Author: Randy Haspel

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Thinning the Herd: Americans are the Dumbest People on Earth

We Americans are about as dumb as we want to be. With 1.5 million cases of the coronavirus confirmed in the U.S. and COVID-related deaths approaching 80,000, many states began reopening certain businesses and public places, and the populace emerged from their homes with a vengeance.

When Mayor Strickland’s “Safer at Home” executive order expired on May 5th, Memphis shoppers packed grocery stores, while complaints piled up over people neither wearing masks nor social distancing, especially in the bleach and disinfectant aisle.

In Ft. Worth, Texas, five people were shot at a party in a public park that drew over 600 people. In Arkansas, hair salons, barber shops, and tattoo and massage parlors will open this week, while at the federal prison in Forrest City, 301 inmates and 14 staffers have tested positive. In Jacksonville, Florida, crowds jammed beaches despite the mayor’s directive limiting gatherings to 10 people. Officials in Boca Raton tweeted images of crowded boat parties, while Governor Ron DeSantis announced that municipalities should “feel free” to begin opening parks and beaches. Crowds in California continue to jam beaches and parks, defying the governor’s orders to shelter in place. In Flint, Michigan, a security guard at a Family Dollar store was murdered by a disgruntled customer who took offense at the guard’s insistence that a young girl put on a face mask in accordance with a state order.

And we haven’t even mentioned the churches. Life Tabernacle Church in Louisiana held services for over 550 parishioners because the pastor proclaimed the virus “is not a concern. The virus, we believe, is politically motivated.” Over at the River Church in Tampa, Florida, Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne was arrested after defying repeated orders to not hold services at his mega-church. The good pastor, one of many Christian leaders who laid hands on the president during a prayer session in the Oval Office, told his congregation that the pandemic was of less concern than the flu and announced that “The whole thing is planned … to shut down Christianity.” He also told his flock that God would replenish their toilet paper, and I wish that were a joke.

Closer to home, the Cleburne County Church in Greers Ferry, Arkansas, held a children’s event in late March, after which 34 people tested positive for the coronavirus, including the pastor and his wife.

The newest viral hotspot is in the White House. Trump’s personal valet has tested positive for COVID-19. This is the guy who serves the president his food and yet, the Mad King still refuses to wear a face mask for fear that it would make him look ridiculous. This would rank about 12th on the list of things that make Trump look ridiculous. The press secretary to Vice President Mike Pence, Katie Miller, has also tested positive for coronavirus. Miller is the wife of White House ghoul and architect of the “brown children in cages” policy, Stephen Miller. Miller himself tested negative, which is expected of bloodless vampires. The only thing that could harm him is a wooden stake.

Our president continues on his singular quest to reopen every KFC in the country, despite the best advice of his experts. A recently leaked White House internal document, assembled by FEMA, projects deaths reaching three thousand a day by June 1st — a 70 percent increase from current numbers. The often-quoted University of Washington model projects 135,000 Americans dead from the coronavirus through the first of August — more than double its forecast from mid-April. The squatter in the White House has forbidden any officials on the Coronavirus Task Force from testifying before Congress without the express approval of new Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

As I write this, there are more than 3,000 confirmed cases and 64 deaths from COVID-19 in Shelby County. The virus is raging through nursing homes and jails while the “essential employees” of these facilities fan out into their respective communities after their shifts. And yet some people still believe the coronavirus, as the president once said, is “a hoax.” Personally, we’re not going anywhere until summer, or when medical experts tell us it’ll be safe to visit patients in the hospital again.

On a positive note, Carnival Cruises will resume excursions in August, and I understand tickets are a real bargain.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

White Noise: Greetings From Sector Seven

Greetings from Sector 7. Things have been pretty quiet around here. Too quiet. Sometimes at night all I can hear is the ticking of the grandfather clock. At times it seems so loud it makes my ears ring. I could relax if I could only stop that infernal ticking. Wait. I remember. We don’t have a grandfather clock. Then it must be a heartbeat. I’m not the only one in this house with a bass drum for a heart. Which one is doing this incessant pounding? I get it. It’s not them. It’s me. It’s just the blood pulsing in my inner ear, through the cochlea and on to the cranium. Maybe it’s time to remove the bandana. 

Have I slipped into an Edgar Allan Poe story? Let me think. Oh, yes. This is more like the novel White Noise by Don DeLillo, when a chemical spill from a railroad car created “The Airborne Toxic Event,” which forces the evacuation of a college town. Time is measured as before and after the “Event.” An experimental drug called “Dylar” is used to treat the widespread fear of dying, but it has unpredictable side effects. If all this sounds familiar, it is yet another example of life imitating art. DeLillo’s novel was published in 1985. Who knew 35 years later we would be living it?

We’re making the best of our quarantine, induced by the rampant spread of COVID-19 — or as Donald Trump called it for weeks, the flu. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee didn’t help matters by waiting about three weeks later than other states to issue stay-at-home orders. My Nashville pals tell me that Lower Broadway was still packed with partiers long after other cities had taken the health warnings to heart. When the bars finally did close, the only saloon owner determined to keep his place open was Trump devotee, Kid Rock. As a result, Nashville is now a “hot spot” for the virus. Memphis would be in better shape if the virus wasn’t being trucked in by our neighbors from Mississippi and Arkansas, whose governors have done little to nothing to encourage stopping the spread.

