Going Off Half-Cocked...Yet Again!

By now you've all seen and/or heard of the event that happened on January 18, 2018 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., which is apparently the place to go in the nation's capitol to protest and harass people without the intervention of law enforcement.

In a nutshell: After attending an anti-abortion march, a group of boys from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky were waiting for their bus to return home. A small group of radical black Black Israelites began taunting them, calling them “crackers,” “faggots” and a bunch of other words that would get bleeped for TV. In an effort to drown out the apparent abusive treatment, the boys – all teenagers – responded by performing some of their school chants or cheers. Into this volatile mix entered one elderly Native American by the name of Nathaniel (Stanard) Phillips.

Mr. Phillips, in what he says was an effort to diffuse the situation, began banging on his drum and singing an Indian song. He inexplicably waded into the crowd of teenagers, finally coming face to face with one sixteen year-old Nicholas Sandmann. Confused as to Mr. Phillips intentions, Nicholas just stood there while Mr. Phillips beat his drum right in the teenager's face. Nicholas stood calmly and silently, not reacting other than to smile at Mr. Phillips. The others in his group, equally unsure as to Mr. Phillips intent, reacted as you would expect any group of confused, boisterous teenagers.

Of course the event was captured on video. Of course it “went viral” as they say and exploded into a media shitstorm.

Initially, based on a short excerpt of the video, Nicholas Sandmann was the labeled as the aggressor. He (along with his fellow students) was accused of “mocking” Mr. Phillips. His smile was widely interpreted as a smirk.  Apparently, smirking is enough to get you labeled a racist these days.

The Black Hebrew Nationals, the wieners who started this whole thing have evaporated. No media attention has been focused on them. Nobody has interviewed them, much less bothered to even find them. All of the attention has been focused like a laser on the “confrontation” between a teenage boy and an old man – a Vietnam veteran for God's sake!

Well... Not so fast.

It turns out that Mr. Phillips is something of a professional agitator and activist. He has been in the media before, and not in a good way. Some would say that comes with the territory of being an “activist.” Change does not always happen voluntarily; sometimes it takes a person who's willing to stand up be the lightning rod.

Sometime after that little face-to-face-off at the Lincoln Memorial, Mr. Phillips and his group attempted to disrupt a High Mass at Washington D.C.'s Basilica of the National Shrine. Wisely, church leaders locked the doors and did not let Mr. Phillips enter. And it's a good thing they did! If Phillips and his group actually had carried out their plan, they would have found out the hard way that disrupting a religious service is a hate-crime.

Nathan Phillips has been characterized as a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam vet. These claims are directly due to statements that he himself has made. Luckily there's this thing called a DD-214, a military form issued to every serviceman upon separation from the military. Luckily there is also this thing called the Freedom of Information Act. It turns out that the “Vietnam War vet” claims were either misleading or patently false.

Ol' Nathan enlisted under an adopted name of “Nathaniel Stanard.” The truth is that he was actually in the U.S. Marine Corps for four years! The truth is also that he never went to Vietnam, which was winding down by the time Phillips-Stanard enlisted. He served stateside. During his time in the Marines he went AWOL three times before given a general discharge – as a Private. (It might seem unusual, given the length of time he was in the military that Phillips never advanced beyond Private. Some have speculated as to why. I surmise that after his third AWOL stint, he was busted back to Private and kicked out.)

Not exactly your garden-variety war hero. But hey, he was a Marine, so I'll cut him some slack.

When the whole fiasco erupted on the media, Nicholas Sandmann was targeted as the bad guy. Despite the obvious evidence to the contrary, he was the claimed aggressor! But he was the easiest one to blame, being a (privileged) white teenager wearing a MAGA hat...you know, an obvious racist. Extremely nasty things were said about him on the internet.

The Covington Catholic School (“CovCath”) and the Bishop of the Diocese of Covington issued a joint statement which pretty much convicted the boys and said that an investigation would lead to disciplinary action and possibly expulsion from the school. Seems like the bishop had already made up his mind, like much of America did as well. So much for objectivity, eh, yer Excellency?

