Some of history’s biggest catastrophes have been created by devious people with a lot of time on their hands. For example, Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’, 9/11, the use of Napalm as weaponry, Watergate, The University of Texas Longhorns 2016 season.
I was fortunate enough to retire from a more than three decade career in Broadcasting. Since shutting off the perpetual live mic, I’ve read a lot, watched a shit ton of documentaries on mindless topics such as a day in the life of a lemur, how and why honey never, ever spoils and of course the Maysles’ Grey Gardens, and a strange 67 minute journey into the life of style maven, Edith Apfel.
Oh yeah, there’s the one about Hitler’s fascination with the occult, one about Virgin Mary’s personal concert for three Portuguese shepherd children at Fatima (that one required Big Pharma) and an intriguing documentary about another Prince William, a dashing sort and oddly handsome for a British royal. He was killed in a plane crash almost 60 years ago. Look him up.
I have eclectic interests, I suppose and what I can’t look up on this contraption, I think about in my head.
I muse about things. I wonder if Caroline Kennedy has ever seen the Zapruder film. I wonder what she does or thinks about every November 22nd, if she think or does anything at all. I wonder if Fidel Castro’s death meant anything to her.
I wonder who the first person was to watch an egg emerge from a chicken’s…..whatever….and decided to crack it open and determine it was edible and eventually vital in many recipes. How was flight conceived? Who in the hell thought that smashing atoms could be weaponized and a used as a fuel source? Yeah, I’ve seen documentary on Hans Bethe, but he basically conceived nuclear fission by looking at sunshine. Huh? Must’ve had a welder’s mask.
I’ve thought about politics lately. I’m glad Trump won but a lot of sore losers are going to make his political life a living hell. I wonder what affect his presidency will have on his hair.
Then, there’s Benghazi.
I listened CSNY today singing a live version of “Ohio”. For you youngins, that’s a song written about four anti war protestors who were shot and killed by National Guardsmen during a riot on the campus of Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.
Hence, the title.
Then, I started musing lyrically. It’s missing a few lyrics but you’ll get the gist of it. And here it is, with apologies to Mr. Young.
No soldiers, no Clinton calling
They were definitely on thier own.
That September there were four bodies
Four dead in Benghazi
Gotta get down to it
Ansar al-Sharia cutting them down
Should have been protected long ago.
How much did Hillary know with
Chris Stevens dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
I also think about how some people with absolutely no moral compass can live with themselves.
My, my…how you young know-it-all millennial saplings who think you’re so much more emotionally evolved than everyone else, would have loved the Sixties. Tumult was so in vogue back then. There was a real purpose to it back in The Day.
Today? Not so much. Bitch about whatever offends your concept of diversity and when you throw a brick through a window because of that, or because of university rape cultures, xenophobia, Islamaphobia, global warming, trans bathroom issues, entitlements of all kinds, or how being female in 2016 somehow means being a victim, remind yourself you could be in a Humvvee and drive over a powerful IED on a deserted road in Afghanistan.
You could be in a massive firefight in a hellish jungle in the Mekong Delta.
Or near the 38th parallel.
Or liberating what’s left of a fucking Nazi death camp. Endure any of those things, then you can tell me you need a safe space and a therapy dog.
That’s all I have to say.
(Turns on mic on last time, then releases it from hand to drop on the ground to imply righteous indignation)
