Monthly Archives: August 2019

WENDELL’S WISDOM

by John Walters | 3 Comments

Now batting for JW, Wendell Barnhouse (“Now batting for Manny Mota, Pedro Borbon”…a funny joke from Airplane! even though Borbon was a pitcher and would have never pinch-hit for Mota), with some words on this weekend’s assault to the senses.

by Wendell Barnhouse

Truth. Justice. The American Way. Remember that? Sound familiar? Anyone? Bueller? Yeah, those were the good old days, huh?

One week after 31 people were killed in two mass shootings, the death of one man Saturday further rendered what this country once stood for. Perhaps most citizens had not paid much attention to Jeffery Epstein’s sordid story. The batshit crazy news cycle requires full attention and its twists and turns can be confusing and exhausting; trust me on that.

Epstein was a billionaire, but nobody knows where or how he got his money. He received a sweetheart deal in 2007 for being a pedophile who peddled underage girls for sex. That should have landed him in prison for life. He was arrested just over a month ago after returning from France on his private jet. This time, the charges were similar, but the outcome figured to be far different. 

A Pulitzer-worthy investigative story, mostly reported by Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald, had uncovered more victims, more evidence and exposed his previous “sentence” as a sham.  Epstein allegedly had pimped young girls to his rich and powerful friends.

Saturday, three weeks after a possible suicide attempt, Epstein was found dead in his cell. (Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.)

Epstein was being held at Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York City, a Federal facility. Reports are that he was not on suicide watch. If he indeed hung himself, how did he do the deed? Were there cameras monitoring his cell?

Dead men tell no tales. Many of the secrets of Epstein’s relationships went with him. Perhaps it was a pipe dream that he would have testified and sold out the rich and powerful men who possibly shared and benefitted from his perverse lifestyle. 

Reports are that Attorney General William Barr is angry. He has ordered an investigation, declaring in a press release that he “was appalled to learn that Jeffrey Epstein was found dead early this morning from an apparent suicide while in federal custody. Mr. Epstein’s death raises serious questions that must be answered.”

And Captain Renault was “shocked, shocked” to find gambling going on at Rick’s.

Epstein, who in his early 20s and with no college degree, was hired to teach math at an exclusive private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Dalton Prep. The man who hired him was William Barr’s father. Coincidence? The federal prosecutor who signed off on Epstein’s deal was Alexander Acosta. With no background in the field, Acosta was appointed as Labor Secretary by Donald Trump. Coincidence? Again?

Perhaps. But even those with a passing interest can research and find that Epstein was like Zelig when it comes to coincidences. He was seemingly everywhere with everybody.

Let’s pause and consider the darkest side of the Epstein Affair. 

He didn’t hang with merely athletes or stars. His acquaintances were the crème de la crème. Names like Bill Clinton, Prince William, Alan Dershowitz along with several politicians are thought to have partied with Epstein and his squad of underage girls. Clinton, for one, is thought to be a philanderer. But the thought that he and other rich and powerful men not only cheated on their wives they did so with girls who could be their granddaughters is vomit-inducing.

The news of Epstein’s death probably shouldn’t have been a surprise. He was a dead man walking once he was arrested. But speculation that he would die before trial has now been replaced by conspiracy theories. In particular, the Far Right has fomented the theory that the Clintons – aka Murder Inc. – made the suicide happen. After all, remember Vince Foster and Seth Rich? (If the Clintons are so nefarious, how the hell did Hillary lose to that idiot Trump? … Oh, right. Three million more votes.)

Speaking of Donald John Trump, he was once best bros with Epstein. Upon Epstein’s arrest, Trump immediately distanced himself from the perp. However, at least one of Epstein’s harem accuses our 45th President of raping her, when she was 13, at an Epstein-hosted orgy in 1994.

The Twitter-in-Chief, spending the weekend in the Hamptons telling racist jokes at $250,000-a-plate fund raisers, had time to use his stubby fingers to retweet to his 63 million followers a Tweet by an “actor, comedian, commentator” promoting the “Clinton Conspiracy.”

So, there’s the alleged leader of the Free World (another term headed for the dustbin) amplifying the theory that the Clintons had Epstein killed. As David Frum of The Atlantic wrote Saturday, What if Richard Nixon, once he was elected President, had accused Lyndon Johnson of masterminding JFK’s assassination?

