Camelot Really is a Myth

By Rich Kozlovich 

(Editor's Note: Originally I published this in 2017, but it's been hit lately and I thought it was pretty good so I've decided to re-run it.  Enjoy! RK)

Spring is a few months away and pest control will take off and there will be little time for reflection as there is in the winter time.  Actually, I love weekends with really bad weather in the winter months. I can surf the web, read books, write articles, research information that interests me, watch movies; and no one bothers me. I love watching movies, especially the old movies.

A friend of mine wrote about this some time back, which made me think back to my youth and my love for the old movies. I loved everything that was a part of the old movie scene, especially the great old movie theaters that we had in Cleveland.  Even in the small town in which I grew up the theater was special. The stars were special then too; John Wayne, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and the greatest swashbuckler of them all….Errol Flynn.

The lights would dim and finally darken, creating that wonderful anticipation that comes when you know that the movie was about to start at last. Even the previews of coming attractions were great. At the end of the movie people actually applauded. I always thought that was a little stupid when I was a kid, after all…the actors couldn’t hear it, why bother? It’s funny, I still wouldn’t applaud today, and for the same reason, but I miss it.

Yes, people actually applauded when the movies started and when they finished. And when the cartoons came on we kids cheered, and nothing could get a rise out of a bunch of kids quite as much as seeing Roy Rogers riding headlong into the screen atop Trigger followed by his friends chasing the bad guys. An uncle took me to one of those Saturday matinee Roy Rogers cowboy movies and swore that he would never make that mistake again. I always loved the movie, “They Died With Their Boots On”, with Errol Flynn. Talk about fantasy! That is so far afield from the truth about Custer that someone should have been slapped for it, and yet, I still love it!

Some of the old theaters were real palaces. Cleveland has a number of them that were slated for demolition but were refurbished instead, which pleases me for a number of reasons.  First, because of that decision, we have the second largest theater district in the country.  Secondly, they were magnificent like the Palace…and it really was then, and is now……a palace! And third,  because so much of what was great is torn down and replaced by buildings that are so forgettable, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Somehow the words Rock and Roll and Hall of Fame shouldn’t be in the same sentence, but that is another story. Lastly, because they made me feel great when I was there, and I get those feelings every time I go back.

The men would wear suits and ties and the women wore dresses with hats, and matching gloves and purses and high heels. The children were dressed in their Sunday best, because going downtown to the movies was a big deal. It was a big deal and everyone acted that way.   The ladies of that era were in my opinion the most attractive ever because they had style, grace and class. 

They must have had revivals of older movies even back in the 1940’s, because in my mind’s eye I can still see the original Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan. They were originally made between 1932 and 1948. I was only 2 when Johnny Weissmuller made his last Tarzan movie. I must have been about five when I saw the original 1932 movie in a neighborhood theater and I never forgot the scene where the pygmies throw everyone down into the pit to be killed by a gorilla that is later shot full of arrows.

Hopalong Cassidy was my ultimate hero though. I was even called Hoppy by my childhood friends in those early years, at least until I moved to the farm. Those years were a large part of my wonder years. I lived in Cleveland and there were a lot of kids in the neighborhood. We were out and about all day every day.

Even now, as I look back on those years, being as young as we were, I marvel at the immense freedom we had to wander up and down the streets, play baseball at the playground and best of all…the dump. There was always a potential treasure to be found in the dump. The world was very different then. I didn’t realize it then nor did I realize it for many years, but we were all very much like the “Little Rascals”. There's no Captain Penny presenting those old Little Rascal movies every afternoon, so I doubt that younger people even know what I am talking about.

The world has changed. A lot! We don’t dare let our children roam to far, or too often, because there are so many unsavory and violent people out there. We don’t dare leave our doors unlocked…even when we are home. In my youth people actually left their keys in their parked cars with the windows open while they shopped. Unbelievable today I know. Good manners were not affectations; they were expected.  Saying please and thank you were expected, and most felt perfectly content to do so.

Then it all changed. Since I am 70 I must confess that I was a part of that change. They claim the Baby Boomer Generation started in June of 1946. I was born in July of that year. I was the beginning of the Baby Boomers. I remember that I disgustedly thought that it was really stupid to applaud movies and I said so. The older members of the family gave me a disgusted look or just shrugged, as if to say….I shouldn’t have to explain this to you. 

Although I did get dressed up for some occasions, I didn’t want to get dressed up to go anywhere, least of all the movies. A tee shirt, tennis shoes and blue jeans were good enough for me and if it wasn’t good enough for everyone else…well that was just tough! As if all of those goody-goody two shoes manners really mattered. After all……that was just being a phony. A cover up for how people really felt.

I didn’t realize it then, but all those “phony” manners and descent attire are an important part of what allows for civilized behavior.

What had happened? Everything changed! One of the reasons was that this was the first time in human history the young population became so large that the adult population couldn’t properly absorb them; and we created our own little sub-culture. After all; we teenagers knew that our 16 or so years experience in life was worth far more than the decades of experience in life of all the adults combined.

As this population trend continued this sub-culturing trend continued, and every few years we had another downward spiral of values, until the American culture was altered almost beyond recognition. Clearly beyond the recognition of America’s founding fathers. The most successful culture the world has ever known was now awash with irrational paradigms that are clearly destructive to all of humanity. 

This irrationality extends into every facet of our business and personal lives. The Green Movement, which became the most irrational movement of them all, was born in this crucible and has now become one of the most corrupting dominant forces of thought and action in the world today.

Fortunately I grew up. I also cringe at many of the things I said, things I did and laugh at thoughts I thought in my youth. I always wonder at these famous people who on their death beds claim they “have no regrets”. Well…..I have a lot of regrets. I hope it is because I grew up enough to recognize my failings and made a determination to correct them and to avoid repeating them. Part of that process is being able to see that which is real versus that which is shadow over substance. If we are capable of seeing ourselves as we really are, then we will have a lot less difficulty in seeing the rest of the world as it really is.

Everything we are told in the newspapers and the electronic news media is a lie. These aren’t necessarily lies of commission, (although they are guilty of that also) they are mostly lies of omission. Even many of our history books can’t be called anything less than propaganda in order to promote some view or other.

Read two different history books on the same subject from two different people for two different philosophical paradigms and you wonder if they are reporting about the same events. Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. Mostly we are lied to. Virtually everything we are told by the greenies is a lie. If you have a problem with that then get over it! Because those are the facts and we need to start recognizing the greenies for whom and what they are.

Recently I bought a CD of the original Broadway cast of Camelot and I still love it. I first saw the original traveling cast of the Broadway musical Camelot with Kathryn Grayson as Guinevere in 1962 at the Palace; and I walked out feeling just great. I loved Camelot and it is still my favorite Broadway production, and I think the greatest Broadway musical ever produced. I can still sing some of the songs…at least parts of them. I saw it again with, Robert Goulet as King Arthur this time. This was thirty years later, and I walked out feeling just as great as I did after and having seen the original traveling cast, although I knew it wasn’t anywhere near as big or as good a production as the original.

Being insatiably curious is its own reward and its own punishment. I know nothing can ever be the same once we are grown. When we get old it really becomes clear that nothing was a good as we thought it was, and nothing else can ever be that great again.  It wasn’t just the movies that I loved, it was the time, and it was a golden time.

