Is that smoke I smell? And what have we got to read around here?

Wildfires abound. Not in my neighborhood, thank god, but in nearby towns. Looking at the mountains this afternoon I saw a huge plume of smoke. My wife, who was with a friend across town, called me to ask if I knew anything about it. I’d been watching a TV news report on it just minutes before and was able to relay information. We have had over a couple of dozen major fires in our state, many of them started by people not thinking, doing dumb things. The fire that was all a’blaze last Friday in the Southwest corner of the Salt Lake Valley (and burned four houses to the ground) was caused by a man who parked his pickup truck over dry grass, and caught it on fire with his hot catalytic converter.

Taken from my front porch. The fire is burning in a town of 10,000 on the other side of the mountain.

Of course they evacuate whole neighborhoods while the fire is being fought, and despite the best, often heroic efforts of firefighters, unfortunately, some structures are lost. People get on the TV news programs to tell their stories: “We only had minutes to get out so I grabbed our important papers and ran!” It made me think, where are my important papers, and define important. I'd probably grab my two external hard drives. The computer I could replace, but those hard drives back up everything I have. For important papers themselves I suppose they mean birth certificate, marriage license, U.S. Army discharge, et cetera...but I can replace all of those because they're public documents available from various bureaucracies. Not so the most important stuff, the hard drives and my massive collection of books and magazines, which fills my basement, and which. if it were to catch fire would turn my house into a fireball that could be seen from space. Because of all my paper goods I'm mighty careful about fire, as you can probably tell.

Earlier today I reached into a magazine holder next to the couch, just to see what I had available nearby for reading material. I drag things from the basement to upstairs, and back downstairs again all the time. I want to read it or use it for reference, so I haul it around until I'm finished with it. I scanned the covers of magazines I had at hand. I’m sharing them with you so you can see that I have many eclectic interests. But many of these magazines (and these are just the magazines, not the books, which number in the thousands) I have because I like the covers. The Vanity Fair cover with Penélope Cruz is straight glam, and there's nothing wrong with that. I also like the Lego Club magazine I picked up at a thrift store. Toy catalogs and reference are fun to look at, but if I had as many toys as I have magazines and books I'd have to build a house behind my house just to keep them. I also have an old Mechanix Illustrated with a great cover (interchangeable bodies for cars!) from 1957; and a National Geographic from 1991 with an article on the Wyeth family of artists. There are more, of course, but I’ll show them to you and you can tell me if I'm nutty or not, worrying that someday these might go up in flames. If they do I might just jump into the fire with them: MAN CAN'T LEAVE COLLECTIONS, BURNS ALONG WITH TONS OF BOOKS AND MAGAZINES. I can see that headline right now.

Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts from 1988 is an academic journal with beautiful graphics inside. I found it at a library sale, and wish I'd found more. You don't find this sort of thing on a newsstand, so I've always got my eyes open for specialized magazines, especially when they have anything to do with graphic arts.

I also found almost all of the 2004 issues of Fortean Times, published in the UK, at a library sale for a nickel apiece.

Mechanix Illustrated  has a article, “You'll Own ‘Slaves’ by 1965!” by Otto Binder, which is about robot servants. Snort. As if. Otto was a science fiction writer who created the Adam Link (human-like robot) stories in the 1930s and '40s for Amazing Stories and the fanciful article in MI is just an extension of his science fiction presented as “fact.”

I have books about N.C. Wyeth, with most of his book illustrations. It's the sort of collector I am, though, that when I see something with his art, even if I already own it somewhere else, I'll buy it. It helps that I get this stuff so cheap in thrift stores, but it reminds me I'm obsessive-compulsive.

So many New Yorker covers are so well done. This colored pencil cover is an explosion of bright colors and despite the deadpan expression of the Asian girl in front it gives me a feeling of joy.

Rudy Nappi, who was also a paperback book cover artist, did this detective magazine cover. I like the covers with paintings a lot more than photographic covers. Except for the New Yorker I can't think of any other magazines that always use artwork on their covers.

