Obama’s Very Bad, No-Good, Completely Horrid Week

19. April 2013 · Comments Off on Obama’s Very Bad, No-Good, Completely Horrid Week · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General Nonsense, Politics, Rant

Well, it was all that for a great many other people besides the Mighty-O, so no wonder that he has been looking pretty pissy lately, especially after a scorching defeat on an expanded gun-buyer background check program. Yes, just because people seem to agree with a statement on a poorly-worded poll, does not mean they necessarily want to see it enshrined in law … especially one hastily rushed through in the wake of a horrific event with the skids greased with hand-wringing over the deaths of small children … and the ostentatious display of their parent’s grief. Look, that’s the same exact thing that happened in the wake of the Dunblaine shootings. Popular revulsion and outrage was transformed into strict gun control legislation … and in the long run, how did that worked out for Britain, then? Is the ordinary run of people any safer in their homes, streets and places of business? For those of us paying attention, one really cannot be certain that they are.

One would have expected someone lauded as being over-the-top-intelligence and acute political smarts to have realized that most of the American public does not live with on-the-spot instant personal protection from hired body-guards or the Secret Service, and in fact, a great majority of us live where the forces of law’n’order are a fifteen to thirty-minute journey away. So the Mighty-O and his media buddies didn’t see it coming. Here’s a Kleenex and let me call the Wahhhmbulance for you.

And now we move on to Monday’s carnage at the Boston Marathon … in which the main comfort to be found is the fearless and efficient manner in which first responders and volunteers rushed to the scene. Ball bearings and scrap metal inside pressure cookers, left at a time and in a place calculated to maim as many bystanders as possible; so the intifada comes to America. It looks like those media talking heads who made no secret of hoping that the perpetrator(s) were white, Anglo-Saxon Tea Party types are to be bitterly disappointed. (To David Sirota and to NPR – Up yours. Very kindly, Sgt. Mom.) From today’s all-neighborhood man-hunt in Boston, it looks like the perpetrators were ‘white’… but radical young Islamics from Chechnya. Yes, that Chechnya … the very same who brought us the Beslan school massacre, the Nord-Ost theater hostage-taking, a series of bombings in the Moscow subways, the downing of two Russian airliners in 2004 … yeah, that Chechnya. No wonder the young lads’ uncle is pissed beyond being coherent. Here he is, living a peaceful, prosperous life far removed from what is usually described as ‘sectarian strife’ and his young nephews seemed poised to bring all that over the big pond in job lots and make Chechens in general about as welcome in the United States as ‘a truckload of dead rats in a tampon factory.’ That line is from the movie Top Secret! in case anyone was wondering. For the lot who keep insisting that Islam is a religion of peace, this week has proved to very, very, very disappointing … especially for an administration who seemed desperate to prove exactly that. Try telling that to residents of Boston and Watertown, where the manhunt is still going on.

Go West

19. April 2013 · Comments Off on Go West · Categories: Ain't That America? · Tags: , ,

Czech Bakery

This is one of the most famous and delicious places to stop, going up and down IH-35 between San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth. The savory kolaches are delicious – and we stopped there for some, heading up to Fort Worth for a book event late last month. West is just a little hiccup of a town, and the loss of so many volunteer firefighters is bound to hit hard. But the Czech Bakery is OK – according to this story, just a few cieling tiles knocked loose. Sometime after Mother’s Day, Blondie and I are going to head up to Waco to see the Texas Ranger Museum … and then a little way farther up the road to buy a big box of kolaches at the Little Czech Bakery.

You Ask How That New Book is Going

14. April 2013 · Comments Off on You Ask How That New Book is Going · Categories: Ain't That America?, History, Literary Good Stuff, Old West

Pretty well, actually – I finished a chapter Saturday afternoon, and tallied up what I have so far; a little over 300 pages, but only about another three plot twists and set-piece scenes to go. I’ll do my best to bring it at or around 400 pages. A severe re-read and edit will probably shave it down some, at least I hope so. Brevity is the soul of wit and economical story-telling and characterization is a goal devoutly to be aimed for. It has not escaped my notice that Truckee is my shortest book, and also my best-seller over time. Back to basics, eh? Truckee covered the space of a single year, and had a fairly simple, straight-forward plot and a relatively small cast. My subsequent books were a lot more complicated, but it’s pretty clear that elephantiasis of the narrative is not widely appreciated, although there are exceptions. I will do my best to restrain myself.

This next book is supposed to focus on the next generation of the characters from the Adelsverein Trilogy; Dolph and his English Isobel, of Sam and Lottie Becker, and Lottie’s suitor, Seb Bertrand – all of whom were babies, children or just very young adults by a point halfway through the Trilogy. Time for them to pick up the chore of carrying on the plot, in and around the Centennial year of 1876 – although some of the older characters, heroes and heroines of the earlier narrative make occasional appearances now.

1876; a little more than ten years after the end of the Civil War, which I think was a great scar across the American psyche – as 1914-18 was for Europe. Everything was different, afterwards, although many of those things that made the difference so marked had already been put in train before that marking point. Many who had been rich, or even just well-to-do before the war were impoverished afterwards. But many who had been impoverished before were well-to-do or rich after it through mining, wholesale ranching, transportation, manufacturing and developing new and useful technologies. That very technology made the post-war world a different place; the telegraph brought far places closer, the railway brought them closer still. Before the war, it was pork which had been the favorite meat on American tables; ham, salt pork, bacon. Afterwards, beef from western ranches and shipped to the stockyards and slaughterhouses in the mid-West began to predominate.

Before the war, it was a wagon-journey of six months to get to California from the mid-West, or a long, bone-cracking stagecoach ride of twenty-four days. When the transcontinental railroad was completed – a traveler could go from Council Bluffs to Sacramento in about a week, and in relative comfort. Should the traveler possess a parlor car and sufficient funds and connections, the journey could even be done in considerable luxury – instead of the dangerous and difficult trek it had been a mere three decades before. I worked in this transition for the last chapter of Truckee; an elderly man who had been a small boy on the emigrant trail in 1844 traveled east over the route that his family had followed – and noted that it wasn’t have the labor and adventure it had once been. The steam engine brought Europe closer to the US; now it was possible to travel relatively easily, and comfortably. Regularly scheduled steamship packet lines transformed a miserable, cramped journey of a month or six weeks (or even more) to barely a week from New York to Hamburg, or Southampton. I pointed up this transition again, in the Trilogy, comparing the hardships suffered by Magda’s family on their journey from Germany on a on a sailing ship – and how, thirty years later, it was only a week on a steam packet from New York to Hamburg. And in the new book, there is a chapter of the Richter and Becker clans traveling across Texas in their own parlor car; think of the change this represented to those who lived long enough to see and experience it! But there was a shadow over all of this; the shadow of the war.

Another author in the IAG has reminded me of this – that someone visiting the United States ten years later would have noted effects of it, most especially in the South. There would have been the ghosts of the dead from a thousand battles haunting the living with their memories; the badly scarred and disfigured, the chronically ill – and the chronically criminal. Even more visible were those amputees with their crutches and empty sleeves, the widows wearing black, and the young women who never married at all because the boy they loved was buried in the Wilderness, at Gettysburg, or Shiloh. Progress came at a price; and although one can’t say one caused the other, it made the handy demarcation point of a life that for most Americans had been rural and agrarian.

And that’s what I am working around, in The Quivera Trail … then there is the difference between England and Texas, which one has to admit, is still pretty market. There is a reason that I am describing it to readers as ‘Mrs. Gaskell meets Shane.’

