Assholes 2020

I posted on Facebook about the Trump supporter, and my last blog was about bad cops.   It's time to step back and look at the bigger picture: ASSHOLES.  I'd actually covered this topic back in 2011, but at that time my focus was on Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.  This time around Donald Trump and the coronavirus are a bit more important.

This Trump supporter will be voting for Trump not despite the fact that he's an asshole, but because he's an asshole.   "Get things done?"   No.    

The men & women in the health profession risking their lives ever day.   Assholes?  No.

The scientists, the Einsteins and Teslas, making the world a better place for us.  Assholes?  No.

The Founding Fathers, who established a democracy, a Constitution, a Bill of Rights, including George Washington, who declined lifetime dictatorship and stepped aside after two terms.  Assholes?  No.

The philosophers, the thinkers, the idealists, were they assholes?  No.

How about Hitler, Stalin, Putin, Mao, etc. all those dictators?  Yes, they were all assholes.   Assholes who never took responsibility for anything, who shifted blame to everyone else and took credit for everything.  Sounds like anyone we know?

The assholes don't "get things done".  They screw things up for everyone else.   We're supposed to meekly take their word for it, to not assert ourselves, to let them do as they please.   Because THEY NEED US, but WE DON'T NEED THEM.   And they're terrified we'll realize this.  So they have to bluff and bullshit their way.  It's our job to call their bluff and tell them to fuck off.  

The US is leading the coronavirus epidemic.  We have something like 5% of the world's population but 25% of its cases.   Why?  Because ASSHOLES won't wear masks - as a matter of principle.   Because the masks don't protect us from them, they protect them from us, the ASSHOLES consider it a waste of time.  Helping anyone else is for chumps.   With anyone else in the Oval Office, they might actually have the shame to comply purely out of social pressure.   But this time around, they finally have THEIR GUY running things.   And THEIR GUY won't do jack shit to help his own country.   His position varies from "it's a HOAX to make me look bad" to "not my problem."   ???  So the President himself, our so-called leader, is encouraging his entire country to behave like assholes.   And too many of us are.   And we're paying the price.   Whether the death rate is 1% or 5%, that's 1-5 out of 100 dying because some jackoff won't wear a mask.   

Those of us who aren't assholes, aren't perfect.  We make mistakes, and not all of those mistakes are honest.   So we apologize, sincerely, take responsibility, and make amends.   And try not to do it again.  Hopefully, we'll succeed.  One thing we don't do, is behave this way consistently as a matter of principle.  That's what separates us from the ASSHOLES.   

Cartman.  The South Park character.  Can consistently be counted on to mistreat everyone and act like an asshole.  I love that meme, “who said it, Cartman or Trump?” because Trump basically acts like a grown up version of Cartman. 

UMCP Dorm Experience.  I went to the University Of Maryland, College Park, for undergraduate college, and since my parents were overseas in Paris all four years, I was on campus for that entire time.  For sophomore year and fall semester of junior year, I was in Talbot Hall.  My FS/JY roommate, ES (initials to hide identities) wanted me out so his buddy from the suite next door, DH, could come in and replace me.  At first I believed ES was the only one in the six person (three double) suite who felt that way, until I spoke with CR, who was in the end suite with BD, a friend of my buddy DB.  The middle suite had WI and CA, both from Hagerstown, MD, with whom I got along fine – or so I thought.  CR, with whom I also didn’t seem to have any overt problems, told me that himself, WI and CA all wanted me out:  BD was the exception, remaining neutral.  And CR said, we want DH in “because he’s an asshole and you aren’t.”   ???? Go figure.  Well, I moved out, and for senior year I was in a huge single in a suite with 5 other guys I got along with.  If they had a problem with me it was moot, I was out soon enough anyway.

Han Solo.  In ”The Empire Strikes Back” he realizes that Princess Leia fell in love with him, not despite the fact that he was “a scoundrel”, but BECAUSE he was “a scoundrel”.  However, he wasn’t nearly an asshole.  In the prior movie, even after admonishing Princess Leia that he expected to be paid and wasn’t in it for her rebellion, he still came back and saved Luke in his attack on the Death Star – instead of simply leaving and paying off Jabba The Hutt.  As rogueish as he was, Han was no asshole.

Ayn Rand.   Some accused her of advocating being a selfish asshole as a matter of principle, but she added an important element which assholes lack:  consistency.  First off, I’ve yet to meet anyone, asshole or otherwise, who explicitly declared that they live by her principles.   Second, her main two fictional heroes, Howard Roark (The Fountainhead) and Henry Rearden (Atlas Shrugged) are not assholes.  They forge their own destinies by their own ambition and talent, but not at anyone else’s expense.  They lack the ruthless exploitation of others which epitomizes the Asshole.

