- It is with a heavy hear that I wish a melancholy happy trails to the late J.D. Salinger, a truly legendary author who has been impacting the lives of young readers for nearly six decades with his 1951 novel, "The Catcher in the Rye." The notoriously reclusive author, so much so that he mandated no public memorial be held after his death in order to preserve his privacy, passed away Wednesday of natural causes at the age of 91. “Despite having broken his hip in May, his health had been excellent until a rather sudden decline after the new year," the statement by his literary agent, Phyllis Westberg, said. "He was not in any pain before or at the time of his death." Ironically, “Catcher” was Salinger’s only novel. But I suppose that if you’re only going to write one, having it be one of the most famous novels ever written is the way to go. Salinger also wrote more than 30 short stories and a handful of novellas, but it is the book Holden Caulfield, who is expelled from a private school, Pencey Prep, in Pennsylvania, and spends the next three days wandering around New York that Salinger will be remembered for. The portrayal of Caulfield as someone who is mistrustful of authority and decidedly anti-establishment has rung true with generation after generation. The novel has had dozens of printings over the years because demand remains high, a sign of how much Salinger’s message resonates. Yet some schools have banned it because of by Caulfield's language and attitude as well as his adventures with a prostitute. As for Salinger himself, he was born January 1, 1919, in New York City, attended Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania and spent time at three colleges. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, right around the time he published his first stories. During his time in the army, he suffered a nervous breakdown and used the experience in his writing. Perhaps the best illustration of his reclusive nature is the fact that his last published story, "Hapworth 16, 1924," appeared in 1965. For the last four-and-a-half decades of his life, he didn’t publish a single work…..wow. The only times Salinger ventured out of hiding in his later years were to sue those who wrote unauthorized biographies or attempted to violate his privacy in some way. He gave sporadic interviews, the last one in 1981 to The (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) Advocate. Having said all that about a man who made a point of not being a part of the world for more than 40 years, it is sad to see Salinger pass…………
- Not that there is anything good about a tractor trailer driver plowing into a disabled car and killing a young mother, but if there is any way to make such a tragedy worse, this is it. Meet Thomas Wallace of Ohio, a Grade-A douche bag who not only violated transportation laws restricting the number of hours a truck driver can be on the road based on how much sleep he or she has had on a given day, but this piece of crap was D.W.W.P. Yes, driving while watching porn, that’s correct. Apparently when Wallace rear ended Julie Stratton in upstate New York in December, dude was streaming pornos on his laptop while driving on insufficient sleep. Stratton’s car was disabled in the left lane on the highway after she struck a deer. She immediately called police and was only in the left lane for a few minutes before Wallace came rumbling down the road in his porn-streaming, sleep-deprived state. , "Mr. Wallace was in violation of the transportation law that determines how long you can drive a tractor trailer. It's for safety purposes. It was clear from the evidence that he had gone over the time period. In fact, in a 27-hour period it appeared that he had only been asleep for four hours,” Capt. Michael Nigrelli of the New York State Police explained. Wallace has been arrested and charged with second-degree manslaughter, which I would contend is getting off easy. I know there is no douche-bag provision in the law that allows for charges against a person to be escalated if they are doing something truly despicable and indefensible – say, watching porn on their lapper while driving a big rig – but there should be. Wallace was arraigned in Pembroke town court and remains in the Genesee County jail on $50,000 cash bail, which hopefully will not be paid. Dude needs to sit and rot in jail for as long as possible……….
- Smallville finally made its return from the holiday break tonight and it was a decidedly Oliver Queen-centric episode. Apparently Ollie has taken up residence in some sort of old brick warehouse building on the outskirts of Metropolis and is still serving as a mentor to Mia, the girl he met during his stint in some sort of Fight Club-like group. But Oliver is clearly on edge and believes that someone has been following him. Around the same time, Clark and Lois are on a date at a Daily Planet fundraiser. They say their goodbyes on the street and as Clark super-speeds off because he hears a citizen in trouble, Lois tries to start her car and finds it won't fire up. She gets out to check under the hood and as she does, an arrow fired from above pierces the engine and sends her running for cover. She spots the mystery archer, a man dressed just like the Green Arrow, on a rooftop nearby. The archer fires again, piercing Lois’ left shoulder just below the collarbone. She spends the night in the hospital and the next morning, Zod visits Clark at the Kent Farm, asking him to help the Kandorians get their superpowers after they showed him respect by kneeling before him in the last episode before the holiday break. Clark has his doubts about their intentions if they gain their powers and also doesn’t know what he could do to help them regain them because he’s simply always had them for as long as he’s been on Earth. Back at the hospital, Chloe is standing watch and when Oliver hears about Lois being shot and comes to see her, Chloe tells Oliver about the shot and arrow that put her there. Looking at the X-rays of where Lois was shot, Oliver realizes that the person who attacked her was an expert marksman and when he finds out about the arrow used, he turns an ugly shade of white and immediately excuses himself. Chloe eventually departs the hospital and returns to Watchtower, where she gets back to work and suddenly finds herself in a very dangerous position. The lights flicker, her computer screens bug out and the image of a medieval archer flashes across the largest screen in the room. When the lights come back on, the same mysterious archer who attacked Lois is standing on a ledge at the end of the room, aiming right at Chloe. He fires an arrow and she dives for the floor, with the arrow grazing her right arm. Before the