Our system elected a President who averages about 10 lies a day and has committed a laundry list of alleged crimes; the use of “alleged” is a journalistic practice however it seems obscene to give a venal, narcissistic con man the courtesy.

If the system doesn’t self-correct and Trump is never convicted, does our democracy, our rule of law matter? Trump losing in 2020 would be the “voice of the people” but justice would not be served.

We’ve been told “the truth shall set you free” and to “have faith.” Truth and faith are in short supply. Your Humble Correspondent’s generation has lived with JFK’s assassination and the grassy knoll, Vietnam (and a lying government}, Watergate, Iran-Contra, a presidential election decided by hanging chads, 9/11 and Iraq/Afghanistan (and a lying government).

Now, we have the highly suspicious death of a man whose testimony might have incriminated dozens of men in whom we placed our trust and faith. 

William Barr oversees the Department of Justice, but will he allow a full investigation of Epstein’s death? So far, Barr has acted like Trump’s consigliere, not the lawyer representing America’s citizens. If Epstein were murdered, no doubt the conspirators have made sure the tracks are covered and the evidence destroyed. 

Perhaps it was a “clerical error” that removed Epstein from suicide watch. Maybe there is/was a malfunction that blacked out the video surveillance at the time he killed himself. Nothing to see here, citizens. Move along. 

Disgusted that men with money and power (allegedly) decided it was okay to have sex with girls? If you’ve been paying attention for the last 50 years, why are you surprised that your disgust is duly noted while the perverts board another private jet?

Truth. Justice. The American Way. Those were words credited to/uttered by Superman. Silly us thinking a comic book character with superpowers was aspirational.

****

Postscript, editor’s note: We’ll have more on this tomorrow. The timing of Epstein’s death, during the slowest news hours of the week, and shortly after both a giant document dump less than 24 hours earlier the big Trump fundraiser in the Hamptons Friday night, is curious but it may be just another coincidence. We’d not be surprised if Epstein wanted to take his own life and we’d not be surprised if a few employees at the MCC were paid off to not do their jobs for an hour or two or however long it took.

Whatever happened, this was the most important inmate awaiting trial in America, in a federal prison, being neglected in one way or another. And as a federal prison it falls under William Barr’s purview, which means the buck stops there. So, for the umpteenth time, imagine if this had happened under the Obama administration and just how nasty Fox News would have gotten over their incompetence and/or corruption. Instead, you have Kellyanne appearing with Bill Hemmer on Sunday mansplaining why Trump’s tweet was responsible because he just wants everything to be investigated. Shameless.


IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

We had a brief and beautiful thunderstorm in Gotham City last night, shortly before 8 p.m. I was happily pedaling my bicycle in Central Park when it hit and took cover at the Boathouse Cafe.

Starting Five

Bo Peeps*

*The judges will lukewarmly accept Doubles Your Pleasure.

Rule No. 7 states that “the beauty of baseball is that every game offers a chance to see something that’s never happened before.” Case in point, Yankees at Blue Jays last night. Rookie Bo Bichette, playing in only his 11th career game—and his first in Toronto—became the first player in the modern era (since 1900) to hit a double in nine straight games.

Bichette, the progeny of four-time All-Star and mullet hall-of-famer Dante Bichette, also has an 11-game hitting streak to begin his career. Aaaaand, he’s the first rookie to have an extra-base hit in nine straight games in 80 years, dating back to 1939.

The last guy to do it? Ted Williams.

Bichette, 21 years of age, is batting .408 in his young career.

Soul-less Cycle

Here’s the thing, Libs: If you’re so disgusted by Stephen Ross hosting a fundraiser for Donald Trump that you’re threatening to boycott a business where you pay $42 to ride a stationary bike for 45 minutes, I think you’re kind of making Middle America’s point for them. And that is, you’re a booshie elitist twit.

Last week, on absolutely sublime summer day in Montauk, I pedaled past a gaggle of people who had been bussed over (in a mini-van, presumably from the local resort, Gurney’s, though I’m not sure) who were marching into a SoulCycle. To ride bicycles indoors. On the most loveliest day of the summer. And they were paying an exorbitant price for the privilege.

The only thing that would’ve made this moment better is if behind these people I saw Tom Sawyer persuading his friends to paint a fence.

