My Brother John's American Life

 He was born the first of September a few years after World War II ended. He would never really get to know his father Frank B. Kyle, Sr., because John was only four when our father tore up the house and took off, never to return and never to offer child support. It was a hard time for our mother, Mildred, who had to move into a sprawling public housing complex in Long Beach called Carmelitos. It was a rough environment populated by tough kids, though not as bad as today: 

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-09-19-me-245-story.html 

Our mother worked double shifts as a waitress to make ends meet, which meant John and I were sent to a baby sitter each night.

About five years later our mother would remarry to George Turner, a nice man, a bartender she met at work. She did not marry for love but for her sons. He had a new house in a suburb built for the veterans of the war. It was a Lego community—new, clean, and crime free. Unfortunately, our stepfather was an alcoholic, not surprising considering his line of work, but Mother had been taking care of three of her alcoholic brothers, two who stayed in California after the war, George (who spent most the war in a Japanese prison camp) and Ben a ten year Navy veteran. Both would eventually commit suicide.

Our uncle Carl, the oldest brother, came out most likely to get out of Texas and be close to his baby sister. Once I tagged along when Mother went to his apartment. He hadn’t shown up at work, where he was a kitchen’s helper at a nondescript cafe. He got me a job there also as a kitchen helper when I was about sixteen or so. What we found were whiskey bottles all over the place and Carl passed out. Mother took him to a hospital in L.A. where he was kept overnight. So, it wasn’t surprising that Mildred and George got into fights when he came home drunk. One night he came home from work drunk and went to the neighbor’s house thinking it was ours. I was old enough to move out of the house when things were getting bad, but John had to remain during the worse years until he finished high school. Immediately after his graduation our parents divorced. They stuck it out for John, I guess. Our mother returned to Texas and George lived in a small apartment until he died at work from a heart attack.

A few times he took John and me camping. He had a lot of guns and we would take a few with us to shoot at cans and bottles. I believe those escapes into the wild were when he was happiest. Here is one of those outings:

Photo taken by our stepfather.

That's John in front.

By the way, he wasn’t a hunter. He would never shoot animals. He just loved guns for their tradition or their wood and metal craftmanship. Most of his guns were old fashion rifles and one 22 pistol. He once took me to a gun show, which was nothing like today's gun shows (describe in my novel Freddy's Freaky American Life). Most of the guns were from the wild west, World War 2, and conventional hunting rifles and shotguns. There were a few revolvers and pistols, but not the semi-automatic weapons seen at today's gun shows.

John wasn’t out of the house very long before he got pulled into the Vietnam War. Here he is in uniform next to me:

He served on the USS Ogden. Here is his ship:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ogden_(LPD-5)#Vietnam_era

It was a ship that sent helicopters loaded with Marines into battle. John liked the Marines. They were more easygoing than his shipmates. Sometimes the helicopters would return with fewer Marines. There were two aspects of being on board the ship that John hated. First, he worked in the engine room as a boiler man, which is not what he was told he would be doing by Navy recruiter. He wanted to be trained as an electrician so he could get a good civilian job.  The engine room was a noisy, dirty, oily, enclosed environment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5GYwV0-TQ

John said he was able to get on deck to breathe fresh air only a few times a week. And the ship might be where John got the seeds that caused the cancer that would kill him:

https://www.asbestos.com/navy/ships/ 

The second thing was the racial strife. Blacks and whites didn’t get along. The situation on board the ship reflected was going on in the States, a lot of conflict and hatefulness like today. It was while John was in the Navy that our stepfather died. That was a bummer because we liked the old guy, though he wasn’t that old, about 53, but a heavy smoker and drinker. He had joined the Navy during the Great Depression and when he was about to get out W.W. II started.

Once out of the Navy John ended up with me in California for a time, then we moved to Texas. We drove an old topless army jeep, top speed about 45 miles per hour. That was quite a trip. The first night we tried to sleep outside near a desert town in Arizona called Quartzsite (the town shows up in my novel Her Quest after the world has been destroyed by war). The town fills up with RV snowbirds in the winter, but we were there in the summer. We were in our sleeping bags when a carload of rowdies arrived and drove around us like Indian circling a wagon train. So we got up bone tired and went to a cafe that was still open. While we were there, a man entered all bloody saying “He’s going to kill me!” I told the guy in the cafe (owner, waiter, or cook?) that I had a gun and asked if I should get it. He said no. He had one too. We left and tried sleeping off the freeway but noticed following us was an old station wagon filled with tires that we saw at the cafe. We put down sleeping bags and I kept the 357 magnum Ruger Blackhawk near. But we really didn’t want to shoot anyone, so we got back into the jeep and continued on. Here’s Quartzsite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r2_n5uceJQ

We took a blue road to Wickenburg, Arizona. We didn’t want to be on the freeway at night because of the slow speed of the jeep. Driving through the desert at night in an open slow-moving jeep is an interesting experience. We didn’t meet any cars, saw a bobcat near morning. Shot off the magnum just for the hell of it.

In Dimmitt, Texas, the town of my birth, John got a job putting sheet metal on storage tanks 40 or 50 feet above ground. I don’t recall the scaffolding having guardrails. It was dangerous working on scaffolding and carrying large pieces of sheet metal especially given the Texas wind. The thing about John was that he was pretty fearless, whereas I’m Mr. Caution. I took a job on the ground working for a ditching company that laid irrigation pipe. I liked the work even though it was hard and paid half of what John made. Sometimes we had to drive for an early morning hour to get to the farm where we worked. I loved those drives. The photo below of John and me by the Colonial Inn swimming pool was taken about that time. John is on my right. You can tell we’d been working out in the sun. The colorful trim on our jeans shows we just arrived from California. Believe it or not we were on lifeguard duty because kids were not allowed in the pool without an adult watching them. 

