It Pays Big Money

You probably know that President Jimmy Carter passed away recently. If you tried to do a little day trading last Thursday and couldn’t, blame Carter. That’s kind of the mantra of my young life. Blame Jimmy Carter.

What you may not know is that, at his funeral, among the eulogies and farewell speeches from grandchildren and American leaders, we were treated to the laborious musical spectacle of Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood singing the worst pop anthem of all time, “Imagine.” It reminded me that Garth is the Jimmy Carter of country music. If country music sucks today, blame Garth.

I will be the first to admit that Garth Brooks got me back into country music in the early ‘90’s. I grew up with my parents playing Kenny Rogers, Waylon Jennings and The Oak Ridge Boys on their 8-track tapes, but by 1983, Top 40 radio had banished them to the dusty bin of used music.

Then, sometime in 1991, my brother started playing, “Friends in Low Places,” over and over again. After that, my pal Shane started inundating me with Randy Travis, Alan Jackson and Keith Whitley during our time at summer camp. That fall, “The Thunder Rolls,” gave way to, “Rodeo,” and soon, I had cassette copies of Garth’s first three albums in my tape case. For my birthday in 1992, I bought albums by Doug Stone and Trisha Yearwood with some birthday money I’d gotten, and the rest is history. Soon after, I had stopped listening to Hits 106 and migrated over to 102.3, KRNY.

Life in 1992 was really an endless loop of playing Garth Brooks’ first three albums. His debut album was a solid country album with a few great high-lights. The two follow-ups, No Fences and Ropin’ the Wind, are rightly considered country masterpieces. With this in mind, all of us waited with baited breath for his fourth album, The Chase, which dropped in September of 1992.

To say that reviews of The Chase were mixed to negative would be an understatement. Shitkickin’ country classics like “Two of a Kind,” and “Papa Loved Mama,” gave way to the opening track, “We Shall be Free.”

“This ain’t comin’ from no prophet
Just an ordinary man.
When I close my eyes, I see
The way this world will be
When we all walk hand in hand.”

Then, up comes the southern gospel choir, in comes the piano and organ combo, and we’re off.

“When we’re free to love
Anyone we choose
When this world’s big enough
For all different views,
When we all can worship
From our own kind of pew,
Then we shall be free.”

Ladies and gentlemen… Boys and girls… Garth Brooks… The John Lennon of country music!

A lot of the fans weren’t having it. My dad summed up the reaction the best. “Too much churchy stuff.” The song created controversy because of its perceived touting of gay rights, so Garth made a video trying to explain it. It landed about as well as a balloon full of pig shit.

The second track on, The Chase, was another Garth Brooks power ballad in the style of, “Shameless,” or “If tomorrow Never Comes.”

“Somewhere other than the night
She needs to hear I love you.
Somewhere other than the night
She needs to know you care.
And she wants to know she’s needed,
She needs to be held tight.
Somewhere other than the night.”

It wasn’t just the cringe-inducing, pandering lyrics. Garth’s formerly humble, modest down home delivery had given way to performative, theatrical vocals that often bordered on overwrought. He were singing as if he were auditioning for a musical reality TV show, which wouldn’t exist in the main stream for about another decade.

In 1993, Garth gave us his fifth offering, “In Pieces,” which amped up the arena rock element that typified his concerts. “Ain’t Going Down Till the Sun Comes Up,” “American Honky Tonk Bar Association,” and “Standing Outside the Fire,” took the place of more introspective and preachy fare. The audience seemed to love it. For me, Garth had jumped the shark. My feelings were only validated when we got “Fresh Horses,” in 1995, and “Sevens,” in 1997. By the time we got to his sad attempt at a crossover pop album under the name, Chris Gaines, all I could do was shake my head in disgust. I don’t even have the heart to talk about “Scarecrow.”

The Chris Gaines album, which was meant to be the teaser for a movie starring Garth Brooks as a pop singer with a sex addiction, really shows Garth’s true colors. He may have started out as a musician, but somewhere along the way, he bought into his own public image and transformed into a blatant marketeer.

It wasn’t just the Chris Gaines project. Anyone remember his compilation album, “The Collection,” that you could only buy at McDonald’s, featuring album tracks from the stuff that everyone had already bought? Anyone remember his, “Double Live,” album, available with six different covers? Anyone remember the TV specials that got more and more lavish and slick with each new installment? Remember how he refused to distribute his albums to any music store that sold used CD’s? Jesus! Anyone remember when he tried to play professional baseball!?

And then, there were the interviews. Garth was ubiquitous in the press throughout the ‘90’s and, if you paid attention to him, you came away with a guy whose public musings were a strange blend of Johnny Cash, Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra. An interviewer might ask him, “Garth, when are we gonna hear your new album?” He might respond with, “Well, if the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain. The music can’t be ready until it’s ready. But we’re shootin’ for September, which is when we usually try to put out a new record.” You get the idea that the album is coming out in September, but if it doesn’t, at least you’ll be watching. Profundity masquerading as bullshit, which is the hallmark of a real salesman.

The best way for a listener to study the trajectory of Garth Brooks is to compare and contrast two of his songs; “The Dance,” and “The Change.” In order to do this, you’ll have to buy a subscription to Amazon Music, as Garth can’t be bothered to offer his catalog on Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora or YouTube.

Sidebar: Garth tried to start his own music service, called GhostTunes. It went over about as well as his first marriage.

“The Dance,” is a country classic that serves as the final track on his 1989 debut album. “The Change,” is the sixth track on “Fresh Horses,” from 1995. Both songs are written by Tony Arata and sung by Garth Brooks. There, the similarities end.

“The Dance,” is a quiet, melancholy song about taking stock of your life in the face of regret. “The Change,” is a purple, preening song about a man’s refusal to be bowed by a world full of pain. Garth’s vocals on “The Dance,” are perfect. They are country music at its best; understated, modest and introspective. “The Change,” is Garth at his worst. His vocals are pompous, pretentious and entirely unconvincing. Those two songs bookend the rise and fall of Garth Brooks in my view.

If it had only been about Garth, my interest in country music would’ve been short-lived. However, in May of 1992, I began playing the three Greatest Hits albums from George Strait on repeat right along with Garth’s first three albums. By the time I graduated high school in 1993, I owned every George Strait album. George just put out his latest album, “Cowboys and Dreamers,” a couple of months ago. He’s definitely older and has lost a step, but he’s still George and I love him.

Meanwhile, I hear that Garth opened a bar in Nashville. He still sells Budweiser there because he feels that everyone should feel welcome at his bar. He was also recently accused of sexual harassment. I don’t know if he’s guilty, but if he is, I wouldn’t be surprised. Garth is the product of the Clinton era, after all. Much of his later music was infused with that metrosexual male sentiment that suggests a deep, empathetic sensitivity, all while concealing a predatory nature just beneath the surface. Take a listen to today’s country music, dominated by overgrown frat boys, and let me know how that worked out.

When the historical record is written, you can’t dispute the fact that Garth Brooks put country music back on the map in the 1990’s. But let’s imagine that there was no Garth. The more soft-spoken artists like Alan Jackson, Clint Black and Vince Gill might not have succeeded in passing the torch, but Reba Mcentire certainly would have. She is also a master marketeer and she has succeeded in transcending the boundaries of country music, all while maintaining her artistic integrity. You also can’t minimize the contributions of folks like Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Brooks and Dunn and Martina McBride. And, sadly, you also can’t ignore overrated fluffballs like Shania Twain, who just goes to prove that our world will never outgrow the T&A factor. They would have been just as successful with or without the contributions of Garth.

Can we blame Garth for wanting to expand his audience? Nope. Many artists have crossed over successfully. Taylor Swift could conduct a master class in how to shuck her country music roots in favor of pop appeal, including the grand marketing strategy of repackaging her early albums. You also can’t blame Garth for wanting to be an actor. Chris Kristofferson, Dolly Parton, Tim McGraw and Reba have all done it with greater or lesser success. But why the unnecessary shtick of Chris Gaines? I think Garth just gets off on the marketing gimmick.

As for “Imagine,” I find it ironic that he’s now singing a song that touts no religion, after cutting his teeth with lyrics like, “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers, so remember when you’re talking to the man upstairs.” Maybe he evolved. Maybe he’s an, “enlightened Christian.” Personally, I think he’s just playing to a new audience. That’s what all great salesmen do.

Like him or not, I appreciate the fact that Garth brought Chris LeDoux out of obscurity. “Whatcha Gonna Do With a Cowboy, When He Won’t Saddle Up and Ride Away?”

Hot Romulan Sex

I’m on a two-week holiday vacation, and I’ve been spending a lot of time reading, “The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek,” by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman. It’s a two-part volume that is over 50 hours in length in audio format. Here is just a small sliver of what I learned about Star Trek:

• Star Trek owes its existence as much to Lucille Ball as anyone. She owned the studio that first produced the series. She backed the show when no one else believed in it. She eventually had to sell the show to Paramount because she ran out of money, but she’s the one who got it off the ground financially. If you ever come across reruns of I Love Lucy, give her a good old Vulcan salute.

• Even though Gene Roddenberry conceived the premise of Star Trek, Gene L. Coon was the real creative power behind the original series. Roddenberry hired him after the initial 13 episodes had been written. Coon invented many of the hallmarks that came to define the series, including the Klingons, the Spock/McCoy friendly feud, the Prime Directive and the humor in Trek. If Roddenberry had gotten his way, “The Trouble With Tribbles,” would never have been made. Roddenberry hated humor on Star Trek. D.C. Fontana, Bob Justman, Coon and Roddenberry were known as, The Fab Four, by the crew. Coon quit 2/3 of the way through the show’s second season due to burn-out. He was the first casualty of a recurring pattern by Roddenberry of endearing himself to his associates, then subsequently abusing, misusing, alienating and ultimately burning them out. Later, after the passage of time, he would re-endear himself to them and the cycle would begin again. Writers are a hungry lot.

Gene L. Coon was born in my mom’s home town of Beatrice, NE. His father was a member of the KKK. My mother’s father served under General George Patton in World War II. Coon had an African-American secretary, Andreea Kindryd, who spoke very well of him. She used to answer his office phone by saying, “Coon’s Coon.” This was circa 1968. Coon would occasionally freelance for Roddenberry until his untimely death from cancer in 1974.

• William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were a couple of divas. As they continued to work on Star Trek and their popularity grew, they were notorious for interfering with the writing and directing of each Trek story on set in an effort to get more screen time. This partially contributed to the departure of Gene L. Coon. Roddenberry wrote a stern letter to Nimoy and Shatner during Season Two, including DeForest Kelley only as a matter of form. In the letter, he asserted himself as the sole controller of the series and forbad them from switching character lines, rewriting dialogue and second guessing the episode directors. The letter was taken seriously by both actors until Roddenberry stepped back from the series in season three.

• DeForest Kelley appears to be the nicest guy who worked on the original cast. No one trashed him in the book. Everyone spoke well of him, from his costars to members of the crew to the writers to the fans. Apparently, he used to carry pictures of his children and his dogs in his wallet and he loved showing them to anyone who seemed interested. This validates my love of Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, who was always my favorite character on original Trek.

• Sci-fi authors are the most thin-skinned of all writers. They absolutely hate criticism. This may be part of the reason that Harlan Ellison was so critical of Trek after his story for, “City on the Edge of Forever,” was heavily rewritten by Roddenberry and Coon. This is due to the fact that sci-fi is a concept-driven genre that is often light on characterization in favor of ideas. Star Trek served as a departure from this reality in many respects.

• Roddenberry was a notorious pervert who became more open about his preferences as his fame grew. His uninhibited lusty side came out during the development of Star Trek: Phase Two, when Captain Kirk was swimming nude with a Starfleet admiral’s daughter. Andreea Kindryd spoke of Roddenberry’s open discussion of his private sex life with his wife and other women.

During story consultations on TNG, Roddenberry wanted to know about things like Romulan sex. In the episode, “Captain’s Holiday,” when Picard goes on vacation to the pleasure planet of Risa, Roddenberry wanted scenes of same-sex couples holding hands, couples openly having sex in public, and orgies. The closest Trek ever got to Roddenberry’s lecherous fantasies was the on-screen debauchery during the early TNG episode, “The Naked Now.”

• Ronald D. Moore was one of the very few fans who loved Star Trek: The Motion Picture. He wrote a letter to a Trek fanzine defending the movie after it was panned by critics and fans alike. Later, he would be hired as a staff writer on TNG after submitting a spec script. He would go on to be a regular writer on DS9, as well as a writer on Voyager before an acrimonious exit in 2000 after creative differences with Brannon Braga. There is no better way to endear yourself to Gene Roddenberry than by kissing his ass.

Moore later said he felt cheated when they brought Spock back from the dead in the movies. He felt it was merely avoiding the consequences of death. This is the same dipshit who would go on to kill off Starbuck in his reimagined Battlestar Galactica, then brought her back from the dead three episodes later.

• “I’m going to take these characters more seriously than anyone has ever done.” Nick Meyer, director and coauthor of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He wouldn’t criticize The Motion Picture because, “Making movies is damn hard work. They showed us what not to do.” Ouch! I’d call that a backhanded slap.

• The Wrath of Khan went through many drafts, some at the hands of veteran Trek writers. At one point, Roddenberry had Spock killing JFK to restore Earth’s correct timeline. Ultimately, Nick Meyer, Jack B. Sowards and Harve Bennett began ignoring Roddenberry and hammered out what would ultimately be considered the best movie in the entire Trek franchise. This was a cycle that would repeat itself for the remainder of the original Trek movies.

