Ryan Osentowski – The Conservative Blind Guy

Prove Me Wrong

I was gonna come here and write about Star Trek: The Next Generation…but…here we are.

I shouldn’t have to put this in writing, but given the perilous times in which we live, I guess it is necessary.

I am unalterably opposed to political violence on an individual basis in a free and open society, such as the one we enjoy here in America. There are no exceptions.

I condemn the attack on the Congressional Republican baseball practice in 2017 that resulted in the injury of Congressman Steve Scalise and others. There are no buts.

I condemn the nation-wide riots that occurred in 2020 in the name of George Floyd, in which lives and property were destroyed. There are no buts.

I condemn the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. There are no buts.

I condemn the attack on our nation’s capital on January 6, 2021, at the instigation of President Donald Trump. There are no buts.

I condemn the attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the wake of the controversial Dobbs Decision in 2022. There are no buts.

I condemn the attack on Paul Pelosi in 2022. There are no buts.

I condemn the violent protests on college campuses and in American streets that began shortly after October 7, 2023, and included the taking of hostages, physical assaults and racial and ethnic threats. There are no buts.

I condemn the two assassination attempts on Donald Trump that occurred during his presidential campaign in 2024. There are no buts.

I condemn the cold-blooded murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in 2024. There are no buts.

I condemn the terrorist truck attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve, 2025, that killed 14 and injured 57. There are no buts.

I condemn the murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. in 2025. There are no buts.

I condemn the firebombing of peaceful marchers in Boulder, Colorado in 2025. There are no buts.

I condemn the murders of Melissa and Mark Hortman, and the attempted murders of John and Yvette Hoffman in Minnesota in 2025. There are no buts.

I condemn the assassination of Charlie Kirk at a college campus in Utah in 2025. There are no buts.

I grieve for the families and loved ones who are left devastated in the wake of these abhorrently evil acts.

I will admit that I flirted with the idea of voting for Joe Biden in 2020, just to get rid of Trump. Y’all see how well that worked out? I never considered voting for Kamala Harris last year. Still, some people who were once conservative now find it prudent to not only stand against Trump, but endorse Democrats. This includes Liz Cheney, the idiots over at the Bulwark, and New York Times columnist David French, who endorsed Kamala Harris last year. That one was really a heartbreaker for me.

While I have occasionally voted for a Democrat politician, I have never explored joining the Democrat Party. We are simply incompatible in too many fundamental ways. While many party values and platforms have shifted over the years (protectionist Republicans were never on my Bingo card), there is one area where the Dems have remained consistent. They are the pro-crime, pro-terrorist, pro-Communist, anti-American party. What’s more, the Democrats have been the gaslight party for decades.

I can’t forget how outraged I was in the summer of 2020 when so-called health experts claimed that racism was a greater public health threat than was COVID. Democrat politicians stood by with meek, tepid reactions as looters and rioters ran rampant in our cities, though they were much more concerned about President Trump’s possible overreaction. I can’t forget how quiet they were on balance during various racial riots in Ferguson, Staten Island, Baltimore, Baton Rouge and Milwaukee. I can’t forget the degree of political cowardice they’ve shown as Jewish-Americans have been threatened, harassed and menaced on campuses and on public streets in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks on Israel.

Before Trump came to power, Democrats were the ones who were sympathetic toward the Soviet Union, Communist China, dictatorial South American regimes (plus Cuba), and oppressive Islamic countries in the Middle East. I can’t forget that it was the Democrats who screamed about Islamophobia in the wake of 9/11, even when it was obviously inappropriate. I can’t forget how the ever-growing feminist influencers within Democrat ranks have championed western feminism, while blatantly ignoring the flagrant abuse of women in Asian, Muslim and African countries.

I can’t forget how the Democrats have defended illegal aliens who have been guilty of murder, human trafficking, drug smuggling and identity theft, all while championing a porous border. Have another margarita, Senator Van Hollen. I can’t forget how scores of hyper progressive mayors, district attorneys, city council members and school board members have come to power in blue cities, resulting in rising crime, violence, property theft and economic downturn. Democrats love to champion the civil rights of the criminals, all while minimizing or ignoring the rights of the victims of crime.

For decades, the left has dominated America’s schools, our entertainment industry, our journalism outlets, our medical industry, our unions and our government employee sector. The result has been a generation of people who no longer believe in things that I have taken for granted. While the Washington Post proclaims that, “Democracy dies in darkness,” young people now hold the basic tenants of democracy in contempt. Poll after poll shows that college-age youth think that violence is acceptable in order to stop so-called, “hate speech,” and that free speech should not be absolute.

Brian Thompson, Sarah Lynn Milgrim, Melissa Hortman and Charlie Kirk are the tragic but inevitable results.

Sidebar: I know most people blame the internet, but I think academia is the chief villain in the lineup. If teachers and professors were instructing our young in the art of critical thinking instead of engaging in ideological indoctrination, they would be able to forge the uncharted waters of the internet with more aplomb.

I also can’t forget how the Democrats are the party that has used gaslighting tactics to great effect. I can’t forget how Democrat politicians and their sympathetic media allies sneered at those of us who knew that Joe Biden was too old and infirm to run for a second term. They call conservatives science deniers for questioning the impact of manmade climate change on the environment, then deny basic biology by claiming that gender is a, “social construct.” Their latest attempt was to hurriedly brand Charlie Kirk’s killer as a MAGA right-wing extremist, long before the FBI and Governor Cox released details from the investigation. Jimmy Kimmel just paid the price for those tactics.

This is nothing new for Democrats. They, along with their fringe elements, are the party that has adopted slogans such as, “words are violence,” “silence is complicity,” “no justice, no peace,” and “From the river to the sea.” All of these declarative slogans have blurred the lines between civil and uncivil discourse. Yet, the Democrats will never acknowledge the distinctions. When they are on the defensive, they love to pivot to championing free speech and civil conduct, but only when another body has fallen.

Anyone who has read this blog or who knows me knows that I have been relentlessly critical of Donald Trump and the Republican Party ever since he rose to power in 2015. Trump has had his role to play in all of this and I make no excuses or apologies for him. But I will say that Trump has been a reaction to the encroachment of the left on the culture of normality and traditional values that Americans have depended upon since our founding. If the local authorities had done their jobs in Washington D.C., Trump would not have had cause to call upon the National Guard for extra protection.

No, my friends. This is why I will never become a Democrat. And it’s also why I can’t even begin to understand what David French was thinking when he endorsed Kamala Harris. If you listen to folks like Bill Kristol, Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell and Mike Murphy, you get the sense that they were always kind of dickish. They like to be in the room where it happens and if they have to change horses to be there, they’ll do it. But David French is a genuinely nice guy who has a good heart and a sound brain. I’ve pasted articles by him in this blog. If you were to ask him, he would tell you that the only way to break the Trump fever in the GOP is to defeat Trump at the ballot box. This may be true, but when French endorsed Kamala, he de facto endorsed the platform of the Democrat Party. That includes all of the things I listed above. French accuses Republicans of making a Faustian bargain in order to consolidate power. This is true, but the sad irony is that David French made the self-same Faustian bargain when he chose to throw in with the Democrats. He has turned toward the same darkness that has consumed the Republican Party, and I fear the costs to his soul will be great.

As for me, I’ve found intellectual and spiritual liberation in being an independent. I will always be a conservative, but I hold no obligation to any organization or individual.

As for the assassination of Charlie Kirk, it’s a red line with me. If you are going to celebrate or justify it, stay out of my face. As I always say, political violence is a poison pill that solves nothing in the long term. You wanna get called out? Tell me that Charlie Kirk brought it on himself. In fact, if it hadn’t been for his murder, I would have continued to write him off as another self-seeking grifter in Trump’s orbit. I’ve taken the time over the past week to watch a lot of his video clips and I really respect the guy and what he was trying to accomplish. He was doing what the American professoriate has failed to do. He was out there on college campuses teaching students how to debate and defend their point of view. For that, he was killed.

I want to hold Charlie’s widow Erika in my arms and cry with her and hug his kids and tell them how sorry I am that they lost their dad. I just lost my dad too, but I got to spend a lot more time with him than they did. It’s not fair, goddamnit! But I’m not built that way. I’m not a crier. I didn’t even cry at Dad’s funeral, even though I was devastated. I’ll just get pissed on the Widow Kirk’s behalf and keep up the good fight.

I feel like this entry has meandered a bit, so let me put a fine point on it. I roundly condemn and denounce political violence without equivocation. The Democrats are the party who have consistently engaged in whataboutism, bothsidesism, moral equivalence, gaslighting, speech policing, strawmanning, sealioning and a lot of other bad faith tactics in the political sphere. Republicans have started doing this more since Trump took power and I’m sorry as hell to see it. They’re winning right now, but I honestly believe that they will live to deeply regret the choices they’ve made. This is why I am a conservative. It is the best reality I can cling to in these foggy waters.

You know what? I wonder if David French regrets his endorsement of Kamala Harris after he read her book. I’ve only read the excerpts published online, but honestly, I’m kind of embarrassed for the poor guy. If he hadn’t blocked me on Twitter, I could ask him.

Cervenka Strikes Back

“I am convinced that my life’s work will vindicate itself.”
Vidkun Quisling

We live in strange times indeed. 2025 does feel as if it is a cursed year. This is the era when Trump 2.0 has come to power, when all the laws of normal politics and morality say that he should not have triumphed. This is the era when people who call themselves LGBTQ wave flags and chant slogans in support of a brutal government that would execute them all if it were able. This is the era when measles are on the rise in the US, thanks to HHS Secretary RFK. It is the era of zombie rabbits, another tepid Superman reboot, Chat GPT term papers and an assault with a deli weapon in DC.

I admit it…I borrowed that last one from Twitter.

Anyway, it’s a wild and whacky time. So it was the perfect time for Stacy goddamn Cervenka to come roaring back into the midst of the blindness rehabilitation community.

In case you don’t have the time or energy to flip back through these hallowed blog pages, here’s a refresher. You’ll remember that Stacy Cervenka was the controversial figure at the center of the sexual misconduct scandal that rocked the National Federation of the Blind in 2021. Stacy lead a group of brave, outspoken victims of assault as they demanded that the NFB make fundamental changes to their three training centers in the name of safety and security for all students. Their demands were crystallized in an open letter that took to task, not only the practices of the training centers with regard to sexual misconduct, but criticized many of the practices at the very core of the structured discovery curriculum itself.

Four years later, from my outsider’s perspective, it looks like the survivors won the battle, but the NFB won the war. To my knowledge, no one of consequence was fired or resigned over the scandals. It did appear that Cervenka was relegated to relative obscurity. Her husband quit his job as director of the Orientation Center at the Nebraska Center for the Blind one step ahead of being terminated. Many believe that Carlos Servan, the director of NCBVI, was retaliating on behalf of Fred Schroeder, who was the only major casualty in the campaign of the #MarchingTogether Movement. Stacy went to work for some organization I’ve never heard of as a policy wonk. The word in the virtual back alleys of the blindness world was that Cervenka had been blackballed by the professional disability community over her actions in 2021. Rumors also abound that, after he was removed from the NFB, Fred Schroeder is still a shadowy figure pulling strings behind the scenes. I know that sounds kind of Alex Jonesy. I’m just repeating the rumors I’ve heard.

Meanwhile, the NFB put some boiler plate language on their website in the form of a “Code of Conduct.” Some of the victims got justice. Many did not. There was an actual lawsuit against the NFB winding its way through court, but I can’t find any information on its current status.

And that’s where things stood as of June, 2025, when I saw a stunning Facebook post proclaiming that Stacy Cervenka had been appointed as the new director of the Iowa Department For the Blind. To say that I was gobsmacked by the news would be an understatement.

In some ways, I’m glad Cervenka got the job. My reasons are purely selfish. My shocked reaction to the announcement proves that I am not past all surprise. In my current disheartened, dispirited condition, I’m glad I can still be jolted out of my lethargic morosity by such happenings. I also admit to a streak of dark amusement over this turn of events. Cervenka’s sudden comeback is very Trumpian in nature. A lot of people probably thought, “That bitch played her hand and she lost. See ya, beyotch! Wouldn’t wanna be ya.” And…here she comes, back from the dead, more powerful than ever, like Freddy freakin’ Krueger.

