Tag Archives: society

When life mimics the ‘imitation of life’: dark comedy and cops

Posted on July 4, 2014 by | 8 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Back before Rodney King started it all and cameras everywhere, combined with YouTube as a venue for rendering it public, we all had an excuse.  Almost an obligation.  The function of society required we believe in the United States police corruption, aggressive, illegal behavior, planting evidence, blindered pursuit of targets without regard for evidence to the contrary, was rare..  Drug use on duty and unprovoked violence against suspects rare exceptions.

We can still believe that if we wish, but it’s more difficult today.  YouTube is out there catching the law enforcement community in the act of being itself.  Damning the whole with the broad brush of individuals performing every breach of minimum behavioral standards expected for public employees of any sort.  But especially those where public trust is a necessary ingredient.

How can a jury unanimously agree to send a defendant to prison if every word a law enforcement officer utters under oath is suspect?  Might as well as not be pure falsehood?  If every piece of evidence presented stands an equal possibility of having been manufactured or planted by investigating officers?  When juries become aware police are as prone to bald faced lying as they, themselves [jury members] are prone to self-serving falsehoods, convicting anyone of a crime without prima faci evidence is troublesome.

 But I’ve digressed.  It’s happening everywhere, and while the movie industry used to treat the subject with sinister frowns in Serpico and hundreds of other cop corruption movies, eventually Naked Gun 2  and ilk was inevitable.  Airplane made it so.

Naked Gun 2 was a fun piece of work, but the US movie industry was too long-delayed in following it up with replacement of all those solemn, straight-faced cop movies with something nearer reality: farce.  But outside the US the movie industry wasn’t shy.

Along comes Torrente.  Unless you understand Portuguese you’ll have to read subtitles, but it’s a laugh a minute.

Torrente 3: El Protector 2005NR 93 minutes, In order to facilitate a political assassination, a corporation arranges for the target’s security detail to be headed by incompetent Det. Torrente. More Info , Starring: Santiago Segura, José Mota
Director: Santiago Segura.
 
Evidently there is a whole string of these coming out of Portugal.  And with a bit of searching, probably elsewhere.
 
Nothing much is sacred anymore.  Real life bought the ticket out of idealistic delusions and wishful thinking.  Thus far it isn’t standing in the way of filling up the prisons with testimony from these Keystone Kops, but that’s just habit and gut feel working.  Who the hell needs credible testimony and evidence to convict some tattooed freak or arrogant black kid for whatever someone said he did?    Someday that will fade.
 
Old Jules

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Posted in Movies, Police

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Asian dark slapstick – Charlie Chaplin wrestles Adolph Hitler for laughs

Posted on July 3, 2014 by | 2 comments
Hi readers.  Hilariaous movie — not sure which Asians made it. 
 
But incredibly, one of the early bit characters appears to be the identical great-grandsonish twin of the guy who plaiyed Steve McQueen’s assistant in the engine room of the Sand Pebble.  The guy who got captured by the angry revolting Chinese and was strung up being tortured when Steve McQueen shot him with a 1903 Springfield from the deck of the Sand Pebble.
 
Anyway, you’ll recognize him in the early scenes dealing with the monster fish until that final one when the fish gets him.  Same look of agony as his final moment in Sand Pebbles.
 
Streaming on Netflix:  Journey to the West 2013PG-13 109 minutes, Chen Xuanzang, who fights evil with love and nursery rhymes, clashes with Duan, a showy female warrior who’s in it for the thrill of the hunt. More Info Starring: Qi Shu, Zhang Wen Director: Stephen Chow
 
Heck of a fun movie.  If blood and guts bothers you, just remember it’s only a movie, after all.  Chinese these days aren’t making their lampshades out of human skin, so even if the Asians who made this movie are Chinese, the blood and guts isn’t necessarily real.
 
Old Jules
 
 

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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WWI Museum, KC

Posted on July 3, 2014 by | 3 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Yesterday I rammed my way through physical therapy and came away feeling like a million bucks a hundred bucks.  When I arrived back at Jeanne’s house I had life left in me I hadn’t squandered yet, so we decided to brave the heat and visit the National WWI Museum.  The day was warm, but a lot cooler than the average first week of July would have a person expecting.

 Anyway, that museum is impressive.  Didn’t attempt to dream up any serious rationale for that war having been justified in any way.  On the part of any of the parties involved.  Didn’t do any more flag waving than old propaganda posters high enough on the walls so’s a person had to stretch the neck to view them.  And some were in French, German.

Sure, they did have a copy of the Zimmerman telegram on display, translated.  But nobody trying to keep a straight face saying it justified the US entering the blood bath.  Too much has happened since then to allow any rosy cheekism on that score.  Been far too many Zimmerman telegrams written in US English over the century since.

