The Politics of Fear

18. August 2009 · Comments Off on The Politics of Fear · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Tea Time

Still – like da Blogfaddah – tracking the fall-out from the raucous and rancorous town-hall meetings about Obama-care. It kind of restores ones faith in the general good sense of the mostly-silent middle, knowing that not everyone is paying more attention to American Idol or whatever the current mainstream TV fixation is. Not everyone drank deep of the hopey-changy kool-aid last November, or listened to the siren-voices of our legacy media, who were mostly on their knees with their eyes fixed adoringly on the One. My faith in that old saw about fooling some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but not being able to fool all the people all the time is somewhat restored. Yes, indeedy – people are paying attention, getting involved in political matters and speaking up, just as we were always told to do by our high school civics teachers, and the plummy-voiced media plutocrats at NPR.

Except that what ordinary here-to-fore-uninvolved people are saying isn’t what the Administration and it’s acolytes wanted to hear, and good lord – are they screeching about that! Nazis and KKKers and haters, oh my! Nancy Pelosi looks like she bit into a breakfast taco and discovered half a cockroach in it, and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership aren’t looking any happier. Henry Waxman looks about to die of dyspepsia … say, does he sleep during the day in a sealed coffin half-filled with Transylvanian soil? Just asking – even when he smiles, he still gives me the creeps.

And the legacy media piling on, along with the leftish or Kossack side of the blogosphere, all screeching together like a chorus of howler monkeys: all those rude and inappropriately-dressed people showing up, asking disconcerting questions and getting in the face of those poor, well-intentioned overworked, innocent representatives who are selflessly only doing their best, and are too busy with their exhausting schedule to actually read the damned legislation. Of course, all those pushy people just must be racists, and organized by the health insurance companies, or the Republican Party, or Fox news, they just must be repeating the lies that Rush Limbaugh told them … really, it infuriating but mostly sad to read much of this, and to also know that the people saying it will in the next breath be congratulating themselves on being so intelligent, independent, perceptive and non-judgmental.

Like J.Lawson, who commended on my last post – and I have also tried to disabuse certain of our internet acquaintances of this kind of delusion, but to no avail. There’s this hysterical insistence that what they say must be so, and after a certain point one just kind of gives up. It’s almost as if they are angry, too angry to be reasoned with. After thinking it over a little more, and digesting comments on blogs like Belmont Club and Neo-Necon, I am thinking that a lot of this anger can be chalked up to fear.

Fear of having been made a fool of, fear of having anchored yourself with chains to a doomed piece of legislation, and to a hollow man in a good suit, fear of embarrassment at having to admit that you made a mistake, and even a good chunk of embarrassment at being outflanked by thousands of ordinary citizens using your own tactics against you. There is also fear of being made to apologize to people you have insulted and demeaned, or of having the dirty tricks you used against others being used against you and yours. And what might be the biggest fear of all, with elected officials and the legacy media who do their bidding, especially when it touches on the Tea Parties: that there is no real leader, that the Tea Party is some huge political amoeba, moving at its own pace and in it’s own time. Imagine that – no leader, to be isolated and cut down with ridicule, no central authority to be corrupted or interdicted. There is no one person or power with a collar and a choke-chain exerting control, as if anyone could control a swarm of bees! While some of us made a hobby out of being local gadflies on some issue or other, most Tea Party volunteers weren’t on anyone’s political radar – so here is this large group of people who came out of apparently nowhere, controlled by no one, and accountable only to our own conscience and set of beliefs. That has got to be as scary as hell to politicians and the commentariat who love them.

Myself, I’m having two scoops of schaudenfreude, with a sprinkling of toasted almonds, some whipped cream and a maraschino cherry on top.

The Smell of Napalm…

14. August 2009 · Comments Off on The Smell of Napalm… · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant

Which, according to the deathless line from Apocalypse Now, is loved by the speaking character because it smells of victory … and so am I detecting faint wisps of napalmy odors, now that our elected Congressional aristocrats – at least those of them who have enough nerve to hold an open forum with their constituents – are getting an earful and more from those very constituents. Oh, and the squealing and screeching from oiks like San Fran Nan, and her side-kick Harry-Palms Reid, and their whole amen-chorus in the legacy media is just too rich for words. It’s music to my ears, reading lectures on decorum and civility, the unsuitability of Nazi symbols and imagery, and the evils of –gasp – astroturfing. This from out of the mouths, pens and keyboards of the very people who cheerfully and frequently compared GWB to Hitler, called for his assassination, had no problem with screeching like a cage of howler monkeys at people they had differences with, and over and over again urged us poor ignorant sheeple to get involved, to move ahead politically, and make our voices heard. Double-standards, much?

OK, so an unexpectedly large proportion of the heretofore fairly quiescent and silent middle-of-the road constituency got up to speed, we got involved, organized ourselves and showed up at meetings, demanding answers from our elected aristocrats … and look at where that got us. We scared the ever-loving be-jesus out of a great many local pols who seem to assume they would come home during the break, whip up a quick dog-and-pony show in their home district, bloviate about health-care reform in front of a respectfully submissive audience, and go skipping back to DC having manufactured a pretty little box of consent, all tied up with a tasteful, rainbow ribbon. Whoops – talk about walking into a buzz-saw. Hey, Mr or Ms Congressperson, put town the cellphone, and talk to us – and answer the question! I think about now, most of them would rather put naked in a barrel with a dozen rabid weasels and rolled down hill than take the chance on that … especially since a lot of town-hall attendees are showing up with cameras. Which brings up the old saw about being careful what you ask for, as you may get it. And the other one, about not asking the question, if you don’t want to really hear the answer.

But there has developed somewhat of a down-side to all this. Perfectly ordinary Americans of all ages and political persuasions, exercising their rights as citizens are now are denounced and ridiculed as deranged, ignorant kooks, radical teabaggers, as closet Nazis, puppets of the health-insurance complex and I don’t know what else all, by much of the media and a lot of the so-called intellectual set. I haven’t the nerve, the stomach, or a pair of hip-waders to go venture into Kossack country, or the Huffington Post – just checking out the front page and a couple of links on Open Salon during the last couple of days was enough for me.

Yeah, I post at Open Salon; I have a good few blog-friends over there, as they are not all a raving collection of left-wingers. In fact, many of them are literate, amusing, fairly sane, are excellent and polished writers, and have the excellent good taste to appreciate my own stuff, not that I do much of the in-your-face political stuff there anyway. There was sudden flurry of “OMG-those awful teabaggers are destroying everything that’s good and fair” posts. I went into one comment thread, trying to break it gently to the author of the post that no, the Tea Party that I am associated with is all volunteer, and few of us had ever been politically active in anything much above a church council, that we are funded by donations and our own work, that it doesn’t cost that much to set up a website, or host it either, that we weren’t being directed by anyone but ourselves, or programmed by some sort of mind-control beam directed from Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. To no avail – she eventually wound up calling me clueless or a liar and closing the comment threat. I’m afraid that her mind was already made up – there was no point in confusing her with facts straight from a witness with first-hand knowledge.

So, yeah, it’s a bit insulting to be personally called names over this, but there is the light of a faint, guiding star, an Erandil, shining in the darkness – and that is, that we may be turning the tide. We might be on the verge of winning, now that so many ordinary people; old and young, working class and bourgeoisie, libertarians and former Democrats, veterans and college professors are looking at the situation, and getting pissed-off, and insulted, first by our elected aristocracy, and then by a partisan media throwing every scrap of garbage that they can. Way to win friends and influence people, President O, your administration, your friends in Congress, and your house-trained media organs – you’ve stepped right in it now. I don’t know when or how soon victory will come – but it will be sweet, and not a moment before time.

(Later … sigh … comments on this post are frelled because I put punctuation in the title. Reader JL sent the following comment to email, and I thought it so relevant, that I am pasting it in:

I’ve noticed the same thing you’ve noticed about massive, MASSIVE denial
on the left. I left some comments about what I observed at a recent
visit to an ER when my mother fell and hurt (thankfully, not fractured)
her hip – there were two people who passed through the other side of the
bay while we were there who had no insurance, but were given care.

That I wasn’t believed would be putting it very mildly. They simply
cannot believe that their view of the world may be in error – no matter
what evidence is shoved in their face. Even the existence of my mother
was called into question – and this on a ‘feminist’ blog.

(The left is kind, compassionate, and caring. It says so on the label.
Package contents may vary considerably from label descriptions.)

I wasn’t saying the right things – therefore I HAD to be lying, trying
to deceive them. But why? Why would THEY think they were so important
that someone would bother coming on the blog to try to hoax ’em?