The news of Cervenka’s appointment left me with many questions. The only one of interest to all two of you who read this blog is, how in the holy hell did she get the job? Governor Kim Reynolds is not a progressive. She’s not even a moderate Democrat. Hell, she’s not even a moderate Republican. She’s MAGA, which makes her hated in leftist circles. Why would she give a revolutionary wannabe the job. All one has to do is Google Stacy Cervenka and it takes about 30 seconds to figure out that she’s way to the left of Angel Ramirez. Was it blackmail on Cervenka’s part? Maybe mind control as performed by the dark arts. Maybe Cervenka is a closet conservative and Reynolds knows it.

It is far more likely that Governor Reynolds saw Cervenka’s name on a resume, saw the name, Sam Brownback, and gave her the job. It seems like a trite, pat explanation, but remember that this is 2025.

Cervenka had barely assumed her new post when rumors began swirling on social media like Cornflakes in a toilet bowl. Frantic posts claimed that Stacy Cervenka was going to abolish the sleepshade policy from the IDB’s orientation center. Furthermore, she was going to strike structured discovery from the curriculum altogether. So much for circumspectly settling into the job.

This was the backdrop of a tense meeting that occurred between Director Cervenka and the NFB of Iowa chapter last Monday night, August 11. I came across the Zoom link and decided to go hang out like a kitty cat in the corner. It turned out that the lurker’s corner was pretty crowded. There were cats there from Colorado, Minnesota, Louisiana and even a few from Baltimore. All of them wore kitty collars that had a tag with the letters, NFB, engraved on them.

Helen Stevens (a former employee at the IDB) ran the meeting. She was about as endearing as a crocodile in a Jacuzzi. Cervenka comported herself with the bearing of a woman who carries an expensive purse with a cute little .32 concealed in it. Helen read questions that had been written in advance. There was very little follow-up after Cervenka answered each one.

The gist of the questions were, “Are you really gonna get rid of the sleepshades? And what is your criteria for making that decision? And did you include center staff in the discussions? And are you gonna stick with the long white cane? And how the hell did you even get this job? I mean really? You’re a policy wonk, not an administrator!”

Cervenka deftly lobbed back retorts such as, “We need more bodies at our center. IDB staff claims that clients won’t come unless learning shades are optional. We’re still in talks. And people with multiple disabilities might be triggered if they wear those shades. And I’ll look at the data before making a final decision. And if you don’t keep a civil tongue in your head, I’ll open up my Louis Vuitton and put ya down.”

Sidebar: Stacy sounds like a character out of Fargo. When she says the word, “down,” it sounds like she’s saying, “Doane,” which is a college in Nebraska.

After Helen read through her questions, the cats slunk out of the shadows and padded over to the table to get their licks in. I couldn’t help but notice that some of the interrogators were from Minnesota, which had a (ahem) liberal presence on the IDB staff under Cervenka’s predecessor. The dynamic was clear. They all wanted to shred Cervenka. She is threatening the very curriculum on which the NFB has built its identity for the past six decades. The Q&A was a civilized game of cat-and-mouse. Cervenka, the successful insurgent zealot versus the entrenched, stuck-up members of an elite clique who used to run the department for the blind in the former home of Kenneth Jernigan. God, the irony was scrumptious.

The meeting wrapped up around 8:30. Anyone hoping for blood sport went to bed with an empty soul. Anyone hoping for declarative or inflammatory statements from the new director of IDB didn’t get much meat in their dish. The meeting was all about posturing and subtle line-drawing. My only other stray thought is that I found it odd that Carly Prinds, the director at the IDB orientation center, did not speak once during the call.

So, here we are on a muggy weekend in August, 2025, still muddling our way through a foggy landscape with more questions than answers. Will Director Cervenka succeed in transforming the sleepshade policy? Will the NFB stand for any changes Cervenka attempts to implement? Will Minnesota ever get another Blind Inc. so that some of those creatures of the clique can get jobs? And seriously…how the hell did Stacy Cervenka really get her job? Did Governor Reynolds use AI in her job search? We will probably never know.

For my money, no blind person will choose the sleepshades if given the option. Their natural tendency will be to use their residual vision whenever they can. I appreciate the argument that the center needs more bodies, but at what cost? If the question is one of a lack of compulsory shade use, no one ever chooses blindness.

Connie Mendenhall, the Chief Information Officer at the IDB, kept comparing the IDB to a business. I would respectfully suggest that a government agency is different than a business. In fact, it’s usually conservatives that tend toward the idea that government should be run like a business. How’d that work out for Elon?

I’m also curious what Cervenka’s limiting principle would be. If IDB allows the reservations of students over the sleepshades to impact policy, where would it end? Would IDB eventually make allowances for a guide dog user who did not want to use the cane? What about someone who wanted only instruction in text magnification software as opposed to a screenreader? What about someone who wanted to learn cane travel, but not braille or cooking? Where does Cervenka draw the line? In her view, was Stephanie Dohmen in the right or in the wrong 23 years ago?

It’s already a well-established fact that my crystal ball is about as accurate as a weather man’s forecast, but I’ll make a prediction anyway. Cervenka won’t last in the job. She’ll either flame out, get fired, or perish at her desk; possibly at the hands of Helen Stevens. Kevan Worley recently called Cervenka, “a thug,” on Facebook. Considering the source, this is another piece of chocolate cake irony. She’s not a thug. She’s crazy…like a fox. That said, I give her a year before her house of cards comes crashing down. I know many people champion Cervenka and want her to succeed, but I think she’s nuttier than a jar of Chunky Jif. I’ve never met her, but every time I hear her speak, I get a distinctively Taylor Lorenz vibe from her.

Sidebar: Taylor Lorenz is a so-called journalist who resigned from the top two print publications in the country under a cloud. She now spends her time on Substack, freaking out over masks while simultaneously stroking Luigi Mangione.

On the other side of the fence, it’s clear that the NFB learned nothing from the scandal four years ago. This sad truth is high-lighted by an example from my old stomping grounds at the Colorado Center for the Blind earlier this summer. During the annual summer program, the residential manager had loud sex with his girlfriend in his apartment. I am certainly not opposed to loud sex. In fact, I applaud it, but not when it is within the hearing of underage summer students. Some of their parents objected as well. Three of them were pulled from the program early and went home.

To my knowledge, the residential manager has faced no consequences for his actions. His girlfriend still has full access to the apartment complex. Julie Deden is still running things over there.

To quote Billy Joel, “And so it goes…and so it goes.”

In other news, I still miss my dad. Now is the time when I should be at the cabin with him, smoking a cigar and drinking a beer on the back deck, listening to the lake ripple nearby, not talking to him about blind politics. Miss you, Dad.

Dad

Maybe some of you remember a cheesy ‘70’s era song called, “The Blind Man in the Bleachers.” It was originally written as a country song, but it was popularized on the pop charts by David Geddes who called it, “The Last Game of the Season (A Blind Man in the Bleachers.” If you’ve heard it and don’t remember, that’s understandable. It’s very forgettable.

The song concerns a blind father who sits in the bleachers every Friday night while his kid warms the bench on the local high school football team. During the final game of the season, the kid’s blind dad is absent, but no one notices. The home team is losing bad, so they put the kid in at half-time. The kid plays his heart out, the team comes from behind for the win and everyone but the kid is happy. It seems that the kid’s dad has died. When the coach asks the kid, “What made you play so good, son?” the kid answers, “It was the first time my daddy saw me play.”

As I said, this was ‘70’s era pop music; heavy on the sap, heavier on the backup vocals, and light on subtlety. I hated it when I first heard it in 2001, and I still hate it today. The message of the song is supposed to be spiritual and inspirational, tugging at the heart strings of a sighted public who collectively wish that all blind people could be cured. If you read between the lines, what you learn is that the blind dad had to die to make a real impact on his son. Most people don’t get it.

When it comes to my father, Richard Osentowski, we have to flip the script of this song that came into being when he was 29 years old. Where my dad was concerned, I was the blind kid in the bleachers, my brother Jared was on the ball field and Dad was usually sitting next to me in the stands. Jared might have been playing baseball, football or basketball, but Dad was always there, lending quiet encouragement and constructive criticism to Jared.

We spent a lot of time at ballparks, football stadiums and basketball courts when I was a kid. I loved traveling to Lincoln, Omaha and Scottsbluff, but I was usually bored during sporting events. I would drag along my portable tape player or Walkman and listen to a book or the radio. In fact, I gained my love of radio partially at baseball fields around the state. The only real time thing I enjoyed about ballgames was the concession stand. Man, you can’t beat a hot dog and an ice cold coke at a summer ballgame.

To the average reader, this probably raises a question. How could I connect with my dad when we were so different? Dad was an outdoorsman, through and through. He loved to hunt. I loved to hunt for Pringles in the pantry. Dad loved to fish. I loved to eat fish sticks. Dad loved westerns and sporting events on TV. I loved Star Trek, Batman and Matlock. Dad was a physically fit, athletic man. The only time I cared about exercise was in college, when I engaged in certain aerobic activities with girls in my dorm room at UNL. Otherwise, I was a pretty lazy kid.

You might read this and think that Dad was not an important presence in my life. It is true that, as a blind kid, my mother was more attentive. Mom drove me to blind camps, she connected with my counselors and teachers, she served on a couple of blindness-related committees, and she even tried to learn Braille. As the sighted parent of a blind kid, Dad didn’t know how to connect with me. But if you were to conclude that Dad was unimportant in my life, you would be dead wrong.

On Easter Sunday, 1987, our family came home from Grandma and Grandpa’s house, then Dad packed up the truck and left again to make his weekly trip to Crawford, NE, where he loved to hunt turkeys with some of his buddies. That night, I cried myself to sleep in my pillow. There was no particular reason for it. I knew he was coming back in a week. I knew we would be all right without him. I just missed Dad being there. He was a calming, reassuring presence in a house full of boys, dogs, hamsters, guinea pigs, goldfish and an occasional rabbit. When he was gone, we all felt it.

Dad was there for me in many other important ways throughout my life. In high school, he picked me up once a week and took me to lunch. He introduced me to Rush Limbaugh and advised me to pay attention to current events. He urged me to chase my dream of one day being on the radio. When I graduated high school and moved to Lincoln, Dad was there. When I came home from college for Spring Breaks and Christmas vacations, Dad was there. When I moved from Lincoln to Denver to go to broadcast school, Dad carried boxes and drove the Suburban. When I moved from Denver to Omaha to take a job at RTBS, Mom and Dad paid for my move and helped unpack my new apartment.

But it wasn’t just the major events. Dad was always there for birthday parties, for holiday dinners, for nights in front of the TV with Mom, my brothers and a bowl of popcorn, and for lazy afternoons in the backyard with our dog and the garden hose. Dad was there at our cabin at Sherman Lake, he was there when I took my first horseback ride at the ranch at Crawford, he was there for silly musicals at Windy Hills Elementary, and he was there for high school theater plays. When I rode the waves on the tube and got dumped off in the water, Dad was driving the boat, laughing at me. When I came home from college, or from Denver to visit the family, Dad was the one who always picked me up from the bus station. Dad was there when I smoked my first cigar, when I drank my first beer, and when I fired my first shot from a .357 Magnum.

Unlike many of my Generation X contemporaries who came from broken or dysfunctional homes, Dad was a stable, constant presence in my life. But more importantly, Dad was a role model. He was not preachy. He did not indulge in long, windy lectures. He was not a cold, controlling person who gave stern orders. Dad was a calm, collected person who seldom lost his temper. I can count on one hand the times that he spanked me. In all three cases that I can remember, I deserved it.

Dad was not a trash-talker. When he and Mom had a fight, he would never run her down to us boys outside of her hearing. Come to think of it, Dad seldom badmouthed anyone whom he didn’t like. He could certainly be judgmental, but his judgments were usually tempered and more measured than most. Even in the realm of politics, Dad was more soft-spoken than many of his peers. And he certainly wasn’t the kind of guy who yelled at ball players or officials from the stands, particularly when the players were kids.

