Month: January 2021

“What happened to your common sense?” is a question I get asked often. Too often. The quick response to that question, if put to my core of groupies, is, “Whaaaaa……no way, Jose.” If put to a committee of my rational-minded and wise geriatric friends, the answer would be a more cautionary, more reasoned, more mature, “ABSOfriggingLUTELY.” Common sense is defined as having sound and prudent judgement.  I would add that it also means a maintenance of a healthy mental state and rational thinking.  

In the olden, golden days, my grandma used to say to my grandpa, “Earl, have you taken leave of your senses? You want to fish EVERY day and not go to work and drag your grandson out of school to go with you?” Had she meant leaving the BIG 5, eyes, ears, fingers, nose, and tongue behind, he might have had to stay home.  Common sense is not one of the BIG 5 physical senses, but it certainly can be influenced and influence one’s common sense. How did these senses possibly get twisted on January 6th?  

1.  Sight. Those violent masses saw a god, there hero, at the podium in front of them, not a criminal, and certainly not a coward as he skipped out of the assault.

2. Sound. The sound of a shouting screaming mob is frequently inciteful and energizing. It may get the adrenalin charged to red line levels.

3. Touch. The feel of a battering ram or AK-47 in the hands of the wrong person gives them a feeling of power. If a person who ordinarily may be a coward is given an implement of destruction, they can flip to being a bully and vicious.

4. Smell. Maybe the smell of sweat, perhaps feces and urine (I doubt it, even with that mob), gets some people motivated to action. Not me.

5. Taste. Maybe en route to the Capitol, the participants stopped for a morcilla sandwich. Morcilla is Spanish for blood sausage. Nothing like blood sausage to bring out the Dracula in a person.

A discussion of common sense is totally relevant at this juncture in our national history in respect to what happened on January 6, 2021. On that day, a large group of American citizens exhibited zero common sense. My guess is that the majority, if not all of them, parted with common sense and rational thinking long before the election of Donald Trump. To support Trump requires deviant thinking and acceptance of behaviors in a human that would normally be restricted to those of a psychotic, a person who might ordinarily be kept apart from society due to the damage they could do. To condone racism, sexism, narcissism, misogynism, hate, violence, etc., in a leader is tantamount to having these traits yourself, in my opinion.

“Common Sense is not so Common” is the title of a brief article by Malek Mneimne, in a publication by Albert Ellis Institute (6/7/2013). The author writes that it is highly variable, contextual, and a very subjective concept. What happened left no latitude for subjectivity and doubt that the horrifying episode was not common and not sensical; it was not the norm, or hopefully, not a “new norm.” That tragic event is an example of a group departure from a healthy mental state.

Conclusion. My purpose in this essay is to reveal the extreme lunacy exhibited in that act of domestic terrorism. The illusion before the Capitol mob that day, was an aspiring dictator (or demagogue). When the truth surfaces, he is considered by rationale people to be more appropriately a bro of Lucifer, el Diablo. and well below the godly status his core has bestowed on him in their delusional state. Trump made history by enticing the mindless mob to damage the Capitol, armed with firearms, lumber, bats and bombs. Their rationale was that Trump was cheated, they were cheated, of the election, and the illogical became the logical in their minds. To rectify the wrongs against him and them, they resorted to the maxim, “Might makes right,” and thus common sense was cast to the wind, and an insurrection went forward.

The bigger question in my mind is whether the 74 million voters of Trump and their violent appendage will return to common sense, if they ever had it in the first place. Who knows, the Legend of Donald Trump might live on and even get stronger.  Putting him and the leaders of the siege in prison may only fuel the flames of the mass psychosis and strengthen his legend. My gut tells me that Trump and the crimes of his flock were so heinous and so extraordinary, and so way above the law, that it seems worth the risk to severely penalize them. If law and order are not defended, the result is a spineless blob that is not a democracy because it lacks the organizational hierarchy and freedoms that come with a healthy, thriving sociopolitical system.

