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About greg

Just another bozo on the bus.

punchdrunk villa

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When you have an infantile Secretary of Defense with an inferiority complex and a desperate need to prove his manhood (yes, I’m talking about Pete Hegseth here), you have to expect a lot…and I mean a lot…of performative macho bullshit. Like murdering alleged drug runners in small craft with MQ-9 Reaper drones firing Hellfire missiles. Like inventing military medals so he and Commander-in-Chief Comrade President Trump can hand them out on stage.

I’m talking about the Mexican Border Defense Medal. It’s basically the Temu version of the Mexican Border Service Medal issued in 1918. The Mexican Border Service Medal was issued to troops who weren’t eligible for the Mexican Service Medal, which was issued in 1917.

Okay, there’s a good chance you’re saying, “Wait…what?” right about now. Here’s what you need to know (okay, you don’t actually need to know this, but it’ll help if you want to understand all this). For about eight and a half years–from 1910 to 1919–the US was involved in a low intensity (punctuated by some serious, deadly skirmishes and battles) border war with Mexico. Mexico was engaged in a civil war at the time. On top of that, Mexico was also a potential ally of Germany in World War One. Really, it was a whole thing–Germany sent a secret, encoded telegram to Mexico saying if the US entered the war against Germany, Germany would help Mexico invade the US and recapture the states of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. So yeah, the US had troops at the Southern border. We even invaded a few times, and at one point occupied Veracruz for half a year.

Gen. John ‘Blackjack’ Pershing during the Mexican War

The thing is, there was a shooting war with Mexico and some Mexican paramilitary elements (like Pancho Villa), and even a few German soldiers. So the troops involved in that shooting war were given a medal. The Mexican Service Medal. Some of the serious Big Hat folks in World Wars 1 and 2 earned that medal. Like ‘Blackjack’ Pershing, and Douglas MacArthur, and George Patton, and John LeJeune.

A year later, troops who weren’t involved in the shooting part of the war–the troops who provided logistics and support (without which the combat troops would go into battle with rocks and sharpened sticks)–were awarded the the Mexican Border Service Medal. They also faced danger.

Now Pete Hegseth and Comrade Trump have issued the Mexican Border Defense Medal. You’re probably wondering how a service member earns this prestigious new medal. Well, I’ll tell you. They have to be assigned, attached, or detailed for at least 30 days to a unit deployed within 100 miles of the US-Mexico border (or 24 nautical miles in adjacent US waters) as part of a designated operation supporting the Customs and Border Protection Agency.

Pete Hegseth awards the Mexican Border Defense Medal (to a woman who could probably kick his ass).

Seriously. That’s it. You didn’t have to actually DO anything. Just be assigned to a unit near the border. It’s such light duty Pete Hegseth thinks even girls can do it. And hell, he’ll hand them a medal too. That’s the kind of guy he is. I’m sure he’d rather be giving the medal to the MQ-9 Reaper drone operators, but they’re sitting in air conditioned rooms in (probably) Yuma, Arizona, which is too far away for them to get the Mexican Border Defense Medal.

But what’s important is that the medal gives Hegseth and Comrade Trump a chance to stand around with men (and a token number of women) in uniform and hand them a medal. It makes them feel important. Competent. Maybe even manly. During the ceremony in which the first 13 medals were issued, Trump noted that the troops had “endured scorching heat and bitter cold, and had given up their holidays and weekends.”

Greater love hath no man (or, possibly, woman) than to give up holidays and weekends to…to…to stop families escaping poverty and violence from crossing the Southern border of the United States?

Jesus suffering fuck…these people, I declare.

caedite eos

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It’s been reported by both the Washington Post and CNN that Whiskey Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense (not War) has committed either war crime or murder. Well, they didn’t come right out and say that, but they’re reporting he gave orders to “kill everybody” (‘everybody’ in this case refers to the 11 people aboard a civilian vessel allegedly carrying drugs).

Whether it was murder or a war crime depends on whether you 1) buy into the Trump administration’s bullshit argument that the folks on that boat were involved in a “non-international armed conflict” or 2) believe those 11 people were ordinary run-of-the-mill drug smugglers. If you go for Door Number 2, then killing them with a couple of rockets is plain old mass murder. You can’t just execute people you suspect are drug smugglers; you have to go through that whole ‘due process’ business guaranteed by the US Constitution. (Also? Eleven people? On a smuggling run? Them’s some really inefficient smugglers.)

