Oh for God’s sake! I’m so over this Woke Bullshit!

Caught an article talking about the James Webb Space telescope and how there are some people who think that the telescope should be renamed so that it doesn’t honor James Webb.

Artist Rendering: James Webb Space Telescope

Webb was the second person to lead NASA and did so from 1961 – 1968.

This particular controversy doesn’t arise from the all too common hackneyed phrase of racism.

You do realize that we’re still removing historical figures based on their supposed racism in the 1600’s right???

This controversy is about Webb being the director of NASA during the Lavender scare or Pink Purge.

The Lavender Scare was a period of time when the United States Government sought to purge all homosexuals from their ranks.

The thought was that homosexuals couldn’t be trusted because they were forced to live their lives in the closet. As such, the thinking went, all homosexuals were security risks because all it would take is a commie to find out someone was queer and then blackmail them.

Given the times, it wasn’t actually a bad line of reasoning. In the 1960’s homosexuality was considered a mental illness, and illegal in most states. A queer could lose their job, their home, and be sent to an asylum for their “un-natural” behavior.

Gay men were commonly beaten up, mutilated, or killed, but Lesbians had it worse. There were a lot of men who believed that a lesbian was a lesbian, because she hadn’t had the right cock shoved inside her. Lots of real bastards would volunteer to be that magical dick that made a lesbian a “real” woman.

Picture the almost rape scene from “Kill Bill“. Except that the woman is tied down in an insane asylum and raped at any time, by any orderly who happened to get a hard on.

Oh and let’s not forget routine electro convulsive therapy. A.K.A. Electro shock. Apparently there was a school of thought that said the Gay could be shocked out of the poor soul and make them ‘right as rain’.

These factors would pretty much insure that a Homosexual would do anything to prevent themselves from being discovered.

Alan Turing

Look up Alan Turing sometime.

He helped defeat the NAZI Enigma encryption machine, could arguably be called the father of modern computing, and still ended up committing suicide (Although the suicide is still being debated,) because he happened to be homosexual.

I’m not saying that any of this was right, It absolutely wasn’t.

However those were the times.

(As an aside, this kind of persecution is still going on in the Middle East. The “woke” crowd is very willing to ignore it, because it’s ‘Middle Eastern Culture‘. While at the same time the “woke” crowd goes back 200, 100, 60, or 50 years and condemns people for shit that we’ve grown out of, for the most part.)

J Edgar Hoover

The Lavender Scare was being perpetrated by none other than the FBI. Who at the time had as its head a crossdressing asshole named J. Edgar Hoover. Uhh duplicitous much?

It’s arguable that the Lavender Scare was rooted in McCarthyism. A dark time in our history famous for the question, “Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?

The gay purge probably got started there, and just continued on under its own momentum after Senator McCarthy was considered passé.

In the case of James Webb, he happened to be NASA’s director during this time.

So let’s look at this logically. Webb was the director of NASA, he answered to Congress.

James Webb

Congress has this funny little organization called the FBI who loves digging up dirt on people. J Edgar Hoover really liked having leverage over anyone in power.

Webb had a career, a family, and believed that we should conquer space.

There were hundreds of former NAZI scientists working throughout government labs (brought over during Operation Paper Clip) including one guy by the name of Wernher Van Braun.

Webb knew there is no way in hell that the FBI was ever going to leave his people alone to do their jobs… So he made a choice.

MSFC CENTER DIRECTOR VON BRAUN, WERNHER-DR. IN HIS OFFICE WITH ROCKET MODELS IN BACKGROUND. 5/18/64

He chose not be obstructionist to the FBI.

Webb chose to keep moving the space program forward.

He in good conscience didn’t defend a group of people that Medical Science, (hey, they believed the science then too,) said were sick in the head, and that the government’s security and intelligence community said were a danger because they could be compromised by the commie bastards in Russia, placing the whole of the Space Program in jeopardy.

It doesn’t matter where he came down morally on boys who do with boys.

