by Peter Boyles | Feb 19, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
I remember being in high school and reading … and I had to check this… Frank R. Stockton’s short story from 1882, The Lady or the Tiger. It’s a story about a nasty king who rules the land and has a public trial by ordeal of someone who was opposed to his rule. A handsome young man is accused of the crime and is brought into the public arena and must choose one of two doors. Behind one door is a woman who the king has chosen to be a match for the accused and behind the other is a hungry tiger.
Both doors are soundproofed to prevent the young man from hearing what’s behind each one. If he chooses the door with the woman behind it, he’s innocent but must immediately marry her. If he chooses the tiger, he is deemed guilty and you can only imagine.
The king then learns that his daughter has a lover, the handsome young man. The Princess realizes that the woman behind the door is someone she hates, a rival for the love of the accused. When he looks to the Princess for help, she indicates the door on his right which he opens. The choice is never revealed. It’s always left up to all of us who comes out of the open door, the lady or the tiger.
The Princess’ dilemma is she loses her handsome young man either way. He’s eaten by the tiger or married to her rival. It’s a dilemma we all face now. Joe Biden is behind one door and Donald Trump behind the other. Joe Biden every day slips further and further into dementia. It’s overwhelmingly self-evident that Biden’s mental abilities come into question after the Special Counsel report of his handling of classified documents, he was dubbed an elderly man with a poor memory.
There are seemingly no more Biden protectors or defenders. Joe is a year older than I am and kept saying his memory was fine and for all of us to take a look at what he’s done since he became president. That’s the last thing I’d be saying, Joe. Seemingly every focus group that I’m able to read on the internet will mention they don’t believe Joe has all of his faculties.
Now comes Donald Trump. Enough things have been said about Donald Trump that I don’t need to go back over them in this column. But what we face is the rematch that most Americans don’t want. Nationwide polls have Donald Trump leading Biden, and a lot of unsure people are people that are planning to vote for someone else. I’ve been asked many times, as if it matters, Peter, what do you think is going to happen? In 1968 Lyndon Johnson went on national television and told the American people he’s not going to seek the nomination in the November presidential election. That the torch would pass to Hubert Humphrey.
How do we shake out of this? Yogi Berra once said, “Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.” Will Donald Trump return to the White House? Will Joe Biden return to the White House?
Given how the United States is in the world today, given all the different scenarios and tragic potential outcomes, will Biden step aside? Who’s in the wings? Will the Republican Party turn away from Donald Trump knowing he cannot win a general election? It’s an extremely dangerous time in the world. Joe Biden is having memory lapses and Donald Trump absolutely scares the hell out of me. Which will it be the lady or the tiger? We stand in the arena reaching for a door handle.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Jan 19, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
“If I wuz you” is a punchline to a great joke. Your uncle comes out of the bathroom on Thanksgiving afternoon and says I wouldn’t go in there if I wuz you.
The United States under Joe Biden, here we go again.
One of my many idols in history has been the great George Orwell. Orwell said, “All the war propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred comes inevitably from people who are not fighting.”
Let’s begin.
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon told so many lies about southeast Asia. The almost agreed upon figure now is our country spent 141 billion dollars in Vietnam in 14 years. 58,220 American soldiers lost; no one will ever know how many southeast Asians; and North Vietnam is 1.1 million soldiers killed, and to what end?
Next, of course, comes George Bush and Dick Cheney. The Iraq war has cost the U.S. nearly two trillion dollars. When the United States decided to leave, or some people say was evicted from Iraq, the bill of the war was an estimated 1.922 trillion dollars. And as you know, much like southeast Asia, totally based on lies.
There are so many young men and women out there, the veteran suicide rate has skyrocketed, and once again to what end? The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and August of 2021, the United States left. I ask you, what have you now learned?
These beginnings often become trip wire wars. One of my favorite historians, Barbara Tuchman, says the first World War was a series of people stepping on the tripwire. A tripwire war. A lie or an actual event can lead to the insanity that World War One was or the insanity that you and I are watching now. The Iranians seem to be just waiting in the wings. The Biden Administration sends carrier fleets, and Biden bypasses Congress on aid to Ukraine and Israel. We have given so many billions of dollars of weapons and what is the end use? And how will this end?
