Thursday, November 11, 2021Page A6 East Bernard Express

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Incorporating the

Many of my readers may be unaware that my wife and I have moved from our beloved home and ranch in Wharton County Texas to Fredericksburg. This is wine country and I must say agriculture finally hit the jackpot here. I am studying the bars and will keep you informed.

I don’t spend a lot of time in bars but when I do I almost always come away enlightened, not to mention emboldened. There is something about sitting on a stool, looking at yourself in the mirror that makes you harbor the illusion that you can educate people on either side of you as well as the guy running back and forth in front of you. Did you ever notice that a bartender is just as busy if you are the only customer or the place is packed like a sardine cannery? Bartenders are supposed to be good listeners according to the old TV show Cheers, or movies, that imply that they have super natural pow-ers to solve your deepest insecurities by giving wise advice.

The advice is usually something like, “Well, what do you think you should do?” Psychiatrists charge $250 an hour for that kind of advice but you can get it from a bartender for $200…tip included. And

the bartender never asks if you hate your mother, or somebody else’s mother.

And once in a while you find one who talks instead of just listens. This was the case with me in a wine tasting vineyard recently. I was looking in that mirror won-dering who the handsome guy was looking back at me when I realized it was a poster of Paul Newman. We bear a striking re-semblance in that both of us have blue eyes.

The guy next to me was telling the bartender jokes. He politely pretended to listen while he flew from one end of the bar to the other like a humming bird. I’ve discovered it’s not that hard to impress a wino. You don’t have to listen to the old joke. Just laugh when he laughs and you can’t go wrong.

So, I was surprised when my unknown companion asked the bartender to tell a joke. Without hesitation the barkeep re-lated this story: A fellow in a small town, Albert, had just learned to drive. An out of town guest came to town and was riding around with this guy. Every time Albert came to a red light traffic signal he ran right through it.

“Hey, you just ran right through a red light,” said his friend.

“I know. Me and my brother always do that,” he laughed.

“You did it again.”“Yeah, my brother and I always do

that.”Then Albert came to a green light and

he came to a full stop and peered cautious-ly each way.

“What’s the deal now? Why would you stop at a green light?”

“Oh, it’s for safety. I’m looking out for that crazy brother of mine.”

Doc Blakely is a humorist and moti-vational speaker who now resides in the Hill Country after living in Wharton 47 years. For more information, visit www.docblakely.com.

Brothers beware

Lies and crimes in the U.S.

government

‘Doc’ Blakely

Pokin’ Fun

JuDGe

anDReW

naPoliTano

oPinion

During the past three weeks, some unexpected government events oc-curred, exposing more government crimes and lies.

In the Supreme Court, the Department of Jus-tice claimed that while the government knows about torture during the presidency of George W. Bush, nevertheless, because the U.S. is still at war, it can refuse to provide documentation of the torture to Polish prosecutors who are trying Polish intelli-gence agents for torture com-mitted in Poland at the direc-tion of the CIA.

The DOJ told the court the U.S. is still fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The government not only tortures and kills, but it also lies laugh-ably to federal judges.

Two weeks later, for the first time in the post-World War II era, a defendant testified in a public courtroom about two years of torture inflicted upon him by CIA agents.

The torture consisted of re-peatedly forcing water up his nose, beatings to his head and ribs, chained naked confine-ment for days in a government refrigerator, weeks of sleep de-privation, force-feeding through his rectum, and rape. Yes, rape.

Majid Khan told the court “The more I cooperated, the more I was tortured.” The courtroom setting was Kahn’s sentencing hearing at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for his guilty plea nine years ago to being a money courier to folks he didn’t know and who apparently years later used the money he brought them (isn’t money fungible?) to kill innocents in Indonesia, which happened during his CIA confinement.

Then, prosecutors, for the first time in the modern era, acknowledged in a public court-room the defendant’s torture. They told the military jury that Kahn is lucky to be alive -- after what the CIA did to him, surely an understatement.

In civilian courtrooms, where the Constitution is taken more seriously, and where the judge and jurors don’t work for the prosecutor -- the Secretary of Defense -- as is the case in military courtrooms, a finding by the judge that the govern-ment tortured the defendant is sufficient to invalidate the en-tire prosecution.

As well, in Kahn’s military prosecution, where the jury -- not the judge -- does the sen-tencing, the government de-clined to challenge Kahn’s de-scription of his torture, thereby validating it.

Why did the government, which, since 9/11, has repeat-edly and forcefully denied that any of its agents engaged in torture, now in 2021 silently ac-knowledge it? Because it could only challenge it by putting Kahn’s torturers on the witness stand.

That would have exposed the Bush-Cheney regime to harsh front-page obloquy, par-ticularly when defense counsel cross-examined the torturers -- another first in the modern era, had it occurred -- about who or-dered the torture and whether the torturers received pre-pros-ecution pardons from Bush.

In another first, seven of the eight members of Kahn’s jury wrote to the judge and condemned the government’s behavior characterizing it as “a stain on the moral fiber of America.” This was from senior military officers on the jury, and it constitutes an unprecedented public rebuke of the CIA, which conducted the torture, and the DOD, which tried to cover it up.

While Kahn was giving his testimony at Gitmo, a federal judge in Washington ruled that the government had no basis to detain Assadullah Haroon

Gul, who was captured in 2007 and has been held at the Gitmo prison since his capture. Gul was ordered released.

Why it took 14 years for his habeas corpus application to reach a federal judge is yet an-other testament to the govern-ment’s lack of fidelity to consti-tutional norms.

The DOJ under four presi-dents repeatedly persuaded federal judges to adjourn Gul’s habeas hearing while the CIA and the DOD searched in vain for evidence justifying his con-finement.