If you buy Door Number 1, then it’s a war crime. It becomes a war crime because the initial rocket attack didn’t kill everybody. Two people survived the first explosion and were clinging to the wreckage when Hegseth (allegedly) ordered a second strike to kill them. The Geneva Conventions clearly state that people who are not capable of engaging in combat due to “sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause” have to be “treated humanely.” Blowing up people clinging to the wreckage of a boat is pretty fucking far from humane.

Either way–murder or war crime–Pete Hegseth ought to be removed from office and…I don’t know, made to cling to some wreckage in the Caribbean.

Mr. P. Hegseth, Secretary of WTF

Hegseth, it seems, sees himself as some sort of modern-day crusader. He has a Jerusalem cross (also known as the crusader cross) tattooed on his chest and the words Deus Vult (God wants it) tattooed on his bicep. Both of that phrase and that symbol can be found on the coat of arms of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem–a militant group of Christian warriors founded in 1099 during the First Crusade to protect Christians and Christian property.

It’s maybe instructive to remember (or learn for the first time) that not all of those famous crusades took place in what are called the holy lands. Nor were they all directed against Muslims. But they were all really really really fucking brutal. For example, the Albigensian Crusade (1209 to 1229) took place in southern France and northern Italy and its purpose was to eliminate the Cathars, a Christian sect considered by the Church (there was only the one recognized Christian church back then) to be heretics.

It was a popular crusade among the ruling classes of the early 13th century because 1) it was a LOT less fuss and expense to go kill people in Europe than to travel all the way to the Middle East, where they spoke different languages and ate strange food, 2) unlike the Muslims, the Cathars were pacifists, so killing them was less dangerous, and 3) you still got cred from the Church for being a Good Christian.

There was a big Cathar community in a town called Béziers on the Mediterranean coast. A crusader army under the command of Arnaud Amalric was sent to deal with them. There was an attempt to get the local Cathars to surrender themselves, but it failed. During the negotiations, a small skirmish got out of hand. Amalric was told that it was impossible to differentiate between the ‘good’ Christians and the Cathars, so he gave the order, “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius,” which is translated as “Slay them. The Lord knows those that are His.” In other words, kill them all and let God sort it out.

Amalric reported it to the Pope, writing “Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people. After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt.”

Assuming the reporting is accurate (and given all we know about him, it certainly could be), Hegseth’s order to “Kill everyone” can be seen as a smaller, more modern version of the crusader order, “Caedite eos,” Slay them. If they’re not guilty, God will deal with it. So long as you’re doing God’s work, it’s okay. You can’t make an omelet, and all that.

Three years after the massacre at, Arnaud Amalric was made the archbishop of Narbonne. Three months after sinking that particular boat, Pete Hegseth is facing a Congressional investigation. With Comrade Trump as president, we may soon see Hegseth become an archbishop.

Trumpsgiving

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Two National Guard troops from West Virginia were ambushed yesterday in Washington, DC by an Afghan immigrant. WHY did this happen?

I’m going to speculate here. (Okay, quick tangent: the term speculate comes from the Latin ‘speculari‘, meaning ‘to observe’. Originally it meant to observe closely and intelligently, but by the 16th century it acquired a hint of disparagement and began to mean mere conjecture. I’m hoping to speculate in the original sense of the term.)

I speculate that we can draw a fairly straight line from Trump’s 2020 deal to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan to yesterday’s shooting.

You may not recall, but Trump basically betrayed the recognized Afghan government by negotiating a deal with the Taliban (AKA the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which the US did NOT recognize as a legit government). He agreed 1) to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan within 14 months, 2) to close five US air bases within 135 days, 3) to NOT to provide air support for Afghan forces unless Taliban units were within 500 meters of those forces, and 4) to require the Afghan government to release 5000 Taliban prisoners (allowing them to resume fighting against Afghan government). In exchange, the Taliban promised not to attack US forces (they could still attack Afghan forces).

This was a disastrous deal. Not only did the US have to sacrifice a LOT of equipment by closing those five airbases in such a short time, but that equipment was seized by the Taliban. After the agreement was signed, the Taliban conducted more than 4,500 attacks against Afghan forces. Without US military ground and air support, the next 45 days were among the bloodiest in the 20 years of war.

