Author: fscobe144

Stop, please! Stop, Stop, Stop IT!

Oh, for heaven’s sake, the reason some people are not getting the Covid-19 vaccine has little to do with the right wing raging against an assault on their freedom of choice or the left wing’s fear that these shots will make their sainted little ones total idiots.  And it isn’t the effects of the Trump’s hordes refusing the vaccine either. Even Trump stuck his shoulder out and took one for the team, meaning the human race.

No, so-called vaccine hesitancy is because the television news shows have been endlessly showing people taking those shots in the arm. Viewers first get to see the syringe being loaded with vaccine and then the needle shoved into the poor victim’s arm. Brown people, black people, white people, albinos, young people, old people, nearly dead people; you name the group—and sooner or later one of them gets needled right there on national television. In fact, many get needled on every segment on every news show when the discussion is the vaccine.

Two nights ago, I saw a collage of four people get the jab simultaneously. The screen was divided into four boxes and in each was a poor schnook getting pincered. That threw me over the edge and almost had me throwing my large bowl of ice cream at the television.

Needle in arms; needle in arms, needle in arms. It is not an inspiring sight. It is a frightening sight and these segments are scaring people away from getting the shots. That’s the unvarnished truth.

Look, I believe in the vaccines. I always have my flu shot, each and every year. I’ve had my pneumonia vaccines, my shingles vaccine and my Covid-19 vaccines, including the booster. I have no idea how many vaccines I’ve actually experienced in my life. I am in favor of protecting myself against the horrors of disease. My children and grandchildren have been vaccinated against an amazing number of diseases. They have all turned out to be good people, smart people—not GPS-infused zombies.

I do not want to see any more people getting shots in their arms. Enough already! There are probably more people on television news shows getting vaccinated than in real life.

In my life I have only been afraid of three things: needles, nuclear war and nuns. You don’t get to see two of these three on television much. But those needles? Ugh!

So, news producers, you’re actually stopping people from getting in line to join the jabbed ones.

Stop these segments right now! Stop them, please, for heaven’s sake stop them for the good or the nation and the good of the world. If you are lacking news stories, perhaps throw in a segment or two about nuclear war…or nuns.

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries and at bookstores.  

Pro-Choicers versus Anti-Vaxxers

The pro-choice movement made great headway in America ever since the 1960s. Their argument was simple: women said, “It is my body and I will do what I want with it. The government has nothing to say about it. If I want to get an abortion it is my choice.”

This argument held sway enough within our society that abortion became legal due to the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. The state should essentially stay out of a woman’s decisions about her own body and anything in it.

And now the anti-vaxxers are using the exact same argument against the government that is trying to impose on their bodies the need for a vaccination to limit and ultimately defeat the Covid-19 virus. They picture themselves as “freedom fighters” against the lethal power of said government. Some consider themselves the new American revolutionaries, just like our forebears from 1776.

Obviously, the government has interfered and usurped our bodies many times over the course of our history. It has drafted us to fight our wars, leading us to face the possibility of death on the battlefield. It has food inspections, traffic rules, vaccine requirements for kids to go to school; seat belt laws, gas laws, voting laws, drinking laws, various taxes and fees—the list can go on quite a bit.

We are free except when we aren’t. The government interferes with us except when it doesn’t.

Should the anti-vaxxers use the same tact as the pro-choice advocates? Is their case really the same? Or is it stronger?

Let’s take a quick look:

  • Anti-vaxxers can carry a deadly disease and infect many others, family members, strangers. If they are on a crowded train or a bus or at a party, no one there is actually safe from the virus the anti-vaxxer might carry.
  • The entire country, the entire world, can suffer horribly if they continue to cry for their freedom to be infected. Even the return of measles to our children can be laid at the feet of the anti-vaxxers.
  • Hospitals will continue to be overwhelmed by the anti-vaxxers taking up beds and ICUs. People with other medical conditions might not be serviced.
  • The woman who has an unwanted pregnancy is no risk to anyone. Yes, if you believe she is carrying a baby then you think she will be killing that baby but, on a train, or a bus or at a party, we are all safe from getting pregnant because she is pregnant.
  • Members of the woman’ family might be unhappy if they learn she is going for an abortion. There might be some family tension. That doesn’t have to do with anyone else.
  • The father of the fetus might be unhappy, if he is still around.
  • A pregnant woman can’t make a room or a country pregnant.