So if you want to boycott SoulCycle, go right ahead. Meanwhile, why are you patronizing them in the first place? It’s not the workout; it’s the brand. It’s the same reason you pay three times as much for Starbucks coffee when McDonald’s is actually better and only $1.

The Man Without Empathy

The president came to El Paso, where four days earlier 22 people, nearly all of Mexican heritage, were gunned down by an avowed white supremacist. According to a hospital spokesman at one of the two hospitals where patients recovering from bullet wounds were being treated, “None of the eight patients still being treated at University Medical Center in El Paso agreed to meet with Trump when he visited the hospital.”

So someone within the administration asked if the president and first lady might pose with the baby who was orphaned in the massacre, as both his parents were shot dead while attempting to shield the baby (This is so awful I’m not even Veep would have used this as a plot point). So they actually had to drive the baby over to the hospital, where this photo was taken. Notice that the president is both smiling and giving a thumbs up sign (above).

As CNN’s Anderson Cooper noted, “Even pretending to care was too much for Trump.”

On Air Force One, during the El Paso trip, the president flashed the white supremacy sign. He’ got your back, Tucker Carlson.

I don’t mean this in an angry, temper-tantrum way, but rather as a clinical diagnosis: I’m firmly convinced that Donald Trump is a creature without empathy. He lacks the capacity. There is an emptiness where a soul should be.

Does Trump love anything? He loves Donald Trump.

But outside of that?

His wives have been nothing more than sexual acquisitions, like new sports cars that you tire of after a few years and if you’re rich enough, you buy a different model with a sportier chassis. His kids? He comes closest to adoring Ivanka, but even then openly ruminates about the idea that he would’ve dated her if circumstances were different (life can’t always be the way it was on Jeffrey Epstein’s island).

Joe Biden, who said something very, very stupid on Wednesday (more below), did say something very insightful the day before: “His low-energy, vacant-eyed mouthing of the words written for him condemning white supremacists this week I don’t believe fooled anyone, at home or abroad.”

Trump can sound empathetic when the words are written for him on a Tele-prompter. And he can act as if he’s listening with empathy, occasionally, as he did during the Parkland shootings White House confab with families who were impacted. But what most interests Donald Trump are the interests of Donald Trump. He can pretend to listen like he cares, but notice how he perks up as soon as someone begins talking about him. After all, Donald Trump is Donald Trump’s favorite subject.

But beyond that, is an absence of empathy a form of mental illness. Look, the White House forbade press from accompanying the press to the hospitals in Dayton and El Paso. Every photo produced from those visits was released by the White House. And it shows a president grinning from ear to ear, or putting a thumbs up, as if he’s doing a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a Ford dealership opening. And of course, in his mind, none of this is even remotely his fault.

I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever come across another high-profile American (only Douglas MacArthur comes to mind) who is so oblivious to the pain or suffering or anxiety of others and so casually negligent in how his actions impact them.

Donald Trump went on a unify-the-country pilgrimage on Tuesday and instead made someone drive a recently orphaned child back to the hospital it was discharged from just so he could SMILE and give a THUMBS UP as his wife held the orphan. In a quadrennial of What The F___? moments dating back to June of 2015 when he announced, this one must definitely make the coffee table book. It’s evil.

Love Field

Imagine how it must have felt to be Bryan Knight yesterday. Fifty-two years ago Bryan was a five year-old who said goodbye to his, father, Roy, as he left for duty in the Vietnam War. Major Roy Knight was an Air Force pilot.

On May 19, 1967 Roy Knight’s plane was shot down during a mission over northern Laos (not Vietnam, but let’s not get into that now). Knight, 36, was declared missing in action. Though his remains were never found, he was finally declared dead in 1974. Flash forward 45 years to 2019, as government officials inform Bryan Knight that his father’s remains were identified.

Roy Knight was just 36 when he died in action

And so more than half a century later, Roy Knight’s remains are flown back to Love Field. And the man piloting the Southwest Airlines flight who returned them was…Bryan Knight.

That’s the kind of story that Paul Harvey needs to be reincarnated for, just for five minutes, just to share it the way only Paul Harvey could.

Say It Ain’t So, Joe

Democratic frontrunner—for now—Joe Biden, speaking at the Iowa State Fair yesterday, was trying to be inclusive when he said, “Poor kids are just as bright and talented as white kids.”