When school started, I moved to Canyon, Texas, to attend West Texas State University, about 40 miles away. John had married Sharon, a former nightmarish girlfriend of our ancient friend Ed (still alive) and started running the bar in the Colonial Inn at night.

The Three Amigos: Ed, me, and John

Three incidents occurred about that time. First, some guy verbally abused Sharon in the bar and John stepped in. A fight broke out and the guy and his brother jumped John. I was there and grabbed the brother. I had done a lot of judo and was big and strong. I probably could have broken the guy’s neck, but neither John nor I were like the rowdies we were fighting. Our mother, who ran the restraint next door, came in and yelled she had called the cops. The guys took off. You just didn’t want to mess with Dimmitt’s sheriff.

Second, Sharon had bad mouth, which is probably what got her into trouble that night, and one day said something to my Mother that angered me. The two didn’t get along at all. I lost my temper and grabbed Sharon by the neck because she was shouting shit and I really disliked the woman. A customer said I lifted her off her feet. She pressed charges, but nothing came of it. That is when being a local in a small town can pay off with the cops. Sharon was an outsider.

The third incident was when Sharon tried to shoot John with a cheap 25 caliber pistol I bought from a guy named Blacky who worked at the Colonial Inn’s motel. The gun misfired. That ended the marriage, but the two lovebirds, who never got along, never fell out of love. The relationship was totally weird to me. While John was at work, Sharon took off with his VW van loaded with all his stuff and drove to Brownsville, TX, where her crazy mother lived with her husband or boyfriend. John flew down to Brownville and took a cab to the house. No one was at home, so he called a locksmith to unlock the door, saying he had locked himself out. The van was in the garage and John loaded it up and drove it back to Dimmitt.

Charges were pressed against John and the Brownsville police wanted him returned. But one of the things Sharon took was a gun registered to me, a classic 1911 Colt 45 semi-automatic pistol that I had bought in Herford and gave to John for his birthday. Luckily, Sharon hadn’t tried to shoot John with that gun. Because the gun was registered in my name, not John’s, the Dimmitt police said I wouldn’t press charges if the charges were dropped against John. And they were. Again, that’s when being small-town local can pay off with the authorities. They look out for their own against outsiders. That’s when John took off to Albuquerque. Why there, I can’t say. Perhaps it was the nearest big town outside of Texas.

Albuquerque is where John and Lucy hooked up. The situation was similar to that of my mother and stepfather. John managed a bar at a Pizza Hut, where he met Lucy, how exactly I don’t know. Her sister Marianne was a waitress there. They considered marriage but already were having quarrels. By that time I was studying philosophy at UNM and married to Brigitte. He came over one day to talk to us about whether he and Lucy should marry. We said perhaps not if they were already having fights. He married her anyway. Another stormy love affair! The marriage went okay for a time, but life for John was still a bad-luck affair.

One night at the Pizza Hut, he stood up for a woman a biker had knocked down, his girlfriend apparently. John led the biker outside but when he turned his back to return to the restaurant the biker stabbed John. John turned around and kicked the biker but got stabbed in the heart. He walked bleeding through the restaurant out into the front parking lot where he collapsed in front of Lucy. An ex-Vietnam veteran who had been a medic and who worked next door, came to John's aid and kept the bleeding down until the medics arrived. Fortunately, a prestigious Indian heart surgeon was on duty at the hospital. However, the blood transfusions that saved his life also infected him with hepatitis that required some painful treatments later on, a big needle stuck into his liver. John was fired from Pizza Hut. No one from Pizza Hut ever visited him in the hospital. That’s called corporate compassion. The biker was caught, and charged with assault rather than attempted murder. He was given probation, probably because the New Mexico’s prisons were already full.

Once recovered, John went to work as an electrician helper. Bad luck caught up with him again when he was knocked off a twenty-foot ladder by a 440 volt jolt of electricity. He broke his shoulder and fried his nervous system. Soon after that the marriage fell apart and John moved to Colorado where he lived like a monk on disability—about $1500 a month. It was during that time that I helped him apply for benefits from the Navy. That worked out because of a sympathetic VA agent and his income improved. But those were lonely years and during that time his son Andrew got into drugs. He visited John perhaps to get away from the law in Albuquerque, and John got him a little house and a job, but he couldn’t get the drug monkey off his back. It wouldn’t be long before Andrew ended up doing time in prison in New Mexico for selling guns illegally. There were other guys involved. Andrew was never good about choosing friends. Eventually, he was allowed out of prison because he was being threatened by Mexican gangbangers in order to get payments from his mother paid to a girlfriend or sister, who knows? That went on for about a year, Lucy and a lawyer finally got Andrew out of prison. However, he had to live at a halfway house for a time.

While he was in Colorado, our mother died and John drove to Albuquerque to take care of that alone because Brigitte and I were in Belgium. As I recall, Andrew helped John unload Mother’s stuff from her apartment at a HUD housing facility for the elderly. There was no funeral. My mother was a stranger in Albuquerque.

