12/26/15: When Mother Nature Roared Into Town

Within hours of the devastating tornadoes that ripped through the Garland/Rowlett areas before 7 p.m. December 26 killing 11 the day after Christmas, everyone it seemed came out of the woodwork, so to speak, to help the hundreds in need.

Social media was on fire the day after with fascinating yet frightening images and youtube videos of the wedged mile long monster whose image in the darkness could only be seen by the lightning and blue electrical explosions along interstate 30 as it made its way from the I-90/George Bush turnpike where eight people lost their lives.

That news alone brought to mind what former Fox 4 News meteorologist Ron Jackson, whose weather class I took at Eastfield College years ago, said about how it was going to be a matter of time before a twister hits the interstate during rush hour traffic.

Normally I lose my patience searching for the remote to hit the exit button the minute I see an emergency broadcast that AT&T’s service provides on television that comes with that annoyingly loud siren that causes my dog to go crazy and interferes with the program I’m watching. Then the sirens in Mesquite started blaring and I switched to WFAA channel 8 to hear the latest weather reports.

My sister and her family were in Mesquite at El Fenix when her cellphone erupted with text messages and phone calls about the twister in Rowlett. If they had left the restaurant ten minutes earlier they would have run right into the storm as it formed on I-90.

“We kept getting texts saying it was touching down in Rowlett so we stayed in Mesquite until it passed,” said Marisa Stumpo Perry. “When we drove back to Rowlett, the overpass from 30 to George bush had whole tree trunks. We had to drive around and there was a large dead animal on the overpass. Chad's cousin Ryan lives just across Dalrock about a mile from us, and his house is gone. And the neighborhood where Jake’s school is got leveled. But his school is okay. Our power finally came back on around midnight. But this whole area at Dalrock and 66 is a mess.”

Along with the images of the storm came the many heartbreaking posts and stories. Among them were pictures of missing pets within the tornado-ravaged areas that were posted on social media.

“This is Bear Gus. He is a male Rhodesian ridgeback, about 6-7 months old. They live in Rowlett just over the 66 bridge from Rockwall. They lost him during the tornado. If anyone finds him please let me know,” said one post.

Another post said, “Please help me find her! Her name is Lilah. She is an all brown lab/pit, she's wearing a blue bandana that has snow flakes and snowman. She does not have a collar but is chipped. She was last seen on Woodside Road in Rowlett.”

The pictures showing partial homes still standing or are completely gone off their foundations lying in piles of wood and rubble, amongst smashed vehicles and trees that once sprouted leaves leave the viewer with just a glimpse of how devastating the storm was. You have to see the destruction in person.

Rowlett resident Francicso Reyna who posted pictures of wrecked houses on his block on Facebook said though his home only suffered minor damage to his roof, others on his street will have to completely start over.

“My poor neighborhood is just devastated,” Reyna wrote.

Worrying about one’s own personal possessions no longer mattered as citizens, just like they did helping victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, donated whatever they had lying around the house from old clothes, buying toys, food and water to making monetary donations to the Red Cross. Local restaurants offered free meals to residents affected by the storm. People volunteered their time at various churches to help with donations.

DCCCD Chancellor Joe May, in an email to the Dallas County Community College District on Dec. 28 asking if anyone knows of a fellow employee or student affected by the tornadoes to report it to their college’s leadership with the subject line, “Need help”, wrote “it has been said that the worst of times brings out the best in people.”

How north Texans responded in the hours after the disaster shows that. WFAA news anchor John McCaa wrote on December 29 how the city of Garland showed resilience in the tornado aftermath, but his final comment applies to how the entire Lone Star State responded.

“It says something about the city and its people. Something that, at this year's end, should make us proud to know they're part of the human fabric that makes up North Texas.”

©12/30/15

Appreciation: Remembering the fallen in law enforcement

I’ve got a lump in my throat right now.

I find it hard as I write this column not to shed tears for the police officers across the country who died in the line of duty this year, which as of this writing, that number stands at 116 according to the Officer Down Memorial Page at odmp.org. Of the 116, 36 of those died by gunfire. The worst month this year for law enforcement was in May with 17 lost.

In every online article I read about these officers and countless others, I went away learning a little about their personal lives.

New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratton called Officer Brian Moore, 25, who was shot and killed on May 2 while questioning an individual, “a hero of the city, a guardian at the gate of the city and now a guardian angel in Heaven.”

“He (Moore) dreamed of getting the bad guys off the street. He wanted to make a difference,” Bratton said.

Moore, who was a devoted Baltimore Orioles baseball fan and came from a family of police officers, loved acting out songs on the radio videotaping himself for his friends.

NYPD chaplain Robert Romano was quoted by CNN saying "We might ask ourselves: 'Where was God last Saturday?' I could tell you he was in a young man named Brian who accepted a call, a vocation. Just like we priests have a vocation, Brian had a vocation. A vocation to be a peacemaker and to be a hero. Brian, like so many of his sisters and brothers, ran always into the trouble, not away from it."

Officer Benjamin Joseph Deen, 34, who leaves behind wife, Robin, and two children, Melah, 12 and Walker, 9, was named Hattiesburg Police Department Officer of the Year in 2012 for rescuing a man from a burning building, according to a spokesperson for the Deen family according to the Los Angeles Times.

“The two things that really summed him up as far as a person, he (Deen) didn’t go anywhere without his family, ever,” said the spokesperson who asked not to be identified. “The day before he went on shift and passed away, he had just been out with his son – they were out target shooting with each other – he was boasting, he was proud of his son. ... He was honestly a friend to everyone he met, he loved serving his community, he loved being a cop.”

Officer Liqouri Tate, 25, also of the Hattiesburg Police Department, couldn’t contain his excitement last June on Facebook upon graduating from the police academy.

"I am now a Police Officer. I would like to thank God, the Police Academy, the Police Department, my family, friends, and love ones," Tate wrote on social media, who worked at auto parts stores for years before becoming an officer according to his father, Ronald.

“He had this enthusiasm, this fire in his soul,” Tate’s father told CNN who said that didn’t mean he didn’t realize he was putting his life danger being a police officer. "He really knew the risk. But I think my son just thought people are generally good, and that's just the way he was. He thought people are generally good people, so let's treat them all with dignity."

Officers Deen and Tate were shot and killed May 9 during a traffic stop on a vehicle occupied by three suspects.

During her time off, Detective Kerrie Orozco, 29, a seven-year veteran of the Omaha Police Department, coached baseball at the North Omaha Boys and Girls Club, volunteered with Special Olympics and was a Girl Scout Leader according to a Facebook page set up by the Omaha Police Department.

She was one day away from taking maternity leave to care for her newborn daughter, Olivia Ruth, born on Feb. 27 this year, when she was shot and killed May 20 when she and fellow officers of the Metro Area Fugitive Task Force attempted to serve a warrant on a suspect wanted in a September 2014 shooting. In addition to her daughter, Orozco is survived by her husband, Hector, and two step children, Natalie and Santiago.

“She (Kerrie) got people to look past the fact that she was a police officer,” said Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer. “I see her legacy as that of breaking down barriers.”

Deputy Sheriff Darren Goforth, 47, of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office in Texas recently bought Captain America T-shirts for himself and his 5-year-old son, Ryan, in August. Both shirts were still unworn at the time Goforth was ambushed while pumping gas in his patrol car in Cypress on Aug. 28.

In a story by CNN, Ryan wore his shirt underneath his suit jacket at his father’s funeral. Goforth was also buried in his T-shirt as well underneath his uniform. The story, which got national attention started a Facebook campaign encouraging people to wear Captain America T-shirts to honor Goforth and his son. Sept. 11 was the date set for Goforth’s Captain America Day.

“Today, we remember both the attack on America & our fallen brother,” was among the tweets posted by #UnitedWeGoforth.

