Letter to the Editor: Strawberries

If you’ve not viewed the movie The Caine Munity, I highly recommend it. It has an incredible cast and stars Humphrey Bogart. Without giving away the plot, Captain Queeg is in charge of a minesweeper during WWII. His junior officers notice early on his unstable and erratic behavior after he takes command. 

The kicker is, in a court martial scene for treason, he goes into a paranoid tirade with a face that would scare Stephen King; and rolling two ball bearings in his right hand, he rants about someone pilfering strawberries from the ship’s stores. 

I just recently witnessed a Queegesque face on the world news. It was the POTUS – minus the ball bearings. He was showing the National Weather Service map of the trajectory of Hurricane Dorian, with an added Magic Marker loop to include Alabama. When queried by a reporter about the addition, he replied, “I don’t know.” 

From the start, he insisted that Alabama was at risk, in spite of the forecasters and the National Weather Service tweeting from Birmingham, assuring the people they were not at risk, contradicting the POTUS. It remains to be seen whether anyone is fired as a result of that.

Rather than thank his maker for sparing the people of Alabama the devastation the likes of the Bahamas and admit he was incorrect and made a mistake, he went on a tweet storm about how he was right about Alabama and Dorian. 

On November 3, 2020, the American people will decide whether or not they think he is mentally fit for another term. I personally think – in terms Wisconsinites will understand – his cheese has slipped off its cracker, or better yet, his strawberries have slipped off his shortcake.  

Pete Thelen

Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin