Peter David's Blog, page 15

How I would conclude the next Avengers movie

I’m going to be discussing major spoilers for the end of “Infinity War,” so be warned (although I don’t know why. Chances are huge you’ve seen it already.)

So basically Thanos won. He wiped out almost every superhero that was introduced post the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, and almost all of the Guardians as well. Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man, Doc Strange, every Guardian but Rocket…it’s a bloodbath except no blood. That would certainly explain why Marvel has been coy about its slate of upcoming movies. Common sense would seem to indicate that they’re not going to leave newcomers like Doc Strange or the Black Panther, who set worldwide box office records before “Infinity War” shattered them, on the dust heap of the Mad Titan’s answer to overpopulation. If they do, then that’s a pretty gutsy move and everything from here on is moot. But if they don’t, they must have a plan to bring them back.

Here’s what I would do.

I would have Captain Marvel meet up with Adam Warlock, whose presence was first hinted at in the closing credits of “Guardians 2.” She convinces him to aid her in her battle against Thanos. Along for the ride is the ectoplasmic form of Doctor Strange, who bailed out right before his body disappeared. Marv, Doc, Warlock and whoever else is still alive square off against Thanos. Warlock manages to pry the Soul stone from the Gauntlet. Gamora emerges from it and zaps the ever-loving crap out of Thanos. Perhaps even stabs him with that knife of hers. Warlock removes the Gauntlet, puts it on, and uses the power to undo everything that the Gauntlet was responsible for, which would bring back everyone except Loki and Heimdall who were killed without the Infinity Gauntlet.

That’s what I would do.

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Michelle Wolf

So let me see if I understand this.

Comedienne Michelle Wolf is being castigated by Trump and his supporters, and even the press, for presenting a monologue during the White House Correspondents dinner that was deemed too mean and crossing the line.

Seriously?

Trump is condemning her?

Trump has dropped the level of discourse in this country to depths that it has never known, and HE is complaining?

The press barely reacts anymore to Trump’s non-stop verbal assaults on anyone and everyone, driving us to worry about nuclear war because he thinks calling a demented despot names is a good idea. To say nothing of the insulting nicknames that he hammered against everyone who ran against him, reducing the debates to something akin to squabbles in an elementary school playground. And THEY are complaining after doing nothing to challenge him over his behavior.

What the hell, people.

All Wolf did was give as good as others have gotten, but boo hoo, the press thinks she went to far. Screw you guys. Trump goes too far on any day ending in the letter “y,” and the press does nothing about it aside from reporting it and then moving on to something else. And Trump, the insult president who doesn’t even have the balls to attend one of these dinners, thinks the entire thing should be shut down.

I’m warning everyone right now: when Trump decides to shut down the White House press briefing room, you don’t get to claim that it’s because Michelle Wolf was mean. It’ll be because you weren’t mean enough.

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Avengers: Infinity War

This is the beginning of my Cowboy Pete review:

Ten years after the launching of the Marvel movie universe with the astoundingly successful (obvious in retrospect but shocking at the time) box office performance of Iron Man, Marvel has now finally come through on the teaser that they situated at the end of the first Avengers film. Thanos has been lurking around in films ever since, not really doing much of anything except for showing up in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie and just sitting there making threats, none of which he carried out.

Well, that all ends with the latest Avengers film: technically the third but really the fourth since Captain America: Civil War was actually an Avengers movie in all but title. Infinity War gives us the movie version of a story that fans of comics in general and Jim Starlin in particular know all too well: Thanos, the mad god of Titan, wants to destroy half of all lives in the universe. And the Avengers want to make sure that doesn’t happen.

What follows is a blink-and-you-miss it two hours and forty minutes that brings together every damned character in the history of Marvel cinema, with the exceptions of Hawkeye and Ant-Man. Which is fine because a guy shooting arrows and a guy who shrinks or transforms into a lumbering giant wasn’t really going to make that much of a difference in the outcome.

