David Hogg: Call You By Their Name

I predict, and keep in mind my predictions tend to suck, that when the trauma of fully realizing he was a sitting duck amidst the mayhem at a Florida high school diminishes, teenager David Hogg may turn out by default to be the luckiest boy in the country. 

As much as I questioned his persona in the previous blog entry, I will confess that after viewing his interview with George Stephanopoulis on Sunday's This Week (ABC-TV) my cage was rattled.  Even before Hogg spoke, one sensed on his facial expression the hint of smoldering emotion, a quiet rage patiently waiting for an opportunity to emerge as words from an otherwise thin, sensitive and wistful-appearing young man.  And what a speaker!  As if presenting himself as the anchor on a TV news show, he wasted precious little time in condemning politicians, big money NRA contributors and NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch.  How rare to find somebody of this age piercing, not melting hearts with a camera-captured glare and a word.

Now, I think the kid's wrong about almost everything he said, but his composure and soft-spoken approach was superb, shaking my current attitude about some millennials to the core.  If and when he tones down some of that inner rage after some healing time, his presence will only be enhanced, and our wish list would hope for activism aware of consequences to our basic rights.  Okay, our enemies are many, but counting the NRA and Dana Loesch among them is a misjudgment reserved for the young and the uninformed -- just like the furor over those much-publicized 18 "school shootings," which aren't actually what the media portrays as the total is added up.

Will Hogg and his outspoken schoolmates someday help lead the charge in disinfecting both the Republican and Democrat parties, perhaps as Independents or Libertarians, or by embracing something different altogether?  Please, no socialism.  Not looking forward to becoming Venezuela orchestrated by millennials. 

That millions of dollars are already pouring in to funding pages to "do something" about guns does not give us encouragement about gun freedoms in the future.

Oh, there were moments when I rolled my eyes as Hogg spoke, but after all he is a teenager, and it isn't strictly his fault that he's regurgitating the leftist pap he was probably raised with in school. 

For instance, he tends often to begin his sentences with the word, Honestly. . ., and when people do that to excess I sometimes ponder whether they're truly true at all.  No big deal here, I guess -- but I did shake my head when young Mr. Hogg referenced our "democracy," instead of classifying the U.S. as a democratic republic.  The difference is kinda important, but maybe they'll teach that part before he graduates.

What we're seeing here is a seduction, the seduction of David Hogg by the leftist social media, and unless one considers the press a gender in itself, the conquest and electronic media deflowering of the photogenic Hogg is strictly business with benefits.  The TV networks and print journos have discovered and used a fresh-faced youth -- star power, baby -- anxious to help them sell their wares because he shares what they share, and as time goes by I see the consummation of a marriage involving privilege and worldly pleasures between Mr. Hogg and wedding partners composed of the media, Hollywood and maybe academia.  Education, entertainment, travel -- we suspect the sky is not the limit for David Hogg and, agree or disagree with him, we are today confounded, seemingly too old to know better.

But getting back to the gun issue, I also harbor a temporary in-the-bag love for ABC-TV because on multiple occasions they aired a dramatic video of a mother and daughter at a convenience store in Oklahoma, perhaps saving their lives when they engaged in a gunfight with an armed robber.  If anything shouts love your guns, this surveillance video is the poster child.

Meanwhile, yep, here it comes, proposed firearm restrictions emanating from every frightened place in the country:  Ban bump stocks (the Internet easily tells you how to make your own using belts and other easily utilized items), nobody should get a gun until reaching age 21 (why -- are all young folk aged 18, 19 and 20 convicted criminals devoid of Second Amendment rights, declared dangerous en masse via psychic revelations or something?) and people with mental illness must be deprived of owning a firearm.  The last is interesting, because just who is mentally ill and to what degree will this blanket effort succeed?  Should individuals (love that police word) with epilepsy and other neurological disorders be banned, too?  Should migraines rule out potential owners -- and how about ocular migraines, which I experienced myself a few years ago, when a miniature "TV screen" flashing colors appeared in my line of sight and kept me spellbound for about two minutes?  Does that make me unqualified to even look at a gun?