Paramount was able to castrate Roddenberry without firing him by promoting him to the job of, Creative Consultant. Let’s call this revenge for the spirit of Gene L. Coon, as well as D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold and all of the other writers who were maltreated by Roddenberry.

• Kirstie Alley did not reprise her role as Saavik for Star Trek 3 because, of course, she wanted more money than Harve Bennett was willing to pay her. I’ve always felt that The Search for Spock was underrated by fans and critics. Nothing revealed in this book changes my view. Say what you will about Shatner as an actor, but his reaction to the death of his son gets me every time.

• Bennett wanted Eddie Murphy to guest star in Star Trek 4. Murphy was a Trek fan and strongly considered it, but ultimately passed and filmed The Golden Child instead. Later, he admitted that he should’ve done Star Trek. The Voyage Home was the first Trek movie I ever saw in the theater. Even though I don’t think it holds up as well over time, I’ll always have a nostalgic fondness for it. It sure as hell holds up better than The Golden Child.

• William Shatner gives many reasons why Star Trek 5 was a bomb. They are all irrelevant. The story was flawed from the start. In short, Star Trek and God don’t mix.

• It’s not a coincidence that the return of Nick Meyer resulted in Star Trek 6 being a creative rebound. My only complaint is that Meyer went a little heavy on the Shakespeare, which he deliberately did because he was writing dialogue for Christopher Plummer.

• Roddenberry got his revenge for being cast aside by Paramount by assuming full creative control over Star Trek: The Next Generation. Roddenberry established a Chinese wall between the writers and actors, forbidding them to have contact unless he deemed it absolutely necessary. This is why the first two seasons of TNG are mediocre to bad television. The writer turnover was extremely high due to the toxic work environment under Roddenberry and Maurice Hurley, who served as assistant showrunner on the second season.

One of the greatest difficulties for the writers was Roddenberry’s fluid rules for writing Star Trek. His standard objection to any good story idea was, “They wouldn’t do that in the 24th Century.” It didn’t matter if these rules were inconsistent or contradictory from one episode to the next. Roddenberry also used his lawyer as both a sword and a shield in the TNG offices. He would blatantly violate WGA rules by rewriting scenes, threatening writers and actors, then protect Roddenberry from the objections of Paramount and the cast and crew.

• As was the case in the original series and movies, an external force beyond Roddenberry proved to be the savior for TNG. It came in the form of Michael Piller, who was hired at the beginning of the third season in the wake of constant writer turnover. Piller was responsible for the noticeable uptick in quality of the stories and character development. By the fourth season, the writers had firmed up to a regular group of people who were committed to doing quality television. It didn’t hurt that Roddenberry’s health was failing due to years of drinking, cocaine use and probably crotch rot that spread to his brain after he got infected by god knows who, causing him to pull back from the show. Rick Berman served as Roddenberry 2.0 and would stay at the helm until the death of the franchise in 2005.

• One of my criticisms of later TNG and subsequent Trek series was the departure of composer Ron Jones after the fourth season. Jones’ music was interesting and lent itself to the unique nature of TNG. Watch “The Best of Both Worlds,” and tell me that the thematic music isn’t superior to most of what came after. Jones’ successor, Dennis McCarthy, is incredibly dull and lifeless. This was a deliberate choice by Rick Berman, who ordered McCarthy to score the shows with, “Droning non-music.”

• Unlike the turbulent writers room, the cast of TNG has proved to be the happiest cast in all of Trekdom. They never trash each other in the press, they worked well together and all available behind-the-scenes footage shows a lot of laughter and joy on the set. All reports indicate that Jonathan Frakes was universally beloved by everyone in all series that he acted in and directed. He may be the DeForest Kelley of modern Trek. Patrick Stewart tried to start off as the serious, no nonsense leading man, but he found it impossible in the face of on-set antics by Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner and others.

Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis have been openly critical of the stories given to Crusher and Troi in the series and movies, but that isn’t a matter of on-set discontent. The criticisms are absolutely justified. There was little to no discussion of why Denise Crosby left the series before the completion of season one, or why Gates McFadden left after season one and then came back for season three. My theory is that it had to do with Roddenberry and his predatory nature, or maybe Rick Berman and his misogynistic ways. (See DS9.) Whoopi Goldberg was barely referenced at all. Diana Muldaur said she preferred working on the original series to TNG.

There was something in the book about Wil Wheaton, but damned if I can remember what it was. Ahh well.

• My theory that the final season of TNG was subpar because the creative talents were stretched too thin was born out in the book. At the same time that TNG was wrapping, they were also writing Generations, plus DS9 was in development. Moore and Braga both admitted that both the 7th season and the movie suffered as a result. What a shame.

• Proving that Star Trek fans and good writers don’t always turn out a good script, Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga wrote Generations. Their original draft had Captain Kirk being shot in the back. They reshot the ending after it tested horribly in early screenings.

• First Contact was the best TNG movie, both in front of and behind the camera. It was also the movie in which Geordi La Forge stopped wearing his visor.

LeVar Burton: “80 percent of my vision was cut off when I wore the that thing. And it physically hurt, which was one of the more important reasons I wanted to get out from underneath it. We held on to it for so long because, as Rick says, it was one of the ways we established, in the minds of the audience, the technology of the 24th century. On the series, it became problematic, because it was cost prohibitive. We were never able to show the audience what Geordi saw, because it was too expensive and we were on a tight budget. So it became a barrier to storytelling, physically painful for me, and on a spiritual level, it’s really just a sin to cover an actor’s eyes. I wasn’t really aware of how much of a barrier it had become until we shot this movie. And in the absence of the visor, I noticed that the actors were relating to me very differently. They were engaging me in a way that they never did in scenes. So the visor is dead. Long live the visor.”

Good to know, LeVar. It sure must be nice to take it off at the end of the day. Did you know that I’ve written more about Geordi here than was written in the book? Even Gates and Marina had more to say than did LeVar. The blind guy gets screwed again.

• Insurrection was shit from beginning to end, even though it was written by Michael Piller. It shows what happens when actors interfere with the writing. It was intended to be a serious story, but Patrick Stewart wanted something lighter and more fun.

• Patrick Stewart broke down and cried on Jonathan Frakes’ shoulder during Picard and Riker’s final scene in Nemesis. The book didn’t specify whether Stewart was emotional because it really was goodbye for the cast, or because he knew that the movie stunk worse than the bathrooms in Quark’s bar.

• Would Gene Roddenberry have approved of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine? The apparent answer is, probably not. Rick Berman and Michael Piller pitched it to him at his home sometime in 1991. Berman tells a story of how they wheeled Gene in for a private screening of Star Trek 6 shortly before his death. He was mostly checked out and barely registered it. My uneducated guess is that he was in a similar state when they pitched DS9 to him. After the meeting, Rick said, “Well, that wasn’t a hard no, so let’s go for it!”

• If the TNG cast was the happiest cast in all of Trekdom, then DS9 had the happiest writers room in the Trek universe. Forces that worked against TNG during Season seven worked in DS9’s favor from Season 3 onward. Paramount and Rick Berman didn’t hover over their shoulder because they were more concerned with the TNG movies, plus the development and launching of Star Trek: Voyager.

A lot of the quality stories on DS9 also had to do with the return of Ira Steven Behr, who quit TNG in exasperation after the third season. Michael Piller took him to a baseball game, pitched the show to him, then promised that he would be the showrunner after two years if he agreed to come back. Ira did come back, Piller kept his word, and the rest is history.

• The DS9 cast, on the other hand, weren’t particularly happy. There weren’t a lot of stories in the book, but Michael Dorn has confirmed that DS9 was night and day from TNG in terms of cast morale. Apparently, Avery Brooks was an eccentric dude who always carried an angry undercurrent that would often boil to the surface.

• Andrew Robinson claimed that he played his relationship with Alexander Siddig with a homoerotic subtext. This was as close as Star Trek ever got to a gay character pre-reboot. Too bad Roddenberry didn’t live longer, or we might have gotten to see some steamy human-on-Cardassian gay sex.

• Does anyone remember the third season two-parter, “Past Tense?” This is the one where Sisko and Dax go back to the old United States when homeless people were held in so-called, sanctuary districts. Well, that was to have taken place in 2024. I’m sure many people in New York, Chicago and San Francisco are longing for those sanctuaries right about now. It’s always fun to compare real history with Star Trek’s predictive history, like the eugenics wars that were to have taken place from 1992 to 1996. The next thing we have to look forward to is first contact with the Vulcans, which will happen on April 5, 2063. Maybe Star Trek is actually real and we’re just living in the mirror universe. President Trump and President Biden do seem more like evil mirror characters.

• The addition of Worf to Deep Space 9 was not a creative decision that happened organically. Rick Berman wanted it in an attempt to increase ratings, which were never good for DS9. The Klingon conflict that was featured in Season 4 was done in the hopes of bringing over fans from TNG. It didn’t really work. For my money, Worf’s addition was unfortunate. I felt the character was neutered on DS9. On TNG, Worf was always the angry outsider. On DS9, everyone was an angry outsider. Worf didn’t hurt DS9, but he didn’t really help it. The real benefit of the Klingon conflict was the addition of J. G. Hertzler as General Martok.

• Was Rick Berman a misogynist? According to Terry Farrell, hell yeah! He berated her for her breast size and other aspects of her physique on multiple occasions. This was one of the reasons she chose to leave after DS9’s sixth season. She would’ve been willing to continue her role in a limited fashion, appearing in a hand full of episodes in the final season, but Rick Berman said all or nothing, so they killed her character off.

• When Nog was injured in the final season, the writers wanted to blow off both of his legs. Rick Berman didn’t want him injured at all. So, they compromised, blowing off one leg below the knee. After all, you can’t have a recurring character be *too* disabled, right?

• One thing noticeably absent from the book was the assertion that Deep Space Nine was a rip-off of Babylon 5. Anyone remember that one? Rumors swirl on the internet that the powers that were stole the idea, and there’s some pretty convincing evidence to back it up. I’m a bit surprised that this wasn’t addressed in the tome.

• When it’s all said and done, why wasn’t DS9 more popular than it was? There’s a lot of, “Wah wah! We were Star Trek’s middle child,” talk from the writers. Some of it comes off as overly defensive and petulant. Sometimes, it was true, but it worked in their favor. They were given more creative freedom than the folks on TNG or Voyager ever got. They also got a full seven seasons despite tanking ratings, unlike Enterprise.

Truthfully, they were indeed more ambitious than TOS or TNG. The serialized stories probably didn’t help. This was the 1990’s, when you were screwed if you forgot to set your VHS timer and missed an episode. The darker themes of war and the grittier characters probably played a role in the lack of fan accessibility.

But my feeling is that it goes deeper than that. I wrote earlier that Star Trek and God don’t mix. Religion plays a large role in DS9. Some viewers were likely turned off by it. Also, politics can turn people off, and there is more political intrigue than usual on DS9. Folks like me dig that kind of thing, but many other people don’t like it. If you don’t like Worf’s Klingon story on TNG, just wait till the next episode. But on DS9, politics and religion are baked into the cake from the pilot onward.

My final verdict is that, yes, DS9 is Star Trek…barely.

• Star Trek: Voyager was meant to be TNG with an edge. It turned out to be the opposite. Michael Piller headed the show for a while and it should’ve been edgier with a Federation starship flung far from home. One of the cornerstones of the show was supposed to be the conflict between the Starfleet and Maquis crew, and how they learned to work together to find a way home. Because of Rick Berman’s interference, the idea of crew conflict was abandoned early in season one and Voyager became TNG light. Piller left Voyager after two seasons, choosing to focus on other projects. He died of cancer in 2005.

• Paramount was finally able to launch their own TV network using Voyager as the flagship show. They’d wanted this for 20 years since the conception of Star Trek: Phase Two in the ‘70’s. I’ll leave it to my gentle readers to decide whether or not UPN was worth the bother.

• Robert Beltran badmouthed Voyager openly. He did it on set. He even did it while the cameras were rolling so the producers would see exactly what he thought of the cheesy dialogue and plots. He still talks trash about it to this day. When the show was in its final season, Beltran would say, “I’m just counting down the days until we’re done.” Brannon Braga straight up called him unprofessional. The book never makes clear why he wasn’t fired, with the character of Chakotay going the way of Tasha Yar and Jadzia Dax.

• Rick Berman confirmed that Jeri Ryan got her gig in Season 4 for the same reason that Worf went to DS9. Paramount wanted to drive up ratings by introducing a Borg babe. For obvious reasons, Kate Mulgrew resented the hell out of her. It only made things worse when Jeri had an affair with head writer Brannon Braga. Kate felt that Captain Janeway was a role model for girls and women everywhere and the addition of the T&A factor would only hurt her cause. For the record, I am totally, 100 percent on Kate’s side here.

Sidebar: As a blind guy, I don’t get the cat suit deal with Jeri Ryan. I’m gonna need some sighted person to explain this one to me. This is a serious request.

• Producer Mike Sussman on Star Trek: Enterprise. “It gets back to the people running the franchise saying, we’ve got to do something different. We’ve got to shake it up’, then kind of shaking it up in many of the wrong ways. Let’s say…all the wrong ways.”

He’s right. Anyone remember the Diane Warren power ballad as the theme song, recycled from goddamn Patch Adams? Anyone remember the decontamination jell that they rubbed all over each other after beaming? Anyone remember the ridiculous temporal war, or the enemy aliens never mentioned on original Trek? Anyone remember the hideous series finale that was just a glorified episode of TNG? Their reward was that Enterprise was the first Star Trek series to be canceled prematurely since the original series in 1969.