Oh, Joe. The difficult part of this is that Biden did not mean it in a malicious sense. Rather, it’s a window to his subconscious and let’s face it, many of ours. It’s like that old riddle where you are told a physician and his son get in a car crash and the physician dies. The son is taken to the emergency room where the doctor takes one look at him and says, “I can’t operate on this boy; he’s my son.”

And many of us were stumped the first time we heard that one. So, yeah, Biden is 76 and white and while he didn’t mean anything by it, it’s great fodder for those elements who want to illuminate the fact that he’s just another old white dinosaur.

Now if only Biden had said, “Poor kids are just as bright and talented as Indian kids,” that would have been much better.

Music 101

Helter Skelter

The reason Vincent Bugliosi, the assistant D.A. who prosecuted the Manson Family, titled his book after this cacophonic Beatles song was that Charles Manson thought the white album was the Beatles speaking directly to him, inciting him to start a race war (the idea was that the murders would be blamed on black Americans). Today is the 50th anniversary of the morning the police found the bodies on the lawn and in the house at 10050 Cielo Drive. As you may know, a house caretaker who had his own cabin out back slept through the entire massacre and was woken up by some angry and anxious cops on this morning 50 years ago.

Remote Patrol

Saturday

West Side Story

10 p.m. TCM

Reader take note: this film does not air tonight (tonight), but tomorrow night.

To those people who say they don’t like musicals, watch this one. An updated and musical version of Romeo & Juliet, taking place in my future neighborhood. The 1961 film, adapted from a play that did NOT win the Tony Award for Best Musical (The Music Man did; tough company), would win 10 Oscars, including Best Picture. All were richly deserved.

It’s funny to think, nearly 60 years later, that I now work with a lot more Bernardos than I do Tony’s. And I love them.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet Me Right

“Back and to the left…back and to the left…”

Starting Five

Manitoba Manhunt: Over

The RCMP reported finding two bodies yesterday in dense brush about 8 kilometers north of Gillam. They said that they are “confident” that the two corpses are the two teen murder suspects.

No word on the condition of the bodies or how they might have expired.

The RCMP got their break when Clint Sawchuk, owner of Nelson River Adventures, reported seeing a sleeping bag caught in willows along the river’s edge. That led to an RCMP helicopter searching the area and finding the boat and personal items, and soon after the bodies were discovered.

An autopsy is planned in Winnipeg.

Manson Murders: 50 Years Later

It was 50 years ago today that Los Angeles police responded to a call at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon and discovered five bodies, all victims of a gruesome murder spree. Actress Sharon Tate, 8 1/2 months pregnant, and four others had been brutally stabbed and/or beaten to death.

Tate was stabbed 16 times. Coffee heiress Abigail Folger (above), 28 times. Folger’s boyfriend, Voytek Frykowski, 51 times. We’ve not seen Tarantino’s new film. We have seen Helter Skelter and other documentaries about the Manson Family. As far as American crimes go (should we qualify this with “pre-mass shooting age?”), this is among the very worst since there was no real motive. At best one could say Charles Manson was exacting revenge on music producer Terry Melcher for snubbing him, but even Manson knew that Melcher was no longer living at that home when he ordered four of his followers to carry out the killings.

Worth noting: Tate’s younger sister wanted to come over and spend the night but Sharon canceled that plan at the last minute. Music producer Quincy Jones also had planned to visit that evening but opted out.

Photo Op Prez

President Trump visited Dayton and El Paso yesterday, and he was all smiles, as you’d expect the president to be while visiting two sites of mass murder over the weekend. His director of social media, Dan Scavino, reported that he was treated “like a rock star.”

You may also note that the president never acknowledged that Mexicans or Mexican-Americans were the specific target in El Paso, or that the killer’s manifesto drew inspiration from the president’s own words…but he did find time on Tuesday for a phone call with NRA president Wayne LaPierre.

“People Will Come”

Just announced: The Yankees and White Sox will play a home game at the Field of Dreams site in Iowa on August 13, 2020. Construction of an 8,000-seat venue is set to begin Monday, exactly one year before the game is to take place.

(Throw in snarky joke about how tariffs and global warming have made arable farmland obsolete, anyway, so why not build a baseball field?). You have to imagine that Kevin Costner will show up, but what about Timothy Busfield and James Earl Jones and Ray Liotta and Amy Madigan and Gaby Hoffman (the young daughter)? Burt Lancaster can’t, of course.