Ayn Rand herself was notoriously unlikeable and cheated on her husband, Frank O’Connor, with Nathaniel Branden, then used her own philosophy to justify her behavior.  I recall a scene in “Dirty Dancing” when a character misbehaves and throws a copy of The Fountainhead as if so say, “Ayn Rand told me this conduct is acceptable.”   My own experience is that I’ve yet to meet anyone who specifically claimed to live their life by her ideals; most said something to the effect that they tried reading her books but found them too boring to finish.  I certainly championed her views in college but never believed she advocated doing whatever you damn well please and screw everyone else, though that seems to be the way she actually behaved, and how many people, who weren’t actually familiar with her philosophy, perceived it to be.  Rational self-interest, including consistency (“do unto others as you would have done unto you”) doesn’t rise to the level of justifying being an asshole. 

Jerry.  My former boss is aggressive and forceful as an attorney, which explains his success.  But what I realized when considering him is that he didn’t screw over anyone to get to where he is.  He is about as assertive and dominant as you can be without being an asshole.   As well as many other successful people in our society who don’t behave like Trump does – arguably far more successful than him, when you closely examine his business failures in more detail with a more critical eye – it’s clear that “asshole who gets things done” is far more rare than Trump and his followers would like us to believe.  More like it being a false claim used to justify their behavior to those calculated to take their word for it.  Well, I won’t.  And if the polls are any indication, neither are a whole lot of other people. 

So this November, vote for the non-asshole, be it Joe Biden or Jo Jorgensen.   If your state or federal legislator is an asshole, vote them out of office - all the way down to county reps, mayors, and soil & water conservation whatchamacallits.   Vote a straight NON-asshole ticket.   And get rid of these jerks, the sooner the better.

Bad Cop, Bad Cop

On May 25, 2020, in the course of an arrest, Officer Derek Chauvin held suspect George Floyd to the ground so long that Floyd died.  In the aftermath of the Chauvin-Floyd Affair in Minneapolis, I’m seeing an array of responses.  I’ll get back to that in a moment, but first I’d like to clarify a few things.

I have two uncles who were NYPD.   Uncle Tom, who was the husband of my father’s twin sister Mary, served in the Navy in WWII.  He retired and passed away.   Uncle Raymond, my father’s younger brother, was a detective, and he died while we were still living in Paris, meaning no later than 1990.  Neither uncle ever expressed praise for Hitler, Mussolini, etc. and Uncle Tom was even in the US Navy on the Murmansk run, meaning he was up against the Kriegsmarine (German Navy under Nazi Germany).   So count both as non-stormtroopers.   Sadly, both passed away long before I had any chance to discuss any police issues with them.

In October 1995 my buddy Phil and I took a road trip to Flint, Michigan, to buy a 1968 Pontiac Firebird 400.  Along the way we had to take the cab from the Detroit bus station to the airport to get a rental car to go to the seller’s house in Flint.  The cab driver, of African descent, casually remarked that he had attended the Million Man March (probably upon learning we had come up from the DC area).   That march was supposed to draw attention to issues which African-American men were concerned about, which would include police brutality.

In August 2016, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem at preseason games, ostensibly to protest police brutality.  As you might imagine, this caused quite a stir. My own impression at the time ("Shut Up And Play Your Football" 9/29/17) was to argue that this was not the appropriate forum to raise the issue.   As noted below, however, if we allow the police free reign to do as they please, we're liable to wind up with fascism.  That may be important enough to justify bringing the issue to public attention by kneeling during the anthem at a football game, ostensibly a non-political context.  So put me down as reconsidering my prior position.

Of course, long before the Chauvin-Floyd incident in Minneapolis, Rodney King had the misfortune, on March 3, 1991, to be pulled over by LAPD and severely beaten, the whole matter caught on camera (the “Holliday video”).  Four LAPD officers, Briseno, Powell, Solano and Wind, were eventually charged and tried in a California state criminal court for the beating.  The jury was almost all white, and acquitted the officers, despite the video apparently showing them beating King when he was on the ground and no longer resisting arrest.  Soon after the verdicts were announced (April 29, 1992), L.A. erupted in riots.  Apparently the local population was extremely upset that these four officers were not found guilty. 

Note: there was a subsequent federal trial, at which Wind and Briseno were acquitted and Powell and Solano were found guilty and sentenced to 30 months in prison.  This was in March 1993, almost a year after the state trial and riots.  Pulling the case out of state court and into federal court was nullified in part by the US district court judge taking positions highly favorable to the police when deciding on sentencing, overturned by the Ninth Circuit (Federal appellate court) then knocked back down in part to the district court sentences by the US Supreme Court, ruling that the trial court judge had sufficient discretion to make his remarkably lenient sentencing decisions.

Suffice to say that we still have a problem with police misconduct in this country, decades after the Rodney King affair in Los Angeles. 

Most police departments are supposed to have a division called Internal Affairs, whose job it is to weed out corrupt cops or discipline cops who get out of line.  Sadly, we’re seeing IA being ineffectual most of the time, mainly because police officers refuse to testify against fellow officers even if they know the accused officers are corrupt.  Moreover, the police unions are a bit too zealous and effective in preventing IA from disciplining errant officers, so the blame might not be entirely upon reluctant comrades – if at all.  For whatever reason, the police seem to be doing a poor job of weeding out the bad cops, and the Floyds out there are paying the price.