Okay, so who has the right to the “our bodies, ourselves” argument? Pro-choicers or anti-vaxxers? Which one should drop their argument and find another one to cry their cause?

God versus Religion

I enjoy watching the debates on YouTube between atheist intellectuals such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Lawrence Krauss, among many, many others, against those who postulate the existence of God such as William Lane Craig, Ken Ham, Dinesh D’Souza, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach among many, many others.

My criticism of the debates goes fairly deep, but one point I find irritating. They get bogged down in religion. They get bogged down in the Bible (among some other religious texts).

Hitchens is great in such moments as he brings to the surface of the debate many of the horrors one can read in the Bible. Adam and Eve being thrown out of the Garden to work, Eve to have pain in childbirth and both of them to ultimately die—along with all the rest of humanity! Their horrible transgression? They ate a forbidden fruit.

You can go through the Old Testament or Torah and see God’s wrath on full display.  The flood that kills all but a handful, the slaughter of innocents in Egypt (those little first-born infants zapped!), the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, God asking a man to kill his own son (as God will do in the New Testament by killing himself) and on and on the horrors go.

Hitchens enjoys laying to waste to other New Testament concepts too. God impregnates a woman to give birth to himself. Huh?

Hitchens chides religion for demanding circumcision and genital mutilation of women. And on and on it goes.

Stop the discussion! Please stop the discussion!

The question of whether or not there is a God has nothing to do with religion of any kind. It has nothing to do with tradition. It has nothing to do with any of the myriad religious texts that exist and if any of them are believed to be true by true believers.

The existence or possible existence of a God or gods has nothing to do with the religions that have adopted God’s or the gods’ existence and based their ideas on these religious books or traditions.

The debate should be cut in half. One half—the most important half—is whether there actually is a God. What are the arguments for it; what are the arguments against it?

The second half of the debate is the efficacy of these religious texts. Are they worth the time to study them? Can they be acknowledged from an historical perspective? Do they have literary value? Maybe they are fun, nonsensical stories claiming to know of real events in the past of primitive people?

Don’t try to prove there is a God by quoting religious texts or tradition. They prove nothing. Get these debates situated correctly. That’s all I ask.

(You will note that I capitalized the “G” in God. I don’t want religious people to flee before finishing this article. And I did not use the biblical god’s real name because some folks get upset when people do. I just wanted to make my point.)

 

 

 

 

 

Hear Me Roar!

Since the pandemic hit us in January of 2020, a curious situation has arisen in our lives. More cars seem to be speeding on the roads than I ever remember. Muffler-less cars or cars that have had their mufflers amplified are zooming loudly along the parkways. They are even zooming loudly, even drag racing on the streets—side streets, my street!

The parkway is about a mile from my house and you rarely heard the traffic from there in the pre-pandemic days. Now? From morning until, well, the next morning—24 hours a day to be exact—those modified cars are speeding, racing, making a roar. I have actually had racing dreams where I have incorporated the cars’ sounds into my REM sleep.

“Where are the cops?” my wife, the Beautiful AP asks.

“Probably taking care of the riots,” I’d say. In fact, New York City has and is experiencing not only riots but an upsurge in crime that is beginning to make the City look like the pre-Bloomberg and pre-Giuliani days. People are getting battered, sexually assaulted, and shot in broad daylight.

But who are the sods making such a racket on the parkways and roads in my once-upon-a-time sleepy suburban community? I’ve met some of them during my teaching career and my post-teaching career when I toured America and Canada giving talks and lessons to thousands of adults.

My first reaction is to label them losers who need loudness to certify that they exist. You could see this propensity in certain high school students; they were loud, often obnoxiously so. Their voices would echo through the hallways and in some teachers’ classrooms (not mine thankfully). Their loudness called true attention to themselves. Their grades? Generally, crummy. Their vocal cords? Generally high-performing.

I posit that as they aged, school hallways gave way to streets and highways. The great outdoors meant that entire communities could hear now them.

There were a handful of adult students in my post-teaching career who were as loud as their teenaged counterparts. Still, “I roar therefore I am” is an apt description for the roaring ones both young and old.

