Happy Friday, Gentle Readers,
I pray this missive finds you well. We should be getting a little more weather here to cool things off, not enough rain to give me an excuse to blow off mowing the lawn, but enough wind to scatter our patio furniture all over the backyard. Ah! Utah in the summer! Fry, freeze, and repeat.
ISO: The World’s Smallest Violin
As everyone looks back on the day that President Trump was shot in Butler, Pa., CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane has opened up about the trauma he suffered on that day. Not because the president and two others were wounded, and not because Corey Comperatore died protecting his family from gunfire.
Nope.
According to the New York Post, MacFarlane claims it was Trump supporters who triggered his PTSD. Appearing on the “The Chuck ToddCast” podcast, MacFarlane told Todd:
For those of us there, it was such a horror, because you saw an emerging America. I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got put on trauma leave. Not because, I think, of the shooting, but because you could — you saw it in the eyes, the reaction of the people.
They were coming for us. If he didn’t jump up with his fist, they were going to come kill us. Many of us on press row — because we talked about this on our text chains for weeks after — were quite confident we’d be dead if he didn’t get back up. When he jumped up triumphantly, it saved us.
He claimed that “dozens” of people in the crowd turned on the media, shouting, “You did this, this is your fault, you caused this, you killed him.” He was afraid the crowd was going to beat the media with their hands. He still has not shaken the events of that fateful day, adding, “I can’t eliminate from my mind’s eye the look in their faces. That’s what America is right now. It’s not rational. It’s an irrational thought to think ‘the media shot somebody from the top of the building.’”
Sorry, I had to pause to throw up in my mouth a little bit.
Scott, no one thought you or anyone in the media was on a roof with a rifle. But they all remembered how you and your colleagues and the administration you shilled for amped up the rhetoric for years. So yes, you do bear some responsibility for the incident.
When we were on our mission trip to Cambodia, I met a man who was my age. When he was in his teens, the USAF bombed his village, and he had to make a run for it during the bombing. He ended up in a Khmer Rouge labor camp, where he had to take buckets of human excrement out of the outhouses and use his bare hands to fertilize the rice fields with the contents. When he escaped, he had to dodge landmines and the various armies roaming the region looking for child soldiers to conscript.
Did he whine about his PTSD? No, he grew up to be one of the kindest, most thoughtful men I have ever met, and spent his days helping girls escape the sex trade in that country. Because that is what men do, but hey, let’s forget about the actual victims in Butler because today, it’s all about you, Scott, and the fact that some people called you out a year ago.
At last check, a GoFundMe account for MacFarlane had raised 75 cents to go toward the purchase of an emotional support hamster.
Wine recommendation
Because we will not drink wine before its time, and it’s just about that time. This week, we are test-driving the 2022 Sean Minor Cabernet Sauvignon.
This is a fun, reasonably priced Cab-Sauv that will run you between $12 and $18 out the door. Expect medium tannins and acidity, and it does lean heavily toward the dry end. There is a strong presence of dark cherry and blackberry, accompanied by a noticeable amount of oak, leather, and subtle notes of vanilla and plum. You may notice a slightly herbal finish. Technically, it can stand on its own, but it is better suited for the table. We enjoyed it with a New York Strip that, for some ungodly reason, was priced almost as high as my first car.
That’s it for me. Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you next time.
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