I finally found a good description of what’s going on with some of the
more rabid left – it seems to be a combination of paranoia and
projection. Dr. Sanity (she used to work with NASA, btw) has an
interesting post on it here It’s a long one, but worth the time to read.

There has been a series of bizarre conspiracy theories emanating
from anxious leftists for the past 8+ years as they have desperately
attempted to keep the holes in their ideology plugged; and thus
preventing any **reality** from washing over them or flooding their
cognitive processes.

Every time a leak in that ideological dike appears, the
postmodern-progressive-paranoid chewing gum is brought out to plug
it up. The TNG memos were a clever plot by Karl Rove. The Bush
Administration was behind 9/11; Katrina was allowed to destroy New
Orleans because Bush hates blacks. George Bush is about to impose a
theocracy on the unsuspecting U.S. Pat Tillman was murdered because
he wanted to meet with anti-war activist Norm Chomsky. Sarah Palin
is not the mother of Trig and faked her pregnancy. The list of the
paranoid delusions goes on and on and on.

Taken as a whole, they are evidence of an ongoing and determined
refusal to face reality–because it is a reality that threatens the
belief systm of a very large section of the American population.
Without the delusions and conspiracies concocted by the always
creative political left, their whole house of Marxist cards will
come crumbling down.

Some have said that Unwillingness To Face Reality And Its
Consequences is the most serious mental illness of our time; and that is most
certainly true.

The post I referred to on the liberal blog is here – my
posting name was JLawson. I’ve tried posting a couple of other times
there, but my comments disappear in moderation. Oh well.

The left do not want to see that they’re not what they think they are,
or that their ideas aren’t as good as they believe them to be. They
prefer to believe that government’s got a whoppin’ big credit card, and
they can spend as freely as they want without ever having to pay
anything. They prefer to believe that anyone who DOESN’T believe as
they do is evil – not just wrong, or mistaken, or simply offering a
different opinion – they’re EVIL with a capital EV. And sadly, all too
many of them have made their way into our elected aristocracy – and with
their elevation to that lofty position believe that suddenly they’re
beyond their responsibilities to those who put them there.

So, like you, I’m VERY encouraged by the Tea Party phenomena. You’re
right – they ARE scared about it – and if they weren’t they wouldn’t be
trying so blasted hard to discredit them. Same thing with the town hall
meetings – you don’t go through the time and effort and expense to
coordinate and transport your people to block out folks who you think
are being ineffectual – you allocate your resources to take care of a
perceived threat – and the more resources you allocate are a significant
indication of how seriously you take the threat.

The left is scared. Of the right, to be sure – but I think also
somewhat of their own freedom. With no one to basically tell them ‘No’,
what they’re doing now, unfettered, is what they’ve wanted to do for
decades. The results are not what they were hoping, but they have no
ideas other than what they’ve dreamed of for years, so they’ll press on
no matter the cost. But people simply won’t stand by and be silent.
The left realizes they’re waking up the folks they’d rather keep asleep
– but there’s no way to stop it. All they can do is hope for the middle
and right to hit the snooze alarm one more time…

Because if we really wake up – they’re screwed as far as a social
movement goes.

Good luck, and keep up sounding the alarm!

JL

Memo: The Coming Tsunami

10. August 2009 · Comments Off on Memo: The Coming Tsunami · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Rant

To: Various
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Current Events WRT Tea Parties and Town Meetings

1 – Madam Speaker “San Fran Nan” Pelosi – The kindest way to account for seeing swastikas being carried by members of the crowds at various so-called open town meetings may be that too much botox numbs mental processes as well as facial tissue. That, or you were mixing up Nazi emblems with people who had actually fought Nazis. Or perhaps you were having flashbacks to anti-Bush demonstrations. Or that the signage compared the administration’s proposed health care plan to the Nazis. In any case, Madam, you are suffering from an irony deficiency.

2 – For Whom It May Concern – (Which seems to be much of the domestic legacy-media commentariat, as well as the current administration, and the leadership of the Democrat party) For the thousandth time, no; no one is paying any of us in the San Antonio Tea Party for our activities. Nope, not a penny. We are all volunteers, and all of us have taken time from our real jobs to educate ourselves and others, to plan and organize events and protests, and to stand on the streets with our charmingly individual and hand-made signs. There is no right-wing avatar of George Soros playing Daddy Money-Bags. And if there is, perchance, can you tell me where to file my time-sheets for my hours since about mid-March? Thanks.

3 – And Also for Whom It May Concern, Most Especially Including Janeanne Garafolo –
(Janeanne, you lying slut … sorry, flashback to SNL, back when it was funny) It is not about having a so-called black man in the white house. Frankly, the color of his skin doesn’t seem to particularly bother anyone I’ve had communication with in the last few months, either online or in the so-called real world. It’s more the content of his character, his public statements and actions, his origins in the Chicago Political Machine (than which there is probably no equal for naked corruption) the relative thinness of the resume, and the inexperience at anything but community organizing. I have to say he’s been a genius at organizing my particular community, so mad props for all that. It’s just that the community didn’t turn out to be organized in quite the way or to the degree that his administration and his starry-eyed fans probably intended. Hey, life is full of these little disappointments. (Say, Miss G. – can you wash your hair for your next media interview, and maybe put on a long-sleeved shirt? The tats and the oily locks do nothing for your appearance, and frankly, it probably revolts other people besides me.)

4 – Various Television Commentators – You know who you are, all of you sniggering over using the phrase “teabagger” in reference to Tea Party protests and events. Newsflash – doing a Beavis-And-Butt-At-A-Frat-Party on nationally broadcast news or commentary programs is not all that funny. To the grownups watching it, if any; increasingly, fewer and fewer of us are.

5 – To the Obama White House – About that email address to report “fishy” conversations and emails going around between neighbors and friends? I’d make a joke about the Fish Police, but asking citizens to inform on each other is just a tad too far. Enjoy the deluge of emails and faxes though – and I have already denounced myself. I may go back and do it a couple of times more. How much more will your server be able to handle by the time everyone gets to work on Monday is anyone’s guess, but I hope to see amusing speculation in the comment section.

6 – To the Service Employee International Union – Texas has a widely popular and widely-exercised concealed carry law, so roughing up on Texas Tea Partiers who have attracted your ire at any future events, protests and town hall meetings may have interesting consequences. No threat – just an observation.

7 – To our locally elected officials – Yes, as a matter of fact, we are having fun playing “Where’s Waldo” with y’all, in finding out where you will be holding your events, and getting out the word to your constituents … that is the ones not carefully picked by your office to attend. Look, we know all about how consent is manufactured, tastefully gift-wrapped and tied up in a pretty pink bow. You want to go back to Washington at the end of the recess and tell everyone there you had a town hall meeting with your constituents and they’re all on board with Obamacare, yessir, yessir, three bags full … but it’s fairly clear that after recent meet ‘n’greets you’d rather be stark-naked in a small room full of giant scorpions than actually meet with real, live, concerned constituents and make a calm, rational case for Obamacare. Have a fun recess – we’ll be seeing you in Washington on September 12.

Sincerely,
Sgt. Mom

PS – Are there any sane Democrats in Congress at all? Anyone who can see that insulting and dismissing at least half the electorate as unpatriotic and ill-informed is to be pouring gasoline on a bonfire, and adding a couple of buckets of C4, just to make sure? Seriously, isn’t there one sensible Democrat, standing back, shaking his head and saying, “Umm … that is so NOT a good idea.” I’d like to know his or her name – really.

A Set of New Wheels

08. August 2009 · Comments Off on A Set of New Wheels · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Memoir

So it turned out to be fairly painless, finding a sensibly-priced and in good-condition automobile to replace the VEV – which served long, perhaps longer than a good few people close to me, such as my father and daughter felt altogether comfortable with, especially as the frequency of unexpected auto malfunctions leaving me stranded by the roadside had begun to increase. Well, really – I could do the math. The VEV is a 35-year old car, with better than 200,000 miles on it, about the oldest Volvo that my local garage maintained, necessary replacement parts were getting rarer and harder to find – jeeze, even finding a replacement light bulb for the side running light at Riley’s or AutoZone was a flat impossibility, thank god I had a very aged packet of them buried in the bottom of the glove-box. So I considered that the VEV had crossed over the line from “reliable, comfortable, daily transportation” into the category of “classic automobile, carefully maintained and occasionally taken out to drive short distances mostly to show off its very special classic-ness”. Alas, not being well-paid enough from book royalties to keep and maintain that sort of car, it was time (well past time, to hear my daughter Blondie tell it) to move on. I put the VEV on EBay, where it has excited some interest and an acceptable bid from a buyer … and last week I consulted Craigslist and went the rounds of some private sellers, a couple of used car lots and finally wound up with a well-kept 1990 Acura sedan, henceforth to be called the GG, or the Golden Ghost. It has had only one owner, has much lower mileage than would be expected, was top-of-the-line when new, and everything – including the AC works very well, thank you. I don’t think I’ll ever have an entirely new car of any sort, but a 1990 is a considerable of an improvement on a 1974.

