The 11 o'clock News -It's later than you THINK

"Anne Smedinghoff is Dead"

For the unlucky graduates of the Class of 2013, the economy is still in the tank so you have a bad choice of joining the US military,  where your chances of getting sexually abused are greater than your chances of getting Veterans Affairs to process your disability claims. Relax, it could be worse: join the Foreign Service and you could get killed. Anne Smedinghoff made a fateful choice to put her life in the hands of  Diplomatic Security - the same guys who did such a swell job protecting Ambassador Stevens.

Following the Benghazi bungle, the State Department did its typical bang-up job in reporting Anne was in a well-protected convoy and later conceded that the initial report was in error as well. Mistakes in the staging of the "book distributing" event that was being video-taped, involved a few very bad errors in judgment in both the planning and execution thereof.

Instead having been inside an armored vehicle when she was killed by the blast from a suicide bomber, as was initially reported and also officially told to the father of the young woman, Anne and her group had been out walking around a few hundred yards through a wooded area, videographer in hand, filming the event for obvious PR purposes. In an act that summarized our lost adventure in Afghanistan, they were somehow guided to the wrong building, different from the school at which their staged "book distributing" PR event was supposed to have taken place. And while apparently doubling back on foot, the very visible group, made up predominantly of westerners, was attacked and several in the group, including Anne, were killed by a suicide bomber.

Whose "brilliant" idea in Diplomatic Security was it for  Anne Smedinghoff to have been walking around out in the open on foot, engaging in an only marginally significant PR event -- distributing books -- in a highly dangerous province of the war zone in Afghanistan?

Who in DS did the "advance work" for that staged walk through the woods, the one which resulted in the entire party ending up at the wrong building, where it suddenly became obvious that they were lost?

The reporting of Anne's death is a microcosm of the State Department, where truth is whatever they say it is. That's why State fears Wikileaks and whistleblowers like Peter Van Buren. The only truth is " Anne Smedinghoff is Dead."

Uncle Sam Wants (to rape) You

There were 3,374 REPORTED rapes in the military last year, a 6 percent increase, and an estimated 26,000 sexual assaults — news that comes from a Pentagon report released Tuesday, the day after news arrived from the Air Force that its officer in charge of sexual assault prevention office was charged with sexual assault. AS DAMNING as these reports are, there is no doubt rape and sex assault case are  underreported.  What to do, what to do...

Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" --

I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's
Where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after
Committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly
Looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father
Rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And
They was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the
Bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest
Father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly
'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me
And said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay
$50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?"
And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the bench
There, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I
Said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand,
And we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing,
Father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the
Bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of
Things, until the Sargent came over, had some paper in his hand, held it
Up and said.

"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna-
Know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-
You-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting-
Officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say", and talked for
Forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had
Fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there,
And I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it
Down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the
Pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the
Other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on
The other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the
Following words:

("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")

I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargent, you got a lot a damn gall to
Ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm
Sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench
'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women,
Kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and
Said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints
Off to Washington."

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a
Study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm
Singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar
Situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a
Situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into
The shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get
Anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out. You know, if
One person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and
They won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
They may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
Singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an
Organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said
Fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and
Walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

 

The Mentalist "Red John's Rules" Review

The Mentalist in a nutshell:  It's all an ILLUSION (read: VISUAL LIES) that we have seen before.  

Dr. Linus Wagner: Everything you told me, Mr. Jane, is total fiction, isn't it?

In "Red John's Rules" Patrick Jane reveals his Red John Usual Suspects aka the un-Magnificent "SEVEN".

IMAGINE if any of the seven "usual suspects" Patrick Jane has not eliminated as Red John is finally revealed as the master serial killer of all time, is the audience going to buy it? Which of these guys will live up to the audience's diabolical expectations?  Sinister Stiles? Pathetic Partridge? Hapless Haffner? After six seasons Bruno Heller will have to create an ending more shocking than the Usual Suspects or the head-in-the-box in "Seven." But these guys? Bruno better call Kevin Spacey and see if he's available.

Et tu, Bruno?

