Every schoolchild is taught that the evil Germans invaded Poland in 1939 because they loved killing people (usually infants). This crippled account of history with hatred as its crutch continues throughout high school and university only to be mended, to the extent it ever is, in graduate school or by self-education. Then the inquisitive mind learns that the war was perhaps not entirely caused by Germans’ insatiable need for babies’ blood.

Lamentably an area known as the Danzig Corridor was to drag Britain and France into a continent-wide conflict that resulted not in the legitimate surrender of a Polish strip of historically German land, but instead the sacrifice of Poland to decades of Soviet tyranny. Some heroic individuals foresaw this and attempted to avert it.

In the end, Britain and France blundered into a charnel house that need never have existed, and it was largely in the service of promises, assurances, and treaties with Warsaw. After all, they reasoned, had not Germany crossed a red line?

Thankfully history never repeats itself and the United States is blithely in the process of threatening the Syrian government over a set of red lines that the US drew.

The US has already enacted economic boycotts and maneuvered to have Syrian authorities blackballed by United Nations members and various other gentlemen’s clubs in order to marginalize Bashar al-Assad’s leadership. The Americans have even supported the very people who supported the Saudis responsible for 9/11 in order to achieve their aims. All this has occurred in the unreality of the diplomatic arena.

Meanwhile any discussion of the physical reality in Syria is fraught with peril. For unlike the Mexicans invading America, the Americans invading Syria actually are “in the shadows” (though American money, American weapons, and American mercenaries do not technically qualify as American military involvement).

How could any American countenance a nation launching a war against its own people (not counting Sherman’s raping/looting/murdering spree to the sea)? Who in America would bear an administration using biological weapons against its citizens (excepting Tuskegee and LSD)? What American would tolerate representatives oppressing a racial sect (omitting Native Americans until 1911/African Americans until 1954/white Americans since at least 1969)? If any government is uniquely suited to condemning any other, it is obviously that of the United States.

No one, whether in Washington or not, has any definitive account of what is happening. The use of chemical weapons was supposedly a red line not to be crossed, yet there is some evidence the line was crossed by al-Qaeda (er, Syrian “rebels”). We cannot be certain what this means, but it apparently does not mean the US will enter the fray on al-Assad’s side. That would be both logical and rational, traits that politicians tend to eschew.

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Now the Israelis have bombed weapons intended for the Syrian government. Worse, multiple air strikes were conducted, in effect goading Syria or its allies into retaliating against Tel Aviv.

This would indubitably drag the ordinary American kicking and screaming into yet another Middle Eastern conflict he doesn’t want and, televised indoctrination aside, generally doesn’t care to think about at all. The public’s wants and needs have never gotten in the way of policymakers ginning up a good war.

Although far from ideal (much like every government since the beginning of time), Syria under al-Assad is a cosmopolitan oasis of secularism in the Middle East, with at least provisional protections for minorities and women. Would a Syria under al-Qaeda be preferable? Would a Damascus ruled by no one and engulfed in lawless turmoil be better for its people? Would complete regional bifurcation of Sunni and Shia make anyone safe?

The Arab world has the population and the resources to seriously affect the course of global events. What it wants is a global leader. To the extent Muslims should ever put a man in authority with the integrity to lead and the wisdom to act in the interests of his people rather than himself, a Middle Eastern uprising might occur whose outcome would deviate from the past. As for now, the West and the Sheiks are complicit in ensuring no man lives to reach that seat of power.

Chaos is being promoted in Syria, and it is in chaotic times that interesting men rise to prominence.

Returning to World War II, aside from German demonization there is also quite a bit of sport these days made of the French effort during that struggle. As with so much surrounding the era, this is largely due to ignorance. Some are wholly unaware that during World War I, sixty percent of France’s male population from ages 18-28 was either killed or maimed.

Recalling a past in which so many of your friends were harmed gives good reason to avoid making ultimatums in the future. Is it any wonder so many Frenchmen preferred to avoid conflict merely for the sake of the Poles? And although Germany did eventually invade, it was France who declared war first.

That is the thing about red lines; they are almost always written in blood.

I do not believe the claims regarding the Boston Marathon bombings. I do not believe the Civil Support Team was an innocuous presence. I do not believe the astronomically unlikely happenstance that the supposed bombers were in a convenience store precisely when others were robbing it, resulting in a shootout with police. I do not believe the suspects in question are solely responsible. I do not believe anything about the incident reported by the newsreaders perusing their authorized scripts. I do not believe anything any Democrat, Republican, or independent has to say about this matter.

Whoever committed this outrage deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law, but I do not believe all the responsible parties will ever be held to account.

I have believed lies too many times in the past.

In the United States during the 1950s, there was a series of radiation tests conducted on unwitting human subjects. This occurred long after radiation’s deadly effects were well known.

A number of political figures were assassinated in the 1960s, notably JFK, RFK, and MLK. In the latter case, an unemployed drifter purportedly obtained a state-of-the-art passport forgery and an expensive international airline ticket and was able to fund his own living expenses for months.

In the 1970s after the Watergate scandal, the president of the United States was forced to resign due to his operatives’ gross immorality and criminality which involved breaking and entering, theft, lying to Congress, and deceiving the public.

In the 1980s the October Surprise was an alleged scheme by the Republican presidential candidate to forestall release of American hostages taken in wake of the Iranian Revolution. Within minutes of the Reagan inauguration, these hostages were granted a release.

The first bombing of New York’s World Trade Center was in 1993. This was alleged at the time to be a complete surprise to the government. However, it was later reported that the FBI not only monitored the plot, they scrutinized the purported explosive ingredients, and the key perpetrators were the same individuals the FBI approached. Since that time federal agents have apparently learned nothing, being a prime recruitment agency for would-be terrorists.

In 2003 evidence appears to have been deliberately misinterpreted and actively fabricated to sway the American public and United Nations to support a war against Iraq. Aside from dissenting voices inside the administration were questionable suicides prior to the war, including a noted weapons inspector and one analyst who reportedly threw himself off the top of the State Department building. A decade and trillions of dollars later, the world came to believe this was executive hubris aiming to enrich private individuals with the result being a much less secure United States and a much more unstable world.

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Even if one does not give the slightest credence to any theory of history other than the agreed upon lie, there are enough inconsistencies to give its most ardent supporters fits of epicycles.

Nearly forty years after the Vietnam War ended, we know it was a much dirtier war than was ever let on, notwithstanding My Lai and other massacres. My perspective is that the notion of “war crimes” is nonsense given that war itself is a crime. Once a war has commenced, restraint is only measured by the degree to which the purportedly deferential side is winning. Still, information has been declassified that shows rape, non-party torture, and civilian targeting were implicitly approved tactics.

Twenty-six years on, we know the Iran-Contra affair had little to do with exchanging “arms for hostages” and much to do with illegally waging war on the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. There was also the footnote that even has apologists grudgingly admitting this arms trade was partially funded by flooding American inner cities with narcotics.

Ten years after the fact we know the prisoner abuse of Iraqi detainees was by no means the work of “a few bad apples.” Instead, it was sanctioned to such a degree there might as well have been a manual on its practice. The amount of sadism not only condoned but officially ordered is so profoundly disturbing to genuine Americans one questions how “American” the United States military is anymore.

There are rationalizations for all of the above, some valid and some not, but all represent instances when the public believed government narratives which later seemed so irreconcilable with truth there can be little question these lies were the product of massive propaganda which often sought to meet its own ends rather than those of the people.

All governments lie; the question is whether their lies are intended to protect the people or the powers that be.

OJ Simpson

Now in its sixteenth week, the Jodi Arias trial is being broadcast across the nation. But only a few years ago there was considerable debate over whether cameras should even be permitted in the courtroom.

