Writing My Way Out Of A Paper Bag.....

I was a journalism major in college, and have written sporadically over the years since. I wrote an article after leaving the military entitled "Why I blasted off the end of the Huntington Beach Pier in my spaceship". During the first few months after leaving the military in early 1974, I would drive down to Huntington Beach (in Southern California, about ten miles from where I was living) to fish during the early morning hours. On one of those occasions, I encountered a Vietnam veteran sitting beneath the pier, looking pensive and not particularly hopeful. I asked him what he was doing there. He replied, "I'm waiting for a spaceship to come and take me away". We talked a while, and nothing else he said indicated serious mental problems. He had just been through a lot, and this was his way of expressing himself. My article was a swipe at various issues of the time. I began writing again about a year ago, being motivated by events in my life and in the world around me. In this regard, I am appreciative to Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post for having included my brief commentaries on several occasions, in response to some of their articles. The Jerusalem Post boldly printed my commentary regarding an article in which I mentioned American filmmaker Harvey Weinstein's collusion with the Government, and my insinuation that Queen Elizabeth granted him CBE (Commander of the British Empire) under less-than-honourable conditions (my exact words as published by JPost, after mentioning the late royal practise of granting titles to rock stars and film producers, were "...I can understand the latter, in terms of rewarding filmmaking which has been complicitous with an allied Government. Perhaps Harvey Weinstein would care to explain". I must say that I was a bit surprised that The Jerusalem Post printed this, and I commend them for it as highly as I am able to do so here). Just a few days later, the Washington Post newspaper's Michael Abramowitz put a question to President Bush at the Rose Garden in a press conference, which I understood to be a reference to this Jerusalem Post article. Bush responded, "Yes...what I can tell you is that there is an internal investigation taking place at the Justice Department". That's the last you'll hear of it from official sources. But I will be saying more in a future blog posting.