April Follies and Misdemeanors

12. April 2013 · Comments Off on April Follies and Misdemeanors · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, European Disunion, Fun and Games, Rant · Tags: , , ,

This is has been one of those weeks where – in the words of the late Molly Ivins – sitting down and powering up the internet of a morning was kind of like opening the refrigerator and seeing Fidel Castro sitting inside. You can’t help thinking there was something mighty strange going on.
The current round of “Korean Motherland Unity Game of Repeated Chicken” (as another blogger on Open Salon used to call it) continues, as Li’l Pudgy establishes his dominance. Still no rain of fire on Austin, Texas, Tokyo, Seoul or anywhere else, but Li’l Pudgy ramps up the rhetoric regardless; the Norks have played this game I think every six months for the last sixty years, and he has to get louder and more threatening to even get the old Korea hands to even pay attention, let alone take the threat seriously. Say, all his generals have gaudy sprockets and decorations hung all over their uniforms – and what military action did they earn all those in? Seriously, I can only hope the Chinese are getting as tired of Li’l Pudgy as we all are. I do wonder, though – how many more Korean Motherland Unity Games of Repeated Chicken will we endure until the Kim régime implodes of itself?

Following, in a desultory fashion the horrors revealed in the trial of the Philadelphia abortion clinic doctor, Kermit Gosnell – who among other things, specialized in late-term abortions. Very late term abortions, and in horrifically unsanitary conditions, or so it would appear from the trial testimony. I’m not following it very closely because I have a very low gross-out threshold, and accounts of the the good doctor’s fetus foot collection is enough to make me upchuck. Wait – I thought that legalizing abortion would keep women safe from quacks in filthy backstreet abortion mills. Guess I was misinformed. I blame the media, of course – most of whom have been remarkably restrained in their coverage of Dr. Gosnell’s contributions to women’s rights.

And finally – the not entirely-unexpected passing of Margaret Thatcher … as I say, not unexpected, but I am still boggled by the public vitriol uncorked on the occasion by certain elements in once-Great Britain. Good lord, I thought Sarah Palin had roused a s**tstorm of hatred among self-nominated media, political and intellectual elite in this country, but it’s but a fart to a tornado in comparison. Good lord, be a bright, ambitious and successful woman politician, achieving high office without the benefit of a husband or father having gotten there first, and do so as a conservative, and the knives will come out for sure. Just as a rhetorical aside directed to all the Maggie haters out there; people, do you realize how tacky, warped and insane this makes you appear to outsiders? For one, it makes it look like the Queen and the Duchess of Cambridge are about the only adults left in the room.

And that’s my week. By the way, I brought out Our Grandpa Was an Alien on Kindle, since I didn’t carry over the print version to Watercress Press when I reissued everything else. Enjoy – all the old romps and essays about my family, growing up in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Most One-Sided Western Gunfight

05. April 2013 · Comments Off on The Most One-Sided Western Gunfight · Categories: Ain't That America?, History, Old West

This affray did not happen in Texas, but in New Mexico in 1884. It did have all the classic Western elements; rowdy cowboys, a small town fed to the back teeth with their destructive and abusive antics, and a single local lawman determined to up hold the rule of law and order. Here, however, ends any resemblance to High Noon, Tombstone, Stagecoach, Shane or any other classic Western movie. In this case, the single resolute lawman stands out in the annals of Western law enforcement for several reasons; first for sheer, stubborn crazy-brave courage, secondly for being barely 19 years old at the time, a tough little banty-rooster of a guy barely five-seven in boots… and thirdly for being native Hispanic in a time and in a place where anti-Mexican bigotry fell very severely on the non-Anglo population of any what class or income.

His name was Elfego Baca – and there was one more difference to him. Although he had been born in Socorro, New Mexico Territory, he had spent most of his life in Topeka, Kansas, where his parents had sought work and an education for their children. This resulted in Elfego Baca being more fluent in English than Spanish at the time of his returning to Socorro and working as a clerk in a general mercantile owned by his brother-in-law. He had another notable skill; facility with a six-gun. Very much later in life he claimed he had been taught to shoot by Billy the Kid … either William McCarty-Antrim-Bonny, or some other adolescent shootist with the same moniker in New Mexico Territory around that time.
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He is Risen!

31. March 2013 · Comments Off on He is Risen! · Categories: Ain't That America?

Santo Domingo, 1991

In the sanctuary of the pilgrim church of Santo Domingo de la Calzada, Northern Spain. Have a blessed Easter!

Part 2 – The Mason County Hoo-Doo War

22. March 2013 · Comments Off on Part 2 – The Mason County Hoo-Doo War · Categories: Ain't That America?, History, Old West · Tags:

The Hoo-Doo war eventually became so bitter and vicious that all sides involved in it splintered into factions – even the company of Texas Rangers eventually dispatched to quell the range war split over it. The one survivor of the Baccus lynching still in custody, one Tom Turley, was returned to jail when he recovered, but very shortly, he was joined there by one of Sheriff Clark’s original cattle-thief hunting posse; Caleb Hall, now accused of being a cattle thief as well. A second posse member, Tom Gamel, now claimed that the notion of lynching the Baccus gang was first bruited about by the members of Clark’s posse – and he, for one, had been strongly against it. Rumors began flying around Mason that another lynching might be in the works – of Turley, Hall and Gamel themselves. Turley and Hall promptly escaped the jail and Mason County entirely, never to return. Tom Gamel stood his ground, recruiting about thirty friends – cattlemen and ranchers from the local area. He and his friends rode into Mason one day late in March. Not prepared for receiving so many presumably hostile guests, Sheriff Clark skedaddled. Gamel and his friends lingered in town for a couple of days, stewing for a fight … which nearly happened when Sheriff Clark returned with sixty well-armed local German friends. But the two sides declared a truce – and an end to mob justice. More »

A Matter of Taste(r)

18. March 2013 · Comments Off on A Matter of Taste(r) · Categories: Ain't That America?, Eat, Drink and be Merry, Fun and Games, Politics, Stupidity · Tags: ,

It is apparently not news to anyone that the office of the President of the US involves a degree of security – to include an official food-taster, as medieval as that sounds. Been going on for years, apparently, so having a designated expert to cover food safety with regards to the President isn’t something to have a conniption fit over. So someone has to eat a couple of bites – a whole helping? from a dish prepared for the White House table, and if that person doesn’t fall over, gasping and foaming at the mouth, then it is OK for POTUS consumption. Got it. And yes, I do understand very well that security ought to be tight when it comes to food supplies and preparation for any President … but the recent story about President Obama sitting by at a private luncheon with GOP senators and not being able to eat a bite because his food taster hadn’t vetted the food first strikes me as a matter a little deeper and much more insulting than it has been played.
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Lower Edumication

12. March 2013 · Comments Off on Lower Edumication · Categories: Ain't That America?, Geekery, General Nonsense, Rant, sarcasm

Well, that’s likely a bit of a shocker for the panjandrums of the public school system in New York; that 80 percent of graduates have to have remedial education before considering college-level courses. It could have been worse; the first time the story floated past my awareness, I understood it as 80 percent of the public high school graduates were functional illiterates. Ten or fifteen years ago the concept that public high schools were releasing functional illiterates into the wilds of adult life would have been shocking, incredible … but these days? Meh – not so shocking, and not that much surprising, after hearing some of the stories of friends with school-aged children, the occasional stories of malpractice in education which bubble up in the media … and most of all, interaction with some of the products of the public education mill. Some of these were very junior airmen whom I encountered in the military, some were friends of my daughters’ … and many had been appallingly educated.

