Thank You Mr. King -- Installment 6 (Delayed).

It has been four years since my last post on this heading.  What have I been doing?  Not a lot of consequence, and I certainly have not written anything approproaching the art of Stephen King.  I do hear, however, that Mr. King, has been before Congress and has testified against the attempt by Penguin Random House of Simon & Schuster.  Not surprising that Mr. King objects to what is a terrible idea, inasmuch as (1.) it is a terrible idea, and (2.) some years ago when Penguin Random House (allegedly) cheated Mr. King from certain royalties, he took his considerable talents to Simon & Schuster.

In the interim, I did read a wonderful book entitled "How To Stop A Conspiracy", by the Roman (now deceased for about 2250 or so years) Sallust, with a commentary and translation by Josiah Osgood.  I strongly recommend it.  I bought my copy from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, via an advertisement directed at me on Facebook.  For a long time, I resisted those advertisements.  But, I'll be damned, if, somehow, Facebook has figured out what interests me (some of the time, anyway).  Or what might interest me.  Let's hope FB keeps it to themselves (and me ... 😊 ... cause I likes what I likes, and it's no body's business what I likes, except me ... 😉).

Read.  Read.  Read.  Finally, as my ripe old age, I have figured out why "people" read.  Why leaders read.  Why the wealthy entrepreneurs read.  Why teachers read.  Why smart people read.  And it is this:  YOU DO NOT WANT TO ARRIVE IN THE NEXT LIFE AS IGNORANT AS YOU WERE WHEN YOU REACHED THIS LIFE.  You think I am kidding.  I'm not.  If you educate yourself, now, in this life.  You'll have a running start as a good life, the next time.  One time I watched the movie of "To Kill A Mockingbird" and then, fascinated, I actually got the book and I read it.  The most eye-opening this for me in that book was the old lady down the street, who had gotten addicted to some kind of drug, and on her dying bed (it took her quite a while to die) one of the protagonist's children was forced to go to her bed every day and read to her.  Why?  She felt that she needed to break her addition, in this life, so that it would not follow her into the next life.  And, the process was so appallingly difficult that she needed someone to distract her from her withdrawal sufferings.  She wanted to leave this life clean, better than she had been during her life.

I want to leave this life, lo' many years from now, better than I am now ... so that, when I get to the next place I am going, I won't be as ignorant as I was when I entered this life.  I want to give myself a leg-up.  Reading does that.

My Maiden Post from https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Ntany3K5kK/what-matters-1640152

If you like what I've said here, or it means something to you, or you just have $3.00 to spare, then, please Buy Me A Coffee. 

_______________ 

Art and the Game

From time to time, I wonder to myself, if -- as some say -- "art is the quality of communication" -- then will true, valuable, informative, communication win out, in the competition for attention, over "celebrities" who couldn't tie their own shoes, over "healthy living influencers" who eat junk food when they think no one is looking, over loud mouthed pundits who are simply following a script that someone smarter than they are, wrote for them.

In short, I wonder to myself, if "people" are as easily led into temptation as they seem to be and whether there is any point to trying to deliver them from evil ... as what used to be called "the Good Book" suggests might be the salvation of the human race.

And, then, following this introductory train of thought, I consider the 'ancient' civilization of "the Roman People" (that is actually what Romans called themselves. They didn't say "the United States of Rome" or "Rome". They called themselves "the Roman People"). There are many fine books written about the Roman People ... the first one I ever remember was called "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire". One I have read recently is "How To Stop A Conspiracy, An Ancient Guide to Saving a Republic" by Sallust, translated and introduced by Josiah Osgood, copyright 2022 by Princeton University Press. It's a little book, in pages and physical size (you can hold it in one hand. But, its quality of communication, its "art" is remarkable. Sallust's thesis, so far as I could recognize it is that the Roman People fell, as we now know, because, after conquering the world, and the hardships and efforts required to do so, having earned their leisure and their luxury (at least for true citizens), it ruined them. And, the "game", as it were, no longer being about getting others, came to be about getting each other. Amassing large fortunes, having fine clothes (with money stolen from their peers), amassing political power ... in short, the game came to be about nothing in particular. There was no longer any "game", and so the Roman People simply ate themselves up. The famous saying 'Nero fiddled while Rome burned', issued to suggest how morally bankrupt the Roman People had become that their leader would "fiddle" whilst they went down to ruin, is really saying that to remain great, a great people need a great game, and when the game is over, the game turns inward and self-destruction inevitably results.

So, dear friend, the next time you feel like you have accomplished something by reaching the 75th level of Dungeons and Dragons, ask yourself "What Game Is This I Am Playing?" Or more accurately, "Who's Game Am I A Pawn In?" And, if you don't like the answer, well, then, go on out and start a good game. One that actually builds something for you to pass on to your People, bye and bye.

Cheerio.

Thank You Mr. King -- Installment 5 (Reprise)

When I (was fortunate enough to somehow stumble upon and) read Stephen King's little book "On Writing", I was astonished and humbled, at the same time, by the fact that such a marvelous talent had taken the time, effort and energy to put down in writing so that the likes of me could read, his 'secrets' about how to tell stories.