Trump signed the agreement in February of 2020; in January of 2021, Uncle Joe Biden became president. He was obligated by Trump’s agreement to withdraw the rest of the US forces from Afghanistan, which he did. It was predictably chaotic. However, Biden also initiated a program called Operation Allies Welcome to evacuate thousands Afghans who were at risk of Taliban reprisal.

Not surprisingly, Trump and MAGA were critical of Biden for ‘abandoning’ Afghans who helped the US AND for welcoming too many Afghans into the US. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the accused shooter, was one of more than seventy thousand Afghans who emigrated to the US as part of that program.

In August of this year, Trump cancelled many of the programs created to help those Afghan refugees who’d aided US forces during the war. He also fired the members of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts (CARE) team administering what was now called Operation Enduring Welcome. He strippied them of their legal status, targeting them for deportation back to Afghanistan, where they would be in danger from the Taliban.

At this point in time, we’ve no information if Lakanwal and/or his family were facing deportation.

Combine that with Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard troops to Washington, DC and other Democrat-controlled states and cities against the wishes of the leaders AND the residents of those cities. Combine that with the depredations of ICE essentially kidnapping people and deporting them without any due process.

And hey bingo, here we are.

Again, this is just speculation. Many of us have also speculated that Trump’s purpose in deploying all those troops despite the opposition of the populace was to provoke some sort of incident that would allow him to further militarize Democratic-controlled cities and states. And now we hear Trump vowing to deploy even more troops to DC.

Today in the US we’re supposed to celebrate Thanksgiving. Traditionally, this holiday was to commemorate the harvest of 1621, in which the Plymouth colonists shared a feast with members of the Wampanoag tribe, who’d helped them survive both a plague and a disastrous winter in the preceding year. This year in particular, there is still much to be thankful for, but there’s also a LOT to be angry about.

There is NO reason for troops to be deployed, there is NO reason for immigrants to be deported in this manner, there is NO reason to withdraw help from those who’ve helped us, and there is NO reason for the families of the wounded National Guard members to have to deal with this, especially on this day. No reason other than Trump.

This year it’s Trumpsgiving. Eat your pie, love your friends and family, and be prepared to stand up to tyranny.

    unlawful orders

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    We’re seeing a lot of discourse about troops and how they should respond to unlawful orders. That’s good. What’s NOT so good, though, is that almost all of the discourse is naive. Much of it comes from civilians who’ve never served and don’t understand how the military operates, or from veterans who were officers. Very little of it is coming from former enlisted personnel–the poor bastards who actually have to carry out those orders.

    Here’s a True Thing and in order to actually understand the current discourse you have to accept the truth of this: the foundation of all military hierarchies is grounded on one simple rule: you are required to immediately obey a direct order from a superior officer. In the military, a direct order is a specific, clear command to do something. Go there, do this. The military instills this in all enlisted troops because in combat, you don’t have time to discuss direct orders. You can’t mull over the moral, ethical, or legal implications of the order. You just have to obey it. Even if the direct order is stupid, even if it’s blatantly obvious to you that it’s the wrong thing to do, even if it puts you or others in extreme danger. You’re supposed to just fucking DO it and do it immediately. You’re actually trained to just fucking do it.

    The only acceptable military response to a direct order is “Yes sir.”

    But but but…what if the order is unlawful? You’re obligated to obey a direct order, but you’re also obligated to REFUSE to obey a direct order if it’s not lawful. The problem, of course, is most troops have a rather vague notion of what is and what isn’t lawful. That problem is compounded by the fact that a direct order must be obeyed immediately.

    What’s a lawful order? Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice isn’t particularly helpful. It suggests a direct order should be presumed to be legal:

    “An order requiring the performance of a military duty or act may be inferred to be lawful, and it is disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate. This inference does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime. The lawfulness of an order is a question of law to be determined by the military.”

    So, what’s a service member to do if they’re given a direct order and they’re skeptical about the order’s lawfulness? There’s a protocol for that. You’re supposed to:

    1. Seek clarification of the order. Ask the officer, “Sir, I want to make sure I understand. Are you ordering me to do this thing that seems to me like it might be really fucking illegal?” If the officer answers ‘yes’, but you’re STILL not sure it’s legal, then you’re supposed to…
    2. Consult a higher authority. “Sir, I’d like to talk to your superior or maybe a lawyer before I do this thing that seems to be really fucking illegal.”