Do you think there might be a connection between viral outbreaks in states with Republican governors who ignored the experts’ warnings and a president who called it “the new Democratic hoax,” with the legitimate press “in hysteria mode,” designed to hurt his re-election chances? Fox News echoed the malignant disinformation for several weeks, so now the virus has been confirmed in all 50 states and shelter-in-place orders have been issued by governors nationwide while Trump is still issuing “travel guidelines.” The “fake-news” New York Times reported that the president was warned of an impending pandemic in early January, but he played down the crisis, not wishing to disturb the stock market and because of his suspicions over the motives of the “Deep State.”

All that’s left to do is to make the best of an unprecedented disaster and practice social distancing until, or if, a vaccine is found. Actually, this isn’t too much of a stretch for me. I’d make a great candidate for house arrest. Other than occasionally visiting with friends, eating at a restaurant, or going to hear live music, we didn’t leave the house that much before the pandemic. I have FaceTimed with more friends and relatives in the past month than I have in the previous year. Facebook has been a great tool to keep up with the other shut-ins, if they would only stop sending me videos on Facebook Messenger. Some of my relatively elderly acquaintances were unaware of the many food delivery services. OK, BOOMER! Download apps from Postmates, Grubhub, DoorDash, or Bite Squad and they’ll deliver meals from your favorite restaurants right to your door. In fact, they’ll leave it so no human contact is involved. But then again, some of my technically challenged friends don’t know what an app is. Such is the generational divide. Also remember, you’re not trapped in your house. You can still go for walks. If not for you, do it for the dog.

We’ve begun a walking routine after I passed by a mirror naked and saw a beer belly that suddenly appeared out of nowhere — and I don’t even drink beer. People are really friendly out there. If you see someone coming, this is the only time you can cross to the other side of the street without offending anyone. We even stopped to talk with a couple sitting on their front porch. I don’t recall that happening, ever.

Now I understand how people passed the time during the 19th century. After the plague is over, there could be a renaissance of front porches. We’ve also been watching a whole lot of television. We got a smart TV, but we’re too dumb to figure out how to use it properly. The news reminds us that the real heroes of this scourge are the front-line medical workers who risk their lives in ill-equipped hospitals to treat the afflicted. But we’ve also realized which jobs are also truly “essential.”

They are the grocery store employees — folks who stock the shelves, mop the floors, and mostly make minimum wage. Then there are the drivers who bring you your food, chefs and cooks who prepare it, and restaurant workers, many who have been furloughed, who pack it up and send it out.

My heart goes out to the club owners and all the great musicians who have lost their venues but are posting “virtual” concerts online, because we need them now more than ever.

This virus won’t last forever. Perhaps with the arrival of hot weather, we’ll get a respite. But come November, I will crawl through an infected field of dead Chinese bats just to cast a vote against this evil, bloviating bastard who sits in the White House. I can stand unlimited quarantine for the coronavirus, but I can’t take four more years of this man-made horror show.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Suffering From Trump-itis?

This president makes me sick. Literally. After enduring relentless night sweats during restless sleep, I felt light-headed and dizzy. Any exertion left me exhausted. I thought a nice shower might help, but I ended up having to lie down while attempting to zen away my rapid, palpitating heartbeat. Walking from bedroom to den was encumbered with an equilibrium imbalance that left me clutching the wall. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I tried to act calmly so as not to frighten my wife, but Melody could see through my charade and suggested we go to the emergency room.

Rather than go to the ER on a Saturday night, we instead called the doctor’s service, which asked if we had a blood pressure monitor in the house. When Melody hooked me up and the cuff finally loosened from my bicep, my blood pressure was off the charts. A Xanax eased the situation until I could call my doctor on Monday. By miraculous luck, someone had canceled their three o’clock appointment and I was able to grab it. When my blood work was suspect, I was sent to a nephrologist, then a urologist, before returning to my primary doctor. The prognosis? Hypertension combined with acid reflux was disturbing my stability.

So, now I’m on daily blood pressure and digestive medications. When I asked the doctor if he had any further instructions, he said, “Turn off the news and play more guitar.”

But it’s hard to ignore or escape the American Horror Story sitting in the White House. After the thoroughly co-opted and corrupted Republican Senate aquitted the president from two articles of impeachment, the gaseous windbag felt emboldened enough to take a couple of victory laps. After President Clinton’s impeachment, Wild Bill appeared in the Rose Garden alone, showed contrition, and apologized to the country for his indiscretions that prompted the R-rated ordeal that followed.

Trump chose to show up at the annual prayer breakfast, ordinarily a non-political event that focuses on faith, and launch a diatribe against his perceived enemies, calling the top FBI officials “scum” and questioning Nancy Pelosi’s faith while she sat just feet away. Trump addressed the gathering declaring: “As everybody knows, my family, our great country, and your president have been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people.” He could just as well have been referring to his rotten cabinet that cheered him on.

Appearing in the East Room of the White House after the breakfast, Trump instigated a vendetta against impeachment witnesses that would have made Richard Nixon blanch. Referring to fired FBI Director James Comey as “that sleazebag” and Nancy Pelosi as “a horrible person,” Trump gathered his minions, sent them out on cable TV, and prepared to get some payback.

Gordon Sondland, the million-dollar Republican donor recalled from his post as ambassador to the European Union, was the first victim of Trump’s retribution. Then, “simmering with rage,” as his aides attested, Trump had impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman fired from his position on the National Security Council and escorted by security guards from the White House grounds — along with his twin brother, who had nothing to do with the impeachment, just in case Trump couldn’t tell them apart.

Only a month ago, Trump pardoned an Army soldier convicted of war crimes. Now he’s dismissed a decorated veteran who had earned a Purple Heart in combat. Trump then asked the Pentagon to investigate Vindman for any potential wrongdoing. The Pentagon declined.