In an open letter, Goforth’s wife, Kathleen, wrote describing her husband as “an incredibly intricate blend of toughness and gentility. He was loyal…fiercely so. And he was ethical; the right thing to do is what guided his internal compass. I admired this quality, perhaps, the most. For that is what made Darren good. And he was good. So, if people want to know what kind of man he was… This is it. He was who you wanted for a friend, a colleague, and a neighbor.”

The latest casualty to die in the line of duty was Officer Garrett Swasey, 44, of Colorado Springs, on Nov. 27. Swasey was among three killed when a gunman opened fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic ten miles from the University of Colorado Springs where he worked.

“He (Swasey) might not be in alignment with the abortion industry, but he’d be willing to go in and lay down his life for those people, and that’s just the testimony to me of the kind of man that he is. Not just courageous, but Christlike,” said Swasey’s church co-pastor Scott Dontanville where Swasey was an elder at Hope Chapel in Colorado Springs. “He would want us to forgive this man (the gunman) and to go on with our lives.”

Before becoming a police officer, Swasey, who leaves behind wife, Rachel, daughter Faith, 6, and Elijah, 11, trained for six years at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in the 1990s and was the 1992 junior ice dance champion who teamed with Christine Fowler-Binder in their second year together according to U.S. Figure Skating.

"Garrett was selfless, always there to help me, always my wingman," Fowler-Binder said. "He was my brother and my partner. I could always count on him.”

Two-time Olympic medalist Nancy Kerrigan spoke of her childhood years with Swasey.

"We were together a lot as children," Kerrigan told the Boston Herald. "I would ride my bike to his house and we'd hang out at the pool. We were together all the time, whether skating or not. I called him 'Ugh'; he called me 'Yuck.' We were always teasing each other like a brother and sister."

These are the individuals and countless others in law enforcement whose tales of heroism and good deeds should be reported about on a daily basis instead of the stories of officers indicted in wrongful death cases against the African-American community that spawned riots, and who are often times acquitted or rightfully charged and sentenced.

I meant what I said when I wrote in a column a few weeks ago about how there are three times more good officers than bad. If you don’t want to take my word for it, then heed the words, for example, of what Republican Congressman Peter King said at Moore’s funeral last May of how unfortunate it is that it takes such tragedies to reminds us all what outstanding jobs law enforcement do.

“How they put their lives on the line day in and day out for us, and too often they’re slandered by the media and politicians,” King said.

Or what Commissioner Bratton said at Moore’s funeral last May.

“For police officers across the country, we’re increasingly bearing the brunt of loud criticism. We cannot be defined by that criticism,” Bratton said. “Because what is lost in the shouting and the rhetoric is the context of what we do. A handful of recent incidents, fewer than a dozen, have wrongfully come to define the hundreds of millions of interactions cops have every year.”

People should do what Omaha Police Chief Schmaderer said at Detective Orozco’s funeral.

“If you have a hard time resonating with the police, think of Kerrie because she resonates with everyone. For her legacy the next time you see an Omaha police officer, maybe they’re eating dinner, maybe they’re in your rearview mirror, so after you check your speedometer, I want you to look back. I want you to look back past the cruiser. Look past this uniform. Look past the badge and see Kerrie, see a little bit of Kerrie in that officer because there is a little bit of Kerrie in all of us. There are a lot of police officers that do a lot of good that give back to the community in so many ways.”

©12/2/15

Things I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving

This week’s blog may well be the shortest one I have written. Since Thanksgiving is this week, I figure I’d take the time to write what I’m thankful for, which in reality, could apply to any year.

1) Family: I’m thankful for my parents and sister who’ve helped me out financially when I really didn’t want their help as my money problems was my nest and my responsibility to dig myself out of, not theirs. Most of all though, I’m thankful they are still alive.

2) Friends: I’m thankful for all my friends from the ones on social media to the ones I continue to see in person. I’m also thankful for those who’ve helped me out during moments of crisis when the time arose.

3) Employment: I am thankful I have a job and have never been unemployed for any certain length of time.

4) Health: I’m thankful I still have my health to a certain extent, and was only bedridden for three days in the hospital this year which was all my fault. At least it served as a wake-up call to take better care of myself in monitoring this “pain-in-the-ass” disease I got called diabetes, which brings me to number five.

5) I’m thankful I woke up alive today!

 Happy Thanksgiving!

©11/25/15

Could social media replace high school reunions?

When I got the phone call during the summer of 2008 from a former classmate at Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas letting me know the class of 1988 would be holding their 20th reunion in late August, I wasn’t that excited about attending.

Given I was one week away from being laid off at the IT job I held back then, and I still hadn’t heard from another job I had interviewed with the month before as to whether I was hired or not, the last thing I wanted to do was listen to former classmate’s success stories. I didn’t want to see pictures of their kids and listen to them boast about the six figure salaries their significant others make let alone take a one-night stroll down memory lane.

To quote mobster Tony Soprano, “Remember when is the lowest form of conversation.”

My attitude about reminiscing on old times is equivalent of the attitudes a few of characters in "The Big Chill" (1983) spoke about, including Alex, the one whose suicide off screen brought the college graduates together and who audiences learned about, if not identified with, through various recollections.

I equate my not wanting to reminisce with what Harold, played by Kevin Kline, said about his friends over dinner.

“Getting away from you people was the best thing that ever happened to me. I mean how much sex, fun, friendship can one man take,” he said.

Ok. There was no sex but there were moments of fun and friendship.

Truth of the matter is I haven’t seen two of three of my closest friends I hung out with in high school since 2006. One I haven’t seen since his wedding reception in the 1990s. I have three of them on my Facebook page but despite my suggesting we need to get together one of these days for lunch that has yet to happen. The fact is when your friends are married and have kids and, in my case, I am single and have yet to find a significant other (then again, I’m not really looking right now) and don’t want any children, your interests change, and you drift apart.

Personally, I’m much more interested in finding out what happened to the ones I knew in grade school from 1976 to 1984 than I did in high school, which is where social media comes in.

Though I have only connected with seven former classmates from grade school on Facebook, thanks to seeing the occasional listing on the top right corner of the page when logging in that shows pictures under the heading of “People You May Know” I have been able to locate almost everyone from grade school. Even though I had no desire to friend a majority of those people, I have been able to learn everything I wanted to know about them just by looking at their personal portraits or pictures of their kids and seeing where they live or what company they work for, provided they made that information public.

The same applies to the ones I’ve either connected with or have found on social media that I knew in high school. All the information I’ve found out about various people is what I would learn attending an alumni party where you are served the best food (even if it’s not any good at least it’s free) from some of the top restaurants in the city, free alcohol and a band that actually knows how to play dance music.

To quote Jeff Goldblum’s character in "The Big Chill," “They throw a great party for you on the one day they know you can’t come.” Or in my case, don’t want to.

I’m not denying it was good to see a couple of fellow classmates in person when I attended the alumni party last month at a homecoming game. I have since gotten a few friend requests from some other fellow classmates I had not seen in two decades as a result. The question remains; will I see them again when the 30th reunion comes up in 2018? Will I just for the hell of it, attend another homecoming game every year until then to see who I run into to play catch up? Will I even go to the 30th reunion or just wait until the big 50 comes around to find out how many of us are left? I’m not thinking that far ahead.

Now that we got social media, I don’t think a day goes by for anyone that they don’t see a post from so-so letting everyone know what their relationship status is, wish friends happy birthday, where they are working at, posting pictures of their kids, family holiday get-togethers, and places they are going to on vacation. People can now click on the “like” option if they “like” the comment, meme or opinion so-so posted, or they can engage in pissing contests arguing about politics, gun control, free health care or terrorism. Or at the very worst delete them because they don’t agree with their left-wing/right-wing politics.