And things happen. Oh boy, do things happen.

The rest can be found on my Patreon account.

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Freak Out Friday – April 27, 2018

So Trump must be feeling pretty spiffy this morning. The GOP-controlled Senate released their findings that claimed there was no evidence of collusion with Russia.

This was a document with reasoning so flawed that they stated Trump’s endeavors to set up a backchannel to the Russian government was proof there was no collusion in the first place. How, they “reasoned,” could they have been colluding with Russians before the election when they were colluding with the Russians AFTER the election? Yes, I know that makes no sense. What made far more sense was the Democrats who stated that the GOP’s opinions “have been crafted to advance a political narrative that exonerates the President, downplays Russia’s preference and support for then-candidate Trump, explains away repeated contacts by Trump associates with Russia-aligned actors, and seeks to shift suspicion towards President Trump’s political opponents and the prior administration.”

And we’re left sitting there thinking, “Of course they did. They’re the GOP. It’s all about holding on to power and blaming Hillary and Obama for everything (which naturally they did in this report.). On “The Tonight Show” they had a guy with a microphone on the street asking people if they thought Hillary Clinton should be impeached and bunches of likely Trump fans said yes, absolutely, we should definitely impeach a woman who holds no political office.

1). Another One Bites the Dust.. Remember Ronny Jackson? The idiot physician who stated that Trump’s weight was in the 230s when it’s obviously in the 280s? And you read his conclusions and thought, “What the hell was that guy drinking?” Well, whistleblowers stated that he was typically drunk at work and created a “toxic” work environment. So it was a reasonable question, and Jackson–whom Trump had nominated to head up the VA–sent his regrets and pulled his name out of consideration. Because in the real world, when negative behavior is discovered about them, most people pull their names out of consideration for high office…as opposed to Trump, who either ignores it, apologizes for it and then denies it. or ignores it and then denies it.

2). Who would’ve thought a guy who spent his life attacking the environment was the wrong choice for the head of the EPA? Yet another Trump choice has hit the skids as Congress grills him about overspending, including buying a soundproof booth for his office and renting a condo from a lobbyist who has business with his agency. Rep. Frank Pallone condemned him by saying “You are unfit to hold public office and undeserving of the public trust.”

Does everyone understand that this is not normal? That losing one person after another to bad behavior and incompetence is NOT how this is supposed to be done?

3). What the Fox?. Anyone who is casting about for further proof that Trump has lost his mind should have been watching “Fox and Friends” a couple days ago. For reasons surpassing understanding, he called them up on Melania’s birthday, admitted that he had not gotten her anything of substance or, even more likely, at all (a card? Flowers? Seriously?). And then, as the hosts sat there goggle eyed, he started talking and would. Not. Stop. What did he talk about? Well, lessee:

A). He claimed that Ronny Jackson withdrew because of Democrats, rather than admitting he should never have nominated this clown in the first place.

B). He said we should ask Putin if Trump was colluding with Russia. Because of course the Russian strongman is going to be honest with us.

C). Yet more lies, as he claims that Comey lied in the memos about which he gave sworn testimony to Congress. It’s always amazing how many liars there are in the world except for Trump who never, ever lies.

D). He contended that the Justice Department is doing a lousy job despite the fact that it is being run by Jeff Sessions who was a Trump appointee.

E). He continues to claim that he has accomplished more than any other President in his first year. If what he actually means is that he’s pissed off more than any of his predecessors, he might have a point. Pretty sure that’s not what he meant, though.

F). He flat out stated that Michael Cohen represented him in the Stormy Daniels case, despite the fact that just a week or two ago he stood on Airforce One and denied that he knew anything about it. So which lie are we supposed to grant greater consideration to?

G). He stated, “You know, one of the reasons people say you’re still looking good, Mr. President. How do you do it?” What was this comment in response to? Absolutely nothing. He’d been talking about how he never watched CNN, then immediately said he did watch it just last night, and then he brought up his looks. Out of nowhere.

