Jimmy

Years ago, a friend and myself found ourselves in Savannah, GA, which gave us the perfect opportunity to visit the Mighty Eighth Air Force Heritage Museum located just off Interstate-95 in the nearby community of Pooler.

I'd always wanted to go. The Eighth Air Force, which was created in Savannah, is legendary in the annals of World War II aviation and the bombing campaign that was instrumental in the downfall of Nazi Germany.

Once inside the building, we found ourselves immersed in World War II memorabilia, interactive displays, documents, videos and even a few restored aircraft, including a B-17 bomber and, if memory serves, a P-51 fighter.

Jimmy Stewart receiving the DFC.*

 One of the first things I saw – and came back to – was a wartime recruiting film clip featuring the actor Jimmy Stewart. Stewart – who had just earned his private pilot's license – famously suspended his acting career in 1941 to volunteer for the U.S Army as a buck private. He was initially rejected by the Army because of his slight, slender frame (he failed the Army's weight requirement by five pounds). Nevertheless, he appealed the rejection. It is said he beefed up by eating steaks and drinking milkshakes to eventually tip the scales in his favor. And after he was accepted into the service on his second go-round, he was logically assigned to the Army Air Corps. He'd already logged more than 400 hours of civilian flight time by the time of his induction.

I mention this because a new movie has come out called Jimmy, detailing the wartime experience of Stewart. The movie covers the time between his winning the Oscar for his role opposite Kathryn Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story in 1940, all the way to his role in It's a Wonderful Life, his first post-war film in 1946.

I'd pretty much loved most of the Jimmy Stewart movies I've seen, and the list is remarkable: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Destry Rides Again, The Shop Around the Corner, Winchester '73, The Stratton Story, Harvey, The Glenn Miller Story, Rear Window, Strategic Air Command, The Spirit of St. Louis, Vertigo, and on and on and on. He could have – and maybe should have – won Oscars for any one of those.

There was just something about the man that was irresistible. Was it his distinctive western Pennsylvania accent? Was it his Everyman persona? What was it?

So I was eager to see this biopic.

I came away with mixed feelings.

KJ Apa, who I've never heard of, did a credible job portraying Stewart. He pretty much nailed Stewart's unique voice patterns without it being a forced impersonation. I don't know who could have done a better job.

But I had issues with other things. With details.

The movie would have you believe that Stewart flew in a B-24 heavy bomber named Danny Boy. Nope. Stewart flew one time in Nine Yanks and a Jerk. It was in the Dixie Flyer when his plane was hit by an anti-aircraft shell, putting a hole in the cockpit floor from which he could see the earth below him. That startling near-death detail was simply glossed over in mere seconds in the flick. What the heck?

His final wartime ride was in Male Call. Sounds like it could have been the title of one of his movies.

You can Google this stuff. I did. 

Then there was depicted a possible romantic liaison with a woman named Lady Julia, but it turns out Lady Julia was simply a composite character designed to represent any of Stewart's wartime relationships. Lady Julia spent too much time on screen, I thought, trying to help him negotiate his way through self doubt and, perhaps, a developing case of PTSD.

There were a couple of scenes in which there were pre-mission briefings. It would be here where bomber crews learned what were their targets, weather conditions, what to expect from German resistance and other details. But the movie also shows crews having philosophical discussions about the war during these meetings, which I'm pretty sure never happened.

In one such scene, Stewart bucks up the men with a jingoistic "why we fight" speech that almost had me ready to enlist. And I'm 75. 

When the war ended, Stewart went back to acting as a changed man. In fact, he wondered if he could ever act again.

On the set of It's a Wonderful Life, Stewart and co-star Lionel Barrymore (Mr. Potter) would have discussions – some said they were at times heated – about whether Stewart should continue acting. Barrymore finally convinced Stewart that he should embrace his gift and that acting was a noble profession. This is depicted in the movie. Thank you, Mr. Barrymore.

But the movie suddenly turns absurd during their discussion. Barrymore was bound to a wheelchair the last decade of his life by severe arthritis and two broken hips. In the movie, however, he miraculously rises from his wheelchair to be replaced by – Jimmy Stewart! Why? Why allow this nonsense to happen?

Also, there's a famous scene where Stewart kisses co-star Donna Reed during a phone call. The kiss is passionate. Stewart seems lost in another life. According the the IMDb movie site, Stewart was nervous about his first on-screen kiss since returning from the war. The scene was filmed in one unrehearsed take and was so intimate that part of it was cut to pass the censors. The kiss is shown in the biopic, but without much explanation or detail. I think it might have been a pivotal moment in Stewart's real battle with PTSD. I don't know if Donna Reed ever commented on this moment, but I figure she must have sensed the trauma Stewart was going through. At least, I hope so.

There is another famous scene where Stewart, as a distraught and suicidal George Bailey, is praying in Martini's bar. But it's Stewart who is, in reality, distraught and begins to sob in front of the camera. Once again, the movie goes a little berserk, with Stewart finding his motivation with the ghosts of dead fellow airmen who materialize in his vision – and salute him. Oh, my. There's such a thing as artistic license, but don't go overboard with it.

The best part of the movie were the closing credits. Here they used actual film clips and photos of the real Jimmy Stewart during his acting and wartime careers. They were moving and inspiring and they brought me as close to tears as anything in the film itself.

I'm not saying don't go see this flick. It had its moments. It did a good job portraying a decent man struggling with the absolute indecency and horror of war. How could it be otherwise?

•   •   •

When Kim and I went to the theater yesterday, the first thing we noticed was the audience. All 30 or so of us, to a person, was a senior citizen.

Nobody paid full price. Senior citizen discounts for all. 

As Kim noted, it's likely the younger the generations that behind us, the more likely it is they don't even  know who Jimmy Stewart is.

 And that makes me sad.

What Jimmy Stewart did was heroic. The Eighth Air Force lost 26,000 men killed in combat and another 28,000 who became prisoners of war. 

By contrast, the U.S. Marine Corps lost upwards of about 23,000 men in brutal fighting in the Pacific.

This is for which Jimmy Stewart felt compelled to volunteer. 

 

 

* The DFC is the Distinguished Flying Cross for gallantry in action. Stewart received two of them during his service in World War II. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blue tsunami

When I woke up this morning, I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

I mean, when I went to bed last night, several Democrats were doing pretty good in their midterm races and it looked as though they were going to take the House of Representatives. Great, I thought to myself. The Dems will have control of the congressional purse strings. Maybe now we can cut back on ICE, which is conducting a murderous and illegal war on American citizens. Maybe now we can cut back on arrogant defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who is conducting an illegal war on Iran.

I thought the Democrats had a chance to do well in the Senate. Maybe even take control.

What I didn't expect were the Democrats dominating in the Senate. When I woke up this morning and checked my computer, the Dems had won 55 seats with the possibility of adding another. They needed 51 to take control. It was a shocker.

The Dems needed 218 seats to win the House and had, in fact, won at least 228 seats by this morning with possibly more on the horizon. 

Holy smokes. Total control of Congress. While many of us were expecting – hoping for – a blue wave, we got a blue tsunami instead. We surely didn't see that coming.

But it spoke volumes. 

The dominance was a total repudiation of the Trump administration by frustrated American citizens who finally got a chance to voice their feelings about the chaos that seems to follow the convicted felon president. 

Clearly, Americans were pissed about the war with Iran, which was unilaterally unleashed by Trump without congressional approval. The war is the primary driver for the rise of gas prices since the first bombs were dropped.

Unilaterally imposed tariffs by Trump have generated an affordability crisis with increases in food, housing and automobiles, among other staples.

Many Americans are appalled by the administration's handling of immigration, especially with deportations of many who were either American-born citizens or legal workers. The murder of protestors Alex Pretti and Renée Good in January by ill-trained Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents sparked condemnation of the administration.

Consequently, Hispanics and Blacks voted in large numbers, perhaps indicating that DEI is real – and a good thing – after all. 

Most Americans could hardly wait for the midterms to get here. It was our chance to voice our displeasure with the administration. It turned out to be a referendum not only on Trump, but on the feckless, MAGA-sized Republican Party as it tried to follow the blueprints of its disgraceful Project 2025.

Message sent. Tired of that decidedly unAmerican crap.