The US is full of a wide spectrum of adherents of political beliefs, with the Republicans and Democrats generally in the center.  At the extremes are communists and anarchists on the left, and fascists and Neo-Nazis on the right.  Many extremists realize that their views are in fact, unpopular, and feel their interests are better served voting for whichever major party is closest to their values, as far away as that might be:  communists for the Democrats and Nazis and fascists for the GOP.   That doesn’t mean all Democrats are communists or all Republicans are Nazis, but there are obviously some at the extremes who would qualify.

My experience has been that, on the left side of the spectrum, communists, socialists and anarchists have no problem identifying as such as a matter of pride, and not identifying as Democrats.  That being the case, I’m more inclined to believe a Democrat if he or she denies being a socialist or a communist.

On the right side, however, this isn’t so cut and dried.  The real issue is people who appear a little too eager to make excuses for the police.

Returning to the Chauvin-Lloyd affair, I’m seeing a fair amount of posts on Facebook with the following themes.

1.     Before we canonize Floyd as a saint, we should recognize that he had a criminal record.   Uh, yeah.  This means, that as soon as you walk out of jail or prison, having served your time, the police are privileged to summarily execute you at any time, without question.  Right?   A variation on this is a snide, “how about not breaking the law?”  What happened to “innocent until proven guilty?”  Are the police judge, jury and executioners as well?  If they allege a suspect was committing a crime, do we simply take their word for it?  Are the police privileged to use lethal force on suspects committing non-capital crimes?  Moreover, we’re seeing this business of police planting drugs on innocent suspects and arresting them, even bragging to non-police about the practice.  Egregious behavior like this definitely needs to stop, effective immediately. 

2.     The following police officers [listed herein] died in the line of duty, but are not given the same publicity as Floyd.   Well, I’d imagine their deaths were properly noted and recognized in their hometown newspapers and by their communities, though nationwide we aren’t acknowledging their deaths in the line of duty.   But these were volunteers who faced violent criminals in the course of their duties as police officers.  This is normal, though we’d prefer if no police died at all.  Failing to focus national attention on them is not a conspiracy to ignore or shame them.  Another variation is a meme showing white victims of (alleged) black perpetrators, asking "did their lives matter?"  Well, so long as the alleged perpetrators have been arrested and are being prosecuted (allowing for the same due process everyone else enjoys) - and not simply released and/or ignored, I'd say the meme is dishonest and disingenuous.  

3.     The protesters committed the following acts of looting or vandalism.  No, looters or vandals committed these acts, possibly contemporaneously with a protest.  That doesn’t mean the protesters themselves did this.

The overall trend of these is to equate opponents of the ruling order as dangerous, violent criminals, and to essentially give the police an irrebuttable presumption of propriety, a blank check to do as they please without any form of accountability.  No matter how egregiously out of line the police conduct in question is, these people are determined, as a matter of principle, to somehow find some excuse to justify it.  The end result is to essentially absolve police of any misbehavior under any circumstances. 

Now, I’m sure you if asked these people how they felt about Benito Mussolini, they might give you a blank stare, and if you brought up the Austrian corporal who caused all those problems – or his infamous party with its distinctive swastika emblem – they would angrily deny any connection and resent being accused of anything close to sympathy with the Nazis.  They may well not have a single anti-Semitic bone in their body and genuinely acknowledge the Nazis as evil.   

Well, so what?  If you are going to give the police unlimited power and consider anyone remotely uncooperative as a dangerous criminal to be locked away, you are – drum roll, please? – a FASCIST.   You would be perfectly happy with a police state so long as you yourself weren’t behind bars.   You don’t want to wear a black shirt or a swastika armband, but whether you realize it or not, you fit in with these people.  If you don’t like it, maybe you should reassess your unqualified passion for law enforcement while there’s still a chance to do so – outside of a prison camp or gas chamber. 

Here's another thought.  Those of us with whiter complexions, whose ancestors came here from Europe, not Africa, voluntarily, may be inclined to dismiss the urgency of the topic as the victims of police brutality are more often black than white.  Not our problem, eh?  Not so fast.  If we wind up with a police state because us white folks were happy to let the police do whatever they wanted, sooner or later we're liable to become victims ourselves, if more likely later than sooner.  "Then they came for me..." (Thank you, Niemoller).  

Fortunately, it appears that Minneapolis is taking a hard look at the problem, and a litany of calls to defund police departments is finally shining a more serious light on this issue.  In the NFL, we’re starting to see more players come forth and acknowledge that maybe Kaepernick had a valid point to make, an issue that needs to be taken far more seriously and definitively resolved, because obviously the Rodney King beating didn’t suffice to convince us, nor did the Million Man March.   If we refuse to hold the police accountable when they step over the line, if we make excuses for them no matter how brutal and oppressive they act, we begin to look like a country perfectly willing to accept a police state, i.e. fascism.   I should think we don’t want that… right?

