All posts by Headly Westerfield

About Headly Westerfield

Calling himself “A liberally progressive, sarcastically cynical, iconoclastic polymath,” Headly Westerfield has been a professional writer all his adult life.

An Open Email To Tom Falco of the Coconut Grove Grapevine — UPDATED

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LAST MINUTE UPDATE

My attempt to send this via email just now was thwarted by a coward who, after falsely attacking me in print, has banned my email address from reaching his.

No matter. I still have several options and almost 2 years in which to get this done. I can still:

  • Find someone willing to deliver this via their email address;
  • Have a hard copy delivered by registered snail mail;
  • Carry an analog version with me in case we find ourselves in the same room again; or
  • Just bite the bullet and accept the proffered help from one of the lawyers.

TO: Tom Falco, Coconut Grove Grapevine
SUBJECT: Retraction vs. Lawsuit
DATE: April 8, 2017

It was so nice seeing you the other day at the HEP Board meeting to vote on the future of the Coconut Grove Playhouse. Too bad we’re not on speaking terms. Otherwise we may have found a way to resolve this by now. But, still, it was nice seeing you take an interest in something that will negatively affect the adjacent and contiguous Black Grove. Oh, wait. You never mentioned that in your article. I guess that will be my job once again.

As you well know, Tom, through the years I’ve tried to school you on grammar — because you’re so bad at it and it’s just so much fun to point that out. Just this week you crafted another delicious paragraph, which was poorly punctuated and bracketed by two fabulous run-on sentences:

At odds all evening was the issue of whether a 300 seat playhouse or a 700 seat playhouse should be built or renovated and that was another major issue, should the whole playhouse be restored or just the front section? The current plan calls for just the front section, while the rest will be rebuilt, not restored. Richard Kiehnel, famed architect of Kiehnel & Elliott, who created the original building in 1927, built it for movies, not theater, in future years, it was retrofitted and changed to house live theater by another famed architect, Alfred Browning Parker.*

Then there’s this gem from another article:

The purpose of this meeting is to interchange ideas for the future use of the Miami Marine Stadium.

Interchange‽ I think the word you’re looking for is AND, YOU CALL YOURSELF A WRITER‽‽‽


Notice you never see Mr. Softee and Tom
Falco in the same room at the same time?

You bring shame upon a profession I have spent a lifetime perfecting.

More seriously, Tom, I have also tried to teach you a little something about Journalistic Ethics over the years. Like the need to mark advertorials as such; or not bartering meals or goods in exchange for advertising and/or positive reviews; doing more than just cutting and pasting press releases you’ve received; and about making declarative accusations without a scintilla of proof.

Sadly, I have been unsuccessful at educating you on grammar or ethics. Now I’m going to try teach you a little something about Libel and Defamation law. I hope I have better results because this is only going to get uglier from here on in.

First things first: It would seem that the legal system has its own set of ethics. Whodathunkit?

One of those pesky rules (and remember, this is a learning curve for me, too, because I’ve never been defamed in print before) is that before one can sue for libel (as opposed to slander, which is spoken and for which I have only hearsay and anecdotal evidence that you’ve done that about me, too), one must take certain actions and pursue other remedies before petitioning the courts for relief. [Tom: That’s just an example of a very long sentence punctuated in such a way as to avoid being a run-on. It can be done.] Chief among them: one must make a legitimate and legal request for a retraction and apology.

Yannow what else I discovered, Tom? Making such a demand on a comment thread on a crappy blog — like I foolishly did on yours — does not rise to the level of a legitimate and legal request. Especially since you deleted the entire comment thread, sending it down the memory hole so you could pretend it never actually happened.

I also learned that my blog post of January 25th, Tom Falco Libels Me Again. Then Runs Away, does not constitute a legitimate and legal request, even tho’ it’s on the interwebs for the entire word to see. One legal argument could be that it’s entirely possible you never saw it, Tom.

I also learned a little something about contingency lawyers recently. If they smell money, they’re willing to take a flyer on a long shot libel case. One asked whether I wanted a registered letter sent to you on stationary with legal letterhead. I declined (for the time being) because I’d much rather do this myself.

We’re gentlemen, right Tom? We should be able to agree on what was over-the-line speech spewed in anger, right? We can get over this unpleasantness without resorting to the courts, right?

That’s why I am sending this to your email address [and publishing it]. It’s a substitute for a letter from a lawyer, but doesn’t preclude a letter from a lawyer in the future. Even if you were to delete this email, there’s an electronic record of it.


I was so sad when this fell
off the All Time Top Ten

Look, Tom, this could have ended in January with a simple retraction and apology. Here we are several months later and this open sore continues to fester. Yet, it’s in your power to put a stop to this, Tom.

All you need to do is post a short paragraph at the Grapevine retracting your baseless accusation of me and apologize. Or, in the alternative, prove your accusations against me. If you do the latter, then I’ll owe you an apology. See how that works?

