualify for camp,” and you’ll find pictures of this UFO Alien tourist trap.
Anyway, before all that, sometime in early 1968, when I would have been a little over four years old, my sisters took me to see this unspeakable horror film, which had been released on 8-February that year. It was just awful, terrifyingly scary, and horribly and tackily done to boot.
It was entitled, Blackbeard’s Ghost and it was made by the <shudder> Walt Disney Company and starred Dean Jones (ohdeargodthehorror) and three actors who I would later actually appreciate greatly: Suzanne Pleshette, Elsa Lanchester and Peter Ustinov (the poor, poor things, having to prostitute themselves to the Walt Disney Corporation in 1968! See what I mean about all the horror?)
I: Pardon the interruption, but Blackbeard’s Ghost isn’t usually thought of, if it is thought of at all, as a “horror flick,” nor is Disney typically a purveyor of terror.
S: A lot you know! Speak for yourself! Disney is perhaps the quintessential shit show/horror show exemplifying Corporate Fascism of all time. And its products are indeed horrific, whether that Frozen abomination of last year or that whole Davy Crockett mass insanity of the 1950s.
Where was I before your naive interruption? Oh yes. I was four. And scared of everything. So I basically cried all the way through the movie. See, in the movie, Blackbeard (Ustinov) was a ghost. He had died and been condemned to haunt a … restaurant or hotel or something or other to atone for his great sin of Piracy on the High Seas. Dean and Suzanne had to help him out to not be a ghost anymore.
There’s this scene where Blackbeard gets on a policeman’s motorcycle and drives it and it looks like no one was driving it because he’s an invisible ghost (and there was NO explanation about how a pirate from the 1600s could possibly know how to drive a police motorcycle which is no lead-pipe cinch, boy. And that pirate also somehow knew how to turn on the motorcycle’s screaming SIREN (!!!!!) which terrified the bloody hell out of me whenever I heard them in real life.
Well, I screamed louder than the movie siren and cried so much that the poor oldest sibling of mine had to remove me to the lobby. I may have calmed down and gone back in for a bit, but I know she was steaming that she was missing her movie while her bratty brother (she still refers to me as a spoiled brat, as recently as 2016, when I was 52 years old; she seems to be sort of stuck on that idea) had to be mollified in the lobby to keep the other patrons from shoving a stopper in my gob.
Now, to be fair to myself, I actually wasn’t being bratty. It really was terrifying. Loud noises and auditoriums with their huge, high ceilings and vertiginous balconies, as well as stadiums, always freaked me the hell out. So not only was there a scary ghost, a wailing siren, the Disney company, Dean Jones’ acting and some angry, shushing patrons, but there was that vast space of the Plains Theater and it’s steep balcony reserved for kissers, smokers and negroes. It was not an Amusing Experience, that I can tell you.
I: It doesn’t sound like it. While movie reminiscing is interesting, I’m more interested in the seduction, as you put it, of your friend from across the street.
S: Well, there’s some more stuff before that. Don’t you want to know my earliest memories?
I: Um, yes, actually. Let’s get some order in this thing. Start with what you remember after your almost-born-in-the-car-because-of-nonexistent-matches-for-cigarettes-tobacco-companies-should-rot-in-hell birth.
S: Sure. I remember the very warm and fuzzy memory of waking up in the late evening, when it was dark outside, and I was in my crib under my blankie, and there was a table lamp on, but the rest of the room was dark, and the parents and siblings were watching TV in the living room, and I felt all warm and snuggly and sleepy and happy. Then I went to sleep.
More? Well, we have the hospital visits. So many hospital visits. Hospitals terrified me too, especially ambulances, getting sick in ambulances and emergency rooms. I have been in them so frequently in my adulthood, however, that they hold no further terror. Except now during the global pandemic. Jesus, we’re all going to die.
But wen I was two, I had to have my tonsils out. And Dr. Richardson yanked ’em at the place where I was born, Eastern New Mexico Medical Center. It was actually a cool place to visit. It smelled pretty good and unusal and antiseptic, and it had two stories. One of probably only two escalators in the whole town of Roswell. It had an elevator, but that was scary and I avoided it.
The hospital had these colored lines embedded in the floor and you just followed the colored line that took you where you needed to go. If you needed to go to the ER, you followed the red line and it took you right there. Patient rooms? Follow the green line. Blue was for maternity. And so on. I’ve always loved rainbow colors and that floor was so cool.
Visiting someone, you would follow the green line, which led you right to the escalators. You rode upstairs and there were three wards (I think), but children under 14 or so were not allowed inside them unless they were a patient.
Now, my Uncle Leon had a lung disease which developed after he got polio when he wsa a kid. He was hospitalized numerous times until he died in August of 1967, when I was three-and-a-half. We would go up to the Medical Center to visit him, and I always stayed in the upstairs lobby with the sisters (who couldn’t go in the ward either) or Dad or whoever, listening to the constant shooooshing of the escalators and the occasional ringing of a chime, praying to god that no ambulances would come.
I loved that escalator. I still remember the fun of riding it. Why was I not scared of it like I was everything else? I haven’t the foggiest.
But the elevator? Hoo boy, that was an evil monster. This one time, we went to visit someone; maybe Leon, maybe not. Oh, the horror! The descending side of the escalator was out of business! You could only go up. It was evening, so they weren’t even working on it. It was blocked off so you couldn’t even use it like a stairway to get back down!
Once we got upstairs, there was a problem then. The stairs were a bit too much for my little legs, but I was a bit too big for Dad to carry me, and besides they were way at the end of the hall. So when the visit was over, we had to get back down somehow and that somehow was the elevator monster, which was also right by the escalator and front lobby, while those damn stairs were further away.
Oh the terror.
Dad had to pick me up and hold me and I cried. We got in and the doors closed and whoosh! My stomach fell out and we plunged that entire whole one story! 12 whole feet!! It took forever and five minutes! Then the doors opened and we stepped out into the lobby. I stared through my tears vengefully at the broken downalator side of the escalator. I seem to remember vowing that if we ever came back to that hospital I was NOT going upstairs unless the downalator was working. It never betrayed me again, fortunately.
But what I was tellin’ was that sometime around this period, probably 1966, I needed my tonsils out. I remember being put in a room which had a crib with tall side bars and rails around it so I couldn’t jump or fall out. I was roughly two or two-and-a-half.
I have three memories connected with this. First, a group of nurses, perhaps some in a nursing class, gathered around my crib, smiling and talking and cooing to me. All in white with white caps. Freaked me out. Although I was cute, ’tis true, so they had a reason to gather round and smile and talk to me. But they were women barking up the wrong tree, boy, and I had no use for them.
Then I remember lying in the crib in the night. The room was dark, but the door was open and so light from the hall came in. There was a “10, 2, and 4” Dr. Pepper clock with a blue neon border on the wall opposite the hospital room. “10, 2, and 4” referred to the old Dr. Pepper slogan that urged people to take a break every day at 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to drink a Dr. Pepper. That Dr. Pepper shit would help wreck my health after decades of drinking it, so I guess that memory is rather prophetic.
Then I remember the start of the surgery. I was in the OR and there were people with white hats and gloves and masks and Dr. Richardson was coming towards me with an instrument. Then they must have hit me with anaesthetic. I don’t remember anything else, fortunately. How they kept me from screaming and crying in terror during all that, I don’t know. I suspect they drugged my little ass up. In 1966 with an Air Force base down the street, they could probably get all the trippy drug shit they could load up on, so who knows what they used.
And the final memory was going home from the hospital. For some reason, they parked the 1959 Rambler station wagon at the curb, instead of up in the driveway. Maybe there was another car there. It was very cold and I think it may have been snowing, or had just snowed. I was taken out of the car and covered in a blanket and then carried inside.
Those are the earliest memories I can summon. Happy now?
I: I’m happy if that takes us up to when you were five.
S: Almost. First there’s the memory from when Leon died in 1967. I remember our aunt Joyce taking me and my cousin Jeff, who is just three months younger than me, by the hand and leading us up to Leon’s casket in the funeral home. We were both dressed in suits and ties. In what I now think is pretty weird, but whatever, Joyce lifted me up to see Leon lying there, saying something about how he looks like he’s just asleep, but he’s gone, and having me reach out and touch his cold, dead cheek. I am not making this shit up. And she didn’t seem to be crying or upset. Trying, I guess, to reassure us and not scare us, especially me, the scaredy cat. I don’t think Jeff was ever scared of anything in his life. But that’s another story. I don’t remember anyone being in the room but us and the body, so it was probably before the funeral or something.
Cousin Jeff has a memory of the exact same thing except it’s he and I sitting during the funeral. He also remembers Joyce holding us by the hand. Where our parents where, we have no idea. I have no memory of the funeral, but a little of the grave side moments.
So I guess you can say I first touched a dead man when I was three-and-a-half.
I:Did that not scar you for life?
S: Weirdly enough, no. I didn’t scream or cry or try to run away. In fact, I was a little fascinated that he could be alive and in the hospital and then be lying there in his good suit with a cold cheek and be just gone. That was a mind-blowing concept. I didn’t question it, but I thought it was weird. Perhaps it was a very smart thing that Joyce did; I’ve had no problem the rest of my life with dead people, just with the fact that every living thing dies, and I have no desire to stop living.
I: Okay, well, let’s move on from dead bodies, shall we? Now, not to get too nosy and drool over the juicy bit that might be coming, tell me more about the “boy next door” or across the street, as the case may be. What was the barechested hugging thing when you were five all about?
S: Oh, lord. Okay, we agreed I’d lay everything out there to the bright light of openness and transparency and truth. Fine. Here it is. And I stress, there’s nothing “sexual” about this. It’s about two curious five year olds exploring the sensations of the body and what can make you feel good. We were BOTH five and peepees were not involved. In fact, I personally didn’t know what sex was until I was 14. So I don’t want any of the outrage brigade reporting this to the cops as a child porn fantasy. It is most definitely NOT that! It’s something kids have done and do and will do naturally for centuries. But anyway, here goes.
His name was … and I am not making this up … Fayette. Yes, he was a blond-haired, blue-eyed cute boy whose mother named him Fayette. No amount of Googling has turned him up. Either he died years ago or, more likely, changed his name to something less likely to get him beaten up. I mean, he couldn’t even shorten it to Fay, could he? He’d still have to fend off hordes of toxic masculinity. Maybe he called himself George. Or Rock. Whatever he did, I hope he survived his name.
This woman would often, like mothers of the era would do, go out on their porch and yell for him as loud as she could all over the neighborhood: “FAYYYYYYY-EEEETTTTTTTTEEEE!!!” Over and over until he answered her. At this time, before schooling began, he didn’t seem to be bothered by his name, just that it was time to go inside.
I could write reams about the free range kids that we were in the era, even at five. We could cross the street to each others’ houses, which were within about four houses apart, so it was a smallish range we were free to roam in, but it included our back yards and riding our bikes three blocks away to first grade.
I don’t know how or why it started. But I did sorta fancy Fayette. He was my type. Blond/blue/hairy chested/over 40 still IS my type. We even looked a bit alike. I certainly liked him more than the girl down the street who I think wanted to be my girlfriend except we had arguments and I once yanked the bow out of the sash around her dress because we were mad at each other. There’s another (and gory) story about her parents for when we’re done with this one. It involves my greatest childhood phobias, blood, stitches, and emergency rooms.
Now that I have had lots of experience teaching kindergarten, I have realized that five year olds love to hug. They’ll hug anything. Teachers, visitors, stuffed animals, the roof support pole in the classroom, the trees on the playground. And they will especially hug each other. The boys don’t hug the girls (that could be a problem), but they do hug other boys. These are happy, innocent, good-feeling clinches. Our rules these days are “don’t touch anyone else,” so we often have to be stern and pry them apart and say “don’t do that!” but we can’t explain why in any detail. Not just me, but most kindergarten teachers, really don’t want to talk about danger and touching and sex and good hugs and bad hugs and why they’re bad. Let the first grade teachers do it. I tend to look a little the other way. If one boy looks uncomfortable I immediately put a stop to it. But otherwise, I don’t break it up with a pole or an angry comment (some teachers do the angry face thing), but I do put a stop to it. I just don’t go into anything with them.
