What Does hitchBOT’s Destruction Say about the U. S.?

hitchBOT

It was a story that I had heard about a couple of years ago and thought was pretty cool. Researchers in Canada were building a robot that was incapable of movement but, through usage of linguistic programming and some limited conversation skills, would be able to traverse long distances. How, you might ask? Through the kindness of the human race, which would transport the robot around for nothing. A GPS system would keep track of where it was and, at 20-minute intervals, would snap a photo of its surroundings.

Christened hitchBOT, the robot – a gangly looking creation that still had some charm to it (as you can see in the photo above) – was able to get across the expanse of Canada in 2014, a 3700-mile trip that saw hitchBOT endear itself to the Canadian people. Earlier this year, hitchBOT got much the same reception as it crossed the Netherlands and Germany without as much as a scratch on its metallic frame and no damage to its sensitive computer systems.

So what would happen if hitchBOT attempted to cross the United States? The result is a saddening thought on the human – or perhaps the U. S. – condition as it aims straight at the heart and ignorance of people in the U. S.

Starting in Boston two weeks ago, hitchBOT had slowly been able to work his way down the Eastern Seaboard, taking in a Boston Red Sox game (probably should have headed to Yankee Stadium to see a real team play) and other “events.” The goodwill ended for hitchBOT on Saturday, however, as hitchBOT was found decapitated outside of Philadelphia, its useless arms and legs ripped from its body (the appendages were added to give hitchBOT a more “human” appearance) and the “head” nowhere to be found. From photos of the scene on Sunday, hitchBOT looked no different than the trash that fills the gutters of a major U. S. city.

“Sadly, sadly it’s come to an end,” Frauke Zeller, one of the robot’s co-creators, told the Associated Press after learning of hitchBOT’s demise. Zeller hasn’t committed to rebuilding hitchBOT and taking another shot at the U. S., but it seems that others working on the project are at least open to the idea. In a note on hitchBOT’s website, they say, “Sometimes bad things happen to good robots. We know that many of hitchBOT’s fans will be disappointed, but we want them to be assured that this great experiment is not over.”

The better experiment might be how shitty is the United States that some jackass/es gets their jollies out of the destruction of something they don’t own?

Sure, there are other countries where hitchBOT might not have had a really good time either. Some of the more criminally active areas of South America or Africa probably would have sent hitchBOT back in pieces also. The Middle East would have been difficult, too, but the place is a fucking war zone; humans have trouble getting out of there in one piece literally, mentally and emotionally. But this happened in the United States, where we are supposedly so civilized that we are the GREATEST NATION ON EARTH!!!

There is a brilliant video clip from the HBO show The Newsroom where Jeff Daniels, playing a television anchor, is on a discussion forum at a university. After a coed asks what makes the U. S. the greatest country on Earth, Daniels’ character Will McAvoy rips into her with a three-minute diatribe that says the only things that the U. S. is Number One in is number of persons incarcerated in prison, the number of people who believe angels exist and military spending (all correct, by the way). He then laments that we used to be a country that did good things and for the right reasons, to the utter silence of the auditorium.

(Would have liked to have embedded the video of this clip here, but HBO seems to have stretched their tentacles out and removed that capability. You can find it on YouTube, however.)

We used to be a country where people could depend on each other despite their differences. We used to be a country where you could potentially even work your way across the U. S., doing small jobs to earn some cash before heading onto the next town. Up until probably the 1970s, people freely traversed the continent and seldom met with any issues. Now, we can’t even exit our doorways without a feeling of dread, wary of those we see and willing to destroy anything we don’t understand.

How many of us actually know who our neighbors are? How many would see someone from the subdivision they live in needing some help getting back home from the grocery store and offer a ride? As a nation we’ve cocooned ourselves to the point that we refuse human interaction, settling for a virtual version across smartphones and computers instead of the real thing.

The destruction of hitchBOT is an extension of this malady. When faced with something that we might not understand, we choose not to engage it. Worse yet, someone with a brain the size of a walnut thought it would be better to destroy the robot rather than just let it be. That’s right, U. S. citizens…we let the equivalent of the “flour bag baby” with a microchip die and it didn’t even reach the 30-day mark of the experiment.