“Some people say” that all I am really doing is making you famous beyond your piddling local readership. I suspect that’s true because for a while you were #2 post at the new Not Now Silly Newsroom. As of this writing, 155 people have read Tom Falco Libels Me Again. Then Runs Away. I suspect that number will grow after this is published.

Tom, what you don’t seem to realize is that I find this fun. Whether it amuses you — or not — it amuses me to toy with you in public like this. I can easily keep this going for almost 2 years, when the statute of limitations runs out, before I finally have to file a lawsuit.

It’s in your power to end it.

* Like I do with Emperor Trump, when I quote you, Tom, I will use Comic Sans. It just seems appropriate.

New York Slave Revolt ► Throwback Thursday

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We have to go all the way back to 1712, before this country was even a country, for this week’s Throwback Thursday.

At the time New York City was merely a small town, in a province of Britain, on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean. The crown colony known as New York (as opposed to old York, of course) was much larger than the current state. It included “all of the present U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Vermont, along with inland portions of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine, as well as eastern Pennsylvania“, as the WikiWackyWoo tells us.

Slavery, on the other hand, had been around forever. According to the Smithsonian Institute:

Life was wretched for the slaves brought to New York. Many of the city’s early landmarks, from City Hall to the eponymous wall of Wall Street were built using slave labor. The city even constructed an official slave market in 1711, Jim O’Grady reported for WNYC News in 2015.

“It was a city-run slave market because they wanted to collect tax revenue on every person who was bought and sold there,” historian Chris Cobb told O’Grady. “And the city hired slaves to do work like building roads.”

It is generally agreed that the New York Slave Revolt probably could not have happened elsewhere.

In the bustling town of New York, with its population at about 6,000 people, it’s estimated that about 10-15% were slaves owned by others. These slaves worked and lived in close proximity to one another, unlike the plantations of the south where there might be great distances between small groups of slaves. That immediacy allowed the slaves to talk to each other, to make plans, to foment rebellion.

Further reading at Not Now Silly

Is Toussaint L’Overture Packing Heat? Again?

The Great Slave Auction

Nat Turner Sentenced To Be Hanged

Frederick Douglass Escapes

Official Stamp of Approval

No Skin In The Game
Part One; Part Two; Part Three; Part Four

Where The Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins
Part One; Part Two; Part Three

Rebellion or Revolt?

On the night of April 6, 1712, resentment reached a flashpoint. It began in, what was then, the middle of town, on Maiden Lane. There about 23 slaves met and began their rebellion. I’ll let Colonial New York’s Governor Robert Hunter pick up the story:

I must now give your Lordships an account of a bloody conspiracy of some of the slaves of this place, to destroy as many of the inhabitants as they could….when they had resolved to revenge themselves, for some hard usage they apprehended to have received from their masters (for I can find no other cause) they agreed to meet in the orchard of Mr. Crook in the middle of the town, some provided with fire arms, some with swords and others with knives and hatchets. This was the sixth day of April, the time of the meeting was about twelve or one clock in the night, when about three and twenty of them were got together. One…slave to one Vantilburgh set fire to [a shed] of his masters, and then repairing to his place where the rest were, they all sallyed out together with their arms and marched to the fire. By this time, the noise of the fire spreading through the town, the people began to flock to it. Upon the approach of several, the slaves fired and killed them. The noise of the guns gave the alarm, and some escaping, their shot soon published the cause of the fire, which was the reason that nine Christians were killed, and about five or six wounded. Upon the first notice, which was very against them, but the slaves made their retreat into the woods, by the favour of the night. Having ordered the day following, the militia of this town and the country of West Chester to drive [to] the Island, and by this means and strict searches in the town, we found all that put the design in execution, six of these having first laid violent hands upon themselves [committed suicide], the rest were forthwith brought to their tryal before ye Justices of this place….In that court were twenty seven condemned, whereof twenty one were executed, one being a woman with a child, her execution by than means suspended. Some were burnt, others hanged, one broke on the wheel, and one hung alive in chains in the town, so that there has been the most exemplary punishment inflicted that could be possibily [sic] thought of.

Not surprisingly conditions for slaves became worse following the rebellion. Laws were quickly passed that prevented slaves from gathering in groups of 4 or more. They could not carry firearms, nor could they gamble. Punishment for those crimes was a whipping. However, the new laws also demanded the Death Penalty for property crimes, rape, and conspiracy to kill. In addition, owners who wanted to set their slaves free would be required to pay a tax of £200, which was far more than they could get by selling the slave to someone else.

It wasn’t until 1799 that New York outlawed slavery, but “it remained an intrinsic part of city life until after the Civil War, as businessmen continued to profit off of the products of the slave trade like sugar and molasses imported from the Caribbean” not to mention the products from the south.

Slavery is ‘Merka’s original sin. The sin of Racism continues to this very day.

Pastor Ken Replies ► A Pastoral Letter

Pastor Ken Wilson of the Blue Ocean Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan,
replies to What Is It All About?, my Pastoral Letter of last week.

An Atheist without guile, indeed.

