The DN

1  I found the zoom thingy on my laptop.

2  I didn't exactly find it; it found me.

3  I'm a default guy. I don't like all the buzzers and whistles.

4   I don't do video games, so all of the stuff that makes things get bigger or smaller have annoyed me, especially when I'm on the laptop mousepad. 

5  Windows 8 drove me nuts the first time I tried it because the screen would jump huge, and within seconds, shrink to the size of a Lilliputian Village. 

6  The reason it annoyed me was that I had to take the time to return things to normal. This action could have taken me to the end of my days.

7  True Confessions Number One: I am and always have been a slow study. 

8   I realized about a week ago that large print makes everything easier.

9  Duh.

10  It's still a bit blurry, but I don't have to wear glasses.

11  No smudges. No cleaning. No looking around for lost glasses.

12  Humor me here. 

13  At my age this qualifies as a catharsis. 

14  Last night I had to force myself not to put on glasses as I hammered this stuff out. 

15  Yeesh.

16   It's a start.

17   Moving on, Part One: kafjdfdkfjfjdksafdf

18   I knew last week that we teach Monday, today and then out. With all that pre-knowledge, I STILL tried teaching yesterday.

19  In fact, I had done so much research that I couldn't wait to share some of this astounding stuff with my students. 

20  <basketball buzzer>

21  Can you imagine?

22  My own fault. I thought last week, "Two days. Perfect! I could squeeze in some AWESOME touches to my main lessons." 

23  It's that "Wow, I have time to show this short film that adds so much!" or "Wow, all this new stuff I JUST learned will send these guys soaring!"

24   

25  How long you been doing this, old man?

26  As I write this I'm re-analyzing and considering other things. 

27  Got it.

28   I won't reveal it here, but you saw how the brain of a teacher who is admittedly slow-of-study works. 

29  Believe it or not, a LOT of us come in on a getaway day ready to bring some awesome things.

30   Anybody lookin'?

31   I'm gonna cut this one short. Know why?

32   So I con't interrupt your own goof-off time. 

33   Love your week; love your Thanksgiving.

34   I'm outta here.

35   Before I cut out, here's a thought:

36   For the next two days, every time you see things you are thankful for, say to yourself, "There's one." Do people count?

37  UhSPECIALLY people. 

38  UhSPECIALLY at night.

39  There's one, for example. 

40   Have a wonderful week.

41   See you again. 

42   It just came over the radio that Benjamin Franklin used to sleep with French wimmin.

43   That JUST came over the radio, right when I was signing off.  

44   There, I imagine, is another one.

45   Anybody lookin'?

46   Okay, NOW we'll see you again.

47   Don't take today or tomorrow seriously. Happy Thanksgiving to you all. There's one. 

48   Magnified.

49   See you again.

50   Peace. 

~H~

https://thedailynews-h.blogspot.com/

The DN

1   Happy Mondeeeeeee!!!!!!!

2   <busts out the root beer and whistles>

3   Somehow we work Monday and Tuesday but not Wednesday this week. Our students have the same schedule. 

4   I've lost track of what is happening with the calendar.

5   I think it first happened around Daylight Saving Time. 

6   We seem to have been voting on calendars for the past year. It was finally decided that it would be a good idea to have school on Monday and Tuesday.

7   So that's how we teach this week: today and tomorrow and that's it for the week. 

8   Camel. Horse. Committee.

9   So it goes. 

10  

11  "I don't care what you think, I"m thirsty."

12   Heard this yesterday morning on KGO: So a termite walks into a bar and says, "Say, is this bar tender?"

13   

14   Sinful. But wait! Hold that pie.

15   I didn't tell that joke; some guy on KGO told that joke. 

16   Ah, nevuhmind. 

17   lfajdlkfjjfdfjdaf;dlkfj;

18   What would YOU teach the youth of America if you had just two days?

19   I'm teaching a whole bunch of them about how much of our history is boushit. 

20   

21   Anybody lookin'?

22   You are getting sleepy.

23   SLEEEEEEEPY...

24   A hypnotist wouldn't work on me, 'cuz I am getting sleepy every day.

25   I thought that the Häagen Dazs Matterhorn I downed last night would put me out. I thought wrong. 

26   Where was I?

27   Oh yeah.

28   History as boushit.

29   A lot of it is. 

30   A lot of it is.

31   Sorry. 

32   I asked others what word would work best, and that's consensus. 

33   Too much single-bullet stuff over the weekend. 

34   Moving on, Part One: How come it takes a musical guy his entire life before he finally turns his office into a studio?

35   Not for recording or anything, but for having a dandy little PA complete with reverb, two speakers, mics, electric/acoustic guitars, and lots of tuners and switches?

