The Darwin Awards posthumously “honors” those adults that have removed themselves from the gene pool in the most spectacular or humiliating way. It is tragic in the extreme the adult responsible for the explosive device that killed and injured those children on Maple Avenue in Bakersfield on Tuesday was not himself the victim of his stupidity.

We still await the facts of what the device was, but if military ordinance it can’t have been as described by Sendejo with a “firing pin” removed. Such ordinance has a primer, not a firing pin, but the rounds may well have triggering mechanisms and exploding components in the actual projectile of whatever kind. In which case, simply removing the casing and propellant still leaves the most dangerously explosive component in the projectile intact much in the way of a landmine or unexploded cluster bomb.

Like most of you I hope whoever was actually responsible for this tragedy including those responsible for Sendejo even having a military explosive device will be held to account for it and all the facts of the case discovered and made known to the public. I would fault the lack of adult supervision except it would seem none were expert in military munitions, nor apparently was Sendejo. 

Such munitions are easily recognized by those trained in handling such ordinance, and in my forays into the western deserts I have come across much of this lying unexploded on the ground, some of the more dangerous being unexploded practice bombs and magnesium parachute flares. Now if that latter should go off in a house the structure would evaporate in an instant conflagration of the most intensely white heat imaginable. But I have no doubt some of these are in homes along with those unexploded practice bombs and other ordinance as “souvenirs” or merely curiosity pieces.

Children in many nations of the world are daily being killed and maimed by mines and other military ordinance. They find these objects just lying about inviting the curiosity of children. During WWII we children at Mt. Vernon Elementary were cautioned by teachers to beware of items intended by our enemies to entice children. Two older pupils once came into my classroom, one on crutches wearing bandages with red coloring to simulate blood, warning younger children of explosive devices disguised in a way to entice us into picking them up.

We haven’t reached that point yet in the “war on terrorism,” but I don’t doubt it will come to parents and teachers once more warning of “clever devices” meant to attract children just as in WWII, and this most recent tragedy is a grim reminder adults are responsible for children.

I know those at the Californian, people like Mike Jenner and others are going to press for answers to this tragedy, that the paper is going to hold those responsible to account. In the meantime, as we were cautioned to do during WWII it would be a good idea to begin asking everyone to report any suspicious devices you may see in a house anywhere. I purposely do not use the term “home.”

Brenda Starr is a name that evokes much nostalgia for me. Dale Messick, the creator of the comic strip died not long ago at age 98. She told The Associated Press in a 2002 interview “Most comics, the main characters are heroes, guys, and they don’t write for women. I was a woman so I was writing for women and I think that’s what put her over.”

But despite my being a boy devoted to heroes like Superman and playing cowboy with cap pistols and BB gun pretending to be the Lone Ranger or Red Ryder like any normal boy and I considered girls alien creatures, fascinating but suspect at best, when the strip began to appear in 1940 I was an avid fan from the very first. During WW II Brenda as with many cartoon and comic strip characters of the time was fully involved in the effort against the Axis Powers, and she proved to be as adventurous, brave and courageous as any man.

While Wonder Woman was also doing her part in like manner with her marvelous invisible airplane and magic powers making me a fan from her first appearance as well, I was entranced by Brenda’s ongoing relationship with the mysterious Basil St. John with his eye patch like that of a pirate, and his mysterious illness treated with a serum made from black orchids growing in the Amazon jungle. And Brenda Starr with her Rita Hayworth gloriously abundant, radiantly red hair and sparkling emerald green eyes was breathtakingly beautiful, something not lost on me even as a young boy.

Perhaps my earliest readings as a child of Scott, Cooper, Stratton-Porter and others together with WWII and the films of the time made for the romantic in me. Whatever the reason, I was drawn to this ongoing relationship between Brenda and her mysterious lover with the black eye patch and his black orchids. It would thrill me every time Brenda would discover a black orchid left her by the mysterious St. John, and I would keep hoping for a happy outcome between Brenda and him.

It is the nostalgic longing for the mystery of love and romance Brenda Starr and Basil St. John represented I miss most of all, the nostalgia for what those black orchids represented to me as a boy that has been lost to this generation I find so tragic. Of the sources of wonder to the writer of Proverbs in the Old Testament was “… the way of a man with a maid.”

I believe the wonder of the mystery of love and romance between Brenda Starr and Basil St. John has been betrayed by an age that leaves nothing to the imagination of such things, and in this betrayal so has this generation of young people been betrayed, and lost to the young people of today the wonder of “… the way of a man with a maid.”

But as I continue to point out romance requires a national Ethos given to the best impulses, speech and behavior of which we are capable, one exemplified by the great musicals when poets worked in America.

However, if one were to look for the best remaining virtue and character of America today in my opinion it would be found in the rural churches across our nation. A glance at the church listings here in the Kern River Valley tells anyone we are a community of believers, and one of a diversity of Christian beliefs. However, our churches are for the most part comprised of small congregations typical of most rural communities. Even before the lake went in here in the valley, we had a number of churches sometimes serving only about a dozen people in attendance on any given Sunday. And though larger churches have sprung up, for the better part these still reflect a community, something often lost in metropolitan churches.

But here in the past there would be the occasional “traveling evangelist” or other itinerant preacher that would show up. These were a real treat for us in those days because the meetings often had the aura of the old “Brush Arbor” meetings with which so many Southerners like my grandfather were acquainted.

For those of us who have had the pleasure of traveling throughout the rural communities of the Real South in places like Georgia and Alabama, we understand the character of community churches throughout America so well represented by my own maternal grandparent’s small church in Little Oklahoma in Southeast Bakersfield on the corner of Cottonwood and Padre. Grandad built the small church himself and served as its pastor, while my grandmother played the piano for the singing that was such a prominent part of both worship and fellowship.

They won’t find it in great cathedrals, but if those in Congress, the universities and schools, the media, and Hollywood sincerely wanted to know the Real America, they would spend time in the small rural churches throughout our nation. Despite the crude and failed stereotyping of those like Sinclair Lewis and Hollywood, in no other institutions of America is the genuine and best character of our nation so well expressed as it is in the small community churches scattered throughout our nation. Nowhere else will you find the real morality, the hopes and dreams of real Americans, such genuine faith, such genuine belief in actual virtue and in our nation than among the small churches like those right here in the Kern River Valley.

To have been born into and raised among the true believers of the Bible in the small rural churches of America, to sing the hymns “If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again” and “In the Garden” with such real devotion and faith among other believers, though small in number characteristic of these rural churches, is to experience something that cannot be made known or understood by the greatest genius of literary or film artistry.

Notwithstanding the human weaknesses and failures we all share in common, the hypocrisy and ignorance, the prejudices, all of which are to be found throughout the institutions of America low and high, it is in the rural churches of America you find the people so transparently honest in these weaknesses and failures together with the best of what we are as human beings in genuine sacrificial love and caring for others, of caring about America.

