Violins in Flight                         
 The Chapters of a Pilot's Life on Instruments

                                         It Was a Wonderful Life

                                           Prologue

Francis Ford Coppola's beautifully drawn scene of nine year old Vito Andolini arriving at Ellis Island from Sicily in 1901 in The Godfather Part II is nearly an exact parallel to another boy arriving at Ellis Island from Sicily in 1903.

And while Vito Andolini went on to become Vito Corleone, Francesco Rosario Capra went on to become Frank Capra, one of our greatest and most influential filmmakers, who once referred to the Statue of Liberty as the "brightest light of freedom" and his arrival in America as the "greatest gift."
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In the early 1940s, author Philip Van Doren Stern wrote a book that was unfortunately rejected by publishers. In the face of those rejections, Stern self-printed a condensed 24-page manuscript of the book and sent it to friends and family members during Christmas of 1943.

By happy coincidence, that manuscript fell into the hands of Frank Capra, who knew the story had to be made into a film the moment he saw the title: The Greatest Gift.

Although Capra decided upon It's a Wonderful Life and not The Greatest Gift for his film's title (perhaps because screenwriters revised and otherwise altered various names, places and characters but overall still conformed to Stern's original manuscript), I've always felt that The Greatest Gift was the perfect title for the movie.

After all, even though the movie is a love story woven around multiple themes of religion, family, patriotism and of course Christmas, that love story would have never happened if not for The Greatest Gift...the gift of America.
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What is that gift?  

It's the gift of America's goodness...or maybe it's the belief in the gift of America's goodness:  the belief that America stands with those who yearn for freedom and democracy and human decency; an America that stands against hatred, against evil, against dictators.

Our grandparents believed in that gift to the point where they sacrificed their lives to preserve it.  Having lived through World War I, the deadly Influenza Pandemic of 1918, Bread Lines and the Great Depression, our grandparents went on to save their country and the world by defeating the madness of fascist dictators in World War II.

Afterwards, they had neither the time nor the inclination to flaunt their patriotism with egotistic flag hugging or cult-like rallies.  They had a more important need: to pass the gift of America down to their children and grandchildren.  That would be their legacy, a legacy with a supernally profound objective:  that their descendants would forever live in the bright light of freedom and democracy.

Mercifully, our grandmothers and grandfathers aren't around to witness what's become of their legacy....

To witness what we've become.
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                                   It Was a Wonderful Life 

                                         Part 1——Like Father, Like Son

Maybe you glossed over the scene in It's a Wonderful Life, where Peter Bailey and his son George have a heart to heart talk at the dinner table. It's the scene where George tells his father that he must leave Bedford Falls in order to achieve his hopes and dreams.

George is adamant that he can't—he won't—follow in his father's footsteps and work in his father's shabby office, dealing with the tyrannical and narcissistic whims of Henry Potter, who essentially runs Bedford Falls as if it belongs to him and only him.  As if it's Pottersville.

Even though George's words hurt, Father Bailey responds in a loving, fatherly way. He tells his son that by helping others achieve their hopes and dreams of home ownership, he's been achieving his own hopes and dreams; that by standing up to Henry Potter, he's been making the gift of America attainable not only to the few but to the many, even if he has to do so in his little shabby office.

But deep down, Father Bailey knows that if George were to follow in his footsteps, he'd have to suffer the indignity of dealing with Henry Potter, a soulless money grubber who expects everyone to crawl to him on their knees.  As his son listens intently, Father Bailey describes Henry Potter this way.....

"Potter's a sick man.  Sick in his mind.  Sick in his soul, if he has a soul.  He hates everybody who has anything he can't have.  He hates us mostly."

George looks at his father in a way he hadn't before.  For the first time in his life, George tells his father how much he admires and loves him.  He tells him:  "You're a great guy, Pop."  

A few hours later after a night of partying, George would be told that his father had passed away. Peter Bailey's sudden death would change the course of his son's life.

George would indeed follow in his father's footsteps and realize his father's dream of making the gift of America available to the many not the few. In doing so, as his father feared, George would ultimately be forced to confront the moral abyss of Henry Potter, a man without empathy, without shame, surrounded by gold and money and enablers.

But George wouldn't just refuse to crawl to the feet of Henry Potter. He'd stand up to Potter in a way only his father had the guts to do. Yes, like father, like son. 

After listening to Potter degrade and slander his dead father, George stared into the emptiness of Potter's soul and spoke these words of moral clarity:

"My father died a richer man than you will ever be."
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May I ask: What if Henry Potter were alive today? Would you muster the courage to stand up to him as George did?  Or would you curry favor and fall to your knees in submission?

I know. Those questions are pointless, given he's no longer around. Still, just for kicks, would you recognize Henry Potter's shameless, money grubbing visage if it ever reappeared in your beloved America and.....

