What’s A Woman To Do?-Barbara Stanwyck’s Jeopardy

What’s A Woman To Do?-Barbara Stanwyck’s Jeopardy  

 

 

 

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Sam Lowell

 

Jeopardy, starring Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Ralph Meeker,

 

Okay, okay here is the riddle, a woman’s very serious riddle where she has to do whatever is necessary under the circumstances to save her man, to keep him from being her ex-man, from being RIP. The answers aren’t always pretty in life, or as here, in the movies in the film Jeopardy which is a good enough word for the title of this black and white exposition on situational morality. Barbara thinks she made the right choice, and let the church-based moralists be damned.        

Yeah, let’s call her Barbara since she is going to have to stand the gaff from those frowning neighbors when she gets back home, gets back home with her man, her very much alive man Barry. Yeah, let’s call him Barry because not only is he going to have to defend his wife against the witches but he is going to also wonder how lucky he was to get a wife who went the distance for him, although you know as well as I do that there will always be a little doubt, nothing big, but still a thought in the air about what really happened back at the abandoned hacienda. Back where Barbara got that unexpected help from Ralph, a guy not known for the goodness of his heart if you must know, yeah, let’s run the table and call him Ralph because, well, just because.  

Here’s the set-up. Barbara and Barry and their son Johnny, a totally respectable red scare Cold War night middle class white picket fence family although without the dog that usually completes this picture, decided to go to the Baja, the Baja down Mexico way, on a family outing, a camping trip to get away from the nine to five routine, to get away from that white picket fence existence. Great idea, a little sweaty sun, a little spraying ocean, some fishing, maybe a little boating, a little bonding with Johnny who Barry has kind of neglected in his rush to get ahead in the world, maybe a little bonding of another kind with Barbara now that he is not all keyed up and notices her charms. Nice, a nice family picture, no question.

Then the whole thing kind of unwinds, some ill-fated wind coming out of the Baja to snag the gringos’ mal suerte (their bad luck) and the necessity for Barbara hard-bitten choices. Blame it on Johnny if you don’t want to blame it on luck, or an act of God, or the fellahin of the world but Johnny is the direct cause of the dilemma. See once they get to the campsite and investigate the surroundings bonehead Johnny decided to check out the rotting pier not far from their campsite. Wouldn’t you know though that Johnny would get his foot caught in one of the decaying boardwalk slats. And Barry being Barry went to rescue his son like any good father. But as the old saying goes no good turn goes unpunished and so Barry wound up being trapped by a collapsing portion of the pier. Normally no problem if the collapse had occurred closer to shore but as it turned out it was too far out-and the tide was coming in.      

Everybody, me too, would have to admit that Barbara and Johnny moved heaven and earth at that moment to get Barry unhinged from his dilemma. No go, nada nunca nada. They came up with an idea thought involving the lever principle of a plank as a wedge to pluck Barry out by using the car as the power to move the plank. Problem: no rope to tie the plank to the power of the car. But there was an half abandoned hacienda back up the road on which they came and maybe some rope could be found there. So Barbara went back on that fateful journey to see about getting some, or some help.    

Well, after speeding back to the hacienda because that tide is really coming Barbara does find the rope-and Ralph. Ralph however is not nature’s nobleman and he wants the car to aid in his getaway since he is a stone-cold killer who has just escaped from the federales. And they are looking for him intensely, looking for a three time loser who really did have nothing to lose. So Barbara began what would become the dance of the seven veils to get Ralph to help her. Nothing worked through a whole series of incidents on the way back toward where Barry and Johnny. Nothing worked until desperate Barbara, knowing that Ralph had not been with a woman for a while made her fateful decision. Now this was a 1950s film so the Barbara’s compromise, her proposition was not shown but everybody over the age of twelve could  figure out she let him at her because in the very next scene Ralph and Barbara are rocketing back to save Barry. You have to say this for Ralph he might not have been nature’s nobleman but whatever promise he made to Barbara for her favors, as the old saying went, he kept to it. Did yeoman’s work to get Barry out before the sea swallowed him up. Then had to hightail it since the federales had picked up his trail. And Barbara? On some very cold nights when Barry is back to work and back to the old nine to five routine she must wonder if she did the right thing. On other hotter nights she might lie awake wondering about Ralph’s fate. Yeah, jeopardy is the right word.      