The St.Christopher ikon, which the last owner’s wife glued to the dashboard of the VEV, to keep it safe on the roads in Greece (and over all those miles ever since) has been transferred to the Acura, and with luck, the VEV’s new caretaker will be coming to collect it sometime this weekend.

(Comments still frelled … just send an email to me, if you are moved to comment on this once-every two decade phenomenon of me, getting a newer car.)

L’Affaire Gates

03. August 2009 · Comments Off on L’Affaire Gates · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, World

Well, now that all the gourmet beer has been drunk and all the initial dust has settled, I guess it may be OK for me to venture out of hiding, and as a person of decided pallor, to venture some kind of opinion. May as well, since darned near every other sentient being has, in the last week or so. Kind of comic, watching a distinguished and famous gentleman and possessor of skin of a year-round dark-tan color, as well as a professorship at a prestigious university – and boasting the instant and unreserved support of everyone from the chief of police of his fair city to the President of the US – carrying on as if he was a 1960’s Civil Rights marcher being whomped on by Bull Connor’s cops. So amusing, watching a grown man acting like a wanna-be street badass picking a fight, in the total assurance that the person he is picking the fight with won’t actually dare respond.

And the fact that the policeman in question – like me, a person of pallor, and probably a veteran of forty years’ worth of indoctrinating lectures on tolerance and diversity, and respect, and judging others by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin – behaved professionally throughout, and moreover seems to have the trust, and respect of his colleagues in the force … well, that’s pretty damn amusing, too. Thank god one of the participants in this little fandango acted like a mature, well-adjusted and responsible grownup.

Kind of puts the cherry on the top of the whipped cream on the sundae, how we were going to be all cool and post-racial, once a man who – if you kinda tilted your head sideways, squinted and used some imagination – could reasonably call black … Black with a capitol B, that is. Who is actually the son of a Kenyan bigamist, and a seriously mixed-up white anthropology student, who was raised by white grandparents in Hawaii, and educated at an upper-crust private school and a secession of equally upper-crust universities. He seems to have magically and effortlessly floated up to higher and higher levels in academia, local and national politics, without any exhibiting any notable talents or specific skills, other than that of standing there and looking gorgeous. No, it is perplexing, and the apotheosis of Barry O. brings to mind the crack made about a relatively undistinguished 19th century British politician: “Canning in office is like a fly in amber. Nobody cares about the fly: the only question is “How the hell did he get there?”

No, the current resident of 1600 Pensylvania Avenue is not by any means straight outta Compton, although he has been taken quite to the hearts of many who are, or wish they were, or hoped that other people would think them so. Basically, Ms Dunham-Obama-Soetero’s little boy Barry has the unqualified, unquestioning and enthusiastic support of 97% of that segment of the American public defined as black or Afro-American, or whatever the hell the current racial designator is. And that may be the soil from which the poisoned tree grows, and where the problem begins, when considering L’Affaire Gates. I can’t say it’s never been a problem for elected officials who came out of various ethnic minority groups, to think of the welfare of their own groups first, and then of the wider constituency . Human nature works that way; mostly you are drawn to, and have much more in common with people who have the same background, the same values and pretty much the same experiences. But in the military I know – and in politics I would hope – that in order to best serve the nation, it is one’s duty to transcend that. It’s been a given in the military for at least the last three decades and more, that there is no black or brown, or yellow or white – there is just Army green, Air Force blue, Navy/Marine whatever. It has to be that way for the military, and it may come to having to be that way for our presidents, legislators and judiciary.
See, there are people who do a job, and do it either well or not so well, and who just incidentally are black, or Hispanic or whatever. Whatever their color or ethnicity is … it’s just an aspect of them, not at the center of their being. Where you get into dangerous waters is when this particular aspect is at the center of all, for certain politicians and activists. That’s the core of their character, the center of their self-image, it’s bread and butter, meat and drink – they could no more set aside that aspect than they could chop off a limb or two. A long time ago, when Jesse Jackson wasn’t half the philandering self-parody that he appears to be today, he conceived the bright idea to run for higher office than just all around racial busy-body. And I thought at the time – no, it would never work.

He is Black, with a capitol B, not black with a small-b, like then-Los Angeles Mayor (and former police officer turned lawyer) Tom Bradley. Say whatever you liked about Mayor Bradley, he was a serious and dedicated public official, who went on transcending color for what seemed like forever. You could picture him campaigning for office anywhere, with anyone, while I couldn’t really picture Jesse Jackson kissing white babies with any particular enthusiasm. I think that during the 2008 presidential campaign, that a lot of people – of all races but mostly white – rather hoped that Obama would prove to be an Tom Bradley … and not another professional race-hustling Black-with-a-capital-B-what’s-in-it-for-me-and-mine-sleaze-bag like Al Sharpton.
And that’s the unintended fallout from L’Affaire Gates, you see; that increasing numbers of people of pallor who gave the President the benefit of the doubt, or who just hoped against instinct for the best, are now looking him over and thinking … Nope, just another Al Sharpton, just another racial huckster with a smoother manner, a glossier education, slicker friends and a much more expert tailor. And I have detected fearful speculation here and there in the small tidepools at the edge of the great sea that is the blogosphere, that if the Yes We Can-man really, really karks up the office of the POTUS and by extension the rest of the United States – our economy, our medical care, our employment and subsequent electoral and judicial processes, it will be a cold day in hell before another person of color of his particular perceived ilk, either with a capital B or without, would ever be considered. No, very few people will ever be so crude and racist to come out and say so, up front – we’ve all had thirty years of lectures on that very subject from the properly accredited diversity experts on what is acceptable to say and do WRT to race, in the arena outside of our own thoughts and our private circles. Nope – it would never be overt, in public and out there. But I know the thought is out there. And I also know the threat of being called a racist for saying so is getting pretty damn hollow.
And here’s another uncomfortable thought – if the Black with a capital-B, post-racial, Yes-We-Can-man goes down, who goes down with him? Legacy media? Possibly, unless they can shift gears fast enough. And the Black-with-a-capital B support system, all those celebrities, activists, intellectuals like the thin-skinned Professor Gates? All of those who cling to solidarity with someone whose skin-color is somewhat like theirs, regardless of the content of character, or the results of his policies? That is an interesting thought, isn’t it?

(Comments seem to be frelled at the moment – but have a go. If you can’t post comments send me an email, and I’ll post them at the bottom of this post.)

Later – Comments still hosed: Danny H. sent me the following comment – Hiya Sarge. comments seem to be hosed so just wanted to let you know that was some great commentary. Thanks

Time for Letting Go

29. July 2009 · Comments Off on Time for Letting Go · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Local, Memoir

So, it’s come down to this – I have to let go of the Very Elderly Volvo, AKA “The Pumpkin” which I bought from another NCO at EBS-Hellenikon early in 1982. It is a 1975 242 Volvo two-door sedan, which I drove all over Greece and Spain, across Europe and up and down the IH-15 between Southern California and Utah too many times to count, to Albuquerque and back, and from San Diego to San Antonio when we first came to Texas. I’ve had it fixed in five European countries and four Western states, but it is now at the end of it’s reliable life. There are two many little things wrong with it now, things that make it harder to drive, things that I can’t afford to fix, and every essay out of the neighborhood with it was a nerve-wracking experience, both for me, and for Blondie waiting nervously at home. Eventually, and as my daughter repeated pointed out, the likelihood that the VEV would break down in a bad spot, resulting in a degree of personal danger to me had increased dramatically. People had always been kind and helpful, during these incidents, but I really couldn’t go on trusting in Providence and the kindness of strangers for much longer. This had the result of limiting driving the VEV to within city limits – no long road trips, and then to within the radius of a AAA tow to my favored garage. This orbit gradually narrowed – only to the Hellhole job and back, and then one night I had an awful time getting it started. I began borrowing Blondie’s Montero for trips to work, and finally just left the VEV in the driveway, not even risking driving it within the neighborhood. And that essentially negates the whole purpose of having a car, never daring to take it out of the driveway. I had hoped that by this time I might be able to afford to have it rehabbed and made mechanically reliable – and although sales of both Adelsverein and To Truckee’s Trail are gratifyingly steady, neither of them are nowhere near #1 on Amazon.com (More like #100,000, give or take a couple of thousand – nice, but nothing enabling me to quit one of the day jobs.)