Feeling lonely, John gave San Diego a try because Brigitte and I lived there, but having lived in the very small town of Laporte, Colorado, he couldn’t adjust to the traffic and congestion of a big city. I never did either, but I loved the ocean, which helped a lot. So he took off back to Albuquerque, where he reconciled with Lucy and Andrew. But soon the cancer came and John died. John’s family life had been turbulent, yet in spite of the divorce, Lucy stood by him through his illness and Andrew did as well. By that time Brigitte and I lived in France, where John loved to visit and where he started having chest pain. A French doctor told him that he needed an X-ray. If he had stayed in France, he would have been treated, but then we didn't know that the problem was that serious.

John always stood by his family and friends. He did a great deal for Brigitte and me and for our daughter Kalleen’s family. When he was on his last legs was truly a sad time for everyone. When you lose a loved one it’s like a big part of your life drifts off—to exist only as a melancholy memory.

John and I shared a life together, one that had lots of ups and downs for each of us, but we always got along. One example of our adventures together was when we drove his 1950 one-ton panel truck to Montana, selling onions as we went. At the Dimmitt farming supplies store we bought a hundred or so sacks then went out to where excess produce was dumped. From a large mound of onions we filled sacks with giant onions (perhaps dumped because of their size) and loaded the truck up with as many sacks as it could carry. We then headed off to Montana to see our friend Bill Calhoun, another Vietnam veteran who is no longer with us, selling off sacks of onions to Texas and New Mexico Dairy Queens, Whataburgers, and other burger joints. The onions were liked especially for onion rings. Once the truck was empty we continued on to Montana taking Highway 25 through Colorado and Wyoming, and finally connecting with Highway 90 into Montana.

Much of John’s life is unknown to me. He went on long road trips alone, had a fishing buddy named Pat in Colorado who lived in a trailer in the wilderness. The two men would go on fishing trips where they would camp out by a lake. John was the only one who knew the largeness of the life he thoroughly enjoyed in spite of his encounters with bad luck.

To me the greatness of America has always been the lives of ordinary Americans, like my brother John, and I believe most Americans would agree with me. It is the greatness of hard-working, down-to-earth cowboys, factory workers, fishermen, and farmers—the lives of ordinary working men and women that are celebrated by most Americans and by writers such as Walt Whitman, Willa Cather, Sinclair Lewis, John Steinbeck, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jack Kerouac. Certainly, the rich and famous, the wealthy oligarchs, and technology’s robber barons are celebrated by no one but themselves. Such people know how to make money but are otherwise boring because they are artificial people who live apart from the the fray of ordinary life. And certainly not politicians, most of whom are as artificial as manikins seeking personal gain of one kind or another. Great politicians are rare, perhaps one appears each century: a George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or Franklin D. Roosevelt, so far none in the the 21st-century.

Last Photo of Frank & John

Saint-Jean-de-Vaulx, France

So Iran's nukes program is bad, but North Korea's nukes program is good?

 INTERNET ALERT 

"President Donald Trump has said the US will substantially reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, citing his ♥very good relationship♥ with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un. Yet, Trump is very angry

that South Korea had recently declined to join the US in Trump's "eternal military de-nuclearization war" against Iran. Maybe that is because South Korea (Japan, et al.) is more worried about the North Korea, which is "estimated to have assembled 50 nuclear warheads, as of January 2024, and to have the nuclear material for an estimated 70-90 nuclear weapons, as well as advanced chemical and biological weapons programs. In the past several years Pyongyang has accelerated the pace of ballistic missile testing. North Korea has the capability to deliver nuclear weapons on a variety of land-based missile systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles with ranges capable of targeting the continental United States." In addition, North Korea has also "carried out six underground tests at Punggye-ri from 2006 to 2017." Whereas "Iran has carried out zero confirmed underground nuclear test explosions."

So how is Iran the big nuclear threat? And to whom? Israel? Don't think so! This is why: Israel is estimated to have "90 nuclear warheads, with enough fissile material stockpiled for up to 200." If Iran nukes Israel—once it get a nuke, which it doesn't yet have—it would mean Iran becomes a wasteland. In any case, Iran IS NOT a threat to the United States, whereas North Korea is—right now! 

Immigration and the Betrayal of the U.K.

Betrayal from Without

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tX7W93xvCo

Thousands of immigrants launch from the French coast on their way to Great Britain. French authorities are being paid billions of pounds to prevent the immigrant invasion from France to Great Britain, but the French gendarmes do nothing. All they have to do is poke holes in the rubber boats to make them useless. The cruel irony here is that during the two World Wars United Kingdom didn’t hesitate to rescue the French from the Germans. August 1–4, 1914: Germany declares war on Russia and France, and invades neutral Belgium, prompting Great Britain to declare war on Germany. World War II, Germany invades Poland. Two days later, United Kingdom declares war on Germany. The United Kingdom has supported Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, including both Conservative and Labour governments. The United Kingdom has proven itself to be a friend indeed when needed. Yet, France is too spineless to stop immigrants from invading an already beleaguered United Kingdom. Shame on France for being un faux ami.

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

Betrayal

Now Betrayal from Within

When the invaders came during World War II, these were the words of Winston Churchill: 

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. 

When the invaders invade today these are the words of Prime Minister is Andy Biden Burnham: 

We will welcome the invaders into every British city, town, and village. We shall not fight the invader but love him. We shall welcome him into the homes, schools, and hospitals of the British people. He shall not have to work because we shall feed and clothe him and give him shelter. These  British Isles welcome the endless wretched masses from all the fallen nations across the globe. Our people rich and poor will sacrifice to ensure the invaders are comfortably housed in our homes and communities. The invaders shall make Britain Great Again by remaking the culture into a multicultural utopia. So take down the the Union Jack and raise the white flag of love and peace. Welcome all to our shores!