But Camelot really is a myth, and although coming to that realization takes some of the pleasure out of life - but once we can accept that - it frees us from the shadow of illusion and allows us to see the light of reality.

This is the reward and this is the punishment.

Nixon and Kennedy: The myths and reality

By Patrick J. Buchanan  

Editors Note:  For some reason I'm finding many of the articles I've linked over the last ten years are being hit, even going back to 2008 a year after I first started this blog.  I have no idea why, but they're good pieces. This one is from World Net Daily in 2013, and while initially I just linked it, I really think that piece needs to be promoted far and wide.  So, if Pat, who I've met, or World Net Daily object, I will break this down into a link once again. Meanwhile, here's  the full text.  

Also, all said here about Kennedy is right on, Kennedy was not who the media made him out to be, when in fact they knew the Kennedys to be a disgrace and covered it up.   In fact, this piece isn't long enough to cover how bad he was.  However, Buchannan was in the Nixon administration and make no mistake, considering the long term consequences of Nixon's foreign policies with China and environmental law here in America, Nixon may ultimately have been far worse.  Nixon was a globalist, and let's face it,  Richard Nixon Was Not A Great President. Accept it!  RK

Had there been no Dallas, there would been no Camelot.

There would have been no John F. Kennedy as brilliant statesman cut off in his prime, had it not been for those riveting days from Dealey Plaza to Arlington and the lighting of the Eternal Flame.

Along with the unsleeping labors of an idolatrous press and the propagandists who control America's popular culture, those four days created and sustained the Kennedy Myth.

But, over 50 years, the effect has begun to wear off.

The New York Times reports that in the ranking of presidents, Kennedy has fallen further and faster than any. Ronald Reagan has replaced him as No. 1, and JFK is a fading fourth.

Kennedy is increasingly perceived today as he was 50 years ago, before word came that shots had been fired in Dallas.

That he was popular, inspirational, charismatic, no one denied. But no one would then have called him great or near great. His report card had too many C's, F's and Incompletes.

His great legislative victory had been the passage of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. His tax-cut bill was buried on the Hill.

His triumph had been forcing a withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. But we would learn this was done by a secret deal for the withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey and a secret pledge not to invade Cuba.

And after the missile crisis, Bobby Kennedy pushed the CIA to eliminate Castro, eliciting a warning from Fidel that two could play this game. Lyndon Johnson said that under the Kennedys, the CIA had been running "a damned Murder Inc. in the Caribbean."

What caused Nikita Khrushchev to think he could get away with putting rockets in Cuba? His perception that JFK was a weak president.

Kennedy had denied air cover for the Cuban patriots at the Bay of Pigs, resulting in the worst debacle of the Cold War. He was then berated and humiliated by Khrushchev at the Vienna Summit in June 1961.

In August, Khrushchev built the Berlin Wall. Kennedy sat paralyzed.

In September, Khrushchev smashed the three-year-old nuclear test-ban moratorium with a series of explosions featuring, at Novaya Zemlya, a 57-megaton "Tsar Bomba," the largest man-made blast ever.

"Less profile, more courage," the placards read.

In Southeast Asia, JFK had Averell Harriman negotiate a treaty for neutralizing Laos, resulting in Hanoi's virtual annexation of the Ho Chi Minh trail through Laos into South Vietnam.

Where Eisenhower had 600 advisers in Vietnam, JFK increased it to 16,000 and gave his blessing to a generals' coup in which our ally, President Ngo Dinh Diem, was assassinated.

Then and there, Vietnam became America's war.

Kennedy had made a famous phone call to Mrs. Martin Luther King during the 1960 campaign when her husband had been arrested. Yet, he kept his administration away from the March on Washington and directed J. Edgar Hoover to wiretap Dr. King to learn of his associations with Communists.

Since his death, Kennedy's reputation has been ravaged by revelations of assignations and mistresses from Marilyn Monroe to Mafia molls to White House interns from Miss Porter's School.

All of this was covered up by his courtier journalists who would collaborate in perpetuating the Kennedy myth and collude in destroying their great hate object, Richard Nixon.

Yet, contrast what Nixon did with what JFK failed to do.

Where Kennedy managed to get Gov. George Wallace to admit two black students to the University of Alabama, Nixon desegregated 70 percent of all Southern public schools.

Where the JFK-LBJ administration spent eight years putting 535,000 U.S. troops into a war they could neither end nor win, Nixon withdrew all U.S. troops in four years, brought home the POWs and left every provincial capital in South Vietnamese hands.

Where Kennedy had the Peace Corps, Nixon ended the draft, gave 18-year-olds the right to vote, created an Environmental Protection Agency and a Cancer Institute and an Occupational Health and Safety Administration.

Where Kennedy gave speeches about detente, Nixon negotiated the greatest arms treaties since the Washington Naval Agreement – SALT I and the ABM treaty – ended decades of hostility between the U.S. and the People's Republic of China, rescued Israel in the Yom Kippur War and pulled Egypt out of the Soviet bloc into the U.S. camp.

Creating a new majority that would dominate presidential politics until 1992, Nixon was rewarded with a 49-state landslide in 1972.

Whereupon a press elite that had maintained a conspiracy of silence on Kennedy's misconduct seized on Nixon's failure to deal decisively with misconduct in his campaign to bring him down in the first successful coup d'etat in U.S. political history.

The mythologizing of JFK and demonization of Nixon tell us less about respective accomplishments than the moral character of an establishment, which, though it had lost America by '72, still controlled the culture, media, bureaucracy and Congress.

And as they brought down Nixon with Watergate, they would seek to bring down Reagan with Iran-Contra. But that coup failed.

 

Camelot Really is a Myth

I originality published this article in April of 2010, and after reading it again I thought:  This a timeless piece.  So I've decided to run it again with some updates.  

 By Rich Kozlovich

Spring is here and pest control is about the take off and there will be little time for reflection as there is during the winter months. Actually, I love weekends with really bad weather in the winter months. I can surf the web, read books, write articles, research information that interests me, watch movies, and no one bothers me. 

I love watching movies, especially the old movies. My friend, well known writer Alan Caruba, who has now passed, wrote an article that discussed old movies from the "Golden Age of Hollywood", and that made me think back to my youth and my love for the old movies. 

I loved everything that was a part of the old movie scene, especially the great old movie theaters that we had in Cleveland. Even in the small town in which I grew up the theater was special. The stars were special then too; John Wayne, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and the greatest swashbuckler of them all….Errol Flynn.

The lights would dim and finally darken, creating that wonderful anticipation that comes when you know the movie was about to start at last. Even the previews of coming attractions were great. At the end of the movie people actually applauded.  Actually applauding when the movies started and when they finished, imagine that.  I always thought that was a little stupid when I was a kid, after all, the actors couldn’t hear it, so why bother?  It’s funny, I still wouldn’t applaud today, and for the same reason, but I miss it. 

When the cartoons came on we kids actually cheered, and nothing could get a rise out of a bunch of kids quite as much as seeing Roy Rogers riding headlong into the screen atop Trigger followed by his friends chasing the bad guys. An uncle took me to one of those Saturday matinee Roy Rogers cowboy movies and swore that he would never make that mistake again. I always loved the movie, “They Died With Their Boots On”, with Errol Flynn. Talk about fantasy! That is so far afield from the truth about Custer someone should have been slapped for it, and yet, I still love it!