Honestly, it seemed like they had only gone to school because it was the law that they do and it was no longer legally to send them to work in a factory. What they got out of the modern educational experience seemed mostly to be a big steaming pile of nothing, with a lot of political correctness sprinkled across the top. The cleverest and most focused children manage to educate themselves, in a spotty fashion and in spite of their teachers. The ordinary get passed along until they are dumped out of the end of the educational alimentary canal, while the criminally-inclined gravitate toward that interest – at least until they run afoul of the law. This is all terribly frustrating to read about, especially for people like myself who remember better educational times, before educational heresies such as ‘whole word’ reading, the New Math, ‘relevance’, and sundry other horrors took over the classroom. A group of commenters are lamenting this at According to Hoyt. Truly, truly I say unto you, there is no way that when and if my daughter has children that they are going to public school. I’ll homeschool the little darlings myself, read to them aloud every afternoon or evening, and take them to every museum and educational outreach establishment that there is. And as many books as they want to read; I mean, my brother and I had the complete set of the Golden Book Encyclopedia, and read every volume from cover to cover for the fun of it.

Another aspect of this ongoing educational malpractice is that our taxes are paying through the nose for it. In some cases and in some localities, parents are paying Maserati prices for Yugo results – a situation for which the teachers’ unions don’t even have the grace to be ashamed. And finally, learning of so many incidents of bullying of vulnerable students during the school day, and through social media after it; well, who would want their child exposed a real-life and institutionalized Lord of the Flies, every day and all day? What parent, being moderately well-educated themselves and having access to some resources couldn’t do a better job of educating their children at that? I’m just surprised that there aren’t more stay-at-home parents home educating. Discuss.

Tuesday Musical Absurdity: Legendary Chicken Fairy

12. March 2013 · Comments Off on Tuesday Musical Absurdity: Legendary Chicken Fairy · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, Geekery

Dream Home

11. March 2013 · Comments Off on Dream Home · Categories: Ain't That America?, Local, Memoir, Veteran's Affairs

Period log and stone farmhouse at Becker Vinyards

Period log and stone farmhouse at Becker Vinyards

Old Officer Quarters - Ft. Martin Scott

Now and again, I dream of what I would like for my very own bespoke retirement property … only that it wouldn’t be retirement, actually; I’ll be working until the day that the medical examiner’s van carts me away. Being retired just means that you do the work you want to do, not the work you have to do … but I would like to have a place done up to my own specifications. To start with – the land itself; an acre would do, maybe an acre and a half. I’d like a slightly rolling property, oriented towards the west to catch the sunset.. I’d like the land to be scattered with a few oak trees – craggy, with gnarled branches, but I’m not particular about what kind. Just oaks; post oaks, live oaks, red oaks, all for the shade, and to hang a wooden swing from a thick branch that parallels the ground. I don’t need a spectacular view, but I would like it to be mostly of countryside: perhaps a glimpse of a distant creek or river.

Victorian Greenhouse
I’d want a good-sized vegetable and herb garden; expanded from what I have now. Raised beds would be ideal; filled with good soil and the proper nutrients. A good-sized kitchen garden would have to be surrounded with a stout wire fence. It is exasperating to have a good crop of tomatoes or squash coming in, only to discover that hungry rodents and deer – those enormous rats with hooves and antlers – have helped themselves. I’d have a good variety of kitchen herbs hanging from baskets. Herbs seem to do incredibly well in coconut-fiber lined baskets; this year I have one with a thyme plant spilling over the side and hanging halfway to the ground. Perhaps my garden and dream-house plan would include an arbor of unpeeled cedar poles, from which to hang the baskets of herbs. I’d have to have a place to shelter tender plants during those cold winter snaps when it gets down to or below freezing. Plants that scrape through a cold snap in San Antonio would not do as well during the winter in the Hills … so I likely I would need a permanent small greenhouse.View - Rooster Springs

In addition to the existing trees, I would also plant more; at least a couple of almond verbenas, which start as shrubs and with any encouragement at all turn into medium-sized ornamentals. They aren’t much to look at, but the clusters of tiny flowers have the most amazing sweet almond smell. I’d also have some redbud trees for the look, and a couple of bearing fruit trees. My choice would fall on peaches, plums, and a good pecan tree. The trees would bridge the gap between the practical vegetable garden, and my dream ornamental garden; heavily tilted towards native and native-adapted plants which look after themselves. There would be roses, though – the hardy varieties which would be picked out more for their scent than their appearance. There would also be shrubs to attract birds, butterflies and bees, and a tangle of jasmine somewhere, which would bring their scent in through the windows on those spring days before the summer heat sets in.

And that leads to the house; and that is where I go off, into the the non-standard. I wouldn’t want a single big house, but an eccentric collection of cottages, set in the landscape described. I would like a little house for myself, and two or three others, one for my daughter, and another one or two which would serve as guest quarters when I had company, just enough set apart that we all would have privacy. I’d love to have a well, with one of those old windmill pumps, to bring the water to an above-ground concrete or wooden cistern on legs … just as I have seen on some old properties around the Hill Country.
As for the little houses on the property … I would prefer Craftsman-style bungalows or small Texas farmhouses, maybe even a one or two of them might be repurposed log cabins. The cabins would be the kind with a main room and a loft bedroom over, a kitchen lean-to on the back and a deep porch across the front. One or two of those would suit just fine, but even just a couple of those kit houses from Home Depot would work well, assuming that I could adorn them with vintage architectural surplus.

The final element would be a separate entertainment kitchen – just one large room set up to do brewing and cheese-making, an industrial-sized stove and a deep sink, and outside of it, another deep porch with a barbeque grill and enough space to throw a good party. I’d have an area nearby this all paved in brick or stone; and where the main garden ornament would be. That would be a fountain; a good-sized tall stone one, rather like the ones that adorn the private courtyards in the old houses I used to see in Spain, with a wide enough ledge to sit on surrounding the lower pool. And when I had a party, the guests could enjoy the sound of trickling water, the scent of almond verbena, and look at the late afternoon sun setting in the distance. I love what I have seen in the Sisterdale area; the hills, the creeks, the view to the west, with rolling hills. Ah – I might dream. It is my profession, of sorts; that dreaming thing.

(Crossposted at my book blog)

Wednesday Miscellany

06. March 2013 · Comments Off on Wednesday Miscellany · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, Fun and Games, Health and Wellness, World · Tags: , ,

So another week in Chez Hayes, sportsfans; Blondie and I are both creeping back to something resembling health after a bout with the current crud, which may or may not be this years’ flu. Whether or not – it’s a hum-dinger. The comprehensive exhaustion, lack of appetite and the racking cough are something special, and in my case, it is added to the mysterious chronic cough that has had me sounding at intervals as if I were hacking up a lung, ever since the end of November. This is especially mysterious, as I have never smoked. A chronic cough lasting for three months has challenged my medical provider at the BAMC family clinic. Tuesday afternoon I returned from another appointment bearing some serious prescriptions; including for a cough syrup containing codeine, another round of antibiotics and two sorts of inhalers, which I may yet figure out how to use effectively. I know, I am supposed to breathe in two puffs of the ‘emergency’ inhaler … the first attempt made me cough, yet again …

So, it appears that Oooogo Chavez has finally shuffled off this mortal – not unexpectedly, as the folks at Rantburg have been putting up the pic of him with hovering buzzards for about a week or so. I know, speak no ill of the dead … but I’ll bet you anything that Sean Penn is curled up in the fetal position, sobbing uncontrollably. And Venezuela is now blaming the US for Oooogo’s demise, which I would find as amusing as hell since the current administration now must come up with some kind of response, or not… depending. Ah, well – comes on the same day of a couple of other foreign relations crises come to a full boil and likely claiming President Kardashian’s butterfly attention; Iran and North Korea both may have nukes. What fun.

Sigh – yet another black celebrity makes my personal ban-list. Now it’s Bill Cosby, apparently mouthing the canard that the GOP wants to bring back slavery … I had thought better of old Coz, but now alas, he seems to have drunk the racial solidarity Kool-aide. Bye, Coz – it was nice to have been a fan.

And that’s been my week so far – yours?