When the Democrats take control in January, investigations will take place. Expect the Epstein Files to finally reach your eyes in full and without redactions (as mandated by law). Expect accountability.

We the People have spoken. Hear us roar. 

 The way it was meant to be.

 

Blue wave

There's only 48 hours or so remaining before Election Day, and even though Kim and I voted early about a week ago, I can't wait.

I'm patiently waiting for the Blue Wave to appear. There has to be a way to put the brakes on the national disaster that has defined the Trump Administration, and voting might be it.

Which means Democrats and Independents have to turn out and make this an election that's too big to rig.

OK, OK. This is the midterms, not a presidential election. I know that. We're still stuck with the Antichrist for two more years. But if the midterms somehow put Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, it could help slow down convicted felon president Donald Trump from causing further damage to our democracy. And, Heaven permitting, if Democrats can also control the Senate, there will exist the power of accountability.

Accountability. That's what's been missing from the current crop of Republicans who control Congress and thereby allow Trump to govern so erratically. And unlawfully.

• We've seen staffing reductions across several several federal science agencies, including 20 percent reduction at NIH and 33 percent at NSF.

• There have been reductions in public health, including an increase in measles and a five-state cyclospora outbreak. There have also been cutbacks in ACA protections and in drug pricing provisions.

• The administration has hit civil rights hard, moving to ban federal and military DEI programs, restrict gender-affirming care and alter rules governing labor protections.

• And then there's the really offensive stuff, like the deportation of brown-skinned people under the guise of immigration control, even though many of those deported are legal American citizens. And how's that six-day war in Iran going? How about rising inflation and interest rates? Can you afford to buy a house? Or groceries? Did you vote for that?

• Those unauthorized vanity projects like the Trump ballroom or the triumphal arch of the reflecting pool, as well as decorating the White House in gold trim, are, in my view, decidedly unAmerican. Why are we paying for them? Who said he could do those things?

The list is endless.

I know the recent polling shows many Democrats in favorable positions heading down the stretch as an apparent Blue Wave is on the verge of cresting. I hope so. We need to turn a corner somewhere. Surely we are better than this.

But nothing is certain. A Blue Wave could all dissolve on Election Day, especially if the polling is wrong. The early voting numbers are encouraging, however, especially since Democrats historically tend to vote early.

It's in our hands. We the People...

 

 

Hit bottom yet?

Dr. Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate who is running for the governorship of Ohio against Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, is 60 years old.

Acton was removed from her birth mother, Donna Arthur, by court order because of an abusive environment when she was 12 years old. That was 48 years ago. Nearly five decades. Arthur hasn't spoken to Acton since then.

Now, in a particularly revolting political moment, Ramaswamy has repeatedly circulated an online campaign ad featuring Arthur criticizing her daughter as both "a liar" and suffering from mental health issues. Arthur's ad also questions Acton's claim that her daughter lived in a tent as a child as a result of homelessness.

What the ad doesn't address is the fact that Arthur's husband at the time, Cledith Arthur, was indicted by a grand jury and charged with the rape and abuse of Acton and her brother, Phil Stearns, in 1978. I repeat – when she was 12. That's pedophilia as well as sexual assault. Sound familiar these days?

The stepfather skipped the state of Ohio, ran off to Pennsylvania with his wife, and never appeared in court. Donna Arthur, apparently chose living with her abusive child-raping husband than to support her own blood daughter.

Court records and news reports from 1978 support Acton's account of her childhood experience. FactCheck.org also found records that connect Cledith to the campground where Acton said she lived in a tent. So there's that.

In light of this, a desperate Ramaswamy, who trails Acton in recent polling, refuses to pull the ad and has doubled down on his assertion that Acton is a lying liar.

Ramaswamy even enlisted the support of convicted felon president Donald Trump – now there's a character witness for you – who told Ramaswamy to continue to run the ad because it was a "very powerful" ad and that it hit political paydirt.

This is coming from the guy who is mentioned thousands of times in the Epstein files. You remember the Epstein files, right? The files that were ordered to be released – totally unredacted – by a bipartisan act of Congress. It was signed into law by Trump himself.

And yet, here we are, sifting through the heavily redacted files that have been released while still waiting for more than a million remaining files – maybe even more – that haven't been released. What's the hold up? Or maybe we need to ask: What's the cover up?

Ramaswamy's attack ad on Acton is pretty vile stuff and it brings me to wonder where the hell this country's moral compass is located. In one of Trump's recent midterm campaign rallies, he backed Ramaswamy's view. The crowd behind him cheers idiotically. Wait, what? Cheering a rapist? An abuser of children?

Ramaswamy has Trump's support. He also has the support of vice president J.D. Vance. So the top two leaders of the Republican Party are backing the story of a woman who has turned her souless heart from the child who was raped and abused by her justice-skipping husband. And GOP followers are cheering this?

Where is that moral compass again? 

Oh, that's right. It's still falling. It still hasn't hit bottom. 

 

Early voted

It seems as though Kim and I had been waiting impatiently for the opportunity to vote early in this year's midterm elections.

More precisely, waiting forever. The waiting felt interminable, in the same way living in the current Trump administration feels interminable.

So Friday, after Kim got off from work, we made a beeline to the Davidson County Board of Elections to exercise our constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. Somewhat surprisingly, there was not the usual crowd of poll watchers, down-ballot candidates or party partisans in the parking lot to wade through.

But there was at least one. "Would you like a brochure to review the Republican candidates?" she asked. "No!" exclaimed the usually soft-spoken Kim in her loud, stop-annoying-me voice as we quick-stepped our way to the polls. After a moment or two passed, Kim turned to me. "You know what I should have said? I should have told her 'Hell, no!'" She snickered.

Kim's gentle Southern accent, which has captivated me for decades, made it sound more like "Hail, no!" I snickered, too.

When we got inside the door we were greeted by poll workers who reminded us that we needed to have our photo ID available. Kim already had her driver's license in hand. I pulled my wallet out of my pocket, flipped the flap that covers the license window in my wallet and ... my license wasn't there.

Wha...??? Where's my license? It's always there. What happened to it?

Panic set in. How can I vote? I was more concerned about not being able to vote than I was about going through the potential bureaucracy of replacing my license.

Kim was already in line. I sat off to the side, pulling every card out from every conceivable pocket in my wallet. Sweat was forming. My fingers were shaking. Where the hail is my license? It's got my Real ID on it. Without Real ID, I'm nobody. Apparently.

Kim was now checking in to vote. I gave my wallet one last search. And behold. There, behind the plastic window that's usually reserved for my license, there is another slip-in pocket that serves as a card holder, but not for display. Somehow, that's where my license was. I got in line.

And I voted. I voted against illegal wars. I voted against unilaterally raising tariffs. I voted against rogue law enforcement roaming our streets and murdering our citizens. I voted against rising inflation. I voted against rising prices. I voted against the chaos that has swallowed this nation. I voted against a convicted felon president having free reign to employ his twisted vision of American government with the support of a Republican controlled Congress. I voted against presidential corruption. I voted against tax breaks for the very rich.

I don't know how loud my voice is, but I felt good about voting. I always do. I never feel more American than at this moment.

On the way home, we tried to figure out how my driver's license got to where it ended up. Kim remembered that there was a routine license check on a side road in town about a month ago. I had to take my license out of my wallet, and when I put it back, I unknowingly slipped it back in the pocket behind the display window. Nobody could see it.

Oh, well. It was worth the panic. It all worked out.

I voted. Now it's your turn. 

 

 

The jab ... and the jab

Back in late September, Kim and I were wondering when the best time would be to go get our flu shots this year. We knew the time was approaching.

We haven't missed our annual shot in more than 40 years and we weren't about to miss it this year, either.

Then, a week or so ago, a news item popped up indicating that this year's flu strain was expected to be particularly virulent, and the best time to go for the vaccine would be ... right now, if not sooner. So Kim went ahead and lined up appointments for both of us at Lexington Family Physicians for this past Thursday.

Oh, and by the way, let's get the Covid shot, too.

So we did. Flu shot in the right arm, Covid jab in the left.

 While I was getting my injections Thursday, the first thing I thought of was all the antivaxxers who are so insistent on not protecting themselves or (more thoughtlessly) the herd from catching the flu or Covid.