My point in mentioning it is that we were, it looks like, normal five year old boys who liked to hug each other. The same thing happened in kindergarten and sort of first grade, but after that, you stop hugging other guys or it becomes problematic at best and provokes ass kicking at worst. So you grow out of natural expression and into closeted repression, all well before you turn 10. I did … to a point.
Anyway, I don’t remember how it started, we just liked hugging each other. But I liked it better than he did and I wanted to do it for a loooonnnnngggg time. And at some point, I discovered that it felt even better if our skin was touching without those pesky shirts to get in the way. So for awhile, our play time became a bit of a negotiation with me trying to persuade him to raise our shirts and hug, for at least a little while. I think I became a bit of a bully about it; I remember we had a fight because he wanted to stop and I didn’t one day. And I don’t think I ever asked him to again. I sensed that I was right up against an unspoken and not understood line. Being a kid that was afraid to get in trouble (even though I hadn’t really ever been trouble and the consequences had never been more than my mother’s quick swat on my butt), so I just stopped trying to get poor Fayette to give me some of that sweet, sweet hugging.
Sorry, Fayette, if you run across this. Sorry if I was a bully about this and sorry if we fought. It was my fault. But I was five and clueless. And you were adorable. But still so very, very sorry. I hope you’ve had a wonderful life.
Really, sincerely, I hope he has. I used to hope he turned out gay like me and that he had actually enjoyed our hugging and that he has had a great life and is married to a great guy who gets millions of hugs from Fayette.
But at the time, roughly 1968, the best feeling I had ever had was discovering the thrill of pressing my bare chest against another boy’s bare chest. No kissing or anything else occurred. We just hugged. And for me, that great feeling was in the chest and in my heart. Not … down lower. I was five, c’mon. It’s not a dirty story. In fact, it’s a sweet story, of how kids, in spite of how it may freak out us adults, will explore and discover and do what comes natural.
To me, as a gay boy, hugging another boy was perfectly natural. It always has been, it always will be. I always felt instinctively somehow that people would disapprove and say I was naughty. And I also felt instinctively that I knew what I wanted and I was going to have it and all those disapproving people could just go suck eggs and pound sand. Even at the height of the worst spiritual and sexual repression that Oklahoma and its churches could dole out, my inner belief has always been the same: There’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve known who I am and what I wanted since I was at least five. And everyone else who is not onboard with that can go over Niagra Falls without a barrel.
So there.
I have another clear early memory, somewhat related. My mother was shopping in Gibson’s, an early version of Wal-Mart that was in towns like Roswell and Duncan and places in between. Gibson’s always smelled of fresh popped popcorn; all the dime stores did. I can smell it even now. I was in the seat of the shopping cart and we were moving along. Suddenly, I saw this other boy in the seat of his mother’s shopping cart going the opposite way. Our eyes locked and we just stared at each other. We didn’t make faces or holler at each other or turn to mothers for reassurance. We stared during those few minutes that we were stopped across from each other.
He had dark black hair. We must have been three or something. Same age. I have no idea what was going on in his head, but in mine, I thought he was gorgeous. And then our mothers continued shopping. We watched each other until we were out of sight.
I wanted to hug him too. If you want to know when a gay guy knows he’s gay, well, there you go. For me, three to five years old. But what is gay? At first, at that age, it’s just attraction. Fascination you can’t figure out. Knowing you can’t hug the girls in your class, but you sure can hug the boys and it’s seen as boys being boys, and that’s what you want anyway. Being gay is your heart beating faster at random moments like seeing a cute boy your age in a store. And that happens whenever we’re six or 56.
This is all separate and apart from the sex in being gay. The attraction is there. And once the realization that the attraction is not acceptable to the people around you, well, after the attraction comes the closet.
And after the closet comes the sex part of being gay. At first, you’re closeted just because you like other boys and you know by first or second grade that that is just not going to fly if you want to avoid a wide variety of severe consequences. So you’re in the closet about your attraction. Then, at a certain age, you’re told what sex is. And the closet door gets more tightly closed.
For me, I found out, sort of, what sex was in three ways: From a novel in the library, from a clinical article in our Encylopedia Americanas, and in the form of the question, “Is there anything you want to know? If so, ask me or your dad. Oh, and homosexuality is a grave sin that God will punish you for with everlasting burning. Let us know if you need anything!” from my mother. (Dad believed the home front was women’s responsibility, especially educating us about religion and sex. And she was, to her credit, committed to education and having us be educated and informed. After all, she scrimped and saved to get those 1962 Encyclopedia Americanas in the first place.)
Here’s how I learned what (straight) sex was at age 14, after gathering some hints from things whispered in junior high.
I heard that “intercourse” was sex, probably at junior high. I went home and looked it up. It referred to the word “coitus.” So I looked that one up. And wham bam, thank you ma’am, there it all was. With drawings of male (flaccid) and female reproductive systems. With full descriptions of foreplay and how the penis becomes erect. And how it is inserted. And how there is sexual activity, the man, er, what was the word they used? Moved his penis in and out of the woman’s vagina. Yeah, that was roughly it. And then he had an orgasm and ejaculated sperm into the vagina. And then the sperm swam into the uterus, found an egg, penetrated it and voila! the beginnings of a zygote/fetus/child. Such a warm and interesting way to describe it all. And to this gay boy, let me tell you. The whole male reproductive diagrams were fascinating, as were the whole getting an erection and ejaculating thing. But what about us gay boys? The female diagrams, which didn’t really give you a clue about how a woman actually looked in her nether regions, still repulsed me even without a beaver shot, as male friends would later so charmingly put it. I didn’t care about beavers or pussies or vulvas or why such bizarre names were applied to them. My mother and my sisters had those. Fine for them and any man who wanted that. But I sure as hell didn’t. It was the penis I was interested in. And HUGGING.
Around this time (1977ish), I discovered a seemingly innocuous fictional book in our public library about a tornado hitting a small town in Ohio. It was Twister by Jack Bickham (if you want to look it up), based on the super outbreak of 1974 that levelled, among other cities, Xenia, OH. The plot: Two of the main characters, man and woman, are having an affair. As the storm gathers, they’re somewhere having sex. And Bickham gives it the full, dirty description that our Encyclopedia Americanas lacked. A paraphrase from what I remember: “Reaching down, she grasped his engorged penis. Just before she tucked him inside her, she felt a tiny qualm … ‘Oh, Jack, you’re so big! You fill me UP!” And so on. I had to go look up what engorged meant. But it was the first connection, however badly written, between the clinical encyclopedia entry and reality. So this is sex. Well, count me out. I’m getting a thrill from sleeping naked and getting a hard on, but I’m not using it THAT way, that’s for damn sure! So, still in the closet, some clarification occurred for me, but the closet was now useful to both hide me from the scrutiny of others and to protect me from the horrors of heterosexuality. It was both comfort and prison.
The third way was the aforementioned question from my mother. It was not informational, except for the part that slammed my closet door closed and nailed the son of a bitch shut for the next 16 years. This was merely confirmation of what I had sensed since I was five.
And finally, how did I find out what gay sex was? Wellllllll, here’s where things get sticky (both complicated and sticky like as in sex sticky). Putting it simply, I was groomed and then sexually abused by a male relative. For what I figured out, the abuse was off and on for 12 years. The grooming began when I was 14 and he married into the family, and finally ended when I was 27 and figured out a simple way to stop it that was so simple that I hadn’t grasped it before. I simply removed access to myself. I just made sure we were never alone together ever again. It worked. He moved on to other targets. Including his own daughter’s boyfriend. But that’s a story for much later in our tale.
Although I was rather experienced in everything but anal sex by the time I was in college, a wonderful book called The New Joy of Gay Sex was mighty helpful. When I would go to the local mall for lunch between morning and evening classes, I invariably stopped in Waldenbooks and usually bought something, but much of the time I just browsed. I discovered their “Marriage and Sexuality” section fairly quickly. And lo and behold! There on a shelf, often in different spots on different shelves when I would visit, was a copy of The New Joy of Gay Sex. Hallelujah!! The only problem: I couldn’t buy it. That would involve checking out up front where another human would discover I was a fag. Plus it was on the expensive side. And for a commuting college student still living at home, where would I stash it? Probably in the car, but that carried risk. The best plan? Do what all the other fags were doing. Wait until there was no other people around, grab it off the shelf, move over to the History section, maybe even put it between the pages of a bigger book, and take in the glorious images that made your heart beat in your ears and your pulse race, because these pictures were showing you what you had been wanting since you were five. Hell, they were even showing you what you were missing by having your only sexual contact be the abusive stuff you were getting from the in-law. The drawings were great. I learned it could be loving and open and free and exciting and painful and there were things called condoms and sounding rods and how you could clean out your ass and use it to fuck, and nipple clamps and golden showers and daddies and proper fellatio and good, explosive cum blasts and hand jobs and cruising and tea rooms and having sex with black men and Prince Alberts and piercing and tattoos and drag queens and tops and bottoms and the role of the prostate in a bottom’s amazingly good, explosive orgasm and AIDS/HIV and protection and love and kissing and … and … and … It was a magical book. Our Harry Potter. The story is the same: Harry is “different” and living with uptight, intolerant, straight people (muggles) in a closet below some stairs. And then the day comes when an owl arrives and Harry discovers others like himself. In fact, a whole entire world for him and his kind. You can interpret that many ways. But for us queers, it was immediately recognizable. The New Joy of Gay Sex in the Waldenbooks was our Harry Potter. It was the invitation delivered by the owl for us to come and ride the express train to Hogwarts/Gayville and never look back, to be free of Muggles/Breeders forever. I looked for it and caged long reads of it as much as possible, until finally, my erection would get obvious and I would have to hide behind the magazines I was buying (usually GQ or something else with shirtless men in it) and then also hide it behind the front counter until they gave me the bag back and I could use that bag to hide my hard cock that was already dripping pre-cum through the top of my jeans and threatening to poke his insistent head through the top of my belt. I would walk immediately to the car, find a place in a parking lot where the pants could come down, find the most appealing shirtless pic I could find in GQ and then take care of business. It was a glorious time, being 18-22 years old. Glorious.
So, that pretty much covers the sex education of this particular average American boy of the 1970s/80s. We’ll be revisiting all this later. But there’s so much more childhood to cover first! Apologies for being a bit out of order.
I: <Whew> Wow, that’s … interesting. You had quite a time in that closet!
S: Yes. Don’t we all?
I: Well. <ahem> Let me adjust my hot collar and get back on track. Kindergarten is where I believe we are.
S: Ah. That. Kindergarten. What a … fucked up, memorable year.
[This is nonfiction work in progress. Come back soon for more.]
Let’s be clear: The war was about slavery, from first to last. And after the gun stopped firing, the war continued in multiple ways that all-too-often includes violence and murder.
A report on Battlefield.Org points out two things: Americans are inexplicable divided as to the causes of the Civil War, reflecting both historical ignorance as well as the continued delusions among the current crop of Lost Causers who continue to believe in and are invested fully in, the generational denial surrounding the Great Mass Treason which resulted in 1,000,000 American casualties.
Let’s be clear: The war was about slavery, from first to last. And after the guns stopped firing, the war continues in multiple ways that all-too-often includes violence and murder.
“In 2011, at the outset of the sesquicentennial, a Pew Research Center poll found that Americans were significantly divided on the issue, with 48% saying the war was ‘mainly about states’ rights,’ 38% saying the war was ‘mainly about slavery,’ with the remainder answering ‘both equally’ or ‘neither/don’t know.'”
Battlefields.Org
Fascinating, if appalling that that many people either aren’t sure or are convinced that it was the santized “states’ rights,” rights which, after all, gave the states the “right” to keep and bear slaves.