Your Gilchrist memories triggered my own, for some reason, of a time I was in my parents attic–it must have been when they were moving out of the Detroit house to the Southfield apartment.

Under what they called “the eaves”, in the second floor attic remodeled as a master bedroom, was a box of letters. And the one that came to me like a bolt of revelation was one my father saved, written to him by a co-worker when he was a young up-and-comer in the insurance business.

My father, you may recall, was (what was the adjective you used that hit the  mark?….it will come to me…not curmudgenly, which I can’t spell, so glad it wasn’t that….but) irrascable (which I also can’t spell, be back in a minute after looking it up.)

[While Ken has wandered off, let me fill you in. On one of our yearly walks through his neighbourhood, Ken asked me what I thought of his father. I told him that his father reminded me of the fictional — and irascible — Mr. Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Back to Ken.]

Irascible: irritable, prone to anger. When you said that, btw, I thought, what a treasure to know someone who goes back so many years and could say what it is I saw as a judging young lad, irritated by my father’s chronic irascibility.

It was the perfect word, because it dignified his anger. That was it: he was prone to anger….and what I didn’t know at the time was that he had been in the worst mortar shelling to date in WW2, November 11 1944 (four years before my oldest sister was born, and Veterans Day to boot.) His nervous system was assaulted as he ran through a field of exploding shells–one that took two guys on either side of him out as they scrambled for cover at the base of a tree.

Had I misremembered? Was he really just normally irritable? Was my memory too harsh? No…..Marc knew. Mr. Wilson was irascible. And now, I can spell that word. So thank you.

But back to my attic memory. The letter I pulled out of the cardboard box of letters knew a different Glen than the irascible man we knew. The writer of the letter was marveling at what a talented salesman my father was: Smart, funny, fun to be around, a real rising star in the world of business. Which never happened.


Nazi soldiers launching mortar attacks on the Eastern Front

The PTSD that no one even knew to name back then — anything less than total “shell shock” went virtually undiagnosed and untreated — caught up with him, I guess, and irascibility took hold. I could use a few of your tears to shed over that. All those damning thoughts — why do you have to be so grumpy all the time? Make everyone around you walk on eggshells? — just born of [childhood] ignorance.

Nobody knew what he was going through, least of all the man going through it. Note to self: distrust damning thoughts.

Yeah, and that milkshute. OK how do you spell that? Milkschute? Milkchute? Milk chute? There it is. And memories of shining dad’s shoes down in that back door area, what did we call that? Basement landing? Something. Give me a memory hand here it was called something in particular. The little depressed area where the front door opened into was the “vestibule” I think. What was that little area going from the kitchen to the back door and/or downstairs?

[We called it the “back landing”, Ken. Our front entryway was also called the vestibule. Where did we get these crazy, elitist notions?]

And your going through so many years of accumulation, time detritus, aka memory holders…..makes me glad, and a little sad, that all the stuff my kids pitched after Nancy Rozell died. She was a bit of a pack rat. They ordered up a huge — no, I can’t use that word anymore until after the Impeachment — a very large dumpster, and in a week’s worth of steady work cleared the place of all those memory holders. And now i wish I had a little more of that crap.

So suck the memories out of every last object, I say! What’s the rush?

See? You got me talking. An Atheist (with Israelite roots) in whom there is no guile indeed. With so many of our sleazy ideas of God so, literally, God-Damnably idolatrous, I say Atheism is a step, at the very least, in the right direction. We could all use a good dose of Atheism these days to get us closer to whatever God is or Isn’t.

Ken Wilson is the author of
A Letter to my Congregation, which
this Atheist believes is an important book.

This letter edited lightly and slightly for clarity,
with as few interjections as I could muster.

Top Cat ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

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Top Cat is one of the many cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera, just like Tom & Jerry and The Flintstones, covered elsewhere in these pages.

Top Cat launched a year after The Flintstones debuted and, just like it, Top Cat was not a Saturday morning cartoon. It was originally broadcast on ABC at 8:30PM Wednesdays, sandwiched between The Steve Allen Show and Hawaiian Eye. Its competition was The Joey Bishop Show on NBC and Checkmate on CBS.

Top Cat had 2 major influences along with a host of minor ones. I’ll let the WikiWackyWoo tell you all about that:

Top Cat and his gang were inspired by the East Side Kids, characters from a series of popular 1940s ‘B’ movies, but their more immediate roots lay in The Phil Silvers Show, a late-1950s military comedy whose lead character (Sergeant Bilko, played by Silvers) was a crafty con-man. Maurice Gosfield, who played Private Duane Doberman in The Phil Silvers Show, provided the voice for Benny the Ball in Top Cat, and Benny’s rotund appearance was based on Gosfield’s. Additionally, Arnold Stang‘s vocal characterisation of the lead character, the eponymous Top Cat, was based on an impression of Phil Silvers‘ voice.

Other influences include the movie Guys and Dolls, in which actor Stubby Kaye played a short, stout, streetwise gambler: a virtual Benny the Ball prototype. Lastly, an unlikely contender (as it also came from Hanna Barbera) was the character Hokey Wolf on The Huckleberry Hound Show, whose segment also paralleled The Phil Silvers Show.[2][3]

It’s time for a Top Cat Sing-A-Long.
C’mon, you know all the words.