Every once in a while, an antivaxxer will post some nonsense about how well the antiparasitic Ivermectin works and that the Covid-19 vaccine, by contrast, has caused the death of millions.

A simple Internet search quickly debunks many of those claims:

• Since the Covid-19 vaccine rollout began in 2020, more than 13.5 billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). That covers 70.5 percent of the world's population (8.5 billion) who have received at least one dose. If you noticed that more doses have been administered than there are people, remember the initial vaccinations were a multiple step process.

• Perhaps the more pertinent question would be how many lives have been saved by the Covid-19 vaccine? According to The Lancet Infectious Diseases hosted by the National Institute of Health (NIH), Covid-19 vaccines saved an estimated 14.4 million to 19.8 million lives from December 2020 to December 2021 – or a 63 percent reduction in total potential deaths.

In the United States, the Commonwealth Fund writes that independent modeling indicates over three million lives have been saved and tens of millions more have avoided hospitalization.

Just keep in mind that Covid-19 is a moving target and that the vaccination is aiming at a constantly changing virus, and thus requires unending vigilance and research. Consequently, the Covid-19 vaccine formula is updated every year to match the virus variants, much in the same way the flu vaccine is prepared.

• One of the antivaxxer assertions that tickled me claims that thousands of virologists supposedly have questioned the effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccine, but according to WHO, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), just the opposite is true: Covid-19 vaccines are safe, effective and have saved millions of lives. Those suggesting otherwise are either deliberately lying or otherwise reporting false or conspiracy-based misinformation to support a political agenda. Laugh at them.

I've always been worried about influenza. Years ago, when I first learned of the great Spanish influenza outbreak in 1918, I was shocked to learn that an estimated 50 million to 100 million people died in that pandemic worldwide.

The virus claimed 675,000 American lives, more than the combined American combat casualties of World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

Up until I reached my late 30s, I thought the flu was pretty much just a bad head cold. Silly me. But for nearly as long as Kim and I have been married, we've gotten our flu shots. And as far as I can remember, we've never gotten the flu.

I've never quite understood why some people avoid getting flu and Covid shots, especially when the evidence is clear that the vaccinations actually protect the community. I mean, it's my understanding that even if you don't get the shot and you don't display any flu symptoms, you can still carry and transmit the virus with a simple sneeze or touch. Why would you do that? It seems to me the object here isn't only to keep yourself safe, but also your friends, family, neighbors and colleagues as well.

I have this picture in my head of a young child crying real tears as she is being administered the flu shot. For some reason, I think this is a lasting image that many people carry into adulthood. I bet deep down folks opposed to vaccines just don't want to feel the needle's sting again. It's the only thing that even remotely make sense to me.

These shots didn't hurt. 

C'mon. Get your shots. 

 

 

 

 

 

Press here

When convicted felon president Donald Trump denied White House access nearly a week ago to journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico, claiming that those news organizations only reported negative news from the White House, I wasn't particularly surprised.

Nor was I surprised when he seemingly defied a judge – District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump-appointed judge – ruled that the affected organizations had to have their access reinstated for at least 14 days as their legal challenge continued to turn.

Access was eventually restored Thursday afternoon by the temporary restraining order.

You knew it would be. Trump's endless quarrel with the media – particularly those outlets he considers to be left leaning and progenitors of a made-up term he labels "fake news", as an assault on the First Amendment. You know, the amendment that guarantees freedom of the press. It's why it's the very first amendment to the Constitution. It's first for a reason.

It's first because it's designed to provide accountability as a check to a president's questionable actions – like starting illegal wars, or illegally raising tariffs, or illegally denying due process. Stuff like that.

But what do you expect from a felon president who was granted almost total immunity for his actions by an obviously corrupt Supreme Court? What do you expect from a Republican-controlled Congress that has basically surrendered its first-branch-of-government (Article I) power and authority to the convicted felon president with hardly a whimper?

How does a convicted felon remain as president in a democracy?

I think the thing that surprises me the most is the support that Trump is receiving not only from the party-line Court, but from a segment of the electorate that tends to agree with his assessment of the media – that it creates fake news.

There's no such thing as fake news, just like there's no such thing as a deep state. Those are simply labels created by a paranoid government that feels as if its power is being threatened. Those that believe the government in power are called the base.

So who do you believe when you get your news? The main stream media? Podcasters? Bloggers? The government? Those who align with your own perceptions?

It's a tough call.

I spent my career in newspaper journalism and in my experience the professionals with whom I worked went out of their way to provide the truth. The thing is, what is the truth? Who perceives what truth is? Who defines what truth is? How is truth influenced by life experiences? Is truth even obvious? Is truth founded on evidence?

For me, truth is molded by my upbringing, by my values, by my logic, by my sense of what feels right and what feels wrong. That's what I rely on to determine what is true and what is conspiracy theory.

It's why I believe in vaccines. It's why I believe in the law. It's why I believe in the Constitution. It's why I believe what I see by my very eyes and ears.

It's why I don't believe in a convicted felon. 

 

 

Another class reunion

The last time I heard somebody ask me to sign their high school yearbook was 57 years ago, but then, that's the kind of life I've lived. You know, the kind filled with oddball change-ups and unpredictable curves that you never really see coming. The kind that just kiss the corner of the plate and the ump cries out "Steee-rike!"

Linda Radle, myself, and Hannah Pennewell

 So here was Linda Radle. We weren't particularly close back in our high school days – basically just anonymous students passing each other in the hallways – but I think she somehow recognized me by my name tag. We struck up a friendly conversation, with me pointing out that I actually didn't graduate with her class because we moved away in my senior year.

Then, out of nowhere, it seemed, she whipped out her class of 1969 yearbook. "Will you sign this, please?"

I was taken aback. Then humbled.

"Just sign it in the space here on the page where your picture would have been," she suggested.

I don't know if it's because I've reached a certain age, or what, but it's moments like this that tend to make me misty eyed. All my hearts fall off my sleeve like autumn leaves.

So I wrote, as best as I can remember, "Linda, it only took me 57 years, but I finally got to sign your yearbook." I think I added another clever sentence or two, then signed it, "In renewed friendship, Bruce Wehrle." She seemed pleased.

Bruce Buratti and myself

 This reunion was going to be different than any I'd been to previously. This time, the organizers combined the Southern Lehigh classes of 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1969 because, you know, we're dying off now. It's not that easy to coax people to come to that little school that lies in the shadow of Allentown,  PA, especially as we get older and driving becomes a little more problematical. But I thought it was a brilliant move, since most of us also had friends in classes other than our own and whom we hadn't seen for years. Plus, the event was being held over two days, with a casual picnic lunch on Friday and a more formal catered luncheon at a local college on Saturday.

This gave me a chance to meet up with Bruce Buratti. He and I were teammates on the Solehi cross country team. He was a year ahead of me in school.

He recognized me immediately and we started reminiscing from the get-go. Here's an interesting tidbit: we're two guys named Bruce who ran for the same cross country team in high school, and then went on to spend their entire professional careers as sports writers. To top it off, both of us were inducted into our respective county sports halls of fame. What are the odds?

I spent so much of my Friday talking with Bruce that I actually missed having my group picture with the present members of the class of 1969. No matter. We could try again Saturday. Except that when the call came Saturday for another class picture, I was off somewhere talking with Bruce. Again.

Steee-rike!  

Morag, myself and Kim

Reunions can be hardest on spouses because they don't know anybody there and I kind of wondered how Kim would navigate her way through this – especially for two days, 500 miles from home. It's not as if she could hop in the car and drive off (Well, she could have, I guess. She has her own keys to the car. But that would have been a totally different story).

Anyway, in one of those moments when Kim was alone in a room full of strangers, a woman named Christie Davies (Class of '68) approached her and asked about her. Who was she? What class was she in? Kim explained that she was married to me, but Christie had no clue who I was. We never crossed paths in school.

A bit later, Kim told me about this nice woman who made her feel comfortable and she pointed her out to me. I went up to Christie, showed her my name tag, and thanked her for talking to my wife. Christie was friendly, outgoing and funny. We talked for a few more minutes. And just like that, I had made a new friend from out of the reunion ether.

And then there's Morag. You might remember that I've written about Morag Christie-Churm before. She and I met as teenagers in the summer of 1967 when we both had summer jobs at the community swimming pool and, well, the friendship that started then has now spanned seven decades. It's one of those tasty change-ups that you never expect. Whenever Kim and I head north, Morag (Class of '68) graciously offers us a place to stay for a couple of days, without fail.