The idiot man-child then demanded that the House “expunge” his impeachment, calling the whole thing a “hoax.” Like the Bizarro Superman of comic book fame, Trump protects the guilty while punishing the innocent.

Emboldened by his acquittal, Trump began to purge the unfaithful from his administration, enlisting the Justice Department and Trump’s slavish attorney general, William Barr, to exact revenge on his critics. Trump’s obedient protector immediately appointed an outside prosecutor to examine the origins of the investigation into the former National Security Advisor and disgraced convicted liar Michael Flynn. After that, Barr interfered with the sentencing recommendations of convicted comic villain Roger Stone. All four government prosecutors resigned from the case, prompting more than 1,100 former prosecutors and Justice Department officials to call for Barr’s resignation.

I say impeach his ass again. Seriously. This bloated megalomaniac thinks because he was acquitted by a fearful Republican Senate that he’s home free to continue his work as capo of the Trump crime family. There were at least 10 more charges of obstruction of justice outlined in the Mueller report. They weren’t included in this impeachment go-round because Robert Mueller wasn’t very telegenic and failed to move public opinion. Mueller clearly stated that the outlaw president could not be charged only because of a legal “opinion” that prevents a sitting president from indictment. Mueller told congress, “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” He never said so. In fact, Mueller reported to the shyster Attorney General that his probe found “multiple acts by the president that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations,” which translates into a profusion of abuse of power.

Mueller’s 448-page report was dismissed after most Americans didn’t bother reading it. I ordered the report in book form, but the print was small enough to require a magnifying glass, and was so dense, it was like trying to read War and Peace in Sanskrit.

It didn’t matter. All of Mueller’s evidence of criminality was ignored. No president in history has been more deserving of removal from office than this counterfeit con man. Until this cruel fool is displaced from our collective reality, I’ll be here at home — playing the guitar.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

All the President’s Hits

CREDIT: Laurence Agron | Dreamstime.com

And the hits just keep on coming. The President killed an Iranian general in a drone strike early this month, and it’s already old news. There’s an old Southern expression you’ve probably heard. When a bad person comes to a violent end, somebody’s bound to say, “He needed killin’.” If anybody needed killing, it was General Qasem Soleimani, a brutal terrorist with buckets of blood on his hands. The president could have basked in reflected glory for a moment or two, but he couldn’t resist embellishing the event by claiming that the general was planning “imminent” attacks on at least four U.S. embassies, with absolutely no evidence. President Norman Bates then threatened to target 52 Iranian sites, one for each hostage taken 40 years ago, including cultural sites, which is against international law and considered a war crime.

A shooting war with Iran on the eve of the House of Representatives’ vote approving impeachment articles seemed inevitable, and the world held its breath waiting for the Iranian response. Everyone exhaled a bit when the Iranians shot rockets onto U.S. bases, causing no loss of life, then accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet and lied about it.

Laurence Agron | Dreamstime.com

Nancy Pelosi

That may have tempered their retaliation for now, but you’re kidding yourself if you think this is over. Recent reports emerged saying Trump approved the strike seven months ago. That’s a long way from “imminent.” In return, the Iranians said they will no longer restrict the enrichment of uranium, something they had agreed to in the Obama-brokered nuclear deal. I’ll confess I never heard of Soleimani until they killed him, but I was stunned at how many of my Facebook friends suddenly became experts in Middle Eastern affairs.

On the cusp of the Senate impeachment trial of DonJohn the Cruel, I’d like to take back all the unflattering things I’ve written about Nancy Pelosi in the past. I sincerely apologize and freely admit that she is a badass. Her strategy of holding onto the articles of impeachment produced two beneficial results: She got under Trump’s skin, bigly, and every day that has passed has produced more incriminating evidence regarding the president’s crime ring’s dealings with Ukraine.

The two-part interview with Rudy Giuliani’s co-conspirator Lev Parnas by Rachel Maddow blew the lid off the entire shadow government conspiracy to coerce the Ukrainian president to publicly announce an investigation into the activities of Joe and Hunter Biden. An actual investigation wasn’t necessary, just the announcement would suffice to dirty up Biden.

Mr. Parnas said “everyone was in the loop,” including the president, Vice President Pence, Rudy Giuliani, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and Attorney General William Barr. This isn’t an administration. It’s a criminal enterprise that includes the Departments of Energy, State, and Justice — and whatever and whoever Rudy represents.

Parnas claimed one of his reasons for going public was that he didn’t trust William Barr. “Am I scared? Yes,” Parnas said, making an end-run around the attorney general to get the truth in the open. I understand Parnas is under indictment for campaign finance charges, but I’d believe him before the proven serial liar who claims he doesn’t even know the guy who sat next to his personal attorney in numerous meetings together.

Now that this mess is in the Senate’s hands, I’ll never understand why the House allowed government officials and the White House to stonewall their investigation. Trump instructed his minions not to cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee in any way, including providing document requests and appearances, and when nothing happened, it was — correctly — assumed that they got away with it.

Doesn’t anyone remember Susan McDougal? She was a Clinton associate prosecuted for fraud in the Whitewater investigation, which ultimately morphed into the Lewinski affair. She was offered a deal if she implicated Bill Clinton in wrongdoing. When she refused, she was declared in contempt of court and was incarcerated for 22 months, eight in solitary confinement. Shouldn’t the same fate befall Mick Mulvaney and Mike Pompeo? Getting numerous court orders might drag the process out until the election, and since the president’s noxious behavior was becoming more erratic by the hour, the House opted to just go ahead and impeach the morally challenged capo di tutti capi. 

Trump tweeted in all caps, “I JUST GOT IMPEACHED FOR MAKING A PERFECT PHONE CALL!” It turned out to be the perfect justification for impeachment.