He had a Mission to the moon to worry about. I daresay he didn’t worry too much about a few “sick fucks” being purged from his staff.

That does not make Webb a bad man. It makes him a product of his time.

Webb’s scientific achievements merit his name being on the telescope.

I think that we’re looking at something different. I think this name change is nothing more than an attempt to purge another white guy from history.

I think this controversy is nothing more than some “Woke” asshole digging into Webbs history and finding nothing more than a shred of potential guilt that can be hung around his neck, then using this “assigned guilt” to erase Webb’s achievements and legacy.

Harriet Tubman

The authors of the article suggest the telescope be called the Harriet Tubman telescope. While Harriet Tubman was no doubt an American hero, and should be remembered with respect, she was not a scientist. Tubman, like the rest of the people alive in her day was probably very content to leave the mysteries of the firmament in God’s capable hands.

James Webb on the other hand most likely wanted to see God’s hands shaping the heavens.

In my opinion, the latter makes the case for his name being on the space telescope.

We need to stop judging people of the past by the morals of the present. This behavior is irrational and destructive.

We need to look at leaders (whether heroic or despotic) of the past in context of their times. Only then can we see that humanity is progressing (however slowly) toward a better future.

We need to be able to observe past events with an unflinching realism, because only in understanding the errors and successes of the past, can we hope to build a livable future.

Wow! Just Wow.

Obviously I must have misunderstood the Democratic reconciliation message.

Governor Abbott of Texas has decided to lift all the COVID restrictions… Pundits, politicians, and Hollywood Elites are losing their minds. (Uh, last I checked neither Pundits or Hollywood’s elite had access to the same information that Governor Abbott has access to from his state health services.)

For those that may have missed the subtext… that means “Shut the hell up!”


The President described lifting the lockdowns as Neanderthal thinking.

Well Mr. President, you would know all about that, given that it appears your thought processes have devolved to a sub-neanderthal level. At least it appears Neanderthals could string two sentences together.

They were tool users, had command of fire, structurally their bodies may have supported more muscle making them stronger, and their bones were built a tad stronger than ours. Their brain size was also not too different.

It may simply have been a fluke that we survived and they didn’t. Although evidence does suggest that there was interbreeding between the species. So you might want to speak kindly of Neanderthals, after all, you never know who’s lineage you might be insulting.

They, unlike you and your staff appear to have disregarded things that didn’t definitively work. While you and Dr. Doom & Gloom Fauci on the other hand, continue to cast the bones, chant, and wave your arms around, about masks.

Next, one of your staff will be saying that we should use Oni masks to scare away the evil spirits released upon the world by China.

The next day though your administration would be scolding us for cultural appropriation and calling us all racists.

Who knows? The Oni mask might actually work, the Japanese have been dealing with China a lot longer than we have.


One of the best of the many screaming about Abbott’s decision, was Keith Olbermann. Let’s see, a washed up sportscaster who blindly Hated Trump and now has to content himself with just hating Republicans came out with this:

Why are we wasting vaccinations on Texas if Texas has decided to join the side of the virus? https://t.co/Yn2i7zT8KL

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) March 3, 2021

Say what?

Let me get this straight Mr. Olbermann, are you saying that because the Governor of the state of Texas does something that you disagree with, you’re in favor of denying the vaccine to ALL THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS?

NICE! Very forgiving, how very enlightened!

Last time I checked it didn’t take much more than a big mouth, and the ability to watch sports to be a sportscaster. Keith, do you have a medical degree you’ve not mentioned?

How about this? Just floating the idea here, maybe we should deny the entire state of New York access to birth control, since Governor Cuomo obviously can’t be trusted not to sexually harass women?

That would make about as much sense as what you’ve suggested.

(And don’t even get me started about Como’s nipple rings… Yeah, that’s a thing, look it up.)


Then we have the perennial favorite AOC, declaring that re-opening Texas endangers The whole country.