So, we’re going to put it up for sale, with the trunkful of spare parts included, in hopes of attracting the interest of someone with a mad passion for re-habbing classic Volvo sedans. I know they are out there, and it may take a bit, with the combined mighty second-hand sales organs of E-Bay and Craigslist. Knowing that Blondie and I were essentially sharing one car, and that our schedules would be completely incompatible, once she goes back to school this fall, Dad offered to straight-up buy me a car last weekend. He specified a budget that he was OK with, and suggested a 90’s Honda Accord with about 150,000 miles on it, as being tops for ease of maintenance and reliability, and old enough to be affordable. So, over the last two days, I ran a fine-toothed comb over all the Craigslist ads in San Antonio offering Honda Accords, and made the discouraging discovery that Dad’s target sales price of $2,000 pretty much limited to me to something not much more reliable than the VEV, and anything less than that was truly a beater. $5,000 seemed to be the going rate for what I really needed, and one dealer advised us that if I located any Accords on the market in decent condition and in good repair for less than that, to jump on it at once. We had actually found one – owned by an elderly lady who’s son was selling it, as she was unable to drive any more. It had high mileage, and needed a new compressor, but was in excellent condition otherwise, and had only the one owner – but as the car dealer had warned, that sold twenty minutes before we were to take a look at it.
Dad and I have settled on a low-mileage 91’ Acura sedan, at a price of a little less than $3,000, through the good offices of a dealer on O’Connor Road. Why we had to drive all over town, before finding the perfect car a mere hop-skip-and-jump from the house is just another one of the ironies. It’s sort of a pale gold color, was high-end with all the bells and whistles when new, the interior features buff-colored leather upholstery (somewhat worn, admittedly) and the exterior is pristine – no dings, dents or scratches. It seems to have had only one owner, who took excellent care of it. I test-drove it yesterday – it has a very smooth ride, turns on a dime, feels much more solid, and the AC works, too.

So, I shall have it by the end of the week, most likely – and perhaps I will feel better about emptying out all the stuff on the VEV – the maps in the glove-box, the odd things in the trunk, washing off the dust and the bird-crap, and taking some pictures of it to appeal to the auto-restorer who will – with luck, decide that he or she wants it for their next project.

Time for letting go. Of everything about the VEV, but the Greek medallion of St. Christopher on the dashboard, which the Greek wife of the guy I bought it from all this time ago stuck there. That goes onto the Acura – it did a good job for thirty years, and should be good for thirty more.

What Sgt. Mom Did on Her Summer Holiday

27. July 2009 · Comments Off on What Sgt. Mom Did on Her Summer Holiday · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Literary Good Stuff, Working In A Salt Mine...

I went on a road trip to Fredericksburg on Thursday afternoon. It’s about an hour and a bit, driving north on IH-10 as far as Comfort, and then another jaunt down a side road up and downhill to Fredericksburg. A lot of Main Street is pretty much tourist attraction – and local residents laughingly confess that they try and avoid Main Street on weekends – and in fact, all the shops that they personally shop at are anywhere else than Main Street, or at least, that stretch of it for about four blocks either side of the Marketplatz. I have noticed that the only mercantile establishment stocking items that ordinary, non-tourist shoppers might have a need for is the old 5 & 10. Which didn’t have AA batteries – but that’s a minor point. My daughter’s camera did have enough juice for Thursday afternoon and evening, when I had a signing at the Pioneer Museum. This would be the second event that Richard Bristol, the director, has set up for me – the first being in January, when I had just launched the Adelsverein Trilogy. Although two of his ancestors (one on the paternal, and another on the maternal side) are mentioned in the Trilogy – he still hasn’t had the time to read it. He is taking his own copies of the Trilogy on his vacation, a cruise to Alaska, and plans to read all three books then. When he has time. A museum director’s job is never done. Blondie tried to talk him into adopting Rossi, one of our resident rescued cats, who- from the way he makes nice to male visitors – was a man’s cat. No luck – but we’re kind of fond of Rossi, anyway.

The museum volunteers’ dinner was in the old Methodist Church parish hall: the Historical Society offices are in the facility – and the sanctuary is now available for weddings. Otherwise, it’s all part of the Pioneer Museum grounds. I’ve done a talk there before – and it’s a church parish hall, which is the sort of place which is comfortable and familiar to me. There were about fifty people there; much the largest crowd I’ve given a book talk to. Dinner was terrifically good – catered by a local small firm: Blondie wishes she had the chutney recipe for the grilled pork skewers. I asked one of the ladies to take me around and introduce me to everyone: one of the awkward things about this ‘guest author/stranger’ things is that people are hesitant to come up and talk to you: so best ask someone else to take you around and break the ice. It turns out that about half the people present had read the Trilogy – which was wonderful for me, since most of them liked it very much. Kenn Knopp, who is a local historian and member of the Historical Society – and had read the Trilogy in manuscript – did an introduction. I had been referred to him by David and Jenny at Berkman Books, yea these many months ago, as the local history expert. I was nervous about the Civil War portion of the Trilogy, and wanted to have someone who was pretty much immersed in local history, have a read-through. He confessed at first that he was pretty unenthused about the whole prospect of reading a MS by a relatively unknown author – and moreover, one that ran to about the same word-count as Lord of the Rings – but he was won over within a very short time. After my father, Kenn is about my biggest fan; he is sure that I was inspired and guided by something divine – I insist that if anything, I was guided by the San Antonio Public Library, which provided me on loan with about every book I needed for research purposes.

And we spent that night at a wonderful local bed and breakfast, thanks to the hospitality of the owners. It’s out in the country a little away from Fredericksburg – and that evening we looked out at a little scrub-wood covered valley while sitting on the porch, enjoying a tasty adult beverage. The B & B was actually a little self-contained cottage, with a bedroom, and well-stocked little kitchen and full bath.

And then we were off for a full day of sightseeing. We checked out a parish rummage sale, where my daughter rejoiced that she was finally able to afford to buy antiques in Fredericksburg. (She spent a whole $2.00 at the rummage sale in the parish hall of St. Mary’s Catholic Church) and I regretted that I couldn’t afford to go much higher than $30 on a silent auction for an antique low-post bed. But we did talk up it’s many fine details to another woman – hand-made, the footboard and headboard were elaborately curved and out of a single wide plank, and it really wouldn’t cost all that much for slats to rest a mattress on, and to have a futon-mattress made in 3/4 size. I think we talked her into it, for it was a very nice bed, and she would give it a good home.

Then we went off for a tour of a local cemetery, and the old and new St. Mary’s church buildings. The old St. Mary’s was finished during the Civil War – a sort of agreeable, unadorned neo-Gothic building. No one can put a name to the architect, or even if there was one. Apparently, the parishioners just picked up their tools and built it. The new St.Mary’s is right next door. The newer building is still 100 years old, and beautifully painted – IIRC the inscription over center arch, with Christ enthroned, means “I am the bread of life”. The windows are all stained glass, and very ornate. Strictly speaking, the windows are not really stained glass, with every separate color cut out of a pice of colored glass and pieced together with lead canes – this is glass which is painted in small panels and then assembled together. My mother informs me that this is nearly as difficult as true stained glass. This is the kind of church glass that I knew from growing up. Very nice to look at, during very long and dull sermons.

We were treated to lunch at the Peach Tree… and by late afternoon, the dreaded author’s table for the book event at Berkman Books was calling. But the signing worked out very well, for there were other authors there to talk to, and a constant stream of shoppers in and out of Berkman Books. (They’re having a sale, BTW.) One of my nicest conversations was with a nice gentleman who read the Trilogy on loan from the Harper Library, on the recommendation of the librarian – and he liked it so much, he wanted his own copies. Yes!

And, as expected, my daughter made friends with Emily the Berkman Books cat… all in all, a nice experience. About the only thing they didn’t do for me was a key to the city!

Road Trip!

23. July 2009 · Comments Off on Road Trip! · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Literary Good Stuff, Working In A Salt Mine...

Off to Fredericksburg, in another two hours, as soon as I finish packing, water the plants, put out food for the dogs, put out food for the cats, post one last book review, make the bed, clean up the cat-puke, draft a Tea Party mass-email and print up some more marketing material for the Adelsverein Trilogy…

Event at the Pioneer Museum this afternoon – book signing. Tonight, speaking at the Museum Volunteer’s dinner. Tomorrow, a joint IAG author event at Berkman Books, all the way down at the other end of Main.

(Must remember camera….)

