John F. Kasson

This excellent history is a delight to read. There are references from the eighteenth and nineteenth century which apply today. Does ludicrous pretensions bring anyone to mind?

I cannot recommend this history enough so I’ll quote part of a paragraph from Chapter 3, 

in one of many telling texts in the book: 

“The more free the individual felt himself to be, 

the more isolated and lonely he actually became

until he craved to forsake his solitude in order to 

surrender his self to the new order of society itself.

Thus as authority drifted from the once-conscious

individual to the collective stupor of mass society, 

the whole idea of natural rights, the assumption of 

individual autonomy and freedom characteristic of 

the eighteenth-century thought, was collapsing in 

the face of nineteenth century [Twentienth century] 

[Twenty-first century] social realities.” 

The text does not provide answers. It tells that Americans and others have been in this state for a long time. If there is comfort in company, that is not the message. Recognizing the issues and the problems can lead people to develop answers to problems and to issues. Rudeness & Civility helps recognize the issues and problems.

By Charles Nordhoff & James Normal Hall

The tale of mutineers taking control of the Bounty and Captain’s Bligh’s open boat voyage in 1789 are told in the first two books of the Bounty Trilogy. Pitcairn’s Island tells about the men taking HMS Bounty to this small island. After five years the story becomes a short revelation of a matriarchal society (about 50 pages) which survived the killings – men killing men and women protecting themselves and their children.

Pitcairn’s Island had no natural harbors and shallow beaches. Twelve (12) Tahitian women, six (6) Tahitian men and (9) nine mutineers came ashore. They took everything possible off the Bounty. For three years everyone got along with mild disagreements. 

Many of the sailors missed grog (booze). McCoy, a Scottish sailor learned distilling in his homeland and secretly began making a liquorish substance in limited quantities from a South Sea root, ti. He planted an area, which a Tahitian found and began harvesting. McCoy and about half the white men believed the island should be split up amongst whites only. The Tahitians would receive no land.

Upon hearing of the white plan in a day of racial cleansing the Tahitian men attacked and killed as many of the white men as they could. They missed two of the instigators. For the killings of their husbands, the Tahitian women killed many Tahitian men. The surviving men were cared for and returned to health; the Tahitian men were hunted and killed. 

For three years the still remained productive. The white men liked getting drunk, among themselves. The women turned the men out of the settlements and finally attacked the houses where the men lived. Two of the men survived. 

Stories from Pitcairn Island are adaptable into film or TV. The women have to sort thought racial hatreds, spousal abuse, murders, child birth and rearing, health care, substance (liquor) abuse, deaths of loved ones and finally taking command – long before women were ever considered capable of structuring a society and making it run. By the year of its rediscovery (1808) by Americans and later visits by the British, the island settlers were at peace and happy.

Again Americans are presented with the world of East Coast culture: Issues arising from privileged upbringings, soft educations, white boys and a protective society hysterical when its secrets become public. 

Consider the 1975 death of Martha Moxley finally ending in a conviction for a privileged boy who had beaten a friend, a playmate, a 15 year old girl to death. Next came attorneys to file appeals presenting specious legal theories unsupported by facts, and argued to a corruptible, mediocre state Supreme Court. The privileged East Coast boy killer is out of jail. 

Note how the victim’s mother described the east coast boy killer the day after her daughter went missing: “…hangover, he was barefoot, in a pair of jeans and did not look good at all.” 

Now, here comes Christine Blasey Ford, who went to school with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in the late Seventies. He was privileged; he got a soft eduction giving him no moral compass and devoid of principles; and he became member of a society and defends itself like a secret clique at Yale – handshakes, smirks, nods and jigs. There are no secrets, either, because no one can remember all of them, or they’re so drugged and inebriated that secrets can not be remembered. 

Male friends who knew Brett as a teenager and at Yale say, He never did it. Americans should qualify that statement of the male supporters: Brett never did to us (or to me) what he is accused of doing to Christine. And thank God for Thursday’s hearing! Americans can be rest assured that Brett Kavanaugh is not gay, and he is not bisexual!  

Don Trump says Brett Kavanaugh is the finest human being he has ever met. Who knows whom Don Trump has met. Trump likes Vlad Putin, a swell guy. By comparison and by Don Trump standards, Kavanaugh may be the best human being Trump has ever met. I guess Don Trump, and many Republicans have no relationship with Jesus Christ.

