As an attorney, part of my job involves public speaking. I don't mind it much if I have to give a presentation or argue in court. For whatever reason, I can do those things easily. Acting or singing solos in public are other matters entirely. I don't get apprehensive when preparing to speak, although I do concentrate on the best way to present the material. I will readily admit that when I was in high school, the thought of speaking in public caused me plenty of worry. But over time, and with plenty of practice, I've gotten used to it.
In the run up to a trial, I've even begun approaching it as if it were an athletic contest. I feel the same pre-game jitters as I did when I played sports, but once the trial begins, the nerves leave and it's time to perform. A natural instinct takes over and there are no more butterflies.
For some people, this isn't so. I belong to a networking group, and listening to the different presentation styles is interesting, if not instructive. For sure, there are people whose industries don't involve much public speaking. But there are others who speak with clients all day long who, when called upon to speak, are about as uneasy in that role as anyone. The attorneys are all quite comfortable, as are the guys in the auto industry. Others, depending on their personality, are either good or poor public speakers. It really doesn't matter what the industry is so much as the comfort of the person speaking.
There are, however, some interesting tendencies that some speakers share. One group, notably, stands up and gets behind its chairs when addressing the group, as if they're shielded from the audience by the chairback that only comes up to their waists. Others rub their hands together in different fashions, a nervous habit that probably gives them some measure of comfort, as if they were fingering their rosary or worry beads.
Others speak as quickly as they can so they can sit down again as quickly as possible. Others speak in a voice barely above a whisper, making it difficult to hear them. Some are witty, others are dry, some are humorless. When I speak, I try to be informative and concise. Some are unable to condense their material in a short presentation and run over their time allotment.
When the longer presentations are made, some rely on audio-visual equipment to make their pitches. This is effective, but it also relieves the speaker of the need to talk. Others prepare 3" x 5" cards and rely heavily upon them. I speak without referring to my notes too much, which can be both a good and a bad thing.
It's just interesting to watch how different speakers, who aren't professional speakers, handle public speaking. Sometimes, they're even better than the pros.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Lost Things
Karen thinks I'm a hoarder. She's wrong, but there's no dissuading her from the position. I have a lot of books, but I read all of them and continue to use many of them after I'm done reading them. I even get rid of badly written books -- hello Walter Cronkite -- despite what she thinks. I've also donated plenty of clothing, although Karen says I still own more clothes than any other (straight, not metrosexual) man she knows. There's a reason for that that has nothing to do with hoarding and everything to do with the clothing industry not providing sufficient stocks and styles to less-than-perfect men. But I digress.
I've never had much of an acquisitive streak. I don't want fancy cars, fancy clothes, an airplane, a helicopter or expensive jewelry. Sure, I like books, but I don't even look for first editions or signed copies. So to call me a materialist is a bit of a stretch, especially when one considers all the different types of collections that are out there. I tried, as a kid, to collect coins but lost interest. Stamps never interested me. I had a beer can collection as a teenager, but space concerns and maturity conspired to rid me of that passing fancy.
So I'm not a collector of much, besides books. Karen will argue that I place sentimental attachment on too many things, and she's partially right. There's a reason for that that doesn't require exposure here. Besides, I would never pay a therapist to delve into it, so why should I waste time on that here?
Still, there are some things that I possess for sentimental reasons. One of my most cherished possessions is an aluminum hórreo, or Galician chicken coop, that one of my Spanish students gave me when I left Spain. José was a vice president at ENDASA, a Spanish subsidiary of Alcoa, and I'd been his English instructor for nearly a year. Here's a picture of it:
It measures 2"x 2.5", so it doesn't take up a great deal of space.
There are a few other things that I have that have meaning to me, like a collection of all the tickets to sporting events that I intend to frame someday, or the Chicago Is Different article out of the ABC newspaper in Spain that appeared a month and a half after I arrived in 1984 that I'd also like to frame. Not one of them is big, so keeping them isn't much of an issue.
But there are a few things that I've lost that cause me some grief. Among them:
Posters from Spain: During my travels in Spain the year I lived there, I collected posters. When I left for Barajas Airport, I inadvertently left the tube in which I had them rolled up in the elevator of my apartment building. Perhaps my old roommate got them. If so, I hope that offsets the huge phone intercontinental phone bill I ran up because he'd been a jerk. Still, I wish I still had them.
St. Patrick's statue: Our grandmother had given me this little wooden St.Patrick's statue whose arm holding the shepard's staff rotated. He had this goofy look on his face, and in and of itself it wasn't that important to me. I brought it with me to Ireland because Grandma had never been to the ancestral homeland, and this was a little piece of her that I brought along instead. I left it in the door pocket of the rental car at Shannon airport (I notice a theme with lost items and airports developing...). I comfort myself knowing that something of Grandma's made it to Ireland and stayed.
El juego del ángel, by Carlos Ruíz Zafón: The second installment in the La sombra del viento triology, it was damaged in a freak rainstorm in our old house in Illinois. Karen was just happy to see one more book go. I'd like to retain the integrity of the series. Besides, hardbound Spanish books aren't as easy to get here.
The Voyage of the Catalpa: I lent this to a friend of my estranged brother. That was a mistake. I haven't seen it since. It's only the best true life jail break story ever.
My two catalpa trees: I didn't lose these so much as I had to leave them behind at a house in Illinois, they represent the only two plants I didn't kill with my black thumb. I even saved one of them after a windstorm damaged it.
Skeleton key: Another of Grandma's gifts, I still don't know what happened to it. It probably didn't unlock anything anyway.
Trophy and baseball cap: I lost these in a move a couple of years ago. The trophy was merely one of those participation rewards, but it was for the team that won the Diocesan tournament in eighth grade. The other is the All Star cap I wore in Little League. No matter. I know what I did.
I can't really think of too much else. Karen would contend that's because I still have everything else. I disagree, but that argument won't end until one of us dies. These are things that I would have liked to keep just because. There's no rhyme or reason to my attachment to them. And Karen's right, in part, that I probably keep more than other people would.
It could be worse. I could collect cars.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
I've never had much of an acquisitive streak. I don't want fancy cars, fancy clothes, an airplane, a helicopter or expensive jewelry. Sure, I like books, but I don't even look for first editions or signed copies. So to call me a materialist is a bit of a stretch, especially when one considers all the different types of collections that are out there. I tried, as a kid, to collect coins but lost interest. Stamps never interested me. I had a beer can collection as a teenager, but space concerns and maturity conspired to rid me of that passing fancy.
So I'm not a collector of much, besides books. Karen will argue that I place sentimental attachment on too many things, and she's partially right. There's a reason for that that doesn't require exposure here. Besides, I would never pay a therapist to delve into it, so why should I waste time on that here?
Still, there are some things that I possess for sentimental reasons. One of my most cherished possessions is an aluminum hórreo, or Galician chicken coop, that one of my Spanish students gave me when I left Spain. José was a vice president at ENDASA, a Spanish subsidiary of Alcoa, and I'd been his English instructor for nearly a year. Here's a picture of it:
It measures 2"x 2.5", so it doesn't take up a great deal of space.
There are a few other things that I have that have meaning to me, like a collection of all the tickets to sporting events that I intend to frame someday, or the Chicago Is Different article out of the ABC newspaper in Spain that appeared a month and a half after I arrived in 1984 that I'd also like to frame. Not one of them is big, so keeping them isn't much of an issue.
But there are a few things that I've lost that cause me some grief. Among them:
Posters from Spain: During my travels in Spain the year I lived there, I collected posters. When I left for Barajas Airport, I inadvertently left the tube in which I had them rolled up in the elevator of my apartment building. Perhaps my old roommate got them. If so, I hope that offsets the huge phone intercontinental phone bill I ran up because he'd been a jerk. Still, I wish I still had them.
St. Patrick's statue: Our grandmother had given me this little wooden St.Patrick's statue whose arm holding the shepard's staff rotated. He had this goofy look on his face, and in and of itself it wasn't that important to me. I brought it with me to Ireland because Grandma had never been to the ancestral homeland, and this was a little piece of her that I brought along instead. I left it in the door pocket of the rental car at Shannon airport (I notice a theme with lost items and airports developing...). I comfort myself knowing that something of Grandma's made it to Ireland and stayed.
El juego del ángel, by Carlos Ruíz Zafón: The second installment in the La sombra del viento triology, it was damaged in a freak rainstorm in our old house in Illinois. Karen was just happy to see one more book go. I'd like to retain the integrity of the series. Besides, hardbound Spanish books aren't as easy to get here.
The Voyage of the Catalpa: I lent this to a friend of my estranged brother. That was a mistake. I haven't seen it since. It's only the best true life jail break story ever.
My two catalpa trees: I didn't lose these so much as I had to leave them behind at a house in Illinois, they represent the only two plants I didn't kill with my black thumb. I even saved one of them after a windstorm damaged it.
Skeleton key: Another of Grandma's gifts, I still don't know what happened to it. It probably didn't unlock anything anyway.
Trophy and baseball cap: I lost these in a move a couple of years ago. The trophy was merely one of those participation rewards, but it was for the team that won the Diocesan tournament in eighth grade. The other is the All Star cap I wore in Little League. No matter. I know what I did.
I can't really think of too much else. Karen would contend that's because I still have everything else. I disagree, but that argument won't end until one of us dies. These are things that I would have liked to keep just because. There's no rhyme or reason to my attachment to them. And Karen's right, in part, that I probably keep more than other people would.
It could be worse. I could collect cars.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Mandela
Nelson Mandela is a historical figure of epic proportions. It might sound funny coming from someone who just wrote about hyperbole and its abuse in popular culture, but if ever there was a man to whom the term epic can be applied, it was Mr. Mandela.
Mr. Mandela is criticized by some conservatives as a communist because he consorted with them and dictators, too. Frankly, if I were living under the horrible conditions in which Mr. Mandela found himself and his people, I'd reach out to anyone who would help us get out of them. The old phrase the enemy of my enemy is my friend does have application in this situation.
There is historical precedent that many conservatives won't want to admit. Upon the outbreak of World War I, Roger Casement negotiated with Germany to get materiel with which to fight the British occupation forces, under whose boot the Irish had been living for centuries. The plot was uncovered, the weapons seized and Casement executed for treason to the crown. Had I been living in Ireland during that time, I would have been involved in the conspiracy.
That's why criticizing Mandela for his links to communism is a morally bankrupt exercise. Apartheid had segmented the population along the same lines as slavery and discrimination had in the United States prior to the 1970's. To complain that a person sought equality using any means possible once the non-violent ones were removed from the discussion is putting form over substance. The ultimate goals -- equality and freedom -- which are, after all, God-given, should be attainable by any means necessary once they've been denied democratic application. It's not the nicest outcome, but is the alternative, being subject to another people not by one's choice, better?
I'm sure there were some nasty episodes in Mr. Mandela's past. Armed rebellion isn't clean and pretty. But the ultimate goals were worth the struggle, and Mr. Mandela competently navigated his country through troubled waters. What's more, he had the good sense not to seek revenge once he came to power, something that should go a long way to negating the ugliness of the means he used to achieve freedom and equality for his people. History is replete with rebels who, upon overthrowing the establishment and assuming control, wrought havoc on the vanguished.
In the end, Mr. Mandela was a human with all the flaws and endowments the come with the condition. He should be judged accordingly and not solely on the basis of his time as a rebel.
As an aside, I am still troubled by the notion that the Irish could ever be slaveholders. To take my own argument and apply it, the Irish have all the flaws and endowments of any human, but for a people with such a long history of being subjugated, I'm ashamed and saddened that there were Irish slaveholders, first, and that some Irish still view blacks as less than human. In this sense, my fellow Irishmen could take a page out of Mr. Mandela's book and learn how to treat those whom they've overcome.
It's said that history is written by the victors. In purely imperial terms, the Brits beat the Irish. In survivor's terms, the Irish won. But as more and more history is uncovered and published about the Brits' treatment of Ireland and the Irish, just who won may be unclear. Still, the Irish and those descended from them should keep George Santayana's dictum in mind, because it's the right thing to do to treat others equally.
Thucydides wrote in his magnum opus History of the Peloponnesian War wrote that it was even more important to be magnanimous in victory as it is to be humble in defeat. Mr. Mandela understood this, and his country and its people have benefited from his guidance.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Mr. Mandela is criticized by some conservatives as a communist because he consorted with them and dictators, too. Frankly, if I were living under the horrible conditions in which Mr. Mandela found himself and his people, I'd reach out to anyone who would help us get out of them. The old phrase the enemy of my enemy is my friend does have application in this situation.
There is historical precedent that many conservatives won't want to admit. Upon the outbreak of World War I, Roger Casement negotiated with Germany to get materiel with which to fight the British occupation forces, under whose boot the Irish had been living for centuries. The plot was uncovered, the weapons seized and Casement executed for treason to the crown. Had I been living in Ireland during that time, I would have been involved in the conspiracy.
That's why criticizing Mandela for his links to communism is a morally bankrupt exercise. Apartheid had segmented the population along the same lines as slavery and discrimination had in the United States prior to the 1970's. To complain that a person sought equality using any means possible once the non-violent ones were removed from the discussion is putting form over substance. The ultimate goals -- equality and freedom -- which are, after all, God-given, should be attainable by any means necessary once they've been denied democratic application. It's not the nicest outcome, but is the alternative, being subject to another people not by one's choice, better?
I'm sure there were some nasty episodes in Mr. Mandela's past. Armed rebellion isn't clean and pretty. But the ultimate goals were worth the struggle, and Mr. Mandela competently navigated his country through troubled waters. What's more, he had the good sense not to seek revenge once he came to power, something that should go a long way to negating the ugliness of the means he used to achieve freedom and equality for his people. History is replete with rebels who, upon overthrowing the establishment and assuming control, wrought havoc on the vanguished.
In the end, Mr. Mandela was a human with all the flaws and endowments the come with the condition. He should be judged accordingly and not solely on the basis of his time as a rebel.
As an aside, I am still troubled by the notion that the Irish could ever be slaveholders. To take my own argument and apply it, the Irish have all the flaws and endowments of any human, but for a people with such a long history of being subjugated, I'm ashamed and saddened that there were Irish slaveholders, first, and that some Irish still view blacks as less than human. In this sense, my fellow Irishmen could take a page out of Mr. Mandela's book and learn how to treat those whom they've overcome.