Damn. There goes another heart off my sleeve.

Morag was more or less the ramrod behind this reunion, serving as coordinator, accountant, proofreader, ass kicker and whatever else it took to put something like a two-day reunion together. Plans are already in the works for another reunion in three years, which would make it my 60th. 

There were others I remembered: Hannah Pennewell, who represented the Class of '69 on the reunion committee; Tom Schaeffer, the class president; Duane Wetzel; Ed Alosi; Linda Yost; Arthur Urffer, and Glen High, to name a few. 

I have to say, for a bunch of septuagenarians, the folks in the four classes looked pretty good. Healthy. Sharp. Glad to be in each other's shared company. Humbled to be shaped, in part, by the high school that brought us together.

For sure. See you in three years. 

Modeling my new T-shirt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Voting rights

If you ask me (and I know you didn't, but here goes anyway), the right to vote is the most sacred of our American freedoms.

It's the lubricant of our democracy. In a world full of despots, parliaments, oligarchies, theocracies, anarchists and communists, our 250 years of free and fair elections are, I believe, what most clearly defines us as Americans.

So why is there an assault on our right to vote? Why is the Voting Rights Act being decimated by the Supreme Court? When the American vision should be welcoming all of its citizens to vote, why are limitations being imposed on who and where we can vote?

Why, for crying out loud, did officials in Tarrant County, TX – the third largest county in the state, which includes Fort Worth – approve a plan on Tuesday to reduce the number of polling locations by 92 for the rapidly approaching midterm elections?

It might be an easy guess. The Tarrant County Commissioners, in a party-line 3-2 vote decided by three Republicans, reduced the number of polling locations from 316 to 224.  Fewer polling stations is expected to cut down the number of potential voters – and thus the number of Democrats who show up in steadily growing purple Tarrant County.

Most appallingly, the polling stations at the University of Texas-Arlington and Tarrant County College have been dropped, denying students an easy opportunity to vote. That's what this is really about – access to the ballot. Fewer voting locations usually means it's more difficult for older voters, rural voters or students – to arrive and exercise their franchise.

For a Republican Party that is in (desperate) fear of losing majorities in both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in the midterms, restricting voting locations and attempting to explain that there are still plenty of places to vote is absurd. It's all about control.

The excessively corrupt Trump Administration has been whining about rigged elections for more than a decade now without any evidence, even though he has won two presidential elections. This whining is nothing more than pre-planned fear-mongering (think Project 2025) and red meat for the MAGA base, even though numerous studies and investigations have shown that elections have been overwhelmingly free and fair.

The Brennan Center think tank published a report years ago, "The Truth About Voter Fraud", and found that most incidents of fraud are traceable to other sources, like clerical errors or poor data matching processes. Consequently, the Brennan Center concluded that incident rates of fraud measure between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent.

The Brennan Center wrote than an American more likely "will be struck by lightning than he will impersonate another voter at the polls."

In another study by the bi-partisan Brookings Institute, election data from the conservative Heritage Foundation found that voter fraud measures less than 1 percent over the last 38 years. In other words, no election was altered by voter fraud over those years. Imagine that.

When Trump complained about the "rigged" 2020 election, Trump's then-Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the Department of Homeland Security, Christoper Krebs, declared the elections were the most secure in American history. He was fired by Trump days after the election.  

Early voting begins in North Carolina on Oct. 15 and the midterm election will be held nationally on Nov. 3, only 57 days from now.

To this point, the only attempted tampering with our elections seems to have come from Trump himself.

Our right to vote is under attack. It's being assaulted by gerrymandered districts. It's being assaulted by Supreme Court decisions that have dismantled Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It's being placed in doubt by the repeated unsubstantiated lies of an astoundingly failed president.

Exercise your franchise to vote. Get to the polls the best way you know how. And vote.  

Dolly

There was a time in my life when I didn't give a flip about country music.

In fact, I don't think I developed a serious appreciation for any kind of music until I reached high school. Probably about the same time that the '60's hit the scene. I think what happened was that, for two summers, I worked as the maintenance guy at the community swimming pool. I was at the pool from opening to closing every day through the summer and consequently I got a steady diet of popular music over the PA system: Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, the Hollies, CCR – the whole 60s package. My life changed.

Dolly

 Decades passed. Still no country, though.

Then, finally, in the 90s, I heard Whitney Houston sing "I Will Always Love You" and was taken in with the lyrics. Beautiful lyrics. Moving lyrics coupled with a soul-melting melody.

About the same time, my wife, Kim, introduced me to the country side of the road and I began an appreciation of artists like Patty Loveless, Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, Alison Krauss and a few others.

Somewhere along the way, I heard Dolly sing "I Will Always Love You."  Then, to my surprise, I learned she wrote the song.

Say what? I didn't know that. Why would I think a country star could write a tune like that? Not only that, she wrote it in the '70s. In 1974, to be exact. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Listening to Eagles and Yes and the Police.

I guess I would hope to tell you that Dolly soon became a favorite of mine, but it didn't happen that way. I was never particularly enamored with her singing voice and I thought those breast augmentations, makeup overloads and ridiculous wigs more or less turned her into a silly caricature of herself. Show business, I guess.

And yet...

As her fame increased, so did her authentic self. Her immense wealth allowed her to become a philanthropist and in 1988 Parton founded the non-profit Dollywood Foundation. The foundation was originally created to inspire the children of her home county in Sevier, TN, to aim for educational success and to decrease the county high school's dropout rate.

Out of that was created the Buddy Program, which pledged $500 to each seventh and eight grade student who eventually graduated from the local high school. Consequently, the dropout rate fell from 35 percent to 6 percent. 

But it became something even bigger than that. By 1995 Parton created the Imagination Library, an offshoot of the Dollywood Foundation which gifted a book monthly to children under the age of 5 in Sevier County. But the program eventually grew to international heights. To date, Parton's literacy program has donated more than 200 million free books. At one point, the Library of Congress called Parton "a titan of children's literacy."

The library was founded in honor of her father, who never learned to read nor write.

Now get this: in 2022, employees of Dollywood, the theme park co-owned with her entertainment company, would have their college tuition and related fees paid for by the park. Parton was her own department of education. 

This is making me cry.

In 2016, she created the My People Fund, which provided $1,000 per month for six months to families who lost their homes in the wildfires of Sevier County. When the program ended a year later, more than $12 million had been raised and distributed. Parton was her own FEMA office.

She was also her own department of health and human services. In 2006 she pledged $500,000 for a hospital and cancer center in Seveirville, TN.

Then, in 2020, Parton donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University to help in the research for a COVID-19 vaccine. Indeed, her donation expedited the critical early development of the Moderna vaccine. She famously had herself vaccinated at Vanderbilt to help set an example.

A few months later, Parton donated another $1 million to Vanderbilt for pediatric infectious disease research.

I'm still weeping.

Parton, as previously noted, was also essential in donating to natural disaster relief. In 2024, she donated $2 million – including $1 million personally with the balance coming through her foundation – to relief efforts after the onslaught of Hurricane Helene through the Appalachian Mountains, causing at least 106 deaths in North Carolina alone.

Although she was politically neutral, she was an advocate for the gay community, supporting same-sex marriages as well as voicing support for the trans community.

Many of these donations and pledges came quietly and, consequently, we may never know the true extent of her philanthropic career.

Maybe it's just enough to know that she will always love you. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The story of Dorie

When mess attendant second class Doris "Dorie" Miller woke up at 6 a.m. on that fateful Sunday morning on the battleship USS West Virginia, one of the first things he did was his assigned duty: he served yet another breakfast to his shipmates.

Dorie Miller

 Preparing meals was one of the few things he could do in the U.S. Navy back in 1941. Miller was a Black man living in a relentlessly segregated America. He joined the Navy in 1939 as a way to help lift his family of four siblings and parents from the pangs of poverty.

He was also an athlete. At 6-foot-3, 200 pounds, he played fullback on his high school football team in Waco, TX. After he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, he'd taken up competition boxing. He soon became the West Virginia's heavyweight champion and was a favorite among the crew.

In February of 1941, he was promoted to mess attendant second class.

