Book Reviews: November Road

November Road
by Lou Berney

You may or may not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman who murdered JFK and Officer Tippit before being murdered in turn by Jack Ruby. It is a fact that powerful mob bosses Carlos Marcello of New Orleans and Santo Trafficante Jr. of Tampa both despised JFK and his brother, Attorney General RFK. In 1962 and 1963 each boss made impassioned predictions (really threats) to their associates that JFK was going to be murdered soon and implied that they and/or their friends would have something to do with it.

Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby had tenuous connections to both southern Mob bosses. Ruby was also a low level flunky to the Chicago Outfit fronted by noted psychopath and JFK hater Sam Giancana. All three Mafia leaders were involved with the Cuban exile movement and CIA abortive attempts to murder Castro and invade Cuba. So there's a lot of smoke there. November Road asks the reader to imagine that there's not only smoke but also fire.

Frank Guidry is a loyal (well loyal to money and himself) lieutenant of New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello. Frank doesn't handle murder or any heavy work. Frank is a fixer and arranger. He greases the corruption wheels to get things done. Frank and Carlos go back. But Frank's first loyalty is to Frank. When an old friend pops up begging for Frank to hide him from Carlos' executioners, Frank offers help but promptly leaks his friend's location. Hey, people might have seen them together; Frank doesn't want any misunderstandings with the notoriously exacting and unforgiving Carlos. Frank wants to live, dammit! He may only have a life of empty hedonism but Frank believes that's better than the alternative.

However when another mob associate turns up very dead, Frank searches for some common denominators. The common thread is Dallas. 

Trump Caves: Will Open Government Without Wall Funding

As several people have noted Trump is not the big bad muyerfuyer he likes to pretend that he is. He talks a lot of smack and will certainly cheat or behave vindictively towards weaker people over whom he has power but like most bullies when faced with someone who punches back Trump scurries away. 

I knew this was coming when Trump backed down on the State of the Union Speech. Although politics is not a game, you can use game theory to predict results and determine next moves. And the fact is that Trump blinked first. Streets are watching. Everyone will remember this. The question is during the three weeks that the government is open, will Trump make good on his threat to declare a national emergency and build a wall without Congressional authorization? 

President Donald Trump and congressional leaders have reached a deal to reopen the government for three weeks and end the longest U.S. funding lapse ever, the president announced Friday. In remarks at the White House, Trump said he hopes to sign the measure as soon as Friday, the 35th day of the partial shutdown. It would restart government operations through Feb. 15 — without the money he has demanded for his proposed border wall. Trump said he expects Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will bring it to the Senate floor "immediately."

Wilbur Ross Says Stop Making Excuses!!

Some rich people believe that everyone is responsible for themselves and if you can't keep up with the pack, screw you. Now obviously not every rich person or conservative believes that. 

You could make a good argument that one of the reasons we have a President Trump is because of conservatives and other voters who specifically rejected a "free market" every man for himself and God against us all devil take the hindmost approach in favor of a more nationalist take care of our own approach - albeit one where "our own" implicitly and occasionally explicitly excludes people of the "wrong" race/religion/ethnic group. That may well be. But even so the primary concern of many economic elites wasn't even racism or sexism or any other ism. It was making more money and keeping more money at all costs. When you have millions of dollars and the aforementioned worldview, it's easy to forget that most Americans live paycheck to paycheck and are not millionaire. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recently did this when he expressed surprise that federal workers were living paycheck to paycheck and having to go to food banks.

On Thursday morning, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross — a man whose extraordinarily shady financial history doesn’t get the attention it deserves — appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” to talk about the government shutdown. He expressed bafflement at the idea of unpaid federal workers suffering financial hardship, wondering why they don’t just take out loans.

Movie Reviews: The Frighteners

The Frighteners
directed by Peter Jackson

This 1996 movie was rated R although today it's hard to see this as anything other than PG-13 fare at worst. There are a few chills and a couple of disturbing violent scenes but overall this film leans more towards the comedy spectrum of the horror-comedy mix. IIRC there is no nudity or even cleavage.  The bad guys are not celebrated. 

The camera rarely lingers lovingly on destroyed human bodies. This film shares some DNA with earlier Jackson works such as Dead Alive and even his later work in The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. Director tics that were a bit annoying later on were in this movie muted or even cute. YMMV on the comedy. This clearly could have been a much more serious and perhaps scarier film but that wasn't what Jackson decided to do. Some of the writing fell flat. Sometimes it looks as if Jackson told Chi McBride to "Be funny! You're a big black guy. That's funny right??!" 