Comrade Detective

I gave this show a brief paragraph in my blog on Gentlemen Comrades.  That show, running two seasons, covers a pair of Moscow Militia detectives in Russia in 1918.  It seems the nascent Bolshevik police force is short of experienced detectives, so it deigns to hire a previous detective, Varaksin, highly experienced if somewhat aloof and aristocratic.  His high intelligence, affable manner, and street smart experience endear him to his Baltic Fleet sailor partner, Sokolov (“friggin’ soot!”) and his hammer & plough superior.  That is in Russian with English subtitles.  Timing wise, this was during the Russian Civil War, which doesn’t seem to be mentioned at all, nor the Great War still waging in the west until the Armistice on November 11. 

This is a completely different animal, the only common factor being the political orientation of the subject country.  What the producers of this one did was to create a fictional Romanian police drama set in Bucharest in the mid 1980s, back when Reagan was our President and Ceaucescu was running Romania into the ground.  The actors are Romanian and speak Romanian, but it’s overdubbed into English – by A-list American actors, including Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the main pair.  So far it’s only six episodes, all on Amazon Prime.

As it’s pretending to be a Romanian show during the Cold War, naturally the Ceaucescu regime is implausibly praised and everything associated with the US and the West is equally disparaged.  The US Ambassador and her subordinate are sleazy, slutty women.  Monopoly, the board game, is smuggled in – and Gregor’s imprisoned sources explain to him how the game works and its ideological significance: “to indoctrinate American children into capitalism at a young age.”  America is slagged as a country full of crime, poverty, and everyone has AIDS.  Jordache jeans cause pandemonium, and Western radio – with its degenerate rock music (far more entertaining than the propaganda and classical music the Romanian radio broadcasts) – is described as capitalist propaganda hidden in the words and music, to surreptitiously brainwash whoever listens to it.  For its part, Romania’s health care system is “the best in the world”, and its Fiat-copied national car, the Dacia, is likewise described in glowing terms despite its obvious faults.  In fact, even the police (“MILITIA”) use it.  Oh, and fascination and obsession with chess (!!!) is widespread.

The net result is a humorously cartoonist attack on the US and capitalism by a corrupt communist system which comes nowhere close to delivering on its own promises.  US citizens are free to read Marx, Engels, Lenin etc. and many colleges have brazenly leftist faculties.  But Romanian citizens were forbidden to even play Monopoly and aggressively encouraged to inform on each other to the police. 

I’ve noticed many items in our country are well made, some are not-so-well made, and some are outright ripoffs.  One place selling suits now has its suits made overseas and are not to the same standard, but are sold at the same price, as the better made suits.  So I found another place which charges less for better suits.  You do your homework and seek out the best value.  Under communism, however, you had no choices: everything was poorly made crap (except maybe the weapons).  And if you complained about it or wanted a higher wage, off to the gulag.  So yeah, capitalism has its share of fraud, deceit and bravo sierra, but as imperfect as it works out in practice, it’s still light years better than communist countries.  Anyone who has experienced communism first hand knows this.  As Reagan said, we don’t need a wall (Berlin) to keep our people IN. 

Characters (Voiced By…)

Gregor Angehl (Romanian actor: Florin Piersic Jr/English voice by Channing Tatum)

Iosif Baciu (Romanian actor: Corneliu Ulici/English voice by Joseph Gordon-Levitt)

            The main two characters (Gregor on the right above)

Captain Covaci (Romanian actor: Adrian Padruraru/English voice by Nick Offerman)

Daniel Craig, Bobby Cannavale, Kim Basinger, Debra Winger, Fred Armisen, also have voice-over roles.

Bucharest.  Back in 2006 I visited Bucharest and spent some time there.  On one hand, the romantic adventure did not end well, on the other hand I did enjoy it while it lasted, so I can’t complain too much.  My subjective impression of Bucharest is that it’s a decrepit, run down communist version of Paris, France, and even years after Ceaucescu was overthrown, the city still remained dirty and run down, though the downtown area was a bit nicer.  I can’t say what it’s like now, or what it was like back in the mid-80s.  Others who visited had a considerably more generous impression than I did.  As it was, for me the most attractive part of the city was the female companionship I enjoyed (waves at Gia across the Internet).

The show certainly reminded me of Bucharest and my brief visits, and should give viewers some idea of what the city is like, even as of 2006.

Season 2.   I don’t know yet whether we’ll see a second season, but here’s my 2 RON (Romanian currency).  Don’t set the next one in Bucharest: set it in East Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Warsaw, etc. – one of the other East Bloc capitals.  Each has its own unique charm and its “comrade detectives” can echo their respective nationalities.  Wouldn’t that be nice?  

Crossing Swords

Those of us who love South Park will be happy to know that Season 23 will be forthcoming, the sooner the better.  In the meantime, Hulu is giving us some original programming in the form of a similar animated show, 10 episodes just under 30 minutes each, of “Crossing Swords”.  It features the adventures of Patrick, a squire in a mythical/fictional village.  As a squire his job is to protect the royal family, including the impulsive and high maintenance Princess Blossom, from its own consistently poor judgment. 

The characters have spherical heads, square bodies, and despite the absence of arms, no trouble manipulating objects.  There are also mythical beasts such as fairies, goblins, and a Minotaur, to name a few.

Characters (Voiced By…).