What they did do was display roughly a thousand small arms, hand grenades, field artillery, aircraft, mortars, vehicles and several thousand photographs.  Firearms were redundant and soon became a blur.  A home made reproduction of shell crater 20 feet deep with a lot of war debris in it was graphic, made for a nice demo.  Peep holes into trenches watching men doing war things in trenches also.  The kids visiting loved it, and I didn’t think it was the worst way to get across a concept that is WWI.

Reminded me vaguely of a cross between the Empirial War Museum in the old Bedlam Hospital for the mentally ill in London, and the Admiral Nimitz Museum of the Pacific War in Kerrville, Texas [before Texas Parks and Wildlife took it over and ruined it].  Which puts it up there head and shoulders above most museuems I’ve ever visited.

No RARARAH we’uns won flagwaving Hurray for the US patriotic idiosyncracies, no hint any lives given weren’t entirely in vain, was pleasant.  And there were maps on the walls allowing you to examine how many countries all over the world were dragged into the bloodbath by the mere misfortune of being part of the British Empire.  How many because they were part of the French Empire, etc etc etc [in the manner of the King of Siam].

Seems to me the yardstick that fit best serves is that repeatedly inside in front of displays and later as we left, Jeanne remarked.  “This was worth it.  I’m glad we did this.”  Jeanne has zero interest in wars, WWI, anything of that sort.

It was worth it.  I’m glad we did it, too.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in America, History

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Community ‘Personalities’

Posted on July 2, 2014 by | 11 comments

Hi readers.  This town where Jeanne lives and I currently reside on her couch gave me a strange arrangement of ponderings yesterday.  I knew my physical therapy at the hospital will be fading in July.  By coincidence the Olathe Community Center is opening, and I’d heard it would include exercise machines, etc.

By golly I don’t ignore coincidence.  Figured I could buzz over there three times a week as long as I’m here, work out, maybe connect with local seniors to play some chess, chew the fat, exchange low sodium recipes.  Old guys did those things on the Courthouse lawn when I was a kid, playing dominoes and spitting tobacco.  A piece of getting old.

To my surprise, that new Olathe Community Center is a bastion of healthiness, classes on Zombi or somesuch dancing, Yoga, big TV screens people can watch while stationary biking.  A room full of water capable of being peed into from everywhere within 100 yards any direction.  Maybe a hundred walking machines, weight machines, and combinations of all three.

And for kids?  Wow.  Two story water slide indoors with signs saying they don’t want heart patients [me] using it.  Piss on them.  I’ll use that thing if I want to.

Because in that entire enormous structure there is not one, not one single item specifically intended to be used by the elderly.  Not one ping-pong table, for that matter, to allow fast action small area activities, either.

I’d been casually searching for some while for a Senior Citizen Center in Olathe.  There ain’t one, even though the senior population here’s quite large.  Closed down a couple of years ago when the city sold the building, never reopened somewhere else.

Fairly strange.  A rich, rich, how you say, affluent community here with a large area of old, low-income houses in the older part of town inhabited by lower middle class non-upwardly mobile working-class scum and senior citizens.  And that new community center forgot they exist.

Hell, every tiny community everywhere has a Senior Citizen Center, or failing that, a pantheon of senior activities incorporated into the local community center.  Andrews, Texas, out on the high plains desert has a big one.  Half deserted towns all over Texas and New Mexico dying of thirst and hunger have one thing left functioning:  Senior Citizen Centers.

And this beautiful old farming community that’s become the home of thousands of high-income soccer and tennis playing SUV driving tofu eating Kansas Citians during the past 20 to 30 years has the singular distinction of having nothing of the sort.

Jeanne’s jobs are over in the neighborhood of Lenexa. Another grown-over KC bedroom community.  And when she got tired of my berating Olathe regarding the new Community Center and the implied attitude toward senior citizens she took me over there.  They’ve got a center about the size of one in Zuni, New Mexico, or Andrews, Texas.  About the size of each of the three in Kerrville, Texas.

Fine people over there in Lenexa.  We got there around noon, just looking around.  Maybe fifty people hanging around in there chewing the fat.  A lady running the place came up, introduced herself, showed us around.  Full of enthusiasm, got more programs going on than you could shake a stick at.  Even computers, computer instruction.

I asked about chess.  “We don’t have a chess program, but we can!  You can be the first one to get it started!”  Turns out they have a couple of exercise machines, too.  ping-pong table’s next door at the ‘regular people [read upwardly mobile SUV driving, tofu eating] living in Lenexa. 

Well, they ain’t new, and they ain’t as close as the brand spanking new shiny Olathe Community Center full of water sports and rosy-cheeked mamas with healthy white kids screaming their heads off.  But if I’m around here a while and decide to do anything senior citizen-wise, I have a feeling I’ll either try out Lenexa or go another few miles out and do it in a place where they still have real people driving 15-year-old pickups.

