The Militia to the Rescue

Arrival:  Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

Toyota--the favorite vehicle of militias everywhere.


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No Fun League

The NFL is stupid.

I'm watching an NFL game.

Therefore I am stupid.




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Reality 101, Or The People Manipulated By Corporate Thieves

RP Thomas photo

The right wing has made increasing noise about the federal government owning lands, particularly in western states like Nevada and Oregon where the feds own 85% and 53% respectively. The complainers argue that government ownership infringes on American free enterprise based on private property. But federal ownership is radically different than private ownership. The feds own this land mostly because its private ownership would be tremendously unprofitable. In other words, federal ownership is a huge subsidy to private interests making profits from these lands. Federal ownership makes private profit possible. The ranchers at the heart of the Malheur conflict, for instance, lease federal grazing lands for pennies on the dollar.

The far-right militias are unknowingly doing the bidding for corporate America.  Their foolishness lies in their delusions that anything other than another takeover by the suprawealthy would transpire from their actions.

They're on the wrong side and don't even know it.

The Trumps of the world salivate when they see these puppets in boldface.

Divide et impera, as they said in the old world.


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Genesis

In the high desert of central Oregon, lies Harney County, a site of a long-festering and intense confrontation between federal officials and the militant property rights movement. Here federal Fish and Wildlife Service agents sought to fence off a wetland that had been trampled by a rancher’s cows on the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge about thirty miles south of the dust-caked town of Burns.

A 20 year-old story by Jeffrey St. Clair and James Ridgeway about the Hammonds of Harney County.  This is deep background and should be read for perspective and insider information.


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Two

They died a week apart.  One was 92, the other was 85.  A mere seven years separated them in the generation that was ravaged by World War II.  Yet they survived the calamity and thrived throughout their artistic careers.

Haskell Wexler and Vilmos Zsigmond were two of the best. The movies they shot represent defining moments in my life.  I matured amid the the tumult of the 60s and watched as they brought their artistry to the fore just as I was beginning to doubt America in the 70s.

The work of Wexler and Zsigmond helped a poor kid from the sticks of Oregon see that there was a whole lot he didn't know or understand about the world.

That was a good thing.

Their work humbled me, inspired awe and a new appreciation of cinema's inherent possibilities. Indeed, it was as if they were speaking directly to me.

Many of us boomers felt that way.  The American New Wave was our salvation as disaffiliated human beings, and these guys were no small part of the experience as they brought great art to the masses.

They were among the handful of creators who could have such profound effect on our lives.


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Deep Blues

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Insurrection

You have to give Captain Daniel Shays this: When he launched his armed sedition against lawful authority, he at least was invited in. Overnight on Saturday, in an obscure corner of the Oregon wilderness, and contrary to the law, and in defiance of democratic authority, both federal and local, another act of armed sedition was committed. It seems to me that this ought to be a bigger story than, say, the belated prosecution of Bill Cosby, or whatever most recently came out of the mouth of the vulgar talking yam. In a small place in Oregon, the essential compact of the United States of America has come apart.

Esquire joins the fray.


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Snow

It's snowing here.  An inch, two?

Be a good time to take a walk.





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Ugh...No Depth

That Oregon football game last night made a lot of people sick.

However, it merely made me queasy.  I asked for excitement.  I got that and a dose of disillusionment.

I've never seen anything quite like it, except that time in the early '90s at Cal when the Ducks blew a 33-0 halftime lead and lost.

But even that wasn't as ugly as this mess.  It is as if Oregon took great care to lose.  One false move and they could have shocked people and pulled off an upset.

Last night was a perfect storm of ineptitude across the board.  You could see it coming from the moment a knocked-out Vernon Adams dropped like a dead body to the Alamodome turf.  There was simply too much past evidence of the team's problems rearing up without the gifted EWU transfer.

The players quit.  The defense grew tired.  Even the coaches figured they couldn't win without VA, so they stopped coaching.

I haven't seen a team lose interest in the proceedings that fast since my own high school teams used to go out weekly and lose 60-0.

Oregon has issues, but I think they can be resolved and the team ought to bounce back next year.

Or maybe, despite my gloom, I'm just an optimist.

Helfrich will probably seek out a new defensive coordinator.  If he doesn't he'll be jeopardizing his own coaching future.