But what of East Coast standards and privilege? A commentator has complained about movies during the late Seventies and Eighties, supported and presented a rape culture that persists in America. That commentator needs to read more history and sociology and hear earlier music. The public rape culture arose during the Sixties and became accepted. 

That commentator refused to look at the major premise: East Coast Culture. Think Martha Moxley. Think Christine Blasey Ford. Think of other victims. East Coast Culture was best told in a movie with Al Pacino (he was raised in East Harlem). Scent of a Woman describes the money, politics, social pressure, favoritism and heavy handed influences which gave rise to a remarkable argument against the school and its disciplinary hearing. Pacino’s character, blind and a former Army officer, thought taking a flamethrower to the institution might be a cure for the problems and issues of the place (and presumably elsewhere in society).

Oddly enough, the Al Pacino character represents the sort of person that is part of Don Trump’s base. Those people should rethink Kavanaugh. He is not the best judge possible for nomination. Trump should nominate another.

Another point needs to be raised, thrice denied. During his Thursday testimony Brett Kavanaugh told of his Catholic school attendance. His friend, Mark Judge, and eye witness to the incident with Christine, writes of those years. Mark Judge was not called by the Republican-led Committee to testify. Words of a letter which are not properly set out as a declaration or an affidavit are insufficient. Perhaps the FBI can get a (more) complete recollection.

Relying on religious training hardly supports Kavanaugh’s veracity, given Judge’s biography. But being religious and later being faithful does not negate prior acts. Consider Peter. At the Last Supper Jesus turned to Peter and said, before the morn you will thrice deny me. Obviously, Peter left Jesus’s company and indeed, Peter thrice denied Jesus that night.

In the first translation of the Bible into English (second edition 1534) William Tyndall pondered how Peter could deny Jesus thrice. He provided an answer: Peter was a party person, and he was out with friends, acquaintances and strangers of both sexes. He wanted to be popular and liked. The Bible does not say whether he was successful, but when asked, Peter denied.

Nothing in Brett Kavanaugh’s life and record absolve him of teenage activities joined in with one or more of his friends. When there is a partnership or a joint venture (Mark Judge) or being part of a pack mentality, a boy loses all thought, all individuality and an inability of determine right from wrong. Anything is possible. Those are the sorts of parties Mark Judge described in his biography: Go with the flow, do you own thing. Who’s going to tell under these circumstances?   

Certainly the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ knows and will not forget. The support for and Kavanaught’s histrionics during his Thursday testimony, aided by a satanic Lindsey Graham whose moral compass has gone awry since August 25, 2018, will result in a destructive ending for the souls of those men. 

Peter admitted the truth and his flaws. It is part of Scripture. He redeemed himself. But Brett Kavanaugh? What has he done to redeem himself? He uses religion to hide. He joined and represents the secrets of East Coast Society, like the murderer of Martha Moxley. But he has the endorsement of Don Trump. 

They all have before them when the time comes the flamethrowers of Hell.

L.A. CAR CHASE: SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

TONIGHT for the local news is a car chase, a guy in a big pick-up who won’t stop, mile after mile, minute after minute, hour after hour.

Supposedly, he is wanted for two murders. In California I wonder if that matches the 2,000 Motor Vehicle Code violations I have witnessed on TV.

Of course local cops are after him, and they are joined by the CHP, a much nicer group of people than were portrayed in Vanishing Point(1971). The truck driver may be able to go 400 miles, get to Arizona or Nevada. 

Helicopters lost him in the beach clouds; he’s scraped a few cars. But coming over the Santa Monica mountains, he’s now in Santa Monica. He has no fans there. Commuters want to get home are are delayed; the homeless don’t want him driving on the sidewalks; no one wants cop and news helicopters buzzing the houses. The neighborhood is too rich for that! 

He looked to be in an industrial/commercial area. No one in the air can identify the street he is on. Now it appears residential. Someone’s a good citizen. There are rows of solar panels on one roof. Kudos to that environmentalist while the truck guy spews CO2.

He’s near a golf course going toward Brentwood. Perhaps he wants to visit OJ’s old house. Lots of roofs of multi-unit buildings have no solar panels. Don’t see many houses with solar panels. I’d like to see the truck drive take out garbage cans and mix the waste: Trash, garden and recycles. That was always funny around Halloween, and why not get a few more violations – mixing garbage and littering.