I certainly hope that the researchers in Canada make another run at hitchBOT. Maybe hitchBOT II will have some defense mechanisms that will keep it better protected. Then people in the U. S. can stupidly complain about Canada using “militaristic robots” to invade the country.

Equal Opportunity Outrage for Everyone!

The past week has seen the cup of outrage overflow onto the carpet of hysteria. Incidents that occurred in the United States and other areas of the world seemed to boil down to see who could “out-outrage” the others in some macabre competition. To run them all down – and this isn’t even looking back to previous weeks, when the “Outrage-O-Meter” was pegging itself – would take hours, but here’s a few of the choice tidbits from the Happy Ending Machine over the past seven days.

Last week, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, attempting to catch up to the bloviating gasbag that is Donald Trump, commented that the deal negotiated with Iran regarding its nuclear ambitions – and this isn’t negotiated with just the current U. S. administration but also the leadership of the United Kingdom, France, Japan, China and Russia – was President Barack Obama “leading Israelis to the doors of the oven.” Through trying to out-insult The Donald, Huckabee instead offended people on both sides of the Atlantic, not only the U. S. but also Europe and Israel – the very people he’s looking to “protect.”

Then there was the false indignation that the Republican Party had regarding the release of illegally recorded videotapes of a high-ranking member of Planned Parenthood talking untastefully and rather loosely about the usage of organs and tissues from fetuses by the organization. Rather than actually sanely speak to the head of Planned Parenthood about the issue, several members of the GOP rallied around the “defund Planned Parenthood” bandwagon, despite the fact that less than 2% of their operations are abortions and much of their work benefits women who otherwise wouldn’t have a gynecologist to examine them.

If that was an easy one to get people to fire up the pitchforks over, then the news from Africa just sent everyone on a bizarro rampage. An African lion by the name of Cecil – who everyone claimed was world famous but I had never heard of before this brutal happening – was lured by a big-game (but small-dicked) hunter/dentist from the U. S. (in particular the state of Minnesota) and his filthy “guides” (called such because who accepts money for hunting animals…isn’t that the job of the “hunter”?) out of his sanctuary in Zimbabwe. Once out of the sanctuary, Mr. Little Dick decided to pump a shot from a crossbow into Cecil which, as anyone who knows weapons will tell you, you better be a damn good shot to kill them on the spot. Alas, Little Dick wasn’t and the chase was on.

For the next 40 hours, the Three Assholes decided to track Cecil before killing him off with a gunshot. It was only THEN that the group discovered that Cecil had a GPS tracking device, which they allegedly attempted to destroy, then hacked the head off the lion in a last act of deviance while leaving the carcass. All in the “glory of the hunt.”

Finally comes this gem. A woman who was the daughter of one of the survivors of the Sandy Hook shootings wrote an open letter to comedian Amy Schumer on Medium.com that implored Schumer to take up a stance for extending gun control laws. What was the basis of this? The shooting in Lafayette, LA, last week that saw two women killed at a theater that was showing Schumer’s hit film Trainwreck.

The young woman writes in the letter, “Amy Schumer, I and many other Millennials look up to you so much. You are our generation’s epitome of what it means to be a strong, powerful, self-aware champion for the experiences and truths of being a woman and an American today…And we need your voice in this movement. We need your help…Write an op-ed. Support an organization. Demand change. Be a voice for our generation and for women – two groups who make up most of the victims of the gun violence in our country.”

And this doesn’t even get into the situation between Palestinians and Israelis on the West Bank in Israel, the NFL’s Roger Goodell upholding the suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady or the latest in a long line of cop shootings, this one in Ohio, that are dominating the headlines.

Outrage, when used appropriately, can be a powerful catalyst for change in the world. In the early 1960s, the outrage people felt when seeing how peaceful marchers seeking equal rights were treated in the Deep South forced quick change after over 100 years of supposed “freedom.” Outrage can also take longer periods of time, such as with the Vietnam War, and sometimes can have no effect at all (Bill Clinton, anyone?). But when it’s rolled out virtually every waking moment for a person, it begins to lose its impact.