In fairness, Season 4 got better when they chucked Brannon Braga and brought in Manny Coto as the new showrunner, but it was too little, too late. They wanted to bring William Shatner back as evil Kirk from the mirror universe, but of course, he was too expensive.

• By all accounts, Scott Bakula is the nicest leading actor from all of Trekdom. I think it was because he already had a cult following from Quantum Leap, so he was kind of prepared for the insane fans and pace of shooting a series.

• Enterprise was the first Star Trek series that was substantially impacted by the internet. Producers became annoyed when story spoilers and behind-the-scenes happenings would leak on to fan sites, sometimes instantaneously. They never came up with effective methods of securing their show.

• So why did Star Trek finally die? There are many explanations, but I think that Trek fatigue was probably the best one. Starting with TNG, Trek fans constantly had something in the pipeline for 18 years. I think they had just hit their saturation point.

• As for the resurrection of Star Trek four years later, there is a section in the book on the J. J. Abrams films, but I didn’t bother to read it. My enthusiasm died with the death of the Rick Berman era. Abrams did have a quote admitting that he connected more with the Star Wars characters than those of Star Trek. Given the way he’s interpreted the franchise, I believe it.

I also have no interest in the new streaming shows. With the exception of Picard: Season 3, which was an overdue reunion of the entire TNG cast, those shows aren’t Star Trek to me. As far as I’m concerned, Star Trek was at its creative peak from the original series through the end of Deep Space 9. However, I may have to give Enterprise another shot.

• Speaking of the Picard show, the third season (which was by far its best) was produced and run by Terry Matalas. His name did appear in the book. It seems that he served as assistant to Brannon Braga during the production of Enterprise. No wonder he understood Star Trek so well.

• Leonard Nimoy passed away on February 27, 2015 at age 83. When all is said and done, Spock is still the most popular character in all of Star Trek lore. Thank you, Mr. Nimoy, for your dedication to Star Trek and the character of Spock.

• Finally, circling back to Gene Roddenberry, there’s been a lot of shit talking about him over the years. From all that I’ve read, from multiple sources over multiple time periods, it seems mostly justified. His son Rod is quoted at length in the book and he says the negative sentiments about his dad hurt him. I respect that. On the other hand, Gene hurt a lot of people while he was alive. He typified everything that makes a bad boss. He was greedy, manipulative, predatory, dishonest, self-indulgent and he was happy to take credit for ideas that weren’t his own. He was a lousy writer, a lousy showrunner, a lousy husband and father and generally, a lousy human being. Yes, he gave us Star Trek, but he really just got lucky. Every other show he tried to create was a major flop. I have no doubt that TOS would have been canceled after the first season if others hadn’t protected him from himself. And that was the story for the duration of his career. Gene Roddenberry will be remembered for Star Trek, but at the end of the day, the way you treat other people is far more important than the professional legacy you leave behind. If that notion isn’t pure Star Trek, I don’t know what is.

As for me, Star Trek will always be my happy place. Enough said.

Happy New Year, all. Live long and prosper.

She Grabbed My Coconuts and Then She Ran Away

I swore that I would never be one of those writers who always invokes Monty Python to make a point. A lot of those folks think they’re so clever because they get British humor in general, and Monty Python specifically, so they just have to be above all of those ugly Americans who don’t get it. That’s the kind of insufferable snobbery that gave us the great orange deity.

However, The Life of Brian contains a scene that is just too on-the-nose for this moment to let pass. In the movie, a character named Stan has an argument with a character named Reg (John Cleese.) Stan wants to have babies. Reg is like, “Where’s your womb, bloke?” Stan responds, “You’re oppressing me!”

That is our moment right now. I don’t like monocausal explanations, so I won’t say that America voted for Donald Trump because they know they’re living in a Monty Python skit and they resent the hell out of those tea-sippers for inflicting their humor on us. But if that’s not the reason, it’s close.

Yes, I’m not into monocausal explanations as an answer to complex problems, but if you tell me that the answer is relatively simple, that Trump won because the Democrats threw out a shitty candidate and replaced him with an even shittier candidate who couldn’t close the deal, I won’t buck. No matter what gaslighting method the left wants to use to explain Trump’s victory (racism, sexism, fascism), it just won’t do. Kamala was a terrible candidate who couldn’t even make it to Iowa in 2020. Joe Biden saw fit to elevate her to an office for which she was abjectly unqualified and unworthy. She thanked him by replacing him and handing Trump a solid victory, thus ushering Trump 47.

Thanks, Kamala. Hope you and Tim Walz enjoy your life in obscurity from now on, cuz that’s what you’ve earned for yourselves.

Historians will not have to spend a lot of time deconstructing the doomed candidacy of Kamala Harris; the nebulous word salad, the random, kooky laughter, the forced charisma that had about as much appeal as Cheez Whiz, or the apparent mismanagement of campaign funds that is now dogging her. All of this is just window dressing. All historians will need to do is examine Kamala’s interview on The View, which was as friendly of a venue as she could’ve wanted. Sunny Hostin asked her, “Is there anything you would’ve done differently than President Biden?” Harris answered, “Nothing comes to mind.”

That giant “whoosh!” sound you heard was the air going out of the Harris-Walz balloon. At that point, Kamala transformed from a promising change agent to an incumbent, and the world is in an anti-incumbent mood right now.

Will the left learn anything from their staggering defeat? Judging by how Seth Moulton has been treated, the obvious answer is, of course not! It appears that many of them are content to deactivate their Twitter accounts and migrate over to Bluesky, where they can further imbed themselves in their own socio/political silo. I know that Elon is a royal pain in the ass, but I predict that Bluesky, Mastodon and Threads will all fold faster than a pillar of Saltines.

Sidebar: I love the way that Voiceover pronounces the name, Bluesky. It gives the name a Communist Russia kind of feel.

As for Trump, anyone who is surprised by his erratic cabinet picks hasn’t been paying attention for the past nine years. For every Marco Rubio, we get an RFK Jr. For every Tom Homan, we get a Tulsi Gabbard. For every Matt Gaetz nomination, we’ll get a crazy Matt Gaetz exit. That is the pig in the poke that roughly half of America bought itself by voting for Trump. For the next four years, Trump will say and do all kinds of outrageous things. All of his apologists will spin, explain and reinterpret what he said. The media will chase every bright, shiny object that leaks from the White House and on Truth Social. They won’t be able to help themselves. The left will scream and throw tantrums and secretly love the latest shit nugget that Trump throws at them. And maybe…just maybe…some good things will happen in the process.

For the first time in nine years, it feels like I’m the guy in the catbird seat. Either way the election turned out, I was going to be disappointed. Both candidates were manifestly unfit for office. Either way it went, half the country would be celebrating, while the other half had an epic meltdown. Now, I get to spend the next four years saying ‘I told you so’ every time Trump is predictable in his own lizard brain fashion. Eventually, he’ll go too far, piss off too many people and the country will course-correct with an election that alters the balance of power.

Will the right learn anything from it? Probably not. I am genuinely curious to see how Republicans behave now that they hold power in Congress. Trump’s predictably crazy nominations, topped off by Kash Patel for FBI Director, will test the resolve and sagacity of the GOP majority. In order to protect and defend the Constitution, they will have to do something wildly unpopular on the right of today. They’ll have to tell Trump, “No.”

Can they do it? We’ll see. Mike Pence looked like a Trump marionette, until he wasn’t. Maybe John Thune, Mike Johnson and others will muster the same courage. It is emotionally unhealthy for me to hope for too much, but sometimes, hope is all you have.

Finally, let me tie this back to Monty Python by quickly addressing the trans issue. I’m not sure that the now infamous Trump ad that said, “Kamala is for they/them. Trump is for you,” was really the nail in her coffin. However, there is no disputing the fact that the ad was effective. The bathroom melee in Congress was just the latest battleground. I fully admit that Nancy Mace is a bad actor, but she did compel Mike Johnson to create women only spaces where none had been created before.

The problem with the trans activist movement is that they overplayed their hand. Maybe corporate HR types can compel lowly employees to put their pronouns in their Email signatures, on social media and announce them at icebreaker events at conferences, but people want to keep their jobs. So what? Forcing someone to play the pronoun game is not winning their heart or their mind. It is merely exercising naked power, which is what the authoritarian progressive left wants. I know nothing for certain, but firmly believe that a lot of America is exhausted with the constant battles over race, sex, gender and now, Palestine. If they are forced to choose, they’ll pick the devil they know over the devil they don’t. And that devil is a great big orange one.

I also am only mildly surprised that the party that championed safetyism for historically marginalized communities won’t acknowledge the basic desire for biological women to inhabit safe spaces of their own, including restrooms, locker rooms, battered women’s shelters and female prisons. Isn’t feeling triggered by a human with a penis in the stall next to you reason enough to request a safe space for a large group that has historically been oppressed? What happened to, “The Party of science?” It seems that they have gone the way of Dumbledore. They will probably now try to convince me that a five-ounce bird can, in fact, carry a one-pound coconut.

You know, the world today seems absolutely crackers. With nuclear bombs to blow us all sky high. There are fools and idiots sitting on the trigger. It’s depressing. It’s senseless. And that’s why…

I can’t even finish the lyric, because someone from Taiwan might get offended.

Blindsided

On October 2, my best friend Katy posted this item to Facebook:

“Katy Lynn Todd is feeling thankful.
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October 2 at 5:25 PM
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Well sadly I was laid off from my job yesterday. I will miss everyone, and miss the routine of work. But I will have a new job soon, whether it be in production at the same place or somewhere else, I will be looking. Thanks to all my former co-workers in all departments. I enjoyed working with you and learning new things from how to run an entire program, to how to do different things in production. I wouldn’t have those skills without you guys. And I have made some awesome friends!”

Nine days later, Katy posted this item to Facebook:

“Katy Lynn Todd is feeling hopeful.
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October 11 at 5:24 PM
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Well I get one more week off before I’m back at work where I started. Hahaha just proves life is pretty crazy sometimes. The good news is I’ll now have lots of reading time while I’m sitting in production! And I do enjoy working with my hands. Not what I expected, but I am very glad I will have a job and who knows what will come next.”

Let me aluminate the in-between moments for y’all. Katy was laid off from her position at the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind on October 1. 20 days from that time (tomorrow), she will be returning to the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind to take the entry level job that she had when she first arrived there.

Katy was very magnanimous in her first FB post. A lot of the hurt and sorrow she expressed to me privately was not reflected in her public-facing comments. This is understandable. After she was laid off, she instantly understood that she would have to return to the SLB if she wanted to be employed any time soon.

I, of course, was livid. I was enraged, not only at the fact that she was laid off, but at how it was done. As Katy explained it to me, a rep from HR came into her office after lunch and told her that she was being laid off, along with 21 other employees. Her direct supervisor was also in attendance via Zoom. She was taken completely by surprise. She had no idea the layoff was coming. She was ordered to collect her personal items. Then, she was hurriedly shepherded from the building, put into a cab, and sent directly home. She was not allowed to say goodbye to any of her coworkers, many of whom learned about her termination later on social media.

Let me reiterate that Katy was laid off. She was not fired due to behavioral issues. The termination happened through no fault of her own. As Katy put it, “I was treated like a criminal when I left.” Katy further stated, “I don’t understand why they didn’t just demote me and let me stay. I would’ve rather taken the cut in pay and gone right back to work.”

Let me further explain that Katy gave up a perfectly good life in Denver to move to Seattle to take a job at the SLB. She is not a career ladder climber. As she said in her post, she enjoys production work and was generally content on the production floor. She did not seek advancement or promotion. She was sought out by three upper level staffers and was urged to apply for a job that paid better, a job that was created just for her, so that she could make more money. She was often asked to perform extra tasks, such as braille production, without being properly compensated for them. When she raised the question of being paid for her efforts, she was told to, “Be a team player.” When the company’s bottom line took a turn for the worse, Katy’s job was slashed from the budget to save money.

I don’t think I’m engaging in hyperbole or misstating the facts when I say that Katy was plucked from the production floor, pushed up the ladder by her superiors, and then conveniently kicked out of an upper story window when it served the company’s purposes.

Tomorrow, Katy is going back to the place where she was unceremoniously terminated three weeks ago. She has no choice. Like most adults, Katy needs to pay her bills, maintain a roof over her head and keep Coke in her fridge. Unlike most sighted adults, Katy cannot take a temporary job driving for Uber, working at McDonald’s or stocking shelves at Safeway. Blind people don’t have access to the vast array of entry level jobs that the sighted have. So, she’s going back to work at SLB.

Sidebar: I use Uber a lot and I often ask the drivers if Uber is their primary job. Most of them say no. A few have told me that Uber is merely temporary, because they are in between jobs. Some have told me they were unexpectedly laid off and they have to make ends meet. Good for them.

Perhaps you can better understand why I’m so infuriated. You can also understand why Katy’s temporary farewell post displayed a level of graciousness that, frankly, the upper management at the SLB don’t deserve.

Her story is not a new one. After she was put on the street, I was reminded of an episode that I call, Bloody Christmas. It happened in December of 2019, when 13 employees of Outlook Nebraska were also laid off. Some of them came back to Outlook, but many did not. One of them, who was a competent and well-loved tech trainer, still works at the Marriott call center here in Omaha. Others, like my pal Rachel, left Outlook voluntarily to advance her career, only to find herself back on the bottom rung of the Outlook ladder when circumstances turned against her. Rachel is a supremely overqualified woman packing toilet paper in a segregated job so that she can put food on the table for her family and fix the plumbing in her house.