With the technology we got now, what do we need high school reunions when we can find out all we ever wanted to about someone through social media other than maybe get the free food and never-ending supply of alcoholic beverages?

©11/18/15

Am I the only one who read Playboy for the articles?

I am not going to lie to you. At least I am man enough to admit it!

For almost 20 years from the late 80s to the early part of this century I read Playboy magazine on a monthly basis and kept the current and back issues in mint plastic bags with each decade labeled in cardboard boxes. Notice, however, I said “read” as contrary to what Hustler founder and publisher Larry Flynt and likely every woman in the world thinks, I actually did read the magazine for the articles.

The first thing I looked for in every monthly issue were not the “pretty pictures” but critic Bruce Williamson’s movie reviews. Williamson, who died in 1998 was the magazine’s longtime movie critic since 1968 and was among the few reviewers whose writing I drew inspiration from when writing my own film reviews that also included Chicago film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, Pauline Kael and Richard Corliss.

Although Playboy showcased a number of fictional short stories from such notable writers as Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming and Norman Mailer it was the interviews I paid most attention to. The most colorful was Lawrence Grobel’s March 2001 interview with former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight.

“He (Grobel) wants to know how I feel about God, marijuana, Gore and Bush,” Knight told his friend and former Dayton coach Don Donoher during the interview. “This has been like an investigation being conducted by the CIA to see whether or not I'm capable of running the Buenos Aires branch of covert operations. This is a question-and-answer session the likes of which Rockefeller did not put his potential son-in-law through."

Playboy magazine’s business decision last month to no longer publish women fully nude beginning with its March 2016 issue next year didn’t come as a surprise to me. The adult publication’s circulation, which peaked at 5.6 million in 1975, dwindled down to 800,000 over the years thanks to the Internet.

Like Dallas based Blockbuster Video, which closed its doors in 2014 (several franchise stores reportedly still exist) and became victim to viewers downloading movies off the Internet and video-on-demand, the porn industry has also taken a hit.

"After 62 years, Playboy is putting its clothes back on," Playboy Enterprises CEO Scott Flanders told CNN Money. "It served its purpose. When (Hugh) Hefner launched the magazine in 1953 nudity was provocative, and today it's passe."

Unlike Today hosts Willie Geist and Al Roker who spoke of the first time they opened up an issue and the image of a naked woman changed their lives forever at the ages of nine and ten, my first exposure to the magazine did not happen until junior year in high school when a friend smuggled the May 1987 issue featuring "Wheel of Fortune" (1983) host Vanna White on the cover.

Stupid me, I was too scared to attempt to buy the magazine at the bookstore or at 7-11 without being asked for identification. Yet, I had no trouble writing fake doctor’s notes with my parent’s forged signatures as a means to get out of class towards the end of the day during junior and senior year in high school.

What set Playboy apart from all the other adult publications is how it crossed over into the Hollywood mainstream. Ross and Chandler argued over whose joke it was the magazine chose in that Friends episode. Bud Bundy was heartbroken and found no reason to journey down to the basement anymore when Peggy sold Al’s Playboy magazines in "Married... with Children." Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) visited the Playboy Mansion and met founder Hugh Hefner in "Beverly Hills Cop II" (1987). When a couple nerds needed to create the perfect woman in "Weird Science" (1985), they opened up a locked chest full of Playboy magazines from the 1980s for research.

“I don’t think that any other magazine in the 20th century had more influence on America and the world and that’s a pretty wild position to be in,” Hefner said on Today.

I stopped buying Playboy over ten years ago, one, because I had no more room, two, the older you get your interests change and three, I felt the magazine had lost its way in terms of offering worthwhile content let alone noticing how increasingly thinner each month’s issue was getting. Yes, even those “pretty pictures” were less than stellar.

It seems fitting now for the magazine to return back to its roots where the publication was known for the articles as much as it was for the pictures. The 1953 premiere issue featuring Marilyn Monroe on the cover, which was undated, was only 44 pages. Back then, Hefner didn’t know if there would be a second issue.

The question now is come March next year, can the once mighty Playboy bunny with its new look (women will still be featured in provocative poses but the centerfold’s days are numbered) compete in an age where there is already a glut of PG-13 adult magazines such as GQ, Maxim, FHM and Esquire who already offer plenty of pictures of scantily clad women in the same provocative poses on the covers and inside their monthly issues.

At 89, Hugh Hefner doesn’t sound worried.

“It’s been a wonderful ride and it’s not over yet,” he said.

©11/11/15

Despite the urgent need to go "Back to the Future", former alumni wouldn’t change personal high school experiences

Anyone who says high school was the best four years of their life didn’t ask me what I thought of my four years from 1984 to 1988 at Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas as that is a chapter I’d much rather forget. Like conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh who said the best thing he looked forward to in high school was that it was over, I, too, felt the same way.

I was not an athlete, or an athletic supporter, though I did like the brigade uniforms whose attire was over the knee skirts and high-heeled boots. To quote Al Bundy from "Married... with Children" (1986-1997) on "The Avengers" (1961-1969) British TV show character, Emma Peel, the brigade team “kicked really high.”

When the time came junior year to buy a class ring, I didn’t need a ring to prove I was going to be a senior like this was some sort of rite of passage. To quote postal carrier Newman (Wayne Knight) from "Seinfeld" (1989-1998) when asked why he doesn’t deliver mail in the rain, “I was never big on creeds.”

That’s not to say those four years were a complete waste. I experienced quite a few ups, but the downs outweighed the ups. Those ups I had would make former late night host David Letterman’s top ten list. For example, I enjoyed my 8 a.m. typing class freshman year because the woman teacher who taught it always wore heels and skirts in between the occasional pants suits.

I still don’t know how I passed my biology final sophomore year with a B since I failed all the tests that required me to name the organs of giant grasshoppers and starfish and ate most of the jellybeans I was required to use in a lab assignment to create molecules and used the leftovers to build my own super structures using toothpicks. Nor do I know how I passed all those quizzes and tests in my English classes because I did not read "The Odyssey", "A Separate Peace" or "To Kill a Mockingbird". I must have either paid close attention taking notes during the class discussions, used "Cliff's Notes" (do those still exist today?), or got the questions and answers from classmates who had already taken the tests earlier.

The big highlight for me junior year was watching a fellow classmate get pulled over by a cop for speeding. My stomach hurt that day after school from laughing so hard. I don’t care if “instant karma” came back after me senior year when I got pulled over by the same cop for going 60 in a 30. At least it proved that "Christine", the yellow rusted ‘76 Ford Pinto (which made its debut in the 2010 movie, "The Losers") with no protective gas covering I drove could go over 60 just as much as it hit 140 when I floored the “American classic” because I was stuck in icy weather.

I was involved with the newspaper senior year but when I compare the award-winning brutal film reviews and sometimes no-holds-barred columns I write today to the fluff I churned out in high school, I can’t help but look at all those articles with embarrassment. At least I managed to get the administration worried with my final news story about all the teachers who were leaving when I graduated in 1988. When I asked the ethics instructor, Mr. Poundstone, why he was leaving he told me to use his quote, “It’s hard to teach ethics in a catholic school.” The powers that be cut the line from the story before the issue was published. I was stirring up trouble before I even decided my degree was going to be in journalism and I wasn’t even looking for it.

Despite those moments, if I had that steel silver grey DeLorean my eighth-grade teacher Mrs. Allen owned I’d turn the vehicle’s digital clock back to August 1984 and make three changes. One, I’d actually take my classes seriously instead of settling for being a B/C student knowing now just how much my parents paid to send me to private high school. Two, I would have asked a woman who was on the newspaper and was a junior when I was a senior during the 1987-88 school year to prom instead of settling for working that weekend (I didn't have any money anyway), and three, I would have warned my younger self about the importance of diet, exercise, and saving money to keep that younger version from becoming what my older self is today.

