Monday night PBS broadcast a biography of Wyatt Earp on its American Experience
series. Its usually pretty good, but stumbled when it came to "The Frontier
Marshal"( the title of Stuart Lake's haliographic biography. Wyatt Earp was
never marshal of anything, least of all Tombstone. At the OK Corral execution,
he carried a badge that read "Special Police").
Alarm bells went off when I saw the Western "historian" and artist; Bob Boze
Bell was a commentator. His history is of the gee wiz school, and his art is on
the impressionistic side, bearing no resemblance to the work of Charles Russell
and David Powell.
This biography would have you believe Earp was an agent of modernity, bringing
the American West to a path to the 20th Century. He was, in fact, an agent for
prostitutes, a pimp, who lived off their earning and used their money for
gambling. Dealing cards was his idea of hard work.
When he needed money when the cards didn't fall his way, he'd find employment as
an assistant deputy marshal at $.50 an arrest. He always found a reason for an
arrest. In an addition to money, law enforcement allowed him to brutalize his
fellow man.
After the OK Corral execution he engaged in a life of killing. He murdered a
man named Frank Stillwell at the Tucson train yard. On his vengeance ride after
the murder of his brother, he is said to have killed upwards of thirty men.
Little of this was in the PBS documentary.
The Tombstone conflict could have been related in these terms:
The Clantions, McLaurys and the "Cowboys" (the name given the outlaw band that
terrorized the Tombstone area) were southern democrats with pro Confederate
views.
The Earps were badge heavy law and order, pro gun control Republicans who were
allergic to hard work.
The Cowboys didn't care to take orders from any Yankee son-a-bitches.
After Tombstone, Wyatt's life consisted of one get rich scheme after another,
although his common-law wife, Josie (or Sophie) came from a well to do family.
Her family, observant Jews living in San Francisco, didn't care for the
cold-blooded killer she had chosen as her life companion.
Josie was not mentioned until the last five minutes of the program, although she
was a witness to the OK Corral shooting.
Contrary to the commentators' story, Doc and the Earps were in dangered of being
lynched. They were arrested and tried for murder, but tried in a bench trial by
a judge with a pro Earp bias. He knew they were guilty, but apparently approved
of their actions.
Wyatt had a warrant for the murder of Frank Stillwell hanging over his head for
the rest of his life
The OK Corral incident did not bring law and order to Tombstone.
The American Experience needs warts and all biography, not what they gave their
Monday night.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
An Immodest Proposal
The health care crisis seems to be beyond control. Cost will continue to rise beyond the rate of inflation. There is simply no controlling them. It's a fools fantasy to try.
Even if costs were halved, most families simply cannot afford the premiums. No one will accept a reduction in salary. Not the doctors, the nurses, or the highly payed hospital administrators, nor the corporate executives at the HMOs, insurance companies and drug outfits.
There is a solution, a low cost solution. A cost effective solution less costly than a years supply of medication for the elderly and the chronically ill.
The answer is so simple.
The cheapest funeral in this country, a cremation, is still around three thousand dollars. Too costly for the average family.
Forget costly medical care and sky high prescription costs; the government should simply get out of the health case business, dump Medicare and Medicade and offer free funerals to the lower classes.
No more monthly trips to the doctor and the drugstore. No more copays. No more hard x-ray tables, or high radiation CAT scans. No more lengthly and noisy exams in the claustrophobic MRI scanner.
Think of the money that could be saved to be spent on wide screen TVs, video games, corn chips and beer; and cigarettes (cut taxes on smokes so people can afford their pleasures, this isn't Russia!).
Give the people the best funeral money can buy. A real wood coffin, paid mourners, a band, a real dog and pony show with all the bells and whistles. A big send-off will make the loved ones of the dearly departed feel so much better. Maybe a cash prize to the most demonstrative mourner!
The friends and family would have to pay for the wake. Booze is expensive and the lower classes drink like fish. Even the cheap stuff. Fair is fair.
Another plus. An increase in the number of wealthy undertakers, paying more income taxes. The tax rate on the top ten present would have to be capped at 15%. They've been paying more than their share for decades. Fair is fair.
As the lower classes die off, with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, relaxing in the Lazy-boy with a smile on their lips (what a way to go!) the practical and fair-minded Republican population might not increase, but they would soon come to out number the tax and spend, free ride Democrats.
America needs a return to sanity.
Write your Congressman, your Senators, even the President and suggest the simple solution!
Even if costs were halved, most families simply cannot afford the premiums. No one will accept a reduction in salary. Not the doctors, the nurses, or the highly payed hospital administrators, nor the corporate executives at the HMOs, insurance companies and drug outfits.
There is a solution, a low cost solution. A cost effective solution less costly than a years supply of medication for the elderly and the chronically ill.
The answer is so simple.
The cheapest funeral in this country, a cremation, is still around three thousand dollars. Too costly for the average family.