I can anticipate the obvious rebuttals. “Ryan, there are a lot of overqualified sighted people working in entry level jobs.” Yes, but how many of them have had to suffer the indignity of returning to a place where they were maltreated with a big smile on their face and a thank-you on their lips? How many of them have been rejected for a job merely because of a physical characteristic? How many of them face the desperation of waiting weeks, months or even years for a job, all while collecting social security and unemployment? I dare say that if fully able-bodied people were laid off in the insensitive manner that Katy was, they would run the checkout line at Walmart before working at such a place.

Some will also defend the SLB by saying, “It’s a nonprofit, for God sake! Their budget is variable. They can’t help it when they are plagued by negative external factors, such as the recent misfortunes of the Boeing Corporation.”

Boo freakin’ hoo! I get it. Layoffs happen. But this is a vulnerable population who, frankly, allows these folks at the top of the pyramid to make their bread. I’m a capitalist, but this smacks of predatory capitalism. Don’t tell me that the way Katy was enticed up the ladder and then summarily terminated isn’t worthy of contempt.

It’s been my observation that people in the blindness community come in three buckets. Bucket one contains people who are made to care about the blind. Bucket two contains people who are paid to care about the blind. Bucket three (the largest) contain those who don’t care about the blind.

Bucket one contains those who are themselves blind. Some of us were born with it. Others experience blindness later in life. Sometimes the blindness is total. Other times, it is partial. Like any culture, there is a hierarchy of power and deference based upon how much vision an individual may possess, but everyone is affected by it.

In the same bucket, though on a lower tier, are those who are in the orbit of someone who is blind. Parents of the blind are the most obvious example. My friend Jane probably wouldn’t give a damn about blind people, but her son is blind. Thus, Jane spends a good deal of her time and energy in support of the blind. Like her son, Jane didn’t ask for it, but she’s got it. Other family members are on the same tier, though they typically hold less emotional investment than parents.

A small, select group of people choose to care about the blind. These would be friends of blind people, romantic partners and business associates.

In the second bucket, you find people who are paid to care about the blind. These are sighted people in the rehab field, in industries and agencies for the blind and in the niche marketplace that caters to the blind. Think about your state agency for the blind, the purveyor of segregated employment in your city, the companies that manufacture and market aids, gadgets and software to the blind, and the industries such as the Business Enterprise Program that prioritize employment for the blind.

People in bucket two can leave the world of the blind at the door when they clock off. This doesn’t mean that they are all creatures of conditional sensitivity. My friend Nancy worked for decades for the Nebraska Commission for the Blind before she retired. She still spends a lot of her time helping us out where she can. But the simple truth is that Nancy is not blind. She can take a road trip in her car into the gorgeous Rocky Mountains and admire the exquisite view whenever she wishes.

I hasten to add that sometimes, buckets one and two can overlap, but they are mostly separate. This is particularly true when blind people work in management and directorial levels in the industries that claim to benefit them.

The third bucket (the largest) is the easiest with which to contend. They contain people who don’t care about the blind. From a population standpoint, the blind comprise an infinitesimally small number in the world. It is statistically likely that most people will go through life never having met or interacted with a blind person. The age of the internet has reduced that number a little, but only a little. These are also people who are terrified of blindness. They fear going blind and thus, they fear and feel uncomfortable around those whom they inherently view as broken, weak and incompetent. Due to lack of exposure, this great mass in bucket three are unaware of the varied capabilities of the blind.

One of the primary missions of those inhabiting buckets number one and two is to move people from bucket three to buckets one and two. This is where the insidious nature of segregated workshops comes into play. On the surface, they appear to be factories of good will and tolerance. They claim to work on behalf of the blind to help them better themselves through employment, training and opportunity. But ask yourself if the evidence supports their claims. How easy is it for blind people to advance within the organization? How are the blind people at the bottom of the ladder treated by their superiors? Is discipline enforced, and are rewards bestowed in equal measure, particularly among those of varying visual acuity? How many blind people serve in the supervisory structure?” How many blind people are represented on the board of directors of these companies?

This is the part where I should break into rich, sparkling prose about how the blind should do it all for themselves. That would inevitably lead to the National Federation of the Blind. If you scroll back through my blog, you’ll see that the NFB has a very mixed record when it comes to the treatment of their employees. This is the organization that encourages convention attendees to applaud when its president lays off 19 employees. This is the organization that allows senior members to prey upon more vulnerable members for the sake of the greater good.

We all shit in different buckets, but it stinks just the same.

The next time that you donate to a fundraiser from one of these nonprofits, just know that you are in bucket three, and you’re getting a window into bucket two, not bucket one. To quote Boyd Crowder from Justified, “The world is a tree, and I’m just a squirrel trying to get a nut.”

So during your next impulse when you are inspired to be generous with your credit card or checkbook on behalf of the blind, be cognizant of where your dollars are going. They may be doing a lot of good, but they also might be feeding a callous, rapacious machine that achieves financial and social status on the backs of a lot of desperate and vulnerable people.

When you’re donating your time and money, I’d like you to think about my friend Katy. Understand, as best you can, where she’s been and where she is going. Don’t use her genuinely charitable nature as an excuse to let the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind off the hook. You may say to yourself, “See? It all worked out for sweet Katy. She took lemons and made lemonade.” This is fluffy happy talk. Katy got handed a shit sandwich, and she is now walking back into the place that fed it to her with minty fresh breath. Meanwhile, there are a lot of blind people out there in the cold who don’t even own a toothbrush.

Think about Katy’s magnanimity after she was ejected from a workplace that asked much of her, then kicked her out when she was of no further use to them. Think about the hurt and betrayal she dared not express because she was forced to calculate her future employment prospects. Don’t make any mistake about her reasons for returning to the people who treated her in a subhuman fashion when it suited them.

Ask yourself why an employee like this should be treated in such a fashion. And ask yourself why a system that rewards such behavior is allowed to perpetuate itself unchecked.

As for me, I love my friggin’ job! Bekah and Cami are in bucket number two, but they do their jobs very, very well.

I know a lot of you blind folks will read this and you won’t share it. I get it. Many of you work at the very institutions that I’ve just excoriated. I understand. It’s okay. No hard feelings.

The Cure

If you’ve paid the slightest bit of attention over the past nine years, you know that the Republican Party and the conservative movement at large has been in a fierce internal grappling session. The struggle hasn’t let up, and no matter who wins the election in November, I don’t think it will resolve itself anytime soon.

The below clippings are the perfect illustration of the ideological civil war that has consumed the right.

I will paste a column from New York Times columnist David French, followed by a rebuttal from Dan McLaughlin of the National Review. I have shared articles from both men before in this blog, but their diverging opinions exemplify the different paths both men have taken.

DAVID FRENCH
To Save Conservatism From Itself, I Am Voting for Harris
Aug. 11, 2024

I believe life begins at conception. If I lived in Florida, I would support the state’s heartbeat bill and vote against the referendum seeking to liberalize Florida’s abortion laws. I supported the Dobbs decision and I support well-drafted abortion restrictions at the state and federal levels. I was a pro-life lawyer who worked for pro-life legal organizations. While I want prospective parents to be able to use I.V.F. to build their families, I do not believe that unused embryos should simply be discarded — thrown away as no longer useful.
But I’m going to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 and — ironically enough — I’m doing it in part to try to save conservatism.
Here’s what I mean.
Since the day Donald Trump came down that escalator in 2015, the MAGA movement has been engaged in a long-running, slow-rolling ideological and characterological transformation of the Republican Party. At each step, it has pushed Republicans further and further away from Reaganite conservatism. It has divorced Republican voters from any major consideration of character in leadership and all the while it has labeled people who resisted the change as “traitors.”
What allegiance do you owe a party, a movement or a politician when it or they fundamentally change their ideology and ethos?

Let’s take an assertion that should be uncontroversial, especially to a party that often envisions itself as a home for people of faith: Lying is wrong. I’m not naïve; I know that politicians have had poor reputations for honesty since Athens. But I have never seen a human being lie with the intensity and sheer volume of Donald Trump.
Even worse, Trump’s lies are contagious. The legal results speak for themselves. A cascade of successful defamation lawsuits demonstrate the severity and pervasiveness of Republican dishonesty. Fox paid an enormous settlement related to its hosts’ relentless falsehoods during Trump’s effort to steal the election. Rudy Giuliani owes two Georgia election workers $148 million for his gross lies about their conduct while counting votes. Salem Media Group apologized to a Georgia voter who was falsely accused of voter fraud and halted distribution of Dinesh D’Souza’s fantastical “documentary” of election fraud, “2,000 Mules.”

And that’s hardly an exhaustive list. Several additional defamation cases are pending against MAGA networks and MAGA personalities.
Let’s take another assertion that should be relatively uncontroversial: Political violence and threats of violence have no place in the American democratic process. Yet threats and intimidation follow the MAGA movement like night follows day. One of the saddest stories of our time is the way in which even local election officials and local school board members fear for their safety. The level of threat against public officials has escalated in the MAGA era, MAGA Republicans often wield threats as a weapon against Republican dissenters, and every American should remember Jan. 6, when a mob of insurrectionists ransacked the Capitol.
I know that threats and violence aren’t exclusive to the right. We all watched in horror as a man tried to assassinate Trump; another man threatened Brett Kavanaugh’s life; and no one should forget the horrific congressional shooting, when an angry liberal man attempted a mass murder of Republican members of Congress on a baseball field.

But only one party has nominated a man who was indicted for his role in the criminal scheme to steal an American election, a scheme that culminated in a violent political riot. Only one party nominated a man who began the first rally of his 2024 campaign with a song by violent insurrectionists. He played “Justice for All,” a bastardized version of the national anthem by a group called the J6 Prison Choir. The song features the “Star-Spangled Banner” interspersed with excerpts of Trump reading the Pledge of Allegiance.
It’s not just Trump’s lies that are contagious, but his cruelty as well, and that cruelty is embedding itself deeply within one of Trump’s most loyal constituencies, conservative evangelicals. It is difficult to overstate the viciousness and intolerance of MAGA Christians against their political foes. There are many churches and Christian leaders who are now more culturally Trumpian than culturally Christian. Trump is changing the church.
And to what end?
It is fascinating to me that there are voices online who still claim that a person can’t be Christian and vote for Democrats, when the Trump campaign watered down the Republican platform on abortion to such an extent that it’s functionally pro-choice. Earlier generations of the pro-life movement would not have tolerated such a retreat. They would have made it clear that there were some principles Republicans simply can’t abandon without becoming a fundamentally different party.
It becomes even stranger to claim that Christians can’t vote for Democrats when the prime-time lineup at the Republican convention featured an OnlyFans star, a man who publicly slapped his wife, a man who pleaded no contest to an assault charge, and another man who had sex with his friend’s wife while the friend watched — and that’s not even including any reference to Trump himself.
Even if you want to focus on abortion as the single issue that decides your vote, the picture for abortion opponents is grim. Trump should get credit for nominating justices who helped overturn Roe (though the real credit for the decision goes to the justices themselves, including the George W. Bush appointee Samuel Alito, who actually wrote the majority opinion).

But when we’re dealing with a complex social phenomenon, political and legal issues are rarely simple. For the first time in decades, abortion rates and ratios increased under Trump. In addition, the best available evidence indicates that abortion rates are up since the Dobbs decision.
Barack Obama was an unabashedly pro-choice politician, yet there were 338,270 fewer abortions in 2016 than there were in 2008, George W. Bush’s last year in office. Though Trump nominated anti-abortion justices and enacted a number of anti-abortion policies, there were 56,080 more abortions the last year of his term than there were in the last year of Obama’s presidency.
Even worse, after Dobbs the pro-life position is in a state of political collapse. It hasn’t won a single red-state referendum, and it might even lose again in Florida, a state that’s increasingly red yet also looks to have a possible pro-choice supermajority. According to a recent poll, 69 percent of Floridians support the pro-choice abortion referendum, a margin well above the 60 percent threshold required for passage.
If the ultimate goal of the pro-life movement is to reduce the number of abortions, not just to change legal precedent, then these numbers and these electoral outcomes are deeply alarming. If present trends continue, then abortion opponents will have won an important legal battle, but they’ll ultimately lose the more important cultural and political cause.
Reasonable people disagree with me. I have friends and family members who will vote for Trump only because he is more moderate than Harris on abortion. I hate the idea that we should condition friendship or respect based on the way in which a person votes. Time and again we make false assumptions about a person’s character based on his or her political positions. There are truly bad actors in American politics, but we cannot write off millions of our fellow citizens who vote their consciences based on their own knowledge and political understanding.

