All School Shooters are Deranged Males, Including Robin Westman

 Robin Westman, a 23-year-old male who identified as transgender, killed two children at Assumption  Catholic School in Minneapolis earlier this week. Armed with an assault rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol, he wounded fifteen other children and three adults while the victims were celebrating Mass. 

With his mother's support, Robert Westman changed his name to Robin when he was 17 and declared he identified as female. Later, he regretted that decision.

The New York Times deferentially referred to Westman as "Ms. Westman," and darkly observed that "some conservative activists [had] seized on the shooter's gender identity to broadly portray transgender people as violent or mentally ill . . ."

Two observations about the Times's characterization of Robin Westman. First, all American school shooters are young men. There is not a single school shooting perpetrated by a female. 

Second, all schoolground assassins suffer from severe mental illness and a psychopathic disregard for human life--including their own lives. 

Westman's writings suggest he was antisemitic and anti-Catholic, but basically, he was just nuts. For the legacy media to insinuate that his transgender ideation had nothing to do with his homicidal rage is disingenuous. 

How would I feel if I were a 23-year-old man who'd changed my sexual identity as a teenager and realized I'd made a mistake? The prom I missed, the girl in my algebra class I didn't date, the varsity track team I didn't try out for.

I would be furious at anyone who encouraged me to identify as a woman and at the school that tolerated this charade. Indeed, I might be angry enough to start shooting people--although not so angry that I would shoot a child.

The Big Crack Ditches the Cracker and His Barrel. Will Little Debbie Be Next?

 Cracker Barrel, the rustic-themed restaurant chain, is known for its traditional food menu and nostalgic, rural Americana decor. Some of my relatives dine regularly at a Cracker Barrel, which they affectionately call "The Big Crack."

For good or ill, the Big Crack is getting a facelift. Under the direction of the chain's chief marketing officer, Sarah Moore, Cracker Barrel is modernizing its dining rooms by removing antique farm tools and assorted bric-a-brac hanging on the walls.

Unfortunately, Moore outraged some of the chain's patrons when it removed the iconic country bumpkin from its logo. Critics compared the move to Bud Light's disastrous marketing decision to hire a trans influencer to sell its beer.

I'm okay with these changes. I never liked Cracker Barrel's uber country theme. All the antique geegaws hanging from the walls always made me feel like I was dining in my grandfather's barn. 

The new minimalist-style decor works just fine for me. The Cracker Barrel's updated look is more like America's authentic small-town cafes, where the focus is on the food and not the ambiance.

And I'm also okay with the new logo. I never swore allegiance to the image of an old dude wearing overalls. My grandfather wore overalls, which weren't always clean. Believe me, you wouldn't want to eat anything he cooked.

So, Godspeed to Cracker Barrel and CME Sarah Moore. But let's not take the modernizing trend too far. We've already lost the Cracker Barrel dude, Uncle Ben, and Aunt Jemima. I'll go to the barricades to save Little Debbie.

Russiagate, Lawfare, and Other Nefarious Schemes to Destroy Donald Trump: Where were the Players Educated?

 James Howard Kunstler posted a blog today listing the leading players in the various schemes to destroy Donald Trump: Russiagate, Lawfare, the impeachment fiasco, the Mar-a-Lago raid, etc.

Kunstler's blog listed 43 names, and I added three more: Hillary Clinton, Antony Blinken, and Jack Smith. Most of these 46 people had impressive academic credentials and law degrees.

Here's a summary of what I found: Few anti-Trump characters held degrees from public universities, but Harvard, Yale, and Columbia were well represented.  Among the 46 participants in the grand anti-Trump conspiracies, there were 18 degrees from Harvard, 8 Yale credentials, and 5 Columbia degrees.

Here's the takeaway. The central characters in these anti-Trump dramas were well-educated. Indeed, 87 percent held graduate degrees, and 63 percent were lawyers. Most of the attorneys graduated from the nation's most prestigious law schools: Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, Columbia, etc.

It is time for Americans to cast aside their misguided infatuation with our nation's elite universities. Although they claim to be pillars of civic virtue, they produce far too many rogues. The arrogant and self-righteous people at the center of the anti-Trump conspiracies were engaged in a project to destroy our democracy, and most of them graduated from elite schools.

Hillary Clinton at Oxford

Postscript.  I could not find education credentials for two people that Kunstler listed: Joe Pientka and Steven Somma, but most have flattering Wikipedia listings.

You May Call RFK Jr. a Wingnut, But Coca Cola Will Offer an HFCS-free Version of Its Flagship Soda

 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a Trump cabinet member whom progressives love to hate. He's been repeatedly branded as a "wingnut" and a "crackpot,' and his views on vaccines have often been maliciously misrepresented. Senator Elizabeth Warren darkly hinted that he was trying to enrich himself while in public service.