I fear the United States is going back to the craziness of Nixon-Johnson, or Bush-Cheney times, and it really is up to voters to try and stop this.
The Houthi rebels are vowing retaliation after the U.S. hit them with airstrikes in Yemen. U.S. Navy warships and fighter jets on the Dwight Eisenhower took part in the operation against them. The U.S. Air Force Mideast Command says it struck over 60 targets in 16 sites in Yemen. The trip wire is there.
So, much like your uncle coming out of the bathroom on Thanksgiving, I wouldn’t go in there “if I wuz you.”
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Dec 15, 2023 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting with Boyles: OPINION
As the new year begins, I want to see the terms and conditions before I sign up. So, I thought we could begin our new year with a prayer.
The enablers.
Johnston be thy name.
Thy kingdom be off limits to rational thought.
If thy will be done as it is in Vancouver and Frisco then….
Give us this day our daily heroin fix.
Never mind how much we trespass and cost the taxpayer,
And forgive us for everything that we do while intoxicated, high, and living on the street.
Forgive us for what we break and how much we steal.
Lead us not into more insanity.
Please rid us of all the enablers.
Please deliver us from Denver City Council.
For Denver is no longer the beautiful kingdom and power and once glory that we knew.
For in the now and forever of Johnston’s, Hancock’s, and Hickenlooper’s occupation, it’s far clearer and clearer that instead of “Amen” it’s “Sad men.”
The late great Bob Cote who ran Step 13 always believed that a census of homeless people was like herding cats. But just for the sense of illustration of what’s been allowed to happen, the given number in 2016 for homeless people was 5,728. 2023 sees a 58% increase in the homeless population. The general population of Denver grew 5% in that same period.
Monthly payments of $50 to $1000 dollars a month are being given to the unhoused. There are arguments on percentage of increase just in 2023 of the unhoused. One argument I read says we increased 32%, another claimed 44% increase. On average that’s 122 times faster than Denver’s growth.
Under solutions it’s very simple, sobriety and work.
Housing these people, giving them medical care, responding to their “needs,” feeding them, it flies in the face of any rational thought of stopping this horrible disease that’s ripping the city apart.
Just when you thought you couldn’t have a worse mayor than Hancock, now we have this one, Mike Johnston, who I believe is simply running for governor, and our Governor is simply running for president.
Everybody moves up one. What did Tiny Tim say this time of year? We have an enormous problem than cannot be solved by these people.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Nov 15, 2023 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
This is not the column I first wrote for this edition of the newspaper. Originally, I was going to write about the Israel/Gaza conflict. In fact, I did and decided this was simply not the time and place to give people a history lesson. I had another working topic for the column, and last night it dawned on me I haven’t given thanks or gratitude for anything in most of my adult life. And, 2023 has been one hell of a year and there are so many people and so many things I’d like to give thanks for this time of year.
It became really apparent to me I haven’t stopped and thanked people or, for that matter, given thanks for how lucky I really am.
Christmas is all wrapped up in traditions that really came from the pagan beliefs, and I have always rejected everything involved in the seasons, and now this year it really is important to say to a number of people thank you for virtually and literally saving my life.
In spring of 2023 my health took a really sudden decline, and I ended up hospitalized for nine days. I had a blood infection, passing blood, my heart was out of rhythm, I gained a tremendous amount of water weight, and my dear friend and physician Dr. Julie McCallen took one look at me and put me in the hospital. I was there for nine days. Dr. Nelson Prager came in for the rescue, and when I was dismissed, like I do every year, went to Sturgis. And my experience in Sturgis, was arrhythmic heart, and I was hospitalized in a little small hospital in Sturgis, South Dakota. I had to sign a waiver, and was driven back home, and again into the care of Dr. Prager. I went into the hospital and came out with a pacemaker. When the wheels really came off me in Sturgis, Vinnie Terranova, Ken Deal, and General True Eyere got my motorcycle loaded up and my friend Yvonne drove us all home. Friends and people like that don’t come around all that often.