Then came that fateful December morning. After serving breakfast to his mates, Miller busied himself collecting laundry. A few minutes before 8 a.m., all hell broke loose in the supposedly sheltered waters of Pearl Harbor, where the West Virginia was moored. Alarms sounded.

Miller ran to his battle station, an anti-aircraft ammunition magazine amidships, only to find it had been damaged by one of seven torpedoes that struck the ship during the attack. He was then assigned to help carry wounded sailors out of the chaos to areas of relative safety.

One of those sailors was the ship's captain, Mervyn Bennion, who was mortally wounded by shrapnel. Bennion was taken to a protected spot on the deck behind the bridge. Bennion refused to be moved while continuing to give orders during the attack. He died at his post and was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions.

Miller is awarded his Navy Cross by Nimitz.

 Miller, for his part, was then ordered to help feed ammunition to a then-unmanned Browning .50 caliber anti-aircraft machine gun. When the primary gunner's attention was diverted, Miller took over and began firing the weapon on his own, even though he was never trained to use the gun.

He was credited with shooting down at least one Japanese aircraft, and possibly damaging as many as four others. 

That's an astounding performance for a sailor not permitted to use his ship's weaponry. The Japanese lost 29 aircraft (out of 353 planes launched) in the attack that day, including nine planes in the first wave. Miller shot down one of them, a remarkable feat for anyone.

When he exhausted his ammunition, Miller went back to saving wounded sailors.

On the first day of America's involvement in World War II, Miller became one of the country's first war heroes. And he was Black. Imagine that.

Ultimately, Miller was awarded the Navy Cross by Admiral Chester Nimitz, the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet. Miller was the first Black man to receive the medal, which at the time was the third highest award in the Navy for gallantry under combat, behind the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. (Congress later revised the Navy Cross as the second highest award in 1942, above the DSM.)

Miller was later assigned as steward's mate (a title changed from mess attendant in 1943) on the new escort carrier USS Liscome Bay. It was a fateful assignment. The Liscome Bay was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine on Nov. 24, 1943 (Thanksgiving eve) during the Battle of Makin in the Gilbert Islands campaign. The ship's magazine of bombs and torpedoes exploded, and the Liscome Bay sank in 23 minutes with the loss of 702 sailors. It was the deadliest sinking of an aircraft carrier in U.S. Navy history. Miller officially was originally reported as missing in action and then later declared dead. He was 24.

I bring all of this up now because the Navy is currently building a new carrier (CVN-81) with the namesake USS Doris Miller. 

Maybe.

Reports are floating from the Pentagon that the name of the ship, scheduled for commencement in 2034, will be dropped and possibly renamed the USS Donald J. Trump.

This obscenity sounds pretty much like the skulduggery of racist and sexist Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has unashamedly removed Black and female officers from military promotion lists. Notable exclusions include blocking the promotions of eight Navy captains to the rank of admiral, three of whom were women and two of whom were Black. To date, there have been 22 promotions to admiral under Hegseth's testosterone overload, but none have been women.

Additionally, Hegseth fired Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown (a former F-16 pilot with more than 3,000 flight hours, including 130 hours in combat) as well as the Navy's first-ever top female officer Adm. Lisa Franchetti – neither for cause related to merit.

To continue, the portrait of Gen. Daniel "Chappie" James was removed from the prominent walls of the Pentagon's Air Force Art Gallery, ostensibly for cleaning and refurbishing. James, who flew 101 combat missions in Korea and 78 more in Vietnam, was the first Black four-star general in U.S. military history. His portrait reportedly has been moved to the Tuskegee Airmen Corridor on the fourth floor of the Pentagon. Adequate, perhaps, but certainly not prominent.

All of this reeks of so-called DEI and wokeness, two completely made-up issues brought to you live from the paranoid, racist and sexist Trump administration. In my mind, DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) and wokeness should be considered elements of personal growth and attainment. I would suggest that Jesus Christ himself was a practitioner of DEI. Why can't we all be like this?

Back to Dorie Miller for a moment.

If you think Miller's actions on Dec. 7, 1941, were worthy of the Congressional Medal of Honor, so do others. In March, 1942, Miller was nominated for the CMH by Michigan representative John Dingell, Sr. and New York senator James Mead (both white). But then Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox stepped in. Knox opposed Black sailors performing in combat roles and recommended Miller not receive the honor. There it is: American racism at its best.

The quest for Miller's CMH continues even today as his family pushes for the honor. The Navy is considering it. 

But now this: 83 years after his death, Miller apparently is about to suffer another ignominy if his name is removed from CVN-81. It would be especially galling if the ship were named after Trump, although I don't see how it would be acceptable for the Navy to thus acknowledge and honor a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist. Who would want to serve on that vessel?

We seem to be stepping back in time. 

We need a hero like Miller. There's never enough of them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deployed

The current trials and travails of the USS Abraham Lincoln (CV-72) during its deployment to support the conflict in the Middle East got me curious.

As you may have heard by now, more than 5,000 sailors on that nuclear-powered aircraft carrier have been deployed for more than 267 consecutive days in a war zone while experiencing unexpected problems, such as poor food quality, declining hygiene conditions and deteriorating mental health issues among some of its personnel.

Well, at least the carrots look OK.

 The length of deployment itself is not so unusual. Most vessels in the modern Navy can be at sea anywhere from six to nine months before being rotated out of frontline service.

So I looked it up.

What is going on right now isn't even the longest deployment for the USS Abraham Lincoln. 

In an article written for the U.S. Navy by Ensign Molly Fresher (who served on the carrier) in 2020, the Lincoln concluded a 10-month deployment of 295 days, at the time marking the longest carrier deployment in the post-Cold War era. Its theater of operations included the South China Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Malacca and the Surigao Strait, all with the purpose of maritime stability and security.

In all, the carrier strike group, with its supporting vessels, covered 64,000 miles. Fresher's story was not clear if there were ports of call or if any at-sea resupply was involved, but I suspect there was. I don't remember hearing of any crew complaints about the mission at the time.

The longest U.S. Navy carrier deployment belongs to the USS Midway (CVA-41), which put to sea for 332 days during the Vietnam War from April 10, 1972, to March 3, 1973. The longest post-Vietnam era deployment was held by the USS Gerald Ford (CVN-78) of 326 days, from June 2025 to May 2026.

You have to go back to World War II to find the the longest continuous sea-time deployment during war time. The USS Hornet (CV-12, but not the Hornet that famously carried the Doolittle raiders {CV-8}. That one was sunk in the Battle of Santa Cruz in October 1942. Its namesake was commissioned in late 1943) was at sea for a whopping 495 consecutive days.

Soooo, given a brief history of long and longer naval deployments, why are we spitting salt water about the USS Lincoln?

If you go on Facebook, there are some interesting comments from the old salts who served in this man's Navy and have little time or sympathy for the complaints. "This is what the Navy does," or "It's the Navy, not the Princess Cruise Lines," or "You're not on vacation," or "Take away their cell phones so they can't call Mommy," or – best yet – "Beat Army."

Some are even questioning the man overboard story because, well, when they served, nobody jumped ship, diving 60 feet into a wide-open ocean. Who does that?

To tell you the truth, I can see both sides of the story. But I still tend to lean to the left on this one. 

If sailors are having mental health issues, where are the qualified mental health workers? Do we still have trouble diagnosing – and accepting – PTSD in the military?

If the food is so bad, or in short supply, can't MRE's be flown in until the deployment is over? You're an aircraft carrier, for crying out loud. Land some planes or helicopters with supplies. Hey, I've visited the USS North Carolina museum in Wilmington and learned they served their own self-produced ice cream to the crew during World War II. What's changed?

Are there not Plumber First Class ratings who can fix the USS Lincoln's gurgling toilets? You're at sea, for crying out loud. You're surrounded by water. Everybody on board should be a plumber.

I don't know how this is going to end. Will other crews start complaining? Will they have reason to? Or are the old salts right?

We're in 2026 and we're the United States of America. Deployments and rotations should be sensible, not to the breaking point. Service members should be supplied and properly equipped to get the job done. 

And it should start at the top. 

Balancing act

Not too long ago, Kim had me sign up for a class on better balance that was being offered at the Davidson County Senior Center.

This made sense to me on a couple of different levels.