From The Veterans For Peace- The Twelve Days, Maybe More, Of ......The Struggle Against The Endless American Wars

From The Veterans For Peace- The Twelve Days, Maybe More, Of  ......The Struggle Against The Endless American Wars

 

 

 

*****The Big Sur Café- With The “King Of The Beats” Jeanbon Kerouac In Mind

*****The Big Sur Café- With The “King Of The Beats” Jeanbon Kerouac In Mind  

From The Pen Of Zack James

Josh Breslin, as he drove in the pitch black night up California Highway 156 to connect with U.S. 101 and the San Francisco Airport back to Boston. On arrival there then from there up to his old hometown of Olde Saco to which he had recently returned after long years of what he called “shaking the dust of the old town” off his shoes like many a guy before him, and after too, thought that it had been a long time since he had gotten up this early to head, well, to head anywhere. He had in an excess of caution decided to leave at three o’clock in the morning from the hotel he had been staying at in downtown Monterrey near famous Cannery Row (romantically and literarily famous as a scene in some of John Steinbeck’s novels from the 1920s and 1930s, as a site of some of the stop-off 1950s “beat” stuff if for no other reason than the bus stopped there before you took a taxi to Big Sur or thumbed depending on your finances and as famed 1960s Pops musical locale where the likes of Jimi Hendricks and Janis Joplin roe to the cream on top although now just another tourist magnet complete with Steinbeck this and that for sullen shoppers and diners who found their way east of Eden) and head up to the airport in order to avoid the traffic jams that he had inevitably encountered on previous trips around farm country Gilroy (the garlic or onion capital of the world, maybe both, but you got that strong smell in any case), and high tech Silicon Valley where the workers are as wedded to their automobiles as any other place in America which he would pass on the way up.

This excess of caution not a mere expression of an old man who is mired in a whole cycle of cautions from doctors to lawyers to ex-wives to current flame (Lana Malloy by name) since his flight was not to leave to fly Boston until about noon and even giving the most unusual hold-ups and delays in processing at the airport he would not need to arrive there to return his rented car until about ten. So getting up some seven hours plus early on a trip of about one hundred miles or so and normally without traffic snarls about a two hour drive did seem an excess of caution.

But something else was going on in Josh’s mind that pitch black night (complete with a period of dense fog about thirty miles up as he hit a seashore belt and the fog just rolled in without warnings) for he had had the opportunity to have avoided both getting up early and getting snarled in hideous California highway traffic by the expedient of heading to the airport the previous day and taken refuge in a motel that was within a short distance of the airport, maybe five miles when he checked on his loyalty program hotel site. Josh though had gone down to Monterey after a writers’ conference in San Francisco which had ended a couple of days before in order travel to Big Sur and some ancient memories there had stirred something in him that he did not want to leave the area until the last possible moment so he had decided to stay in Monterrey and leave early in the morning for the airport.

That scheduled departure plan set Josh then got an idea in his head, an idea that had driven him many times before when he had first gone out to California in the summer of love, 1967 version, that he would dash to San Francisco to see the Golden Gate Bridge as the sun came up and then head to the airport. He had to laugh, as he threw an aspirin down his throat and then some water to wash the tablet down in order to ward off a coming migraine headache that the trip, that this little trip to Big Sur that he had finished the day before, the first time in maybe forty years he had been there had him acting like a young wild kid again.        

Funny as well that only a few days before he had been tired, very tired a condition that came on him more often of late as one of the six billion “growing old sucks” symptoms of that process, after the conference. Now he was blazing trails again, at least in his mind. The conference on the fate of post-modern writing in the age of the Internet with the usual crowd of literary critics and other hangers-on in tow to drink the free liquor and eat the free food had been sponsored by a major publishing company, The Globe Group. He had written articles for The Blazing Sun when the original operation had started out as a shoestring alternative magazine in the Village in about 1968, had started out as an alternative to Time, Life, Newsweek, Look, an alternative to all the safe subscription magazines delivered to leafy suburban homes and available at urban newsstands for the nine to fivers of the old world for those who, by choice, had no home, leafy or otherwise, and no serious work history.

Or rather the audience pitched to had no fixed abode, since the brethren were living some vicarious existences out of a knapsack just like Josh and his friends whom he collected along the way had been doing when he joined Captain Crunch’s merry pranksters (small case to distinguish them from the more famous Ken Kesey mad monk Merry Pranksters written about in their time by Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson) the first time he came out and found himself on Russian Hill in Frisco town looking for dope and finding this giant old time yellow brick road converted school bus parked in a small park there and made himself at home, after they made him welcome (including providing some sweet baby James dope that he had been searching for since the minute he hit town).