Forget costly medical care and sky high prescription costs; the government should simply get out of the health case business, dump Medicare and Medicade and offer free funerals to the lower classes.
No more monthly trips to the doctor and the drugstore. No more copays. No more hard x-ray tables, or high radiation CAT scans. No more lengthly and noisy exams in the claustrophobic MRI scanner.
Think of the money that could be saved to be spent on wide screen TVs, video games, corn chips and beer; and cigarettes (cut taxes on smokes so people can afford their pleasures, this isn't Russia!).
Give the people the best funeral money can buy. A real wood coffin, paid mourners, a band, a real dog and pony show with all the bells and whistles. A big send-off will make the loved ones of the dearly departed feel so much better. Maybe a cash prize to the most demonstrative mourner!
The friends and family would have to pay for the wake. Booze is expensive and the lower classes drink like fish. Even the cheap stuff. Fair is fair.
Another plus. An increase in the number of wealthy undertakers, paying more income taxes. The tax rate on the top ten present would have to be capped at 15%. They've been paying more than their share for decades. Fair is fair.
As the lower classes die off, with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, relaxing in the Lazy-boy with a smile on their lips (what a way to go!) the practical and fair-minded Republican population might not increase, but they would soon come to out number the tax and spend, free ride Democrats.
America needs a return to sanity.
Write your Congressman, your Senators, even the President and suggest the simple solution!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
LIEBERCARE
It has been suggested members of the Senate who have done gross injury to the health care reform bill handed to them by the House be required to wear the logo of their sponsors on their jackets (like NASCAR drivers and other riffraff) while going about the business these sponsors (the business of the people and the Republic forgotten soon after the receipts from the first fund raiser were counted up).
The networks would never offend the owners of the country by broadcasting the evidence of corruption. Inquiring minds would have to turn to C-SPAN, or the biggest thorn in the side of the owners, the Net. The Net being too democratic for our Oligarchy.
The corrupt ones would have us believe they are exercising the will of the decafeinated tea baggers, who are demented enough to believe it.
The President hopes to mandate everyone to buy health insurance even in a non competitive market. I can only wonder how the Supreme Court will deal with the legal challenge to this unfunded mandate.
The networks would never offend the owners of the country by broadcasting the evidence of corruption. Inquiring minds would have to turn to C-SPAN, or the biggest thorn in the side of the owners, the Net. The Net being too democratic for our Oligarchy.
The corrupt ones would have us believe they are exercising the will of the decafeinated tea baggers, who are demented enough to believe it.
The President hopes to mandate everyone to buy health insurance even in a non competitive market. I can only wonder how the Supreme Court will deal with the legal challenge to this unfunded mandate.
Monday, May 4, 2009
FRANK AND JESSE BECOME BANK PRESIDENTS
NOT TOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS PT. 1
THE STORY OF CLINT, AMERICAN GULLIVER.
This part is called “Part One”, but could be assigned almost any number, Much like a page number for a novel by William Burroughs’. Clint is counted among the living, so the exact number of parts to his life is unknown.
Clint’s mother fell in love with Clint Eastwood after seeing him in one of those foul Italian Westerns. When Clint was born to an unwed, teenage mother, he was graced with the name Clint.
Despite being a disgrace to her fellow high school students, Mom managed to become class valedictorian. The theme of her commencement speech considered the narrow-minded suburban fascist culture turning the nation into a herd of pig ignorant, sexual repressed, drunken, wife beaters.
Nixon was president.
Near our present time, Clint found a job at a bank rubber stamping loan application for any yahoo who could arrive at his desk, self powered or strapped into a motorized wheelchair. Drool optional. Assistant managers in charge of the Freedom Fries fryer at a fast food restaurant qualified for $300.000 houses. No down. No credit check.
The rubber stampers applied a joyous “approved”, along with the signature of the Harvard MBA currently running his bank, along with the country, to ruin. None dare call it treason.
Clint received a cool grand for every time he mashed the stamp on to a loan application.
He made a pile of cash, but was wise enough to keep his double-wide coach, formerly known as a trailer, and avoid the resulting crash creeping its way into the economy with the help of Clint’s bosses and most members of Congress.
The crash came, but he had no need for a high priced shyster and a deal with the US Attorney. All was forgiven long before the crash began. The butter is always on the same side of the bread. You’ll even find it in Herodotus.
He got a new job with a new stamp: Rejected!
Clint lost his job when he foolishly lent a customer a quarter to call his wife with the bad news. This act of defiance was spied by an aged security guard who reported it to the bosses as they were making a wire transfer of their multi million dollar bonus’ to an off-shore bank in an island country where it is a crime to even inquire if a foreigner had a bank account. There are just a few accounts short of the 535 for each member of Congress. Hard as it is to believe, some Congressman are honest.
END OF PART ONE.
THE STORY OF CLINT, AMERICAN GULLIVER.
This part is called “Part One”, but could be assigned almost any number, Much like a page number for a novel by William Burroughs’. Clint is counted among the living, so the exact number of parts to his life is unknown.