No more erratic driving. The pickup went into a parking lot and stopped by a commercial building. HE QUIT! LOSER. Get out, back toward the cops, hands up, get on knees, lie flat on the ground. The cops don’t move. There’s another person in the truck. Get up, hands up, back up, on the knees, lie flat. Two guys on the ground: Handcuffs.

The cops look. No one else is in the truck. Get the guys standing and moving to jail.

AT THE NEWS ROOM, they’re after real crime in the USA, not in Washington,D.C., though. The NEXT STORY: Naked Intruder Arrested…. 

Gerda Weissmann Klein

I did not know of this author or her experiences. This was another book sold at a library book sale, and it was worth reading. 

This author did not just recount her story of working and surviving enslavement under the Nazis; she has also written a memoir. It is a memoir as opposed to an autobiography. The text tells of significant relationships within and among family members, with contemporaries, with admirers and with lifelong friends.

Unlike many autobiographies, the memoir is honest; it rings true. Descriptions of places are detailed; nothing has been told in excess. The reader moves along, by interest and curiosity; it is not entertainment. The questions become what happens next to this human being and her friends? She is alert to invasions to her dignity and person – the shock of receiving physical punishment of a Nazi guard, or men who want to take advantage. The teenager/young woman makes countless adjustments to new settings, situations, persons and cruelty.

She supposes her friends make the same shifts, mentally, to work through physical hardships. Yet, near the end of the war – they know the end is close – the author loses two friends, and a third, days after liberation. All But is not a how-to survive book. All the young women had the same message drummed into them by each other: survive. All But does not attempt to explain what happened to the others. Instead it tells how this twenty-one year old survived, not a straight line, no logic, reason, but some luck, and loads of hard work. If she had a mission or goal to survive, the reader senses that vanished, except the author had an unending sense of herself.

For a memoir to communicate that fully is a remarkable achievement of a human being writing, looking at the soul of life and relaying it.

This is an excellent movie.

Poor and female with younger siblings in Appalachia, this film show that life in spades. Jennifer Lawrence plays a 17 year old girl who assumes the responsibilities of her brother and sister and for the care of her family. They own the land and house where they live. However, the father isn’t around, and he has been arrested and is out on bail. He has secured his bail with the family land, which will be forfeited because the father will not make court appearances. 

Lawrence’s journey to bring her father to court takes her through the slime, grime and crime of that Appalachian community. There is no Christianity, or other modifying or mollifying religion or philosophy affecting survival.

The screenplay is excellent. There is not an adverb is sight, and few adjectives. It is the strength of the American language showing exactly what circumstances are. The only sense the movie does not convey is smell.

Marc Perrusquia

This regrettable book on an important subject is not worth reading. It is about Ernest Withers, photographer for some of the Civil Rights Movement and an admitted FBI informant, a spy the book calls him. The prolix prose of long breezy sentence conveying little belabor the reader. It is difficult to learn what Ernest Withers actually did, other than take photographs and befriend everyone. 

The goal of the FBI was to find links to communists, investigate Black Power persons and to uncover criminal activities. For 120 pages the author describes none of Wither’s activities to any FBI goal. Indeed, most of the front end of the book recounts tales since 1970, beyond the 1950-1960s years. This volume is not a history at all.

No description of the Civil Rights movement from the perspective of  journalists and photographers is told. The author is incapable of setting the book within the Fifties and Sixties. Indeed the author notes Wither’s passed on a lot of gossip, some of it true, little of it embarrassing and most of it nonsense. No attempt is made to describe a journalist’s job – trials and tribulations – covering and within the Civil Rights Movement. It seems odd that a journalist [the author] writing about another journalist would completely avoid this issue. 

One is surprised to find Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, mentioned twice in the first 30 pages of the book. Fred Hampton’s death is also mentioned but it did not happen in an apartment but in a house. [Roy Wilkins, Ramsey Clarke, Search and Destroy.] Apparently Withers had nothing to with the map supplied by another FBI informant in Chicago. Most of Wither’s work and activities are around Memphis, his hometown, and along the Mississippi. Was there a difference between the Civil Rights Movement there and elsewhere? Did the FBI recognize the difference? Did Withers try to inform and correct the FBI? [Indeed, did any informant attempt to delineate and clarify theory and action for the FBI, or was the FBI so arrogant that it believed itself capable of doing so]. Finally, the “Northern” Civil Rights Movement had been affected by Black Power and city riots. Those occurred in late March 1968 during Doctor King’s first Memphis march in support of the Sanitation strike. The author of SPY neglects to give any history, background or casual references to Northern impulses invading or influencing Memphis where the Civil Rights Movement of the South had engaged.