Still the iterant, the travelling nation hippie itinerants of the time to draw a big distinction from the winos, drunks, hoboes, bums and tramps who populated the “jungle” camps along railroad tracks, arroyos, river beds and under bridges who had no use for magazines or newspapers except as pillows against a hard night’s sleep along a river or on those unfriendly chairs at the Greyhound bus station needed, wanted to know what was going on in other parts of “youth nation,” wanted to know what new madness was up, wanted to know where to get decent dope, and who was performing and where in the acid-rock etched night (groups like the Dead, the Doors, the Airplane leading the pack then). That magazine had long ago turned the corner back to Time/Life/Look/Newsweek land but the publisher Mac McDowell who still sported mutton chop whiskers as he had in the old days although these days he has them trimmed by his stylist, Marcus, at a very steep price at his mansion up in Marin County always invited him out, and paid his expenses, whenever there was a conference about some facet of the 1960s that the younger “post-modernist”  writers in his stable (guys like Kenny Johnson the author of the bests-seller Thrill  were asking about. So Mac would bring out wirey, wiley old veterans like Josh to spice up what after all would be just another academic conference and to make Mac look like some kind of hipster rather than the balding “sell-out that he had become (which Josh had mentioned in his conference presentation but which Mac just laughed at, laughed at as long as he can keep that Marin mansion. Still Josh felt he provided some useful background stuff now that you can find lots of information about that 1960s “golden age” (Mac’s term not his) to whet your appetite on Wikipedia or more fruitfully by going on YouTube where almost all the music of the time and other ephemera can be watched with some benefit.

Despite Josh’s tiredness, and a bit of crankiness as well when the young kid writers wanted to neglect the political side, the Vietnam War side, the rebellion against parents side of what the 1960s had been about for the lowdown on the rock festival, summer of love, Golden Gate Park at sunset loaded with dope and lack of hubris side, he decided to take a few days to go down to see Big Sur once again. He figured who knew when he would get another chance and at the age of seventy-two the actuarial tables were calling his number, or wanted to. He would have preferred to have taken the trip down with Lana, a hometown woman, whom he had finally settled in with up in Olde Saco after three, count them, failed marriages, a parcel of kids most of whom turned out okay, plenty of college tuitions and child support after living in Watertown just outside of Boston for many years.

Lana a bit younger than he and not having been “washed clean” as Josh liked to express the matter in the hectic 1960s and not wanting to wait around a hotel room reading a book or walking around Frisco alone while he attended the conference had begged off on the trip, probably wisely although once he determined to go to Big Sur and told her where he was heading she got sort of wistful. She had just recently read with extreme interest about Big Sur through her reading of Jack Kerouac’s 1960s book of the same name and had asked Josh several times before that if they went to California on a vacation other than San Diego they would go there. The long and short of that conversation was a promise by Josh to take her the next time, if there was a next time (although he did not put the proposition in exactly those terms).            

Immediately after the conference Josh headed south along U.S. 101 toward Monterrey where he would stay and which would be his final destination that day since he would by then be tired and it would be nighttime coming early as the November days got shorter. He did not want to traverse the Pacific Coast Highway (California 1 for the natives) at night since he had forgotten his distance glasses, another one of those six billion reasons why getting out sucks. Had moreover not liked to do that trip along those hairpin turns which the section heading toward Big Sur entailed riding the guardrails even back in his youth since one time having been completely stoned on some high-grade Panama Red he had almost sent a Volkswagen bus over the top when he missed a second hairpin turn after traversing the first one successfully. So he would head to Monterrey and make the obligatory walk to Cannery Row for dinner and in order to channel John Steinbeck and the later “beats” who would stop there before heading to fallout Big Sur.

The next morning Josh left on the early side not being very hungry after an excellent fish dinner at Morley’s a place that had been nothing but a hash house diner in the old days where you could get serviceable food cheap because the place catered to the shore workers and sardine factory workers who made Cannery Row famous, or infamous, when it was a working Row. He had first gone there after reading about the place in something Jack Kerouac wrote and was surprised that the place actually existed, had liked the food and the prices and so had gone there a number of times when his merry pranksters and other road companions were making the obligatory Frisco-L.A. runs up and down the coast. These days Morley’s still had excellent food but perhaps you should bring a credit card with you to insure you can handle the payment and avoid “diving for pearls” as a dish-washer to pay off your debts.      

As Josh started up the engine of his rented Acura, starting up on some of the newer cars these days being a matter of stepping on the brake and then pushing a button where the key used to go in this keyless age, keyless maybe a metaphor of the age as well, he had had to ask the attendant at the airport how to start the thing since his own car was a keyed-up Toyota of ancient age, he began to think back to the old days when he would make this upcoming run almost blind-folded. That term maybe a metaphor for that age. He headed south to catch the Pacific Coast Highway north of Carmel and thought he would stop at Point Lobos, the place he had first encountered the serious beauty of the Pacific Coast rocks and ocean wave splash reminding him of back East in Olde Saco, although more spectacular. Also the place when he had first met Moonbeam Sadie.

He had had to laugh when he thought about that name and that woman since a lot of what the old days, the 1960s had been about were tied up with his relationship to that woman, the first absolutely chemically pure version of a “hippie chick” that he had encountered. At that time Josh had been on the Captain Crunch merry prankster yellow brick road bus for a month or so and a couple of days before they had started heading south from Frisco to Los Angeles to meet up with a couple of other yellow brick road buses where Captain Crunch knew some kindred. As they meandered down the Pacific Coast Highway they would stop at various places to take in the beauty of the ocean since several of the “passengers” had never seen the ocean or like Josh had never seen the Pacific in all its splendor.

