February 2024
Fifty Years Ago Today, She Took My Breath Away
22/02/24 05:43
February 22, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 11) - Fifty years ago on this very day, my world changed forever. It was already guaranteed to be a memorable day. Late on a rainy Friday afternoon, I rounded a curve on U.S. 60 in my blue VW bug and entered the sleepy - and on this day, dreary - little town of Hawesville, Kentucky. I had taken a job sight-unseen as an announcer and ad salesman for daytime country music radio station WKCM-AM. It was my first job out of college. The country was in the middle of a recession and it was the first job I could find after several months of looking. At the end of a grueling two-day drive from College Park, Maryland, I drove up to the station, located in a small white-frame house just a stone's throw from the Ohio River and met my boss and co-workers for the first time. After brief introductions, the group went down to a small restaurant near the Ohio River bridge that takes you into Indiana. The name of the restaurant - which no longer exists - was the Captain's Table. It was much like downtown Hawesville itself, unpretentious and tiny. Over a dinner of ribeyes and baked potatoes, the trajectory of my life changed. A pretty young waitress with light brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses wearing a white dress and blue stockings walked into my life, took my dinner order and, eventually, captured my heart. She was a high school senior named Jan Marie Fillman. I was only 21. She was 17. Yet I knew right away that Jan was someone special. She literally took my breath away. Little did either of us know that 18 months and one day later we would become husband and wife. That encounter 50 years ago today launched us on a 33-year adventure punctuated by the birth of our daughter Susan in December 1983. Marriage to Jan also brought with it the added bonus of becoming a part of the extended Fillman family - something I consider a blessing. The picture I have chosen to accompany this blog entry was taken on what was, other than the day our daughter was born, my favorite day of our nearly 32-year marriage. Jan and I were dining at a street cafe along the Champs-Elysées in Paris on May 1, 2004. We spent four days in The City of Light at the end of a four-month teaching assignment in Italy. The French capitol was beautiful, the weather was perfect and our time together was golden. I had no way of knowing that my loving wife would be gone in less than three years from a cerebral hemorrhage. That's why I hold memories of that May Day, our life together and that magical encounter a half-century ago today so dear. Emily Dickinson wrote "unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality." There is also a Vietnamese proverb that is fitting on this very special anniversary: "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." That's it for now. Fear the Turtle."Hello, Mr. David"
20/02/24 07:01
February 20, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 10) - The phone rings, usually at an inopportune time. My smart phone screen warns me that it is a spam call. It also says the call is from an unfamiliar number - often from Houston, but sometimes from rural Kansas. But I know better. It is probably originating from India or the Philippines. Out of curiosity, I answer the phone. For a few seconds, there is no one at the other end - a sign that the spam warning was spot-on. Finally, I hear someone with a heavy, barely understandable accent ask if I am David Guth, the author of Thirteen Minutes: Death of An American High School. When I acknowledge that I am, the voice on the other end of the line says "Hello, Mr. David" - a greeting I find annoying, insulting and presumptuous - and proceeds to tell me that my book has been "specially" selected by a panel of editors for their company's promotional opportunities. It is a spiel I have heard literally dozens of times. Operating from a boiler room script, I am told how exceptional my book is and that they are prepared to give it the "worldwide" publicity it deserves. Let me unwrap this. First, while I am proud of my book, my first effort at writing fiction, I am a realist. I have absolutely no expectation of it suddenly rocketing to the top of The New York Times Best Seller List. (Don't get me wrong: I think it is a good story and I invite you to read it.) Second, absolutely no one on the other end of the line has actually read my book. The caller always speaks in generalities based on previously distributed promotional materials for my book. (That's where they got my name and number.) When I ask the callers what they think of my story's surprise ending, they usually tap dance for a few moments before proclaiming that it was "great." Next, they say they can provide me "worldwide" publicity for my book, usually for just a few hundred bucks. However, when I drill down into what these promotional efforts entail, I learn that they are based on a mass e-mail distribution of a news release about my book. Unfortunately for the caller, I taught college students about news releases and promotions for nearly three decades. What the caller is proposing is load of crap and would result in me just throwing away my hard-earned money. When these companies show me examples of news releases they have prepared for others, I shudder in disbelief. If any of my students had submitted that garbage to me, they would have rightfully earned a failing grade. Writing a book is a very personal experience. Exposing oneself to the critiques of others requires almost reckless courage. Unable to attract a traditional publisher, I published Thirteen Minutes through a hybrid publisher, where I assumed some of the up-front costs and will keep all of the royalties until I recoup my costs. In short, I invested in myself. If it pays off, great. If it doesn't, at least I tried. I have a second fiction coming out later this year, In the Moment: The Journey of the Class of '70. It is story about growing up on Maryland's Eastern Shore in the turbulent 1960s. Because of its regional focus, I am confident that it will be moderately successful, just like my first single-authored book, Bridging the Chesapeake: A 'Fool Idea" That Unified Maryland. I am under no illusion that some Indian or Philippine-based company channeling its marketing calls through American telephone exchanges is going to make me "The Next Big Thing." (If you want to get a sense of just how many of these vultures exist, click on this link.) I refuse to let them prey on my ego and wallet. I may not become a best-selling author. I can live with that. What I am not be willing to live with is being a gullible and stupid author. Caveat emptor. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.The Outrage at Union Station
15/02/24 05:07