EW: There’s this smart line near the start of the third act of Seven, where the audience is warned that when we meet the film’s serial killer (KEVIN SPACEY), there’s no way he’s going to live up to our expectations. He’s just a man. Has that concerned you, building up the villain for so long that it can’t top expectations?

Bruno:  Sure, if season 5 we just opened a door and said “tah-dah!” and it was some mid-range actor, that would be disappointing. The trick is going to be — and this is coming — bringing the audience along and making them second guess themselves and ask, “Is that him? Is that him?” Red John ultimately is just a man — whenever you see the great criminals reduced to the flesh it’s sort of disappointing

(If Bruno means what he says, then Bret Stiles (read: BELT RESIST) who is played by the top actor of the bunch, Malcolm McDowell, is the fictional Red John, which means Red John is VISUAL LIES...an ILLUSION.)

                     "First he's there,"

EW: Will you cast Red John next season?
Bruno: Will I cast him? He might already have been cast. You might already have seen him.

 
              "And like that he's gone."

 The moral of the story: there are no Red John rules as there is no Red John.

 The Mentalist is an ILLUSION: Jane appears to be a Sherlock Homes super-sleuth character, but in reality is a mental patient ("resist belts") with a cracked eggshell who suffers from paranoid delusions due to feelings of extreme guilt in the deaths of his wife and child who were burned as he was (CBI = intensive burn care?)  in a horrific car accident involving a driver named Tanner when he failed to stop at a BLINKING RED LIGHT CROSSING AN INTERSECTION, hence the RJ symbol, while he was driving intoxicated  and spends his days with the remote watching TV shows, which generate his ideas for the delusional episodes.  Note: Jane's eggshell blue car - a vintage 1972 Citroen DS 20 that Warner Bros., producer of "The Mentalist" for CBS, had in its inventory. It was used in the 2008 movie "Speed Racer." For "The Mentalist," the car was shipped from Germany and painted eggshell blue (it was originally red).


Burning Clues: "The Mentalist" is obsessed with fire, as in half the episodes it plays a significant plot point. Items: Jane burns his Red John files with a bottle of booze. Out of the Frye-ing pan into the... As Kristina Frye discovered, when you get too close to Red John, you get burned.  "Tiger, Tiger burning bright, they were "Au-burned."  In the "Red Mile" episode Jane arrives at a crime scene outside Auburn, California.  Shouts from Alabama football fans of "Roll Tide" first appeared during the Alabama-Auburn Tiger IRON BOWL game in 1907. Curiously, a corpse was found in a burned car in "Ruby Slippers," in which Jane discovers the identity of Fifi Nix, like Jane's Phoenix, has risen from the ashes of his past life.  In "Red Dawn" Jane is given a desk next to a fire extinguisher that is there, then it's gone, then it's there again.   Fake Red John read all about it - catch the fire-y headline on the front page of the newspaper Tim Carter was reading before Jane shot him.  Red John appeared to Jane in the burn mask.  Jane: It's not my fire.

THE WILD WEST-PHALL WORLD

Red John is Patrick Jane's imaginary evil twin, his "perfect symmetry" alter-ego (Jane/John) Professor Moriarty character in a Tommy Westphall" imaginary world like "St. Elsewhere's" snow globe and "Life on Mars" that is the dream state of Jane.  (NB. The fake Jane character in "Red Moon" where a corpse was found in a burned car was named Ellis Mars (El - He is Mars.) 

Ellis Mars: The mind is a powerful weapon. It can create reality. 

Jane: Perhaps we can see each other again.
Lorelei: That’s not up to me.
Jane: Oh, you have no say in it?
Lorelei: None at all. It’s very "Westphall."
Jane: I don’t follow you.
Lorelei: I do what Red John tells me to do.
 