And, so, I decided to devote my writing, or at least some one it (until I feel like he's gotten enough credit) to Mr. King's generous impetus.  And, of course, this doesn't mean that he's responsible for the quality of my writing; but, if anyone deserves some moral credit for these machinations, he does.

Today, I want to reprise a topic which was, oddly enough, created by the inimitable Harvey Weinstein's lecherous activities, as have come to be bandied about in our beloved "Press" throughout the last many disgusting months.  Of course, once those who had taken Harvey's money to keep quiet about what he had done to them, decided that they could gain something even more than handsome sums of hush money by eschewing their own moral and legal obligations to keep their contractually purchased word, the floodgates opened and all manner of men (and some women) have been ousted from their positions of political and financial power, and their lives ruined as much as (and sometimes more than) their victims' lives were harmed because of wrongs the lecherous (at least supposedly) committed.  Men (almost entirely) who (allegedly) 'sexually harassed' one, or more, women, and who stood to lose their livelihoods and the great fortunes they had amassed, all of a sudden, started feeling the heat that their (alleged) vile actions deserved.  Deserved, if true, yes.  Deserved at some time.  Yes, absolutely.  But, deserve, now?

Now, Virginia, THAT is the question, the answer to which, threatens to destroy the very fabric of the "civilization" which some 6,000,000,000 (billion) people or so depend upon daily for their bread.

Today, in fact, a (now) woman, is trying to see to it that one Brett Kavanaugh, nominated for appointment to the US Supreme Court, and by all accounts (save, one at least), a stand-up guy, exquisitely qualified for the post, does not get that appointment.  This woman -- who for some reason is identified in the press by her married name of Ford, as well as her not-married name, Blasey -- claims that, when she was in high school, BK cornered her in a room at a party, and drunk, "sexually assaulted" her.

There's a lot of, obvious, political timing in this particular accusation.  Without this accusation, Brett Kavanaugh would have long since been confirmed and sitting on the U. S. Supreme Court -- and he may very well be anyway, since, even though SHE brought this accusation to light voluntarily, she is  now refusing to testify before the committee that is considering his nomination "until the FBI investigates".

Sound fair?  Right?  This ought to be investigated!  Right?  We don't want sexual assaulters sitting on the Supreme Court! Right!?

Yes, we want the members of the United States Supreme Court to have 'impeachable' reputations.  I think so, anyway.

But, I want to leave those thorny, difficult and eventually unsolvable issues regarding Brett Kavanaugh's character to one-side.  They are important.  Clearly.  But, there is something far, far, far more important at stake if the public and Congress delay confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice based upon a 30-year old, supposed, event, which was known by the alleged viction, Christine Blasey Ford, AND her husband, AND her therapist, AND the long-time senator from the Great State of California, Dianne Feinstein, for the entire time Brett Kavanaugh served on an important Federal Court and distinguished himself as a jurist of remarkable talent and capability.

Personally, I do not think it will make much difference, if any, to the trajectory that this Country is taking whether it is Brett Kavanaugh, or someone with more 'liberal leanings' who is appointed to fill the vacant seat.  So, from my point of view, what it stake here is much more sinister.  It is the destruction, literally,  of the basic tenets of civilization and a return to anarchy.

I kid you not.

I happened upon this realization when I was, recently, vacationing in Scotland, on one of those cursed 'bus tours', where everyone rides around feeling nauseated from the swaying and jostling of the bus, and the incessant droning on of the 'tour guide'.

Our particular tour guide, was a remarkably knowledgeable woman named Deidre.  As we twaddled languorously through the Scottish highlands, she regaled us with a history lesson the likes of which I could not have even remotely attained in my schooling.  Leaving aside the fact that I kinda wished that she knew something more about the countryside than she appeared to, her historical and political commentary was informative.  And, frighteningly, if unintentionally, instructive.

While I may (almost certainly do) have some of the details (both important and not) out-of-kilter, the fundamental point is that "House of Windsor" (... a modern, I think 20th Century) re-naming, probably to shed the implications of the original name of the line, "Hanover" ...), which is presently represented by the person of Queen Elizabeth, was installed by Parliament on the heels of a bloody 'coup' back, I think, in the 1600's.  There was no 'vote of the people', no succession by the heavenly right of primogeniture, just the decision of some old men that the then current resident of the office 'had to go'.  Well, he couldn't very well complain -- other than about being murdered and then drawn and quartered for good measure -- since he, also, was installed as the King of England by another bloody coup.

So, on the strength of a murder of someone who had murdered someone else in order to ascend to the wealth, land ownership and power of the British crown, the "House of Windsor" was handed the 'keys to the nation', and an astonishing (even for this day of billionaires-under-a-foot-everywhere) wealth.  They didn't buy it.  They weren't voted in as "Monarchs" (which is a ludicrous thought anyway).  There was no popular agreement.  The House of Hanover/Windsor was simply GIVEN mind numbing power and wealth.

Oh, to be sure, it takes some skill to keep a "line" going for all these hundreds of years, and the House of Windsor's times have not always been good ... there has been talk about "abolishing the Monarchy" when Prince Phillip's ex-Wife, Diana, was killed in an auto-accident and the "House of Windsor's" reaction was not, well, royal enough.