Some of the old theaters were real palaces. Cleveland had a number of them slated for demolition. I am really pleased they refurbished them instead. First, because they were magnificent like the Palace, and it really was then, and is now, a palace! And secondly because so much of what was great is torn down and replaced by buildings that are so forgettable, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Somehow the words Rock and Roll and Hall of Fame shouldn’t be in the same sentence, but that's another story. Lastly, because they made me feel great when I was there, and I get those feelings every time I go back.

The men would wear suits and ties and the women wore dresses with hats, and matching gloves and purses and high heels. The children were dressed in their Sunday best, because going downtown to the movies was a big deal, and everyone acted that way.

They must have had revivals of older movies even back in the 1940’s, because in my mind’s eye I can still see the original Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan. They were originally made between 1932 and 1948. I was only 2 when Johnny Weissmuller made his last Tarzan movie. I must have been about five when I saw the original 1932 movie in a neighborhood theater and I never forgot the scene where the pygmies throw everyone down into the pit to be killed by a gorilla that is later shot full of arrows.

Hopalong Cassidy was my ultimate hero though. I was even called Hoppy by my childhood friends in those early years, at least until I moved to the farm. Those years were a large part of my wonder years. I lived in Cleveland and there were a lot of kids in the neighborhood. We were out and about all day every day. Even now as I look back on those years, being as young as we were, I marvel at the immense freedom we had to wander up and down the streets, play baseball at the playground and best of all…the dump. There was always a potential treasure to be found in the dump. The world was very different then. I didn’t realize it then nor did I realize it for many years, but we were all very much like the “Little Rascals”, which cannot be shown any longer, so I doubt that younger people even know what I am talking about.

The world has changed. A lot! We don’t dare let the children roam too far too often because there are so many unsavory and violent people out there. We don’t dare leave our doors unlocked…even when we are home. In my youth people actually left their keys in their parked cars with the windows open while they shopped. Unbelievable today I know. Good manners were not affectations, they were part of our culture.  Please and thank you were expected, and most felt perfectly content to do so.

It all changed, and not for the better.  Since I'm now 76 I must confess that I was a part of that change. They claim the Baby Boomer Generation started in June of 1946. I was born in July of that year. I was the beginning of the Baby Boomers. As I said, I remember that I disgustedly thought that it was really stupid to applaud movies and I said so. The older members of the family gave me a disgusted look or just shrugged, as if to say:  "I shouldn’t have to explain this to you." 

Although I did get dressed up for some occasions, I didn’t want to get dressed up to go anywhere, least of all the movies. A tee shirt, tennis shoes and blue jeans were good enough for me and if it wasn’t good enough for everyone else, well that was just tough! As if all of those goody-goody two shoes manners really mattered. After all, that was just being a phony. A cover up for how people really felt.

I didn’t realize it then, but all those “phony” manners and decent attire are an important part of what allows for civilized behavior.

What had happened? Everything changed because this was the first time in human history the young population became so large the adult population couldn’t properly absorb them; and we created our own little sub-culture. After all; we teenagers knew that even our few years experience in life was worth far more than the decades of experience in life of all the adults combined.

As this population trend continued this sub-culturing trend continued, and every few years we had another downward spiral of values, until the American culture was altered almost beyond recognition. Clearly beyond the recognition of America’s founding fathers. The most successful culture the world has ever known was now awash with irrational paradigms that are clearly destructive to all of humanity.

What has this to do with pest control you're probably asking? Everything! This irrationality extends into every facet of our business and personal lives. The Green Movement, which became the most irrational movement of them all, was born in this crucible and it has now become one of the most corrupting dominant forces of thought and action in the world today. 

The socialist monsters of the 20th century (fascism and communism are two side of the same coin, socialism) deliberately murdered over 100 million innocent people.  The environmental movement  most likely caused the death of that many with the ban on DDT alone. 

Fortunately I grew up. I also cringe at many of the things I thought, things I said and things I did in my youth. I always wonder at these famous people who, on their death beds, claim that they “have no regrets”.  Well…..I have a lot of regrets. I hope it's because I grew up enough to recognize my failings and made a determination to correct them and to avoid repeating them. Part of that process is being able to see that which is real versus that which is shadow over substance. If we are capable of seeing ourselves as we really are, then we will have a lot less difficulty in seeing the rest of the world as it really is.

Everything we are told in the newspapers and the electronic news media is a lie. These aren’t necessarily lies of commission, (although they're guilty of that also) they are mostly lies of omission. Even many of our history books can’t be called anything less than propaganda in order to promote some view or other. Read two different history books on the same subject from two different people from two different philosophical paradigms and you wonder if they're reporting about the same events, and the daily news has much the same problem, only worse.

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality, and mostly we're lied to. Virtually everything we are told by environmentalists, and leftists in general, is a lie. If you have a problem with that then get over it, because those are the facts and we need to start recognizing these people for who they are, what they are and the disasters they've heap on humanity. 

A few years back I bought a CD of the original Broadway cast of Camelot and I still love it. I first saw the original traveling cast of the Broadway musical Camelot with Kathryn Grayson as Guinevere in 1962 at the Palace, and I walked out feeling just great. I loved Camelot and it is still my favorite Broadway production, and I think the greatest Broadway musical ever produced. I can still sing some of the songs, at least parts of them, although not very well.  I saw it again with Robert Goulet as King Arthur thirty years later, and I walked out feeling just as great as I did after having seen the original traveling cast, although I knew it wasn’t anywhere near as big, nor as good a production as the original, with songs left out. 

Being insatiably curious is its own reward and its own punishment. I know that nothing can ever be the same once we are grown, and as we age it really becomes clear that nothing was a good as we thought it was, and nothing else can ever be that great again. It wasn’t just the movies that I loved, it was the time, and it was a golden time.  But Camelot really is a myth! Coming to that realization may take some of the pleasure out of life, but once we can accept that, it frees us from the shadow of illusion and allows us to see the light of reality.

That's the reward, and that's the punishment.

This Week in History—JFK Surrenders to Khrushchev During Cuban Missile Crisis

Humberto Fontova  |  Oct 22, 2022

"The biggest defeat in our nation's history!" bellowed Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay while whacking his fist on his desk upon learning the details of the deal President Kennedy cut with Nikita Khrushchev regarding the missiles. 

'Aaw come on, Humberto!' Some amigos retort. 'Gen. LeMay was a serious war-monger and NUTCASE!—the model for Gen. Ripper in Dr Strangelove!  Are you saying we shoulda started a worldwide nuclear war with tens of millions incinerated to liberate a two-bit Caribbean island of barely 7 million people?!' 

Nothing of the sort. In fact, the choice at the time was never between nuclear war and surrendering Cuba along with U.S. national security. This was amply recognized by some of LeMay’s fellow Joint Chiefs of Staff, by a diverse array of Republican Party leaders of the time, and even by a few cold-warrior Democrats—though you’d never guess it from the 60 year Democrat-Media-Hollywood juggernaut of pro-Kennedy propaganda.

Let’s do this. Let’s bypass LeMay, “circle-back,” and look at what many of his “less Gen. Ripper-like” colleagues and contemporaries were saying at the time about Kennedy’s “resolution” to the Cuban Missile Crisis:

Joint Chiefs of Staff Generals Curtis LeMay and Maxwell Taylor (a Kennedy favorite) represented opposite poles of the military establishment of the time. Well:

"We missed the big boat," complained Gen. Maxwell Taylor after learning of Kennedy’s deal.