    Odds are at this point, the officer will order some other service member to put you under arrest. If the order turns out later to have been lawful, you’re fucked; you may do time in a military prison and you’ll get a dishonorable discharge. If it turns out to have been unlawful, guess what: you’re still fucked. Every officer you deal with in the future will be sure to give every shit detail that comes along, because you can’t be trusted to follow orders from your superior officers.

    This is what’s missing from the discourse. The military is unlike civilian life. If you go to work and your boss tells you to do something you think violates the law, you can refuse. The worst that will happen is you’ll be fired. In the military, you could go to prison.

    It’s easy to say to troops, “Just don’t obey.” It’s not that easy for the troops. Especially when they’re serving under a Commander-in-Chief who pardons and celebrates war criminals. It’s easy to remind troops that ‘just following orders’ didn’t help Nazis during the Nuremberg trials. It’s not that easy when it’s your ass that’s looking at arrest and imprisonment.

    That said, troops SHOULD ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to obey orders they believe are unlawful. But we should also be aware of the risk we’re asking them to take.

    things happen

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    Obscenity piled on obscenity. It was completely obscene for Comrade President Donald Trump to welcome Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia into the White House. It was obscene that he held a formal state dinner to honor the Crown Prince. It was obscene that Trump referred to MBS as an “extremely respected man” who was also “a friend of mine.” It was deeply, deeply obscene for Trump to praise MBS for his work on human rights. But most obscene of all was his defense of the assassination and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi.

    ABC News reporter Mary Bruce asked a question: “Your royal highness, the U.S. intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist. 9/11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you? And the same to you, Mr. President?” Trump’s answer:

    “You’re mentioning someone that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen. But he (MBS) knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest.”

    Things happen? Things like assassination and dismemberment? They just happen?

    There’s a lot of blood on those hands.

    Jamal Khashoggi, a reporter who was critical of Saudi royalty, had fled to the US out of fear of government reprisals. In 2018, he wanted to marry Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish citizen. It would be his second marriage. In order to remarry, Khashoggie needed official documentation that his Saudi marriage had been dissolved, which required him to visit the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He made his first visit to the consulate unannounced, out of fear that he might be kidnapped and returned to Saudi Arabia. He was told he had to come back later. Khashoggi brought Ms. Cengiz with him on his second visit, but asked her to wait outside.

    She waited. He never came back out.

    US intelligence agencies determined that a Saudi hit team had been assembled on the order of Mohammed bin Salman. That team was waiting for Khashoggi. They tortured him, strangled him, and dismembered him with a bone saw. We know this because Turkish security agencies had bugged the Saudi consulate and made the tape of the assassination available. The assessment report by the CIA (along with a copy of the audio tape) was given to Trump. He stated he didn’t listen to the tape; he refused to release the report to the public.

    Seven years later, Trump is back in power and trying to help rehabilitate the reputation of MBS. Trump’s sons are engaged in developing golf resorts in Saudi Arabia. Trump’s golf courses in the US host tournaments sponsored by Saudi money. Saudi royalty buys expensive Trump properties. These things, these deals, they just…happen.

    Let’s face it, Trump likes powerful autocrats who can make things happen. I’m fairly certain he wishes he had more power to make things happen to persons who “a lot of people” don’t like. MBS can order a reporter kidnapped, tortured, murdered and dismembered; Trump has to make do with blowing up boat crewed by anonymous Venezuelans who might be drug runners or might just be unlucky fishermen. Trump wishes he could wield the sort of absolute power MBS has, and that should scare the absolute shit out of all Americans.

    Things happen, and Trump says we shouldn’t embarrass the people involved in those things by asking impertinent questions. He especially dislikes it when those impertinent questions are asked by women. Like ABC’s Mary Bruce. Like Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey (who Trump pointed his finger at and told her, “Quiet, piggy.”). Like all the women victimized by Jeffrey Epstein.