It's said that history is written by the victors. In purely imperial terms, the Brits beat the Irish. In survivor's terms, the Irish won. But as more and more history is uncovered and published about the Brits' treatment of Ireland and the Irish, just who won may be unclear. Still, the Irish and those descended from them should keep George Santayana's dictum in mind, because it's the right thing to do to treat others equally.
Thucydides wrote in his magnum opus History of the Peloponnesian War wrote that it was even more important to be magnanimous in victory as it is to be humble in defeat. Mr. Mandela understood this, and his country and its people have benefited from his guidance.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Friday, December 13, 2013
Hyperbole
As should be readily apparent, I like words. I like communication. I prefer that it be less opaque typically, although I do enjoy allusion, chiasmus, metaphor, simile and other rhetorical devices. Every once in awhile, even hyperbole is all right. But it's run amok.
Karen enjoys The Voice, both for the singers it presents and for the most beautiful man God ever created, Adam Levine. I will admit he seems like a nice guy. And I'll admit that compared to American Idol, it's far superior with the talent it draws. Some of the singers that have appeared on the show are very, very talented. Aside from that, it provokes a meh from me.
What I noticed, however, is that the show is given to taking hyperbole to new heights. Forgive me, but I don't know the titles of the various rounds in which the contestants sing, but what I'm describing happens almost regularly after the vetting process that starts each season. Some people sing off against each other, sometimes singing at the same time, which somehow gives the four judges an idea of which is a better singer -- although I have no idea how. Then there are the individual performances, some of which are quite good, others grating on the ears.
But what cracks me up is the constant praise couched in elevated terms that comes from not only the judges but also Carson Daly, the host. I don't know much about Mr. Daly, who seems congenial enough, but from my perspective, he's about the most wooden television host I've ever seen. I can't believe that someone with the good sense to dump Tara Reid can be that stiff, that boring, but he comes off that way. Which makes his comments after a contestant is singing all the funnier to me.
After a contestant finishes a song, Daly is the first person to comment before he tosses it to the judges for their comments. Almost invariably, Daly rates the performance as incredible, or amazing, or fantastic. Given that this is a competition, I would have thought that there had to be some differentiation between the contestants' efforts. To hear Daly state it, every one of the contestants is superior. That simply can't be.
I understand the notion of being polite and complimenting them, but is hyperbole supposed to be trotted out every single time? Doesn't that lessen the value of the compliment when contestant after contestant does something incredibly, or amazingly or fantasticly?
To put it another way, since the show is about finding the next great singer, what's so incredible or amazing about a good performance? By diluting the meaning of the words he overuses, Daly cheapens the show's ultimate aim.
Not that the audience has any qualms about this. They cheer rabidly during and after each contestant's song as if Whitney Houston had just risen from the dead to reprise her national anthem. I can understand cheering to support the contestants and even being appreciative of the efforts. But to overstate the result doesn't do anyone any good.
Then it's the judges' turn. Aside from repeating what Mr. Daly says in the loftiest of terms, the judges then fawn all over the contestants, telling them how much they love them, how much they love their voices, etc. It's a wonder they call this a competition at all. The judges drone on about how wonderful, incredible, fantastic and amazing the singer was. I thought the role of the judge was to be critical.
What's odd about this is that the judges should know better. What they're doing is equating the contestants with their own peers, people who have performed for a living for years and in many cases who have received accolades that exceed what their voices merit.
To be fair, the judges do offer constructive criticism during the vetting round. And more than that, they're kind with the criticism, unlike judges on other shows who seem to delight in being as snarky as they can when offering criticism. Unless a contestant asks for it, I see little reason in belittling the person on national television, and The Voices's judges are pretty good about that. But for as tame as they are when rejecting a contestant, they're not critical at all when it comes to actually judging the competitive rounds portion of the show.
Perhaps I'm too cynical. Perhaps I'm too old. But it seems that praise and criticism has reached lunatic levels, the one being over-the-top and the other, in some instances, being too cruel. I would reserve the elevated rhetoric for those performances that really stand out.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Karen enjoys The Voice, both for the singers it presents and for the most beautiful man God ever created, Adam Levine. I will admit he seems like a nice guy. And I'll admit that compared to American Idol, it's far superior with the talent it draws. Some of the singers that have appeared on the show are very, very talented. Aside from that, it provokes a meh from me.
What I noticed, however, is that the show is given to taking hyperbole to new heights. Forgive me, but I don't know the titles of the various rounds in which the contestants sing, but what I'm describing happens almost regularly after the vetting process that starts each season. Some people sing off against each other, sometimes singing at the same time, which somehow gives the four judges an idea of which is a better singer -- although I have no idea how. Then there are the individual performances, some of which are quite good, others grating on the ears.
But what cracks me up is the constant praise couched in elevated terms that comes from not only the judges but also Carson Daly, the host. I don't know much about Mr. Daly, who seems congenial enough, but from my perspective, he's about the most wooden television host I've ever seen. I can't believe that someone with the good sense to dump Tara Reid can be that stiff, that boring, but he comes off that way. Which makes his comments after a contestant is singing all the funnier to me.
After a contestant finishes a song, Daly is the first person to comment before he tosses it to the judges for their comments. Almost invariably, Daly rates the performance as incredible, or amazing, or fantastic. Given that this is a competition, I would have thought that there had to be some differentiation between the contestants' efforts. To hear Daly state it, every one of the contestants is superior. That simply can't be.
I understand the notion of being polite and complimenting them, but is hyperbole supposed to be trotted out every single time? Doesn't that lessen the value of the compliment when contestant after contestant does something incredibly, or amazingly or fantasticly?
To put it another way, since the show is about finding the next great singer, what's so incredible or amazing about a good performance? By diluting the meaning of the words he overuses, Daly cheapens the show's ultimate aim.
Not that the audience has any qualms about this. They cheer rabidly during and after each contestant's song as if Whitney Houston had just risen from the dead to reprise her national anthem. I can understand cheering to support the contestants and even being appreciative of the efforts. But to overstate the result doesn't do anyone any good.
Then it's the judges' turn. Aside from repeating what Mr. Daly says in the loftiest of terms, the judges then fawn all over the contestants, telling them how much they love them, how much they love their voices, etc. It's a wonder they call this a competition at all. The judges drone on about how wonderful, incredible, fantastic and amazing the singer was. I thought the role of the judge was to be critical.
What's odd about this is that the judges should know better. What they're doing is equating the contestants with their own peers, people who have performed for a living for years and in many cases who have received accolades that exceed what their voices merit.
To be fair, the judges do offer constructive criticism during the vetting round. And more than that, they're kind with the criticism, unlike judges on other shows who seem to delight in being as snarky as they can when offering criticism. Unless a contestant asks for it, I see little reason in belittling the person on national television, and The Voices's judges are pretty good about that. But for as tame as they are when rejecting a contestant, they're not critical at all when it comes to actually judging the competitive rounds portion of the show.
Perhaps I'm too cynical. Perhaps I'm too old. But it seems that praise and criticism has reached lunatic levels, the one being over-the-top and the other, in some instances, being too cruel. I would reserve the elevated rhetoric for those performances that really stand out.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Gun Ownership
Yesterday, I bought my first gun.
I came from a state where gun ownership was not so much outlawed as it was frowned upon and taxed so much that it was unofficially discouraged. Sure, there were hunters in parts of the state, but that was about the extent of it. Until the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a City of Chicago ordinance that banned concealed carry, the gangs and their illegal guns ruled the streets. From what I understand, Springfield and Chicago are trying to craft a law that meets with the Seventh Circuit's concerns about protecting Second Amendment rights while at the same time making it as restrictive as possible for law abiding citizens to carry guns. Talk about trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
I've always been intrigued by guns, mostly the military style guns, because of the amount of military history I read. The last time I ever shot a firearm of any kind, prior to moving to our present state, was in Boy Scout camp when I shot a .22 rifle on a range when I was eleven-years-old. Until I moved here, I hadn't even handled a weapon.
For personal reasons, Karen and I felt owning a gun for personal protection and for fun shooting on a shooting range would be worth the investment. We looked online, went to a gun show, went to a gun shop were we shot a couple of guns on an indoor range monitored by experienced shooters and asked questions at every opportunity. In fact, Karen got very frustrated with me because I took an overly cautious approach to my purchase, of which there is more anon. But rather than buying the first firearm we saw, or getting the one that had the most potential to cause death and mayhem, we were responsible and took a mature approach to our purchases.
Karen ordered her gun over the weekend. Yesterday I bought mine. I have to take the appropriate steps in registering it with the police, which I tried to do yesterday immediately after I bought it, only to be told by our local police station that the county police and not the municipal police took registrations. So now I have an unregistered pistol sitting at our home, without any ammunition. The weapon will be registered with the police tomorrow morning.
My approval for the gun purchase took a matter of moments. The application form asked a slew of questions regarding my criminal and mental health history. It took my vital statistics to ensure that I wasn't some imposter. Then the seller's agent called someone and recited the information I'd provided. Shortly thereafter, I was approved for the purchase.
Does this make me a good risk to be a gun owner? I think so, although I still need to take the class that tells me how to operate the weapon safely. I intend to pore over the owner's manual and practice operating the gun without any ammunition until I feel sufficiently secure in using it. Then there will be more practice.
What aggravated Karen so much was what she considered my dithering over the choice between a Glock and either a Ruger or a Smith & Wesson. The Glock has only one safety, whereas the other two have multiple safeties. I was told by more experienced gun owners that for novices, the Glock had a risk in that the safety system allowed for accidental misfires more than the other weapons. When I'd bring up the Rugers and S&W's, I was told the safeties were redundant, but that in an emergency situation it could lead to a split-second delay that could be fatal. In short, I was torn, knowing that my relative inexperience made the Glock, an otherwise admirable firearm, dangerous in my hands until I had more experience. The last thing I wanted was for me to accidentally shoot Karen or one of the boys due to my ignorance.
In the end, price and native pride won out and the Ruger was my choice. I'm not ruling out the Glock at some future date, but for now, I'm going to become proficient with the Ruger. This will give Karen piece of mind and protect us in the event of an unlikely home invasion.
The point for others is this: When one mounts the high horse of gun control advocacy, consider that not everyone purchasing a firearm is a rabid right-winger with trenchant disregard for safety. Some of us consider safety above all other things and, like me, worry about it to the point of putting off the purchase. My vow is to learn how to operate the weapon safely and efficiently so as to avoid the possibility of misfires. I want something that guarantees our family the chance of safety, and in the Ruger I have the tool. Now I have to learn how to use it so as to maximize its utility. The good operator, after all, doesn't blame his tools.
I am not mentally deficient. I am not violent. I am not a drinker. I don't take drugs. I abide the law for the most part, jaywalking and the occasional speeding episode aside. It would be unfair to limit my Second Amendment rights simply because there are other unhinged people in this society who use weapons for evil means. In fact, I should be encourage to exercise my Second Amendment rights specifically because there are unhinged people with access to weapons.
If there is something that needs to be addressed in the gun control debate, it is mental health, not the restriction of gun ownership for others. My background check took all of ten to fifteen minutes. I don't know at what databases the person at the other end of the phone was looking, but I'm hopeful he was able to cross-reference them to discern whether I was a mental health risk.
We've all heard the saying countless times before: Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people. Well, I suggest a tweak to that. Guns don't kill people, but mentally challenged people often kill other people. The federal, state and municipal governments need to find a work-around privacy laws to ensure that mentally -- and this includes emotionally -- challenged people do not own or operate firearms.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
I came from a state where gun ownership was not so much outlawed as it was frowned upon and taxed so much that it was unofficially discouraged. Sure, there were hunters in parts of the state, but that was about the extent of it. Until the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a City of Chicago ordinance that banned concealed carry, the gangs and their illegal guns ruled the streets. From what I understand, Springfield and Chicago are trying to craft a law that meets with the Seventh Circuit's concerns about protecting Second Amendment rights while at the same time making it as restrictive as possible for law abiding citizens to carry guns. Talk about trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
I've always been intrigued by guns, mostly the military style guns, because of the amount of military history I read. The last time I ever shot a firearm of any kind, prior to moving to our present state, was in Boy Scout camp when I shot a .22 rifle on a range when I was eleven-years-old. Until I moved here, I hadn't even handled a weapon.
For personal reasons, Karen and I felt owning a gun for personal protection and for fun shooting on a shooting range would be worth the investment. We looked online, went to a gun show, went to a gun shop were we shot a couple of guns on an indoor range monitored by experienced shooters and asked questions at every opportunity. In fact, Karen got very frustrated with me because I took an overly cautious approach to my purchase, of which there is more anon. But rather than buying the first firearm we saw, or getting the one that had the most potential to cause death and mayhem, we were responsible and took a mature approach to our purchases.
Karen ordered her gun over the weekend. Yesterday I bought mine. I have to take the appropriate steps in registering it with the police, which I tried to do yesterday immediately after I bought it, only to be told by our local police station that the county police and not the municipal police took registrations. So now I have an unregistered pistol sitting at our home, without any ammunition. The weapon will be registered with the police tomorrow morning.
My approval for the gun purchase took a matter of moments. The application form asked a slew of questions regarding my criminal and mental health history. It took my vital statistics to ensure that I wasn't some imposter. Then the seller's agent called someone and recited the information I'd provided. Shortly thereafter, I was approved for the purchase.
Does this make me a good risk to be a gun owner? I think so, although I still need to take the class that tells me how to operate the weapon safely. I intend to pore over the owner's manual and practice operating the gun without any ammunition until I feel sufficiently secure in using it. Then there will be more practice.
What aggravated Karen so much was what she considered my dithering over the choice between a Glock and either a Ruger or a Smith & Wesson. The Glock has only one safety, whereas the other two have multiple safeties. I was told by more experienced gun owners that for novices, the Glock had a risk in that the safety system allowed for accidental misfires more than the other weapons. When I'd bring up the Rugers and S&W's, I was told the safeties were redundant, but that in an emergency situation it could lead to a split-second delay that could be fatal. In short, I was torn, knowing that my relative inexperience made the Glock, an otherwise admirable firearm, dangerous in my hands until I had more experience. The last thing I wanted was for me to accidentally shoot Karen or one of the boys due to my ignorance.
In the end, price and native pride won out and the Ruger was my choice. I'm not ruling out the Glock at some future date, but for now, I'm going to become proficient with the Ruger. This will give Karen piece of mind and protect us in the event of an unlikely home invasion.