We’re about to see if the Senate will hold a real trial, including witnesses, or if “Grim Reaper” Mitch McConnell will bury the evidence and make it all go away. If witnesses are allowed and the Republicans want to call Hunter Biden, let ’em. What can he say that’s relevant to this conspiracy? Impeachment manager Congressman Adam Schiff said John Bolton’s testimony would be a “game changer,” although I wouldn’t expect Bolton to do the Democrats any favors. One positive is that a subpoena from the Senate can’t be ignored. If attempted by, say, the attorney general, the Senate sergeant at arms can forcibly retrieve him. Or he can take the Susan McDougal approach and go to jail until he changes his mind. Barr wouldn’t be the first attorney general sent to jail. Nixon’s A.G. John Mitchell holds that distinction. The Trump bunch should take a close look at the Nixon example. Everything always comes out eventually. Even if Trump completes his term, a plethora of books will be written by insiders ready to cash in. The senators who will decide the president’s fate have sworn an oath “to administer impartial justice, so help me God.” Since Trump is fond of quoting scripture to his rapture-crazed devotees, here’s something from Matthew 5:33: “You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.”

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Economy Class Warfare: The “Joys” of Air Travel

CREDIT: James Copeland | Dreamstime.com

My back’s killing me. I’ve had a pinched nerve in my lower back for over two weeks now. I really don’t know how it happened. I think someone called my name and I turned around funny. I’m sure that dancing at my stepdaughter’s wedding only exacerbated the problem.

We knew the day was coming. We met the young man, they set the date, and we began our ever-growing neurosis about flying to California for the ceremony. The wedding itself was beautiful, but it was an endurance test to just get there. The airlines have stripped customer service to the marrow and just about everything surrounding the industry, from air fares to the sadists who populate the TSA, tests your tolerance and tries your patience.

James Copeland | Dreamstime.com

Planes are a pain.

Once an adventure, today’s air travel more closely resembles flying Trailways buses that were decommissioned in the ’70s. In order to maximize shareholder profits, seats are smaller in both width and legroom and an overweight person might have to slide into the tiny bathroom sideways. And the seats don’t tilt back anymore. Now I know how those prisoners who were tortured at Abu Ghraib felt.

For years after a particularly harassing and humiliating flight, we have tried to avoid air travel and drive whenever possible. But then we drove to Atlanta, and I took the wrong turn-off in Nashville and ended up driving around the city lost for an hour or so — and I lived there for nine years. So, Amtrak and Greyhound aside, if you have a long distance to travel, you’re pretty much captive to the airlines and you will obey the rules or else.

And they keep changing the rules. One fool tries to light his sneakers on fire and for the rest of our lives we have to tiptoe through security in our stocking feet. This trip, we were allowed to keep our shoes on but had to stand in that scanner that exposes your ass to some letch monitoring a flat-screen. I thought I saw him pocketing a printout. A necklace I was wearing set off the metal detector, and I was told to step to one side and wait for a uniformed pencil-neck to come over and pat me down. Melody said I was supposed to put my wallet and phone in a container instead of shoving my whole jacket through the X-ray device with all the stuff in the pockets. I was merely trying to be efficient.

We had an early flight to San Francisco with a layover in Phoenix, and I was surprised to find the gate was packed. The boarding process is totally stupid except no one’s bothered to tell them. Wouldn’t it make more sense to fill the plane back-end first? Then no one would be stuck in the aisle waiting on those passengers attempting to cram an overstuffed valise into an undersized overhead compartment. We brought wedding attire, which meant we had to check two bags at $30 a pop, and we still had carry-ons. Naturally, I drew the middle seat, which meant I had to jockey for the armrest with a stranger for several hours while sitting in a seat more suited for an anorexic aficionado of Deep Vein Thrombosis.

A Columbia School of Law professor has called these airline practices “calculated misery.” With only four airlines controlling 80 percent of air traffic, a wink and a nod translates into every flight slashing comforts to prod customers into paying extra for additional services, like legroom. We did get a small bag of pretzels and a coke, only not the full can. I asked Melody if she would call the stewardess over for a refill, but she told me that the proper term now was flight attendant. I said that, actually, they were air waitresses, to which Melody informed me that the acceptable term now was server. I implored, “Just please ask the soft-drink Nazi if I can have some more cola.”

The American Eagle airplane is the Ford Pinto of the air in that it should be discontinued for commercial use. Melody had insisted that I stop singing “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” by the time we actually got there, and the Xanax was wearing off. The walk to our connecting gate was like the Bataan Death March with a pinched nerve thrown in for laughs. No zippy little trams or golf carts, just us trudging along with grim reserve and bruised knees from lack of legroom.

Arriving in California was like being discharged from the Army. When we reached the hotel, both of us were drained and ready to collapse only to find our room directly above the hotel’s ballroom where a wedding disc jockey was spinning hip-hop music so loudly he may as well have been set up in the bathroom.

I might have copped an attitude had our wedding not been so beautiful. The bride looked so gorgeous that I had to shed a tear. I think I must have snorted a little bit too because my future in-laws were patting my back and comforting me. The band at the reception was so good, I got up and danced, despite myself. My new son-in-law’s father is a minister, and we were told he was very reserved. But by night’s end, Melody had the reverend up and dancing while the band sang, “We’re up all night to get lucky.”

When we returned exhausted to our room, another wedding DJ was blasting away in the ballroom below, and it was all about that bass. Our flights returning to Memphis were the same misery, only in reverse — and I got singled out by security again. We arrived exhausted and grouchy, collected our luggage, and walked an additional mile in the freezing cold to the long-term parking lot.