Protagonists argued that cameras opened the process to the masses and provided greater accessibility. Antagonists countered that it would result in judges and prosecutors being chosen because they fit the needs of Central Casting rather than old-fashioned competence. Elected officials must appeal to a wide populace, leading them to make selections favoring style over substance, with camera-ready but unskilled lawyers appearing in the more sensational trials.

Long before “reality” legal drama entered our living rooms, television offered fictionalized legal drama. For decades audiences had a heightened sense of drama—which seldom exists in the courtroom—surrounding the practice of law.

As a legal practitioner and avid TV viewer, I feel that the law as depicted in prime-time drama is entirely unrealistic. In real life, I have never seen a legal interrogation as depicted on Law & Order and its many franchises. In no state can the authorities beat a confession out of a suspect, and I would be surprised to find that any jurisdiction allowed a confession obtained even by the implicit threat of force.

Some of the racier procedural dramas such as The Wire or The Shield almost always feature a questioning during which the suspect is held for hours when finally the detective leans in, shuts off the tape recorder, and says, “Go ahead, tell me what happened—off the record.”

The public has been led to believe that the words “off the record” imply you can confess to anything and it somehow doesn’t count toward prosecution. Save your lawyer a headache and yourself a conviction: Don’t say anything until representation is in the room beside you.

In a police station nothing is “off the record” unless you whisper it into your attorney’s ear. There is usually another hidden tape recorder somewhere taking down everything you are about to say.

In the classic TV series Perry Mason, Perry (played by Raymond Burr) was a criminal-defense attorney who only took cases of people whom he believed were innocent, and he always managed to prove they were.

In reality, he would starve as a criminal-defense lawyer. Although there are corrupt cops and some people wrongly accused, in my experience most suspects are guilty. And the Mason-style cross-examination of hollering at a witness until they break down and confess on the stand is highly unrealistic.

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Legal hearings as depicted on The Practice or Boston Legal are ideal examples of how never to behave. In several episodes of each show, attorneys not only contradicted judges in open court, they rudely insulted them. This was usually countered with a sharp glare or a stern, “Be careful, counselor.”

This will not happen in actual practice. In such a situation the least you should expect is a public reprimand (which goes on your permanent record), the fair possibility of a bench fine (several thousand dollars if you are deliberately demeaning), and you might be thrown in jail for contempt.

What’s known as the “CSI effect” is a phenomenon where juries believe that every technological advance they see on television should be reproducible in court. Aside from the fact that television is fictional and often merely invents science, broadcasters sometimes charge $100,000 for a 30-second commercial while jurors are paid anywhere from $4 to $50 a day.

In other words, there is no money for high-tech investigations in any but the most high-profile cases. If a burglar enters your home in many jurisdictions, the department won’t even dust for fingerprints. It’s not that they don’t want to catch the perpetrator; they simply don’t have the resources to treat everyone as if he’s after the Crown Jewels.

For good or ill (mostly ill), intermittent glimpses of the legal system have done nothing to increase either the public esteem or the general understanding of jurisprudence. Hollywood’s cameras have played a far greater role in developing common notions of justice than have public cameras in the courthouse.

Kim Jong Un

The world is filled with tough guys who say they are going to smash your face in but never throw a punch. Whether it’s a barroom blowhard or Asia’s Big Bluffer, few things irritate me more than a jackass who is long on words and short on action.

Such is the case with Kim Jong-un, who is forever telling the world how big and bad he is. He cuts “all lines of communication” from North Korea…except the military phone that was open until quite recently. He ceases all contact with the outside world…yet until this week he exempted the North-South cooperative that employed hundreds who worked between the two nations daily. He bombards islands…that are sparsely inhabited.

Obviously, in those acts there was collateral damage and some lives lost, but this is mostly the stuff of a hothead punching a wall to demonstrate his strength. Witnesses are supposed to be frightened and they usually are; as long as no one notices, the boaster never actually takes on anyone else and confines himself to attacking plaster.

This is not to say there is no North Korean threat. Any bellicose nation with an unbalanced leader should not be entirely dismissed. Yet Kim is not nearly so unhinged as some would have us think. If he were, those 50,000 troops on the border would have swarmed the South in the middle of the night without so much as a hat tip to Western powers.

Would such a move be suicidal for the regime? Likely. Would it be futile? Eventually. Would it initially succeed? Probably. One can never underestimate the explosive power of 1,000,000 souls of cannon fodder.

There is high likelihood of success in such a maneuver, even in spite of millions of landmines, because almost no high Western (or South Korean) official takes such a threat seriously, at least not if there aren’t any cameras rolling.

American troops are in South Korea not because of North Korea but because of China. These forces are just pawns on the chessboard of global dominance. Were North Korea and China not strategic allies and mutual Western opponents, the United States would have little interest in stationing anyone there.

While a maniacal Kim has only one objective—forceful reunification—the Americans have multiple considerations. How would China react? Might another ground war in Asia remilitarize Japan? What would be the position of the other Western powers, especially now that so many European nations have significant Asian constituencies?

Any American military resistance overcome in the first few hours would likely be the sole response for at least a day, perhaps more. Nuclear weapons would be out of the question. Mass insertion of additional troops and remarshaling the disoriented units already present would take time. That is on the assumption Western populations would be inclined to engage in another conflagration so soon after the two in the Middle East. Even President Peace Prize might have trouble convincing his people to fight another war.

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The South Korean army, to the extent it is not a paper tiger, may be overcome for the same reason that few in prominent office take the prospect of invasion seriously. Additionally, estimating prevailing sentiments of citizenry in the South is difficult. Would the populace immediately rush into the street for hand-to-hand combat? It is doubtful. For while Kim has indoctrinated his North that they are in a fight for existence, few ordinary South Koreans see the national schism that way. Moreover, Kim’s people are hungry, and a starving fanatical army will almost always win against a fattened logical one.

Despite the recent bellicosity—actually because of it—we can see that the above scenario will not unfold. A mad dash to Seoul might just succeed before the West could convince itself such a thing was in fact taking place, but it would have to be unexpected. Whatever else one can say of the incrementally increasing tensions, each day’s monotonous intensification is unsurprising.

So Kim may shoot off a few rockets (which will probably crash and almost certainly miss their mark) and he may shuffle his forces around the border region. Still for the most part there is nothing to worry about from any intelligent review of the situation.

This is not to say some people will not be harmed. To save face, Kim will probably have to sink a boat somewhere or shoot up another forlorn bit of sand, and there will be a dozen or more casualties. But it won’t be anything nearly big enough to impel South Korea into a full-scale war.

We can safely ignore all the high drama from the low intellects of our television sets. This is nothing more than political theater of the most repetitious sort. It gives coiffed anchors something to hyperventilate about and delirious lawmakers some reason to throw more funds to their lobbyists.

How can we be certain Kim Jong-un will do nothing? Because he constantly claims he will do something. There is no surer way to recognize a coward. Anyone who is serious about doing something doesn’t diagram it for you beforehand; he simply does it.

Jodi Arias

These past months have been awash in the most crass sex crimes of recent memory. In each instance, debauched personalities have either been convicted or are currently facing trial, with good reason. Yet the incidents viewed in totality give rise to a sense that each of the victims shares some responsibility in their fate. Perhaps we all do.

Most sensational is the trial of femme fatale Jodi Arias, who admits killing Travis Alexander but denies murdering him. Arias was Alexander’s short-term girlfriend and longtime sex toy. He even converted her to his religion. They eventually parted ways but not erogenous zones. He continually had intercourse with her after their breakup. She moved several states to be near him.

In their final encounter Arias says she learned during the post-coital glow that Alexander would take another member of his harem to Cancun. She had previously been suspected of slashing his tires, yet this time she opted for slashing his throat. She also stabbed him 29 times and followed it up with a gunshot to the head. Being a cad shouldn’t get you murdered, but sexually baiting an obviously disturbed woman has foreseeable results.

In Steubenville, OH, boys from the local high-school football team were accused of digitally penetrating a teen they met one evening at a party. At first it seemed the culprits would escape trial, as Steubenville is a “football town” with prosecutors eager to preserve the cash cow.