The point for others is this: When one mounts the high horse of gun control advocacy, consider that not everyone purchasing a firearm is a rabid right-winger with trenchant disregard for safety. Some of us consider safety above all other things and, like me, worry about it to the point of putting off the purchase. My vow is to learn how to operate the weapon safely and efficiently so as to avoid the possibility of misfires. I want something that guarantees our family the chance of safety, and in the Ruger I have the tool. Now I have to learn how to use it so as to maximize its utility. The good operator, after all, doesn't blame his tools.
I am not mentally deficient. I am not violent. I am not a drinker. I don't take drugs. I abide the law for the most part, jaywalking and the occasional speeding episode aside. It would be unfair to limit my Second Amendment rights simply because there are other unhinged people in this society who use weapons for evil means. In fact, I should be encourage to exercise my Second Amendment rights specifically because there are unhinged people with access to weapons.
If there is something that needs to be addressed in the gun control debate, it is mental health, not the restriction of gun ownership for others. My background check took all of ten to fifteen minutes. I don't know at what databases the person at the other end of the phone was looking, but I'm hopeful he was able to cross-reference them to discern whether I was a mental health risk.
We've all heard the saying countless times before: Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people. Well, I suggest a tweak to that. Guns don't kill people, but mentally challenged people often kill other people. The federal, state and municipal governments need to find a work-around privacy laws to ensure that mentally -- and this includes emotionally -- challenged people do not own or operate firearms.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Friday, December 6, 2013
Immigration and Obamacare
Recently, the President made noise about making his next great legacy piece immigration. In fact, he met with some groups supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants over Thanksgiving -- instead of meeting with the troops who protect this country, but I digress. I fully support immigration reform, but not in the fashion some people hold near and dear.
First, a disclaimer: I speak fluent Spanish, although I don't possess a drop of Latino blood. I've worked with Latinos for year and respect how hardworking they are, how family oriented they are and how welcoming they can be. I read their literature, know their customs and enjoy their lifestyle, for the most part. But that doesn't mean I'm in favor of lawbreakers getting a free pass.
I understand conditions in Mexico are hard. Instead of coming here, however, why don't they take that work ethic and change their own country? As it is, they send back an inordinate amount of their earnings to family in Mexico. But why must they come here and try to recreate what they have in their home country here?
I have no truck with Mexicans becoming US citizens. But they should do it legally. Whether there is trouble in their homeland isn't my concern, so long as it's not persecution worthy of political asylum. I don't agree with those who see a humanitarian issue every time someone suffers a paper cut. These people must follow the rules entering the country. Otherwise, how are we to be sure they'll follow the rules once they're in the country legally?
The reason this has me miffed today is that lawmakers -- that is, Democratic lawmakers -- are complaining that Obamacare should be extended to cover illegal immigrants. As it is, Democrats cravenly try to purchase votes by extending all sorts of welfare to illegal immigrants. Now, they want to bankruptcy the country by extending an already unworkable law that's hamstringing the economy to millions of undocumented people living in this country. Again, this is nothing more than a crass attempt at gaining political advantage come election time.
Were the tables turned, and millions of Americans were residing illegally in a foreign country, we wouldn't have the level nor the number of benefits that illegal immigrants have in this country. From the language to voting to schools to medical treatment to housing, illegal immigrants have it far better in this country than we would elsewhere. To pull out a well-worn argument from past blogposts, there is little likelihood that if I were living illegally in a Spanish-speaking country, the authorities would not only let me vote, they'd put the ballot in English for me. It's crazy.
I'm all in favor of humanitarian efforts where they're warranted. But in this instance, ironically, we're making it easy for a hardworking people who are too lazy, or too impatient, to follow the immigration laws. We're putting an immense burden on our country by adding to the welfare rolls people who don't belong here. We should be taking care of our own first. Extending the benefits of an already doomed law to illegal immigrants makes no sense whatsoever.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
First, a disclaimer: I speak fluent Spanish, although I don't possess a drop of Latino blood. I've worked with Latinos for year and respect how hardworking they are, how family oriented they are and how welcoming they can be. I read their literature, know their customs and enjoy their lifestyle, for the most part. But that doesn't mean I'm in favor of lawbreakers getting a free pass.
I understand conditions in Mexico are hard. Instead of coming here, however, why don't they take that work ethic and change their own country? As it is, they send back an inordinate amount of their earnings to family in Mexico. But why must they come here and try to recreate what they have in their home country here?
I have no truck with Mexicans becoming US citizens. But they should do it legally. Whether there is trouble in their homeland isn't my concern, so long as it's not persecution worthy of political asylum. I don't agree with those who see a humanitarian issue every time someone suffers a paper cut. These people must follow the rules entering the country. Otherwise, how are we to be sure they'll follow the rules once they're in the country legally?
The reason this has me miffed today is that lawmakers -- that is, Democratic lawmakers -- are complaining that Obamacare should be extended to cover illegal immigrants. As it is, Democrats cravenly try to purchase votes by extending all sorts of welfare to illegal immigrants. Now, they want to bankruptcy the country by extending an already unworkable law that's hamstringing the economy to millions of undocumented people living in this country. Again, this is nothing more than a crass attempt at gaining political advantage come election time.
Were the tables turned, and millions of Americans were residing illegally in a foreign country, we wouldn't have the level nor the number of benefits that illegal immigrants have in this country. From the language to voting to schools to medical treatment to housing, illegal immigrants have it far better in this country than we would elsewhere. To pull out a well-worn argument from past blogposts, there is little likelihood that if I were living illegally in a Spanish-speaking country, the authorities would not only let me vote, they'd put the ballot in English for me. It's crazy.
I'm all in favor of humanitarian efforts where they're warranted. But in this instance, ironically, we're making it easy for a hardworking people who are too lazy, or too impatient, to follow the immigration laws. We're putting an immense burden on our country by adding to the welfare rolls people who don't belong here. We should be taking care of our own first. Extending the benefits of an already doomed law to illegal immigrants makes no sense whatsoever.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Ugly Beauties
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I understand that very well. But there are some women touted as beautiful that I just don't understand.
Recently, everyone's been going nuts over Jennifer Lawrence. Although I think Ms. Lawrence is talented and seems to be a lot of fun in a down-to-earth way, I don't think she's a raving beauty by any means. Just because a woman's fit doesn't make her beautiful. Ms. Lawrence has many fine attributes, but being beautiful is not one of them.
Some of the names that follow have probably been covered before, but Ms. Lawrence's candidacy prompts a review of the list and perhaps some new additions to it:
Cameron Díaz: Seriously? She has a great body I guess, but she looks like a frog facially. Perhaps she's a good comedic actress, but the fact that she's bedded some famous men doesn't convey beautiful status on her.
Drew Barrymore: Don't get it and never will. So her mother appeared in Playboy. So her father's a Barrymore. So what? She ain't beautiful.
Gwyneth Paltrow: Unbelievable that she's even mentioned in this vein. She's not only not beautiful, she's borderline plain, missing cute by miles.
Farrah Fawcett: Once the paragon of sexiness, I never got it. She bored me.
Christie Brinkley: The epitome of Californian beauty to many, I'll concede she's good-looking, just not beautiful. She's cute and attractive, but in no way is she classically beautiful. Besides, there's not a lot going on between the ears.
Kate Moss: The New Age Twiggy, I don't discount her because she's a Brit. I just never thought she was beautiful. She's gotten better with age -- no small feat -- but she's got Paltrow-quality looks.
Victoria Beckham: I suppose being in a girl band counts for something, as does being married to a man who's actually prettier than she is, but she's another woman who's lionized as beautiful simply for being fit.
Khloe Kardashian: She's.Not.Beautiful. End of discussion.
Diane Sawyer: Sure, she was in a beauty contest when she was younger, but whoever thought she was beautiful needs to visit the eye doctor.
Katie Couric: While we're on news anchors, Ms. Couric is the perpetually cute cheerleader type. But she ain't beautiful.
Julia Roberts: Pretty Woman? How about Really Cute Woman? But I'd have a beer with her any time.
Katie Holmes: Beside questioning her intelligence for marrying that twit Tom Cruise, she's another perpetually cute type, nothing more.
Giada DeLaurentis: Let's get this straight right away: Were it not for her bosom Ms. DeLaurentis would merely be another celebrity chef.
Claire Danes: This is another one on which Karen and I differ (Ms. Barrymore being the first) -- great actress though she may be, there is nothing remotely beautiful or cute about Ms. Danes. Nothing.
Anne Hathaway: I used to think she was a nose-job away from being beautiful. Then she did Les Miz and got overly obnoxious. Now I don't even think she's cute.
Kathy Ireland: This is almost blasphemous to call someone with this surname ordinary, especially since she was part of the original supermodel craze, but Ms. Ireland is nothing more than cute to me. In fact, she looks even more like a frog than Ms. Díaz. That being said, she seems very nice.
Claudia Schiffer: I suppose for many she's the dream blonde, but I look at her and see a dominatrix in model's clothing.
Linda Evangelista: Of all the Canadian women to call beautiful, she's not one of them.
Andrea Tantaros: One of the rotating women on The Five, Ms. Tantaros tries to compete with Kimberly Guilfoyle, another woman overrated on this scale, for being the hottie on the panel. Ms. Tantaros is annoyingly smug and frankly, not even cute.
Kimberly Guilfoyle: The aforementioned Ms. Guilfoyle is attractive and very photogenic, but she's not beautiful. Men salivate over here, and I can see why, but her intelligent sex kitten routine is undercut by her flighty topic choices and the fact that the camera does her no favors unless it's a still shot.
Sofia Vergara: The latest Latin hottie does have a phenomenal body, given her age, but her face is about as off-putting as they come. Any time she mugs comedically for the camera she looks like a pig. She's not ugly by any means, but by the same token, neither is she beautiful.
Jennifer Anniston: Another well-preserved older woman whose fame, I believe, derives from being in the cast of Friends and her failed marriage to Brad Pitt, which garnered her a great deal of sympathy. She seems to be quite a nice person and has turned out be one heck of a comedic actress, but she's no beauty.
Angelina Jolie: It's only fitting that she be considered after Ms. Anniston. There are men who think she's the sexiest thing on two legs. The drool over her lips. I find her tattooed body off-putting and her lips far from enticing. About the only thing that she stands for -- and she does this in tandem with Ms. Anniston -- is proof that Mr. Pitt has horrible taste in women. He could do so much better....
Sofia Vergara: The latest Latin hottie does have a phenomenal body, given her age, but her face is about as off-putting as they come. Any time she mugs comedically for the camera she looks like a pig. She's not ugly by any means, but by the same token, neither is she beautiful.
Jennifer Anniston: Another well-preserved older woman whose fame, I believe, derives from being in the cast of Friends and her failed marriage to Brad Pitt, which garnered her a great deal of sympathy. She seems to be quite a nice person and has turned out be one heck of a comedic actress, but she's no beauty.
Angelina Jolie: It's only fitting that she be considered after Ms. Anniston. There are men who think she's the sexiest thing on two legs. The drool over her lips. I find her tattooed body off-putting and her lips far from enticing. About the only thing that she stands for -- and she does this in tandem with Ms. Anniston -- is proof that Mr. Pitt has horrible taste in women. He could do so much better....
I'm sure there are more, but I'm out of time today.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Women and Opinion
This is an ongoing issue with me and Karen. Karen is a highly cultured, artistic, thoughtful woman. I'm a slug by comparison. Where she sees beauty in the arrangement of a table setting, with the food immaculately prepared and presented, I see a meal. The finer aspects of most things are lost on me. I could blame it on my crooked chromosome, as Karen calls it, but how does that explain gays and metrosexuals, most of whom have an abiding interest in and skill for decorating and fashion?
The issue gets us in some tangles, not that I don't try to avoid them. When we're going out, Karen will look at something I put on and tell me I can't leave the house dressed like that, that I have to change or she won't be seen with me in public. For the unaware, we're not talking plaids and paisleys mixed together. We're talking about otherwise complimentary colors that might be a shade off, or colors that Karen says don't mix, or wrinkled clothing that don't pass her aesthetics test. It's to the point that if I know we're going out, I just ask her to pick out the shirt that she deems will match the pants I've chosen -- assuming, of course, the pants are acceptable to her in the first place.
I mention this because I've noticed an odd twist in this dynamic. The other day we were doing the Black Friday shopping thing and Karen was looking for bargains. I have a general idea what she likes -- good-looking clothes as she defines them, whatever that is -- but otherwise, it's best for me to keep my gob shut because I really have no clue what looks good. That's not entirely true: I know if something is hideous, or I think I do. But if she likes it, I'm fine with it. Karen's a beautiful woman and the clothes are just an enhancement of her beauty.
Still and all, for the life of me, I don't know why she asks me whether a particular garment is good-looking or not. I appreciate that she includes me in her choices, but in the end, given that she has to pick out shirts for me, am I the best choice for a fashion opinion when it comes to women's clothing? I mean, I can't dress myself -- apparently -- and I'm a guy. Asking me whether a particular dress or skirt is cute -- more on that anon -- is like asking a blind person to read a road map. But every time we're in a store together, she asks me for my opinion. Almost invariably I tell her it's fine. What else am I supposed to say?
Ah, but there is a fallback answer. I have to attribute this to my estranged brother who once noted, insightfully, that for women, the universal adjective for anything they think is attractive is cute. If a hat looks good, it's cute. If a puppy is adorable, it's cute. If there's a tender moment between a returning serviceman and his children, it's cute. Cars are cute. Houses can be cute. Hotel rooms can be cute. Heck, sports plays can be cute in women's vernacular. Dresses, gloves, skirts, blouses, hats, jackets, coats, tights, shoes, jewelry and any combination thereof can best be described as cute when they meet with the approbation of the wearer. The application of cute knows no bounds. Karen also likes to declare eyewear cute, haircuts cute and ties cute. And here I thought that only babies were cute....
Far be it from me to criticize use of the word cute when it comes to describing a $900 pair of Manolo Blahniks or Jimmy Choos, but apparently that's perfectly acceptable.
For men, to describe a pair of $250 Air Jordans as cute would be...well...weird, and I'm using the PG term. No straight man in his right mind would describe shoes as cute. If he did, he wouldn't be thought of as straight anymore.
I think using cute in this context would be acceptable, however, since (a) it's part of the language that Karen herself uses and understands, (b) it's for women's clothing and (c) if any guys nearby hear it, the unwritten Man Code says that we have to be keep this to ourselves and not rat each other out. We are, after all, in the women's clothing section when it happens.
Frankly, I'm less at risk getting maxi-pads for Custer's diaper than I am giving my opinion on Karen's clothing purchases because there's little chance I can go wrong buying the maxi-pads. Besides, Custer hates that he has to wear the diaper regardless, so it doesn't matter what I get him.
