Today is Monday, April 11, 2022, the day of Elliot’s and my second booster shot. So far, so good. Elliot had his inoculation at 9:40 a.m. at Rite-Aid, while mine was at 4 at the same site. My only side effect is that I’m spewing inanities a la Marjorie Taylor Greene, saying that all Democrats are pedophiles. I have no control over what’s coming out of my mouth now that the second booster shot was jabbed into my right arm. Of course, I’m just pulling your leg here – or your arm, whichever is readily available.

For those who were wondering as to why I didn’t have an entry yesterday, the reason for my absence was quite simple: Elliot and I motored to Beacon, New York, around 1:30 p.m. and didn’t come home until 10:30 or so after seeing a most extraordinary film called Nitram, “Martin” spelled backward. This is an Australian production starring Judy Davis, Anthony LaPaglia (who I didn’t realize was Australian until yesterday), and a most remarkable Caleb Landry Jones (who is American, not Australian) in the title role of “Nitram,” who develops into Tasmania’s most infamous mass murderer at the end of the movie. I will devote more time to my musings on the film later on in this entry. I would say now that this unforgettable film is well worth seeing, even though it’s not playing so widely. That’s why we drove all the way out to Beacon, even though we made two stops before walking into the theater after 5: one at the best donut shop I’ve ever patronized, Glazed Over Donuts, located on Main Street, and to Binnacle Books, where I bought a Ray Bradbury book, Something Wicked This Way Comes. The title of the book, as I’ve later learned, comes from Shakespeare in which the line is uttered by one of the witches in Macbeth. The entire line is “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”

Today’s lead story in The New York Times has to do with the former president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner who profited royally from a nemesis of the United States, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in that he was able to secure a $2 billion investment from a fund led by the Saudi crown prince, despite objections voiced by the fund’s advisers about the merits of the deal. If this doesn’t stink of corruption in the Dumpf administration, I don’t know what does. The article on the left of page one was written by David D. Kirkpatrick and Kate Kelly and is titled “Kushner Firm Got $2 Billion From Saudis: Sovereign Wealth Fund Overruled Advisers.”

Though there were concerns about the advisability of such a deal, the full board of the $620 billion Public Investment Fund, which is led by the crown prince, overruled the panel’s objections which centered on Kushner’s inexperienced newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners, its overall ratings that were deemed “unsatisfactory in all aspects,” a proposed asset management fee that “seems excessive,” and “public relations risks” from Kushner’s prior role as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, former President Donald Dumpf, according to minutes of the panel’s meeting last June 30.

Ethics experts say that such a massive deal creates the appearance of potential payback for Kushner’s actions in the White House or of a bid for future favor if Dumpf (“the most honest human being on God’s green earth, ” or something to that effect, as he just recently ludicrously declared at one of his stupid MAGA rallies) seeks and – God forbid – wins another presidential term in 2024, if he’s not in an orange prison jumpsuit by then.

In its most recent public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, dated March 31, Kushner’s firm reported that its main fund had $2.5 billion under management, almost entirely from investors based overseas. Most of that appears to be the $2 billion from Saudi Arabia.

A critic of the deal, Robert Weissman, president of the nonprofit group Public Citizen, called Kushner’s relationship with the Saudis “extremely troubling,” arguing that his stance toward the kingdom’s leadership as a senior adviser “makes the business partnership appear even more to be both a reward to, and an investment in, Kushner.”

As you might recall, this crown prince is the same one who, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded, had approved the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist for The Washington Post and resident of Virginia who had criticized the kingdom’s rulers. As would be expected, nothing was done during the Dumpf administration over this brutal slaying.

Other than being married to the boss’s daughter, Kushner has little experience or track record in private equity. Before working in the White House, Kushner ran his family’s commercial real estate empire, sometimes with disappointing results. His best-known deal was the $1.8 billion purchase of the office tower at the devilishly numbered 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, in 2007. When the recession hit the following year, the building’s mortgage became a crippling liability.

While offering advice to his father-in-law, Kushner had developed a cozy relationship with the Saudi crown prince. Kushner was responsible for helping broker $110 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia over 10 years. With the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, Kushner helped to shield bin Salman from congressional outrage over the atrocity. Kushner also protected the prince from the humanitarian catastrophe created by the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen. Does this whole thing sound fishy to you?

So that’s the story with yet another member in the Orange Menace’s inner circle linked with some taint of corruption. Aren’t we all exhausted from hearing more about Dumpf and others in his cabal? When, we wonder, will real accountability be meted out to Dumpf and his malevolent allies?

Another troubling story that irritates me to no end is the situation that is occurring in the country after the odious governor in Florida passed a so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill in his autocratic state and the imitators now cropping up in other regions where only Republican governors are trying to pass similar bills. Here “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” and it’s truly sickening as the number of states that have joined the antiabortion and anitvoting bandwagons grow exponentially with each passing day. Where one governor goes down this slippery slope, other transphobic and homophobic politicians begin going down the same cultural corridors.

This news development is covered in an online article for NPR by Dustin Jones in his piece entitled “Not just Florida. More than a dozen states propose so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bills.” The article mentions similar steps taken in Alabama along the lines of “Don’t Say Gay” while mentioning that Ohio and Louisiana are both considering legislation that mimics the Florida law that was passed last month by Ron “Death” DeSantis. Now the right-leaning Texas governor, Gregg Abbott, is saying that he will make a similar bill a top priority at the next legislative session.