36  Last night after a week of single-bullet stuff and JFK overload, I showered, letting the super-hot water trickle down my back. It almost put me to sleep. If I hadn't a good grip on the shower head I would have slipped down the drain. I got clean, both mind and soul. I wanted to wear something nice after all that, but it was a little late. 

37   I wound up in a black tee-shirt, pajama shorts, and a black fedora with silk lining and a dandy feather.

37  I looked like I had just garroted some bum in the back seat of  '52 Ford. 

38   But dapper. Well, as dapper as a fella can look while simultaneously sporting some chic pajama shorts. 

39   I spent all day yesterday working. I took care of a bunch of school stuff early, then cleaned my roof, cleaned out the gutters, and by days end felt like a turd on the run. 

40  Hot showers. Gotta love them. I got all dapper. 

41  I strapped on my guitar, turned a few dials until I got the echo I needed. 

42  I love my new/old PA. 

43   I got beginner's luck. Everything sounded awesome. I think showers make a person naturally play better. I dove into some fun noodling, very George Martin sorta stuff. 

44   I got into this blues riff that sailed. The muses lined up. It didn't sound like normal blues, and I have no idea how I got whatever sound I got. It was more melodic in some odd way. 

45   Lyrics worked out nicely too. 

46   Ironically I called it the Jack Ruby Blues. 

47   I know it sounds like it wouldn't have, but it was really fun. I've been reading a ton about CIA guys and the lives they must live, so it was all about not knowing what your own name is, or who you're supposed to be fooling, or what your profession is supposed to be. 

48  Handlers, agent provocateurs, assets, blowback: it had it all. 

49  But it was sad. It must be pretty weird being a spy when you really think about it. 

50  Okay, okay. My muscles hurt so I took a Nuproxin to knock out a shoulder-ache. It turned me gentle as a daisy. 

51  I slipped and fell on my back last week. It hurt, but I never do drugs, hate 'em. I waited; it subsided. But my complaint flared up the two days ago when I went with Nicole and Helene to watch Coley try on her wedding dress. 

52   The pain killed me the entire day, and those guys got me that stuff. 

53   It almost knocked the pain out.

54    What REALLY knocked me out completely was Nicoley.  

55    I can't begin to tellya. She came out and looked like she stepped right out of a Fitzgerald novel. All Gatsby and Cover of Vogue stuff. 

56   Stunningly beautiful. Everybody in the wedding shop, including THE Trudy stopped and gazed. My daughter dazzled the place. 

57   No pics. Well...I HAVE pics, but I'm not allowed to post. 

58  She is going to be a breathtaking bride. I'm going to ask her if it would be okay if our dance could be...the Jack Ruby Blues. 

59   What?

60   I'll work on her. 

61   Meanwhile, have a GREAT Monday! 

62   Anybody lookin'?

63   See you again.

64   Peace. 

https://thedailynews-h.blogspot.com/

The DN

1   Last night TCM honored the memory of John F. Kennedy with an evening dedicated to his humor, his vision, and his passing. In three short films we saw his quick wit and ability to silence a crowd with laughter during a run for the Presidency; we saw his vision of a better America in his fight to end racism in Alabama, and finally, we saw the loss of these dreams in his fatal trip to Dallas. Time stood still that cold November weekend, as thousands of Americans spent four dark days mourning the rainy end to a glimmering Camelot.

2   Last night TCM played in succession The Robert Drew Kennedy Films collection, including the three short pieces about JFK shot in cinéma vérité style: Primary (1960), Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963), and Faces of November (1964). 

4   Drew secured permission to enter Kennedy's world filming live events as they unfolded.  This resulted in an interesting trilogy of three separate historical moments: one, an insider's view of the Wisconsin primary, the second an immense crisis when Kennedy and brother Bobby battle racist governor George Wallace to break the academic race barrier, and the third an attempt at capturing the aftermath of the assassination.

5   Faces of November is playing as I write. It is raining. Taps just played. A salute. End of film. It simply couldn't be filmed. There was that much pain, and that much mourning.

6   This was difficult to write last night. 

7   Like him or not, Kennedy stands as one of the greatest presidents this nation has seen.

8   If my research throughout this week showed me anything, it showed me that John F. Kennedy had enormous visions of peace, and of seeing the potential for America finally moving to a vision, and to what seemed an enlightenment. 

9   His assassination had an astonishing effect on where we have gone since. Or where we should have gone, and where we haven't gone. Not yet. 