The unreal reality

Breaking Pointe is a mini-series on the CW Network. It is advertised as an inside look at a ballet company, Ballet West, which works out of Salt Lake City, Utah. I think most ballet aficionados who tune in to the show are looking for more ballet and less of the personal life of the dancers, but it was quickly established what the filmmakers have decided to show, and that’s soap opera.

Such as:

Rex loves Allison, but she doesn’t love him because she still carries a torch for Jonathan (whom we don’t see). She pushes Rex away as he tries to get closer.

Ronald (Rex’s brother, also with Ballet West) loves Katie, but Katie did not get a contract renewal, so she had to go to Idaho to find another job, leaving both young lovers stricken. (Katie does have to dance for the rest of the season with Ballet West, but after the season she'll be gone.)

Ronnie is a superstud lead dancer who is very into himself. As young ballerina Beckanne says just before the opening night performance, “You know Ronnie is being serious when he isn’t flirting with all the girls.” Beckanne is wise beyond her 19 years, and even at her young age has pegged Ronnie as potential trouble.

I don’t know what the gestation of the show has been, how long it’s been in the editing room, from filming to broadcast, but decisions had to be made as to what to show in six one-hour programs. They’ve gone for the romance, personal breakdowns and diva behavior.

Allison DeBona acts the diva. She is upset about the tempo the conductor has set for the music for her solo.  She goes on and on about it, and the troupe members enable her negativity by their passivity. Allison is upset because Rex is pushing her to commit (a role reversal there), and her parents don't think he's right for her. When her parents visit they try to enable her but also guide her relationship decisions. She tells them to leave it alone, to quit promoting her ex, Jonathan, to her, because he’s gone. Wow, she even had me crying. (Read heavy sarcasm into that statement.) In looking  for information online about the show I see that Allison has been taking a lot of heat from viewers over her tempermental behavior, and inflicting mental cruelty on a boy who loves her.

Allison milks the drama.

My personal feeling is that Rex should just drop Allison like a bad habit. Honest, you have to see this guy. He’s a young Adonis. As I told Sally during one of his hopeless expressions of love for Allison (and her rebuff, of course), this guy could have any girl anywhere, any time. Why any man would stick around and take the heartache of unrequited love is beyond me, anyway, but especially when he looks like a movie star.

The show couldn’t resist it when Rex and Ronald traveled home to San Francisco over a weekend to be with their family, sisters and parents, every one of them impossibly beautiful. Life just ain’t fair. (I should’ve been born with Rex’s looks and body, with the additional ability to play guitar like Eric Clapton. That seems fair to me.)

The show isn’t all soap opera. There are lighter moments when the dancers go drinking at one of the few actual nightclubs in Salt Lake City (camera shots of the city avoid the LDS Temple, and no religious references are made). There is time spent in the rehearsal hall, with the rehearsing dancers diligently scrutinized by the boss, Adam Sklute. There’s also a truly annoying little Russian woman who is constantly kibitzing and correcting the dancers. She yells out “Stopstopstopstopstop!” over and over, and it begins sounding like a mantra. After a time I’m sure the dancers want  to stopstopstopstopstop her and throw her out the window.

As with other reality shows, there’s something the filmmakers would like us to forget. There are cameras filming, there are soundmen with boom mikes out of camera range. Filming the rehearsals, the concerts and being with the dancers when they are expressing intimate thoughts, or arguing over matters of romance, makes the show unreal, not real. It’s my contention that reality goes out when cameras come in. Yes, these are real people, real dancers, members of a ballet troupe, young people who have love affairs and dalliances along the way. And yet they’re doing it in front of cameras. How real is that?

Think about it. If cameras set up in your house, at your place of business, in front of a park bench where you are whispering words of love to your significant other, would you be able to act natural? Hell, no. I know if they were filming me I’d be putting on my best Barrymore, with flourishes and gestures. Reality is a misnomer for this type of program and another name should have been used to define it, because under the conditions reality is unachievable. (Maybe they should call it "fakeality television.")

Despite the negatives, there's at least one thing I like about the show. It's Beckanne, a 19-year-old with a lot of talent, a fresh face and a positive attitude. She is careful to stick to dancing and avoid drama.

