Two & Four-Legged
NYC leaders are scratching their heads, trying to understand why their sense of justice in releasing felons has been rewarded by a sharp spike in violence. Go figure.
Have to laugh at reports that SNL cast members are upset that one of the richest people in the world, Tesla head Elon Musk, will be hosting the show. Aren’t all of its hosts among the one-percent?
Here’s an unsurprising, par for the course headline from nypost.com: “John Kerry is skirting the line of treason with Iran.” He divulged Israeli clandestine plans to the mullahs.
From articles at NYP, edited by yours truly: The rural town of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia lost internet and cell phone service this past weekend. Beavers gnawed through a cable. And on Staten Island’s Richmond Creek the critters have built a dam over the water, creating a blockage that has led to flooding. “Shooting beaver” now takes on a entirely different connotation.
Interesting headline from Yahoo Sports: “Chiefs TE Sean Culkin plans to convert entire 2021 salary into Bitcoin.” I don’t believe it’s wise to put all eggs in one basket.
I’ve been watching parts of NBC’s Debris, which airs on Monday at ten. It’s good sci-fi, vastly superior to its Manifest. Unfortunately, my annoying tendency to nod off interferes. One cautionary note, the series has basically a single story line that may quickly become tedious. Here’s an effect I enjoyed:
These days I only dive into books by an author I’ve never read, provided the page count isn’t much more than 350. Home Front, a novel by Patti Davis, fit the bill. She, of course, is the daughter of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis. She used her mom’s maiden name in order to be independent of her dad in terms of career. As a great admirer of Reagan, I was wary of a hatchet job. It isn’t, although there is political conflict between parents and offspring, as there has always been. The parents have no Hollywood background, so it’s not a true roman a clef, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it adhered very closely to what occurred. Published in 1986, the story concerns the main character’s activism during the Vietnam War, which embarrasses her hawkish folks. At the time Reagan was governor of California and already had designs on the White House. The daughter is peaceful and sincere, a good person. The parents come off as narrow-minded, one-dimensional. Wisely, Davis does not let the idiocy of some of the fellow travelers go unreported. I smiled at the point when, having read the poetry of Leroi Jones, the protagonist hoped a classmate would forgive her for being white, something many misguided folks are practicing today. The best aspect of the tale is her relationship with her first love, who drops out of school to join the Marines, serves a full tour, then signs up for another six months. He is psychologically damaged by what he witnesses and, once he returns, goes off the grid. The writing is solid. Maureen Strange Foster is credited as co-writer. I was unable to find much info about her other than two novels she had published prior to the collaboration. It appears they were not successful commercially. Home Front, on the other hand, is still selling modestly well, ranked 183,870th at Amazon, where more than 15 million titles are listed. It was Davis’ first book. She has written 13 in all, almost an even split between fiction and non. She also has a Hallmark screenplay to her credit, Sacrifices of the Heart (2007), which starred Melissa Gilbert and Ken Howard. And she co-wrote I Wish You Peace with Eagles’ guitarist Bernie Leadon, a track on the One of These Nights album. She has 14 titles under her name at IMDb in the category of actress, the last in 1989’s Tango and Cash, which starred Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell. She posed for Playboy in 1994. Now 68, she continues to devote herself to liberal causes. Four users at Amazon have rated Home Front, forging to a consensus of four on a scale of five. I’ll go with three. The young veteran in question deserves compassion for what he suffered, but the main horror that haunts him is no different than what had occurred in past wars. The narrative seems to want to state that it was different. I contend that the difference between Vietnam and all other American conflicts, outside of advanced weaponry, was at home, not “in country.” War has always been hell. Was I a supporter of the war? No. I was somewhere in the middle. It seemed absurd to believe the action in Vietnam was undertaken with evil intent, although it can certainly be argued that it was folly, despite the counter argument that it hastened the fall of the Soviet Union. Was that factor worth the 50,000-plus American lives lost? Would the USSR have collapsed regardless, perhaps a little later than it did? Does that even matter, given the evil Russia still perpetrates? And China has become an even greater threat, wisely resorting to capitalist measures to survive while still governing as a totalitarian state. The correct course is never as clear as the right or left wing dictates.
My thanks to the kind folks who bought, donated and swapped books on this pleasant day. Not much cash, but a lot better than yesterday. What a relief that the wind finally subsided.
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