For years browsing the school’s website I had been envious of the stuff the students got now that I wished were offered when I was there (two theater auditoriums, two gyms, bowling team, film club, healthier lunch menu). Sure, the Class of 2019 today probably have it better than what I had, but what can’t be replaced are the personal experiences I went through. Now that I think about it, I don’t need Mrs. Allen’s DeLorean to go back in time to make changes. I am happy with the way things turned out now.

Besides, her car didn’t come with plutonium and a digital clock where I could set the time back. That stuff only happened in the "Back to the Future" (1985-1990) movies.

©11/4/15

Cop out: My experience with the police

The recent confrontations (a number of them deadly) between African Americans and police officers that have spawned protests and rioting across the country got me thinking about what I did when I got stopped by the Collin County Sherriff’s Department. It was back in April 2000 for what should have been a ticket for coasting past a four-way stop sign in McKinney.

I have never questioned the traffic tickets police officers issued to me after being pulled over for speeding or not wearing a seat belt.

My attitude has always been, I did it. I am guilty. Give me the ticket and I’ll decide how to take care of it. It only takes police officers maybe 10 or 15 minutes at most to write you up after they are finished checking your license on the computer in their car.

That’s how long it should have taken the sheriff’s officer to give me a ticket that Sunday afternoon 15 years ago. My attitude towards this particular area in McKinney is, if I don’t see any cars at any of the other three stop signs, then I am just going to slow down and then continue going. That’s a bad attitude. But if there are no cars at the intersection, why should I stop? What should have been a standard citation for missing a stop sign in McKinney became a full-length search of my car.

The officer who asked me if it was OK to search my car said it looked like I was trying to get away from them when they saw me coast past the stop sign. I felt like asking, "If that was the case, why did I stop the minute you turned on the lights?"

I didn’t bring up the question though. I just kept my mouth shut.

The sheriff said it was my right to say no to the search, and I would have said no except two scenarios suddenly popped in my head. One was, I could say no and then they’d assume something was up which means they’d just get another car to come by with a search warrant while I wait.

The other assumption was, although I knew damn well there was nothing illegal in my car, would the officer plant anything to make an arrest stick in his opinion?

I pondered these two scenarios for a second and then told the officer to go ahead with the search. He found nothing, but I could tell he was looking for something since I saw him eying the inspection and registration stickers on the windshield making sure they were current.

Instead, I stood there outside my car and waited for his partner to get verification on my license, which obviously came back saying I had no warrants (which for the record, I currently have none and have never had any). Yet, his partner still asked if I had any outstanding warrants as he gave my license back.

I told him no. He responded saying for me not to go through stop signs in front of the police because it’s not very smart. I agree.

That’s not the point here. The point is the Collin County Sheriff’s Department asking if they can search my vehicle was their way of saying I was hiding something, which wasn’t the case.

When this happened, I sat there wondering if my rights were violated in some way, but things could have gotten worse if I had smarted off to them and not cooperated.

Therein lies the difference between what I did and what so many African Americans who died at the hands of police officers didn’t do, whether the search was legal or not.

I am not denying there are bad police officers out there, but I am also convinced there are three times more good officers than bad. The officers who purposefully wrongfully shot innocent civilians during a stop (I am not just talking about African Americans here) and committing murder do get prosecuted and do get prison time. Every police department in this country be it a small town or a metropolitan city like Dallas has its internal problems.

Police officers don’t out of their way targeting individuals based on the color of their skin in hopes of them getting to use deadly excessive force and maybe starting a war between society and cops. There’s always a reason why you are pulled over by law enforcement.

The lesson that ought to be learned is if you want to go home alive or prevent your arrest following a traffic stop, you might want to avoid any confrontation with the local police.

©10/28/15

The continuing battle for political correctness

When South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed a measure into law on July 9, to remove the Confederate flag from the state capitol (which was then removed the next day after flying for 54 years), I couldn’t help but ask this one question: If South Carolina (and so many other southern states that flew the Confederate flag) knew there was a race problem, why wasn’t the flag removed before 21-year-old Dylann Roof opened fire, killing nine African-Americans June 17 at a prayer meeting at Emanuel African Methodist Church?

A sick individual cold-bloodedly murders minorities in hopes of starting a race war and now South Carolina and the rest of the country have a change of heart. If such supposed offensive historical symbols of the Civil War had been taken down years earlier, would that have kept Roof’s shooting rampage from happening? I doubt that about as much as I doubt more stringent gun control laws would stop mass shootings from happening.

Truth is this wasn’t the first shooting inside a house of worship. There have been countless shootings inside churches before the Charleston incident. Many innocent lives have been lost. Where was all the shock and outrage then over gun violence and mental illness?

When I watched "All in the Family" (1971-1979) and "The Jeffersons" (1975-1985) as a kid I did not count how many racial epithets (and there were many) Archie Bunker said about most every race. I didn’t know what the words “honky” and “zebras” meant at the time when George Jefferson uttered those words to describe interracial couple Tom and Helen Willis. Apparently neither did the live audiences otherwise why were they all laughing? Or why did the networks incorporate laugh tracks when those comments were said?

“The Dukes of Hazzard" (1979-1985) was and is no more a show seated in racism than Breaking Bad was a show seated in reality,” said Hazzard’s star John Schneider upon hearing the series was pulled by TV Land in response to the Charleston shootings and the suddenly racist Confederate flag painted on the famous car Bo and Luke drove, the General Lee.

“I am saddened that one angry and misguided individual can cause one of the most beloved television shows in the history of the medium to suddenly be seen in this light,” Schneider told The Hollywood Reporter. “Are people who grew up watching the show now suddenly racists? Will they have to go through a detox and a 12-step program to kick their Dukes habit?”

We can’t say Merry Christmas to anyone out of fear of offending someone who doesn’t celebrate it. Comedienne Nicole Arbour can’t do what she thinks was a humorous commentary about her opinion of fat people without YouTube, in a brief moment of madness, pull the video before restoring it due to so many hits the segment was getting. We can’t dress up as “Caitlyn Jenner” for Halloween because the LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) community finds it insulting.

When people aren’t busy wasting their breath on the dumbest of debates, like changing the name of the Washington Redskins football team to something else that won’t be offensive to Native Americans, they’re busy setting double standards.

They say nothing when liberal hate commentator Ed Schultz shouts how former Vice President Dick Cheney’s heart should be ripped out, kicked around and stuffed back into him. The minute Rush Limbaugh, however, calls Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a slut, without bothering to read the transcript of where Limbaugh was coming from when he said it, the double standard liberals want “The Doctor of Democracy” gone from the airwaves.

The minute I criticize President Obama I get called racist when my criticism of him has nothing to do with his race. It’s his lousy policies destroying America that I have no stomach for.

With the Confederate flag now in a museum I can’t help but wonder (as I drive throughout my neighborhood seeing the American flag proudly displayed outside numerous homes), how long will it be before someone finds the symbol offensive and demands that it be removed from a neighbor’s home?

In case you were born yesterday, I got news for you. It’s already happening.

©10/21/15

Enough is already way too much

This is the eighth column I have written about a mass shooting since the Columbine school massacre in 1999. I am just as fed up with these tragic incidents as President Barack Obama was when he spoke hours after the latest shooting Oct. 1 at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. The tragedy left nine students dead, in addition to the gunman, who took his own life.

I am so disgusted I am not even going to criticize the president when he said, “We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths.”

I’ll let the right-wing political pundits such as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity at Fox News bring up Chicago when it comes to how the state of Illinois has the strictest gun laws and just about every weekend the body count in the Windy City continues to reign with double digits.