Truth and facts were ignored and rioting for its own sake may have been their goal. The fact that selfies and the taking of trophies would seem to me that the perpetrators were clueless as to the gravity of their little picnic.  Too many disenfranchised and ignorant souls in the U.S. are subscribing to a condition that more closely resembles an anarchy rather than a democracy. The anarchists of January 6 most likely didn’t see past their weapons of destruction, because if they had, and if they had not put aside their greedy motives, they might have anticipated the result of a lawless state is death and destruction. But, given who their icon is, I am dubious at best.

It’s around 4 a.m. and I just finished reading an article from the New Yorker (12/21/2020) about our infamous Idahoan, Ammon Bundy, entitled “How Ammon Bundy Helped Foment an Anti-Masker Rebellion in Idaho.” I like to get up early and read controversial editorials; it gets my day off to a good start. I don’t get apoplectic when I read an inflammatory article like that, but I find myself wanting to get even. Basically, Ammon Bundy and his band of miscreants, are, purely and simply, not model citizens.  When arrested, I don’t think they should be mistreated horribly, possibly water-boarded or dragged behind a fleet of Harley road hogs seems reasonable. Maybe shuttled to Venus, which is thought to be uncomfortably warm. At the very least tarred, feathered and run out of Idaho to Texas, where the Longhorns will take them on a rattlesnake roundup. I was born in Texas and lived there for an excruciating six months, but I did enjoy a good old-fashioned rattler roundup on the buckboard on my momma’s knee.

 BULLIES* include the anti-masker, anti-vaccinator doppelgangers and any members of the extreme right, including white supremacists, hate groups of any flavor, etc., that exist and are growing throughout the U.S. (I can’t speak for the civilized world). BULLIES** are deluding themselves masquerading as 21^st century “patriots” still fighting the Redcoats. One major difference between the revolutionaries of 1776 and today’s version is that ‘common good’ has yet to creep into the vocabulary of our modern-day zealots. As a matter of fact, as a concept, I doubt they can wrap their aberrant brains around it. I suspect BULLIES** would be inspired by such individualistic quotes as:

The “self,” it seems today, is at the core of the nation’s worldview rather than the common good or God.” ― Martha McCallum (Fox News host; frequent contributor to www.foxnews.com)

“The only common good is the common liberty to pursue individual goods.” ― Jakub Bożydar Wisniewski (Libertarian theorist, Mises Institute, Auburn Alabama)

They would not be impressed with the following Saul Alinsky quote:

“People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others. The price of democracy is the ongoing pursuit of the common good by all the people.”

Over the past few months, the BULLIES*** of Idaho, and their toadying conservative citizens and politicians are digging feverishly to exhume the fond memories of Richard Butler and his Aryan Nations on Hayden Lake in the mid-80s. Idaho still gets Easterners asking whether there have been any lynchings lately or gun fights at the OK Corral. Have we fixed our Injun problem yet? They still send our mail to Ames, Iowa.  The climate change refugees migrating from California seem to be willing to take their chances with the Idaho Klan. 

I do have a few delicately phrased questions for the BULLIES*:

1. What do you think would have happened to the outcome of Second World War if citizens had protested the Home Front effort? What if people had said, “No way Jose am I limiting my family to 3 gallons of gas for my roadster. Replace my daily sirloin with horse meat? Get laid. Bullshit to saving metal and rubber if it means I can’t buy Lucy that Hoover she’s always wanted or little Tommy’s camo AK-47. Or my rubber supply.  A victory garden in my side lot would mean shoveling under my award-winning Mr. Lincolns (red rose). Screw that, Mr. Rogers.”
2. Would ignoring Home Front sacrifices have resulted in more than 405,000 WWII deaths?
3. Could it have meant the Man in the High Castle would have become a reality and there wouldn’t be an Anne Frank memorial to deface? Hm? What does thou thinketh?
4. What if your efforts and those of your patriotic compadres can be shown to result in an accelerated death rate of Covid-19 and thus a higher final total, surpassing the total mortality for WW II sooner? Covid-19 is already at 350,000 plus, with no end in sight, so passing 405 K will be easy.