The abortion debate has raged for decades and one instance isn’t going to change any laws or funding. In fact, I quite honestly would rather have a strong organization to educate women regarding their reproductive rights and options rather than some Puritan saying “don’t do it” and then getting knocked up for the second time. Politics is the same way, although this year with the addition of The Blowhard to the Presidential mix, the others are ramping up their similes and metaphors to a disgusting measure.

I personally have never understood the allure of “trophy hunting.” Why would I want to go into a restricted area and chase an animal (who can’t leave the restricted area) in a lame-ass attempt at “hunting?” So I can stick a head on my wall and say to the boys, “Yep, gunned him down all on my own (except for the guides, the drivers, the cooks for the camp, the hikers who stalked the beast, etc.).” The problem with the outrage here is that virtually NO ONE had heard of Cecil the Lion prior to this; where was the outrage (and honestly, there’s been plenty) regarding the theft of elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns that has been ongoing for decades?

Having said this, I do have a respect for those that enjoy hunting. For those that get their food from the activity (a deer can provide a winter’s worth of food for a family), use the skin for making clothing or the remainder of the beast for tools, more power to you. These aren’t the people that need to be shut down; I believe, in fact, they’re the ones who are bemoaning that this idiot dentist from Minnesota even had a gun, airplane ticket and guides lined up for his “hunt.”

Finally, Schumer owes no one a statement, let alone becoming an advocate, for any cause that she doesn’t believe in wholeheartedly. If Schumer feels passionately that gun laws should be stronger, they by all means, Amy, fire away (no pun intended). She shouldn’t have to face any shaming from gun control advocates to step up in any way simply because her movie was on the sheet playing when a nutbag opened fire.

The outrage card is being overplayed and by a wide swath of our culture. It’s time to take a moment to pause and see if a situation can be calmly discussed – and potentially a solution reached – rather than rattle the sabers of outrage with nothing to come of it.

How Television Has Changed (Or, My Favorite Programs Over the Years)

Television has an incredible ability to have an effect on our lives, for better and worse. For every chance that mankind has had the ability to see history making events (the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first Iraq War, etc.), we also have the opportunity to bleed brain cells through watching something completely idiotic (the Kardashians, “Honey Boo Boo,” etc.). In my life, however, there’s been a few shows that had an impact on me and, in some way, kind of show how television has changed over the years.

In the 1970s, the first show that I identified with and was a big fan of was WKRP in Cincinnati. Featuring an ensemble cast, the show was about a radio station in that namesake city and the situations that the staff found itself in, sometimes of their own creation. The comedy was a constant on the show, but it was also known for making some serious statements, including the treatment of soldiers after the Vietnam War. It also featured a cast that would go on to do other great work, including Howard Hesseman, Loni Anderson and Tim Reid (all outstanding in their portrayals of Dr. Johnny Fever, station receptionist Jennifer Marlowe and DJ Venus Flytrap).

When it first premiered in 1978, it automatically became something that I made sure I had my homework finished for so I could see the latest episode. What made it funny was, as I learned later in life, somewhat realistic. The writers of the show based the characters off of people they had met while working in radio and some of the situations that occurred on the show were actual life events for these people. And who can’t laugh when they see something like this (something that actually happened to the writers when they were in radio that they used on the show):

When it went off the air after four years, I was tremendously disappointed. But the show had done something to my mindset in that it encouraged me to want to be a radio DJ. Growing up, I always envisioned myself as Dr. Johnny Fever, working with a bunch of strange people such as he did on the show. That led me to a 16-year career in radio, where I built up my own weird bunch of people and outrageous situations that would have challenged anything that WKRP had presented. It was also a hell of a lot of fun!

I didn’t get into another television series hard core until the late 1990s and there were two that took the stage.

First was Millennium, which was considered a very strange show by most everyone else that I knew. The show was about a former FBI agent who used a paranormal “gift” (the character, Frank Black, called it a “curse”) to be able to see through a criminal’s eyes and solve the usually chilling crimes that they had committed. This special “sense” brought him to the attention of several mysterious groups that wanted to use him for their purposes as mankind approached the end of the millennia.

I have always had a soft spot for heroes that are flawed and Frank Black fit that description to a T. From 1996-99, it was appointment viewing for me if not for anyone else. The show wasn’t even given a decent sendoff; a knot-tying episode of The X-Files called “Millennium” that featured Frank Black (outstandingly played by Lance Henriksen) served as a finale for the program.