In those days, unlike now when the park closes at dusk as Josh found out, you could park your vehicle overnight and take in the sunset and endlessly listen to the surf splashing up to rocky shorelines until you fell asleep. So when their bus pulled into the lot reserved for larger vehicles there were a couple of other clearly “freak” buses already there. One of them had Moonbeam as a “passenger” whom he would meet later that evening when all of “youth nation” in the park decided to have a dope- strewn party. Half of the reason for joining up on bus was for a way to travel, for a place to hang your hat but it was also the easiest way to get on the dope trail since somebody, usually more than one somebody was “holding.” And so that night they partied, partied hard. 

About ten o’clock Josh high as a kite from some primo hash saw a young woman, tall, sort of skinny (he would find out later she had not been so slim previously except the vagaries of the road food and a steady diet of “speed” had taken their toll), long, long brown hair, a straw hat on her head, a long “granny” dress and barefooted the very picture of what Time/Life/Look would have used as their female “hippie” poster child to titillate their middle-class audiences coming out of one of the buses. She had apparently just awoken, although that seemed impossible given the noise level from the collective sound systems and the surf, and was looking for some dope to level her off and headed straight to Josh. Josh had at that time long hair tied in a ponytail, at least that night, a full beard, wearing a cowboy hat on his head, a leather jacket against the night’s cold, denim blue jeans and a pair of moccasins not far from what Time/Life/Look would have used as their male “hippie” poster child to titillate their middle-class audiences so Moonbeam’s heading Josh’s way was not so strange. Moreover Josh was holding a nice stash of hashish. Without saying a word Josh passed the hash pipe to Moonbeam and by that mere action started a “hippie” romance that would last for the next several months until Moonbeam decided she was not cut out for the road, couldn’t take the life, and headed back to Lima, Ohio to sort out her life.

But while they were on their “fling” Moonbeam taught “Cowboy Jim,” her new name for him many things. Josh thought it was funny thinking back how wedded to the idea of changing their lives they were back then including taking new names, monikers, as if doing so would create the new world by osmosis or something. He would have several other monikers like the “Prince of Love,” the Be-Bop Kid (for his love of jazz and blues), and Sidewalk Slim (for always writing something in chalk wherever he had sidewalk to do so) before he left the road a few years later and stayed steady with his journalism after that high, wide, wild life lost it allure as the high tide of the 1960s ebbed and people drifted back to their old ways. But Cowboy Jim was what she called Josh and he never minded her saying that.

See Moonbeam really was trying to seek the newer age, trying to find herself as they all were more or less, but also let her better nature come forth. And she did in almost every way from her serious study of Buddhism, her yoga (well before that was fashionable among the young), and her poetry writing. But most of all in the kind, gentle almost Quaker way that she dealt with people, on or off drugs, the way she treated her Cowboy. Josh had never had such a gentle lover, never had such a woman who not only tried to understand herself but to understand him. More than once after she left the bus (she had joined the Captain Crunch when the bus left Point Lobos a few days later now that she was Cowboy’s sweetheart) he had thought about heading to Lima and try to work something out but he was still seeking something out on the Coast that held him back until her memory faded a bit and he lost the thread of her).          

Yeah, Point Lobos held some ancient memories and that day the surf was up and Mother Nature was showing one and all who cared to watch just how relentless she could be against the defenseless rocks and shoreline. If he was to get to Big Sur though he could not dally since he did not want to be taking that hairpin stretch at night. So off he went. Nothing untoward happened on the road to Big Sur, naturally he had to stop at the Bixby Bridge to marvel at the vista but also at the man-made marvel of traversing that canyon below with this bridge in 1932. Josh though later that it was not exactly correct that nothing untoward happened on the road to Big Sur but that was not exactly true for he was white-knuckled driving for that several mile stretch where the road goes up mostly and there are many hairpin turns with no guardrail and the ocean is a long way down. He thought he really was becoming an old man in his driving so cautiously that he had veer off to the side of the road to let faster cars pass by. In the old days he would drive the freaking big ass yellow brick road school bus along that same path and think nothing of it except for a time after that Volkswagen almost mishap. Maybe he was dope-brave then but it was disconcerting to think how timid he had become.