Top Cat and his gang (like Sgt. Bilko before them) had one money-making scheme after another. They have to avoid Officer Dibble, who is always trying to shut down their scams and rid Hoagy Alley of Top Cat and his gang of grafters once and for all. Rinse and repeat.

Of course, I just loved Top Cat because it was a cartoon and I was merely a 10-year old kid. Little did I suspect there was a much deeper meaning:

Animation historian Christopher P. Lehman says that the series can be seen as social commentary. The cats may represent disenfranchised people confined to living in a poor environment. Top Cat’s get-rich- quick schemes are efforts to escape to a better life. The gang faces a human police officer who frustrates their efforts and keeps them trapped in the alley.[5] This enforcement of the social order by police ensures that the cats will not escape their current living conditions.[5]

Just like the alley outside Trump Tower. But, I digress.

Top Cat was only in prime time for a year. It moved to Saturday mornings, where it played in perpetual reruns for years. In 1988 a full-length made-for-TV cartoon, Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats, which was a remake of the earlier “Missing Heir” and “Golden Fleecing” episodes of the original series. Arnold Stang and Marvin Kaplan (who died last year) reprised their roles from the classic Top Cat. Then came 2011’s Top Cat: The Movie, followed by the CGI effort Top Cat Begins, which was a prequel to the original series. Neither of which did I know about until just now.

It was the original series that captured my attention. Enjoy this Making Of documentary:

What Is It All About? ► A Pastoral Letter


Hate on the hoof

Dear Pastor Kenny:

Reconnecting after 45 years apart (and linking up on the facebookery) has been a blessing, if you don’t mind this Atheist appropriating a religious term.

Watching your growing politicization since we renewed our friendship in November of 2014 has been a wonderment to behold.

Certainly your walk in the desert began before we rediscovered each other, when you started the thinking that led to the research, which resulted in your writing A Letter To My Congregation. You ran headlong into church and LGBT politics after it was published in book form.

Soon after we reconnected, church politics ran headlong into you and you were fired from the church that started in your living room 45 years ago. Though you believed your congregation was ready, they kicked you to the curb because you had the audacity to enter the 21st century by advocating for a full embrace of LGBT folk in church life.

You do realize they pray to the same God you do, right? How can you all be right, Ken?

I was surprised (and honoured) when you read my email and drew Biblical parables in the very last sermon you gave from that pulpit.

In that 2014 sermon you preached:

So Jesus finds Philip and Philip finds Nathaniel and Jesus sees something in Nathaniel at a distance and names it.

Despite Nathaniel’s snarkiness, which he doesn’t name, Jesus calls Nathaniel, a “true Israelite in whom there is no guile (or deceit.)”. Which reminded every Israelite true or not of their founding father, Jacob, who was renamed Israel, speaking of new names.

Jacob-Israel (like Peter-Cephas) had to undergo a transformation from the one who cheated his brother Esau out of his inheritance into a brother without deceit, without guile.  And Nathaniel represents that transformation. Sitting under the fig tree (which might have been Israel’s national tree) maybe praying or studying Torah, maybe updating his FB status “SEEKING A RELATIONSHIP”

Again, Jesus sees something in Nathaniel that maybe he didn’t see in himself until Jesus named it. Maybe Nathaniel was the ignored kid in school, the one no Rabbi would call to be his dis iple, because he didn’t have much promise. Maybe Nathaniel half believed that about himself but didn’t buy it fully.

Jesus comes along and names the thing about Nathaniel that Nathaniel most wants to be, a true Israelite in whom there is no guile. And when Jesus speaks it, Nathaniel says, “Yes, Lord!”

I aspire to be the true Atheist without guile. But that’s another story altogether.

Anyway, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, Ken, but thought my readers might appreciate the back story before I move onto new stuff.

Through the facebookery I’ve been able to follow your latest political awakening, especially your grassroots agitating following the last election.

I love how you have been urging your facefriends to get involved in the political process.

Not just exhorting them, but you have been providing folks with concrete information on how to contact their representatives in Washington and Lansing. As well, you’ve shared phone apps that make it easier to do so and provided updates of your own experiences, letting people know how simple it is to get involved. Then you give positive feedback and affirmation for those that do.

Here’s why I marvel: You’re not giving people your point of view. You’re not pontificating for or against any candidate or party. You’re not telling people how to vote or which side God is on.

You are merely asking folks to get involved. To make their feelings known. To no longer be silent about issues that affect them directly. You are doing this in a (mostly) bipartisan, secular, non-denominational, non-aligned, intersectional way. Here are some one recent examples:



I’m not like you, Ken. I tend to wear my political affiliation (and heart) on my sleeve. There’s no mistaking where I stand on any given issue. However, we’re both working toward the same end: a better world for those that follow.