 
                         Red Face to Face

 

Mentalist in a Box, It's a BAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD**, The BIG W:  The characters of Rigsby, Cho, Van Pelt and Lisbon are also Jane's creations ala the "Wizard of Oz;"  the Tin Man, Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, and Dorothy in reality are the assistants and doctors at the mental hospital and the RJ minions are Jane's fellow mental patients. In the final scene Jane confronts "Red John,"  and in an homage to "OZ" awakens from his dream state to realize the true identity of  RED JOHN - the Big W - Johnny Walker RED. (**  Mentalist writer Dan Cerone co-produced "It's a BAD BAD BAD BAD WORLD on "Charmed")

.   Shaking hands with Red John

Drink Scotch Whiskey all night long and die behind the wheel

Call me Deacon Blue

 BLOOD and SAND
½ oz. Johnnie Walker Red Label
1 tbsp. orange juice
½ oz. sweet vermouth
½ oz. fresh cherry syrup
Orange peel for garnish
Add the Johnnie Walker, orange juice, vermouth and cherry syrup to a shaker filled with ice. Shake until cold and strain into a rocks glass. Garnish with orange peel.


UPDATE:  As the first episode of the sixth season of the MENTALIST has been revealed - "The DESERT ROSE" - perhaps Bruno referred to a song that Sting made famous.  The lyrics will burn in your imagination and perhaps provide a clue about Patrick Jane's:

I wake in pain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand
I dream of fire
Those dreams are tied to a horse that will never tire
And in the flames
Her shadows play in the shape of a man's desire

This desert rose
Each of her seven veils, a secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this

And as she turns
This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams
This fire burns
I realize that nothing's as it seems

It takes a toll on my soul,
Because I'm starting to believe the lies you strung with red,
Is it all just a game?
One day I'll heal and I'll be covered in scars (Red and Itchy)
And never forget why did it all fell apart.
When you finally came clean about the lies and the games you played from the start!
-Red in Tooth and Claw

The Man with Two Names -- Red John's alias is ROY Tagliaferro (read: "cut iron").   The ROY CUT IRON  anagrams are "court irony" and "you r citron."  How ironic that Jane, the court jester who arrives at the crime scene in his Citroen,  a master reader of how others' emotions control them and our need to let go of the past,  was a prisoner of his IRON-ic chains to the past.  Until Jane leaves his OLD LIFE BEHIND, The Mentalist is on the mental list, a prisoner of his own device. 

                                                                                  


Jane: Lisbuns, want to see my Magnificent Seven?    I mean READ John's "SEVEN" COME 11: 


"Dragon Star"  (2014)   Logline:  Code-cracker tracks a serial killer who returns after seven years to terrorize his hometown. Tagline: You can go Holmes again.  DRAGON_STAR_-_Final[1]  (BTW- after Simon Baker is finished with "The Mentalist, "DS" would make the Tasmanian devil a movie star.  JSR@rome.com )

“MIDNIGHT RIDE”   Logline: Garage band cruises a small Pennsylvania town on a stormy night that changes the course of rock music.  Tagline: “She loves you and you and you, yeah, yeah, yeah.”

"DIVE"   Logline: An American naval officer is forced to pilot a Colombian cartel submarine loaded with cocaine into San Diego harbor. But there's something else on board.  Tagline:  Sub-text: Hidden between the lines.

"COLUMBIA ROADS"    Logline:  US embassy investigator discovers Aurora prophecy that threatens civil war in the US.    Tagline: All Roads lead to Columbia.  Download -COLUMBIA ROADS-

 “FACESPACE”    Logline:  CIA Deep Throat recruits a conspiracy writer to stop a mind control op using social networks.    Tagline: Who is like FACESPACE and who can defeat it?

"SPYDER AND THE FLY"     Logline: A black op team gets caught in its web of deceit.   Tagline:  "Come into my parlor said the Spyder to the Fly, but who was the Spyder and Who was the Fly?"

 "THE 11 O'CLOCK NEWS"   Logline: Two bloggers, Richie Scalia and John Scott,  get in way-over-their-head trouble.  Tagline:  Hindsight is 2021

US "Intelligence" Drowning in a TIDE of Garbage

The number of names on TIDE - "Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment"-  a  classified U.S. central database used to track suspected terrorists has jumped to 875,000 from 540,000 only five years ago.  U.S. officials acknowledge that Tamerlan Tsarnaev's name was entered into TIDE by the CIA in the autumn of 2011, after the U.S. spy agency received a request from Russian authorities to investigate.

The FBI was not able to identify the Boston terrorist because it's drowning in a TIDE of garbage database.  A database is not intelligence, and if there are really 875,000 suspected terrorists out there, then we have lost the war.