The Burnham Motto

I say to you, do not resist a criminal invader

but whoever slaps you on your right cheek

turn the other cheek to him

then Rest In Peace

Great Britain

Trump's Funeral

Agnes and Henrietta encounter one another at the very intersection where Trump’s funeral procession is expected to pass by.

Henrietta: “Agnes, what are you doing here? It’s blazing hot!”

Agnes: “Henrietta, I could ask you the same question. Didn’t you just visit the dermatologist? You are too fair skinned to be out in the sun. And as you said, it is miserably hot. Most likely we’ll both suffer heatstroke.”

Henrietta: “Couldn’t miss Orange Man’s funeral procession. Harold looked so forward to seeing it himself.”

Agnes: “Are you sad that Orange Man is gone?”

Henrietta: “I’m sad that he didn’t die sooner so Harold could have seen the procession.”

Agnes: “I’m sorry about Harold. He was a good man.”

Henrietta: “He was a good man, much better than Orange Man. Do you think his hearse will be MacDonaldsmobile like the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile?”

Agnes: “More likely a gold-plated Cadillac, a gift from Qatar.”

Henrietta: “I think he should have been stuffed and put on a golf cart.”

 Agnes: “I don’t think so. He couldn’t sit up. He was just a walking talking blob of a man.”

Henrietta: “Ha, ha, ha. We’re making fun of Orange Man.”

Agnes: “Mr. Misery deserves it. He said he wanted to make America great again, and he made it worse.”

Henrietta: “That’s pretty much what Harold believed. That’s why he so much wanted to see Trump’s funeral procession. He hated the man. Thought he wrecked the country, though he believed America was already in decline before Trump drove the final nail in America’s coffin, as he put it.”

 Agnes: “Why’s that?”

Henrietta: “If the country wasn’t already a mess, then Trump wouldn’t have been elected.”

Agnes: “I’m sorry Harold felt that way. It’s a sad way to die thinking your country is… I don’t know.”

Henrietta: “Done for, finished, over with. What he hated most about Trump was that because of him he could no longer take pride in his country. That hurt him terribly. But your George thinks the same thing.”

Agnes: “Yeah.”

Henrietta: “But they were right. You and I are old enough to remember when America was great. It wasn’t great in the Trumpian sense. His idea of greatness is obscene. He was incapable of understanding that greatness had to do with the people, not with things, money, or a big military. His idea of greatness was the same as those black rappers with golden teeth and covered with flashy big gold chains, diamond rings, or watches. But at least those guys earned their money with their music rather than steal it from taxpayers who actually work for a living. He was always rich enough to pay others to do his work.”

Agnes: “Whereas our parents lived just getting by during the Great Depression and World War Two with dignity that was noble. That was America’s greatness, desperate individuals enduring hardship heroically. They simply struggled when the government had abandoned them as it has under Trump. He knew nothing about greatness because he was a small-minded man who never knew hardship and struggle and who really never worked for a living.”

Henrietta: “Trump was all about his legacy by building an ugly arch and garish ballroom and putting a gold veneer on everything in the White House like he was King Midas, which was his dream. But his legacy is already formed forever. And all those sycophants who served him will live in infamy for the rest of their lives like those Nazis who served Hitler. He was not only the worst president ever but was just an awful human being. He is admired by Americans who think MacDonalds and Las Vegas are signs of greatness, but like Trump they’re fake and ruinous to the human body and soul.

“You known Harold was a big fan of museums. Once the city’s metropolitan museum put on a show of Winslow Homer’s paintings. To me the paintings were amazing, but to Harold they were a revelation. What they revealed to him was the America he admired but never fully understood. He said afterwards, ‘Homer understood the greatness of America. It was its people, ordinary people, not the rich, powerful, or famous. Trump never understood what made America great because he never experienced America as a American. He is a totally artificial, like a TV commercial.’ Harold said that the America Homer understood Americans lost. Don’t know when exactly, but I knew it was gone when Trump became president. The America that was lost was organically real, said Harold, not something artificial created by men of great power and wealth but lacking wisdom.”

Agnes: “No doubt about it, Henrietta, America has changed. It’s not the same place I knew growing up. You know my George considers Harold his best friend. They would talk about the old America that they knew. Hot rods, great movies, and rock n roll music. Even the old America was a golden age during hard times. It’s gone. George got real depressed when your Harold died. He felt all that he had left from the old days was gone. Yeah, he had the kids and me, but he really enjoyed talking about the old days with Harold. I mean Harold was ten older than George and a Vietnam veteran.

Henrietta: “Harold hated the war and LBJ for allowing it. But when he was called up he went. And I think he did so only because he had uncles he liked who served in War War Two. Harold did say that he admire the men he fought with. Most believed they had been thrown into stupid war by a stupid president, but once in Vietnam they did their duty the best they could. It was an awful war for everyone including the Vietnamese. He didn’t hate the people. He admired their toughness. He did hate his government. And that stayed with him the rest of his life.”