But, the point is not to trash Queen Elizabeth or her "line".  The current occupants of this 'office' seem nice and dedicated to helping their 'subjects'.

The point of all of this is:  Let's assume that, somewhere back before Parliament authorized the murder of the King and his replacement with a member of the House of Hanover, that, somewhere, there was a 'legitimate' King or Queen of England.  Whatever legitimate means to you.  (If 'legitimate' means, to you, whomever is big enough to hold the throne, then even a coup can represent a legitimate installation, but for the sake of the argument, I decline to accept murder as a basis for achieving legitimacy.)  So, if murder is not a legitimate basis on which to start a new monarchical line, I think we have to conclude that the current "House of Windsor" ... its entire line, is just a long-lived of people that have absolutely no right to the power, titles and authority that they have succeeded to; that they are illegitimate; they are frauds; and they are no better than thieves.

These are harsh words, but they have a point.

So, let's return to the remarkably stale claims of one Christine Blasey Ford that she was sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh.  Let's say, just for the sake of the argument, that her claims are true.  What then?  Do we observe the fundamental and basic rule of law (which came down to us, not coincidentally through the English "Bill of Rights" that came into being about the time the House of Hanover/Windsor came into "power" on the heels of a murder) that 'stale claims' (in Federal Law and most States, the longest 'statute of limitations' that this author is aware of is 10 years) are barred and cannot be litigated-no remedy can be given for them?  Or do throw 'due process' out the window and do whatever we damn well please, on the spur of the moment?

And, if you say, "Yes!" This is important!  Then how do you stop, if you want to stop, from tracing the illegitimacy of the British Crown back to the murder of the prior "House"?  Yes, it's 400 or so years, instead of 30 years, but there is no analytical distinction.  A wrong is a wrong.  And, by the same token, why do we not go back to the 1800's when the American Indians were rousted out of their centuries old homes, and return "their" lands to them?  Or, for that matter, why don't we trace back the possession of Jerusalem back to the last "rightful" owners and award that Holy City to their heirs?

I do not say these things to leave you without an answer, because there is an answer, and a good one.  But, you'll want to figure it out according to your own lights, because the only good answer this author can come up with results in Christine Blasey Ford being ignored, and Brett Kavanaugh being confirmed as the next Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

So, which is it?  Consistency, finality and regularity in the application of laws, and respect for the lives that people have lived for decades and centuries, regardless of the harms that may have brought these 'lines' into currency?  Or is it the ad hoc justice that gives no one solace, gives no one but the terrorists comfort, and results in the constant warring between factions as to who is top dog?  Christine Blasey Ford's attempt to torpedo Brett Kavanaugh's nomination is the least responsible, fair or just thing she could possibly have done at this juncture in time -- and the most destructive possible of the "Rule of Law" under which we all live and enjoy a moderately advanced and well-organized lives.

180919

Thank You Mr. King -- Installment 4

Outlining is the comeuppance of many a student, harshly scolded by their spinster (not, BTW a 'sexist' term, as it applies equally to old crotchety never married men and old crotchety never married women - my oldest brother could, with definitional rectitude be called a 'spinster', except that he doesn't sit about and knit, so far as I know) teachers, that neither they, nor their writing, will ever amount to anything if they do not learn to prepare a "proper" outline, including all of the various indentations and subsections and subsubsubsubsections that the Platonic Ideal of a Good and Right Outline would have.

Outlining -- or the imagined necessity to be able to do it in order to "be" a "good writer" -- is, also, me thinks, the one evil, perverted, pernicious "stop" which has caused more promising writers to lie down their pens, pencils, typewriters or keyboards than any single other cause in the history of the entire galaxy.

I am not saying that an "outline" is not a good thing for certain purposes, none of which have the slightest thing to do with the quality of one's writing.  It is good if you need an organizational structure to display to your law school teachers so that they will think that, by displaying a talent for organization, you are similarly displaying a talent for legal acumen, understanding and ability.  it is good to be able to outline if you are writing a governmental pamphlet on 'How To Obtain A Medicare Card Before You Die From Waiting For It To Arrive" -- yet it is clear that apparently none of the writers of governmental pamphlets that deal with how to do something to get something the government provides have acquainted themselves with the fine points of outlining.  And, outlining MAY be important if you have a brilliant idea for the next 'iPhone' and you want to someone to bankroll you for its research and production.

But, I now have it on the excellent authority of J. A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, and James Rollins (aka James Paul Czajkowski) ... and, if I read him right, Mr. Stephen King, also, that 'outlining', per se, is mostly something that writers do to show their editors and book-publishers just enough information to persuade them to pay the writer an advance against the eventual royalties.  Yet, time, after time, after time, these authors regale us with stories about book publishers, who, having given an advance based upon some outline, receive a rather much different book than the outline promised.  From a logistical standpoint, for a writer, this is problematic only if the eventual 'product' of the outline sucks.

Assuming, however that the eventual book does not suck -- and let's say in Mr. Stephen King's case -- not only does the manuscript not suck, but it is fabulous, generates world-wide acclaim and bunches of money for the author and the publisher, then one might naturally want to ask what the purpose of the outline ever was, and do "real" authors use them?  And, if so, why?  And, if not, why not?