I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Truth in Broadcasting?

Nobody should have to live like this: to have to go about your daily business while in the back of your mind there’s a constant nagging concern that the psychotic sonofabitch who occupies the White House will do something else insane. As the mounting evidence of his criminal activities creeps closer to the president during the impeachment hearings, expect his conduct to grow even more aberrant, lashing out madly at everyone or anyone who dares criticize him.

The latest victim of a Trump tweet-trashing is Fox News correspondent Chris Wallace, who dismantled Representative Steve Scalise’s GOP talking points justifying Trump’s conduct toward the Ukrainian government on Fox News Sunday.

Chris Wallace interviews Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise.

In response, Trump tweeted professorially, “Steve Scalise blew the nasty and obnoxious Chris Wallace (will never be his father, Mike!) away on Chris’ lowest rated (unless I’m on) morning show. This kind of dumb and unfair interview would never have happened in the Fox News Past.”

Well, Roger Ailes died and Shepard Smith quit, so maybe some of the reporters over at Big Brother Central are developing consciences. Trump can still count on folks like Fox & Friends and the other half-wits who spew propaganda and lies on behalf of this president, but two scholastic studies, one by the University of Maryland, the other by Fairleigh Dickinson University, have determined that people who watch only Fox News are less informed than all other news consumers — and are much more inclined to believe false information.

There is a federal law called the Truth in Advertising Act, which states that “all ads must be truthful, not misleading, and, when appropriate, backed by scientific evidence.” The Federal Trade Commission enforces the law, whether it’s an ad online, in the mail, or on billboards and buses. For punishment, a federal court can demand a desist order, freeze the assets of the offender, and get compensation for the victims.

Why can’t we have a Truth in Broadcasting law as well, to halt the torrent of lies that create the dual realities in which we live? Basically, people who follow politics fall into two major categories: those who watch and read the news from a variety of sources, and those who watch Fox News. If you’re reading this, you most likely fit in the former category.

During the Nixon nightmare, the president railed against the media, charging the media with all manner of lies and slander, right up until the time it was proven that Nixon was the liar and the journalists had it right. Anyone who saw All the President’s Men knows that there are rules that professional journalists must follow to protect their paper’s integrity and abide by the First Amendment. If there were a Truth in Broadcasting law, Fox News would either have to change its name, like World Wrestling Entertainment, or conform to the principles that govern legitimate news organizations.

Any real journalist worth his salt would love to work for The New York Times or the Washington Post. Since those papers have been proven right many times before, I’d believe them before I would the inane tweets coming from the carbuncle on the posterior of humanity.

While the impeachment hearings into Trump’s phone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky make for great television, there’s an undercurrent of questionable behavior that’s much worse than trying to dirty up the Bidens. The Trump gang’s conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, are based on allegations already debunked by State Department officials. Far more ominous is this continual stream of information concerning Ukraine’s natural gas industry. The firing of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was less about opening investigations on Biden and Clinton and more about clearing the way for Trump’s allies to set up business deals with Naftogaz, the Ukrainian state-owned oil company. Trump initially tried to blame his disastrous call to Zelensky on Rick Perry, the secretary of the Energy Department he once vowed to dismantle. Trump claimed, “The only reason I made the call was because Rick asked me to. Something about a liquefied natural gas plant.”

This is where Lev, Igor, and Rudy Giuliani enter the plot. Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas were at the center of efforts to turn their ties to Trump into revenue-producing gas sales. The two were also instrumental in disseminating rumors about the Biden family and also behind the push to remove Ambassador Yovanovitch. The Associated Press reported, “This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies.”

Perry urged Zelensky to fire the Naftogaz advisory board and came up with a list of suggested replacements approved by the president. Perry only recently announced his resignation, and Parnas hinted he may testify before the House Judiciary Committee.

There’s another federal law called the RICO statute (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), which says the leaders of a criminal syndicate can be tried for any crimes they order. This makes asking a foreign leader to smear a political rival pale in comparison. It’s all about the gas. If the Judiciary decides to look into this, you can say goodbye to the GOP $1 million donor, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, and goodbye to Perry, Giuliani, Lev, Igor, Bill Barr, Mick Mulvaney, Don Jr., Mike Pompeo, and Donald J. Trump. The revolution will be televised.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Halloweenies: Why We Don’t Answer the Door

All Hallow’s Eve is nigh, so we’ll probably celebrate in the traditional manner: Lock the doors, close the shutters, turn out all the lights, and trust that the dogs will bark ferociously should anyone dare to knock. Just as added protection, I plan to hang a sign on the door that says “Quarantine! — Norovirus” and wrap the porch in yellow police tape.

It wasn’t always like this. We participated in the pagan ritual of children shaking us down for candy for many years, just to see them in their costumes. When we first moved to this neighborhood, the local kids would come around while the young moms and dads stayed on the sidewalk carrying cocktails in Solo cups under the guise of “taking the children trick-or-treating.” Maybe word got out that we were a candy-rich area because after a while, the nature of the tricksters changed. They seemed to be much older and not wearing children’s-size costumes anymore. They were no longer dressed like pirates and princesses but more like prostitutes and pallbearers. Then van-loads of sugar-crazed teenagers began circling the block in search of Snickers. I finally decided that if you’re old enough to drive, you’re old enough to buy your own damn candy. 

I used to love Halloween. When I was a kid, my sister and I would circle a neighborhood that was so wealthy, they handed out Dinstuhl’s. I’m kidding, of course, but nearly every home was generous with their candy. Some people even went to the trouble of making caramel apples for us. But one year, after a “razor blade-in-the-apple” scare, that practice pretty much ended. No one in the civilized world ever found a razor blade in an apple.