Clint’s mother fell in love with Clint Eastwood after seeing him in one of those foul Italian Westerns. When Clint was born to an unwed, teenage mother, he was graced with the name Clint.
Despite being a disgrace to her fellow high school students, Mom managed to become class valedictorian. The theme of her commencement speech considered the narrow-minded suburban fascist culture turning the nation into a herd of pig ignorant, sexual repressed, drunken, wife beaters.
Nixon was president.
Near our present time, Clint found a job at a bank rubber stamping loan application for any yahoo who could arrive at his desk, self powered or strapped into a motorized wheelchair. Drool optional. Assistant managers in charge of the Freedom Fries fryer at a fast food restaurant qualified for $300.000 houses. No down. No credit check.
The rubber stampers applied a joyous “approved”, along with the signature of the Harvard MBA currently running his bank, along with the country, to ruin. None dare call it treason.
Clint received a cool grand for every time he mashed the stamp on to a loan application.
He made a pile of cash, but was wise enough to keep his double-wide coach, formerly known as a trailer, and avoid the resulting crash creeping its way into the economy with the help of Clint’s bosses and most members of Congress.
The crash came, but he had no need for a high priced shyster and a deal with the US Attorney. All was forgiven long before the crash began. The butter is always on the same side of the bread. You’ll even find it in Herodotus.
He got a new job with a new stamp: Rejected!
Clint lost his job when he foolishly lent a customer a quarter to call his wife with the bad news. This act of defiance was spied by an aged security guard who reported it to the bosses as they were making a wire transfer of their multi million dollar bonus’ to an off-shore bank in an island country where it is a crime to even inquire if a foreigner had a bank account. There are just a few accounts short of the 535 for each member of Congress. Hard as it is to believe, some Congressman are honest.
END OF PART ONE.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
You're Welcome America
You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George Bush, confirms my opinion of Will Ferrell.He is a marginal talent as a performer,
and a minor talent as a writer. Even George Bush deserves better. We deserve better. We deserve *funny*. Ferrell's persistent vulgarity
detracts from what little humor there is. If he can't get ninety minutes of non stop laughs out of the presidential antics of the
last four years, he should return to SNL where slow death by the humorless is the standard. Ferrell is to comedy what George Bush was
to the presidency.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Rush To Cloud Koo Koo Land
Rush is becoming more like Mussolini every day. He rather resembles him. They both, at one time, managed to avoid military service (Rush had a pimple on his ass rendering him unfit for the Army or the Boy Scouts), Benito Mussolini was Il Duce of Italy and Rush is Il Duce of the Republican Party.
Mussolini got a rush from the exercise of fascist power; Rush got a rush from popping massive amounts of hillbilly heroin.
Both have managed to weaponise stupidity.
Mussolini got a rush from the exercise of fascist power; Rush got a rush from popping massive amounts of hillbilly heroin.
Both have managed to weaponise stupidity.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Opium Wars
When I was a kid I was reading a history of the British Empire. I came across the history of the Opium Wars, between England and China,
I thought England was being libeled when I read the English made war on China for China's refusal to allow Indian grown opium (this was about 1860 when India as a well established part of the Empire, the Jewel in the Crown, to be imported into China, enslaving her people and driving them further into poverty).
The prejudice I acquired in California Public School told me this was the sort of behavior to be expected of the Yellow Peril, not white Europeans who always acted for the Good.
So I did what I always did, I consulted my Dad, a great lover of history who could knowledgeably answer any history question I might ask him.
The book was right, my Dad assured me, and that was not the worse thing the English had done. He referred me to the English invention of the concentration camp during the Boar War, and the secret police-like actions of the Black and Tans the great Winston Churchill had sent to Ireland to smash the Irish quest for independence in the form of the Republican Army.
I was reminded of this while reading Piers Brendon's excellent THE DECLINE AND FALL THE THE BRITISH EMPIRE.
To paraphrase Oliver Cromwell: I want my history warts and all.
I thought England was being libeled when I read the English made war on China for China's refusal to allow Indian grown opium (this was about 1860 when India as a well established part of the Empire, the Jewel in the Crown, to be imported into China, enslaving her people and driving them further into poverty).
The prejudice I acquired in California Public School told me this was the sort of behavior to be expected of the Yellow Peril, not white Europeans who always acted for the Good.
So I did what I always did, I consulted my Dad, a great lover of history who could knowledgeably answer any history question I might ask him.
The book was right, my Dad assured me, and that was not the worse thing the English had done. He referred me to the English invention of the concentration camp during the Boar War, and the secret police-like actions of the Black and Tans the great Winston Churchill had sent to Ireland to smash the Irish quest for independence in the form of the Republican Army.
I was reminded of this while reading Piers Brendon's excellent THE DECLINE AND FALL THE THE BRITISH EMPIRE.
To paraphrase Oliver Cromwell: I want my history warts and all.
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