Battlefields.Org then goes on to examine the four declarations from states (Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas) which wanted all posterity to understand why they committed treason and nearly destroyed the country. Those declarations are fascinating reading and we’ll get to them below.
Civil War Casualties (Probably at Antietam, September 1862).
Battlefields.Org brokedown the content in the secession declarations thusly:
[“‘Context’ refers to procedural language and/or historical exposition that is not connected to a specific argument,” says Battlefields.org.]
I would quibble with their interpretation of the declarations. Slavery is absolutely number one in every case. Everything else flows from it: They hated the north’s refusal to enforce the southern states’ rights to … own African negro slaves and the refusal to catch such property and return it to its owners. They hated the Republican/Anti-Slavery/Abolition party which had caused its leaders to control of the Federal government, where same leaders would make war on the southern states’ rights to … own African negro slaves. And as for “context,” it’s usually just a rehash of the history of the Revolution and their continued stubborn clinging to their idea of what being in the union meant; i.e., it meant they were free to leave at any time for any reason, but the reason was always going to be about slavery and the fed’s containment strategy of … African negro slavery.
Saying “Lincoln’s Election” was a “cause” is therefore also disingenous. He’s not mentioned by name. He’s just happens to be the leader the northern agitators and abolitionists had chosen to head up their program of destroying the south and …. its peculiar institution: African negro slavery.
So Battlefields.Org can parse it out this way and with a word cloud that says “States” is the most-used word, not slavery, but again, it’s disingenuous. The right that each southern state wanted to assert in all situations and around the country and the world was … African negro slavery. Period.
They went to war to preserve their right to own African negros as slaves in perpetuity. To Andrew Jackson’s heirs here in Donelson/Hermitage, they fully believed that African negros would continue to be slaves working cotton fields along the Stones River in 1860, 1890, 1950, and even 2019 and beyond.
Period.
It really is that simple. There are multiple “reasons,” but each reason is a reason because it directly relates to owning African negros as slaves.
And therefore, the 11 states separated themselves in an effort to preserve slavery; they committed treason, went to war and created a million American casualties and utterly failed, thank God, to preserve their peculiar institution. They have never ceased however, even after getting thoroughly kicked in the balls and sent running home to mommy, licking their wounds and keeping the freed African negroes down, to operate, with waxing and waning success and effort, to resurrect the same old arguments, rehashed and rehashed.
White supremacy and domestic terrorism is epidemic and a singular gift of the varied framers of “Articles of Secession” throughout the south all those years ago.
At any rate, here are the money quotes from the four articles of secession of the states of Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. Georgia and South Carolina are particularly verbose and yawn-inducing. They are catalogues of grievances, great and petty. Virginia is short and sweet: The Brits tried to make us do some stuff and we left. Now the antislavery power is trying to force us to do some stuff, so we’re leaving again. But ultimately it all amounts to: “The Northern people are being mean to us and they’re going to make us give up our negroes .” Yeesh.
Casualties on the scene at Dunker Church, battlefield of Antietam. September 1862.
Georgia
“The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. … “While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation. The main reason was that the North, even if united, could not control both branches of the Legislature during any portion of that time. … “We had acquired a large territory by successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in relation to slavery, was the question then demanding solution. This state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery sentiment throughout the North and the conflict began. Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end. This insulting and unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by the South. … “They raised their standard in 1856 and were barely defeated. They entered the Presidential contest again in 1860 and succeeded. “The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers. … “For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us. They have sent emissaries among us for the accomplishment of these purposes. Some of these efforts have received the public sanction of a majority of the leading men of the Republican party in the national councils, the same men who are now proposed as our rulers. These efforts have in one instance led to the actual invasion of one of the slave-holding States, and those of the murderers and incendiaries who escaped public justice by flight have found fraternal protection among our Northern confederates. … “Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere; because they give sanctuary to thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity.” Approved, Tuesday, January 29, 1861
Articles of Secession, State of Georgia
Mississippi
“A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.” “In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. “It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction. … “It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion. “It tramples the original equality of the South under foot. “It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain. “It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst. “It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice. “It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists. “It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better. “It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives. “It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security. “It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system. “It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause. “It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood. “Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.”
Articles of Secession, State of Mississippi
South Carolina
“The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” “This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River. “The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States. “The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation. “The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation. … “On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. “The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy. “Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.” Adopted December 20, 1860
Article of Secession, South Carolina
Civil War casualties (Petersburg?)
Texas
“Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery– the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits– a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them? “The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States. “By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States. “The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas. … “The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions– a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith. … “In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color– a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States. “For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States. “They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition. “They have invaded Southern soil and murdered unoffending citizens, and through the press their leading men and a fanatical pulpit have bestowed praise upon the actors and assassins in these crimes, while the governors of several of their States have refused to deliver parties implicated and indicted for participation in such offenses, upon the legal demands of the States aggrieved. “They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides. “They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose. “They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance. “They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State. “And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slave-holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States. :We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable. “That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states. “By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South. … “For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong, and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own sons– We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freemen of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month. “Adopted in Convention on the 2nd day of Feby, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one and of the independence of Texas the twenty-fifth.”
Articles of Secession, State of Texas
Virginia
“The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States. “Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain that the ordinance adopted by the people of this State in Convention, on the twenty-fifth day of June, eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying or adopting amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the Union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the Constitution aforesaid, is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State. And they do further declare that the said Constitution of the United States of America is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State. “This ordinance shall take effect and be an act of this day when ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of this State, cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May next, in pursuance of a schedule to be hereafter enacted. “Done in Convention, in the city of Richmond, on the 17th day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and in the eighty-fifth year of the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
Articles of Secession, Commonwealth of Virginia
It’s all quite fascinating, eh? Basically, they’re “<Whine, whine, whine> You’re going to take our slaves, get ’em hopped up, and let ’em rape our women and murder us in our beds, when everyone in the whole world knows that God himself created the African negro to serve the white man. I mean, they get free housing and medical care and food! Anyway, we’re gonna commit treason now and try to destroy the entire country in order to protect our natural racial superiority, which gives us the Christian right to own African negros as property.”
The Civil War’s casus belli is not difficult to figure out. The secesh told us repeatedly why they attempted to do what they did: the ownership of their fellow human beings based on skin color. Perfectly simple.
Dead Rebel soldier somewhere on the battlefield (Petersburg?).
“Senate Republicans are setting a dangerous precedent that threatens the republic itself. I’m not naive enough to think they would hold Democratic presidents to the low standard they’ve applied to Trump, but all future presidents will be able to point to Trump to justify …”
Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) is an attorney and the former director (9-Jan-13 to 19-Jul-17) of the U.S. Office Government Ethics, which exists to “Provid[e] leadership in the executive branch to prevent conflicts of interest.” That’s a mission which, since January 2017, is going completely unfulfilled and, in fact, is being subverted beyond all belief.
After leaving the USOGE in the summer of 2017, Shaub “joined the Washington D.C.-based election law organization the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) as Senior Director, Ethics. At CLC he has focused on protecting what he calls the erosion of democratic norms that the country has witnessed in his time,” according to Wikipedia. The last six months of his tenure at USOGE were also the first six months of the Godfather’s tenure and therefore was when he witnessed the complete takeover of the democracy and its renovation into a kleptocracy headed by a old, narcissistic, lunatic, mob boss. So he’s seen some things and knows whereof he speaks.
Shaub wrote today a concise listing of the multiple points of illegality, theft, unConstitutionality, incompetence, petulance, and general assholery committed by this mobster and his cronies, supported fully and without reservation by the God and Guns evangelical crowd, of which I’m proud to say I’m an EX member, who was in that cultish atmosphere from birth, not by choice and left as soon as I gracefully could. But I digress.
Here’s « Shaub’s full indictment » and it includes the Republican party, especially those in the Senate:
“Senate Republicans are setting a dangerous precedent that threatens the republic itself. I’m not naive enough to think they would hold Democratic presidents to the low standard they’ve applied to Trump, but all future presidents will be able to point to Trump to justify:
“a. Soliciting foreign attacks on our elections; b. Using federal appropriations or other resources to pressure foreign governments to help them win reelection; c. Implementing an across-the-board refusal to comply with any congressional oversight at all; d. Firing the heads of the government’s top law enforcement agencies for allowing investigations of the president; e. Retaliating against whistleblowers and witnesses who testify before Congress; f. Investigating investigators who investigate the president; g. Attempting to retaliate against American companies perceived as insufficiently supportive of the president; h. Attempting to award the president’s own company federal contracts; i. Using personal devices, servers or applications for official communications; j. Communicating secretly with foreign leaders, with foreign governments knowing things about White House communications that our own government doesn’t know; k. Abandoning steadfast allies abruptly without prior warning to Congress to cede territory to Russian influence; l. Destroying or concealing records containing politically damaging information; m. Employing white nationalists and expressing empathy for white nationalists after an armed rally in which one of them murdered a counter protester and another shot a gun into a crowd; n. Disseminating Russian disinformation; o. Covering for the murder of a journalist working for an American news outlet by a foreign government that is a major customer of the president’s private business; p. Violating human rights and international law at our border; q. Operating a supposed charity that was forced to shut down over its unlawful activities; r. Lying incessantly to the American people; s. Relentlessly attacking the free press; t. Spending 1/4 of days in office visiting his own golf courses and 1/3 of them visiting his private businesses; u. Violating the Emoluments Clauses of the U.S. Constitution; w. Misusing the security clearance process to benefit his children and target perceived enemies; x. Drawing down on government efforts to combat domestic terrorism in order to appease a segment of his base; y. Refusing to aggressively investigate and build defenses against interference in our election by Russia, after the country helped him win an election; z. Engaging in a documented campaign of obstruction of a Special Counsel’s investigation. aa. Lying about a hush money payoff and omitting his debt to his attorney for that payoff from his financial disclosure report (which is a crime if done knowingly and willfully); bb. Coordinating with his attorney in connection with activities that got the attorney convicted of criminal campaign finance violations; cc. Interfering in career personnel actions, which are required by law to be conducted free of political influence; dd. Refusing to fire a repeat Hatch Act offender after receiving a recommendation of termination from the president’s own Senate-confirmed appointee based on dozens of violations; ee. Calling members of Congress names and accusing them of treason for conducting oversight; ff. Attacking states and private citizens frequently and in terms that demean the presidency (see Johnson impeachment); gg. Using the presidency to tout his private businesses and effectively encouraging a party, candidates, businesses and others to patronize his business; hh. Causing the federal government to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at his businesses and costing the American taxpayers well over $100 million on boondoggle trips to visit his properties; ii. Hosting foreign leaders at his private businesses; jj. Calling on the Justice Department to investigate political rivals; kk. Using the presidency to endorse private businesses and the books of various authors as a reward for supporting the president; ll. Engaging in nepotism based on a flawed OLC opinion; mm. Possible misuse of appropriated funds by reallocating them in ways that may be illegal; nn. Repeatedly criticizing American allies, supporting authoritarian leaders around the world, and undermining NATO; and oo. etc. “None of the Republican Senators defending Trump could say with a straight face that they would tolerate a Democratic president doing the same thing. But, given this dangerous precedent, they may have no choice if they ever lose control of the Senate. Is that what they want? “And this is only what Trump did while the remote threat of Congressional oversight existed. If the Senate acquits him, he will know for certain there is nothing that could ever lead to Congress removing him from office. And what he does next will similarly set precedents. At this point, I would remind these unpatriotic Senators of the line “you have a republic if you can keep it,” but a variation on this line may soon be more apt when Trump redoubles his attack on our election: You have a republic, if you can call this a republic.”
Walter Shaub via Twitter
We cannot indeed call this a republic; it is a shambolic kleptocratic theocracy. And our last one, remote chance of restoration will come next November. If we’re not out there with the numbers just posted today in Hong Kong’s election (72% or so), then our democratic republic will fall and, given what is likely to be a similarly shambolic kleptocracy in Great Britain, democracy, decency and the rule of law will be largely at an end on the planet, ending the final, very slim chance we have of mitigating accelerating climate catastrophe.