Half a freaking hour of this bullshit. And he’d likely have gone on for the entirety of the program except the hosts told him he probably had a lot to do today and should really get off the phone. Which as hints go is similar to something smacking you on the face with a dead flounder.

I honestly may start watching “Fox and Friends” just to see if he calls in again and goes on another stoned rant.

Did he do anything right? Not especially. But he did get props from Kanye West. You remember West. In 2009 he walked up on stage during the MTV awards while Taylor Swift was thanking the audience for giving her the best video award and announced that Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” was the best video of all time. Oh, and Rob Schneider criticized Alec Baldwin for his impression of Trump, comparing him to Dana Carvey whose impression of George H. W. Bush was much more gentle and that Baldwin had “Seething anger” toward Trump. Which is correct, except that Bush was a much gentler politician, while Trump is FILLED with seething anger in pretty much everything he says and does. So if Baldwin’s Trump comes across as angry, he’s simply doing justice to the source material. As for Schneider, he’s got a program on Netflix which I did not know until I read the article about his Baldwin comments. So free publicity. Can’t beat that.

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Table of Contents for “They Keep Killing Glenn”

Introducing our list of contributors and the titles of their stories:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

They Keep Killing Me: A Foreword of Last Words

The Killing Croak by David Gerrold

The Look on Your Face by David Mack

Revenge of the Clipper Kin by Joe Corallo

“Is it You?” by Bob Greenberger

The Hardwicke Files: The Case of Hauman’s Comet by Russ Colchamiro

House Hunting by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Patient Zero by Dean Scott

Buried in Books by Mary Fan

The Case of the Industrial Revolution by Kathleen O’Shea David

For Whom the Bell LOLs by Setsu Uzume

Too Damn Tall by Lorraine J. Anderson

DuckBob: All In by Aaron Rosenberg

R is for Roadster by Blair Learn

The Long and the Short of It by Brett Hudgins

Marathon by S. Brady Calhoun

For Cockeysville by Michael Jan Friedman

Rhino by Amy Lewanski

Waking Things by Jenifer Purcell Rosenberg

The Day of Killing Endlessly by Paul Kupperberg

That’s All, Folks by Peter David

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Freak Out Friday – April 20, 2018

I’m a big fan of “Designated Survivor.” In this season, President Kirkman has pretty much been going through hell. The accidental death of his wife shattered him, and at the insistence of his staff, he wound up sitting down with a therapist and trying to piece his life back together. But it turns out that someone has obtained recordings of the sessions (it’s always recordings that screw presidents, isn’t it) and released them to the nation. Kirkman’s self-admitted mental difficulties have prompted the VP and his cabinet to implement the 25th amendment in order to relieve him of duty.

And I couldn’t help but think what a stark line has been driven between fact and fiction. Kirkman is victimized by some asshole who releases private moments and doubts, and his cabinet wants to push him out. Yet Trump’s private recordings get released, and he’s still elected president. While in office, he displays the clear attitudes and actions of someone who is not mentally fit to be president, and yet the VP and his own cabinet do nothing to challenge him. They look away or they look up their own asses and ignore him, giving him license to do whatever the hell he wants even though it lowers the bar for what is considered acceptable behavior.

Remember Gary Hart? He was the front runner for the Democratic candidate for President in 1988. Then it was revealed he’d had an extra-marital affair with Donna Rice. Boom, he was out. Because we had standards for the presidency back then. If you could cheat on your wife, then you could cheat on the American public. So you were unacceptable. Contrast that to current days where a serial adulterer is the president and no one blinks an eye. One wonders how in God’s name the actions that we would refuse to accept in a president could have spiraled so low in just thirty years.

So what has the jerk-in-chief been up to this week?

1). Howling at the Moon. Trump’s twitter feed has been very lively in the past week as he continues to battle back against the “slime ball” James Comey. Hillary supporters really have no idea how to react. On the one hand we despise Comey because his election surprise regarding her email definitely helped get Trump elected. But his book (which I am in the midst of reading) gives us a no-holds-barred view of Trump, and to say it is unflattering is to understate it. Naturally Trump drives its sales by howling that Comey is a liar.