At the same time, we should make the argument — firmly but respectfully — that this is no ordinary race and that the old political categories no longer apply.
For example, how many Republicans would have predicted that voting for a Democrat would be the best way to confront violent Russian aggression and that the Republican would probably yield to a Russian advance? In many ways, the most concretely conservative action I can take in this election is to vote for the candidate who will stand against Vladimir Putin. By voting for pro-life politicians down ballot, I can help prevent federal liberalization of abortion law. But if a president decides to abandon Ukraine and cripple NATO, there is little anyone can do.
While there are voters who are experiencing a degree of Trump nostalgia, remembering American life pre-Covid as a time of full employment and low inflation, there is a different and darker story to tell about Trump’s first term. Our social fabric frayed. It’s not just that abortions increased: The murder rate skyrocketed; drug overdose deaths hit new highs; marriage rates fell; and birthrates continued their long decline. Americans ended his term more divided than when it began.
I’m often asked by Trump voters if I’m “still conservative,” and I respond that I can’t vote for Trump precisely because I am conservative. I loathe sex abuse, pornography and adultery. Trump has brought those vices into the mainstream of the Republican Party. I want to cultivate a culture that values human life from conception through natural death. Yet America became more brutal and violent during Trump’s term. I want to defend liberal democracy from authoritarian aggression, yet Trump would abandon our allies and risk our most precious alliances.
The only real hope for restoring a conservatism that values integrity, demonstrates real compassion and defends our foundational constitutional principles isn’t to try to make the best of Trump, a man who values only himself. If he wins again, it will validate his cruelty and his ideological transformation of the Republican Party. If Harris wins, the West will still stand against Vladimir Putin, and conservative Americans will have a chance to build something decent from the ruins of a party that was once a force for genuine good in American life.

That was the David French piece from the New York Times. Now, here is the rebuttal from Dan McLaughlin.

What’s Missing from the ‘Conservative Case for Voting for Harris’
By Dan McLaughlin

Our old friend David French writes in the Sunday New York Times, “To Save Conservatism From Itself, I Am Voting for Harris.”

I am deeply disappointed in the effort. There are two very big omissions from this column that destroy its persuasive force.
A vote reflects two kinds of choices: a selection between alternatives in who will govern us, and a statement (in the case of a columnist or a leader, a public statement) of what we endorse. There are often tensions between the two, and we all have our own views of how to resolve those tensions and what lines we won’t cross.
My own view: I’m a longtime Trump critic who voted third party in 2016, voted write-in in 2020, and planned to write in again in the Trump-vs.-Biden race. I’m also still a conservative Republican. I agree with French that Trump has been a menace to the Republican Party and the conservative movement, that he has acted against our systems of law in ways that cannot easily be absolved or minimized, and that he is a corrosive force in our national life. I’ve supported some very bad people who agreed with me, but it’s harder to write off character and fitness for the job in the presidency, given its vast powers. I’ve always said there were only two things that could make me consider a vote for Trump: a Kamala Harris nomination and a serious push for Court-packing by the Democrats. The past month has brought us both. I’m still not sure if I could pull the Trump lever even against Harris, but that’s another day’s argument.

In any event, I’ve tried very hard for eight years to be charitable towards fellow conservatives who felt compelled to vote Trump in the general elections as the lesser evil, and also towards those of us who opposed Trump so fiercely that they felt it necessary to vote Democrat.
But in justifying such a choice, a columnist has a duty to face the truth, and to confront readers with that truth. French fails at the task.
A columnist also has a duty to stay true to principles, or explain why they have changed — given that the profession of principles and their application to situations is the core of the columnist’s job.
This column fails on both counts. On the first, aside from the title and declaration of intent to vote, French mentions Kamala Harris only twice, saying with vast understatement, “I have friends and family members who will vote for Trump only because he is more moderate than Harris on abortion,” and adding, “if Harris wins, the West will still stand against Vladimir Putin.”
That’s it. Nothing else is mentioned of Harris’s views on domestic or foreign policy, her approach to law and the rule of law, how she uses power, or what sort of people she might appoint to the executive and judicial branches (Tim Walz is not mentioned). I have laid out the case at length that Harris is a dangerous authoritarian with contempt for law and individual rights, even citing French’s own past work; he addresses none of this, either to defend it or to explain why it doesn’t matter. On foreign affairs, no consideration is given to confronting Xi’s China, or Hamas, or Iran. French treats this as an election on only two issues, and even there he must muffle his acknowledgement that the candidate he supports is as bad as bad could be on one of the two, with enormous cost to innocent human life.

This is a dereliction of duty, even understanding the constraints of word counts (this piece runs some 1,600 words, which is long for the Times) and of what the editors of the Times will permit to be printed. Harris is a menace. If one must vote for a menace for the same reasons Churchill would ally with Stalin, one must at least be honest enough to lay out the consequences and why they are worth it — not least to an audience of readers comfortable in their prejudices against noticing those consequences.
Second, as a matter of principle, French has spent years arguing against binary-choice logic and for the view that one morally must not vote for an unfit character to be chief executive no matter how bad the alternative is. This is an intellectually respectable position. Yet, here, he declares himself for Harris without even bothering to make the case that Harris is fit to be our commander-in-chief, chief magistrate, and defender of our Constitution. I suspect that he does this because he knows that describing Harris as fit for the office is an indefensible position, or at least one whose defense comes at a much more comprehensive cost of one’s principles. And so the principle falls silent.
There are conservative cases to be made for some very hard choices in this world. But one of the central duties of a conservative is to remember, always, that there are trade-offs for everything. To frame a case for Kamala Harris in the presidency only in the negative sense that it avoids another Trump administration is to pretend away those trade-offs. But they will not go away by ignoring them.

That was Dan McLaughlin’s deconstruction of David French’s argument in favor of voting for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump. For the record, I’m with McLaughlin. French made an excellent case for not voting for Trump. He did not make a case for voting for Kamala Harris. You wanna save the GOP by forcing Trump out? Fine… But what about the country?

To paraphrase Dr. Pulaski from Star Trek TNG, French’s vote is very much like curing the disease by killing the patient. My own thoughts can best be summed up in my previous entry, but I felt that the points and counterpoints made by these two professional pundits were worth preserving in these pages.

Mouse Trap

We are indeed living in remarkable times. I feel that I should write about them just because of their extraordinary nature.

On the evening of July 13, I wrote an impulsive, ill-considered Facebook post that was titled, “The top 10 suspects who are behind the assassination attempt against Donald Trump.” It was a very flippant post that treated the incident with burlesque humor.

The post was hastily written less than an hour after the shots had been fired in Butler. After about 20 minutes, I thought better of it and deleted the post. Aside from the national security implications, the post showed profound disrespect to the firefighter who was killed in the attempt, as well as his surviving family. I’m sorry I ever brought it into reality.

A more sober and serious analysis of the event caused me to get angry. I wasn’t as much angry at the idea that someone had tried to kill Trump. Frankly, I’m surprised that it took as long as it did. I was outraged that the head of the Secret Service refused to resign. As you know from reading these pages, incompetence rewarded with loyalty really causes my quills to stand up. The Secret Service had one fucking job, to keep a presidential candidate safe from harm, and they were derelict in their duty. If Trump had not turned his head when he did, we’d be seeing blood in the streets now.

Well, Kimberly Cheatle did finally step down, but not because she was incompetent. She stepped down because she saw the writing on the wall. The Democrats, as well as Republicans, were not going to throw her a life line. But the travesty still exists. Cheatle should’ve stepped down within 24 hours of the attack, not 10 days.

Six days after Trump was shot on a stage in Butler, PA, Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race. Contrary to the hollow platitudes floated by the Dems, he didn’t do it out of any sense of patriotism for his country or his party. According to reliable reports, he stepped down because too many DNC heavy-hitters ganged up on him and forced his hand.

Biden had no choice. His disastrous debate performance was the pivot point. His petulant, back foot defensiveness in subsequent interviews did not allay the growing fears of the Democrats that his advanced age would prove to be an embarrassment of riches for a sniping Trump.

We may never know all of the behind-the-scenes drama that went into Biden’s withdrawal, but we do know that he’s still maintaining a tenuous grasp on the presidency.

48 hours after Biden withdrew, all of the chattering classes were speaking of Kamala Harris as the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party. She won no primaries. She won no hearts in debates or interviews. She scored no points with Democrats during her tenure as vice-president. In fact, she came to be the butt of many jokes during her less than stellar tenure as veep. If you doubt me, just go look up Kamala Harris on The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live on YouTube. She was even the subject of several unflattering pieces from credible media outlets such as CNN, The Atlantic and Politico; none of which are right-wing outfits.

Kamala Harris simply inherited the nomination because of her race, her gender, her geographical location and her Trumpian luck. She is a
Remarkable study in how to fail upward, as was Kimberly Cheatle. As, frankly, is Donald Trump. That is one of the unfortunate hallmarks of our country today. Institutional momentum drives people who don’t deserve success into the limelight.

Here’s the part of this entry that will be as weird for you to read as it is for me to write. Ever since Kamala ascended to the status of heir apparent, I’ve been seriously tempted to vote for Trump in November. Now, don’t any of you get your shorties in a twist. I have made no final decision. I’m just saying that the temptation to vote for Trump is as strong in my heart as it has ever been.

Lest you think that Trump broke me, let me provide a laundry list of just some of Trump’s misdeeds.

Trump is a serial liar who always doubles down when called on his deception. He is a serial adulterer who paid hush money to a porn star to gain political advantage. He is an admitted sexual predator who uses his celebrity status as leverage over his victims. Trump plays fast and loose with state secrets. He speaks well of men like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, while openly trashing our NATO allies. He protests when his enemies use “lawfare,” against him, but he will certainly use the same tactics against his enemies if given the chance. Trump is impulsive, erratic, narcissistic, unstable, vain and professionally and personally abusive to those in his orbit. He is incapable of managing a real crisis, such as the pandemic, showing a decided lack of leadership when it matters most. Despite his outward bluster, he can be strikingly indecisive, such as was the case during the 2020 racial riots in America.

Worst of all, Trump is a conspiracy theorist who traffics in election denial and instigated an attempt to overthrow the peaceful transition of power for his own ego-driven ends. I cannot stress enough that this is an absolute threat to the order and stability of our republic.

And yet, with all of that on the record, is Donald Trump the worst threat to our democracy that we face in these trying times?

Consider what I’ve already written about Kamala Harris. Then consider this.

Joe Biden came into office promising to unify the country. He has utterly failed. His abominable withdrawal from Afghanistan, his refusal to control our southern border, his steadfast delusion in the face of mounting inflation, his flip-flopping on Israel, his empty threats in the face of the invasion of Ukraine and, worst of all, his naked race baiting in Georgia when they passed voting reforms, all indicate a divisive presidency that is mediocre at best. As the vice-president, Kamala must share in that record.

What really gives me pause is Harris’s approach to crime. She has vocally supported those who have engaged in political violence under the banner of Black Lives Matter, while openly scorning those who stormed the U.S. Capital on January 6. I have no patience for those who condemned the BLM riots of 2020 but defended the January 6 marauders. But the reverse is also true. I have been and will continue to be consistent on this point. I am unalterably opposed to political violence in a free and open society such as ours for any reason.

I wish Kamala could say the same, but she can’t. Does anyone remember when she visited Jacob Blake in Kenosha? Does anyone remember when Kamala supported the Minnesota Freedom Fund, who bailed out violent offenders regardless of the severity of the charges? Does anyone remember when Kamala very vocally supported defunding the police? Does anyone remember when Senator Harris co-sponsored the resolution to create the Green New Deal? Does anyone remember when Harris called for the elimination of private health insurance? Does anyone remember when Vice-President Harris was put in charge of the crisis at the southern border and never visited the border? Instead, she went to Guatemala to explore, “root causes of migration.” If you don’t remember these things, you better google it soon before the media permanently memory holes them.

Yes, the media has had its own role to play as the country has made the light speed jump from Biden to Harris. I must admit that I reveled in the discomfort of Democrat talking heads when the media went on attack mode after the debate. It gave me the cleanest of pleasure to watch them do their jobs for a change. This was the same bulldog press that relentlessly hounded Trump during his term in office. And you know what…I’m fine with that. The Fourth Estate is in top form when it is skeptical at best, adversarial at worst. They are in the dregs when they run cover for the government. Their jumping on the Harris band wagon, including the attempt to erase the idea that she was ever the Border Czar, is nothing less than Orwellian.

The only thing more pathetic than an obeisant mainstream media are the rabid ‘Never Trumpers.’ I’m talking about the Lincoln Project, Nick Catoggio, Mike Murphy and the crew at The Bulwark. Their anger toward Trump has driven them to the point where they honestly believe that supporting Democrats is preferable to the alternative. I’m not just talking about reluctantly pulling the lever in the privacy of the voting booth, but a full-throated support of Joe Biden, followed by the instantaneous transfer of loyalty to Harris. These defenses include the sad, transparent rationalizations of all of Kamala’s convenient policy reversals, all uttered by her surrogates.

This warped mentality is demonstrated most clearly by a recent column by Bulwark founder Charlie Sykes, in which he wrote:

“For Never Trumpers who have been in the political wilderness for nearly a decade now, this is not the time to quibble over tax rates, the Green New Deal, fracking, or pronouns. Harris is far from their first choice, but when your kitchen is in flames, you reach for whatever extinguisher is at hand. You can worry later about washing the dishes or whether you need a new garbage disposal. Put the fire out now.”

I love people who use fire analogies, because they are always so reckless. Fire is an energy that is nearly impossible to contain, and it always exacts collateral damage. So, question for Charlie. What if, in your blind panic, you grab a can of gasoline instead of the fire extinguisher? Forget the friggin’ garbage disposal. What if, despite your best efforts, the whole goddamn house burns down?

Because that’s what this whole Kamala fever smacks of. Just beneath the hype and the gloss and the heaps of abrupt, saccharin praise, wafts the pungent odor of desperation. Your desperation to stop Trump at any cost has caused you to mill about in a frantic frenzy, like a scared kid trying to find that fire extinguisher. And by the way, when exactly is the right time to quibble over tax rates, border security and pronouns? Is it before or after the electoral prize is won? Grab a fucking clue, Charlie!