Well, as I understand what J.A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, and James Rollins all three said when they spoke at the 2018 Tucson Festival of Books in the UA Mall Tent at 1:30 p.m. on the afternoon of March 10, 2018, it turns out that, basically, books write themselves -- at least once you have an idea that is worth writing about, and you are capable of a somewhat more than rudimentary application of the standard tools of writing to that particular idea.  And, of course, you can't be lazy and shiftless, because writing, like all jobs does not do itself.  True, a book might 'reveal itself' to you, but YOU still have to write it down.  And, in a fashion such that it makes sense to everyone else, and not just you in your dreams.

Interestingly enough -- not that I would be arrogant enough to speak for a great writer like Stephoen King -- I'd wager that Mr. King would agree with me.  In fact, if you take the time to read his little book (and it is a little book) "On Writing", you'll see that, like Jance, Parker and Rollins (they are only in this order because, as the Moderator said, we are the handmaidens of that tyranny knowns in erudite circles as the Alphabet) ... ((((Hmm.  In this day and age, one wonders if someone will discover a sexist, anti-feminist, sexually discriminatory original purpose for calling men "men" and women "women" ... so that, at least to a native English speaker it is more natural to follow the order that Tyrannosaurus Alphabeticus suggests when referring to "men and women".)))) ... Mr. King suggests not only that a book writes itself, but that the characters of the book will, if you listen to them, tell you what to write about them.

I must confess in the most apoplectic and embarrassed fashion that when I first read this concept in Mr. King's "On Writing", like (probably) most people I thought something like:  "Oh, Sure, Mr. Rich Pants, that's easy for you to say, sitting in the lap of luxury, wealthy and famous beyond need.  Yep, you say that the characters speak for themselves, but what you really mean is that you are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo innate smart and internally organized that you have a kind of 'internal outline' for your stories that emerges as you write them.  But, it was there all along.  And you are just (disingenously) trying to get us no-talented schnooks to realize this by putting forth some kind of metaphysical touchy-feely explanation for our abject inability to conjure up the kind of stories that are actually worth reading."

Maybe it was just me who thought something along these lines to explain my own inability to write A STORY. But, I thought, oh, sure, Stephen King (and now Jance, Parker and Rollins) 'whispers' stories from the dark nether regions of the unintelligible morse-like code which feeds into his skull from the universe, but what about the rest of us who don't have that kind of connection to the galaxy?  And, is this how Shakespeare did it?  How does anyone do it?  How does anyone write a good story.

They find it.  And, you, dear reader, will find your story.  That, I think, is not really the hard part.  We all have stories, and they are all fascinating in their own ways.  Properly addressed, Hollywood Producers would pay every last one of us millions of dollars for the 'story of our lives', or for the 'story of how Xerxes the Croatian Giant fell in Love with and Married the President of the United States'.  At least they would if we could tell them our story, tell them the story.  And, to try to tie this all up, the reason that a LOT of us cannot tell a story is because of that damnable lie that we were told in school (at least in the schools I attended in the "mid-Western" State of Oklahoma, and elsewhere) that we can't write anything without, first, having a good OUTLINE!!!

A variant on this misinformation is the old saw 'If you know it, you can say what you know.'  Utter bullshit.  Under which I labored like a robotic drone for about the last 45 years of my life.  In my freshman year in college -- I had the good fortune to be given a scholarship to a small catholic college in Los Angeles, known as Loyola-Marymount University, without which I would have had to suffer the damnable fate of living at home with my mother and younger sister, in Sunnyvale, California, while I attended De Anza junior college.  Who knows, perhaps that would have been the better outcome.  But, as luck would have it, I had a pretty high GPA in high school, and when, near the end of my senior year in high-school, I woke up and found myself with no place to go AWAY to to college, I panicked and applied to Loyola-Marymount in Los Angeles. HOW WAS I TO KNOW that my English teacher at L-M would impart to me the singularly most damaging and stultifying mis-conception about learning and life in general?  How was I to know that my impetus would cut to the quick, since, in point of fact, it was, and is, virtually impossible for me (and for most people) to "say" most of what they know?  HOW WAS I TO KNOW???

But, that is what she did.  And, while I don't remember her name, I do remember that she was a slight, somewhat sexy (at least to a horny 19 year old), dark haired, fair skinned maiden, who, upon reading my excuse on an exam for not having studied ("I know, but I just can't express it.") stated matter-of-factly "If you know something, you can say what you know."

I was stunned.  I realized how stupid I was, because I couldn't say most of what I (thought) I knew.  I was terrible as expressing myself; and I was angry as this vixen for showing me what a fraud I was.  But, my anger did not turn in to moral outrage and that did not turn into a dedication to proving her wrong.  It did not motivate me to do anything, except to give up and believe the idiocy of "I can't put it into words, so I don't know it." 

Sheer idiocy.

Take riding a bicycle, for example.  It is SUPREMELY difficult to 'explain' or 'say' how to ride a bike.  And, in point of fact, parents who try to 'explain' how to ride a bike to their children usually wind up with children with broken limbs and skinned knees from falling off their bikes while trying to 'think' about how to ride it.  There ARE things about riding a bike that you CAN explain, like you need to sit on the seat, you need to pedal to keep the bicycle moving, and you need to keep your balance.  But, beyond these trivally truisms, learning to ride a bike will not result in you learning to explain how it is that you keep your balance like a gyroscope.  Physicist can explain that, in THEIR language.  But you probably cannot, and it would be a waste of your time to try.