A Poem by Edgar Lee Masters – An Incident in the Civil War

03. March 2013 · Comments Off on A Poem by Edgar Lee Masters – An Incident in the Civil War · Categories: Ain't That America?, History

(I knew this poem from an anthology collection that I had as a kid – it was called The Magic Circle – and I suppose my sister wound up with it, although most of our childhood books wound up in my possession, as I was the first of the four of us to produce offspring. Something – never mind what – reminded me of it, and my daughter had never, ever heard of this poem before. It turns out to be very obscure and finding it by routine googlectomy took some time.)

Achilles Deatheridge

“Your name is Achilles Deatheridge?
How old are you, my boy?”
“I’m sixteen past and I went to the war
From Athens, Illinois.”

“Achilles Deatheridge, you have done
A deed of dreadful note.” “It comes of his wearing a battered hat,
And a rusty, wrinkled coat.”

“Why didn’t you know how plain he is?
And didn’t you ever hear, He goes through the lines by day or night
Like a sooty cannoneer?”

“You must have been half dead for sleep,
For the dawn was growing bright.”
“Well, Captain, I had stood right there
Since six o’clock last night.”

“I cocked my gun at the swish of the grass
And how am I at fault
When a dangerous looking man won’t stop
When a sentry hollers halt?”

“I cried out halt and he only smiled
And waved his hand like that.
Why, any Johnnie could wear the coat
And any fellow the hat.”

“I hollered halt again and he stopped
And lighted a fresh cigar.
I never noticed his shoulder badge,
And I never noticed a star.”

“So you arrested him? Well, Achilles,
When you hear the swish of the grass If it’s General Grant inspecting the lines
Hereafter let him pass.”

ulysses-grant

I Got Those Low-down Sequestration Blues

28. February 2013 · Comments Off on I Got Those Low-down Sequestration Blues · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, Fun and Games, Politics, Rant · Tags: , , ,

But not so bad a case as Bob Woodward is having, I’ll bet. So the automatic spending cutbacks are set to take place tomorrow, and the dominoes begin to fall. Slowly, I think at first, and then faster and faster. Will John Boehner hang onto his newly rediscovered backbone? Will the citizens of this great nation fall once again for the old ‘Closing the Washington Monument’ ploy, wherein a government activity (such as the Park Service) when faced with a proposed budget cut, threatens to cut the most useful/attractive/popular activity within it’s purview? Will President Kardashian be able to finger-point and hector his way out of this one? Probably not, and in any case, he’s probably got a golf game scheduled, and Mrs. O has another television appearance to make. I have it on good authority that she’s angling for the personal appearance grand-slam; a guest appearance as the NBC weather reporter, announcing the prize winners at this year’s Poteet Strawberry Festival, and surprise celebrity judge on America’s Got Talent. It’s a pity that the guest-star gig on Downton Abbey fell through, though. I understand it was a scheduling conflict – there wasn’t enough room for Mrs. O’s entourage at Highclere Castle.

So here we are, one-sixth in to 2013, and the White House seems to be declaring war on Bob “Follow the Money” Woodward, for – I guess – insufficient reverence towards our very own dear President Kardashian. I guess what we are about to see a demonstration of is whether the Chicago Way can really be scaled up nationally. Well, it can – the last four years have been a demonstration of that – but the key question now is – for how long? And is there enough popcorn to last? Ah, well – with poor old Richard Milhaus, the established press seemed to hate his guts on general principles anyway; IIRC, the Washington peanut gallery was cheering on Woodward and Bernstein all the way. Whether they will do the same now – that, as any number of press puppets standing in front of a government building to do their closer are wont to say – remains to be seen. If there is a preference cascade in the making, it might depend on how many other reporters have that ‘O-F-I’ moment and decide to let the chips fall where they may, now that the Grand Old Man of the Washington Press Corpse has led the way. On the other hand – jobs are hard to find these days. On the third hand, given the way in which print media outlets are collapsing – sometimes there is an advantage in jumping before you are pushed.

So – tomorrow begins another month; beginning of the end, or end of the beginning? That all remains to be seen.

Wait, Were the Oscars on Last Night?

25. February 2013 · Comments Off on Wait, Were the Oscars on Last Night? · Categories: Ain't That America?, Eat, Drink and be Merry, Media Matters Not, sarcasm, That's Entertainment!, Veteran's Affairs

Well, damn … so they were. They were written up in the media this morning, which was nice, I suppose. I skimmed the list of winners and noted that I had not gone to see any of them at all. This has been happening more and more often, of late. Curiously, those movies are being released on DVD almost as soon as they have premiered, so that ones’ chances of actually catching them in a theater are, shall we say, diminished. The only movie that we actually made an effort to go see was “The Hobbit” and we went all out to see it at the local Alamo Drafthouse, where we could get dinner and a drink in the theater along with the movie. If going to the theater to see a movie is the expense that it has become these days, might as well go all out. Getting back to the Oscars, I also skimmed the pics of the various personalities arriving, and didn’t see any outrageous get-ups, not like Bjorks’ infamous swan dress. The only big tizzy is that Michelle Obama appeared via remote feed to help present the best picture award. Sigh. There, too, oh Lord? Like Chicken Man, she’s everywhere, she’s everywhere! Just another reason not to watch self-reverential award shows for an increasingly incestuous industry. I might also get away with throwing in the observation that the old canard about Washington being show business for ugly people is in danger of being invalidated…

Sigh … where was I? Oh, yes, Hollywood and showbiz in general, and the fact that most of Hollywood’s shining stars seem perfectly willing to jump into bed, metaphorically speaking, with the Obama Administration. The thought of being a repeat guest at the White House must be a tempting prospect to the many Hollywood A-listers, and those who only dream of it … but still, there is a large chunk of the country who is not absolutely enamored of Barry O and M’Shell. I count myself among them, naturally – and I am given to wonder, if the Hollywood elite who are inclined to worship at the shrine of Obama won’t eventually pay a price for it, in popularity with the general public. I do know that my own household is maintaining an ever-growing list of personalities whose movies and shows we will no longer patronize, precisely because of this unfortunate tendency. As the cost of producing mainstream movies goes up, and as the general public picks and chooses more carefully, won’t this eventually begin to bite? Something to think about, anyway.

For Valentine’s Day – True Life True Love

13. February 2013 · Comments Off on For Valentine’s Day – True Life True Love · Categories: Ain't That America?, History, Literary Good Stuff · Tags: , , , , ,

So not being really a romance writer, and having pretty much washed out of the lists of matrimony personally, I still have managed to write about romance … mostly by pulling in a little bit of inspiration from here and there from real-life couples. For instance, the main romantic couple in my first book, Dr. John and Elizabeth in To Truckee’s Trail were inspired by … you’ll never guess. Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning! A married couple, wildly, passionately, crackers-in-love with each other after twelve years of marriage – why not? The romance doesn’t and shouldn’t end at the altar, but it should go on. I rather liked the Victorians, by the way – they weren’t nearly as prudish as they’ve been painted, nor were their emotions quite so stifled. Robert fell in love with her through reading her published poetry – and lest that sound rather stalker-ish, it worked out. They married blissfully, although she was an invalid and several years older than him. They went off to Italy and were more or less happy for the rest of their lives together, just as I imagined Dr. John and Elizabeth to have been. Men and women alike poured out their souls in letters and poetry, and they weren’t ashamed or repressed in the least, especially when it came to a good manly weep or putting down on paper how they really, really felt.