"We've been had!" yelled then Navy chief George Anderson upon hearing on October 28, 1962, how JFK "solved" the missile crisis. Adm. Anderson was the man in charge of the very "blockade" against Cuba.

Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, represented different poles of the Republican Party. Yet both agreed: 

"We locked Castro's communism into Latin America and threw away the key to its removal," growled Barry Goldwater about the JFK’s Missile Crisis “solution.”

"Kennedy pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory,” wrote Richard Nixon. "Then gave the Soviet squatters rights in our backyard." 

"It's a public relations fable that Khrushchev quailed before Kennedy," wrote Defense establishment stalwart Gen. Alexander Haig, who served as Asst. National Security Advisor to Kissinger during Nixon’s term and as Secretary of Defense under Reagan. "The legend of the eyeball to eyeball confrontation invented by Kennedy's men paid a handsome political dividend. But the Kennedy-Khrushchev deal was a deplorable error resulting in political havoc and human suffering through the Americas."

Even Democratic luminary Dean Acheson despaired: "This nation lacks leadership," he grumbled about the famous “Ex-Comm meetings” so glorified in Thirteen Days. "The meetings were repetitive and without direction. Most members of Kennedy's team had no military or diplomatic experience whatsoever. The sessions were a waste of time."

But not for the Soviets. "We ended up getting exactly what we'd wanted all along," snickered Nikita Khrushchev in his diaries, “security for Fidel Castro’s regime and American missiles removed from Turkey and Italy. Until today the U.S. has complied with her promise not to interfere with Castro and not to allow anyone else to interfere with Castro. After Kennedy's death, his successor Lyndon Johnson assured us that he would keep the promise not to invade Cuba." 

In fact, according to Khrushchev’s own son Sergei, his father prepared to yank the missiles before any “bullying” by Kennedy. “What!?” Khrushchev gasped on Oct. 28^th 1962, as recalled by Sergei. “Is he (Fidel Castro) proposing that we start a nuclear war? That we launch missiles from Cuba?” 

“Apparently.” 

“Yesterday the Cubans shot down a plane (U-2 with) without (Soviet) permission. Today they’re preparing a nuclear attack…..But that is insane!..Remove them (our missiles) as soon as possible! Before it’s too late. Before something terrible happens!” commanded the Soviet premier. 

So much for the gallant Knights of Camelot forcing the Russians’ retreat during the Cuban missile crisis. Apparently, the Castro brothers and Che Guevara’s genocidal lust is what prompted the Butcher of Budapest to yank the missiles from their reach. 

In his diaries, Khrushchev snickers further: "It would have been ridiculous for us to go to war over Cuba–for a country 8,000 miles away. For us, war was unthinkable." So much for the threat that so rattled the Knights of Camelot and inspired such cinematic and literary epics of drama and derring-do by their court scribes and court cinematographers.

Considering the U.S. nuclear superiority over the Soviets at the time of the (so-called) Missile Crisis (5,000 nuclear warheads for us, 300 for them) it's hard to imagine a President Nixon — much less Reagan — quaking in front of Khrushchev's transparent ruse a la Kennedy. 

What the situation called for was some mature and low-key “Brinksmanship,” of the type President Eisenhower used to end the Korean War and keep us out of any more during his terms. And (as President in 1962) his top understudy (former Vice President Nixon) would have been just the man to employ it against Khrushchev.

Of course, had Nixon been president since 1960, there would have been no Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962—in fact, there’d been no Castro regime since April of 1961.) 

In any case, the genuine threat in Oct. 1962 came — not from Moscow — but from the Castros and Che. “If the missiles had remained, we would have fired them against the very heart of the U.S., including New York. The victory of socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims.” (Che Guevara to Sam Russell of The London Daily Worker, November 1962.)

“Of course I knew the missiles were nuclear-armed,” responded Fidel Castro to Robert McNamara during a meeting in 1992. “That’s precisely why I urged Khrushchev to launch them. And of course Cuba would have been utterly destroyed in the exchange.” 

"Many concessions were made by the Americans about which not a word has been said," snickered Fidel Castro as late as 1968. "Perhaps one day they'll be made public."

"We can't say anything public about this agreement. It would be too much of a political embarrassment for us." That's Robert F. Kennedy to Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin when closing the deal that ended the so-called crisis.

Castro's regime was granted new status. Let's call it MAP, or Mutually-Assured-Protection. Here’s the exact wording from Khrushchev when gleefully agreeing to Kennedy’s terms:

“You (JFK) in your turn gave (to Khrushchev) the assurances that the so-called 'quarantine' would be promptly removed and that no invasion of Cuba would be made, not only by the U.S. but by other countries of the Western hemisphere either.”

Cuban freedom-fighters working from south Florida were suddenly rounded up for "violating U.S. Neutrality laws." Some of these bewildered men were jailed, others "quarantined," prevented from leaving Dade County. The Coast Guard in Florida got 12 new boats and seven new planes to make sure Castro remained unmolested.

JFK's Missile crisis “solution” also pledged that he immediately pull the rug out from under Cuba's in-house freedom fighters. Raul Castro himself admitted that at the time of the Missile Crisis his troops and their Soviet advisors were up against 179 different "bands of bandits" as he labeled the thousands of Cuban anti-Communist rebels then battling savagely and virtually alone in Cuba's countryside, with small arms shipments from their compatriots in south Florida as their only lifeline.

Kennedy's deal with Khrushchev cut this lifeline. Think about it: here's the U.S. Coast Guard and Border Patrol working 'round the clock arresting Hispanics in the U.S. who are desperate to return to their native country!

It's a tribute to the power of Castroite mythology that, even with all this information a matter of public record for over half a century the academic/media mantra (gloat, actually) still had Castro, "defying ten U.S. Presidents!"

Nothing of the sort. Instead he’d been protected by them.

When Fake News Becomes Fake History – the Cuban Missile Crisis, 58 Years Ago This Week

Humberto Fontova Oct 24, 2020 

President Kennedy “employed a combination of toughness, nerve and wisdom, so brilliantly controlled, so matchlessly calibrated that it dazzled the world!” (Democrat court historian and Kennedy presidential aide Arthur Schlesinger, in his media-acclaimed and Pulitzer Prize winning, A Thousand Days.)

"Follow Kennedy's Lead to Deter North Korea. It's Time For Real Deterrence," wrote the late Charles Krauthammer in 2006, contrasting President Bush’s wimpy response to North Korea’s missiles to Kennedy’s testicular cowing of the Russians during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  

National Review’s Andrew McCarthy said "hear-hear" to Krauthammer. "It would be better for President Bush to emulate the Kennedy strategy" wrote McCarthy. The U.S. message to Jong, he stressed, should be no-nonsense and "Kennedy-Clear." 

Point is, over time and given ceaseless repetition, the Media/Hollywood/Democrat spin on the Missile Crisis “crossed the aisle” (so to speak) and became mainstream.   

Perhaps a refresher on conservative reaction to JFK's Missile Crisis "resolution" is in order. Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, for instance, represented different poles of the Republican party. Yet both agreed: 

"We locked Castro's communism into Latin America and threw away the key to its removal," growled Barry Goldwater about the JFK’s Missile Crisis “solution.”