Fortunately, it didn’t happen in WW II, at least as much as I’ve studied, because there was a strong respect for the common good, the nation over the individual. Also, there were penalties for profiteering, and ration stamps were carefully regulated. Besides, people were petrified of the consequences if they didn’t comply. Hitler might be your carpool buddy, as imagined below. That probably was enough of an incentive to even ride to town with your spouse.

If a connection could be verified between your selfishness, BULLIES*, wouldn’t that make you guilty of something? Maybe a crime?  Let’s look, together, at the definitions of two possibilities and potential penalties:

Criminally negligent homicide (CNH) is the killing of another person through gross negligence and without malice. For example, death that is the result of negligent operation of a motor vehicle. Or, in Bundy’s case, if anti-lockdown efforts result in someone dying from Covid-19, then they could be guilty of CNH as if they were driving drunk.  I assume that in order to prove CNH, the prosecution must be able to show that a person does not realize that their behavior is potentially dangerous, which in Bundy’s BULLIES*, the anti-lockdowners situation, is not the case. The penalty can include probation and up to five years in prison. Consequently, we are left with,

Manslaughter means that someone acts in a manner that puts others at risk when you are aware that your behavior could seriously harm or kill another person, but you choose to ignore it. That is being reckless. Most likely your crime would be considered involuntary manslaughter because it lacks the element of intent. The penalty can be up to a 16-month prison sentence, which increases if the crime was committed through an act of reckless conduct. Involuntary manslaughter varies between states but in Idaho, it is a felony offense and if due to recklessness, it can have maximum sentence of ten years in state prison along with up to $10,000 of fines. After the Sturgis, South Dakota, motorcycle rally last August, it was linked to more than 260,000 new cases of Coronavirus (USA Today, 9/8/2020. Center for Health Economics and Policy Studies at San Diego State University). I don’t think anyone has been prosecuted yet.

The fate of the BULLIES* will be decided by wealthy lawyers and corrupt courts. Obviously, I’m not a lawyer for a lot of reasons, the least of which would be 1) we have 1,560 lawyers in the U.S. to every citizen (fact corroborated with www.foxnews.com); 2) I would be bored past tears; and 3) I would fail the bar exam forever and ever. Amen.  

Solutions

Let me be very clear about this: the law-abiding majority (at this juncture) in our society are being bullied by BULLIES*, currently a forceful minority, and the civil majority are capitulating to them for reasons that only the victim of bullying can testify. It could include fear, a desire to please, to maintain the peace, inability to respond without retaliation, all the above. Well, OK, let the authorities handle it, peacefully if possible, applying the following suggested ways:

1. Our federal and/or state governments need to quit pussyfooting around regarding consequences of disregarding lockdown protocols and prosecute violators, probably, with involuntary manslaughter. Uncle Sam really wants this social group in jail, and being true “patriots,” they should turn themselves in, just like they did at Malheur Wildlife Refuge. NOT GONNA HAPPEN!;    

• Our federal and/or state governments need to quit pussyfooting around regarding consequences of disregarding lockdown protocols and prosecute violators, probably, with involuntary manslaughter. Uncle Sam really wants this social group in jail, and being true “patriots,” they should turn themselves in, just like they did at Malheur Wildlife Refuge. NOT GONNA HAPPEN!;    

• If they believe so strongly in individual freedom to do as they damn well please, regardless the consequences, they should be required to sign an affidavit that if they get Covid-19 they will not ask any health care professional to treat them.  And, finally;
• If law-abiding citizens feel threatened by the BULLIES*, they should be able to invoke Idaho’s Stand Your Ground Law. After all, it is every man for himself.

Bully Day, January 6, 2021

And now we can add to the growing list of serious criminal offenses perpetrated by the extreme fringe political right: the tragedy of January 6, 2021; I’ll call it Bully Day. On that day, those perpetrators wrongfully felt they were entitled to execute heinous, illegal crimes in the name of freedom. I just wrote about the shitshow of January 6 in my blog post entitled, “Violated.” I’m not sure where mob rule and trashing the Capitol is encouraged in the Constitution. In the BULLIES* Bible, “Might makes Right” was clearly illustrated when Goliath pounded the shit out of David. Furthermore, www.foxnews.com cites several good examples that God always puts his money on BULLIES** and that’s why Jesus lost.