Let's give Bobby a break. Unlike his predecessors, he's called out Americans for our unhealthy eating habits and vowed to make us healthier. As Kennedy has repeatedly said, the U.S. spends more on health care than any nation in the world, yet our country is not the healthiest--far from it.

 Americans have high rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, and these ailments can be traced in significant part to our diet. The corporate food industry laces all kinds of processed food with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) because it is cheap, and it's cheap because our government subsidizes corn production.

Now, thanks partly to Secretary Kennedy, Americans are looking more closely at what they eat and have come to realize that ultra-processed food and high-fructose corn syrup are bad for us. Research has found a link between heavy consumption of HFCS and obesity, diabetes, and liver disease.

 And the corporate food industry is taking notice. Most notably, Coca-Cola announced that it will soon offer a version of its flagship soda containing cane sugar, not HFCS. The corporate giant isn't making the switch because the government forced it to take action. Instead, it's responding to the public's heightened concern about all kinds of food additives--including HFCS. 

Americans' belated interest in the food they're ingesting is partly due to Secretary Kennedy's focus on the nation's diet.  I'm grateful to him for trying to make us healthier and thankful he's in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services.

If that makes me a wingnut, I'm happy to embrace that label.

Image credit: Patrick Fallon via Getty Images 

Mrs. Butterworth is Dead to Me: Zeeland Street Offers Steen's Cane Syrup with Its Pancakes

 In Travels with Charlie, John Steinbeck wrote that he never ate a really good dinner at a roadside cafe or a really bad breakfast. I agree; most restaurants cook a pretty good breakfast if you stick to bacon and eggs.

Nevertheless, it is hard to find a restaurant that serves a really good breakfast--a place that serves perfectly prepared eggs, bacon, grits, and pancakes in a casual and friendly atmosphere.

Therefore, I count myself among the blessed to live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, home of Zeeland Street Restaurant. Zeeland Street is a really good breakfast spot. Indeed, the New York Times listed this eatery among the 50 best restaurants in America. 

My wife and I ate breakfast at Zeeland Street a few weeks ago. We ordered the Zeeland Slam: bacon, eggs, grits, and pancakes. 

In the South, at least, a restaurant's breakfast can be judged by its grits, and Zeeland's grits were perfect--piping hot and lightly seasoned. I like to sprinkle a few drops of Tabasco sauce on my grits, which Zeeland provided on its condiment table.

However, what set this breakfast apart was the breakfast syrup on the pancakes. All across the nation, restaurants serve high-fructose corn syrup with their pancakes, the same stuff, in essence, that sweetens store-bought candy and soft drinks. And that syrup is generally laced with various additives.

Zeeland Street offers diners a second option: Steen's cane syrup. Steen's syrup is extracted from sugar cane, and nothing is added. Cane syrup is healthier than high fructose corn syrup, which has been linked with obesity, diabetes, and liver damage. 

Of course, eating small amounts of corn syrup won't kill you, which is reassuring, given the amount of the stuff that shows up in all kinds of processed food. If it were seriously harmful, we'd all be dead. 

Besides health considerations, cane syrup is preferable to corn syrup because it tastes better, and I'm grateful to Zeeland Street for serving it. 

Of course, excellent food is only one of the qualities that set Zeeland Street apart from other restaurants. What really makes this restaurant shine is the owner, Stephanie Phares. Stephanie is always cheerful, and her infectious laughter, which can be heard throughout the restaurant, always brightens my day.

As John Steinbeck wrote in a short story, "some element of great beauty" can be found in a hearty breakfast in the early morning. Baton Rouge can experience that great beauty at Zeeland Street Restaurant by eating the Zeeland Slam and hearing Stephanie Phares's joyous laughter. 

photo credit: Collin Richie & 225 Magazine

The Panhandler on Siegen Lane: The Student Loan Crisis and Reflections on Dorothy Day

I took the Siegen Lane exit off of Interstate 10 a few days ago and saw a panhandler standing at the end of the exit ramp. He held a sign that read: "Hungry, Need Food, Please Help." He was young, clean, and apparently well fed. Watching from my car, I saw him take a long, luxuriant drag from his cigarette.

I couldn't help but smile and think of my late mother. My mother hated panhandlers, and she especially hated panhandlers who smoked.

There are plenty of jobs available, she would say. That Siegen Lane panhandler could be working at McDonald's instead of standing on the street begging for money. And a smoking panhandler, she would point out, obviously has money for cigarettes--money he should be spending on food.