So while I appreciate Karen's asking me my opinion on her wardrobe, I think we both understand that she's merely being nice. She doesn't really want my opinion, nor does she need it. She's intelligent and beautiful and has a much firmer grasp on what looks good than I ever could.
But still, it's cute that she asks.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Monday, December 2, 2013
Thanksgiving in Kentucky
Karen and I visited her cousins in Kentucky over the Thanksgiving holiday. It's always good to get together and catch up. They're wonderful people, giving and thoughtful. I enjoy going there because it's such a different world from what I'm used to. Still, there are things that, in a vacuum, would cause an eyebrow or two to be raised, and last weekend was no exception.
The drive to Kentucky was fine. We arrived slightly sooner than we anticipated, but still later than we wanted. Of course, despite the need to be up at the buttcrack of dawn the next morning, we stayed up talking until around midnight. The weather was mild, compared to the sleet and snow we were warned about by the talking heads of weather.
So, here's our Thanksgiving in a nutshell of ruminations and observations:
-- Any vegetable can be put in a casserole, apparently. Corn, broccoli, squash, green beans -- you name it, if it grew in the ground it can be combined with other ingredients, put in a 13"x 9" pan, baked in the oven and people will eat it. Just not men.
-- There is too little dark meat on most turkeys.
-- Furthermore, there can never be enough turkey at Thanksgiving. Never.
-- Ohioans are a different lot. On this I agree with Karen. I also think they can be unnecessarily rude.
-- Driving 75 mph in a 55 mph zone for over fifty miles in some beautiful country is truly a delight, even if one is driving.
-- Sirius XM radio is to long trips what the Ipod is to shoveling snow or mowing the lawn: It takes the drudgery out and replaces it with fun distraction.
-- I'm still shaking my head at that little person with the pornstache wearing overalls in the mall.
-- Not offering ESPN with basic cable television packages is un-American.
-- Card playing isn't too bad with the right people.
-- Talking with older people is just pure joy, and the ornrier they are the better.
-- That being said, watching some older people at auctions reminds me they would do better playing shuffleboard.
-- Speaking of auctions, is it rude to wear a hazmat suit to an auction?
-- Sometimes, just sometimes, GPS's screw up. I'm just sayin'.
-- I'll probably jinx us by saying this, but this has to be about the third or fourth long trip that we've taken where a major accident occurred in the lanes going in the opposite direction, backing up traffic for miles and probably hours.
-- People move slower in West Virginia and Kentucky than they do in the north. That being said, they don't have to move so slowly that others think rigor mortis is setting in.
-- I really need to pack more sensibly next time. Sitting around in blue jeans instead of sweats all weekend was uncomfortable.
-- In the same vein, I need to take a look at my email at least once every three days. I came back to over two hundred emails, most of them worthless.
-- Southern men are either very gallant or remarkably rude to their women. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground.
-- Retailers playing bait-and-switch and other dirty games at any time of year tick me off, but especially at Thanksgiving, what with all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers going on.
-- Since when did microwaves become so expensive?
-- I know it was for the best, but I didn't like being without Sherman and Custer that long.
-- Speaking of our rock stars, it was no surprise that everyone fell in love with Sherman, but it shocked me that Custer jumped into the back of Karen's car unassisted.
-- How many bedazzled shirts of different colors do some people need? Or Christmas tchotchkes? Or colanders, for that matter?
-- People really need to learn what the left lane of a highway is for and drive accordingly.
-- And if anyone's interested, we bought gas for $2.94 a gallon in Lima, Ohio. It's been years since I bought gas for less than $3.00 a gallon. Get it while you can.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
The drive to Kentucky was fine. We arrived slightly sooner than we anticipated, but still later than we wanted. Of course, despite the need to be up at the buttcrack of dawn the next morning, we stayed up talking until around midnight. The weather was mild, compared to the sleet and snow we were warned about by the talking heads of weather.
So, here's our Thanksgiving in a nutshell of ruminations and observations:
-- Any vegetable can be put in a casserole, apparently. Corn, broccoli, squash, green beans -- you name it, if it grew in the ground it can be combined with other ingredients, put in a 13"x 9" pan, baked in the oven and people will eat it. Just not men.
-- There is too little dark meat on most turkeys.
-- Furthermore, there can never be enough turkey at Thanksgiving. Never.
-- Ohioans are a different lot. On this I agree with Karen. I also think they can be unnecessarily rude.
-- Driving 75 mph in a 55 mph zone for over fifty miles in some beautiful country is truly a delight, even if one is driving.
-- Sirius XM radio is to long trips what the Ipod is to shoveling snow or mowing the lawn: It takes the drudgery out and replaces it with fun distraction.
-- I'm still shaking my head at that little person with the pornstache wearing overalls in the mall.
-- Not offering ESPN with basic cable television packages is un-American.
-- Card playing isn't too bad with the right people.
-- Talking with older people is just pure joy, and the ornrier they are the better.
-- That being said, watching some older people at auctions reminds me they would do better playing shuffleboard.
-- Speaking of auctions, is it rude to wear a hazmat suit to an auction?
-- Sometimes, just sometimes, GPS's screw up. I'm just sayin'.
-- I'll probably jinx us by saying this, but this has to be about the third or fourth long trip that we've taken where a major accident occurred in the lanes going in the opposite direction, backing up traffic for miles and probably hours.
-- People move slower in West Virginia and Kentucky than they do in the north. That being said, they don't have to move so slowly that others think rigor mortis is setting in.
-- I really need to pack more sensibly next time. Sitting around in blue jeans instead of sweats all weekend was uncomfortable.
-- In the same vein, I need to take a look at my email at least once every three days. I came back to over two hundred emails, most of them worthless.
-- Southern men are either very gallant or remarkably rude to their women. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground.
-- Retailers playing bait-and-switch and other dirty games at any time of year tick me off, but especially at Thanksgiving, what with all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers going on.
-- Since when did microwaves become so expensive?
-- I know it was for the best, but I didn't like being without Sherman and Custer that long.
-- Speaking of our rock stars, it was no surprise that everyone fell in love with Sherman, but it shocked me that Custer jumped into the back of Karen's car unassisted.
-- How many bedazzled shirts of different colors do some people need? Or Christmas tchotchkes? Or colanders, for that matter?
-- People really need to learn what the left lane of a highway is for and drive accordingly.
-- And if anyone's interested, we bought gas for $2.94 a gallon in Lima, Ohio. It's been years since I bought gas for less than $3.00 a gallon. Get it while you can.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Sports Idiocy
[WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPORTS-RELATED TOPICS THAT MAY CAUSE INJURY TO CERTAIN READERS.]
I like sports. But I'm not such a fanatic that I go overboard. Karen, bless her heart, may think otherwise, considering she's accused me of having bromances with guys at sporting events when all I'm doing is talking with them about, well, sports. But there are certain things I've never done and probably will never do.
For example:
I've never painted my face or body with my teams' colors.
I've never taken my shirt off in arctic weather at a sporting event.
I've never played hookey either from school or work for Opening Day.
I've never bid outrageous sums -- or any sums, frankly -- for sports memorabilia.
I've never stood in line to get an athlete's autograph.
I've never gone to Vegas for March Madness.
I've never paid over face-value for must-have tickets.
I've never gone to a victory parade.
I've never gotten a tattoo of one of my teams' logos.
I've never had season-tickets.
I've never attended a celebrity auction.
I've never had trading cards.
I've never bought sports memorabilia.
I've never driven over fifty miles to go to a game.
I've never bet on a sports outcome.
I don't root for teams just because they're successful.
I'm a Cubs' fan.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
I like sports. But I'm not such a fanatic that I go overboard. Karen, bless her heart, may think otherwise, considering she's accused me of having bromances with guys at sporting events when all I'm doing is talking with them about, well, sports. But there are certain things I've never done and probably will never do.
For example:
I've never painted my face or body with my teams' colors.
I've never taken my shirt off in arctic weather at a sporting event.
I've never played hookey either from school or work for Opening Day.
I've never bid outrageous sums -- or any sums, frankly -- for sports memorabilia.
I've never stood in line to get an athlete's autograph.
I've never gone to Vegas for March Madness.
I've never paid over face-value for must-have tickets.
I've never gone to a victory parade.
I've never gotten a tattoo of one of my teams' logos.
I've never had season-tickets.
I've never attended a celebrity auction.
I've never had trading cards.
I've never bought sports memorabilia.
I've never driven over fifty miles to go to a game.
I've never bet on a sports outcome.
I don't root for teams just because they're successful.
I'm a Cubs' fan.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Monday, November 25, 2013
Celebrities and the First Amendment
I saw another celebrity political effort this weekend, this time directed against fracking. Fracking, for those not in the know, is the fracturing of rock by pressurized liquid. Critics cite a number of negative impacts on the environment. The benefits are, of course, increased natural gas production which, in turn, would have a huge impact on the economy.
Celebrities are entitled as any other American is to their thoughts and the right to express them. I don't begrudge them that. But what irks me is the disingenuous and inconsistent nature of the exercise of their rights.
First and foremost, aside from being wealthier than the average American, celebrities, especially those in the entertainment industry, have access to so many more means of communication with which to spread their messages. From television to radio to movies, from sound technicians to artists to computer graphic designers, these people have at their fingertips things that ordinary Americans don't have or don't have in the volume the celebrities possess them. And to argue that an ordinary American can post something to Youtube and claim that it's the equivalent of putting a PSA on a network is simply stupid.
Furthermore, there's the caché of celebrity. Celebrities are, for better or for worse, relied upon more readily than some anonymous blogger because their faces and voices appear repeatedly, whereas the anonymous blogger typically isn't known beyond the radius of the subscribers who have found the blog. Various attributes come into play, not the least of which is a physical attraction to the celebrity making the appeal. Add to that the curious imposition of knowledge or wisdom to a person whose sole claim to fame is imitating other people and it's a very intimidating force with which to contend.
To be sure, there are some celebrities who take the time to get informed on issues that matter to them. In this regard, they are at least as well informed as ordinary citizens and in some cases are quite well informed, setting themselves apart from the hoi polloi. But getting informed doesn't always mean that the information-gathering was done in a balanced fashion, and the risk is that scientists and academics, eager to bring attention to themselves and their causes, not to mention donations that such attention brings with it, latch onto the celebrity to indoctrinate him to the cause. It's amazing to me that a person with a basic high school education, sometimes a person with an avowed distaste for studying, is suddenly not only the spokesperson but a self-proclaimed expert on a given topic, merely from having met with an expert or two in the field.
Partly, the blame rests with the public for putting these people on such a pedestal that whatever comes out of their mouths is treated with the same respect as if Moses were coming back down with the two tablets. The public can't distinguish, sufficiently, that all that's happening is that another person, albeit one with some visibility and access to media portals, is exercising his or her First Amendment rights. Instead, because so-and-so says X, X must be correct and I should support X, or so goes the thinking. And this is especially true among the youth and young adults.
This leads to the most unconscionable part of the equation. Celebrities protest that they are merely exercising their rights as Americans to air their views. Although this is partially true, by no means is that all they're doing, and they know better. Any celebrity who's ever been on a press junket knows the effect of persuasion, especially on younger listeners. I can't recall how many times I've seen celebrities tout this or that film that is wretched in interviews only later, fifteen or twenty years later, admit what a horrible movie it was. But at the time, whether for lucre or self-gratification, they went out there and shilled the project so that it would bring in enough money or garner them enough fame to set them up for the next project or get a prestigious award that would further their careers. For them to act the part of the concerned citizen who's only speaking his or her mind and try to blend into the masses is ludicrous. They know, better than many, the effect their presence has on a project. And if that project is something they believe in, all the better.
I don't begrudge celebrities their right to speak their minds. But they have to come clean: They have greater means, they have a too-receptive audience that's predisposed to like them and hence their message and their message is usually one-sided and not thought out. For them to argue that they're only doing what any other American has the right to do is overly simplistic and shameless. If they're merely exercising their rights, why is the Obama administration reaching out to the celebrity community for assistance on Obamacare?
Curiously, this tendency is something the Left favors over the Right. When was the last time a right-wing campaign was put out in mass-media for anything? Whether it be abortion, or gun rights, or immigration, or fracking or anything? The Left seems to recognize the value of utilizing media to its advantage far more than the Right does which, ironically, undercuts its argument that it's merely exercising its rights under the Constitution. It is, more rightly, engaging in propaganda, something still protected by the Constitution but propaganda nevertheless.
Americans need to wake up and reject the assault on speech by the Left. As Jorge Santayana famously said, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
That being said, I simply need to mention two names to summarize this argument:
Josef Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Celebrities are entitled as any other American is to their thoughts and the right to express them. I don't begrudge them that. But what irks me is the disingenuous and inconsistent nature of the exercise of their rights.
First and foremost, aside from being wealthier than the average American, celebrities, especially those in the entertainment industry, have access to so many more means of communication with which to spread their messages. From television to radio to movies, from sound technicians to artists to computer graphic designers, these people have at their fingertips things that ordinary Americans don't have or don't have in the volume the celebrities possess them. And to argue that an ordinary American can post something to Youtube and claim that it's the equivalent of putting a PSA on a network is simply stupid.
Furthermore, there's the caché of celebrity. Celebrities are, for better or for worse, relied upon more readily than some anonymous blogger because their faces and voices appear repeatedly, whereas the anonymous blogger typically isn't known beyond the radius of the subscribers who have found the blog. Various attributes come into play, not the least of which is a physical attraction to the celebrity making the appeal. Add to that the curious imposition of knowledge or wisdom to a person whose sole claim to fame is imitating other people and it's a very intimidating force with which to contend.
To be sure, there are some celebrities who take the time to get informed on issues that matter to them. In this regard, they are at least as well informed as ordinary citizens and in some cases are quite well informed, setting themselves apart from the hoi polloi. But getting informed doesn't always mean that the information-gathering was done in a balanced fashion, and the risk is that scientists and academics, eager to bring attention to themselves and their causes, not to mention donations that such attention brings with it, latch onto the celebrity to indoctrinate him to the cause. It's amazing to me that a person with a basic high school education, sometimes a person with an avowed distaste for studying, is suddenly not only the spokesperson but a self-proclaimed expert on a given topic, merely from having met with an expert or two in the field.