Those Capitol BULLIES* were grossly disoriented as to what true patriotism is. A patriot does not violate federal laws, destroy public property, especially one as communal and sacred as the Capitol. And then, bragging about it only confirms that they thought they were on a field trip and clueless.  I doubt Ammon Bundy was in D.C. for the event but I’m sure he applauded it from his Idaho bunker. Those who violated the Capitol could easily have been part of Bundy and his BULLIES* siege of the Malheur NWR in 2016, and some might have.  This fringe element, some of whom probably fondle their AK-47 in bed at night and never remove their camo BVDs. They don’t ever want to be caught unarmed, even at the Christmas dinners in case Granny pigs out on the stuffing. She’d look good on the white wallpaper.

In a reality check, BULLIES* are nothing more than tyrants, insurgents, cowards, and scared as Hell of their own shadow. But, caution is advised around them because I think many of them possess trigger fingers. America is not theirs to play with as they would their Barbie dolls.  They carried the Revolutionary War Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread on Me”) and Civil War Confederate Flag along the American flag, as they vandalized the Capitol. There seems to be massive disconnect here. They have entered in the no-man’s zone of domestic terrorism which, if guilty, carries somewhat stiffer penalties that criminally negligent homicide or involuntary manslaughter.

If they continue to arrogantly violate laws, eventually they will get treaded on. That sounds like a threat that I, as a dedicated senior citizen, will not be able to make good on, but there are plenty of legitimate people who can, and will. So, as I hop aboard a Boeing 737 MAX, disguised as a scholar, I guess that is a promise.  See ya!

**https://reischlawfirm.com/criminally-negligent-homicide-vs-manslaughter-whats-difference;  AND https://www.lawinfo.com/resources/criminal-defense/involuntary-manslaughter/involuntary-manslaughter-penalties sentencing.html#:~:text=Involuntary%20manslaughter%20in%20Idaho%20is,up%20to%20%2410%2C000%20of%20fines)

It was in 1964 when I last walked through the doors of a YMCA as an overnight guest. That had been in downtown Manhattan as I was heading to Europe for the summer between my junior and senior years of college. I distinctly remember that the room was not much larger than the bed, but it was clean, and the lobby and halls seemed to bubble quietly with normal, or what I perceived as a mid-60s college kid, to be normal people. Twenty-two years later, I was coerced into staying at the Minneapolis Y by a close friend, Jim, with whom I had spent two summers, 1981 and 1982, doing satellite research at NASA Johnson Space Center, outside Houston. We were attending the annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) in early spring. Not my pick for a professional meeting of any kind in a Minnesota spring. Jim was a university geographer from Texas, and I was a university ecologist from Nebraska. Jim stayed at Ys regularly to save his per diem money that he received from his university.

I quickly came to discover that the YMCAs of the 80s were not the YMCAs of the 60s. The clues were there, but I chose to ignore them—for a while. When I called several months in advance to make my reservation, I thought the desk clerk had lost his voice. The silence was audible. After I introduced myself, he yells into the office, thinking he has the receiver covered with his hand,

“Hey Rip, this guy from somewhere in Nebraska is trying to reserve a double room with his buddy from Texas. Do we do that kind of stuff? Yeah, that’s what I said, a double. How the Hell am I supposed to know? He don’t sound like one.” There is a long quiet pause while the clerk or Rip are apparently going through records, probably to see if any policy existed on reservations to “ones”. Now back on the phone, “We don’t ordinarily make reservations,” he said. “Either you’re here or you ain’t.  But we’ll try to reserve you and your buddy a double even though they’re hard to come by.”

“What the Hell have you gotten me into,” I blurted to Jim when we reached our $15 double on the 10^th floor. Having walked through the chaotic, humanity-choked lobby, we now faced the worst accommodations I had seen anywhere, and that included much of Mexico and South America. Jim said nothing but he carefully deposited an army duffle bag full of mixed popcorn, oranges, and bagels, onto a heavily charred table. The table appeared to be the work of a previous tenant that had attempted to build a winter warming fire. I sympathized completely; you could see your breath in the room.