To further irritate me as to the realities of television (we’ll get to that in a moment), my next favorite show was one called Brimstone. If you’ve never heard of it, I wouldn’t be surprised; it only lasted for 13 episodes in 1998-99.

Brimstone was the story of Detective Ezekiel Stone (Peter Horton, most notable for his time on thirtysomething), an officer for the New York Police Department. A highly decorated detective, Stone’s wife is the victim of a rape and, as Stone investigates the case, he finds the rapist and takes great pleasure in killing him instead of arresting him. A couple of month later, Stone himself is killed by a criminal and finds himself in Hell for taking joy in killing his wife’s rapist. He languishes there for 15 years until an event in Hades calls for his special skills.

The Devil (another outstanding performance by the late John Glover) comes to Stone with a deal: 113 souls, led by a Canaanite priestess who is 4000 years old, have broken out of Hell and returned to Earth. If Stone can send every one of the escapees back to Hell (by perforating their eyes because they are the “windows to the soul,” as the Devil tells him), then he will be given the opportunity to enter Heaven. Stone takes the deal and, tattooed with 113 marks that disappear each time he returns a soul to Hell, heads back to Earth and the potential of crossing paths with his wife.

The reason I liked this show was it was a bit of a twist on the normal “crime procedural” that is normally presented. There were twists as well in that Stone and the escapees had supernatural powers (dependent on how long you were in Hell, sometimes Stone had to contend with a soul that had stronger supernatural abilities than he did) and the Devil, while pointing him in the direction of someone to “apprehend,” more often than not would forget to give Stone important details on the demon he was chasing. There was also a bit of “good versus evil” in this as Glover would also sometimes play God, helping Stone with his work.

Alas, it didn’t last that long. Whether it was because it was a taboo subject that no one wanted to watch or it was too complex for some to wrap their minds around, it disappeared after that one season. To make matters worse, it has never appeared on DVD for fans of the show to own. If they can do DVDs of other shows that were niche (Heroes comes to mind), then there should be one for Brimstone; hell, I’d even write episodes if they wanted to bring it back to television!

These two shows were darker, indicating to me that, as I got older, I took a bit more pessimistic view of the world. It also showed me that sometimes great material gets cut off (canceled) before you’re done with it. That reality would be further demonstrated by my fourth favorite program.

The television series Leverage came out right after the financial collapse of 2008 and its timing couldn’t have been better. The show was based on a former insurance investigator, haunted by the death of his son and now a raging alcoholic, who puts together and all-star team of criminals. Using grift, computer hacking, straight up theft and strong arm tactics (the four members of the team were all considered the best in their fields in each individual subject), the team would assist their “clients” in reversing wrongs that had been perpetrated on them by the “rich and powerful.”

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For five seasons, the team pulled off cons and thefts against the scourges of society, always setting right what wrongs had been committed. In watching the program, you cheered for these criminals (and they were criminals) as they made sure that those who perpetrated even bigger scams (and got away with it because of influence or money) received their comeuppance. What is the saying I’ve seen…”Rob a bank, go to jail, own a bank, rob the world”? These guys made sure that didn’t happen.

Besides that the ensemble cast (Academy Award winner Timothy Hutton, British actress Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, Beth Riesgraf and Aldis Hodge) was excellently put together, the group actually brought development to their characters that seemed true to life. The shows themselves could have been pulled from the headlines and the series’ finale – oddly enough a Christmas gift from the producers and directors on Christmas 2012 – gave the impression that there may still be some life in the Leverage team yet. Hopefully that happens but, as the years go on, it becomes less likely.

All these television programs have had a huge effect on my life. I actually own three of them – WKRP, Millennium and Leverage – on DVD, and if Brimstone were available I’d have that. Sometimes television can have a good effect on people as, without these shows, I don’t think I’d be who I am today.

‘Cos I’m A Travelin’ Man…

One of the things I do like to do is travel and I’ve been able to do my share of it in my life. From the military to radio to the world of poker, I’ve been able to set foot in almost every one of the contiguous U. S. states, much of the Caribbean, Canada and Mexico. I’ve yet to have the pleasure (or the nightmare?) of actually traveling in the United Kingdom or Europe and I would love to take a trip to Egypt to see the Pyramids. I’d also like to visit Australia, Japan and some of the other pearls of the Orient. With this said, there’s several things that bug the hell out of me whenever I take a trip.