A “cancer on the presidency” has metastasized “hugely.”
«One of the most brilliant things I’ve seen in a long time». Steve Bell and The Guardian continue to hit these out of the park. Go there and read, donate, support. They cover the U.S. as, if not more, effectively than the Times and Post or any other American news organization. Not that those exist anymore, but still.
Far more importantly, RIP Kurds. From you stretching back all the way to Columbus is a long, unbroken trail of genocide. Perhaps things will be just a tiny, marginally bit better in 2021. Knowing other Americans as I do, I’m not holding my breath. I am sincerely sorry that you will not have breath to hold until 2021. What a treasonous betrayal.
“It’s well worth a challenging read-and-think on everyone’s part at this particular moment in the country and society.”
As the gigantic Fascist Cult of Nationalistic Personality Display takes over formerly democratic, non-partisan American space/time in Washington DC tomorrow, it’s worth looking back at some of the (quickly forgotten) roots of the democracy. « This one is about Marquis Cesare Beccaria radical ideas on crime and punishmen».
“‘On Crimes and Punishments‘ was the first attempt to apply principles of political economy to the practice of punishment so as to humanise and rationalise the use of coercion by the state. After all, arbitrary and cruel punishment was the most immediate instrument that the state had to terrorise the people into submission, so as to avoid rebellion against the hierarchical structure of the society. The problem that Beccaria faced, then, was the simple fact that the elite had complete control of the law, which was a family business and a highly esoteric language that only the initiated could master. The path leading to the rational reform of penal law required a fundamental philosophical rethinking of the role and place of law in society.”
“You are a member of the best dressed, best fed, best equipped liberating Army now on earth. You are going in among the people of a former Ally of your country. They are still your kind of people who happen to speak democracy in a different language.”
As they moved off the beaches after 6-Jun-44, U.S. service personnel read this. Here are some particularly important excerpts.
Pocket Guide to France Prepared by Army Information Branch, Army Services Forces, Information and Education Division, United States Army War and Navy Departments, Washington, D.C. 1944
“Why You’re Going to France “You are about to play a personal part in pushing the Germans out of France. Whatever part you take—rifleman, hospital orderly, mechanic, pilot, clerk, gunner, truck driver—you will be an essential factor in a great effort which will have two results: first, France will be liberated from the Nazi mob and the Allied armies will be that much nearer Virtory, and second, the enemy will be deprived of coal, steel, manpower, machinery, food, bases, seacoast and a long list of other essentials which have enabled him to carry on the war at the expense of the French. “The Allied offensive you are taking part in is based upon a hard-boiled fact. It’s this. We democracies aren’t just doing favors in fighting for each other when history gets tough. We’re all in the same boat. Take a look around you as you move into France and you’ll see what the Nazis to to a democracy when they can get it down by itself.”
…
“A Few Pages of French History “Not only French ideas but French guns helped us to become a nation. Don’t forget that liberty loving Lafayette and his friends risked their lives and fortunes to come to the aid of General George Washington at a moment in our opening history when nearly all the world was against us. In the War for Independence which our ragged army was fighting, every man and each bullet counted. Frenchmen gave us their arms and their blood when they counted most. Some 45,000 Frenchmen crossed the Atlantic to help us. They came in cramped little ships of two or three hundred tons requiring two months or more for the crossing. We had no military engineers; French engineers designed and built our fortifications. We had little money; the French lent us over six million dollars and gave us over three million more. “In the same fighting spirit we acted as France’s alliy in 1917 and 1918 when our A.E.F. went into action. In that war, France, which is about a fourteenth of our size, lost nearly eighteen times more men than we did, fought twice as long and had an eighth of her country devastated.”
…
“In Parting “We are friends of the French and they are friends of ours. “The Germans are our enemies and we are theirs. “Some of the secret agents who have been spying on the French will no doubt remain to spy on you. Keep a close mouth. No bragging about anything. ‘No belittling either. Be generous; it won’t hurt. “Eat what is given you in your own unit. Don’t go foraging among the French. They can’t afford it. ‘Boil all drinking water unless it has been approved by a Medical Officer. ‘You are a member of the best dressed, best fed, best equipped liberating Army now on earth. You are going in among the people of a former Ally of your country. They are still your kind of people who happen to speak democracy in a different language. Americans among Frenchmen, let us remember our likenesses, not our differences. The Nazi slogan for destroying us both was “Divide and Conquer.” Our American answer is “In Union There Is Strength.””
Pocket Guide to France, US Army
“No bragging or belittling.” “Remember our likenesses, not our differences.” “In Union There is Strength.”
“Instead of “Thank you for your service,” try, “We’re sorry you had to expend your blood, sweat, tears and toil to clean up our monumental failings.” Every time you meet one of the dwindling numbers of WWII veterans (and those of all the other magnificent little American wars we’ve fallen into), keep your mouth shut and your brain focused on peace. These “Greatest Generation” folks answered the bell and won the fight. We might not be as blessed next time.”
[Yes, the pics are graphic. Look at them. Own them. Be glad they’re in black and white.]
Dead horses on a French street. Above: Dead American on a French Beach.| National Archives
Dead Americans on a Belgian street. | National ArchivesDead Germans on a French Street. | National ArchivesDead humans at K.L. Mulhausen. | National ArchivesDead US Coast Guard sailor on the USS Menges. Every thing suffers in war. | National Archives
As the 75th anniversary of the launch of Overlord arrives, it’s important to remember that it was just part of a very big picture, the beginning of the end of World War II. Up until that point, it had been a very long, very hard slog. But afterwards you could practically see directly from the beaches of Utah, Omaha, Sword, Juno and Gold on 6-Jun-1944 to the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2-Sep-1945. The war now had its expiration date.
No one cheered harder for the faint glimpse of the end than P.o.W.s in Japan, Korea and China. A few of those had survived four years of torture, starvation, beatings, illnesses such as beri-beri and even being bombarded by their own Army Air Force; they were the survivors of Wake Island, which resisted overwhelming Japanese invasion forces between 8-Dec and 23-Dec-1941. Had it not been for Overlord and Manhattan, those men would have died. Instead, they beat the odds thanks to Truman and Ike, Normandy and Trinity. (To quote directly: “Thank God for Harry Truman and thank God for the atom bomb!”)
I always think back to 1989, when as a newspaper reporter, I was privileged to meet just 11 of the Wake Island survivors, who gathered fairly often for small-scale reunions. That year, while working as a reporter who occasionally wrote some features about WWII vets, I got a call from a friend of mine, Marie Smith, (who had kept me sane during my cursed four months while we worked at <shudder> Wal-Mart), to tell me about an upcoming gathering of Wake Island survivors and their wives at the house of her and her husband John. These people were at that point closer than family, bound forever by what happened on a tiny atoll in the middle of a vast ocean.
The article below is what I wrote at the time, but there are two caveats: First, I apparently misspelled some names. I’ve corrected this at the bottom of this post with their bios. And second, this represents nowhere near everything I was told that day. I felt like an eavesdropper, someone who could watch and hear them, but who was so far removed from their time and experience that comprehension was impossible.
In 2016, the daughter of Tony Schawang of Falls City, NE, the man into whose soybeans Braniff 250 fell in 1966, told me an anecdote about her father, who landed on Omaha Beach 75 years ago. She said she once asked him about that day and he said, “Girlie, you don’t need to know anything about that kind of thing.” He was right.
A photographer took Tony’s picture the morning after the Braniff crash. He looks shell-shocked. I could only imagine the horror of seeing 42 dead people and a crashed airliner fall to earth in front of you. But after finding out that Tony had already seen way worse in 1944 made that picture clearer, more understandable. That’s a thousand-yard stare he has in that 1966 photo. I will now always wonder if he was seeing the wreckage of Braniff 250 … or the wreckage of Omaha Beach. Or a bloody mashing together of both. (As much as I respect Mr. Schawang, as the photos above attest, I disagree. We should always know, and see, the consequences of war.)
Now that we’re older, we can understand, and value, more of the meaning and reality of all this, but those Marines and their wives (and Tony Schawang) are now gone. We can’t have conversations with them just because we’re older and wiser and can now listen to them. They’re lost to history … and we’re much the poorer for it.
What do I now know? Don’t put D-Day in service to American (or British) exceptionalism or nationalism or patriotism, and don’t “thank” a veteran for his/her “service.” Man up, grow up and face up to the reality that no one wanted to “serve” us on the cold Normandy sand. They wanted to simply survive. The hard truth is that D-Day (and Wake Island) represented a failure. A failure to confront, contain and eliminate human anger, violence, and hatred in service to nationalistic ideologies in Japan, Germany and Italy. The failure to do that consumed, between 1914 and 1945 upwards of 150 million lives around the world. WWII soldiers HAD to “serve” at Omaha Beach because WE failed to protect THEM.
Instead of “Thank you for your service,” try, “We’re sorry you had to expend your blood, sweat, tears and toil to clean up our monumental failings.” Every time you meet one of the dwindling numbers of WWII veterans (and those of all the other magnificent little American wars we’ve fallen into), keep your mouth shut and your brain focused on peace. These “Greatest Generation” folks answered the bell and won the fight. We might not be as blessed next time.
Here are the original two Wake Island articles:
Memory Of WWII Still Vivid For Vets (Part I of the Wake Island Story)
‘Considering the power accumulated for the invastion of Wake Island and the meager forces of the defenders, it was one of the most humiliating defeats the Japanese Navy ever suffered.’ —Masatake Okumiya, commander, Japanese Imperial Navy
By Steve Pollock The Duncan (OK) Banner) Sunday, August 13, 1989
MARLOW – It all came back to them this weekend – the stark terror of facing death while kneeling naked on a sandy beach the stinking hold of the prison ship; the brutality of the Japanese; the obliteration of youthful innocence.
They fought and bled for a two-and-a-half-square-mile horseshoe of an atoll in the midPacific called Wake Island. They were United States Marines and they did their duty.
There were 10 [sic] men of that Wake Island garrison at the Marlow home of John Smith this weekend. With Smith, they talked, drank and smoked their way through the weekend, laughter masking deeper emotions of brotherhood, camaraderie and painful memories.
In the Smith kitchen, their wives continued the latest of an ongoing series of therapy sessions, attempting to exorcise some of the demons of the last 44 years of their lives with the hometown heroes.
In 1941, with war inevitable, the U.S. government began construction of a series of defensive Pacific Ocean outposts, including Wake, designed to protect against Japanese aggression. They were a little late.
Little Wake atoll, with some 1,616 Marines and civilians huddled on its three islands, was attacked at noon, Dec. 8, 1941, several hours after Pearl Harbor.
The Marines knew war was possible, but “didn’t think the little brown guys had the guts to hit us,” one of them said.
Jess Nowlin’s hearing aid battery is getting a little weak as the afternoon wears on, but his memory and sense of humor are still sharp.
He said the Marines were going about their business when they heard the drone of approaching aircraft.
“We thought they were B- 17’s out of Pearl coming in to refuel. They weren’t. They broke out of a cloud bank at about 1,800 feet, bomb bay doors open. They tore us up,” Nowlin said.
The Japanese attacked from sea and air, but the Marines held out until Dec. 23; only 400 remained to defend 21 miles of shoreline from 25 warships and a fleet of aircraft. Surrender was inevitable.
Through a haze of cigarette smoke, Robert Mac Brown, a veteran not only of World War II, but of Korea and three tours of duty in Vietnam, remembers the post-surrender scene on the beach.
“We were stripped naked and they hog-tied us with our own telephone wire. A squall came through, but lasted only about 10 to 15 minutes. One of my clearest memories of the whole operation is of watching the water run down the bare back of the guy in front of me,” Brown said.
