Three Beautiful Things 01-21-2023: *Two Minutes Past Nine* -- Another Leah Sottile Podcast, Learning More About 1990s Violence, Johnny Cast on *Columbo*

1. A while back, I decided it was time to upgrade the Vizio room a bit. I decided I'd like to get one piece of furniture out, move a bookshelf from the south wall to the north, and put a small desk in the room. The room also needs a rug. 

Today, I made progress. While I shuffled things around and thought about other improvements, I listened to another podcast written and narrated by Leah Sottile. A couple weeks ago, Debbie and I listened to her series on the Pacific Northwest people who burned a number of structures and SUVs to punish entities they saw as doing great harm to forests and animals. That podcast is entitled, Burn Wild. 

Before I listened to that podcast's eight and a half episodes, I was vaguely aware of Leah Sottile. I knew she had just published her book, When the Moon Turns to Blood. (No doubt I'll have more to say about this book later.) I knew she had written about and created a podcast on the Bundy family. The more I read about her, the more I understood that her work as a free lance journalist is devoted to writing about groups and individuals committed to anti-government projects, often white supremacists, often uber nationalists and fervent Christians. (The Burn Wild project, however, explored extremism in the environmental movement.)

So while I was figuring out the rearrangement of the Vizio room, I decided to listen to Leah Sottile's 11 episode podcast, Two Minutes Past Nine, focused on the life and radicalization of Timothy McVeigh and on his April 19,1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK. 

2. Until today, I'd never taken the time to look back and see the whole picture of either Timothy McVeigh or the bombing and its aftermath. I had a vague, but not very precise, sense of how the standoff between Randy Weaver and federal agents on Ruby Ridge back in 1992 had angered McVeigh; likewise, I was only vaguely aware of the violent impact the standoff between federal agents and David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, and the burning of the Mt. Carmel complex, had on Timothy McVeigh.

So, after the podcast concluded and after Debbie left with Gibbs to enjoy time with Diane, I watched a ninety minute PBS documentary, Oklahoma City and then an hour long PBS documentary, Ruby Ridge. 

I was trying to further comprehend the ideological basis for the way the standoff at Ruby Ridge became a seminal event and a rallying point for the far right. Likewise, because Oklahoma City devoted a good chunk of time to the standoff and fire at the Mt. Carmel compound outside Waco, TX, I got the details of that event straight in my mind (for the time being) and saw more clearly than ever how Timothy McVeigh was moved to violence by what happened that day. (McVeigh carried out the Oklahoma City bombing on the first anniversary of the April 19, 1994 fire at the Mt. Carmel compound.)

3. By the time I finished listening to about three hours of podcast material and watched two and a half hours worth of documentaries on white supremacy, separatists, anti-government groups and individuals, the Christian Identity movement, and militias across the USA and by the time I finished listening to the impact of the book, The Turner Diaries, my mind reeled.

I need to change gears and give my attention to this reality in USA life a rest.

So, Debbie arrived home and we watched an episode of Columbo that featured Johnny Cash as the primary guest star, and this story's murderer. 

I don't think I'd ever seen Johnny Cash play a character in a movie or tv show before and I thought he was terrific in this episode. I especially enjoyed his character acting like the Skipper on Gilligan's Island when repeatedly, when being questioned, he referred to Columbo as "little buddy".