No matter the manifold and legitimate criticism, such believers also believe in an America “One nation under God,” have not forgotten our Founding Fathers and all that America used to represent and used to be taught in both schools and churches, all that America should still represent in virtue, in hopes and dreams of a future for our nation. And while in the wisdom of the Founding Fathers no state church was to be established, one cannot legitimately separate the Bible and Christianity from the intent of our Founding Fathers nor the reflection of this when it comes to the genuine character of the Real America so well represented in the rural churches of America.

Religious kooks continue to abound, many of them “wearing soft clothing and living in king’s palaces,” those like this latest one arrested in Las Vegas whose only obvious interest in religion is sex and money. But in this he differs nothing from many “respectable” people like politicians and a host of others. No truly good person wants power and authority over others, no truly good person is greedy and avaricious whether cloaked in religion or politics.

It is patently obvious the President of Iran is an example of Hitler, and there is no appeasing a bully or despotic tyrant whether of religion or politics. But what is it that motivates those in America lusting for power and authority over others if not evil. The lesser of evils remains evil. But the civilized nations of the world must win this war against the barbaric threat of Islam. The question is whether we have a “lesser evil” in the leadership of America willing and capable of prosecuting such a war to win? Not if our porous borders for the sake of slave labor to benefit the wealthy is the standard of “concern” for America on the part of Bush and others.

Both Clinton and Bush took the oath of office with hand on Bible. Both have ostentatiously displayed their Bibles while entering churches. But if the book is no more than a talisman or lucky rabbit’s foot to them, if they refuse to live according to the precepts of Jesus they clearly proclaim their hypocrisy. And it is this hypocrisy on the part of our leaders that has not only cost America its standing before all the nations of the world, but is inviting the very disasters to which these leaders pay only lip service all the while refusing to do what is best and right for America like securing our borders and doing away with ruinous trade agreements designed to bankrupt our nation to benefit only the few in power, the lesser of evils compared to those like the President of Iran and all other Islamofascists but evil nevertheless.

While it began well enough with the Founding Fathers no one now can see Congress being the result of Intelligent Design.

Of the many things that changed right after WWII was the appearance of plastic “toys.” Among these were kits for model airplanes with ready formed parts that merely required a kid to glue them together, and presto! Near instant model airplane. And these molded plastic parts were so precise as to even have the individual rivets embossed. But we felt cheated by these plastic “toys!” They were not the real thing! And children in their wisdom know when grownups are cheating them, and these plastic model kits were a cheat!

And just so with politicians. What We the People are offered is a plastic representation complete with embossed rivets molded right into them, exact in detail but wholly lacking anything of real Intelligent Design, wholly lacking in a “soul.” They may as well be the product of a plastic injection mold churning out identical parts.

In the film “Flight of the Phoenix” the hero was a designer and builder of model airplanes. His expertise made it possible for the survivors to put together a flyable aircraft from the crashed plane, the Phoenix arising from the ashes as it were. But my generation of building models with a “soul” is fast passing away, and to use an allegory those in power do not possess the soul whereby they can provide us a Phoenix to save America from what is fast becoming a wreck in the desert.

But forget the politicians; when I first learned of it my concern was for the White House Duck, and I thought to myself at the time if the Secret Service allows anything to happen to that momma Mallard and her baby ducklings I’m sending strong words to those responsible!

Here in the Kern River Valley, we are truly blessed with an abundance of wildlife. As a Butterfly Mecca, as habitat to such a marvelous variety of birds and other wildlife this confluence of bioregions is quite unique and offers many opportunities for us to not only observe, but to be the custodians of this marvelous abundance of wildlife as well as the habitat we share in common.

Along with Henry Thoreau, I “keep appointments” with certain trees and rocks, but it is the critters like the squirrels, the variety of birds and other wildlife here in the valley that charm me even as they did Henry.

Watching a TV segment where a momma duck’s babies are rescued from a storm drain, and gently placed on the sidewalk where she is anxiously waiting, then to see momma duck with her rescued duckling’s right behind her waddling off is precious. Rescuing animals seems to bring out the best in people, and the best in us responds even as spectators. This concern for critters among the majority of us reflects this better quality of humankind, a quality that makes it “a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

What I would like to see on TV are more bunnies, baby ducks, chicks, and kittens, puppies, birdies, squirrels and chipmunks. One local news channel was featuring animals for adoption, and a kitten perched on her shoulder became tangled in the lovely young newscaster’s long blonde hair. Fortunately, the young lady was smiling and laughing as she struggled with the kitten with one hand while holding her microphone in the other and it was a thoroughly entrancing scene.

It was apparent the young woman genuinely liked the kitten, and her attention was given to the kitten rather than the camera. She was having fun with the kitten, and as a result the effect was one of those warm and fuzzy moments where the newscaster’s real humanity came through rather than the plastic representations of human beings that seems too characteristic as with politicians of the genre as a whole. Sometimes it takes a critter like a kitten to bring out the best in us as human beings.

However, I just don’t see us responding in like manner to “synthetic” animals. The resident cat, and Garfield I assume, is unimpressed with Robo-cat or other synthetic “pets.” But there is no denying synthetic pets are on a roll approaching android status, and with the technology becoming increasingly sophisticated Robo-cat will be clawing furniture, shredding curtains and catching birds in no time at all.

Having never been cursed with allergies the “real thing” has never bothered me, and the resident cat and I discussing Robo-cat agreed nothing is likely to take the place of the real thing. The obvious advantages of synthetics aside, what fun is there having a cat that doesn’t respond to “Scat!” An imposter that isn’t wary of rocking chairs and small children, and doesn’t have the innate whims characteristic of a real pussycat? Can you imagine Sylvester or Garfield as robots? Where’s the fun in that? It really comes down to “life-like” is not the same as alive cartoons notwithstanding.

But as we learn of what scientists are doing in their laboratories with genes and cloning, even mixing the genetic material of humans and animals, the specter of Dr. Frankenstein strongly suggests itself. Now an android woman… but like cats, I wouldn’t trade for the real thing. However, that’s a subject better left alone or to science fiction

Many of us privileged to live here in the glorious Kern River Valley take delight in sharing our space with the various critters and providing bird feeders for our feathered friends, and after all these years I still enjoy Mark Trail. One cannot but feel sorry for city-dwellers who often have to make do with films, television or screensavers of flora and fauna on their computers. For my part, I don’t even mind sharing my space with the occasional “Pepe le Pew.”

No matter the technological advances, in my opinion “Virtual reality” will never take the place of the real thing. For example, I used to do a lot of ballroom dancing and the recent example of Japanese robots attempting this seemed a travesty. One cannot help applauding the inventiveness of us humans, but once you have held a lovely woman in your arms, warm, soft and sweet-scented moving together in graceful unison to the beautiful music of a waltz or tango you aren’t going to settle for a robot.

The beauty of our valley is reflective of something Emerson wrote: “That only which we have within, can we see without. If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps.”

For renewal of purpose I will still watch Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald films, I still play the LPs of their music and continue to thrill to the operatic grandeur of love and romance of a simpler time that held so much hope of the future. Of such are the “gods” I harbor that sustain me, and while politicians ignore the grandeur to be found in ordinary people faithfully going about doing the menial tasks required to raise families where would America be without such ordinary people?