Agnes: “George once said that when he and Harold lived they were surrounded by heroes. He meant the Great Generation of his parents and aunts and uncles.  Then out of nowhere came those BLM rioters whose hero was a criminal who threatened to shoot a pregnant woman in the stomach. They burned cities and were allowed to. Still, Biden's immigration tsunami that threatened to wash away America probably did the most to get Trump reelected. And then all those strange cults, Antifa and the Wokes, and the MAGA cult, Trump’s thugs who invaded the Capitol January six, which became a symbol to George for what America had become—a nation with a few American heroes but with too many America-hating thugs. How could such villains make America great again? Their idea of greatness was fire, violence, and destruction. That attack was the beginning of Trump making America a global villain in the image of Putin’s Russia, whom he admired. Watching the firefighters in France and Spain, George once said some countries still have heroes. Ours is like Russia where the people serve a twisted man with twisted narcissistic ideas.”

Henrietta: “But that sixteen year old lifeguard who rescued that kid from a really scary ocean showed us that there are a few heroes left in the country. Tears came as I watched that boy struggle against a monster of an ocean to save a kid from drowning. But that hero used to be the norm; now he’s the exception.”

Agnes: “Yes indeed! I suppose you heard about Trump leaving his Air Force One airplane that had journalists, his staff, and a flight crew onboard to be used as a decoy to be taken out by the Iranians while he secretly scampered off to safety. How different he was from that brave young man risking his neck to save the life of a drowning boy. Totally unlike that narcissistic coward Trump.”

Henrietta: “Yes, he certainly was a dishonorable man! That's why that young lifeguard has been so greatly celebrated. Because the likes of him are so rare in a nation awash in corruption, violence, anger, and despair. Trump and the MAGA cult are all about letting people suffer and die or just  killing them outright. No heroes in the White House. Just Sickos, like some Charles Manson cult! Harold said America used to be the world’s hero in the way that young lifeguard is a hero. How I wish Harold could have seen that boy hero so he could believe there’s still hope for America. But he died too soon to say good riddance to the Orange Man and ‘god bless you’ to the young lifeguard. It’s strange that I felt so much love for that young man saving a child’s life. He was a teenage Good Samaritan who outshined the adults.”

Agnes: “And a black guy went in to help. I bet the Orange Man hated to see white, black, and brown trying to save a Hispanic kid’s life. Can’t feel any love for the Orange Man, only disgust.”

 Henrietta: “I hated the man, more a simpleton than a man. I suppose partly because he ruined Harold’s love for the country. Harold once said it would be better to die during the Great Depression or during the war when America was still great not knowing how awful the country would become. The country certainly had its flaws then, but it was still magnificent in so many different ways. America’s rapid decline set in when men like Trump—greedy for money and power and distain for real Americans—took control of the county.  Trump never understood greatness because he never had to struggle. Struggle is what make a person real—rather than fake or simply a nobody—like the pioneers who crossed the country's prairies, deserts, and mountains in covered wagons, leaving a trail of graves that would be washed away by time.”

Agnes: “Trump’s America is certainly no country for old folks like us who remember that Greatest Generation that produced us. My mother grew up on a farm and plowed with a walking plow pulled by a horse. No phone. No washing machine. The family celebrated when they got electricity and the phone and radio that would come with it. For the longest time they went to town in a wagon. They were real Americans living the hard life, like those folks in that movie Grapes of Wrath. Today, the country has become fake like a national dollar store. I mean the suburbs seem fake to me. I’m glad we live in the city that’s full people coming and going. Maybe the city is fake too but it doesn’t seem so. It’s just too full of life and small businesses of all kinds.  Still, American life has become awfully commercialized. It’s all about buying stuff and being entertained. George said Americans have become like the people in the movie about Martians invading and taking control of people’s minds. I mean everyone is connected to their smart phones, TVs, and computers. I have all three, but it does seem strange being plugged in to some kind of electronic device. George said the minds of Americans are being controlled by technologies operated by what he called billionaire Puppet Masters. I asked George if he wanted to come to Trump’s funeral procession. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I’m glad he’s dead. It’s like finally having a painful rotten tooth removed.’ George and Harold both hated the Orange Man.”

Henrietta: “Does George believe the country will get better without the rotten tooth?”

Agnes: “Don’t think so.”

Henrietta: “Why?”

Agnes: “He said a culture isn’t like misplaced car keys. Once you find your keys you can start you car and get on with your day. But when you lose a culture it doesn’t get lost. It disappears and a new culture has to be built. But if the materials with which to build a new culture are all rotten, then the new culture will be rotten. He believed that’s the situation America faces.”

Henrietta: “Yeah, Harold always said George was really smart and had become very cynical about America’s future. Of course, Harold agreed with him. And I don’t think Americans today really care because not knowing the America Harold and George knew, they don’t know what was lost. And that goes double for idiot Trump who never knew America because he was raised in a bubble of wealth that isolated him from the real America. His vision of America was represented by McDonald’s, a garish big business that sells assembly-line fast food. He doesn’t understand that MacDonald’s food is cheap and filling but not great.”

Agnes: “Well, George would say that Trump couldn’t know what made America great because he really never was an American. Like you said he was raised in a bubble of wealth, which would be like being raise in a Macy’s department story. He was created as an artificial person, a product of wealth and privilege. George said Trump grew up a sissy who became a bully when he got power.”

Henrietta: “Harold said a man wasn’t a true American without having gotten his hands dirty with soil or grease or both. True Americans have known hard work and hardship. Harold once said that black people are truer Americans than the white Americans who hate them because they’ve known hardship their entire history. Trump was no more a real American than a manikin is a real person. Put an expensive suit on a manikin and what you have is a manikin wearing a expensive suit.”

Agnes: “Guess you heard about Dolly Parton dying.”