I had seen that duffle bag before, several years earlier. Only then, the now-patched corner was dribbling popcorn into an immense Houston movie theater. It had had one of those unmistakable holes that only a casually dedicated mouse or squirrel could make. Jim and I had entered the movie late with the popcorn and a 6-pak of Diet Pepsi concealed under our coats. I had the Pepsi and Jim had the duffle of popcorn and I’m not sure to this day how he managed to hide a duffle of popcorn under his army surplus trench coat without looking pregnant, but he did. The movie was the newly released ET, and the theater was completely full except for two empty adjacent seats in the second row, about mid-row. Our eyes had not adjusted to the dark, especially against the light of the massive screen as we indiscreetly maneuvered toward the two seats with our duffle and 6-pak. The children we sat on were as stunned as we were. They screamed. The office saw our snacks and still refunded our money.

 Back in the comforts of our toasty room, Jim casually dropped onto the solitary metal folding chair. I cautiously backed myself toward one of the three cots and sank into its depths to the point where my feet lifted off the floor and my butt bottomed out. I could only see the upper half of Jim’s body. I started to itch immediately.

“You know why I do this, don’t you?” he said.

“Well, I assume it has something to do with the fact that you’re writing a book about the Third World,” I replied.

“That’s only a part of it. The other side of that coin reveals the simple truth that I am trying to beat the Texas university system of providing a lump sum for lodging and meals.”

And then he launched into telling me about last year’s AAG meeting in downtown Detroit, one I intentionally missed because Detroiters had, at least at that time, a penchant for wasting each other at an uncomfortable pace, especially in the heart of the city. And I, as a biologist, was interested in life, mine most especially.  In Detroit, Jim had managed to locate a Y very near the convention center for under $10 per night. But he was unable to find a cabby who would deposit him at the front door. The best he could arrange was a moving drop-off, several blocks from his destination, in the middle of the day.

“You go on up to the room, I can handle this,” Jim said, and shoved me through the closing door of the elevator. The elevator, under normal circumstances, is an improvement over the staircase when you’re tired and on the 10^th floor. There are exceptions. Had the Y made the decision to rip out the shag carpet floor cover to allow for frequent and thorough cleaning, it would have been a wise decision.  After the doors sealed me in, my olfactory system short-circuited. Simultaneously, my peripheral vision detected a grayish, lump of something propped up against a corner of my sealed tomb. I suppose the lump was urinating into what might be misconstrued, under low lighting conditions, as a miniature urinal. A small chocolate milk carton.

 When we returned to the Y our first night, after an excellent KFC dinner, the lobby was packed. The crowd did not represent what I consider to be a good socio-economic cross-section. Not even close. As Jim and I cautiously snaked our way through the inert bodies, the pervasive smells of regurgitated burgundy and cigarettes added a latent dimension to our greasy dinner. Almost to the elevator, an elderly woman blocked our way to freedom.

“Would you nice-looking young gentlemen help me with my bags? They don’t seem to have a bellhop in this establishment,” she said. Her bags surrounded her and were of the Safeway, not Samsonite, label.

“That’s okay. I’m stuffed with chicken grease,” I said.

“So, what meeting did you gentlemen say you were attending?” she asked. After responding, she asked me if she might join us the next day. I told her that we were involved in an all-day field trip, which was the truth.  

“Well, I love field trips,” she said.

One hour back at our room and Jim had not yet returned. My mind envisioned bag lady accomplices dragging Jim’s perforated body toward the Y dumpster. They would never have been noticed on the elevator. On his way down to the lobby to get help, via the staircase, I met him coming up with a blanket under his arm.

“She doesn’t have any covers on her cot,” he explained. “Furthermore, I’ve found her fascinating. She is an intelligent, articulate woman down on her luck. Come along and have a chat with her. You’ll see what I mean.” Within seconds after introducing us in her doorway, Jim had evaporated. She offered me some ice cream out of one of the bags that filled the tiny room. It had begun to ooze out onto the floor.

“No, that’s true, you wouldn’t be,” she conceded. “Well how about any loose change? I need to make some long-distance calls to my surgical team in New York.”