President Biden has just released a laundry list of changes he wants to make to the Supreme Court, which is one of those institutional checks that is meant to prevent government from running amuck. Is Biden so feeble that he doesn’t know that his proposals are dead on arrival? I suspect that his real intent is to plant a seed that will eventually be harvested by President Harris. These recommendations have all been made in bad faith. The Democrats aren’t interested in the ethics of the Supreme Court. They want to change its compositional makeup because they don’t like the court’s rulings of late.

Do we really believe that Harris won’t take the SCOTUS ball and run with it? Do we really believe that Harris, who has been openly hostile to law enforcement, will do anything to quell the surge of anti-Semitic mob activity that has been growing on our streets since October 7? Do we seriously believe that Harris will take a strong stand in support of Israel, or against Russia and China? Do we really believe that a President Harris won’t use and abuse her pen and her phone to move on guns, illegal immigration, healthcare, so-called trans rights and the economy?

If you really believe those things, then you are as cuckoo as Bill Kristol and Tim Miller. In no universe does aiding the Democrat Party, who is steadily moving leftward, make any kind of sense. Maybe the dickheads at the Bulwark think that they can influence the Harris administration if they just display the correct amount of felicity on her behalf. All due respect…how has that worked out during Biden’s term? How is that any different than Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Nikki Haley capitulating to Trump?

Here’s another angle to consider. Are we better off with a media that is every bit as sycophantic toward President Harris as they were toward President Obama in the name of identity justice, or are we better off with an antagonistic, bulldog press that is doing its job and reporting on the actions of the president? If the press had done their jobs a year or two ago, perhaps the Democrats could have had a genuine primary. But they didn’t, the train wreck of a debate happened and only then, when the truth about Biden’s deterioration became too obvious to ignore, did they turn on the pressure.

How many major interviews has Kamala done since Biden withdrew from the race? How many press conferences has she held? How many spontaneous Q&As has she done? The answer…zero. She knows she doesn’t have to, because the press loves her. All she has to do is stay on script and avoid potentially awkward situations for the next three months, let Trump be Trump, and she may win the prize.

Conversely, Trump just did an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists yesterday. He did himself some damage, but the dude showed up. Kamala begged off.

And are we sure that Trump will run wild in his second term? How is Project 2025 working out these days? How about the handmaid post-Ro nightmare of forced births? How’s Trump doing on abortion?

Say what you will about Trump, but he is proving to be the more authentic expression of democracy during this election cycle. Love him or hate him, and there is no middle ground on this point, he was chosen by primary voters in a valid contest with well-qualified candidates. Kamala Harris cannot make that claim. She was chosen by Biden because of her identity. This is not a slur or a smear. It is fact. Her position as vice-president placed her in orbit to be chosen when Biden proved incapable of running for a second term. If she wins in November, she will have done nothing to earn the office. The Democrats mouse trapped themselves into the position they are in now. Why should we allow them to mouse trap the entire nation?

Speaking of identity politics, I find the idea of these segregated Zoom calls for Kamala to be super gross. “White dudes for Harris,” “Win with black women,” “Win with black men,” “Latinas for Harris,” “White women, answer the call.” I was raised to believe that segregation was evil. How is positive segregation any better than negative segregation? I am unalterably opposed to segregation of any kind, for any reason, in the professional or political sphere. I believe that nothing good can ultimately come from such practices. I would honestly welcome a candid discussion with an African-American man or woman who would give me a good faith explanation of how and why this sort of thing is helpful.

Over in the Trump camp, I’ve been hearing more and more about African-American men and Latinos drifting toward the GOP. I’m not sure if this is a real phenomenon, or just wishcasting on the part of pundits, but I guess we’ll find out in November. If it is really happening, it would be the sort of organic diversity long touted by the left.

Either way we wind up after November 4, the outcome is sure to be grim. When I run the various scenarios in my brain, I keep coming back to the notion that I first expressed in my last entry. Maybe America, and the world at large, is better off with the devil we know, rather than the devil we don’t.

I can guess what’s coming. Some will accuse me of latent racism or sexism because of my antipathy toward Kamala Harris. All I can say is, I can’t wait to watch the career of Winsome Sears continue to unfold.

I am fully aware of the contradictions in my position here. I am at risk of becoming the very thing that I’ve hated for the last eight years. If I vote for Trump, I have to own it, including all of the consequences that result. My only remaining questions are, which fall-out will hurt America the least. If Trump wins, we’ll have street violence. If Harris wins, we’ll have street violence. Which violence is the least worst outcome?

What an absurd and wretched question. Right now, I have no fucking idea. I am sure of one thing. No matter who wins the election, one group of violent offenders will be punished, while another will be pardoned.

I am cognizant of the ‘Burn it Down’ entry I wrote a few months ago. There’s your fire analogy again, folks. Everything I wrote in there is still valid today. In a world rife with irony, wouldn’t it be ironic if Trump lost to Kamala, despite his best efforts? Hillary looks pretty good next to Harris, doesn’t she? This would make the fourth straight electoral loss that Republicans suffered under Trump’s reign. I wrote previously that the GOP would have to keep losing and losing at the ballot box until they get the point that Trump is no longer effective. A Harris victory would prove me right. But how much damage would the country have to suffer before they change course?

Let me circle back to my starting point; the assassination attempt. When Donald Trump was struck by a bullet and thrown to the ground, then immediately stood up, blood on his face, and raised his fist in the air and yelled, “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!” it was the perfect American symbol. Wouldn’t it be ironic if that proved to be his crowning political achievement? If he keeps going the way he’s going, it will be his political finale.

Two days after he was shot, Trump selected J.D. Vance as his vice-presidential nominee. It was an act of extreme hubris which is backfiring on him. During his acceptance speech, Trump reflected on his brush with death for about 20 minutes. Then, he reverted to type, riffing and wandering his way through the remainder of his bloated speech.

As I’ve always said, there’s nothing that Donald Trump can’t fuck up.

Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for Kamala to choose her veep nominee. If she picks Jewish Josh Shapiro, she’s screwed. If she doesn’t pick Jewish Josh Shapiro, she’s screwed.

Mouse trap, indeed.

Trump had his cocaine high after the debate. I think Kamala is now having hers. But external events have a way of drastically and rapidly altering the political landscape. In the past 72 hours, two high-level terrorists were assassinated by the IDF in retaliation for a rocket attack by Hezbollah that killed 12 children on a soccer field in North Israel. Three of the masterminds behind 9/11 will avoid the death penalty by agreeing to a plea bargain, courtesy of the Biden Justice Department. A female Olympic boxer surrendered to her biologically male opponent after just 46 seconds of combat. Venezuela has erupted in chaos after President Maduro tried to steal the election. Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan are returning home after being falsely imprisoned in Russia, thanks to a prisoner swap engineered by Biden.

If you think you know how the election will turn out, you’re full of shit. Me…I haven’t been sure of anything since Biden dropped out.

Someone wake me up when this nightmare is over. I’ll be taking a catnap with Kylie.

Addendum: August 4

Thank you, Mr. Trump, for reminding me of why I just can’t vote for your stupid orange ass. As if things weren’t going bad enough in your camp, you spent valuable time attacking Governor Brian Kemp last night during your Atlanta rally. Georgia is a swing state, you stupid fuck! I wonder if the shift in polls will get your attention.

I guess the whole bloody mess really is in God’s hands.

… And That’s Why I Hang My Hat in Omaha

Last Wednesday, I got a text from an ex-girlfriend that said, in part, “If you plan to write anymore blog posts about the state of everything, I’d love to read them.”

Ok, Bird. This comes under the heading of, ‘be careful what you wish for’, but here you go.

I noticed that I didn’t get an invitation to your wedding last September. After I began to suspect that no invitation would be forthcoming, I started memorizing the lyrics to, “Friends in Low Places.” That would be a song that is now considered classic country. It’s a party song that involves lost love, copious drinking, and a hint of the class struggle. Ya know…real country, rather than the frat boy variety that is popular today. Hell, I even memorized the infamous third verse.

Anyway, I memorized the lyrics (I used to know them by heart, but as Joe Biden has discovered, age is a real bitch), and I was about to consult one of my Denver spies to discover the location of your reception so I could crash the proceedings, when something pretty bad happened that ruined my plans. So, on the day of your first wedding, and your husband’s second, I was at a funeral. As it turned out, I couldn’t have come anyway.

I know there’s all kinds of irony and symbolism in weddings versus funerals that I could unpack, but it’s just too exhausting. Everything this year, from external politics to workplace drama to the freakin’ weather feels exhausting.

But I have to admit that I’m really enjoying the drama playing out in the Democrat Party right now. God knows that I despise Donald Trump, but the sanctimonious preening by the Dems and their media allies has become very tiresome over the past decade. It’s nice to know that, when the stakes are high enough, the left are just the same pigs are the rest of us, wallowing in the same trough of sunbaked shit.

If you want to study the complete implosion of a political campaign in the face of a major gas lighting operation designed to make America think that a weak and feeble old man is still on the ball, this is it. Joe Biden may have COVID, or he may not. In the end, it doesn’t even matter. There’s a little Lincoln Park reference for your new hubby there, Bird. Rock should be rock. Country should be country.

Anyway, Biden is done. No matter what he does now, he will not win a second term as president. I write this during the weekend when rumors abound that Biden may drop out. But then what? If Kamala Harris becomes the nominee, she simply won’t win. The lefties can shriek about racism, sexism, nativism or whatever, but Kamala has done absolutely nothing to convince the country that she would make a decent president.

So then what? Will the Dems hold an open convention? How’s that gonna work out? It will make for one hell of a drama, but my guess is that it will merely show the country that the Dems are in total chaos and desperate to save the country from Trump. Desperation does not connote strength. Desperation denotes desperation. Ain’t that right, Monster? When November 5 rolls around, I suspect that people will go with the devil they know, rather than the devil they don’t.

As for Trump, any of you who thought that the would-be assassin’s bullet would fundamentally change Trump’s personality got a stark reminder of who he really is last Thursday night. He’s the same narcissistic psycho we’ve known all along, but now he’s got a purple heart.

Remember when Tony Soprano got shot by Uncle Junior and he was trapped in a weird dreamscape for two episodes before he woke up? For about five minutes, Tony was a soft and cuddly teddy bear before he reverted back to the evil so’n bitch he always was. In fact, he was worse. Just ask Christopha. Well, that’s Trump.

When he wins in November, the Dems have only themselves to blame. If they and their media allies had only bothered to take heed of the images that us conservatives have been warning about regarding Biden’s infirmities for two years now, the Dems might be in a stronger position. But alas…this is where we are.

By the way, I’m not a bit surprised that the head of the Secret Service isn’t resigning. No one is held accountable anymore. Just like the NFB, Biden is standing by his incompetent leadership, no matter how corrupt or guilty they look.

Speaking of the NFB, have any of you bothered to read Resolution 2024-18, which was just passed at their national convention? It urges the Perkins School for the Blind in Massachusetts to change its name because T. H. Perkins was a known slave trader and opium smuggler. This ancestral sin does, among other things, cause intergenerational trauma for people of all colors, particularly African-Americans and Chinese people. Did any of you know that T. H. Perkins owned slaves and smuggled dope? I sure didn’t. When I think of Perkins, I think of a school for the blind. Then, I think of a piece of peanut butter cup pie. How many blind people of color knew of Mr. Perkins’ unfortunate history before they were traumatized by some academic somewhere?

Well, The resolution passed with much controversy. The NFB continues its leftward drift. Too bad all of you good and loyal NFB folks who voted against it now have to support it. Remember the NFB Pledge that you’re supposed to recite at the beginning of each meeting? You must now support the programs and policies of the Federation. Resolution 2024-18 is now policy. Have fun.

The resolution was authored by Justin Salisbury. Anyone who reads Justin’s articles in the Braille Monitor will not be a bit surprised that this policy came from the mind of Mr. Salisbury. His language is rife with the phraseology and expressionism common, not only amongst the leftist social justice crowd, but in the heights of academia itself. This would be the same uncorked academia that we saw in action this past Spring on college campuses across the country as the pro-Hamas demonstrations went apeshit.

Salisbury identifies himself as a person of mixed race. In the articles I’ve located, I haven’t found out what those races are. He does indicate that he is viewed as a white person by society.

With all that in mind, I find it very telling that this resolution was not brought to the floor by a person who identifies as African-American with slave blood, or by a Chinese-American, or by a person who has been affected by the opium trade. At least, I don’t think Justin is an opium addict, but I guess I shouldn’t assume. Still, if the resolution had been written by someone like Anil Lewis, Dishon Spears, or Ever Lee Hairston, I could take it at face value and engage with the substance of it on its own terms. But that wasn’t the case here.

I’m going to make an educated guess that this resolution was written as a solution looking for a problem; which is perfectly in character for the progressive left. The action points even include those wonderful words in their predictable order; diversity, equity and inclusion. DEI, the academic concept that has grown into an industry that has been losing a good deal of ground of late, is alive and well within the NFB.

As I get older, I become more sensitive to people of privilege claiming to speak for those whom they deem to be oppressed. You see it all over the place in the blindness community. Organizations who claim to represent the best interests of the blind often employ sighted people in the top ranks. These sighted people are often invited to public functions in order that they may speak on behalf of the blind, rather than inviting the blind themselves to speak. These sighted folks suddenly become, blind whisperers, if you will. Suddenly, you have directors, presidents and people in power saying, “Wow! Isn’t Lisa Kelly just amazing? She does so much for…that population.”