Liotta was perfect as Shoeless Joe, yet was not even nominated for an Oscar. And FoD lost out to Driving Miss Daisy for Best Picture.

This is an inspired idea (which many of us have pitched over the years, by the way, almost from immediately after seeing the film for the first time), particularly because the White Sox are attached to Shoeless Joe Jackson who gets some wonderful play in the film (Liotta was so on fire at the time, with this role and then Goodfellas in consecutive years). One imagines that MLB will schedule one game per year here moving forward.

Now, if MLB is serious about attracting European fans, it needs to schedule at least one matinee game every day of the season so that fans in Europe don’t have to watch games that begin at midnight or later local time.

Biblio Files: The Rules of Civility

Our favorite read of 2018 was A Gentleman In Moscow, written by Amor Towles. The author, 55, worked at an investment firm from 1991-2012, but he had graduated from Yale and gotten a Masters in English from Stanford as a young man.

When I began raving about A Gentleman last year, a cousin of mine opined that she actually preferred his first novel, from 2011, Rules of Civility. What a rube, I thought (!), but last week I finally decided to pick up Rules and you know what? Four nights later I was finished.

And she may be right.

Highly recommended, and Towles is now my favorite author who’s written any fiction post-20th century. There are poignant moments in Rules, a story that will be embraced by anyone who has ever been young and making a go of it in New York City, but there were also a few laugh-out-loud moments delivered courtesy of our heroine, Katey Kontent.

We hope you pick this one up. It’s our favorite read of 2019.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

“Chernobyl 2: Siberian Boogaloo”

Anyone else notice how the most damage the USA and Russia ever do is to themselves?

The execs at HBO must be thrilled. Now we just need a body count and we have to find out if Jared Harris’ schedule can be cleared for the coming year.

Will A Running Back Who’s A Sitting Back Be Welcome Back?

Dallas Cowboy running back Ezekiel Elliott has threatened to pull a Le’Veon Bell and sit out the entire season unless Jerry Jones gives him a new deal. Time was when only Urban Meyer had the power to irrationally squander Zeke’s obvious talent and not deploy him. Now the former Buckeye back and two-time Pro Bowler is doing it to himself.

Maybe he just doesn’t want to partake in August training camp. We could understand that.

In three seasons Zeke has earned more than $13 million while rushing for more than 4,000 yards. All well and good, but if he were to sit this season he’d still be under the Cowboys’ employ at the start of next season. So is he willing to sit two seasons? Prolly not. If it’s a bluff in the land where Texas Hold ‘Em began, both Zeke and Jerry know who’s holding the superior hand.

New York, New York

The Yankees have won seven in a row, but the Mets have won 12 of 13. The Citi Fielders are now two games over .500 and better yet are one of eight National League teams within five games of a wildcard berth. And our friend Matt Zemek claimed the 2019 season was boring!

The Yanks, by the way, are tied with Los Angeles Dodgers for baseball’s best record (.655) and last night hit six solo home runs at Camden Yards. The Yanks have become the first team to hit at least five home runs in four different games at the same opponent’s park in one season (Baltimore), have set a record for most home runs hit at one opposing ballpark (38, Camden Yards) in one season, and tonight will likely break the mark for most home runs hit by one team versus another (currently 48, they’re at 47) in one season.

Maine Attraction

That’s Nubble Island, for which there’s an even more arresting photo if you just type “bing.com” on your browser this morning. It’s located just about 100 yards off the tip of Cape Neddick, Maine, which is only a few miles north of the Maine-Massachusetts border.

August is the month everyone travels to Maine. Even Phil Mickelson. It truly is a beautiful and unique state when the temps are above 70 and the sun’s out.

Manitoba Manhunt: ?

The Nelson River

The RCMP have found an aluminum boat on the shores of the Nelson River that looks the worse for wear. And they’ve found what they say are a few items that belonged to McLeod and Schmegelsky, who are both now 19 if they are still alive. And yes, the RCMP is probably hopeful that both men drowned on an ill-fated voyage along the river.

But here’s the thing: they just don’t know.

What we do know is that the two teens, who are suspected of murdering three people in mid-July, crossed four Canadian provinces and at least 1,200 miles in four days back in the third week of July. Now, nearly three weeks later, no one has spotted them since.