The hacker group Anonymous made it a cause célèbre. They didn’t need to do much, since the idiot athletes had already posted photos of the incident online. Even those who weren’t present thought it would be a bright idea to record comedy routines about what occurred.

Two players were rightly condemned to a juvenile facility with possible registration as sex offenders for life. The girl’s mother harangued them during her impact statement, claiming they “lacked a moral code.” She neglected to explain why her own moral code allowed her to set her 16-year-old daughter loose to get stumblebum-drunk with strangers.

From the impoverished cesspool known as India comes the horrific tale of a gang rape. A Swiss couple had embarked on a bicycle tour of the hinterlands. While off alone far from the civilized world, the female was attacked and defiled.

Hadn’t these Europeans heard numerous tales of Indian gang rapes? I suggest we alter Bombay’s name again. Any Westerner with the slightest notion of visiting should be asked, “And are you certain you want to take your wife to Rapetown?”

A case developing in Moscow involves an attack on the director of the Bolshoi Ballet. At first, the crime seemed despicable and worthy less of Russia than some Middle Eastern hellhole. However, now come allegations that corrupt Bolshoi officials were forcing ballerinas to be wealthy businessmen’s escorts. The company denies these accusations.

If you are going to pressure very young girls from impoverished homes to become whores it is only a matter of time before some boyfriend or brother throws acid in your face, and I’m not the least bit sorry to see it happen. If more pimps got bleach baths, the world would be a better place.

A lifetime ago in Paris I was appalled at the grotesqueries of “Pig Alley.” Every kind of sex was available to all manner of deviants. But looking back, at least it was confined. You could be secure knowing that sort of thing was in a single neighborhood and if you stayed well away it would not follow you. These days the slop has oozed out of the pigpen until it befouls everywhere.

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Through the early 1960s intercourse never preceded marriage. No less an authority than Hugh Hefner acknowledged so. The idea that it should be experienced only in the bonds of lifelong commitment is beyond young people’s comprehension today.

Far be it from me to recommend that society should revert to the prudery of the Eisenhower Administration, but these anecdotes illustrate how vastly things have changed in such a brief time. While physical beauty certainly has its place in life, erotic saturation is deplorable. There is a wide gulf between Puritan severity and contemporary Babylon, with many drowning in the transit.

Decades ago my philosophy was decidedly against any form of censorship. I considered extreme imagery a consequence of living in freedom. Yet that was when there was a much larger degree of suppression and such juvenile opinions could be safely indulged. After years of almost no restrictions it is clear that humanity is not in the least prepared for such liberty.

Although I am an ethicist I am also a pragmatist, and I do not expect any better from people than the surroundings in which they are placed. But examination is not synonymous with excuse. When every word and image is directed below the waist, how can we expect individuals to think above the neck?

Until humans accept the notion that we are simply not mentally or morally capable of acting without media constraint we should begrudge empathy for those accused of behaving in ways which, if not normal, are what should normally be expected from the naked ape  bombarded from childhood with lurid and prurient content which has as its purpose not to enrich but to arouse.

The scales of justice are not intended to convey that the victim and perpetrator are equal, but that the punishment should fit the crime. We need to overcome the dichotomy that all victims are blameless and all perpetrators monstrous. Victims will often invite disaster generally, if not specifically. Frequently the perpetrator is acting upon urges our modern porno culture unremittingly impels and very often rewards.

Cyprus is a small island in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Turkey and Syria. On a map it seems to belong more in the Middle East than Europe, but for a host of historical reasons it is included. The 1.1 million people who live there are citizens of the European Union.

I don’t live there, so should that matter to me? It matters because the banking abomination being attempted in Cyprus is the first of its kind in modern times—the literal confiscation of “taxes” from bank accounts. Cyprus should matter to you if you have money in any Western bank, prefer to use credit cards instead of cash, or believe in the rule of law.

Cyprus is basically insolvent and the economy is about to repeat scenes you’ve watched in every movie about the Great Depression. To stop it from happening, the European Union offered a loan, but only if the government of Cyprus “taxes” bank accounts.

How can the government tax bank accounts? They cannot; they can only steal from them. It is called a “tax” because to call it theft invites revolt against the government. A bank account is a repository for private property that has already been taxed. It would be as if the government came to your garage and “taxed” your car by pulling a wheel off in the middle of the night after you already paid for it.

Is the government of Cyprus insane? No, only desperate; the nation was heavily invested in Greece and when the Greek economy failed, Cyprus was likewise exposed. However it still listens when people riot outside the legislature. As ordinary people learned what was about to happen, they vociferously protested, and it was enough to frighten representatives who rejected the plan that the EU’s Troika proposed.

The “Troika” is slang for the tripartite committee of the European Central Bank, European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund. These organizations are the de facto authority in setting financial policy for bailouts (government loans) in the European Union such as occurred in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal.

They probably shouldn’t matter, but ever since Charlemagne many people on the continent have been mesmerized by the notion of a united Europe, believing this increases European power and influence. Alongside the plutocrats in Brussels come the technocrats of the Troika.

Cyprus received about 10 billion euro to remain solvent.

That doesn’t seem like much, comparatively speaking. The Troika has recently funded bailouts many times larger. For example, the Troika offered Greece loans of well over 100 billion euro.

People are making a fuss over the Cypriot bailout because the nation’s annual economic output is only about 24 billion euro. As a consequence, the Troika put the bite on Cyprus to make sure they have some skin in the game.

There’s a difference between “having skin in the game” and “being skinned alive.”

Cyprus agreed to a bailout plan on Monday that may cost “large investors” up to 40% of their bank deposits.

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For a country as small as Cyprus that relies almost exclusively on international banking and tourism for its sustenance, this will be costly.

Speaking of international banking, Russian mobsters reputedly launder money through Cyprus, just as they do in banks throughout the world. However there are billions of dollars from foreign investors of all types in Cyprus ranging from the typical middle-class saver to upper-class businessmen.

Then why do we hear nonstop about the Russian Mafia? Because the Troika was hoping people were as stupid as they think we are. Many of the larger accounts belonged to non-Cypriots, Russians alone with almost two billion in assets. By characterizing all these foreign investors as a handful of criminals, the Troika was apparently hoping Cypriots would be fooled into this swindle. It didn’t work because ordinary people realized any plan that steals from the rich inevitably steals from the poor.

In no non-Soviet Bloc country has the specter of hyperinflation, cash-based economies, or the idea that bank deposits are unreliable been other than pure fiction for over 70 years. Yet now, due to either reckless demands or feckless provocation, the Troika has reintroduced such ideas to the Western world.

Wary individuals in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain are reviewing their bank accounts at this moment. Should any of them need further assistance from the Troika there is no guarantee these nationals would not suffer a similar “tax” of 10% or more of their savings. Flight of capital from these countries could undermine or collapse their own fledging recoveries.

In only a few weeks central Europe’s pompous and blundering managerial idiots have managed to undermine the most valuable asset Western banking had in its favor—depositor confidence. They will never again regain such esteem. That is why Cyprus matters to the rest of us.

General Eric Shinseki

It’s been ten years since the Iraq War was launched. Back then, a few prominent individuals endeavored to thwart what is perhaps the greatest strategic mistake in United States history. Each stood against a country that was in widespread agreement over attacking Iraq.

Scott Ritter had opinions and the facts to back them up—always a dangerous place in government. Ritter worked as weapons inspector in Iraq from the years 1991 until 1998, when he resigned due to institutional failure to make effective progress in assessing the situation.

Soon thereafter Ritter published a book and appeared in a documentary where he urged the United States to continue conciliatory dialogue with Iraq while operating in conjunction with United Nations sanctions to constrain that nation until the true state of its WMD was ascertained. He repeatedly stated that armed conflict would not provide an acceptable resolution.