There was one old man on our block who was too elderly to go shopping for candy, so every year, he gave us each one raw wiener. I would eat it before we got home so my mother wouldn’t take it away. I still find the old man’s gesture touching.

Eventually, I aged out of the trick-or-treat scene and entered into the unholy world of teenager Halloween. This was the age of egging houses and rolling yards with toilet paper. When we said “trick-or-treat,” we meant it. Some of the pranks we played would be classified as atrocities today. But we grew out of that too.

I have always believed that Halloween was for children. Maybe it’s because when I was a child, I saw my parents leaving for a costume party dressed as two giant, pink rabbits. It’s tough to take your dad seriously while he’s wearing a fluffy cottontail. That’s why I was never much into costumery as I grew older. Some friends used to throw an annual Halloween party Downtown. What began as a gathering of a small group of friends, turned into a bacchanalia of such grotesque and unmanageable proportions that the cops were often called, and no one could tell if they were real or just in costume. That’s when I became convinced that grown-up Halloween was pretty much X-Rated and that it served as an opportunity for ordinarily staid ladies to dress up like sluts and sexy witches. My party invitation was rescinded after one year when I couldn’t be bothered with a costume, so I just got naked, strapped on a pair of roller skates, and went as a pull-toy. At least it was inexpensive. Contrast that with the benchmark set in 2018, when 30 million Americans spent $480 million on costumes — for their pets.

I’m aware that times change. Now, children go door-to-door at their own risk and adults go bobbing for Xanax instead of apples. We had one kid show up at the door in a baggy blue suit and oversized red tie with a bad, blonde wig atop an orange painted face. When we asked him if he wanted some candy, he said, “If it’s all the same, I’d rather have the cash.” And to think that I used to put an illuminated Nixon mask in the front window to scare the children.

Elevating the fright level now are the “Haunted Houses.” What once was a church-sponsored, family entertainment where cobwebs brushed your face and volunteer ghosts said “boo,” has turned into gore-fests with professional actors and animatronics. One such “house” features a cemetery crawling with corpses awakened from their graves. Another leads patrons through an actual funeral home, where visitors are taken from the parlor to the embalming room to the morgue, and ultimately to hell. Memphis is home to several such haunted houses, one of which advertises “a brain bashing, fear soaked … experience that will scare you to the core.” Another brags of “ghastly butchery that won’t be believed.”

Such horror from a holiday that began as a day of prayer for the souls of the departed! These times are plenty scary enough for me as it is.

Now, what am I supposed to do with this bag of miniature Snickers?

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

“Funky Chicken” Is a Franchise Just Waiting to Happen

One evening last week, I was driving west on Poplar just past Mendenhall when I saw traffic backed up for a block, choking off all movement in the right lane. I thought it must be a multi-car, chain-reaction accident. It was dark, but I didn’t see any blue flashing lights. I was concerned that I’d be the first on the scene and be required to help, but when I drew closer I saw the reality. A convoy of vehicles was backed up in one of the most heavily traveled streets in Memphis, waiting to go through the drive-in window to get one of those damn Chik-fil-A chicken sandwiches.

This battle of the chicken sandwiches between Popeye’s and Chik-fil-A is baffling to me. Popeye’s chicken is the hot “Cajun” variety, while Chik-fil-A donates to organizations like Exodus International, an “ex-gay” therapy group, and the Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has deemed a hate group, so they can kiss my ass regardless of how their chicken tastes.

Without delving into antiquated racial stereotypes, Memphis should be a chicken city, not because of race but because of region. We’re Southerners, and everybody, vegans and vegetarians excepted, loves their fried chicken. Some of my earliest memories are of eating Sunday “suppers” at my grandfather’s house, consisting of fried chicken and butter beans. As a child, I ate drumsticks and thighs, but when I grew to be a man, I put away childish things and switched to breasts and wings, the juicy parts.

So in a chicken-enamored city like Memphis, how did we allow Nashville to claim the rights to some aberration called Nashville “Hot” Chicken? What’s next, Nashville-Style Bar-B-Q? I could eat fried chicken six days a week and rest on the seventh, but unfortunately, my ZIP code seems bereft of chicken that isn’t “hot and spicy.” I feel as if I’m living in the middle of a chicken desert.

I never got the whole “hot” chicken thing. That’s why I don’t go to Popeye’s. Hot “Cajun” chicken is just a bastardization of the real thing. A couple of years ago, word of mouth was all about Gus’s. I heard about all these flavors bursting in your mouth and how people could not get enough of it. So I bought some with great anticipation and after the roof of my mouth was set aflame, I tossed the rest. If you want your chicken hot, do what my wife does — fry it in the usual way and put hot sauce on it like a normal person who was raised here. That way, your chicken isn’t saturated with chili powder, or whatever the hell they use, and you can heat it to your palate.

I like my chicken fried and extra crispy, which brings KFC to mind. I kept going there and asking for breasts and wings extra crispy, and they’d always say, “Can you wait 15 minutes while we fry up another batch?” I said, “It’s dinnertime. Don’t you people sell chicken here?” For a while, I thought I’d solved the problem. I skipped the drive-thru, went in, and found a kindly counter-person. When she promptly delivered my order, I tipped her, considerably. She looked shocked as if it never happened before. I asked her just to remember me, and consequently, I received fresh, crispy chicken every visit and tipped her each time because doesn’t the word “tips” mean “to insure prompt service?”

I was living in a fool’s paradise however because one day she wasn’t there anymore and I was once again asked if I minded waiting 15 minutes. So, I’ve given up on KFC.