I don't mean to keep pushing this little tidbit, but increasingly popular 3-D printers are making and will continue to make firearms as I type this, and they shoot just fine and are untraceable for anybody considering doing the deed, if you know what I mean.

A final word on guns today:  NRA, I'm not a member, yet I respect it.  The list of corporations pulling out and refusing to offer member benefits anymore is an American disgrace unworthy of a free country, but certainly characteristic of wussie companies that are OH so good at bending with the wind.

School safety will be addressed and necessary changes made, but those hysterically striking out at the Second Amendment, the NRA and President Trump instead of confronting issues rationally are helping neither solutions nor the memory of Florida school students gone forever.  In a society gone bonkers in so many ways, even assessing the scope of massive tragedies becomes a dizzying chore for authorities who once thought they had all the answers.  No, they did not.

Exigent Youth Born of Instant Electronic Gratification

No, of course we are not surprised at the rage demonstrated in Florida among parents and students, nor were we amazed that CNN's "town hall" about gun violence was a firearm and NRA-hating mob exercise from the start, bringing in everything but the pitchforks and blazing torches.

We've been particularly tuned in to the teenage furor expressed since the latest school shootings occurred -- they're angrier and more passionate this time, helped along no doubt by a bevy of Democrats and others with a stake in the hate game.  Watching some of the same student faces showing up on TV show after TV show does, however, raise certain questions -- for instance, some observers of a questioning mind have focused on young student David Hogg -- and no, I won't submit to low humor by asking if his friends call him "Boss Hogg" in homage to "The Dukes of Hazzard."  Nevertheless, accounts allege that he maintains a deep interest in journalism and actually works as a "stringer" for a news service, and perhaps the thought is that he appears too willing to stand before the cameras to discuss the tragedy at his high school, as TV networks host him more because they consider him their guy who can do the desired talking for them.  What are his politics?  What are those of his friends, wounded or not?  We have heard there are conservative voices among the school folk, but news services certainly aren't playing their lives up for the TV cameras.

So I've been watching all the TV reports and all the reaction, yet at first I was sincerely puzzled over why so many of the young people have slipped into such a heightened, stormy world of outrage seldom witnessed in past years.

But the answer wasn't all that elusive, for these, the 15 and 16-year-old kids in particular grew up in a world gone nuts, a world where fear of strangers and anything lacking electronics is common.

Worst of all, these young adults were raised with electronic devices promising instant gratification -- if they wanted something to happen, it only required tapping on a few keys and it was accomplished.  They always get their way.  They've always been special.

But not this time.

This time, it appears that a good many student protestors really thought that by attending a meeting or two and setting verbal traps for the NRA, Marco Rubio and other Republicans they would gain an instant win and all the guns which they personally detest would go away in one wide swipe of the hand.  Instant gratification.  I suspect they have a problem reconciling instant gratification with functions of the legal system, and when you're young and hysterical and you want something now, but you can't get it now, the shouts and literal tantrums grow.  Where does grief hang out while public displays are orchestrated?

If government leaders took quick action to accommodate the fragmented "hope and change" desires of every group of protesting young people, imagine where the country would be.

Another issue peculiar to the current generation of high school as well as college students is a refusal to even listen to points of view contrary to their own, and "their" opinions are quite often implanted in their brains by progressive teachers and professors -- essentially wrecking opportunities for many young folk to perform any critical or balanced thinking at all.  We've all witnessed the shout-down chaos initiated by the political left on college campuses when guests holding opposing views attempt to speak, and this approach was certainly obvious during CNN's free-range verbal massacre regarding gun violence.

The usual leftist component ranks supreme in this issue, the goal being to (1) rid the country of ALL firearms, no matter how long it takes and (2) win elections in November.  But for now, using heartbroken students as dupes to chomp away at hard-fought rights the kids will likely never see again if poor decisions ultimately prevail, the progressive bunch will ply its trade either in front or behind the scenes, and we only hope the real leaders among students will come to realize how they may condemn their rights to oblivion when wrapped up in misguided efforts engulfed in panic and sadness.