February 15, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 9) - Mass casualty shootings can happen anywhere at anytime. And it happened again yesterday when gunfire broke out at the conclusion of a parade and celebration of the Kansas City Chiefs' recent Super Bowl victory. At the time of this writing, there is at least one person dead, more than 20 injured - most of those children - and an entire community emotionally scarred. What should have been a joyous event evoking a pleasurable lifetime memory is now forever soiled by this act of senseless violence. Why did it happen? The police will be spending the next hours and days attempting to figure out the motive of the shooter or shooters. However, in a deeper sense, we already know the answer. This sort of tragedy happens daily in the United States because of the prevalence of easy-to-obtain automatic weapons. When one watches video of the atrocity that happened at Kansas City's Union Station yesterday, you can clearly hear the "pop-pop-pop-pop" of an automatic weapon being fired. Who brings such a hideous device to a football rally and for what purpose? Why on earth do we allow the sale and possession of military-style weapons by civilians? We don't allow them to have rocket launchers, flame throwers or nuclear weapons. Automatic weapons that are designed for only one purpose, to kill human beings, should be no different. Regardless of what gun companies, gun organizations and right-wing nut jobs claim, the Second Amendment is not a blank check. Just as it is the case with every other aspect of the Constitution, reasonable limits can be imposed. Just as you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theatre, you shouldn't be allowed to bring a weapon of mass destruction into one, either. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Second Amendment is not a hunting license. Kansas City will bury its dead. The wounds will eventually heal. But none of the hundreds of thousands of people who attended the rally or watched it live on television will ever again be able to drive by Union Station without remembering the carnage that occurred there yesterday. Until we enact reasonable restrictions against the sale and possession of automatic weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, outrages like the one that happened at Union Station will continue. May God - and our elected leaders - protect our people from senseless gun violence. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.Israel: America's Albatross
14/02/24 07:29
February 14, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 8) - As the world's only democratic superpower, the United States has an imperative need and a moral responsibility to maintain peace. And make no mistake about it, playing the role of peacemaker is in our own vital interests. Unfortunately, there are those who choose to sow the seeds of chaos. It is not just the usual suspects - Russia, Iran, North Korea and China. It is also a nation that should be one of our closest friends, Israel. Under the erratic leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, the public image of the only real democratic nation in the heart of the Middle East has been transformed from a sympathetic victim of the October 7 terror attacks into that of a callous, mass-murdering bully. As I noted in this space on November 1, Israel has a moral imperative to behave in a civilized manner, even in the midst of a war. And yet, as evidence from the above photograph (courtesy The New York Times), the Netanyahu government has been anything but civilized. That picture was taken after Israel this week conducted a raid to rescue two hostages. They were successful in liberating the hostages, but managed to kill dozens of women and children in the process. And Netanyahu has proposed a plan to force 1.5 million residents in Rafah to flee before engaging a military operations against Hamas. However, Netanyahu has no plans regarding where these poor people should go. In a 20th century context, we would call this ethnic cleansing. Don't get me wrong, Hamas are the bad guys and Israel has the right to defend itself. As I noted earlier this month, we also need to hold the Usual Suspects (Iran, Russia, North Korea and China) accountable for their bad behavior. However, Israel's actions in Gaza are beyond the pale and threaten the security of not only the Middle East, but of the United States itself. Because we are fully committed to Israel's existence and the Israelis know it, Israel has become an albatross around America's neck. There is not only increased danger of attacks on Americans abroad and in the homeland, but the controversy over Israel's behavior is threatening to splinter the Democratic Party at a time the nation is facing it's greatest threat, the candidacy of a racist, rapist, seditious, fraudulent, intellectual lightweight named Donald Trump. The Biden administration has to walk a fine line between unambiguous support for Israel and tampering down that nation's reckless and immoral behavior. To put it simply: Friends don't let friends commit mass murder. If we don't stop this madness, that albatross around our neck may strangle us. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.Mini-Mike's Misery
07/02/24 05:55
February 7, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 7) - You should be careful what you ask for - you may just get it. That's a hard-learned lesson Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is trying to cope with today. Mini-Mike suffered two embarrassing defeats yesterday inside of one fateful hour. First, the GOP-controlled House lost control and failed by four Republican votes to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. It's not that they had any justification to do so. The charges against him were, literally, Trumped-up. And when push came to shove, Mini-Mike's Sedition Caucus was unable to do what it said it would do. A few minutes later, Mini-Mike's Clown Caucus failed to deliver a much-needed aid package of Israel - something else the Speaker said he could deliver. The fact is that Mini-Mike is the weakest Speaker of House of Representatives since before the American Civil War. The Louisiana Loser, who originally wanted to be a firefighter like his heroic dad, has found that he is incapable of putting out fires of his own making. More importantly, he and his predecessor, the disgraced Kevin McCarthy, have shown the nation and the world how feckless and spineless the Republican Party has become. Although most Republicans on the Hill despise former President Bone Spurs, they are afraid to say or do anything that will upset him and the MAGA-maggots. This became painfully evident this week, when Republicans started backing away from a bipartisan immigration deal/foreign aid package within hours of the announcement of its details. They did so, despite the fact that it contains most of what these so-called conservatives have said they have wanted for more than a decade. And why the sudden reversal? Because former President Man Child said so. He wants the immigration chaos to continue so he can blame President Biden. Well, guess what? As of Sunday, February 5, 2024, the day the Republicans scuttled real-immigration reform, the Republicans own that issue. Every person who comes across our southern border illegally from that date is on them. The only accomplishment the Republicans have achieved during the last eight years is the removal of govern from government. With Mini-Mike in the House and Moscow Mitch McConnell in the Senate, American Democracy has ground to a halt. That's why this November we should remember that friends don't let friends vote Republican. Any party that puts politics above the national interest and adopts a mentally-challenged sex-offender, tax-cheat, seditionist as its standard bearer is unworthy of anyone's vote. That includes all spineless Republican representatives and senators who blindly follow the Orange Traitor as he tries to drive the country over the cliff. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.