I'm thinking about buying a gun

I'm thinking about purchasing a gun.  That's how bad things have gotten. The last trigger I pulled was in Vietnam, and even during the war, my particular M16 was mainly used for target practice.  Basically, I profile as an anti-gun, pro-vaccine old school liberal.  But I'm also a realist. Times have changed.  Buffalo is the latest example.

I've always stood on the side that supports social justice, licensed weapons, and 'educating up' those who have not signed on to common sense.  Perhaps I've been naive.  Look around.  Our approach to advancing equality and civilized behavior hasn't proved particularly effective.  Racism and antisemitism are on the rise. So is gun violence.  Buffalo is the latest example.

Hot heads have acquired more and more weapons while us non-violent types stand around attempting to pass watered down, compromised legislation to shape and restrict militarization of the Commons.  More than 81 million American adults own 393 million firearms.  Of all the civilian firearms, in all the world, American civilians own about one-third.  I'm betting very few of them belong to anyone from my side of the political divide.  None of my friends own anything more powerful than a cellphone. Yes to gun restrictions.  But do you really expect citizen militia to pay attention to them?  How about crazy eighteen-year-olds packing assault weapons and wearing body armor?  Buffalo is the latest example.

Politicians, government employees, poll watchers, teachers who dare to provide facts about our country's checkered past, citizens standing up for better angels, and just plan us, people going about our lives.  We represent families, careers, homes, futures, that have been put on the line, today, right now, by bellicose, gun totting, intimidating cultists, by copycat lone wolfs with access to a nation-wide candy store of weaponry, acting in solidarity with other mass murderers to spread hate.  Buffalo is the latest example.

According to reports, the Buffalo killer wrote that he got his white nationalist ideology “mostly from the internet.” The governor of New York lambasted social media for malevolently influencing hate crime perpetrators such as this kid who drove to the supermarket with a list, a to-do list, of carnage and mayhem.  Social media can become accomplices, she told the press.  "Not legally, but morally."  Feel reassured?  Feel like the government has a handle on violence?  Is capable of keeping you and your family safe?

I'm fully aware that weaponizing the left is an awful idea.  I can visualize shootouts in the streets.  Sporadic battles unraveling society, demoralizing responsible citizens, causing even more uncertainty in what passes for the status quo.  

But, I'm wondering, does the time come when ineffective laws, hypocritical politicians, cumulative violence, racist rampages, bring us to our senses?  And if not, does this carnival of bedlam provoke a more instinctual response? 

Let’s be organized, ethical, responsible, and savvy.  We all understand why.  Buffalo is only the latest example.

We will not be replaced -- by infantile wannabes.

Charles E. Kraus in the author of Baffled Again .. and Again, a collection of essays.

Aging politicians

 

 

Seattle Times  - Opinion

Moments of magic in the chaos of the Vietnam War

March 25, 2022 at 11:57 am Updated March 25, 2022 at 11:57 am

  

Charles Kraus entertains three young boys with one of his magic coin tricks in Da Nang, Vietnam, in 1967. (Courtesy of Charles Kraus)

By Charles E. Kraus

Special to The Times

For the past 60 years or so, my calling has been to mystify audiences and make people smile; especially kids. About a year of that time was spent in Vietnam. Officially, the military had me down as an enlisted man who’d signed up for a hitch in the Navy and had gotten himself attached to MCB 71, a Mobile Construction Battalion, the Seabees. 

John Wayne had starred in a movie, “The Fighting Seabees.” The poster showed him with a hammer in one hand and a machine gun in the other. We participated in war by building things rather than destroying them but were trained to do both. Outfitted in military fatigues, we attended Escape and Evasion School, learned to use our M16s, practiced throwing grenades and even took a lesson in firing anti-tank weapons. We honed these skills in Camp Lejeune, training with the Marines. Then, off to Chu Lai. It was 1967. I think I was the only one in the battalion who took along props for a stage show.

These were brutal days, though the horrific Ukraine-Russia war has changed my perspective about what we went through. Some 4,431 Americans were killed in the Iraq War. And 58,220 Americans died in Vietnam. I guess we’ll eventually total up the current conflict. 

I spent much of my time in Vietnam performing shows. Some for military units in the area and some for children. Mostly, I’m a kid-show guy. Born with an ability to help distract children who are enduring traumatic events, getting them to refocus, albeit, for a few moments, on cheerful bewilderment. In this case, my magic tricks.