"Kennedy pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory,” wrote Richard Nixon. "Then gave the Soviet squatters rights in our backyard."

Generals Curtis LeMay and Maxwell Taylor represented opposite poles of the military establishment. 

"The biggest defeat in our nation's history!" bellowed Air Force chief Curtis LeMay while whacking his fist on his desk upon learning the details of the deal. 

"We missed the big boat," complained Gen. Maxwell Taylor after learning of the same.

"We've been had!" yelled then Navy chief George Anderson upon hearing on October 28, 1962, how JFK "solved" the missile crisis. Adm. Anderson was the man in charge of the very "blockade" against Cuba.

"It's a public relations fable that Khrushchev quailed before Kennedy," wrote Alexander Haig. "The legend of the eyeball to eyeball confrontation invented by Kennedy's men paid a handsome political dividend. But the Kennedy-Khrushchev deal was a deplorable error resulting in political havoc and human suffering through the America's."

Even Democratic luminary Dean Acheson despaired: "This nation lacks leadership," he grumbled about the famous “Ex-Comm meetings” so glorified in Thirteen Days. "The meetings were repetitive and without direction. Most members of Kennedy's team had no military or diplomatic experience whatsoever. The sessions were a waste of time."

But not for the Soviets. "We ended up getting exactly what we'd wanted all along," snickered Nikita Khrushchev in his diaries, “security for Fidel Castro’s regime and American missiles removed from Turkey and Italy. Until today the U.S. has complied with her promise not to interfere with Castro and not to allow anyone else to interfere with Castro. After Kennedy's death, his successor Lyndon Johnson assured us that he would keep the promise not to invade Cuba." 

In fact Khrushchev prepared to yank the missiles before any “bullying” by Kennedy. “What!” Khrushchev gasped on Oct. 28^th 1962, as recalled by his son Sergei. “Is he (Fidel Castro) proposing that we start a nuclear war? That we launch missiles from Cuba?” 

“Apparently.” 

“Yesterday the Cubans shot down a plane (U-2 with) without (Soviet) permission. Today they’re preparing a nuclear attack.” 

“But that is insane!..Remove them (our missiles) as soon as possible! Before it’s too late. Before something terrible happens!” commanded the Soviet premier. 

So much for the gallant Knights of Camelot forcing the Russians’ retreat during the Cuban missile crisis. In fact, the Castro brothers and Che Guevara’s genocidal lust is what prompted the Butcher of Budapest to yank the missiles from their reach. 

In his diaries Khrushchev snickers further: "it would have been ridiculous for us to go to war over Cuba–for a country 8,000 miles away. For us, war was unthinkable." So much for the threat that so rattled the Knights of Camelot and inspired such cinematic and literary epics of drama and derring-do by their court scribes and court cinematographers.

Considering the U.S. nuclear superiority over the Soviets at the time of the (so-called) Missile Crisis (5,000 nuclear warheads for us, 300 for them) it's hard to imagine a President Nixon — much less Reagan — quaking in front of Khrushchev's transparent ruse a la Kennedy. 

The genuine threat came —not from Moscow—but from the Castros and Che. “If the missiles had remained, we would have fired them against the very heart of the U.S., including New York. The victory of socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims.” (Che Guevara to Sam Russell of The London Daily Worker, November 1962.)

“Of course I knew the missiles were nuclear- armed,” responded Fidel Castro to Robert McNamara during a meeting in 1992. “That’s precisely why I urged Khrushchev to launch them. And of course Cuba would have been utterly destroyed in the exchange.” 

"Many concessions were made by the Americans about which not a word has been said," snickered Fidel Castro as late as 1968. "Perhaps one day they'll be made public."
 
"We can't say anything public about this agreement. It would be too much of a political embarrassment for us." That's Robert F. Kennedy to Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin when closing the deal that ended the so-called crisis. 
 
Castro's regime was granted new status. Let's call it MAP, or Mutually-Assured-Protection. Here’s the exact wording from Khrushchev when gleefully agreeing to Kennedy’s terms:

“You (JFK) in your turn gave (to Khrushchev) the assurances that the so-called “quarantine” would be promptly removed and that no invasion of Cuba would be made, not only by the U.S. but by other countries of the Western hemisphere either.”

Cuban freedom-fighters working from south Florida were suddenly rounded up for "violating U.S. Neutrality laws." Some of these bewildered men were jailed, others "quarantined," prevented from leaving Dade County. The Coast Guard in Florida got 12 new boats and seven new planes to make sure Castro remained unmolested.

JFK's Missile crisis “solution” also pledged that he immediately pull the rug out from under Cuba's in-house freedom fighters. Raul Castro himself admitted that at the time of the Missile Crisis his troops and their Soviet advisors were up against 179 different "bands of bandits" as he labeled the thousands of Cuban anti-Communist rebels then battling savagely and virtually alone in Cuba's countryside, with small arms shipments from their compatriots in south Florida as their only lifeline.

Kennedy's deal with Khrushchev cut this lifeline. Think about it: here's the U.S. Coast Guard and Border patrol working 'round the clock arresting Hispanics in the U.S. who are desperate to return to their native country! 

This ferocious guerrilla war, waged 90 miles from America's shores, might have taken place on the planet Pluto for all you'll read about it in the MSM and all you'll learn about it from Kennedy’s court scribes, who scribbled Kennedy’s “victory.” To get an idea of the odds faced by those betrayed Cuban rebels, the desperation of their battle and the damage they wrought, you might revisit Tony Montana during the last 15 minutes of "Scarface." 

It's a tribute to the power of Castroite mythology that, even with all this information a matter of public record for almost half a century the academic/media mantra (gloat, actually) still has Castro, "defying ten U.S. Presidents!" Instead he’s been protected by them. 

 

Camelot Really is a Myth

By Rich Kozlovich

(Editor's Note:  The downward spiral for civilized behavior in our society is disturbing.  I originally published this on Thursday, January 5, 2017. I thought this was a good time to post it again with some changes.  RK)

Spring is a few months away and pest control will take off and there will be little time for reflection as there is in the winter time.  Actually, I love weekends with really bad weather in the winter months. I can surf the web, read books, write articles, research information that interests me, watch movies; and no one bothers me. I love watching movies, especially the old movies.

A friend of mine wrote about this some time back, which made me think back to my youth and my love for the old movies. I loved everything that was a part of the old movie scene, especially the great old movie theaters that we had in Cleveland.  Even in the small town in which I grew up the theater was special. The stars were special then too; John Wayne, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and the greatest swashbuckler of them all….Errol Flynn.

The lights would dim and finally darken, creating that wonderful anticipation that comes when you know that the movie was about to start at last. Even the previews of coming attractions were great. At the end of the movie people actually applauded. I always thought that was a little stupid when I was a kid, after all…the actors couldn’t hear it….why bother? It’s funny, I still wouldn’t applaud today, and for the same reason, but I miss it.

Yes, people actually applauded when the movies started and when they finished. And when the cartoons came on we kids cheered, and nothing could get a rise out of a bunch of kids quite as much as seeing Roy Rogers riding headlong into the screen atop Trigger followed by his friends chasing the bad guys. An uncle took me to one of those Saturday matinee Roy Rogers cowboy movies and swore that he would never make that mistake again. I always loved the movie, “They Died With Their Boots On”, with Errol Flynn. Talk about fantasy! That is so far afield from the truth about Custer that someone should have been slapped for it….and yet….I still love it!