Partly, the blame rests with the public for putting these people on such a pedestal that whatever comes out of their mouths is treated with the same respect as if Moses were coming back down with the two tablets. The public can't distinguish, sufficiently, that all that's happening is that another person, albeit one with some visibility and access to media portals, is exercising his or her First Amendment rights. Instead, because so-and-so says X, X must be correct and I should support X, or so goes the thinking. And this is especially true among the youth and young adults.
This leads to the most unconscionable part of the equation. Celebrities protest that they are merely exercising their rights as Americans to air their views. Although this is partially true, by no means is that all they're doing, and they know better. Any celebrity who's ever been on a press junket knows the effect of persuasion, especially on younger listeners. I can't recall how many times I've seen celebrities tout this or that film that is wretched in interviews only later, fifteen or twenty years later, admit what a horrible movie it was. But at the time, whether for lucre or self-gratification, they went out there and shilled the project so that it would bring in enough money or garner them enough fame to set them up for the next project or get a prestigious award that would further their careers. For them to act the part of the concerned citizen who's only speaking his or her mind and try to blend into the masses is ludicrous. They know, better than many, the effect their presence has on a project. And if that project is something they believe in, all the better.
I don't begrudge celebrities their right to speak their minds. But they have to come clean: They have greater means, they have a too-receptive audience that's predisposed to like them and hence their message and their message is usually one-sided and not thought out. For them to argue that they're only doing what any other American has the right to do is overly simplistic and shameless. If they're merely exercising their rights, why is the Obama administration reaching out to the celebrity community for assistance on Obamacare?
Curiously, this tendency is something the Left favors over the Right. When was the last time a right-wing campaign was put out in mass-media for anything? Whether it be abortion, or gun rights, or immigration, or fracking or anything? The Left seems to recognize the value of utilizing media to its advantage far more than the Right does which, ironically, undercuts its argument that it's merely exercising its rights under the Constitution. It is, more rightly, engaging in propaganda, something still protected by the Constitution but propaganda nevertheless.
Americans need to wake up and reject the assault on speech by the Left. As Jorge Santayana famously said, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
That being said, I simply need to mention two names to summarize this argument:
Josef Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Friday, November 22, 2013
Sherman and Custer Update
An update about our favorite pets has long been overdue, and since we're heading into another holiday week that includes another trip to Kentucky, what better time to wax proud about our boys?
With the cooler weather, the duo have been much happier. Bulldogs, because of their strange anatomy, have trouble in hotter weather. When it hits autumn, look out! Sherman especially is energized by the cooler weather, as evidenced by the fact that he runs around outside like a fool. Custer acts like a fool regardless of the weather, so it's hard to tell if the cooler temperatures have a positive effect on him.
Our days start around 5.30a with the obligatory walk around the block. Although the law says they're supposed to be on a leash, I'm a law-breaker and let them roam free. The truth is that they are both pretty obedient, and if they begin to stray they come back to me in short order, unless an unbelievably attractive nuisance presents itself. We go out when it's dark, so there aren't many other dogs and owners out, but every once in awhile there's one, and I have to keep the boys on a short leash so to speak.
Now that it's autumn, leaves are on the ground. It never fails, but one of them likes to leave his deposit in the leaves, making it one especially smelly Easter egg hunt for me. Usually after one's done dropping his load, he sprints off as if lightened by his burden. The fun really takes off for me if both of them are doing the deed at the same time, just in different directions. That tasks me with keeping an eye on both of them and the locations of their dumps, then reminding them to stay near me while I try to locate the fecal matter without stepping in it. Sherman's added a new twist to this, taking dumps a few minutes and a few yards apart, thus adding another back to the joy of being a good pet owner.
During the summer when we had to leave them at other houses, they picked up this notion of covering their droppings with grass, dirt or debris by brushing it with their back paws. This leads to some unintentionally funny scenes where one is standing behind the other as he finishes and begins pawing the ground, or thatching the lawn as we call it. The trouble is that the dog behind the thatcher gets covered with grass and dirt and can't easily shake it off.
Heaven forbid that it be raining out, which it does quite often in November. I've opened the door only to have the two of them take two steps out and turn right around to go back in the house. You'd think their lives were in danger because of the rain.
We've taken them to farmer's markets where they become the star attraction for about half the crowd. The old routine of explaining bulldogs, Sherman and Custer's paths to us and assorted other trivia stops us about four to five times a trip. The boys eat up the attention and it gets us to meet new people.
They've gotten into several routines, not the least of which is my coming home at lunch to let them out. After they do their business, they curl up in their beds and sleep. Then it's time to put Cus back in the laundry room, where sadly he spends his time because of pooping and peeing issues. I wish we didn't have to do it, but there's just no other alternative.
When we walk them around the place, they investigate every post, every seat, every upright installation in search of smells. Karen heard a comedian who says that those are the dogs' equivalent to Facebook, and that could be. But when we walk, it slows us down just a tad.
We're headed to Kentucky for Thanksgiving and we'll have to leave the boys behind, which we hate to do. They're so well-behaved, but there's simply no room at the inn. Not to mention that carting all their stuff and them limits what we can do and how we travel. It's an added expense to leave them behind, but there's no way around it.
As far as pets go, Sherman and Custer are a dream. I wish everyone who loved dogs had a Sherman and a Custer in their lives.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
With the cooler weather, the duo have been much happier. Bulldogs, because of their strange anatomy, have trouble in hotter weather. When it hits autumn, look out! Sherman especially is energized by the cooler weather, as evidenced by the fact that he runs around outside like a fool. Custer acts like a fool regardless of the weather, so it's hard to tell if the cooler temperatures have a positive effect on him.
Our days start around 5.30a with the obligatory walk around the block. Although the law says they're supposed to be on a leash, I'm a law-breaker and let them roam free. The truth is that they are both pretty obedient, and if they begin to stray they come back to me in short order, unless an unbelievably attractive nuisance presents itself. We go out when it's dark, so there aren't many other dogs and owners out, but every once in awhile there's one, and I have to keep the boys on a short leash so to speak.
Now that it's autumn, leaves are on the ground. It never fails, but one of them likes to leave his deposit in the leaves, making it one especially smelly Easter egg hunt for me. Usually after one's done dropping his load, he sprints off as if lightened by his burden. The fun really takes off for me if both of them are doing the deed at the same time, just in different directions. That tasks me with keeping an eye on both of them and the locations of their dumps, then reminding them to stay near me while I try to locate the fecal matter without stepping in it. Sherman's added a new twist to this, taking dumps a few minutes and a few yards apart, thus adding another back to the joy of being a good pet owner.
During the summer when we had to leave them at other houses, they picked up this notion of covering their droppings with grass, dirt or debris by brushing it with their back paws. This leads to some unintentionally funny scenes where one is standing behind the other as he finishes and begins pawing the ground, or thatching the lawn as we call it. The trouble is that the dog behind the thatcher gets covered with grass and dirt and can't easily shake it off.
Heaven forbid that it be raining out, which it does quite often in November. I've opened the door only to have the two of them take two steps out and turn right around to go back in the house. You'd think their lives were in danger because of the rain.
We've taken them to farmer's markets where they become the star attraction for about half the crowd. The old routine of explaining bulldogs, Sherman and Custer's paths to us and assorted other trivia stops us about four to five times a trip. The boys eat up the attention and it gets us to meet new people.
They've gotten into several routines, not the least of which is my coming home at lunch to let them out. After they do their business, they curl up in their beds and sleep. Then it's time to put Cus back in the laundry room, where sadly he spends his time because of pooping and peeing issues. I wish we didn't have to do it, but there's just no other alternative.
When we walk them around the place, they investigate every post, every seat, every upright installation in search of smells. Karen heard a comedian who says that those are the dogs' equivalent to Facebook, and that could be. But when we walk, it slows us down just a tad.
We're headed to Kentucky for Thanksgiving and we'll have to leave the boys behind, which we hate to do. They're so well-behaved, but there's simply no room at the inn. Not to mention that carting all their stuff and them limits what we can do and how we travel. It's an added expense to leave them behind, but there's no way around it.
As far as pets go, Sherman and Custer are a dream. I wish everyone who loved dogs had a Sherman and a Custer in their lives.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Happy Birthday, Sweetheart
Today is Karen's birthday. She's lamenting the onset of years, but she doesn't seem a day older to me, much less a year. She's the love of my life; why would she?
My life changed for the better the day I met my love. That first phone call, the first time I heard her voice, melted my soul. I had never hung the receiver up shaking before. Mind you, I think she's the most beautiful of all women, but on the phone, physical considerations aren't in play. It was her voice, the essential goodness of her person, that had me smitten.
Karen is the best person I'll ever know. She has kindness and thoughtfulness that few people ever know. She revels in others' happiness unlike any person I've ever known. She's not jealous of other people's successes or happiness and seeks only to put smiles on other peoples' faces.
She's not perfect. She can have a redheaded fit when I don't clean the way she likes, or I don't hear what she says or I do something incredibly stupid. She gets tired. Her physical ailments upset her. I'm under no illusions that I have Mother Teresa trapped in a goddess's body. But she's still the best person I know.
She does more for me than any person has ever done for me in my life, my Mother included. She loves me unconditionally even when she thinks I'm a dumbhead. She cooks me my favorite meals and then makes sure I don't eat too much so I'm healthy. She plans fun things for us to do and then enjoys them to the hilt. She sees things in stores she thinks I'll like and buys them for me rather than buying herself things. For example, I posted something to her uncle about a movie that's coming out and the book on which it was based, and without being asked, she bought me the book because I wanted it. And this despite the fact she says I have too many books.
I'd like to think she makes me a better person for having been with her, but the jury's still out on that one. She's supportive of me and defensive when anyone slights me. She takes care of me as if I were her own child despite the fact that I'm bigger than she is. She does the laundry and makes sure I have clean clothes to wear. She fusses over the clothes I wear, making me take off those that she thinks don't go together or are slightly wrinkled, no matter how much I bridle.
Traveling with her is a delight. We have so much fun together on our trips and discover new and interesting things together. She's opened new worlds to me with her natural curiosity.
I love to her laugh. The other day she was watching one of her favorite movies and she was laughing out loud and having such a good time. It made my heart smile. To see Karen happy is to watch the sun rise.
She is the sweetest, nicest, kindest, most thoughtful person God ever put on this earth. I may not deserve her -- nay, I know I don't -- but I'm so thankful she's in my life. I wish everyone had a person like Karen in his life, for he would then know what true love is.
Happy birthday, sweetheart. Thank you for being in my life and making it wonderful.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
My life changed for the better the day I met my love. That first phone call, the first time I heard her voice, melted my soul. I had never hung the receiver up shaking before. Mind you, I think she's the most beautiful of all women, but on the phone, physical considerations aren't in play. It was her voice, the essential goodness of her person, that had me smitten.
Karen is the best person I'll ever know. She has kindness and thoughtfulness that few people ever know. She revels in others' happiness unlike any person I've ever known. She's not jealous of other people's successes or happiness and seeks only to put smiles on other peoples' faces.
She's not perfect. She can have a redheaded fit when I don't clean the way she likes, or I don't hear what she says or I do something incredibly stupid. She gets tired. Her physical ailments upset her. I'm under no illusions that I have Mother Teresa trapped in a goddess's body. But she's still the best person I know.
She does more for me than any person has ever done for me in my life, my Mother included. She loves me unconditionally even when she thinks I'm a dumbhead. She cooks me my favorite meals and then makes sure I don't eat too much so I'm healthy. She plans fun things for us to do and then enjoys them to the hilt. She sees things in stores she thinks I'll like and buys them for me rather than buying herself things. For example, I posted something to her uncle about a movie that's coming out and the book on which it was based, and without being asked, she bought me the book because I wanted it. And this despite the fact she says I have too many books.
I'd like to think she makes me a better person for having been with her, but the jury's still out on that one. She's supportive of me and defensive when anyone slights me. She takes care of me as if I were her own child despite the fact that I'm bigger than she is. She does the laundry and makes sure I have clean clothes to wear. She fusses over the clothes I wear, making me take off those that she thinks don't go together or are slightly wrinkled, no matter how much I bridle.
Traveling with her is a delight. We have so much fun together on our trips and discover new and interesting things together. She's opened new worlds to me with her natural curiosity.
I love to her laugh. The other day she was watching one of her favorite movies and she was laughing out loud and having such a good time. It made my heart smile. To see Karen happy is to watch the sun rise.
She is the sweetest, nicest, kindest, most thoughtful person God ever put on this earth. I may not deserve her -- nay, I know I don't -- but I'm so thankful she's in my life. I wish everyone had a person like Karen in his life, for he would then know what true love is.
Happy birthday, sweetheart. Thank you for being in my life and making it wonderful.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
JFK mythology
We're approaching the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and the hagiography threatens to put Obamacare on the back-burner. There is no doubt that the assassination changed the country, putting a turbo-boost into the modernization of a country still asleep from the halcyon days of the fifties. And to be fair, Kennedy was a son, a father and a husband, and for that alone, his murder should be mourned. But that recognition shouldn't color an honest assessment of the man as president.
To be fair, he only governed for less than three years of his term. But in that time, he faced some serious challenges: The Cuban Missile Crisis, the escalating Vietnam War, civil rights, the integration of the University of Mississippi with the assistance of U.S. Marshals, the murder of Medgar Evers, the erection of the Berlin Wall -- there are more, no doubt, some of much lesser importance that kept the man busy. Some he handled capably, others he stumbled on. But in this regard he was no different than any other president.
Kennedy's shortcomings were largely personal. The fact that he was electable is owed not only to his war hero status, but his father's enormous wealth that was amassed bootlegging liquor during Prohibition. Of course his father, Joseph Kennedy, always did what was expedient: He used insider information to trade stocks that were later ruled to be illegal. He was also an anti-Semite, a charge he disputed.
Perhaps the biggest boost to Kennedy's candidacy, aside from his father's fortune, was that Kennedy, as the first viable Catholic candidate, was an novelty. Electable, married to a photogenic wife, he gave voters a reason to overlook the concerns from some quarters that his Catholicism meant rule directed by the Vatican, a silly assertion in any event but back then an eminently believable one.
But as a person, Kennedy fell far short of the mark. In recent years, his string of extra-marital affairs has tarnished the shining image of Camelot. Numerous women, not the least of which was Marilyn Monroe, were rumored to be his mistresses. It's even said that his wife, Jackie Kennedy, knew of his dalliances. What's more, they were covered up by the attorney general, his brother and future presidential candidate in his own right, Robert Kennedy.
