A WWII Mystery

The problem with old family snapshots is they don’t document themselves and, when there’s a note, it assumes knowledge on the part of the viewer. That guy in front resembled myself as a young guy, but he couldn’t have been my father, who enlisted in the Navy after turning 17 at the start of 1945, and was part of the Japan Occupation Force. The men in this picture were soldiers, not sailors.

Regardless of the family connection, whatever that may be, the questions are, what was the ship, and what happened after it reached Guam, assuming it did?

Follow-up: Were they Marines, and not Army? I’m told the caps might tell the story.

Follow-up: Mystery solved. The guy in back looked enough like my late father-in-law that I looked up his brother, also deceased, and that’s him. To my surprise, given the fatigues they were wearing, he was a Navy Seabee.

Ann Morigan

Another song I have fond memories of hearing in my youth when it was played on WBCN.

Here’s the entire album. Like Odessey & Oracle by the Zombies, Love’s Forever Changes is a 1967 album that was mostly ignored when it was released, but today it’s considered to be one of the finest of the era and beyond.

The Ballot’s in the Mail

Back in May I posted John Oliver’s explanation of how a 2006 law not only clobbered the USPS financially, it hobbled its ability to cope with it. Now that Trump has one of his rich enablers appointed as Postmaster General, the situation is getting worse, and it’s happening fast.

I recently mailed in my application form to vote by mail in the primary and general election. The one thing about it that I’m hoping will keep Trump from interfering with the process is that everything will be, or it should be, local. All the ballots go to the post office, and from there to the town hall or city hall for counting.

Easy Marks for Cons and Conspiracies

Yesterday, Trump doubled-down yet again on dismissing Dr. Fauci’s facts and promoting hydroxychloroquine. Today he’s with Fauci and wearing a mask. The pandemic has Donald reversing himself but only briefly, because reality is forcing him to make occasional nods in its direction. He always returns, without fail, to his make-believe world of conspiracy theories, because he knows that’s what his loyal followers love. His latest false narrative is that voting by mail will lead to a massively fraudulent election.

I know a few people who continue to believe in Trump wholeheartedly, and honestly I just don’t understand why. As I have pointed out before, I spotted him as a con man and called him a freak 30 years ago. He hasn’t changed since then, and his election in 2016 is proof of how much everything else has changed. At this point there’s no turning Trump’s hardcore followers, with many of them brought into the fold by the king of insane conspiracy theories, Alex Jones.