What these bills propose is to generally prohibit schools from using a curriculum or from discussing topics of gender identity or sexual orientation in the lower grades.

A strong critic of these bills, Arjee Restar, assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington, told NPR that “The institutionalization of these bills is an overt form of structural transphobia and homophobia, and it goes against all public health evidence in creating a safe and supportive environment for transgender, nonbinary, queer, gay, and lesbian youths and teachers to thrive.”

The original proponent of this unnecessary bill, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, drew public criticism over his proposed legislation, but it was passed anyway. It has teachers like Paula Stephens worried since teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity isn’t even part of the first-grade curriculum, but talking about families is part of her curriculum, and some of her students might have two moms or two dads. Stephens worried that just talking about families could get her into trouble with the homophobic police!

The other states now following the Sunshine State’s lead include the following:

• Alabama, where a measure has been proposed prohibitting early classroom instruction on sexual and gender identity.
• Arizona, where a new bill aims to change the state’s sex-ed curriculum to focus on biological sex (I’m surprised they’re even allowing this) and “not gender identification.”
• In neighboring Georgia, lawmakers targeted private schools with these same concerns, but failed to get any traction this year.
• In Iowa, a senate proposal would require that parents opt in – in writing – to any instruction “relating to gender identity.”
• In Louisiana, lawmakers introduced HB 837. It would limit discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in some grades and prohibit it all together in others.
• South Carolina has a similar bill on its books.
• Indiana has a similar bill.
• Missouri has a bill that would ban “gender or sexual diversity training” in public schools.
• Kentucky has a similar bill here as well.
• Oklahoma does it one better: A senate bill would ban books from school libraries that focus on “the study of sex, sexual lifestyles, or sexual activity.” This is extremely repulsive altogether, in my view. Repugnicans are bent on turning the clock back 70 years here!
• Tennessee also bans books and instructional materials “that promote, normalize, support, or address lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender issues or lifestyle.”
• Last but not least is Ohio whose HB 616 has similar language used in the Florida bill.

Ames Simmons, a Duke law senior lecturing fellow, said that “Florida may be the first in this wave, but there have been other laws in the past that were called ‘no promo homo’ laws, which forbid saying positive things about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer people in classrooms.” He further told NPR, “With the increased visibility of transgender and nonbinary people, we have seen these bills expand to also prohibit educating students about gender diversity and gender identity.” Recognizing the implications of these bills on other legislation, Simmons added, “What is truly concerning is that these anti-LGBTQ bills have bene coupled with legislative proposals that forbid teaching about structural racism and slavery, and patriarchy and sexism, on the grounds that these concepts make others uncomfortable.”

We should all be concerned and troubled by this juggernaut of anti-LGBTQ legislation rolling over the land at this point in our history. Instead of 2022, you would think it’s 1952 all over again in this party’s worldview! It’s just a distraction from how soulless the repugnican party really is.

As I promised you earlier, I would like to conclude about my observations on Nitram, the film Elliot and I saw yesterday in Beacon. It’s a powerful and disturbing look into the mind of a young man who would eventually kill 35 people and wound 23 others in a shooting rampage in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in late April 1996. The only positive outcome of this mass slaughter was the reformation of Australia’s gun laws just about two weeks after the massacre shocked an entire nation.

In the film, Caleb Landry Jones gives a terrifying performance as the aforementioned “Nitram,” whose real name was Martin, but who went by this moniker in grade school and beyond. The film is directed by Justin Kurzel and written by Shaun Grant. The film takes great pains not to glorify the shooter or to show any of the violence that one would anticipate being revealed on screen. In fact, the violence is shown off-screen; there is actually one scene toward the end where Nitram kills an elderly couple in their home and you hear the gunshots from outside. The actual slaughter is never shown.

Up until the shootings, Jones plays the title character as a lonely, alienated, and deeply disturbed individual who bedevils his long-suffering parents, here played by the luminous Judy Davis and Anthony LaPaglia. It’s Davis who tries to be more of a disciplinarian to her wayward son, while her husband tries to be more of a pal to his strange son. It is readily apparent that Nitram has little capacity for empathy and no regard for the consequences of his behavior. One thing that doesn’t place him squarely as a psychopath is his obvious regard for animals. At least there are no scenes of him torturing any animal, which is always considered a red flag.

The scenes of Nitram living his life in such a lovely setting as Port Arthur unfold with languor until Nitram meets an eccentric heiress with tons of dogs and one cat and a house almost out of Grey Gardens who almost becomes his salvation until she dies in a freak accident caused by Nitram himself. Then we see this terribly alienated character descend into the mass murderer he will soon become. There is the one chilling scene in a gun shop where the country’s ineffective gun laws are put on full display, as the young inexperienced mass-murder-in-training is easily able to purchase an arsenal of semiautomatic weapons with the money that his deceased lady friend leaves him. There are no background checks or registration required here, just cold cash.

When you see this film and then see how Australia confronted its gun problem as effectively as it did, one must wonder why this cannot be done here. Maybe the politicians in Australia think country first than our politicians here who appear to think only of themselves first.

I know this film may not appeal to everyone who might think the subject material a bit grim, but again, you can’t say it was gratuitously violent, which is characteristic of so many of our homegrown films. Anyway, we enjoyed it – if that’s the word to use here, even.

Enjoy tomorrow’s warmth if you can.

Stay safe and be well.