I won’t tell you that Dad was a perfect parent. There is no such thing. I always suspected that he invested too much of himself in Jared’s athletic success. It is also no secret that Dad was a drinker. He was able to maintain a healthy work-life balance until he retired from State Farm in 2012, but after that, he began to spend too much time at home. His excessive drinking ultimately took a toll on his physical wellbeing, restricting him from doing the outdoor physical activities that he loved so much. I don’t offer this fact to dishonor Dad’s memory or to embarrass the family. Dad was actually a blast to party with at holiday time. I often said that Mom and Dad threw better parties than any of my college pals.

Four weeks ago (the day after Father’s Day), Dad fell and hit his head on the hard wood floor. Mom called the ambulance and they rushed him to the hospital. Mom called the three of us to let us know what had happened. I called Dad’s phones and spoke to him for about two minutes. He was his usual self, laughing at me when I said, “Dad, you need to quit chasing Mom around the kitchen.” It was the last time I ever spoke to him. Two hours later, he lost consciousness.

Dad went in for brain surgery, where the doctors determined that he had massive brain trauma. He spent a week in the ICU, most of that time in a medically-induced coma, connected to life support. On Monday, June 23, 2025, our family came together at his bedside and made the heartbreaking decision to remove him from life support. He lasted barely 10 minutes before he passed away. It was the most emotionally devastating thing I’ve ever experienced. Yet, Dad had made his wishes crystal clear in his living will. After the doctors had exhausted the possibility of him making even a partial recovery, the decision to end his suffering was relatively easy to render. The emotional fall-out, on the other hand, was brutal.

Sidebar: I want to give a special shout-out to my brother Nate and my sister-in-law Missy for doing the most to take care of our family (especially Mom) during the trials of the past month. Dad would be proud.

So now, Dad isn’t here. There will be no more cold afternoons on the back deck with him, enjoying a cold beer and a cigar as we listen to the ducks and geese frolic on the lake. There will be no more Dad, greeting me at the bus station, shoving a cold can into my hand as we drive home in his pickup to see Mom. There will be no more playing three-way fetch with Gracie and Dad on the family room floor. No more phone calls or texts about politics, the weather, the Huskers, or family updates. No more of Dad’s famous fried pheasant at Christmas dinner, or his delicious fried fish fingers at the cabin on Father’s Day. After 50 years of Dad always being there when I needed him, he is gone now.

Or, is he?

Two days after Dad’s fall when he was still in the hospital, I slept in. Mom, Nate and Missy had already gone to the hospital. I showered, dressed and called for an Uber to take me over. As I waited in the front driveway, a turkey gobbled at me from across the street. He sounded almost close enough to touch. He gobbled three times. I was sure it was Dad, trying to communicate something to me.

The other night, I went to an Omaha Storm Chasers game with some friends. It was a loud affair with blaring music, rowdy people and a P.A. announcer who never shut up. But there came a point when I heard a quiet pause, followed by a rousing cheer from the Omaha fans. I could swear that I felt Dad right over my shoulder for a few seconds. It was almost as if, if I’d turned quickly enough, he would’ve been there to hand me a cold one.

The truth is that Dad isn’t gone. You can find him in every word of this blog; even the naughty parts. Dad would always say, “Be a class act,” but he would usually chuckle when I stepped out of line. You can find Dad every time I struggle to do the right thing. You can find Dad in the lives of my brothers and my two sisters-in-law. You can find him in his eight grandchildren scattered across the country. You will find him in the quiet peace of nature, in the cheer of a stadium crowd or in the upbeat rhythm of dance music. You can still find Dad whenever you smell the aroma of a steak grilling in a backyard somewhere, or in the fragrant smoke of a cigar on the back porch. I’m sure his spirit is vibrant out there on the northern prairie of the Rockin’ Oz Ranch. Dad is gone, yet, he is everywhere.

In the teaching spirit of Rich Osentowski, I will conclude with a few short lessons under Dad’s favorite saying, “Life’s about choices.” When you retire, make plans to stay busy. Without descending into a temperance lecture (which was definitely not Dad), be mindful of your excesses and try to moderate yourself. Also, be absolutely certain to have a living will, no matter your age. I can’t emphasize enough how important Dad’s living will was when the time came to make crucial decisions about his medical care. And please make sure all of your insurance premiums are up to date.

The most important lesson that my father taught me is this. Being a good dad isn’t about speeches, or having the right answers, or about being perfect. It’s only about being there for your kids. In that arena, Dad was a resounding success.

Goodbye, Dad. I will always miss you. I love you. Thank you for marrying Mom. Thank you for my life.

Your proud son,

Ryan Osentowski – The blind kid in the bleachers

Richard Alan Osentowski, age 77 of Kearney, Nebraska passed away Monday, June 23, 2025 at Good Samaritan Hospital. Richard’s wishes for cremation were honored. The celebration of Rich’s life will be Thursday, July 3, 2025 at 10:30AM at Prince of Peace Catholic Church. Father Scott Harter will celebrate. There will be no visitation. In lieu of flowers, memorials are suggested to the NU foundation – Osentowski Family Scholarship Fund. Please visit www.hlmkfuneral.com to leave a message or condolence. Horner Lieske McBride & Kuhl Funeral and Cremation Service is in charge of arrangements.

Rich was born September 24, 1947 in Ord, Nebraska to Dorothy (Johnson) Osentowski and Dr. Frank J. Osentowski, DDS. Along the way he played every sport; from grade school to graduation. Rich was an All-State Class B basketball player. He won the Class B Nebraska State Golf medal his senior year. Rich was inducted into the Ord High School Hall of Fame for Golf and All-Around Athlete.

Initially, Rich was headed to the University of Nebraska to play basketball and golf for the Huskers. After a change of heart, Rich and his mother Dorothy paid a visit to football coach Al Zikmund at Kearney State College. Rich played football and baseball with honors for four years. As a quarterback, Rich helped lead the 1967 Lopers to an undefeated season. He was inducted into the UNK Athletic Hall of Fame in 1984.

On August 17, 1968 he married Karen Goble (Miss Kearney as he called her) from Beatrice, Nebraska. In 1969 Rich was drafted in the fifth round by the Minnesota Twins. He played his first summer in Sarasota, FL with Hall of Fame pitcher Bert Blylevin. After a successful summer in St. Cloud, MN, Rich hung up the spikes. Instead of pursuing baseball, he signed a teaching and coaching contract in Grand Island. He taught physical education, coached football, track and field for three years.

In June of 1973 Rich and Karen moved back to Kearney, launching his 39-year career as a State Farm Insurance Agent. Policy holders were his priority. With their loyalty and support, Rich and his staff built and maintained an award-winning agency. In 1979, Rich appeared in State Farm’s “Like A Good Neighbor” campaign. The commercial featuring Rich and his policyholders, Mike and Ellen Keenan of Kearney, aired nationally on NBC, ABC and CBS.

Rich was involved in numerous organizations in the community, fulfilling leadership roles and spearheading fundraising efforts as needed. He enjoyed coaching baseball and football; embracing young players. Rich cheered for all Husker athletics, but was a dedicated, loyal and contributing Loper Alumni. When not serving his policy holders or participating in his community, Rich could be found in his satellite office hunting, fishing, or golfing.

Left to cherish his memory are wife Karen of 56 years, sons Jared (Anne) of Shakopee, MN, Richard Ryan of Omaha, NE, Nate (Missy) of Rose, NE. His grandchildren, Hunter, Josephine, Jackson, Mackenzie, Emma, Ellie, Alexa and Olivia blessed his life and his heart with adoring love.

Preceding him in death are his parents and brother, Francis Eugene Osentowski, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins.

Soft as a Mutt’s Butt

Let us now turn our attention to a story of a bunch of people who are pitted against each other in a vicious, high stakes game of blood sport. No, I’m not talking about the Trump Administration. I’m talking about The Hunger Games.

Maybe you knew that a new installment in Suzanne Collins’ series came out a couple of months ago. Of course, it’s another prequel. This one focuses on Haymitch Abernathy, the prickly, drunken mentor of Katniss Everdeen. This novel seeks to explain Haymitch’s life in District 12, how he was chosen for the 50th annual Hunger Games in The Capital, and how he came to be the wrung-out drunkard who mentored Katniss and Peeta in the original books.

Let me warn my two readers that spoilers abound from this point. I advise you to go read Sunrise on the Reaping yourselves, form your own conclusions, then come back to absorb my obviously correct opinions.

Yes, Haymitch takes center stage in this story. When I first heard about it, I was excited. Next to Katniss, Haymitch was always my favorite character from the books. I should also say that I was less than impressed with Woody Harrelson’s interpretation of him from the movies. Woody’s version played Haymitch as a boozer who was a burn-out, but who was humorous and charming underneath the prickliness. As the movies progress, he evolves to affectionate avuncularity toward Katniss.

I realize that this is subjective, but how many of you who read the original trilogy got the impression that Haymitch was always kind of a jerk, even before he survived the Hunger Games and became an unwilling mentor under the boot of President Snow?

If you took this vibe from the book version, you’re not alone. I too got the idea that Haymitch was never really a warm, cuddly person. This is a perfectly reasonable take. If you know anyone who is of above average intelligence, you’ll often find that they are not particularly nice or endearing people. In my experience, ultra-smart people seldom suffer fools gladly, have very little patience with opinions that differ from their own and are not particularly adept at effectively communicating their inner voice to the outer world. In other words, they may have plenty of intellect, but they are often lacking in emotional awareness or empathy.

That was book Haymitch to a T. Of course, Katniss comes to know him as a tragic, solitary alcoholic who has no tolerance for her willful, headstrong ways, especially when he is proven right in the face of her stubbornness. It is a credit to Collins that, despite the current trend of girl power in young adult fiction, she writes Katniss as a flawed human being who indeed discovers that Haymitch (a man) kind of knows what he’s talking about when she is out of her depth.

I prefer Haymitch, the irascible asshole we come to know in the original Katniss trilogy. What if you peeled back the layers of pre-Hunger Games Haymitch and discovered that he was, in fact, kind of a prick all along? Would that not make him a character worthy of exploration? Would that mean that he couldn’t have a moral center? Think of Dr. Gregory House. Before he experienced muscle death in his leg and used it disability as an excuse to become a pill-popping dick, he was still an unpleasant, unhappy person. Yet, House did have a moral code that helped to redeem him for the audience. Why do we need to sanitize this notion in a dystopian world of authoritarianism and autocracy? In fact, wouldn’t an arrogant, smartass Haymitch be a more lamentable figure when he ultimately loses his battle with President Snow than watching Mr. Nice Guy get owned? Even if he were a full-fledged jerk, Haymitch has plenty of reasons to be prickly, even before the games. He’s a super smart kid living under the yoke of an oppressive regime with a bunch of indigent people who are dumber than he is. Why is that a story not worth telling?

If you agree with my impressions of Haymitch, you may find Sunrise on the Reaping to be a disappointment. When we meet Haymitch for the first time, he’s a relatively normal, happy kid. Like Katniss, he’s taking care of his family in the impoverished, oppressed District 12. He’s also in love with a gypsy music girl named, Lenore Dove. I mean, like, really in love, like, teenage boy love. Love, like, he talks to the spirit of Lenore while he’s in the arena. If you want to give alcoholic Haymitch a run for his money, play a drinking game wherein you take a big gulp every time Suzanne Collins writes the catch phrase, “I love you like all fire.” Take two drinks every time Haymitch says some variation of, “Time to play the rascal.” Take three drinks every time he cries.

Did we really need all that lovey-dovey shit? I’m a big romantic at heart and I dig a good love story as much as the next straight guy, but come on! God knows we got plenty of that in the Katniss Chronicles with her emotional oscillations between Gale and Peeta. Even future President Snow got smitten with his tribute. Why couldn’t Haymitch just be in love with Edgar Allan Poe and have done with it?