I know I'm not part of the demographic the producers and CW Network are aiming at, the 18 to 34-year-old female viewers the program skews to. Because of my outsider status I tend to apply my cynicism to the personal and the emphasis on relationships. I'm sure the audience the show plays to is lapping up the very things I'm most critical of.

Another life transition

I heard with mixed emotions the news of the Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of “Obamacare.”

No one really knows what will happen when—and if, unless it's killed by legislation—it becomes fully operational in 2014. The Republicans still use it as a wedge issue in this election year. “Boy! If you hated Obamacare when you thought the Supreme Court was gonna declare it unconstitutional, now it’s gonna be law and you’ll really hate it!”

If left as is I’m sure it will have growing pains. All new programs do, especially programs that promise to radically change the established order. But even Republicans would have to agree it looks like it would give someone an opportunity to make money. Adding over 30 million people to the insurance rolls will certainly help fatten some wallets. Maybe instead of expending their energy to kill it, they should try to figure out how they can cash in. After all, Republicans are really good at that.

Romney's prayer: ”Lord, please help to get me elected so I can kill Obamacare, the enemy of all that is good and holy in thy sight. (Even if it is based on the program I signed into law as governor of Massachusetts, which was righteous and correct.) And if being President isn’t within thy plan and I don’t win, please help me make some real money in the health insurance business!”

Personally, I think the Republicans are in for a fight. If Barack Obama has shown anything it’s that he doesn’t back down. Not any more, not since he found out there is no compromise with the right-wing knuckleheads on the hill.

Is this the look of a man who appears afraid to fight? I think not.

For me it’s probably all moot. Today, June 30, 2012, is my last day on my old insurance plan. I have gotten my health insurance through the school district practically my whole adult life. When my wife went to work for them they gave her the option to put me on her health plan for an extra $7.00 a year. No, I didn’t say $700.00, but seven bucks. Incredible. I went to work for them in 1976. Even though what I paid for my insurance was considerably more than $7.00 when I retired, I’ve never complained about my costs for health insurance. As part of my retirement benefit I was allowed to stay on the plan until I turned 65. That’s in about another week, so as of tomorrow, my last remaining tie to my old employer will be history, and I will be turned over to Medicare.

My doctors all hate it because Medicare doesn’t pay them much, but they’re stuck with me. Based on the experiences of other people I know, I expect a smooth transition into Medicare. The thing that bothers me is having those rascal Republicans trying to slash away at a benefit I believe I have earned after a lifetime of work. I began my working life about a year before Medicare was introduced in the sixties. It got a lot of political heat, and the anguished cry went up that it was going to break the country, but of course it didn’t. It had many growing pains, but after 47 years I believe it has found its course. Let’s hope so, anyway.

(What breaks the country is running a string of expensive wars. I don’t know why paying for useless wars is okay and giving health care to citizens is not, but then I don’t have the brain of a Republican.)

I just have a question that no one has answered for me yet. If the Affordable Health Care Act is commonly known as “Obamacare,” then why isn’t Medicare “Johnsoncare” or Social Security “Rooseveltcare” or even “FDRcare”?

“There Oughta Be a Law!”

“There Oughta Be a Law” was a newspaper panel strip that ran for many years. It was inspired by — actually, it looks more like an exact replica — of the popular King Features panel, “They’ll Do It Every Time” by Jimmy Hatlo.

“Law” was done by cartoonist Al Fagaly and Harry Shorten. Fagaly and Shorten had worked together in comic books, for the company that publishes Archie comic books. Shorten went on to other enterprises, including publishing (Tower Books, Tower Comics, etc.) Fagaly died in 1963, Shorten in 1991.

I think there oughta be a law against people who say there oughta be a law, because in too many cases they pass stupid laws. Right now there is a law on the books in Utah that says if a person is target shooting outside of city limits and causes damage he can’t be held liable. (It’s part of that old Second Amendment “right to bear arms” thing, promoted by the NRA, that has been extended to include idiots who should be facing the other end of the gun, if you know what I mean.) So far over twenty wildfires have been started by people shooting in the hills. That’s a case where “there oughta be a law” should read, “there ought nota be a law!” The governor recently said he’s thinking of calling a special session of the legislature to rescind the law.