Yet -- imagine if somehow all the major civilian firearm hardware was confiscated and destroyed over a period of years.  Then, say an EMP or some electrical grid-demolishing process infiltrated the United States, perhaps initiated by an enemy with capabilities unknown.  Suddenly, we're back to the 1800s, devoid of modern conveniences and the protection afforded by, truly, "big guns," a situation which goes not unnoticed by said enemy.

Sure, we're fully aware that survivalist or militia members secured in a bunker, expecting during normal times to hold off the entire U.S. military with a cache of weaponry, would be dog food in thirty seconds or less.  But we're talking about a country in the future, devoid of major civilian firepower, and should we get to that point, what if well-armed enemy soldiers invaded the U.S. in numerous areas, many of which may be immediately inaccessible to or unknown to our own military?  Suddenly, people would wish they still maintained the lost tools and era of self-defense, when at least they would have a chance to fend off an enemy attack.

Of course this sounds crazy, but so will the nutty gun legislation ideas poised to inundate us as election season approaches. 

The school victims and the shooter?  Oh, right, almost forgot about them. . .

Don't do it, Florida:  The Florida governor wants to raise the age for purchasing any guns from 18 to 21.  As a Republican, he should be a little more tuned in to the fact that not all 18-20 year old people are potential criminals.  We realize he's trying to DO SOMETHING, but taking part in the chipping away of a basic right to please the grief-stricken in the short term is not the way to go, and he should stand up and say so.  Alas, politics gets in the way and leftists in waiting will probably get their way, as they so often do.

Holster the Leftist Hysteria

"It's not a mental health issue!" the Florida high school student screamed into the microphone, herself sounding like a candidate for the funny farm wagon, and right then and there with those words I knew these kids were likely so immersed in leftist classroom poop since they shed diapers that there was no way for them to swim out of it.

DO SOMETHING! MAKE IT STOP! they demand.  How lucky for these teenagers that, yes, there are people nearby who can make it stop -- but the price is their freedom, and they're too damned young and mind-manipulated to know the importance of  delayed consequences.  What goes up must come down, and what goes away usually cannot be brought back, particularly freedoms that others died for long before school shootings materialized.

Now the Hollywood crowd begins to sprout like fungi on TV talk shows, condemning everybody with a gun except for the characters they brutally portray on the silver screen, perhaps explaining, well, THAT's just fiction.  And big money for the backers, of course.

So what do you do?  Well, if you're Florida students stumbling through a blind panic you announce a student march on Washington and other cities scheduled for March 24.

March or don't march, we don't care, but it requires no brains whatsoever to realize that unsuspecting school children headed for the streets will he "helped," "supported" and encouraged by the most devious and conveniently established leftist America-hating rats who ever walked the earth, and those will be the voices most loudly expressed, no matter from whose lips they lovingly flow.  By late March, the tragic shootings won't matter nearly as much as the progeny of leftist dogma, and not even honor roll students will recognize how easily they can be enlisted to jeopardize their own rights by endorsing poison.

Already inexplicably, yet predictably, shouting at and blaming Donald Trump for the Florida carnage, we can bet that students attending these proposed marches will include a mandatory we-hate-Trump speech or demonstration as icing on the cake.  Don't forget to denounce the NRA.  The customary itinerary must be followed.

Want to depend upon the mental health industry to determine fitness for firearm ownership?  Wow -- that worked out well for young shooter N. Cruz, didn't it?  Dare I suggest that a fair portion of the mind-checker bunch hosts its own share of crazies who protect one another in the spirit of camaraderie?

Meanwhile, as everybody moans, cries, stomps and shakes their fists at either skies or at President Trump and every Republican in sight, may I almost absent-mindedly remind one and all that, even as we all occupy ourselves with something motivational, one or more potential school or otherwise mass murderers are out there right now as the clock ticks, preparing in earnest to beat the system -- any system -- according to their own timetable.  At least to some degree they'll succeed, too.  They will not be terminated until the deed is done.

Gun "control?"  Really?

You deserve a break today.  You deserve to avoid controversy.  You deserve to not get the flu.  You deserve to be safe.