Are these muffler-less drivers new? No. Are they many?” Definitely. Far more than I ever heard pre-shutdown. I ask you: What the hell is wrong with them?

Bing, Bang, Boom

I have two reasons why I hate fireworks on July 4th or on any day or night of the year. The first reason is personal and the second reason, well, that’s personal too.

The first is noise. Day and night on July 3rd and 4th and in recent years, on random days and nights throughout the entire year, we hear boom, boom, boom on our block somewhere. I actually don’t know who the firework’s king or queen is but I wish he or she would be deposed. Every firework that goes off sounds as if it’s on our doorstep, even if it isn’t.

My second personal reason is the fact that some 40 years ago my house caught fire from some idiot’s Roman candle landing on the roof and bingo! up came the flames. It wasn’t the house I live in now and it wasn’t with the person I am married to now. Still, I didn’t want my first wife to die; I just wanted a divorce.

The younger me climbed up a ladder, got on the roof, and watered everything down. I stayed there in case any more Roman candles landed, wondering if it had been a Roman candle that caused Rome to burn.

I don’t cause a racket blowing stuff up, probably for the same reason I don’t remove the muffler from my car and then drag race: I get enough attention elsewhere.

Most likely many of the bing, bang, boom sods are often the same losers who speed along in muffler-less cars.  Please, would somebody give them some attention?

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries and bookstores.  

And a Hummingbird Shall Lead Them

I just want to see one right now. I just want one; just one. I don’t want a hundred or fifty or even two. I just want to see one.

A Hummingbird. Just one. Please!

My wife, the Beautiful AP and I have never seen a Hummingbird, except in documentaries. In real life? None.

We know folks who love to go birding. They have seen many, many Hummingbirds. Some have called us to tell us where to go (right now!) and we’ll see the birds if we go, “Right now!” We hop in the car and head off, usually to Hempstead Lake State Park. There is an area where people see dozens and dozens of Hummingbirds.

We have not seen one. In all of our visits, we have not seen one.

“Maybe,” said the Beautiful AP, “We should set up our property so we attract them and create an ecosystem.”

“Huh?” I said.

“Let’s make our property welcoming to all the birds, animals and insects that belong on Long Island. You know all of our bushes, shrubs, trees and plants come from Asia.”

“We had a Japanese landscape architect,” I said. “In Japan we fell in love with the Japanese landscapes.”

“Yes, but now I think we should go natural to where we live. Hummingbirds will be attracted to some of what we grow.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m actually embarrassed that I had made a video on native plant gardens for South Shore Audubon and have nothing native on our property.”

“So, right here on our property we’ll attract native stuff?”

“Not stuff. Native insects, bees and animals—and Hummingbirds.”

So we decided to make our property native or native-ish, as it is a three-year plan and there are some Asian trees and shrubs we’d like to keep.

First, we had a non-native tree removed. A friend had offered it to us years ago and we both felt we couldn’t say no. Now we know why he didn’t plant it on his property: it does absolutely nothing for pollinators, takes up valuable real estate, and is disgusting.

We also decided on a border of creeping red thyme, which isn’t exactly native, but functions as native. We knew that native gardeners put down cardboard to kill the grass and then drill holes in it to plant new plants. Why didn’t we do that? Instead, we just pulled up the grass. We blew that one!

Now a mini-forest is growing in that dirt and our thyme ground cover is struggling to keep up. The grass had probably acted as a carpet and kept the rest of nature down. Now nature is sprouting like crazy and we’re weeding like crazy.

Where the non-pretty tree was, the Beautiful AP has planted two crops, spinach and soy beans. They are growing really well (by our standards).

I planted native seeds all over the property that would attract all the Long Island fauna. So far not a one—not a stinking one—has grown. They’re doing well in our container gardens, but around the property? Nil!

We have planted some native shrubs, bushes and trees and named each one after a dearly departed relative. All but one is doing well; Aunt Annie might not make it.

We have joined Rewild Long Island and touch base with Long Island Native Plant Gardening Group on Facebook where we and other rookies making rookie mistakes can get advice. We are learning every single day—usually about “stuff” we screwed up.

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscobelete.com. His books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries and at bookstores.

Those Who Can, Do; Those Who Can’t, Teach

Nope.