All the News

18. July 2009 · Comments Off on All the News · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, Tea Time

… that’s fit to ignore in the desperate hope that it will go away. So here there was a big Tea Party push on yesterday, to have moderate numbers of Tea Party protesters show up in the street at the local offices of every elected federal official in the land at around midday. Not an inconsiderable effort, considering that it was nationwide, in the middle of a working day, and that most of the people making that effort – at least those of us in San Antonio – have day jobs. Perhaps the hours are flexible, or maybe not – but we all have day jobs. And there were no less than five offices in Greater San Antonio to cover, but we had enough people to send to every one, no need to make a progressive protest from one to one to another. Me, I went to Charlie Gonzalez’ office, in the Federal Building on Durango; it’s my second protest there. At this rate, the policemen routinely on duty there are getting to be old pals with the Tea Partiers. I met about thirty other people there, nice assortment of ages, good mixture of Anglo and Hispanic, including one lady who came with her sister, visiting from out of town who wanted to get in on the Party, and her school-aged daughter. She abominates Charlie Gonzalez, by the way – she has communicated quite often with his office, and received nothing for her pains but mealy-mouthed evasion in print.

So, gather with the flags and signs, stay on the sidewalk and in the shade as much as possible, the guy who organized it had thought to bring a cooler with ice and individual water bottles, and five of us went in to present our petition and a list of questions to the staff in his office. The good Congress-critter was not there, of course. I have to say that although his staff really couldn’t answer any of the questions – the office-manager elected to deal with us had that barely-veiled panicky expression of someone without any real authority or guidance shoved out in front to deal with an unexpected development, and kept referring us to his Washington staff for answers. They were at least courteous and polite. We were not received as the Tea Partiers in St. Louis, where Senator Claire McCaskill’s office staff rolled down the blinds, locked the doors and called the cops — way to treat constituents, people.

(I guaran-damn-tee that every one of those people, their family members, friends and neighbors will remember how they were treated, when election time rolls around, Senator. Word to the wise, and better have a nice sit-down come-to-Jesus talk with your office staff, too)

We fielded about the same numbers to the other federally elected official’s offices in San Antonio– that of John Cornyn, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Ciro Rogriguez and Henry Cuellar. From a quick scan of reports and updates on Da Blogfaddah, that looks about par, for protests all across the countryside; mainstream big media news is absent – bizarrely so, considering the cumulative numbers of people, and the numbers of events. Last night, elements of the SA Tea Party was burning up the e-mail, trying to figure out why there was no coverage; not at any one of our events. Nada, zip, zilch, although I had sent out three different releases over the three days before the protest: I know that they were received, and I know that we have gotten coverage before; I had a call from the Spanish-language channel, Univision almost immediately, and someone from KENS 5 called on Thursday morning, who didn’t leave a message and never called back. Perhaps this reporter – about the only newspaper reporter I could find through the miracle of google might have the right explanation of this curious turn of events.

Or, on the other hand, it could be one of those untouchable things like the l’affaire Swiftboat, of the 2004 Presidential campaign, when John Kerry’s wartime Navy comrades all emerged, almost to a man portraying him as the Frank Burns/Eddie Haskell of the Vietnam era Navy Swiftboat service. That was all over the internet, all over the milblogs, and a matter of most lively discussion, barely a word of which emerged into the mainstream print and broadcast media for months.

Still – exasperating to contemplate: simultaneous grass-roots rallies of ordinary and normally non-activist citizens, all across the country – and nary a word in the traditional media. But let ACORN or Moveon.org belch heavily … and like a cheap plaid suit, the camera crews are all over them instanter.

Thursday Random Assortment

16. July 2009 · Comments Off on Thursday Random Assortment · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Media Matters Not, Military, Politics

(Insert ritual apology for apparent disinterest in providing rich bloggy ice-creamy goodness in the way of posts in the last week. Sorry, blog-fans, beat to a crisp, and not for lack of material. Just … well, beat to a crisp and the necessity of earning a living, mixed in with a greater-than-expected number of duties post 4th of July Tea Party…)

Well, I deduce that the income stream for the Southern Poverty Law Center must be drying up, so a new money well must be drilled, somewhere. Dammit, folks, there must be a rich vein of rampaging white bigots somewhere that we can raise a fresh alarm about! Don’t you people realize, we have offices to support, and salaries to be paid! So after much ado, they find no less than forty saddoes on a white-power website who claim to be members of the US military … well, leaving aside the fact that people on the internet can claim any damned thing they like, forty out of what… something like two million active duty and reservists, doesn’t seem like a threat worthy of a whole new massive fund-drive. Now, if Mr. Dees would like to drill farther down, in his mad search for racial extremists who just happen to be members of the military, and consider members of – oh, I don’t know, La Raza and the Black Muslims spring to mind; he might then find numbers worthy of a full-court-press as far as fund-raising goes. Or maybe not – the military has a way of kicking a lot of racist attitudes out of individuals, a peculiar capability of which Mr. Dees seems to be fairly ignorant.

Speaking of the military, now there’s a push on to ban smoking entirely? Hey, good luck with that. Note – I do not smoke, never did smoke, was never event empted to smoke and the smell of it drives me mad, but seriously, are these nanny-state types picking on G.I. Joe and G.I. Jane just because they can? Ohhh, here’s a captive element we can screw around with for their own good, and because it makes us feel well in control of lesser mortals.

Sarah Palin, resigning from the governorship of Alaska … I dunno, but I don’t think she should be written off as a dead duck, just yet. She drives the elite political/media establishment seriously nucking futz, which is good for the rest of us, pointing and laughing at their spasms of incoherent temper. Leading the Tea Party insurgency? Eh – I don’t think it’s a good idea to pin our homes on one person, one shining leader on a white horse out in front. Seriously, they’re too good a target. I like better the idea of a thousand anonymous leaders, all moving in more or less the same direction. Relentless, swift-moving and unstoppable, too many for the usual media attack machine to concentrate fire upon: We are all Spartacus. No one holds a leash on us, we are beholden to no political combine, the usual political observers have never heard of us in a meaningful way until now. Spartacus – that’s the way to go.

Oh, and if anyone has read the Adelsverein Trilogy, and loved it, can you post a review on Amazon.com? Pretty please? Reviews – even just short ones – generate interest, which generates sales, which move me closer the day that I can quit the hell-hole. (And spend more time working on the next book!) Thanks!

Things that Make me Giggle (090707)

07. July 2009 · Comments Off on Things that Make me Giggle (090707) · Categories: Ain't That America?, General

The reaction to the death of Michael Jackson.  Seriously?  With everything going on in the world, THIS is where our attention is focused?  I know, I know, circus provides distraction when times are tough, but can we find something less creepy?  Also, the hypocrisy of some networks (COUGH–Fox News–COUGH).  They basically crucified the man during the child molestation trial and now “Shep” is all broken up and O’Reilly is concerned about the manner of his death?  And the guy from NBC who said with great gravitas, “Michael Jackson will never die again.”  Wow…that was so…wow.

The sign on the fence of a propane gas business near our house:  “Tank heaven for little grills.”  It cracks me up every time.

The new SyFy show, Warehouse 13.  Decent writing, but come on, how about an effects budget?  Video feedback?  Really?

And while we’re at it.  What’s with the “SyFy” thing?  This is an improvement…how?

When I read about what’s going on in Afghanistan.  Okay, maybe not giggle, chuckle cynically maybe.  Does anyone else remember what happened to the Soviets when they tried to go heavy back in the 80s?   What.  The.  HELL?

“Humanizing” Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  Look, either leave the gays and the lesbians the hell alone, or ban them from serving.  Quit pretending that it’s anything more than a majority of Christians in the military who simply think, “It’s gotta be wrong, it’s in the Bible.”  You know it.  I know it.  Stop pretending.  Stop it.  It’s over.  No one buys the “Good order and discipline.” thing anymore.  We’ve all served with gay and lesbian people.  No one lost their minds over it.  No one started over-decorating the barracks and the girls didn’t all flock to the softball team or start starring in “Girls gone wild.”

Top 40 radio.  There’s just nothing with any substance there.  I’ll give you Black Eyed Peas, but when Michael Jackson is back on the charts with songs from the 80s and 90s, the industry has GOT to be wondering where the new music is.

Al Franken is a U.S. Senator.  Deeply funny, deeply deeply disturbing.

Sarah Palin resigning.  Not funny, kind of sad really.  The poor lady honestly believed that she could make a difference while bucking both the entrenched liberals and Republicans.  I didn’t agree with her on everything, but I really liked her.  She was about the only interesting person in the last election and they destroyed her for it.  I was surprised she didn’t fold up her tent and head home after the Presidential race.  After the beating she and her family took, I’m laughing at the shocked politicos who are wondering, “Why?”