If it is one of the simple driving variety, then the general things that irritate me beyond end when traversing around my home base become prevalent. For one, if you tailgate me, that’s not going to make me speed up at all. In fact, if it’s possible, I’ll probably slow down gradually as you sit behind me. Don’t get me wrong, I do not do this in the “fast lane” (of which there isn’t supposed to be, according to the law), but I’ll pull it out in a heartbeat if we’re in city traffic and I’m right on the limit. There’s no reason for people to get right on someone’s bumper unless they’re just a certifiable asshole or having trouble reading the bumper sticker.

Secondly, if you’re on the phone and not paying any attention to what’s going on around you, the horn is going to sound until you wonder “why is that horn beeping?” It seems more often than not these are the imbeciles that cause most of the problems on the highways because they miss when the light turns green, are trying to fumble with a text to whichever meaningless person is requesting them to speak (let’s be honest, is a fucking text worth your life? I seriously doubt it) or are trying to find someone to call on their cellphone. If it’s that important, pull the fuck over and take care of business, ESPECIALLY if you’re texting.

Finally, can you try to put a car together that looks like it might actually be one model and not a composite from several different cars? I’ve driven my share of crappy rides (including one orange Dodge that was a former cab, but we won’t go any further than that), but folks that have put vehicles together with baling wire and sawdust, while honorable in their ingenuity, need to have said vehicle taken off the road. This surprisingly seems more prevalent in states that have inspections – which you would think would catch such things as this – but it’s not true.

There are other things that perturb me about driving but, if the trip involves an airplane, then the list gets even longer.

Getting on an airplane asks something that is seemingly impossible for its passengers to comprehend: can we all get on a long metal tube as quickly as possible and without major drama? This step from the start is fraught with difficulty as the airlines haven’t quite figured out how to do this yet themselves. On the television show Mythbusters, they determined that the best way to handle the boarding process was to have the passengers sit wherever they pleased as the passengers immediately plopped down in the first available seat rather than one designated by choice (buying a particular seat) or by choice and randomization (the Zone process). I’d love to see airlines try this at least to see if it would work in the “real world.”

Then there’s the process of actually putting your ass in the seat rather than standing in the middle of the aisle holding up traffic. I’ve actually been trying to make it to my seat and had people coming back TO THE FRONT OF THE PLANE while people are boarding. If you didn’t take a piss prior to boarding or find a place for your bag around your seat, you should sit down in the back of the plane after you complete your business and wait until the traffic settles.

Secondly, let’s talk about those carry-ons. A carry-on bag is like a computer bag, book bag, maybe even a duffel bag with soft sides that has a nice convenient handle to carry it on the plane. This doesn’t cover anything with wheels and certainly doesn’t cover the steamer trunk that came over with the Titanic that you’re trying to ram in the overhead. I’d personally love to see the airlines start to take this one seriously but, for some reason, I’m not holding my breath.

Finally, when it comes to disembarking the plane, the entire cabin doesn’t need to fucking stand up immediately when the plane hits the gate. If you’re in the back of the plane, it’s going to be a good 10-15 minutes before there’s even anyone moving forward around you. Even if you’re within the first ten rows of the door, you’re STILL not going anywhere for about five minutes or so. Park your ass in the seat and wait until you see a glimmer of sunlight (or artificial light) making its way through the crowd leaving the plane or entering the cabin.

Although I may grouse, I still love to travel, especially with my beautiful wife (who actually has a couple notches on her belt, Japan and Germany, that I lack) and our son, who brings another world of wonder to traveling. If we could only make it a bit less hectic…

Welcome To the New Reality

I woke up this morning to the news from Suruc, Turkey that at least 27 people were killed in what has been called by the Turkish government a terrorist attack. For those of you without quick access to a map, Suruc is in the “No Man’s Land” between Turkey and Syria that is under siege from not only Kurdish factions with some help from the terrorist organization ISIS but also from Syrian rebels looking to fight those two factions off and take the area over for themselves. The death toll in this attack could rise as about 100 more people were injured in the bombing.