I am tired of hearing the names of the dead and their young ages being read off by law enforcement officers at crime scenes. I’m also tired of the “drive-by” media, acting like vampires in need of fresh blood who hope the more people killed, the more they can keep the tragedy alive, reporting it for days.

I am tired of hearing from survivors recounting their horror with stories about how the killer in this latest shooting asked students about the religion and, depending on their answer, would either shoot them in the head or the leg. I am tired of hearing survivors talk about how this is not how they envisioned their fifth day in college to be.

I am tired of hearing from friends and family members of these shooters about how they had no idea the person was planning to commit mass murder.

“That’s not the son I raised” would be among the many responses from the parents.

I get so tired of hearing about how these shooters attempted to seek, refused to seek or were undergoing psychological counseling before they went off the deep end. The red flags consistently were missed every time these tragedies occurred.

Most of all, I am sick and tired of politicians using such tragedies as a means to get on their political soapboxes about how more stringent gun control laws need to be put on the books to stop these tragedies from happening. It’s nothing but talk.

Three days after the shooting at Umpqua Community College, it was reported four students were arrested in northern California for plotting to carry out a similar Columbine-style attack at Summerville High School in Tuolumne. I don’t believe for one minute that if California had the same stringent gun laws that Illinois has such a mass shooting would have been prevented. If someone is intent on killing, it doesn’t matter how he got the gun. Nor does it matter how many rounds the weapon can fire so long as the person can take out a few people before his cowardly act of turning the gun on himself.

Let’s face it: Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.

Politicians in Washington have been debating the gun control issue since the deaths of the Kennedys in the ‘60s, Beatle John Lennon in 1980 and President Ronald Reagan’s attempted assassination in 1981. Both of the last two assailants were mentally ill.

We have gotten nowhere. Every incident since Columbine has been, as Obama called it in his speech, “routine.”

In the coming weeks or months, though I hope it doesn’t happen (and that’s wishful thinking on my part), another mass shooting will occur on another campus. Obama and the rest of the country will express the same shock and go through that same routine all over again. Campus newspapers will do more predictable news stories interviewing campus police and administrators asking what are they doing to keep students safe and there will likely be more regurgitated editorials and columns.

Treating the mentally ill is the only way these mass shootings will stop. I have always believed that, based on the treatment (or lack thereof) these mass murderers were receiving.

Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump said on CNN’s “New Day” this “…isn’t a gun problem. This is a mental problem. It’s not a question of the laws. It’s really the people.”

Commenting about the problem and actually doing something about it are two different things. I don’t think a presidential candidate, Republican or Democrat, has ever said during their campaigns what they intend to do about treating the mentally ill in this country.

Maybe it’s time for them to start.

©10/14/15

Gone Too Soon: John Lennon (1940-1980)

It happened on a Monday night. The date was Dec. 8, 1980. Some say it was the day the music died. This December will mark the 35th anniversary when former Beatle/songwriter John Lennon was shot to death by a deranged fan outside the gates of the Dakota Apartments in New York City as he and his wife, Yoko Ono, were returning home from a recording studio session. Lennon would have turned 75 this year on October 9.

Rock star Sheryl Crow and actor/comedian Mike Myers, according to a retrospective article on Lennon in the Nov. 9, 2000 issue of Rolling Stone, heard about the singer’s assassination watching "Monday Night Football" when sportscaster Howard Cosell made the shocking announcement to TV viewers.

I found out the next morning from my dad as I was getting ready for school.

I remembered hearing Beatles’ songs like "Yesterday" on the radio the morning after the singer’s death and seeing hour-long newscasts and specials covering the life of the late Beatle on TV that night.



I also recall reading various newspaper articles about fans who were so distraught by the tragic news that they committed suicide. Some fans of Nirvana repeated that same senseless act 14 years later when they found out the group’s lead singer, Kurt Cobain, killed himself in 1994.

The founding member of The Beatles, however, wasn’t like Cobain who freely chose the self-destructive lifestyle through drugs or a bloated Elvis Presley, who near the end of his life forgot the lines to most of his songs during live performances.

Lennon came out of hiding in 1980 with what was to be his comeback album, "Double Fantasy," after devoting the last half of the decade to raising his son, Sean. Some of the music he wrote after The Beatles broke up in 1970 were as much about him as they were about others. "Jealous Guy" made obvious references to Lennon’s relationship with his second wife, Yoko Ono, while "Cold Turkey" spoke of the singer’s battles with drugs. Then there was Beautiful Boy, which Lennon wrote as a tribute to his son.

A couple Beatles’ songs, however, like "Julia" were about his mother whom Lennon lost when she died in an auto accident in 1958, while "The Ballad of John and Yoko" talked about the two as a couple.



Listening to some of Lennon’s best hits on disc, I have often felt as though some of his lyrics described me, like in the song, "Watching the Wheels." The lyrics go "People say I’m crazy doing what I’m doing. Well, they give me all kinds of advice to save me from ruin...I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round, I really love to watch them roll, no longer hide behind the merry-go-round, I just have to let it go."

I am sure someone else will interpret those lyrics differently but for me, they seem to say, "Look, you’re getting older now so stop wasting time." Then there’s "Borrowed Time," which came out in 1984 whose lyrics talk about how one’s young carefree days never last forever.

"My role in society, or any artist or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel," the singer was quoted saying in the 1988 book, "Imagine: John Lennon."

I was in fifth grade when Lennon was killed in 1980. I wasn’t old enough to realize what his death would mean.

For older fans who remember when The Beatles first came to America in 1964 and grew up listening to their songs, the death of John Lennon dashed any hopes, if there were any, of a possible reunion.



That notion finally hit me in 1995 when the three surviving members of the "Fab Four", Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr came together to record their first Beatles song in 15 years called "Free as a Bird." The song was part of an unfinished lyric Lennon recorded on cassette tape back in the late 70s.

When it comes to the subject of John Lennon and The Beatles, there is always that lingering question. If Lennon has lived, would the Beatles have gotten together again?

The question is like pondering whether or not President Kennedy would have pulled American troops out of Vietnam in 1964 had he lived to see a second term.

What I do know is if Lennon were around today, it’s a good bet he’d have a lot to say about many current events the past three decades, in particular about 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some of which he probably would have written songs about.

Lennon was our generation’s JFK. His passing brings to mind the opening line from the Beatles’ lyric, "A Day in yhe Life" and was the last song on the "Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band" album.

The line was "I read the news today oh boy..."

©10/7/15

Biographies, sequels and a whale highlight this writer’s must see films of fall

If you are reading this article hoping this will be the one page equivalent of what Entertainment Weekly and other monthly movie magazines do every September profiling the next fifty plus movies coming out between now and New Year's Day 2016, you may just have to look to such boring regurgitated periodicals to get all the scoop for such useless trivial information because this latest blog is not it!

Here are nine upcoming films I can justify seeing on the big screen provided I don’t suddenly decide to save my hard-earned money and wait for them to come out on disc or video-on-demand three or four months later.