These are original panels being sold by Heritage Auctions for about $40.00 each. In many cases they represent an America no longer in existence, where doctors made house calls, or people used public telephones. There are others, though, that are still right on the mark even after forty, fifty or even sixty years.

I’ve downloaded over sixty of these panels, but I’m only showing twenty today.

Scans Copyright © Heritage Auctions

Sherlock returns, 1952

Sherlock Holmes, it is said, is one of the most recognizable literary figures in the world, right up there with Tarzan and Superman.

In 1952 Life published a new story featuring Holmes, written as a collaboration between Adrian Conan Doyle (Sherlock’s creator Conan Doyle’s youngest son) and John Dickson Carr, a very popular mystery novelist and Doyle biographer.

Life considered it so important they included it in their Christmas issue, uninterrupted by the ubiquitous advertising that intruded on nearly every page of the magazine. An article on the creation of the story doesn’t escape that dubious distinction, though, and the ads are back.

A couple of years ago I found a library copy of The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes by Doyle and Carr, and this is a picture of its dust jacket. There are twelve stories in the book, including “The Adventure of the Seven Clocks,” published by Life.

The last few years have seen a tinkering with—if not an outright dismantling of—the Holmes tradition established by Arthur Conan Doyle. Many books have been written using the Holmes character, including the classic Seven Per Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer. An updating of the characters to the modern era has been shown on television, and then there is the two-fisted revisionist Holmes movies with Robert Downey Jr. (To be fair, being an action hero as portrayed in the Downey movies is not that much of a stretch, when you read in the Life article that Holmes was once a boxer.)

Personally, I prefer the original Holmes set firmly in the last couple of decades of the 19th century. The new stuff is kind of fun, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near as interesting as the classic portrayal by Jeremy Brett, which lasted from 1984 until his death in 1995.

“The Adventure of the Seven Clocks” Copyright © 1952 Adrian Conan Doyle
Life editorial material Copyright © 1952, 2012 Time-Life, Inc.

Chewed out by Sgt. Bilko

Seeing this picture of actor/comedian Phil Silvers in an old issue of Time magazine brought back a specific memory.

Fifty years ago Dad took my mother, brother and me to Hollywood. He had a business meeting in nearby Inglewood, and thought it would be fun to stay in Hollywood. When we got to Hollywood Dad was unsure of where he was supposed to go. He was on a main boulevard when he realized he needed to turn left. He started making his left turn without checking oncoming traffic. It caused a driver going in the other direction to slam on his brakes. Dad slammed on his brakes, also. The driver of the car who’d just avoided a collision with Dad pulled up so he was eye to eye with him. The driver yelled and called Dad a “goddamned idiot,” then told him, “watch what the hell you're doing.” The whole exchange took a couple of seconds, then the driver, in a large car which my memory tells me was a new Chrysler Imperial, pulled ahead and drove on. Dad, with left turn signal blinking, waited for traffic to clear so he could go. He turned to my brother and me in the back seat. “You kids see who that was? It was Sergeant Bilko!” Bilko was the chiseling character Phil Silvers played on television, a role which had turned him from an old vaudeville-style comic to a full-fledged star.

“Boy,” continued Dad. “Sergeant Bilko...”

I injected, “Phil Silvers, Dad.”

“Yeah, yeah, Phil Silvers.”

“Just be careful,” my mother said. She always chirped in after the fact with the obvious.

We didn't speak of the incident again but maybe Dad brought it up in his business meeting. “Hey, guys! Guess who chewed me out this morning?”  None of us thought of getting yelled at by Phil Silvers as a bad thing. It was enough to have a brush with celebrity. This is what people went to Hollywood for, yes? To see stars. We saw what we came to see in an unexpected way.

Guilty!

I don't think anyone was really surprised by the verdict for Jerry Sandusky, who was found guilty on 45 counts of child sex abuse. Over the years he pretty much had his way with several kids, using and abusing them. The proverbial chickens have come home to the proverbial roost.

My question would be, why did it take so long to find this guy out? Well, it really didn't, because some people knew years ago. They just didn't say anything. They are complicit because of their silence. You cannot let a person who has sex with children off the hook because they'll just go victimize someone else. Maybe your child.