Some of the old theaters were real palaces. Cleveland has a number of them that were slated for demolition but were refurbished instead, which pleases me for a number of reasons.  First, because of that decision, we have the second largest theater district in the country.  Secondly, they were magnificent like the Palace…and it really was then, and is now……a palace! And third,  because so much of what was great is torn down and replaced by buildings that are so forgettable, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Somehow the words Rock and Roll and Hall of Fame shouldn’t be in the same sentence, but that's another story. Lastly, because they made me feel great when I was there, and I get those same feelings every time I go back.

The men would wear suits and ties and the women wore dresses with hats, and matching gloves and purses and high heels. The children were dressed in their Sunday best, because going downtown to the movies was a big deal. It was a big deal and everyone acted that way.   The ladies of that era were in my opinion the most attractive ever because they had style, grace and class. 

They must have had revivals of older movies even back in the 1940’s, because in my mind’s eye I can still see the original Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan. They were originally made between 1932 and 1948. I was only 2 when Johnny Weissmuller made his last Tarzan movie. I must have been about five when I saw the original 1932 movie in a neighborhood theater and I never forgot the scene where the pigmies throw everyone down into the pit to be killed by a gorilla that is later shot full of arrows.

Hopalong Cassidy was my ultimate hero though. I was even called Hoppy by my childhood friends in those early years, at least until I moved to the farm. Those years were a large part of my wonder years. I lived in Cleveland and there were a lot of kids in the neighborhood. We were out and about all day every day.

Even now, as I look back on those years, being as young as we were, I marvel at the immense freedom we had to wander up and down the streets, play baseball at the playground and best of all…the dump. There was always a potential treasure to be found in the dump. The world was very different then. I didn’t realize it then nor did I realize it for many years, but we were all very much like the “Little Rascals”. There's no Captain Penny presenting those old Little Rascal movies every afternoon, so I doubt that younger people even know what I am talking about.

The world has changed. A lot! We don’t dare let our children roam to far, or too often, because there are so many unsavory and violent people out there. We don’t dare leave our doors unlocked…even when we are home. In my youth people actually left their keys in their parked cars with the windows open while they shopped. Unbelievable today I know. Good manners were not affectations; they were expected.  Saying please and thank you were expected, and most felt perfectly content to do so.

Then it all changed. Since I am 72 I must confess that I was a part of that change. They claim the Baby Boomer Generation started in June of 1946. I was born in July of that year. I was the beginning of the Baby Boomers. As I said, I remember disgustedly saying it was really stupid to applaud movies and I said so. The older members of the family gave me a disgusted look or just shrugged, as if to say….I shouldn’t have to explain this to you. 

Although I did get dressed up for some occasions, I didn’t want to get dressed up to go anywhere, least of all the movies. A tee shirt, tennis shoes and blue jeans were good enough for me and if it wasn’t good enough for everyone else…well that was just tough! As if all of those goody-goody two shoes manners really mattered. After all……that was just being a phony. A cover up for how people really felt.

I didn’t realize it then, but all those “phony” manners and descent attire are an important part of what allows for civilized behavior.

What had happened? Everything changed!

One of the reasons was that this was the first time in human history the young population became so large the adult population couldn’t properly absorb them; and we created our own little sub-culture. After all; we teenagers knew that our 16 or so years experience in life was worth far more than the decades of experience in life of all the adults combined.

As this population trend continued this sub-culturing trend continued, and every few years we had another downward spiral of values, until the American culture was altered almost beyond recognition. Clearly beyond the recognition of America’s founding fathers. The most successful culture the world has ever known was now awash with irrational paradigms that are clearly destructive to all of humanity. 

This irrationality extends into every facet of our business and personal lives. The Green Movement, which became the most irrational movement of them all, was born in this crucible and has now become one of the most corrupting dominant forces of thought and action in the world today.

Fortunately I grew up. I also cringe at many of the things I said, things I did, and laugh at thoughts I thought in my youth. I always wonder at these famous people who on their death beds claim they “have no regrets”. Well…..I have a lot of regrets. I hope it is because I grew up enough to recognize my failings and made a determination to correct them and to avoid repeating them. Part of that process is being able to see that which is real versus that which is shadow over substance. If we are capable of seeing ourselves as we really are, then we will have a lot less difficulty in seeing the rest of the world as it really is.

Everything we are told in the newspapers and the electronic news media is a lie. These aren’t necessarily lies of commission, (although they are guilty of that also) they are mostly lies of omission. Even many of our history books can’t be called anything less than propaganda in order to promote some view or other.

Read two different history books on the same subject from two different people from two different philosophical paradigms and you wonder if they are reporting about the same events. Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. Mostly we are lied to. Virtually everything we are told by the greenies is a lie. If you have a problem with that then get over it! Because those are the facts and we need to start recognizing the greenies for whom and what they are.

Recently I bought a CD of the original Broadway cast of Camelot and I still love it. I first saw the original traveling cast of the Broadway musical Camelot with Kathryn Grayson as Guinevere in 1962 at the Palace; and I walked out feeling just great. I loved Camelot and it is still my favorite Broadway production, and I think the greatest Broadway musical ever produced. I can still sing some of the songs…at least parts of them. I saw it again with, Robert Goulet as King Arthur in 1992.  Thirty years later, and I walked out feeling just as great as I did after and having seen the original traveling cast, although I knew it wasn’t anywhere near as big or as good a production as the original.

Being insatiably curious is its own reward and its own punishment. I know nothing can ever be the same once we are grown. When we get old it really becomes clear that nothing was a good as we thought it was, and nothing else can ever be that great again. It wasn’t just the movies that I loved…it was the time, and it was a golden time.

But Camelot really is a myth, and although coming to that realization takes some of the pleasure out of life - but once we can accept that - it frees us from the shadow of illusion and allows us to see the light of reality.

This is the reward, and this is the punishment

Camelot Was A Beautiful Myth - But It Was A Myth!

By Rich Kozlovich

I originally published this article on April 27, 2010, but I decided to re-publish it with some changes because I think that it is more profound now than it was three years ago.

April through September is to the pest control industry as October thru December is to the retail market.   When the season starts in pest control there is far less time for reflection than during the winter.  During the winter I love weekends with really bad weather.  I can surf the web, read books, write articles, research information that interest me, watch movies; and no one bothers me.  I love watching movies, especially the old movies. A friend of mine wrote about this some time back, which made me think back to my youth and my love for the old movies. I loved everything that was a part of the old movie scene, especially the great old movie theaters that we had in Cleveland. Even in the small town in which I grew up the theater was special. The stars were special then too; John Wayne, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and the greatest swashbuckler of them all….Errol Flynn.

The lights would dim and then finally darken, creating that wonderful anticipation that comes when you know that "at last" the movie was about to start. Even the previews of coming attractions were great, and at times better than the movies.  At the end of the movie people actually applauded.  People even applauded when the movies started.   I always thought that was a little stupid when I was a kid, after all…the actors couldn’t hear it….why bother? It’s funny, I still wouldn’t applaud today, and for the same reason, but I miss it.  