Henrietta: “Yeah, sad. The old America keeps dying. Soon it will be all gone.”

Agnes: “Replaced by a MAGA monstrosity.”

 Henrietta: “Harold said he was lucky to live when he did in spite of the war?”

Agnes: “All of us were. I suppose our parents were as well in spite of their war."

Henrietta: "Harold said the Germans and the Japs couldn't defeat America. But Americans would."

Agnes: "America’s demise made your Harold sad. It just made George angry. Dolly’s dying reminds me of the song Those Were the Days by that pretty Mary Hopkin.”

Henrietta: “Those were the days, my friends, we thought they’d never end… but they did.

Agnes: The song is heartbreaking now. The old America's gone. And the new MAGA America a monstrosity.”

Henrietta: “Here comes the Trump’s hearse.”

Agnes: “Good god! It really is a gold plated Cadillac that looks like it was designed by Liberace. Oh how I wish our husbands could see this!”

Henrietta: “And the dead Trump sloshing about in his coffin. They couldn’t pour him into his grave because he’s toxic waste.”

Agnes: “There are people applauding, Henrietta.”

Henrietta: “Why I wonder? Is it because he’s finally dead or because they really admired him. Even men like Hitler and Stalin had admirers even after the harm they’ve caused.”

Agnes: “Some members of the MAGA cult are giving their former leader the Nazi salute! Their machismo is so boring.”

Henrietta: “It's all kind of sad.”

Agnes: “Fucked up, George would say, even though he knew I wish he wouldn’t use that word.”

Henrietta: “And burying the Orange Man isn’t going to make things better. He was rotten but so is the country that produced him. It’s like in Russia. A healthy country doesn’t produce a man like Putin. The rot is not just at the top, as Harold would say.”

Agnes: “The change has been harder on our husbands than on us.”

Henrietta: “True. Why is that, do you think?”

Agnes: “We stay focus on the family, on our husbands, our kids, our grandkids, and on our neighbors. They keep us focused and happy even when everything outside is rotten.”

Henrietta: “I think that’s it. The crowd is breaking up.”

Agnes: “Another Trump spectacle over with.”

Henrietta: “Maybe now the media will shut up about him and talk about something else. Something less nauseating.”

Agnes: “Like the fires?”

Henrietta: “Yeah. The fires are sad, but at least they are being fought by heroes. We’ve been without heroes for a long time. Those ICE thugs terrorizing communities aren't heroes.”

Agnes: “Certainly no heroes in the White House or anywhere else in D.C.”

Henrietta: “Come on, Agnes. Let’s have tea at my place. I made a delicious lemon cake, if I may say so myself. What's George up to?" 

Agnes: “Most likely at Harry’s Place drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. You know George never wanted to use a computer and never watches news on TV. Fake news, he called it?”

Henrietta: “Harold didn't watch TV except for the old movies that would come on. We'd watch those together. It just remined him of how much everything has changed. He and George got left behind. So did we.”

Agnes: “That’s why he misses Harold. He and your Harold love to talk about the old days. America changed, but they didn’t. Kind of sad really." ”

Henrietta: “My Harold died a sad man. But he had much to love while he was alive, me and the kids, even you and George.”

Agnes: “That’s why he was sad. He believed kids deserved a better America.”

Henrietta: Come on, Agnes. Let’s have a cup of tea and try to cheer up.”

Agnes: “Okay.”

NATO Response to Fires in the EU now Needed

 Living in France I am witnessing the incredible destruction and power of what might be called the first assault of widespread fires caused by Global Warming. The destruction is impressive, but more impressive is the fact that the brave firefighters and their technology (trucks, tactors, planes, etc.) have been outmatched by the ferocity of Global Warming's Godzilla fires. Thus, it seems that a new response to firefighting is needed in the European Union in the age of global warming. The firefighting program would be organized something like NATO, with a large stockpile of firefighting technologies kept in preparation for an outbreak of fires such as is presently occurring. Also, needed would be something like the Article 5 NATO agreement that would trigger a collective firefighting response: If one member country is threatened by a severe conflagration, then all nations would come to its defense. The goal would be twofold. First would be the creation of a multinational firefighting organization. Second would be to have organized firefighting manpower and technology available for a multinational response. In other words, when a collective of experts declare a Global Warming Fire Emergency there would be multinational mobilization response. Putting out fires as quickly as possible would be a priority. And of course, this would mean that countries not yet affected by fires would join in to fight fires in other countries.

In other words, in the age of Global Warming a new strategy is necessary to fight what is now a permanent yearly threat of catastrophic fires.

My Indifference to Downed U.S. Pilots in Iran

My indifference surprised me

for I wish the pilots no harm

and have no sympathy for the murderous Iranians

whose drones destroyed Ukraine.

They created the bad karma that now afflicts them.

So why the indifference?

It was bound to come.

The Vietnam War killed 3.8 million Vietnamese

even though Vietnam was never a threat to the U.S.

Then came the My Lai Massacre

committed by angry soldiers

who blamed the Vietnamese

when the evil U.S. government was to blame.

It sent them to kill Vietnamese

who had never harmed Americans.

Then came the chemical weapon Agent Orange

sprayed on villages and fields poisoning everything.

And napalm dropped on children.

So evil ICE should not have been a revelation

that the moral rot was not just at the top.

It was within those who served the rot at the top.

Here is the lesson learned:

U.S. soldiers will follow evil orders.

Those down pilots would bomb Greenland if order to.