In actual fact, some things, indeed almost all things of value, cannot be (easily) reduced to a clear and precise concatenation of  agreed upon terms.  It is possible, with some practice, and learning to ignore all of the psycho-babble of pseudo intellectuals masquerading as your friend to make your feel inadequate because you do not understand their brand of 'psycho-speak', to know to a certainty what the person across the table from  you intends to do next (say in a negotiation to buy a car); and the fact that you cannot EXPLAIN how you know that Mary is going to ask you to marry her, does not mean that you don't know it; and it does not mean that it is 'just a hunch'.  it just means that there are some forms of knowledge (indeed most of them) which are not readily susceptible to being written down in clear and precise, premise, premise, premise, conclusion style in the King's English (for example).

What this all means is really just this.  Writing is about the art ... and it is an art ... of communicating the stories you find within you to others.  Writing is not easy, because uncovering, and finding your own stories is not easy.  Writing, like becoming a lawyer, brick-layer, mother, father, teacher, astronaut or banker, is not easy because it requires that we pay close attention to the quality of our communication to and with others.

You know how some people, no matter what they do, seem to have a certain 'style' about them that sets them apart?  Cooks?  Grocers?  Baristas?  Laundresses?  Everything which can be done, can be done with style and with an attention to the quality of communication which the do-er brings to the job.

Mr. King, Mrs. Jance, Mr. Parker and Mr. Rollins are good at telling stories.  And, so are you.  You just need to find your story.

13 March 2018, Scott Weible

Thank You Mr. King -- Installment 3

In the 'news' of late, sad to say, there has been a lot of talk, many reports about, a plethora of accusations against a number of fairly famous men (some by scores of women, some only by one or two or three) of being, in effect, 'serial sexual harassers'.  And, oh, there are some men accusing other men of sexually harassing them.  And, as you'd expect, there is a man, the City Manager/Clerk of a city in the great Commonwealth of Virginia, accusing the female City Attorney of that same City, of the same thing.  So, as 'you'd expect', mostly is is women accusing men, but, not to be out done, men are accusing men and men accusing women; so far as I know, no woman has accused a woman, however.

We're not just talking about the likes of one of the most unlikeable public figures in modern times, Harvey Weinstein.  No, certainly not.   Dustin Hoffman has been accused (and all but admitted it ... although it's unclear if he was sincere, or just wante to deflect further investigation.)  And, then, in a very interesting case, to this writer at least, a man accused another man, who is very famous and a very famous Scientologist to boot, John Travolta, puting his hand, without an invitation, in a place that no one should without one. in one case, at least, the accuser is a man, who alleges that another man, a very famous Star, and prominent Scientologist, John Travolta, put his hand, without an invitation, in a place that no one should without one.  We've had famous morning TV hosts, actors and politicians ... even a sitting Judge ... called on the public carpet for having done things which (whether or not these things are illegal is pretty much beside the point, actually) no decent person would have done.  In the case of the Judge, what he is accused of having done, took place, allegedly, some 32 years ago, in 1985.

Now, frankly, I do not know what to make of all of this.  If what 'they say' about Harvey Weinstein' is true, he's a foul and disreputable character, and anyone would be justified in never soliciting his company, in any context, any more.  At least not until he really, reforms.  Everyone, really, even murders, get a chance to reform in our society.  At least that is how we used to do things.

So, I, for one, am confused.  Apparently, 'people' knew about Harvey Weinstein for YEARS and did nothing.  Same, apparently, is true of John Travolta ... people who knew him have known for years of his inclinations.  And, in the case of one famous TV star, Matt Lauer, not only was his piggishness well known, but it was joked about on national TV when the TV network who just fired him for doing it, 'roasted' him a few years ago.

So, what has changed?  Well, before we consider that, consider a rumor that I heard one time, from an old friend of mine who 'was there', so to speak.  It is reported that the woman we all know and love as being the epitome of sweetness and light, one Debbie Reynolds, was, in fact, the dirties, foulest mouthed, person one could possibly imagine when she wasn't "on".  Now this is all hearsay and innuendo, and certainly not fact.  But, let's imagine that the rumors have some basis, and in fact, she was capable of, and in fact did, 'make her (men) sailors/band-members, blush with her foul-mouthed, sexually laced, bawdy parodies of this and that, one moment ... and the next moment, opens the curtain and, Voila'!  Sweetness and light.  So, what if this were, in fact, true, or even partly true.  What is to be done about it?

Shall "we" launch an investigation into the (alleged) awfulness of Debbie Reynolds?  And, if we find that some, even a little, of this is true, do we then find some lawyers to bring long stale sexual harassment suits against her Estate?  On behalf of the men who were subjected to her, alleged, foulness?  Shall we, employing 'today's standards' take away whatever honors she was given for her performances, because, allegedly, she earned these honors whilst displaying appalling sexual inappropriateness in 'mixed' company?