Patrick (Nicholas Hoult).  Arguably the only normal person with anything close to a decent character, and thus – to me – the only actually sympathetic character.  I hope for his sake he becomes a knight.

Sloane (Jameela Jamil).   Patrick’s love interest, a maid in the castle.  It turns out she may well be more.

Broth (Adam Pally).  Another squire, more enthusiastic than bright.  He trips on something hallucinogenic at the music festival.

Coral (Tara Strong).  Patrick’s sister, a pirate queen.

Blarney (Tony Hale).  Patrick’s brother, a clown.  Just as cynical as Krusty.

Ruben (Adam Ray), Patrick’s other brother, a Robin Hood type – in direct competition with Robin Hood himself.

King Merriman (Luke Evans).  The King.  Kind of a jerk.

Queen Tulip (Alanna Ubach).  The Queen.  Kind of a bitch.  Also highly sexually adventurous.

Princess Blossom (Maya Erksine).  The Princess, as noted above, extremely annoying and high maintenance as a matter of principle. 

Blinkerquartz (Seth Green).  The Wizard, somewhat of an average Merlin.  He also acts as the King’s de facto advisor, marginally more savvy than the King himself.  Not sure I recall him actually doing any magic.  The magic I did see performed was by the queen’s sister. 

Glenn (Brecklin Meyer), Patrick’s father.  Not particularly good as a father, but competitive with King Merriman, to the point where a movement erupts to replace the King with Glenn.

Doreen (Wendi McLendon-Covey), Patrick’s mother.  Very similar to Queen Tulip.  In fact, it reached the point where it seemed the King and Glenn, and Queen and Doreen, were essentially copies of each other.

Guests?  Alfred Molina (Doc Oc in the recent Spider Man film) voices Robin Hood, and Natasha Lyonne voiced Norah, the Indomitable Snowwoman.  

Indulgence.  Warning, like “South Park”, the language is consistently foul.  Like “South Park”, they can get away with lots of situations which would be pornographic if done in live action.  That includes the titular “crossing swords”, intimate interaction between two male characters, fortunately not a regular occurrence.  You have to have tolerance for this kind of stuff to enjoy it, though I have to say I do, and I did enjoy it.  That included a music festival at which Blossom falls in love with an ill-fated member of a death metal band. 

Season 2 is on its way, so we can expect more.  Oh, boy!  If “The Simpsons”, “South Park”, and “Family Guy” are any indication, we may expect more celebrities to show up…..  

Boardwalk Empire

As promised, here is my review.  Although the show covers five seasons, I did not watch them all back to back (binge watching is NOT my scene), so the only segment of the show still fresh in my memory is season 5.  In addition to avoiding spoilers, this keeps the analysis brief and to the point. 

In 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act, which gave us the Eighteenth Amendment and what we now know as Prohibition, in which alcohol was banned throughout the entire United States.  It took effect on January 1, 1920.  In 1933 the Blaine Act, giving us the Twenty-First Amendment, finally repealed Prohibition, although many individual so-called “dry” counties in the US retain Prohibition.

In Atlantic City, New Jersey, according to HBO, some guy named Enoch “Nucky” Thompson (Steve Buscemi) not merely controlled liquor business coming and going – with the help of his younger brother Eli (Shea Wigham – who played Philip K. Dick himself in “Radio Free Albemuth" and is 11 days older than me) – but also branched out to business in Chicago, NYC, and even Tampa Bay, Florida.   He’s loosely based on Nucky Johnson, who held a similar position at the same time and place.  However, Johnson didn’t go nearly far as Thompson; he simply took a cut of the illegal alcohol business in Atlantic City.   By divorcing Thompson from Johnson, the producers gave themselves the leeway to expand Thompson beyond Johnson’s historical activities.

The show also features historical characters:  J. Edgar Hoover, Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, “Lucky Luciano”, Arnold Rothstein, and many other contemporary gangsters.   That being the case, watching the show we knew it would have to adhere to the facts for these characters, e.g. Rothstein dies in 1928 (off-camera), Capone is only taken down by tax evasion charges, etc.  The narrative ends in 1931, with Franklin Roosevelt promising to end Prohibition if elected, but we don’t see the Blaine Act go into effect before Season 5 ends with Episode 8. Thus with the exception of the very beginning of the show, taking place the evening of December 31, 1919, the entire span of the show is under Prohibition. 

Buscemi does an excellent job as Thompson, remaining somewhat likable throughout the entire show.  He’s periodically estranged from his wife, Margaret, and on again off again with his brother, and even with his nephew.  As gangsters go, he’s fairly astute and mostly honest, though given his line of work there’s a limit to how honorable he can be. 

There are 5 seasons, of which the first four are a mostly linear narrative.  Season 5 gives us some background of Nucky Thompson as a young man growing up in Atlantic City in the 1880s, looking after his younger brother and enduring an abusive father.  He works his way to assistant sheriff and sheriff, not quite reaching his current position by the end of the season and show.  It’s interwoven with present-day (early 1930s) Nucky traveling to Tampa Bay, Florida, and a major conflict with the federal forces, led by J. Edgar Hoover, who are becoming more aggressive at taking down the mob. 