Some of my in-country entertaining was spontaneous. The streets of Chu Lai were filled with military and civilian vehicles — trucks, motor bikes, transports, rushing about in a nonstop frenzy. Commercial sheds (stores) were mixed in with massive tented areas that serviced troops — bivouacs filled with activity, all day, all night, the pandemonium blending ground-level racket with Skyhawks and other jets taking off and landing every few minutes. The concept of noise abatement had yet to be invented.

Children wandered through this chaos trying to go about their lives. When I could, I’d gather a little crowd and compete with the bedlam. Coins appearing and disappearing. Sponge rubber balls changing color. Silk scarves magically unknotting themselves. Even in Da Nang, which maintained an element of civility, war turned everyone into cautious, suspicious, fearful beings in need of a little diversion. 

I was a delivery man, passing out synthetic wonder to children who would have benefited from actual wonder. My performances provided a touch of relief for the kids and for the magician. Pretty tense times.

Sleight-of-hand magic turned out to be one of those universal art forms. Just as music can be appreciated by people around the world, an illusion that defies the laws of science can create an instinctual “wow!” And so, when orphaned children subjected to a war’s depravity surrounded the platform and watched the impossible being performed with a smile, sometimes the smile got returned. 

Sages

By Charles Kraus

Sages:  Rachel is back.  Tucker is unvaccinated.  Jen Psaki is moving on.  Jeffrey Toobin is keeping his hands on the table.  Who guides us as we stumble forward trying to survive the cumulative effects of the past?

As newborns, we are handed a packet of assumptions that we spend our lives scrutinizing.   Our parent's beliefs, our community's norms, social and religious canons. It is assumed we will feel, think and live these hand me downs.  Find them to be accurate pictures of reality.  Rock solid doctrine.  

Some of us have doubts.

Though my father never explicitly stated so, his motto was, always believe everything you read as long as it supports your point of view.  I took a look at that when I was about twelve and thought I'd try another approach.  One thing I found was that seeking truth was an aspirational goal.

I tend to favor mainstream points of view, the established scientific and historical pronouncements.  Who am I to question the experts?   I sign on, but with a caveat, a realization that lending support to such opinions is like making purchases from Costco.  I can take things back or exchange them whenever I want to.  I am, after all, espousing other people’s educated guesses, tainted with unavoidable bias and the limits of knowledge in its current state.

Religious and political charlatans build careers and movements by working persuasion and emotion.   Genuine experts, on the other hand, are well versed in facts and context.  What they know didn't arrive on carts of ethereal revelation.  Knowledge is verifiable, accruing and interlocking.  Though, of course, I keep in mind that each side in a lawsuit calls experts to the witness stand, and we get second opinions from doctors because medical diagnosis and treatment plans are not always formulaic.  

These days, most movers and shakers have resumes.  Bona fides.  Certificates of graduation.   An informal biographical survey of contemporary authority brings up a handful of alma maters. Stanford, Yale, and Harvard seem to have influenced more critical thinking than the King James Bible.  Do the names Elon Musk, Larry Page, Bill Gates, ring a bell?  How about Hillary Clinton, George W.H.. Bush, Paul Krugman, John F. Kennedy, and Michael Bloomberg?  Once upon a time they were matriculated at these universities.  And just to complicate matters, I'll throw in Ron DeSantiss, Ted Cruz, and Peter Thiel, gradates from Harvard and Stanford. People show up at the library with a notion of the books they want to borrow.  We are not all working from the same syllabus. Perhaps there is a difference between profound wisdom and grade point average.

I pick and choose my sages by their well reasoned arguments, and the caliber of their endorsements.  Folks who resort to outrage, to rhetorical gamesmanship, name calling, denials of reality, who are more interested in rights than responsibilities, can leave the room by the back door, please.  I'm not interested in watching them conflate temper tantrums with persuasive arguments.  

My kids attended a school where the philosophy for conducting one's self boiled down to a motto:  Curtsy and Common Sense.  I wish I'd gone to that school.  I wish all of us had.

The Uncover Up

 The Uncover Up

By Charles E. Kraus

They gathered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  I thought about it.

I'm a rather average member of my community.  Not particularly well off. More self educated than formally educated.  Family man.  I like that last description best.  I vote.  Try to do my share.  Attempt to be empathetic.  But, I believe I'm running out of empathy.  The world is just too exasperating, and I'm overcome by displeasure.  The final straws are Covid related,  Not Covid itself.  If I can put my hand on any one culprit, I'd say it is Covid-ignorance. I'm thinking about those who react foolishly and selfishly to this contagious, sometimes deadly, disease.

So many people who I talk with are tired of excusing anti-vaxxers. Is it that difficult to be sensible?  Poor, confused, misled, undereducated, well meaning souls that have gone astray -- that’s one way to look at them.  In the alternative — uncaring, irresponsible, illogical, unneighborly folks, disinterested in reality and willing to gamble with their own lives and the lives of others on the erroneous theory that science is junk.  