Finally in Big Sur territory though nothing really untoward happen as he traversed those hairpin roads until they finally began to straighten out near Molera State Park and thereafter Pfeiffer Beach. Funny in the old days there had been no creek to ford at Molera but the river had done its work over forty years through drought and downpour so in order to get to the ocean about a mile’s walk away Josh had to take off his running shoes and shoes to get across the thirty or forty feet of rocks and pebbles to the other side (and of course the same coming back a pain in the ass which he would have taken in stride back then when he shoe of the day was the sandal easily slipped off and on) but well worth the effort even if annoying since the majestic beauty of that rock-strewn beach was breath-taking a much used word and mostly inappropriate but not this day. Maybe global warming or maybe just the relentless crush of the seas on a timid waiting shoreline but most of the beach was un-walkable across the mountain of stones piled up and so he took the cliff trail part of the way before heading back the mile to his car in the parking lot to get to Pfeiffer Beach before too long. 

Pfeiffer Beach is another one of those natural beauties that you have to do some work to get, almost as much work as getting to Todo El Mundo further up the road when he and his corner boys from Olde Saco had stayed for a month after they had come out to join him on the bus once he informed them that they needed to get to the West fast because all the world was changing out there. This work entailed not walking to the beach but by navigating a big car down the narrow one lane rutted dirt road two miles to the bottom of the canyon and the parking lot since now the place had been turned into a park site as well. The road was a white-knuckles experience although not as bad as the hairpins on the Pacific Coast Highway but as with Molera worth the effort, maybe more so since Josh could walk that wind-swept beach although some of the cross-currents were fierce when the ocean tide slammed the defenseless beach and rock formation. A couple of the rocks had been ground down so by the oceans that donut holes had been carved in them.                          

Here Josh put down a blanket on a rock so that he could think back to the days when he had stayed here, really at Todo el Mundo but there was no beach there just some ancient eroded cliff dwellings where they had camped out and not be bothered  so everybody would climb on the bus which they would park by the side of the road on Big Sur Highway and walk down to Pfeiffer Beach those easy then two miles bringing the day’s rations of food, alcohol and drugs (not necessarily in that order) in rucksacks and think thing nothing of the walk and if they were too “wasted” (meaning drunk or high) they would find a cave and sleep there. That was the way the times were, nothing unusual then although the sign at the park entrance like at Point Lobos (and Molera) said overnight parking and camping were prohibited. But that is the way these times are.

Josh had his full share of ancient dreams come back to him that afternoon. The life on the bus, the parties, the literary lights who came by who had known Jack Kerouac , Allan Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the remnant of beats who had put the place on the map as a cool stopping point close enough to Frisco to get to in a day but ten thousand miles from city cares and woes, the women whom he had loved and who maybe loved him back although he/they never stayed together long enough to form any close relationship except for Butterfly Swirl and that was a strange scene. Strange because Butterfly was a surfer girl who was “slumming” on the hippie scene for a while and they had connected on the bus except she finally decided that the road was not for her just like Moonbeam, as almost everybody including Josh figured out in the end, and went back to her perfect wave surfer boy down in La Jolla after a few months.

After an afternoon of such memories Josh was ready to head back having done what he had set out to which was to come and dream about the old days when he thought about the reasons for why he had gone to Big Sur later that evening back at the hotel. He was feeling a little hungry and after again traversing that narrow rutted dirt road going back up the canyon he decided if he didn’t stop here the nearest place would be around Carmel about twenty-five miles away. So he stopped at Henry’s Café. The café next to the Chevron gas station and the Big Sur library heading back toward Carmel (he had to laugh given all the literary figures who had passed through this town that the library was no bigger than the one he would read at on hot summer days in elementary school with maybe fewer books in stock). Of course the place no longer was named Henry’s since he had died long ago but except for a few coats of paint on the walls and a few paintings of the cabins out back that were still being rented out the place was the same. Henry’s had prided itself on the best hamburgers in Big Sur and that was still true as Josh found out.

But good hamburgers (and excellent potato soup not too watery) are not what Josh will remember about the café or about Big Sur that day. It will be the person, the young woman about thirty who was serving them off the arm, was the wait person at the joint. As he entered she was talking on a mile a minute in a slang he recognized, the language of his 1960s, you know, “right on,” “cool,” “no hassle,” “wasted,” the language of the laid-back hippie life. When she came to take his order he was curious, what was her name and how did she pick up that lingo which outside of Big Sur and except among the, well, now elderly, in places like Soho, Frisco, Harvard Square, is like a dead language, like Latin or Greek.

She replied with a wicked smile that her name was Morning Blossom, didn’t he like that name. [Yes.] She had been born and raised in Big Sur and planned to stay there because she couldn’t stand the hassles (her term) of the cities, places like San Francisco where she had gone to school for a while at San Francisco State. Josh thought to himself that he knew what was coming next although he let Morning Blossom have her say. Her parents had moved to Big Sur in 1969 and had started home-steading up in the hills. They have been part of a commune before she was born but that was all over with by the time she was born and so her parents struggled on the land alone. They never left, and never wanted to leave. Seldom left Big Sur and still did not.