I don't know, to be honest.  I hope that these rumors are just that, and Debbie Reynolds was everything we see on the screen.  I do.

Because, I am still very confused and I don't want to have to retire one more thing I loved into the embarrassment bin, along with these tarnished memories from my own childhood:

My Daddy and Mama were divorced in 1959 when I was 6 years old.  So, I didn’t spend much time with my Daddy.  But, when I got older, he gave me a job working for him in his house building business -- which, of course, was then populated by foul-mouthed men.  No women working in construction in those days.

Well, one day, after my junior year in college, I guess I couldn't find a paying job anywhere else, I went to work for my Daddy over the summer.  One day -- I think on the way to lunch -- we were driving some place, and I happened to observe something using the “F-word”.  Well, you could have hung meat in the car throughout the rest of the 5 minute-that-seemed-like-5-years ride … all my Daddy did was turn and look at me, with that look of “Where on Earth did YOU come from, with a foul mouth like that?”  My Daddy was the boss/owner of a construction company, and I’m sure that wasn’t the first time he’d heard someone utter that word.  But, you know, in his entire life, I never, not once, ever heard that word, or pretty much any other swear word, come out of his mouth – and he served in the Navy as a Pharmacist’s Mate in WWII.  My Daddy, if he'd been alive and had known Harvey Weinstein, would have taken him out, I'd dare say.

This embarrassment was not, however, quite so bad, nor did it teach me quite as much as what happened a few years earlier when I had been bullied.  I was about 12-13 … and I was walking home from junior high school, and some crass, loud and foul mouthed bullies started following me, calling me names and throwing snow cones on my new London Fog jacket, inviting me to fight them.  Well, I didn't.  I just took it and walked on, and when I got home, crying, I was in the bathroom washing off my brand new jacket (this was at a time when new jackets meant something, and you did not spend $150.00 for a pair of tennis shoes), and my Mama came in, demanding to know what 'is the matter'.  Well, stupidly, I told her ... expecting the sympathy we now find everywhere for everyone who's ever suffered any of the slings and arrows of civilization ... and much to my astonishment, my Mama started yelling AT ME, asking me how could I walk away like that?  Why didn't I stand up for myself and fight???

It never occured to my Mama to go to the Principal and plead my case, or to tell me to 'tell on' the bullies.  Bullshit.  What I should have done, was stand and fight, and, as she put it, 'take your lumps', if they were bigger than you.  A 'real man' would have done that, and we know what the opposite of a 'real man' is ... not a woman, mind you, but a coward.  So, there I was, in the same day, having lost my dignity by having allowed myself to be bullied by a bunch of neanderthals, and having lost my Mama's respect for my cowardice.  Well, my Mama didn't stay mad at me for long, and I think she realized that there could have been a better way to deliver her message.

But, what I learned from these two incidents is that no one likes a foul-mouth coward.  Period.  Not when the coward is a man, and not when the coward is a woman.  And, it doesn't matter that you are being bullied, or harassed, whether in the 'ordinary' way or otherwise.  A victim gets what a victim gets.  When you refuse to be a victim, you might get beaten up, you might get snow cones thrown on you, you might be 'treated' to the disgusting antics of Harvey Weinstein.  Once.  But, what you get, from putting aside your worries about your 'bodily' or 'mortal' safety, or thoughts of 'what will this do to my career', and, instead, standing up for yourself, is what we call Personal Integrity.  By refusing to let the harassers of the world 'get away with it', because 'there is a hostile environment' in the workplace, or in Hollywood, or wherever, is a civilization and a society and a culture in which all can hold their heads up high and strive for their goals.  Oh, sure, some people will stand up for themselves, and never see the light of day.  Those people the ones we should salute.  For the ones that just allowed themselves to be victims, never saying anything for 'fear' of 'what might happen to them', those who settled their lawsuits for money?  Well, my Mama would ask them, Why didn't you stand up for yourself?  Why didn't you fight?  Why didn't you take your lumps?

Thank You Mr. King - Installment 2

     There are some (and some very smart, very 'aware') people, some with some very long tracks, who are of the opinion that Lee Harvey Oswald -- while involved -- was either a dupe or programmed; and that there was actually another shooter on the "grassy knoll" who murdered John Kennedy.  And, this may be so.  I don't know.  All I know is that when God brought home Lee Harvey Oswald, God didn't care that someone else may have had something to do with it.  Responsibility is not something that you can divide into pie pieces -- regardless of what certain legal doctrines of 'comparative' fault may say.

     To the extent that, at your 'Judgment Day', you try to deflect YOUR responsibility by pointing out (however truthfully) that it was not "all" your fault, that someone else 'did it too', and that, if it hadn't of been 'for him' (or 'her'), you would not have 'done it' ... if you don't just stand up straight as a board and say:

     "Yep, I did it.  I decided to do it.  It was my idea.  I wish I hadn't of done it."

If that is true ... never lie about what is within your heart, because every time you do, you die just a little until at some point light-years into eternity you become a solid 'rock' (for lack of a better term); you can no longer move; you can barely think; lies seems to be true; you are, for are essentially a mass of darkness -- darkness you yourself created because you turned away from the light just a few times too many.