"The Walk": “Welcome to New York. Anything to declare” asks the inspector. “I am going to hang a high wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center and walk on it,” says French high-wire artist Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). I admit before seeing the trailer the first thing I thought of was the possibility should I see the film was I would be depressed knowing that the World Trade Center is forever gone. I didn’t need to be reminded of what America lost on Sept. 11, 2001, and what continues to be rebroadcast every year by the news networks like CNN and MSNBC on 9/11’s anniversary. That was not the feeling I got seeing the trailer, however, as Oscar winning director Robert Zemeckis ("Forrest Gump" – 1994) takes audiences back to 1974 when construction on the World Trade Center was just completed a year before. Instead of a gloomy pall hanging over the film (no pun intended) knowing what would happen barely thirty years later, we will instead get a front row seat in the theater the way New Yorkers had their eyes glued to the sky 110 stories up that day in August watching a man, who as Gordon-Levitt’s Petit says, “was always searching for the perfect place to hang his wire.” (9/30)



"Steve Jobs": I have yet to read author Walter Isaacson’s 600 plus-page biography of Apple founder Steve Jobs that was published a month after the visionary’s death in 2011. What I have heard over the years since his passing was that Jobs wasn’t exactly the nicest person to be around. If such is true, I won’t be surprised to see some of Jobs’ negative personality jump on the big screen in Aaron Sorkin’s script based on Isaacson’s book. Just don’t expect the same mammoth coverage that was done in print. According to imdb.com, Sorkin has said the film will consist of three 30-minute behind the scenes events involving Apple’s product launches in 1984, 1988 and 1998. The last movie Sorkin wrote the screenplay on based on Ben Mezrich’s book painted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg into, as one of his lawyers told him at the end of "The Social Network" (2010), “You’re not an asshole, Mark. You’re just trying so hard to be.” I was probably the only one rooting for Jesse Eisenberg’s Zuckerberg who was sued by two Harvard graduates and his own best friend for supposedly stealing their idea. Rest assured I will do the same rooting for Jobs as played by Michael Fassbender. Sometimes you have to be a complete jerk to get what you want accomplished. There is a saying for those who complain about the millions Steve Jobs brought in as a result of his technological creations, “Nice guys finish last”, and the ones who complain are jealous they didn’t think of the idea first which explains why those people are barely living paycheck to paycheck. (10/9)



"Truth": “What we’re talking about is you bringing your politics into your reporting. Where does politics not enter into this,” asks one of the CBS executives grilling producer Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) on the bungled "60 Minutes" reporting scandal about President George W. Bush’s military record in 2004 that ended long running news anchor Dan Rather’s career. I knew when that story broke that that was nothing more than the liberal “drive-by” media’s biased attempt to sway the 2004 presidential election even if the segment was true. I’ll just have to see if the film is kinder to Dan Rather and again paints Bush as the villain or if it’s just the opposite. There is one thing I am certain of. One of these individuals will not come out smelling like a rose. What I am not certain of is whether I will be able to picture Robert Redford as Dan Rather. (10/16)



"Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension": You won’t get any argument from me if you say that little independent found footage movie that could from 2007 that spawned off what will now be the sixth and supposedly final installment of the franchise should have stopped with the first one. I’ve, however, seen them all with the exception of "Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones" (2014) and I’m not worried whether or not the events of that film will tie to the sixth. Perhaps I’m just a masochist who feels compelled to sit through these predictable “found footage” movies knowing that none of them will end well for the individuals involved. Or maybe I’m just hoping all those questions about why Katie (Katie Featherston) was being haunted by whatever demon was going after her since childhood in that 2007 film and what happened to the kid she abducted in the 2010 sequel will all be answered now. Or maybe this is just another big mass marketed tease designed to continue doing another one for next Halloween. (10/23)



"Spotlight": A movie that paints investigative journalists as the ones to root for is a rarity. The film journalism instructors show to want-to-be future reporters, as a means to inspire them to go after the facts, is "All the President’s Men" (1976). Everything else ("Absence of Malice" – 1981, "Broadcast News" – 1987, "Shattered Glass" – 2003, "The Insider" – 1999) are all examples of what NOT to do in broadcast/print journalism. The reporters of the Boston Globe will be the heroes in "Spotlight", which covers their investigation into the Massachusetts Catholic sex abuse scandal. Considering how much “Hollyweird” only embraces Catholicism when a movie bashes it I am sure audiences will not only be reminded why some have left the Catholic church as a result of the scandal but will love seeing the church painted as the villains. (11/6)



"Spectre": What was the longest James Bond movie made? Expect that question to maybe come in a future Trivia Pursuit game. (Do they even make that game anymore)? Up until now, all the Bond movies have run the usual 130 minutes with the exception of "Quantum of Solace" (2008) at 106 minutes. The installment's running time is reportedly going to run close to 160 minutes (slightly over three hours if you count the 30 minutes of repeated trailers). What kind of villain two-time Oscar winner Christophe Waltz plays is as cryptic as the exact plot of "Star Wars – Episode VII: The Force Awakens.: Of all the actors who’ve played 007 since "Dr. No" (1962) Daniel Craig is the one I like best. Forget about how since Craig took over the role with "Casino Royale" (2006) these films have been mostly humorless. I prefer a James Bond who does things one wouldn’t expect to see. Craig’s 007 had me the moment that bartender asked him if he wanted his Vodka-martini shaken or stirred in "Casino Royale" and Bond angrily replies back, “Do I look like I give a damn?” Now that’s a 007 I am on board with. (11/6)



"Creed": Upon first hearing Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa would return again for a seventh installment I was immediately reminded of that early scene in "Airplane II: The Sequel" (1982) where a poster in the bookstore now features the boxer as a small aging Asian character after 25 plus movies. This time, the former World Heavyweight Champion is completely alone now. Bum brother son-in-law Paulie, who was played by Burt Young in the previous six films, has joined Adrian (Talia Shire) in that great big boxing ring in the sky. The story has Rocky training the son of Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan – fresh off the summer’s box office disaster "Fantastic Four") for an upcoming boxing match. My interest is not seeing how Creed’s son does in the ring but whether or not this is really Rocky Balboa’s swan song. Word has it his character isn’t doing well and given that information comes off the Internet, well gee, the rumors must be true! (11/25)



"I Saw the Light": If you ask me what songs I have heard from country singer Hank Williams (1923-1953) I will not be able to answer you because as of right now, I don’t believe I have heard any of his music in my lifetime. I have a feeling; however, I will be wrong when I see the biography of his life on the big screen and hear some of his hits played and I’ll go “yeah, I’ve heard that one.” The one reason for my wanting to see the film is the chance to see Tom Hiddleston stretch his acting legs doing something completely different as up until I now, the only movies I associated him with are his role as the villain, Loki, in the Thor sequels (2011-2013) and "The Avengers" (2012). (11/27)



"In the Heart of the Sea": Usually when a film’s original release date is moved up to another time of year it’s an indication the studio doesn’t have much faith in the film’s box office success. Warner Brothers moved director Ron Howard’s adaptation of Nathaniel Philbrick’s 2000 best seller about an American whaling ship’s deadly encounter with a sperm whale in 1820 feeling the film was good enough to qualify for the 2016 Oscar nominations. (12/11)

©9/30/15

Times have changed since I was in high school

The controversy surrounding the arrest of 14-year-old MacArthur High School freshman, Ahmed Mohamed in Irving, Texas, for bringing what school officials thought was a bomb but was in fact, according to Mohamed a digital clock brought to mind the things I, and so many others did that a majority of us got away with when I was in high school and grade school, and only rarely did the administration question our actions or thoughts.

I remember in grade school from 76’ to 84’ how in seventh grade one of my classmates imitated rocker Ozzy Osbourne and bit a head off a dead squirrel. I still say that story is nothing more than the stuff of legend as I was not there that morning before the 8 a.m. bell rang to actually see it. I do know that person had a “come to Jesus” meeting before the principal that day though.

During freshman year in high school a friend of mine and I took our English instructor’s offer for extra credit and submitted journals weekly. My friend wrote stories where he is “Mad Max”, the vengeful loner/former police officer Mel Gibson played in those apocalyptic films from 1979 to 1985 who battles outlaw motorcycle gangs. While I wrote a sequel to the gangster cocaine epic, Scarface (1983) called Scarface II: The Exterminator in which I cast various classmates in certain roles (and yes, a majority of those characters were killed off in my screenplay and yes, I was the lead character). If it’s any consolation I got killed off too.