    Things happen. We’ve been waiting for them to happen to Trump. It’s time for us to stop waiting and make things happen. Yesterday’s near-unanimous vote to release the Epstein files during the visit of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia was a fine beginning.

    a consummation devoutly to be wished

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    I’m hesitant to write this. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m happy to write it. I’m hesitant to hope it might be true. I’ve hoped this hope so many times in the past, and each time that hope has been soundly kicked squarely in the yorbels. But I dunno…this time…maybe? So what the hell, I’m going to write it.

    We may actually be seeing the beginning of the end of Comrade President Donald J. Trump.

    Why do I think that? Epstein.

    Let’s face it, MAGA has repeatedly demonstrated that they’ll forgive Trump for anything. The open corruption, the galactic level hypocrisy, the gobsmacking incompetence, the extravagant lies, the destruction of the East Wing of the White House, the inability to maintain a coherent thought for any length of time, the complete and utter lack of loyalty to his subordinate, the destruction of a health care system they rely on, the destruction of civil liberties. MAGA has always found ways to overlook, justify, or even celebrate that shit.

    And to be honest, a sizable chunk of MAGA will forgive Trump for boinking teenaged girls. They may claim to be disappointed that he boinked teenaged girls while he was married, but they’ll forgive him for it. Some will even applaud him for it.

    But Epstein?

    Epstein is different. Epstein exists outside the ‘boys will be boys’ framework. Epstein has become shorthand for ‘child sex trafficking.’ And child sex trafficking has been a mainstay of right-wing conspiracy theories for a long, long time. These people spend a LOT of time thinking about forced sex with young girls. If you recall, the QAnon movement was solidly locked into the notion that powerful (mostly Democratic) politicians and Hollywood elites (exclusively Democratic) had formed a cabal of Satanic/cannibalistic pedophiles who kidnapped, imprisoned, raped, and murdered children for their adrenochrome.

    The loopy passion of QAnon was matched by—and eventually merged with—the loopy passion of MAGA. The membrane between QAnon and MAGA became even more porous and the loopiness escalated when Epstein died while in Federal custody. There was a feeding frenzy of conspiracy theories detailing how and by whom Epstein was murdered. Q/MAGA was energized during the 2024 election by Trump’s promise to release all the Epstein files if he was re-elected.

    And hey, bingo…he was. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters the Epstein client list “is on my desk right now for review.” Q/MAGA got excited. The truth was going to come out. Any day now. Really. Get ready. It was coming. Finally we’d know the truth. Just as soon as Bondi finished reviewing all the files. The Epstein client list would be made public and the elites would be held accountable for their horrific crimes. Q/MAGA could hardly contain itself. The anticipation was intense.

    Then, on a busy Friday over the 4th of July holiday weekend, Bondi quietly announced that the Epstein client list…well, it didn’t exist. Sorry. Oh, and Epstein wasn’t murdered; he just killed himself. Case closed. Nothing to see here. What’s on Netflix this week?

    Q/MAGA was…stunned. Then angry. Righteously angry. Now they feel betrayed. Not just by Bondi’s bait-and-switch, but by the possibility—wait, the probability—the OMFG certainty that Trump, his ownself, was on the list. Not just ON the list, but very likely FEATURED throughout the Epstein files. All of that loopy passion began to turn against Trump…and that’s a LOT of loopy passion.

    I wrote about this back in July. In response to a question, I said this:

    I don’t for a moment believe this will take Trump down. But I DO think it will weaken him. And I’m good with that. I don’t think there’s any single issue or scandal that can pull him down, but I think every issue that causes him to bleed a bit should be amplified. Death by a thousand cuts…that works for me.

    I’m starting to change my mind on this. I’m starting to believe the sheer depth and scope of all that Epstein-inspired loopy passion could take Trump down. Again, I’m hesitant to hope for it, because there’s been a Friday the 13th quality to Trump; he doesn’t stay dead.

    But maybe this time? Maybe dead Epstein will take Trump down? There would certainly be a sort of poetic justice to that. Maybe this could actually put an end to our national heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that Trump has inflicted upon us.

    ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

    UPDATE: Today Trump announced that he’s asking the Department of Justice to investigate Democrats linked to Epstein. Just Democrats, apparently. The most obvious reason is to draw attention away from himself. A less obvious reason: by getting the DOJ to investigate Democrats, the DOJ can then refuse to release the Epstein files because of an “ongoing investigation.”