Japanese soldiers lay on the sand in front of the prisoners, swinging machine guns back and forth. The click of rounds being loaded into chambers was ominous. Fingers tightened on triggers.
“There was an argument between the landing force commander and a guy with the fleet. They screamed at each other in Japanese, arguing about whether to kill us or not,” Brown said.
The Marines made their peace and prepared to die.
The argument to make prisoners of the Marines and civilians won the day. The prisoners were allowed to grab what clothing they could to cover themselves.
And then a living hell began which would only be ended by the birth of atomic stars over southern Japan nearly four years later.
Taken off the island on small ships, the prisoners were forced to climb up the side of the Nittamaru, a former cruise ship pitching about on rough seas.
As the men walked back through the ship and down to the hold, the crew beat them with bamboo sticks, in a gauntlet of brutality.
Packed in the stinking hold, several hundred Marines and civilians had only one five-gallon bucket per deck to hold human waste. For the 14 days of the Nittamaru’s passage from Wake to Shanghai, they could barely move.
The cold of Shanghai was felt through their thin tropical khaki. It was January 1942. Robert Brown was to have married his girl on January 12. She married someone else.
“I thought you were dead,” she later told him.
From Shanghai, through Nanking, Peking, Manchuria and Pusan, Korea, the group journeyed in packed cattle cars to their eventual destination, a coal mine on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, where they dug in the shafts alongside third-generation Korean slave labor.
They were slaves themselves until August 1945.
“Thank God for Harry S. Truman and the atomic bomb,” several survivors said, as the others echoed that prayer.
They went home to heroes’ welcomes, but the public ”’never fully appreciated or understood what we did,” Nowlin said.
They’re much older now — in their 60’s and 70’s — and it was a family reunion of sorts; they claim to be closer than brothers. They don’t miss their “get-togethers” for anything in the world; Robert Haidinger traveled from San Diego with a long chest incision after recently undergoing a major operation.
As they gazed through the Oklahoma sunshine, they didn’t see the cow bam beyond the lovegrass rippling in the August breeze; it was a Japanese destroyer was steaming close in to end their lives all over again.
“It was awful, terrible; I wouldn’t have missed it for anything; you couldn’t get me to do it again for a billion dollars,” Nowlin summed it up.
The men: Tony Obre [sic], Fallbrook, Calif; Robert Haidinger, San Diego, Calif.; Robert Murphy, Thermopolis, Wyo.; Dale Milburn [sic], Santa Rosa, Calif.; George McDaniels [sic], Dallas, Texas; Jess Nowlin, Bonham, Texas; Jack Cook, Golden, Colo.; Robert Mac Brown, Phoenix, Ariz.; Jack Williamson, Lawton; Paul Cooper, Marlow, and John Smith, Marlow.
The cost of the defense of Wake Island, from Dec. 8 to 23, 1941: Americans: 46 Marines, 47 civilians, three sailors and 11 airplanes; Japanese: 5,700 men, 11 ships and 29 airplanes.
Wives Cope With Husband’s Memories (Part II of the Wake Island Story)
By Steve Pollock The Duncan (OK) Banner Sunday, August 13, 1989
MARLOW – It all came back to them this weekend – fists lashing out during nightmares, the traumatic memories, the attempts to catch up on lost time.
The wives of 10 Wake Island survivors met in Marlow with their husbands this weekend for reasons of their own.
“We go through therapy every time we get together. We help each other with problems,” they said.
The wives: Florence Haidinger, Maxine Murphy, Opal Milburn [sic], Irene McDaniels [sic], Sarah Nowlin, Betty Cook, Millie Brown, Jo Williamson, Juanita Cooper and Marie Smith.
They did their own bit during World War II: The Red Cross, an airplane factory in Detroit, North American Aviation in El Segundo, Calif, Douglas in Los Angeles, the Kress dime store.
They married their men after the long national nightmare was finished, and their lives became entwined by one event: the Japanese attack on Wake Island Dec. 8-23,1941.
Since the first reunion of Wake survivors and their spouses in 1953, these women have been like sisters.
“We love each other, we’re closer than family,” Jo Williamson said.
In Marie Smith’s kitchen, therapy was doled out in a catharsis of talk little different from that of the men gathered on the patio. Talk is said to be good for the soul; these women heal great tears in theirs every time they see each other.
According to the wives, the men came home from the war, married, had children and tried to pick up where they left off.
They wanted to take care of their families and try to catch up. They were robbed of the fun times of their late teens and early 20’s, the women unanimously agree.
“They have also lived every day as if it were their last,” Sarah Nowlin said.
The men needed some help after their harrowing battle and brutal three -and-a-half-year captivity.
According to the women, doctors never realized therapy was in order: “They never got anything.”
One man lashed out with his fists during nightmares; after a few pops, his wife learned to leave the room. Another would slide out of bed and assume a rigid posture on the floor, arms and legs folded. Yet they have all been gentle men.
“I’ve never seen my husband harm or even verbally abuse anyone,” a wife said Reunions such as this help the men and women deal with life as they age. The youths of 16-22 are now grandfathers and grandmothers in their 60’s and 70’s.
Life today is a bit baffling to them.
Extremely proud of their men, the women have no patience with draft dodgers, flag burners, Japanese cars or foreign ownership of America.
They didn’t agree with the Vietnam war policy, but duty to country should have come first, they said.
“I didn’t want my son to go to Vietnam, but I would have been ashamed of him if he hadn’t,” one said.
The issue of flag burning stirs violent protest and emotion in the group: “Made in America”’ labels are on everything they buy.
And the younger generation does not enjoy the women’s confidence: “I don’t think they could do what we were all called on to do,” they agreed.
And as Marlow afternoon shadows grew longer, the women of Wake continued to cleanse their souls.
Updated bios (confirmed via findagrave.com):
• Cpl. Robert Mac Brown, USMC, Phoenix, AZ. Birth: 1-Feb-1918. Death: 21-Sep-2002 (age 84). Buried: Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA.
• Sgt. Jack Beasom Cook, USMC, Golden, CO.
Birth: 18-Jun-1918, Okmulgee, OK.
Death: 20-Nov-1999 (age 81).
Buried: Fort Logan National Cemetery, Denver, CO.
• Sgt. Paul Carlton Cooper, USMC, Marlow, OK.
Birth: 30-Oct-1918, Richardson, TX.
Death: 18-Sep-1994 (age 75), Marlow, OK.
Buried: Marlow Cemetery, Marlow, OK.
• Cpl. Robert Fernand Haidinger, USMC, San Diego, CA. Birth: 24-Nov-1918, Chicago, IL. Death: 7-Mar-2014 (age 95). Buried: Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, CA.
• PFC Robert Bruce “Bob” Murphy, USMC, Thermopolis, WY. Birth: 5-Oct-1920, Thermopolis, WY. Death: 5-Feb-2007 (age 86), Hot Springs County, WY. Buried: Monument Hill Cemetery, Thermopolis, WY.
• Pvt. Ival Dale Milbourn, USMC, Phoenix, AZ.
Birth: 23-Jul-1922, Saint Joseph, MO.
Death: 18-Dec-2001 (age 79), Mesa, AZ.
Buried: Skylawn Memorial Park, San Mateo, CA.
• PFC George Washington “Dub” McDaniel, Dallas, TX.
Birth: 23-Dec-1915, Stigler, OK.
Death: 14-Jul-1993 (age 77).
Buried: Stigler Cemetery, Stigler, OK.
• MSgt. Tony Theodule Oubre, USMC (ret.), Fallbrook, CA. Birth: 17-Aug-1919, Loreauville, Iberia Parish, LA. Death: 7-Feb-2005 (age 85). Buried: Riverside National Cemetery, Riverside, CA.
• Pvt. John Clarence Smith, Marlow, OK. Birth: 11-Mar-1918. Death: 19-Jan-1994 (age 75). Buried: Marlow Cemetery, Marlow, OK.
• Sgt. Jack Russell “Rusty” Williamson, Jr., USMC, Lawton, OK. Birth: 26-Jul-1919, Lawton, OK. Death: 12-Jul-1996 (age 76). Buried: Highland Cemetery, Lawton, OK.
The wives (I couldn’t confirm the details for all of them):
• Juanita Belle Sehested Cooper
Birth: 5-Dec-1920, Marlow, OK.
Death: 28-Jul-2001 (age 80), Beaverton, OR.
Buried: Marlow Cemetery, Marlow, OK.
• Florence A Haidinger
Birth: 31-Dec-1934.
Death: 26-Sep-2014 (age 79).
Buried: Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, CA.
“Many states whose sovereignty is threatened are now finally waking up to the danger. But is it perhaps already too late to do anything about the seemingly over-mighty corporations?”
Is corporate power absolute yet? Or just overwhelming? Maybe … it’s just … mestastizing? There’s a fascinating documentary over at Deutsche Welle:
“The Wallonia region in Belgium triggered a Europe-wide crisis in the fall of 2016 by refusing to sign the CETA free trade agreement with Canada, as millions of EU citizens took to the streets to protest against the agreement. The CETA negotiations had turned the spotlight on the system of private arbitration courts. … Many states whose sovereignty is threatened are now finally waking up to the danger. But is it perhaps already too late to do anything about the seemingly over-mighty corporations?”
Immoral, indecent, inhumane. … We are running concentration camps and human beings are dying.
Immoral, indecent, inhumane. There is no slippery slope; this country is on a well-trodden path dating back at least to 1492. There is also no false equivalency. We are running concentration camps and human beings are dying. [Full Stop]
Details are in the OIG report to DHS. Full report is here.
“It is impossible to engage in intellectual discourse with National Socialist Philosophy. For if there were such an entity, one would have to try by means of analysis and discussion either to prove its validity or to combat it. …”
And then Primo Levi pegged the inevitable results of such greed, hypocrisy, selfishness … and our addiction to those three destructive forces:
“Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it. Rejection of human solidarity, obtuse and cynical indifference to the suffering of others, abdication of the intellect and of moral sense to the principle of authority, and above all, at the root of everything, a sweeping tide of cowardice, a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue, love of country and faith in an idea.”
Primo Levi
And the college students of the White Rose in Munich, 1942, in a pamphlet that would lead to their executions, also outlined how it’s impossible to have rational, intellectual discourse with those who have devoted themselves to irrational, anti-intellectual rot:
“It is impossible to engage in intellectual discourse with National Socialist Philosophy. For if there were such an entity, one would have to try by means of analysis and discussion either to prove its validity or to combat it. In actuality we face a [different] situation. At its very inception this movement depended on the deception and betrayal of one’s fellow man.”
The White Rose Society, 1942
No. You cannot argue with Fascists or Nazis or ignorant nationalists. Rational arguments won’t win over irrational people.
“An American gentleman . . . likewise stuck his hands deep into his pockets, and walked the deck with his nostrils dilated, as already inhaling the air of Freedom which carries death to all tyrants, and can never (under any circumstances worth mentioning) be breathed by slaves.”
Another in a series of random notes of things I want to remember:
Charles Dickens had this country pegged from the beginning—our addictions (tobacco and greed, hypocrisy and selfishness):
“Men were weighed by their dollars, measures gauged by their dollars; life was auctioneered, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its dollars. … “Schools may be erected, East, West, North, and South; pupils be taught, and masters reared, by scores upon scores of thousands; colleges may thrive, churches may be crammed, temperance may be diffused, and advancing knowledge in all other forms walk through the land with giant strides: but while the newspaper press of America is in, or near, its present abject state, high moral improvement in that country is hopeless. … “As Washington may be called the head-quarters of tobacco-tinctured saliva, the time is come when I must confess, without any disguise, that the prevalence of those two odious practices of chewing and expectorating began about this time to be anything but agreeable, and soon became most offensive and sickening. In all the public places of America, this filthy custom is recognised. In the courts of law, the judge has his spittoon, the crier his, the witness his, and the prisoner his; while the jurymen and spectators are provided for, as so many men who in the course of nature must desire to spit incessantly. … “An American gentleman . . . likewise stuck his hands deep into his pockets, and walked the deck with his nostrils dilated, as already inhaling the air of Freedom which carries death to all tyrants, and can never (under any circumstances worth mentioning) be breathed by slaves. … “Here’s the rule for bargains. ‘Do other men, for they would do you.’ That’s the true business precept.”