Hope for a cogent story in SPY vanishes with each page, and each unnecessary sentence. It becomes unforgivable that within the writing, that the author uses I a first person pronoun. The author himself had nothing to do with the activities of the 1950-1960s Civil Rights Movement ,and he also fails to justify in the text why he feels privileged to use I.

Whom do you think about when the word, moron, is used? A moron is one or all of the following,

A fat bulk weighing 400 pounds who must have suits altered monthly to accommodate his bulging heft.

An enormity who lies and complains when the press reports the lies, calling those reports fake news.

A creature who negotiates by threatening, and next reveals preliminary negotiations as glorious successes.

A woman attacking roach, groping because nothing else on his body works.

An animal unable to read gets his knowledge through osmosis like a one-cell bacterium.

A dork whose knowledge of cliches, adjectives and adverbs constitutes his intelligence.

A business man who does not know how to finish a deal, and make a purchase profitable without heavy debt and many times has gone into bankruptcy.

A cretan who likes chaos revealing his inability to manage his own affairs, let alone the affairs of others.

A creep so braggadocio, so self-inflated, so narcissistic that perception and reality are distorted.

An extremist who posits hate and urges sleazes to act out their urges, quirks and inanities.

A slob seeking instantaneous adulation, is charmed by flattery, and craves praise when none of it is warranted.

A twerp thinking twiddly, twitterly and thumbly to finger, phalange and paw.

A duffer who spends most of his time in the rough.

A very, very huge whimper who whines, pouts and bitches like a cry baby.

A decision maker who is fickle and variable like a shuttlecock.

A big empty in power and with power who accomplishes nothing.

A wonk whose fancy steers personal and professional histories from provable facts leading to truth.

A blob who never mans-up, who does not know what it means to man-up, and is devoid of manly courage.

A con man so wondering and mindless that he is persuaded to say anything by the last person he has spoken with.

Somebody old enough to have lived during the Sixties and does not know that an FBI informant is a spy.

An entity who does not know that Russian political leaders are enemies of the United States of America.

A glob who displays more disorder and mess as each day passes.

A grame so rude, gross, offensive and abashed that is should never be communicated.

A grubber so desperate for money that he would sell his mother, his children and his wife for a ruble. 

A klunk who does not know he has made mistakes and therefore does not learn from his own mistakes.

A joker so vain that image blinds all faults.

A claptrap flapping lips like Donald Duck.

A putz whose morals and ethics are simian.

A goon covering his present and past deeds with child lies, little boy acts and Mickey Mouse loyalties.

A savage accurately described as hopeless, feckless, faithless, uncompassionate, unforgiving and censorious.

A tweety-bird who flies around the world insulating peoples and their leaders, and gets no frequent flier miles. 

A geezer who lived during the Watergate Scandal who does not know that attorneys have Rules of Professional Responsibility and Canons of Ethics to abide by. 

A glop with no dignity, integrity or class who is an empty suit wearing extravagant cloth. As MarkTwain observed, “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.” God be thanked.

A warm sensitive being who is easily frazzled  and discombobulated by cross-words, self doubts, no self-esteem and a complete lack of self efficacy, so he is inutile.

Review

Nicole Kidman travels to her girlhood home along the seashore where her sister Jennifer Jason Leigh lives and is getting married to Jack Black. Black plays a former musician and a parlor nihilist who is emotional and has nothing smart to say though out the movie.

Nichol lives in New York City where she has a career as a writer. She has left home and made it.

Her life is set. Jennifer seems the younger and somewhat the bad girl who could never leave home.

The movie tells the growing experiences for Nicole and Jennifer, intensely during their reunion and handling issues arising before, apart and those now they are together. It seems Nicole is less settled than her status, prosperity and fame should make her; she seems to unravel, not from the setting but because she is around people she grew up with and have an intimacy with her. All the while Jennifer seems an adult, less than perfect, but stable in her surroundings, although marriage to Black will create problems.

Two better actresses could not have been found to fill these roles and tell this story.