    EDITORIAL NOTE: Seriously, we need to burn the patriarchy to the ground. Just about everything that’s fucked up in the world has its roots in patriarchy. Or capitalism. Much the same thing, really. Burn patriarchy and capitalism will also go up in smoke. Burn it.

    in which i look at an old photo (part 8)

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    Well, here we are again. This is the eighth time I’ve looked at an old photo. This is apparently a thing I do now. Why? Because in May of 2024 I read an article that suggested photographers could benefit from looking at their old photos as if they were made by a different person. I was skeptical about the idea, but what the hell…I did it. The notion still seems a wee bit precious to me. But here I am, doing it again.

    Two things: first, I don’t recall the exact point of looking at your old photos as if they were made by a stranger. I know it had something to do with how our approach to photography changes over time, but surely that’s a given, isn’t it? In any event, when I look at these old photos, I find I’m mostly thinking about why I shot that particular photo, or why I shot it in that particular way, or what that photo means to me now. None of which, I suspect, is what the author of the article intended.

    Second thing: when I decided to do this, I was stymied by the fact that I’d have to actually pick an old photo to look at. How do you do that? I chose a random approach. I pick a random month in a random year and see what catches my eye. I was completely unprepared to have emotions about this stuff. But I do.

    Anyway, here we go.

    10:28 AM, Monday, June 21, 2010

    I shot this photo standing up in the back of my brother’s pickup. What you’re seeing here is an anvil cloud. These form when a thunderstorm’s updraft reaches a level of the atmosphere where moisture effectively stops, which causes the storm to spread out horizontally. These sorts of clouds are associated with really severe weather, including hail and tornadoes. As I understand it, when the moist air can’t go any higher, water vapor coalesces and returns to Earth in the form of heavy rain and/or hail. There’s also a lot of wind. A lot of wind.

    Light gets really weird during a thunderstorm. The clouds make a huge difference, of course; they shape the angle of sunlight. The air is full of moisture and particulate matter swept up by the wind, so the light gets diffused and often turns into a beautifully ominous bruised color. It’s compelling and lovely and wild and sometimes scary. It’s that savage, unpredictable, astonishing, untamed wildness that makes big storms both lovely and terrifying.

    That’s exactly why my brother, Jesse Eugene, and I were there. He’d been a Marine in Vietnam, and a firefighter afterward. There was a stormy wildness in him. A wildness that showed up in most aspects of his life, to be honest. A wildness I’m afraid I encouraged during tornado season. The wildness–and his willingness to give into it–largely ruined his life. There was a part of him that loved the destructive power of fires, and loved facing and beating down that power. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons he loved thunderstorms. I think he probably saw them as a challenge he could face down.

    On this particular day, we knew a bad storm was coming and we drove out to meet it. This was just a few miles outside the city. I’d had him stop his pickup at this particular spot because I liked the curve of the road. I got excited when I got out of the vehicle and saw the curve reflected the curve of the anvil cloud. It amused Jesse Eugene when I asked him to turn the truck around so I could include the red roof in a photo. He enjoyed the absurdity of it–of me insisting on posing a pickup truck while a massive thunderstorm was approaching. It soon became too dark and windy to shoot photographs, but we stayed there until the storm hit hard and it began pissing down rain like the End of Days. It was a good storm.

    I picked this photo to look at because, even though you can see his face, it’s probably the most honest photograph I’ve taken of my brother. I’m happy with this just as a photograph, even though it’s flawed. I like the way the sunlight behind us illuminated my brother’s white hair. I like the artificial red shininess of the pickup’s roof. I like the way the curve of the road echoes the curve of the clouds. I like the emotion of the image; I like that the emotion is just there and doesn’t depend on the viewer knowing anything at all about the circumstance the people involved. It’s not a great photo, but I think it works.

    I’m also happy with it as a memory. I’d much rather remember Jesse Eugene like this, laughing and facing a thunderstorm, rather than the thin, frail, cancer-ravaged person he became at the end. But that’s the thing, I guess. Even the wildest storms eventually lose strength and peter out.

    comfort murders

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    A million years ago, when I was a lowly doctoral student, my dissertation advisor suggested I include a chapter comparing fictional detective work with actual detective work. I was reluctant to do that because, having been an actual private detective specializing in criminal defense work, I found detective fiction to be profoundly stupid. But a ‘suggestion’ from your dissertation advisor is pretty damned close to an order.