Throughout the flailing occupation, Ritter continued to denounce the military option. His beliefs were often bolstered by practical experiences.

Recently he has been convicted of unseemly charges of seduction of a minor through the Internet; similar charges were also levied against him in 2001, which coincided with the commencement of his antiwar appearances. Ritter claims that authorities seeking to punish his recalcitrance entrapped him. Given oddities which surround the strange fates of those who challenged the Iraq narrative leading up to war, it would not be surprising.

Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki publicly put his reputation on the line when he testified before Congress prior to the invasion that the force needed to pacify a conquered Iraq would require “something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers.” He was forcefully denounced across the news spectrum by both conservative and progressive outlets.

Shinseki had already engaged in heated debates on this very subject with then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld numerous times. This had also brought him into conflict with another architect of the war, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. These were two of the most powerful men Washington, DC has seen in a generation. Shinseki knew what it meant to tell the truth, yet the man felt the issue was important enough to make personal enemies of both.

Others eventually admitted the wisdom of Shinseki’s estimation, but by then it was too late.

Brady Kiesling, John H. Brown, and Ann Wright were all career diplomats in the US Foreign Service with more than 55 years of combined service at the time they resigned in protest preceding the Iraq imbroglio. Each gave up secure positions to avert the blunder they recognized was coming.

Joseph Wilson was a former diplomat sent to Niger to discern whether accusations that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase yellowcake uranium were accurate. After meeting with dozens of officials and others inside the theater, Wilson became convinced it was highly doubtful any of these claims were factual. However, this did not deter President George Bush from stating the opposite during his 2003 State of the Union speech in what became known as “the 16 words.”

Wilson soon thereafter penned an opinion article for The New York Times in which he accused the administration of exaggerating claims against the targeted nation. As a consequence both Colin Powell and CIA Director George Tenet denounced Wilson.

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One week later sources revealed the secret identity of Wilson’s wife who was an undercover agent for the CIA. This, they claimed, was totally inadvertent and even if intentional was totally innocuous. Even so, it led to a lawsuit that resulted in alleged administration contact “Scooter” Libby being found guilty on four of five federal felony counts regarding the matter. President Bush commuted his prison sentence.

And who were the beneficiaries of the grand game? Well-known political characters in this passion play went on to lucrative book deals or institute chairs. Military men found themselves moving up the ranks quickly, from mere water-carriers to generals in a few years. Advisers who ought to have spent lives as insignificant file clerks became governors. Four trillion dollars go a long way.

Meanwhile, decent men and women sacrificed their careers for a country that ignored them.

Yet all of this woe pales in comparison to what typical Americans had to endure over these ten years. Unemployment is endemic and far worse than routinely acknowledged by the media or generally suspected by the populace at large. In the time since our troops landed in Baghdad, nearly three million manufacturing jobs evacuated our shores.

The currency has become devalued to an incredible extent in so short a time due to the direct costs of the war itself and the indirect millions and perhaps billions that have rolled off the printing presses to bribe warlords not to slaughter Americans in Iraq. Massive inflation can no longer be avoided but only delayed and magnified by ever-larger “easing” from the Federal Reserve.

National integrity has been demolished and not merely in the philosophical sense of American honesty reaching new lows but in the physical sense that our borders that have been thrown open to all comers as long as they are nontraditional immigrants. These are admitted as both cannon fodder abroad and machinery lubricant at home to grease the wheels of an illegal shadow economy that further serves to undermine citizens’ standard of living.

Far from being beneficiaries of “cheap oil,” a stable marketplace, or secure sovereignty, the people of the United States find themselves victims in a war of greed, deceit, and corrupt government that was waged less against Saddam than against themselves. Yet they cannot say they were not warned. Whether due to jingoism, ignorance, or bloodlust, they chose not to listen.

When a nation punishes its prophets and rewards its robbers it trembles on the precipice of disaster. A decade after the war was launched, it appears that America may be a dog that has had its day.

John Carter

This evening is the annual Academy Awards telethon for Harvey Weinstein, and the Academy has again decided to nominate every dull, derivative, and overly melodramatic film appearing in theaters the past twelve months.

There have been over three hundred films about Lincoln. Dozens for the French Revolution, even in song. The same for token films about impoverished empowerment. Endless are the entries of “based on a true story” terrorist capers. In fact, everything else nominated is either passé or redundant.

The following is a guide to a few films of merit the Academy ignored.

John Carter is an excellent picture. It was, however, considered a colossal flop and is expected to be a $200-million loss. At its premiere the movie was shown in 3D, IMAX, and ordinary versions.

When I finally viewed it on the small screen it was exhilarating: imaginative and interesting yet with dramatic action. It is no great philosophical film but is quite fun and enjoyable all the same, much as Raiders of the Lost Ark was before auteurs raised it to ridiculous cult status.

It features a handsome brave hero, a beautiful intelligent princess, and a clever resolution which rewards nobility. While there are plenty of green Martians in the film, few other minorities appear.

Years ago a disgusted executive said of The Rocketeer (also produced by Disney) he never wanted to hear another parent complain they couldn’t take their children to the cinema for a pleasant afternoon because when they had the opportunity absolutely nobody went.

No, there is not intelligent life on Mars (at least not now). But the fact that so many patrons turned up their affected noses at the prospect of a little nostalgic diversion is a good indication there isn’t much intelligence left here on Earth, either.

Mad Cow (misnamed Branded in English) was also universally derided by critics. In a cursory reading of comments some of the most common derogatory phrases were that the movie was “illogical” and “difficult to understand.” Given the plot revolves around late-stage communism colliding with late-stage capitalism and the counterintuitive (often counterproductive) actions endemic to modern society, this would seem to validate a viewing.

The central story concerns a young man from Russia maturing into adulthood during the first post-Soviet generation. Anyone who experienced this transition can attest it was decidedly a mixture of hard reality and surreal fantasy, which the film expertly captures. Far from being “pretentious,” as certain detractors claimed, it conveys the absurd dichotomy of heavy drama and light fare at a pace that can produce vertigo.

Cloud Atlas was another poorly rated but well-made film, though its plot is somewhat difficult to dispassionately assess. The movie is absolute and undiluted propaganda of the highest order. Mostly it deals in the sorts of dogma intelligent people disdain—all races are of equal ability in all things, every social degeneration is actually societal evolution, and the only distinguishable factor in humanity is separating people with “bad” souls from people with “good” ones.

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However, some striking concepts are portrayed elegantly. The entire screening reminded me of what it must feel like to mine for gold in a filthy shaft. Conditions are hazardous and nauseating, the structure is rickety and unsound, but for every mound of mud there are infinitesimal nuggets of great worth.

Many of the things the film propounds are simply not true, but that makes them no less beautiful to watch.

Robot & Frank is a curious entry on this list, as there is nothing negative about it. This seemed another opportunity to grumble, “The Twilight Zone did it better,” except this time someone actually did it just as well.

Admittedly, any film about a therapeutic machine taking care of someone with early onset Alzheimer’s in the “near future” isn’t likely to make for a rollicking good time. Yet that is precisely what ticket buyers received. The film’s subject entry lists: Drama, Comedy, Crime, and Sci-fi. Remarkably, it delivers on each.

Use whatever time you might have wasted listening to Anne Hathaway be an insufferable bore about playing her role a half-dozen actresses have portrayed better and see Robot & Frank instead.

All these films are highly entertaining and at some points brilliant. They do not conform to a middlebrow world’s pedestrian expectations, but they are worthwhile. What is wanted from film is a story unseen before or at minimum done in a way unseen before.

Instead of a stale telecast, anyone willing to open their mind to the reels above will find the true winning choices for spending your Sunday evening at the movies.

Marilyn Monroe

Months ago a portly news anchor in Wisconsin, where people literally dress in cheese hats, was the cause of near hysteria. Evidently some fellow sent an email daring to mention that he found her less than appealing. She responded to his private missive by going on air to publicly chastise him as a “bully” and affirm she was precisely the sort of role model the citizens of a state with an obesity rate of only 27.7% needed.