Having spent many years in various occupations such as machinist and construction earning a living with my hands and back, punching a clock and getting dirt and grease under my fingernails for a paycheck I am duly appreciative of the lives of the ordinary people politicians publicly applaud and privately disdain. For this reason alone we have justification to wonder what gods, if any, politicians meet or harbor? Perhaps this explains why Congress and state legislatures are not noted for the arts that sustain and advance truly civilized people.

Of this I am certain: if I had not spent those years working with hands and back my university education, the years I spent in academia would be utterly lacking in knowledge of the “grandeur in porters and sweeps,” of the real world in which the gods dwell and are met resulting in the best of the arts that sustain and advance the truly civilized, the appreciation on the part of the civilized for the art to be found in Nature that wastes nothing on superfluities, but even the various hues and scents of flowers have a distinct purpose.

“Ok, let’s see if we can get this overloaded mother off the ground!” It was an open mic gaffe by a pilot at LAX unwittingly transmitted to the passengers in the plane. It doesn’t take any imagination to understand how the passengers felt about the pilot’s assessment of the situation in which they were helplessly at his mercy.

The maintenance of my venerable 1948 Stinson Voyager sometimes required an occasional visit to airplane “junkyards.” There is a glaring difference between these and auto junkyards which as an auto mechanic I frequented for years; the amount of blood to be found in wrecked airplanes. While seldom in evidence in wrecked autos the seats, control panels and windscreens of wrecked airplanes would often display a gory and copious amount of blood, stark evidence and mute testimony of how catastrophic airplane crashes are.

Safety features in autos like padded dashes and airbags are absent in most small general aviation aircraft, the crashes involving these often at too great a speed for such features to be of any use. The “plus” side of aircraft crashes is dieing quickly, rather than lingering busted up in a hospital.

As an AOPA member the first thing I would turn to in the monthly publication was stories of plane crashes. Pilots often gleaned valuable information from the detailed reporting of such accidents, and in many cases would find helpful hints in how to avoid some of the mistakes made by the pilots involved in these accidents. And human nature being what it is, in virtually 90% of the cases reported the crash was due to “pilot error.” In the cases where pilots have confessed to doing really stupid things nearly resulting in a crash, such things are made known to others as a caution to them. Unlike some other classes, pilots are a helping fraternity even to the point of often unabashedly admitting stupid mistakes.

You drive a car in a flat earthbound environment, but airplanes operate in three dimensions where if something goes wrong you can’t just pull over to the side of the road to check out the problem. So pilots spend a lot of time practicing emergency procedures, things like emergency landings. But what a pilot cannot be trained to circumvent is the human failing to do really stupid things at times.

The Comair crash in Kentucky serves as a reminder some mistakes take a tragic toll on the lives of the innocent. While 9/11 and the Katrina disaster clearly evidence politicians are never held accountable for their incompetence resulting in the loss of innocent lives and none of us are safe from such thoroughgoing incompetence from the White House on down, when you board an aircraft there really is a Pilot in Command, a person to whom you are committing your life trusting they are fully competent, personally accountable and responsible. But I have never boarded a commercial flight without knowing that pilot is just another human being, and as such despite all the qualifying factors capable of really stupid mistakes. The result is that as a passenger I have found myself kicking those rudder pedals along with the pilot up front, sensing everything going on with how the aircraft is being flown. Sometimes ignorance truly is bliss.

Unlike most federal bureaucracies the NTSB has competent people, some of whom I have known personally and most of them pilots, who investigate airplane accidents whether it is some Cessna 150 that had to land on a freeway or the most catastrophic crash of a “heavy.” While the FAA is to be faulted in many ways because of the cozy relationship that federal bureaucracy has with aircraft manufacturers, once a crash has occurred it is the real professionals in the NTSB on the scene. I have always wished other government agencies had the same competent personnel.

We don’t yet know what the events were leading to the Comair crash. We know the wrong runway was used, and on the face of it this seems a tragically stupid mistake. But was it controller error or pilot error? Who was “minding the store?” And these days we can’t entirely discount drugs or alcohol involved on the part of controllers and pilots.

Those who are not pilots quite understandably shake their heads in disbelief over how professionals like the two pilots involved could fail to notice which runway they were on. There were the required charts at their disposal clearly depicting the runways at this airport, charts clearly showing the runway they were on was not to be used by aircraft of the type they were in. But there is a lot going on in the cockpits of modern airliners, a long check list that must be adhered to religiously, the checking and double-checking of a multitude of instruments before taking off.

How was it possible for such professionals to have made such a tragic error if this proves to be the case? Still, some of you may recall reading of a recent fatal crash caused by a professional pilot failing to do the required check of his controls, something that only required his looking out the window of the plane to make sure the ailerons, stabilizer and rudder were responding properly. Undoubtedly the pilot’s complacency was the critical error resulting in his death. But not even carrier pilots, the best of the best are immune from such complacency.

It may prove the controller was at fault in the Comair crash, directing the pilots to the wrong runway or asleep at the switch not noticing the plane was on the wrong runway and advising the pilots accordingly. But if it should prove pilot error, in this case the error of two pilots, this is how it could have happened.

Many pilot errors are attributable to the kind of thing that plagues all of us. When you have performed the same task a thousand times you become complacent, and when you become complacent you are vulnerable to making mistakes, even the stupid mistakes that in retrospect declare: That was really stupid!

While such mistakes don’t often result in really catastrophic consequences and the most we suffer due to them is acute embarrassment, in the case of an ultra-sophisticated piece of machinery like an airliner such mistakes cost lives. But how does one become so comfortably complacent when operating such a complicated piece of machinery like an airliner? It happens.

But this kind of catastrophic complacency seems endemic in the field of education as well. During the years I spent as a high school teacher many of these found me teaching shop classes because of my vocational qualifications from the “world of work” as opposed to the Halls of Ivy. For the better part I enjoyed teaching such classes because the young people were self motivated to learn the practical skills like electronics, metal and woodworking, and auto repair. While it was often a chore to motivate kids in the academic classes I taught, trying to make things like algebra and trigonometry relevant to them the shop classes were a stark contrast where the relevance was learning hands on skills.

There is another distinct difference between shop and academic classes. It is highly unlikely a math, English, or history teacher is at risk of anyone suffering a catastrophic accident or blowing up the classroom. Not so in shop classes where the “opportunity” for such things abound.

So, safety instruction is of paramount importance in the shops. But even so, it is the instructor’s responsibility to make sure the kids are adequately trained in safety before ever laying hands on a lathe or welding torch. However, even the most conscientious instructor cannot always prevent the kid from filling a milk carton with acetylene and popping it into the heat-treat furnace.