    Her suggestion came with a list of authors and titles she thought I might find worthwhile. Somewhere near the middle of the list was this: Any Nero Wolfe novel by Rex Stout. Nero Wolfe, she told me, was an unorthodox detective–an obese, beer-drinking, gourmand genius who grows orchids, has a particular passion for the color yellow, and solves murders without ever leaving his house. I found this horrifying. I was supposed to somehow compare that to actual detective work? That would be like comparing a Star Trek transporter operator to a railroad engineer.

    But I went to the university library like a good doctoral student, and asked the librarian to give me a random Nero Wolfe novel. And I read it. And I loved it.

    Don’t get me wrong–it was as ridiculous as it sounds. Nero Wolfe was completely absurd. But his assistant, Archie Goodwin, was not. Well, that’s not true; he was also ridiculous. But unlike all the other detective novels I was forced to read, Archie Goodwin had a proper private detective’s attitude. Because Wolfe never leaves his house, he sends Archie out to gather information “guided by your intelligence and experience.” That’s pretty much how criminal defense investigation is done.

    What made Archie Goodwin interesting and, to some extent, believable, was his attitude. He’s generally light-hearted and enjoys meeting people and talking to them; he undertakes each aspect of an investigation as if it’s an entertaining challenge. That makes him creative and improvisational, which are qualities you find in the best investigators. But below the surface, Archie is always focused on doing the job, getting the information needed to resolve the case. Getting results is the only real measure of PI work. The job always comes first.

    What really sold me on the character was one particular scene. Archie interviews a woman at her home. Her husband has recently died (as I recall, his death is unrelated to the crime at the center of the story). but out of habit she continues cooking his breakfast and setting a place for him at the table. His hat still hangs on the hatrack near the door. Archie realizes she’s stuck, so he sits at her husband’s place at the table, eats his breakfast, then puts the man’s hat on his head when he leave. Which is enough to shock her out of that stage of her grief. (I may have the details wrong; it’s been a long time since I read it…and I’ll come back to that.)

    That scene hit me hard because I had a similar encounter as a PI. I was interviewing a woman who’d had the bad luck to witness a crime. Her teen-aged son had recently died. His skateboard was still leaning against a wall in the kitchen. She couldn’t bring herself to move it. After the interview, as I was leaving, I told her I knew a kid who couldn’t afford a good skateboard (which was a total lie) and offered to buy it from her. She cried and gave it to me, glad that the skateboard would be used.

    Why am I telling you all this? Because about 18 months ago, somewhat in response to how awful everything is right now, I decided to find that Nero Wolfe novel and read it again. The problem was I didn’t remember the title. An even bigger problem was that between 1934 and 1975, Rex Stout wrote more than forty novels and short story collections featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

    So I bought a Nero Wolfe novel at random and read it. It wasn’t the one I was looking for. So I bought another. Then another. And another.

    They’re all basically the same novel. The characters never change or develop. They remain the same age, though time moves on. Their daily lives are unchanging. The cases are all variations on a theme: somebody has a problem (usually involving a murder), they consult Wolfe, Wolfe resists taking the case (unless he needs the money), Archie goads him into working, Archie (and a few other PIs) go out and gather information, Wolfe sits at his desk and thinks, everybody gathers in Wolfe’s office, and he identifies the murderer. They’re wildly unrealistic.

    This should be boring AF. But it’s not. At least it’s not to me. I find them weirdly comforting. The novels and short stories actually comprise a slowly evolving love story between all the primary characters: Wolfe, Archie, the house chef Fritz, the orchid wrangler Theodore, the two police detectives (Inspector Cramer and Sgt. Purley Stebbins). Hell, even the house they live in is part of the love story. And the menus for meals, lawdy. The plot is just a reason to spend time with the characters.

    Anyway, for the last year and a half, every second or third book I’ve read has been a Nero Wolfe novel. I’ve read 29 of them, in no particular order, and I still haven’t stumbled across the novel containing the scene I’m looking for. I have a list of 17 that I’ve yet to read.

    At this point, I’ll probably keep reading them even after I finally find that one scene. I may as well complete the set. I figure it’ll take me another year or so to get through them all. I’m okay with that.

    These are comfort murders, after all.