First, many of those who can do also can teach. Take a look at the greatest scientists over the past centuries; they did and they taught. Same is true of writers, artists, along with men and women in other areas of expertise.

Now, yes, there are plenty of teachers whose greatness lies in their ability to teach. Most English teachers are not going to become published or famous writers. Most history teachers will probably not be Doris Kearns Goodwin or Will Durant. So what? If these teachers can get across ideas and teach needed skills, they are doing a great service for society.

We are the first (or one of the first) societies that has tried to teach everyone. That is some goal and, sadly, I do not think we will ever really reach it—at least in my lifetime. Still, good intentions count.

I do enjoy the non-teachers who fancy themselves successful in this or that field leaping on the bandwagon that subscribes to the title to this article. Some of these folks shout it out at the top of their lungs.

Here is a fact: It is a bitch to be a teacher. In my limited experience of 33 years in one district, about 25 percent of the teachers were extraordinary; maybe 50 percent were good or competent and another 25 percent should have been marched out in the dead of night, never to return.

For most teachers, kids—even the smart ones—are tough to handle. They are, to put it simply, sharks. Sharks swimming in circles waiting for the teacher’s blood. If the teacher drips even a little of the red stuff, the feeding frenzy begins.

Teachers in the bottom 25 percent send an amazingly high number of disciplinary referrals to the principal or dean of students. Trying to get the higher-ups to pull your bloody body out of the water after a kid-attack is way too little, way too late. The great teachers send few (or no) referrals because they can handle the sharks on their own.

I remember one teacher who sent so many referrals that the dean had two piles; one pile for every teacher in the school and one just for this lady. Her pile was more than the combined number for all other teachers put together.

She was a nice lady in the teachers’ lounge, maybe in her mid-50s, although she had a wandering eye that made it difficult to figure out where she was looking.

The kids hated her and she hated them right back. The bad kids hated her. The good kids hated her. She taught business and typing. Her classes had few kids, maybe 10 to 15 students at the time when the average class size was 25 to 30.

The kids lined up to get out of her classes and the parents with the most clout were able to twist the arms of the administrators to free their children from the iron grip of the Cyclops, as the kids called her.

Here is my personal story with her.

It was June, the last week of school, and in New York State students had to take the Regents exams in all the main subjects. These were statewide exams that, if passed, meant you received a Regents diploma. That was a big deal.

My 11th grade classes had to take the exam. Two of these classes were my honors Classics classes as well. These were nice kids; smart kids; well-behaved kids.

I went up to the room on the third floor to say hello and take attendance. There was the Cyclops sitting at the desk, her eyes looking wherever the hell they were looking.

Not a single kid was in the room!

“Where are the students? Did the room change?” I asked.

“They were disobedient and had to be sent to the Dean’s Office to be punished,” she said.

Oh, crap! An entire honors class? During a Regents exam?!

“Ah,” I said. “Ah” is my go-to expression when I have no idea what the hell I should say.

I left the room and zipped down to the Dean’s Office. There they were, 25 honors students sitting in the three different offices. Some of them looked worried that they might miss their Regents English exam.

I told the Dean, “You know who sent all of them down here? I’ll take them.”

“Could you take her too?” he asked.

I led the kids back upstairs but first I told them to apologize to the Cyclops, but I used her formal name. “We need her to let up.” The kids apologized as they entered the room.

She huffed a bit but she didn’t throw herself in front of the door to prevent them from coming in.

“You can take a break,” I said. “I’ll administer the exam.” Some cheers went up from the students. I gave them “the look” and the cheers stopped. She huffed and left the room.

“She’s nuts!” said some of them.

“How can they let her teach?” said others.

“Okay, sit down. She’s been teaching a long time,” I said. “We should have some respect for the service she’s put in over the decades.” I looked at them. They looked at me.

“She should be shot,” said one of them.

“You know,” I said. “We aren’t allowed to bring guns to the school.”

That was that.

She didn’t come back the next year. The school district paid her $55,000 to retire, a princely sum in the mid-1970s for the queen of mean. In short, they paid her off to get rid of her. A good teacher never gets paid off. You retire and get your retirement, but you don’t get a bonus for being good.

I found some ridiculous aspects to my teaching career. If there were students that a teacher couldn’t control, the knee-jerk administrative reaction was, “Put him (or her) in Scobe’s class.” I’d have 30-35 kids in my non-Regents classes while other English teachers would have 15 to 20. I didn’t get paid any more money.