Bill Cosby, America’s preeminent funny man at the time, had a skit where the shop teacher is telling the kids “Don’t put a bullet in the furnace because it will explode.” Bill Cosby knew something all shop teachers know. Kids will do really stupid things. However, it was my rather complete repertoire of doing really stupid things myself as a kid that enabled me to exercise a great deal of patience with kids as a shop teacher. Seldom did a kid do something really stupid I didn’t have a like experience when I was a kid with which to compare.

But adults prove time after time they are capable of doing really stupid things, things like putting a bullet in the furnace. I’m reminded of the fellow I read about many years ago that replaced a fuse in his car with a live .22 round. The very heat that caused the fuse to blow set off the round and the bullet hit this dimwit in the knee causing him to wreck his car. No doubt he was left wondering how he could have done such a really stupid thing?

Well, I’m no longer teaching high school or college classes, but the memories linger on, even the memories of adults doing really stupid things. Take the science teacher I knew that took his kids on a field trip into the desert. Part of his instruction was cautioning his young charges not to put their hands in brush where a rattlesnake might be lurking. He then demonstrated by putting his hand in a bush only to be bitten by a rattlesnake. While in the hospital some of us visited him asking whether he would like to repeat the demonstration for our benefit. He of course declined, and in colorful language laden with four letter words one would not expect of such a professional colleague.

I have often told people the only thing I miss about teaching is the kids. I came to despise a system of “education” that could not have been better designed for failure if it had been done on purpose, a system that seems to have little regard for children and young people, but rather a system that does not support teachers but gives authority to administrators completely out of touch with reality, and I have known some administrators that became downright ugly when confronted by this.

As an aside but not unrelated, my post to the Californian yesterday prompted a few responses by some really ugly people reminding me of the cautionary words of Jesus: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.”

Still, there are things that need to be said on behalf of our young people, on behalf of families as they struggle against a system in our society that like that of education despite the many good and conscientious teachers trying to do their job against insurmountable odds seems not to care about children, about standards of dress, of morality and civilized speech and behavior. I know taking a stand for these things invites attack by those that care nothing for such standards and inveigh against them, but the “village” required to raise a child must be a village of those who do have such standards for the benefit of children.

Will the Comair tragedy be attributed to complacency? Whether or not, the dangers of complacency affecting children on the part of adults who understand the realities of life are ever before us. And those who know better have a duty and responsibility to speak up and not become complacent.

“There ain’t nothin’ like a dame!” You know, one of those alien creatures from Venus that motivates a man to put on a clean white shirt for.

In a politically correct America that line from South Pacific would call down the wrath of any number of organizations dedicated to obliterating the distinction between men and women. But trading the great musicals of which Wodehouse so well said was when poets worked in America for promiscuous sex and violence against women has done its part in corrupting what was once known as “romance.”

Girls are sugar and spice and everything nice, while boys are sniffles and snails and puppy dog tails. You know, when I was a boy I heartily resented that little jingle, but I was also taught girls were intended by God to be a civilizing influence on boys. I resented this as well since I considered myself to be civilized without any help from girls. That is until I met the right girl, the kind of girl that inspired that line from South Pacific.

I will never undervalue the effects of my wilderness experiences here in the Sequoia National Forest that had so much to do with the forming of my own character, the way I perceive life, the values I maintain, and I have written much on this theme. But it is in living life with others that gives the “voice” to our character. For example, as Thoreau pointed out, if you are not sharing with others the things that delight your own soul there is a missing dimension in your life; the real joy is not there. I very early learned what Henry meant when he said “What is nature to me if I have no one with whom to share it?”

Too many people today fail to find that sharing of mutual delights in their own lives. There has to be someone who gives the color and scent to the flowers, who will make the music meaningful, the moon and stars shine brightly, who makes life a living experience and redeems it from mere existence. The single most important thing to come from such a relationship is the learning to live for the benefit of others rather than selfishly.

The family is supposed to be the ultimate expression of sharing and living unselfishly. Obviously the color and scent of the flowers is there whether you notice them or not. But it is love that causes you to notice them in all their glory that gives real meaning and value to them, and “boy meets girl” resulting in a family should pass this lesson on to children.

Since I communicate with National Review, I found it refreshing a few years ago to read Anthony Lejeune following up my essays on the subject of romance in his article entitled “More Enchanted Evenings.” The excellent article added to my own thoughts on the subject of what I consider, with Lejeune, the greatest American art form of the twentieth century; the musical play.    

Lejeune paid homage to the genius of such great artists as Jerome Kern, Sigmund Romberg, Rudolf Friml, Victor Herbert, Rodgers and Hammerstein and mourned their passing echoing the words of Wodehouse “The musical-comedy lyric, an interesting survival of the days, long since departed, when poets worked.”

However, for the great Broadway musicals like Showboat and Oklahoma with their emphasis on True Love conquering all to survive required a national Ethos, which, with the betrayal of our nation by the evil leadership of an increasingly evil system of government, fell into dark decline. There remains no more “bright, golden haze on the meadow.” To have traded Younger Than Springtime for what we have today borders, to me, on sacrilege and speaks volumes for the conditions our young people face and the tragedy of their betrayal and loss.

But poets and philosophers do not flourish in ideological hatreds, in systems of evil where the value of the individual is sacrificed to the vulgar, common cry for unearned bread, in systems where slavery to such evils punishes all efforts to live responsibly and cheats a man of his manhood, victimizes a woman of her womanhood, and children of their childhood.

It takes a common culture to produce the great works of art, of love and romance, which the great Musicals exemplified. It requires the genius of that culture to produce hope of the ideals of commitment and fidelity being fulfilled, of a family being able to work with the hope that they are building a future for their children.

No one is more opposed to men taking advantage of women than I am. I have made my position abundantly clear in regard to the abuse of girls in our schools and society. But I have not lost sight of the fact society must accept the obvious that as long as our girls and women are encouraged to invite lust by the way they act, talk and dress, unless reasonable approaches to these things are faced and dealt with, such things will continue to provoke violence against them. One of the most devastating things we have to confront as a society is the continued attacks on marriage and family, the diabolical proliferation of pornography in the guise of “art” and “free speech.”

If a society and its leadership is going to force a mode of inviting and inciting the violence and lust of men by promoting pornography and as long as girls and women buy into such a thing and lend themselves to the encouragement of inviting and inciting such attacks upon them by selling themselves cheaply there will only be an escalation of such things no matter how many laws are passed.

Face it; if girls and women talk, dress and act like prostitutes, they are going to be treated as such no matter how they and “liberals” howl against the very abuse they are, in fact, subjecting themselves to. Our young girls are deceived and encouraged into dressing immodestly and “displaying their wares” long before they have the maturity to handle the power of their sex.

Then, when the situation gets out of hand, when the boys take advantage and respond according to their own nature both may become victims and, in too many cases, a baby and society in the form of ruined lives, welfare and disease has to pay the price for the wicked lack of morality and a hypocritical double standard and girls no longer have a civilizing influence on boys.

Rhett accused Scarlett of “throwing away happiness with both hands.” American society and its leadership seem to be intent on destroying any semblance of romance, of aiding Scarlett “throwing away happiness with both hands.”

