Man, I hate it when I have those dreams where Hillary is president, the ones where she makes her Secret Service detail and all members of the military dress in maid and butler apparel as she sits on a golden throne, cradling the two grandchildren in her arms and whispering in their ears, "Someday, all of this will be yours, too. . ." But then I wake up, return to reality and Vladimir Putin is U.S. president. Wait, did I say that? Wow, as if the Hillary dreams aren't terrible enough. Of course Putin isn't the commander-in-chief, is he? Another nightmare? Maybe I need more sleep.
Forget Putin, but today's entry does focus for a bit on an American with Russian roots.
You know how I feel about Hollywood -- about the same as I take away from professional sports. Nevertheless. . .
Actor Anton Yelchin died last weekend, 27 years tragically extinguished when his Jeep Cherokee rolled backwards and pinned him helplessly against a gate at his home.
I didn't see the last "Star Trek" movie and have no interest in viewing this summer's release, where Yelchin plays Chekov, but I did remember Yelchin from one of those dreadful teen movies that popped up on TV a couple of years ago, after the film had already been several years post-release. The title and plot escape my memory now (I am not online as today's entry goes down, so I can't look anything up), but young Yelchin's wide-ranging personality as an actor was impressive.
So, I had not given a thought to his career since that occasion, but I did realize that his Russian parents, professional ice skaters, moved to America when Anton was but a child. He started acting as a kid and to date had appeared in many movies. Yelchin admitted in the recent past that his parents always wanted him to earn a living as a figure skater like themselves (by his own admission, he could not skate and was not very athletic) and, despite his success, never approved of his acting craft. To quote him, his parents "were pissed" -- though we can hardly imagine what they feel about those aspirations since his tragic demise.
The point? The Yelchin family came to America as immigrants and made some major contributions. And yes, this is where I contrast everything in terms of both USA border invaders from a wealth of dirt bag countries and Obama's "refugee" program, each strangling this country with hundreds of thousands of people who will never assimilate, who will never abandon the welfare rolls, and who, with their future offspring, will most certainly engage in violent crimes from coast to coast simply because they either don't give a damn -- or the rest of us don't meet their 7th century standards of submission to a vile faith. If some among us (hello, progressives. . .) continue to believe that the Orlando shooter, American but radicalized by self or through other sources, was just troubled and not influenced by extremist Islam, that may be their eventual undoing. We've never had to deal with an absurdly and dangerously large population of refugees whose numbers host those who believe they are here to dominate via brutality, not to assimilate and become "us."
How astounding, though, to understand the vision of a United States constructed piece by piece by immigrants who came here to build and not destroy. How great to think back upon those times when a flood of immigrants, fleeing brutal oppression, journeyed to America under the harshest of conditions, and then helped establish with experience and determination a powerful country worthy of global respect and honor.
And how wonderful that America and its motion picture industry, albeit briefly, reaped the benefits of immigrant Anton Yelchin, by all accounts an intelligent, beautiful, friendly, and energetic young man, loved by many friends and associates in the movie industry, whose legacy shouldn't have ended as it did. The good die young? Sometimes, and we all notice.
Animals on the Attack: No, I'm not referencing Obama's trash immigrants, nor members of his administration. Seems a mother in Maryland had to rescue her little son from a mountain lion attack, fortunately with success. At least one TV commentator suggested the incident happened because human civilization is encroaching upon wildlife territory. Ya think? The planet seems to shrink before our eyes, in many ways, and that's not a good thing.