10   I'm mourning today. The rain continued to pour down in subsequent films that played last night. The wind howled outside my window last evening as I watched film of the nation's mourning. Here are some notes I jotted down while watching:

11   I see raindrops and soldiers' graves. 

12   I see wet flags at half mast. 

13   I see the dream.

14   I see John John saluting his fallen hero. 

15   I sense everyone's loss. 

16   Moving On, Part One: I won't go into the assassination anymore. The bad guys won. It takes too much out of me each year. I'll keep learning. I'll keep telling younger people what happened. But I won't bring it to the classroom ever again. It is too painful. 

17   I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the lost look in people's eyes. I'll never forget what we could have become.

18   I'll leave you to consider things today. Earlier this week I read a passage from Jim Garrison's monumental work On the Trail of the Assassins to my classes. When I read the final paragraph, it caught me off guard, and I held back, like you do. 

19  In his last paragraph, Garrison included these words from John F. Kennedy. He delivered them at American University in June of 1963. Take them with you this crisp November morning.

  " ...if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

20   See you again.

21  Peace.

~H~

https://thedailynews-h.blogspot.com/

The DN

1   Fascinating week.

2   JFK week. Sylvia Browne walked into a bar, just last night. Fascinating week. 

3   Never before have I had one like it, and never again will I. 

4   I never before referred to it as "JFK week." 

5   In fact, earlier last month I teetered about going back into the Kennedy stuff, or about playing it safe and throwing a few Sophocles' plays at my students. 

6   As I prepared for both, Helene came home from visiting her Mom.

7   She brought in a dusty box containing around twelve to fifteen VHS tapes.

8   All were made by her late uncle. He was a San Francisco Police Officer for years, and knew everything one needs to know about crime, criminals, and criminal acts.

9   He and I always hit it off. He seemed to know a lot about issues beyond police work. 

10  Or more precisely, parts of police work a lot of us never see. 

11  He was also a mason, and had been to the Bohemian Grove a number of times. 

12  He knew a lot of dignitaries, not the least of whom was former Chief Justice Earl Warren, of Warren Commission fame. For the JFK layperson, Earl Warren headed the official government investigation into the assassination of JFK.

13  Every Thanksgiving it seems that topic would come up. Discussions would often take us into the night. 

14  A few weeks ago I went through his tapes, and saw that he had labeled a great many "garbage." I agreed with each label. Same page. 

15   Few passed the "garbage" label, but some passed through instantly, including the excellent series The Men Who Killed Kennedy. 

16  The appearance of that box moved me back to into the JFK murder, perhaps for the last time. 

17  The passing last evening of Sylvia Browne reminded me of one coincidence that also served to keep me going with JFK, at least for this year. It was about a week or two ago. I was just finishing writing this stuff. I had the teevee on as usual, mainly for the noise. I looked up a few times to see what was on. It was a TCM movie about the assassination of Lincoln. It was called The Tall Target. Midway through, I heard someone ask where John Kennedy was. I peeked over the tips of my glasses delighted to see that a key character in this 1951 film was a guy named John Kennedy. 

18   I had already decided to go back into the case. It is always a monstrous exercise. Each time I take it on it exhausts me. 

19  Over the years I have brought it more often than I haven't, even though it requires a LOT of research and preparation. 

20  I enjoy bringing it because I inevitably discover new things each year. 

21   The day before yesterday I discovered that a resource I thought was completely fake all these years was absolutely not.

22  The entire testimony of Judyth Vary Baker turned on me, and became a fascinating story. 

23   Serious researchers gave it a thumbs up. I had blown it off years ago because I thought  it was about one of Kennedy's bimbos who got silenced. Not really huge news. 

24   That's one of the toughest parts about the story: I don't always have the time to go back and check on older resources. It's all I can do just to get the basic story out there each time I do this. 

25  The Baker story blew me out of the water this week. I did so much researching on it that I forgot that I was somehow going to have to present the material yesterday. 

26   Short day, and I went in with guns blazing, ready and eager to share this monumental piece with my students.  

27   I had to try to remember everything in precise detail AND to tell it so that it would entertain a bit. 

28  The entire JFK story is a scary one to share, because to this day there are powerful people who guard its many secrets. They don't want the story told. Period. And they let people know in unkind ways that they don't want the story told. It's creepy.  

29  I had listened to a more recent You Tube of Baker in the wee hours night before last. A part of her wants her story told, but it has been at a terrific sacrifice that she tells it. 

30  After Oswald's death, she kept quiet about the story. She got married, had kids, and lived an otherwise normal life. But her story wasn't normal. It involved dynamic secrets about one of the most mysterious figures of the twentieth century: Lee Harvey Oswald, her lover. 