Amen to John Fugelsang’s tweet. Also, it could have been written: “DEEPLY OFFENDED that black football players refuse to stand for the National Anthem bc freedom is all about mandatory loyalty posturing.”
This has been a problem for decades in this country, Jeebus knows.
Plus … this response is fabulous:
I refused to say the pledge too, and it kept me from starting that ska band I always wanted. pic.twitter.com/bUfSWtFdaW
As an aside, here’s a great photo of the way students were forced to salute the American flag back in the days when America was great:
[Wikipedia Commons]
It’s worth noting some text from the decision written by Justice Robert H. Jackson (who would go on to prosecute Nazis at the Nuremberg trials—irony!) in West Virginia v. Barnette, the 1943 decision in which the Supreme Court said, quelle surprise, we cannot be forced to “pledge” “allegiance” to the U.S. flag:
“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections. …
“The case is made difficult not because the principles of its decision are obscure but because the flag involved is our own. Nevertheless, we apply the limitations of the Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse or even contrary will disintegrate the social organization. To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.”
Justice Robert H. Jackson
I would never presume to improve on anything Justice Jackson wrote, so …
“19:56: We popped over to the Puppy Bowl in time for some nauseating exploitation. But I hope it helps some puppies.
“19:57: Fourth first down? They’re showing signs of life? And Romo is a totally sarcastic smartass. And the Rams get one more first down.
“20:02: Suddenly Rams show a spark. But McCordy smacks the ball outta the hands of the Rams receiver in the end zone. Frustration on the sidelines.” | Read more after the jump:
Have no earthly idea why, but s I’m livebloggin’ this thing. You could encounter boredom and outrage and other acts of writing regurgitation.
17:36: After stomping down the field with run plays, Brady’s first pass is intercepted. Crap on a cracker.
17:39: Rams do nothing. Third and out. Juli’s punt return not great. Now for the usual over-hyped commercials.
17:41: Hulu smashes it outta the park with a Handmaid’s Tale ad throwing Reagan’s “Morning in America” barf campaign ad back in his face. Awesome.
17:47: Time out early, Pats. Neither team has calmed down from early hype. If NE can keep Brady on the field, they can wear out the Rams defense.
17:49: Turkish Airlines: A Ridley Scott film? Seriously?
17:50: Give Gronk ball. Gronk run. Run, Gronk, run. Gronk run 17 yards. Good Gronk, good.
17:52: Second Pats timeout? Whuh?
17:54: Weird social justice/Dr. King legacy/NFL trying to … blackwash (?!) their Kaepernick problems … without mentioning Kaepernick. Ridiculous.
17:56: Gostkowski … misses a field goal?! That’ll come back to haunt them.
18:03: Rams got nothin’ but a penalty. Brady coming out for third time from their 19.
18:07: Hogan drops a pass. Y’all need to settle down, boys.
18:08: Julian gets a good one.
18:09: What are you doing, Tom??!! Yeesh!
18:10: Go, Gronk, go!! Smash, Gronk, smash!
18:11: And they have to punt. Is this gonna be a boring one? Rams have 24 yards of offense and Tom has been kinda weak. End of first quarter. 0-0.
18:17: Rams still go nuthin’. Almost bobbled an interception, which would have been a touchdown.
18:21: Gronk catch, but Gronk short.
18:22: Go Juli! Go Juli! Awesome.
18:23: Tom misses Chris. Long third down.
18:24: Gronk get ball, but Gronk short again. Tom mad. Gostkowski redeems himself for the earlier miss? Yes! Finally points. 3-0, Pats. The ice breaker?
18:28: Rams are only running. Not far, but they’re running.
18:29: Jared finally tosses an 18-yarder. Should have been challenged. Where’s Bill’s head right now?
18:30: Rams stuffed on ground again. Good on yer, Pats defense. And they have to punt. Get your act together now, Tom!
18:31: Complete asshole/bro dipshit/douchy whiteboy commanding everything around him to respond to his commands because … he owns a Mercedes. A pox on thee, Mercedes, a pox.
18:40: Some things happened. The commercials are idiotic as always. I’m bored. Why do the Rams keep running the ball? Why don’t they let the Saints suit up and take over?
18:41: Goff just got smacked to the ground. Van Noy!!! Awesome. And then they punt. And here comes more insipidness. Every year, for the millions spent on these stupid ads, they could … end homelessness. Buy patients drugs they can’t afford. Ensure health care for millions. God.
18:47: Two-minute warning. Halftime. Which will be completely ignored. Maybe I’ll go scrub the toilet. That would be more fun.
18:49: Sarah Jessica Parker and Jeff Bridges doing a Stella Artois commercial with her flaunting big cleavage and him flaunting his ability to still remember his lines?
18:50: Mass confusion. Rams have 14? men on the field.
17:36: After stomping down the field with run plays, Brady’s first pass is intercepted. Crap on a cracker.
17:39: Rams do nothing. Third and out. Juli’s punt return not great. Now for the usual over-hyped commercials.
17:41: Hulu smashes it outta the park with a Handmaid’s Tale ad throwing Reagan’s “Morning in America” barf campaign ad back in his face. Awesome.
17:47: Time out early, Pats. Neither team has calmed down from early hype. If NE can keep Brady on the field, they can wear out the Rams defense.
17:49: Turkish Airlines: A Ridley Scott film? Seriously?
17:50: Give Gronk ball. Gronk run. Run, Gronk, run. Gronk run 17 yards. Good Gronk, good.
17:52: Second Pats timeout? Whuh?
17:54: Weird social justice/Dr. King legacy/NFL trying to … blackwash (?!) their Kaepernick problems … without mentioning Kaepernick. Ridiculous.
17:56: Gostkowski … misses a field goal?! That’ll come back to haunt them.
18:03: Rams got nothin’ but a penalty. Brady coming out for third time from their 19.
18:07: Hogan drops a pass. Y’all need to settle down, boys.
18:08: Julian gets a good one.
18:09: What are you doing, Tom??!! Yeesh!
18:10: Go, Gronk, go!! Smash, Gronk, smash!
18:11: And they have to punt. Is this gonna be a boring one? Rams have 24 yards of offense and Tom has been kinda weak. End of first quarter. 0-0.
18:17: Rams still go nuthin’. Almost bobbled an interception, which would have been a touchdown.
18:21: Gronk catch, but Gronk short.
18:22: Go Juli! Go Juli! Awesome.
18:23: Tom misses Chris. Long third down.
18:24: Gronk get ball, but Gronk short again. Tom mad. Gostkowski redeems himself for the earlier miss? Yes! Finally points. 3-0, Pats. The ice breaker?
18:28: Rams are only running. Not far, but they’re running.
18:29: Jared finally tosses an 18-yarder. Should have been challenged. Where’s Bill’s head right now?
18:30: Rams stuffed on ground again. Good on yer, Pats defense. And they have to punt. Get your act together now, Tom!
18:31: Complete asshole/bro dipshit/douchy whiteboy commanding everything around him to respond to his commands because … he owns a Mercedes. A pox on thee, Mercedes, a pox.
18:40: Some things happened. The commercials are idiotic as always. I’m bored. Why do the Rams keep running the ball? Why don’t they let the Saints suit up and take over?
18:41: Goff just got smacked to the ground. Van Noy!!! Awesome. And then they punt. And here comes more insipidness. Every year, for the millions spent on these stupid ads, they could … end homelessness. Buy patients drugs they can’t afford. Ensure health care for millions. God.
18:47: Two-minute warning. Halftime. Which will be completely ignored. Maybe I’ll go scrub the toilet. That would be more fun.
18:49: Sarah Jessica Parker and Jeff Bridges doing a Stella Artois commercial with her flaunting big cleavage and him flaunting his ability to still remember his lines?
18:50: Mass confusion. Rams have 14? men on the field.
18:53: Going for a fourth-and-one. And … Gronk can’t hold on, just past his fingertips. Rams ball. Damn.
18:55: But Goff bites the astroturf. Then fires a pass, but too little too late. Then hits the turf with a low pass. 28 seconds left. Rams do nothing, nothing, nothing. Six punts. This one downed at Pats two, but the half is 16 seconds away. Don’t do something stupid here.
18:57: And here’s the half. Second lowest scoring Stupor Bowl in history. Stadium sounds like there’s no one in it.
19:18: Is this stupid halftime thing over yet?
19:23: ADT and Property Brothers threatening us that we’re gonna see a lot more of them. Please God, no.
19:29: Kick the ball and let’s get this thing going.
19:30: Goff passes right to … Highland, a New England defender, who can’t hold on to the ball. Then somebody runs. It’s pretty much the first half again.
19:32: Injury. And a guy in what looks like purple eyeshadow says something about Belicheck not saying anything of substance. Then a stupid ad with a kid being exploited to sell South Korean cars made in Georgia.
19:35: Broken arm. Gets the biggest crowd reaction yet. Bloodthirsty buggers down there in Atlanta.
19:37: Goff heads for the bench again. Pats getting the punt. Go Juli. He has more yards gained than the entire Rams offense.
19:38: Tom calls “Reagan! Reagan!” It’s a run to the right. Like Reagan, overblown.
19:40: Julian takes a pass and gets 37 yards. Woooooot! Julian MVP? He has 120+ yards, so why not?
19:43: And they have to punt. <sigh>
19:46: Rams in the hole, get a penalty.
19:47: Am I the only one bugged that the navy blue on the Rams’ helmets doesn’t match the blue on their jerseys? And Goff almost gets a safety. And they make their eighth punt. But it’s a 65-yarder … longest punt in Stupor Bowl history. It’s a dubious achievement, but there it is.
19:48: More feel gooding, this time first responders get their due in order to be exploited by those assholes at Verizon. Love first responders, Verizon can bite me.
19:56: We popped over to the Puppy Bowl in time for some nauseating exploitation. But I hope it helps some puppies.
19:57: Fourth first down? They’re showing signs of life? And Romo is a totally sarcastic smartass. And the Rams get one more first down.
20:02: Suddenly Rams show a spark. But McCordy smacks the ball outta the hands of the Rams receiver in the end zone. Frustration on the sidelines.
20:03: Goff gets totally snuffed into the turf. Bam! From Hightower.
20:04: Rams get a long field goal. It’s 3-3. How thrilling. First 50+-yard field goal in 15 years.
20:08: Holding on the Rams.
20:10: And three quarters are gone. 3-3 at 53.
20:13: First Stupor Bowl ever where there hasn’t been a touchdown in three quarters. And then Tom hits the turf. And they punt.
20:16: Goff flubs it and marches 5 yards back.
20:18: 12:23 to go and Pats take timeout. Please God don’t send us to overtime.
20:22: Goff gets plowed into the turf again. Flag on field: Holding, Pats. Geez, boys.
20:24: Holding on the Rams.
20:26: Goff gets bowled into the sideline spectators. Then a pass that was nothing.
20:28: Burger King digs up Andy Warhol’s corpse to flog whoppers. Now it’s folk songs calling for communist overthrow being used to flog beer.
20:29: All Pats Super Bowls decided in last three minutes and by small number of points. Yup. Go Gronk go!!!!
20:31: Julian’s 10th catch. Nice.
20:32: GRONK GRONK GRONK!!!! Will we finally get a TD in this game?
20:41: Thank God. Some Rams things happened then a beautiful interception. Pats defense should be MVPs!
20:45: 26 yards gets them some space. Plus illegal use of hands by the Rams.
20:47: Some confusion over time. Time out LA.
20:48: 26 yards by Burkette. Yes!
20:50: Two Patriots penalties?! Justified, I’m afraid. Calm down.
20:51: Belicheck is MADDDDDDDD. No one knows what happened. Two minute warning!
