Dec. 6 update

I don't know what's up with Xanga, but every new post I write is IMMEDIATELY BELOW this one.  So I guess I'm asking you to check the next post down if you want to know my most current thoughts.

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Jessica Stern wrote a wonderful piece for Politico that might well be more worth reading than what I've written below.  To read it, go to http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/the-islamic-state-paradox-213368

Now it's my turn.

After ISIS declared war on Paris Friday night, France has declared war on ISIS and the bombing has started.  Whoop-de-doo.  Don't get me wrong, I am as Charlie Hebdo as you are, and just as angry and frustrated.  I'll even admit -- back in September 2001 -- when we started "bombing the shit," as Donald Trump would say, out of Afghanistan because the Afghans were supposedly harboring Osama bin Laden, my visceral insides were gratified.  It felt good, I'm saying, even though my brain was asking, as it is now, "What good will that accomplish?"

It's no secret that every act of revenge amps up the animosity.  Creates more terrorists.  Sure, it would solve everything if we wiped the enemy out so we could declare "Mission Accomplished" and be as smug as George W. Bush.  But that's only if we can do that.  And we can't.

The hawks rightly understand that the war on terror will take a long time.  I don't mind so much that bombs are being dropped as I object to the fact that nobody is saying what needs to be said.  What needs to be said, along with every warlike utterance, is a call for peace, the end of animosity, or a meeting with the "enemy."  Something.  Anything.

We can bomb.  We can answer violence with violence.  It's not that I'm against what the hawks want.  But I'm saying, offer an olive branch at the same time, and KEEP that olive branch out there and visible and audible.

The REAL enemy is religious fundamentalism -- the idea that one's own religion is the only right one and that everyone else's religion is wrong.  But I don't know how to deal with THAT enemy right now.  No ideas.

But we do need to have a desire to end the violence.  And being violent ourselves just creates more terrorists.  I already said that.  I'll try not to say it too many more times in this essay.

ISIS recruits around the world.  The people they recruit are those who are angry, disenfranchised, poor, underemployed, not particularly bright (sorry about that), and I just got close to the first element in a plan to defeat ISIS, before I got to insulting the intelligence of people who allow themselves to be turned into suicide bombers.

That first element is to move toward a world in which the population of dissatisfied human beings is appreciably and visibly decreasing.  Yeah, it's OK to be a bleeding heart liberal.

Those of you who cringe at the thought can at least try to agree with a second element of a plan to win the war on terror, and that would consist of drying up the financing of ISIS.  I don't know how you do that exactly, but there are people far smarter than I am who could set themselves to working on the problem.  At least there's no violence inherent in that element.  None that I can think of, anyway.

But back to the first element.  Reducing the agony of the would-be ISIS recruits.  Let me go all Pollyanna on you and leave you with a final thought.  Edwin Markham said it better than I can in his poem, "Outwitted."  Here it is:

He drew a circle that shut me out -- 
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. 
But love and I had the wit to win: 
We drew a circle that took him in!

I'm posting tonight because I'm sick about the death of Corey Jones, a 31-year-old black man who was returning from work and had car trouble at 3 something a.m. and while waiting for roadside assistance, was shot by a policeman who just happened to be in plain clothes and was investigating what he thought might be an abandoned car.

You can read about it at http://news.yahoo.com/corey-jones-may-called-roadside-assistance-moments-deadly-160054879--abc-news-topstories.html

Here's an excerpt:

The Palm Beach Gardens Police said Officer Nouman Raja, who was driving an unmarked car, had stopped to "investigate what he believed to be an abandoned vehicle" around 3:15 a.m.

"As the officer exited his vehicle, he was suddenly confronted by an armed subject," a statement from police read. "As a result of the confrontation, the officer discharged his firearm resulting in the death of the subject, Corey Jones."

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I'd love to know what Raja has to say about this, but of course his lawyer won't let him say anything publicly.  

I'm inclined to be supportive of Raja, because he was face to face with a man holding a gun.  A policeman's job is perilous, and I can't think of a safe way that Raja could have defused the situation.  Jones would be alive today, I believe, if he'd never bought that stupid gun in the first place, but I think all you readers know how antigun I am, so there you go.