Whoa there! I’m putting the chariot before the horse. Sorry ‘bout that. Anyway, as the story opens, Haymitch is actually in a happy relationship with a girl, is nice to his younger brother, loves his mama and only pretends to be a rakish rascal from time to time in order to annoy adult authority figures. But he’s a good kid at heart and it shows. There’s also nothing to suggest that Haymitch possesses brilliance-level intelligence. Sure, he’s a smart kid with some streetwise cred, but he’s not a genius by any stretch.

Of course, Haymitch’s tranquil existence goes shitside up when, through a twist of fate, he is selected for the 50th Hunger Games. He is ripped away from his family, his girlfriend and his mostly peaceful life in order that he may provide the rich, entitled citizens of The Capital with some gladiatorial combat for their amusement.

I should note here that, if you want to thumbnail version of How Haymitch wins the games, you need only consult Chapter 14 of the second HG novel, Catching Fire, in which Katniss and Peeta watch the tape of Haymitch’s experiences. You can capture the entirety of the events in about four minutes, including how Haymitch wins the contest. Collins knows this, of course, so she has to add some extra plot elements and backstory to elevate the emotional stakes for veteran readers. In service of this, we get return engagements with familiar characters like Plutarch Heavensbee, Effie Trinket, Mags and, of course, President Snow. In Catching Fire, we are left to conclude that Haymitch found the edge of the arena containing the force field because he was smart enough to deduce that it was there. In the current novel, we discover that Haymitch figures it out because he is carrying out a mission assigned to him by Plutarch, who is already a clandestine rebel.

If you want more of what made the original Hunger Games novels so dark and gritty, you get plenty of it here. We have a blood-soaked slaughter with many heartbreaking deaths, some of which involve children who don’t even shave yet. There’s a plot involving a tribute named Louella McCoy that is particularly shattering. We get action, treachery, resourcefulness of the main character and random terror from mutated animals (called mutts) that add that extra bit of demonic intensity. We are treated to carnivorous squirrels, electric butterflies, poison apples and a porcupine with lethal projectile quills.

What we don’t really get is a story that we haven’t already been told. We already know that President Snow is an evil, vindictive man who will render Haymitch’s victor a hollow one. We already know that the Hunger Games are terribly, relentlessly savage. We already know that Haymitch drinks to dull the physical, emotional and psychological pain over the trauma of the games. Even with the extra frosting Collins has added to the cake, we don’t really learn much about the bleak and brutal world of Panem.

All that said, Collins deserves a lot of credit. In a world where creative types (especially young adult authors) wear their politics on their sleeves and bludgeon their readers with it, she has always played her hand close to the vest. My limited research has not turned up any interview where she has sounded off about war, class disparity, media propaganda or even climate change. Aside from some general comments in service of her books, she doesn’t use her position as a soapbox. Her messages are evident, but she allows the readers to form their own conclusions.

One of her obvious points concerns state-sponsored media disinformation. When Katniss and Peeta watch the tape of Haymitch’s contest, they are viewing a deceptively edited final product, courtesy of The Capital. The point of Sunrise on the Reaping is that Haymitch’s authentic story can now be shared with the fans. The behind-the-scenes account is meant to be poignant and devastating, but for me, it didn’t really land. The softened Haymitch is too different from the image I had conceived in my mind’s eye.

As is always the case with prequels, we get a lot of box-checking. Where did Madge get the MockingJay pin? Check. Is Mags an extra tragic figure? Check. Did Haymitch know Katniss’s parents when they were kids. Check? We even learn the *real* reason why Haymitch always calls Katniss, “Sweetheart.” Hint: He’s not patronizing or needling her as we originally assumed. Bummer.

It would be the irony of ironies of Collins herself fell victim to media influence in the writing of this book. I’m referring to the Woody Harrelson version of Haymitch from the movies. As I read this novel, it struck me that the Haymitch we come to know in Sunrise in the Reaping would be a dead ringer for the Harrelson version of the character. What if Suzanne Collins gave us unfiltered, undiluted Haymitch in her original trilogy, but then the movies colored even her perceptions of the character? Remember that the last HG novel was published in 2010, almost two years before the first movie. How’s that for irony?

I’m approaching this book with a critical eye, but I really did enjoy it. I certainly liked it better than the previous installment dealing with the backstory of Coriolanus Snow, though I also do recommend that one for HG enthusiasts. In fact, in another paradox, I found A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes to be less entertaining, but more informative than Sunrise on the Reaping.

The 50th Quarter Quell was more straight forward and less circuitous. I guess I just want to know why we couldn’t get Haymitch the jerk, rather than Haymitch the nice boy who’s just putting on an act for The Capital? Could it be that Collins didn’t want anyone (particularly male readers) to interpret her treating Haymitch the jerk respectfully as a tacit endorsement of *gasp* “toxic male behavior?” “How dare you call Katniss sweetheart, you mansplainer!” In a contemporary world where male figures like Donald Trump, Elon Musk and J. D. Vance are viewed as heroes by scores of young men, Collins may have felt it paramount to show Haymitch as a paragon of male virtue; or at least, the leftist stereotype of it.

There is certainly plenty of wiggle room in my theory. Maybe folks should read the book and decide for themselves. Whatever you do, go reread the original Katniss trilogy. Those books hold up beautifully. In fact, I’ve seen a few pundits on Twitter recently crapping on the books as, “Fifth grade level material.” All due respect…go chew on a tracker jacker. The Hunger Games is a compelling piece of fiction that has a lot of important things to say. My compliments to Suzanne Collins for bringing this dark, soul-crushing world to life so vividly.

Sidebar: I read The Hunger Games in 2012, four years before I got my first cat. When I reread it, the scene near the end of MockingJay when Katniss is reunited with Buttercup just wrecked me. I mean…I’m glad Kylie doesn’t judge. I should also mention that Katniss wasn’t a warm and cuddly girl either. She wanted to drown Buttercup until her sister interfered. What kind of twisted freak does that!?

I see that a movie about Sunrise on the Reaping is already in production. It will be released sometime in 2026. I’ll probably go see it. So what’s next on Collins’ list of prequels. Personally, I’d love the backstory of President Alma Coin. Remember her? I bet the progressives won’t like that one. President Coin proved that the resistance often become the tyrants when they win. Even if Suzanne Collins were willing to write it, I bet Hollywood won’t want to film it. Plutarch Heavensbee would be so, so disappointed.

Before I go, here’s a glimpse into my blind world, which is like District 102 in the world of minority intersectionality. I read the audiobook version of Sunrise on the Reaping. The narrator, Jefferson White, didn’t have the right voice for Haymitch. His voice was a tenor with a rasp to it. Think a more refined, slightly more effeminate version of Bob Odenkirk. I got used to him, but it did put a dampener on my reading experience. Santino Fontana was just lousy. He sounds like a glorified voice-over artist doing radio commercials.

Erin Jones, however, the BARD narrator of the original trilogy, did masterful work. You sighted Capital dwellers will have to be content with Carolyn McCormick, who does a good job, but Erin Jones is better. Erin, wherever you are, God bless you. Thank you for bringing Panem to life for us blind folk. Great job, sweetheart.

Trumpsplaining

It’s time for a new feature here in the wild and wooly land of RyanO. We now present the premier of, RyanO, The Trumpsplainer. This segment, geared toward those who are not MAGA or MAGA-adjacent, is intended to serve as a window for those of you who can’t understand how the hell Trump gets away with everything that he does. In other words, why are so many people proving to be immune to wokeism and seemingly approve of Trump’s methods?

First, let me explain that I am not MAGA. I did not vote for Donald Trump any of the three times that he ran for president. I am not a Trump fan, I loathe his personal conduct and I believe he disqualified himself to be president by his behavior on and around January 6th. But, America chose him to be our president, so I plan to spend the next four years calling balls and strikes.

Perhaps some of you in the intended audience feel that you’re above RyanO, The Trumpsplainer. That’s okay. I’m a blind guy. Every day, I encounter people who fancy themselves to be above me. God put me on this earth to educate you, so that’s what I’m gonna do. It might be that you leftists say to yourselves, “Trump is evil. I don’t need to understand anything more than that.” Frankly, that’s an obtuse, arrogant attitude and it illustrates why you just lost a major election. After all, there is no better way to combat your enemy than to understand him…or her…or them…or whatever the hell you prefer.

Topic One: Why doesn’t the Nazi charge land? This topic is dedicated to Beautiful Bethany, from Colorado.

There are three reasons why the right and center-right have thickened their skin against your numerous and spurious charges of Trump being, “Baby Hitler.” No, it’s not because we’re all Nazis. Most of us hate Hitler and Nazism and we don’t condone anything that Hitler did or said. Yes, there are some Nazis imbedded within MAGA world, but contrary to what MSNBC tells you, they are not in positions of great influence.

The first reason is that, for decades, you progressives have been calling Republicans Nazis. You compared Ronald Reagan to Hitler throughout the ‘80’s. You compared Newt Gingrich and social conservatives to Nazis throughout the ‘90’s. You compared George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to Hitler after 9/11. You even compared Mitt Romney (one of the nicest guys ever) to Hitler when he ran against Obama. In other words, you folks have been crying wolf for decades. It’s no wonder that many of us just shrug when you do it to The Donald or Elon Musk. We’ve heard it all before.

Sidebar: it’s ironic that you now love Dick Cheney and his daughter. Oh, and Mitt Romney. The only good Republican is a powerless Republican.

Second, you progressives and progressive-adjacent folks have been a lot closer to Nazism than MAGA since October 7, 2023. You are the ones who quickly downplayed and justified the mass rape and slaughter of Israelis. You are the ones who excuse and defend tearing down hostage posters of children in western cities. You are the ones who turn a blind eye toward antisemitism on college campuses and on public streets while shrieking about tolerance for other minority groups. You are the ones who have leaders who flirt with holocaust denial. If you want to understand how this behavior echoes Germany in the 1930’s, try reading a book or watching a documentary. Until you folks clean your own house, you have no business wringing your hands over Trump or Elon Musk.

Third, you’re endowing Trump with abilities that he doesn’t possess. At its core, Nazism is an ideology. Trump is the most non-ideological president in my lifetime. His lizard brain can only process what benefits him from moment to moment. He is flatly incapable of writing a book like Mein Kampf. No matter what you may hear on MSNBC or NPR, Nazism and white supremacy are still vastly unpopular here in America. As long as that is the case, Trump won’t subscribe to Nazism. He may play nice with figures on the far right, but that’s only because they kiss his ass and bring him votes. His motives are purely transactional.

Until you progressives reckon with these truths, the accusations of “Nazi” and “white supremacist” will be met with a hale and hardy, “SCREW YOU!”

This is RyanO, signing off for now, returning you to your normal programming of Trump Derangement infotainment.

President O.

I declare that the 29th Amendment to the Constitution is the law of the land. As of now, the following points are incontrovertible facts of life:

• As of now, I hereby decree that the cat is the official national emblem. Dogs will still be permitted to exist, but cats may not be disparaged or harmed in any way. Anyone who abuses a feline will waive their right to trial and receive immediate death by a thousand cat bites.

• As of now, all vending machines will carry Peanut Butter M&M’s at a reasonable discount. The only restaurant permitted to be served on Capitol Hill will be Raising Cane’s. Runza will be catered for all official state functions. The name of The White House will be changed to, The Runza Hut. All vegans, food allergy nuts and health Nazis can go live in Canada if they don’t like it.

• I hereby proclaim that all federal funds formerly earmarked to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion will be diverted to my new national “Help men get laid,” program. Many of the problems in the world would be solved if more men would put down the game controller and go out on a date.

• I officially decree that Breaking Bad is the best TV show of all time. I further outlaw the making of any new Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or comic book projects. Hollywood is now on enforced shutdown until they can get an original idea for mass appeal.

• I order that all Rap and Heavy Metal noise be permanently outlawed. I further order that all historical texts be altered to change the word, “Music,” to “Noise,” when referencing same in the name of truth and accuracy.

• I hereby proclaim that George Strait be crowned as the new Poet Laureate of America. Those who don’t like George Strait can spend time in solitary confinement, watching Cats (2019) and Battlefield, Earth on an endless loop.

• I hereby proclaim that Louis Braille’s birthday will now be a national holiday. We’re all still hung over from the holidays anyway, so why not take an extra day?