We do not "deserve" a damned thing, unfortunately.

Looking for a foolproof solution to school shootings?  Here it is, lick it up:

First, let's close all public schools and insist upon home schooling for the masses.  Yes, this requires a crash program delegating enormous resources, but if we can send kids about your age off to war, surely we can patch something together for education without risk.

Of course, no public schools also means no more football, basketball, golf, bowling, baseball, track or rock-watching teams, and no more cheerleaders.  No dangerous bus journeys.  No more field trips, either.  Bonus:  Nobody will laugh at naked people in the gym showers anymore and there will be no towels to snap.  No bullying, either.

The motto is, stay home and stay safe.

We make this suggestion for your own good, kids, because here's the thing:  You can take every careful step to curtail the possibility of mass killings.  However, you know far better than I what's coming:  3-D printers, for instance, with which folks can and already have produced guns -- fully operational with the addition of a little metal here and there, and voila!  Untraceable, deadly, simple to modify and just the sweetest little darling of death one can imagine.

And the fun doesn't stop there, because high-energy weapons using microwaves, ultrasound, infrasound -- and whatever screwed up U.S. diplomats  in Cuba -- are on the horizon, and as we all know, whenever the military improves upon a weapon some kid sitting in his basement eventually wants to play copycat.

What did you have for lunch today?  How about yesterday's dinner?  Did something living need to die so you could have nutrition?  Maybe serial killers and the rest of us aren't so far apart. 

March your butts off next month, kids, but anticipate no cure for the dark things lurking inside us.  We all choose our weapons and eventually murder something, in our own way.

A Russian Baker's Dozen

Vladimir Putin riding a horse shirtless is nothing.  Now, if that horse would ride Putin -- with or
without a horse blanket -- that would really be something to brag about.

Vlad, Vlad, Vlad -- WTF?  So far, 13 Russians have been indicted for information tampering/feeding/altering/etc. crimes leading up to the U.S. elections.  I know this is serious stuff -- but didn't Obama send folks to Israel to screw with their elections, too?  Don't we have the oh-so-helpful-and-high-techie Facebook, Google and everybody else (TV networks, hint, hint) who kinda projected, shall we say, a leftward lean around election time and, hmm, before and after, into the future?

Everybody's doing everybody, nothing new there, as it turns out, but we'll sit comfortably on the sofa, waiting for Putin to send all those Russians to the United States for trial, as we simultaneously anticipate monkey-piloted drones to fall out of the sky and land on the White House lawn.

By the way, you devious Russians, I'm rather in doubt on this, but if you folks had anything in the slightest to do with Hillary Clinton losing the election, may I humbly say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.  However, to our defense here in the USA, I must say she WAS a horrible, horrible presidential candidate, and fortunately what remains of common sense and intelligence in this country prevailed.

Why was Mueller's indictment blasted to the country on a Friday, typically the day when important stuff the government wants forgotten or diminished gets swept under the weekend time rug?  Some, such as conservative talk show host Michael Savage, believe it was done to override the FBI's gigantic screw-up in failing to apprehend the Florida school shooter before he could act.  Maybe, but we are inclined to consider another component -- that, at least to date, Trump's name couldn't be associated with Russian "collusion" and therefore this was one bit of news which should be buried because it served no anti-Trump purposes AND the media would have nothing upon which to dwell.

Indeed, Saturday morning's ABC-TV news program, generally dedicated to leading with stories putting the administration in as bad a light as possible, instead began with the school shooting.  Of course, this was also an opportunity to show protestors demonstrating in front of the National Rifle Association, when, frankly, all cameras should really be focused upon the alleged 19 year old shooter.

What about the shooter?  Did at least one friend not admit he had been taking some kind of drugs, prescribed (and perhaps otherwise)?  He was also adopted -- from where, some wonder?  We have long known that the country of origin often sends along psycho-baggage of which adoptive parents are unaware until things go toward the dark side.