 First of all, it always makes good sense to listen to Kim – even though it's taken me 46 years to figure that one out.

Secondly – not that I've been toppling over or anything – but I have noticed that as I travel deeper and deeper into my silver years, my sense of balance has become more and more suspect.

I hold onto railings as I climb – or descend – stairs. I usually have to lean against a wall or something to make sure I really don't tip over when putting on my socks or stepping into my shorts. I occasionally bump into doorways for no apparent reason. Even something as second nature as walking now requires more of my attention to make sure I'm not zigging and zagging down the sidewalk. (Just in case you're thinking that I need to cut back on the sauce, well, I already have. There's a point where you realize that the aging process is already screwing with your head, why compound it with alcohol? It was either that or have a serious talk with my inner ear crystals).

So I signed up for the class. It was only 15 bucks for 10 consecutive hour-long sessions (or $1.50 per session. Senior prices.) every Thursday from now until October. There's not many deals like that in this economy, so what the heck?

(Click on chart to enlarge)

 I didn't know what to expect going in. Was it going to be exercises? Were there going to be discussions about aging? About balance? Did I need to take notes? Kim and a few of my friends wanted me to show them what I was learning. It was like being back in school. The pressure was on.

Right from the start, it was about exercises. We started off by marching in place for a few minutes. Then there were some foot-to-foot weight-shifting drills, followed by some heel-and-toe rocking and hula-hoop maneuvers without the hula hoops. Pretty easy, huh?

Then came the fun stuff. 

"Okay, now I want you to stand on one leg," said the instructor. "Lift the other leg and extend it forward, and hold it for 20 seconds. You can grab onto your chair if you need to."

There were a couple of variations on this exercise, each one requiring that you raise one leg, extend and hold, before switching to the other leg. I didn't use a chair. But I couldn't go more than a few seconds of one-leggedness before I felt myself about to fall over. My ear crystals were laughing at me. Next week, I use a chair.

I later found out that some of these exercises incorporate the principles of Tai Chi, an ancient Chinese martial art designed to strengthen not only balance, but the inner core as well, while utilizing calm, relaxed breathing. That's not easy to do when you think you're falling over and you go into panic mode.

I reckon we did about 25 or so two-minute exercises within that hour. I started looking at the clock with about 20 minutes to go and wondered if this was ever gonna end. I even worked up a little sweat. Why did I think this was going to be easy? I'm 75 years old, for crying out loud. Three quarters of a century. I deserve easy.

Even the next day I had a few sore muscles.

The concept here is that you're supposed to take some of these exercises home with you and use them daily, but, me being me, that's not likely to happen. Too much like work. I did show Kim a few of the drills to give her an idea of what I'm doing. Plus, all you have to do is Google "balance exercises" and all this stuff comes up on YouTube anyway.

Nevertheless, I will continue to take this course. There are 14 of us, including two men, and I wonder how many of us will still be interested by October? So there's a challenge in that.

And I do see the benefits: in stress relief, in joint mobility and in heart health. For a person of my mature years, it's probably a good thing. On balance. 

 

 

. 

 

 

 

 

Fauci

Six years later – six years after the initial onslaught of the Covid pandemic – I never thought we'd still be talking about Dr. Anthony Fauci.

And if we were still talking about him, surely it would be about the millions of lives he helped save promoting the mRNA Covid vaccine while serving as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) (1984 to 2022) and as Chief Medical Advisor to the President (2021 to 2022).

Nope. Instead, we were presented with a sham Senate hearing, headed up by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, designed to try, prosecute and condemn Fauci, 85, for the role Fauci played during the pandemic. You know, where he advised convicted felon president Trump to do the right thing. Trump appreciated Fauci's advice so much that he awarded the physician the Presidential Commendation medal for his role in Operation Warp Speed.

But Dr. Trump often contradicted Fauci's advice. I guess Dr. Trump's medical training got in the way. (I might need to note for some of you when I'm being sarcastic. I'm being sarcastic).

I'm not quite sure what happened next. Paul, a nonpracticing opthalmologist by training and who happens to be the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has been on a six-year rampage in an effort to at least embarrass, if not imprison Fauci. That's why Fauci was in Paul's Senate hearing Wednesday, knowing full well that he was appearing before a Republican-constructed perjury trap. It's also why Fauci pled his constitutionally guaranteed Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

You know, the way Trump did 440 times in a four-hour deposition in 2020.

Paul has been trying for years to question and prosecute Fauci over the origins of Covid and gain of function research. In other words, trying to pin the pandemic on Fauci. It's a Republican conspiracy theory that won't go away. As somebody recently wrote, there's no theory like a conspiracy theory.

Fauci is being blamed for mask mandates, vaccination requirements, small business failures, closure of schools, random social distancing, the deaths of millions of people through rushed vaccine research and anything else that annoyed people (Republicans) during the pandemic 

It's interesting to note here – and perhaps important, too – that Fauci served only as an advisor to the president, not as someone with authority to actually put those measures into effect. Those decisions were left to state governors and others on up to the convicted felon president himself.

So Wednesday's hearing was about, what? Giving advice? Show time?

What was the end result of the vaccine?

Well, no. The vaccine doesn't prevent Covid. Nothing will. Not horse wormer ivermectine. Not malaria medicine hydroxychoroquin. But the vaccine, in the face of an ever mutating virus, helped diminish the lethality of the disease. Death rates dropped. A kind of herd immunity developed. Even if you proudly proclaimed that you never took the vaccine, you're still here. Lives were saved, not taken. That's the empirical evidence.

Here are some things to think about. There are about eight billion people on the planet. A little more than five billion people took at least one jab, and more than 13 billion shots were administered. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 67 percent of the Earth's total population was vaxxed.

In the United States, with a population of 349 million, at least 676.7 million doses were given with 230.6 million people becoming fully vaccinated. That's 77 percent of the population. That's herd immunity.

I've heard the arguments: Fauci created the virus; Fauci did it for the money; Fauci did it for the glory; Big Pharma did it to keep people sick; Democrats did it to create votes; the vaccine killed millions.

I'm pretty sure Fauci, a dedicated scientist who earlier in his career helped in treating the HIV AIDS epidemic and spent more than 40 years in service to the country, suddenly went rogue and decided it was more profitable to become another Dr. Josef Mengele. That makes no sense.

Paul said he will consider filing contempt of congress charges against Fauci this week for pleading the Fifth while enjoying a preemptive pardon from President Biden. Paul said the pardon prevents Fauci from invoking the Fifth, which is a novel legal theory that is still to be litigated.

We're hearing a lot of complaining about witch hunts from the Trump administration these days. I guess we're seeing what one really looks like. 

Oh, yeah. And release the completely unredacted Epstein files. It's the law. 

 

 

Welcome back, measles

The other day I was casually listening to the news as background noise when I thought I heard the commentator say that the current measles outbreak now has reached a 35-year high in the United States.

Wha...?

Furthermore, this country is on the verge of losing its measles-free status after having virtually eliminated the viral disease in 2000, when it was officially declared eradicated in this country by the Centers for Disease Control.

But then something happened. Many people stopped getting measles vaccinations, even in the face of decades of evidence proving the shots work. 

Why?

Covid-19 made its appearance in 2019 and a vaccine was quickly developed (under Operation Warp Speed, the only initiative where I can find any reason to give convicted felon president Trump any positive credit) and introduced to the population.

The vaccine didn't prevent Covid – it still doesn't – but, consequently, all of those atrocious early Covid death rates began to diminish. Refrigerated trailer trucks no longer served as temporary morgues and hospitals were no longer running out of ventilators.

The Covid vaccine was enough to create something of a herd immunity to the point where now for many of us, getting Covid isn't much worse than the common cold.

But something else happened again. The Covid vaccine became politicized. Republicans said the vaccine was rushed and we didn't know what was in it. It would alter our genetic RNA. Do you know what you're putting in your body? It would kill us. And the fear seemed to spread. But why stop with Covid? What about flu shots? What about measles vaccines? What about all vaccines, period?

So what happened?

Measles, almost predictably, made a comeback. In 2025, there were an astonishing 2,289 confirmed cases of measles. As of July 23 of this year, there are an additional 2,318 confirmed cases across 45 states.