Texas Tea Party

06. July 2009 · Comments Off on Texas Tea Party · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Local, Tea Time

Well, I can’t use the “meanwhile, back at the ranch” line, since I used it for the last post – but the 4th of July Tea party at the Rio Cibolo Ranch went pretty well. We had a crowd of 5,000 turn out, in hundred-degree plus heat, to sit under the trees and in the main pavilion, listening to the bands and to our speakers … oh, dear, it was a long program, and having the opening ceremonies start in the late afternoon – when the heat is at the absolute worst – was not such a bright idea. But we had a lot to go through, and the bands played sets in between times, to break up the solid walls of talk, and everyone sat around drinking cool drinks. The kids played in the shade and ran around doing those kid games, with Frisbees and rode in a tractor-pulled wagon sitting on bales of hay … I think every time I looked beyond the edge of the crowd it was to see that wagon go past, full of kids. I imagine they were taking the kids down to the meadow where a herd of longhorns are pastured … that and the buffalo. Yes, the ranch has a buffalo – and darned as if it doesn’t stand exactly in the same pose as the buffalo on their logo.

I had sort of a press rendezvous point, behind one of the small banquet-halls, with a terrace cantilevered out over the edge of Cibolo Creek, which is fairly deep and looks like pale green jade, at that point. There was a nice breeze, which came just often enough to take the edge off the heat. I spent some of the first part of the party there, with my blog-pal, The Fat Guy, and a crew from Univision – a cameraman and a newscaster, a slender young woman who was the only woman I saw during the whole day with the courage to wear high heels. Otherwise, it was sandals, crocks and tennis. TFG posted his report here, and his pictures here, so you can pretty much get the idea of what the main venue looked like for much of the day. There were three other TV stations there also – the local affiliates of ABC, CBS and Fox, and a writer and cameraman from the Express News – the cameraman took a lovely series of photos –much nicer than anything I could have taken (Link here

Of course, the biggest element in the program was Governor Perry signing off on our “Contract with the Constitution” – a statement of principles, which we would like to present to every elected politician or prospective politician. If they sign off on it – good and well; if not … well, then, that says something. And if they sign off on it, and then don’t keep to it … that says something else. Up until the last minutes, we were under the impression that he would just zoom right in, introduce Marcus Luttrell, sign off on the Contract and zoom out again. He actually stayed for about three hours, some of it in rustic little banquet hall where the VIP dinner was being held, and the rest in the backstage area. When the VIP dinner was over and a lot of the guests were scattering to their seats in front of the stage, Blondie and I went and bought plates of chopped brisket on a bun from the food vendor, and brought them in to eat in the relative coolness of the hall. We sat next to the elderly lady known to us all as Matt’s Mom; Matt is the webmaster for the Tea Party Committee. His Mom comes to all the meetings and events with him. On Matt’s Mom’s other side was Other Matt, the husband of another Committee member who was wearing his 82nd Airborne baseball cap. After a bit, Governor Perry came over, and pulled up a chair opposite and began ragging on Other Matt, the old paratrooper for jumping out of perfectly good airplanes; the Governor had been an Air Force transport pilot, it transpired. So we had quite a frivolous and merry conversation, with Blondie ragging back at him, when he confessed that he had broken a collarbone lately in a bike accident – but not a motorcycle, a mountain bike, and I recommended that he give up on the VIP chicken dinner, and try some of the brisket from the vendor outside. Not quite sure why he glommed on to us, out of the people left in the hall – possibly because we didn’t want to talk politics or ask for a picture.

Anyway, eventually we went outside to the back stage, with bottles and bottles of ice water, and waited everyone’s turn to make their speeches, and the Governor to sign off on the contract. … It turns out that Senator Jeff Wentworth was also there, and also signed off on the Contract, only I was too busy taking pictures. Blondie took a good picture of Evan Sayet, and I took a very nice one of Steve Vaus, with his guitar in hand, waiting to go on at the very last. (With luck, they will be up on the Tea Party website soon.) And then after that, there were fireworks, quite spectacular and very close, appearing just over the top of the main pavilion, and neatly framed by a pair of trees. It was near to a full moon; after sundown the heat slackened until it was just comfortably warm. All in all, I think most people had a wonderful time at the party – the news coverage was good, and the Rio Cibolo people were very pleased. It would be nice to come back every year and do a 4th of July party there; but maybe start later in the day. The heat was so bad, and we both spent so much time running around in it, we were still exhausted on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

02. July 2009 · Comments Off on Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, Local, Tea Time, That's Entertainment!

Plans for the 4th of July Tea Party proceed apace, although mercifully for all concerned, this will not be anything like the Tax Day Tea Party. It won’t be downtown in Alamo Plaza for one, and it won’t be 15-20,000 people, all crammed together in front of a historical building on a warm spring afternoon …. No, no, no no – doing all that again on a Texas July afternoon would be like an open-air Black Hole of Calcutta, as much as that sounds like a contradiction in terms. I was trying to wriggle through the packed crowd in front of the entrance to the Hyatt at about 5:30 on that day. There was no way you could have passed a piece of paper in between the people massed in front of that stage … so just as well that the 4th of July Tea Party will be out in the country. Yes, it will be hot. It’s July in South Texas, it’ll be hot, just like it’s cold in January at the North Pole. Some things just ought not to need saying; they just are.

But the Rio Cibolo Ranch is out in the gentle-rolling country, a little east of that ring-road that marks the farthest outer boundary of San Antonio. In April the meadows around the various venues were green – the Cibolo is a little more of a creek, more like a baby river- and the groves of pecan and oak trees around were thick and shady. There are small gardens all around the two smaller buildings, a horseshoe pitch and an area to play Frisbee golf. The biggest building is a huge pavilion with a stage at one end – we will have a couple of local bands, and Evan Sayet to MC the evening’s speeches: Marcus Luttrell is one of them, and so is Joe The Plumber, he who once was a private citizen who had the temerity to ask The One an impertinent question during a campaign photo-op. He’s been a mini-celebrity ever since; the volunteer who has been organizing the event and who has been talking to him now and again says he is a really amusing person, and does great on the radio.

Doesn’t have quite the eye-ball attraction quotient of Glenn Beck and the Nuge, though – which might be a blessing, since we don’t know where we would have put all the fans and their cars, out among the fields and cows; it’s also proved to be a bit more of a chore, attracting the fickle attention of the big media outlets – such as they are, in San Antonio: most of said attention will come in the last couple of days. The local big-city paper, the Express News is still oohing and ahhing over our new mayor’s intentions to be in the Gay Pride Parade, which will be around midday on the 4th. We have formally invited Hizzonor to the Tea Party, and await his response with considerable anticipation. If he attends, or sends regrets only – it will be amusing for us, either way. I am getting ready to face the media hoards, one more time – so blogging over the weekend will be as light as it has been this week. Sorry – have to save the country, you know. Or the cheerleader, or something like that.

Later PS: Just been informed that Gov. Perry of Texas is coming to our modest little tea party event … so ummm … I may not be able to come up for a breath for the next two days…

A Thought

28. June 2009 · Comments Off on A Thought · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, N. Korea, sarcasm

Supposedly, North Korea is going to shoot a missile towards the Hawaiian Islands on the 4th of July – but with all the mainstream media still going on about Michael Jackson, will anyone ever hear about it?

For Your Amusement And Delectation

21. June 2009 · Comments Off on For Your Amusement And Delectation · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Rant, Reader Mail, The Funny, World

The stupidest, least-convincing and most inept spam/quasi-Nigerian Email ever received by yr Humble Correspondent is pasted in its entirely for your amusement.

And you know what is the scariest part? There are no doubt one or two people who will fall for this. G*d only knows who they voted for in the last election, although I have well-founded suspicions.

Did you authorize Mr Lious parker(Kindly get back to me immediately)
Sunday, June 21, 2009 12:37 PM
From:
“Michael Povey”
Add sender to Contacts
To:
marrymalone14@gmail.com

—
From The Desk Of Impex diplomatic Courier Service.
STORAGE VAULT MANAGER
MR MICHAEL POVEY
BROOKLYN NEW YORK.
PHONE:904-352-7417
FAX: 206-666-3947
DATE:13/06/2009

Attn:

Did you authorize Mr. Louis Henrik who presented document of claim andin
hand(Cash) the storage Dumurage Fees of $5,500.00 purported to have been
signed by you for the release of your Consignment containing your Immunity
Rebuilding Grant of Five million five hundred thousand US Dollars ($5.5)
only, which was made out by United Nations Grant for affected people of the
last Hurricane Kathrine,(London Office) via Cash Payment Consignment
delivery to this storage outfit last week Monday. Why this, because the
Fund Certificate was credited to you,hence this later development of Mr.
Louis Henrik?