Indignified your monuments and culture. Debased your language. Created a military in its own likeness without rules or conscience. Ordered that military to threaten and crush American citizens who stood against it. Remade America into the dictatorship your ancestors fought against from the moment America was born as a nation. And, in the end, turned the goodness and decency of Bedford Falls into iniquity, and the greed and vulgarity of Pottersville into virtue.

Who in the world would wish such an obscene nightmare of hate on the United States of America?  And who in the world would dream of living a wonderful life in such a country?  

If not you, then who?


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                                It Was a Wonderful Life                                          

                                   Part 2——The Pornography of Hate

In the late 1950s, a handful of 13-year-old friends would enter a little store on Church Lane in Yeadon, Pennsylvania and do their best to walk out with a girlie magazine or two. That those magazines were only slightly more revealing than a Victoria Secret catalog didn't matter to those boys because the pictures within them easily surpassed the boys' titillation threshold, so it was worth the risk. What risk?

Well, possessing obscene material—pornography—was a criminal offense in the 1950s.  You could be locked up.  Really.  I mean, society—especially teenage boys—had to be protected from the damage pornography could inflict upon them. What damage?

Well, you see, spread out across the country in the 1950s were Astoundingly Moral Men who decried pornography as a special kind of evil, an evil even worse than, God forbid, masturbation. And so, these Astoundingly Moral Men made it crystal clear that if you wanted to live a wonderful life, here's the ticket: stay away from porn because porn will damage your soul and lead you down the path of immorality.  Well, who am I to disagree with AMM?

But...I still know many of the boys who were with me when we perused those girlie magazines. One of them, the best friend I ever had, died of cancer eight years ago. He was the very essence of goodness both as a teenage boy and as a grown man.

I can't say that my boyhood friends still kicking are the essence of goodness—me least of all—but I can say that we've lived our lives as basically decent American citizens. To be sure, we're far from perfect but those girlie magazines didn't turn us into corrupt, evil men.

As everyone knows, you don't have to enter a little store on Church Lane to view pornography today. It's available in the comfort of your home with a few clicks on the computer. Maybe the good old days were better, when boys could be sufficiently titillated by the likes of Playboy, but please, don't get me wrong. This isn't meant as a defense of pornography.

And it's certainly not meant to be a rant about how the evils of pornography will ruin the prospects of living a wonderful life as so perfectly stated by those Astoundingly Moral Men.  

Or is it?
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There's this person in the House of Representatives named Mike Johnson, who looks like a picture perfect Astoundingly Moral Man, a God loving Christian who wears his morality on his sleeve and everywhere else.

As an AMM, he uses a special Christian app called Covenant Eyes, which scans the activity on all your internet devices and then sends a report of your digital activity to a designated "accountability partner" highlighting any morally objectionable material, meaning porn. Johnson's accountability partner is his teenage son.

"I'm proud to tell you my son has got a clean slate," Johnson announced a while back. And needless to say—although he didn't needlessly say it—Johnson also got a clean report card from Covenant Eyes. Well how couldn't he? 

As an AMM, Johnson proudly describes himself as an election denying far right Christian nationalist who's claimed that school shootings are the direct result of abortion and the teaching of evolution. He opposes contraception and IVF treatments because, well, I'll let him tell you why:

"I'm a Bible believing pro-life Christian and therefore won't rule out voting to ban contraception."

One thing's for sure. Covenant Eyes will never find any objectionable material associated with Johnson. Oh, no. But I can read the newspapers and watch tv and scan the internet and everywhere I look I see porn connected to Johnson. It's as if the two are practically inseparable.
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Like when Johnson stands next to donald trump after trump had been convicted of sexual assault or sexual abuse or sexual rape, and Johnson immediately checks his moral compass and condemns the pornographic sex talk.

When Johnson himself is asked directly about trump's adulteress conduct: that just after trump's wife gave birth, trump had a roll in the hay with an adult film star or, put another way, trump fucked a porn star—a porn star, God forbid! And what did Johnson say about this? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. He doesn't know anything about porn. He has a clean slate.

When Johnson's asked about trump's intimate relationship with child rapist epstein, Johnson not only voices no objection, he does everything in his power to make sure trump's involvement and friendship with a child rapist is never fully disclosed to the public. What the hell is objectionable about having been a close companion, a best friend, of the child rapist?  Which way does your moral compass point on that one?

When trump spews out cruelty and hate and threats and violence and depravity and filth, Johnson stands beside him like a eunuch and smiles his righteous smile while Covenant Eyes gives him a perfect report card. Yep, those Eyes will never find any porn on Johnson's devices.