• I hereby decree that all pot dispensaries be immediately closed and replaced with cigar bars. If the potheads don’t like it, they can take their Cheetos and be illegal aliens in Canada or Mexico.

• I command that every business in America hire at least one blind or low vision worker. No exceptions. No bullshit excuses. Employers who try to dodge this very overdue law will quickly come to know the wrath of the claw.

• I decree that Elon Musk be forced to sell Twitter to a group of conservative entrepreneurs, then get his ass to work on building an autonomous, affordable car for blind people.

• I hereby proclaim that the name Karen will no longer be used as a pejorative term. My mom’s name is Karen, so when you insult the name, you’re insulting my mother. Those of you who resist will perish with Karen on your lips and the smell of raw liver in your nose.

• To show that I am not hard-hearted, I will give progressives more than they asked for. I offer a compassionate decree that, rather than a 32-hour work week, all progressives will be guaranteed an eight-hour work week with commensurate pay. The money formerly paid to them will be diverted to defense spending.

• I hereby decree that the participants of all televised confirmation hearings must be completely naked for the entire proceeding. Let’s see how you politicians like to play for the cameras while the public is laughing at the size of your disco stick or the sad state of your female funbags. You folks like to screw people for a living? Let them see why you’re a politician rather than a porn star.

• Finally, I hereby decree that the Transfer Portal is vanquished. If coaches, parents or high school punks care to defy me, then I hope you can play football after having your vitals gnawed on by your most feral fans.

Many of you will read this and say, “Ryan, you’re silly. You’re not the POTUS. There’s no 29th Amendment. This is true, but Joe Biden hasn’t been POTUS for a long while, so there’s no 28th Amendment either.

It Pays Big Money

You probably know that President Jimmy Carter passed away recently. If you tried to do a little day trading last Thursday and couldn’t, blame Carter. That’s kind of the mantra of my young life. Blame Jimmy Carter.

What you may not know is that, at his funeral, among the eulogies and farewell speeches from grandchildren and American leaders, we were treated to the laborious musical spectacle of Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood singing the worst pop anthem of all time, “Imagine.” It reminded me that Garth is the Jimmy Carter of country music. If country music sucks today, blame Garth.

I will be the first to admit that Garth Brooks got me back into country music in the early ‘90’s. I grew up with my parents playing Kenny Rogers, Waylon Jennings and The Oak Ridge Boys on their 8-track tapes, but by 1983, Top 40 radio had banished them to the dusty bin of used music.

Then, sometime in 1991, my brother started playing, “Friends in Low Places,” over and over again. After that, my pal Shane started inundating me with Randy Travis, Alan Jackson and Keith Whitley during our time at summer camp. That fall, “The Thunder Rolls,” gave way to, “Rodeo,” and soon, I had cassette copies of Garth’s first three albums in my tape case. For my birthday in 1992, I bought albums by Doug Stone and Trisha Yearwood with some birthday money I’d gotten, and the rest is history. Soon after, I had stopped listening to Hits 106 and migrated over to 102.3, KRNY.

Life in 1992 was really an endless loop of playing Garth Brooks’ first three albums. His debut album was a solid country album with a few great high-lights. The two follow-ups, No Fences and Ropin’ the Wind, are rightly considered country masterpieces. With this in mind, all of us waited with baited breath for his fourth album, The Chase, which dropped in September of 1992.

To say that reviews of The Chase were mixed to negative would be an understatement. Shitkickin’ country classics like “Two of a Kind,” and “Papa Loved Mama,” gave way to the opening track, “We Shall be Free.”

“This ain’t comin’ from no prophet
Just an ordinary man.
When I close my eyes, I see
The way this world will be
When we all walk hand in hand.”

Then, up comes the southern gospel choir, in comes the piano and organ combo, and we’re off.

“When we’re free to love
Anyone we choose
When this world’s big enough
For all different views,
When we all can worship
From our own kind of pew,
Then we shall be free.”

Ladies and gentlemen… Boys and girls… Garth Brooks… The John Lennon of country music!

A lot of the fans weren’t having it. My dad summed up the reaction the best. “Too much churchy stuff.” The song created controversy because of its perceived touting of gay rights, so Garth made a video trying to explain it. It landed about as well as a balloon full of pig shit.

The second track on, The Chase, was another Garth Brooks power ballad in the style of, “Shameless,” or “If tomorrow Never Comes.”

“Somewhere other than the night
She needs to hear I love you.
Somewhere other than the night
She needs to know you care.
And she wants to know she’s needed,
She needs to be held tight.
Somewhere other than the night.”

It wasn’t just the cringe-inducing, pandering lyrics. Garth’s formerly humble, modest down home delivery had given way to performative, theatrical vocals that often bordered on overwrought. He were singing as if he were auditioning for a musical reality TV show, which wouldn’t exist in the main stream for about another decade.

In 1993, Garth gave us his fifth offering, “In Pieces,” which amped up the arena rock element that typified his concerts. “Ain’t Going Down Till the Sun Comes Up,” “American Honky Tonk Bar Association,” and “Standing Outside the Fire,” took the place of more introspective and preachy fare. The audience seemed to love it. For me, Garth had jumped the shark. My feelings were only validated when we got “Fresh Horses,” in 1995, and “Sevens,” in 1997. By the time we got to his sad attempt at a crossover pop album under the name, Chris Gaines, all I could do was shake my head in disgust. I don’t even have the heart to talk about “Scarecrow.”

The Chris Gaines album, which was meant to be the teaser for a movie starring Garth Brooks as a pop singer with a sex addiction, really shows Garth’s true colors. He may have started out as a musician, but somewhere along the way, he bought into his own public image and transformed into a blatant marketeer.

It wasn’t just the Chris Gaines project. Anyone remember his compilation album, “The Collection,” that you could only buy at McDonald’s, featuring album tracks from the stuff that everyone had already bought? Anyone remember his, “Double Live,” album, available with six different covers? Anyone remember the TV specials that got more and more lavish and slick with each new installment? Remember how he refused to distribute his albums to any music store that sold used CD’s? Jesus! Anyone remember when he tried to play professional baseball!?

And then, there were the interviews. Garth was ubiquitous in the press throughout the ‘90’s and, if you paid attention to him, you came away with a guy whose public musings were a strange blend of Johnny Cash, Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra. An interviewer might ask him, “Garth, when are we gonna hear your new album?” He might respond with, “Well, if the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain. The music can’t be ready until it’s ready. But we’re shootin’ for September, which is when we usually try to put out a new record.” You get the idea that the album is coming out in September, but if it doesn’t, at least you’ll be watching. Profundity masquerading as bullshit, which is the hallmark of a real salesman.

The best way for a listener to study the trajectory of Garth Brooks is to compare and contrast two of his songs; “The Dance,” and “The Change.” In order to do this, you’ll have to buy a subscription to Amazon Music, as Garth can’t be bothered to offer his catalog on Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora or YouTube.

Sidebar: Garth tried to start his own music service, called GhostTunes. It went over about as well as his first marriage.

“The Dance,” is a country classic that serves as the final track on his 1989 debut album. “The Change,” is the sixth track on “Fresh Horses,” from 1995. Both songs are written by Tony Arata and sung by Garth Brooks. There, the similarities end.

“The Dance,” is a quiet, melancholy song about taking stock of your life in the face of regret. “The Change,” is a purple, preening song about a man’s refusal to be bowed by a world full of pain. Garth’s vocals on “The Dance,” are perfect. They are country music at its best; understated, modest and introspective. “The Change,” is Garth at his worst. His vocals are pompous, pretentious and entirely unconvincing. Those two songs bookend the rise and fall of Garth Brooks in my view.

If it had only been about Garth, my interest in country music would’ve been short-lived. However, in May of 1992, I began playing the three Greatest Hits albums from George Strait on repeat right along with Garth’s first three albums. By the time I graduated high school in 1993, I owned every George Strait album. George just put out his latest album, “Cowboys and Dreamers,” a couple of months ago. He’s definitely older and has lost a step, but he’s still George and I love him.

Meanwhile, I hear that Garth opened a bar in Nashville. He still sells Budweiser there because he feels that everyone should feel welcome at his bar. He was also recently accused of sexual harassment. I don’t know if he’s guilty, but if he is, I wouldn’t be surprised. Garth is the product of the Clinton era, after all. Much of his later music was infused with that metrosexual male sentiment that suggests a deep, empathetic sensitivity, all while concealing a predatory nature just beneath the surface. Take a listen to today’s country music, dominated by overgrown frat boys, and let me know how that worked out.

When the historical record is written, you can’t dispute the fact that Garth Brooks put country music back on the map in the 1990’s. But let’s imagine that there was no Garth. The more soft-spoken artists like Alan Jackson, Clint Black and Vince Gill might not have succeeded in passing the torch, but Reba Mcentire certainly would have. She is also a master marketeer and she has succeeded in transcending the boundaries of country music, all while maintaining her artistic integrity. You also can’t minimize the contributions of folks like Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Brooks and Dunn and Martina McBride. And, sadly, you also can’t ignore overrated fluffballs like Shania Twain, who just goes to prove that our world will never outgrow the T&A factor. They would have been just as successful with or without the contributions of Garth.

Can we blame Garth for wanting to expand his audience? Nope. Many artists have crossed over successfully. Taylor Swift could conduct a master class in how to shuck her country music roots in favor of pop appeal, including the grand marketing strategy of repackaging her early albums. You also can’t blame Garth for wanting to be an actor. Chris Kristofferson, Dolly Parton, Tim McGraw and Reba have all done it with greater or lesser success. But why the unnecessary shtick of Chris Gaines? I think Garth just gets off on the marketing gimmick.

As for “Imagine,” I find it ironic that he’s now singing a song that touts no religion, after cutting his teeth with lyrics like, “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers, so remember when you’re talking to the man upstairs.” Maybe he evolved. Maybe he’s an, “enlightened Christian.” Personally, I think he’s just playing to a new audience. That’s what all great salesmen do.

Like him or not, I appreciate the fact that Garth brought Chris LeDoux out of obscurity. “Whatcha Gonna Do With a Cowboy, When He Won’t Saddle Up and Ride Away?”

Hot Romulan Sex

I’m on a two-week holiday vacation, and I’ve been spending a lot of time reading, “The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek,” by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman. It’s a two-part volume that is over 50 hours in length in audio format. Here is just a small sliver of what I learned about Star Trek:

• Star Trek owes its existence as much to Lucille Ball as anyone. She owned the studio that first produced the series. She backed the show when no one else believed in it. She eventually had to sell the show to Paramount because she ran out of money, but she’s the one who got it off the ground financially. If you ever come across reruns of I Love Lucy, give her a good old Vulcan salute.

• Even though Gene Roddenberry conceived the premise of Star Trek, Gene L. Coon was the real creative power behind the original series. Roddenberry hired him after the initial 13 episodes had been written. Coon invented many of the hallmarks that came to define the series, including the Klingons, the Spock/McCoy friendly feud, the Prime Directive and the humor in Trek. If Roddenberry had gotten his way, “The Trouble With Tribbles,” would never have been made. Roddenberry hated humor on Star Trek. D.C. Fontana, Bob Justman, Coon and Roddenberry were known as, The Fab Four, by the crew. Coon quit 2/3 of the way through the show’s second season due to burn-out. He was the first casualty of a recurring pattern by Roddenberry of endearing himself to his associates, then subsequently abusing, misusing, alienating and ultimately burning them out. Later, after the passage of time, he would re-endear himself to them and the cycle would begin again. Writers are a hungry lot.

Gene L. Coon was born in my mom’s home town of Beatrice, NE. His father was a member of the KKK. My mother’s father served under General George Patton in World War II. Coon had an African-American secretary, Andreea Kindryd, who spoke very well of him. She used to answer his office phone by saying, “Coon’s Coon.” This was circa 1968. Coon would occasionally freelance for Roddenberry until his untimely death from cancer in 1974.