Well now we know the truth. As usual there was more to the story...a LOT more to the story than was conveyed in the short video clip that was initially released. Some news outlets had to retract and apologize for their initial reporting of this story. Some still tried to make the “CathCov” boys out to be the bad guys. The Bishop of the Diocese of Covington had to retract his initial statement of condemnation of the boys and apologize. He said they felt “bullied” into making a statement before all the facts were known. Really. Twitter, for their part, suspended the account of the person who posted that incomplete and intentionally inflammatory video. But all of this was too little/too late. The damage had already been done. You cannot un-ring a bell.

The most bizarre thing I saw was an interview that Nicholas Sandmann gave on NBC's “Today” show. He was grilled by smiling (smirking?) Savannah Guthrie, who obviously still saw Sandmann and his fellow students as the instigators, the ones who should have walked away from all the abuse hurled at them.

At one point, Ms. Guthrie asked of Nicholas perhaps one of the most stupid questions I've ever heard from a TV reporter. She said, ”There's something aggressive about...standing there...standing your ground. You both stood your ground. And it was like a stare-down. What do you think of that now...when you think of that moment?”

Sometimes I wonder what planet these TV “personalities” are from? She actually thinks that it's “aggressive” to just stand there passively, smiling while some crazy Indian guy beats a drum in your face?! Idiot. I would've smacked her and shown her what “aggression” really looks like. “Here's how I react to stupid questions, toots!”

However, the teenager responded to the inane question in a more calm and measured tone of voice, and with more poise than me, obviously. What should Nicholas have done, run away like a little coward? I mean, for one thing I would've pushed ol' Injun Joe back and said, ”Get the (bleep!) outta my face, gramps! Come at me again and I'll shove that (bleeping!) drumstick up yer (bleep!).”.

This is why I don't go out in public much.

This story is a classic example of going off half-cocked and over-reacting to a little piece of video before the whole story is known. It's not the first time this has happened. Despite the plaintive bleating and half-baked, insincere apologies from some in the media, it won't be the last.

HERE is a pretty good, objective (and brief) article on the event.

Morning Person

Here in Pensacola, Florida, conventional taxis hang out at the airport and down on the Navy Base. There isn't any “street business.” We don't have a thriving downtown...or much of a central business district at all for that matter. So if you're not near the airport or on the base, getting a taxi is an “iffy” situation.

But so-called “ride-sharing” is changing our culture in a profound way. With the advent of Uber and Lyft, “taxis” are available in parts of our city/county where they never were before, or where it would take a very long time for a cab to get to you, if you could even get a driver to accept the trip request. With Uber/Lyft, semi-retired guys like myself who live in outlying areas can log-on and get trips. People who need transportation in those areas can also log-on and see that cars are available nearby.

So now, a couple with only one car isn't inconvenienced if one spouse takes that car to work. The other spouse can now get out and run errands or do whatever.  Alternatively, the working spouse can Uber to work, leaving the car home for personal use.  Or, families that used to own two cars don't need to do that now. This is huge. And it's happening.

In my town, there is a lot of Uber/Lyft business between 4:30 and 9:00 am. People go to work, to school, to the airport...to all the places you'd imagine. After nine it really drops off until the evening. The bulk of the ride-share drivers – and there are plenty of them! - come out after nine. Competition is keen and the few trips are split between dozens of drivers. However, this leaves the very early morning hours fairly open...to guys like myself.

As I've written before, I'm a "morning person."  I'm not proud of it, and it's not because I want to be. It's been thrust on me out of necessity. For most of my adult life, which includes 30+ years as a professional pilot I've had to be at work and ready to go thirty minutes before sunrise. So I'm used to getting up super-early. All of us helicopter pilots are. Habits are hard to break, and even though I'm pretty much semi-retired from flying, I still get up early.