When the cartoons came on the kids cheered, and nothing could get a rise out of a bunch of kids quite as much as seeing Roy Rogers riding headlong into the screen atop Trigger followed by his friends chasing the bad guys.   My Uncle Eli, who has now passed, took me to one of those Saturday matinee Roy Rogers cowboy movies and swore that he would never make that mistake again.

I always loved the movie, “They Died With Their Boots On”, with Errol Flynn. Talk about fantasy! That is so far afield from any resemblance to the truth about Custer that someone should have been slapped for it….and yet….I still love it…even now!

Some of the old theaters were real palaces. Cleveland (which has the second largest theater district in the nation) has a number of them that were slated for demolition. I am really pleased they refurbished them instead. First, because they were magnificent like The Palace…and it really was a palace then, and is now……a palace! And secondly because so much of what was great is torn down and replaced by buildings that are so forgettable, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Somehow the words Rock and Roll and Hall of Fame shouldn’t be in the same sentence, but that is another story. Lastly, because they made me feel great when I was there, and I get those feelings every time I go back.

The men would wear suits, ties and shined shoes.  The women wore dresses with hats, and matching gloves and purses and high heels.  The children were dressed in their Sunday best, because going downtown to the movies was a big deal. It was a big deal!  Everyone looked classy and acted that way.

They must have had revivals of older movies even back in the 1940’s, because in my mind’s eye I can still see the original Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan. They were originally made between 1932 and 1948. I was only 2 when Johnny Weissmuller made his last Tarzan movie. I must have been about four or five when I saw the original 1932 movie in a neighborhood theater and I never forgot the scene where the pigmies throw everyone down into the pit to be killed by a gorilla, which was later shot full of arrows.

Hopalong Cassidy was my ultimate hero though. I was even called Hoppy by my childhood friends in those early years, at least until I moved to the farm. Those years were a large part of my wonder years. I lived in Cleveland and there were a lot of kids in the neighborhood. We were out and about all day every day. Even now, as I look back on those years, being as young as we were, I marvel at the immense freedom we had to wander up and down the streets, play baseball at the playground and best of all…the dump. There was always a potential treasure to be found in the dump. The world was very different then. I didn’t realize it then nor did I realize it for many years, but we were all very much like the “Little Rascals”, which cannot be shown any longer, so I doubt that younger people even know what I am talking about.

The world has changed.  A lot! We don’t dare let the children roam too far too often because there are so many unsavory and violent people out there. We don’t dare leave our doors unlocked…even when we are home. In my youth people actually left their keys in their parked cars with the windows open while they shopped. Unbelievable today I know. Good manners were not affectations; they were expected. Please and thank you were expected, and most felt perfectly content to do so.

Then it all changed. Since I am 67 I must confess that I was a part of that change. They claim that the Baby Boomer Generation started in June of 1946. I was born in July of that year; hence, I was the beginning of the Baby Boomers.  When I was younger I merely thought to myself it was stupid to applaud at movies, but as a teenager I remember disgustedly saying that it was really stupid to applaud movies with a tone that only a teenager can muster. The older members of the family gave me a disgusted look or just shrugged, as if to say….I shouldn’t have to explain this to you.

Although I did get dressed up for some occasions, I didn’t want to get dressed up to go anywhere, least of all the movies. A tee shirt, tennis shoes and blue jeans were good enough for me and if it wasn’t good enough for everyone else…well that was just tough! And I made it clear that all of those goody-goody two shoes manners didn’t really matter either because that was just being a phony.  A cover up for how people really felt.

I didn’t realize it then, but all those “phony” manners and decent attire are an important part of what allows for civilized behavior.   Strange is it seems, we act very much how we look, but now everything changed! One of the reasons was this was the first time in human history the young population became so large that the adult population couldn’t properly absorb them; and we created our own little sub-culture, and we teenagers knew that our 16 or so years experience in life was worth far more than the decades of experience in life of all the adults combined, living or dead.  All the traditional values were now subject to the “superior understanding” of this new sub-culture.

As this population trend continued this sub-culturing trend continued, and every few years we had another downward spiral of values, until the American culture was altered almost beyond recognition. Clearly beyond the recognition of America’s founding fathers. The most successful culture the world has ever known was now awash with irrational paradigms that are clearly destructive to all of humanity.

What has this to do with pest control you are probably asking? Everything! This irrationality extends into every facet of our business and personal lives. The Green Movement, which became the most irrational movement of them all, was born in this crucible and has now become one of the most corrupting dominant forces of thought and action in the world today.

Fortunately I grew up. I also cringe at many of the things that I said, things I did and laugh at things that I thought in my youth. I always wonder at these famous people who, on their death beds, claim that they “have no regrets”. Well…..I have a lot of regrets. I hope it is because I grew up enough to recognize my failings and made a determination to correct them and to avoid repeating them. Part of that process is being able to see that which is real versus that which is shadow over substance. If we are capable of seeing ourselves as we really are, then we will have a lot less difficulty in seeing the rest of the world as it really is.

Everything we are told in the newspapers and the electronic news media is a lie. These aren’t necessarily lies of commission, (although they are guilty of that also) they are mostly lies of omission. Even many of our history books can’t be called anything less than propaganda in order to promote some view or other. Read two different history books on the same subject from two different people for two different philosophical paradigms and you wonder if they are reporting about the same events. Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. Mostly we are lied to. Virtually everything we are told by the greenies is a lie. If you have a problem with that then get over it! Because those are the facts and we need to start recognizing the greenies for whom and what they are.

But it is the disintegration of the nuclear family that is even more disturbing.  We have abandoned every vestige of the moral foundations that formed our culture.  Judaic/Christian principles have not only been abandoned by much of the general population, the religious leaders have abandoned that which is supposed to be the foundation for their faith - the Bible - and all the moral teachings there-in.  I wonder if it ever occurs to them that their abandonment of these foundational things makes them irrelevant?   I wonder if it ever occurs to us to ask if these teachings are abandoned what will replace them?

Whether one is religious or not that has to be of concern, for without that moral foundation there is no hope for civilization.  Judaic/Christian principles are now, and have always been, the only stable moral foundation the world has ever known.  That was the clear understanding of America’s founding fathers and that was the rock base the Constitution was built on.  Instead we are now following mythical philosophical flavors of the minute, being washed back and forth like waves smashing against the rocks with no leadership with the courage to stand up and say.....stop.....we're going in the wrong direction!  I hate what I see happening!  I fear that there is nothing except disaster on the horizon. 

Recently I bought a CD of the original Broadway cast of Camelot and I still love it. I first saw the original traveling cast of the Broadway musical Camelot with Kathryn Grayson as Guinevere in 1962 at the Palace; and I walked out feeling just great. I loved Camelot and it is still my favorite Broadway production, and I think the greatest Broadway musical ever produced. I can still sing some of the songs…at least parts of them. I saw it again with, Robert Goulet as King Arthur thirty years later, and I walked out feeling just as great as I did after and having seen the original traveling cast; although I knew it wasn’t anywhere near as big or as good a production as the original.

Being insatiably curious is its own reward and its own punishment. I know now nothing can ever be the same once we are grown.  I know when we get old it really becomes clear that nothing was a good as we thought it was, and nothing else can ever be that great again. It wasn’t just the movies that I loved…it was the time, and it was a golden time. But Camelot really is a myth! Coming to that realization may take some of the pleasure out of life, but once we can accept that, it frees us from the shadow of illusion and allows us to see the light of reality.  