Recording artist George Watsky had the school shooting thing down some time ago, as you can see in his unusual but effective video, Stick to Your Guns:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN8DM7TyYvw

We recognize Florida students and parents are in a frenzy over the latest school mayhem, but screaming at Trump and everybody BUT the shooter really isn't the way to go.  Determining who's potentially gun-violent crazy is the better direction to take -- but, unfortunately, that's nowhere near as simple as yelling at government officials to quench one's grief.  And anybody who thinks the Democrat Party caregivers, who quickly showed up on cue and made fancy speeches barely before the chaos lightened up, weren't there to garnish votes ("never let a crisis go to waste") is living in a fantasy.

Today I Abuse Women

Maybe my abusive feelings were enhanced by the appearance of Lady Dracula Jong-Un -- that is, Kim Jong-Un's evil sister (I forget her given swine name) -- at the Olympics in South Korea.  Maybe it was just too much, watching the international press fawn over this femi-monster who, like her brother, is responsible in her own way for countless deaths, torture and yet-untold agonies in North Korea.  Not to forget the murder of their own brother, uncle and who knows how many more close relatives?  Charming.  Thanks, media.

As if that weren't enough, then I stumbled upon a "Sixty Minutes" interview with Democrat NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, leftist champion of all women and everything women have ever done.  During her years in the Senate, I'm not sure she has actually performed any services which benefit boys or men, she probably has, but then again I stopped caring about her activities long ago.  All I know is, she has "progressively" criticized the gun rights she used to support enthusiastically, and seems to have been absorbed by all the human-eating mold qualities of the modern Democrat Party.  One hopes, at times like this, that "blue dog" and other more down-to-earth Democrats really are trying to make a comeback so that government officials such as Sen. Gillibrand and (yikes!) her senatorial paisano Chuck Schumer can go peddle their ware someplace else.

Thing is, I've spoken this week with women who detest the current womens' "movement," composed as it appears with more of a political agenda than anything else.  When it comes down to donning knitted pink vagina hats during a mass protest, maybe that's a bit much, too, but I'm not woman enough to understand some things.

Anyway, after I was womened-up and femmed-up with all the self-womanizing displayed in the media, I was hardly ready for the latest news bulletin about two cops killed when they rushed to a "domestic situation."

Domestic trouble calls, as most any police officer will admit, are the ones they dread most, for these constitute the most irrationally violent incidents out there, other than terrorism itself.

These tragedies involving police officer murders by, primarily, husbands and boyfriends of abused women seem to be increasing way out of expectation, and we cringe every time TV news shows put up photos of dead officers and reports of spouses and children left behind, all due to the work, generally, of society's worst and most notable pieces of human crap.

Well, I'm sick and tired of these stories, and I've come around to taking a closer look at the women involved in these events -- the ones who usually call 9-1-1 and scream for police help.  Oh yes, they need help and they need it right away -- but how did all of this come to be?

We all -- ALL -- live in a day and age when TV, radio and print media blast our minds constantly with places and phone numbers abused women can access to get help once it has become pretty clear that their married or live-in lives are going to hell via beatings, restraints or battering of their own children.  Yet.. .

Yet, what?  Again and again, ladies who now know what they should do and have acquired ample experience to understand things won't improve in the home continue to wait until the very last minute when danger and possibly death come-a-calling for them, their children -- and law enforcement personnel who are put in a hellish position because of neglect, ignorance and/or self-sustaining stupidity on the part of the abused.  Tip of the day:  Orders of Protection are about as useful as spaghetti roofs in a rainstorm.

First it was a "love tap" or slap, then it was a harsh squeeze of the arm, leaving bruises.  Then it was an abrasion, and next a bloody wound, followed by a push down the stairs.  But that was YOUR fault, you know that, and he'll get over it and things will be just fine, wait and see.  Besides, you have to keep it all together for the kids.  .  .

In 2018 there shouldn't be an abused or battered woman out there who doesn't realize that they should have called for help long, long before those final moments when he, she or they will place not only the victim on the death menu, but also anybody who tries to help, and that help is most generally the police.

