Congratulations.
You have reached the National Politics Desk of bloodredsyrah.com and should be commended for your interest in the nexus between journalism and literature, a high-speed, broad band intersection between fact and fiction where truth fights for equal time amid run-amok fantasy and dark farce.
I’m chief of that desk which after serious consideration I now rename the National Affairs Desk in recognition of the late and greatly flawed Hunter S. Thompson, America’s possessed outlaw journalist who lived and died in a flurry of fear and loathing that sent him undercover into the bowls of societal collusion and nefarious cultural intrigue.
As an outlaw novelist, I am not afraid. My loathing, however, knows no depth or boundaries. High-grade elected officials, politicians who thrive with the tenacity of leeches, top my list for revulsion. These worms must be called out.
My first novel, “Blood Red Syrah,” details life and death situations drawn from personal experience and the depths of my vivid imagination. People often ask if some of what they read in the novel really happened.
Yes, I say.
And some I made up based on the harsh reality of existence we all share. The book is fiction. All good fiction is based on reality, drawn from a foundation of fact peppered with ample doses of inventive and resourceful insight.
Homicide, bigotry, racism, domestic violence, animal cruelty, environmental activism, feminism, crooked cops and politicians all stoke people in the Northeastern Pennsylvania world where I live. Those same basic building blocks of life and death also flourished on the California Central Coast when I lived and worked there between 2002 and 2006.
In the book I share some of my views on journalism drawn from working and living as a full-time journalist for about 30 years. I drew my opinion on the wine industry after living in wine country, drinking barrels of the stuff and briefly working in a boutique winery located in a canyon surrounded by sea mist, mountains and predator capitalists.
Living in Scranton, Pa., I’m surrounded by predator politicians, elected officials who fail each day in their civic task of upholding the tenets of democracy and leading constituents through the darkness of corrupt government and their apologist circle of lackey supporters.
Of course I’m talking about former Scranton Mayor Bill Courtright, who last week pleaded guilty to three federal felonies, including bribery, extortion and conspiracy in a massive pay-to-play racket.
But not all bad behavior is criminal. Some corrupt acts are simply immoral, doing as much to gut the promise of liberty and justice for all as does the most heinous public corruption guilty plea.
Misogyny fits the bill.
I’ve been fighting for decades to persuade members of the Lackawanna County Friendly Sons of St. Patrick to allow women to attend their annual open-to-the-public male-only dinner. For more than a century the traditional affair has barred women except those who work the dinner serving the men with alcohol, ham, cabbage and potatoes.
Featured speakers have included the late Robert Kennedy, three-time speaker Joe Biden and U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley, who lost his Congressional seat to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
My neighbor and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey joins countless men of white privilege, including federal judges and other elected and appointed public officials in the Scranton area, in lending their power and prestige to ban all women from engaging in equal opportunity at the dinner.
My congressman Matt Cartwright, a member of the House Progressive Caucus, also joins the ranks of the rank in refusing to help open the dinner to equal opportunity.
Next year’s dinner is particularly important since dinner bosses will prohibit women presidential candidates and/or their female supporters from doing what the men do – networking, making valuable contacts for future financial support and soliciting votes.
As always, male political candidates will be welcome.
Presidential candidate Joe Biden recently said in a CNN interview, “Look, I have spent my career from writing the act before that to say my daughters and granddaughters can do anything and I mean anything, anything that a man can do, anything. So, I don’t have a doubt in my mind.”
The women in Biden’s family cannot do anything a man can do. They cannot attend the segregationist Lackawanna County Friendly Sons of St. Patrick dinner where Joe feels right at home.
OK, so how about those USA women’s soccer stars? Two of America’s finest are Penn State graduates. Will Biden, Casey and Cartwright agree America’s newest role models should have the right to attend?
I sent emails today to Casey and Cartwright. I’ll let you know if they respond. But neither man has responded to more than a year’s worth of written on-the-record questions I have emailed to their staff about the dinner, gender equity and equal opportunity. More than a year ago my wife and I asked for meetings with both men to discuss equal treatment. We never received a response.
Cartwright staffer Bob Morgans called me before this year’s dinner to tell me the Congressman would be attending a dinner elsewhere in the district where women are allowed, but stressed I should not interpret that as criticism of the Lackawanna boys. Casey simply dismisses all my legitimate questions about his overt and embarrassing sexism.
Same goes for Biden although I haven’t yet had a chance to corner him and ask.
Meanwhile, Casey and Cartwright publicly support Biden’s campaign. All three guys look like male chauvinist pigs wrapped in the blanket of male dominance, stuffing themselves at the trough of ignorance and old-fashioned 50s style discrimination.
Times have changed, boys.
Look for a composite character in the “Blood Red Syrah” sequel, maybe a fearful political blowhard named Bobby Bonanza (remember the Cartwrights?) who tries to exert his Democratic Party manhood by struggling to hold on to his pale penis people prejudice.
USAUSAUSA!
This is National Affairs Desk Chief Corbett signing off.