• William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were a couple of divas. As they continued to work on Star Trek and their popularity grew, they were notorious for interfering with the writing and directing of each Trek story on set in an effort to get more screen time. This partially contributed to the departure of Gene L. Coon. Roddenberry wrote a stern letter to Nimoy and Shatner during Season Two, including DeForest Kelley only as a matter of form. In the letter, he asserted himself as the sole controller of the series and forbad them from switching character lines, rewriting dialogue and second guessing the episode directors. The letter was taken seriously by both actors until Roddenberry stepped back from the series in season three.

• DeForest Kelley appears to be the nicest guy who worked on the original cast. No one trashed him in the book. Everyone spoke well of him, from his costars to members of the crew to the writers to the fans. Apparently, he used to carry pictures of his children and his dogs in his wallet and he loved showing them to anyone who seemed interested. This validates my love of Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, who was always my favorite character on original Trek.

• Sci-fi authors are the most thin-skinned of all writers. They absolutely hate criticism. This may be part of the reason that Harlan Ellison was so critical of Trek after his story for, “City on the Edge of Forever,” was heavily rewritten by Roddenberry and Coon. This is due to the fact that sci-fi is a concept-driven genre that is often light on characterization in favor of ideas. Star Trek served as a departure from this reality in many respects.

• Roddenberry was a notorious pervert who became more open about his preferences as his fame grew. His uninhibited lusty side came out during the development of Star Trek: Phase Two, when Captain Kirk was swimming nude with a Starfleet admiral’s daughter. Andreea Kindryd spoke of Roddenberry’s open discussion of his private sex life with his wife and other women.

During story consultations on TNG, Roddenberry wanted to know about things like Romulan sex. In the episode, “Captain’s Holiday,” when Picard goes on vacation to the pleasure planet of Risa, Roddenberry wanted scenes of same-sex couples holding hands, couples openly having sex in public, and orgies. The closest Trek ever got to Roddenberry’s lecherous fantasies was the on-screen debauchery during the early TNG episode, “The Naked Now.”

• Ronald D. Moore was one of the very few fans who loved Star Trek: The Motion Picture. He wrote a letter to a Trek fanzine defending the movie after it was panned by critics and fans alike. Later, he would be hired as a staff writer on TNG after submitting a spec script. He would go on to be a regular writer on DS9, as well as a writer on Voyager before an acrimonious exit in 2000 after creative differences with Brannon Braga. There is no better way to endear yourself to Gene Roddenberry than by kissing his ass.

Moore later said he felt cheated when they brought Spock back from the dead in the movies. He felt it was merely avoiding the consequences of death. This is the same dipshit who would go on to kill off Starbuck in his reimagined Battlestar Galactica, then brought her back from the dead three episodes later.

• “I’m going to take these characters more seriously than anyone has ever done.” Nick Meyer, director and coauthor of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He wouldn’t criticize The Motion Picture because, “Making movies is damn hard work. They showed us what not to do.” Ouch! I’d call that a backhanded slap.

• The Wrath of Khan went through many drafts, some at the hands of veteran Trek writers. At one point, Roddenberry had Spock killing JFK to restore Earth’s correct timeline. Ultimately, Nick Meyer, Jack B. Sowards and Harve Bennett began ignoring Roddenberry and hammered out what would ultimately be considered the best movie in the entire Trek franchise. This was a cycle that would repeat itself for the remainder of the original Trek movies.

Paramount was able to castrate Roddenberry without firing him by promoting him to the job of, Creative Consultant. Let’s call this revenge for the spirit of Gene L. Coon, as well as D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold and all of the other writers who were maltreated by Roddenberry.

• Kirstie Alley did not reprise her role as Saavik for Star Trek 3 because, of course, she wanted more money than Harve Bennett was willing to pay her. I’ve always felt that The Search for Spock was underrated by fans and critics. Nothing revealed in this book changes my view. Say what you will about Shatner as an actor, but his reaction to the death of his son gets me every time.

• Bennett wanted Eddie Murphy to guest star in Star Trek 4. Murphy was a Trek fan and strongly considered it, but ultimately passed and filmed The Golden Child instead. Later, he admitted that he should’ve done Star Trek. The Voyage Home was the first Trek movie I ever saw in the theater. Even though I don’t think it holds up as well over time, I’ll always have a nostalgic fondness for it. It sure as hell holds up better than The Golden Child.

• William Shatner gives many reasons why Star Trek 5 was a bomb. They are all irrelevant. The story was flawed from the start. In short, Star Trek and God don’t mix.

• It’s not a coincidence that the return of Nick Meyer resulted in Star Trek 6 being a creative rebound. My only complaint is that Meyer went a little heavy on the Shakespeare, which he deliberately did because he was writing dialogue for Christopher Plummer.

• Roddenberry got his revenge for being cast aside by Paramount by assuming full creative control over Star Trek: The Next Generation. Roddenberry established a Chinese wall between the writers and actors, forbidding them to have contact unless he deemed it absolutely necessary. This is why the first two seasons of TNG are mediocre to bad television. The writer turnover was extremely high due to the toxic work environment under Roddenberry and Maurice Hurley, who served as assistant showrunner on the second season.

One of the greatest difficulties for the writers was Roddenberry’s fluid rules for writing Star Trek. His standard objection to any good story idea was, “They wouldn’t do that in the 24th Century.” It didn’t matter if these rules were inconsistent or contradictory from one episode to the next. Roddenberry also used his lawyer as both a sword and a shield in the TNG offices. He would blatantly violate WGA rules by rewriting scenes, threatening writers and actors, then protect Roddenberry from the objections of Paramount and the cast and crew.

• As was the case in the original series and movies, an external force beyond Roddenberry proved to be the savior for TNG. It came in the form of Michael Piller, who was hired at the beginning of the third season in the wake of constant writer turnover. Piller was responsible for the noticeable uptick in quality of the stories and character development. By the fourth season, the writers had firmed up to a regular group of people who were committed to doing quality television. It didn’t hurt that Roddenberry’s health was failing due to years of drinking, cocaine use and probably crotch rot that spread to his brain after he got infected by god knows who, causing him to pull back from the show. Rick Berman served as Roddenberry 2.0 and would stay at the helm until the death of the franchise in 2005.

• One of my criticisms of later TNG and subsequent Trek series was the departure of composer Ron Jones after the fourth season. Jones’ music was interesting and lent itself to the unique nature of TNG. Watch “The Best of Both Worlds,” and tell me that the thematic music isn’t superior to most of what came after. Jones’ successor, Dennis McCarthy, is incredibly dull and lifeless. This was a deliberate choice by Rick Berman, who ordered McCarthy to score the shows with, “Droning non-music.”

• Unlike the turbulent writers room, the cast of TNG has proved to be the happiest cast in all of Trekdom. They never trash each other in the press, they worked well together and all available behind-the-scenes footage shows a lot of laughter and joy on the set. All reports indicate that Jonathan Frakes was universally beloved by everyone in all series that he acted in and directed. He may be the DeForest Kelley of modern Trek. Patrick Stewart tried to start off as the serious, no nonsense leading man, but he found it impossible in the face of on-set antics by Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner and others.

Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis have been openly critical of the stories given to Crusher and Troi in the series and movies, but that isn’t a matter of on-set discontent. The criticisms are absolutely justified. There was little to no discussion of why Denise Crosby left the series before the completion of season one, or why Gates McFadden left after season one and then came back for season three. My theory is that it had to do with Roddenberry and his predatory nature, or maybe Rick Berman and his misogynistic ways. (See DS9.) Whoopi Goldberg was barely referenced at all. Diana Muldaur said she preferred working on the original series to TNG.

There was something in the book about Wil Wheaton, but damned if I can remember what it was. Ahh well.

• My theory that the final season of TNG was subpar because the creative talents were stretched too thin was born out in the book. At the same time that TNG was wrapping, they were also writing Generations, plus DS9 was in development. Moore and Braga both admitted that both the 7th season and the movie suffered as a result. What a shame.

• Proving that Star Trek fans and good writers don’t always turn out a good script, Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga wrote Generations. Their original draft had Captain Kirk being shot in the back. They reshot the ending after it tested horribly in early screenings.

• First Contact was the best TNG movie, both in front of and behind the camera. It was also the movie in which Geordi La Forge stopped wearing his visor.

LeVar Burton: “80 percent of my vision was cut off when I wore the that thing. And it physically hurt, which was one of the more important reasons I wanted to get out from underneath it. We held on to it for so long because, as Rick says, it was one of the ways we established, in the minds of the audience, the technology of the 24th century. On the series, it became problematic, because it was cost prohibitive. We were never able to show the audience what Geordi saw, because it was too expensive and we were on a tight budget. So it became a barrier to storytelling, physically painful for me, and on a spiritual level, it’s really just a sin to cover an actor’s eyes. I wasn’t really aware of how much of a barrier it had become until we shot this movie. And in the absence of the visor, I noticed that the actors were relating to me very differently. They were engaging me in a way that they never did in scenes. So the visor is dead. Long live the visor.”

Good to know, LeVar. It sure must be nice to take it off at the end of the day. Did you know that I’ve written more about Geordi here than was written in the book? Even Gates and Marina had more to say than did LeVar. The blind guy gets screwed again.

• Insurrection was shit from beginning to end, even though it was written by Michael Piller. It shows what happens when actors interfere with the writing. It was intended to be a serious story, but Patrick Stewart wanted something lighter and more fun.

• Patrick Stewart broke down and cried on Jonathan Frakes’ shoulder during Picard and Riker’s final scene in Nemesis. The book didn’t specify whether Stewart was emotional because it really was goodbye for the cast, or because he knew that the movie stunk worse than the bathrooms in Quark’s bar.

• Would Gene Roddenberry have approved of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine? The apparent answer is, probably not. Rick Berman and Michael Piller pitched it to him at his home sometime in 1991. Berman tells a story of how they wheeled Gene in for a private screening of Star Trek 6 shortly before his death. He was mostly checked out and barely registered it. My uneducated guess is that he was in a similar state when they pitched DS9 to him. After the meeting, Rick said, “Well, that wasn’t a hard no, so let’s go for it!”

• If the TNG cast was the happiest cast in all of Trekdom, then DS9 had the happiest writers room in the Trek universe. Forces that worked against TNG during Season seven worked in DS9’s favor from Season 3 onward. Paramount and Rick Berman didn’t hover over their shoulder because they were more concerned with the TNG movies, plus the development and launching of Star Trek: Voyager.

A lot of the quality stories on DS9 also had to do with the return of Ira Steven Behr, who quit TNG in exasperation after the third season. Michael Piller took him to a baseball game, pitched the show to him, then promised that he would be the showrunner after two years if he agreed to come back. Ira did come back, Piller kept his word, and the rest is history.

• The DS9 cast, on the other hand, weren’t particularly happy. There weren’t a lot of stories in the book, but Michael Dorn has confirmed that DS9 was night and day from TNG in terms of cast morale. Apparently, Avery Brooks was an eccentric dude who always carried an angry undercurrent that would often boil to the surface.

• Andrew Robinson claimed that he played his relationship with Alexander Siddig with a homoerotic subtext. This was as close as Star Trek ever got to a gay character pre-reboot. Too bad Roddenberry didn’t live longer, or we might have gotten to see some steamy human-on-Cardassian gay sex.

• Does anyone remember the third season two-parter, “Past Tense?” This is the one where Sisko and Dax go back to the old United States when homeless people were held in so-called, sanctuary districts. Well, that was to have taken place in 2024. I’m sure many people in New York, Chicago and San Francisco are longing for those sanctuaries right about now. It’s always fun to compare real history with Star Trek’s predictive history, like the eugenics wars that were to have taken place from 1992 to 1996. The next thing we have to look forward to is first contact with the Vulcans, which will happen on April 5, 2063. Maybe Star Trek is actually real and we’re just living in the mirror universe. President Trump and President Biden do seem more like evil mirror characters.

• The addition of Worf to Deep Space 9 was not a creative decision that happened organically. Rick Berman wanted it in an attempt to increase ratings, which were never good for DS9. The Klingon conflict that was featured in Season 4 was done in the hopes of bringing over fans from TNG. It didn’t really work. For my money, Worf’s addition was unfortunate. I felt the character was neutered on DS9. On TNG, Worf was always the angry outsider. On DS9, everyone was an angry outsider. Worf didn’t hurt DS9, but he didn’t really help it. The real benefit of the Klingon conflict was the addition of J. G. Hertzler as General Martok.