This endangers the entire country and beyond. We are in a pandemic. We know that COVID spread isn’t neatly contained by state borders, and explosions in COVID cases can increase the likelihood of new COVID variants to develop or spread to new places. It’s dangerous.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 2, 2021

This hyperbole is what we’ve come to expect from AOC. At this point, I think she’s being kept around for nothing but comic relief, or perhaps she’s just serving as an example of how not to be a village idiot.

Now Johnny, if you don’t work hard and study, you’ll be just like AOC. You don’t want to be that stupid do you? Don’t you want to be at least a ditch digger and not a politician?

AOC also demonstrated her profound stupidity this weekend by saying that NYPD sending in a robotic “dog” to assess a possible hostage situation was racist.

I tried to wrap my head around that one and found that I couldn’t.

The “Dog” costs 75K it was not armed, and couldn’t really escalate a situation in the same way that sending a human into harm’s way could have.

I found that I wasn’t willing to undergo a lobotomy to understand how she came up with racism from that one. Especially since the perpetrators had been holding two men hostage, while torturing them, and demanding money.


AOC can expect a lot more of this kind of racism going forward. Just wait, it will probably get more interesting when robots are armed, and bring a situation under control by shooting first and asking questions later.

Can you really accuse a robot of being racist? Of course, killer robots as police would save the state a ton of money in trials, juries, and prison expenses. I’m fairly sure that we’d see a lot more homeless lawyers too.

The body cam footage from a robot would be priceless. Robot orders perp to stop or be fired upon. The perpetrator takes a shot at the robot, the robot blows the perps brains all over the place. Simple, dispassionate, efficient, and brings a whole new meaning to “Death by cop”.

I can imagine hostage negotiations; “Okay, let the hostages go or we’ll send the ‘bot in… ” The hostages come running out and the perps handcuff themselves. Just like RoboCop, I just hope we don’t get to the Gort version. What would happen to a city like Chicago with 100 Gorts running around? I’d imagine there would be one really bad weekend, and then Chicago might be a super nice place to live.

The courts would be hard pressed to say the robots are racist. Robots could simply hate all humans equally.


I’ve digressed.

I keep looking for this reconciliation the Democrats keep talking about, all I see is vengeance.

Democrats … You won! How about you stop beating dead horses and get to work making good on all the promises you made about how much better things will be under your benevolent, loving rule?

Orange man bad… Democrats good. Remember????

Probably another question I shouldn’t ask.

Where are all the pictures of the Capital building surrounded by 7 foot tall fences with concertina wire at the top?

I managed to find two. Plus one on a Russian web site… The Russian site showed the fence being assembled not it’s completed form.

A Russian website? Since when are Russian publications presenting more of the truth than American publications?

Surely someone is visiting Washington DC and taking pictures of the “Fear Fence” right?

Apparently not. If they are, those photos aren’t being published in mass on the ‘net.

I call it the “Fear Fence” because if congress wasn’t afraid, they wouldn’t need a fence like this.

The photos look like the capital complex is a prison camp. Perhaps we should make that “look” a truth. All we’d have to do is move the national guard from one side to the other.

I’m pretty convinced that the occupants of the Capital complex are in fact criminals. Maybe we should just imprison them until they actually started doing their jobs.

What I was looking for, was an overview of the fence. I’m just curious how badly Congressional fear of the people has defaced our nations capital.

This is not the look of a free nation. This is the look of a nation whose leadership is not obeying the will of the governed.

I guess that’s why the media is dutifully ignoring this particular set of optics.

Ugh! The News and politics is already back to the Obama era.

I was reminded this morning why I’d lost interest in politics and the news during Obama. It wasn’t that I was actually disinterested, it was that no matter what, there was almost zero serious discussion about anything Obama or his minions did. Anything and everything was amazing and just wonderful. That makes me suspicious. No president, administration, politician, or government is wonderful and amazing all the time.

Just as it is untrue that anything and everything Trump did for the past four years according to the media, was; wrong, evil, bad, racist, or whatever negative descriptive you can think of.