I’ve been thinking a lot about you for another reason, Ken, because I’ve been thinking a lot about Gilchrist Street lately. As you know I’ve been downsizing the stuff in the condo. Mom & Pops lived here for 40 years. They never threw anything away and collected a lot of crap in that time. Every cupboard, closet, and drawer was filled to the brim.

It’s been exhausting work — physically yes, but especially emotionally. It’s been a much harder process than I thought it would be when I started and it’s taking a lot longer than I planned. There’s something to be said for my sisters’ suggestions that they come down in a blitz and help me tear off the bandage quickly. I declined in order to do it myself, so I only have my own self to blame.

Funny story: Even though I’ve lived here almost 12 years, there were many places I never looked into because they weren’t mine. They were Pops’. During the clear-out I have found some absolutely wonderful things.

Frinstance: In the very back of a desk drawer that held staplers, paperclips, and envelopes, I discovered a bag folded over many times, which contained the most amazing family ephemeral: Love letters and postcards Pops sent my mother when he was training to be a gunner during WWII. The salutation “Kiss the baby for me” referred to my oldest sister Brenda, who was newly born.

Naturally something like that would make me tear up, but some very bizarre items have also managed to start the waterworks.

In a junk drawer in Pops’ room (now my room) I found (when it still did the job for which it had been intended) a small wooden drawer 5″ x 3″ x 9″ deep. It would have come from a wall of drawers in a large cabinet, like in an old timey hardware store. On the front is a brass holder for a cardboard label, the curved bottom of which also doubled as the pull.

I never knew it as such. Here’s what I remember about the very first day I first saw it. I don’t know where my mother got the drawer, but she was repurposing it. She got some kind of paint (early ’60s) that allowed her to streak it so it looked like wood grain. I saw it immediately after it was painted, when it was still tacky, and thought she was a magician. It looked EXACTLY like real wood grain to my child’s eyes. Now I can see how poorly it resembles real wood.

Recently you and I had a FB conversation about the milk chutes on Gilchrist next to the back door. This small drawer was repurposed to hang from in the back hall on Gilchrist, right across from the milk chute. The bottom was nailed to the wall, with the face toward the floor, and it held the family’s Bills Payable.

I sobbed on and off for 2 days after I found it and I don’t know why this affected me more than Pops’ love letters.

Even though I’m trying to downsize, I find that can’t throw it out. Therefore, I’m repurposing it as a holder for the television remote controls.

So, what’s new with you?

Your childhood friend,
Marc Slootsky

FloriDUH Becomes a TerrUHtory ► Throwback Thursday

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1823 map of Florida Territory

History is complicated. The history of Florida even more so. On this day in 1822, it took the first step to statehood by becoming a territory of the United States.

But the history of Florida’s long march to statehood is one of the bloodiest in this country.

Originally discovered by Spaniard Juan Ponce de León — explorer, conquistador, and former-Governor of Puerto Rico — in 1513, a century before the British established its colonies much farther north. He had been looking for the mythical Fountain of Youth, unless that story is a myth as well.No matter. Ponce de León discovered La Florida, despite its robust native population; claimed it for Spain, despite its robust native population; and then left, leaving it to its robust native population.

He returned to southwest La Florida in 1521 to establish a Spanish colony, but that didn’t go as planned. The native Calusa people fought the Spanish and, in the process, de León was injured. He returned to Cuba to lick his wounds, but eventually died. He was later interred in the Cathedral of San Juan Batista in Puerto Rico.

According to the WikiWackyWoo:

Florida continued to remain a Spanish possession until the end of the Seven Years’ War when Spain ceded it to the Kingdom of Great Britain in exchange for the release of Havana. In 1783, after the American Revolution, Great Britain ceded Florida back to Spain.[2]:xvii

The second term of Spanish rule was influenced by the nearby United States. There were border disputes along the boundary with the state of Georgia and issues of American use of the Mississippi. These disputes were supposedly solved in 1795 by the Treaty of San Lorenzo which, among other things, solidified the boundary of Florida and Georgia along the 31st parallel. However, as Thomas Jefferson had once predicted, the U.S. could not keep its hands off Florida.[2]:xviii–xix

The United States continued to meddle and sent troops into Florida, mostly as an excuse to chase runaway slaves. These so-called Black Seminoles lived alongside the Seminole and Miccosukee tribes, who had earlier fled oppression and genocide in the north and were already adapted to hiding and making a living in the Florida swamps.

In 1818 General Andrew Jackson, who would eventually use his wartime experiences to run and win the presidency, invaded Florida for his second time. The Wiki picks up the story:

Because Spanish Florida was a refuge for blacks escaping slavery, who allied with the Seminole Indians, Jackson invaded the territory in 1816 to destroy the Negro Fort. He led a second invasion in 1818, as part of the First Seminole War, resulting in the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819 and the transfer of Florida from Spain to the United States. Jackson briefly served as Florida’s first Territorial Governor in 1821.
[…]
In 1830, Jackson [as president] signed the Indian Removal Act, which relocated most members of the Native American tribes in the South to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The relocation process resulted in widespread death and sickness amongst the Indians forced to walk from their ancestral lands to western reservations. The extent to which Jackson can personally be held responsible is debated by historians, but the removal is generally regarded as a violation of human rights. This, along with his relative support for slavery, has significantly damaged Jackson’s reputation.