And hallway monitoring. The men were expected to break up the fights but we didn’t get paid any more money. Only a couple of the women teachers would actually get their hands dirty trying to stop two enraged students from pummeling each other to death. One teacher, a classy woman, would always say she didn’t want to jump in because she didn’t want her high heels to get dirty or break.

But, back to the topic: Are people who think that teaching is for those who “can’t do” actually able to teach? Let’s see.

He was a marine; a big guy, who wanted to teach English after his service to his country in Vietnam. He was hired as a replacement for a pregnant teacher. He was given average classes and one non-Regents class.

One month after he started, he came over to me. “Scobe,” he said. “I can’t do it. I am always losing my temper. At first that scared them; now they hoot and holler at me. I can’t scare them anymore. I’m miserable.”

He quit the next week.

Another was a businessman who had retired to a life of luxury. He thought teaching would be a “breeze.” His children had gone to our schools and he was very critical about most of our teachers.

He made a pronouncement that he would become a teacher and show the rest of us how easy it was. He bragged to the students about how much money he had. They were not impressed; many came from wealthy families. The ones who didn’t come from wealthy families disliked him for his superiority.

Within a week the man was torn to shreds. He was constantly writing disciplinary referrals. It looked as if he was going to give the Cyclops a run for her money.

He loudly claimed in the teachers’ lounge that the principal had given him the toughest kids because of his former criticism of our school district. Not so. He just had regular kids, none with serious problems. He just couldn’t handle them.

Some teachers can control their classes. How they do so is probably a mystery. We had several excellent women teachers who were under five-feet tall. One was an extremely skinny older woman with the most irritating, whiney voice on earth. The kids sat at attention in her class. She rarely needed to send a referral.

We had excellent teachers who were fat, some who were giants, some who were just plain-looking men and women—and they could teach up a storm.

We had excellent teachers who were funny and the kids loved them. We had excellent teachers who were the exact opposite. Nasty bastards—some of whom I couldn’t stand—all of whom could teach and their students learned.

There is no common denominator to explain all their successes.

Yes, there are those who can do. And there are those who can do and teach. And there are those who can simply teach. Teaching is more than enough.

Then there are the ones who spout a disdainful cliché about doing vs. teaching, the ones who would be chopped up in front of a classroom.

Frank Scoblete’s books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries and at bookstores.

Cindy Tackles Craps

It is no longer the 1950s or 60s or 70s or 80s. We are in a new century now. It is truly the modern age.

But is it the modern age in the game of craps? Have women broken the stranglehold that men have had on that game since forever?

Is craps still a male domain?

Indeed, it still is but, as Bob Dylan wrote long ago, “The times they are a-changin.” He should have just added the word “slowly.” Maybe, very slowly.

If you go to the craps tables today, while men still dominate, it is not completely unheard of to see women playing the game – and playing the game not attached to some fellow.

Yes, it has been slow progress but it has been progress nevertheless. One such female craps player is Cindy, a 65-year-old product of New Jersey who “cut her teeth” (as she says) in Atlantic City in “the early days.”

I’ll let her tell her story:

CINDY: “When I first went to the casinos, it was Resorts, and you actually had to wait in line to play. I was a kid and this would be my first trips to the casino. My mother and father thought I was making a big mistake.

“I guess like any novice I went to the slot machines. They were the easiest to play and it didn’t take any knowledge to put your coins in and spin the reels. But I got bored with the slots; there was no strategy and it became somewhat humdrum. What next?

“I tried blackjack and I liked it but still, it was missing something. I tried roulette too. I just wasn’t getting the thrill I thought the casino games should give me.

“Look, I know other players loved all these games and they satisfied many of them. Not me. I always heard cheering and moaning coming from the craps tables – all male voices by the way. What was it about that game that thrilled all those guys? Or made them miserable? Loud miserable too. I didn’t hear any massive cheering at blackjack or roulette. Maybe one voice at a slot machine.

“At craps it could be the whole table!

“I strolled by the craps tables one evening and watched the game. The layout looked imposing. There were so many bets I couldn’t keep track of them. I had just started my career as a teacher and I had a little money, very little. The minimum for the table was five dollars. I could afford that if I decided to play

“Did I want to just push my way into the game without knowing anything about it? I’d be pushing a bunch of men back. I decided that the better part of bravery was caution. I just spent that evening watching a few tables.