     We have all heard about the 'laudable omission' or the 'white lie', and there are those times when avoid the bald unflattering truth is the best policy, not to mention the mortally safest route -- if a gang banger has your nuts in a vice and a gun to your head, that would not be the time to observe that he needs a Tic-Tac.  And, if your wife, or husband, ever ask you "Does this make me look fat?", the only answer you should EVER give -- and with no delay -- is "No!" ... [astonished expression] ... "Absolutely NOT!".  

     But, laudable white lies -- so-called 'social lies' -- are few and far between and about as rare as hens teeth (ok, ok, ok, Mr. King would disapprove of my vernacular, especially as I don't employ it all that good, and often mix my methaphors -- so sue me).  You've all heard the example bandied about in "situation ethics" courses all over creation of the fellow in World War II Nazi Germany who answers the door, to find the Gestapo asking him whether he's hiding any Jews?  It's always wrong to lie, right?  So, he has to tell the truth, in order to be a moral man, that, yes, he's got ten of them hidden behind that fake partition?  Right?  If the does not, he's SOOOOO respectable, the Gestapo will never question him and he'll never get caught, and the Jews will be safely out of Germany the next day.  If he does, the Gestapo will thank him for his honesty, and will immediately execute the family of 10 Jews ... right down in the street out in front so that everyone will know the evils of hiding Jews.  So, his choice is to either lie, with no chance of ever getting caught, and save the life of 10 innocent people from the criminal insane known then as the Nazi's, or to be a 'moral' man, tell the truth, have a 'clean conscience' and be causally responsible for the murder of 10 of his friends.

     THIS is one of those few and far between 'laudable' or 'white' lies.  Obviously.  And, all the 'discussion groups' that have considered some version of this apparent conundrum in college campuses across the United States, haven't got the slighest chance of 'proving' that the fellow ought to tell the truth.  Of course he shouldn't.  He'd be an asshole, with no chance of redemption, if he allowed his friends to be slaughtered by the Nazis.  

     But, in talking about personal responsibility -- the kind that gets you into Heaven (if that is where you prefer to go, instead of to the third galaxy at a vector of 28.7 degrees South of the pinnacle of Eiffel tower, for example) -- and not lying to yourself, or to others, about your crimes, transgressions and stupidities, we're talking about seeing clearly what there is to see, without agenda, without alternation, without goal.  Just seeing.  And, about not lying to yourself about what you see. Because I'll tell you a secret, which is really not secret when it comes down to it.  You can see everything.  Just like I can.  I'm just a little better at seeing trends than you are, right now.  If fact, you cannnot not see everything.  Seeing everything is built into what you are; it's the self-deceit that is not you.  So, every time you pretend that you didn't fart on your sister's birthday cake; or every time you pretend that your husband is stronger than you are, when he isn't; or every time you pretend that you didn't know that you'd hurt your wife's feelings by dismissing her worries about how fast you are driving after she asked you to slow down, you're lying to yourself and your throwing your personal responsibility down a little farther down the toilet.

     The happiest, most fulfilled, most joyous and most hungry for life among us are those who do not lie, who take responsibility for everything they perceive and who admit it when they have fucked up.  No matter how badly.  No matter how embarrassingly.  These fine folk are happy because they are not lugging around in their spiritual suitcase all of that CRAP that THEY created.  They recognized how stupidly they acted, admitted it, and it then does not hang around to bother them.  But, if they had 'overlooked' it, and 'swept it under the rug', or tried to blame in on their mothers, their husbands, their kids, their bosses, the police, Donald Trump (!!!), then, by God, until time immemorial, that lie would follow them around.

     Where are we (me at least) going with this?  Basically, no where except to note that -- if he had lived -- Lee Harvey Oswald's only salvation would have been in admitting his role in murdering John Kennedy.  And, if he happens upon God while he's floating out there somewhere in the ether, waiting to find another body, he damn well better admit his transgressions or he'll be saddled with them for some time to come.

Thank You Mr. King - Installment 1

Scott Weible

July 21, 2017

Thank You Mr. King

A Testament.

I have always seen things that others cannot.  Trends.  Facts.  Mainly consequences of the present leading into the history we are going to make.  I didn’t practice.  It - whatever it is - is not a skill.  It cannot be taught or learned.  But, it can be honed, developed.  The latter — the honing — however is pretty much just being willing to accept, believe, see.  And, you have to be willing to imagine the truth, instead of "find" it.

The first time I was acutely aware of knowing something that everyone else seemed to be unable to know, was the day that John Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas.  In front of God and everybody.  If you want to know the true definition of a ‘terrorist’, the man (or men, if you believe the conspiracy theorists) who took JFK from us was the very first terrorist.  He was even worse than Hitler.  Hitler at least played by the rules until he did not have to any more.  He played the game of pretending to be something you are not, distracting us with one hand, whilst the other hand drew out the dagger.

But, the man who killed Kennedy, and I really do think it was that fellow (I don’t remember his name, and I’m too lazy to look it up on the marvel we now call the “internet”) who had been found to be in the library building with the rifle and such (interesting, isn’t it that Kennedy’s murderer had stayed, for a time in Germany?) who murdered our President, simply rose up one day, with some kind of design in his soul and (some say) singlehandedly destroyed the world.