Beauty as with art is said to be in the eye of the beholder; nevertheless certain standards of beauty have withstood the test of time, and few would dispute these standards apart from the enemies of beauty, those who are envious and jealous of beauty and dedicate themselves to marring or destroying it wherever they can. These are the truly ugly among us, easily distinguished by their lack of civilized good manners and civilized speech, attacking all those who would take a stand for beauty and try to emphasize its standards whether of Mozart, the sonnets of Shakespeare, or those things that once distinguished real ladies and gentlemen.

While being ever so grateful for the Turner Classic Movie Channel, I did take it upon myself a couple of years ago to send a letter to Robert Osborne chiding him for neglecting A Girl of the Limberlost, the film version of Geneva Grace Stratton-Porter’s novel of the same title. As a child my mother took me to see the film at the Nile Theater and it made an indelible impression on me. Of the several memorable scenes in the film even after all these years one stands out.

Elnora, the young girl of the Limberlost finds companionship among the various creatures of the swamp. But a girl where she goes to school becomes envious of the attention being paid Elnora. At one point in the film a beautiful butterfly alights on a curtain, and before Elnora can capture it and set it free outside this other girl runs over and smashes the butterfly.

There are many enemies of beauty, those so ugly in their own minds and lives out of jealousy and envy they are dedicated to the marring or destruction of beauty, a subject I deal with at length in my book Birds With Broken Wings and my novel Donnie and Jean, an angel’s story about two children growing up in WWII Bakersfield. In both books I explore this envy and jealousy of beauty. The Huntington and Getty are not the only places you find a genuine tribute to beauty; it can be found in Kern County as well if you know where to look.

My generation of WWII antecedent to TV was not forced to read books; we were born to read, we were readers, and books were a natural and quite normal way of life to us. I was fortunate to be born into a family of avid readers, therefore from earliest memory I was surrounded by and immersed in good books and magazines, an encyclopedia and dictionary, newspapers, and like little Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird who in Jem’s words to Dill was “readin’ ever since she was born,” and notwithstanding Jem’s hyperbole so it seemed with me. And there was radio with a multiplicity of programming; that like good books and before the advent of TV required the constant exercising of ones imagination as well as the intellect.

Among the books of my childhood were the novels not only of those like Scott, Cooper, Clemens and so many others, but those by women as well. One of my favorite woman authors was Geneva Grace Stratton-Porter. She wrote her first novel The Song of the Cardinal in 1903. The next story, Freckles, written 1904 is about an orphan who gets a job as a timber guard in the Limberlost, a forested swamp in Indiana. Due to an accident Freckles has only one hand; however, he falls in love with a young girl, the beautiful “Swamp Angel.” Believing he is impoverished, his mysterious, noble past is finally made known; he is the nephew of “Lord O’More.” The book was made into a film in 1935 followed by a remake in 1960.

A Girl of the Limberlost written in 1911, and also made into the film I mentioned, is about a poor girl, Elnora Comstock, who grows up on the edge of the Limberlost swamp. Her father had died tragically, and when her mother is withdrawn and cold toward her she finds companionship with the Limberlost. There she discovers how Limberlost can teach her in ways no formal education could.

Sharing a like love of nature, Geneva’s life at the Limberlost from which she drew so much of her writing had much in common with that of Henry’s at Walden. In many ways Geneva’s writing prepared me for my life as a boy in the Sequoia National Forest, and for the later friendship and kinship I would find with Henry.

Of all her several novels and writing, Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost continue to be most vivid in my memory. There are two incidents remarked of the young forester that made a great impression on me when I first read the book; the first being his coming across a footprint in the forest made by his Swamp Angel. After pressing his lips to her imprint, the young man uses a piece of bark from a tree to carefully cover and protect this precious evidence of “his angel.” The second incident occurs when the young man is abed recovering from wounds received from rescuing the angel. She declares her love for him at this time, and says “he shall have his angel” notwithstanding his seeming poverty, his ancestry not then known, and his being crippled.

Elnora was the girl counterpart of me as a boy. Her evident love of nature, her courage, and sense of exploration and adventure made us soul mates from the moment I started reading the book. It was not so much Sheena of the Jungle with whom I related, but Elnora of the Limberlost. Tom Sawyer had Becky Thatcher; I had Elnora Comstock to whom I wanted to be a hero just like the young forester to his angel.

Life has a cruel way at times making cynics of people, and the universities and Hollywood substituting their versions of “reality” for good books and the exercising of ones imagination, trading the coarse and profane “literature” of those who obviously could never relate to Scott, Cooper, and Geneva, had they even known of them, those who never realized or cared what was being betrayed our young people were deprived of the very best humankind had to offer by way of civilized thought and manners, cheated and betrayed of the real progress of civilization. As a result, the Angel, Elnora, and the young forester have been cheated and betrayed as well, as have I.

Somehow, the sop to women on the part of the committee adding Austen, Cather, Elliot, and Woolf to the Great Books does not go nearly far enough. Honoring the “compatibility of differences” is not seen at the United Nations, nor is it seen in America. Perhaps it can only be seen and understood by those like Elnora, the young forester and his angel, by those who can understand them and enter into the kind of relationship that honors and dignifies the compatibility of differences.

Few today could read either Emerson or Thoreau without yawning or becoming glassy-eyed, few today could read Geneva without thinking her writing altruistic, simplistic, or at the best “quaint.” But we seek in vain for any marked advance of civilized good manners and morality that has supplanted these works of the past and the standards of beauty they championed.

In the midst of so much prevailing lunacy in a world seeming gone mad, tomorrow the 19^th Annual Rubber Ducky Races will take place here in the Kern River Valley. Just think, despite all the nuclear saber rattling going on and threats to America from so many quarters and talk of WWIII and the impending nuclear Armageddon here we are in this beautiful valley having Rubber Ducky Races. Now that’s what I call having your priorities straight.

We all need some point of comforting stability in our lives, something that helps us maintain our equilibrium without the emotionally depleting effort of Kipling’s “If.” Linus had his blanket, many folks depend on their family or their church, and doctors are telling patients to lower their BP by not watching the news, especially if they have been diagnosed “bipolar.” Though like ADD, etc. the great majority of Americans seem to be suffering these conditions and in my opinion such diagnoses properly belong in the realm of phrenology, palm reading, and witch doctors plying their trade. And no, I’m not a Scientologist, just someone who likes to give more credit to common sense than to psychologists and psychiatrists where you are as likely to get a better answer through flipping a coin as by “analysis.”

One might be excused for thinking the frantic noise accompanying TV newscasts, the barbaric (in my opinion demonic) noise so many call “music” today cannot but make a contribution to the virtual senselessness of an America in the grip of lunacy throughout. So I often turn to the films and music, the great literature of a time when America was a nation that had its priorities straight and children were raised with hope of a future.