People who own helicopters like to get the most out of them. The aircraft enables people to be efficient in moving around their world, getting much more work done than if they had to drive. Thus, helicopters start their workday early. Unfortunately, so do their pilots.

You'd think that as you get some seniority and longevity in a career that you'd qualify for the “cushier” jobs that don't start so early. Aaaaand you'd be wrong. My last job, the one up in Washington State required that we fly at sunrise if it rained overnight. And since we never really knew if it rained or not while we were sleeping, every morning we pilots would get up and check the weather early enough to fly as soon as it was light enough to see. In Washington, sunrise happened at around 4:30am at that time of year. If it hadn't rained, it was permissible to go back to bed. But you know, once you're up...

At 63 I am not (yet) cursed with the malady that afflicts a lot of men in my age group – that being the need to get up periodically in the middle of the night to...you know...pee. As long as I don't drink too much in the evening, I can go to bed around eleven pm and get up at four am without any interruptions. But nowadays I do reliably wake up at four.

So I get up early and get my day going. Sometimes I'll just turn the Uber and Lyft apps on around 5:00 am and stay home until I get a trip, which invariably comes before I've even finished making breakfast. Or I'll get in the car and drive up to a “honey-hole” that I know of – a hotspot for trips. There, I'll stop at the Circle-K, get the newspaper and a cup of coffee, and then retire to the Target parking lot to wait for a trip. Usually one or the other app will ping while I'm on line in the convenience store. I “work” until about noon and then go home. It turns out that this is being a morning person is something of an advantage when it comes to being a ride-share driver.

Obeying The SIgns

Well it was sunny and it got up to 73 degrees yesterday here in Pensacola.  A beautiful January day! In fact, a great day to take the motorcycle out for a ride. Or so I thought.  The plan was to mosey out to the beach for lunch.  It's been a cloudy/rainy winter here in NW Florida, and good riding days have been as scarce as an Obama lover at a Trump rally...or a vegan at a Ted Nugent concert...or a good driver in New Jersey.  We're talking scarce.

I keep my bike's registration and insurance cards in a little plastic pouch. I do not keep the documents in my wallet, because anything that's made of paper fades to nothingness in no time flat. Not only that, but the motor vehicle registration form here Florida is inexplicably bigger than my motorcycle license plate - hardly walled-size.  Plus I don't ride all of the time so there's no need to tote them around.

Without fail, I keep that pouch in one place and one place only: On my computer desk. This way, when I go for a ride I know where the cards are and can snatch them quickly. I'm a little OCD about certain things, and this is one of them. I don't like to have to search all over the house for things when I need them. Admittedly I'm not the most organized person in the world, and always putting my document pouch on my desk is my small way of keeping things under control.

You've probably already jumped ahead: When I got ready to ride yesterday I could not find the damn document pouch. It was gone...as in GONE. I looked high...I looked low...I searched and searched in every conceivable place in this house...all the nooks, most of the crannies (the ones I could reach)...without success. I scoured the pockets of my three riding jackets...and even the pockets of my non-riding jackets.  Of course I searched the garage. Yes, I even searched wherever it is that I know you're going to suggest.  But the pouch had simply vanished into thin air. Which was impossible, but there ya go.

Well, no big deal, right? I mean, in this day and age the cops don't really need for you to physically carry your registration form; they can tell via their computer who the vehicle is registered to before they ever get out of their car. And yes, they do check before they come up to greet you with that loaded question: Do you know how fast you were going? And although they cannot access our specific insurance information, they know we have insurance because if we don't, Florida cancels your registration and suspends your driver's license.  Nevertheless we still have to carry proof-of-insurance. I'm just anal enough that I refuse to ride or drive unless my required documents are with me. The one time you go out without them is when you'll get stopped, for sure.

The insurance card is available online, so I went on Geico's website and downloaded a new one. But guess what? My printer wouldn't.  Wouldn't print, that is.  Of all days to choose to glitch and not work, it had to pick this one. There was no error message like I usually get when something fixable is wrong. I'd click “PRINT” and...nothing...would happen other than it would send me back to the document page.  Very strange.