• Was Rick Berman a misogynist? According to Terry Farrell, hell yeah! He berated her for her breast size and other aspects of her physique on multiple occasions. This was one of the reasons she chose to leave after DS9’s sixth season. She would’ve been willing to continue her role in a limited fashion, appearing in a hand full of episodes in the final season, but Rick Berman said all or nothing, so they killed her character off.

• When Nog was injured in the final season, the writers wanted to blow off both of his legs. Rick Berman didn’t want him injured at all. So, they compromised, blowing off one leg below the knee. After all, you can’t have a recurring character be *too* disabled, right?

• One thing noticeably absent from the book was the assertion that Deep Space Nine was a rip-off of Babylon 5. Anyone remember that one? Rumors swirl on the internet that the powers that were stole the idea, and there’s some pretty convincing evidence to back it up. I’m a bit surprised that this wasn’t addressed in the tome.

• When it’s all said and done, why wasn’t DS9 more popular than it was? There’s a lot of, “Wah wah! We were Star Trek’s middle child,” talk from the writers. Some of it comes off as overly defensive and petulant. Sometimes, it was true, but it worked in their favor. They were given more creative freedom than the folks on TNG or Voyager ever got. They also got a full seven seasons despite tanking ratings, unlike Enterprise.

Truthfully, they were indeed more ambitious than TOS or TNG. The serialized stories probably didn’t help. This was the 1990’s, when you were screwed if you forgot to set your VHS timer and missed an episode. The darker themes of war and the grittier characters probably played a role in the lack of fan accessibility.

But my feeling is that it goes deeper than that. I wrote earlier that Star Trek and God don’t mix. Religion plays a large role in DS9. Some viewers were likely turned off by it. Also, politics can turn people off, and there is more political intrigue than usual on DS9. Folks like me dig that kind of thing, but many other people don’t like it. If you don’t like Worf’s Klingon story on TNG, just wait till the next episode. But on DS9, politics and religion are baked into the cake from the pilot onward.

My final verdict is that, yes, DS9 is Star Trek…barely.

• Star Trek: Voyager was meant to be TNG with an edge. It turned out to be the opposite. Michael Piller headed the show for a while and it should’ve been edgier with a Federation starship flung far from home. One of the cornerstones of the show was supposed to be the conflict between the Starfleet and Maquis crew, and how they learned to work together to find a way home. Because of Rick Berman’s interference, the idea of crew conflict was abandoned early in season one and Voyager became TNG light. Piller left Voyager after two seasons, choosing to focus on other projects. He died of cancer in 2005.

• Paramount was finally able to launch their own TV network using Voyager as the flagship show. They’d wanted this for 20 years since the conception of Star Trek: Phase Two in the ‘70’s. I’ll leave it to my gentle readers to decide whether or not UPN was worth the bother.

• Robert Beltran badmouthed Voyager openly. He did it on set. He even did it while the cameras were rolling so the producers would see exactly what he thought of the cheesy dialogue and plots. He still talks trash about it to this day. When the show was in its final season, Beltran would say, “I’m just counting down the days until we’re done.” Brannon Braga straight up called him unprofessional. The book never makes clear why he wasn’t fired, with the character of Chakotay going the way of Tasha Yar and Jadzia Dax.

• Rick Berman confirmed that Jeri Ryan got her gig in Season 4 for the same reason that Worf went to DS9. Paramount wanted to drive up ratings by introducing a Borg babe. For obvious reasons, Kate Mulgrew resented the hell out of her. It only made things worse when Jeri had an affair with head writer Brannon Braga. Kate felt that Captain Janeway was a role model for girls and women everywhere and the addition of the T&A factor would only hurt her cause. For the record, I am totally, 100 percent on Kate’s side here.

Sidebar: As a blind guy, I don’t get the cat suit deal with Jeri Ryan. I’m gonna need some sighted person to explain this one to me. This is a serious request.

• Producer Mike Sussman on Star Trek: Enterprise. “It gets back to the people running the franchise saying, we’ve got to do something different. We’ve got to shake it up’, then kind of shaking it up in many of the wrong ways. Let’s say…all the wrong ways.”

He’s right. Anyone remember the Diane Warren power ballad as the theme song, recycled from goddamn Patch Adams? Anyone remember the decontamination jell that they rubbed all over each other after beaming? Anyone remember the ridiculous temporal war, or the enemy aliens never mentioned on original Trek? Anyone remember the hideous series finale that was just a glorified episode of TNG? Their reward was that Enterprise was the first Star Trek series to be canceled prematurely since the original series in 1969.

In fairness, Season 4 got better when they chucked Brannon Braga and brought in Manny Coto as the new showrunner, but it was too little, too late. They wanted to bring William Shatner back as evil Kirk from the mirror universe, but of course, he was too expensive.

• By all accounts, Scott Bakula is the nicest leading actor from all of Trekdom. I think it was because he already had a cult following from Quantum Leap, so he was kind of prepared for the insane fans and pace of shooting a series.

• Enterprise was the first Star Trek series that was substantially impacted by the internet. Producers became annoyed when story spoilers and behind-the-scenes happenings would leak on to fan sites, sometimes instantaneously. They never came up with effective methods of securing their show.

• So why did Star Trek finally die? There are many explanations, but I think that Trek fatigue was probably the best one. Starting with TNG, Trek fans constantly had something in the pipeline for 18 years. I think they had just hit their saturation point.

• As for the resurrection of Star Trek four years later, there is a section in the book on the J. J. Abrams films, but I didn’t bother to read it. My enthusiasm died with the death of the Rick Berman era. Abrams did have a quote admitting that he connected more with the Star Wars characters than those of Star Trek. Given the way he’s interpreted the franchise, I believe it.

I also have no interest in the new streaming shows. With the exception of Picard: Season 3, which was an overdue reunion of the entire TNG cast, those shows aren’t Star Trek to me. As far as I’m concerned, Star Trek was at its creative peak from the original series through the end of Deep Space 9. However, I may have to give Enterprise another shot.

• Speaking of the Picard show, the third season (which was by far its best) was produced and run by Terry Matalas. His name did appear in the book. It seems that he served as assistant to Brannon Braga during the production of Enterprise. No wonder he understood Star Trek so well.

• Leonard Nimoy passed away on February 27, 2015 at age 83. When all is said and done, Spock is still the most popular character in all of Star Trek lore. Thank you, Mr. Nimoy, for your dedication to Star Trek and the character of Spock.

• Finally, circling back to Gene Roddenberry, there’s been a lot of shit talking about him over the years. From all that I’ve read, from multiple sources over multiple time periods, it seems mostly justified. His son Rod is quoted at length in the book and he says the negative sentiments about his dad hurt him. I respect that. On the other hand, Gene hurt a lot of people while he was alive. He typified everything that makes a bad boss. He was greedy, manipulative, predatory, dishonest, self-indulgent and he was happy to take credit for ideas that weren’t his own. He was a lousy writer, a lousy showrunner, a lousy husband and father and generally, a lousy human being. Yes, he gave us Star Trek, but he really just got lucky. Every other show he tried to create was a major flop. I have no doubt that TOS would have been canceled after the first season if others hadn’t protected him from himself. And that was the story for the duration of his career. Gene Roddenberry will be remembered for Star Trek, but at the end of the day, the way you treat other people is far more important than the professional legacy you leave behind. If that notion isn’t pure Star Trek, I don’t know what is.

As for me, Star Trek will always be my happy place. Enough said.

Happy New Year, all. Live long and prosper.

She Grabbed My Coconuts and Then She Ran Away

I swore that I would never be one of those writers who always invokes Monty Python to make a point. A lot of those folks think they’re so clever because they get British humor in general, and Monty Python specifically, so they just have to be above all of those ugly Americans who don’t get it. That’s the kind of insufferable snobbery that gave us the great orange deity.

However, The Life of Brian contains a scene that is just too on-the-nose for this moment to let pass. In the movie, a character named Stan has an argument with a character named Reg (John Cleese.) Stan wants to have babies. Reg is like, “Where’s your womb, bloke?” Stan responds, “You’re oppressing me!”

That is our moment right now. I don’t like monocausal explanations, so I won’t say that America voted for Donald Trump because they know they’re living in a Monty Python skit and they resent the hell out of those tea-sippers for inflicting their humor on us. But if that’s not the reason, it’s close.

Yes, I’m not into monocausal explanations as an answer to complex problems, but if you tell me that the answer is relatively simple, that Trump won because the Democrats threw out a shitty candidate and replaced him with an even shittier candidate who couldn’t close the deal, I won’t buck. No matter what gaslighting method the left wants to use to explain Trump’s victory (racism, sexism, fascism), it just won’t do. Kamala was a terrible candidate who couldn’t even make it to Iowa in 2020. Joe Biden saw fit to elevate her to an office for which she was abjectly unqualified and unworthy. She thanked him by replacing him and handing Trump a solid victory, thus ushering Trump 47.

Thanks, Kamala. Hope you and Tim Walz enjoy your life in obscurity from now on, cuz that’s what you’ve earned for yourselves.

Historians will not have to spend a lot of time deconstructing the doomed candidacy of Kamala Harris; the nebulous word salad, the random, kooky laughter, the forced charisma that had about as much appeal as Cheez Whiz, or the apparent mismanagement of campaign funds that is now dogging her. All of this is just window dressing. All historians will need to do is examine Kamala’s interview on The View, which was as friendly of a venue as she could’ve wanted. Sunny Hostin asked her, “Is there anything you would’ve done differently than President Biden?” Harris answered, “Nothing comes to mind.”

That giant “whoosh!” sound you heard was the air going out of the Harris-Walz balloon. At that point, Kamala transformed from a promising change agent to an incumbent, and the world is in an anti-incumbent mood right now.

Will the left learn anything from their staggering defeat? Judging by how Seth Moulton has been treated, the obvious answer is, of course not! It appears that many of them are content to deactivate their Twitter accounts and migrate over to Bluesky, where they can further imbed themselves in their own socio/political silo. I know that Elon is a royal pain in the ass, but I predict that Bluesky, Mastodon and Threads will all fold faster than a pillar of Saltines.

Sidebar: I love the way that Voiceover pronounces the name, Bluesky. It gives the name a Communist Russia kind of feel.

As for Trump, anyone who is surprised by his erratic cabinet picks hasn’t been paying attention for the past nine years. For every Marco Rubio, we get an RFK Jr. For every Tom Homan, we get a Tulsi Gabbard. For every Matt Gaetz nomination, we’ll get a crazy Matt Gaetz exit. That is the pig in the poke that roughly half of America bought itself by voting for Trump. For the next four years, Trump will say and do all kinds of outrageous things. All of his apologists will spin, explain and reinterpret what he said. The media will chase every bright, shiny object that leaks from the White House and on Truth Social. They won’t be able to help themselves. The left will scream and throw tantrums and secretly love the latest shit nugget that Trump throws at them. And maybe…just maybe…some good things will happen in the process.

For the first time in nine years, it feels like I’m the guy in the catbird seat. Either way the election turned out, I was going to be disappointed. Both candidates were manifestly unfit for office. Either way it went, half the country would be celebrating, while the other half had an epic meltdown. Now, I get to spend the next four years saying ‘I told you so’ every time Trump is predictable in his own lizard brain fashion. Eventually, he’ll go too far, piss off too many people and the country will course-correct with an election that alters the balance of power.

Will the right learn anything from it? Probably not. I am genuinely curious to see how Republicans behave now that they hold power in Congress. Trump’s predictably crazy nominations, topped off by Kash Patel for FBI Director, will test the resolve and sagacity of the GOP majority. In order to protect and defend the Constitution, they will have to do something wildly unpopular on the right of today. They’ll have to tell Trump, “No.”

Can they do it? We’ll see. Mike Pence looked like a Trump marionette, until he wasn’t. Maybe John Thune, Mike Johnson and others will muster the same courage. It is emotionally unhealthy for me to hope for too much, but sometimes, hope is all you have.