Many years ago I read an article calling into question just how much time was actually being saved by the introduction of so many “labor-saving devices” into modern living, things like automatic dishwashers, etc. And true enough, in many cases the devices removed some of the drudgery from our lives but the time saved did not seem to be put to any better use. Save time for what has been too often corrupted to time spent in unproductive ways uncongenial to either mental or physical health, and children today are not collecting stamps or building model airplanes from balsa and tissue as they used to, but growing obese from watching TV and stuffing themselves with “convenient” food. Mom is no longer in the kitchen preparing a wholesome meal and the family no longer gathers at the table for the meal preceded by dad saying grace.

“Remove not the ancient landmarks which thy fathers have placed” has real merit in many cases. I wouldn’t say downgrading Pluto to “dwarf” status falls into this category, nor am I particularly upset over Britain finding fault with Tom rolling a cigarette during one episode of Tom and Jerry. As long as some of us make time for Rubber Ducky Races there remains some hope for the sanity of proper priorities, and I cling to such hope.

But notwithstanding such hope the realities of what we are facing today does not make me misty seeing life through a rainbow or the gossamer wings of butterflies while listening to Serenade in Blue. As I once shared with Senator Don Rogers I often feel the weariness of having lived too long and seen too much to be naïve or altruistic about the daunting challenges America is facing. And having lived the extremities of WWII I can foresee troops on our borders and those concentration camps once more in America.

I’m not a lunatic, and only a lunatic would wish for such things. But despite my broad streak of romanticism and the longing for those ancient landmarks such as the Bible and moral instruction in both homes and schools, the longing for a time when one paycheck provided for the needs of a family, those things that once made America a proud nation and one trusted by the other nations of the world I have an equally broad streak of pragmatism as well and am quite capable of seeing things as they are rather than as I wish they were.

“Circumstances alter cases” remains a truism, and there is what I call the “Circumstances of the Immutable” that invariably plays the trump card from the Devil’s deck. In the meantime, here in the Kern River Valley the Rubber Ducky Races will go on flying in the face of the seeming lunacy all about and here in this beautiful part of God’s Creation we will be spitting in the eye of the Devil. He probably hates rubber duckies, rainbows, butterflies, and Serenade in Blue.

My dream home is Dracula’s castle or Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory. But the best I have been able to do with this small cottage in the country is allowing spiders to spin webs unmolested and the resident lizards to have free access. I don’t like housekeeping and I especially do not like to do windows, consequently they have to get pretty dusty before I get out the Windex and paper towels. Most of the time only the windows here where I write are kept clean to let in the light and allow me to watch the various quail, doves and smaller birds taking advantage of the seed and water I provide them. This is one of the really grand features of life in the country.

However, on one rare occasion in an even rarer spurt of energy I went about actually cleaning all the windows of my place. But while sitting here writing shortly after this magnificent effort at first I thought someone had thrown a rock through the window of my living room, and when I jumped up to go see what had happened I didn’t find a rock on the floor surrounded by broken glass it turned out to be a Kamikaze quail, easily identified as such by the red roundels on its wings. Before you scoff at the description there was the evidence of the Kamikaze quail that had flown through the window lying on the living room floor surrounded by broken glass.

You have doubtless seen the commercials for window cleaner where the birds are the stars, and I have had several experiences with birds flying against clean windows. But this was the only occasion I have experienced where a bird actually committed suicide flying through one of my windows. The moral was not lost on me, and after cleaning up the mess and replacing the window in deference to any future Kamikaze’s the living room windows have gone without any further ministrations on my part. Any excuse will do for me when it comes to refraining from housekeeping chores, and without a little woman in attendance my small house here in the country tends to remain the domain of dust bunnies the size of jackrabbits, spiders, and lizards. That should elicit the appropriate shudder on the part of you ladies.

But you will never find dirty dishes in my sink, one reason being eating out of cans and the haute cuisine of frozen dinners; another reason being not wanting to attract loathsome roaches. However, when it comes to housekeeping I am not in as bad a case as nations like Mexico that treat their countries and the environment like filthy outhouses, and the invading hoards from that barbarian nation aided by the ACLU and corrupt politicians thirsting for slave labor and the “Latino vote” encouraging Mexico to use America like its personal toilet to dump its refuse population rather than demanding that barbarian nation do its own housekeeping.

Despite my own failing in what some would construe as a lack of attention to household chores, from earliest childhood I was taught you pick up and clean up after yourself, you never expect others to pick up and clean up after you. This was a condition of civilized good manners and showing due consideration for others, that is, the due consideration for others one expects of those from families where such things are taught.

Were it not for the inherent danger of nuclear terrorism one could laugh at our “leadership” that appears to believe you can have national security without secure borders. The very lunacy of such a thing would seem to be so obvious a rational person is left wondering how intelligent and educated people could possibly believe there can be anything approaching national security without the prerequisite of secure borders?

But lunatics are often intelligent and well educated persons. And what but lunatics could possibly believe nuclear terrorism is not being invited into America by refusing to secure our borders? It may come down to this. If not lunatics we have a leadership so blinded by greed and avarice, blinded by the unholy lust for power it can neither see nor comprehend the obvious danger.

The ACLU and its allies demonize Pat Buchanan and others likeminded who understand the dangers of refusing to secure our borders, the dangers posed by the invading hoards from Mexico. It is not a question of human rights, but one of America’s very identity and survival as a nation that is at stake. The human rights issue is one for which Mexico is responsible, not America, and that barbarian nation should be the one held to account for the multitude of human rights violations committed by that barbarous nation with impunity.

We the People should be demanding the ACLU and its allies bend its efforts to reforming Mexico and stop trying to destroy America, to stop its bullying tactics attempting to make America vulnerable to nuclear terrorism by demonizing those like Pat Buchanan and emasculating the efforts of those who would try to protect our nation from the war-like invasion from Mexico and terrorists! America should not become the “outhouse” of barbarian nations and those like the ACLU!

“Physician heal thyself” is most appropriate to an America that would dictate to other nations. But the healing must start with a thorough housecleaning among our leaders, and expunging the anti-American efforts of those organizations like the ACLU and La Raza.

Whether the height of lunacy or hypocrisy, for our leadership to speak of any “rule of law” when our own leaders like Caesar Bush give a green light to Mexico to ignore our laws with impunity is patently ridiculous at best. And as an American I say to Caesar: You start obeying the laws of the land, you start doing your sworn Constitutional duty of securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws before playing the lunatic or hypocrite requiring others to obey the law!

It is futile to expect other nations to take us seriously or have any trust in America when our own leaders ignore our own laws with impunity for the obvious sake of slave labor, who are intent on selling out and betraying America for profits. But this is only obvious to those of a sane mind not blinded by greed and avarice, not blinded by the unholy lust for power.

Why isn’t the ACLU at the forefront of supporting Iran’s right to have nuclear weapons? Well, in its own way it is. By doing all in its power to destroy every vestige of America’s heritage and culture, attacking efforts at making English our national language by law and supporting ballots printed in a polyglot of foreign tongues, attacking every attempt to secure our borders, defending the rights of perverts and criminals rather than their victims thereby emasculating police from doing the job of protecting law abiding citizens, in short attempting to destroy any American identity as a nation by attempts to make us over into the image of the ACLU or destroy our nation the organization is blindly handing Iran and all other enemies of America the support of the organization.