When word got around in the fall of 1987 senior year that one woman classmate said she idolized cult leader, Charles Manson, and the government teacher asked her why, the woman’s response was as cryptic as when conservatives ask liberal supporters of President Barack Obama and possible 2016 Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton what things did they accomplish in office and can come up with nothing. The classmate offered no justification as to why she looked up to Manson. At least her conversation with the government teacher gave us all a class day off in which we watched the 1976 mini-series, "Helter Skelter."

Those weren’t the only questionable incidents. Another high school classmate I knew wrote dotted lines in his wrists that said, “Cut here”, that got some instructors laughing. When the ethics instructor asked him why he wrote that on his wrists he told him that if he wrote it on his neck, no one would see the joke and that his mother would kill him for ruining his shirts. The ethics teacher got a big laugh out of that one.

These incidents occurred at a time when mass shootings, though they did occur, did not happen on a weekly basis like they do now. Mass shootings in grade and high schools were as unheard of back then as the idea of hijacking jetliners full of fuel and plowing them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon let alone envisioning the collapse of the twin towers. Yes, America dealt with terrorism back in the 1980s and liberals worried it would be President Ronald Reagan (1980-1988) who’d bring about the United States’ destruction with a full-scale nuclear war with Russia but somehow, that was all furthest from our minds, or maybe we conservatives felt safer knowing we had a leader who didn’t negotiate with terrorists.

Those times are gone now. If word got around about my little screenplay and I was a high school student today, I probably would have been called in to see a counselor as the administrators poured over my writings wondering if it’s the macabre bloody equivalent of the kinds of diaries mass murderers Eric Harris, Seung-Hui Cho, and James Holmes churned out before they picked up their guns and ammo.

Kids today get suspended if they so much as turn their hand into a gun and point it at other classmates as though that person may one day pull out the real thing. If instructors saw me uttering the lyrics, “All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better run, outrun my gun”, of Foster the People’s Pumped Up Kicks, I don’t believe for one minute they’d accept my answer that the reason I was singing it was because I liked the song. They’d see my actions as something darker and more sinister.

Today as a result of the recent mass shootings in so many schools, the only reason if I had kids as to why I’d pay the outrageous tuition and send them to private school is not because of the supposed quality education my kids would get, but because I have yet to see anyone going on a mass shooting spree at a private school. I know my kids would come home unharmed. Ahmed Mohamed’s arrest was the result of today’s unsettling climate in America when most people still believe another 9/11 style attack will happen again.

“We live in an age where you can’t take things like that to school,” said Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd in the Dallas Morning News. “Of course we’ve seen across our country horrific things happen, we have to err on the side of caution.”

“People at the school thought it might be a bomb because it looks exactly like a fucking bomb,” said host Bill Maher on his Sept. 18 telecast on HBO who defended the teacher for alerting school officials. “Did the teacher really do a wrong thing? So, the teacher is just supposed to see something that looks like a bomb and be, ‘Oh, wait, this might just be my white privilege talking? I sure don’t want to be politically incorrect, so I’ll just let it go.’”

Maybe if 9/11 hadn’t happened and if mass shootings only occurred at workplaces instead of everywhere today and school officials consider sending students home with a note asking their parents to give them canned goods to take to classes to throw at would-be shooters as a means of self-defense, perhaps Ahmed Mohamed’s “homemade experiment” as Irving police found in their investigation would not have caused any alarm.

This is a different America now, Mr. Mohamed. But hey, at least you got invited by President Obama to visit the White House.

©9/23/15

Who can resist the "Dark Side" of Star Wars movie merchandising?

Before...

When the teaser trailer for "Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens" (2015) debuted last November, a friend of mine, Michael Frazer commented on his Facebook page how it brought back memories of when we all played with Star Wars action figures and toy sets while in grade school between 1977 and 1983 when the original trilogy came out.

“Reminds me of spending our 20-dollar vacation allowance on action figures,” Mike wrote. “Of course, my Darth could fly. He had a cape.”

On Sept. 4 at 12:01 a.m., in what was being promoted by retailers as “Force Friday”, fans both young and old descended upon Toys R’ Us, Target, and any stores open that early to get their first dibs on the newest Star Wars action figures and Lego sets as the countdown draws near to the December 18 opening of Episode VII.

The quote from the Force Awakens trailer, “There’s been an awakening. Have you felt it,” was an understatement as I browsed through the Target aisle at one store ten hours after the unveiling to find my hopes of getting my hands on a 6-inch figure of villain Kylo Ren, female bounty hunter Captain Phasma or First Order Stormtrooper gone. There wasn’t even a BB-8 figure around (aka the soccer ball droid) to snag.

...and after!

“I’m surrounded by grown men in the Star Wars aisle,” said Angela Bardis, a friend of mine who commented on Facebook when she was at a Target later that day. “Is this the new Tinder or Match? Jedi mind trick…these are not the single men you are looking for.”

If there were any winners in this mad grab for the coolest Star Wars toys it was Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump who was seen holding his action figure of Kylo Ren.

“I had to body slam a nine-year-old to get it, but no one was going to stand between Trump and his Kylo Ren figure on “Force Friday,” Trump said. Ok. I am lying. That was the picture Mad magazine did but given how “The Donald” has been getting away with offending everyone and still his poll numbers continue to rise, the idea Trump body slammed a kid to get his action figure wouldn’t be far from the truth.

“It will all end December 19,” said another friend of mine, Patrick Keith, whose comment about Force Friday’s financial success didn’t evoke excitement. It was his way of saying if the movie fails to bring back memories of the original trilogy, then the toys won’t matter.

Keith may have a point. The Father of the Force, George Lucas, created both a good and bad thing with the release of "Star Wars" in 1977. Director Steven Spielberg is as much to blame given how Jurassic Park, E.T. and the Indiana Jones films have themselves become products of toy marketing. The Star Wars trilogy tapped into a gold mine that proved studios aren’t the only ones who can profit from a blockbuster but toy companies such as Hasbro, Lego, Sideshow Collectibles, Hot Toys and fast-food franchises.

Macquarie Securities analyst Tim Nollen was quoted in an article on money.cnn.com saying The Force Awakens merchandise could generate $5 billion in sales in 2016 while Disney, which now has the Star Wars franchise, could bring in about $500 million in licensing and retail revenue.

I have gotten to the point of questioning whether the studios and filmmakers truly care about giving audiences a great story today or is their focus more on selling toys, especially when it comes to the bad taste Lucas left Star Wars fans with the prequel trilogy (1999-2005) giving us Jar Jar Binks, laughable dialogue ("What are midi-chlorians?"), a lot of blue screen computer generated special effects, and well-choreographed lightsaber duels.

“The first film and ‘Empire’’ were about story and character, but I could see that George’s priorities were changing. I could see where things were headed,” said Gary Kurtz, producer and second-unit director of '77 "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980), who said in a 2010 interview in the Los Angeles Times how things changed with "Return of the Jedi" (1983). “The toy business began to drive the Lucasfilm empire. It’s a shame. They make three times as much on toys as they do on films. It’s natural to make decisions that protect the toy business, but that’s not the best thing for making quality films.”

Obviously, such negative commentary isn’t going to keep devoted fans from recalling their childhood memories where instead of investing their week’s allowance like me, and Mike Frazer did as kids three decades ago, today we’re throwing away our monthly paychecks on Star Wars toys regardless of the bills one owes. Seeing images of upcoming 12-inch figures from Hot Toys, which run between $200 and $500, 6-inch figures from Hasbro (despite horrible paint jobs) and Lego sets the past several months has gotten me uttering the words of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone from "The Godfather Part III" (1990), “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

Whether I truly get back into Star Wars collecting as a result of the new movies is something not even Yoda can answer. To quote the green, pointy-eared Jedi master, “Always in motion the future is.”

Nevertheless, it will be hard the next few years to resist what might as well be called “The Dark Side of Movie Merchandising.”