Then I remembered the movie Protocol with Goldie Hawn. I’ll be digging it out of the library later today.

Just thinking about it made me smile, and I could use a laugh or two.

I honestly don’t give a runny crap about who is in power. But I absolutely care about fair play, and politicians that actually work for the people.

I don’t believe that we have either now and doubt seriously that we’re getting fair and accurate news reporting about the goings on in Washington DC.

It’s the imbalance in reporting that makes me question. Now that we don’t have a President that the media can target, the Media and many of the politicians have switched to targeting anyone who disagrees with the prevailing narrative, or who supported the former President.

This is not a hallmark of a democratic republic. It’s a hallmark of a totalitarian state.

I’d stopped watching the goings on in Washington during the last four years of Obama. Every time I sat down to watch the Obama press conferences or state of the union I found myself having far more questions than were answered. I found that I fundamentally disagreed with the direction then President Obama was taking the country.

Apparently so did many in congress which led to nothing but wasted time and money because nothing was getting done. I was very displeased with Obama’s use of executive orders because it felt very much like he was a King, not an American President.

To be fair Trump also used executive orders, but not the the extent that Obama and now Biden have.

I think we’re in for yet another four years of congressional deadlock and infighting rather than congress doing the job they exist to do. How long can a country survive doing nothing for the people? 12 years? 16 Years? 20 years?

About 1/2 this country no longer believes in voting. Not because Biden won, but because no-one in the courts would even hear the voices of the people upraised in protest.

Last week there was an article in Time magazine that essentially says there was something going on designed to make sure Biden won. Whether this collusion behind the scenes is illegal or not we will probably never know, because the courts will refuse to hear any cases about it.

The article is here. The article could be read to imply that votes don’t actually matter in this country anymore. But that politicians and corporate oligarchs are deciding our fate.

I’ll grant you that American politics is, and always has been a dirty business. That doesn’t mitigate the fact that a very large number of people were demanding answers as is their right and were dismissed like spoiled children from the dinner table.

That was insult enough. But those in power are compounding the insult with what appear to be blatant misuses of their power by continuing to silence all opposition, engaging in what looks a lot like settling vendettas against their enemies.

It hasn’t gone un-noticed that the nation is suddenly calmer, that protests and riots are no longer front page news. Many predicted this would be the case. It’s also worthy to note the SPLC has designated, (and the party in power agrees,) quite a few right leaning groups (note I said leaning, not right wing) as terrorist organizations, but that the groups responsible for billions of dollars in damage in cities nationwide have not earned a similar designation.

It is also interesting that states which had been locked down for COVID are opening up. One could say that is a result of the vaccine, but the timing is somewhat coincidental especially in light of the limited availability of the vaccine itself. Many also predicted this would happen.

I find myself once again wanting to turn a blind eye. But I’ve tried that, hoping that the problem would go away.

It didn’t work

I hoped that the politicians would correct the problem because it’s their job.

They didn’t.

I hoped that my vote still counted.

It didn’t.

I believed that the rule of law still held sway in my country.

It doesn’t

I thought that justice was blind.

It isn’t.

I’m a relatively moderate conservative leaning person. If I’m thinking things like this, I have to wonder what other more disenfranchised people are thinking. I wonder if Germans in pre-Hitler Germany were asking the same questions.

If they were, then along comes Hitler who promises them their place in the world. He promises to restore their national pride, and tells them he will make it happen, and has a plan…

We all know, or should know how that turned out.

Logically I have to ask, “What happens if a gifted orator comes along and manages to speak to the masses of disenfranchised Americans who are asking these same questions?”

Despite what the media pundits said about Trump being Hitler. We can all agree he wasn’t a gifted orator. Neither is Biden or Harris…

But what happens when a really gifted orator comes along?

Somehow I can’t get past the feeling that we’re all sitting on a powder keg and someone is playing with matches.

I can have that opinion, it’s been demonstrated time and again over the past four years that what we feel is true… Actual Facts be damned!