A colleague of mine once told me, “Church’s Chicken is the shit.” Maybe so, maybe not. I used to drive to Bartlett just to get some Mrs. Winner’s chicken. The intersection of Sycamore View and Summer Avenue was like a chicken paradise with every franchise represented, but Mrs. Winner’s was the juiciest. One day, I drove the distance only to find my Mrs. Winner’s had turned into an Exxon, and I refuse to buy chicken from a gas station.

I’ve always loved Jack Pirtle’s chicken, but the closest one is a good drive away. When cable TV was still in its infancy, I had a ritual. Every Saturday, I drove to Pirtle’s on Highland, got a mess of chicken, took it home, and dined while watching Georgia Championship Wrestling. I even learned to walk up to the window, bypassing the long drive-thru lines. But they took Georgia Wrestling off the air, and I moved away, making my trips to Pirtle’s difficult. I’m told on good authority that the best day to get Pirtle’s chicken is Thursday when they change the grease. And besides, Cordell and Tawanda Pirtle are lovely people. Every other chicken joint near me is a chain, so we’ve been getting our yardbird from Superlo or Kroger, each having their own taste, but not like home-cooked.

We haven’t tried Uncle Lou’s, balking at the “sweet and spicy” slogan, or Hattie B’s Hot Chicken, a carpetbagger franchise from Nashville. We have yet to try out Joes’, who advertise their chicken is marinated in secret sauce for 24 hours. Do me a favor. Rub some salt and pepper on it, add some flour, and drop it in a skillet of sizzling Wesson cooking oil, which is manufactured in Memphis. Keep your “hot and spicy” and “Cajun styled.” Just serve me up some good old Southern fried chicken, like the kind they serve at the Loveless Motel in Nashville.

If I had the funds, or if someone would like to back me, a stretch of Summer Avenue is begging for a decent chicken joint. My idea, pending copyright, is to approach the first family of Memphis music, Vaneese and Carla Thomas, and ask permission to use their father’s name. Then I’d start a chain of down-home restaurants and call it “Rufus Thomas’ Funky Chicken.” We could decorate the place with Rufus’ stage outfits. People would come from all over the world just to see his hot-pink short-pants getup. The chicken would just be gravy. “You’ll flap your arms and your feet will start kickin’ when you eat Rufus Thomas’ Funky Chicken. Now, did you heard me?”

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Edgar Cayce and the Current Dystopia

CREDIT: Wikipedia

Well, we human beings had a good run. We’ve gone from green slime crawling out of the sea to the discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, the use of tools, the dawn of civilization, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the creation of industry, mass production, the invention of the printing press, the automobile, the telephone, modern cities and suburbs, space exploration, and the telecommunication revolution.

Then we hit a bump.

Suddenly, we’ve regressed into green slime slouching back into the sea. Between the melting of the polar ice caps and the fires ravaging the Amazon rain forest, we’ve reached a climate apocalypse that may well be irreversible. This didn’t have to happen. It just proves how mindless leadership can alter the world’s climate in the shortest time. Civilization will mock the naiveté of such dire forecasts as Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. Say goodbye to the Earth as we know it, and say hello to water wars, mass migrations, riots, and the shredding of the fabric of society.

Wikipedia

Edgar Cayce

In the middle of the last century, a clairvoyant named Edgar Cayce became famous for his prophesies and remedies. An institution in Virginia Beach houses more than 14,000 of his readings — which have been determined to be 85 percent accurate. His clients included Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Edison, Irving Berlin, and George Gershwin. Cayce — “The Sleeping Prophet” — would lie down and enter a state of altered consciousness, which allowed him visions of the future. They were alarming when I first read them, many years ago. They’re terrifying now. In a reading from 1934, Cayce said, “The earth will be broken up in many places. The early portion will see a change … in the West Coast of America. Open waters appear in the northern portion of Greenland. The greater portion of Japan must go into the sea. There will be upheavals in the Antarctic … beginning in 2000-2001.”

Any of this sound familiar? Cayce continues, “There are predictions of temperature changes in the deep waters which impact weather patterns, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.” Also, “New York itself, in the main, will disappear. Southern portions of Carolina, Georgia — these will disappear. Los Angeles, San Francisco … will be among those destroyed.”

On a cheerier note, Cayce claimed that Atlantis would reappear and unearth hidden knowledge. He also said that his dystopian vision need not take place with the proper awareness coupled with action. Considering the state of the planet today, that’s pretty incredible stuff, but guess who’s rushing us headlong into extinction? 

Our mock president’s performance at last week’s G7 summit in France did nothing to advance the cause of addressing climate change. Laughingly declaring himself to be “an environmentalist,” Trump said, “I want the cleanest water on earth. I want the cleanest air on earth. … I think I know more about the environment than most people.”

This, coming from a man who boasted about opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling, withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, claimed that windmills cause cancer, and wondered aloud if it were possible to “nuke” hurricanes.

Then, Trump skipped a climate discussion with other world leaders, leaving an empty chair in his stead. Other G7 participants walked on eggshells around Trump, hoping that America’s human wrecking ball wouldn’t destroy another meeting of sane heads of state. While French President Emmanuel Macron was expressing outrage over Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s (or, as he’s been dubbed by some, the “Trump of South America”) handling of the Amazon fires, Trump himself was advocating for Russia’s re-admittance to the G7 and hyping one of his Florida resorts for the next summit, citing its many wonderful accoutrements.

Like Trump, the Brazilian president is a climate change denier. He relaxed environmental regulations and permitted farmers and other commercial interests to burn off parts of the Amazon rain forest, then claimed the current conflagration was caused by “non-governmental organizations” for the purpose of “drawing international criticism to [his] government.” 