An understatement, if I ever read one.

The ‘Merkin government continued to remove natives from Florida, leading to the 2nd and 3rd Seminole Wars, as the Wiki informs us:

Taken together, the Seminole Wars were the longest and most expensive (both in human and monetary terms) Indian Wars in United States history.

And, if I may add, a permanent stain on the history of ‘Merka.

Florida officially became a state on March 3, 1845. FloriDUH officially became a laughing stock almost every day since. Just ask Florida Man.

TO BE FAIR: Florida has one of my favourite places. Have a musical montage on me.

The Post-Truth Twitterer Emperor

I think we can all agree, no matter what side of the political spectrum, that everything Emperor Trump learned about communication, he learned from Twitter.

And, he learned it well:

On Twitter some profiles have words to the effect of “A retweet is not an endorsement”.

I get that. I share stuff all the time I don’t condone. I share it because it’s funny, absurd, hateful, or demonstrative of Reich Wing idiocy. I would hate for people to think I signed onto any of that.

However, I’m not the Twitter President. Everything Emperor Trump retweets is an endorsement of the idea contained therein, unless he specifically debunks it. He doesn’t. SAD!

So, for him to say that he gave no opinion, but read it somewhere or heard it on the Fox “”News” Channel, and is just repeating it is totally DISINGENUOUS!!! It’s laughable on its face. Here’s what he told TIME Magazine:

Q: But I grant you some of those. But you would agree also that some of the things you have said haven’t been true. You say that Ted Cruz’s father was with Lee Harvey Oswald.

A: Well that was in a newspaper. No, no, I like Ted Cruz, he’s a friend of mine. But that was in the newspaper. I wasn’t, I didn’t say that. I was referring to a newspaper. A Ted Cruz article referred to a newspaper story with, had a picture of Ted Cruz, his father, and Lee Harvey Oswald, having breakfast.

Q: That gets close to the heart…

A: Why do you say that I have to apologize? I’m just quoting the newspaper, just like I quoted the judge the other day, Judge Napolitano, I quoted Judge Napolitano, just like I quoted Bret Baier, I mean Bret Baier mentioned the word wiretap. Now he can now deny it, or whatever he is doing, you know. But I watched Bret Baier, and he used that term. I have a lot of respect for Judge Napolitano, and he said that three sources have told him things that would make me right. I don’t know where he has gone with it since then. But I’m quoting highly respected people from highly respected television networks.

Q: But traditionally people in your position in the Oval Office have not said things unless they can verify they are true.

A: Well, I’m not, well, I think, I’m not saying, I’m quoting, Michael, I’m quoting highly respected people and sources from major television networks.

This is not just laughable and disingenuous. It’s also reckless. Emperor Trump knows full well his BRAIN DEAD supporters will believe anything he spews on his Twitter feed. He also knows they will never even see the truth because they only watch the Fox “News” Channel.

Adolf Hitler Becomes Dictator ► Throwback Thursday

You know who else liked dogs?

It was on this day Germany passed the Enabling Act of 1933, which followed the Reichstag fire of a month earlier. This effectively made Adolf Hitler the dictator of Germany.

SPOILER ALERT: Adolph Hitler eventually committed suicide after starting — and losing — World War Two. More than 60 million people died in that war, or about 3% of the world’s population.

Eighty-four years is not that long ago in the scheme of things.

I was born 7 years after the war ended. My eldest sister was born during the war. Maybe as a young boy growing up in a Jewish household I’m more sensitive to Hitlerian references than your average alt-right asshole, but I’ve never heard so many ludicrous references to Nazi Germany as I have in the last 2 years — on both the Left and the Reich Wing. The latest to embarrass himself  is comedian Tim Allen who feels that being a conservative in Hollywood is akin to living among Nazis:

“You know, you get beat up if you don’t believe what everybody believes,” the comedian joked on  “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Friday. “This is like ’30s Germany.”

Listen, motherfucker, when they start sending Hollywood conservatives to the gas chambers, I’ll be on the front lines fighting on the front lines to oppose that. But, until then, you are merely a rich hypocrite with a much larger FREE SPEECH megaphone to spout nonsense than that of the average alt-right asshole. You owe humanity an apology.

The article continues:

The comedian’s grousing was met with immediate backlash, with the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect demanding an apology from the star of “Last Man Standing.”

“Tim, have you lost your mind?” Steven Goldstein, the executive director of organization, said in a statement. “No one in Hollywood today is subjecting you or anyone else to what the Nazis imposed on Jews.” 

ZAKLY!!!

And yet, every once in a while, a comparison to Nazi Germany rings true and makes the hairs on the back of my neck bristle.

F’rinstance: Ever since Emperor Trump lied his way through the oath of office, there has been barrels of electronic ink spilled warning people that an event similar to the Reichstag fire could be on the horizon.