With this said, we in the United States are mourning the loss of five military members, four Marines and a seaman, killed in a senseless attack on a recruiting depot in Chattanooga, TN last week. The four Marines were killed immediately in a hail of automatic gunfire, the bullet holes pockmarking their office windows like a sinister form of Swiss cheese. The shooter, a Jordanian man in his mid-20s, was gunned down by authorities as he attempted to continue his shooting rampage at a military support depot located near the recruiting center; as of yet, it hasn’t been determined if it was an act of Islamic terrorism or another case of a mentally deranged man lashing out at a bastion of our country.

The deaths of these servicemen is extremely saddening, especially as some of these men had come through the Hell that war in the Middle East is and has been and lived to tell the tale. To then come home, back to the United States, and supposedly be “safe” in the fact that the battles were over, it is particularly cruel for them to have died in this fashion. Unfortunately, it has become the new reality in the United States: the potential for terrorism exists, even in our supposedly “safe” country, and not on an occasional basis but a weekly and, dare we say it, daily one.

We have joined the international world in that terrorism fraternity, with other countries holding membership for more than a millennia. We are no longer insulated against the senseless attacks that seem to plague the Middle East, Europe and other locales around the world. It used to be that, when there was a terrorist attack of some sort, we could mostly look across the Atlantic for the location and occasionally the Pacific. That was part of what made the United States – and, to some extent, the entirety of the Americas – feel more secure is that we were “removed” from the turmoil, strife and senseless bombings and killings that sometimes bubbles over in other areas of the world.

For almost 500 years (counting from Christopher Columbus’ voyages to the New World), the Americas were an isolated outpost from the Old World. That began to change with the advancements in warfare during World War II. Technically, the first “terrorist attack” against the United States was the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. You could argue that there were other incidents, but this act of war in December 1941 was the first time that attacks from foreign sources were able to alight on U. S. soil.

Since that time, there have been fits and starts as to further acts of terrorism in the U. S. The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center was an attack by Islamic extremists that turned out to be a test drive for the 2001 tragedy that galvanized our nation. There’s been acts of “domestic terrorism” with Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, the 1996 attacks by Eric Rudolph during the Olympics in Atlanta all the way up to Dylann Roof’s racial murdering of black churchgoers just last month in Charleston, SC. It’s gotten to the point where you have a sigh of relief when there isn’t a mass killing or bombing in the United States, a breath where you say “we made it through another day.”

The thing is we have to get used to such occurrences. In the Middle East – be it Iraq, Israel or some other country – they pause for a moment to reflect on the situation and then return to their daily existence. It isn’t that these people don’t have emotions regarding the situation, it is that they know the only way to counteract those terroristic intents is to demonstrate that it had no effect. It is remarkable the level of recovery that those people have reached in that a despicable mass killing may have been committed but, the next day, the surrounding area of that shooting has been cleaned and repaired and looks as if nothing has happened.

Europe does this too, as shown after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France earlier this year, and Asia barely blinks if such an atrocity occurs. We here in the United States, however, normally end up clutching our collective chests and letting out a Nancy Kerrigan-like “WHHHHHY!” wail that can last for several months or even years until we start trying to figure out what laws to put into place “so that it never happens again.” The resulting discussion of any way to try to “fix things” uses its own terrorism in shutting down any solution or solutions.

If acts of terrorism on the shores of the U. S. is that prevalent, then many ask what should be done about it. The answer? Nothing. The countries of Europe and the Middle East have extremely Orwellian methods of counter-terrorism, including facial recognition software to visually identify militants, infiltration of subversive groups, restriction or observance in travel, arming of troops walking the streets of major cities, racial profiling and stifling of opposition speech (just to name a few). To implement these measures in the United States would violate pretty much every tenet that the country was established on and that is expected out of a free society. While we can weep and mourn, we shouldn’t exorcise what helped build the United States.

Although tragic, the shooting in Chattanooga is simply the latest example of the changing reality in the United States. While once secure from such situations, it is a new time (and not for the best) in our country that we have to be prepared for the potential for terrorist attacks, be they foreign or domestic. It doesn’t mean, however, we have to enact draconian measures in the untenable illusion of “safety” that violate the very essence of what the United States is. We just have to learn how to handle them better on a mental and emotional level than we have in the past.