Finally, let me tie this back to Monty Python by quickly addressing the trans issue. I’m not sure that the now infamous Trump ad that said, “Kamala is for they/them. Trump is for you,” was really the nail in her coffin. However, there is no disputing the fact that the ad was effective. The bathroom melee in Congress was just the latest battleground. I fully admit that Nancy Mace is a bad actor, but she did compel Mike Johnson to create women only spaces where none had been created before.

The problem with the trans activist movement is that they overplayed their hand. Maybe corporate HR types can compel lowly employees to put their pronouns in their Email signatures, on social media and announce them at icebreaker events at conferences, but people want to keep their jobs. So what? Forcing someone to play the pronoun game is not winning their heart or their mind. It is merely exercising naked power, which is what the authoritarian progressive left wants. I know nothing for certain, but firmly believe that a lot of America is exhausted with the constant battles over race, sex, gender and now, Palestine. If they are forced to choose, they’ll pick the devil they know over the devil they don’t. And that devil is a great big orange one.

I also am only mildly surprised that the party that championed safetyism for historically marginalized communities won’t acknowledge the basic desire for biological women to inhabit safe spaces of their own, including restrooms, locker rooms, battered women’s shelters and female prisons. Isn’t feeling triggered by a human with a penis in the stall next to you reason enough to request a safe space for a large group that has historically been oppressed? What happened to, “The Party of science?” It seems that they have gone the way of Dumbledore. They will probably now try to convince me that a five-ounce bird can, in fact, carry a one-pound coconut.

You know, the world today seems absolutely crackers. With nuclear bombs to blow us all sky high. There are fools and idiots sitting on the trigger. It’s depressing. It’s senseless. And that’s why…

I can’t even finish the lyric, because someone from Taiwan might get offended.

Blindsided

On October 2, my best friend Katy posted this item to Facebook:

“Katy Lynn Todd is feeling thankful.
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October 2 at 5:25 PM
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Well sadly I was laid off from my job yesterday. I will miss everyone, and miss the routine of work. But I will have a new job soon, whether it be in production at the same place or somewhere else, I will be looking. Thanks to all my former co-workers in all departments. I enjoyed working with you and learning new things from how to run an entire program, to how to do different things in production. I wouldn’t have those skills without you guys. And I have made some awesome friends!”

Nine days later, Katy posted this item to Facebook:

“Katy Lynn Todd is feeling hopeful.
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October 11 at 5:24 PM
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Well I get one more week off before I’m back at work where I started. Hahaha just proves life is pretty crazy sometimes. The good news is I’ll now have lots of reading time while I’m sitting in production! And I do enjoy working with my hands. Not what I expected, but I am very glad I will have a job and who knows what will come next.”

Let me aluminate the in-between moments for y’all. Katy was laid off from her position at the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind on October 1. 20 days from that time (tomorrow), she will be returning to the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind to take the entry level job that she had when she first arrived there.

Katy was very magnanimous in her first FB post. A lot of the hurt and sorrow she expressed to me privately was not reflected in her public-facing comments. This is understandable. After she was laid off, she instantly understood that she would have to return to the SLB if she wanted to be employed any time soon.

I, of course, was livid. I was enraged, not only at the fact that she was laid off, but at how it was done. As Katy explained it to me, a rep from HR came into her office after lunch and told her that she was being laid off, along with 21 other employees. Her direct supervisor was also in attendance via Zoom. She was taken completely by surprise. She had no idea the layoff was coming. She was ordered to collect her personal items. Then, she was hurriedly shepherded from the building, put into a cab, and sent directly home. She was not allowed to say goodbye to any of her coworkers, many of whom learned about her termination later on social media.

Let me reiterate that Katy was laid off. She was not fired due to behavioral issues. The termination happened through no fault of her own. As Katy put it, “I was treated like a criminal when I left.” Katy further stated, “I don’t understand why they didn’t just demote me and let me stay. I would’ve rather taken the cut in pay and gone right back to work.”

Let me further explain that Katy gave up a perfectly good life in Denver to move to Seattle to take a job at the SLB. She is not a career ladder climber. As she said in her post, she enjoys production work and was generally content on the production floor. She did not seek advancement or promotion. She was sought out by three upper level staffers and was urged to apply for a job that paid better, a job that was created just for her, so that she could make more money. She was often asked to perform extra tasks, such as braille production, without being properly compensated for them. When she raised the question of being paid for her efforts, she was told to, “Be a team player.” When the company’s bottom line took a turn for the worse, Katy’s job was slashed from the budget to save money.

I don’t think I’m engaging in hyperbole or misstating the facts when I say that Katy was plucked from the production floor, pushed up the ladder by her superiors, and then conveniently kicked out of an upper story window when it served the company’s purposes.

Tomorrow, Katy is going back to the place where she was unceremoniously terminated three weeks ago. She has no choice. Like most adults, Katy needs to pay her bills, maintain a roof over her head and keep Coke in her fridge. Unlike most sighted adults, Katy cannot take a temporary job driving for Uber, working at McDonald’s or stocking shelves at Safeway. Blind people don’t have access to the vast array of entry level jobs that the sighted have. So, she’s going back to work at SLB.

Sidebar: I use Uber a lot and I often ask the drivers if Uber is their primary job. Most of them say no. A few have told me that Uber is merely temporary, because they are in between jobs. Some have told me they were unexpectedly laid off and they have to make ends meet. Good for them.

Perhaps you can better understand why I’m so infuriated. You can also understand why Katy’s temporary farewell post displayed a level of graciousness that, frankly, the upper management at the SLB don’t deserve.

Her story is not a new one. After she was put on the street, I was reminded of an episode that I call, Bloody Christmas. It happened in December of 2019, when 13 employees of Outlook Nebraska were also laid off. Some of them came back to Outlook, but many did not. One of them, who was a competent and well-loved tech trainer, still works at the Marriott call center here in Omaha. Others, like my pal Rachel, left Outlook voluntarily to advance her career, only to find herself back on the bottom rung of the Outlook ladder when circumstances turned against her. Rachel is a supremely overqualified woman packing toilet paper in a segregated job so that she can put food on the table for her family and fix the plumbing in her house.

I can anticipate the obvious rebuttals. “Ryan, there are a lot of overqualified sighted people working in entry level jobs.” Yes, but how many of them have had to suffer the indignity of returning to a place where they were maltreated with a big smile on their face and a thank-you on their lips? How many of them have been rejected for a job merely because of a physical characteristic? How many of them face the desperation of waiting weeks, months or even years for a job, all while collecting social security and unemployment? I dare say that if fully able-bodied people were laid off in the insensitive manner that Katy was, they would run the checkout line at Walmart before working at such a place.

Some will also defend the SLB by saying, “It’s a nonprofit, for God sake! Their budget is variable. They can’t help it when they are plagued by negative external factors, such as the recent misfortunes of the Boeing Corporation.”

Boo freakin’ hoo! I get it. Layoffs happen. But this is a vulnerable population who, frankly, allows these folks at the top of the pyramid to make their bread. I’m a capitalist, but this smacks of predatory capitalism. Don’t tell me that the way Katy was enticed up the ladder and then summarily terminated isn’t worthy of contempt.

It’s been my observation that people in the blindness community come in three buckets. Bucket one contains people who are made to care about the blind. Bucket two contains people who are paid to care about the blind. Bucket three (the largest) contain those who don’t care about the blind.

Bucket one contains those who are themselves blind. Some of us were born with it. Others experience blindness later in life. Sometimes the blindness is total. Other times, it is partial. Like any culture, there is a hierarchy of power and deference based upon how much vision an individual may possess, but everyone is affected by it.

In the same bucket, though on a lower tier, are those who are in the orbit of someone who is blind. Parents of the blind are the most obvious example. My friend Jane probably wouldn’t give a damn about blind people, but her son is blind. Thus, Jane spends a good deal of her time and energy in support of the blind. Like her son, Jane didn’t ask for it, but she’s got it. Other family members are on the same tier, though they typically hold less emotional investment than parents.

A small, select group of people choose to care about the blind. These would be friends of blind people, romantic partners and business associates.

In the second bucket, you find people who are paid to care about the blind. These are sighted people in the rehab field, in industries and agencies for the blind and in the niche marketplace that caters to the blind. Think about your state agency for the blind, the purveyor of segregated employment in your city, the companies that manufacture and market aids, gadgets and software to the blind, and the industries such as the Business Enterprise Program that prioritize employment for the blind.

People in bucket two can leave the world of the blind at the door when they clock off. This doesn’t mean that they are all creatures of conditional sensitivity. My friend Nancy worked for decades for the Nebraska Commission for the Blind before she retired. She still spends a lot of her time helping us out where she can. But the simple truth is that Nancy is not blind. She can take a road trip in her car into the gorgeous Rocky Mountains and admire the exquisite view whenever she wishes.

I hasten to add that sometimes, buckets one and two can overlap, but they are mostly separate. This is particularly true when blind people work in management and directorial levels in the industries that claim to benefit them.

The third bucket (the largest) is the easiest with which to contend. They contain people who don’t care about the blind. From a population standpoint, the blind comprise an infinitesimally small number in the world. It is statistically likely that most people will go through life never having met or interacted with a blind person. The age of the internet has reduced that number a little, but only a little. These are also people who are terrified of blindness. They fear going blind and thus, they fear and feel uncomfortable around those whom they inherently view as broken, weak and incompetent. Due to lack of exposure, this great mass in bucket three are unaware of the varied capabilities of the blind.

One of the primary missions of those inhabiting buckets number one and two is to move people from bucket three to buckets one and two. This is where the insidious nature of segregated workshops comes into play. On the surface, they appear to be factories of good will and tolerance. They claim to work on behalf of the blind to help them better themselves through employment, training and opportunity. But ask yourself if the evidence supports their claims. How easy is it for blind people to advance within the organization? How are the blind people at the bottom of the ladder treated by their superiors? Is discipline enforced, and are rewards bestowed in equal measure, particularly among those of varying visual acuity? How many blind people serve in the supervisory structure?” How many blind people are represented on the board of directors of these companies?

This is the part where I should break into rich, sparkling prose about how the blind should do it all for themselves. That would inevitably lead to the National Federation of the Blind. If you scroll back through my blog, you’ll see that the NFB has a very mixed record when it comes to the treatment of their employees. This is the organization that encourages convention attendees to applaud when its president lays off 19 employees. This is the organization that allows senior members to prey upon more vulnerable members for the sake of the greater good.

We all shit in different buckets, but it stinks just the same.

The next time that you donate to a fundraiser from one of these nonprofits, just know that you are in bucket three, and you’re getting a window into bucket two, not bucket one. To quote Boyd Crowder from Justified, “The world is a tree, and I’m just a squirrel trying to get a nut.”

So during your next impulse when you are inspired to be generous with your credit card or checkbook on behalf of the blind, be cognizant of where your dollars are going. They may be doing a lot of good, but they also might be feeding a callous, rapacious machine that achieves financial and social status on the backs of a lot of desperate and vulnerable people.

When you’re donating your time and money, I’d like you to think about my friend Katy. Understand, as best you can, where she’s been and where she is going. Don’t use her genuinely charitable nature as an excuse to let the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind off the hook. You may say to yourself, “See? It all worked out for sweet Katy. She took lemons and made lemonade.” This is fluffy happy talk. Katy got handed a shit sandwich, and she is now walking back into the place that fed it to her with minty fresh breath. Meanwhile, there are a lot of blind people out there in the cold who don’t even own a toothbrush.

Think about Katy’s magnanimity after she was ejected from a workplace that asked much of her, then kicked her out when she was of no further use to them. Think about the hurt and betrayal she dared not express because she was forced to calculate her future employment prospects. Don’t make any mistake about her reasons for returning to the people who treated her in a subhuman fashion when it suited them.

Ask yourself why an employee like this should be treated in such a fashion. And ask yourself why a system that rewards such behavior is allowed to perpetuate itself unchecked.

As for me, I love my friggin’ job! Bekah and Cami are in bucket number two, but they do their jobs very, very well.

I know a lot of you blind folks will read this and you won’t share it. I get it. Many of you work at the very institutions that I’ve just excoriated. I understand. It’s okay. No hard feelings.