Ensure that you do not delay to get back soonest as this calls for urgent
and cogent attention to avoid misappropriation, misconception and
misconstrue in our records. If you did not give any Power of Attorney or
Authorization to the said Mr. Louis Henrik for claim of your Consignment
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Just For Fun

18. June 2009 · Comments Off on Just For Fun · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, Fun and Games, General, sarcasm

I’t been around for a bit, but I thought you all might enjoy the worlds’ shortest slasher flic –

Broadcast Standards

15. June 2009 · Comments Off on Broadcast Standards · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, Rant, sarcasm

Well, far from me to hold off giving another couple of energetic thwacks to the deceased equine, with regard to David Letterman’s tasteless and ill-considered joke about Governor Palin’s daughter (whichever daughter was meant) and a baseball player, but what the heck, now Bill Maher has gotten into the act – apparently aggrieved at how upset a large portion of the people who heard about said tasteless and ill-considered joke have become. Ah, well, that’s what happens when you engage your yap before your mind is in gear.

So – do I think people are overreacting? Meh … maybe they are – it was pretty crude ‘n crass, but stacked up to all the bales of crude n’ crass delivered to Chez Palin, courtesy of our so-called media and intellectual elite over the last eight months, it was a pretty pale effort. But that might be the point – it was the final, absolutely last, penultimate straw. Look, a lot of people in flyover America really liked Sarah Palin, when she sprung up onto the national scene, like Athena stepping out of Zeus’ absolutely splitting headache. So she turned out to be John McCain’s absolutely splitting headache, as well as an opportunity for a lot of the mainline established feminist figures to go eeek! over a woman who turned out to be everything they claimed to have been working for, lo, these last forty years. The monstering of her, and her family, and even the heave-ho from John McCain when it was all over did not go over real well in flyover country … where blue-collar couples work a couple of jobs, and scratch together their education from no-name community colleges and state schools, and where the grandparents look after the children, and going to church on Sunday (not just for weddings and funerals) is pretty much a given. People hunt, and hike, and plant gardens and run for the PTA or the city council, and do a pretty good job at looking after themselves and their communities. And we sat back and watched all that be slimed by the very superior political aristocracy and their sycophants in the old-line media, and god save us, what passes for intellectuals in these degraded days. And no, we did not care for it at all. Not one bit.

And so an aging and unfunny late-night talk host slaps a knowing smirk on his face and delivers a desperately crass and barely humorous line, while his obliging audience of wanna-be hipsters obediently chortle … and some days later he (and his equally knowing and sarcastic friend) is wondering loudly what happened, and why is everyone picking on him, what did he do? It was only a joke, man … don’t you hicks in the sticks have any sense of humor? There is talk of consumers boycotting Late Night Show sponsors, and even a letter or two of complaint filed (with much noisy fanfare to the FCC) and even the National Organization of Women has bestirred themselves to file an angry comment.

OK, Mr. Letterman, I’ll explain it to you in simple terms: no, you did not happen to tread heavily and publicly on your own d**k. Not with that particular joke. You just had the bad luck to be the one among the smirking brigade of so-called comedians who delivered the one single line that crossed the line, that was the absolutely last straw – or even the match that set the whole gasoline-soaked pile of previous straws alight. All that accumulated anger on the part of the public just picked your face to explode in, like one of those joke cigars in an old Three Stooges comedy. It isn’t personal, and it may even not be about that particular joke. It’s just that there’s a lot of suppressed anger in flyover country … you know, from those people outside your cozy little studio and oh-so-hip little world, all those people in Lubbock, or Muncie, or Bakersfield or Peoria. Hey, sport, they watch your show, too – remember? So, they just got fed up about the treatment of Sarah Palin and her family, and your little throwaway gag exploded all that combustible material. Hey, they just picked that joke and you as the chosen scapegoat; could have been any other joke, any other late night host or TV anchor with delusions of adequacy. You just got lucky, and now you are an object lesson, in what happens when you blunder over that line, and just that one little step too far. You must feel so special.

Oh, and say hi to the Dixie Chicks next time you see them.

From the Department of Better Late Than Never

12. June 2009 · Comments Off on From the Department of Better Late Than Never · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, Stupidity, That's Entertainment!

National Organization of Women slaps Letterman on the pee-pee-pipe for a crude joke involving Governor Sarah Palin, her daughter, a Hispanic baseball player and a visit to a baseball game.

Way to go, ladies. About time. I thought you’d take notice … eventually.

Things Happening Too Fast to Count

05. June 2009 · Comments Off on Things Happening Too Fast to Count · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General, Local, Media Matters Not, Politics, Tea Time, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine...

Well, that’s me – life in the fast lane, as it is, what with fifteen hours a week of soul-numbing drudgery at the call center, or as I refer to it “the Hellhole” (all apologies to anyone who now has the earworm from This Is Spinal Tap now firmly stuck in their consciousness for the rest of the day. No really, I live to serve.)

BTW, I can’t see my way to quitting, just yet. As horrendous as working there is – it’s reliable. Unless and until the monthly royalty checks for the Adelsverein Trilogy and Truckee about double and do so on a reliable, month to month basis. I can’t afford to slice up my nasty plastic employee badge and walk away – as tempting as the thought might be. With the economy apparently circling the drain and certain large corporations getting ready to tank worse than the Titanic … well, a regular job, however unpleasant, is not to be sneezed at. And as I keep reminding myself – it’s only fifteen hours a week.

But it’s fifteen hours away from time I can work on Watercress Press stuff – I have a horrendously complicated memoir, two huge binders full of not-very-well-organized pages (typewritten, mercifully) to work on … and now and again I have a mad wish to squeeze out another couple of hours to continue on the next book, or to market the current lot a little more vigorously. I have a book-club meeting in Beeville on Monday, and a pair of events in July in Fredericksburg … but I can’t even begin to think about that because of the most horrendously looming project…

Tea Party Hearty.

The San Antonio 4th of July Tea Party is going to be at the Rio Cibolo Ranch, a little east of town on IH-10 … and all of us who worked on the Tea Party on Tax Day, have been looking around in the last couple of weeks to try and figure out – well, not how could we top it, but at least equal it. Or come close to equaling it, and yes, we have spent hours and evenings in meetings working on this; how to re-organize the website, how to re-do our media efforts, how to reach out to the local media (and grab them by the short-n-curlies), and how to even begin to keep level of events and the proposed legislation that looks to be fair raining down upon us. It looks to be, sometimes, as if there is a sort of legislative hailstorm of laws approaching us – laws considered at every level, laws now in committee, under consideration, or proposed, each one more potentially damaging than the other, each one seemingly carefully crafted to favor someone involved, to the detriment of someone else, each of them with an apparently harmless intent, but with a vicious sting buried within it’s heart. Like that ghastly CPSIA law… where to start? I had the feeling three or four years ago that there was something malign lurking, some deadly danger, but I didn’t think it would be our republic being nibbled to death by ducks, or at least, some ghastly, self-serving political class of elected aristocrats, out to better themselves at the expense of the nation.

Oh, yeah – and the US is not a Muslim nation. Just thought I’d throw that in. Jeese, who is writing and fact-checking the Obaminator’s speeches these days? What desperately awful institute of learning did they pass through – and I use the word in the sense of fecal matter passing through an intestine. Like I am going to sit by and watch my country turned into something like Argentina under Juan Peron, while the old-line media establishment ooohs and ahhhs. Have a nice weekend – think of the musical that will be made of this in a couple of decades.

For Memorial Day

25. May 2009 · Comments Off on For Memorial Day · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Military

JUST A COMMON SOLDIER
(A Soldier Died Today)
by A. Lawrence Vaincourt

He was getting old and paunchy and his hair was falling fast,
And he sat around the Legion, telling stories of the past
Of a war that he had fought in and the deeds that he had done,
In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, every one.

And tho’ sometimes, to his neighbors, his tales became a joke,
All his Legion buddies listened, for they knew whereof he spoke.
But we’ll hear his tales no longer for old Bill has passed away,
And the world’s a little poorer, for a soldier died today.

He will not be mourned by many, just his children and his wife,
For he lived an ordinary and quite uneventful life.
Held a job and raised a family, quietly going his own way,
And the world won’t note his passing, though a soldier died today.

When politicians leave this earth, their bodies lie in state,
While thousands note their passing and proclaim that they were great.
Papers tell their whole life stories, from the time that they were young,
But the passing of a soldier goes unnoticed and unsung.

Is the greatest contribution to the welfare of our land
A guy who breaks his promises and cons his fellow man?
Or the ordinary fellow who, in times of war and strife,
Goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life?