But really, it's a good thing this season is finally over.  Everybody, including the team's harshest critics, would be wise to take a break.

There really is no need to get nasty.  Save that shit for the politicians.

PAC basketball starts today when Oregon plays OSU at 4 p.m.


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Ho Hum...

In hindsight, a number of the lesser games this long, long bowl season were more entertaining than the much-anticipated biggies that are winding down today.

Michigan State had no business being on the same field as Alabama yesterday in one playoff game. Today, Iowa is getting curb stomped by Stanford.  Ohio State and Michigan both killed it today and drubbed the opposition.

You see, I don't care who wins these ridiculous games, I just want to see a good contest that goes to the wire and creates some faux excitement.

With any luck, the Oregon/TCU game tomorrow will be a close barn burner, with the Ducks pulling it out on the final drive.

The CFP title game is on the 11th.  Do you think they're giving it enough hype-time?


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FWIW

Truthdig's books of the year.











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Wag: The Boykin Effect

When in Texas do as Texans do. Brawl in the bar.

He'll play, because this is Texas after all and normative.

Helfrich would have sent him home with a sack lunch.  Boykin's coach Gary Patterson is of a sleek Texas breed, old school, and this won't matter.

Sure have been a lot of kids sent home from bowls early this year.

Clemson has sent three home.

Update:  I guessed wrong.  The kid has been suspended and won't play.


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Winter

As I suspected would happen, I've caught mere snatches of the bowl action to date.  It's all good. I'm looking forward to the weekend when the top teams play.

There ought to be a better playoff system, but short of that I like the games and the matchups that are set now.

Another year in the can.  I'm about to turn 65.  Doesn't seem possible. Damn...

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Don't Get Sick

I visited the hospital ER today, and do believe I managed to annoy every nurse in the place by the end of the session.

They seemed all too pleased to see me leave.  They were nice and efficient to begin with, but it didn't last.  I know they got very busy around me.  I entered a nearly empty room, and then got lost in the shuffle as some seriously sick people arrived and the triage grew heavy.  I watched football and waited.

And waited.

There's a lot of stress in nursing, but by my usual standards I felt I was pretty mild with the situation this time.  I think I asked too many questions, made too many requests.

They essentially sent me home with a tube of medicine and said don't come back here.  The dermatologist I visited last week went on vacation Christmas Eve and is gone through the New Year's holiday.

Thanks for the warning, pal.  What happened to a followup?  If there is a rather too-late and untimely one down the road it'll cost me too much cash.  My insurance won't cover back-to-back visits to a dermatologist, which shouldn't have surprised me, I guess.

This is the American health care industry we're discussing here after all.  One, two, three.  Everybody get rich.  Four, five, six. Everybody else, get fucked.

I should have read the fine print.

The nightmare continues...


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Christmas, Or Just Another Day

It's just another day, a long and sluggish one at that.  It might have been a lot better if I could have traveled out to Minnesota to see my daughter and her family.

Her boy is 7, which is a good Christmas age, and it would have been cool to see him light up as he opened a few gifts.  Christmas is for kids.  All of us jaded elders can appreciate the day for gathering and swapping tales, but really it's for the innocents.

I'm not a Christian, but I have nothing against the holiday--except for its tedium.  I'm not a Christian but I'm all for goodwill and peace on Earth.

Too bad that's such an illusion overall.  One day of it annually isn't going to change anything.

When I was a kid I coveted a Lionel train set for Christmas the way the kid in the popular movie coveted a Red Ryder.

It worked out and I received a nice set, basic really with just a few landscape pieces to give it a little bump. It was solid and well made. I enjoyed that train during the long, housebound winter months in my home town.

I think my mother donated the set after I became bored with it a few years later.  After I graduated from high school my mom sold the shack we lived in and moved into town. Maybe she included the train set in the sale, if she didn't give it away outright.

Naturally I wish I'd kept it.  It really was a nice toy, and there's money in old toys today I hear.

But if I did have it I might not sell it.  I might set it up in my studio in a figure-8 and watch it roll with the same pleasure I did when I was a kid.

You could press an auxiliary switch and the dang thing would toot like a real train.

This winter, like all the others, will drag slowly on.

Merry Christmas to all.


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