"Destroyed the world" is a bit dramatic, I suppose.  But, that is how it seemed to me, at 10 years old, at the time.  Sitting there on the wooden gym floor of my grade school (I think it was called Longfellow Elementary -- so named for a man (Henry Wadworth Longfellow) of letters, of accomplishment, merit and production, and not, as so many schools are named these days, for the local roads, mountain peaks, valleys, streams or, God Forbid, eventually, a corporate sponsor) listening to events unfolding, uncertainty in the voices of the news announcers (we didn't have video feeds in those days), the terror in their voices, trying to be brave adults ... I thought to myself "Oh, now it starts."

I could see what was going to happen.  Not, of course, like the modern 4K UHD cameras can see the detail of each pore and blemish on the actor's skin, illuminate all imperfections so that we do not concentrate on the story, but on the annoying and ultimately unimportant details.  More like an imprint, a trend, a world wide disintegration that would be attributed to this financial trend, and that dictator and this loss of that natural resource ... to anything but the promixate causes:  Lee Harvey Oswald & The Texas School Book Depository.UIKeyInputDownArrow

America, for since at least about 1940-something had been the model of worldly honesty, freedom and bravery.  If you ignore for a moment, anyway, the continuing, nay worsening, racial inequities.  And now, however, in an instant, on national TV, America became the model for mayhem, insurrection, (what would come to be called) terrorism and destruction.  My God.  If THIS could happen in THIS country, then nothing could be held sacred.  We're all down the chute.

And, that has come to pass.  America, from that day forward, November 22, 1963, from my 10th year, 5th month, and 20th day, has led the people of Earth into hell-fire and damnation and a future in that State of Nature which Hobbes rightly described at 'nasty, brutish and short'.  Hurried along by the internet, Steve Jobs' iSpyOnYouPhone, Bill Gates' appallingly conceived and designed "Windows" platform (whether he stole the idea from Steve Jobs, as is often repeated, is really beside the point -- the point being that Bill Gates, mirroring the irresponsibility of Lee Harvey Oswald, has led the computing humanity down the garden path of destruction, destitution and isolation by foisting upon the world a (legally defensible) distant copy of something valuable, thereby wasting our time, wasting our resources, wasting eternal mountains of energy and ingenuity in trying to use his overt product for good and productive things), and Mark Zuckerberg's sinister evisceration of humanity and decency, Facebook, America has run aground on the strength of one 'modern advance' after another ... welfare ... foodstamps ... HB-1 Visas ... "undocumenting" illegal criminal foreign aliens ... elevating the fine art of financial fraud to a high art.

You may think me too harsh in my indictments of Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg (and for that matter Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Elon Musk).  But, I'm actually being easy on them.  Instead of using their technology to put men and women of letters, of thought, of intellect, or artistic merit into the hearts and minds of the masses, these men have used the lowest possible common denominators appealing to the most stultifying amongst us, to capture and monopolize our money, our time and our souls.  We think it’s cute Alexa can render us soft, vapid and incompetent by recording our grocery list for us.

Bill Gates contributed as much to the end of the world as Lee Harvey Oswald, just in a different way.  He replaced Steve Jobs consummately valuable product with a piece of shit, apparently realizing that if he could sell his piece of shit (Windows) cheaply enough, the unwashed masses would seize upon their "savings" and ignore the fact that Gates had created a monumental waste or everyone's time and energy.

It does, absolutely does, matter what you do, and how you do it.  The ideas, borne of Lee Harvey Oswald's influence over the flower children of the 1960's and 1970's, that 'it doesn't matter what I do' ... 'it's my life and I have a right to live it as I want'.  These selfish, self-centered and ultimately ruinous reflections of the timbre of the 1940's and 1950's when the individual was sacrificed (or so it seemed) for the good of the whole, the 'free love' that went along with them, and Timothy O'Leary's "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out", are a salute and surrender to the statement made by Lee Harvey Oswald the day he murdered John Kennedy:  It doesn't matter what you do, it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter how it will affect others, and it doesn't matter what will become of me, it is my right to do any damned thing I want to do, no matter what.  No responsibility.  No sense of the future.  No understanding of what might be worthwhile outside one's own pitiful monadistic existence.

pursings

pursings (111111.1)

share with me the sweet murmuring pursings of your lips
the honest, every so slight, smile of your joys
the glowing, pulsating, immensity of your light
and the way you soooooooooo enjoy chocolate pie

knowing you as i do, i never wonder at your beauty
i never imagine life without the blessings you bring to me
i never feel as if there is something better for me
or if the birds in our yard do not love you every day

but sometimes i contemplate a fantasy in which we run away
to another place, riches over flowing, and honey dipped nights
where we can dig a luxurious garden and grow prize flowers
and lay about in the sun, snuggling and warm in the breeze

because i want to be with you where you are most yourself
where your creations persist, unless you discard them,
where the game is to create the best of everything,
rather than stop others from destroying it utterly.

oh that i keep just one simple memory of you when i go
something to warm me on even the most arctic of stations
a keepsake of the life which was worth it, worth it, worth it
and gives me the one seed i need to start again anew and live again.

Copyright Scott Weible
All Rights Reserved
November 11, 2011