For years, I've been saying that the greatest myth about Kennedy was his supposed support and love for the black community. Although it would seem natural that an Irish kid excluded from Brahmin Boston's largely Protestant circles would find common cause with blacks, he really didn't know them at all. This fact was set forth in Juan Williams' history of the civil rights movement, Eyes On the Prize. Instead, the politically savvy candidate took a page out of his father's Playbook of Expediency and realized that in order to defeat Nixon in the 1960 presidential campaign, he'd have to woo the black vote, which he did successfully.
Why this is of any consequence now is that the anniversary is approaching but also because in the lead-up to the anniversary, black activists are coming out with the real story. Harry Belafonte has come out and said the following to the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia last week:
Harry Belafonte, an American musician and social activist, supported Adlai Stevenson during the 1960 democratic primary, but agreed to meet with Kennedy, who tried to recruit him. The meeting left Belafonte unimpressed with Kennedy.
To be fair, he only governed for less than three years of his term. But in that time, he faced some serious challenges: The Cuban Missile Crisis, the escalating Vietnam War, civil rights, the integration of the University of Mississippi with the assistance of U.S. Marshals, the murder of Medgar Evers, the erection of the Berlin Wall -- there are more, no doubt, some of much lesser importance that kept the man busy. Some he handled capably, others he stumbled on. But in this regard he was no different than any other president.
Kennedy's shortcomings were largely personal. The fact that he was electable is owed not only to his war hero status, but his father's enormous wealth that was amassed bootlegging liquor during Prohibition. Of course his father, Joseph Kennedy, always did what was expedient: He used insider information to trade stocks that were later ruled to be illegal. He was also an anti-Semite, a charge he disputed.
Perhaps the biggest boost to Kennedy's candidacy, aside from his father's fortune, was that Kennedy, as the first viable Catholic candidate, was an novelty. Electable, married to a photogenic wife, he gave voters a reason to overlook the concerns from some quarters that his Catholicism meant rule directed by the Vatican, a silly assertion in any event but back then an eminently believable one.
But as a person, Kennedy fell far short of the mark. In recent years, his string of extra-marital affairs has tarnished the shining image of Camelot. Numerous women, not the least of which was Marilyn Monroe, were rumored to be his mistresses. It's even said that his wife, Jackie Kennedy, knew of his dalliances. What's more, they were covered up by the attorney general, his brother and future presidential candidate in his own right, Robert Kennedy.
For years, I've been saying that the greatest myth about Kennedy was his supposed support and love for the black community. Although it would seem natural that an Irish kid excluded from Brahmin Boston's largely Protestant circles would find common cause with blacks, he really didn't know them at all. This fact was set forth in Juan Williams' history of the civil rights movement, Eyes On the Prize. Instead, the politically savvy candidate took a page out of his father's Playbook of Expediency and realized that in order to defeat Nixon in the 1960 presidential campaign, he'd have to woo the black vote, which he did successfully.
Why this is of any consequence now is that the anniversary is approaching but also because in the lead-up to the anniversary, black activists are coming out with the real story. Harry Belafonte has come out and said the following to the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia last week:
Harry Belafonte, an American musician and social activist, supported Adlai Stevenson during the 1960 democratic primary, but agreed to meet with Kennedy, who tried to recruit him. The meeting left Belafonte unimpressed with Kennedy.
“I was quite taken by the fact that he knew so little about the black community,” Belafonte said in a NBC News interview with Tom Brokaw. “He knew the headlines of the day but he really wasn’t anywhere nuanced or detailed on the deep depths of black anguish of what our struggle was really about.”
Belafonte, a confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said he had asked Kennedy during the meeting about Dr. King and found that the future president “knew very little” about the civil rights leader.
He “just knew that somewhere there was this force and he was out there making some mischief,” Belafonte said.
Kennedy wanted to keep distance from King, Belafonte said, in order to secure votes from “the most important element within the democratic party, which was the southern Democratic oligarchy, the Dixiecrats” – a short-lived segregationist political party.
The civil rights movement was not on Kennedy's radar, according to Clarence Taylor, professor of history at Baruch College and at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
"He had other concerns as both a candidate and as president," Taylor said. "Major concern was foreign policy, so civil rights was an annoying issue for JFK."
Based on the meeting, Belafonte declined to support Kennedy in the primary. But after Kennedy secured a Democratic nomination and exhibited a broader understanding of the civil rights movement, Belafonte got on board.
“As events grew and as events revealed themselves, and he had to make decisions, he became more caught up with us,” Belafonte said. “The moral persuasion of our cause made him take a hard look at who we were.”
When Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested on October 19, 1960, in Atlanta for a sit-in and sentenced to four months of hard labor, Kennedy called Coretta Scott King directly to express his sympathies, Belaftonte pointed out. Bobby Kennedy called the judge in Georgia and King was released on bail a few days later.
Taylor said Kennedy's phone call was a shrewd political move to win black votes. The African-American community took notice of that gesture. During the 1960 election the black vote was crucial in the swing states of Illinois, Michigan and South Carolina that Kennedy carried.
But as president, Kennedy couldn't ignore the civil rights movement. In 1962 he sent hundreds of U.S. marshals to enforce a court order to admit James Meredith, a black student, to the University of Mississippi. And in 1963, after a series of protests from the black community, he addressed the nation to ask for support of the civil rights bill "giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments."
After the assassination, it was Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, who pushed the bill through Congress and signed it into law in 1964.
"JFK couldn’t walk away from [the civil rights movement]," Taylor said. "It became the major issue of the day. But I think it’s overblown, portraying Kennedy as a civil rights president. Johnson should’ve been given much more credit."
The notion that Kennedy was the savior of the black community is not only misleading but it's false. LBJ, as Belafonte says, deserved far more credit. Yet LBJ was more coarse than Kennedy and he lacked the photogenic wife. Marilyn Monroe never sang him Happy Birthday. So the more convenient myth for Democrats is to give Kennedy the credit for civil rights advances, just as it blames Johnson for Vietnam, when in fact it was Kennedy who started us down that slippery slope by sending advisors in 1961 and bankrolling the South's military.
Hindsight is 20/20, they say. It also serves to put targets in a smaller focus so as to obscure their true image. Kennedy, like wine, has only improved with age.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Broken Promises
A new report has surfaced that the American and Afghani governments have reached an agreement that would set forth guidelines for continued American involvement in Afghanistan for years to come, including pay for Afghani soldiers combined with military outposts and training in the country.
On the heels of the failed Obamacare rollout, this is stunning. When the President was elected, he made two very strong promises regarding our military operations abroad: We would be withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan and we would be shutting down Gitmo. With the new announcement, it's apparent, that neither promise will be kept. This raises several concerns, not to mention that there are implications beyond the broken promises to the American people.
First and foremost, can President Obama be trusted anymore? Since the disastrous Obamacare rollout, the President has been hammered from both sides for repeatedly promising that citizens could keep their doctors and their health plans, both of which, it is appearing, were bold-faced lies. The Gitmo promise has been acknowledged but largely ignored because it affects so few people directly. Even so, it's a promise that candidate Obama made that he's broken, and no one seems the slightest bit concerned.
Obamacare hits people in the pocketbook and for that reason resonates; Gitmo was so far away it didn't matter. But this recent broken promise splits the difference: Despite being thousands of miles away, Americans will be in harm's way, ideal targets for Al Qaeda or any Afghani with a bone to pick. The President is falling all over himself to make nice with the Afghans, going so far as to write a letter apologizing for mistakes made during the way, which was prompted by that gifted diplomat John Kerry. What neither of these tools seem to realize is that the only things feared or respected by the people over there are force and muscle.
Underlying this incredibly boneheaded maneuver is the fact that military spending has been cut. Not only are forces being reduced, spending on military hardware is being cut back severely. That means that although we're going to pay the Afghans to defend themselves -- and no doubt give them hardware for which we'll never be paid -- our troops will be underpaid and undersupplied, making their sacrifices that much more difficult. Meanwhile, the President has repeatedly promised that he was going to ensure that our military was the best in the world. Simply declaring it to be so doesn't make it so; the military relies on morale and materiel, and with funds being cut and reductions being made, the troops are more stressed than ever, with concerns on the home front, problems with supplies and hardware, lack of replacements in men and materiel and the continuing specter of blue on green attacks.
At some point, the people have to begin to call out both the President for his lies, the Democrats for conspiring to assist him maintain the lies and the MSM for turning a blind eye to all of it. But conservatives also bear some responsibility for this, insofar as they have not put forth a plan with any traction that can restore them to power. With the midterm elections coming up, this is the time for Republicans to start acting like they can govern. They can't just sit back and complain about the waywardness of the Democratic party; they have to put forth viable plans that actually entice the people to place their trust in them as leaders.
But still, this is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Without greater discernment on the part of the populace, without the testicular fortitude to make difficult choices, we'll surrender our sovereignty to a bunch of technocrats.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
On the heels of the failed Obamacare rollout, this is stunning. When the President was elected, he made two very strong promises regarding our military operations abroad: We would be withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan and we would be shutting down Gitmo. With the new announcement, it's apparent, that neither promise will be kept. This raises several concerns, not to mention that there are implications beyond the broken promises to the American people.
First and foremost, can President Obama be trusted anymore? Since the disastrous Obamacare rollout, the President has been hammered from both sides for repeatedly promising that citizens could keep their doctors and their health plans, both of which, it is appearing, were bold-faced lies. The Gitmo promise has been acknowledged but largely ignored because it affects so few people directly. Even so, it's a promise that candidate Obama made that he's broken, and no one seems the slightest bit concerned.
Obamacare hits people in the pocketbook and for that reason resonates; Gitmo was so far away it didn't matter. But this recent broken promise splits the difference: Despite being thousands of miles away, Americans will be in harm's way, ideal targets for Al Qaeda or any Afghani with a bone to pick. The President is falling all over himself to make nice with the Afghans, going so far as to write a letter apologizing for mistakes made during the way, which was prompted by that gifted diplomat John Kerry. What neither of these tools seem to realize is that the only things feared or respected by the people over there are force and muscle.
Underlying this incredibly boneheaded maneuver is the fact that military spending has been cut. Not only are forces being reduced, spending on military hardware is being cut back severely. That means that although we're going to pay the Afghans to defend themselves -- and no doubt give them hardware for which we'll never be paid -- our troops will be underpaid and undersupplied, making their sacrifices that much more difficult. Meanwhile, the President has repeatedly promised that he was going to ensure that our military was the best in the world. Simply declaring it to be so doesn't make it so; the military relies on morale and materiel, and with funds being cut and reductions being made, the troops are more stressed than ever, with concerns on the home front, problems with supplies and hardware, lack of replacements in men and materiel and the continuing specter of blue on green attacks.
At some point, the people have to begin to call out both the President for his lies, the Democrats for conspiring to assist him maintain the lies and the MSM for turning a blind eye to all of it. But conservatives also bear some responsibility for this, insofar as they have not put forth a plan with any traction that can restore them to power. With the midterm elections coming up, this is the time for Republicans to start acting like they can govern. They can't just sit back and complain about the waywardness of the Democratic party; they have to put forth viable plans that actually entice the people to place their trust in them as leaders.
But still, this is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Without greater discernment on the part of the populace, without the testicular fortitude to make difficult choices, we'll surrender our sovereignty to a bunch of technocrats.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Monday, November 18, 2013
Favorite Short Stories
Everyone talks about the great American novel and there are lists upon lists of the best novels ever written. For the longest time after Gutenberg changed the world, novels were a rarity. Back then, shorter stories and poems dominated, if only because of the cost, not to mention the limits on literacy. I enjoy novels as much as the next person, I suppose, but there are some frightfully good short stories that have garnered my respect and that deserve mention.
Here, then, is my list of my favorite short stories:
To Build a Fire: I've since come to realize that as a person, Jack London left a lot to be desired. But this short story is one of my favorite. The suspense builds throughout and one can almost feel the cold and the desperation as death nears with each passing hour.
The Most Dangerous Game: Richard Connell wrote four novels, none of which I've ever read, but this story still resonates with me. The concept of man hunting man for sport is at once vile and intriguing.
The Lottery: As chilling a story as The Most Dangerous Game, one can easily see this as an episode of The Twilight Zone. That it was written by a woman makes it even scarier.
La muerte y la brújula: A story by the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, it translates to Death and the Compass. A detective follows clues leading to a potential murder victim only to discover that he's been led to his death by his murderer.
El milagro secreto: Another Borges work, The Secret Miracle involves a Czech denounced in pre-war Prague who's then imprisoned in a jail by the SS. The protagonist is a composer with Jewish blood in his background, hence the reason for his arrest. He bargains for time to finish his great symphonic work, which he's granted as the physical world stops to allow him to compose. The minute he's finished with his work, he's shot dead.
Silvina y Montt: The names of the two protagonists, this is a tragic May-December story that isn't really a romance so much as it is a horror story. Montt is friends with Silvina's parents, who's some twenty-two years his junior. She views him as almost an uncle until the time he has to go away for business reasons. Years later he returns to find a ravishing young woman of roughly eighteen years of age and is immediately smitten. Given the mores of the times and his close friendship with her parents, combined with the awkward age difference, Montt leaves suddenly and goes to a seedy neighborhood, gets drunk and wakes up the next morning in bed with a woman who's now his wife. Shortly after he awakens, a note is slipped underneath the door from Silvina, telling him that she loves him and no matter the backlash, is coming to be with him as his wife.
A la deriva: Like Silvina y Montt, another excellent work by Horacio Quiroga. Quiroga, a devotee of Edgar Allan Poe, wrote gothic horror stories set in the jungle. Here, a man is bitten by a venomous snake in the depths of the jungle. The only doctor who can cure him is miles away, accessible only by river. The bitten man gets on a raft and drifts down the river, hopefully towards salvation.
There are more, but I can't remember the names of all of them. One of Cervantes' novelas ejemplares tells the story of Lela Marien. Hemingway wrote a short story about a bear hunt he experienced as a youth, I think, that I liked. There's another one by Quiroga whose title escapes me that involves a man cutting sugar cane who trips over his horse's reins and falls on his machete, mortally wounding himself. But there are some very good short stories that I read as a youth that I recall as well as the better novels I read. To conflate two common sayings from another area completely, sometimes size doesn't matter that much, and good things do come in smaller packages.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Here, then, is my list of my favorite short stories:
To Build a Fire: I've since come to realize that as a person, Jack London left a lot to be desired. But this short story is one of my favorite. The suspense builds throughout and one can almost feel the cold and the desperation as death nears with each passing hour.