They would bomb Canada if ordered to.

They would bomb Minneapolis, Minnesota, if order to

by their deranged commander-in-chief.

They may be brave, but they are morally hollow men

who serve the morally hollow Mad King Donald Trump.

And after a Navy Blue Angel Jets sickeningly

frightened Florida Beachgoers, mothers and their children,

following orders from MAGA AMERICA'S

Secretary of the Department of Death and Destruction, Pete Hegseth,

I must add contempt and disgust to my indifference.

Would U.S. pilots spray Agent Orange

over beachgoers if order to?

Where oh where

have all the good men gone?

Gone to graveyards

every one.

 

 

Masculine Aggression

“And societies are always at stake just because men enjoy killing one another. And you’re a pessimist because reason seems helpless against the irrationality rooted in men’s instinctual aggression.”

“Located in what Freud calls the id, which brings up another important consideration. The id, the instincts, and masculine aggression are part of humanity’s DNA. That means the irrational is inherent to humanity. However, reason isn’t. Reason is an intellectual skill that emerged with language, which enabled humans to think about ideas that are embedded in language. Early humans probably had a rudimentary language that enabled social interaction but not complex ratiocination.”

“So we're basically animals that learned to think.”

“Yes. Did you ever watch the movie Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”

“I did. I even read the story. So I see what you mean. The primitive man Hyde is the beast inherent in masculine DNA, whereas the rational man Jekyll is the product of civilization. So the story is telling us that the civilized man can revert back to his primitive self because its exists in his DNA, whereas reason is a superficial acquisition.”

“Very good. I believe that’s the heart of the problem. The beast is inherent in men. Reason lacks the ability defeat irrationality, at best it’s barely able to control it, which is demonstrated in the movie. However, not all forms of irrationality are undesirable. Love can be reckless, but without it life wouldn’t be worth living. Besides, transforming humans into robots—which ideologies do—destroys their humanity. A balance is needed but difficult to achieve.”

“In a French lit course I read Emile Zola’s novel La Bête humaine. Our discussion brings the story to mind. Jacques Lantier the protagonist often desires to murder women. His desire to murder is considered an inherited form of madness. The novel ends with Lantier driving a train carrying troops towards the front to fight in a war. The ending would indicate that the desire to kill is not a family trait but gender trait in men. What you call masculine aggression.”

“That’s a terrific analysis. I read the book in English, of course. Zola is considered the father of literary naturalism which examines humanity’s darker side, greatly influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution.”

“Which proved that human are animals, not divine beings.”

“Exactly. Though murders occur in the story, most are crimes of passion, Lantier controls his desire to kill. I believe that is an important insight given reason and passion are within him in constant conflict. I’m not sure why he refrains from killing. Kant may be able to help us here. Perhaps Lantier believes it’s his rational duty not to kill in spite of his impulses. That it would be irrational to do so. It would be like driving a train off its tracks, a train, interestingly enough that he loves. So in him we see reason controlling masculine aggression. He calls the train he drives La Lison, and perhaps he respects the rational order of the machine. I don’t know. You probably recall the snow storm the train gets caught in. Clearly storm represent the forces of nature including human passion. Lantier controls the train and will not with the help of the train allow the storm to defeat him. Perhaps that’s the best we can hope for from men.”

“At the end of the story the woman Philomène is beaten by her brother and Lantier wants to go to her aid. But his fireman, Pecqueux, holds him back, saying ‘Ah! the slut! if he could only beat her to death! So there’s lots of masculine aggression—especially toward women. And on a train filled with soldiers heading for war, Lantier and Pecqueux fight one another like beasts, both falling off the train to be decapitated by its wheels, resulting in the train no longer having a driver.”

“I remember the ending perfectly,” said the old seaman. “The soldiers sang patriotic songs as the train disappeared and ‘rolled on and on in the obscure night, going none knew where—yonder. What mattered the victims the engine crushed on the road! Was it not advancing towards the future in spite of all, heedless of the blood that might be spilt?’”

“And the soldiers would die in a train crash or in the war. From what you have told me, the runaway train expresses masculine aggression unrestrained heading into the future where it would create two world wars and endless others. I understand much better the reason for your pessimism.”

“It seems that masculine aggression is as durable and natural as gravity. Thus, as with gravity we have to learn to live with it by avoiding its negative influences and utilizing its benefits, of which gravity has many.”

“I don’t see the benefits of masculine aggression.”

“Freud would say that masculine aggression needs to be channeled into useful and acceptable activities. In his ingenious light experiment Isaac Newton directed white light into a prism that divided it into a beautiful rainbow of colored light. He proved that white light is made up of a variety of colored light. Now think of masculine aggression, better yet, masculine energy that Freud called libido as being similar to white light in that he can be expressed in various actions or ways of behaving. Freud called the process sublimation.”

“I learned about Newton’s experiment with light in high school science. The experiment shows that other forms of light are contained in white light, but both are light. But sublimation doesn’t produce different forms of masculine energy but different actions. That’s not the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t. I’m using Newton’s experiment as a metaphor in the sense that sublimation, like a prism, channels masculine energy into different socially acceptable behavior. Perhaps aggression is only one expression of masculine energy, but a dominate one because the instinct that directs it is primordially powerful.”

“You mean it was the original expression of masculine energy. That makes sense if early humans living in a hostile world had to rely primarily on male aggression to survive.”

“I think that’s it. Though we’re just speculating.”