My mother was especially infuriated by panhandlers who promised to work for food. She often threatened to call their bluff by offering them a job raking leaves or some other menial chore. She didn't think anyone would accept her offer.

No--in my Mom's view--actually working is anathema to a panhandler. Panhandlers would rather loaf around on a street corner waiting for a handout than rake leaves for a meal.

I disagreed with my mother. Anyone who stands on a street corner on a hot Louisiana day is working--there's nothing easy about that.

Moreover, I discovered through experience that most panhandlers would thank me graciously if I gave them a couple of bucks, and many said, "God bless you." I think two bucks for a sincere "God bless you" is a fair transaction.

How about those smoking panhandlers? Should we boycott them?

Dorothy Day would say no. I recall reading that Dorothy once gave a homeless woman an expensive ring that had been donated to the Catholic Worker, and she was criticized for it. People said the homeless woman would pawn the ring and spend the money on drinks, and that it would have been better for Dorothy to sell the ring and use the proceeds to pay the woman's rent.

Dorothy replied that the woman could sell the ring and use the money however she liked. She might pay the rent or spend the money on a Caribbean vacation! That would be her choice.

If we insist on categorizing the needy into the deserving and the undeserving, we will wind up helping no one. Congress doesn't want to help overstressed student-loan debtors because some borrowed too much money to attend college, and some made poor choices in choosing their majors--art history instead of business, for example.

So what? Millions of former college students are burdened by crushing student loans they will never repay. Why not provide them with some assistance instead of stewing over whether or not they deserve help?

I confess, I don't always follow my own advice. I don't help every panhandler who approaches me. I definitely don't like being accosted at night by a panhandler in the Walgreens parking lot. But that guy standing on a hot street corner waiting for a motorist to roll down the car window and give him fifty cents--I say let's help him out a bit.

And so--when I saw that clean, young, and apparently well-fed panhandler standing at the roadside on Siegen Lane, I gave him two dollars.

I admit, however, that my mother's spirit came welling up within me as I handed over the money. "Those cigarettes," I chided, "will kill you."

***

 I first posted this essay in 2013.

A Retrospective Tribute to the Alaska Territorial Guard

When I was a young lawyer in Alaska many years ago, I took my young children to see the Fur Rondy Parade in Anchorage.  Conditions were not ideal on that winter day. The sky was overcast, and the temperature had dropped to 20 degrees below zero.  

The day was so cold that the marching bands sheltered inside moving school buses.  Band members would open the bus windows and stick their horns out into the frigid air just long enough to complete a tune. Then they would retract their instruments and slam the windows shut.

I judged the weather too harsh for my children to endure, so I parked the family car in an alley where we could view the parade without leaving our vehicle.

Parade participants were bundled up in arctic gear. I recall the beauty queens perched on the hoods of fancy automobiles. Their skirts were short, but their legs were encased in insulated survival pants.

About halfway through the parade, I saw a platoon of Alaska National Guard soldiers wheel around a corner, marching briskly with their M-1 rifles at port arms. They were all wearing camouflaged white jump suits, and they wore fur caps on their heads. They did not look like they were cold.

All the soldiers in that platoon were Alaska Natives, mostly Inuit, the best I could tell, and some Athabaskans.

I was suddenly moved by a burst of patriotism, and I admired these men who had sworn to defend Alaska with their lives. Did they have grievances against the white outsiders who took over their ancestral land and hauled away its natural resources--timber, gold, copper, and oil?

Perhaps they did, but on that cold day, their rugged, patriotic spirit was all I could see, and all that the soldiers wished to communicate.

Before Alaska achieved statehood in 1959, the Alaska National Guard was called the Alaska Territorial Guard. During World War II, the Inuit and Athabaskans were called up and armed to defend against the Japanese invaders who had gained a foothold in the Aleutian Islands.

I doubt that a single Alaska Territorial Guardsman held back or asked why he should risk his life in defense of the United States. Like young men all over America who enlisted in the military after Pearl Harbor, the Natives stepped up to do a dangerous job that had to be done.

President Trump will soon meet President Vladimir Putin at Elmendorf Air Force Base on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska. The two world leaders will search for a way to end the war in Ukraine.

It is a fitting place to meet, for American territory comes closest to Mother Russia in Alaska. Indeed, the nations are less than 3 miles apart in the Bering Straits, and the distance can be walked when the Bering Sea freezes over in winter.

Americans should pray for peace as Presidents Trump and Putin meet this week. They should also say a prayer of gratitude for the Alaska Territorial Guardsmen who rose to their duty during the Second World War.