The rain forest produces 20 percent of the world’s oxygen. The World Wildlife Fund stated that if the Amazon rain forest, sometimes known as “the world’s lungs,” reaches the point of no return, the area could become a “dry savanna,” emitting carbon instead of oxygen. Without Trump’s input, the G7 pledged $20 million to help contain the fires that are destroying two and a half football fields worth of rain forest every minute of every day and are spilling over into neighboring countries.

Meanwhile, NASA and the European Space Agency have determined that the polar ice caps have melted faster in the last 20 years than in the previous 10,000. Antarctica and Greenland have lost three times as much ice, compared to 20 years ago. A rise in sea level of more than six feet would be enough to inundate most major coastal cities. If the Greenland ice sheet melted, sea levels would rise by more than 20 feet. So long, New Orleans. Nice to know you, Miami. It’s good that Denmark refused to sell Greenland to Trump. He’d only melt it and turn it into the world’s largest water park.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Love It or Leave It: Again.

There’s this memorable lyric from Bob Dylan on his classic album Blonde on Blonde. Maybe I remember it so well because it came from his song, “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again,” which was recorded in Nashville in 1966. It goes:

“And I sit here so patiently/

Waiting to find out what price/

You have to pay to get out of/

Going through all these things twice.”

I have lived through LBJ, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, and the Vietnam era. I’ve seen the golden idol with the feet of clay — Ronald Reagan — say that “Government is the problem,” which was arguably the beginning of all our problems. I’ve seen the hapless Poppy Bush, the lascivious Bill Clinton, and the war-mongering Dick Cheney with his malleable puppet, George Bush “The Lesser.” But never in my life would I have expected to relive this “love it or leave it” bullshit. I thought we’d put that jingoistic, racist rubbish to bed along with “go back where you came from.” But then, I also believed in the evolution of man, a theory sorely tested by the current squatter in the White House.

The old “love it or leave it” slogan was the conservative redneck’s response to the anti-war protesters of the late 1960s. The “go back where you came from” probably dates from the post-Reconstruction era and into the Jim Crow South, when cracker assholes forgot that black people were brought here as slaves and had no place from which to go back.

I have heard these remarks — aimed at African Americans, hippies, feminists, and others — dripping from ignorant cretins all my life. Those who proclaimed it or repeated it were on the wrong side of history then and are on the wrong side of history now. And it will be remembered long after this bulbous, bilious aberration of a human being has been driven from his hideous presidency.

This latest horror began, as per usual, with Trump’s barely literate Twitter feed. After being provoked by a segment on Fox & Friends about the four freshman Democrats known as the Squad, the Ignoramus in Chief went off on an angry and racist Twitter tirade. I’ll reprint it here, but to avoid writing sic after every word, the punctuation and misuse of capitalization are all Trump’s: “So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democratic Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe … now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States … how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

The twits on the Fox & Friends couch laughed when they read the tweet and said that Trump is “very comedic” but he’s “making an important point.” Yeah, Trump’s a regular laugh-riot. He has since learned, or maybe not, that the congresswomen in question were all born in the United States except for Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who came to this country from war-ravaged Somalia and became a naturalized citizen at age 17. The common denominator is that these are four women of color and two are Muslims, an accelerant to Trump’s racist ideology. I agree with President Caligula on one point: They need to fix the totally broken and crime-infested places, which perfectly describes Trump’s White House, his corrupt cabinet, and his extended family of shameless grifters.

The “love it or leave it” idiocy emerged during one of Trump’s Nazi rallies in Greenville, North Carolina. Broadening his message to include anyone who disagrees with him, Trump echoed Richard Nixon, and after he verbally assaulted Representative Omar by name, the crowd of “Good Germans” went wild, breaking into a chant of “Send her back!” After hearing from some of his party members, who informed him that this mantra wasn’t quite as acceptable as “Lock her up,” Trump disavowed the chant, then changed directions, calling his enraged, aggrieved audience of red-hat-wearing Caucasians “great patriots.”

Even some members of the misnamed “Freedom Caucus” thought he went too far. Now that Trump’s annoying repetition of “No Collusion! No Obstruction!” has been disproven by the halting, monosyllabic testimony of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the bottomless well of prideful stupidity that occupies the Oval Office has ramped up his free-range racism to stoke the animosity and fear of his fellow travelers. Trump’s latest target for his vile abuse is another African-American congressman, Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland. 

After Cummings’ criticism of the inhumane treatment of immigrants at the border, Trump lashed out on another Twitter bender. Again, the bad grammar is Trump’s: “Rep. Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting & screaming … about conditions at the Southern Border…The Border is clean, efficient and well run … Cumming [sic] District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess … No human would ever want to live there.” Followed by: “The Democrats always play the Race Card, when … they have done so little for our Nation’s great African American people.”

Then Trump called Cummings, the son of a South Carolina sharecropper, “a racist.” A psychologist would refer to this sort of noxious ranting as “projection.” 

The Baltimore Sun editorial board responded in an editorial titled “Better to have a few rats than to be one.” It referred to Trump’s tweets as “undiluted racism and hate.” If there were any question before, there’s no doubt now that a very sick man is running the government, along with his lapdog “Moscow” Mitch McConnell and his legion of ass-kissers. Robert Mueller claimed the Office of Legal Council’s (OLC) opinion forbade him from indicting a sitting president. But the OLC’s opinions are just suggestions. As stated in their 1973 decision, the OLC reserves the right to “reconsider and modify or disavow that determination.” These are very perilous times. If no man is supposed to be above the law in this land, it’s time to disavow that archaic decision and show the proper justice to Trump that he so richly deserves.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.