So I’m going to watch Protocol, and perhaps The American President both are sweet comedies and make me smile.

I caught a deal…

I was wandering through the Apple TV Movies and noticed that Good Night and Good Luck was not only available, but on sale!

For those of you that may not know this movie, it’s a dramatization of Edward R. Murrow taking on Senator Joseph McCarthy while Murrow was working at CBS.

The movie was released in 2005 and I’d purchased a copy of it on DVD, but never replaced that copy once it was lost.

The movie has an all star cast, including amazing performances by Jazz singer Dianne Reeves.

Edward R Murrow

The subject matter of the movie is timely. It could be argued that Murrow was among the first victims of cancel culture.

He called out Joseph McCarthy at the height of the McCarthy hearings and essentially said what you’re doing is wrong and un-American.

For those who don’t know who Joseph McCarthy was, here’s a brief synopsis of what I remember from history.

McCarthy in the late 1940s and early 1950s chaired a house subcommittee that was supposed to root out communists that McCarthy said had infiltrated the State Department. You need to remember that the cold war was raging and America was just out of World War II.

McCarthy subsequently targeted LGBT people as easily compromised. His lasting legacy was that gay people were considered a security risk well into the 1980s.

Joseph McCarthy

McCarthy terrorized Hollywood, created black lists of suspected communists and through these black lists ended the careers of many average people, and writers, actors, producers, and journalists.

The movie mentions one journalist killing himself over the accusation that he was affiliated with communist subversives.

There’s a great deal more negative that the McCarthy hearings did. Look it up for yourself.

Although, in the context of today’s events, I do sometimes find myself wondering if McCarthy might have been right. Perhaps he was just 50 years ahead of his time…

I hadn’t seen the movie in many years, but remembered the jazz. So I bought it last night and sat back to be entertained. There was an irony in the movie because as I watched, I was struck by how the names, causes, and political party has changed but the persecution today is much the same. McCarthy was a Republican, but could as easily have been one of todays politicians of either party.

Edward Murrow, effectively won. But winning cost him his prime time Tuesday evening show. He went on to produce numerous shows until about 1960, and died in 1965.

I remember his voice from my early childhood. I don’t remember the context in which I heard his voice, only that it was distinctive. He was a true journalist, based on what I recall from some of the things I recall reading about him.

I ran across some of his writing at the UK library when I lived in KY. His words were clear and what he said was said plainly and directly. I don’t recall him being apologetic in his writing. What I think I remember most was his somewhat terse style and his eloquent use of English. I learned some new words reading him. (no, they weren’t dirty words.)

He seems to have stood by his words believing in presenting the truth of a situation as he saw it, but assumed that the audience was intelligent enough to draw their own conclusions.

I recall reading an apology to a viewer where he said something to the effect; “Reading your letter, I have rethought my position and you may be right. I apologize for any harm my words may have caused you.” That’s not an exact quote but I remember that it struck me how this fairly powerful journalist saw fit to actually put in writing that he’d reevaluated his position and told a viewer so.

After watching the movie, I still appreciated the vocals of Dianne Reeves. As I watched the credits roll I thought, “We need journalists like Murrow again.”

As is pointed out in one scene, Murrow tried to behave as if he was above editorializing, but he did editorialize to some extent. I thought it was interesting that he was portrayed as accepting the criticism and the consequences as part of doing business.

I thought about that, and have concluded we’re all human, we all editorialize, but a journalist is supposed to keep that natural tendency in check. They’re supposed to present the facts as dispassionately as they possibly can.

One line in the movie is, “We report the news, we don’t make it.” If only journalists still operated on that premise, we’d all be better informed and perhaps less prone to passionate outbursts based on half the information and our emotional response to it.

If you get a chance, check out the movie it’s 94 minutes of your life well spent. Especially if it makes you stop reacting and start thinking.

Oh, if you play the movie, your TV isn’t broken… The whole thing is shot in period correct Black & White.