Major (Fictional) Characters

Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi).  Very much in his element.  Usually he seems pissed off or mildly amused.

Eli Thompson (Shea Wigham).  His younger brother and inherited the job of sheriff of Atlantic City.  Although loyal, sometimes he acts resentful.  Whatever.

Margaret Thompson (Kelly MacDonald).  Nucky’s patient, smart, beautiful and attractive wife.  I liked her whenever she was on the screen.

Richard Harrow (Jack Huston).  A veteran of the AEF (US forces in WWI), he had half his face blown off and wears a mask.  He can be counted on to kill whoever needs to be killed.  His quiet nature and glasses hide his deadly effectiveness.

Nelson Van Alden (Michael Shannon).  A mistreated and abused Federal agent who eventually establishes a secret life among the gangsters.  He’s the kind of guy who can take it up to a point and then finally explodes with predictable results.  Apparently the show gave Shannon a huge boost, as I’m seeing him all around these days. 

Gilliam Darmody (Gretchen Mol).  The madam of the local brothel, formerly an extremely underage consort of the Commodore, Nucky’s prior boss who taught him all the ropes.  As a result, she looks young enough to be her son Jimmy’s sister, much less his mother.

Gyp Rosetti (Bobby Cannavale).  A hotheaded rival to Nucky in Season 3.

The Wire.  Michael Kenneth Williams, who know as Omar on “The Wire”, is Chalky White here, a black gangster in an era when blacks weren’t exactly calling the shots.  Domenick Lombardozzi, who we know as Herc on “The Wire”, plays Ralph Capone, the brother of Al Capone.   

Historical Characters:  J. Edgar Hoover, Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Arnold Rothstein, Lucky Luciano.  Whereas you’re not going to be able to predict the fate of fictional characters, a quick check on Wikipedia can tell you what will happen to the historical characters.  Again, this makes the decision to divorce Thompson from his real life equivalent much smarter.

Buscemi and the writers do a remarkable job of pushing Nucky to the extreme, how ruthless and ambitious he can be without losing our sympathy.  Of course, assorting with the real-life gangsters serves to improve his standing, relatively. 

Atlantic City, New Jersey.  I suppose a personal note would be in order herein.  Obviously, having been born in 1969, I am not in a position to comment on personal experiences in 1895 or 1920-31, but I have been there several times during my own lifetime, starting with a Jeopardy audition with my brother and followed by a few visits with Ms. Panda in more recent years.  That includes, at some point, a visit to the Taj Mahal hotel and several casinos, the beaches, and a Blake Shelton concert on the beach itself.  I prefer to keep my money in my pockets at casinos, and fortunately everyone else’s poor judgment subsidizes the prices for most everything else (though that may only be in Las Vegas).  Unlike Vegas, located in the middle of the Nevada desert (though a three hour drive from L.A.), AC at least has beaches.  Plus it’s about a 90 minute drive from the NYC area.  I find it campy and entertaining enough to visit occasionally, but I wouldn’t care to live there….

The Crimean War

Theirs not to reason why

Theirs but to do or die

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred

In 1853, England and France decided that Russia was becoming a bit too strong for their liking.  In particular, they were concerned that the Russians would invade the Balkans and capture Constantinople (now known as Istanbul) and thus be able to send their fleets worldwide year round.

In addition to various Internet sources, I watched a three part documentary on the war on Amazon Prime.

Initially the dispute was between Russia, led by Tsar Alexander II, and the Ottoman Empire, which became Turkey in 1922 – a secular republic though mostly Muslim.  For their part, the Russians (Orthodox Christians) assumed the British (Protestant) and French (Catholic) would never side with the Ottomans (Muslims) against them, only to find that the European powers were more leery of Russia gaining a naval presence in the Mediterranean than they were of religious compatibility. 

Bomarsund and Kronstadt.  The latter fortress protects St. Petersburg, for centuries the Russian capital, from enemy naval attack.  The British decided it was too strong to attack, so they attacked the former fortress and then left.  As a result, St. Petersburg was never seriously threatened during the war and remained in Russian hands.  For that matter, the Germans never succeeded at taking Leningrad during WWII, instead besieging it for three years.

The Balkans.  Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Albania, and Serbia.  These were under Ottoman control at the time.  The Russians attempted to invade what is now Romania during this time, but were repulsed by the Ottomans and their British and French allies.  One particularly interesting character was Omar Pasha, a European who converted to Islam and became one of the Ottomans’ more capable military commanders.

Sevastopol.  The Russians’ major city and port on the north shore of the Black Sea; the peninsula on which it’s located is called the Crimea.  The Allies landed here, set up a base of operations at Balaclava, and made various attempts to besiege and attack Sevastopol.  For their part, the Russians eagerly defended it, sending various relief armies to attack the British and French, with mixed results.  Eventually it fell in September 1855.

Timeline

October 5, 1853.  War breaks out between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.  The British and French send forces to Constantinople, while the Ottomans successfully defend the Balkans from a brief Russian invasion.