If such places still exist. 

Might even swing over into Missouri, where they remember what Jayhawk meant back when it actually meant something.  Lots of little towns over that way still no further than this from the VA Medical Center.  I’m betting they have senior citizen centers, too.

Not to say it’s a big item for me.  I honestly don’t like senior citizens all that much.  Too opinionated, though not as bad as younger people.  But old folks tend to be fairly obnoxious, on the whole.  I don’t blame Olathe Parks and Recreation Department for trying to forget they exist.  Old bastards need to check in at the Emergency Room down at the City Morgue.

 Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, America, Senior Citizens

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Delicious low sodium hamburger

Posted on July 1, 2014 by | 2 comments

Hi readers.  I just devoured one of these  and can testify there’s none better.

  1. When you make up your ground beef patties use onion powder as a flour to separate the patties.  But first sprinkle on lime powder, coriander, black pepper.
  2. Thaw one Pattie and cook or grill it.
  3. Using two slices of low sodium sandwich bread paste on home-made catsup [no sodium] made from sweet peppers and rice vinegar blended and boiled.
  4. Prepare the bread surface with no sodium catsup below cilantro, chopped green onions and spinach leaves on one slice.
  5. If you like mustard, mix a tablespoon of mustard flour with equal amount of water and spread on the surface of the remaining bread slice.
  6. Place the meat, cooked to taste, on the bread with the spinach, cilantro, and green onion, then cover it all with the slice covered with mustard.

Beats hell out of traditional hamburgers and you only get the salt that came naturally in the ground beef, plus 30-60 mg of salt in each slice of bread.

Old Jules

Afterthought:  If you don’t have an economical source for lime juice powder and onion flour [powder] you can buy it by the pound from www.FirehousePantryStore.com  – the mixture of onion flour and lime juice powder is the absolute best substitute for salt I’ve found, bar none.  Beats the stuff sold as salt substitutes such as wossname, Madam Upso Salt and Mr. Ersatz Sodium all to hell.

 

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Posted in Food

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Strangers in Good Company – Octagenarian chick flick

Posted on June 30, 2014 by | 4 comments

http://youtu.be/hxrDtnB4VnU

Hi readers.  One hell of a fine movie streaming on Netflix.

Strangers in Good Company 1990PG 100 minutes, Eight elderly women are left stranded in the wilderness with only their wits, their memories and eventually some roasted frogs’ legs to sustain them. More Info, Starring: Alice Diabo, Constance Garneau, Director: Cynthia Scott
 
A nun, a lesbian, a grandmother or three, artist, birdwatcher, farm girl.  They talk about life, death, love, fear, war and death again as they struggle to catch fish, frogs, find sustenance in the wilderness long enough to survive.
 
*****, Five Stars is how I rate this movie, how tickled I am to have overcome my male prejudices against chick flicks and watched it.
 
Jack

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Posted in 2014, Adventure

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WWI was NOT an unmitigated blessing

Posted on June 30, 2014 by | Leave a comment
Museum and Memorial Museum and Memorial Built By Kansas Citians, Embraced By the Nation Soon after World War I ended, Kansas City leaders formed the Liberty Memorial Association (LMA) to create a lasting monument to the men and women who had served in the war. In 1919, the LMA and citizens of Kansas City raised more than $2.5 million in just 10 days. The equivalent of roughly $34 million today, this staggering accomplishment reflected the passion of public sentiment for the Great War that had dramatically changed the world. “The National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial inspires thought, dialogue, and learning to make the experiences of the World War I era meaningful and relevant for present and future generations.” - Mission Statement, National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial http://theworldwar.org/explore/museum-and-memorial

Museum and MemorialBuilt By Kansas Citians, Embraced By the Nation
Soon after World War I ended, Kansas City leaders formed the Liberty Memorial Association (LMA) to create a lasting monument to the men and women who had served in the war. In 1919, the LMA and citizens of Kansas City raised more than $2.5 million in just 10 days. The equivalent of roughly $34 million today, this staggering accomplishment reflected the passion of public sentiment for the Great War that had dramatically changed the world.
“The National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial inspires thought, dialogue, and learning to make the experiences of the World War I era meaningful and relevant for present and future generations.”
– Mission Statement, National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial
http://theworldwar.org/explore/museum-and-memorial      

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.   Janne, her son Michael, and I are going over to that WWI National Museum and Memorial on Wednesday.  Wednesdays, instead of it costing $16 to see it, a person can fork out $7 and still experience the full value of it.

Even though the coincidence of the 100th Anniversary of WWI beginning and the 4th of July, 2014, might leave a person thinking otherwise, WWI did have a downside.  The end of Russian rule by the Romanovs, for instance was mitigated somewhat by the rise of Communism, in the opinions of some scholars. 