20:55: Washington Post “Democracy Dies in Darkness” ad. Hmmmmm. You should have given murdered and threatened journalists much more airplay. But it’s a start.
20:58: Gostkowski wins the Stupor Bowl for the Pats. Good on ya boys!
21:00: Here’s the last minute. Rams’ last gasp.
21:03: 48 yard field goal try, but won’t work. It’s wide left. Brady and company celebrating.
21:04: Kneel down, Tom. And congrats. That’s the ol’ ball game.
21:09: Madness on field. MVP should be Juli. And it is.
21:26: Finally the trophy. Yeesh. Belicheck is touching a child. Wow.
21:30: Juli’s kind of a goober like Tom. But congrats to his … amazing game. And I’m out. Night!
Here are a few Original Originalist quotes worth Originally quoting, from a few of our first Original Founders:
As the beery angry drunk Bratty “C’mon Just Touch It!” Keginaw takes the Supreme Court in supremely retrograde and heavily misogynistic directions, here are a few Original Originalist quotes worth Originally quoting, from a few of our first Original Founders:
“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11 (Ratified by founding father and president John Adams and approved unanimously by the Senate)
“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”
James Madison, Letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774
“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
Thomas Paine, Excerpt from The Age of Reason
“If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.”
George Washington, Letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, May 1789
“No religious doctrine shall be established by law.”
Elbridge Gerry, Annals of Congress, 1:729-731
“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
“Denominated a Deist, the reality of which I have never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian.”
Ethan Allen, Religion of the American Enlightenment
“No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
The United States Constitution, Article VI, Paragraph III
“The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner or on any pretext infringed.”
James Madison, First Federal Congress, Congressional Register, June 8, 1789
“Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself than this thing called Christianity.”
Thomas Paine, Excerpt from The Age of Reason
“Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated.”
George Washington, Letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792
“On this page you will find maps showing almost every building in the United States. Why did we make such a thing? We did it as an opportunity for you to connect with the country’s cities and explore them in detail.”
I’ve always loved maps and could spend hours poring over them. From the old gas station maps at my father’s Malco station in Roswell to Google Earth, there’s always something fascinating in maps and data and all that.
The New York Times recently posted«a map of every building in America» and it’s worth many hours of your time. Awesome stuff! Have a look.
“On this page you will find maps showing almost every building in the United States. Why did we make such a thing? We did it as an opportunity for you to connect with the country’s cities and explore them in detail. To find the familiar, and to discover the unfamiliar. So … look. Every black speck on the map below is a building, reflecting the built legacy of the United States.”
“On every airline flight, a crew member talks to passengers in the exit rows to see whether they can, as Federal Aviation Administration regulations specify, “pass expeditiously through the emergency exit” if needed. Given how passengers have grown in inverse proportion to the spaciousness of airliner seats, anything like “expeditious” evacuation of an entire airliner seems doubtful.”
If you have to evacuate an airliner in a hurry, can you get out of your extremely cramped seat and row fast enough? Probably not. And then you have to dodge all the idiots trying to save all their luggage and personal electronic devices at glacial paces.
But it’s the ever-shrinking seat and row size that will probably be the deadliest problem if there’s a problem with the over-stuffed aluminum tube in which you’re squeezed because most of the country is too damn cheap to pay more than $29 to get from Dubuque to Miami. « At least one editorial » (which was probably ignored and forgotten faster than that flight took to get from Dubuque to Miami) sounded an alarm:
“Given how passengers have grown in inverse proportion to the spaciousness of airliner seats, anything like ‘expeditious’ evacuation of an entire airliner seems doubtful. … Under such constraints, can today’s jets be evacuated in the 90 seconds mandated by the F.A.A.? Not according to passenger advocacy groups like Flyers Rights, which has repeatedly and unsuccessfully petitioned the F.A.A. to use its rule-making authority to stop airlines from shrinking seats and passenger space. Not according to Representatives Peter DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon, and Rick Larsen, Democrat of Washington, who have asked the Transportation Department’s inspector general to investigate F.A.A. safety standards that haven’t been updated in decades. Incredibly, it will require an act of Congress to ensure that the F.A.A. does something, because the agency has denied that seat sizes and body mass index are factors in emergencies. The agency has even denied that it has the authority to regulate airliner seat size.”
The New York Times
As always in this country, it will take a massive tragedy and lots of unnecessarily burned/maimed/dead people before we do something about this. Pity.
On 1-Jun-1945, six weeks after the death of Franklin Roosevelt, new U.S. President Harry Truman convened a meeting to update the status on and debate the use of the soon-to-be-born atomic bomb. But first, at the Pentagon, a group consisting of James Byrnes (soon to be Secretary of State), generals George C. Marshall and Leslie Groves, Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi, among others, convened to make a decision on how to advise the new president on the bomb.
Secretary of War Henry Stimson was also present … and well prepared:
“Stimson was now focused exclusively on the atomic bomb. He had become transfixed by its potential historical impact. He had prepared handwritten notes for these meetings, which curiously read like modernist poetry. The verse was a window into the secretary of war’s state of mind.”
His notes:
Its size and character We don’t think it mere new weapon Revolutionary Discovery of Relation of man to universe Great History Landmark like Gravitation Copernican Theory But, Bids fair infinitely greater, in respect to its Effect —on the ordinary affairs of man’s life. May destroy or perfect International Civilization May[be] Frankenstein or means for World Peace
—Secretary of War Henry Stimson | 1-Jun-45 As quoted by A. J. Baime, The Accidental President. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018.
The Accidental President is fascinating reading, while the jury is still out on Stimson’s poetic questions.
I pretty much wish I had remained disconnected from FB while also being innovative enough to stay connected to the real people in my life without Facebook’s corrupting middle man kleptocracy. I sense that there is another housecleaning coming; my involvement will need to be further curtailed. I’m thinking of what we can do next … there are far better possibilities, surely, than this unholy mess of greed and venality.
A gem I wrote on FB on 28-Feb-2010:
“My Facebook account is being deleted (allegedly) as of this morning. It takes 14 days for the deletion to go through, during which time they beg and plead for you to come back (mainly by trying to guilt trip you: “Your friend, John X, will miss you!”) and sending you spam begging for your presence on their totally messed up, nonsensical, aggravating, unsafe, unsecure, grossly indecent to privacy site, with its hideous navigation, crippled by the company’s inability to comprehend basic navigability and usability and its stuffed-up with San Francisco-centric IT/corporate culture snobbery permanently sticking its cube dwellers behind an impregnable wall which protects them from actually having to communicate with their users.
“Yeah, all that: gone. And I feel good. So very much better. Didn’t need the aggravation. Didn’t need to deal with the kind of things I dealt with working in San Francisco in that environment myself. Didn’t need to justify my life to distant people with political agendas.
“It was nice to hear from and reconnect (briefly) with high school friends/acquaintances. I’m looking forward to seeing more of them in real life, away from that god-awful FB interface. But the rest of it … no, don’t need it.
“Relief. Sweet.” ________________
28-Feb-10, Author
Fast forward to eight-and-a-half years later: I still stand behind my rant from 2010. And am half tempted to repeat the experience.
I originally joined Facebook in 2004, when only college students in certain schools could do so. It was really supposed to just hook up various combinations of random, mostly romantic, relationships for college students. It was a hook up site, plain and simple. It was designed to get you a returned phone call, a date, and hopefully, ultimately get you laid. Sorry, but that’s what it was.
I was in grad school at Michigan, an approved school, and had an .edu email address, which was required, so I could sign up. Seemed like a good idea, although I was not interested in hook up apps or college culture, just cutting edge tech and if it could be used in the classroom.
But. The way this thing has developed since 2004 from a hookup site/innovative curiousity into a force of nature which does only one good thing (makes it somewhat easy for you to keep up with far-flung friends and family) and many, many, many, very many, very bad things.
It rips into your brain, vacuums up any and every thing about you and then commodifies and monetizes the pieces that make up “you” billions of times over. This makes a few people incredibly wealthy. It leaves the rest of us stripped naked of our identities and essences, our food/clothing/shelter choices, our deepest thoughts and most superficial desires.
Worst, it is a force combined with others like it that has this century turned the country from a publicly accountable democracy into a privatized unimpeachable corporate kleptocracy. And what that new sociopolitical system does best is steal us from us and fence us on a black market, allow lying demagogues to assume power and distort the meaning of truth in our universe.
I pretty much wish I had remained disconnected from FB while also being innovative enough to stay connected to the real people in my life without Facebook’s corrupting middle man kleptocracy. I sense that there is another housecleaning coming; my involvement will need to be further curtailed. I’m thinking of what we can do next … there are far better possibilities, surely, than this unholy mess of greed and venality.
“Here’s another fact of life in West Egg: Someone is always above you. In Gatsby’s case, it was the old-money people of East Egg. In the Colonel’s case, it was John D. Rockefeller Jr. You’re always trying to please them, and they’re always ready to pull the plug.
“The source of the trouble, considered more deeply, is that we have traded rights for privileges. We’re willing to strip everyone, including ourselves, of the universal right to a good education, adequate health care, adequate representation in the workplace, genuinely equal opportunities, because we think we can win the game. But who, really, in the end, is going to win this slippery game of escalating privileges?”
—The Atlantic
And this:
“In Trump, the age of unreason has at last found its hero. The ‘self-made man’ is always the idol of those who aren’t quite making it. He is the sacred embodiment of the American dream, the guy who answers to nobody, the poor man’s idea of a rich man. It’s the educated phonies this group can’t stand. With his utter lack of policy knowledge and belligerent commitment to maintaining his ignorance, Trump is the perfect representative for a population whose idea of good governance is just to scramble the eggheads. When reason becomes the enemy of the common man, the common man becomes the enemy of reason.
Did I mention that the common man is white? That brings us to the other side of American-style resentment. You kick down, and then you close ranks around an imaginary tribe. The problem, you say, is the moochers, the snakes, the handout queens; the solution is the flag and the religion of your (white) ancestors. According to a survey by the political scientist Brian Schaffner, Trump crushed it among voters who ‘strongly disagree’ that ‘white people have advantages because of the color of their skin,’ as well as among those who ‘strongly agree’ that ‘women seek to gain power over men.’ It’s worth adding that these responses measure not racism or sexism directly, but rather resentment. They’re good for picking out the kind of people who will vehemently insist that they are the least racist or sexist person you have ever met, even as they vote for a flagrant racist and an accused sexual predator.”
—Ibid
And then he brings it home:
“No one is born resentful. As mass phenomena, racism, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, narcissism, irrationalism, and all other variants of resentment are as expensive to produce as they are deadly to democratic politics. Only long hours of television programming, intelligently manipulated social-media feeds, and expensively sustained information bubbles can actualize the unhappy dispositions of humanity to the point where they may be fruitfully manipulated for political gain. Racism in particular is not just a legacy of the past, as many Americans would like to believe; it also must be constantly reinvented for the present. Mass incarceration, fearmongering, and segregation are not just the results of prejudice, but also the means of reproducing it.”
—Ibid
Where then shall we go thither?
“The United States, to be clear, is hardly the most egregious offender in the annals of human inequality. The European nations from which the colonists of North America emigrated had known a degree of inequality and instability that Americans would take more than a century to replicate. Whether in ancient Rome or the Near East, Asia or South America, the plot remains the same. In The Great Leveler, the historian Walter Scheidel makes a disturbingly good case that inequality has reliably ended only in catastrophic violence: wars, revolutions, the collapse of states, or plagues and other disasters. It’s a depressing theory. Now that a third wave of American inequality appears to be cresting, how much do we want to bet that it’s not true?”
—Ibid
If I have quoted rather liberally, it is to be sure because the piece deserves to be quoted liberally across the land. Read the whole thing.