I’m watching my daughter, who’s the toughest person I know, reclaim her health. I have a wonderful grandson who hopefully doesn’t follow in my footsteps, but it looks like it may happen, and my son and daughter who looked after me beginning in the spring until now, thank you. My weight is back down, I’m in the gym seven days a week working at levels with the lifecycle and weights I never was before, and I had a great 80th birthday.
In 80 years, I don’t think I’ve ever turned around and said thanks to anybody, and going into 2024 with a big project ahead of me, and my family doing very well, and my friends I love, and I’ve never looked at anybody and said thank you. I always figured that prayer, “Give me this one, Jesus and I’ll get the next one on my own.” I don’t think it’s an awakening but it sure as hell was a cattle prod in my rear end. I constantly and in different websites see old pieces of my life, old radio hands, and the death toll is mounting.
And I just want to say I’m really looking forward to the coming Christmas season. Not for religious reasons but it simply marks that magic time that I see through my grandson and that I remember as a little boy.
Especially to the Chronicle and Salem Broadcasting, and all those physicians, and most recently Dr. Tim Watt, I say thank you all very much. And so many other people thank you very much and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Let’s see what’s around the next corner.
I feel like that final Calvin and Hobbs classic cartoon when they’re both on the bobsled in the white snow and they talk about going on an adventure. Everything from here on out is going to be an adventure.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Oct 20, 2023 | Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
The Colorado GOP is the answer to a question that nobody asks. There’s been an amazing transformation in the last 10 or so years inside the state of Colorado. The GOP has not won a major statewide election since 2016. So, what does that say when the past performance of any entity pretty much defines the future? And what is next for the misfit toys?
Let’s look at their lineup. In this corner, Lauren Boebert. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert apparently not only is capable of not telling the truth until shown on video but then trying to explain her actions in a very bizarre way. She’s been making headlines again and not for the normal things you see politicians making headlines for. When I first met her, she was an advocate for gun rights and the kinds of things that made basic sense to me and then we’re off to see the wizard. Lauren and her Beetlejuice boyfriend after denying — she wasn’t vaping, and they weren’t doing the laugh in the dark — and then the video emerges on KUSA, and she really starts to look tragic. And then it was discovered her boyfriend was having drag shows in his bar. Way to go Lauren.
My next favorite misfit toy is Tina Peters, former Clerk in Mesa County. She was arrested by the Grand Junction Police in 2022. State investigators attempted to execute a warrant, she goes off the leash and now has been found guilty on obstruction of a government operation. Goes on to ignore any state orders, makes that appearance at the Mike Lindell symposium, and said state officials raided her when she was fighting for the truth of the election.
This misfit toy also was the recipient of a Mike Lindell, who has to be on Colorado’s misfit toys list, donation as he allegedly gave her up to $800,000 to help quote “stop the steal” and defend herself. He of course had no business doing that either.
How do folks like these two first remain as darlings of this party?
Next Ken Buck. I was amazed when he voted to unseat the Speaker of the House only then to turn around a few days later and threw the vote the other way. Normally on the island you would expect Boebert to vote to unseat and Buck would vote to retain. Not so fast on the island, it was the exact opposite. He is now known as CNN-Ken apparently with a clear pathway in front of him and is still on the island.
For your dining and dancing pleasure, I present Jenna Ellis. She is now being charged with violation of the Georgia RICO Act and something called solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer. How did she end up with the great legal minds like Rudy Giuliani and the kraken Sidney Powell? It makes the state of Colorado proud.
The same GOP bringing Kari Lake in for the Centennial Dinner. Come on, Dude. Kari Lake?
This folks, is your GOP. My father once said to me, “You couldn’t hit yourself in the ass with both hands.” I think that applies to the Grand Old Party. What does the future bring? Tragically, it brings more progressive gun grabbing, and in your life, telling you what to eat, where to go, what to do, that the Democrats offer. I plead with GOP chair Dave Williams — stop the madness.
Take care everybody, the beat goes on.
— Peter Boyles