I can’t believe I’m about to paraphrase Taylor Swift, but when it comes to the left, I’ve found that their covert narcissism might disguise as altruism, like some kind of Congressman. If Trump is an overt narcissist, Robin DiAngelo and her ilk are covert narcissists. I strongly suspect that Mr. Salisbury is cut from the same cloth. In fact, I think a lot of covert narcissists reared their ugly heads during the Marching Together movement in 2021. They were screaming about justice, but in actuality, it was all about them. How many of these shitbirds re-victimized people who had already been hurt?

This is what the NFB is supposed to stand against. They are not people speaking for the blind. They are supposed to be the blind, speaking for themselves. Why should it be any different for African-Americans, Chinese-Americans, or any other so-called oppressed minority? “White fragility,” my fat, Polish ass.

Sidebar: I appreciate that Taylor Swift had the grace to leave country music and admit that she wanted to do pop. Meanwhile, Garth Brooks can’t be bothered to post his catalog on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube. On one hand, we can’t enjoy the beauty of No Fences. On the other, we don’t have to be reminded of Chris Gaines. That’s life for ya.

I’m now having a fantasy about going to the next Nebraska state board meeting and demanding that the president, who also happens to be one of my ex-girlfriends, defend Resolution 2024-18. I have a sneaking suspicion that she, along with the Nebraska delegation, voted against it on the floor. But, it’s Federation law now. Suckers!

This is what the progressive left does. They specialize in institutional capture by controlling the language first with an eye toward impacting and ultimately controlling policy. Today, it’s your pronouns in your Email signature. Tomorrow, it’s a new DEI compliance officer. Next week, it’s a mandatory struggle session on race, homophobia or the tyranny of Israel.

This is why I think Trump 47 is nigh.

By the way, circling back to my point about the Secret Service, none of the NFB leaders who oversaw the centers where sexual misconduct have resigned or have been fired. Can we really get mad about Kim Cheatle, when Julie Deden still has a job? Can we really shake our fists about a man who lived hundreds of years ago, when many who looked the other way and enabled sexual predators to flourish within the ranks of the Federation still hold power?

You know, it just occurred to me that this blog entry is about break-ups. The Bird and I broke up in July of 2013. The Republican Party and I broke up in December of 2017. The NFB and I broke up in December of 2021. In all three cases, the break-ups were necessary and they hurt a lot. In the cases of the NFB and the GOP, all I feel is sorrow, anger and regret. I do smile sometimes, however, when I think of The Bird. I guess nature can be healing.

So, here’s to you, Bird, and your new husband. I hope he reads you like braille, especially in that big, beautiful Asian birdbath of yours. I do appreciate that you take the time to read my stuff. At least…up to now.

Since you were kind enough to ask, I’m doing fine here in The Big O. I’m just three drinks behind with George Strait. The dude is 72 years old, he just broke a concert record and he’s about to put out a new album in September. How do you think Morgan Wallen will be doing at 72? I bet he won’t even make 50.

Did you guys find this entry a bit dramatic, traumatic, or just plain spastic. Maybe, it felt like plastic, or drastic, or even bombastic. Probably not fantastic. I should not be left to my own devices, they come with prices and vices, I end up in crisis. That’s what happens when I write about my past flames. Cuz all my old flames have new names, which was a country song by Mark Chesnutt back in 1992.

Speaking of ex-girlfriends, I can’t wait for Alicia to come on my Facebook page and defend Resolution 2024-18. Leash, now that you’re an active NFB member again, it shouldn’t be a problem for you. Thanks for inviting me to both of your weddings.

In reading back over this entry, it strikes me as pretty grab bag. I hope none of you found it jarring, or sparring, or even scarring. I used to enjoy grabbing Marty. I never thought of her as my bag, though. She was just Marty, my sensuous woman. Another song by Mark Chesnutt there.

How the hell am I gonna shoehorn Katy into this blog? She doesn’t care about politics. She doesn’t care about the NFB. She doesn’t care about country music. I can’t contort the theme to fit with Harry Potter, cats or dogs. This is a real problem.

I just realized that all of my most meaningful relationships came after the year 2000. My college years were kind of stupid, but all of the best women came after I was 25. The double entendre was intentional, by the way. At least, I hope it was. Maybe they all faked it.

O…kay. I’m editing this entry and the news just dropped that Biden has withdrawn from the race. He has officially been defenestrated. I guess Slick Willie and Barry O. have still got it. Nothing I wrote previously is invalid. The Dems will ultimately have no choice but to run with Kamala. If they don’t nominate her, many people of Indian and Jamaican descent will experience intergenerational trauma. Yes, the Dems have set themselves a neat little trap, and the only way for them to escape it is to chew their own leg off. Meanwhile, get ready for the biggest media-driven rehab campaign in history, transforming Kamala from Poison Ivy to Batgirl.

Did any of my exes like Batman? I’m pretty sure not.

Whoa! Now it looks like Joe Manchin is going to re-register as a Democrat so he can run against Kamala. Ok…I need to quit writing before this blog entry turns into a Trump speech that keeps going…and going…and going…

You still reading, Bird? Remember that Columbo episode where Johnny Cash was the murderer? You made cinnamon chicken and we watched it on your couch. I’m gonna publish this ridiculous piece and go watch it again with Kylie. She likes Columbo because he’s good at the cat and mouse game.

Must. Quit. Writing.

God bless this cuckoo country!

And speaking of cuckoo, yes, Monster, I’m still taking my meds.

The Big 50

From the Omaha World Herald:

After 50 years, Nebraska’s Radio Talking Book Service is finding new ways to help blind people
Emily Nitcher May 7, 2024 Updated May 10, 2024

As 11 a.m. approaches, Ryan Osentowski waits for his cue.
He puts on a pair of headphones and gets ready to speak into the microphone in front of him.
Any second now, MeMe Smith and Larry Thornton will finish the first hour of reading that day’s editions of the Omaha World-Herald and the Lincoln Journal Star on Radio Talking Book Service.
“It is time for our star across the glass here, Ryan, to take over the mic because we’re going to take a short break …” Thornton says, looking through the studio window at Osentowski.
Osentowski, the station manager, takes it from there.
“Thank you very much, Larry and MeMe …,” Osentowski says before introducing a string of advertisements and public service announcements.
The break will give Smith and Thornton, both volunteers, an opportunity to stretch their legs and rest their voices before jumping back on air to finish reading Nebraska’s two largest newspapers to thousands of listeners from Omaha to Scottsbluff in the Panhandle.
For 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Radio Talking Book Service provides programming for listeners who are blind, low vision or print impaired. It broadcasts over the radio and internet on radios and smart speakers given to listeners at no cost.
“We are providing for a group of people that most people don’t care about,” said Osentowski, who is blind.
Smith and Thornton’s broadcast lasts about two hours. Then Osentowski fills the 22 other hours of the day with pre-recorded programming from more than 80 volunteers who provide more than 90 hours of programming a week.
The volunteers also read 21 regional newspapers like the Fremont Tribune, Grand Island Independent and Columbus Telegram. They read the weekly grocery and department store ads so people can plan their shopping trips around what’s on sale. One volunteer reads recipes, making sure her broadcast corresponds with upcoming holidays and events.
The voices on the radio have changed as volunteers come and go, but this year marks 50 years of Radio Talking Book Service being a constant source of news and entertainment for the people who need it.
Osentowski used the recent tornadoes in Nebraska and Iowa as an example.
“What just happened, sure, people can listen to their radio and television, but what about the aftermath?” he said. “Who’s going to tell them about the damage in Elkhorn? Who’s going to read them the newspaper? We do it. We bring information from newspapers, magazines and the otherwise printed word that they can’t read themselves.”
Most of the listeners, 82%, are over the age of 65, said Bekah Jerde, executive director of Radio Talking Book Service. She said many of them have aged into vision loss and want to reconnect to the things they used to enjoy. One woman told Jerde she subscribed to The World-Herald for 50 years and missed it when she could no longer read it herself.
Services for the blind change with the times
While the mission of Radio Talking Book Service has remained the same since Dr. Craig Fullerton founded it in 1974, technology has not. That led to some tough conversations between Jerde and others in 2016.
In 2015, the service had 574 documented listeners. Listenership had plummeted for several reasons, including the 2009 requirement that television stations stop broadcasting analog signals. Suddenly, Jerde said, thousands of listeners could no longer use their TVs to hear Radio Talking Book Service.
“In 2016, you were looking at all of it and you felt that heavy question of relevancy and how can we move forward?” Jerde said.
The answer came in the form of streaming, smart speakers and more intentional programming.
Now, when listeners request access to Radio Talking Book Service they can choose between a radio or a smart speaker making the broadcasts available to anyone with internet service. That includes those in rural areas the FM signal won’t reach.
The service added more newspapers to the lineup going from seven to 21. It added a statewide newscast in Spanish. And launched audio description services for people attending local theater performances, exhibits, parades and more.
It also downsized Radio Talking Book Service’s office at Omaha’s 7101 Newport Ave., near Immanuel Medical Center.
Little by little, Jerde said the numbers have climbed again. In 2024, it had about 12,000 listeners.
“I’m excited for the next 50 years because I think we are relevant in so many ways,” Jerde said.
Radio Talking Book Service does not receive state or federal funding. Jerde said about 60% of the service’s funding comes from private foundations and grants, 18 to 20% from individual donors and 17 to 19% from civic organizations.
Most states have a radio reading service like what is provided by Radio Talking Book Service in Nebraska. They can share programming which Jerde said helps fill gaps if volunteers get sick or can’t make their recording.
‘Blind people are human beings’
Jerde and Osentowski said the service couldn’t exist without the dedication of volunteers who take time to read the material so it can be broadcast throughout the state.
Volunteers find the service through word of mouth. Jerde said one man recruited three people from his spin class. Some volunteers, like teachers, have experience reading out loud, but it’s not required.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be commercial, but it just has to be someone who is vested emotionally in the material,” Osentowski said of the recordings.
Jerde said they ask volunteers to read everything. In the past, volunteers have skipped articles in newspapers or magazines about art exhibits or mushroom foraging because they thought it might make their blind and low-vision listeners feel bad.
Jerde said it’s not the service’s job to limit subjects available to listeners because they are so varied in their interests and capabilities.
Cami Cavanaugh Rawlings, who hosts a program called Community Conversations, once booked a fireworks expert for the show. After initially feeling good about the booking, Cavanaugh Rawlings began to question the choice. Do low vision and blind people go to fireworks shows?
Cavanaugh Rawlings consulted Osentowski. Of course they do, Osentowski said.
Give Osentowski the time, and he could spend all day listing the misconceptions about blind people. No, blind people don’t have super senses because they can’t see, they’re not all musically gifted and they don’t all have guide dogs.
“Blind people are human beings,” Osentowski said. “We’re limited in the fact that we can’t see, but we still have the same gifts and curses that everyone else has got.”
To learn how to get a radio or how to volunteer, visit Radio Talking Book Service’s website at www.rtbs.org

I hope you enjoyed reading the article as much as we did. Thanks to Emily Nitcher for her wonderful article. Kudos to Nikos Frazier, who was the photographer who took all of the pictures that I removed from this blind-friendly, text-based version. Screen readers don’t dance with pictures. I’m not trying to undercut the Omaha World Herald, who originally published the article, or the Lincoln Journal Star, who just reprinted it. I’m merely pasting this in my scrapbook because I think it’s a milestone for me and for our organization.

The funniest part of this whole business is that I was supposed to be back in Denver long ago. Three months after I came to Omaha, I was dead sure that moving here was a mistake. Yet, here I am six-and-a-half years later, doing a job I love in a city in which I’ve grown comfortable. Yes, the sidewalk situation still sucks and I now travel almost exclusively using ridesharing instead of the bus, but whatever. Omaha is okay for me.

As for RTBS, it’s the best job I’ve ever had, bar none. That is in no small part thanks to Jane Nielsen, Bekah Jerde, MeMe Smith, Cami Rawlings, the artist known as Queenie, the three angels at our front desk, a very supportive board of directors, our faithful listeners, and the dozens of volunteers who color our world with their presence every week.

As I’ve written in other entries here, I understand the employment situation from every angle. I’ve been unemployed, I’ve worked in jobs that were stressful, toxic and soul-crushing, and I’ve held jobs that were just all right, but that didn’t really challenge me. None of them come close to the fulfilment I get every day when I go to work at RTBS. I hear a lot of my blind friends complain about their jobs. Every time they do, I sit back quietly and thank God that I paid my dues long enough to hold a job I love, working with people whom I love and respect. I’m not lauding my situation over anyone else. I’m just counting my blessings.

Sure, the job isn’t perfect. Nothing in life is. But it’s perfect for me at this moment in time. We are lucky and humbled to have made it to 50. That is an amazing accomplishment in the nonprofit world. Here’s to another 50 being Nebraska’s audio companion.

Ryan Osentowski – RTBS Program Director

Bad Seed

I’d like to have a good laugh over the latest lament of the Columbia student protesters. They’ve occupied Hamilton Hall and now they are outraged that no one is bringing them food and water. They think they have a right to burritos, Red Bull and melatonin gummies on…like…humanitarian grounds or whatever. This is the height of white, entitled, western arrogance (everything the students think they are decrying) and they are incapable of absorbing the irony.

Yes, I’d like to laugh, but it’s really not funny. When the University of Florida arrested protesters and released a statement saying, in part, “The University of Florida is not a daycare,” I let out a silent cheer. Hell! Yeah! Bounce these snot-nosed brats out into the street and show them that their actions have consequences.

The sad truth is, while these students must accept responsibility for what they are doing, the adults are the ones who have failed. We have failed the children, we have failed our institutions of higher learning and, in many ways, we are failing society.