Josh said to himself, after saying wow, he had finally found one of the lost tribes that wandered out into the wilderness back in the 1960s and were never heard from again. And here they were still plugging away at whatever dream drove them back then. He and others who had chronicled in some way the 1960s had finally found a clue to what had happened. But as he got up from the counter, paid his bill, and left a hefty tip, he though he still had that trip out here next time with Lana to get through. He was looking forward to it though.               

Christmas In July?-With Laura Perkins In Mind

Christmas In July?-With Laura Perkins In Mind 

From The Pen Of Zack James 

Sam Lowell sitting in his favorite chair, the one that allowed him to slide down into the prone position to take a nap to rest his weary bones after a hard day of, well, of retirement, formal retirement anyway, now that another Christmas was upon him and Laura. He had been thinking about that Christmas a couple of years before, back in 2013. That was the year when, at Sam’s urgent urging, if that is possible to do, they decided the hell with another frostbite sad old weary winter in New England, the hell with the formalities of a family Northeast Christmas which they both dreaded anyway, had since childhood, and took off for sunny Florida, took off for Naples a place that previously had been where they said goodbye to winter with a week’s reprieve just before April the past several years. It was not like they had not tried to go down to Florida before at Christmas time but the previous time had been a disaster, had been nothing but a lonely motel room, unseasonable downpour rain and a Christmas dinner garnished with marshmallows on their sweet potatoes-whoever heard of such a thing.      

This last time, as Sam had assured me when he told me about it one night in January after they had gotten back all tanned, Laura, and red faced sunburn, Sam, as we were sitting in Jack’s in Cambridge cutting up old touches things were to be different since they decided rent a condo through Air B&B and from the description of the place complete with pool, spa and like amenities the whole experiment was a far better deal than running out to frost-bound Saratoga Springs in forbidden upstate New York to go through the dreary ritual of presents hysteria and sated dinners.

Still Sam said although things had worked out well he had been weirded out a little by what he called Christmas in July. As a hard-bitten New England born and bred boy some of the sounds and sights of Christmases past had lost their edge in too sunny and big easy Florida but like he said things worked out well and they planned thereafter to make it a new yearly ritual, their new yearly ritual (and have done so).   

I don’t really remember all the odd-ball quirky things Sam mentioned that night at Jack’s especially after we had ordered our third shots of Haig &Haig. I too am a New England boy who however has remain true to the New England frostbite winter although as I write this little sketch the temperature outside in Carver in about sixty-five degrees, so hardly a frostbite moment, although surely a relentless remember that climate change is dead-ass upon us and we had better begin to do something about it more than “sense of the meeting” accords in Paris which are only the beginning of wisdom.  I do remember Sam getting all excited about telling me that he wore shorts on the trip down (and back as well) to “prove” that he was not some tourist now. Laura, he said, just rolled her eyes at that one, a typical Laura response when he touts something goofy like that.   

Oh yeah, when they arrived in Naples and had taken a rest at the condo they rented (which both agreed was excellent and as described in the Air B&B documentation) they decided to go to Fifth Avenue, the heart of tourist Naples, a place where locals and tourists alike, at least the women, including Laura, like to “dress to the nines” to have ice cream and to see what the place would look like all decorated for Christmas in a world with palm trees and no pines, no Christmas pines anyway. So dressed in a tee shirt and shorts in December odd in itself (Sam is not much for dressing to the nines even in Boston, especially since he has been retired) and Laura all dolled up they walked up Fifth Avenue which unlike in March was practically deserted (the Midwestern families with school vacation kids show up then and mob everything from beaches to restaurants) although the sight a huge artificial Christmas tree tastefully decorated in the main plaza was startling. Still Sam found it incongruous to have those palm trees all lighted up.        

And so the week went, with Sam and Laura laughing about having to take a time check as Christmas approached and they found themselves eating outside at restaurants, sitting on the beach half naked in the baking sun. Had to laugh the most when they on a very hot Christmas Eve Day found themselves on a local beach, a beach crowded with families and young ones seemingly oblivious to the fact that Santa was due pretty soon, and not even muttering any words about how he was going to get about without some snow to make his work a little easier. Laura had remarked that maybe they have different traditions down in South Florida where they probably have never seen snow at least that would stick. If and when it does come then even those in Paradise will know that something must be done, even the most right-wing “snowbird” will be hollering for relief and quick since why else would they have invested in Florida property to get away from the damn snow, wind, ice, and frigid temperature.        

