Blog Archives
Revisiting November 1978 (again)
I stand by my post of 19 November 2018. Harvey Milk had very close ties to Jim Jones and The People’s Temple, and Milk had a lot of help from Jones and Temple members in getting elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
I received a comment on the 19 November 2018 post, calling me a homophobe. The person did not have the guts to give his or her name.
Fine. That’s your right, sir or madam. It is protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The First Amendment also protects my rights to say Harvey Milk is not someone deserving of a state holiday. Harvey Milk Day is every May 22 in California. If Harvey Milk has a holiday, then why doesn’t Ronald Reagan, who served two terms as Governor of California AND President of the United States?
I do not care that Mr. Milk was homosexual. That was Mr. Milk’s business and his business alone. People can be homosexual all they want. I don’t care. It isn’t affecting me. I’d rather children be raised by two loving homosexual parents than by a heterosexual couple which sees the man abusing the woman or vice versa.
What I do care about is Mr. Milk, along with San Francisco mayor George Moscone and many other power brokers in California and other places (read: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC) let Jim Jones dig his tentacles deep into them, blinding them to a man who brainwashed so many then killed them.
The 40th anniversary of the murders of Milk and Moscone by Dan White was this past Tuesday. What Mr. White did was exceedingly evil. Cowardly. Dastardly. Yes, Mr. White had every right to be angry with Mr. Moscone for double-crossing him by not re-appointing him to the board upon advice from Mr. Milk. It did not give him any right to illegally enter San Francisco City Hall with a gun and shoot two men in the head at point blank range. Mr. White escaped the gas chamber only because he came up with this ridiculous “Twinkie Defense,” claiming junk food altered his mental state and his brain told him to go murder Moscone and Milk.
I have eaten tonnes and tonnes of junk food in my lifetime. Not once have I felt the urge to harm someone, let alone murder them, after eating Twinkies, Fritos, Doritos, Oreos, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Zapp’s potato chips, or any other form of junk food. It was too bad Dan White was able to walk out of prison after serving just five years.
White committed suicide in October 1985. Too bad it occurred in the garage of his house in San Francisco, not in the gas chamber at San Quentin.
I didn’t learn about Mosocne and Milk’s ties to Jim Jones until the early 1990s, long after both were senselessly murdered by White. If I had been old enough in November 1978 to know about Moscone and Milk’s ties to Jones, I certainly would have written a letter to the editor of my local newspaper calling White an evil bastard for committing the murders, but also urged people not to be so quick to martyr Moscone and Milk, because they had dark secrets they took with them to their graves.
That’s it. End of discussion. Readers, you are entitled to your opinion, and I am entitled to mine. But let’s be civil about it.
November 18–don’t save the date
For the first time since a lost weekend 13 1/2 months ago, I am in the St. Louis metropolitan area. In fact, I’m at the same hotel in St. Peters, about 50 kilometers west of the Gateway Arch and the Mississippi River.
I had no intentions of stopping in Kansas City this time. I thought about dropping anchor in Columbia, but felt good enough to keep going. I made sure not to eat after breakfast so I had the proper appetite for White Castle.
I went to two different grocery stores in St. Peters, Schnucks and Dierberg’s. Selection is much better than anything in Kansas City, except for the bread, and certainly better than anything in Hays, Salina or Wichita. I still cannot find the poppy seed hot dog buns. I bought the last pack in Columbia last week, but struck out in St. Peters tonight. Try again tomorrow. Maybe I’ll have to stop in Columbia to see if they’re restocked at Schnucks.
November 18 holds bad memories for a lot of people.
On November 18, 1997, I got into a very petty and very ugly argument with Rebecca Borne (now Brennan), whom I had a crush on throughout my time at LSU. It was over class presentations, and I got very upset with Rebecca when her group wasn’t able to make their presentation on time. Her group wanted to go before my group, and I told her I wouldn’t do it. The instructor, Laura Klaus, tried to calm me down, but I was over the edge. I skipped my 0900 class and hurried to the athletic department, where I lost it.
There were two historical events on November 18 which are best forgotten.
Sunday was the 40th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre, when Marxist cult leader Jim Jones ordered 900 followers in Guyana to drink Flavor-Aid laced with cyanide. Those who refused to drink the deadly cocktail had the cyanide injected into their veins. Prior to the mass suicide, Jones’ henchmen murdered U.S. Representative Leo Ryan (D-California) and members of an NBC News crew.
Jones was enabled by Harvey Milk, the infamous homosexual member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and San Francisco mayor George Moscone. Milk and Moscone shared Jones’ radical leftist views, and through Milk and Moscone, Jones charmed his way into the inner circle of President Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter, Vice President Mondale, future San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, who was then the Speaker of the California Assembly, as well as Hollywood elite, namely Jane Fonda and her anti-war zealots.
Just how far to the left were Jones, Milk and Moscone? Their leading opposition on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors came from Diane Feinstein. Yes, THAT Diane Feinstein. Apparently, Feinstein was too “conservative” for the likes of the grossly corrupt Milk, who lied about his service in the U.S. Navy (he claimed he was dishonorably discharged for his homosexuality, which was totally false; he was honorably discharged) and demonized anyone who dared oppose gay rights ordinances in San Francisco and legislation in Sacramento.
Before Milk could be humiliated for his close association with Jones, he and Moscone were assassinated nine days after the Jonestown massacre by former Supervisor Dan White, who was forced to resign from the board due to financial difficulty and was denied renomination, thanks to Milk’s badgering of Moscone.
Seven years after Jonestown, Joe Theismann’s football career ended in horrific fashion when he suffered a grotesque broken leg when his Redskins hosted the Giants on Monday Night Football.
On the fateful play, Harry Carson grabbed a hold of Theismann’s arm, but missed. As the Redskins quarterback sighted his Hall of Fame wideout, Art Monk, Lawrence Taylor caught him from behind.
Taylor’s knee crushed’ Theismann’s tibia and fibula. LT was so horrified he frantically motioned to the Redskin bench that Theismann was really, really hurt.
Theismann’s career ended right then and there at RFK Stadium. The Redskins recovered to win Super Bowls XXIII and XXVI under Joe Gibbs, whom I regard as the best NFL coach I’ve seen, since he won three Super Bowls with four different quarterbacks: Theismann in XVII, Jay Schroeder and Doug Williams in XXII, and Mark Rypien in XXVI. Can you imagine if Gibbs would have had Dan Marino or John Elway for his entire tenure, at least after Theismann? It wouldn’t have been fair.
Thirty-three years to the day after Theismann’s career ended, Alex Smith’s career might well have come to a screeching halt.
Smith suffered an injury described as bad as Theismann’s in the Redskins’ loss to the Texans Sunday. If I were him, I would retire; he’s set financially, and he will do a tremendous job as an analyst should he choose that path.
There was happier news Sunday.
Leslie Edwin Miles is once again a college football coach. Miles was introduced Sunday as the new leader of the Kansas Jayhawks.
The best thing about this? Besides Miles coming to Lawrence, it’s we didn’t hear too many idiots wanting to bring back Mark Mangino. Mangino is a steaming pile of feces as far as I’m concerned.
I’ll have more on Miles in an upcoming post. Right now, I’m beat. Good night.
Foots Prints 