Okay, still no big deal: Florida accepts proof-of-insurance on your cellphone. So I saved the insurance card to my computer as both a picture and a PDF. Guess what? I couldn't even send the picture electronically to my phone. Now it was giving me a "corrupt file" message.  (I could have just had Geico email me a card and keep it on my phone but in my aggravation I did not think of it.)

So I was, like, "What the...?"

At this point I had to stop. The universe was sending me a pretty clear message that it did not want me riding my motorcycle yesterday. Not only was I not listening but I was in fact doing everything in my power to circumvent it. I thought about just saying, “Screw it,” and going riding anyway. But I can't do that.

So I did not ride my motorcycle yesterday. It was probably best that I did not. Sometimes we just have to obey the signs.

Postscript:  It is now the next day.  No, the pouch has not turned up although I'm confident that it will.  But my printer is working fine today although I did exactly nothing differently.

Gay Actors

When we meet people, and sometimes even after we get to know them, there is an assumption of straightness. It's what we think of as the norm because let's face it, the majority of people on the planet are heterosexual.  Most people don't broadcast their sexuality. Generally, straight men don't go around announcing to the world that they're straight. Most guys I know just keep their sexuality to themselves. 

The assumption of straightness is fostered by the appearance of wives and girlfriends. If a guy is in a heterosexual relationship, why would anyone even question his sexuality? They wouldn't. There's a spillover effect that applies to single guys as well. Even without a girlfriend, unless you communicate to people that you're gay, people assume you're straight.

It's stereotyping, yes, and even I admit that I'm guilty of it. Over the years I've been surprised to find out differently about people whom I assumed to be straight.  (I have terrible gaydar.)  But then, it's really none of my business what people do in their bedrooms. Similarly, it's no business of anyone else what I do in mine.

Of course, we all know straight guys who pridefully boast of their sexual conquests and proficiency...guys who just have to make a sexual comment about every woman they see.  It's almost as if they're trying to convince the world that they're straight. But they're outliers. And frankly, when a guy has to constantly brag about his sexual prowess, it makes others wonder if there is something else going on?

Sexuality is not about being macho either. I'm sure that by now we've all heard about extremely macho guys who've turned out to be gay. It always seems to be such a shock. ”Him?!” we say incredulously. ”I never would have known!”  

Exactly. Why would you? And why should you?

By the same token, I know some guys who are so very...let's say "unmacho" that you might question their sexual orientation, but who are in fact as straight as an arrow.

My friend Terry says to me, "You don't act gay."
And I reply, "How are gay people supposed to act?"

Or sometimes people say, "You're the least gay, gay guy I know."

And I say, "How would you know that?"

I get their point. Our image of gay people is often formed by the more flamboyant and effeminate examples we see. We get to thinking that if you're gay then you must be like them. And if you're not obvious about it then you're putting on an act - covering up your true nature.

I'm not gay helicopter pilot. I'm not a gay motorcyclist. The fact that I'm gay does not influence those activities. I don't “act” straight.  And by that I mean when I'm not riding or flying, I don't go home and dress like Cher and prance around like some disco queen.  I don't try to be macho, and believe me, I'm not.  I'm just a guy.  And I've had some great male role models throughout my life who've shown me what it's like and what it takes to be a man. I can only hope that I'm making them proud.

I don't let societal pressures tell me how to behave or how I should act. Just because some gay guys are...well...more in touch with their feminine side, does that mean I have to be?  As far as I know, I have no feminine side. Or maybe I've repressed it so much that it has ceased to exist - I don't know - do I look like a psychologist? Either way, I try to not let my sexuality become a part of everything I do that's not sexual. That seems kind of obvious to me.  But not everyone can do it, gay or straight.

So when Terry says tells me that I don't act gay, I reply that I'm not an actor. And anyway, most actors I know of actually are gay.