Another question is, why did he fight it when everything was so overwhelmingly against him? He had ten accusers who are now adults, who sat in court and told their sordid stories. Did he think there was a chance a jury would find him not guilty and send him on his way to take up his life again? His defense team did the best they could, but evidence against him was overwhelming. Even his stepson was in the wings waiting to testify against him. He wasn't needed.

On the NBC program Rock Center a reporter asked one of Sandusky's accusers (who testified against him to the Grand Jury but not in his criminal trial) if he thought Sandusky ever thought he would be caught. The young man said no. Which is another thing, why would Sandusky not worry about being caught, and after being caught, have his worst nightmares come true, a jury trial, disgrace for himself and his family, and the chance he'd spend the rest of his life in prison? Did he think that far ahead, or was he really that stupid (or in denial) to think he'd never be caught?

This is all after one of the worst stories of child sex abuse in U.S. history: scandals of the Catholic Church, priests abusing children. The stories made headlines for years. Did Jerry Sandusky sit up at night sweating, thinking "this could happen to me"?

I don't begin to understand adults who want to have sex with children, or what satisfaction it gives them. I believe it's about power over someone weaker and more vulnerable. The stories of abuse usually include threats made by the abuser to his victim: "No one will believe you," or in some extreme cases, "If you don't do it I'll hurt your family." Obviously they're not trying to get love, just sex and control.

Pedophiles follow some patterns, grooming their victims, and Jerry Sandusky did all of those things that child sex abusers do. He made out that he was helping the child, he made the child's family trust him with the child. He took his time getting around to the evil stuff, and when he did, the poor kid was totally in his power.

I don't think there is an organization, no matter how altruistic or benevolent in its desire to guide or help children that hasn't been tainted at one time or another by one of these clever guys. My former boss, who was a scoutmaster his whole adult life, told me it's a problem within scouting. But it is also a big problem with church groups, schools, or anywhere that adults have access to kids. Many people are just naîve and don't know it's going on, even under their noses. My hope is that now that stories about the Catholic Church and a high profile story like that of Jerry Sandusky have been splashed all over the news that someone who would have otherwise been oblivious will now see the signs.

The problems that existed within the Catholic Church, moving priests who molested children from parish to parish, also exist in school districts, and it's because of liability laws. A few years ago there was a scandal (actually, one of many, but I'll use this as an example) with the school district where I worked. A middle school teacher was caught with a student and not only fired, but turned over for prosecution. I talked to the HR Director who told me why he'd been hired. He said that school districts worry about lawsuits. This teacher had worked for another school district, and was suspected of sexual misbehavior but they couldn't prove it. So they found another reason to let him go. When he applied at our district and HR called them for a reference they couldn't tell us what they suspected. Had they told us what they knew of his behavior and their suspicions our district would never have hired him. If he found out his old employer had told our HR of their suspicions he could have sued them. Years before that, in the late 1970s, the first time I heard of anyone being arrested for child sex abuse was when a teacher was arrested in the school. A 14-year-old boy told authorities the teacher had been having sex with him since the boy was 11. At the time many people were totally in the dark about the problem. One of the school secretaries told me, "I thought Mr. O was just being a nice guy, picking the boy up, bringing him to school and taking him home!" The victim, being raised by a single mom, was a latchkey child, and Mr. O found him an easy mark.

BUT KIDS GROW UP. And then they tell their stories. There might have been a time when adults did not believe a child telling such tales of an adult, but not anymore. Nowadays a teacher who abuses an 11-year-old will know that someday that kid will grow up and tell someone what the abuser did. So why do it? Why take the chance? I guess it's like Sandusky's victim said, he didn't think Sandusky believed he would ever be caught. Maybe it's that way with other child abusers, too. Or perhaps they convince themselves the child likes it, even that they're doing the kid some kind of favor by giving them attention they may not be getting from other adults.

There will always be Jerry Sanduskys in this world. What people need to do is learn what to look for if someone shows an interest, any kind of interest in your child that you think is above and beyond their duty to the child. What I found in my time working around children is that it is rare to have someone with ulterior motives. But like other destructive vermin, they can do a lot of damage before they are stopped.