“What does a teacher do when confronted with a mystery and craps was a mystery. I bought several books from the Gamblers Book Club in Las Vegas. These were elementary books that explained the game and the various betting choices players could make. Those betting choices were huge.

“I made a very simple plan. I would make the best bets at the table, the Pass and the Come and put double odds on them. I’d go up on three numbers and cross my fingers.

“I did know that the game was dominated by men. I had not seen a single woman playing it when I spent that evening watching it. Would the men mind a woman entering their game? Well, I was going to play it no matter what. I can be stubborn and I was a feminist. No male world was closed to me. I hoped I was as strong as I pretended to be!

“I guessed I’d have two thrills. One would be playing the game and the other would be how I would be treated when I played the game. Okay, my next trip would let me know if I could handle it all.

“My parents asked me if I really wanted to go to the casino this often. It was once a month. It wasn’t a long drive from our house. My sister Abby, who was in law school during this time, came with me many times in the future but my first trip to the craps table to play meant I was all alone.

“I cashed in for a hundred dollars and I heard it right away. One older guy shook his head and said loudly, ‘Oh, look who is here!’ I guess that was supposed to scare me.

“I got my chips and I placed a come bet. ’Stupid bet,’ he said. Evidently, he hadn’t read the two books I had read. When my bet went on the number, I placed two times odds on it.

“Most of the men just ignored me. One guy told me not to worry about ‘the idiot’ who was making remarks. Have fun playing. That’s why we were all here. We married two years later.

“I guess you could say, I really won at the craps table!”

All the best in and out of the casinos!

 

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries and at bookstores.   

My Rejected Screenplay

I sent in a pitch of my new screenplay in 2018. I had one almost accepted by DreamWorks when that company first opened in the 1990s. I’ve written about that particular ordeal in one of my books.

The new one was going to be a big, whopping, costing countless millions that would attract a gigantic audience. I thought it would be a better seller than Jaws or Star Wars or Titanic.

I was meeting with two top executives, Paul J. and James C.

James started the meeting off. “Good afternoon Frank. What have you got for us?”

Frank: “It’s a big one. A grand one with so many elements in it that will attract people to watching it.”

Paul: “Shoot!”

Frank: “It’s about a pandemic that circles the globe killing about 10 million people, about a million in America. The thought is that the virus, called Viral-18, came from a Chinese laboratory and was accidentally release—or even released on purpose—into China and then was picked up and traveled the world on airplanes and boats, especially cruise ships.”

James: “That’s not much of a death toll.”

Frank: “Ah, but there is more. Whole countries close down because there is no real way to fight the disease.”

Paul: “Doesn’t sound like much.”

Frank: “But doctors recommend wearing masks and then society splits in two on the subject. In America and in Europe. Fights actually start in stores and on the street over whether to wear masks or not. The people who refuse to wear masks think wearing a mask is destroying their freedom.

“People are laid off work. The housing market skyrockets as city people start buying suburban and rural houses. The suburbanites aren’t happy to have these people.

“The President of the United States is a guy who used to do a reality show on television. He refuses to read and is involved in shady dealings. He has an orange face too. And strange hair.”

Paul: “Like John Boehner?”

Frank: “Even more. He won’t wear a mask and his followers do what he does. Many evangelical Christians think this guy was sent from God to destroy the evils of the government. Right wing movements are growing in European countries too. Including Germany.”

James: “So far it is ridiculous.”

Frank: “There is a lot more here. Militias start forming and they join each other all over the country. They talk to each other over social media sites and stockpile weapons. At a certain point these people attack Congress and try to kill the Vice President who is himself an evangelical, who won’t be with a woman in a restaurant unless his wife is with him.”

James: “This isn’t going to be some study of sick men, is it?”

Frank: “No, no, they are just the decorations on the tree of the story.”

Paul: “Continue.”

Frank: “As this is happening cities come under fire from the left-wing. Radicals wearing Guy Fawkes masks. Cops are targeted and there is also a big black/white confrontation about racism and the left hates the police and the right loves them except something goes screwy with them when they attack Congress.”