“Still, the colored light is inherent in white light and is revealed when white light passes through a prism like sunlight passing through drops of rain to produce a rainbow. How does sublimation transform masculine energy into acceptable forms of behavior? What’s the prism?”

“My guess is the prism is very complex. It includes our perceptions of the world, our emotions and ideas, society and culture. In a sense, these influences determine how men and women channel their energy. In humanity’s primordial past, options must have been few. But as you pointed out with the Lascaux wall paintings, about seventeen thousand years ago, some men chose to channel their energy into artistic creation. Men can be aggressive in ways that are creative rather than destructive. As such masculine aggression is expressed as ambition, enterprise, determination, enthusiasm, commitment, dedication and so on. As society evolved socially, materially, and culturally more options became available for men to channel their energy. Such as art, philosophy, science, athletics, religion, politics, and other forms of work, actually they became endless, and of course there were always the primordial roles within the family. All served as potentialities for self-realization—guided by the intellect and emotions.”

“You know that it’s believed that women artists along with men contributed to the Lascaux paintings. I think that’s really cool, men and women working together in that way.”

“It is. And that’s not surprising. Among the ancient Native Americans I believe the majority of artists were women. They crafted blankets, baskets, jewelry and pottery. Women even made and maintained tipis. In the modern era women are often considered the weaker sex, pretty delicate creatures that should be kept at home, but historically that was never their role.”

“Because the modern economy separated men from women. Husbands worked in factories or offices and wives remained at the home with the children, getting out only to go shopping.”

“You’re right. Farming and hunting-gathering kept the family together. Both men and women worked together as equals. And the idea of shopping is interesting. In those early societies people couldn’t buy what they needed. They had to make what they needed.”

“Let’s return to the topic of masculine energy since to me it represents the biggest threat to humanity as the primary source of aggression and violence. With so many marvelous ways for directing masculine energy, why does masculine aggression continue to appeal to so many men?”

“I suppose it’s because masculine aggression is primordial, existing in the very DNA of men. Many of the other options for self-realization are adopted or chosen from society and culture. And in that sense they are artificial.”

“The beast in men is organic.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“So all of them can be overruled by aggression like when the medical doctor Jekyll is taken over by the beast man that dwells within him. So what is he answer?”

“Obviously, humanity hasn’t found an answer. Religion, ethics, and psychology have offered many options for dealing with the problem of masculine aggression but have not yet found a successful solution. Buddha principle of living in a way that avoids causing unnecessary suffering and Kant’s principle of autonomy are simple, profound, and workable solutions, but they are the product of the intellect, which is no match against the instincts of the beast, as we have already discussed.”

“Maybe the problem is that masculine aggression is simply there, inherent. All the other possibilities of self-realization require some effort such as requiring using the intellect and acquiring the skills that make them possible. No skill or intellect is needed to be a brute. I saw that much in the fight at Denny’s. And in the story Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A lot of energy has to be directed in the hard work needed to become a doctor. No work is required to be a beast man. Men by the thousands joyfully follow to the their deaths and the deaths of others dictators who love war and its destruction. It seems so automatic like lemmings running off a cliff.”

“Primordial is perhaps the key word. As I said before, masculine aggression seems as durable and natural as gravity.”

“It’s weird that men refuse to do what could be easily done to end aggression and wars that could destroy humanity.”

“Not to men who enjoy behaving like lemmings. Fortunately, most men don’t enjoy behaving like lemmings, automatic like as you call it.”

“What is the difference between those two groups of men?”

“Masculine aggression’s greatest threat to humanity is war, and there will be no solution as long as cultures glorify war, and most do.”

“Cultures make war acceptable?”

“Most do. Like the belief in God, the glorification of war is embedded in the culture, and the most aggressive cultures are the product of myths, religions, and ideologies created by men.”

“And men project their aggression into those belief systems.”

“Yes.”

“And what about the other group of men, the good men?”

“I find good men more mysterious than evil men.”

“Because evil is simple, easily understood, but goodness is more mysterious, harder to explain.”

“Very much so. I will give you an example. I would say that the aggressive masculinity of good men is infused with love. They use it to protect rather than to harm. They choose to be heroes rather than villains.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty mysterious. You’re a romantic, Mr. Rieneau.”

“I suppose I am. It reminds me to find the good in life and to appreciate it, especially when masculine malevolence seems inescapable.”

“Is that your philosophy.”

“It’s the philosophy of many thinkers. One of my favorites is Kohelet the unknown author of the book Ecclesiastes written about twenty-five hundred years ago. Like today, evil and injustice were ever present and seemingly insurmountable. Kohelet doesn’t understand why God, whom he believes in, doesn’t confront evil. Still, Kohelet will not allow the evil to discourage him from enjoying and appreciating the many good things that life has to offer. He says, ‘Eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart,’ which he most likely took from the philosophy of the Epicureans.”

“He sounds like my sister, though she would not be disappointed in God because she doesn’t believe in him. She would simply say that we are animals and like all animals we must accept that suffering comes with life. Of course, she would add that unlike humans other animals don’t whine and complain and enjoy life as much as they can without causing other creatures unnecessary suffering.”

“I think that is a very sensible attitude to take toward life. In a sense, predation is an inherent part of reality that all creatures must live with. Whereas Kohelet doesn’t understand why God doesn’t bring an end to evil, for you and I the problem is why men don’t when they easily could by being better behaved. But the important lesson from Kohelet is not to allow despair to cast a shadow over what is good in life such as you and I sharing this moment together.”