Still, the death was tragic.

Mainly, I want to suggest that it should be protocol for the roadside assistance company to immediately notify law enforcement so there would have been some chance, however slight, for Officer Raja to be apprised of the situation before he decided to investigate that supposedly abandoned car.

Of course, that slight chance equals about 0.00002 percent, but at least it's something.

I know I promised to say more about my new job, but it's late.  So maybe another time.

Sorry I haven't posted in so long.  So busy.

Barbara's back at work.  Her fractured hip is still mending, but her leg is weight-bearing, so that's good.

And I am working again, too!  More later.

As my regular readers already know, I've been busy for more than a month taking care of wife Barbara, whose fractured hip (she tripped and fell on July 28) is getting close to full weight-bearing, but we need for the surgeon to verify that.

So Barbara's getting better and BOTH of us might be earning some income soon.  We both hope to be working in October.  My job -- and at this point I'm just hoping it works out -- will consist of locking and unlocking buildings at the inconvenient hours of 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.  But it's something.

I was inspired to post a blog today because we just saw "Ricki and the Flash" and Barbara and I both feel it's an outstanding movie, despite lukewarm reactions from audiences and critics.

First of all, there's Meryl Streep and that's reason enough to see and enjoy any movie.  She plays Ricki Rendazzo (or Linda Brummel as she was known in a former life as the mother of three in an Indiana family), an aging rock-and-roll singer who doesn't earn enough leading a band at a San Fernando Valley bar to live on without a second job as a supermarket cashier.  Meanwhile, her ex-husband Pete (Kevin Kline, who's being reunited with the actress who co-starred with him in Sophie's Choice) has no money problems but does have difficulty with a suicidal daughter, one of three kids from the Pete-Linda marriage.  He makes an emergency call to his ex, and Ricki/Linda scrapes up the money to fly to Indianapolis and provide some motherly support to her estranged, unwelcoming daughter Julie, played by Streep's real-life daughter Mamie Gummer.

So what we have here is a story about a dysfunctional family that wouldn't be that without the returning presence of the mother who walked away to seek fame and fortune as a rock star.

At least that's the lens through which I watched, having come from a dysfunctional family my own self.  I guess that explains why audiences and critics have been close to hostile.  Normal people just can't relate, sometimes.  "Normal" meaning, coming from well-adjusted families.  Really?  I thought they were the exception.  I thought almost everyone came from dysfunctional families.  Oh, well.

The acting and writing and music are first-rate.  That counts for something.  If the story, such as it is, seems unrealistic, tough.

As for the music:  Ricki and the Flash consisted of lead singer Streep, who we already knew could sing since we enjoyed her so thoroughly in "Prairie Home Companion," "Into the Woods," and "Mamma Mia!", Joe Vitale on drums, hall of fame keyboard artist Bernie Worrell, bassist Rick Rosas, and Rick Springfield on guitar.  Springfield's role was expanded to include a love interest between him and Ricki, and that was one of the plot elements that pleased me the most.  

That, and the ten musical numbers which were played and sung to perfection.

I've stopped looking for work.

That's the bad news.  The good news is that I'm volunteering, on a daily basis, at the Alzheimer Parkinson Association of Indian River County.  And I'm happy as a clam.  Finally, I've stopped obsessing about the huge injustice that was done to me, and to the Indian River Medical Center, when security was outsourced to an incompetent contractor for the purpose of stinting on money so that employees could lose their jobs, patients can be cheated of decent care, and all so that the hospital executives could continue to line their pockets.

Well, okay, it's obvious that I'm still obsessing a little bit.  But just a little bit.  Honest.  I've finally begun the process of letting go of the injustice, thanks to the immense pleasure and satisfaction that I'm getting at AlzPark.   Hmm.  I still can't publish a hyperlink.  Try going to http://www.alzpark.org/info.php for more info.  (AlzPark's home page is badly outdated.  Fixing it is one of the things I'll be able to help with.)