So here's my nasty little hope for the abused as 2018's informative and cop-deadly days roll forward:  If you call 9-1-1, I hope cops respond first with tear gas, drones, robots or minor explosives -- anything preventing them from first rushing the house to save your crying, pathetic, stupid, couldn't-be-bothered-to-do-something-to-prevent-this ass, and chances are you've even subjected a kid or two to your lack of decisive action as the magic moment of decision approaches.  I don't want good cops to sacrifice themselves in this exceptionally angry era to feigned imbecility of the abused, covered up by useless tears falling to the floor after everything goes down, causing blue uniforms to repose horizontal forever.

In today's society, the mere dialing of 9-1-1 may sign a death warrant for one's local cops.  Most of the time, so much could have been accomplished before that terrible, irretrievably tragic moment arrives -- and so no, I'm not letting abused women aware of multiple options off the hook, particularly when their lack of action really does make them somewhat complicit when cops die while attempting to rescue they and their children from a hell they themselves helped create and sustain.

Let's go to the moon again:  NASA's on track to return, and we really should before China gets there and claims all the Helium-3 as Property of the State.  China couldn't do a damned thing without having stolen American technology, and I think we should just bill them far in excess of all the funds they believe we owe 'em.  For my part, I'm proud to have written letters to newspaper editors years back where I stated without any scientific tools or geologic training whatsoever that there's water on the moon.  NASA should'a just asked me, I wouldn't have charged a penny.  You're welcome.

Peter Rabbit in the crossfire:  There's a scene in the new Peter Rabbit movie where rabbits throw blackberries in a man's face and he sustains an allergic reaction necessitating use of an Epi-Pen?  Apparently, allergy sufferers of the world are up in arms, demanding and getting an apology.  Really?  Must every shred of humor be banned and called out by world denizens who, frankly, have little more going on in their lives than a need  to pick stuff like this apart?

The Official President and Mrs. Obama portraits unveiled:  Good grief, cover them back up.  Amateurish, hollow -- but frankly quite reflective of O's entire term in Office.  So maybe leave 'em be.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions mutters the AA word:  Sessions dared say Anglo-American, thereby overpowering the very essence of the absurdly contrived term, African-American.  Clearly, Sessions was being racist, as everybody knows "AA" can only be used by a particular race AND by Alcoholics Anonymous (maybe there's a licensing fee to use "A" twice).  The fact that Anglo-American is an old term whose longevity far exceeds that of African-American is, of course, of no consequence.  At any rate, we're sure glad that Democrats have yet one more vacant issue to scream about, because absolutely anything putting white Europeans in a favorable (or even noticeable) light is bad, bad, bad.  We shall be in touch with members of our Congressional White Caucus immediately regarding this matter!

Crazy's Not So Crazy Anymore?

Maybe it's not much or maybe it's everything.  In any case, names such as Leslie Kean, Luis Elizondo and Robert Bigelow and that guy from Blink One something or another have reinvigorated the lowly UFO's energy battery, and we're off and running either to unfamiliar corners or to a maze designed always to have us end up lost in the same spot.  But no matter, the air crackles with excitement again, anxious minds lit up like fluorescent bulbs hand-held under a high voltage power line.

While all we can really surmise is that the U.S. government has confessed both by implication and via samples of the real animal that military UFO films and photos exist -- and that officials continue to follow and take the UFO subject more than just seriously -- that's enough to allow us our own current, to borrow a title, estimate of the situation.

Actually (we hate this word, yet using it provides a mind sedative to those who don't know how to initiate a sentence, so. . .), we've been here before, but now reinforcements have galloped in, giving license to UFO investigators, researchers, fans, and crackpots who, dead or alive, emerge from the shadows of ridicule like heroes in the mist.

Thing is, the reputations of a lengthy procession of UFO skeptics and especially debunkers from decades past look a little sallow these days.  Menzel?  Klass?  The still undead?  Well. . .

Some have written books and articles -- permanent historical records quite possibly sealing their doom, toppling any chances of the high esteem long desired.  Notoriety be damned.  Fate, you see.

Because UFOs now seem real in official terms, scientifically honorable.  Confirmatory reports launched to the surprise of many.  Films?  Videos? Radar?  Other evidence?  Big yawn for those who know what they already knew.