That is not the way the Con-stitution works. Under habeas corpus jurisprudence, if the government cannot legally jus-tify confinement at the initial stage -- not 14 years later -- the prisoner must be released.

In all these unexpected re-cent events, there are some common threads, but little of this government criminality would have become known to the American public without a dogged press. Reporters from The New York Times and The Washington Post quite simply refused to accept the govern-ment’s whitewash of its crimi-nal behavior and kept digging until they found the truth.

All of this represents a long train of the government’s cal-lous indifference to the moral law, the Constitution and the federal statutes that everyone in government has sworn to up-hold. This is not a Republican or Democratic failure; it consti-tutes criminality at the heart of government.

It is cutting constitutional corners to achieve a cheap courtroom victory.

It is civilian and military prosecutors and judges failing to take the Constitution seri-ously.

It is the perverse belief that because a defendant is not an American, he has no rights. This view is directly at odds with the Declaration of Inde-pendence and the Bill of Rights, which teach that our rights come from our humanity, not from the government.

It contradicts the constitu-tional provisions that protect all persons.

It defies the treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory.

It violates the federal stat-utes criminalizing torture.

We know today that when the Bush-Cheney regime first concocted the idea of a prison at Guantanamo Bay, Bush was told that because Gitmo is in Cuba, the Constitution doesn’t apply, the federal laws don’t apply and -- best of all -- those pesky federal judges can’t inter-fere with whatever he orders. The Supreme Court rejected all these arguments that first-year law students would know bet-ter than to offer.

Wherever the government goes, the Constitution goes with it. But without a moral sense of right and wrong, the government will do whatever it can politically get away with. Why does the government we have hired to protect our rights instead assault them? If it can torture and legally get away with it, is there anything it can’t do?

Judge Andrew Peter Na-politano is an American syn-dicated columnist whose work appears in numerous publi-cations including The Wash-ington Times and Reason. He served as a New Jersey Supe-rior Court judge from 1987 to 1995.

Ray

SPiTzenBeRGeR

imaGeS

About twenty or more years ago, I did dozens and dozens of pen and ink sketches of old Texas barns. After I ran out of old weathered barns to sketch in Wharton and East Bernard (which were a considerable number), my wife would drive me around various rural areas throughout Texas so that I could photograph barns which I would later sketch. I was able to sell every one of my barn drawings in gift and crafts shops in East Bernard and Wallis. Un-til I got tired of sketching old barns.

Barn sketches were still selling, but it kind of got to be the same old, same old for me, and I was eager to find other subjects to draw and paint. During that experience, I learned one thing about old barns, -- most barns in Texas seem to be constructed from the same blueprint. My father built many a barn himself, and they were all made according to this dominant pattern. I found a couple exceptions, -- one an old Wendish-style barn in Serbin, Texas, and a couple Wisconsin-style barns and silos somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, Texas.

This art project reminded me of Leon Hale’s book of outhouse sketches that came out in the 1970s. His col-lection of old privies found throughout Texas were sketched by his friend, a very talented artist, Harry Anthony DeYoung, a far better artist than I will ever be! I remember several people at the time were bothered by the fact such a great artist would sketch out-houses. But, in contrast to old Texas barns, old Texas outhouses were quite varied and individualistic in design. Might have been more fun had I tried to sketch those, lol.

Near the end of my barn-sketching era, I began to add tractors and plows to the drawings. While old plows were as boring to draw as barns, tractors were endlessly fascinating to me, es-pecially the really antique ones. By adding tractors, I think I extended by barn-sketching streak by at least a year, though buyers never seemed that interested in farm equipment.

No, in the early 21st Century people appeared to be more interested in old barns, to the extent that even barn wood was very popular for house décor and picture frames. What else besides barn wood would you want to frame an old barn sketch in? I usually sold them matted and let the buyer frame the picture himself.

It seems that artists throughout history were faced with trendiness versus painting what you enjoy paint-ing. Apparently water lilies were much in vogue during Monet’s time, and he must have made a fortune painting them, considering how many of his I’ve seen. Van Gogh, however, who never sold a painting during his life-time, just painted whatever moved his heart to paint. Both artists’ paintings are worth a fortune today.

Sometimes artists went through “periods” (such as Utrillo’s “white pe-riod”), but not because of trendiness,

-- not really sure why. During Utril-lo’s “white period,” wherein he mixed white paint with plaster, his mostly white paintings made him a fortune. Not that I’m comparing myself to Utrillo, but I went through my “fan-cy lady” period, in which I sketched fancy ladies from my mother-in-law’s photos taken in the early 1900s. This was probably a reaction to old barns, lol. Buyers of these sketches loved the ones of ladies wearing large brimmed hats. My “fancy lady” sketches were even more popular than my barn sketches, -- trendiness may have been a reason here, but it wasn’t my reason. I just happened to discover photos of elegant ladies waiting to be sketched.

Eventually, I stopped selling my art works and began donating them to the church auction. I suppose my job as pastor at that point in time inspired me to create “religious” art, and I can’t remember how many watercolors of Jesus as the Good Shepherd I created during that time, not to mention of Mary and the Christ Child. Of all the art I have done over the years, both created out of trendiness and out of what was in my heart, I loved, and still do, creating watercolors and Japanese ink paintings of Mary and the Christ Child the best.

I doubt in today’s post-Christian world Mary and Baby Jesus art will become trendy, but painting such sat-isfies my heart and soul.

Ray Spitzenberger is a retired WCJC teacher, a retired LCMS pastor, and author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.

Old barns and other trendiness in art

COLUMNIST GARY BORDERSTexas Press Association State Capital Highlights will return next week