I'd rather help those folks for no pay, as I'm doing, than subject myself to the kind of employee abuse I can expect at most jobs.  What I used to have at the hospital was too good to be true.  A job I loved, and a job that loved me back.  Nothing that great can last forever, even though I thought it would.

OK, the announcement has been made.  My job search is over, and I've found a situation that I love.

I'm probably the slowest reader you ever met.  That's partly because I like to reread and savor interesting sentences.   And I never got into speed-reading anyway.

I say this to emphasize my recommendation that you read (and savor) Harper Lee's controversial newly released novel, "Go Set a Watchman."  I could not put the book down, and finished it in less than two days.  A normally fast reading time for me, for a book that size, is two weeks.  Or two months.  But don't think that it's a long book.  It's practically a novelette.  Like I said.  I'm probably the slowest reader you ever met.

WARNING:  It is complex.  Complexity is not a bad thing, though some people think it is.  Complexity just means:  hard to understand without great effort.  I remember there was this lady I was dating, who decided she wanted to terminate our relationship.  And her revelatory words were:  "You're very complex."  She meant it as an insult, and I was too naive to take it that way.  I AM complex.  Enough of that.

I hasten to point out:  everything I've read from commentators and reviewers is WRONG.  I think, because the novel is too complex for them to understand.  But I'm done talking about complexity.

My assumption is:  everyone knows about the classic first novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird," which was made into a magnificent movie starring Gregory Peck as the 55-year-old small-town southern lawyer, Atticus Finch.  A larger-than-life lawyer hero, beloved by all.

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What may NOT be general knowledge is:

Harper Lee wrote "Go Set a Watchman" first.   It happened to be so full of interesting flashbacks that the publisher to whom it was submitted asked Ms. Lee to write the prequel that became "To Kill a Mockingbird."  Just last year "Watchman" was discovered, and now it's in print.  And the nutty reviewers are just as disillusioned as Atticus's daughter Scout, who is appalled that, 17 years later, the father she's always looked up to is an out-and-out racist.

Very well.  Prepare to be shocked.  The reviewers were shocked.  I was shocked.  And you will be, too.  Maybe you'll hate the book, but I sure didn't.  Just the opposite.

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I did find one decent review so far, written by Lawrence Hill at www.theglobeandmail.com

Here is how he explains the new publication's title:

The book takes its title from Isaiah 21:6: “For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.” In this line, the prophet Isaiah is predicting the fall of Babylon. Just as Babylon will fall in the Bible, perhaps Maycomb County – a place where black people live in poverty and are condemned to second-class citizenship and to jail for crimes they do not commit – will one day fall, too.

How to fix the world.  The list of problems is a mile long.  Wage gaps.  Overpopulated prisons.  Violence.  Corrupt politicians.  Untreated mental illnesses.  I could fix them all, in one fell swoop, if the world would just listen to me.

A mandatory ethics unit, every semester, from kindergarten through college.  If only a few of the world's richest -- I think Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have already announced their willingness -- to put their billions to constructive use -- we could get 'er done.

Raise teacher salaries.  Put the unemployed to work rebuilding our infrastructure, and spend the rest on training enough guidance counselors and classroom aides so that the 5-, 10-, and 15-year-old snickerers are stopped in their tracks when ethics are mentioned in classrooms.

We have to start somewhere, right?

In a perfect world designed by me, we would have Enlightened Management at all our companies.  Instead of lining executive pockets, employees would be paid a living wage, violence would be outlawed, and mental illness would be de-stigmatized so that people could get the help they need.  HIPAA wouldn't be necessary because companies would be ethically bound not to hold illness against people.  (Mental OR physical.)

I don't expect any of this to happen, of course.  But wouldn't it be wonderful if people could just talk about it?

How far is it possible to fall?  As it stands, Jack Nicklaus is still the greatest golfer in history.  At least I think he'd win if every knowledgeable person had a vote.  But Tiger was, for a period of 10 years, the most dominant golfer ever.  No question.  He was SO dominant that I have a friend who is absolutely certain that Tiger will again be as dominant as he once was.