Says Canadian Terry Grant, a cowboy known as “Mantracker,” ““I’m half thinking they met someone in a big town … and they’re long gone to Texas or the Bahamas.” Sure, this article from The National Post is sensationalist in nature, but it’s rooted in truth.

The RCMP seems to be at the point where they themselves know that continuing to search near Gillam is fruitless and that enough time has passed that the two young murder suspects could be just about anywhere a vehicle could take them. That includes the USA or Mexico. Until they show themselves or are spotted by someone who remembers what they look like and that THEY’RE BOTH 6’4″, this trail will remain cold.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 2 Comments

by John Walters

Blood Harvest

I’ll just throw out a few thoughts on El Paso and Dayton (Gilroy, we hardly knew ya’, but you gotta do better than three dead to garner and MSNBC “Nation In Crisis” special these days):

–Ignorance leads to Fear.

Fear leads to Anger.

Anger leads to Violence.

Education is the first step in combating this crisis. Curious, isn’t it, how this administration assails education and promotes “security,” i.e. the military and law enforcement?

–Under Donald Trump, this is not the USA. This is the USAndthem. From his presidential declaration (“many of them are rapists”) to the Mexican judge to “shithole countries” to “fine people on both sides” to “go back” to “an invasion” to “infestation,” he has, wittingly or unwittingly, appointed himself the face of White Supremacy.

This weekend, and not for the first time during his presidency, a mass murder took place under his name. Males, always males and almost always white, are killing innocent people who are not white or not Christian to align themselves to a movement greater than themselves. And Donald Trump is their leader, by the way he speaks in public.

The particulars between Trump and Osama bin Laden, between ISIS and White Supremacists, are different. The fundamentals are the same.

–This morning on MSNBC I heard talking faces seriously discussing a list of things to do to prevent more mass shootings, everything from background checks to more mental health awareness to restricting violent video games. Nobody mentioned the simplest answer: Love.

The values of this administration are “America First” and “Be Best.” There is no, as Jimmy Stewart’s Jefferson Smith intoned in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (a timely classic, 80 years later), “a little looking out for the other guy.” There is only fear and anger and xenophobia.

What does Donald Trump preach? Make money and do whatever you have to do to win. Screw the other guy, and screw playing fair. He’s that ugly Vic Morrow character from The Bad News Bears, the coach of the Yankees. We used to laugh at or treat with derision such jerks and bullies. Now we elect them president.

https://twitter.com/jdubs88/status/1158379567809273857?s=20

–Love won’t stop a bullet. I get it. But love is what’s missing when President Trump criticizes Baltimore, or calls Mexicans rapists, or tells Congresswomen of color “to go back.” Only a day before El Paso Trump got on Twitter and taunted a longstanding black Congressman, Elijah Cummings of Baltimore, for having had his house robbed.

–It’s not just the guns, the magazine capacity or semi-automatic/assault rifle potential. It’s WHO we are as a nation, and who we have become. This tweet illustrates that.

–On Sunday morning I tuned into all three cable news networks at around 10 a.m. CNN and MSNBC had wall-to-wall El Paso and Dayton coverage. Fox News had some milquetoast male anchor I’d never seen talking to a female about “Democratic presidential hopefuls” followed by a segment focusing on how Bill Maher had said on his program two nights earlier that he was “hoping for a recession.”

–Over the weekend in El Paso and Dayton 31 innocent people were murdered by two gunmen. You’d have to go back from this weekend to November of 1991 (nearly 28 years) to amass the same body count in the U.S.A. due to sharks. Kind of takes the bite out of Shark Week, does it not?

–Since 1949 there have been two dozen mass shootings in which at least 11 people were killed, including El Paso. In all but one of the 24 mass shootings, a lone male gunman was the perpetrator. Only in the San Bernadino massacre of 2015—14 dead—did a female take part, and only as an accomplice. Most of these gunmen were also white. And this does not include Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people using bombs on one day.

It’s funny. Women have to fight for control over their own bodies. Men are allowed to own profligate killing machines and damn anyone who tries to pry that gun out of his hands.