This is the reward and this is the punishment.  We now know - there is no Camelot!

Camelot Really is a Myth

By Rich Kozlovich

This is an article inspired by an article by Alan Caruba. Some of the phrases are lifted directly from that article.

Spring is here and pest control is about the take off and there will be little time for reflection as there is in the winter time. Actually, I love weekends with really bad weather in the winter months. I can surf the web, read books, write articles, research information that interests me, watch movies; and no one bothers me. I love watching movies, especially the old movies. A friend of mine wrote about this some time back, which made me think back to my youth and my love for the old movies. I loved everything that was a part of the old movie scene, especially the great old movie theaters that we had in Cleveland.  Even in the small town in which I grew up the theater was special. The stars were special then too; John Wayne, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and the greatest swashbuckler of them all….Errol Flynn.

The lights would dim and finally darken, creating that wonderful anticipation that comes when you know that the movie was about to start at last. Even the previews of coming attractions were great. At the end of the movie people actually applauded. I always thought that was a little stupid when I was a kid, after all…the actors couldn’t hear it….why bother? It’s funny, I still wouldn’t applaud today, and for the same reason, but I miss it.

Believe it or not, people actually applauded when the movies started and when they finished. And when the cartoons came on we kids actually cheered, and nothing could get a rise out of a bunch of kids quite as much as seeing Roy Rogers riding headlong into the screen atop Trigger followed by his friends chasing the bad guys. An uncle took me to one of those Saturday matinee Roy Rogers cowboy movies and swore that he would never make that mistake again. I always loved the movie, “They Died With Their Boots On”, with Errol Flynn. Talk about fantasy! That is so far afield from the truth about Custer that someone should have been slapped for it….and yet….I still love it!

Some of the old theaters were real palaces. Cleveland has a number of them that were slated for demolition. I am really pleased that they refurbished them instead. First, because they were magnificent like the Palace…and it really was then, and is now……a palace! And secondly because so much of what was great is torn down and replaced by buildings that are so forgettable, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Somehow the words Rock and Roll and Hall of Fame shouldn’t be in the same sentence, but that is another story. Lastly, because they made me feel great when I was there, and I get those feelings every time I go back.

The men would wear suits and ties and the women wore dresses with hats, and matching gloves and purses and high heels. The children were dressed in their Sunday best, because going downtown to the movies was a big deal. It was a big deal and everyone acted that way.

They must have had revivals of older movies even back in the 1940’s, because in my mind’s eye I can still see the original Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan. They were originally made between 1932 and 1948. I was only 2 when Johnny Weissmuller made his last Tarzan movie. I must have been about five when I saw the original 1932 movie in a neighborhood theater and I never forgot the scene where the pigmies throw everyone down into the pit to be killed by a gorilla and is later shot full of arrows.

Hopalong Cassidy was my ultimate hero though. I was even called Hoppy by my childhood friends in those early years, at least until I moved to the farm. Those years were a large part of my wonder years. I lived in Cleveland and there were a lot of kids in the neighborhood. We were out and about all day every day. Even now, as I look back on those years, being as young as we were, I marvel at the immense freedom we had to wander up and down the streets, play baseball at the playground and best of all…the dump. There was always a potential treasure to be found in the dump. The world was very different then. I didn’t realize it then nor did I realize it for many years, but we were all very much like the “Little Rascals”, which cannot be shown any longer, so I doubt that younger people even know what I am talking about.

The world has changed. A lot! We don’t dare let the children roam to far too often because there are so many unsavory and violent people out there. We don’t dare leave our doors unlocked…even when we are home. In my youth people actually left their keys in their parked cars with the windows open while they shopped. Unbelievable today I know. Good manners were not affectations; they were expected. Please and thank you were expected, and most felt perfectly content to do so.

Then it all changed. Since I am almost 64 I must confess that I was a part of that change. They claim that the Baby Boomer Generation started in June of 1946. I was born in July of that year. I was the beginning of the Baby Boomers. I remember that I disgustedly thought that it was really stupid to applaud movies and I said so. The older members of the family gave me a disgusted look or just shrugged, as if to say….I shouldn’t have to explain this to you.

Although I did get dressed up for some occasions, I didn’t want to get dressed up to go anywhere, least of all the movies. A tee shirt, tennis shoes and blue jeans were good enough for me and if it wasn’t good enough for everyone else…well that was just tough! As if all of those goody-goody two shoes manners really mattered. After all……that was just being a phony. A cover up for how people really felt.

I didn’t realize it then, but all those “phony” manners and descent attire are an important part of what allows for civilized behavior.

What had happened? Everything changed! One of the reasons was that this was the first time in human history the young population became so large that the adult population couldn’t properly absorb them; and we created our own little sub-culture. After all; we teenagers knew that our 16 or so years experience in life was worth far more than the decades of experience in life of all the adults combined.

As this population trend continued this sub-culturing trend continued, and every few years we had another downward spiral of values, until the American culture was altered almost beyond recognition. Clearly beyond the recognition of America’s founding fathers. The most successful culture the world has ever known was now awash with irrational paradigms that are clearly destructive to all of humanity.

What has this to do with pest control you are probably asking? Everything! This irrationality extends into every facet of our business and personal lives. The Green Movement, which became the most irrational movement of them all, was born in this crucible and has now become one of the most corrupting dominant forces of thought and action in the world today.

Fortunately I grew up. I also cringe at many of the things that I said, things I did and laugh at things that I thought in my youth. I always wonder at these famous people who, on their death beds, claim that they “have no regrets”. Well…..I have a lot of regrets. I hope it is because I grew up enough to recognize my failings and made a determination to correct them and to avoid repeating them. Part of that process is being able to see that which is real versus that which is shadow over substance. If we are capable of seeing ourselves as we really are, then we will have a lot less difficulty in seeing the rest of the world as it really is.

Everything we are told in the newspapers and the electronic news media is a lie. These aren’t necessarily lies of commission, (although they are guilty of that also) they are mostly lies of omission. Even many of our history books can’t be called anything less than propaganda in order to promote some view or other. Read two different history books on the same subject from two different people for two different philosophical paradigms and you wonder if they are reporting about the same events. Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. Mostly we are lied to. Virtually everything we are told by the greenies is a lie. If you have a problem with that then get over it! Because those are the facts and we need to start recognizing the greenies for whom and what they are.

Recently I bought a CD of the original Broadway cast of Camelot and I still love it. I first saw the original traveling cast of the Broadway musical Camelot with Kathryn Grayson as Guinevere in 1962 at the Palace; and I walked out feeling just great. I loved Camelot and it is still my favorite Broadway production, and I think the greatest Broadway musical ever produced. I can still sing some of the songs…at least parts of them. I saw it again with, Robert Goulet as King Arthur this time. This was thirty years later, and I walked out feeling just as great as I did after and having seen the original traveling cast, although I knew it wasn’t anywhere near as big or as good a production as the original.

Being insatiably curious is its own reward and its own punishment. I know that nothing can ever be the same once we are grown. When we get old it really becomes clear that nothing was a good as we thought it was, and nothing else can ever be that great again. It wasn’t just the movies that I loved…it was the time, and it was a golden time. But Camelot really is a myth! Coming to that realization may take some of the pleasure out of life, but once we can accept that, it frees us from the shadow of illusion and allows us to see the light of reality.

This is the reward and this is the punishment.