Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun

Monday, April 17, 2017

DUCK AND COVER

     A smackdown is coming. The overwhelming lack of public support versus the heavy handed nature of the Trump cabal sets a collision course. We'll get to that after visiting a ghost  conjured recently by yet another dust up--the clash of the man child leader of North Korea and his American equal. 
        It happened at the height of the cold war on an afternoon in an old classroom in Garfield Elementary School in Muncie Indiana.
        Third grade teacher Mrs. Rogers signaled yet another "duck and cover" drill. We'd seen film strips, movies, heard a Civil Defense presentation and certainly had our fill of posters. Atomic bomb mushroom clouds. Horrible, ominous dark rising swells of hell in the shape of a mushroom. Mushroom clouds were big in those days. If you had a TV set you'd see Civil Defense warning announcements. You'd see no end to mushroom cloud explosions at the movies and in those incessant films they played in the grade schools. 
      Seeing the test footage clips of houses, dummies, cars and buildings suddenly obliterated in fireballs and fiery wind storms we had a pretty good idea of what the "A" bomb could do. Some of us had mushroom cloud nightmares. That meant the campaign was working of course. The remedy? Duck and cover. 
      We would frequently interrupt the sacred process of a third grade education to learn to "save ourselves" by ducking under our desks-the old wooden variety complete with an inkwell, and covering our head. No random manner of covering allowed. No indeed, there was a proscribed technique of covering the back of your neck and head while essentially kissing your ass-good by. At least that's how I read it, as a third grader.
      It was the first time I was called incorrigible. Mrs. Rogers singled me out, told me I was a bad influence, that I was risking the lives of my Garfield third grade classmates. Why-because I refused to duck and cover.  It wasn't just rebellion. It came with reasoning that I tried to explain. 
      After seeing those army test houses vaporized and blown to smithereens complete with flying glass, furniture and telephone poles, I simply tried to make my case that ducking under our desks would do no good. Instead of miraculously saving our lives, permitting us to climb out of the ashes of a nuclear armageddon so we could go on with a reading lesson, we would just be vaporized or burned to a crisp while cowering under a desk in some unholy body twist.  
      You know, a third grade kid just doesn't get a fair shot in the world of adult logic. Mrs. Rogers was having none of it and I was as insistent about the futile stupidity of thinking we could save our lives in an atomic bomb blast by ducking and covering.  Incorrigible? Yea, maybe. Insistent certainly and an early adapter in reading the bull shit of adults. 
       How about a bouquet to the incorrigibles of Garfield elementary school! Charlotte, Connie, Benny and Tommy seemed to get on board with the logic. It's pretty much a haze now, but I can't remember doing those crazy duck and cover drills when we began to talk to our parents who, like most in those days, thought the PTA or PTO was an organization that had influence. I think they began to back off on some of the A-Bomb mushroom cloud propaganda as well. Too many kids were having bad dreams, or belly aches and the like. 
life below trump tower
      Those days of nuclear worry aren't so distant for those who live on the west coast since a strange little north Korean tin god has been trying to join the nuclear club and since our orange bully has threatened to take care of Kim Jung Un if he tries to threaten the US or makes into the nuke club.
      Intellectual weaklings, emotional children with war clubs-that's what we have. 
      Some, including a few from my decades in journalism have asked why after years of neutrality and trying to be objective have I been so nasty about the president. The answer is simple-I'm a civilian now and while that simply frees me to express an opinion it is in fact the sheer lack of competence and character of the president that compels me. Not in my life has such a jack ass achieved such influence. It is tragic because the majority of Americans rejected the buffoon, his tasteless noveau riche opulence and his despicable character. There should be a law that a minority president cannot reverse majority policy nor take to redefining how Americans conduct diplomacy. 
behaving like a dictator
    More than a handful of groups are going after the lout in chief for his boast he will not release records of who visits the White House. The man who said he was going to drain the swamp is now planning to end transparency. The previous President posted daily logs of visitors. Failure to do so undermines our laws and it shows he does not want to be accountable. Refusing to report to his employers, the American tax payer, who visits our White House is the trick of a dictator as is his broken promise to show his tax returns. What's he trying to hide?
     So to those who have wondered, I never thought I would be disrespectful to a President. Never did I think I would call the commander in chief a fool, idiot, lout, predator, liar, cheat, con man, hustler, sexual molester, narcissist or Russian stooge, but then I never thought America would stoop to such lows either. This president is a disgrace.
     Here's to the day we can climb out of the trump latrine.