And there was the 1918 Influenza epidemic, which arguably mightn’t have happened without WWI.  Sure, WWI gave us tanks, warplanes, better artillery and machine guns.  And we’d have had one hell of a time having WWII without having WWI first.

But it can still be argued that a lot of things about WWI could have been better.  Could have made WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Grenada, the Cold War, and the various Gulf Wars and Afghanistan adventures better.

The simple truth is nobody.  NOBODY won WWI.  Damned thing might as well not have been fought at all for all the good it did.  But acclimated everyone to the concept of fighting the bloodiest wars in human history, conceding the illusion of victory, and walking away losers. 

The USSR was briefly the big winner of WWII, along with West Germany and Japan.  The losers?  Britain, France and the US.  If you don’t believe it, take a look at the US economy, GNP and industry.  Then let your eyes gaze on a world map so’s you can examine the French and British empires today.  Compare that  to Germany, Japan, Korea, any AXIS power except Italy.

So while you’re celebrating the 4th of July and the beginning of WWI this week, do some thinking.  How can you do it better this time around?  How can you keep the losers from winning it?  Resign yourself you will repeat history.  And next time, try using your heads.

Old Jules

 

 

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Posted in 2014, America

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I’ll call your walking machine and raise you a bicycle

Posted on June 30, 2014 by | 5 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

I’m sure those nurses down at physical therapy intend the best.  I’ve no doubt when they hector me about the settings on those machines they only have my best interest at heart.  But I still try to cheat and occasionally succeed, steal a few MPH, or a couple of minutes than they said was okay.  But my time’s running out with them anyway.

I’ve got to find some other exercize, might buy a membership at the new community center here, though it’s a tight squeeze in the dollars department.  And yesterday Jeanne’s son, Mike, was over, said he had a Raleigh mountain bike sitting over there not being used. 

So I briefly borrowed the one he was riding, took it up the block to the blind school, or deaf school, whatever, and back.  Just a block, and I was breathing hard, but not too hard when I returned.  Defibrillator didn’t kick me in the chest.  And I didn’t fall off the damned thing.

So I’m going to borrow that bike from him if he’ll loan it to me.  Begin riding it around Olathe, Georgia, Kansas, whereever this place is, dodging automobiles, shaking my fist at drivers who want to share a piece of the road.  Shouting threats and curses.

There are plenty of places I might be able to go to in this town that I was reluctant to try to walk because I run out of steam after a block or two.  But a bicycle!  A hotdiggedydamn Raleigh bicycle with about 90 gears on it, that’s a different herd of sheep entirely.

Gonna be a man about town.  A man to be reckoned with. 

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, America

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US Strong Man Warns Europe He’ll Bomb Them Back to the Stone Age

Posted on June 29, 2014 by | 7 comments
alfred e obama2

Washington (AFP) – US President Barack Obama warned that “battle-hardened” Europeans who embrace jihad in Syria and Iraq threaten the United States because their passports mean they can enter the country without a visa.

Hi readers.  This guy up there now isn’t worried because 800 Frenchmen, 200 Belgians and 400 Englishmen are battle-hardened freedom fighters having done a little Jihading in Syria.  No worries.

Seems they can now come to the US when they get weary of all that Jihading, without a VISA.  Presumably they’ll have cash enough to cover the costs.  The US strong man says we’ll just have to beef up security nationwide and quintuple the sniper squads of green berets and police swat teams to be ready for them.  No problem.

Fact is he’s been looking for an excuse to bomb those lousy Europeans back to the stone age anyway.  Especially the French, which needs no explanation for anyone who’s non-French. 

But the US Strong man has an ulterior motive for the British.  He plans to plant the heels of the combat boots of the US Eighth Army on London long enough to uproot the British Museum, box it up, and haul it to the United States.

Show those limey bastards they need to keep their freedom fighters at home.

Remember where you heard it first.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2014, America

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Russian strong man thumbs nose at US strong man

Posted on June 29, 2014 by | 2 comments
russian fighter

Military experts from Russia detailing Russian aircraft. Civilian on right would like to take it around the patch for a few touch-and-gos, but wonders if they’d mind cleaning the missiles off the pitot tube on the nose beforehand.

http://news.yahoo.com/thumbing-nose-u-russia-sends-military-experts-iraq-155100726.html

Hi readers.  You figure it out.  The Russian strong man, according to Yahoo News, thumbed his nose at the US strong man and he’s sending high tech support to Russian supported freedom fighters instead of US supported freedom fighters.

I’m figuring that aircraft in the picture is one of their freedom fighters.  About what you’d expect from the country with that particular guy for a strong man.  If those Rooskies want to get serious supporting freedom fighters they need to talk some big bucks.  Trillions, or they don’t have a prayer.

But hell, they call soccer football.  What the hell do you expect?

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014

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