So, yeah, we're about to lose our status as a measles-free nation because some people don't believe the science or the evidence. But they seemingly will gobble up any conspiracy theory that aligns with the narrative they want to push.

I guess that explains why we have uniquely unqualified Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the head of the Health and Human Services Department. You know, the vaccine denier who swims in polluted creeks and dines on road kill.

Unbelievable. 

Footnote: Last year, the Journal of the American Medical Association's (JAMA) Network Open released the findings of a landmark four-year study in France to answer the question: Are Covid-19 mRNA vaccines associated with the long-term risk of all-cause mortality?

The findings revealed that among the 22.7 million vaccinated people in France versus the 5.9 million unvaccinated individuals, vaccinated individuals had a 74 percent lower risk of death from severe Covid-19 and no increased risk of all-cause mortality in a median follow-up of 45 months.

A whole nation was involved in this study, which ultimately supported the safety of mRNA vaccines currently being used worldwide.

And, in another footnote from several years ago, researchers from Yale University published a study in JAMA Internal Medicine analyzing excess Covid deaths of registered voters in Ohio and Florida. The study found that registered Republicans had an excess death rate 15 percent higher than Democratic voters between March 2020 and December 2021.

In addition, after Covid vaccines were free to all adults in April 2021, the gap widened even more. Republicans had a 43 percent higher excess death rate than Democrats. Hit me with a feather.

C'mon, people. Covid. Measles. Flu. Whatever. Take your damn vaccine shots, both you and your children. The evidence is clearly smacking you right between the eyes. 

 

 

It' getting darker

Originally, I planned to discuss the current debate between Eastern Standard Time (EST) and Daylight Savings Time (DST), hence the title of today's blog.

And I will in a minute.

But the deaths of two American military personnel Friday in Jordan by Iranian drones and missiles are not only saddening, but abhorrent and unnecessary. This country has now suffered 16 military deaths and a startling 430 wounded since adjudicated rapist and 34-time convicted felon president Donald Trump began his war of choice against Iran in February.

And he doesn't know how to end what he began. His response to the recent deaths is to launch more airstrikes against Iranian infrastructure and military capability in an effort to send Iran "back to the stone ages," whatever that means. It sounds a whole lot like the rhetoric of a war crime. Kind of like blowing up motorboats in the Caribbean with survivors clinging to debris. And without due process.

Furthermore, increased airstrikes increase the chances of losing more American personnel. 

Since Trump is a convicted felon, why is the military obeying his psychopathic orders anyway? Isn't this the time to invoke the Uniform Code of Military Justice? What am I missing here? The current assault on Iran – which has raised gas and food prices back home – has made the United States the aggressor nation. How do you feel about owning that title?

How is he still our president? 

•   •   •

 The hostilities with Iran underline the administration's "manosphere" train of thought where men are in control. That misogynist muscle-flexing philosophy was illustrated earlier last week when clueless Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the U.S. military will test service members' testosterone levels. A service member will be advised to take hormone therapy, if needed.

But flu shots are optional. So are covid shots. So are most shots.

This kind of paints a picture of hyper-masculine men bearing arms who are coughing and wheezing their way to war. Only manly men need apply.

Government-sanctioned drugging also brings to mind the German armies of World War II, who were given generous amounts of Pervitin methamphetamine tablets to the point of addiction in order to help them stay awake and alert in wartime combat conditions. Many of those who became addicted to the stimulant also became over-aggressive, to the point of charging blindly into artillery and machine gun fire.

The manosphere. Pfft. Where do you park your paranoia?

•   •   •

This should be simple enough, but if the Trump administration is involved, it's anything but.

The House of Representatives recently passed the oddly-named Sunshine Protection Act by an overwhelming vote of 308-117 to make daylight savings time permanent nationwide. The bill is now in the hands of the Senate, where it is finding difficulty moving forward.

Under DST, you get an hour more of daylight in the evening. That's good. More daylight for outdoor recreation, retail shopping and mood.

Under EST, you are more likely aligned with the sun as well as human circadian rhythms. That means there's a chance for better overall sleep, as well as lower rates of obesity and stroke. Yay. I raise my hand for EST.

Plus, about two-thirds of the planet's nations do not adjust for daylight savings. Neither does Hawaii or most of Arizona. We can't even get the whole country to agree on this.

And with our current Health and Human Services department bringing back measles, downplaying vaccinations and failing to clean our lettuce, why worry about strokes and obesity?

Dark times indeed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Commie scum

Alright, children. Settle down.

Today's civic lesson lesson will be to tell the difference between communism and democratic socialism. 

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of communism is: "a system where goods are owned collectively and are available to all members of society."

Democratic Socialism seeks to move away from capitalism through a multi-party democratic process.

The difference? Communism is based on the Marxist theory that seeks to establish a classless, stateless and moneyless society through the collective ownership of all economic production. 

Democratic socialism, on the other hand, embraces a highly regulated, capitalist free-market economy with high taxes to fuel a robust social safety net. It seeks universal healthcare in a single-payer system, living wages, free college education and wealth distribution

We need to discuss this because in the heat of the current political atmosphere, some ill-informed pundits and politicians are conflating communism with democratic socialism. For some reason, the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist President Trump thinks a resurrected 2026 version of McCarthy era Red Scare tactics will help the Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections.

That is sooo 1950s of him. But then, as he has shown us daily, he's a confused old man who is out of touch with the reality of the times. While he's calling Democrats communists, his closest international friends are Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un. Go figure.

While assailing the Democratic Party as dangerous communists, Trump has yet to identify a single communist.

Meanwhile, he is projecting again.

In the past year or so, the Trump administration has converted federal grants into direct equity stakes in private companies in such sectors as semiconductors, critical minerals and quantum technology. Wait, what? Government ownership of private businesses? Isn't that something like comm...???

Take a look. Some notable government equity holdings feature a 10 percent equity stake in semiconductor giant Intel, turning previously unspent  CHIPS Act subsidies into direct ownership. The government also holds an equity share in MP Materials, which deals in rare earth mining and processing. Then there is the U.S. Commerce Department making equity investments in several quantum technology companies.

Most telling of all, perhaps, is the government's "golden share" in U.S. Steel. Get this: the government now has veto power over specific corporate and supply-chain decisions made by the company.

In all, the government has spent $27 billion in equity stakes so far. 

What do you think farm subsidies are? Social Security actually has the word "social" in it. Where does Medicare come from?

Democratic socialism is in the fabric of American democracy. I once made an argument that Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase was a form of socialism whereby the government made a real estate purchase for the betterment of its people. It was so dicey even Jefferson had his doubts about the deal. But he made it anyway.

The Nordic states are the modern model for social democracy. They feature free trade, strong property rights, a business-friendly regulatory environment, labor protection with high unionization rates and collective bargaining and state-provided healthcare and childcare along with universal education.

It must be working pretty good. Nobody is calling each other "comrade." 

 

 

 

 

I declare...

Both Kim and I were having a little trouble getting cranked up for this year's Fourth of July celebration. It should have been easy. After all, this is the country's 250th birthday. That's pretty special.

But too much Donald Trump was getting in the way:

An unforced war with Iran. The detention and deportation of human beings – some, if not many of them legal citizens. But, hey, when you ignore due process, what does it matter? Inflation. Rogue police (ICE). The physical gutting of Washington DC landmarks, including the destruction of the East Wing of the White House for a grandiose ballroom that nobody asked for. A proposed arch that nobody asked for. An assault of voting rights with the incredibly stupid SAVE America Act.

It's all pretty embarrassing and it virtually sucks whatever pride you have in your country right out from the marrow of your bones.

So Kim and I wondered how we could celebrate with a joy we can't quite find.

Then Kim had a brainstorm.

Let's read the Declaration of Independence. Out loud. To each other. 

So we did. We got up Saturday morning, and a couple hours later, me made some time for ourselves. Kim lit a candle and placed it in the middle of our coffee table. Then I read the first of the document's 1,458 words: "In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another..."

I kept reading to the part that famously said, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."

I teared up at that point. My voice cracked. For a brief, sterling moment, I felt myself channeling Thomas Jefferson, hearing my own voice give provenance to his words.  "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

Wow. For the first time in world history, a true democracy (and a republic) was being formed. The declaration was personally directed at England's King George III – and not the British Parliament because the colonies didn't recognize Parliament's legal authority.

In other words, treason.