James: “Where’s the sex? We don’t want G or PG.”

Frank: “Plenty of sex. Not all normal either. The President has had many affairs and he has to buy all the women off. The news media plays this up too. He even says he grabs women by their private parts. We can show this too if we go R rated.

“Also, an idea is that whites are inherently racist. This takes place all over the country. Some cities have nightly riots! Stores are looted and burned. This group is often referred to as the ‘Awakes.’ They destroy statues of people they hate like Lincoln.

Paul: “Who the hell could hate Lincoln?”

Frank: “So, you have a new civil war becoming possible.”

James: “I don’t know. Sounds derivative. But weird sex is a good element. Does he have a wife?”

Frank: “A beauty with a great accent. She was a model, even did nudes before she married the President.

“There’s more. While all this is going on, the country and the world is faced with a UFO problem. The government now admits, even a former President admits, that UFOs are real and do things none of our aircraft can do. There are all sorts of tapes from the military showing these craft making our planes look silly. Are we being invaded from space? The world hangs in the balance.

Paul: “I don’t know, The UFOs are kind of old. There have been a lot of movies about UFOs.”

Frank: “Oh, I forgot, Asians are being attacked all over the country because people blame them for the Viral-18 virus. Other minorities are attacking Asians but only one channel shows this.”

James: “But Crazy Rich Asians is making a bundle.”

Frank: “Yeah, but now here is another one to add. The President of the United States runs for reelection and loses the popular vote and the electoral college to some old guy who keeps falling as he walks up the stairs to his plane. This old guy is accused of being a pawn of the Chinese. The ousted President, who is supported by the Russians, claims that the election was rigged. His followers start going berserk. That’s when they try to take over Congress too and even beat up and kill police. They even have a sign saying they are going to kill the Vice President.

“The states certify that the President lost. Scores of cases are brought to the courts and the President is defeated in all of them. Doesn’t matter, a religion has now grown up around this guy. It is called ‘U’ and the President is now looked upon as almost a god that the Christian God has groomed perfectly and, here is really the weird stuff, the opposition party is now believed to be controlled by Satanists who have sex with children and drink their blood. ‘U’ claims that all over the world these Satanists are destroying children and countries and fixing elections.”

James: “Do you really think movie audiences could believe all this?”

Frank: “There is one fake ballot found during the election. One man murdered his wife and then sent in her mail-in vote and the vote was for the President!

“All of this going on with UFOs and the pandemic and an upcoming civil war between the left and the right. People are refusing to be vaccinated too with a new vaccine that was quickly created. They are leaving themselves open to this world-wide disease and some of them are causing trouble on airplanes. They’ll wear seat belts but they won’t wear masks.”

James: “Frank, listen. A worldwide disease, people refusing to be vaccinated against it, a wacky orange President, religious fanatics who think this guy is a god, UFOs, Satanists, pedophiles, a rebellion on the left and the right, a right-wing attempt to take over Congress and a new President who trips up the stairs? Who could believe all of this going on at the same time? Nobody.”

Paul: “I have to agree with James. Nobody would believe this. The story is completely nutty. It’s all over the place. There is no way all this could be happening.”

Frank: “Oh, oh, and hackers are hacking into our oil lines and meat-packing plants. America is in a cyber war too. How’s that?”

Paul: Adding more isn’t helping. The answer is no.

They were right, I guess. These things were just too much for a movie. No one would believe it.

Female Crapshooters

In post war America in the 1950s, men were the crapshooters. You rarely saw a woman at a craps table – at least one who was not accompanied by a man; probably she was not his wife or his beloved girlfriend.

The same was true right up until the 1980s. Women just didn’t take to craps. They dominated the slot machine world. Indeed, their husbands and boyfriends would usher them off to the land of bells and whistles so that the men could play the man’s game.

Most men learned to play craps in the military. It was a city game but the country boys took to it with delight. With the soaring attendance in Las Vegas, craps became the number one game until the mid-1960s when blackjack jumped ahead of it.

It is now 2021. Has anything changed?

Kind of; sort of; well, maybe; somewhat.

Check out the craps tables in the casinos across the country and you can still see clearly that the game is heavily dominated by men; most of whom have never spent time in a war. Their game was probably learned inside the casinos’ walls.

Yet, you will on occasion see females playing the game. They are the trailblazers.

