Halloween Gila Monster? by Bob Patterson
Tree root or Gila monster? Use your imagination!
Halloween, as celebrated in the USA, is the time when Americans take a break from subjecting themselves to a constant barrage of journalism that vigorously asserts that all of the conspiracy theories are the fictional product of an active imagination and that the tales of vampires and werewolves, and stories about Invasions from Mars are true.
If the hysterical ranting about the possibility that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was part of a plot is true, then the wider implications of that fictional horror story (substantiated by a second less known Congressional Investigation) would have to be that the scariest Halloween story of all is the possibility that all the best conspiracy theories can be fitted together to form one vast picture of a country that is being played as fools for the benefit of a select few. Stop thinking that! You are frightening the children!
Was Harold Holt the first national leader on planet earth to be abducted by aliens from outer space? The only explanations of his disappearance are either vague and illogical official explanations or conspiracy theories. Take your pick.
Being alone in an apartment in Marina del Rey, it was very disconcerting to see a fellow with a gun in the adjacent dressing room. It was just the reflection in the mirror showing the World's Laziest Journalist stuffing his wallet into his pants pocket. The wallet, in the dim light, just looked like an automatic pistol. A gunman suddenly appearing inside your locked apartment would make the start of a good Twilight Zone episode, though, wouldn't it?
Recently Jim Romenesko's "inside baseball" website for journalists ran a picture illustrating the fuss caused by a New York Times photo, which at first glance seemed to show John Boner carrying a pistol in the halls of Congress.
Would you need a laxative if someone pointed a gun at you?
In the San Francisco Bay area, the citizens were very upset with a policeman who fired at (and killed) a kid who failed to follow the "drop it" order. There's a clever line in a Willie Nelson song about knowing when to run and when to "Freeze!" How many of the folks who demonstrated against the policeman have ever had a gun pointed at them? How many of them have ever been the target for a person using a gun? Apparently the civilians were unfazed by the prospect of betting their own life on a chance to differentiate a fake gun from a real one in a split second.
There were some political ads on TV in California, many moons ago, asserting that the common image, used in a large number of films, of hiding behind a door from a shooter was a fictional misperception because a slug from a magnum gun could rip through two police cars and still have enough lethal force to kill a person. Gee, did you know that movies disregard truth? Didn't one of the guys on the Tu Phatt team often used to say: "I didn't know that!"? (Did that group morph into "the Watergate Burglars"?)
Last week, on the Stephanie Miller radio show, former Governor Jesse Ventura said that he had seen photos, taken at Dealy Plaza at the time of the assassination of President Kennedy, which showed one fellow who looked a lot like George H. W. Bush, who claims he can't remember where he was when he learned that JFK had been shot.
Was the film "Apocalypse Now" an accurate representation of what had happened, or was it a precise prediction of what America would become?
Did the mainstream media exaggerate the effect seventy five years ago that Orson Welles' "Mars Attacks" radio show had on listeners? Is the perception that it caused mass hysteria just a bit of clever exaggerated boasting urban legend?
The Spanish Civil War came to a conclusion less than six months after the famous Orson Welles' broadcast. Due to a proliferation of labels, there was a great deal of confusion about who were the "Good Guys" in that conflict. It seems to boil down to fascists vs. workers. Which side was the Catholic Church on? Which side would you support?
In many kung fu movies, a fight becomes a battle of the rugged individual contending with an array of bad guys. In those movies the king fu expert dispatches the attackers one at a time like an overworked clerk in a busy deli. Unfortunately in real life a gang of bikers would swarm all over the Bruce Lee clone and beat the living snot out of him.
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