31  The interview I listened to the other night had her moving away from the Oswald aspect, instead focusing more on the subject of cancer, and a government cover-up, and of tainted vaccines that gave millions of people that horrid disease. Keep in mind that she was a child prodigy in cancer research, almost a savant. She was courted by cancer experts and brought into the fold. Military people were particulary interested in developing cancer as a weapon of war, and more precisely, war on Cuba at the time. Particulary the Beard, Fidel Castro. 

32   Baker now fears for her life. It is 2013. She wants to clue the world about the realities of cancer, and of how treatment is much more profitable than cure. She knows many of its government secrets, and she knows why the government wants to hide and cover up those secrets the same way they want to hide and cover up JFK's murder. 

33  Bone-chilling stuff. 

34  What will probably keep her safe is that her story is SO compelling that I held it in disbelief. I saw it all as garbage for the past few weeks. I don't anymore. 

35  If she stays alive, her story will reach very few people. Nobody cares what happened fifty years ago. But it is a crazy story, as well as a love story. If someone turns it into a film starring some glamorous actors, it might take off. 

36   It would need to be done well, and by an intelligent director. Would I like to see Oliver Stone deal with it?

37  Stone's JFK to me is a monumental work. It opened files that were never going to be open. 

38  The information is now everywhere. I won't go deep here. 

39  I did get a chance yesterday to watch yet another riveting piece. It was an interview with L. Fletcher Prouty, a member of the Joint Chiefs whom JFK trusted, and who was an eyewitness to many of the larger events that took place at that time. 

40  His behind-the-scenes story about the Bay of Pigs had interesting angles, lots of names, and amazing clarification on how it all went down. 

41   To keep it painfully short, when Eisenhower was President these CIA guys planned a supposed small, clandestine operation to invade Cuba with the idea of getting rid of Castro. 

42   Eisenhower never okayed an invasion. A military invasion of a sovereign state would be unacceptable. Spy stuff was different, but the line was drawn pretty thin between what constituted a clandestine operation and an outright military invasion. 

43   The second JFK was elected the CIA took troops from as far away as the Philippines and trained them. It was supposed to be an operation of no more than thirty.

44   It wound up with over 2000 troops involved, and a massive invasion at Zapata Beach in the Bay of Pigs. 

45  The plan was to take out the fleet of seven Cuban planes, but three had gone to Santa Ana the night before. 

46  When they invaded, JFK understood what needed to be done, even though he didn't like it. He approved of taking out the planes, giving the ground troops easy access to move in. 

47  Critical to the invasion was taking out those last three Cuban planes before invading. Any planes available to the Cubans would spell disaster, as they could go in and disable our entire fleet. 

48  JFK approved of using our own air support to do that, contrary to popular opinion. Somewhere in the night, orders were given to wait for the three planes to come in and land, and then take them out. 

49  This never happened. As a result, many of our invasion force were killed, and the Bay of Pigs went down in history as a "disaster." 

50   Prouty became eloquent towards the second part of the documentary, talking about National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263, a detailed plan to stay out of Vietnam, and to have all troops out by 1966. 

51  As things moved closer to November 22, 1963 Johnson had already drawn up a National Security memo 273 reversing that policy. This was before JFK was assassinated!

52  Prouty's talk kept me focused. He was the character called X in JFK, the part played by Donald Sutherland. 

53  I knew about the Vietnam reversal, which LBJ signed on the Sunday after Friday's assassination. 

54  It is mind boggling to think that had JFK not been killed, there never would have been American involvement in the war in Vietnam. 

55   I talked with my Dad on Saturday about this. He said, "Can you imagine how different the world would have been had he lived?"

56   Indeed. 

57   I'm going in today in hopes of being able to show my classes the story of Judyth Vary Baker. I tried telling them yesterday, but didn't do well in one class. I had a few people wearing headphones as I reported my greatest breakthrough since Garrison. 

58  I stopped. "Please take off the headphones and put your cell phones away," I pleaded. I waited. I went on with the story. 

59  Within thirty seconds the same people had their phones back on in an incredible show of disrespect. I again said, "Put the headphones away." I tried explaining how knowledge of this will help them understand the importance of keeping a vigilant eye on the real news, and not the news that is controlled by corporate America. 

60  I lost a few of them. I understand this. I'll try to get those ones back.

61  And I'll need to pass this candle on. I'll get that point across, if not right away, certainly by the end of the school year.

62   Yesterday hurt. That one class didn't anger me so much as it saddened me. 

63   So it goes. For this year, I'll keep fighting. 

64   Tomorrow will be solemn. It should be. I may even light a flame. 

65  Whew. That's a lot. Have a good day.

66   See you again.

67   Peace. 

~H~

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