Good Friday

Ah, yes, Good Friday... I guess I have aging on the mind because I woke this Good Friday morning thinking about Jack Palance and his one-arm push-ups at the Academy Awards and then I thought about his great scenes in Shane in the black pants and the black shirt and the black hat and how he gunned down Van Heflin with a curl of the lip and a glint in his eye and how he then got his in turn from sad-eyed good guy Alan Ladd who had to ride off into the sunset to save his soul and of our avenging gun-toting Jesus-loving cowboy president who listens only to God the Father and his corporate sponsors riding to the rescue with his gang who couldn't shoot straight... and then I thought of Cat Balou and Lee Marvin and his hilarious spoof of Jack Palance in his black pants and black shirt and black hat totally soused and riding to the rescue of Jane Fonda and then I thought about Hanoi Jane and the outrage in America and how thirty or so years on it doesn't matter any more and soon I found myself thinking about this whole goddamned awful tragic mess in Iraq and the Middle East and about the simple-minded trust in the myth of the good guy gunslinger who rides in and saves us all from those who threaten us when in reality only we can save us from ourselves... and then there's that other myth of our president's personal redeemer Jesus dying on the cross and saving us from evil...