Meanwhile, as George Santayana famously said:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

People have asked me why I make a jokes about Emperor Trump, as opposed to treating him as an existential threat to all of humanity — something I believe with all my heart. I agree with Mel Brooks, according to an interview he gave 60 Minutes back in 2001:

Some of that pent-up animosity comes from his experience in the Army. “I was in the Army. ‘Jewboy! Out of my way, out of my face, Jewboy,'” he recalls soldiers saying to him. Brooks, who served in World War II de-activating land mines, spent a short time in the stockade for getting even with one heckler. “I took his helmet off. I said, ‘I don’t want to hurt your helmet ’cause it’s G.I. issue.’ And I smashed him in the head with my mess kit,” he says.

One anti-Semite Brooks has been trying to get even with for most of his adult life is Adolf Hitler, whom he lampoons first in his movie and now on the stage. “Hitler was part of this incredible idea that you could put Jews in concentration camps and kill them…How do you get even with the man? How do you get even with him?” he asks Wallace.

“You have to bring him down with ridicule, because if you stand on a soapbox and you match him with rhetoric, you’re just as bad as he is, but if you can make people laugh at him, then you’re one up on him,” he tells Wallace. “It’s been one of my lifelong jobs – to make the world laugh at Adolf Hitler,” says Brooks.

Similarly, I also got Jewboy and Kike growing up in the late ’50s, more than a decade after Brooks. Not always, but it was mostly as I walked past the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic school [now the Michigan Technical Academy Charter School] on Pembroke, catercorner to Bow Elementary School, where I went.

Or, maybe Mel Brooks was just being prescient. Is it Springtime for alt-right assholes? Only time will tell.


BONUS MEL:

Lee “Scratch” Perry ► Monday Musical Appreciation

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Celebrating his 81st birthday today is the Grandfather of Reggae and the father of Dub Reggae, Rainford Hugh Perry, aka Lee “Scratch” Perry.

Back in the days before the word Reggae even existed — when it was still called Ska, or Bluebeat, or One Drop — Perry apprenticed at Kingston’s Studio One. There he performed a number of chores for owner Coxone Dodd, including selling records. During his short time there he managed to record some 30 songs for the label. However, Perry and Dodd didn’t get along, so Perry moved on to Joe Gibbs and Amalgamated Records. That relationship, rocky as it was, lasted longer. However, Gibbs’ money woes had him strike out on his own and Perry started up his own label, Upsetter Records in 1968. According to the WikiWackyWoo:

His first major single “People Funny Boy”, which was an insult directed at Gibbs, sold well with 60,000 copies sold in Jamaica alone. It is notable for its innovative use of a sample (a crying baby) as well as a fast, chugging beat that would soon become identifiable as “reggae” (the new kind of sound which was given the name “Steppers”). Similarly his acrimonious 1967 single as Lee “King” Perry Run for Cover was likewise aimed at Sir Coxsone. From 1968 until 1972 he worked with his studio band The Upsetters. During the 1970s, Perry released numerous recordings on a variety of record labels that he controlled, and many of his songs were popular in both Jamaica and the United Kingdom. He soon became known for his innovative production techniques as well as his eccentric character.[1] In 1970 Perry produced and released The Wailers track “Mr Brown” (1970) with its unusual use of studio effects and eerie opening highlighting his unique approach to production.


Perry produced some of the earliest tracks for the Wailers, before they signed with Island Records. Chris Blackwell took the original tracks, removed the rough edges, renamed the band Bob Marley and the Wailers, and nothing was ever the same again.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I worked for Island Records Canada in the mid-’70s, where my first contact with Lee “Scratch” Perry and Dub Reggae was the amazing LP Super Ape by The Upsetters. I loved Dub Reggae from the start because it was like Psychedelic Reggae. The fun was trying to identify the original tunes that Perry Dubbed up. It’s one album from that era I still put on and CRANK it up to 11.

Perry’s career has had its ups and downs over the years, including a December 2015 fire at his Secret Laboratory Studio. According to Rolling Stone:

Lee “Scratch” Perry‘s “secret laboratory” studio in Switzerland burned down Thursday, destroying the dub legend’s collection of studio equipment, art, stage costumes and music. “Something very very sad happened. I forgot to [put] out a candle and my whole secret laboratory burned out,” Perry wrote on Facebook, “My whole life collections, arts, my magic hats, my magic boots, all my crazy show outfits and costumes: king, pope, general, magician… All my electronics and studio equipment and my magic mic, books, musik, CDs… Everything gone.”

On Facebook, Perry also posted photos of himself standing in the burnt-out ruins of the studio, which lent its name to Perry’s 1990 LP From the Secret Laboratory. Perry also noted in his letter, “I am so sad and my wife is so mad.” As a result of the fire, Perry is asking fans to provide specially made costumes for his upcoming trek; fans who contribute an outfit will be placed on the guest list and given backstage access when the Upsetter’s trek comes to their town.