The Most Dangerous Game: Richard Connell wrote four novels, none of which I've ever read, but this story still resonates with me. The concept of man hunting man for sport is at once vile and intriguing.
The Lottery: As chilling a story as The Most Dangerous Game, one can easily see this as an episode of The Twilight Zone. That it was written by a woman makes it even scarier.
La muerte y la brújula: A story by the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, it translates to Death and the Compass. A detective follows clues leading to a potential murder victim only to discover that he's been led to his death by his murderer.
El milagro secreto: Another Borges work, The Secret Miracle involves a Czech denounced in pre-war Prague who's then imprisoned in a jail by the SS. The protagonist is a composer with Jewish blood in his background, hence the reason for his arrest. He bargains for time to finish his great symphonic work, which he's granted as the physical world stops to allow him to compose. The minute he's finished with his work, he's shot dead.
Silvina y Montt: The names of the two protagonists, this is a tragic May-December story that isn't really a romance so much as it is a horror story. Montt is friends with Silvina's parents, who's some twenty-two years his junior. She views him as almost an uncle until the time he has to go away for business reasons. Years later he returns to find a ravishing young woman of roughly eighteen years of age and is immediately smitten. Given the mores of the times and his close friendship with her parents, combined with the awkward age difference, Montt leaves suddenly and goes to a seedy neighborhood, gets drunk and wakes up the next morning in bed with a woman who's now his wife. Shortly after he awakens, a note is slipped underneath the door from Silvina, telling him that she loves him and no matter the backlash, is coming to be with him as his wife.
A la deriva: Like Silvina y Montt, another excellent work by Horacio Quiroga. Quiroga, a devotee of Edgar Allan Poe, wrote gothic horror stories set in the jungle. Here, a man is bitten by a venomous snake in the depths of the jungle. The only doctor who can cure him is miles away, accessible only by river. The bitten man gets on a raft and drifts down the river, hopefully towards salvation.
There are more, but I can't remember the names of all of them. One of Cervantes' novelas ejemplares tells the story of Lela Marien. Hemingway wrote a short story about a bear hunt he experienced as a youth, I think, that I liked. There's another one by Quiroga whose title escapes me that involves a man cutting sugar cane who trips over his horse's reins and falls on his machete, mortally wounding himself. But there are some very good short stories that I read as a youth that I recall as well as the better novels I read. To conflate two common sayings from another area completely, sometimes size doesn't matter that much, and good things do come in smaller packages.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Friday, November 15, 2013
Scandalous Suspension of Disbelief
I like to think I'm picky about my television shows. Call is snobbism, but I don't fall for just any type of show. I imagine I have my guilty pleasure here and there, but typically, if a show is too stupid -- see, How I Met Your Mother -- I don't watch it.
I almost didn't watch 24 because I wasn't a fan of Kiefer Sutherland. I saw the first episode and was hooked, until it started getting goofy in the third season. Dexter followed a similar trajectory, saved only by the wildly entertaining Trinity arc.
About a year ago I happened to catch an episode of Scandal, the latest rage in prime time television. The plot involved election rigging, not to mention the usual Olivia Pope messianic acts saving the damned from messes of their own making. Throw in a somewhat tenuous affair between Ms. Pope and the President, a shadowy off-the-books government agency and an interesting cast of characters with skill sets that could command a very high salary in the open market, and it was eminently watchable. The cliffhanger at the end of the season was pretty nifty, and the flashbacks showing the evolution of Huck were pretty cool. So I decided to watch it.
That is, until last night. Last night's episode rivals the infamously bad Hawaii Five-0 episode mocked in this space some months ago for its jumped-the-shark qualities. Considering I had a very busy day that started at five in the morning and ended around nine o'clock, I might be a little muzzy on some of the details, but here goes:
The episode begins with Ms. Pope wavering on answering her Batphone to take a call from her estranged lover the President. She does and barks at him despite the fact he's hopelessly forlorn about her safety, telling her cryptically to leave it alone for her own good. Undeterred, Ms. Pope angrily hangs up on the leader of the free world and storms out of her swanky apartment ready to delve into the deepest, darkest secrets of the espionage world.
Next we're treated to some montage of the president's jilted wife, Mellie, rejuvenating her image with some film crew as she takes them on a tour of the White House and a nostalgic journey down Memory Lane to revisit how she and the president started out. Barry Bostwick, of Rocky Horror Picture Show fame, appears in the flashbacks as the domineering father of the now-president who is, to say the least, pushy about his son's political aspirations. At turns goading and then figuratively shoving his son -- always with a drink readily at hand -- Bostwick cajoles his war-hero son -- who of course is Rhodes Scholar this and Navy SEAL that -- into running for governor of California, the first step on his fictional road to the White House. As the episode develops, it appears that the future president, who at the time was one of the top fighter pilots in the military (Top Gun, anyone?), shot down a commercial airline on which a dirty bomb had been smuggled.
Now, try to follow the Super Ball that's been thrown into the room: On that plane, in a tragic coincidence, was Ms. Pope's mother. Yes, the very mother of the woman with whom the president would cuckold his wife, was shot down in this action. But the shoot-down was blamed, publicly, on a mechanical failure. And who orchestrated the cover-up? None other than the conniving, power-hungry father.
Meanwhile, a late night talk between the father, who's a known womanizer, and the future First Lady turns into a rape. Yes, the father-in-law rapes the comely daughter-in-law on the couch while the son-husband is asleep upstairs. As fantastical as this seems, the wife not only keeps the rape to herself, she encourages the father to apologize to the son the next morning at breakfast to persuade him to run for governor and inject his war record into the campaign.
Taking a breath from this stratospheric flight of fancy, we turn to one of Ms. Pope's trusted aides whom she rescued during the vote rigging that got her paramour elected. This woman cozied up to Huck last season, sensing that she had a taste for black ops. In a turn that I don't quite understand, she's now cozied up to Huck's former tormentor, a member of the same black ops unit that plagued Huck. The Stanford-educated lawyer buys this guy's story that he's left black ops and is now just a private dick. Without so much as batting an eye, she ceases her surveillance of him and begins to have feelings for him, wooed no doubt by the two passionate kisses they've shared on screen. He convinces her to go into this building late at night and convince the security guard to turn his back so she can inject him with some drug that will make him pass out, allowing the newly-minted private investigator to slip into the building and do his investigating. Without giving it a second thought, she does just that, only to become horrified when he first starts foaming at the mouth and then starts bleeding. Soon enough, he's lying dead on the floor and her hands are literally covered in blood. She runs from the lobby screaming, forgetting, of course, about the security cameras that have to be all over the place.
Why is this important at all? Because this person is a key witness in the goings-on at the airport from which the doomed plane that the now-president shot down before he went political. Ms. Pope has eschewed her former lover's advice and began poking around looking for answers about her mother's death. The security guard had worked at the airport and was considered a key witness with crucial information.
We next turn to the now-frantic employee of Ms. Pope's agency who is with her would-be lover and former-black-ops-agent-turned-private-investigator asking what happened, only to be shown a tablet with the security tape showing her doing the deed. With a sneer he looks at her crestfallen face and welcomes her to the very black ops agency he claimed to have left. So much for her Stanford legal education, not to mention her law license.
So in the short space of forty minutes of so, we've had incestuous rape, the revelation that the future president shot down his future lover's mother, only to have his deed covered up by the very father who raped his wife while he slept upstairs and a Stanford-educated lawyer being dooped to commit murder. I nearly forgot to mention that the president's chief of staff has just learned that the vice president, who is an archly-conservatie Moral Majoritarian (although not by that name), is married to a closet gay man, as he sees him hitting on the chief of staff's husband. Why is this significant? Because the Veep is a potential challenger in the next election.
So. Incestuous rape. Mass murder and a cover-up. Black-ops and a tainted Stanford legal education. Not to mention the revelation that Ms. Pope's own father sanctioned the hit on the plane on which his wife was flying, causing Ms. Pope even more angst.
One would think it couldn't get any more convoluted.
One would be wrong.
The last scene of the night is of Ms. Pope's father going to some ultra-secure, underground bunker behind Get Smart doors guarded by HGH-enhanced soldiers in camo where he takes a seat in front of a cage within which is someone lying covered by a blanket. Lo and behold, Ms. Pope's long-dead mother is actually alive and has been kept in this cell; she never got on the plane.
Yes, people, this is what passes for creativity in prime time. And they have the audacity to look down their noses at soap operas. I won't be watching any more Scandal.
This also serves to explain why I prefer shows like Yukon Men and Alaska Frontier.
Sometimes, truth isn't stranger than fiction. Sometimes fiction is just....strange.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
I almost didn't watch 24 because I wasn't a fan of Kiefer Sutherland. I saw the first episode and was hooked, until it started getting goofy in the third season. Dexter followed a similar trajectory, saved only by the wildly entertaining Trinity arc.
About a year ago I happened to catch an episode of Scandal, the latest rage in prime time television. The plot involved election rigging, not to mention the usual Olivia Pope messianic acts saving the damned from messes of their own making. Throw in a somewhat tenuous affair between Ms. Pope and the President, a shadowy off-the-books government agency and an interesting cast of characters with skill sets that could command a very high salary in the open market, and it was eminently watchable. The cliffhanger at the end of the season was pretty nifty, and the flashbacks showing the evolution of Huck were pretty cool. So I decided to watch it.
That is, until last night. Last night's episode rivals the infamously bad Hawaii Five-0 episode mocked in this space some months ago for its jumped-the-shark qualities. Considering I had a very busy day that started at five in the morning and ended around nine o'clock, I might be a little muzzy on some of the details, but here goes:
The episode begins with Ms. Pope wavering on answering her Batphone to take a call from her estranged lover the President. She does and barks at him despite the fact he's hopelessly forlorn about her safety, telling her cryptically to leave it alone for her own good. Undeterred, Ms. Pope angrily hangs up on the leader of the free world and storms out of her swanky apartment ready to delve into the deepest, darkest secrets of the espionage world.
Next we're treated to some montage of the president's jilted wife, Mellie, rejuvenating her image with some film crew as she takes them on a tour of the White House and a nostalgic journey down Memory Lane to revisit how she and the president started out. Barry Bostwick, of Rocky Horror Picture Show fame, appears in the flashbacks as the domineering father of the now-president who is, to say the least, pushy about his son's political aspirations. At turns goading and then figuratively shoving his son -- always with a drink readily at hand -- Bostwick cajoles his war-hero son -- who of course is Rhodes Scholar this and Navy SEAL that -- into running for governor of California, the first step on his fictional road to the White House. As the episode develops, it appears that the future president, who at the time was one of the top fighter pilots in the military (Top Gun, anyone?), shot down a commercial airline on which a dirty bomb had been smuggled.
Now, try to follow the Super Ball that's been thrown into the room: On that plane, in a tragic coincidence, was Ms. Pope's mother. Yes, the very mother of the woman with whom the president would cuckold his wife, was shot down in this action. But the shoot-down was blamed, publicly, on a mechanical failure. And who orchestrated the cover-up? None other than the conniving, power-hungry father.
Meanwhile, a late night talk between the father, who's a known womanizer, and the future First Lady turns into a rape. Yes, the father-in-law rapes the comely daughter-in-law on the couch while the son-husband is asleep upstairs. As fantastical as this seems, the wife not only keeps the rape to herself, she encourages the father to apologize to the son the next morning at breakfast to persuade him to run for governor and inject his war record into the campaign.
Taking a breath from this stratospheric flight of fancy, we turn to one of Ms. Pope's trusted aides whom she rescued during the vote rigging that got her paramour elected. This woman cozied up to Huck last season, sensing that she had a taste for black ops. In a turn that I don't quite understand, she's now cozied up to Huck's former tormentor, a member of the same black ops unit that plagued Huck. The Stanford-educated lawyer buys this guy's story that he's left black ops and is now just a private dick. Without so much as batting an eye, she ceases her surveillance of him and begins to have feelings for him, wooed no doubt by the two passionate kisses they've shared on screen. He convinces her to go into this building late at night and convince the security guard to turn his back so she can inject him with some drug that will make him pass out, allowing the newly-minted private investigator to slip into the building and do his investigating. Without giving it a second thought, she does just that, only to become horrified when he first starts foaming at the mouth and then starts bleeding. Soon enough, he's lying dead on the floor and her hands are literally covered in blood. She runs from the lobby screaming, forgetting, of course, about the security cameras that have to be all over the place.
Why is this important at all? Because this person is a key witness in the goings-on at the airport from which the doomed plane that the now-president shot down before he went political. Ms. Pope has eschewed her former lover's advice and began poking around looking for answers about her mother's death. The security guard had worked at the airport and was considered a key witness with crucial information.
We next turn to the now-frantic employee of Ms. Pope's agency who is with her would-be lover and former-black-ops-agent-turned-private-investigator asking what happened, only to be shown a tablet with the security tape showing her doing the deed. With a sneer he looks at her crestfallen face and welcomes her to the very black ops agency he claimed to have left. So much for her Stanford legal education, not to mention her law license.
So in the short space of forty minutes of so, we've had incestuous rape, the revelation that the future president shot down his future lover's mother, only to have his deed covered up by the very father who raped his wife while he slept upstairs and a Stanford-educated lawyer being dooped to commit murder. I nearly forgot to mention that the president's chief of staff has just learned that the vice president, who is an archly-conservatie Moral Majoritarian (although not by that name), is married to a closet gay man, as he sees him hitting on the chief of staff's husband. Why is this significant? Because the Veep is a potential challenger in the next election.
So. Incestuous rape. Mass murder and a cover-up. Black-ops and a tainted Stanford legal education. Not to mention the revelation that Ms. Pope's own father sanctioned the hit on the plane on which his wife was flying, causing Ms. Pope even more angst.
One would think it couldn't get any more convoluted.
One would be wrong.
The last scene of the night is of Ms. Pope's father going to some ultra-secure, underground bunker behind Get Smart doors guarded by HGH-enhanced soldiers in camo where he takes a seat in front of a cage within which is someone lying covered by a blanket. Lo and behold, Ms. Pope's long-dead mother is actually alive and has been kept in this cell; she never got on the plane.
Yes, people, this is what passes for creativity in prime time. And they have the audacity to look down their noses at soap operas. I won't be watching any more Scandal.
This also serves to explain why I prefer shows like Yukon Men and Alaska Frontier.