Wearing a mask is too uncomfortable?  That uncomfortable?  Every three year old I see walking down the street with mom has managed to overcome the awkwardness.  Do you find using an NR95 so demeaning you'd rather reveal your nose than help protect mankind?  Let me tell you, I've seen your nose, and keeping it covered enhances your profile.  

Social Philosopher Eric Hoffer’s book, 'The True Believer,’ published in 1951, describes the psychological roots of fanatical groups. The benefits bestowed on membership include a sense of power that comes from being obsessed and disruptive.  True Believers don’t need facts, they need causes.  Facts are mundane, nuanced, boring.  Causes are exciting.  Putting a thumb in society’s eye can finally make life meaningful. 

Perhaps you are one of those independent anti--vaxxers whose developed concerns about how Bill Gates plans to use the vaccine's secret infinitesimal microchips to send subliminal messages to your subconscious.  Conspiratorial little whispers. "Choose sanity."   That kind of thing.  It's a moot point.   Back off.  Gates has recently removed the chips from Pfizer and Moderna, and is now hiding them in Hershey chocolate bars.   You thought those were almonds?

To unmask the unmasks, I'll tell you their dirty little secret. They believe in post-covid medical intervention.  Why else would deniers head to the hospital AFTER they contract Covid? Evidently, deep down, they know and have known all along that science is their best bet. They're just parsing the particulars.  

People have to work hard to ignore natural survival instincts.   Spotting a runaway truck headed in your direction sends you into a fight or flight response (in this case, I'd suggest flight).    Spot a virus heading in your direction -- well, you know what you are supposed to do.  Take precautions.  Look over possible responses and choose those that seem to have the best odds.  Bravado is not one of them.

What you are not supposed to do is pretend your intuition outweighs reason.  

Decrepitude

Decrepitude

By Charles E. Kraus

I’ve been conducting age related research about how decrepitude might be affecting our democracy.  This is a hands-on investigation.  I’m 75,  younger than Joe, much younger than Nancy, Mitch and Justice Breyer.  Amazingly, The Donald and I hit New York a month apart in 1946.  None of us should be allowed to climb a stepladder to change a light bulb.  

Before renewing your driver's license, issuing authorities in Maine, New Hampshire, Illinois, Utah, Oregon, and North Carolina require you to get retested. Those states represent north, south, east and west.   Not as spry as you used to be when attempting to pull into that tight parking space?  The Department of Motor Vehicles wants to know. Of course, as far as the Department of Politics is concerned, your only required twisting skills involve an ability to manipulate the truth.  

The energy and stamina of numerous older politicians is inspiring.  Many project vitality and cognitive dexterity uncommon for their advanced years.  This mirrors the vibrant mindset I too can employ -- sparingly.  When company arrives and excitement and ego produce surges of adrenaline, causing my inner resources to perform at absolute peak.  The burdens of discomfort, of reduced functionality, those “senior moments,” sore joints, worn out limbs —are relegated to the back burner.  I am in the moment.  Ageless.  Completely alive!   This raging overdrive can be sustained for up to forty-five minutes, after which, I’m depleted for the rest of the week.  I imagine that if I were zooming with the Russian President, excitement would keep me on my toes (while I sat in a comfortable chair)  and see me through.  But later, my feet would ache, and my mind would feel abused.  Personally, I don't know how these weathered captains of government keep going.

In 2016, Trump accused Hillary of taking naps.   Whoever gets to run against the ex-president in 2024 might gain an edge by accusing him of insomnia.  Sleep deprivation may not be a crime, but it is no way to run a brain.  I consider myself in excellent condition — considering.  And part of my health conscious regime involves not being awake too long on any given day.  

The residue of human mileage is experience.  Seniors have perspective going back over decades.  They can call on personal history and acquired knowhow to counter any physical, age related deficits.  And, of course, our elected officials can deploy support personnel to fill in all the gaps brain fog places in the middle of sentences.  

My support team, mostly doctors, seems to be staffed by kids in their thirties.  Their life “experience” consists of the courses they’ve taken and the books they’ve read. The lumps and bumps of life are on their still-yet-to-do lists.   But, I suppose young people are useful.  Trump, it is said, listens to his children, especially to Ivanka.  Clinton has Chelsea. See what that's brought them.

In many ways, elders have adjusted to the onslaught of the decades with unique accommodations.  But in at least one way, all have taken a similar approach.  Check out the face lifts, hair transplants and hair dyes.  I am sure you will agree, none of them wants to look in the mirror and say, this is me, ladies and gentleman, the unvarnished, unadulterated, organic me.  