–On Halloween afternoon, 2017, an Uzbeki national got into a truck, drove it onto the Hudson River bike path, and mowed down eight cyclists/pedestrians/runners. Today, every intersection on that path from the tip of Manhattan up to 59th Street, about a five-mile stretch, has metal beams that prevent vehicles from driving onto it (except for E-bikes and scooters that travel at speeds of 35 mph and terrorize the rest of us, but that’s another issue for another blog). And he only murdered eight people. To think that if only he’d have shot those eight people to death with a high-capacity assault rifle, no changes to the bike path (or to our lives and safety) would have been made.

–I was thinking of this very thought below as I listened to Rick Santorum mansplain for the umpteenth time on CNN on Sunday morning why more stringent gun laws would not have stopped the latest mass murder. It’s an idea that needs to be put to use:

–Seriously, WTF here? He’s sniffing up a storm and he’s READING FROM A TELEPROMPTER and he still gets the name of the city wrong?

Trump has made similar errors so often when it comes to misfortune befalling anyone who is not white that it’s not entirely crazy to assume this is code from Stephen Miller to his neo-Nazi base, as if to say, “Don’t worry, he doesn’t really mean what he’s saying here. It’s just what he has to do to make this go away faster. But here’s this little Easter Egg, by way of a blatant misstatement, to remind you that we’re on your side.”

Either that or this president is just unfathomably clueless and stupid. These are the kind of shameful, unforced errors Fox News would have stabbed Obama with for the next year of his presidency. Too bad he never made them.

–Stick To Sports? Okay. When was the last time a starting nine in baseball, or a starting 11 on offense or defense in the NFL, or on a Top 25 college football team, much less a starting five in the NBA, was all white? I cannot think of one, but I imagine you’d have to travel back in time at least 50 years.

White Supremacy is a myth. As is White Decency. If you read your history, you know that just one generation after landing in Plymouth (the Pilgrims first went ashore on Cape Cod but that doesn’t get much historical play), the sons of those Pilgrims were waging war against the Native Americans and driving them out of Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts, off of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

Only 40 years after the Pilgrims arrived seeking, what was that again, freedom to pursue their religious beliefs, three people were hanged in public in Boston Common for defying a law that banned Quakers from Massachusetts Bay Colony. They were literally executed for pursuing their own religious beliefs, which was supposedly the reason the Puritans (Pilgrims) fled England.

And then, of course, there’s slavery.

A long time ago a group of white men got together and—with Tom Jefferson being their Michael Jordan and the rest of them the Bulls (maybe Adams was Scottie Pippen?)—drafted the Constitution of the United States, a document that is the apotheosis of the Age of Enlightenment. So, yes, good for them and good for us.

But the myth of White Supremacy is exactly that. As sports demonstrates daily. Two of my favorite basketball teams were the early 2000s Spurs, whose Hall of Fame trio hailed from Argentina, France and the Virgin Islands, and the “:07 or Less” Phoenix Suns, whose core group featured a Canadian (Steve Nash), a Brazilian (Leandro Barbosa), a Frenchman (Boris Diaw) and a Virgin Islander (Raja Bell).

*****

–By my unofficial count, via their Twitter feeds, Rachel Maddow invited 30 GOP lawmakers onto her show tonight and none accepted. Jake Tapper invited 50 GOP lawmakers onto his show and just one accepted. Which leads us to this illuminating clip from Nicolle Wallace’s program:

“Beat ’em. Beat every single one of ’em.” –David Jolly

–Perhaps the only happy political/national news of the weekend was that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell fell and fractured his shoulder at home. If only he’d fallen from a higher distance.

–I asked a few GOP friends of mine today, people I’ve know since before I had a driver’s license: For everything that turns you off about the Democratic Party (and I don’t consider myself a true believer of either party, FWIW), how can you continue to support a party that either sits on its hands or actively promotes the unlimited availability of high-capacity firearms and blatant racism? What is so offensive about the other side that you’d rather stand on this side of the, pardon the term, wall?

–When I hear that “first responders” were on the scene in El Paso in six minutes and in Dayton in just 32 seconds, doubtless saving many lives, yes, I’m heartened by that news. I also wonder what might happen, from a longview perspective, if an active shooter were to be able to be more prolific? What if he could take out 200 lives with one gun in one incident? How many dead would it take to finally compel the Senate to move on the issue of gun safety? Sadly, I don’t think 200 would be enough. I also think there’s someone out there who’s hoping to be the first one to get a body count of at least 100, to be immortal.

–What are you thinking, New York Times?

And then, three hours later…