Hey, I remember the best story though, had kind of forgotten about it since that was a couple of years ago, but the season kind of dictates that it should be remarked upon here. One Christmas morning Sam was taking his usual walk, jog, trot, whatever (that last is what he calls it especially when he has had a bad day trying to jump-start himself early in the morning which is when he had to do those exercises or forget it because later in the day the legs are too gamy) along the North Gulf Shore Beach when he spied two young women, probably from the look of them college students although he admits to being less sure on young ages the older he gets, sitting across from each other on a blanket in the sand with wrapped Christmas gifts in front of them. On his way back he noticed the two still sitting there but with the gifts now open and the sun beginning to come up over the horizon. Yeah, a Christmas smack out of some July. Maybe Laura was onto something when she remarked about traditions being very different in the sun-belt.  

From Veterans For Peace-Stop The Bombings In Syria

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Paul K. Chappell Biography 2015 Accomplishments International chapters added in Ireland and Mexico, and a U.S. chapter in Janesville, WI 335 new members nationwide. Yoko Ono, Pete McCloskey and Masahide Ota joined our Advisory Board Plans For 2016: We seek to help people see that Peace is Possible. We will Remind the world about the Kellogg Briand Pact Sail the Golden Rule to educate the public about the dangers of nuclear war Work to resist further escalation of U.S. war making in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world Advocate for global diplomacy Push for more U.S. humanitarian support for the Syrian refugee crisis Continue to make connections with veterans across the globe to build peace between former warriors and help people see a vision of international peace both at home and abroad.

Help VFP Show That Peace Is Possible! , One of the largest obstacles to creating peace in our world is the widespread belief that peace is impossible. People do not actively work for peace when they believe that creating a peaceful and just world is unrealistic and naive.  What is unrealistic and naive is the widespread belief that humanity can survive if we continue to escalate the war mentality. As survivors of the war system, Veterans For Peace is uniquely able to show that peace is possible.  We provide much-needed hope and motivate people to work for peace.  And by increasing peace literacy, we can empower them with the tools to create a more peaceful and just world.  Help VFP spread a message of hope.  Send your gift today! Sincerely, Paul K. Chappell Paul K. Chappell is a VFP Advisory Board member and an Iraq veteran or mail your gift to: Veterans For Peace 1404 North Broadway St. Louis MO 63102   We also encourage you to Join our ranks Forward to a Friend Unsubscribe

Chelsea Manning Legal And Medical Update-Free Chelsea Manning Now!

ACLU Files Brief for Chelsea Manning's Health    Jos Truitt December 7, 2015 Feminsting   ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio explains, “Chelsea has been fighting since she arrived at the [United States Disciplinary Barracks] more than two years ago to receive treatment for her gender dysphoria and to be treated like the woman that she is.     , ,     December 7, 2015, the ACLU filed an opposition brief in the case of Chelsea Manning’s medical care. The military finally began providing Manning hormones at the beginning of this year, but they are still requiring her to follow male grooming standards. ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio explained to me, “Chelsea has been fighting since she arrived at the [United States Disciplinary Barracks] more than two years ago to receive treatment for her gender dysphoria and to be treated like the woman that she is.  Though we had some success in getting Chelsea treatment after we first filed our lawsuit and she has now been receiving hormone therapy for almost a year, she continues to be forced to follow male grooming standards and is forced to have her hair cut every other week to a length not to exceed two inches. Though the government has attempted to minimize the harm this has caused to Chelsea, her medical providers agree that the continued refusal to adequately treat her gender dysphoria and the government’s insistence on treating her as male is having devastating effects on her physical and mental health.” The ACLU’s brief explains the importance of this case (link to pdf): This case is about more than hairstyles. It is about medical treatment for a long misunderstood and stigmatized condition, and about a prisoner’s core identity and her need to be seen and treated in accordance with that identity … By the time [Chelsea Manning] was recognized as female and prescribed treatment, she was already incarcerated. But her incarceration makes her no less of a woman nor does it make her medical needs any less urgent. For a person with gender dysphoria, the ability to consolidate and express gender is not merely a choice but rather a critical part of treatment. To enforce male grooming standards against Plaintiff is to undermine her treatment and mark her as different solely because of her sex, gender identity, assigned sex at birth and transgender status. The Department of Justice has made the absurd, victim blaming argument that barring Manning from growing her hair out is about security concerns and protecting her from potential assaults, as if her fellow inmates don’t already know who she is or that she’s a woman in a men’s prison. Strangio concluded, “We are inspired by Chelsea’s continued courage to fight for her needs and for justice and we are honored to fight with her for the treatment she deserves and is constitutionally entitled to receive.” I’m inspired too, and I hope to see Manning win this important fight quickly. Jos Truitt is Executive Director of Development at Feministing. She joined the team in July 2009, became an Editor in August 2011, and Executive Director in September 2013. She writes about a range of topics including transgender issues, abortion access, and media representation. Jos first got involved with organizing when she led a walk out against the Iraq war at her high school, the Boston Arts Academy. Feministing is an online community run by and for young feminists. For over a decade, we’ve been offering sharp, uncompromising feminist analysis of everything from pop culture to politics and inspiring young people to make real-world feminist change, online and off.	VIEW ONLINE PRINT SUBSCRIBE VISIT PORTSIDE.ORG TWITTER FACEBOOK

 

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Important Update On Mumia- Abu-Jamal's Medical Condtion And Legal Fight-Free Mumia Now!