 

MORT SAHL REMEMBERED

 

Mort Sahl offended everyone and you were lucky if you could catch his act | 

Updated: Oct. 27, 2021, 4:29 p.m. | Published: Oct. 27, 2021, 4:29 p.m.

Mort Sahl on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour - 1969

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By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist

By Charles E. Kraus

Mort Sahl has died.

I own all the records, even the very early At Sunset album famous for being the first Mort Sahl recording and because Fantasy Records increased the speed so they could fit the entire concert onto two sides of an LP (Fantasy Records Mono 7005 Red Vinyl Deep Groove), Mort sounds like a perceptive Mickey Mouse on Benzedrine.

My collection began in 1959. A few years later, I was a kid in a boarding school with the Verve and Reprise records in my closet. The rule was, doors open, hit the books each night from 7 until 9. Except, I had the records. My roommate and I would close our door and play them endlessly. You listened long enough and you started speaking like Mort. Took on his point of view. Did what he did, finding what you said funny and laughing at your own jokes.

Mr. Weinberger would come by. He was an old man with a drill sergeant’s voice, hired to enforce the rules. He’d open our door, step in, listen to Sahl for a while, then step back into the hall closing the door behind him. Mort Sahl was a kind of a hall pass.

Howard Liberman and I returned to the Village Gate nightclub over and over again trying to determine just how much of the routine was ad-lib, taken from the day’s newspapers and current events. That was the official story. What we discovered was that Sahl arranged and rearranged. Adjusted material. Added something, brought back an old comment in new pants. One of his talents was keeping track of what he’d used early in a set so it didn’t get repeated.

Once, a few years later, I attended a performance at the Alhambra Library in Southern California. He wasn’t working much, rumors had it he’d been blacklisted courtesy of the Kennedy clan once he’d begun doing jokes about Jack. The show took place in a basement community room. It was packed. Crammed with fans who’d been waiting for an opportunity to hear from the man. Sahl went on and on and on. Two hours, at least. More extemporaneous than not. When he was hot, the guy could really wing it. Nobody wanted to leave, not even Sahl.

My first job in broadcasting was in the script typing department at CBS’s Television City. We began in the late afternoon, once the writers had left the building, and stayed into the night, often into the early morning, typing, mimeographing, collating, and stapling scripts for All In The Family, The Carol Burnett Show and other programs produced in-house. Then our little unit would head up the street to Cantor’s Deli. Open all night, we’d arrive at 2 or 3 in the morning, and sometimes spot Mr. Sahl at a table reading the papers and taking notes.

We didn’t bother him. It would have been rude. But several years after that, Sahl and I crossed paths at a Denny’s in Sherman Oaks. I couldn’t stop myself. I have all your records, I have your book, I’ve seen you dozens of times, on Broadway, TV, in the clubs — New York, LA, Chicago, Vegas. I was just the kind of fan I knew Sahl hated; knew could upset him. But I’d picked a good moment. He shook my hand and thanked me. He wasn’t as tall as I’d imagined.

There were rough edges. He walked away from his role in Lorraine Hansberry’s play, “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.” Hosted, then left various radio and television programs under awkward circumstances. He wasn’t erratic, so much as subject to misunderstandings. That was part of the baggage and the mystique that he brought on stage if and when you were lucky enough to catch his act.

I’d played his records for my daughters, talked about him often, repeating favorite lines. “Not everything I say is true, but it’s accurate.” “The reporter said he’d never been told what to write. But he knew what to turn in.” “A conservative is someone who believes in reform. But not now.” “Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they’ve stolen.”

At 77, he’d returned to New York. The Village Gate, his old stomping grounds, had become the Village Theater, and he was booked for a week. I had flown east with my kids to see a few shows. Someone else was doing a last stand in the city. Hal Holbrook presenting his Mark Twain.

Mort showed up with his blackboard routine, graphing the political stance of various members of our government. He’d updated things, switched from a blackboard to a whiteboard. Had some magnetic cutouts that he slid around. Two of his friends, Woody Allen and Dick Cavett sat directly in front of us. It was a modest crowd. But friendly and pleased with the familiar routines. Sahl wore his trademark sweater. Cavett had dandruff.

Over the years, particularly as Trump turned politician, I hoped that a Sahl comment, some bright new line, observation, insight, would surface. None materialized. But I could, I can, still hear him. “Are there any groups here I haven’t offended?”

No. And none that you haven’t entertained.

Charles E. Kraus is the author of “You’ll Never Work Again In Teaneck, NJ.”