The man was certainly a cad and there is no reason to go out of one’s way to ridicule the porcine. Well, not usually. But the newsreader was performing in a visual medium. There is an old saying about “having a face for radio” which may just as well apply to the posterior.

Likewise, this week film reviewer Rex Reed aroused the rotund by referring to the morbidly stout actress Melissa McCarthy in less than flattering terms. Far be it from me to cast the first ham hock, but given McCarthy has made a career of playing “the fat girl,” why is it an offense for Reed to make a career criticizing her weight? In any case, this is hardly McCarthy’s first helping of humble pie at the state fair.

Clearly what doesn’t matter is how some middle-market heroine or portly thespian views herself. What’s objectionable is the attempt to impose their reality-dissociative disorder on the rest of us, especially young girls.

Ladies, your beauty is not a captor but a conqueror, and for however long you have it, nothing can defeat you other than yourself.

In William Inge’s Picnic, an insistent mother states to her romantically indecisive daughter, “A pretty girl doesn’t have too long. Just a few years. Then she’s the equal of kings; she can walk out of a shanty like this and live in a palace!”

A decade prior Preston Sturges developed an entire film based on the theory that a pretty woman didn’t need any other asset to get whatever she wanted in this world.

But that was more than a half-century ago and such truisms are forbidden today. Instead we are awash in pathetic laments of overweight and unsightly femmes. They claim society has unduly blighted them with the burden of unrealized beauty, as if being born with the ability to saddle any man alive were a curse rather than the closest thing there is to absolute power on Earth.

And it is far from gender-neutral authority.

For there is no such pathway for males. Even the most attractive would be regarded as little more than a third-rate gigolo if he relied on his mien for any kind of societal advancement. Alas, the high road to happiness is reserved for high cheekbones only.

In no land nor fairy tale are men able to sway or seduce a princess by mere looks alone. They are always required to slay a dragon, win a battle, or be born stinking rich.

Most successful women can credit more than appearance for their good fortune. But a beautiful woman—whatever her birth, intelligence, or station in life—has the world at her feet. After the fall of Troy, Menelaus took Helen back not for reasons of her cunning entreaty, but because he was mesmerized by her perfect breasts.

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Multitudes of do-gooders will endeavor to restrain your latent superiority by claiming looks are only skin deep. Some years ago during a debate over the importance of hereditary intelligence someone showed me a photograph of Dostoevsky next to one of Claudia Schiffer and asked who would have the easier life. At any juncture on the timeline, anywhere on Earth, Claudia takes the citadel and Fyodor gets the hovel.

Throughout history there have been myriad examples of beauty overcoming astounding odds: poverty left behind, scandals overwhelmed, every deficiency overlooked. And there is nothing more beautiful than a woman in her bloom.

So do not listen to the overweight or subpar criticize you for relying on appearance to get an edge. Especially do not take advice from the insecure about dieting or the elderly about chopping your lovely locks into a Dutch-boy cut.

Even quintessential capitalist Coco Chanel began her career as a courtesan. Comeliness and cleverness are by no means mutually exclusive, even as sloth and superciliousness seem eternally linked.

Bearing this in mind, expand yourself in every other way: artistically, intellectually, and spiritually, though do not fall into the trap of disregarding your inherent gifts. All the skill or wit in the world cannot open entrances as easily as natural prettiness. For every Amantine Dupin there are ten thousand of Marie Duplessis. Everyone remembers Camille while few can name a single novel by George Sand.

There is no specific definition of the beautiful. Some have been on the fuller side while others on the waifish, but all maintained at least a semblance of a svelte stomach.

Young ladies’ attributes are theirs to do with what they choose. But no important woman has ever neglected her charms, even if she was so much more than ever met the eye.

It is not a disgrace to be beautiful; it is only a disgrace for the slovenly and sluggish to denigrate those who are or otherwise undermine their efforts to maintain that sublime mystique.

For some of you the height of grace and glory will be a brief window in time while for others it will be a lengthy one. Yet for the vast majority of women there will be some interval when you can radically alter your circumstances beyond any expectation with a come-hither stare cast in the right direction. But you need to be able to fit through the window in question.

Lord Byron

This year was the first time a homosexual poet performed at the Presidential Inauguration. (Not well, one might add.) That may be a shock since all poetry is supposedly written by stereotypically sensitive gays. Reinforcing the point, Richard Blanco was immediately interviewed by none other than Anderson Cooper, though had anyone predicted so before the fact it would have been classified as “hate speech.”

Yet contrary to the contemporary archetype, poets have throughout the ages been far more inclined toward the love of woman. Often this idealization has taken the form of many women.

Perhaps the best (and worst) said of Lord Byron was by Lady Caroline Lamb, who described him as “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” Most romantic of the Romantics, there was reason for warning.

He inherited a Barony at age ten, confessed sexual feelings (perhaps consummated) for his Scotch nurse at eleven, likely had a child with his half-sister, drove the aforementioned Lamb to near-madness, married her cousin, had children out of wedlock, had several more highborn lovers, and had a penchant for keeping locks of their pubic hair as souvenirs.

Byron ultimately died not at the hands of a jealous mistress but in Greece, fighting for independence. Since that time there has been occasional speculation about his sexuality, though like most modern “scholarship,” it’s largely distinguished by lack of evidence and based on wishful thinking.

Percy Shelley is often regarded as the finest English lyricist. He is also a fine example of the ribald poet: being expelled from school, eloping with a teenager when she threatened suicide, leaving her for the brilliant Mary (who also threatened suicide if she couldn’t have him), adopting a child which may have been his illegitimate spawn, and finally drowning at sea.

Following his demise Mary Shelley began a determined campaign that Percy not be lost to posterity and collected his “Posthumous Poems.” When Shelley’s father threatened he’d discontinue her allowance, Mary was forced to remove the book from circulation. Yet the devotion her deceased husband evoked was such that two decades later she began again to publish these works to secure his fame.

Robert Browning is a favorite even aside from poetry. A literary force in his own right, he was inspiration for the immortal words, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Yet it was not mere phraseology. His muse Elizabeth Barrett was a sickly woman for whom death a constant companion.

Ward of a tyrannical father and near-prisoner in her own home, she had limited contact with the world. One of the few ways she could interact was by letter and in this manner Browning introduced himself and seduced her. Upon discovery and being forbidden further correspondence Browning did the next best thing—he abducted a willing Barrett to Florence, where they lived happily ever after.

Ezra Pound was a firebrand out of the gate. He failed to finish his first year teaching college after being booted for having an actress spend the night in his rooms. Next Pound headed to Europe where he associated with or mentored everyone from Yeats to Hemingway (who betrayed everyone who ever helped him become more than a second-rate ambulance driver).

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Always conservative, after the war Ezra was enamored of soil, beauty, and tradition: in other words, fascism. He was revolted at WWI’s cultural carnage and sought the best way of preserving what remained. During WWII he made several radio broadcasts for Italy in a vain attempt to forestall another disaster, though he never technically betrayed the United States.

When hostilities abated he surrendered and was literally put in a cage outside Rome, then figuratively put into one inside America. After serving his time he sailed away to Europe’s ruins. His final gesture on the way out was a fascist salute to the Statue of Liberty. Right or wrong, that’s a man.

T. S. Eliot was another staunch fellow, but none would know it to look at him. He had nerve and integrity that few can match. When JFK called on him to deliver the Inaugural Poem, the converted Anglo-Catholic and royalist Eliot spat in his eye (poetically speaking). Johnny settled for Robert Frost instead.

Some episodes of the “effete” Eliot’s romantic derring-do: enticing an older woman, committing her to an asylum, carousing with London pals for another decade, at 68 marrying a girl half his age, then managing to keep that marriage secret from the world. Hardly the exploits of a limp esthete.