But here's the head's-up:  All those experts, authorities on everything, who wore their "scientific" or technological UFO debunking credentials on their sleeves like crosses warding off vampires, ready at the drop of a hat to go on a spirited, often illogical and rabid attack against UFO sightings and UFO observers, look pretty damned foolish today.  Those expected to be champions of meticulously solving the unexplained instead branded themselves as explainers-away of things that just can't possibly be and therefore would not be allowed a scientific spotlight.

The personal damage some of these folks did by treating innocent truth-seeking UFO researchers as charlatans or deluded pinheads is and was no laughing matter.  While healthy skepticism about UFOs is just fine, the debunking attitude is quite another matter.

However, there is a joke of sorts here, and the pie in the face really goes to that historical succession of debunkers in love with their diplomas and other credentials who COULD have and SHOULD have investigated the anomaly in a fair manner, but instead relinquished their role to onlookers of a scale ranging from honest inquirers to out-and-out frauds, opportunists and crackpots.  Yes, history will record that even the worst of the worst in UFO land championed and addressed a subject of importance while science itself ignored and sat on its hands, and the least qualified, along with plain old folks of integrity, were the ones getting major publicity -- publicity often averse to facts, but publicity nonetheless.  The crackpot-iest of the bunch will come out smelling like a rose, while so-called scientists may end up looking like vegetable fossils, nothing more or less.

On that note, we're showing here both hardcover volumes of George M. Eberhart's exhaustive 1986 release, UFOs and the Extraterrestrial Contact Movement:  A Bibliography.  Progressing from ancient times up to 1985, Eberhart's comprehensive project of now more than 30 years' vintage listed all manner of communication dealing with UFOs, possibilities and related topics, including (primarily in English but also with notable foreign language entries) books, journals, pamphlets, articles, dissertations, audiovisual materials, films, government documents and comics.

Whatever the UFO-related theme noted therein per Eberhart's labors, the evidence of longevity roamed far, the subject cried out for respect (even Dr. J. Allen Hynek wrote a Foreword), and the sum total of entries displayed hardly provided a cheering session for those choosing the debunking and ridicule street.  So extensive were Eberhart's efforts, in fact, that when I reviewed these volumes for a journal some thirty years ago, I discovered even a few of my old articles listed, and R. Barrow is pretty low on the UFO literature totem pole (!).

So what more can be said?  UFOs are back, though they never left, and this time -- one more time -- there's a ghost of a chance that. . .that. . .that. . .

Influenza on the march:  We suspect not only the horrors of one or more flu viruses, but that human immune systems in general are beginning a long, systemic crash.  Our lifestyle, foods and crops depleted of nutrition and chemicals increasingly invading our surroundings are not helpful.  While society worries about the flu, new studies with rodents provide even more evidence that cell phones and required microwave radiation continue to open up the welcome mat for cancerous growths.  Regarding the flu, authority figures tell us we're in an epidemic currently.  We disagree, as epidemics of which we are familiar generally involve thousands of deaths.  As we write this paragraph, there are 63 known child deaths from the flu, and while this is heartbreaking and devastating for individual families, numbers of this volume hardly constitute an epidemic, even when noting that one out of every 10 deaths in general last week allegedly occurred due to flu.  Sadly, Dr. Death isn't quite finished as flu reports continue to rise.

Comfort animals:  Airlines are apparently taking action to cut down on a proliferation of customers riding with alleged "comfort animals."  What will they do when somebody demands to bring along their comfort horse?  While we applaud the accommodations airlines make for military veterans, the blind and others who really do require service animals, we wish we could board airplanes with comfort rattlesnakes, after which we would have them inflict venomous wounds upon human phonies claiming they need comfort animals.

The Winter Olympics in South Korea:  My question is, why?  Oh well, who cares about my questions?

About that coin toss -- Next time, I guess we'll have to flip actual people according to race and see who lands first, since heads-or-tails seem to invoke racism among those born and raised with race at the root of every issue.