This movie was Michael J Fox's last film before withdrawing from Hollywood because of the onset/impact of Parkinson's disease. This movie posits that the human soul is immortal and survives the death of the body. For whatever reason, good or bad, a small minority of humans don't go on to heaven or hell after they die. Perhaps they need to prove their goodness or evil; perhaps they have unfinished business on this plane or existence, perhaps they are scared of what lies beyond and just want to hang out here for a few centuries. 

Movie Reviews: Halloween (2018)

Halloween (2018)
directed by David Gordon Green

This is a sequel to the 1978 movie that breezily ignores all the other sequels and reboots that took place in the meantime. It is a skilled sequel that manages to bring back some of the original's mystery and tension while updating some things for modern viewers. That was good. What was bad was that this was also a pretty heavy handed wannabe feminist interpretation (albeit one written by men) in which most of the female characters are competent and serious while almost all of the male characters are incompetent, stupid, clueless, sexually confused, corrupt or of course, murderous. YMMV with this. I just didn't think it was necessary. It was over the top in my opinion. 

Additionally how many people leave their doors unlocked or blinds open at night in our current environment? There's too much information out there about crime now for that to be a routine occurrence, or so I thought. But that might just be the normal horror movie convention. After all you can't have someone who gets slaughtered unless they do something stupid in the first place.

It's been forty years since Laurie Strode (Jaimie Lee Curtis) survived the massacre committed by Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney/Nick Castle). Laurie is AARP eligible but she's not ready to settle down and kick back. Laurie still suffers from PTSD and survivor's guilt. She's paranoid, likes to drink, and is something of a gun-nut survivalist. Laurie lives in a home with impressive security and spends a lot of free time shooting targets. 

Family Kicked Off Flight for Body Odor

I used to work with someone who had such destructive maleficent demonic body odor that people wouldn't want to come within 10 feet of him. It was that bad. In meetings where he would be present folks would do everything they could to avoid sitting next to him.

We all felt sorry for the poor schmuck who arrived late, couldn't find any other seat, and had to spend the next hour or so sitting next to this fellow and trying not to breathe. But we also all felt better him than me! 

We all have our own individual scents which are pleasing or displeasing to various people for a myriad of reasons. Culture can play a part as well. North American culture places a very high value on smelling "neutral" or "pleasant". Most of us do not walk or bicycle to work. Many work in air-conditioned offices. So there is less tolerance for body odors. And I am just fine with that!! There's no one who smells better at the end of a long stressful day than at the beginning of it. But when everyone across the board agrees that something really stinks, as it did with the man I am remembering, chances are there is a real problem. The person in question MIGHT need to go take a shower and actually use soap this time. When I saw this story I was reminded of my smelly former co-worker. If I could have kicked him out of the building, God help me I would have.

MIAMI - A family vacationing in Miami told Local 10 News they were booted from their flight after passengers complained about their body odor."There's no body odor that we have," Yossi Adler said Thursday morning at Miami International Airport. "There's nothing wrong with us."

Reggie Jackson photobombs Blake Griffin Interview

The Detroit Pistons are a bad team. The previous coach/GM Stan Van Gundy proved to be a horrible judge of talent, drafting poorly and overloading the team with bad contracts and incompatible players. Van Gundy was finally fired. The new coach, Dwane Casey is perhaps doing the best he can with what he has. The results haven't been good, though considering the talent level, perhaps Casey is a great coach. 

The one consistent bright spot has been once and future all star forward Blake Griffin, who has provided the only spark of hard play and serious talent. Griffin takes things seriously. Recently after a close win over the New Orleans Pelicans, Griffin was trying to explain how the Pistons need to mature, close games out better and generally stop messing around. Of course point guard Reggie Jackson could not help himself from bombing Griffin's interview and depicting exactly the sort of tomfoolery Griffin was excoriating.

As some older men in my family were fond of telling me, you can't soar with the eagles when you're hanging out with turkeys. I like Griffin, but if he wants to win he would be wise to get out of Detroit.

Blake very seriously talking about how unfocused the team is down the stretch. Reggie Jackson picking the wrong time lol pic.twitter.com/3hwC20SPRV

— Isiah has 1 a (@riinawith2eyes) January 24, 2019