In addition were Coleridge, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Yeats, and Mallarme, who all married and had healthy hetero home lives. (Granted, Mallarme was a little hyper-hetero.) Even Pushkin was shot over a woman—his twenty-ninth such duel.

For centuries poets led existences only the most debauched dilettantes today can match. These were masculine lives other men only wished they could lead.

Generations of boys were raised on such tales whose moral was that love of the female form is noble and its favors obtainable when beautifully expressed. Even licentiousness could be partially redeemed by creating something fine by its exercise.

Lamentably, Hollywood has relentlessly invaded the province of poets and sought to invalidate it. By their telling, such types are often infantile, universally timid, and almost always homosexual (or worse). As with everything that Hollywood claims, it’s the exact opposite of the truth.

Poetry is inherently emotional, and emotions are powerful things. Over generations poetic works have roused the people to action. In the capable hands of healthy and sound individuals such a tool endangers the powers that be. How best to defuse this threat? Inculcate in the public mind that only the weak, maladjusted, and unstable practice its art, consequently dissuading the best men from learning its use.

Were a few famous scribes inclined toward deviant behavior? Undoubtedly, just as in every other endeavor. But by and large, composers of verse were historically more virile, obsessively passionate, and hopelessly infatuated with the fairer sex. This is often the foremost reason why these gifted personages ever became poets.

With revelation of the highly questionable narrative by football player Manti Te’o that he was “duped” into believing he had an online girlfriend, the nation has once again become aware of the questionable characters that inhabit Notre Dame’s storied halls.

For those unfamiliar, and I envy you, Manti was a prominent star who stood a good chance of winning the Heisman Trophy, American college football’s most prestigious award. What Manti needed to put him over the top was something that could not be achieved on the field: a good angle.

To this end, Te’o began to open up about himself with reporters. Before one important contest he revealed his grandmother had passed. And then tragically, almost operatically, his beloved girlfriend also died of an incurable disease within six hours. What effect would this have on noble Manti? Would he crumble, or would he “play through the pain”? To everyone’s misty-eyed amazement, Te’o stepped up and gave the game of his life.

Why not? He had already played the role of a lifetime.

Within weeks abundant evidence was discovered that Manti repeatedly lied about when and how—and even whether—he ever met his girlfriend. There was also undeniable proof that he and family members had been in contact with the purported hoax’s supposed perpetrator.

Still, it would probably be legally actionable to say Manti concocted this whole pathetic scenario to gin up interest of sportswriters before the Heisman award.

While Te’o was a good player he wasn’t great. Being from the sticks without a compelling “hook,” he would thus be unlikely to overcome a small media market.

Additionally, no one could possibly be expected to get away with saying something along the lines that Notre Dame administrators were at best willingly misled in this fairly obvious deception and at worst wholly culpable in their quest to sell ever more jerseys depicting the sort of leprechaun caricature which could get your teeth knocked out if you wore it in certain parts of Ireland.

These legalities aside, thus far Manti is sticking to his fairy tale, though how long he can maintain it remains to be seen.

Concerning its reputation overall, Notre Dame can thank mercy that few recall the case of Lizzy Seeburg. Miss Seeburg, a freshman, said two Notre Dame football players raped her. Of course, this is all alleged. She allegedly told friends, she allegedly told family members, she allegedly told counselors, she allegedly told administrators, and she allegedly told police.

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Entrenched Notre Dame authorities were so intransigent and lax in their investigation that many would say they were criminally complicit in covering up the alleged crimes. Others said their actions made them accomplices after the fact.

Notre Dame’s bureaucracy seemed more interested in protecting alleged rapists than in any financially insignificant assaulted female students (another had accused four football players of rape in 2002…while yet another accused six players of raping her in 1974). Being further victimized by the slander that she had disgraced its football program, Miss Seeburg committed suicide. Her death is the only thing not alleged about the whole sordid business.

Another recent occurrence that Notre Shame administrators are pleased the public doesn’t remember was when student-employee Declan Sullivan was all but murdered as he was forced to film a football practice in gale-force winds from an elevated platform.

Though the young man repeatedly asked coaches to lower the scaffold so he would be safe, these pleas were summarily dismissed. (Whether the victim was taunted as a “sissy,” weakling,” or “faggot” for seeking his safety is unclear; though given Notre Dame football coaches’ notorious sensitivity it would not be at all surprising.)

As winds buffeted the rickety perch upon which the youth was obligated to remain, he sent out text messages to friends and family trying to allay his fears through humor. After 110 minutes at 39 feet in the air, the 51-mile-per-hour force of nature toppled the steel structure, which landed upon Sullivan and crushed him to death.

Note that this was a youngster. Even had he the fortitude to very publicly contradict coaches at a school where such cretins are treated as demigods, there is reason to suspect the boy feared for his position on campus. Such minor infractions as insisting on not being practically murdered can lead to draconian consequences should a homicidal maniac on the sidelines think he has been “disrespected” in front of his players.

Sadly, rather than sue the school into bankruptcy, Sullivan’s parents say they have no hard feelings over their son’s sacrifice on the almighty altar of grown men playing a children’s game. After being invited by school officials to the skybox for some overdone hors d’oeuvres, all is well.

Instead of taking aim with implement just behind the left ear of those responsible for his son’s demise, the father obsequiously kneeled before these sporting officials who destroyed his family.

Cheating, lying, fakery, rape, conspiracy, and murder—these are the contemporary Notre Dame values. And covering the entire foul stench of putrid immorality is a blue cloak dyed green, stolen from the Virgin now stripped bare by those who denigrate her name to justify their filthy actions. This grotesque hypocrisy is the worst of these athletes’ and administrators’ many obscene transgressions.

For while she is Our Lady, Notre Dame is their disgrace.

Christian Bale as Batman

Moments after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School ended, theories of government complicity in the tragedy began. Some have been worthy of exploration, while many are patently ludicrous. Whether these incredibly feeble “theories” are being propagated as political disinformation or by speculators who seem only slightly saner than Lanza himself, we can here dismiss some of them.

That the name “Sandy Hook” appears in the most recent Batman film means precisely nothing. The map scene depicts a small island near the sea. Across America there are literally thousands of “Sandy” place names that appear near water because, quite simply, there is sand near water. That two places have a similar (or even the same) name is coincidence only.
 
Others say that some points on the movie map match the area of the shooting, except not quite. This phenomenon signifies only an overactive imagination. If someone tries explaining the world to you and mentions Batman within the first sentence, immediately walk away.
 
Query has been made whether one of the deceased children eerily appears in a photo with President Obama just before the Sandy Hook memorial service. Even cursory investigation reveals this is a victim’s sister.

While it’s curious that she is wearing an identical dress to that of her dead sibling, for anyone with even meager life experience such things are not “suspicious.” Widows often keep their husbands’ old clothes for decades. RFK reportedly went weeks wearing JFK’s suits after that tragedy. It may not be rational, but it’s what some people do, and it’s completely normal.

Gene Rosen (AKA Overemotional Sandy Hook Bystander Guy) is again doing the television rounds (again overemotionally). He’s telling anyone who will listen that he has been receiving death threats—well, at least some very nasty comments (which are the same to the unstably hyperemotional).

Is Rosen complicit in a vast conspiracy? Yes, but only the modern one of relentless self-promotion. He barely choked back tears, repeatedly, to dozens of news outlets all over the country. This alone makes any balanced person question his motives. Minor witnesses to history are obligated to tell their stories, but not make a living at it. He has altered his story significantly on several occasions. Sometimes Rosen relates his tale calmly (no media present), sometimes he is barely coherent (live feed to the nation).

Were there any children at Rosen’s house that day? Probably, but who knows? When assessing a person’s veracity, just ask yourself the following: Would I buy a used car from this guy? Not a chance. But it just means he’s an ass, not an assassin.