Sometimes, truth isn't stranger than fiction. Sometimes fiction is just....strange.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Hazing and Sports
When I was younger, I played basketball and baseball. I was never hazed, thankfully, although I'm sure I was the butt of some practical jokes and pranks from time to time. Anyone who's been in an athletic locker room is familiar with the hijinks that go on there. From what I remember, our high school's hockey club had a particularly aggressive hazing ritual that involved dragging the newbies out in the snow buck-naked and then over bushes that were exposed. We had no such rituals.
Professional football and baseball are notorious for their hazing of rookies. From what I've seen, football rookies are made to sing their alma maters' fight songs in training camp cafeterias, buy donuts for practice and carry the veterans' equipment off the practice field. They may get taped to the goal post, too. Baseball rookies are made to wear outlandish costumes on team flights, carry the veterans' bags and engage in vandalism in cities they visit during the season. One such example of the latter involves getting rookies to paint the testicles of the horse on a statue along Chicago's lakefront just south of Wrigley. It's tradition, and everyone is expected to participate. It's a right of passage, a way of making sure the rookie joins the brotherhood of the team. Outsiders will see it as infantile and immature, and to a certain extent it is. But unless and until critics have been in the locker room, they really don't know of what they speak.
Of course, nowadays the talk is about the ongoing scandal with the Miami Dolphins. Rickie Incognito, a veteran, used coarse and racist language with a teammate, Jonathan Martin, both to haze him and to toughen him up, according to some reports. Incognito may or may not have had the support of the coaching staff and management. Martin may or may not have been too soft. In an odd twist, reports indicate that other players actually support Incognito, not Martin, even though Martin left the team because of Incognito's actions.
Beyond the alleged bullying, the sophomoric attempt to toughen Martin up and sundry other issues, the use of nigger is troublesome for so many different reasons. First of all, the word is repugnant. It brings up a past that is vile and murderous and wrong by any standard. Yet, blacks use the word almost with impunity. Therein lies the problem: Among blacks the word is somewhat acceptable, a badge of honor that only those baptized in the struggle can claim. And to an extent, I can appreciate that. But it becomes murky after that.
Within professional sports, the notion of a brotherhood develops, especially in football. Units, such as the offensive or defensive lines, the defensive backfield, or the kickers, tend to hang out and work out together. They endure many of the same challenges and hardships equally. As a result, certain teasing or kidding that would be intolerable in pleasant society is acceptable within these hermetic groups. Allowable, apparently, within these groups is the use of nigger by black and white athlete alike...provided it is used in a certain way. It isn't necessarily condoned so much as allowed, with the apparent understanding that the word will not be used outside the group or in an offensive manner.
To be honest, I haven't followed the Incognito-Martin brouhaha that closely. Each day new revelations whipsaw my attention. Some players accept what Incognito was doing or trying to do. Coaches apparently encouraged him. Ex-players have condemned not only his behavior, but also his use of the word nigger.
Professor and legal scholar Randall Kennedy wrote the book Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. Professor Kennedy gives a historical view of the word's origins, its development as an epithet and its acceptance within the black community for use by blacks to other blacks. Somewhere along the line, whites have been allowed to use the word, but always in the very narrow and limited context. Professor Kennedy, that I recall, addressed this phenomenon briefly, if at all.
Over the years, white celebrities have run afoul of this opaque area of linguistics. Gwyneth Paltrow, not exactly my idea of a person with whom I'd like to share an airplane much less share drinks, once ran afoul of this unwritten rule when she tweeted Ni**as in paris for real while at a Jay-Z concert in Paris. Ms. Paltrow caught a lot of flak for this, even after claiming that she was merely repeating the name of a song. Ms. Paltrow is close friends with Mr. Z, allegedly, so she meant no hostile intent. But it did raise the question of when, if ever, a white person can use the word.
Seven years ago Damon Wayans wanted to trademark Niggaz for a clothing line. Fortunately, Mr. Wayans saw reason and withdrew his application, if he ever filed it. No matter what license blacks have to use the word among themselves, putting such a label on clothing only invites trouble.
The Incognito-Martin kerfuffle involves more than just the use of an incendiary term. It involves bullying, threats and other things in which grown men should not engage. What Incognito -- who apparently is quite the boor, no matter how well he cleans up -- did was sophomoric at best and actionable at worst. To blame this in Martin is idiotic. But it brings to the fore the nettlesome issues of use of the word nigger and black-white relations tied to that word.
There has to be a better way to discuss this.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Professional football and baseball are notorious for their hazing of rookies. From what I've seen, football rookies are made to sing their alma maters' fight songs in training camp cafeterias, buy donuts for practice and carry the veterans' equipment off the practice field. They may get taped to the goal post, too. Baseball rookies are made to wear outlandish costumes on team flights, carry the veterans' bags and engage in vandalism in cities they visit during the season. One such example of the latter involves getting rookies to paint the testicles of the horse on a statue along Chicago's lakefront just south of Wrigley. It's tradition, and everyone is expected to participate. It's a right of passage, a way of making sure the rookie joins the brotherhood of the team. Outsiders will see it as infantile and immature, and to a certain extent it is. But unless and until critics have been in the locker room, they really don't know of what they speak.
Of course, nowadays the talk is about the ongoing scandal with the Miami Dolphins. Rickie Incognito, a veteran, used coarse and racist language with a teammate, Jonathan Martin, both to haze him and to toughen him up, according to some reports. Incognito may or may not have had the support of the coaching staff and management. Martin may or may not have been too soft. In an odd twist, reports indicate that other players actually support Incognito, not Martin, even though Martin left the team because of Incognito's actions.
Beyond the alleged bullying, the sophomoric attempt to toughen Martin up and sundry other issues, the use of nigger is troublesome for so many different reasons. First of all, the word is repugnant. It brings up a past that is vile and murderous and wrong by any standard. Yet, blacks use the word almost with impunity. Therein lies the problem: Among blacks the word is somewhat acceptable, a badge of honor that only those baptized in the struggle can claim. And to an extent, I can appreciate that. But it becomes murky after that.
Within professional sports, the notion of a brotherhood develops, especially in football. Units, such as the offensive or defensive lines, the defensive backfield, or the kickers, tend to hang out and work out together. They endure many of the same challenges and hardships equally. As a result, certain teasing or kidding that would be intolerable in pleasant society is acceptable within these hermetic groups. Allowable, apparently, within these groups is the use of nigger by black and white athlete alike...provided it is used in a certain way. It isn't necessarily condoned so much as allowed, with the apparent understanding that the word will not be used outside the group or in an offensive manner.
To be honest, I haven't followed the Incognito-Martin brouhaha that closely. Each day new revelations whipsaw my attention. Some players accept what Incognito was doing or trying to do. Coaches apparently encouraged him. Ex-players have condemned not only his behavior, but also his use of the word nigger.
Professor and legal scholar Randall Kennedy wrote the book Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. Professor Kennedy gives a historical view of the word's origins, its development as an epithet and its acceptance within the black community for use by blacks to other blacks. Somewhere along the line, whites have been allowed to use the word, but always in the very narrow and limited context. Professor Kennedy, that I recall, addressed this phenomenon briefly, if at all.
Over the years, white celebrities have run afoul of this opaque area of linguistics. Gwyneth Paltrow, not exactly my idea of a person with whom I'd like to share an airplane much less share drinks, once ran afoul of this unwritten rule when she tweeted Ni**as in paris for real while at a Jay-Z concert in Paris. Ms. Paltrow caught a lot of flak for this, even after claiming that she was merely repeating the name of a song. Ms. Paltrow is close friends with Mr. Z, allegedly, so she meant no hostile intent. But it did raise the question of when, if ever, a white person can use the word.
Seven years ago Damon Wayans wanted to trademark Niggaz for a clothing line. Fortunately, Mr. Wayans saw reason and withdrew his application, if he ever filed it. No matter what license blacks have to use the word among themselves, putting such a label on clothing only invites trouble.
The Incognito-Martin kerfuffle involves more than just the use of an incendiary term. It involves bullying, threats and other things in which grown men should not engage. What Incognito -- who apparently is quite the boor, no matter how well he cleans up -- did was sophomoric at best and actionable at worst. To blame this in Martin is idiotic. But it brings to the fore the nettlesome issues of use of the word nigger and black-white relations tied to that word.
There has to be a better way to discuss this.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Monday, November 11, 2013
Questions for POTUS, Hillary
Since most of the MSM is too twitterpated to believe that its chosen one could mislead them, spy on them, investigate them and deny them their daily bread, and because the only viable alternative can't wangle an interview with either the President or Hillary Clinton, I thought I'd take a stab at posing questions that I'd ask either of them, knowing full well that no job I'd ever be interested in having would be jeopardized by my insouciant questions.
For Ms. Clinton:
When pressed by the congressmen during one of your hearings on Benghazi, you replied, in essence, What does it matter? As President, would that be a sufficient answer from an underling in response to congressional inquiry about an incident in which four Americans were murdered?
Why was the controversial movie used as an explanation about the attack on the consulate in Benghazi?
Does being the first woman president drive you to run?
How would you deal with the Iranians?
What role did you have with the ARBs and their release?
What do you think should be done with the members of your staff who took the fall for you and were removed from their posts and reassigned? Should they be be fired?
What steps are being taken to locate the consulate's attackers?
Is Rahm Emmanuel going to be your running mate in 2016, or is there another woman whom you would choose instead?
What Republican candidate do you least want to see in 2016?
For Mr. Obama:
Why do you criticize Fox News so much?
What does it take to be fired in your administration?
What is your definition of transparency?
Do you really like Hillary Clinton?
How is it that a man as educated as you, a Harvard graduate and a former professor at the University of Chicago, is so hopelessly uninformed about the goings-on in his own administration that he only learns of things when they're reported in the media? If it is true that you only learn of them in the media, does that mean you're guilty of dereliction of duty?
How do you explain that after you pitched woo at the Arab world, more fighting broke out in it than during the entire tenure of George W. Bush?
Why haven't you closed Gitmo yet?
Why won't you delay Obamacare until the problems with the website are resolved?
When did you first learn about the attack on Benghazi and the real reason behind it?
Why were no liberal groups targeted by the IRS?
Why was Big Business given a break on Obamacare requirements but not small businesses?
Why did you choose Joe Biden as your running mate?
How do you justify the seizure of the AP's phone records?
Why did you choose to comment on the Trayvon Martin case before a verdict was rendered but not on the murder of the Australian exchange student in Oklahoma, the murder of the World War II vet in Washington and the assault and battery of a thirteen-year-old student on a bus by three older black youths?
Why did you waffle on support for Libya and Syria?
Why did you not appoint an independent counsel to investigate Eric Holder on his sundry questionable actions?
Why were immigration reform advocates allowed usage of federal lands during the government shutdown but veterans were kept out?
Is there any limit to amnesty for illegal immigrants?
Why were you so obsequious toward foreign leaders when the NSA eavesdropping was revealed especially when it is widely known that those very leaders' governments are spying on the United States.
Is Edward Snowden a traitor? If so, would you order his elimination as you have Americans who have actively supported Al Qaeda?
Why won't you release the pictures of Osama bin Laden? On a similar note, why has aid to both Pakistan and Egypt not been curtailed? Furthermore, why are funds being funneled to the Muslim Brotherhood?
Are you in favor of the rhetoric employed by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other supporters directed at the Republicans, calling them arsonists, terrorists and worse?
Do you believe the Republicans are right about anything?
Why were no liberal groups targeted by the IRS for investigation?
Why do you feel it's all right to target Americans working with Al Qaeda without giving them Due Process but you feel compelled to give Al Qaeda enemy combatants Due Process instead?
There are more questions, but time constraints would limit the number I could ask.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
For Ms. Clinton:
When pressed by the congressmen during one of your hearings on Benghazi, you replied, in essence, What does it matter? As President, would that be a sufficient answer from an underling in response to congressional inquiry about an incident in which four Americans were murdered?
Why was the controversial movie used as an explanation about the attack on the consulate in Benghazi?
Does being the first woman president drive you to run?
How would you deal with the Iranians?
What role did you have with the ARBs and their release?
What do you think should be done with the members of your staff who took the fall for you and were removed from their posts and reassigned? Should they be be fired?
What steps are being taken to locate the consulate's attackers?
Is Rahm Emmanuel going to be your running mate in 2016, or is there another woman whom you would choose instead?
What Republican candidate do you least want to see in 2016?
For Mr. Obama:
Why do you criticize Fox News so much?
What does it take to be fired in your administration?
What is your definition of transparency?
Do you really like Hillary Clinton?
How is it that a man as educated as you, a Harvard graduate and a former professor at the University of Chicago, is so hopelessly uninformed about the goings-on in his own administration that he only learns of things when they're reported in the media? If it is true that you only learn of them in the media, does that mean you're guilty of dereliction of duty?
How do you explain that after you pitched woo at the Arab world, more fighting broke out in it than during the entire tenure of George W. Bush?
Why haven't you closed Gitmo yet?
Why won't you delay Obamacare until the problems with the website are resolved?
When did you first learn about the attack on Benghazi and the real reason behind it?
Why were no liberal groups targeted by the IRS?
Why was Big Business given a break on Obamacare requirements but not small businesses?
Why did you choose Joe Biden as your running mate?
How do you justify the seizure of the AP's phone records?
Why did you choose to comment on the Trayvon Martin case before a verdict was rendered but not on the murder of the Australian exchange student in Oklahoma, the murder of the World War II vet in Washington and the assault and battery of a thirteen-year-old student on a bus by three older black youths?
Why did you waffle on support for Libya and Syria?
Why did you not appoint an independent counsel to investigate Eric Holder on his sundry questionable actions?
Why were immigration reform advocates allowed usage of federal lands during the government shutdown but veterans were kept out?
Is there any limit to amnesty for illegal immigrants?
Why were you so obsequious toward foreign leaders when the NSA eavesdropping was revealed especially when it is widely known that those very leaders' governments are spying on the United States.
Is Edward Snowden a traitor? If so, would you order his elimination as you have Americans who have actively supported Al Qaeda?
Why won't you release the pictures of Osama bin Laden? On a similar note, why has aid to both Pakistan and Egypt not been curtailed? Furthermore, why are funds being funneled to the Muslim Brotherhood?
Are you in favor of the rhetoric employed by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other supporters directed at the Republicans, calling them arsonists, terrorists and worse?
Do you believe the Republicans are right about anything?
Why were no liberal groups targeted by the IRS for investigation?
Why do you feel it's all right to target Americans working with Al Qaeda without giving them Due Process but you feel compelled to give Al Qaeda enemy combatants Due Process instead?
There are more questions, but time constraints would limit the number I could ask.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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