March 1854.  The British (PM Lord Aberdeen) and French (Napoleon III) declare war on Russia.

October 1854.  The Charge of the Light Brigade, a doomed cavalry charge against heavily fortified Russian artillery positions.

November 1854.  The Battle of Inkerman.  The British manage to defeat a Russian force sent to relieve Sevastopol.

September 1855.  After several bombardments and Allied attacks on the Russian fortifications at Malakoff and the Grand Redan, the Russians finally abandon Sevastopol, allowing the Allies to occupy it.  The British make it a point to destroy all port and shipbuilding facilities to temporarily neutralize Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

January 1856.  The Austrians finally threaten to enter the war on the Allied side, prompting the Russians to ask for peace.

March 1856.  The Treaty of Paris ends the war.

Notables

Zouaves.  The French North African troops, with their distinctive headgear and pants, acted as France’s de facto elite troops.  As the French had been in combat in Algeria off and on since 1830, they had considerable combat experience.

Inkerman.  I remember the pool in Paris.  Despite superior numbers, the Russians were unable to defeat the British forces’ technical superiority:  armed with 1853 Enfield rifles (standard issue of the Confederate Army years later) vs the Russians’ smoothbore muskets.  Rifling triples the effective range of a longarm, giving riflemen a distinct advantage over musketeers except at point blank range.

Florence Nightingale.  She did not come to Balaclava but remained at Scutari, a large Turkish barracks at Constantinople where the Allies sent most of their wounded.  She pioneered many concepts of hygiene which were almost unknown at the time.  

Sisters of Mercy.  The Russian equivalent of Florence Nightingale. 

Leo Tolstoy.  The Russian writer fought in this war and used his experiences to write War & Peace.  He looks remarkably like Dean Stockwell.

Battle Photography.  This was the first major conflict to be photographed.  The technology wouldn’t allow moving soldiers to be photographed, but posing – and immobile corpses on a battlefield – were fair game.

The Trooper.  I’m not sure if Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson or Steve Harris have ancestors who fought in the war – neither are old enough to have done so themselves, obviously – but their song “The Trooper” is a rare rock’n’roll tribute to this otherwise obscure conflict.

The war caused heavy casualties on both sides, though at this point most were caused by cholera and poor hygiene than bullets or cannonballs.  The Russians kept the Allies out of St. Petersburg, whereas the Allies kept the Russians out of Constantinople and the Balkans, making the capture of Sevastopol the only major accomplishment of the war.   

Democrats

Lately I’ve been arguing with Trump supporters more often on Facebook, possibly a waste of time, who knows.  The most annoying trait they have is labelling all Trump critics as Democrats.  When you have an obvious non-Democrat like former Trump SecDef Mattis busting on Trump, the story is “some ulterior motive”.  Right, only Trump supporters are intelligent and non-biased.  Quite the contrary.

As noted in a prior blog, of the 8 Presidential elections from 1988 to 2016 (A.D.), I voted GOP four times (GHWB x2, Dole, Romney) and LPA four times (Browne, Badnarik, Barr and Johnson).  I have never voted Democrat at any level, from dogcatcher to President.  I default to Libertarian candidates, and in their absence I default to Republicans. 

I don’t really have a major beef or problem with Democrats.  To the extent I do, it would be their preference to solve all problems with “other people’s money” (OPM) and take credit for that vicarious generosity.  Plus their ill-advised fixation on gun control, an issue which puts me in the LPA & GOP camp consistently.

PC/SJW.  The "politically correct" & "social justice warrior" crowd also gets on my nerves.  Implying that these left-liberal opinions are somehow objectively correct is itself arrogant and objectionable.  The latter term is more likely to be used as an insult by their opponents.  It's not necessarily Democrat per se, but it is definitely on their side of the spectrum.  By that I mean this business of injecting political ingredients to non-political decisions, e.g. what type of food to eat, which restaurants and businesses to patronize, etc.  Instead of buying the products you enjoy most and eating the foods you like, you have to worry about the firm's employment practices and the politics of its higher echelon, including, but not limited to, its CEO.   Keeping track of all that is a major nuisance and pain in the ass, and added to this equation is the pedantic air of superiority these people bring to this whole thing.  Mind you, the conservatives did this back in the 60s, burning Beatles records in the Deep South (obviously not in New York City or San Francisco - affected smirk) thanks to John Lennon's famous remark about his band being "bigger than Jesus" (Japan had its turn when Lennon rated a Beatles concert a more worthwhile form of entertainment than watching sumo wrestling), giving the rest of us who go to church on Sunday a bad name; no, "religious" and "intelligent" aren't mutually exclusive.  Anyhow, if there's an issue which drives moderates off to the right side of the spectrum, it's behavior like this.

Communists.  Up until 1984, the CPUSA ran its own candidates, with Gus Hall being the most recent.  During the 1930s they actually preferred FDR but ran their own candidates to avoid openly supporting FDR and therefore discrediting him among non-leftists.  Nowadays they simply default to supporting Democrats.  Of course, that doesn’t mean Democrats are communists.