I didn’t particularly have a literary model for the central romance and tragedy in the Adelsverein Trilogy – that between Magda Vogel, the immigrant German girl, and Carl Becker, the former soldier and Ranger. I did think at first that it might be one of those sparkling Beatrice and Benedict-type confections, where they poured witty scorn at each other, and only later realized that they were in love. There did have to be a romance, of course – between the daughter of an immigrant family, and a representative of the country they were coming to – bridging the two worlds, as it were. But I just couldn’t make it work in that way; Magda turned out to be rather humorless and stern, and Carl was just too reserved. I did recycle the Beatrice and Benedict angle for the romance in the third book of the Trilogy; with Peter Vining and Anna Richter. They both had a sense of humor, and were quite aware that their sharp teasing of each other amused the heck out of anyone who had the luck to be in the vicinity.

Another great historical romance happened between two very real people, and which I put into Deep in the Heart; the marriage between Sam Houston and Margaret Lea Houston, which initially horrified her family and dismayed his friends. Some of them gave it six months, tops. He was twice her age, twice and disastrously married before, had a reputation of being a drunk, a rake and a reprobate, and being the hero of Jan Jacinto and the President of an independent Texas just barely made up for all of that. Marry a gently-bred Southern girl barely out of her schoolroom? Everyone confidently predicted disaster – and everyone was wrong. They were devoted to each other. She had a spine of pure steel, unsuspected under those fashionable Victorian furbelows. For the rest of their lives, whenever they were apart – and they were often separated, since Sam Houston spent much time at his official duties as a senator in Washington DC, or campaigning for office – they each wrote a letter a day. Margaret Lea bore and raised a large family of children, made a comfortable home for him whenever he was there to enjoy it, made him stop drinking and eventually to be baptized. His very last words included her name.

And my final real-life romance inspiring a romance between a couple of my characters is that of the painter Charles M. Russell, and his wife, Nancy – who, like Margaret Lea, was very much younger than a husband who had a bit of a reputation. Half his age, a bit prim and self-contained, Nancy also had steel in her spine – and she was a much better marketer and business agent than her carefree cowboy artist husband. C.M. Russell lived for art, and likely would have been no more than locally known as a wrangler-cowhand who had a talent with a paintbrush, but he made a partnership with Nancy, and she put him on a wider artistic scene. And that is the angle for one of the romances in the current book – between a young prospective professional artist, and a woman with a head for business. Because it all isn’t just love – it’s a partnership between a woman and a man, each filling in each other’s lacks and supporting each other in a mutual endeavor called life.
(cross-posted at my book-blog)

Helter-Skelter

11. February 2013 · Comments Off on Helter-Skelter · Categories: Ain't That America?, Good God, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine...

I was a teenager when the Manson murders went down, in the autumn of 1969 – of course, the cruel and inexplicable murder of a movie star and several of her friends made all the headlines, and had lots of law-abiding citizens looking over their shoulders and being very careful about locking the doors and windows of their homes at night. It wasn’t until some time later that the associated murders of an elderly retired couple also hit the headlines of the LA Times, and other national newspapers. A blood-drenched, hippy cult with a weirdly charismatic leader had committed those murders in order – so they claimed – to trigger a devastating racial war, which they termed ‘helter-skelter’ from a Beatles song moderately popular at the time. Well, it was the late 1960ies; after assassinations, race riots and anti-war protests, ordinary citizens were pretty shell-shocked. A lot of extremely deranged people held equally deranged beliefs back then, and continued to do so for a good few years – cults and communes like Jim Jones’ Peoples’ Temple, for instance. My parents often resignedly repeated the truism about the US having been tilted at a steep angle, and all the unmoored nutcases, nonconformists and grifters sliding west and ending up in California. Having both been born there, and with recollections of how it used to be, they would grumble about how they wished such people would slide the hell back to where they came from, and stop embarrassing hard-working and relatively conservative citizens of the Golden State.

Helter-skelter didn’t happen – well, not then, anyway. Reading this week about Christopher Dorner, the ex-LAPD cop and former Navy reserve officer, with a chip on his shoulder the size of an an aircraft carrier and a string of revenge murders on his slate … now, I could see helter-skelter happening now, forty years later. A lot of things have happened over in Los Angeles, not many of them for the better. One of them is that the LAPD are nowhere near as respected now as they were formerly. It might very well be that they were no more or less competent or corrupt then than they are now, but it is the public perception of them now that sets the bitter tone. Corruption scandals like the slow train-wreck of Rampart division, the beating of Rodney King, the perception of racism among police officers which allowed OJ Simpson’s legal team to plead for acquittal on those grounds … all of those incidents and accidents have blotted the LAPD’s reputation in the eyes of ordinary citizens of all races.

So, is Christopher Dorner a good and moral man driven mad by the system, or a race-card pulling manipulator with a very hot temper? Big boastful talker or a cold and calculating planner of a campaign of murder? The various stories in the news about the matter have it both ways and every gradation in between. One can take away anything that one wishes to see in his posted manifesto; in any case, the man has gone Rambo, and gone to ground, leaving at least fifty families under police protection, and three people – who looked nothing at all like him, but merely had the misfortune to be driving pickup trucks with a likeness to his vehicle – injured by panicky LAPD officers opening fire. Where is he now? Lost and dying of exposure in the woods at Big Bear, or blending into the background in a comfortable hide-out in Compton. Heading into Canada, or into Mexico, or just laying low until the row dies down? When and if he emerges again, and encounters the LAPD – or any other law enforcement body – the chances of it ending quietly with an uncontested arrest are pretty small. And should it end quietly or not – what are the chances of riots breaking out, regardless?

(crossposted at chicagoboyz.net)

Gessler’s Hat

04. February 2013 · Comments Off on Gessler’s Hat · Categories: Ain't That America?, Eat, Drink and be Merry, Fun and Games, Fun With Islam, General Nonsense, Good God

In the foundation-legend of the Swiss confederacy, Alberect Gessler was a cruel and tyrannical overlord installed by the Austrians, who installed his hat atop a pole in the public marketplace and decreed that all should bow to it … to his hat, not merely his person. Such a declaration was, I think, a way of rubbing in his authority over the common citizens – indeed, rubbing their noses in the fact that he could make them do so, and do so in front of everyone else.

Having read now and again of small businesses run by devout Christians, such event venues, a bakery doing wedding cakes, or a wedding photographer, even a bed and breakfast refusing to provide a good or a service to a gay couple, I am lead to wonder if this isn’t a kind of Gessler’s hat, metamorphosed to the 21st century. Of course, in this best of all possible worlds, anyone’s money ought to be as good as anyone elses’. And in the case of some of the complainants, loud comparisons are made, comparing the way in which small businesses dealt – or didn’t deal at all – with customers of the African-American variety, fifty years and more ago. Left unsaid, but still implied is a kind of smug satisfaction that devout Christians will be called to heel just as unrepentant racists were.

Somehow, I can’t be so certain of that outcome. Browbeating and bringing suit against the religiously observant into compliance with society’s dictates most usually has the opposite of effect intended, even if superficial compliance is eventually gained. Devout and observant Christians do make up a larger portion of the population than gays – who for all their prominence in media and entertainment, still only comprise less than 3% of the population overall – if that. African-Americans, give or take a couple of percentage points either way are at about %12, which is probably not a market segment which can be ignored by someone selling services or a product.

So, can you refuse service to a member of the public, and for what reason? Do you need a reason? Or will just a polite demurral do, such as “I am so sorry, we can’t fit that into our schedule” ? Making the question a little more complicated – will any religion do? Suppose a Jewish photographer didn’t want to photograph a Catholic quinceanera celebration, or a Muslim-owned halal caterer refused to provide food for a specifically Jewish or Christian event? Seriously, even if such a thing happened in the real world, I can’t imagine the customer getting too bent out of shape by the refusal – unless the refusal was couched in less than tactful language.

So what are we to make of stories such as those that I linked, and others of the same sort? I am pretty sure that it’s not so much a question of civil rights for a very small, but socially influential minority at issue here. Rather, it’s a metaphorical Gesseler’s Hat, for which is not sufficient to merely tolerate – all must be seen to approve, and in loud voices in the public square. Discuss.