One of the more plausible theories, and one which actually did necessitate inquiry, was the seeming arrest of Christopher Rodia as broadcast over a police scanner at the time. Rodia has connections which have run afoul of the law previously and it is well known that authorities sometimes “turn” such types to their own ends. Since there was at least one witness from inside the school who reported more than one possible shooter, this seemed to be hard evidence that perhaps something was up.

After due diligence it now appears that Rodia was not complicit in the act, but was himself a victim of circumstance. The scanner in question had a radius of fifty miles and the incident simply coincided with the events at Sandy Hook and was not connected with them. This was a legitimate lead, and one the “legitimate” media failed to explain immediately, but it was a red herring just the same.

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All of this said, there is good reason for some “theorizing” about what happened at the school.

Robbie Parker has gained notoriety for his press performance (and that is the correct word) only one day after the murder of his daughter. He comes out to give his statement laughing and joking with reporters, then gets into character, followed by a near ten-minute soliloquy where he struts the stage with his grief.

Yet this does not prove him an actor as some have claimed. Perhaps he is just a bad person, a venal one who has used the killing of his own kin as a platform for his politics. No one can say for sure, though there is reason to criticize him. People in mourning do odd things, even smile through their sadness, but they don’t do breathing exercises to get into form to show proper emotion for cameras. Not unless they are complete and total bastards.

Another interesting event confluence was a FEMA “Children in Disasters” drill nearby. Several “terrorist” activities of the recent past, including September 11 and the London bombings, all occurred on days that drills were happening. Whether that illustrates rogue government action or terrorist infiltration is uncertain, but it is alarming.

A similar oddity was the appearance of a memorial page to slain teacher Victoria Soto. It was created days prior to the slaughter, implying foreknowledge. An explanation may be someone made an unrelated topic page in days leading up to the shooting then afterward altered the page to make it a memorial site. This explains how it could both be erected earlier to the shootings, yet without any idea of what was to come. However, media and technological experts should be addressing this in an informed way.

Finally, there is helicopter footage that day of authorities chasing someone through the woods, throwing him to the ground, and arresting him. Who was he? He never existed according to the media. Anderson Cooper has spent considerable time “debunking” the claim that he existed. Yet while Cooper states the man was victim’s parent Chris Manfredonia, the evidence indicates more than one suspect in was custody that day.

The media had by turns confirmed the following: Lanza’s mother dead at school, Lanza’s father dead at home, Lanza and his brother both (not misidentification of one) arrested on scene, and Lanza’s brother’s girlfriend missing—all of which never happened. So why should anyone believe anything reporters say now? There is confusion during extreme events but it is the job of Anderson, et al., to clear that confusion and not create more of it.

Some will question my own motives. Yet having been involved in government and more than a few actual conspiracies, I know they sometimes exist. That doesn’t mean they always exist, and it doesn’t mean every incongruous element of a story is sinister.

Sometimes people self-promote, witnesses are greedy, and the media are lazy. Never discount simple error, erroneous impressions, and lies for money (as opposed to power) when questioning a narrative.

There is reason to be dubious of the official Sandy Hook storyline, but one’s suspicions should at least be reasonable. Keep watching the skies, but keep watch on yourself as well.

So the apocalypse didn’t quite happen last year. It’s good news for some, but perhaps not as good as we think. This world has changed immensely in the past fifty years. Here are six signs that maybe the Mayans were more right than we know. 
 
1. Everyone is a bum. As late as the mid-1980s people were not slobs. Certainly there were plenty of them, especially remnants of the hippies, but by and large people were proud not to appear homeless.
 
People once went to auto races and baseball games dressed well. Even poor people wore cufflinks. It was not considered onerous to iron your clothes. This all sounds incredible now.

In 1975 a man was a heathen if he didn’t wear a suit to church. By 1995 you were effete if you did. Some while ago I was in a cathedral built by my ancestor and out of an entire congregation only the priest and I wore a suit. I hear it is the same for weddings, with denim now common.
 
Disgraceful. It is a mark of respect to God to look your best for a service in his honor and I’m not sure I want any part of a heaven that accepts derelicts. Even Jesus bathed before heading up to Jerusalem.
 
2. Jesus became a Jew. Without delving into the morass of this religious and historical debate with attendant rhetoric, it may come as a surprise to anyone under fifty that for the majority of people until around 1960 Jesus Christ was not considered to be a Jew as understood today.
 
He was a Galilean in Judea, which meant something different to congregations. But according to almost all modern denominations he was Jewish. Whether for good or ill, this was a radical transition in thinking of the world’s Christian populations.
 
3. People are proud to be stupid. While the number enrolled in higher education has increased dramatically, students are more stupid than ever. Most have little to no interest in subjects outside their intended careers. This may be immaterial (though I do not concede it) in terms of Euclidean geometry or classical poetry, but it’s intolerable concerning history and politics.
 
Over 25% of people have not read a book the past year. They claim they don’t have time, which is odd because the typical Americanwatches approximately five hours of television a day.
 
Worse, viewers consume the “History” Channel, which features programs on ghosts and UFOs, or the “Learning” Channel which has as its marquee star a morbidly obese little girl and her mentally deficient relatives. Many people would be content to trade places with imbecilic exhibitionists if it meant the same paycheck, no matter the loss of dignity.

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4. Nobody keeps their word. Once I was put up for office in a district favored to be won by hard work and agreed to the commitment. Lamentably in the days before the official campaign the boundaries were redrawn from 56% in my favor to 98% against me. Young supporters advised an out but I declined. When one gives his pledge to an enterprise he doesn’t take a flyer because circumstances change. A man’s word is his word, and that’s all there is to it. Of course I lost (though by only 92%).

These days people look you straight in the eye and tell whatever lies they please. They give their word on condition of convenience. If they say they will do something it is entirely dependent no better offer or easier pathway presents itself.

Most of my life you could do business with a handshake. Today you couldn’t trust a blood oath on a stack of Bibles unless in writing fifty pages thick. It is the most shameful exhibition of adolescent behavior and these weak characters don’t even seem to notice it is to their dishonor not to be honest.

5. People forgive everything. One of the more amazing developments since around 2000 is the fathomless well of apparent forgiveness. It’s astounding. Family members forgive murderers, victims forgive their attackers, and everyone forgives everything.

Some claim this is an effect of religious fundamentalism in the nation, while others believe it stems from near-sedation levels of antidepressant medication ubiquitous throughout the land. No one has the free will to be angry anymore.

But for anyone who comes from more traditional parts of Europe it is dumbfounding to watch anyone forgive the arsonist who burned down their house because he had a bad upbringing. Sometimes the old ways are the best ways.

6. Everyone is afraid of being racist. I’ll forgo discussing race because it simply doesn’t matter. If you are breathing in the West today you will at some point be called a racist, with or without cause. Around 1990 this became the worst thing that could possibly happen to you.

People have wept on television before millions simply to convince audiences they are not racist. They grovel as if it is better to be a whipped dog than a marked man. They don’t give a damn about their actions as long as no one impugns their motives.

Why does anyone care what Al Sharpton or Shaneequa at the supermarket thinks about their racial beliefs? In some cases such as employment, it’s obvious; but to say most people are obsequious in order not to get fired is a canard. Most are simply indoctrinated. They would rather be raped than be racist. It wasn’t always this way. In fact, until recently it wasn’t this way. And it’s disgusting.

A friend and I have a running argument. He says all things change and we cannot linger over the past. My rejoinder is that I have no qualms with the fact that things change; I would merely like to see them begin changing for the better.

I hope to see a few more positive adjustments in the New Year to come.

Lindsay Lohan

One of my minor irritants is seeing weak people intentionally set up to fail. It happens more often in Hollywood than anywhere else on Earth. When a production tanks, a troubled actress always fits the bill. No starlet better finds a scandal than Lindsay Lohan.