The far left of the Democratic Party, formerly Paul Wellstone and currently Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, could best be described as socialist.  And by that we don’t mean “dictatorship of the proletariat” socialist, but “Denmark & Sweden” socialist.  Both of those European countries have private property, a market economy, etc. and are light years away from China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea, the remaining “communist” countries.  They’d be more accurately described as capitalist countries with substantial socialist elements.  Giving everyone free health care is going to cost a lot, and their tax rates are extremely high relative to ours, but they don’t have gulags or a secret police.   So in the unlikely event that Bernie Sanders somehow wound up as our President, with AOC as his VP, AND somehow Congress wound up controlled by Democrats both in the House and Senate, our worst case scenario is Sweden, paying $$$$ taxes but not having to worry if we get sick, as the government itself is our health insurance.  A far cry from Stalin’s Russia.

Note that the reality of both parties running in red & blue states means that red state Democrats might skew, ideologically, to the right of blue state Republicans, and vice versa.  This makes both red state Democrats and blue state Republicans (e.g. Mitt Romney and Gary Johnson) particularly viable candidates for president. 

While I’m on the topic, let me talk about some recent Democrats.

Obama.  I didn’t vote for him, choosing Bob Barr in ’08 and Mitt Romney in ’12.  But he was born in Hawaii, and his mother is American, so even if he was born in Kenya he’d still be a US citizen at birth, so this whole business of accusing him of being ineligible for being born in Kenya is colossally stupid.  I’m not thrilled with ObamaCare or this whole business of drones, but aside from those I don’t have any major problems with him and don’t consider him the Antichrist.

The Clintons.  Bill Clinton was a popular two term president.  He was impeached in his second term but not convicted.  That whole business proved to be a waste of time.  NAFTA was fine, but he banned AR15s – no big deal, as I bought mine before the ban went into effect.  Despite all the noise about “Vince Foster” and “Whitewater”, neither Bill nor Hillary wore an orange jumpsuit for those.  For that matter, despite all the noise about “Benghazi”, Hillary was acquitted by a Republican Congress.  D’oh!   I don’t know what they got away with in Arkansas, but neither do I care.   Despite vociferously hostile political forces, neither has been convicted of anything, and neither currently holds any office.  I still find them both to be considerably less slimy than the current president.

Jimmy Carter.  He’s the oldest Democrat I can remember, though I was too young to vote in 1976.  Kudos for getting Begin and Sadat to shake hands at Camp David, but he messed up the Iran hostage deal.  I can’t really say I like or hate him either way.  He does seem like an honest man, which is a huge difference vs the current occupant of the White House. 

Joe Biden.  Although he isn’t yet the official nominee, his nomination will be rubber stamped at the convention.  We’ll see who he picks as VP.  Normally I’d consider him the epitome of mediocrity, who maxed out as Obama’s VP, but seeing as Trump has set the bar so low as to be subterranean, I can’t think of Biden winning in November as a bad thing.  

He does share the dubious distinction of being a Democrat whose view on marijuana seems to date back to 1937, and even stranger, appears to be sincere.  If he does win, and the Senate flips over to the Democrats, possibly he could be persuaded to sign off on pro-MJ legislation.  That remains to be seen.  I will not be voting for him, though:  Jo Jorgenson has my vote unless Jesse Ventura runs.

Al Gore.   “A lockbox…” & petulant huff/eyeroll.  In a perfect world, Al Gore died of prostate cancer in 1994 and Frank Zappa is still alive and well, and presumably convinced to run as President due to the current occupant of the Oval Office being so colossally incompetent as to induce this man to step forward.  Alas, that’s not what happened. 

Gore had his own share of sliminess.  He got my uncle knocked out as FEMA director because the guy talked back to him at a hearing.  He went to Vietnam in a journalist unit which would not see combat, so he could say he went without risking his life; this may have been why my uncle, a combat veteran of WWII and Korea, and not big on "people skills", saw fit to be a bit direct with Mr. Gore.  He likes to take credit for authoring the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 – because it eventually resulted in the Internet - but bristles at being accused of trying to take credit for creating the Internet. 

Earlier Democrats were Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, and Franklin Roosevelt, to name a few, my favorite being Grover Cleveland.  Of these, I’ll note the following:

1.         Johnson.  My mother was his personal nurse, and I have a framed birth announcement, signed by both Lady Bird Johnson and LBJ himself, dated on my actual birthday.  LBJ was from Texas and his legacy was sending US troops to Vietnam in 1965.  Bryan Cranston, aka Walter White from “Breaking Bad”, did a great job portraying him in a recent biopic.

 

2.         John F. Kennedy deserves credit for defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis, otherwise none of us would be here today.  I was not around to experience it, but by all accounts we came perilously close to a nuclear war with the USSR.

3.         FDR I commented on earlier, on a blog about him and his cousin Theodore https://formula57l.blogspot.com/2020/02/theodore-franklin.html.

4.         I also covered Grover Cleveland in a prior blog https://formula57l.blogspot.com/2012/12/time-tothrow-another-curve-ball-at.html.

There you have it.  No demons or communists, just a bunch of guys who were fairly similar to their Republican competitors.