It’s a Matter of Trust

28. January 2013 · Comments Off on It’s a Matter of Trust · Categories: Ain't That America?, Media Matters Not, Politics

As the old Billy Joel song goes; that is, a fair portion of a civil society is built on trust. Or at least – a large portion of the citizens in that society not only trust each other, but they generally also trust the civil institutions, too. There is an assumption, albeit slightly frayed around some edges that our institutions are generally benign and have the well-being of the larger public at heart. We assume, or did in the past, that laws are passed for our benefit, that rules are instituted for the same reason, that our elected leaders did, or at least mostly made a convincing pretense of representing the interests of their constituents, and not those of lobbyists bearing large favors. We assumed that our print and broadcast outlets were generally telling the truth and living up to their oft-stated mission to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. We assumed also that our various law enforcement bodies – with the occasional horrible local exception – were out there to protect us from crime and the bad guys. We generally trusted our local town and city governments – unless of course, we lived in a sinkhole of civic corruption and incompetence like New Orleans, Washington DC or Chicago, or anyplace where former mayors and city councilmen frequently wind up in prison. We also trust our fellow citizens, in a large part; a trust which appears perfectly astounding to foreign visitors. We trusted our doctors, to do their best for us, within the scope of what is and was medically possible. And there still remain many places in flyover country where hardly anyone locks the back door of their house, and keeps elaborate garden ornaments in the front yard, secure in the believe that everything – inside as well as outside – will remain in their proper place.

It is to my sorrow that this trust – is becoming ever more shredded every day which passes. Oh, there always was that fringe who maintained a lively distrust in civic authorities and institutions, about anything and everything from fluoridated water to godless communists on the school board. Members of all minority groups maintained a lively distrust of mainstream establishments over the years, from country clubs to those who enforced the law, to city hall and mainstream churches, frequently with good reason. But at present all that I might see when I look around is the accelerating pace of mis-trust, and an increasing degree of suspicion. Distrust has gone mainstream in a big way. After the Supreme Court ruled on Kelo, who still feels secure in their ownership of property, given the circumstance that it might be a nice bit of property and potentially more valuable in the hands of a corporate owner, aided by a cash-hungry municipal authority? Who, reading about the confiscation of large sums of cash and property from travelers on the bare suspicion of criminal involvement – and knowing that the income from such confiscations becomes part of the law enforcement body’s budget – cannot put aside the suspicion that such seizures are only a pretext to loot the citizenry? The same also goes for stop-light cameras; traffic safety is not the issue – but a substantial cash-flow to the municipality from fines is the main motivation. And older citizens and those with chronic health complaints might have good reason – pace the example set by the so-called Liverpool Care Pathway – to suspect that under universal public healthcare, the cost of treatment might be more of a concern to the healthcare provider than the care of the individual patient? Knowing of the infamous ‘JournoList’ and supposing the existence of a successor to it, one might look at the stories given wall-to-wall coverage, and those which are shoved below the fold and onto the back pages, one also has reason to suspect the worst of journalists as well.

I could go on with a good few more examples of how trust in what is published and broadcast with regard to the current administration has been severely and perhaps fatally damaged public trust in our newspapers and television news programs. Yep, trust is become a diminishing and precious commodity these days. Of all the damage that has been done to these United States and it’s institutions since 9/11, I wonder if that hasn’t been the most telling blow – and the one from which it will be hardest to recover from. That is, if it will be possible to recover at all.

(Cross-posted at Chicagoboyz.net)

The Wages of Partisan News Reporting

20. January 2013 · Comments Off on The Wages of Partisan News Reporting · Categories: Ain't That America?, Media Matters Not, World · Tags: , ,

I have noted recent news reports decrying incidents of Sandy Hook trutherism with a certain degree of cynical un-surprise. This then, is the fruit of modern journalism; now we have news consumers who are absolutely convinced that the mass murders either didn’t happen, didn’t happen as most reports have it, or believe that it was a put-up job entirely. Of course there have been conspiracy buffs since human history began; wherever there was a tragic or shocking event there have always been unexplained details, dangling loose ends and things which just seemed to convenient, too coincidental. Supposing a conspiracy existed explains shattering and usually random events all very well, which is why people are attracted to conspiracy theories in the first place. Since I was in grade school, I’ve been hearing about the plot, or plots which supposedly took down JFK. It’s to the point where I can paint myself as a a radical just by insisting that Oswald was a lone radical nut-case and no, it wasn’t that hard a shot. And sometimes suspicion of a conspiracy has been very well based; look at the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

So, nothing new here, that there should be whispers of conspiracies with regard to the Sandy Hook murders, and nothing new that with the rise of the internet, conspiracy-minded people have no problem finding a wider audience for their particular obsessions than they would have, back in the day when getting the word out as a single activist or group meant a mimeograph machine, a mailing list and sufficient postage. The element that I suspect is new would be the widening lack of trust in the establishment media; broadcast and print alike. I’ve often lamented the manner in which formerly respected news outlets perceived by the public as being generally trustworthy have been pissing away that trust for the last two decades. Of course, up until about fifteen years ago, the internet wasn’t developed to the point where it was relatively easy to fact-check the establishment media; they may have have been just as craven, partisan or incompetent back then, (Hello, Mr. Duranty, your table is waiting!) and there would have been no way for any but a tiny number of people to know for sure.

But now we do know … and one of the things we also know is that just about everything first reported about the Sandy Hook murders, or the Zimmerman-Martin shooting, or the shooting of Gabby Giffords and a hundred other more news stories-du-jour turned out to be wrong. Just about everything said about the Tea Party by the major media turned out to be wrong – and this I know form personal experience as a local Tea Party activist. On the other hand, we know practically nothing about the takeover of the American consulate office in Benghazi late last year and the death of four Americans there. As a candidate for the highest office in the land in 2008, Barack Obama was treated as a precious and lustrous pearl by the national media, given only the lightest buffing and polishing, while his experience, qualifications and past associates went carefully and (to all appearances, deliberately) unexamined.

Reasonable, un-paranoid and non-tinfoil-hat-wearing Americans these days have every reason in the world to distrust what has been printed or broadcast. Rich soil in which to plant the seeds of paranoid conspiracy theories – and the funniest and most ironical part, is that the professional mainstream news media have laid down the deepest layer of that soil themselves, in seeming to trim the sails of coverage to suit the favored political and politically correct winds of the moment. As ye sow, ladies and gentlemen of the establishment press – so shall ye reap, a full crop of suspicion and paranoia.

A Brief Memoir of Guns

17. January 2013 · Comments Off on A Brief Memoir of Guns · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, History, Home Front, Memoir, Military, Old West · Tags: , ,

Oddly enough – guns were not a terribly real presence in the household – or even the neighborhood where I grew up. Dad, and our near friends and neighbors didn’t hunt, and as near as I can recall, none of them were obsessed collectors. I never even saw a firearm, in use on on display – save in the holsters of law enforcement personnel – all the time that I was growing up. The use of firearms of any sort was an issue so far off the table that it wasn’t even in the same room. Oh, my brother JP had cap pistols, and Dad did possess two sidearms – a pistol, which may have been a Luger, and with which he nailed a particularly annoying gopher one evening with a clean shot through the nasty little buggers’ head – and a Navy Colt (actual model unspecified), which was rather more of a relic than a useful firearm. I saw it once and once only.