The story is sordid and long, but the details were made clear by Matt Viser’s excellent Globe piece. To wit: Lorenzo sold the Donald the Eastern Shuttle for an overvalued $365 million (if DT had created a brand-new shuttle from the ground up with brand-new planes, not old worn-out 727s, estimates were that he could have done it for $300 million.) Of course, the money was all borrowed. It was 1989; Eastern (and Continental) were already almost dead from Lorenzo’s sledgehammer and the economy was tanking. Pan Am 103 was bombed, the first Gulf War was about to begin. It was incredibly bad judgement to overpay a bunch of other peoples’ money for something that was guaranteed to tank.
“The Aviation Safety Network estimated there were nearly 37 million flights in 2017, more than any year in history, meaning that aircraft mishaps are declining even as the number of flights continues to rise. The last commercial jet airline crash in which more than 100 people were killed was Oct. 31, 2015, when 224 lives were lost after a flight from Russia broke apart in Egypt. The ASN, which tracks crashes using different metrics from those to70 uses, showed 10 recorded crashes involving small propeller planes and cargo aircraft, killing 44 passengers and 35 people on the ground in 2017. In 2016, the group counted 16 accidents with 303 dead.” —The Washington Post, 2-Jan-18
But in true 2017-was-an-asshole form, even that tiny bright spot was tarnished when the Personality-in-Chief who shuttles between golf courses and Pennsylvania Avenue on a pimped-out Boeing 747 at considerable taxpayer expense, took credit for last year’s remarkable airline safety record. Urk.
For the Golfer-in-Chief to take credit for this is beyond offensive and insensitive and a lie. It blackens the names of people like Eastern 304’s Grant Newby and Braniff 250’s Don Pauley and Jim Hilliker and Ruth and Mitchell Kuhr and USAirways 1549’s Sully Sullenberger and Jeff Skiles and those dead and injured on Southern 242 and Delta 191 and Air Florida 90, plus all the CAB/NTSB investigators, FAA enforcers and weather experts like Dr. Ted Fujita and Dr. Fernando Caracena … and on and on. And especially all the flight crews who thousands of times a day implement what was learned in the past and get us safely to Lawton and Houston and Milwaukee and Paris and Hong Kong and Lagos.
Let’s be clear: The Ego-in-Chief had absolutely nothing to do with the absence of death on the airways last year. And it was a slap in the face and highly offensive to the memories of all the people who died and all the people who worked so hard to prevent future recurrences. Their great sacrifices are the real reason why we can fly from Dubuque to Fort Myers … Without. Dying. In. A. Plane. Crash. Now you are admittedly shoved into a tiny space with little air and subject to appalling treatment, but you are more likely to be killed by being beaten up by rogue security forces (or being shot by a toddler with Granny’s gun) than you are from Dying. In. A. Plane. Crash. Airlines, airports, police and corporate boards have much work to do on the ground to equal the safety record in the air.
In fact, the record of the former deadbeat owner of the “Trump Shuttle” is pretty clearly the opposite of admirable airline operation, safety and responsibility. The Boston Globe did « a very through review in 2016 » of how the pioneering Eastern Airlines Shuttle was destroyed by Frank Lorenzo and the man who appears to be the current incarnation of P.T. Barnum.
These two Vandals have the same egos and desire to destroy, but Lorenzo actually had some brains to carry it out. Unlike his business partner.
The story is sordid and long, but the details were made clear by Matt Viser’s excellent Globe piece. To wit: Lorenzo sold the Donald the Eastern Shuttle for an overvalued $365 million (if DT had created a brand-new shuttle from the ground up with brand-new planes, not old worn-out 727s, estimates were that he could have done it for $300 million.) Of course, the money was all borrowed. It was 1989; Eastern (and Continental) were already almost dead from Lorenzo’s sledgehammer and the economy was tanking. Pan Am 103 was bombed, the first Gulf War was about to begin. It was incredibly bad judgement to overpay a bunch of other peoples’ money for something that was guaranteed to tank.
The now-decades-old D.T. playbook was followed from the beginning. D.T. started his airline foray by … snarking about Pan American, which had put in more hard work and suffering and pioneering effort into air travel than D.T. would ever be capable of mustering:
“He suggested Pan Am’s flights were unsafe, that the company was strapped for cash and couldn’t spend as much to maintain planes as Trump Shuttle.” —The Boston Globe, 27-May-16
And, heavy foreshadowing here, true professionals expressed their disgust over his statement, which, both then and now, is like pissing in the wind:
“We said, ‘Donald, don’t ever do that again,'” recalled Henry Harteveldt, who was the company’s marketing director. “It was wrong. We had no proof to back that up. And there’s an unwritten rule in the airline business that you don’t attack someone else’s safety record. There but for the grace of God go I.” —Ibid
In other words, D.T. (and countless weak attempts to contain his insanity) has never changed. He was just given 21st century tools to broadcast his uninformed and misguided vitriol to a wider audience, i.e. Twitter. And this time, he has nuclear annihilation capabilities instead of a piddly little failing airline.
But back to 1989. As Harteveldt stated, “There but for the grace of God go I.” The Shuttle was pretty crappy safety-wise from the beginning, and he did nothing to improve it, partly because he had zero aviation experience. The grace of God was apparently withdrawn:
“And Trump’s unfounded remarks about Pan Am safety? They almost immediately came back to bite him. Trump’s own airline was struck by a near-tragedy within its first three months, when the nose gear failed on one of his jets and forced a crash landing at Logan.” —Ibid
As is noted, investigators found the nose gear failure cause: A “mechanic had used the wrong part in the gear mechanism, and it eventually disintegrated and locked the gear in place,” a safety failure that had happened under Lorenzo’s watch.
“Trump — who weeks earlier had made claims that he would send all of his own planes through X-rays to make sure they were safe — turned on the TV and watched as CNN showed a Trump Shuttle flight circling the air.
“After several attempts to jar the nose gear loose, and after circling around to burn fuel, the pilot landed on the back two wheels, slowing the plane down as much as possible before lowering the nose of the plane onto the runway.” —Ibid
He then flew up to Boston on a Trump Shuttle flight. Hilariously tragic: He “was kind of a nervous flier” and asked one of his airline executives, “Is this thing safe?” I can’t think of a more perfect illustration of his public-huckster/private-doofus personality … and oh, the foreshadowing!
Once in Boston, he praised the “maestro” pilot who sucessfully landed the flight, Robert Smith. And in another bit of foreshadowing, Smith loved D.T. right back:
“The ‘maestro’ that day, pilot Robert Smith, said Trump had been advised not to come up — so as not to draw attention to the crash — but Trump disregarded it.
“He was very happy with the crew,” said Smith, who after decades in the airline industry called Trump “the best boss I’ve ever had.”
“And I think he was very happy with the exposure he got that day. He handled it beautifully.” —Ibid
I smell Stockholm Syndrome and future Trumpista voters; you know, the ones who voted for him but who will bear the full brunt of his destructive con. But I digress. I love the followup to “He handled it beautifully”:
“One of the passengers on that flight — who recalls sliding out the aircraft and into a pile of foam — was Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican strategist who worked for Jeb Bush and his super PAC to try to defeat Trump.
“Afterward,” he said, “all I got was a form letter and a drink coupon.” —Ibid
While Murphy is, like myself, biased against him (or rather his con jobs and inability to grasp reality), facts are facts. A drink coupon for an emergency evac is hardly handling things “beautifully.”
In fact, his own marketing executive at the Shuttle summed up this “beautifully handled” situation:
“‘He certainly was a man known for his bravado. He promised people a diamond in the sky when we had 21 of some of the oldest, worst maintained 727s then flying,’ said Harteveldt, the marketing director. ‘He’s giving a press conference promising a diamond in the sky. I’m saying, “You may have to settle for cubic zirconium to start.”” —Ibid
Perhaps if he had “x-rayed” (!) all those 727s and found the gear part problem the whole situation would not have had to be “beautifully managed” in the first place.
Ultimately, the shuttle was “successful enough to cover operating costs but not enough to pay down the debt.” Meanwhile, D.T. was divorcing his wife and marrying his mistress, something which happened twice, but does not bother the opportunistic evangelicals flitting around his head. But I digress.
After just 12 months, he fired an executive (who had insisted that the 727 needs two pilots and a flight engineer, even though D.T. wanted to fly them with just two pilots to save money) and laid off 100 employees. After 18 months, the shuttle lost $128 million dollars. After 30 months, he golden parachuted out:
“In late 1991, about 2½ years after Trump had purchased the airline, Trump gave up control of his prize in order to get out from a pile of debt. As part of the deal, Trump was no longer responsible for some $245 million in loans left on the shuttle airline. In addition, out of the $135 million that Trump had personally guaranteed, at least $100 million was forgiven, according to news reports at the time.” —Ibid
Absolved from $245 million in loans and welshing on $100 million which he had “personally guaranteed.” He was out only $35 million while banks and others were left holding the bag. Said he: “I felt successful. The market had crashed. I didn’t lose anything. It was a good thing,” he said.
A very good thing for him indeed. The human wreckage he left? Not so much.
Apologies to The Globe and Matt Viser for so extensively quoting from the article, but it needs rebroadcasting to as many people as possible. Kudos.
But instead of focusing on D.T.’s usual nonsense, we should focus on remembering and honoring the memory of the thousands of casualties and millions of worrkers who made 2017 the safest commercial aviation year in history. May 2018 continue the trend.
[Text by HawkEye. Photo by Rob Potter via Unsplash]
Why? Because, as reporter Anne Kingston notes, women are “female reproductive vessels” and not human beings. And because Long Dong Silver has always, and will always, get a free pass. And both of these are realities for reasons which surpasseth understanding.
Long Dong Silver Rides Again
Why, just now, are we reading that Supreme Court Associate Justice Long Dong Silver, who apparently goes by the name “Clarence Thomas,” was again outed as a serial sexual predator? Why was the story, dated 27-Oct, buried in the National Law Journal? And why are we just finding out this from … a «Canadian news magazine of much repute»? And buried in the last paragraph? Of an article on the “coarsening of American politics”? And about which (the repeated grabbing of a woman’s ass at a 1999 party, not the Macleans article) no one else seems to know about?
Why? Because, as reporter Anne Kingston notes, women are “female reproductive vessels” and not human beings. And because Long Dong Silver has always, and will always, get a free pass. And both of these are realities for reasons which surpasseth understanding.
[Text by HawkEye. Photo by Ravi Sharma via Unsplash.]
Nazis are just “the normal people next door” and nothing bad should happen to either them or the New York Times for pointing this out, says The New York Times.
Globaloneyism?
What we learned this week:
• The wheels of justice grind very, very slow, but they are grinding towards folks who allegedly but probably committed treason against the country, but who will almost certainly not do jail time, much less pay the ultimate penalty historically paid by traitors.
• Speaking of future criminals, perhaps they might wish to take instruction from the example of Slobodan Praljak.
• Terry Crews can tell you that it is currently acceptable to be a sexual assault victim … unless you’re a black male. Then people adopt a “meh” attitude. I.e., #MeToo is quite trendy at the moment, but is likely to become passé rather quickly.
• Gronk probably needs to be reined in and it’s probably already too late.
• Life is about to get particularly hellish; CVS is buying Aetna and Disney is buying (part) of Fox. Also, Congress’ War on Everyone Except Their Donors is nearing one of its biggest successes of the last 40 years.
• A would-be blacksmith saw a show on tv that instructed him how to make something weapon-ish, which undoubtedly included a post-ironic “don’t try this at home” small print warning; he then tried that at home, burning down three downtown blocks of buildings in a town near Albany, NY.
• Alabamians (whether it’s a majority of them will be seen on 12-Dec) have no problem with pedophilia rationalization, especially while the Elephant Tides or whatever their stupid name is are winning. There is no surprise here at this reality.
• Nazis are just “the normal people next door” and nothing bad should happen to either them or the New York Times for pointing this out, says The New York Times.
And I’m not linking to any of that because … reasons. Google what you don’t understand.
Good night, y’all.
[Text by HawkEye. Photo by “FreeStocksDotOrg” via Unsplash.]