archer can fire another shot, the sound of someone approaching from the stairs scares him off. Clark walks into the room just in time to save his friend and she escapes with a surface wound. In the meantime, Oliver has guessed that someone with a connection to his past is the mystery archer and looking to keep Mia out of harm’s way, he tells her their training is over and kicks her out. On her way out of the building, she is accosted and kidnapped by the so-called Dark Archer, who tells her that she will help him get his message through to Oliver. Before he realizes that Mia has gone missing, Oliver is visited by Lois, who is trying to figure out who is hunting she and her cousin. As the pieces come together, Oliver realizes that it is likely Bordigan, his mentor in some sort of secret society for archers that he belongs to. The society’s motto is “No lovers, no allies, no apprentices,” which would explain why Lois (lover) and Chloe (ally) were attacked. Oliver surmises that Mia is next to be attacked but by this time, Bordigan has already taken her. Clark and Chloe come to the same realization at the same time and after some cyber-sleuthing, Chloe unearths the details on the secret society of 13th century archers. They theorize that during his year of being AWOL, Oliver may have joined and now his mentor is coming back to haunt him. When Chloe finds an altar from the society has been shipped to a wealthy businessman living in Coast City, she pulls up the satellite images and zooms in on a ginormous maze in the same shape as the society’s crest. Zooming in on the maze, she spots Mia in the midst. Bordgian has stashed her there to lure Oliver in and Ollie obliges, coming to save his protégé. Bordigan meets him with a simple directive: because he, Bordigan, is beginning to show signs of slowing down due to age and can no longer move and react quickly enough to do his job, Oliver must now take his final test to prove himself – killing his mentor, who is no longer fast or quick enough to survive. This cannibalistic approach seems a bit severe and when Oliver refuses to kill Bordigan, the mentor threatens to kill Mia in order to provoke Oliver and make him unleash his inner killer. Mia runs for her life inside the maze, but Bordigan tracks her down and unleashes three arrows just as Oliver catches up to them. Ollie steps in front of the arrows to save Mia, but Clark then super-speeds onto the scene and takes the arrows instead, deflecting them and saving Oliver and Mia both. Before anyone can see him, Clark then speeds off and Oliver returns fire, taking down Bordigan. Clark returns once Bordigan is down and Oliver explains that he didn’t shoot to kill, only to wound his mentor. Bordigan is arrested and thrown in jail, but his final words about how the demons inside Oliver will eventually catch up with him stay with Oliver. Clark has other troubles as well, namely Zod. Zod pays Lois a visit in the hospital while she’s there, claiming to be an old friend of Clark and offering to have dinner with Lois and tell her about Clark’s past. When Clark finds out about the visit, he finds Zod and demands that he stay away, returning a Kryptonian symbol necklace Zod gave to Lois as well. After threatening Zod to stay away from Lois, Clark leaves. Zod also departs but meets up with one of his minions in the alley below, telling her that they need to find the book of Ra somewhere on Earth to help them build the towers they need (the ones we saw in Lois’ dreams of the future earlier this season) to set up their system to turn the yellow sun red and give them their powers. Zod realizes that Clark doesn’t know where the book is, but promises that once it’s found, CK will be forced to either capitulate to his demands and follow Zod or be thrown into prison. That’s where things end, setting up next week’s two-hour Justice League mini-movie, starting at 8 p.m., one hour early. Be sure to tune in for that…………
- And so the nightmare finally ends. Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya finally came out of hiding after months holed up in a Brazilian embassy compound and exited stage left Wednesday. The saga, which went from Zelaya being ousted in a military coup, exiled, denied in attempts to return to Venezuela, allowed back in but only as long as he stayed on the grounds of the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa and denied exit when the rogue government didn’t like his relocation plans and has finally ended, became quite the black eye for Honduras. It came to a close as Zelaya flew into exile on Wednesday, ending a months-long political crisis as the country’s newly-elected president took office. The saga spanned seven months and as opposition leader Porfirio Lobo, elected in November, took office, the last man legitimately elected president by the people prior to Lobo’s selection last month left the country. Zelaya boarded a plane for the Dominican Republic, with thousands of supporters at the airport cheering as the plane took off. The wheels went up just hours after Lobo received the presidential sash in a ceremony in the national stadium and attempted to put the turmoil of the past few months behind he and his people. "Today we want to heal the wounds of the past," he said. A big step in that direction could come if the government decides to waive the pending criminal charges hanging over Zelaya, which there is no indication of at this point. The Honduran Congress granted Zelaya political amnesty on Tuesday but the move does not affect those charges. Even so, Zelaya flew to the Dominican Republic on a plane sent by the Caribbean island nation's president. "I have an invitation ... to go to the Dominican Republic and I will accept the invitation, obviously with the approval of the new government," Zelaya said on local radio Tuesday. The brightest spot in all of this may well be the fact that the despotic Roberto Micheletti, who installed himself as the de facto president after heading up the coup to oust Zelaya, is no longer in power. He presides over serious human right abuses, including deaths, as security forces cracked down on pro-Zelaya protesters and media outlets in the weeks following the coup. In light of the international support Honduras lost during the time Micheletti’s illegitimate government was in power, Lobo has a lot of work to do and he knows it. "Due to the political crisis, Honduras has lost $2 billion dollars in foreign aid and international investment," he said. But being the optimist I am, here’s hoping that better things are ahead for Honduras as the country looks to get back on track under new (legitimately elected, for a change) leadership………..
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