Dad kept those firearms in some secure place in the house; I do not know where, never wondered and none of us children were never motivated enough to search for them. We just were not that curious about guns, even though the Colt had a story behind it. Mom and Dad had found it secreted away between some rocks on the beach, in a battered old-fashioned leather holster, I think about the time that they were living in Laguna Beach when Dad had just gotten back from a tour of Army service in Korea – or possibly this happened when we were all living in GI-Bill student housing in Santa Barbara. From what Mom had said, some six or eight months before they found it, there had been a robbery of a local gun collector. They didn’t hear about the robbery for months or possibly years afterwards – so, they kept it. I don’t imagine Dad ever attempted to fire it, although being a tidy and logical person, he might have cleaned it up before putting it away.

Being a west-coast suburban sort of person, and since Dad and none of his friends were hunters – guns just were not a presence in real life, save in holsters on the hips of law enforcement personnel. As strange as it may sound to a European, or to someone from an American inner-city sink, it is entirely possible to live for decades without ever seeing anyone but a law enforcement officer carry a weapon, or witness an act of gun violence or the aftermath thereof. Just chalk that up to being a middle-class person with absolutely no inclination to walk on the wild side … of anything. It is possible that any number of my friends and neighbors at the time, or since then, had a side-arm or long gun which they kept quietly in a closet, or in the glove box of their car. Taking it out and waving it about was just not the done thing.

In point of fact – I never even handled a weapon personally until well into my military service; first an M-16, which I had to qualify on sometime in the early 1980s, and then again with a Beretta pistol in the early 1990s, upon being suddenly faced with a TDY to Saudi Arabia, better known as the Magic Kingdom. American military personnel with orders there had to be qualified to handle that sidearm. Fortunately, the orders fell through once the powers who issued them realized that I was not the flight-qualified documentary photog they were looking for.

And then I finished up settling in Texas, and turning to writing historical fiction, in which guns of various sorts do play a part. Again, although Texas is supposed to be the wild, wild, gun-loving west, personal weapons generally they aren’t any more visible here then they were back when I was a kid … although I do believe more of my friends and acquaintances here do have them – mostly as collectors and historical enthusiasts. Again, usually only the law enforcement officers carry openly … unless it is a historical reenactment event, and then it’s katy-bar-the-door. Through the offices of another blogger, I did manage to get a brief course in the use and maintenance of an early Colt revolver, and through the good offices of another friend, we enjoyed an afternoon of black-power shooting on a ranch near Beeville. But all of that – and a bit of ghost-writing about early revolvers is about all that I have ever had to do with guns. I should hate to think that I might need more than this – because it will truly mean that my world has changed, and not for the better.

(Crossposted at my book blog)

Best Comment Evah!

09. January 2013 · Comments Off on Best Comment Evah! · Categories: Ain't That America?

From this thread, at Chicagoboyz.net. Lexington Green speaks thusly –

“Doesn’t it always boil down to politics, one way or another?”

Nancy! NO! No, no, no!

Love, books, friendship, beauty, art, happiness, music, literature, poetry, punk rock, carousing, brawls, sports, poetry, seduction, making out on the couch, copulation, marriage, children, grandchildren, gardening, exploring, building, discovering, inventing, making, hunting, spelunking, swimming, fishing, nature, art, birthday cake, loyalty, magnanimity, kindness, God, faith, revelation, sacraments, woodworking, drinking scotch, drinking a Manhattan cocktail, seeing a friendly face after a long time, forgiveness and a handshake, finding someone who loves the same things you do, finding new friends, finding the best book you ever read, kissing the girl you really love, seeing the best band ever saw and dancing and getting sweaty, finding out something that makes many things click into place, winning, triumphing, surviving, prevailing, being there for the sick, being there for the dying, dogs, horses, bracing cold days, brilliant moonlight, spring breeze and soft clue skies and a barracuda jacket, blazing suns and squishy asphalt underneath your feet, the most badass car you ever drove, being out on the highway at the crack of dawn and home still 18 hours away and your favorite song comes no the radio, having the tool you need when you need it, figuring out how to fix something yourself, memories, nostalgia, recollection, a picture of your elementary school classmates, your high school yearbook, finding out that someone grew up and turned out all right, seeing your sister marry a terrific man, coming home after two weeks of hard work and having your 2 and 4 year old leap into your arms and kiss you, talking to someone who actually understands you, finding out that the person you were not sure of loves the book you love so he is OK, hearing I Can’t Get No Satisfaction for the first time, hearing Mahler’s 1st for the first time, hearing Rockaway Beach for the first time, walking across the room and talking to the girl despite the concealed fear, getting on the bike and getting out of the house and staying out until you are really tired, finishing the race when you thought you never would, walking into the church on a midday afternoon and the faint smell of incense and candles, and you and a few old ladies and God are the only people there, reading the memoir and feeling it and seeing it and hearing it as if you were there, getting on stage and counting off the song and it is blaring and the girls down front are dancing and you are kicking ass, getting Mom on the phone, getting old mannish emails from Dad, signing up the big client, filing the big lawsuit, winning the big motion, finishing the book and sending it to the publisher, the Mod polka dot shirt, the paisley tie, the Pop Art shift dress, the chukka boots, the brown wingtips, the woman’s earrings and her hair up and the smell of her perfume, hearing Wouldn’t it be Nice in the car when the world is cratering and getting choked up, picking up the six year old, and carrying him upstairs kicking and screaming for a bath, befriending a man you know is a hero, the saints and angels and the holy souls in purgatory and the Blessed Virgin Mary, the rosary, the priest saying I absolve you, standing on Lexington Green where the minutemen stood and where the Redcoats filed onto the green just over there and hearing the muskets fire and the screams and and the blood and the second volley like a single roar and the bayonets and seeing it all like it is all happening agains and will always happen and freedom is never free and it is a gift we don’t deserve and swearing without words to yourself and the world that we will never give up.

That last one is political. But you get the idea.

Nancy, never accept the lie that the personal is political.

The personal is INFINITELY more important than. Politics is the way we clear a space so we can LIVE.

We fight the political struggle so we can have, in the immortal words of Roy Batty, “more life, fucker!”

We know that life is worth living and we want the state and its cement cells and boots and handcuffs and clubs and rubber-coated caterpillar treads to get the fuck out of our way.

OK?

Let us all now go forward together!

Meeting of the Minds

08. January 2013 · Comments Off on Meeting of the Minds · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, Literary Good Stuff, Politics, Rant, Tea Time, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine...

You know, I am purely surprised that the CNN television studio didn’t completely implode when Alex Jones guested on Piers Morgan Tonight. Two competing champions of paranoid idiocy meeting in the same space-time continuum must have been something like the collision of matter and anti-matter. In a just universe, there should have been nothing left but smoking rubble and a small pool of molten glass. I suppose to Mr. Morgan, Alex Jones represents the typical conservative 2nd Amendment fan … just as the Westburo Baptist freaks are typical Christian fundamentalists, instead of being a clan of legal shakedown artists.
Ah well – I haven’t watched CNN in years, and the presence of an ignorant blowhard with a British accent is certainly not a good reason to reverse the habit. Good lord, didn’t we have enough condescending pseudo-intellectuals of our own that we had to go importing them from Britain. As a matter of fact, my required daily ration of condescending British twits is now adequately filled for the nonce, now that Downton Abbey is back for another season.

So, it looks like Senator Chuck Hagel is being put forward as prospective Secretary of Defense. Well, an improvement on John Kerry, anyway. (Pause for a brief and appropriate one liner; So John Kerry walks into a bar, and the bartender says, “Why the long face?” Thank you, I’m here all week. Try the veal and don’t forget to tip your waitperson…) So … any bets on the national Republican Party lasting past the next year … or even the next mid-term elections? Should they cave on defending the 2nd Amendment as they have so far appeared to cave on everything else, than I would guess ‘no.’ I actually did get a fundraising call, long in about August 2012 from some fund-raising functionary pleading for donations to the national GOP. The poor woman’s ears are likely still ringing, although I swear – cross my heart – that I didn’t use any bad language, and I was perfectly polite, when I told her that I certainly would NOT be sending in any such contribution to the national GOP, and that I would make any donation that I could directly to the campaigns of those Tea Party Constitutionalist-Fiscally Responsible-Free Market candidates who swam across my ken.