Following a couple weeks of solemn reflection we see that coming off her “comeback” role, Lohan has been in for an onslaught of criticism. No, she did not portray Elizabeth Taylor as well as she might. Yet one couldn’t name more than a few actors able to successfully channel celebrities, and even among those one can’t give names because imitation is the sincerest form of failure. Playing an excellent Orson Welles doesn’t make you a genius, just a good mimic.

Most actresses and actors aren’t especially talented. They are merely good at playing themselves in various circumstances. At best, they are less spectacular at acting than they are at wise script selection. The public likes Tom Hanks because he’s always a nice guy in his films. If the people esteemed quality performances, Chris Cooper would be widely known and the highest paid thespian on the West Coast.

Elizabeth Taylor made over 50 films during her Hollywood tenure and perhaps 15 are great, an additional 15 are good, and the rest are so atrocious you’ll be checking her filmography to make sure that’s actually Liz in the role. If you really want some unmitigated crazy, try out Secret Ceremony. That little performance makes Lindsay Lohan look like Olivier twice over.

Lohan did just about as well as anyone in Tinseltown would have done with this post-Thanksgiving turkey.

And whose fault that was during production? Hint: It wasn’t Lindsay Lohan’s.

How to explain this complete lack of story structure? Hint: It was a Lifetime Movie. As in: no money. As in: no budget. As in: no quality control.

A film is only as good as its script. We have all seen incredible movies featuring personalities we’ve never heard of before. What we remember are the words.

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The writer is the only irreplaceable person on a set. Studio heads are always being replaced, directors are a dime a dozen, and film schools churn out more technicians than there are fleabag motel rooms in town. The only thing that cannot be taught is creativity, and the writer has to have it.

Hollywood knows this, and thus it trawls everything from The New York Times Best Seller List to cogent magazine articles in search of someone who can keep audiences awake two hours straight. Unfortunately, while the plethora of biopics tap into a willing market, you still can’t sell saltwater to a thirsty man. Taylor (and Lohan herself) are fertile fields, but it takes a capable scribe to yield a harvest from them.

If you didn’t like Liz & Dick you should first blame the budget, second blame the writers, and finally blame yourself because you ought to have been sensible enough to know what you were getting yourself into by watching a Lifetime Movie.

All of which is again fine. Liz & Dick was exactly what a Lifetime Movie was supposed to be: kitschy, inconsistent in costuming, and with enough double-barrel, over-the-top melodrama to make Mary Pickford blush.

I cherish Lifetime Movies. Seldom am I offered the opportunity to laugh out loud at anything anymore. Lifetime always delivers, whether with a sexy former teen star turned basic cable call girl, “straight from the headlines” stories which are just crooked enough for producers not to be sued senseless, and all the way through to the classically outrageous trailers, I bless them one and all.

I cannot personally tolerate Lindsay, if only from a legal aspect. Never have I seen someone so criminally reckless get away with so much. Given her track record of insanity, anyone with an insurable interest ought to have at least a $100-million policy out on her, with double indemnity if she dies in an opium den. Alas, while there is much to loathe in Lohan, her acting is the least of it.

Image of Lindsay Lohan courtesy of Shutterstock

A popular meme claims there is a “War on Women” in America. Unlike an actual conflict, this conflagration takes on as many metamorphoses as there are maniacs to proclaim it is occurring. For thinking individuals, “feminism” means equal rather than identical. Yet the only thinking done in this mêlée is the degree to which everyone thinks their opinion is right.

All of the following have been considered proof positive of one’s hatred of the fairer sex:

• Believing a woman should pay for her own contraceptives, make her significant other pay for them, or simply abstain from sexual relations altogether means you abhor women.

• Believing a woman who goes through more than five boxes of prophylactics (approximately 60 condoms) in a month (roughly $30 worth) is more than likely a whore or sexual deviant means you do not disdain that particular woman but all women everywhere.

• Believing whether you agree with their dogma or not, certain religions should not be made to subsidize the sexual behavior (or nymphomania) of others is clear indication of your animosity toward women.

• Believing abortion is inadvisable religiously, morally, philosophically, physically, socially, or even plain old economically shows you dislike women.

• Believing it is not a positive thing to abort a baby in the second trimester, even when it could survive outside the womb, shows you hate women (though supporting such carnage evidently does not mean you hate babies).

• Believing any baby born which still has so much as a little pinkie toe still inside its mother isn’t ripe for chopping up means you detest women.

• Believing any woman who claims she was raped must proffer some kind of proof of said allegation in court aside from her word means you are a Doubting Thomas Woman-Hating Troll.

• Believing that any woman anywhere at any time might make a false allegation of abuse for money, notoriety, or simple mental instability means, yes, you loathe women.

• Believing in the proven and well-documented (though seldom discussed) statistic that women instigate physical abuse against men at least as often as the inverse means you are a despicable demonizer of women.

• Believing the notion of “equal pay” is entirely dependent upon proving “equal work” is yet more demonstration of your woman-hating ways.

• Believing that being a woman is not, of itself, a good enough qualification to be elected to any office means you are a woman-abominating Old Boy’s Club member who is probably homosexual anyway.

• Believing it is unseemly to rejoice in being “the first woman to ever do X” when we are all supposed to be equal means you are secretly filled with fury at women everywhere.

• Believing women in a traditionally male sport are fine but if so everyone plays on a level field, as in auto racing where equipment must be balanced so as not to give a woman weighing 100 lbs. less than a man an unfair advantage, then you clearly scorn women. (If you mention a certain woman hasn’t won a single race since the enforcement of such conditions you detest her, all female racers, and every vagina on Earth.)

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• Believing there is no problem for the best professional female golfer to compete in the men’s tournament but also think that means the worst pro male gets to participate in the ladies’ tournament, then obviously you have no idea what the word “parity” means and are filled with Sapphic scorn.

• Believing, saying, or even thinking that women are often other women’s worst enemies is more proof of your chauvinism and that you are femme-ferocious.

• Believing the phrase “War On Women” is completely contrived and to the extent there actually is a war on women white men are the best allies women have anywhere in the world and they better get their damn heads screwed on straight before it’s too late because many women really do have a hell of a lot to fear in this violent globe, and setting up straw-man opponents to avoid dealing with the reality is only a self-serving vanity masking deep-seated cowardice shows, you guessed it, that you hate women.

Sadly, since I do believe some (though not all) of the above, it is clear I fit the definition. So now that my reputation is completely ruined (except among other women who actually know me and are thus obviously in no position to judge my merits) let me say a few words about this great battle.

Watching television the night of the presidential election one could clearly make out a teary-eyed young woman being embraced from behind by another “youth.” Now, the hard truth—but for the massive police presence in Chicago that evening at this particular venue our little doe-eyed innocent would far more likely be enjoying only the cold embrace of death.

Without too much detail, there are certain statistics (those damn numbers again) which demonstrably convey who are the lethal threats on the killing field for women who look like Margaret Hoover.

Recently, crime reporter Nancy Grace broke the (literal) blackout in the media on the Knoxville Horror. Watch the video and see who are the actual “haters” and who are the victims. It is a particularly gruesome story, but one generally replicated in the hundreds of thousands every year. It is more than likely being reenacted somewhere this very moment. The perpetrator is not an “old white male” but a young black one.

Admittedly, those “old (and even young) white men” say offensive things from time to time and make comments not intrinsically offensive but conveyed in clumsy and inarticulate ways. Yet in the aggregate, it stops there. As far as war criminals go, the “old white male” is more Tokyo Rose than Unit 731. In fact, you could even say that if the “War on Women” had a face, it would look very much like this one.

In all this kerfuffle things such as common sense, rational thought, and logical deduction have absolutely no place (that is, unless you happen to live in the three-fourths of the world as yet uninfected by such hysterical war whoops). Using any combination of the above does nothing more than demonstrate that you are hopelessly mired in patriarchal battle tactics and have no idea how real women wage warfare.

These days, “feminism” only means having the same opinion as the loudest dame in the room.

Image of woman courtesy of Shutterstock