In the 1980s I wrote an article where I described how the men, mostly World War II and the Korean War vets, looked upon the precious few women who dared to come to the world of men.

But in those days, the way some of these men talked was frowned upon by some of the newspapers and magazines to which I sent this article. Long story short; my article was rejected by all of them.

I am now resurrecting some of the men’s “insights” so we can see how these fellas actually felt about women who dared stand at the tables with them. The reading public has become far more mature than it was so very long ago.

Joey D. from Brooklyn [WWII army vet]: “I do not want a woman at the tables with me. I won’t allow my wife to come near the craps tables. Craps is meant for men. It requires knowledge of the bets and how they are paid off. I think it is too complicated by the woman sex. Your head has to be into the game. I don’t think their heads are capable of understanding the game.

“They belong at the slot machines. That is their place when they are in the casino. Craps ain’t for them.”

Paulie M. from New Jersey [Korean War vet]: “I am not a man who hates women. I have three daughters and a beautiful wife. But I have told all of them that when they are in the casino to not play craps. Craps players look at the game as their domain – meaning a man’s domain. It is men only!

“Do you see women at the craps tables? No, you don’t. They know they don’t belong there and we men know they don’t belong there. That’s the way it is and that is the way it will always be. Some things change in this world and some things don’t. Craps will stay the same at least for my lifetime. I am sure of that.”

David P. from Long Island, New York [WWII vet]: “I like a good cigar. When there are only men at the table, I can take out my stogie and light up. Remember when stogies were bad cigars? Yeah. Well, not anymore.

“I have never had a man tell me to put out my cigar. Never. But twice I had ladies at the table with me and the nerve of them! They told me to put out the cigar. I gave them a look that said, ‘Go jump in the ocean.’ And then they told the box man who told me we couldn’t smoke cigars at the table. You have to be kidding me?

“Craps is a man’s game and we men, most of us, like to smoke. Ladies, go away. You only cause problems at the game. You are slow to take the dice. You do the little girl routine so we feel sorry for you. All of this is a royal waste of everyone’s time.

“Learn your lesson. Okay? Craps belongs to men.”

Marty V. from Pennsylvania [Korean War vet]: “I played in the streets as a kid and I played in the army. I love the game. I’d bank the game in the army and that made me some cash. The casino game is fun too.

“I go to Vegas three times a year and all I want to do is play the game I love. Women at the tables? Nah, you don’t see many of them. Maybe here and there and they don’t stay long. Craps is the only game in the casino that is all men all the time.

“And that’s the way it should be.”

There you have it. Voices from another generation.

All the best in and out of the casinos!

Frank Scoblete’s web site is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books and at bookstores and libraries.  

Scobe’s Yay or Nay: Seaspiracy

 

I love documentaries, usually about anything. I have seen the greatest birds in the world on my television screen. I might not get to the top of a real mountain but I’ve been on many a televised mountain including Everest.

I’ve also been under the sea. And that, as of now, has done me in.

Do you love to eat fish? I did. When I was in Alaska, I ate King Salmon for three meals on many days! Now I won’t eat fish, of any kind, anymore. My wife, the Beautiful AP, ate so much fish in her life that she can stay submerged for seemingly hours. She won’t eat fish anymore either.

The documentary, seen on Netflix, titled Seaspiracy has done that to us. Actually, watching this documentary has led us to firmly conclude that our oceans are done in—and not just by plastic straws, plastic garbage bags and take-out containers. No, something bigger is happening. Much, much bigger.

Seaspiracy starts off rather relaxed, like a snowball at first rolling down the hill, and by the end you have a snowball bigger than Mt. Everest. The documentary maker never quit pursuing the topic layer by layer, even when his life was in danger. By the end my wife and I were saying, “Oh, my God!” “Oh, my God!” scene after scene. We looked at each other and nodded and said, “I will never eat fish again.”

I am not going to ruin this documentary for you—if ruin is the right word—but I must tell you that I think you might be saying “Oh, my God!” by the end too.

Seaspiracy is the most powerful documentary about the oceans that I have ever seen. It gets as many “yays” as I can give it.

Seaspiracy is currently playing on Netflix.

Frank Scoblete’s web site is wwwfrankscoblete.com. His books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, libraries, e-books and at bookstores.