©9/9/15

Yet another reason I hate social media

We won’t post that sickening video of these two getting shot. We WILL post this…a beautiful picture of both of them. Let’s remember them at their best. They deserve better from all of us.

-The Comical Conservative

That was the statement posted below the smiling photo of WDBJ news reporter Alison Parker, 24, and photojournalist Adam Ward, 27, I saw on Facebook a day after the two were shot and killed during a live television interview the morning of August 26, along with Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce in Moneta, Virginia, who was wounded in the attack. The gunman, whose name I will NOT mention, later killed himself.

Seeing the video, which the killer - a fired WDBJ reporter and disgruntled employee filmed on his cellphone and immediately posted it on his Facebook and Twitter accounts just added one more reason why I not only believe social media does more harm than good. It shows just how sick most people really are if the first thing they can’t wait to see on the Internet is a snuff video showing innocent young people senselessly cut down in their prime.

As I write this column, the viewing numbers on YouTube upon doing a search for “Alison Parker” or “reporters shot” range in the six and seven digits on several YouTube accounts which replay the barely two-minute interview and aftermath in its entirety.

“It will sound horribly callous, but I think that video needs to be out there so that people understand just how awful and real this was. And maybe – just maybe – that would help usher in meaningful discussions and laws on gun control,” said a friend of mine who replied underneath my Facebook post of the picture. “Unless people are confronted with the horrible reality, it allows them to avoid the real issues at play here. I don’t like suggesting it because I know for the families it would be absolute torture but perhaps if we all put ourselves in the victims’ shoes for a moment, it tilts the conversation.”

Call me old fashioned or a grouch who believes 99 percent change is not for the better and won’t embrace social media but I prefer the days of yesteryear when the Internet was not around and such disturbing live-on-air events like President Reagan’s attempted assassination in 1981 and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster were only shown in their graphic entirety on the day they happened and a few days later. The only other times viewers were subjected to such replays was when the news networks ran special segments on the topic.

Today, because of the technology we got at our fingertips all one has to do is point and film and minutes, if not hours later, the brief movie is on the Internet for the world to see. If Facebook and Twitter had been around in 1963, the Zapruder film showing President Kennedy’s assassination would have hit the online social networks hours after the killing, probably while the Secret Service and law enforcement were still investigating.

I see no purpose in watching such macabre images like the 9/11 jumpers at the World Trade Center which can still be seen on YouTube today other than to make one more depressed than they already might be.

I just know some of you reading this will say, I am being too hard on social media and that showing such real-life videos of people shot to death helps law enforcement not in only their investigations but also catch the killers.

You may think I am the weird one who, being in my mid-40s now, still browses Star Wars toy collecting and Lego building websites, who think it’s time for me to grow up and get up to date on the day’s current events. I think there is something seriously wrong with that person when they ask me if I saw that unedited video on the Internet of the Israeli pilot being burned to death by ISIS fighters and expresses their excitement viewing it.

So pardon me if I don’t share you people’s morbid curiosity and fascination with death and tragedy. I don’t need yet another disturbing video to remind me of the evil that exists in the world. Thanks to social media we are getting way too much of it on a daily basis.

©9/2/15

Back from "the walking dead"

On July 15, 2015, in “a day that will live in infamy,” especially family members upset, close friends and few co-workers wondering if I have a death wish, I learned what happens when I put such things as work, personal problems, the college newspaper, and classes among other things before controlling my diabetes, dieting and exercise first.

As a result of not taking my medications on a daily basis since January this year, possibly longer than that, not checking my blood sugars, thinking I was immortal and can still eat whatever I liked, enjoying that rapid five to ten pound a week weight loss without actually doing anything to properly lose the weight, I spent three days in the hospital.

Lying in bed that first night with an IV attached to my right hand, I wondered if it’s “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” from that Kelly Clarkson song, or, if it’s to quote Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight (2008) “whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you …stranger” as the reason why the man upstairs ignored my “knock, knock, knocking on Heaven’s door.” My late grandparents, Joe and Rose Stumpo, who have been likely watching my every move from above must have decided it was time for me to get a rude awakening.

“God loves you,” a night nurse told me early Friday morning when she came to do my blood work at 2 a.m. remarking how much better I looked since being admitted Wednesday night. I no longer resembled a cross between the zombies on AMC’s "The Walking Dead" (2010) and the Jewish prisoners who were liberated from the Nazi concentration camps when Hitler’s regime fell near the end of World War II.

She told me how I was a celebrity among the nursing staff on the floor I was on as there was talk about how bad I was barely able to walk, think straight, and eyes that looked like they were deep inside the sockets. I guess I am the ONLY type 2 diabetic in the country who doesn’t put one’s health first, or maybe local emergency rooms just don’t get many patients with blood sugar numbers over 1200 plus and live to talk about it.

Seeing the women nurses come to draw blood, check my sugars and replace the IV every few hours made me think how political correctness exists today in the hospitals. I don’t care if you say I’m being sexist but yes, there was a time when women nurses wore white dresses a little below the knees, nylons and white penny loafers. Today’s nurses dress in colored slacks, shirts and gym shoes. It is the medical equivalent of what is called in the IT departments today as business casual (blue jeans and button-down shirts for those on the night shift).

Perhaps the reason for the nurses’ dress attire today is perhaps they want patients like me to pay attention when they explain how to inject oneself with insulin and how much dosage to give yourself during the day based on the insulin sliding scale as opposed to letting one’s dirty mind wander.

I still don’t know, however, if the hospital food is as bad as everyone says since I couldn’t eat it due to the sore throat I had as diabetes attacks everything when your sugars are out of control.

Speaking of sore throats, I realize that today’s doctors are only there to cure the symptom and not the disease (that’s Obamacare for you). It would have been nice, however, that when I told the doctor assigned to me, I had a sore throat if he would have actually looked in my mouth as opposed to standing on one side of the room with me on the other side and say it’s a yeast infection without even looking.

I know some, if not all of you “Mr. and Mrs. Glass Is Always Half Empty” reading this, diabetics especially, are saying to yourselves now that I am officially on insulin shots four to six times a day that I am on it for life.

Taking insulin is not the end of the world. I knew long before that it was only a matter of time before I’d have to take it anyway. I just sped up the process. You may find my belief system to be nothing more than a pipe dream but I don’t believe being on insulin now is permanent. At the very least with me doing the treadmill at work every few days and paying more attention to what I eat I may be able to lower the dosage over time. Truth is I feel better now than I did since being diagnosed with diabetes nine years ago.

I haven’t drunk a Coke since a couple days before going to the ER due to rapid dehydration. The last time I drank a Diet Coke was July 25 and I didn’t even finish it. The closest I drink now that has sugar is lime Gatorade, coffee (which brings down your blood sugars), an occasional glass of milk and water. I am now to that point I won’t even drink sweet, iced tea.

I know now when my blood sugars are over 200, I ask myself what made it that high. Oh yeah, those mashed potatoes and corn I had at Boston Chicken when I should have gotten green beans and mixed vegetables. On the opposite end, when the sugars get down to 80 and my patience starts wearing thin it means I better eat something before that Italian “Sonny Corleone” temper of mine kicks in.

I no longer eat at Subway, McDonald's, CiCi's, Pizza Hut and Papa John's. I don’t have the money anyway to eat out. I hate doing it but I’m slowly getting into grocery shopping now and bringing my food to work. When it comes to garbage food if I am going to ruin my health I am going to make it worth my while like if I drive to Addison for an Italian beef sandwich at Al’s Italian Beef to get that rare taste of Chicago that, up until recently, I can only get when I am in the “windy city.”

Yes, I admit I still have cravings for the junk food. Name me one person who doesn’t! The fact is now when co-workers remark how good I look because of the 120-pound weight loss (which wasn’t healthy weight loss) and ask me if I feel good, I won’t have to lie when I say “yes.”

©8/5/15