There is absolutely nothing “American” about an organization that supports illegal aliens, the criminals that are pouring over our borders by the millions, and insists it is the responsibility of legitimate American citizens to support these illegal alien invaders using the high flown rhetoric of “human rights” as opposed to “American rights.” These illegal aliens do not have the rights of American citizens, and for the Marxist ACLU to make demands on Americans to care for these illegal alien invaders as though they were legitimate American citizens is to put the lie to the organization’s claims of being “American.” Let the organization go to Mexico, China, Iran, and preach their doctrine of “human rights” there and make those nations over into its image! But no, the organization seems quite content to destroy America.

My rights as an American do not derive from the ACLU, nor do they derive from a corrupted bastardization of our Constitution by this infamous anti-American organization and its allied activist universities, judiciary, corrupt politicians and politically correct media making “immigrants” of illegal aliens! It is my right as an American to refuse to support illegal aliens by the tax money extorted from legitimate American citizens! It is nothing but a thinly veiled doctrine of Marxism the ACLU is preaching, and this is one American that will not remain silent, will not be cowed and bullied into submission by this bullying anti-American, anti-God and anti-Christian organization that is anything but “American” and has proven time and again it cares for nothing distinctively American, but on the contrary has devoted all its money and power to destroying anything distinctive of the America of our Founding Fathers and the Great Generation!

Our heritage and culture as a nation, our very beginnings as a nation is firmly rooted in the Bible and the Christian religion. To try to say otherwise is to fly in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary. To deny this the ACLU obviously has another agenda than that of the Founding Fathers and the America they bequeathed us.

In today’s Californian I read Bakersfield Councilmember Irma Carson’s plea to “Create plan to fight gang violence.” She says “Gangs are roaming our streets like terrorists, killing and shooting innocent victims without provocation. They have insighted (?) fear in local citizens who may have witnessed one of these heinous acts of violence. Gangs will continue to kill if no one tells what they saw or provide information to law enforcement.”

My dear Ms. Carson you are whipping a dead horse. There is not a single common sense attempt to curb gang violence but what our police will be stymied by threats of lawsuits by the ACLU. As for begging those in your district to come together as a community to confront the problem of home grown terrorists, no one in their right mind would give this the chance of the proverbial snowball. When illegal aliens are encouraged by the ACLU to sue Americans and American cities, just what chance does anyone have in dealing with these homegrown terrorists when the howls of “Racial profiling!” and “Discrimination!” are bound to follow aided by the ACLU?

Here in Kern County we have witnessed too many cases where the barbarians are confronted only to have lawsuits brought against those attempting to curb criminal activity because thanks to the ACLU illegal aliens and other criminals are better protected in our courts than their victims.

Alas, I am forced to conclude Ms. Carson is only engaging in political rhetoric in the vein of Caesar Bush and his “Stay the course” nonsense reflecting an ACLU politically correct war unwinnable on the face of it. Aiding corrupt politicians refusing to secure our borders for the sake of slave labor benefiting only the wealthy at the expense of legitimate American citizens the infamous ACLU has made it impossible to do so even to the extent of emasculating border patrol agents from performing their duties, making it impossible to do the necessary racial profiling that would prevent crimes and acts of terrorism, but on the contrary has made the building of jails and prisons a growth industry in which to house the multiplied thousands of illegal aliens at taxpayer expense.

The many websites giving chapter and verse for “What is wrong with the ACLU?” are available to all who want to bother doing the research. But I am not holding my breath waiting for the supporters of this infamous organization to acknowledge the facts supporting my accusations against it that were it honest would not be using the term “American” to identify itself. But being a shameless entity dedicated to either making America into its image or destroying our nation that isn’t going to happen. It remains this organization will continue to aid illegal aliens at the expense of Americans, supporting the corrupt politicians and corporations profiting from this slave labor to the end of making wage slaves of all Americans.

It is far past time real Americans made their voices heard against the enemies of America like the ACLU. If we don’t we deserve an America made in the image of this godless, anti-American, anti-Christian organization, and the best way to confront this infamous organization and its allies is at the ballot box! In the meantime keep sending those letters to politicians and to the editors of newspapers and TV pundits. Make your voice as an American heard against the enemies of America before it is too late!

“I’m going to kill you, you sonofabitch!” If you want a reply to your letter sent a politician there is an opening statement guaranteed to prompt a response. But not only is such a statement bad form and in very poor taste, it is likely to invite a visit from the constabulary asking you “interesting questions.” Still, not a few of us experience such anger toward politicians seemingly dedicated to selling out and betraying America and would like to vent our anger toward them in some such manner.

Now if you are a literary person, you know, one of those rare breed that reads good literature, there is a wealth of material from which to glean the appropriate quotations for your letter. The danger here is that those in the employ of politicians assigned the task of screening mail may not be literate. Bad enough Caesar Bush thought Africa was a nation (that was enough to make me shudder at the time), but such ignorance seems to infect the class of politicians nowadays and such ignorance seems rampant among those like secretaries employed in support services.

I was confronted with this a few years ago when a very pleasant man called asking if I were threatening to kill then Governor Gray Davis? This very well-mannered fellow was in charge of protecting the governor from various nut cases, but when my letter was referred to him after reading it he concluded I didn’t exactly fit the profile of an ordinary nut. So, as he explained to me, instead of immediately assigning some of his officers to come knocking at my door in the dead of night decided to call and ask me the relevant question: “Was I threatening to kill the governor?”

Now, gentle reader, if you are acquainted with the protocol surrounding politicians getting death threats you will surely be surprised by my getting such a phone call rather than my door being kicked in at 2 a.m. During the course of our conversation this very well-mannered gentleman explained he thought my letter evidenced someone very well educated, and such people generally did not send the governor death threats. Since he had my letter in hand, I called his attention to the quotation marks of the offending statement.

Well, the conversation at that point took such an interesting turn this fellow actually gave me his name and personal phone number where he could be reached directly. Turns out he had a great interest in literature, and was apologetic about a secretary unable to distinguish quotation marks, though he mentioned he had noted them and together with the literary form of my letter prompted the call rather than a visit by the cops asking me those interesting questions.

However, I did come away from this experience with the hope there were those among our police services in whatever capacity who are literate and civilized, and capable of being able to distinguish between those threatening violence and those like me who are able to make our convictions known to politicians in a civilized and literate manner.

But over the years as I have fought the battle for open dialogue between politicians and We the People, asking that we the Great Unwashed not be treated as though we were stupid sheep unable to handle the truth such a battle has generally been met with personal attacks, not many of which fall into the category of civilized good manners let alone being literate, and those like the ACLU intent on destroying America in the high flown rhetoric of “defending” our civil liberties.

However, the line between civil liberties and our security as a nation, the need for unity rather than the divisive attacks by the ACLU on our very heritage and culture as a Christian Nation, the need for making English our national language by law and absolute security at our borders is one made very clear by a columnist for whom I have always had the greatest respect: Thomas Sowell.