Seriously? The man who is so determined to maintain an ethical standard that he helped sink Hillary is now lying about Trump? Only Trump’s most dedicated supporters would buy into that because they will accept anything he says. Why? Self-preservation. They cannot accept that they were so astoundingly wrong about the Fake POTUS, and so they will seize any excuse Trump gives them in order to preserve their own innocence in foisting this fiasco of a Prez on America.

2). Old sins come back to haunt you.. A former reporter for Forbes stated that back in the 1980s, when Forbes was assembling its list of the Forbes 400–the 400 richest, most powerful people in the world–Trump called him pretending to be the fictional employee John Barron and convicted the reporter that his “boss,” Trump, should definitely be on the list, even though his debt load and lack of assets should have kept him off. In the world of Gary Hart, that alone would get the 25th amendment into motion. Nowadays we just shrug and say, “It figures.”

We need to fight against this. We have to reassert our mentality so that we don’t accept the lowered bar that Trump has set as the new norm.

3). The non-Sean Astin Rudy. . At the insistence of the GOP, Comey released his memos that he made back when he interacted with Trump. This was a remarkably stupid thing for the Republicans to do because all it does is back up everything Comey wrote in his book and makes Trump look even worse. They lend remarkable validity to the notion that Trump obstructed justice with his firing of Comey.

So what has Trump done to rebut this? He’s added Rudy Giuliani to his team of lawyers. This certainly tracks with Trump’s preferences because when the time came to choose a new Supreme Court judge, Rudy was his first choice right up until the staff convinced him to go elsewhere. It’s obvious that Trump still adores him even though Rudy’s PR stock has gone significantly south since his “glory” days of 9/11. What impact Rudy will have remains to be seen, but I very much doubt it will be anything positive.



Did he do anything right? Actually, he did. He decided not to attend Barbara Bush’s funeral. He’s sending his wife instead. Smart. Why should this walking stick of dynamite risk setting off confrontations with his predecessors at such a serious event? Even his showing up would have added tension to the proceedings. Whoever convinced him not to go made a smart move.

Lost in Space–First Impressions

What the HELL is everybody bitching about?!?

I expected to go into the first episode and see a recreation of the horrific film from back in 1998, which I saw at a special screening with freaking Bill Mumy seated there. That was what I thought I would be getting based on a stream of lousy on-line reviews.

Jesus Christ, are they all nuts?

I’m one episode into it and I loved it.

I’m going to be binge watching this over the next few days and will do a Cowboy Pete over on my Patreon account. But my first impression was extremely positive.

More soon.

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Freak Out Friday – April 13, 2018

It’s Friday the 13th, so what could possibly go wrong?

For Trump, the answer is simple: Everything. In the past week, every single thing that could possibly have gone wrong for Trump has done so. It’s like he’s lived through a week of Murphy’s law, Word from insiders is that Trump is figuratively falling apart: lashing out at everyone, fuming incessantly, shouting, having fits. Remember that this is someone who is haunted by two things: the investigation into Russia, and his utter inability to handle criticism. This week has been a banner seven days for both.

1). Never piss off someone who can write a book about you. Once upon a time, James Comey was considered a major villain by the Democrats. His dumbass decision to announce, a month before the elections, that they had reopened the investigation into Hillary’s emails was the final nail in her coffin. Despite the fact that the investigation once again turned up nothing, it was sufficient excuse for many Democrats–who either didn’t know or didn’t care that it was a fruitless undertaking–to stay home since they were unable to see any different between Trump and Clinton. The fact that they can sure as hell see it now should do a lot to convince them to get their asses to the polls next election, but in the meantime took a lot of shit from people.