Which brings me around to the topic of the Tea Party, and how brutally efficient the establishment media has been in painting them – anent any actual concrete and verifiable evidence – as violent and racist fanatics. It’s been an education, seeing the Big Lie demonstrated and deployed in this 21st century … and do not think for a moment that I shall forget the names of those journalistic and media personalities who have most notoriously assisted in its perpetuation. No, I have a little list, and they will hardly be missed in my household.

On the cheerful side – as bad as the national situation seems to be getting, Blondie and I are doing OK, really. I have paid off a number of outstanding debts in the last year, and sales of books – digital and print are quite satisfactory, if not as yet up to Amanda Hocking standards. Sales seem to have begun being made in Germany, with the entry drug being the German edition of Book One: The Gathering. Hah! Once you read the first book, you have to come back for the second and third! Even if they are in English … Watercress Press has a number of new clients, I am shouldering a lot of the business aspects to it, being very well acquainted with the POD/indy author aspects of it all.

The occasional employer – the ranchland real estate specialist – had a couple of good sales, and so he can afford me to come to work for him. Well, as he had his skilled mechanic friend fix the GG’s most recent problem which rendered my car undriveable – I owe him some hours. Which, as he forgets how to do some of the most simple tasks, like printing up a sheet of mailing labels or attaching a PDF to an email, I am rapidly repaying, especially when he calls me frantically, asking me to sort it out, either over the phone or in person.

And that’s my January – so far. Yours?

Metropolis

05. January 2013 · Comments Off on Metropolis · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

It’s been most unsettling, over the last month or so, watching as the ship of state powers straight towards the reefs of financial meltdown, while the Dems and Pubs – establishment ruling class, with just about every one of them grubbing snout deep in the trough – do nothing much but squabble over the arrangement of the deck chairs, and figure out how to be the first one into the purser’s office to loot the safe. And if that wasn’t bad enough to put a dent in my enjoyment of the season: the Newton massacre of school children, the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the murders in my own neighborhood, the fact that a basically decent and widely experienced candidate could be defeated in a national election by a legislatively untalented and inexperienced machine hack … all of this was depressing in itself. And don’t get me started on the State Department and the Mysteries of Benghazi. But when a credentialed spawn of academia is given op-ed space in the so-called paper of record to call for deep-sixing the Constitution as an outdated and discredited piece of paper, network television personalities can hector and abuse interviewees with regard to the Second Amendment of same, and an editorialist in a mid-western newspaper (who may be exaggerating for humorous effect, not that he would have a micro-speck slack cut for him if he were a conservative ripping on progressives by name) can call for the torture and execution of those not in agreement on a particular matter, and some fairly senior military commanders can be abruptly side-lined and discredited for playing hide-the-salami (or being assumed to have been playing hide the salami) with a woman not their spouse … well, really, one has to wonder what has been happening here. The ‘othering’ proceeds at a perfectly dismaying rate of speed, with mainstream media and assorted celebs cheerleading from front and center.
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New Year – 20123

01. January 2013 · Comments Off on New Year – 20123 · Categories: Ain't That America?, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, Working In A Salt Mine...

Well, here it is – and I can’t honestly say that I was looking forward to it, what with all the stormy clouds on the horizon. The fiscal cliff, President Kardashian being sworn in again, and the prospect of his merry band of thuggish progressives haunting the corridors of power like some kind of political sewer gas, while elements of the intelligentsia and mainstream media commentariat appear to be relishing the prospect overturning the Constitution wholesale and licking the boots of an American oligarchy. Well, it saves them all the trouble of traveling to China or Cuba, or some other socialist hell-hole with universal medical care where jack-booted power stamps on a human face every day, but is a bit rough on the tempers of us responsible strict Constitutionalists. I also wish that the establishment GOP had evidenced more of a spine during 2012 – and at least pretended with more enthusiasm to be something more than the same old go-along-to-get-along gang, pitifully grateful for a turn at the trough now and again. Ah, well – water under the bridge. Go Tea Party, go Wolverines.

The only movie I anticipate seeing in the near future with any relish at all is The Hobbit. I sincerely hope that anyone who has had anything to do with it at all can keep their mouths shut on American political matters and quaint native customs for the foreseeable future – else I shall have to scratch that off my list as well. Yes indeedy, Sgt. Mom has gotten well and truly pissed off with a large segment of the entertainment world lately; even with the ones that I wouldn’t have moved two feet off a rock ledge to see anyway. I am looking at you, Quentin Tarantino.

So – not all that much to look forward to this year … although I have to confess that I do hold on to some hopes that people like Piers Morgan, Matt Lauer and Oliver Stone (to name but a few) may well and truly come to know how most of flyover country holds them in deep contempt, as they are showered every day with rotten eggs and vegetables. Thin comfort, I know – but I take it where I find it.
I suspect that most of my comfort over the next year will be found at home, and among family and friends. Wherever happens in the US over the next twelve months, Texas will very likely be OK. The housing market wasn’t too badly overbuilt, the oil extraction bidness is thriving – and most other kinds of business are doing very well. I’ve managed to pay off some debts and catch up to some of the regular bills. The tiny publishing firm managed to get three new clients at the end of the year, and prospects of more, my sometime-employer – the ranch realtor – has work for me to do most weeks, my books sell in modest yet sufficient numbers. The fallout from the Sweet Meteor o’Death will not land very hard in Texas – but as for the rest of the United States, it’s anyone’s guess. Tough times can’t be avoided … but tough people have at least some hope of outlasting the tough times.

Caput lupinum

27. December 2012 · Comments Off on Caput lupinum · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, Veteran's Affairs · Tags: , , ,

Cynic that I am, I am deriving a great deal of amusement from some of the media-political-general public storms whipped up in the wake of the horribly tragic Newtown shootings, and the deaths of two firefighters in an ambush set by an ex-convict in upstate New York. As if the shootings weren’t horrible and tragic enough in themselves, we get to enjoy the reflexive Kabuki dance of ‘we must ban those horrid gun-things!’ being played out – especially since some of the very loudest voices in this chorus are politicians and celebrities who live with a very high degree of security at their workplaces and homes, and whose children attend rather well-protected schools. Such choruses appear to be completely oblivious to the fact that for many of the ordinary rest of us, poor and middle-class alike, the forces of law and order are not johnny-on-the-spot in the event of an attempted robbery, rape, break-in or home invasion. To rely on the oft-used cliché, when moments count, the police are minutes away. In the case of rural areas in the thinly-populated flyover states law enforcement aid and assistance might be closer to being hours away.
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Looking Ahead

23. December 2012 · Comments Off on Looking Ahead · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, General Nonsense, Local, Pajama Game, Politics, Tea Time, Veteran's Affairs

I’m still fighting the remnants of the Cold From Hell (possibly complicated by an allergy to blowing cedar pollen which hits a lot of people around here) but at least I am starting to feel a little more in the Christmas spirit. Not much more, but at least I am enjoying the Christmas music on the radio, and just last Monday I was inspired to go ahead and sort out the last of the Christmas presents that I wanted to give to some people I am fond of. So, all that is sorted. Our Christmas dinner is sorted also. Blondie will be out doing deliveries for Edible Arrangements until the last minute, so practically everything to do with Christmas was done in the last day or so.

Which leaves me looking out at next year, and considering what I will do, and what I can do, as the fiscal cliff approaches; no matter how you slice it, 2013 is going to be a bumpy ride. So, in no particular order of importance, I am resolved to – More »

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