Anyway, I did take a second or two to take a look at the Kim sister, fearing a resemblance too ghastly to contemplate.  However, she looked nothing like her demented, bloated brother, lucky for her -- but I did fret a bit over her hair, which I strongly suspected would be composed of Medusa's snakes.  I know this is cruel, but I half-wished we could direct upon her the effects of a neutron bomb, then send her back to her insane brother with a note proclaiming, "This one's for Otto Warmbier."

White House follies of 2018:  If they continue dumping aggressive men (I'm not sure if that would include Omarosa, good riddance by the way), who's gonna remain to run the place?  Accusations are peachy keen, but didn't we used to require evidence before ruining people?

Remember a time when we used to hold each other close?  Now we just hold each other accountable.

Meanwhile, the rat-bastard, self-proclaimed national TV journalists can't do enough every day to destroy Trump and associates, ignoring completely all the good things and actions he takes to revitalize the United States as they likewise ignore wrongdoing among the far left.  With these jewels of broadcast media, every report has to involve a scandal, and if there isn't a scandal they'll create all the markings of scandal.  Man oh man, years ago I spoke with college English professors bemoaning the fact that students indulged themselves in TV news reports rather than newspaper accounts, resulting in the greatest classes of know-nothings ever assembled in the classroom.  NOW they've grown up and some work for the same hypnotic industry which helped make them ignorant, stupid and politically partisan in the first place.  The vicious journo circle. 

Congratulations Sen. Mark Warner:  Oh oh.  Looks like you have a Russia connection, too.  Why is it we're discovering it's the Democrats, not the Republicans, who apparently entertain some kind of healthy vibes with Russia?  So convince us otherwise.

Trump Excels, Democrats Shrink into a Fecalith and Kennedy Embraces the Hoary Playbook

When Democrats return to scraping the bottom of the barrel, as they often do, for either a good crisis to accentuate or a familiar name capable of depicting them as saviors of the universe, they sometimes pull a Kennedy out of the closet.  And so they did by featuring Joseph Kennedy III to offer an opposing view to President Trump's State of the Union address.

Except -- annoying lip corner highlights aside -- it didn't work this time.  Kennedy (born of wealth and therefore hardly what the "new" Democrat mobs worship), perched in front of what seemed a young audience sprinkled with a few giggling fans, sounded and looked like a student running for high school senior class president.  Nor was he convincing, relying upon witty rhetoric drawn from the standard Democrat playbook, and it was more than obvious that any Democrat on the planet could have given the same hackneyed speech.

But the main attraction of the evening was Trump himself, and Trump is neither Kennedy -- nor Obama.  Instead of blaming America and praising himself for myriad issues as Obama did by nature, Trump emphasized the potential and success of Americans themselves, offering a future of opportunity, not blame and shame.

Refusal of Democrats to even acknowledge gains made in minority employment and other issues supposedly close to their own dark little hearts spoke volumes, and when big leftie Rep. Gutierrez  jumped up and walked out during fevered audience chants of "U-S-A" he pretty much established his political credentials and, we shudder to suggest, his agenda.

You've already read and seen enough about the SOTU speech, so we won't belabor it here, but overall polls suggest that even Democrat supporters were significantly pleased with what they heard -- unlike, for instance, the Congressional Black Caucus folk who preferred to remain silent as many attired themselves in African garb to weakly set forth some kind of protest regarding Trump's statements about African immigrants.

We do hope that "anchor babies" will receive prompt attention, too, as immigration revisions go forward, with or without Democrat help.

Ominously, Trump's references to North Korea hinted very much at a situation almost guaranteed to involve war.  While we know nothing about plans for any eventual conflict, we're confident that the Chinese will continue watching their borders just in case something terrible erupts and NK refugees rush borders to escape presumably unavoidable carnage.

Frankly, I was surprised that Trump's vision enjoyed such a well-presented, admirable airing.  The Democrats, on the other hand, merely displayed themselves and their party for all the world to see as a funeral procession waiting to march forward to the same old sepulchral music.

Next time the Democrats bring in a Kennedy to save them, assume the worst for their party.