Yet now opinion is starting to shift and Comey has been a peoples’ hero since Trump stupidly decided to fire him. What’s insane is that the reason for the firing keeps changing. First he was nuts enough to say that it was because he hadn’t treated Clinton “fairly.” Then when the accusation came that it was because of Russia, all of Trump’s people said that wasn’t it, right up until Trump said that was exactly it. Yet his latest rage tweet asserts that it was because Comey had failed to lock up the woman Trump had sworn he would see jailed.

We all understand that’s wrong, correct? That specifically using government agencies to persecute political rivals is straight out of the dictators’ playbook?

Certainly polls are indicating that the rest of the American public understands that. Trump’s supporters have been willing to forgive a ton of things that they would have persecuted Obama and Clinton for, but Trump’s clear disregard for the system of justice has become exceedingly flagrant. So much so that even his core is beginning to wilt.

Meanwhile, the press is going to down on Comey’s book, “A Higher Loyalty,” which is already the number one title selling through Amazon even though it doesn’t come out until next Tuesday. Comey describes Trump as a man “Untethered to truth and institutional values,” and “living in a cocoon of alternative reality. .His leadership is transactional, ego driven, and about personal loyalty.” Which, y’know, we’ve seen saying for the past year, but when someone on Comey’s level is putting it in print, that kicks it to a new level. Meanwhile Trump, whose excuse for firing Comey keeps changing, trumpets that Comey is a liar.

And that isn’t flying, because everyone knows Comey is so fixated on the truth that he used it as his excuse to sink Hillary. Even the Trumpites are realizing they can’t accept him as a truth teller in one instance and buy into him being a liar in the more recent.

Meanwhile is assaults on Comey are not going unnoticed. John O. Brennan, the former head of the CIA, tweeted at Trump, “Your kakistocracy is collapsing after its lamentable journey. As the greatest Nation history has known, we have the opportunity to emerge from this nightmare stronger & more committed to ensuring a better life for all Americans, including those you have so tragically deceived.” I, of course, immediately did the same thing that you’ve have done upon reading it: I looked up “kakistocracy.” It means a government that is being run by the worst people available. I’ve no idea if the nickname for feces is at the word’s root–probably not–but it certainly could be.

2). Meanwhile, back at the office… The office of Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen was raided by the FBI because the justice department suspect that he was up to something criminal. This would put aside attorney/client privilege. And considering that Cohen is notorious for tape recording conversations, that is more than enough to make Trump’s head explode. His excuse that the whole “grabbing pussies” tape wasn’t actually him might have been enough to convince some of his most ardent supporters, but no one is going to accept the notion that any Trump voice on Cohen’s tapes aren’t the president. I’m quite sure that even Trump, with his addled brain, recalls that tape recordings were what sank Richard Nixon, and Cohen’s tapes could have a similar effect. Cohen is so desperate to undo it that today he approached a Federal judge, asking the judge to block the Feds from reading documents related to his representing Trump. I kind of doubt the judge will approve it, because the entire concept of raiding a lawyer’s office for information about his clients is such a rarity that it was doubtlessly vetted up and down the line before the warrant was granted. Which means we might have audio evidence of Trump agreeing to everything from threatening Stormy to advocating aligning himself with the Russians, which would be treason.

3). Trump goes postal. Literally.. Trump loudly declared that the post office was losing money in handling Amazon packages, despite the fact that delivering Amazon packages is actually quite lucrative for the USPS. Their most recent yearly report stated that while they’re making less money over delivering letters (naturally) the losses were somewhat offset by an increase in package delivery. Amazon might well be keeping the USPS afloat. So naturally Trump issued an executive order to explore the post office’s finances.

Naturally Trump couldn’t give a damn about the post office. Instead he has Jeff Bezos–the owner of both Amazon and, more significantly, the Washington Post–in his sights. He wants to find some way to justify banning Amazon from using the USPS which would hurt both businesses.

Why? Because for someone in Trump’s screwed up mindset, the world boils down to two things: winners and losers. Trump believes himself to be a winner and wants to make Bezos a loser. And if it means causing the USPS to go down in flames, well, screw them, they’re losers, too.