Kim continued our session. She was into the second half of the DOI (not DEI, although it is a document heavy with diversity, equity and inclusion. Consequently, it subsequently becomes one of the most un-American government policies ever for the Trump administration to disparage DEI. At least, that's what I think), which listed their grievances against the king and providing their reasons for declaring independence.

Here are some of those grievances. See if they don't apply in today's world. Maybe it'll help illustrate what today's protesters mean when they shout "No Kings!" in their righteous resistance:

• "He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good."

Trump refuses to sign into law the an affordable housing bill until his voter suppressive SAVE America act is passed. He's holding legislation hostage.

• "He has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

DOGE? ICE?  Holy cow, the founders saw this 250 years ago?

• "He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures."

And...

• "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power." 

Sounds like calling out the National Guard and the Marines to quell constitutionally permitted protests.

• "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world."

What have Trump's tariffs done?

• "For depriving us in many cases, the benefits of Trial by Jury."

How many immigrants have been deported by ICE without due process?

• "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us..."

Jan. 6.

• "He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States, for the purpose of obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands."

The recent suspension of Temporary Protective Status comes to mind. So does the attack on the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship.

Kim and I read on, both amazed at how current the 250 year old document had become. What goes around comes around? I don't know.

Kim finished with the inspiring "We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the Good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right, ought to be FREE and INDEPENDENT STATES (the use of all caps emphasizes their voice and determination); that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right to do. And for that support of this Declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

That takes my breath away.

Kim and I then read, alternately, the names of each of the signers. There were 56 of them. One of them, Benjamin Franklin, was the only one who signed all four definitive documents that established the United States: The Declaration of Independence (1776); the Treaty of Alliance with France (1778); the Treaty of Paris (1783) and the United States Constitution (1787).

Kim and I looked at each other. In that singular moment, I don't think we ever had a better Fourth of July. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a week

I suppose nothing exemplifies the current stench of Trump administration racism in this country more than Thursday's Supreme Court ruling that removes the Temporary Protective Status (TPS) of perhaps 350,000 Haitian immigrants living and working legally – legally, in case you missed it the first time – in the United States.

Also affected by the ruling are nearly 6,000 Syrian immigrants. 

The common denominator is that both nationalities are predominantly dark skinned. The ruling could be effective immediately, meaning a whole new crop of non-Whites could be targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deported. As if we haven't had enough of ICE.

On the same day, SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) ruled that people seeking asylum in the United States can legally be turned away at the US-Mexican border by physically preventing them from setting foot on US soil.

These are people mostly seeking escape and refuge from murderous regimes in their own countries. 

What the holy hell...

So much for "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breath free..." 

"This is a victory 10 years in the making," said Steve Miller, the deputy chief of staff for the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, you know who gets all the asylum they need? White South Africans, who represent 6 percent of the South African population but own 50 percent of the land. Tell me again how are they being persecuted? 

Whites in, brown-skin out. Now tell me that we are not a country that has lost its way. 

Next target: the 14th amendment and birthright citizenship. SCOTUS is trying its best to rewrite the Constitution in its own image.

•   •   •

On Wednesday, the out-of-touch-with-reality Trump cancelled a bipartisan vote that aims to lower costs for homeowners and home buyers.

He's using that cancellation as a tactic to force Congress to pass his SAVE America Act, which is essentially a voter suppression scheme he wants to implement before the oncoming blue wave strikes the mid-term elections.

The SAVE America Act does not have enough votes to pass in the Senate, and it never will. Recent polling shows that 89 percent of Americans support the hosing bill, compared to 52 percent of voters who support requiring proof of citizenship in order to vote.

If Trump doesn't sign the housing bill within a 10-day period – he's already on the clock – it automatically becomes law. 

•   •   •

On Wednesday, Trump opened the Great America State Fair on the National Mall in Washington DC. Trump declared 45,000 people attended the event, which may or may not have been true. But videos show streams of people leaving while he was spouting one of his tiresome list of grievances.

In addition to Trump's presence, the so-called State Fair was hindered by numerous difficulties, including power outages that melted 200 gallons of ice cream. There were overpriced concessions and a Ferris Wheel as the only ride. Some fair.

There was also a Confederate flag in the North Carolina state booth that had to be removed. No matter how you feel about the Confederacy, it was a failed attempt at being a sovereign nation that never achieved recognition from other countries. The Confederate flag, consequently, has acquired status as representing White supremacy in the South's effort to expand chattel slavery into the newly-admitted Western states. Not a particularly good look for the country's 250th birthday.

•   •   •

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool debacle should be nothing more than an absurd joke, but it's become more than that.

Trump spent $14 million renovating the pool and then patted himself on his back for how great it looked – until pieces of blue liner started separating from pool. The job was done by a contractor who received a no-bid contract, which should tell yo something right there.

Consequently, people are being arrested for vandalism if they stick their hand in the 18-inch deep pond. Also, the area is being patrolled by the National Guard while a wire-mesh fence separates visitors from the pool they paid for.

The pool supposedly will be drained again, repaired and reopened in time for the 250th celebration.

Is this any way to run a country? 

 

 

 

 

White House cage fight

I don't know which plague from heaven I am rooting for the most during the Presidential desecration at the White House this evening: the line of severe thunderstorms predicted for Washington DC, or perhaps the arrival of "extreme" clouds of pesky gnats that could possibly disrupt the event.

The Claw.*

 If the American judicial system can't put a stop to the UFC Freedom 250 mixed martial arts cage match on the South Lawn, maybe God can.

I'm always rooting for God. Maybe He'll throw in an earth tremor or two, just for effect.

I'm not kidding, you know. This unnecessary spectacle is the latest brain fart from convicted felon president and adjudicated rapist Donald Trump. He thinks it's the perfect way to kick off the celebration of the 250th birthday of our country, although I suspect he really thinks it's the perfect way to celebrate his 80th birthday (which is today). 

An attempt to block the cage fight was denied by a Federal judge Saturday, ruling that the plaintiffs – a retired political organizer and an Air Force veteran –  failed to show legal standing or "irreversible harm" from the match.

So now it's up to God. 

Anyway, in case you just beamed in from Alpha Centuri and missed all the excitement, Trump has built a cage-fighting monstrosity on the South Lawn of the White House (you know, where they usually land the presidential helicopters of Marine One).

Nitro Circus with Marine guard.*

 The complex features a massive 92-foot-tall overhead lighting structure dubbed "The Claw", which dominates the local landscape. Trump says he might make it permanent because he thinks it's as grand as the Eiffel Tower. Combined with the razing of the nearby East Wing and the subsequent construction of a controversial $400 million ballroom, it all stands as the perfect metaphor for the destruction of the concept we have of ourselves as a nation and our constitutional government.

Oh, yeah. And it cost $60 million to build. At least seven government agencies have been involved in the construction of the complex, even though the White House says no taxpayer money is involved. Yeah, right. You bet'cha. Because, you know, this is what I voted for. Not.

On Saturday, there was a pre-UFC Freedom event featuring motorcyclists doing trick jumps in the Nitro Circus under Marine guard at the White House. I wonder if there's a ribbon for that duty? I guess it's a blessing these Marines weren't deployed to Iran.   

And, as with anything Trumpian, you know there's got to be a profit somewhere for Trump and his family. Isn't it a bit curious that he is a key-player stockholder in the UFC? He owns stock in TKO Holdings, the parent company of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) and WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). Financial disclosures show that he purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 (your annual salary?) in TKO shares, which could increase exponentially after tonight.

Unless the gnats arrive.

I'm pretty sure somewhere there's a law forbidding presidents to enrich themselves while in office, but like everything else in the Trump administration, who cares? More cybercurrency! Trump needs to get richer! This is what I voted for! Not.

Meanwhile, the circus continues. Algae has returned to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, just days after its $14.2 million renovation was completed. Raise your hands if you want an arch to block your view of Arlington National Cemetery? Is there enough gold-plated decor in the White House? Do you like 4.3 percent inflation as much as Trump says he does? How about never-ending wars?

We have become a dysfunctional family as a nation. We no longer believe in science. We don't see value in empathy. Entitlements that helped us to rise above are now considered evil socialism. We've become neurotic over gender and paranoid over race.

Go gnats. 

*AP photo by Alex Brandon.