A Correct Move Taken Too Far

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It may seem like it was eons ago, but in reality it has been exactly one month. On the night of June 17, a young man named Dylann Roof strolled into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church for evening bible services. He was joined by ten black parishioners, including the senior pastor and South Carolina State Senator Clementa Pinckney, as they enjoyed their evening of fellowship and worship with each other. As the bible study came to a close, Roof allegedly pulled a Glock 41 .45 caliber handgun and opened fire. After five reloads, nine of the parishioners laid dead; the tenth was spared by Roof allegedly so that person could tell the story of Roof’s attack.

Law enforcement quickly caught Roof in North Carolina the next morning and extradited him back to the quaint Southern city by the Atlantic Ocean, resplendent with its Spanish moss hanging from the trees, palmetto trees swaying in the wind off the beaches and seeped in the history of not only the United States but of the Confederate States of America (Fort Sumter was the site of the first shots of the Civil War in 1861). Further investigation, however, revealed an ugly truth that many have turned their heads to over the years. Roof, through leaving his one victim alive in the church (it is reported he told her he wanted to start a “race war”) and through a manifesto on a website allegedly his that featured photographs of him posing with the Confederate Battle Flag as well as standing on  the U. S. flag while spitting on it, brought to light the horrific factor that a relic of the South had now been corrupted into something viewed with hatred by many U. S. citizens.

Before we go on, we must establish the history. The Battle Flag was in no stretch the official flag of the CSA. There were three different flags that were tried by the government, but all bore too much of a resemblance to the U. S. flag for soldiers from either side to be able to differentiate between the two in the heat of battle. Thus, the Battle Flag – most notably carried by General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia but also carried by other Confederate factions – was used so troops could see where their side of the battle was located.

Following the end of the Civil War, the Battle Flag’s usage drifted off, supposedly into history. That would take a turn, however, when Southern Democrats, stifling under the boot heels of the Reconstruction period and the stiff penalties that were imposed by the victorious North and the Republican Party, formed the racially motivated Ku Klux Klan and resurrected the banner, in essence, as their battle flag. While also carrying U. S. flags in several marches through the early part of the 20th century (including a particularly noteworthy march through Washington, D.C.), the Battle Flag was more commonly used in the South along with the Battle Flag.

In 1894 the Battle Flag was incorporated into the state flag of Mississippi, where it flew until 1906 when a legal error failed to give the state either an official flag or a coat of arms. That banner was the de facto flag of the state until 2001, when it was officially put back into use for a short period before being replaced. It was also used in the flag of Georgia beginning in 1956 when the Georgia General Assembly used a design from a man named John Sammons Bell, who supported segregation across not only the Palmetto State but also the former Confederacy. That flag flew until 2001, when it was removed.

In 1961 the South Carolina General Assembly added the Battle Flag to the flagpole under the U. S. and South Carolina flags to “commemorate” the 100th anniversary of the Civil War, but it was also put there as a protest at the ever growing movement for civil rights among minorities, especially blacks, across the South and the remainder of the country. Those flags would all fly together until 2000, when the Confederate Battle Flag was moved from atop the South Carolina State House to a Confederate memorial on the State House grounds.

Everyone up to speed? Good…

Which brings us to last month and its aftermath. Instead of perhaps examining the issues that were at the forefront of the horrendous act – mental health, drug abuse or misuse and gun availability – South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley decided to use the moment (especially after the photos surfaced of Roof and the Confederate Battle Flag and his manifesto of white supremacy) to call for the Battle Flag’s removal from the State House grounds.

Really, what politician in his right mind had a chance in standing against that?

Not to say there weren’t those that tried, but the vote to remove the Battle Flag (which needed two-thirds of the House and the Senate) rocketed through the political process. Six days ago, amid a somber ceremony that was deserving of a memento of history and a crowd that thought they were at a British soccer match, the Confederate Battle Flag came down and was moved to a museum.