Let’s face it: Trump is in a death spiral. His tweet rants become more hysterical and delusional with every passing day. Everyone in the world except Trump is a liar, even though the countless evidences of Trump’s lies become more pronounced as time passes. Everyone except the most devoted staffers are fleeing him, and for good reason. There is no reason to work for Trump because he demands endless loyalty while providing none himself. One day he could be singing your praises and the next day he could be firing you and dismissing you on Twitter.

Did he do anything right? A year after withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Trump now asked his people about the prospect of rejoining the alliance that he had previously stated was a “rape of our country.” He’s doing it in an attempt to placate farmers who are terrified of the impact his China trade war could have on them. So basically he did the right thing in order to make up for his screwing up trade.

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Freak Out Friday – April 6, 2018

As I said last week, I have been reading “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” in which 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts sound off on the case of the President.

You should understand that this is an unusual situation, because psychiatrists operate under a guideline called the Goldwater rule. This stems from the 1970s when psychiatrists dissected presidential candidate Barry Goldwater so savagely that he sued them for libel and won. Which means, I suppose, that Trump could turn around and sue them as well. But that will never happen because everyone knows Trump isn’t the least bit litigious.

Edited by Doctor Bandy Lee, the book is divided into three sections. The first is “The Trump Phenomenon,” which is described by Lee as “describing Mr. Trump, with an understanding that no definitive diagnosis will be possible.” Part two is “The Trump Dilemma,” which “addresses the dilemmas that mental health professionals face in observing what they do and speaking out when they feel they must.” The third part is “The Trump Effect” which “Speaks to the societal effects Mr. Trump has had, represents, and could cause in the future.”

Now many of us have been saying for ages that Trump is nuts. The thing is, our opinions are based on comparing him with both the behavior of previous presidents and also ourselves. It is fairly normal to claim that someone is insane when he is routinely acting outside of all the norms that we have learned and acquired through being raised like typical people and with no parent issues. This is as opposed to Trump who, in eulogizing his dead father at Fred Trump’s funeral, used the opportunity to lead off with a promotion of a new real estate deal.

The thing is, our assessment remains simply the opinions of laymen. Most of us do not have the knowledge or skill to attribute genuine terminology to Trump’s condition. But the folks who put this book together know a thing or two.

Most of them seem to believe he is either a narcissist or some other form of antisocial personality disorder. In Lance Dode’s essay “Sociopathy,” he states that such a disorder is defined by three or more of the following:

1). Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors;

2). Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying…or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;

3). Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;

4). Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;

5). Reckless disregard for safety of self or others;

6). Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;

7). Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another; and

8) Evidence of conduct disorder [impulsive, aggressive, callous, or deceitful behavior that is persistent and difficult to deter with threats or punishment] with onset before age fifteen years.

The only one that doesn’t necessarily apply to Trump from our observation is number 4, except he’s boasted about hitting people in the past. Otherwise every single one describes Trump as he has behaved at press conferences, meetings, on Twitter, on the phone or whenever and wherever he has interacted with other people. He is someone so completely bereft of normal human empathy that his handlers had to write “I hear you” on an index card as a prompt when he met with the kids from Parkland.

On the other hand, Doctor Henry J. Friedman in “On Seeing What You See and Saying What You Know,”

asserts that Trump is full blown paranoid. He says:

Paranoid thinking, when persistent, is indicative of a paranoid character structure. This means that an individual with such a basic character will consistently produce ideas and responses that find exaggerated danger and malevolent intent in others and in the situations he encounters.

That is unquestionably Trump. Whereas other presidents have, for instance, considered the news media to be irritating, Trump insists on calling it “fake news,” shouts about shutting down NBC news, verbally assaults the owner of “The Washington Post,” boycotts the Correspondents Dinner, and only approves of right wing media such as Fox News or the Washington Examiner. He also picks fights with the leaders of other countries while praising and befriending dictators, who are beginning to follow his “fake news” mantra.