But those Eyes aren't my eyes.
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Johnson's the face of the Pornographers of Hate and he's been cloned—and his clones are everywhere. In the White House. In the Cabinet. In the Capitol. In the Supreme Court. In the Churches. On Facebook. On YouTube. In videos of depravity not just available to 13 year old boys and girls but to little schoolchildren and kindergarteners.

The depth of the depravity is so deep that it's soaked into the fabric of our country in scenes where the term Pornography of Hate doesn't even come close.

Like scenes where fathers grip their Glock firearms and say Merry Christmas with just the right amount of Merry Christmas malice in their voices; where mothers hold machine guns in their arms as if they're cradling babies; where children in MAGA caps look up at their parents as if pleading for the gift of a deadly weapon on Christmas morning; where Christmas trees are adorned with shotgun shells and bullets and worse; where......

I know. How dare I write about Christmas in this manner!

Well, how 'bout when Christmas is over and a young woman—a 37 year old mother—is murdered by a man wearing a mask, dressed in military fatigues and armed to the teeth as if he's hunting ISIS madmen. How do the Pornographers of Hate react to this?

They tell us that the unarmed mother sitting in her car and surrounded by commandos was a threat to the commandos; that she was not just a garden variety terrorist but a deranged left wing domestic terrorist; that she was a professional troublemaker; that she was a high level agitator; that she was a villain, an inciter of violence, a perpetrator—that she deserved to be murdered.

Then they describe the murderer as a "committed Christian." And, true to his faith, after shooting the woman in the face at point blank range, the committed Christian calls the woman a "fucking bitch."  

It doesn't matter whether it's Christmas or not. The Pornography of Hate always begins the same way: with one lie, then another lie, then one lie after another after another until the victim is dragged through the pornographic mud and the last vestige of humanity has been snuffed out of her being.

This is the Pornography of Hate, where cruelty is the message, guns are the threat and hate is the titillation; where empathy, goodness, decency, compassion, integrity and humility are sicknesses; and where the enemy of the people is the next protester around the corner.

Because protesting is un-American and un-Christian. Which is why patriots make sure their children and grandchildren are taught that the First Amendment of the Constitution unambiguously states that American citizenship and Christianity are inseparable and......

It always begins with one lie, then another, then another until the truth is buried so deep beneath the pornographic filth, it just might be hidden forever.
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I think back to the last dinner that father and son Bailey had together, where the devoted family patriarch describes the character of Henry Potter to his son.

The year was 1946 and neither father nor son nor any American could have ever imagined or wished that Father Bailey's words would be prescient, that their beloved country could ever be remade into the likeness of Henry Potter. 

"Potter's a sick man. Sick in his mind. Sick in his soul, if he has a soul. He hates everybody who has anything he can't have. He hates us mostly."

And almost exactly 80 years later.....

America's a sick country. Sick in her mind. Sick in her soul, if she still has a soul. Filled with hatred.

Who could live a wonderful life in such a country? Who could prosper by living in such a country? The answer to both questions is the same....

Only those who produce, sell, profit or are otherwise addicted to the Pornography of Hate.
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                                          It Was a Wonderful Life  

                                                           Epilogue 

A trusted friend (is there any other kind?) urged me to place It Was a Wonderful Life on Facebook during the Christmas Season but I decided to wait until after the new year. I'd like to tell you why.

First—and I mean this in a light-hearted way—there are those in my realm who watch Die Hard every Christmas because, well, nothing puts you in the Christmas Spirit more than thoughts of the Nakatomi Plaza on Christmas Eve 1988.

Still, I don't think director John McTierman's goal was to make a joyous Christmas movie with all the violent trimmings. Which is why Die Hard fans love Die Hard as much in August as in December. They love it year round.

I understand. And I think the same can be said of It's a Wonderful Life. I love it year round.  Don't you? After all, the movie doesn't really take place on Christmas. It simply reaches its beautiful conclusion on Christmas.  But that's not exactly accurate, is it?

Because the movie doesn't end with a Christmas song. It concludes with Old Lang Syne, not because anyone actually sings Old Lang Syne on Christmas but because Frank Capra knew that the dawn of a new year was the perfect time to reflect on his movie.

In that regard, the new year of 2026 is the perfect time to reflect on both It's a Wonderful Life and The Greatest Gift. A perfect time to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask........

Who do we see? What have we become? What's become of our grandparents' hopes and dreams? And what's happened to the brightest light Francesco Rosario Capra ever saw when he arrived at Ellis Island in 1903? Has the flame gone out? Or have we put it out? Would we rather live in the darkness of Pottersville than in the light of Bedford Falls?  

And what gifts have we been given? What did we do with those gifts? And what happened to our greatest gift? Did we just lose it? Can we find it again? Or is it too late?

I truly hope not. 
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