While many may cry that the Battle Flag is a part of their “heritage,” it isn’t exactly the heritage that you would like to remember. First off, the “heritage” is that of a treasonous act – secession from the United States – that, if performed nowadays, would have many screaming for the perpetrators to be shot on site. Secondly, the Battle Flag – despite its representation as the flag that thousands of Southern soldiers fought for – had been utterly corrupted by first the Southern Democrats, then the KKK and today by white supremacists. Germany has a heritage, too…but they choose not to fly the Nazi Party flag, which was once the official German flag, because of the baggage it has entailed in its existence. The removal of the flag from the South Carolina State House – and other official government buildings across the South – was long overdue and right in its execution.

Here’s where it might get interesting for some of you.

Since the removal of the Battle Flag in South Carolina, there have been other actions that are dubious at best. The television show The Dukes of Hazzard was removed from syndicated broadcasting because the Dodge Charger featured on the show and driven by the Duke boys, the General Lee, featured a Confederate Battle Flag ironically atop the roof. Video games were removed from the Apple Store because the games featured the flag during gameplay. This would prove to only be the tip of the iceberg, however.

There are movements across several Southern states to remove Confederate monuments from their locations, none probably more ludicrous than the idea to remove the carvings of General “Stonewall” Jackson, Confederate president Jefferson Davis and Lee from a mountainside in Stone Mountain, GA. Add into the fray movements to rename schools, other buildings and even streets that have ties with a Confederate history and it does reach the point of going too far.

The Civil War was the darkest period in U. S. history and there are some pretty bleak things that have been done in the name of this country. While the Battle Flag might have been unfairly blemished since that time, its removal was appropriate considering what it inspired in the South Carolina massacre. Taking that tragedy and using it any further, however, is wrong because it is an attempt to whitewash the historical significance of an event.

Rather than trying to act as if those four bleak years from 1861-1865 didn’t exist, why not demonstrate how far we as U. S. citizens have come? Even a school field trip from Robert E. Lee Middle School (literally tens across the U. S.) can learn about the man, the fact that he was a highly decorated graduate of West Point that battled for the Union in the Mexican-American War of 1846 and in Texas protecting U. S. citizens from Indian attacks in the early 1850s before defending his home of Virginia while seeing Confederate monuments and battlefields.

Just because one part of history has been tarnished is no reason to remove all of it from existence. It also isn’t a reason to remove it from entertainment or educational purposes. While the Confederate Battle Flag has reached the place it should have been many years ago – in a museum case – that’s not a reason to completely strip it from U. S. history.

Now Is The Time…

After debating whether to start my own site – where I can write about many things that interest me rather than one particular subject as I do for a living – I decided to pull the trigger and start my site, EarlBurton.com. If you’ve come here, I welcome you to my thoughts as I continue on my journey of discovery.

This wasn’t something that I went into lightly. But there were two men who put their thoughts on the line everyday and, if that statement is true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I certainly hope that they are flattered upon seeing that they inspired me to start this trip.

One is my good friend Nolan Dalla. Nolan, who has been the Media Director for the World Series of Poker for the last decade, is probably one of the most intelligent people that I know. He has nearly an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of poker (I would love to see him take on the challenge of a poker history book), but it was only through his personal website that his true diversity shone through. In any given week, Nolan can run the gamut from picks for the NFL, discussion on fine wines, a dissection of a recently released movie and finish with the current state of the political world (and these are just scratching the surface). I may not always fully agree with Nolan, but he at least makes me think when I read…that’s something I would like to do.

The second one isn’t quite as well-known. His name is Jim Wright and he operates a website called Stonekettle Station. If your senses aren’t set to NSFW, then Jim’s site isn’t for you. He will blast into language that would make a whore blush, but the usage of such language is reminiscent of such societal critics as George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and others. It SEEMS appropriate when Jim uses such vulgarities to get his point across. I’m not going to say that I will ever write and use the style that Jim does, but he certainly has given me the drive – along with Nolan – to finally launch this endeavor.

Now that we have that concluded, what are you going to find here? It’s going to be a mixed bag. I am a poker journalist by trade, but there is so much more that goes on around us that I would like to write about. Politics, music, sports, video games, having children (fortunate to have a great son who is a constant joy), married life (a great wife is always something that makes life exciting)…the list could (and probably will) go on to include these and other subjects. Wherever it goes, I certainly hope that it is a journey that you enjoy with me.

With that, buckle your seat belts…it’s time for the mind ship to blast off…