Nothing's impossible, but that sure SEEMS impossible, at least to me.

Currently, I'm in mourning for the current state of Tiger's game.  I'm also in mourning for the appalling notions that are creeping into my mind.

Tiger has never been in prison, and I don't imagine he'll ever sink THAT low.  (Again, nothing's impossible.)

But what's appalling is that when I try to think of public figures who have dropped as far as Tiger, two of the three are sports figures who have been in prison, and the other is Richard Nixon, who should have been jailed.

I'm thinking of Pete Rose and O.J. Simpson.  And again, I apologize to myself and to everyone else for linking the three.  Woods is nowhere near as horrible a person as Rose, and Rose is nowhere near as horrible a person as Simpson.  (Nixon ranks between Rose and Simpson.)

More later, maybe.  I'm going to watch TV with Barbara now.  We're getting ready for the Belmont Stakes, but first we're going to eat an early dinner.

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More thoughts, following American Pharoah's wonderful race to the triple crown.  (I hate misspelling pharaoh, but I guess I don't have a choice.  The horse's misspelled name is an established fact.)

About Tiger's problems.  He's made other major swing changes through the years, which confounds observers.  He's always trying to get better, and he was successful with those changes, and it's hard to quarrel with success.  Maybe he'll get good again, because he's got the talent and the dedication to pull it off.  But what I'm thinking is, his former swing methods were probably responsible for his knee and back problems.  Just about any golf swing is so unnatural that it creates stresses on various body parts.  Now that Tiger's been through reconstructed knee and through back surgery, he's created a new swing that he hopes will allow him to stay physically healthy.  Will his age and body permit a return to competency?  (Greatness is another question.)  And, in words close to what Yogi Berra once said, 50% of golf is 90% mental.  Yes, Tiger's mental state is questionable, too.

I wish him well, but I'm not optimistic.  It's just so sad, right now, to see him struggle this much.

I guess I have to call the computer doctor again.  Turned on the 'puter this morning, clicked on Google Chrome and Google came up instead of this page.  Then there was some message saying that Norton added some shit and I said don't add and now the Chrome icon is still there but nothing happens.

At least good old Internet Explorer is still here.

It's likely to be reduced to just two games on appeal.  I say that for two reasons.  All the wise guys (such as Mike Lupica) predict as much, and who am I to disagree with Mike Lupica?  And secondly, there's the cynical reason that the NFL doesn't want to lose the ratings for the Patriots-Cowboys game, and so they'll get the fix in for the appeal to be successful.  (Maybe that's why Lupica predicted what he did.)

Though I'm not a Patriots fan, and though I cohabit this house with Barbara, who thinks Brady should get the heaviest penalty that law will allow (that already has not happened), I'm way on Brady's side on this one.  Despite the seriousness of cheating.  And despite the smirk that was so obviously on his face when he fielded questions in January.  And despite his refusal to cooperate with the investigation by turning over his cellphone and email logs.

This is why.

They all do it.  Brady just got caught.

If you're not cheating, you're not trying.

That's the sad truth of it.  In competitive activities, it's wonderfully noble of you to follow all the rules religiously, but when everybody you're competing with is cheating, you simply have to cheat.  Hell, I'm starting to rethink my objection to admitting Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

There was a college course I took once.  I was staying up all night studying for the final exam (which was to be graded on the curve) and my friends said to me, "Didn't you know there was a cold copy of that test available?  [So and so] has it."  So of course I contacted so and so, because I didn't what to flunk a course I'd worked my ass off in all semester.  I was forced to cheat.  Or accept a poor grade on my transcript that I didn't deserve.  Yeah, I can hear your argument that I should have done exactly that.  Be righteous.  I'll concede you could be right, but I did what I did, and I know I'm a righteous person even if you don't think so.

Not saying Tom Brady is righteous, but ...

If you're not cheating, you're not trying.

On the other hand, I'm not criticizing Roger Goodell here, because he HAD to drop the hammer.  Especially after his weaselly responses to domestic violence.  Even though there's no comparison.  And even though the irony is obvious.