In his column today “Point of no return,” Sowell clearly defines the threat to America. That we are quickly approaching that point where we must make the decision whether Western Civilization, whether the heritage and culture of America is even worth preserving is being forced upon us. And it would be futile to expect the ACLU or La Raza to cooperate in saving America. On the contrary, both of these are dedicated to either having an America made in their image, or the Hitlerian scorched earth destruction of our nation.

While there is no excuse to be found for the brutality with which Indians in America were treated because of the greed and avarice on the part of politicians, we must live with the results. And these include the observation by Henry Thoreau asking whether the Indian would be wise to trade the wigwam he owned for the mortgaged palace of the “civilized?” But even Henry called attention to the fact the cannibal left off eating people when introduced to the better manners of civilized people.

Not much is left of the history of my Choctaw Cherokee ancestors from the maternal side of my family, the Caldwell’s. There were no writers of books as such in order to preserve much of their history. But that can be a blessing when it comes to horse thieves and other scoundrels in the family tree.

Take the Heath’s for example, a generally noble family name and history complete with family crest. A Major General William Heath served George Washington in our War for Independence, and had I stopped at that point in searching my roots well and good. However, what really generated my interest in that side of the family was a trip to Tombstone, Arizona many years ago while I was still an undergraduate. While visiting Boot Hill much to my surprise one of the very few original markers was that of John Heath! Turns out he was the infamous leader of a gang of cutthroats, and when he was apprehended a mob from Bisbee stormed the jail, took him out and lynched him.

The history of America includes that of barbarians as well as those like George Washington, and family trees generally include both a Major General William Heath and a John Heath. But we must live with both, and there remains that point of decision to which Sowell has drawn our attention whether we have an America reflecting the best of our heritage and culture worthy of preserving, whether the battle against the barbarians of Islam is to be waged and fought in earnest to win or allow those like the ACLU and La Raza to sacrifice America to the barbarians.

There can be no doubt about the intentions on the part of the barbarians of Islam to destroy all civilized nations. But why should there be any doubt among civilized nations this is a war that must be won and we must fight this war without the restrictions of political correctness which virtually guarantee our defeat? But who among our elected leaders can be trusted to wage such a war? It is at this point I have to wonder whether the Biblical prophecies of the End Times just might have it right and we may be that generation of which Jesus spoke.

One of my favorite scenes from the MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR is the old man lying in bed, and slowly opening his eyes expresses mild surprise at still being alive to face another day. Not a few of us oldsters, especially those of us living alone, can certainly relate to this, and some of us envy the old fellow having that ghost as a friend and companion to help him through the day, and in the end to ease his passing. I much preferred this to the ending of MEET JOE BLACK that missed the warm and fuzzy mark.

But we know life is not always warm and fuzzy, that it is a bittersweet waltz and most of us dance though each day best we can. However, there are times when I wonder if slipping quietly into dementia isn’t to be preferred to what my doctor assures me isn’t very likely in my case. As I shared with her, I consider it a somewhat mixed blessing to be told I will probably maintain a sharp mind to the end while envying the old fellow his friendly ghost.

To that end of maintaining a sharp mind, I used to encourage my pupils to keep a personal journal, explaining to them the benefits of expressing their thoughts by writing them out each day. But there was the essential caveat that such a journal should be kept private.

Learning to organize thoughts in written expression is one of the higher learning processes of the mind, and one that serves the person well throughout their lives. It is most unfortunate our schools in too many cases no longer emphasize this most essential part of the educational process as the universities began so many years ago to degenerate into institutions that no longer emphasized the 3 Rs to prospective teachers, but became factories of social engineering.

When it comes to the writing of books, however, a few years ago Herb Benham had an excellent column having to do with his experience at a book signing. Unless you are a “made” writer by way of fame or having a relative in the book publishing business book signings are lonely affairs. I have had three of them at Russo’s Books and all were lonely affairs. Simply put, unless there are many thousands of dollars spent in promotion and advertising your book is not going to become known to the public. Many an author has had to learn this bitter lesson. But real writers and authors write by compulsion, not with the idea of gaining fame and fortune by their writing as Henry Thoreau learned expressing the thought writers usually only have the pain of their labors as their reward.

As to book signings, while I have never sold many through such events for those who love books the time is never wasted in places like Russo’s. Just like visits to a library, to be surrounded by books is to be in the company of “friends.” But when it comes to fame it is rightly said it exacts a harsh tribute. I can sympathize with Scott Adams of "Dilbert" who went online with his book because he "... didn't want to shake the sweaty hands of strangers in Bakersfield, saying nice things to them." I don't take exception to this remark of Adams as being disparaging of Bakersfield though my birth certificate reads "Born in Weedpatch, near Bakersfield." Of course, the folks actually born and living in Bakersfield might have gotten a little uppity about the remark.

I do admit to engaging in whimsy at times as a writer, and even have a literary award from The Writers of Kern for such whimsical writing. So to the surprise of none of my companion writers and seeking neither fame nor fortune some years ago I began a tongue in cheek “Weedpatch Gazette” intended to poke fun at both myself and politicians, the latter often taking themselves far too seriously. A column in the fabulous Gazette was titled “The Cracker Barrel.” I would like to share one of these early columns by way of just plain fun, though the incidents recounted are somewhat dated and readers will have to reach back a little in memory to recall the events of the time.

Zeke is a regular around the Cracker Barrel… a great fellow, but a little funny in the head since his mule kicked him in same. Being alone out in the field when this happened, he had to crawl to his shack. Being in great pain and having a horse capsule of tranquilizer in his pocket he had planned using on a recalcitrant mare he was trying to break, he took about half of this horse-sized dose and said he not only didn’t have any trouble reaching the shack, he didn’t feel any pain for two days. But his head never returned to normal.

In spite of the resulting bubbles in his think-tank, Zeke makes some valuable contributions to our discussions around the Cracker Barrel. Such knocks in the head sometime result in not only scattering your type and addling your pate, but also making some parts of your brain become active in ways approaching genius. Things like prescience and other Psi phenomena have been claimed to result from such injuries.

Anyhow, because of this aberration in his thought processes since getting kicked in the head by his mule and that heroic dose of tranquilizer, Zeke has been given to making “pronouncements” in much the same vein as those preachers that are always telling folks how this or that prophecy of the Bible has been, or is in the process of being, fulfilled. Of course, such people don’t have Zeke’s excuse even though they talk and act like they’ve been kicked in the head by some kind of critter.

But unlike preachers, in Zeke’s case his “pronouncements” are usually directed at politicians. Now mind Zeke hasn’t had much book learning and couldn’t spell his way through a book of cigarette papers, so we all knew he had probably never heard of Nostradamus or Edgar Cayce, like those university fellows at Weedpatch University. So we knew the kind of things he would prophesy or pronounce had to come from that part of his brain made active by the kick to it… and the horse pill.

For example, just the other day he made a pronouncement that took us all aback. He said he had seen something on TV w