People also love comparing Trump to Hitler. While this may seem an example of Godwin’s law, Friedman puts forward a convincing case that there isn’t much daylight between Trump and Hitler.

He writes:

When attention is called to the resemblance between Hitler and Trump, it tends to elicit a veritable storm of objections. Those who object so strongly are, in effect, calling attention to Hitler’s actions in immediately taking over the press and arresting or killing his opposition. While it is true that the restraints operating in our country have prevented Trump from moving as swiftly as Hitler did, this can be attributed to the balance of powers and the greater strength of our democratic traditions rather than any sense that Trump’s patterns of emotional thinking are greatly different from those that motivated Hitler.

. . .

The insistence that grave danger exists in reality because it exists in one’s mind is the hallmark of the dictator. For Hitler, the Jews represented an existential threat; for Trump, it is illegal immigrants and Mexicans in particular. Also, the disregard for facts, the denial that “factualization” is a necessity before making an assertion of danger or insisting on the nefarious intent of a large group (i.e., the Jews for Hitler, the Muslims for Trump) is typical of paranoid characters who need an enemy against whom to focus group hate.

That is Trump to a T. From the very beginning of his race, he characterized Mexicans as drug users and rapists. Meanwhile, as Trump psychotically tries to shut down access to the United States, farmers are frustrated because they no longer have migrant farm hands to help them with harvesting or picking things off trees.

The notion that we may have a paranoid narcissist with access to a couple thousand nuclear warheads is truly terrifying. Imagine what would have happened if a paranoid narcissist had been in the White House when JFK faced the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK surrounded himself with smart people who disagreed with him. Trump insists on surrounding himself with people who agree with him or are related to him and if any of them refuses to take an oath of loyalty, he fires them. There is no question that Trump, who repeatedly demands to know what is the purpose of having nuclear weapons if you don’t use them, would likely have rained nuclear bombs on Cuba in order to get rid of the Russian rockets. JFK’s handling of the situation required restraint and diplomacy, two characteristics that are totally absent in Trump.

Doctor Thomas Singer, in his essay “Trump and the American Collective Psyche,” wrote:

What most frightens me about Trump is his masterful skill at invading and groping the national psyche. Many tired of the Clintons, taking up permanent residence in our national psyche. Trump will soon put the Clintons to shame in his capacity to dwell in and stink up our collective inner space, like the proverbial houseguest who overstays his welcome. And many of us never invited Trump into our psychic houses in the first place.

Doctors Nanette Gartrell and Dee Mosbacher, in their essay, “He’s Got the World in his Hands and his Finger on the Trigger,” go so far as to suggest something that will likely never happen: a non-partisan council of psychiatrists and medically trained individual would be tasked with evaluating everyone who wants the job of president and deciding whether they are mentally fit to run or not.

On one hand, it seems to make perfect sense. There are many positions which are considered so critical that a psych evaluation is required. Why not for what is arguably the most important position in the world? Perhaps the problem is that getting a bipartisan group of shrinks together might be problematic since most psychiatrists are Democrats because they are concerned about mental health, women’s rights, children’s welfare and such, whereas the GOP only brings up mental health when they’re trying to deflect discussions about gun control.

As far as I’m concerned, this book is a must read for anyone who has Trump set up in his head, which is pretty much all of us.

I would also recommend an editorial in the NY Times by Madeleine Albright in which she asks the question we’re all considering: Is it possible to stop Trump before it’s too late. You can read it here.

Read it for as long as Trump decides not to shut down the press except for conservative outlets.

PAD

New “Zorro” novel

I have produced a new novel which is an adventure of the classic hero, Zorro. Published later this year by Bold Venture Press (the current publishers of the many Zorro novels and short stories written by his creator, Johnston McCulley) the title of book will be “Zorro and the Little Devil.”

I will be writing more about this over on my Patreon account tomorrow.

PAD