Keep Hollywood Working

The motion picture and television writers finished their ugly business some time ago causing havoc in the Industry and the community that depends on it. Why? for a larger slice of a bigger pie they'll never taste. For an endeavor that has little use for the vapid product of writers who's best effort is no more than the rehashed television of their youth. Yuk.

Now the actors stand at the abyss ready to destroy the last vestiges of a productive industry. An Industry, Hollywood, once then envy of the world.

That they are artists is the grossest of self-delusions. Most can't remember lines or hit their marks. Ninety percent never work, but not for those reasons The successful actors contracts give them far more than any Union contract could guarantee. Those who do not work hold the fate of the Industry in their hands. A spite vote for a strike will be yet another blow to the fate of the Industry.

Hollywood is a moveable feast.

Keep everyone working.

TODAY

All men stand equal before the law. But, what kind of odds are those?

Outside the Zone

In THE TWILIGHT ZONE episode TIME ENOUGH AT LAST Burgess Meredith plays Henry Bemis, a henpecked little guy who's persecuted for what his boss identifies as the crime of being ... a reader. He must steal time to pursue the simple pleasure of reading.

Fate intervenes in the form of the H Bomb. Henry survives because he was in a bank vault when the bomb obliterated almost everything he knew. He finds a revolver and is about to end his solitude when he spies the ruins of the Public Library, overflowing with readable books. His life is renewed.

Fate intervenes once again when Henry accidentally breaks his glasses. Henry declares its not fair. Life's not fair.

I was ten years old when I saw that episode, but I learned its lesson: if I wanted to keep out of The Twilight Zone, I'd best keep a spare pair of glasses. Forty years later I came to need reading glasses, so I keep several spare pair of glasses, and remain, to this date, clear of the Twilight Zone.

Giving Thanks

In today's New York Times historian Kenneth Davis reminds us of a Thanksgiving held in 1564 by French Huguenots who had established a colony in Florida, near present day Jacksonville. They had fled persecution in France.

Another party of Huguenots had escaped to South Africia.

King Philip II of Spain didn't care for these Protestants on a foreign land Spain did not occupy but claimed none the less, and sent Adm. Pedro Menendez and a fleet to slaughter the heretics. He did so with Inquisitionary zeal.

Francis Parkman chronicled the whole ugly business in his PIONEERS OF FRANCE IN THE NEW WORLD.

Souperism

The award winning film, THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY, about the Irish struggle for independence in the 1920s, might put you in mind of the Potato Famine of the century before.

English aid to the starving Irish was lackluster at best. Other countries were more generous: the Ottoman Sultan Abdulmecid sent a 1000 pounds sterling (he would have sent more, but the Queen, who sent only 2000 pounds, did not want to be out-shined by a heathen foreigner) and three ships loads of food. The impoverished Choctaw Indian Nation sent $710.00.

The Irish Anglican Church, in an effort to siphon off members of the Irish Catholic Church, offered bowels of soup to Catholics willing to convert to the Anglicans. Those who took the religion to keep from starving were known as soupers.

The Lone Gunman

On this day in 1963 Jack Ruby engendered an entire school of conspiracy theory. We watched it on TV. At the time I wondered how a cheap thug could carry a gun into the basement of the Dallas Police Station. A little reading provided the answer. The myth of the Lone Star permeates the Texan culture, but has its limits.

The Dallas Police were good enough to capture Oswald within hours of shooting the President, but were incompetent to provide security for his transfer from one building to another. They would provide better security for a football team. The Christian faith competes with football for title of Texas State Religion.

Putin' on the Ritz

My walking stick has provided me with the greater portion of my personal complements, not counting those made about my height, something over which I had no control (6'6"). Unlike vanity sticks, or the Irish shalale (made famous by the dreadful John Ford/John Wayne film, THE QUIET MAN) mine's sole use is to support me as I stumble my way through the day.

I recall a character in a Sherlock Holmes' story who had drilled out the center of his heavy walking stick and filled it with lead. Like so many Holmes' characters, this fellow felt his life was in danger. I knew a guy who carried a sword cane. He couldn't fence but fancied himself a modern Scaramouche.

My stick was constructed for me by a friend. I always cite him when complemented.

The Royal Family

After waiting through some really tiresome negotiating (which continues to slow roast the patience of the American people) the Hilary Clinton people, along with the Bill Clinton people, negotiate with the Obama people as to the conditions under which The Hilary will accept nomination as Secretary of State (the whole tiresome affair seems as Byzantine as the Congress of Vienna, which the Media portrays as just as important).

If The Hilary should grace the Cabinet for Change with her insight, ego and competitiveness, it will leave an empty seat in the Senate, a vacancy the Democrat Governor of New York will be obliged to fill. Bill Clinton, a choice for bound to irritate Republicans and give his fellow Democrats the dry heaves, would not be a lowly junior Senator, he would enjoy the status of Princeps Senatus.

There is little doubt The Hilary plans a presidential run in 2016. By then Bill could be Majority or Minority leader (depending on the breaks). The Clintons could have two branches of government 'bout sewed-up.

Wild Blue Yonder

A few years back the Air Wing of the CIA's Murder Incorporated (Peruvian Branch) managed to shoot down a civilian aircraft on the suspicion it was carrying (and I hope you're sitting down) drugs.

It turned out this plane was carrying nothing more lethal than Bibles, and Missionaries to introduce the Good Book to the native population (which is a step up from what our civilization used to impose on the unbaptized)

Mother missionary and daughter were killed while father missionary and son escaped death.

Boy, were there red faces at the CIA! Actually no. Those responsible for this murder (and it would be charged as murder if this ugly passion play happened in the USA) hid in the baseboards when investigators shined their flashlights in the darker corners of the agency. Huddled in that darkness, they crossed their antennae and hoped for the best.

The investigation of this murder is about to be reopened and we can only expect the worse and hope for the best.

The Election

The fascisti of the Republican Party has endured a body blow; a setback for their return to the 15th Century that will last at least four years.

The bigots of California have triumphed, protecting what they fancy as traditional marriage, complete with wife beating, child abuse and adultery. The deviant hoards will never breach the ramparts of a true, clean living civil contract.

We can be secure in the knowledge the Right Wing Slander Machine is warming up the leftovers plus new outrages to pollute our TV screens. The hoods, and their interns, the goons, are chugalugging suds, chanting tryout slogans for Neo-Thug rallies. Governorette Palin is now part of the Republican Brain-Trust. The smart part.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and Republican TV ads.

Yeah, I'm a glass half empty kind of guy,