“The trips are restricted to the members of the association,” I didn’t know if that was true or not but I’m fairly certain she wouldn’t have passed for an academic.  I really didn’t know if that was true, but I assumed it was. I had paid substantial money to attend the conference because I was not a member of the AAG.  Then she hit me with her hidden agenda.

“Do you perhaps have $20 that you might loan me?” she asked. Her voice had lowered considerably. “I afraid that I need money for a heart transplant.” I glanced futilely over my shoulder for some invisible support. The hallway was empty. Even Jim, with his Third World mind, would have balked at this request. Twenty dollars would buy him one helluva lot of popcorn and an unperforated Army surplus duffle.

 The following day, Jim and I transferred to the Minneapolis Marriot, where the meeting was being held and the other Third World geographers were staying.

__________________________________

**Originally published Feb, 24, 1987. Potpourri Writers’ Bloc #5. Texas A&I University Literary Magazine, pp. 26-28. Revised December 2020.

                “Do you think I would be staying in this place if I had that kind of money?” I said.

I fell asleep in front of the TV at 8 last night, much to my wife’s chagrin. It happens almost every night, and she’s used to it.  I went to bed and now I’m awake and it’s 1 a.m.  I was awake not because of too much sleep but because I felt weird. At first, I didn’t know why I felt weird but I did. I felt deeply sad, as though I’d lost a friend. Two images woke me up besides a strong desire to visit a long-time friend, one of shattered glass in the front door, and the other of a smug male arrogant miscreant (a.k.a., asshole) sitting in Nancy Pelosi’s office chair with his feet propped on her desk.

Years ago, after we were just married and I didn’t believe in insurance and I thought I was king of my domain in those days, which may have lasted a few hours. We had our house on the Arizona desert broken into twice in two weeks and we lost personal treasures, many of which were wedding gifts. And in the darkness last night, I felt exactly like I did then. Deeply violated. By strangers. People with muddy feet had walked on our floor and with greasy hands, pawed through our drawers. Nothing was quite the same after that and we had loved that little place.

Buffalo Man probably wasn’t screaming in pain, but hopefully he was. Maybe one of his compadres with an AK-47 mistook him for a buffalo and shot him in the ass. I feel for him.

I doubt that Buffalo Man thinks he is a true Native America on the Trail of Tears. Actually, his name is Italiano. Yet,  for whatever reason he feels he needs to portray a Native American. Could be because most Americans don’t see Native Americans as having their own Mafia.  Maybe he’s just showing us his perfect dentition? Maybe he just accidentally stabbed himself with his lance. I think he is yelling the cry of victory, but a victory for who? For democracy? For successfully violated sacred ground, the Capitol of the United States? For himself personally? Certainly, that’s part of it. Regardless his motivation, my guess is that authentic Native Americans would not claim him as one of their own. As a huge generalization, I’ve always gotten the impression that Native Americans respect sacred ground. In all the pictures I saw of the insurrection yesterday, I didn’t see many, if any, people of color.  But, then again, I wasn’t making a detailed study of each of the thousands of participants’ physical features. Why so many whites, men and women? Are we the predominant spoilers of a country that has withstood our disrespect and ingratitude for far too long?

These wannabe humans are bullies. Our country is being raped by these ignorant creatures, and, as a badly fractured nation, they have taken away the virginity of most of us, at least those of us who are law-abiding citizens and believe in the ways of a true democracy. Their folly was a purpose-manufactured version of a horribly misguided insurrection, which is what it was. 

As they stormed the Capitol and grossly violated it, they made us aware that they had already lost their virginity, if for no other reason than their misguided beliefs in what it takes to be a successful democracy. We permanently lost a piece of our all of us yesterday. Even though they don’t know it, the insurrectionists were losers, too. We all have lost a piece of our democracy, and we aren’t going to get it back in the foreseeable future. Unless we take on a new identity as a country that works TOGETHER from D.C. to you and me, we aren’t going to get it back. Period. Like so many other, more mature countries who have already discovered that “Me over Common Good” ain’t gonna get us any further than we are at this pathetic juncture in history. And that will lead only to more insurrections and more Donald Trumps. What a goal.