important history
     The Zookeeper's Wife is an extraordinary film. It's historical sweep, passionately told and powerful story and superb acting make it a must see. Jessica Chastain is one of the best actresses working. Daniel Bruhl also deserves raves as do the animals and their trainers. And we must never forget this story or that larger event in history.  There was a time I thought such a thing could never happen again. I'm not so sure anymore.

     See you down the trail.

12 comments:

  1. Agree totally with your description of our Man-Child president. Ironic that he is beginning to learn on the job, but frankly, who ever heard of the POTUS position being perfect for OTJ training? Darn lucky so far that the OTJ approach has not burned the Country in huge numbers....but I do fear, really fear for the future of his tenure. His tenure: my bet is that he will not last four years due to either quitting or pressure from his party through Congressional action or through Judicial action. I'd bet a cup of coffee on that one.

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    1. Certainly don't want to bet against you on this, but would love to sit have a coffee with you again, or an adult drink. Here's hoping he's shown the door, somehow.

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  2. I wasn't a Bush fan, didn't think he was up to the intellectual challenge of being president, but I didn't shudder when he was on television. I've always treated the presidency with respect, no matter who held the office, but now I feel I've lost something precious. I can't trust my president to tell the truth, and he's a narcissistic blowhard whose policies show he really doesn't care about the average citizen. We're in for a bumpy ride, and my biggest hope is that the institutions we've relied on for so long will hold fast while we weather this storm.

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    1. Perhaps the same thing has occurred with you. At a dinner party someone said "I never though I'd long for George W." We had to agree. Now that is a statement about how low we've gone.

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  3. Even Mrs Rogers couldn't argue with the compelling logic of this post.

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  4. I think we are neck-deep in uncharted waters and wading further. We've elected a man so unsuitable for elected office it defies logic (or even belief). We, congress and even the press have stopped caring about truth, he lies and is not called out by anyone. We have around 24 million of his followers who don't care what he does, what lies he says, and have said they'll believe him if he says the earth is flat.
    We are in the midst of a sea change; we've even been downgraded from being a 'real' democracy.
    I have no idea where we're going, I do know what we're close to being at the state where we were during '62, during the Cuban missile crisis. The difference is we have a certifiable nut at the helm.

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  5. I've found instances where some of the press, especially those with an investigative or in depth edge, are holding his feet to the fire on the lies. However in the ongoing process of government and the volume of activity the trump outrage tends to be "normalized" almost by an autonomic churn in the body politic. That is a danger and a reason I continue to harp on.
    Those who continue to back him must have real problems of some sort. They either are not paying attention, or they have no ability to use logic, reason and evaluative intellect.
    Because he is the president and takes action does not mean we have to accept him as a legitimate or qualified occupant. We must continue to hold his own character and manipulative lies as a standard of who he is and what he's about.

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  6. "they have no ability to use logic, reason and evaluative intellect."
    That there (as my idiot football coach used to say) is the problem. Those who voted for trump likely despise "evaluative intellect," and by damn they ain'ta gonna use it (whatever the hell it is). The one "asset" they have is the desire and ability to haul their asses to the polls on election day, a desire and ability that not enough other, more "thoughtful" folks have, shame on them.

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    1. amen to that point! getting out the vote, that is getting the vote, is the crux of it.
      BTW-We had a coach who also used that "sports idiom" THAT THERE!

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  7. I remember reading (10 years ago?) N. Korea has only about 2 month's oil reserve. Unless that's changed, I doubt it would sustain a war.

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  8. There's a potential deterrent, if they reason! I simply hate to think about the idea of a war.

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