Dear friends   Please see the fantastic news About Mumia Abu Jamal from the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home. The hearing continues on 22 December.
We Rocked the Court: Report Back on Mumia's hearing in Scranton, Pennsylvania By Campaign to Bring Mumia Home, Saturday December 19th 2015 It was an amazing day yesterday in Scranton, PA, with more than 100 people inside and outside the courtroom. Folks joined us from all over the East coast. The Judge, Robert Mariani, began by reading an excerpt of the papers Mumia filed with the court, citing the life threatening conditions he suffered when he was hospitalized on March 30th, 2015. The Judge referred to those conditions as "serious," signaling to all in attendance that he meant business. However, even before the proceedings began, the DOC's attorney, Laura J. Neale, argued for dismissal of the case on a technicality.   She argued that Mumia violated procedure in failing to exhausted his DOC administrative appeals process first, before filing a suit in court; and that, on that basis, the judge should dismiss. Our attorneys, Bret Grote and Bob Boyle, literally took out the demolition equipment and went to town. The judge disagreed with her too, citing precedents with which she was unfamiliar. The judge then asked her: are Abu-Jamal's claims legitimate? After much back and forth she was forced to concede that they were legitimate, but insisted that there was a violation of the process. Then judge asked her, "so do you mean to tell the court that you are upholding form over content?" Shortly thereafter, the court adjourned because the DOC's attorney asked the judge to register his decision in a formal ruling. He came back with a powerful opposition to her motion citing precedent. And p.s. he came back with fire in his belly. First order after that was to hear Mumia. Although he was stoic, Mumia painted a picture of his tortured, Job-like biblical crisis, explaining among other things how he scratched himself bloody at night at the height of the crisis. The DOC's attorney argued that Mumia is better now because the DOC doctors administered the proper medicines. Mumia's testimony ended with a question. Mumia's attorney, Bret Grote: Would you accept Hepatitis C treatment? Mumia Abu-Jamal: Yes, with it I can live; without it I may die. Meanwhile, Pam Africa was managing the rotation of folks into the courtroom and intermittently leading the protest outside with the usual fire and power she brings to the struggle. The MOVE organization and many Philly supporters held it down in the cold, and at one point, a white man brandishing his gun with a press pass provoked the rally. Four police officers stood by, flanking him on both sides at times.  Our side took pictures, proceeded to expose him as an apparently police-supported provocateur, and kept it moving.
Back inside the courtroom. Our good doctor, Dr. Joe Harris, took the stand as our expert witness.  Movement attorney, Bob Boyle, painted a compelling portrait of the situation with a quick-fire, barrage of questions to Dr. Harris. Dr. Harris  rocked the court, and argued that Mumia's skin problem (Necrolytic Acral Erythema), anemia, and low hemoglobin count are all consequences of his active Hep C; and that the only solution is treatment with the cure. He also explained that Mumia's skin condition hasn't cleared, despite the fact that he has been give the strongest topical medicines in the market, which Dr. Harris called "big guns," medication. That remains the case, he continued, because Mumia's skin condition is tied to the untreated Hep C. He also added that it is common for this kind of severe skin condition to come and go in Hep C patients; but that in the meantime, the Hep C virus continues to advance as indicated by signs of serious liver damage in Mumia's system.    At the conclusion of Dr. Harris' testimony, the Judge decided to adjourn. We return to Scranton on Tues, Dec 22 for cross examination of Dr. Harris and more witness and expert testimonies. It was a long day. A few snow flurries came down outside and it was freezing in the courtroom. But we got a sense of our power. Except for the DOC attorneys, all in the courtroom - including the Judge - were attentive to the moral weight of this life and death condition. The lives of the 10,000 PA prisoners with the Hep C virus were on the balance and in the air in the courtroom. We left understanding that health crises like these illuminate much of what it means to be human.   Then we heard from imprisoned MOVE 9 member Delbert African at SCI Dallas, only 30 minutes from Scranton, that he and all the brothers on the block saw us on the evening news. BOOM!! Please join us on Tues, December 22. Email bringmumiahome@gmail.com Reporting for the Movement to Free Mumia and all Political Prisoners, with love & in solidarity, Johanna Fernandez -The Campaign to Bring Mumia Home More Photos Here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/109799466@N06/sets/72157662414189701       “Prison is a second-by-second assault on the soul, a day-to-day degradation of the self, an oppressive steel and brick umbrella that transforms seconds into hours and hours into days.”-Mumia Abu-Jamal

 

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