This was Perry’s second fire. In 1981 he torched his earlier Black Ark studios himself, the episode eventually blamed on a mental breakdown.

I had the extreme thrill to see Perry perform live at DubFest in Hollywood, Florida, in September of 2009. I never thought I’d have the opportunity to see him because he spends most of his time in Europe. But, I was able to knock him off my bucket list on the same day I also saw Bunny Wailer live.

Lee “Scratch” Perry is still going strong and he’s already tweeted out his own birthday greetings.

You can find many biographical details on the interwebs, but Not Now Silly is all about the music. Here’s a small sample of the hundreds of tracks that Lee “Scratch” Perry has produced and recorded over the years, starting with one of my all-time favourite Reggae tracks:










One Good Thing About Emperor Trump ► Unpacking the Writer

Unlike most libtards (suddenly the mellifluous term is back in vogue among the Reich Wing), I’m thrilled with the way the Emperor Trump administration is going. Let me explain.

LONG STORY SHORT: Fox has so closely hitched its wagon to the whore it rode in on, that when The Cheetos Jesus finally goes down in flames — and smart people know he will — Fox “News” will be cratering with him.

Let me explain: For the past 8 years I have been writing Fox “News” criticism, first at NewsHounds (under the nom de troll Aunty Em Erican) and later from the Not Now Silly Newsroom and PoliticusUSA. That makes me somewhat of an expert on the propaganda channel.

Here’s what I’ve detected and further predict: The farther Emperor Trump gets from the tree of reality, the more Fox “News” climbs out on the limb with him. Eventually it’s going to going to snap under the sheer tonnage of the FAKE NEWS being disseminated by both. Unless Fox viewers are as stupid as many presume them to be.

We libtards are used to seeing the Reich Wing ECHO CHAMBER freak out over one stupid thing after another. However, Trump & Fox have created an ECHO MACHINE, which is The Fox News Effect on steroids.

Every Fox “News” critic worth their electrons has written about The Fox News Effect, so there’s no need to rehash any of that. However, what makes this different from previous incarnations is that the Oval Office is has been interpolated between Fox and the rest of the media, which now reports on what the Oval Office says, which is often said first on the Fox “News” Channel. It’s the vast circle of life, or FAKE NEWS.

To quote my latest Friday Fox Follies:

You’re be forgiven if this makes you as dizzy as a Tilt-A-Whirl: First Fox “News” spews, then it’s retweeted by the Oval Office, which is reported on by Fox, subsequently cited by Emperor Trump in interviews with Fox, before being debunked by one Foxite, validated by another, ending with the station proffering a brand new conspiracy, leading to red faces, retractions, and apologies all around.

And, what about that brand new conspiracy? It turned out that it came from Russian media before Judge Andrew Napolitano (who I used to make fun of weekly) spewed it. Then Spicey Spicey repeated it before Trump disavowed it, saying it came from Fox, “Go talk to them,” he told the media as German Prime Minister Angela Merkel looked on in horror.

According to my own reporting, the Fox audience has been fragmenting ever since the fans of Bully Boy Bolling attacked the fans of Dana “Butter Won’t Melt In Her Mouth” Perino after the latter truthfully accused the former of being a Trump fan boy — and this was even before Agent Orange threw his toupee in the ring.

Now he’s throwing Fox “News” under the bus.

I’ll be over here popping the popcorn.


Pops at his 90th birthday party

I’ve written about my depression previously, so I won’t belabour the point, other than to point out (and semi-apologize) that my wordage lately has been less than what I would like because of it.

A month ago would have been Pops’ 91st birthday, just 3 months after he died. I’ve found it rougher than I would have ever imagined. We lived together for over 11 years, not to mention the first 18 years of my life. That’s a long time.

That said, I’m aware I’m slacking in this area (and others) and I’m going to start kicking my own ass again.

To that end, I have been setting alarms on my phone to force myself to work on various projects. Lately (behind the scenes) I’ve been kicking at Farce Au Pain, the true story of my 2 childhood friends, as imagined by another. One of these days I may even finish it.

As well, there are several articles now in draft mode. If I ever get motivated to finish them, there’s some interesting stuff coming down the pike, including posts on Coconut Grove, a long-overdue Pastoral Letter I’ve been tinkering with in longhand, and another kick at Tom Falco since I have yet to receive a formal retraction and apology, but have received additional free legal advice.

Speaking of legal issues: This Wednesday I have been summoned to serve on a jury, the first time in my life I’ve ever been so honoured. As a longtime Perry Mason fan, I’m looking forward to the experience.

I honestly don’t know the rules, but I intended to write about the experience.

Lastly, I’m rather pleased with how things look here at the Not Now Silly Newsroom, both for visitors who make it in the front door and how it behaves behind the scene in places none of you can see. We finally got that frustrating date thing fixed. Now the original publishing dates of all previous articles are ‘sticky’ instead of the date it was transferred from the old joint, or edited.

There are still a few things behind the scenes to tinker with, but I’m mostly happy.

See you next time, dear readers!