About 20 years ago, I was listening to the Sean Hannity Show on radio when a college kid phoned in. He said something like, “I’m a conservative student in college. How do I deal with my professors who are way left?”

Hannity’s response was, “I feel ya, kid. My best advice to you is to just go along, take the good grade and make your way in the real world after you graduate.” I’m pretty sure I heard similar conversations play out on the Rush Limbaugh Show in the ‘90’s.

I think this is what a lot of moms and dads across America have been doing since the 1960’s when widespread campus activism first appeared. They simply looked at Junior’s grades at the end of each semester and said, “Good job, sons and daughters. Keep it up.” They never really bothered to ask what the students were learning. They never pushed back when Junior started spewing nonsense about anti-colonialism, decadent western capitalism, or the theory of intersectionality. Mom and dad would just smile and nod when the grades came home and would happily write another check for the college when the tuition bill came due.

Well, the bill is really coming due now.

The first evidence of it came during the pandemic when students had to learn remotely while schools and campuses were closed and mom and dad started to figure out what their high school and college brats were being fed. Then, they really started to wake up when the race riots broke loose in the summer of 2020. Remember the kerfuffle over Critical Race Theory? It feels like ages ago. Then came the firestorm of trans rights, men on girls’ sports teams and shared bathrooms between all genders. Yeah…the good old days.

Parents started forming committees to protest at schoolboards. Conservatives started trying to make more serious runs for public office in hope of beating back the forces of anti-Americanism. Donors began to hesitate before cutting their university of choice another check. A lot of parents started saying, “Where is my kid and what have you done with him/her/then/it?”

Now, with the explosion of antisemitism and flagrant lawlessness that has erupted at colleges across the country, Mr. and Mrs. Mom and Dad are really awake. But…too little, too late. We’ve now raised a generation of anxiety-ridden children who have been indoctrinated to the idea that traditional learning with an eye toward critical thinking pales in comparison to so-called lived experiences and education through activism; said activism being of the leftist persuasion.

But it’s not just the parents who have failed. Gutless cowards who sit in the administrative offices at these elite colleges have also failed.

I spent some time with a headshrinker about eight years ago. The most important thing she taught me was that personal boundaries matter. If you don’t construct both internal and external boundaries in your life, you will always be adrift in some way. This was one of the most valuable life lessons I ever learned. I wish I’d learned it earlier.

By not demonstrating to these kids that their actions have consequences, these administrators are proving that boundaries don’t matter. This is why the Columbia kids who have now occupied a campus building are demanding amnesty for their actions. They don’t want the evidence of what they’ve done to dog them for the rest of their lives. “But they have a point, squishy adults cry in response. Didn’t we all do dumb things when we were young?” Of course we did, but we didn’t break windows, harass students based on their ethnicity or religion and occupy a building in the name of a conflict happening thousands of miles away.

And who do these students have to look to? Radical professors who have indoctrinated them with a one-sided ideology without the benefit of balance. Administrators who ignore one deadline after another for the sake of supposed empathy. Politicians who will use these protests for their own ends. And, of course, the ultimate failures in adulthood, two presidential candidates, neither of whom are worthy of holding the highest office in the land.

Sidebar: One aspect of the current campus drama that I really love is the cherry picking of constitutional rights. These kids are protesting in the name of their First Amendment rights as guaranteed by a document authored by a bunch of imperialist, slave-owning white men. I believe they are standing on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Yet, when it comes to freedom of the press, they are far less tolerant. Check out all of the videos on YouTube and see what happens to journalists (professional, student and civilian) who try to interview standard protesters or video the activities of the protesters. You will find it very instructive.

I never thought I would live to see the day when the word adult would be used in the noun, adjective and verb form, but here we are. Well, no matter how you implement the word, America has failed the adult test. And who will answer for these failures when Jewish students end up dead? Because that’s where I think this is heading. Who will pay the bill when there’s life blood on the ground?

Finally, on a separate but related note, I mentioned that today’s youth seem incapable of absorbing irony. Well, here’s the ultimate irony in all of this. Every time pro-Hamas students block Jewish students from entering a building in the name of so-called antizionism, they reinforce why Israel must exist. Every time people tear down hostage posters, they remind Jews of why they really aren’t welcome or equal in western society. Every time politicians employ anti-Semitic slogans, or deliberately misuse inflammatory words like, “genocide,” or “apartheid,” they remind Jews that there is only one government in the world that will really defend them. Every time they deny or downplay the mass rape and slaughter of Israeli citizens in the name of so-called, “resistance,” they show their true evil. There will always be Jews who will stand with the anti-Semites, for both good and bad faith reasons, they too will soon learn how things really are.

Will they learn too late? God only knows. But sooner or later, their bill will come due and they will have no choice but to pay it.

This is a very adult concept, isn’t it?

It is 7:48 Pm Central Standard Time as my fingers type these words. I see tweets indicating that the NYPD may be about to raid Columbia. Good luck, kids. You won’t like jail food, but at least you’ll be hydrated and won’t starve to death.

Faugh! Go tell it to Nika Shakarami.

The Juice

I don’t remember exactly where I was on June 12, 1994, when Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were brutally murdered. Based on the timeline, I’m sure I was in Selleck Hall on UNL campus, attending summer classes. I was probably hanging out in my room watching Star Trek: The Next Generation when the news broke like distant thunder in a dark sky. I don’t remember where I was during the tense Ford Bronco chase either. I was probably taking a nap.

I do remember exactly where I was and what I was doing on October 2, 1995, when the verdict in the trial of the century was read. Like most of America, including children in classrooms across the country, I was tuned in and watching. I was in my room on the second floor of Selleck Hall’s main building, located right next to the elevator and directly above the famous dining hall. I was lying on my bed in front of my small TV with my room door open, as many guys on the floor did during the day hours. I watched in horror as the court clerk read the verdict, finding O.J. Simpson not guilty of murder. I remember hearing crying from the courtroom, as well as someone screaming, “No!”

What happened next is seared into my memory. A guy named Kenji, an African-American student who lived across the hall from me, began screaming and shouting. They weren’t screams of anger, outrage or fear. They were celebratory in nature, as if his football team just won the Super Bowl. I lay on my bed and choked down my anger as several other voices on the floor also joined in the cheers and whooping.

That moment was when I really got it for the first time. I saw the great racial divide that exists in America. Sure, I’d watched the Rodney King drama unfold three years earlier, but the names and voices from L.A. were just concepts coming to me out of the air. And sure, I’d been lectured at by sanctimonious professors in classrooms about racism and such. The Simpson verdict was when I really got the point.

In that moment as I listened to Kenji rejoicing over the liberation of a guy who butchered the mother of his kids, I hated the fucker. I didn’t hate him because he was black. Kenji and I served together in Selleck government and I always liked the guy. But now, I hated him for cheering on a rich asshole who literally got away with murder.

Nine years later, I was attending an NFBNewsline seminar in Baltimore. I was in a room known as the Quadrangle, a large space that held four beds. I had three roommates. Two of them were black. Somehow, the subject of O.J. Simpson came up. I remember feeling outnumbered and attacked as I stated that I was dead certain that O.J. had gotten away with murder. The two of them laughed at me. I remember the laughter to this day. It was scornful, mocking and derisive. They were confident in their assurance that O.J. had been framed for murder. Based on the way Nicole and Ron’s throats had been cut, it had obviously been done by gangsters to whom O.J. owed gambling debts. The murders were a warning to O.J. to either pay up or die. That’s why he ran. He feared for his life.

These two guys are suckers, I thought. They actually think that O.J. was innocent. They are buying into a conspiracy theory that has no basis in fact.

Now, after the death of O.J. Simpson four days ago from cancer at age 76, I have come to doubt my initial impulse. It was born of reflexive vexation for being mocked as if I were a loveable but simple child. Looking back on it, I firmly believe that both men knew full well that O.J. was guilty. They knew the truth for what it was, but they chose to advance a certain narrative in solidarity with their community. In other words, they were gaslighting me. They were gaslighting a dumb hick from Nebraska who didn’t know what it was like to grow up black in Atlanta. They were contemptuous of a white boy who just didn’t get black anger in America. They were chiding a clueless idiot who didn’t understand the healthy, well-earned suspicion that many black people harbored toward the police. That Ryan O. was a nice enough guy, but he was naïve at best, ignorant at worst. Yes, they had very good reasons to lie to me, but they were lying none the less.

How do I know they were gaslighting me? Because, I’ve experienced it time after time after time over the past 10 years. It’s been done again and again for the same reasons. The pattern is sickeningly familiar. The reasons are varied, from supporting a certain political candidate to protecting society from an invisible disease to condemning a foreign country for defending itself. But the motives, benevolent at the beginning and sinister as they mushroom, are always the same. If the stakes are high enough, the lie is a noble one. It has to be told to serve a greater good. If you choose not to believe this lie and engage in a full-throated support of it, you are the problem. You are racist. You are sexist. You are Islamophobic, or transphobic, or whatever the cause du jour might entail. You are bigoted and close-minded. You’re a dupe for the invisible puppet masters pulling the strings. You are the true enemy and you deserve to be canceled, shunned, ridiculed and maybe even to have righteous violence visited upon you.

How ironic that the reasons for those noble lies often come back to the doorsteps of those who are rich, powerful and influential in society. Maybe they are politically influential. Maybe they are culturally influential. But, at the end of the day, they have money and success, so morality must take a hit in the name of service to a certain community.

I’m not writing this to relitigate the O.J. trial. If anyone is interested, there are hours and hours of retrospective analysis and raw historical footage that you can view from any lens if you wish to understand what it was like to live through that time. I’ve already said that I believe he was guilty and that he got away with murder. Unless the real killers should magically turn up with smoking gun evidence, my view on this will never change.

My reasons for writing about this now are merely to take note of the fact that our modern age of mass gaslighting didn’t start when Donald Trump first ran for president in 2016. It didn’t start when he won that election. It didn’t start when COVID-19 broke free into the world. It didn’t start when George Floyd was murdered. It didn’t start when a violent mob assaulted the U.S. Capital on January 6, 2021. It didn’t start when Russia invaded Ukraine, or Hamas raped and massacred thousands of Israeli citizens on October 7, 2023.

It didn’t even really start when certain voices began to excuse 9/11, or when Bill Clinton avoided paying a political price for the Monica Lewinsky affair. To my mind, our modern age of mass gaslighting started on October 2, 1995, when an entire segment of the country knew that a rich and powerful man murdered his wife and an inconvenient bystander and got away with it because he had the means to hire the best lawyers that money could buy, and they carried his water anyway, knowing damn well that the story wasn’t true. The modern gaslighting age started when the internet was only in its infancy, cellular phones were a rare luxury and you actually had to go to the library to do research. DNA was a semi-magical concept shrouded in the respectability of science, but still elusive to the masses.

How the acquittal of O.J. Simpson on double murder charges has served the larger interests of the African-American community is beyond me. I certainly know how it served the activist class, including certain journalists, pundits and academics who have a vested interest in the racial grievance game. But how it served the interests of the average, decent mom and pap folks who just want to make it through life with their fair share of dignity, respect and opportunity that goes beyond their skin color…I have no idea.

Supposedly, video has surfaced of one of the jurors from the O.J. murder trial admitting that everyone on the jury knew that he was guilty, but they wanted revenge for the Rodney King beating in 1992. I appreciate the candor. I’d rather hear unpleasant truths than be lied to for the advancement of some self-serving fiction. On the other side of it, the implicit understanding is that O.J.’s subsequent conviction for robbery in 2007 at the hands of an all-white jury was payback in kind for his skating on the murder charges in 1994. He served 10 years in prison, which was merely a fraction of what he actually deserved, but at least it was something. In the meantime, it looks as if O.J. was able to get away with not paying the bulk of the hefty judgement against him leveled by the Goldman family in the wrongful death civil suit.

And so, round and round we go, tit-for-tat. Each side in the grievance game can hold up their chosen avatar when the argument comes. The white folks have O.J. Simpson, who should’ve died of cancer while serving a life sentence in prison. The left has Mark ‘scumbag’ Fuhrman, who still enjoys being a celebrity contributor on Fox News. It appears that this is how we will be playing the grievance game for the next while. There does not appear to be an off-ramp on this doom carousel. Only God will decide when he’s ready to turn off the music.

I have no idea what became of Kenji. We were never close. I do hope he’s well. I do know that one of the two gentlemen I argued with in the Quadrangle became very prominent in NFB leadership. I heard from reliable sources that he ran cover for Fred Schroeder long before the sexual scandal broke in 2020. How appropriate that he had a chance to sharpen his gaslighting skills and that he could be useful to the so-called, “greater good.”

Incidentally, I do recommend the limited series, American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson, aired eight years ago on F-X. There are some unfortunate casting choices to be sure. Cuba Gooding Jr. was a terrible choice to play O.J., and John Travolta was cartoonish as Robert Shapiro. But the story is saved by excellent performances by Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark, Courtney B. Vance as Johnny Cochran, David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian (Kim’s dad) and especially by Sterling K. Brown as Chris Darden. The writing is thoughtful and deliberate, taking no definite positions about guilt or innocence amidst the growing circus of the trial. If you can find it, it’s well worth your time, unlike the successive ACS series concerning the Bill Clinton impeachment saga. I have not yet watched the five-part documentary, O.J. Simpson: Made in America.

God bless the Brown and Goldman families. God bless O.J.’s kids. They didn’t ask for this. And God help America. You can turn off the music any time now, Big Daddy.