A politician’s stipend and the style in which he lives
Are sometimes disproportionate to the service that he gives.
While the ordinary soldier, who offered up his all,
Is paid off with a medal and perhaps, a pension small.

It’s so easy to forget them for it was so long ago,
That the old Bills of our Country went to battle, but we know
It was not the politicians, with their compromise and ploys,
Who won for us the freedom that our Country now enjoys.

Should you find yourself in danger, with your enemies at hand,
Would you want a politician with his ever-shifting stand?
Or would you prefer a soldier, who has sworn to defend
His home, his kin and Country and would fight until the end?

He was just a common soldier and his ranks are growing thin,
But his presence should remind us we may need his like again.
For when countries are in conflict, then we find the soldier’s part
Is to clean up all the troubles that the politicians start.

If we cannot do him honor while he’s here to hear the praise,
Then at least let’s give him homage at the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,
Our Country is in mourning,
for a soldier died today.

I Thought It Was Your Turn

13. May 2009 · Comments Off on I Thought It Was Your Turn · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Memoir, Military

So, I rather giggled over this link, courtesy of Da Blogfadddah this morning, about a funky breakroom refrigerator, the righteous cleansing of which sent seven people to the hospital, and grossed-out everyone else within smelling range; I’d bet anything that some sort of air intake vent was within or near the area in question, and that was how everyone in the building got to share the experience. That’s how it worked but in a pleasant way, at AFKN-Seoul. Our microwave was directly underneath such, and whenever anyone nuked a bag of popcorn, everyone else in the building would smell it and get hungry; one person would set off a whole chain reaction of other personnel with the serious munchies.

I don’t recall the unit refrigerator there having a serious funk; unless it might have been momentarily generated by the Korean staff’s kimchee box lunches. But bless them all, Miss Radio Yi, Miss TV Yi, Miss Finance Office Yi, Mr. Pak, Yu Mi the Receptionist and all the others, even the Boot Odishi – they were all terrifically fastidious about all that sort of thing. Never any qualms or worries about the AFKN refrigeration, but I couldn’t say the same about the previous unit refrigerator, at Det 8, Hill AFB Combat Camera.

We had a nice little break room there, with a television, and shelves for all the little snack items sold by the unit snack fund; an assortment that was so varied and usually so well-stocked that frequently had people from other units wandering in to buy their candy bars, snack cakes, soft-drinks and bottled ice teas from it. Alas, the refrigerator often fell far below the standard held by the rest of the break room. Well, what can you expect, when there are nearly a hundred people in the unit, counting military and civilians, TDY visitors and all, many of whom bring a lunch and store it in the refrigeration? It is just one of the immutable laws of the universe that leftovers will be forgotten, that healthy bits of fruit will be forgotten in the bins, to grow mushy and disgusting, and that whole colonies of mold will stake out new territories inside plastic containers, and bottles of condiments will be abandoned, far, far after their “best-if-used-by-date”. Eventually, when people passing by in the corridor outside the break room could detect the funk from the refrigerator – which happened about every month or so – someone would be voluntold to sort it out.

This usually translated to posting a notice on the fridge, notifying everyone of the date, warning them if they didn’t remove, they would loose – then arming oneself with a large double-weight trashbag on the chosen day and ruthlessly dumping everything left into it. The refrigerator usually didn’t have much sticky crud stuck to the shelves or bins, so a quick wipe-down with Clorox and hot water usually did the trick, setting up a fairly clean slate until next time.

But on one particular occasion, the reek from the fridge was especially noticeable; it had a sort of grab-around-the-throat-and-squeeze power about it, and was reaching a considerable distance down the central hallway in either direction. Obviously, there was something especially rancid, simmering away in the back forty of the refrigerator – and just by luck, I was the one administering the monthly cleansing. Really, I didn’t find anything much out of line, until I got to a thick plastic zip-lock bag, pushed to the back of one of the lower shelves … and there it was. I knew as soon as I maneuvered it carefully out of the refrigerator and towards my trash bag, swathing it in another couple of layers of plastic, just for good luck.

Before I did that, I called in some witnesses – I wanted to make sure that everyone else saw it as well; an 18-20 inch long whole fish, head, scales, tail and all, gone impressively rotten, but still recognizable, in about a cupful of unspeakably murky fluid. Everyone agreed, looking at it and uneasily at each other, that someone had gone fishing over the weekend, several weeks previously. For some reason, they brought in the fish to the unit – perhaps to present to someone else – and then forgotten it in the break room fridge.

Well, no wonder the smell was so bad, that month, with a dead fish molding away in the back.

It’s That Time Again!

13. May 2009 · Comments Off on It’s That Time Again! · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Literary Good Stuff, Old West

The return of that tall mysterious stranger with the big hat and the jingling spurs – can it be? Yes it is – it’s almost time for

Wild West Monday!

More here, at “The Tainted Archive“: the third one is supposed to be the charm, you know.

Miscellaneous Thoughts and Wanderings

09. May 2009 · Comments Off on Miscellaneous Thoughts and Wanderings · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, Military, sarcasm, Tea Time, Working In A Salt Mine...

The SA Tea Party made the final decision on a venue for our 4th of July bash – the lovely destination ranch, the Rio Cibolo Ranch, which a group of us went to visit last Saturday. I just hope the fields are still as green and lovely in July as they are right now. Well, the property is bounded on two sides by a fairly deep waterway, so I don’t suppose the water bill is as much of a challenge. There is a huge pavilion with a stage, a small arena with stadium seats, and we will probably have a larger stage put up out in the open for our main events. We’ll have live music, games, hayrides… the reading of the Declaration of Independence, and fireworks and all.

At this point, the SA Tea Party is sort of catching their collective breath, still; everything was so focused on the Tax Day event, then with sorting things out for the long hard long-distance pull. And there will be a long, hard pull: there are just too many people that are unhappy with the current administration. We make sick jokes about who the FBI infiltrator is among all the people who come to the open meetings, and wonder how many of us are now on the Homeland Security watchlist … although our security specialist (a retired LAPD officer, with his own consulting firm) has pointed out, with some humor that mostly, the working agents tend to be rather straight-laced conservatives, whose natural sympathies are with us anyway. And a lot of us are military veterans also – so it kind of boggles the mind, thinking of us all being painted as dangerous political activists and radicals. Seriously, if worse came to worse – who would come and arrest us all? Ourselves?

Note to the alphabet networks – I am looking at you, CNN – not many people outside a certain milieu were familiar with the term “tea-bagging” three weeks ago. Look, if you are going to insult and denigrate a wide swath of your public, it would help to use a term of abuse that people didn’t have to go look up a definition for. Oh, and I found this little gem courtesy of a google-search at Huffington Post

Oh, my – what delicate little flowers they are, at the Huff-Po – was that truly the worst they could find? When I think of some of the signs referencing GWB that were featured here and there at Huff-Po approved protests, I can’t help shaking my head. Poor babies – it must have been a considerable shock, finding out that so very many of the unwashed are somewhat less than totally enamored of the One. Who was the blogger who used the tag line “Did I hurt your feewings? Good!” – I can’t remember if it was Acidman or Kim du Toit.

Speaking of the One – who else besides me is pretty tired of seeing his face, or Michelle’s face all over every damned magazine on the supermarket check-out stand news-racks? It’s been three months now – are they just doing an Oprah on us? The same face on the cover of every issue. It’s worse than Tiger Beat in the days of the British invasion – it’s like Pravda, with the bright’n’shiny happy face of the Leader and his coterie on the front page and on all the covers, and in the newsreels, while the kulaks are being ground down and starved into submission, the workers are taking over the factories and running them into the ground, and the professional middle class are threatened with being gutted and reduced to camping out in a few rooms of their McMansion, cooking over a fire of sticks in the middle of the room. And I am sitting here, in front of my computer, saying “Well, gosh-darn it, you knew he was a product of Chicago machine politics for chrissakes – what the frack else did you expect?”

Oh, and I still hate my call-center job, by the way. Still can’t count on the income stream from the books to the point where I can quit it, though.

Riding the Wave – Tax Day Tea Party Wrap Up

03. May 2009 · Comments Off on Riding the Wave – Tax Day Tea Party Wrap Up · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Tea Time

Those of us on the Tea Party planning committee knew it was going to be huge, even if attendance at it only met the minimum SWAG (semi-scientific wild-ass guess) – which early on, we set at four or five thousand, if it didn’t rain and with no celebrities. We had an RSVP meter on our website, which eventually topped out at nine thousand planning to attend. At the final executive meeting, Easter Saturday, we agreed to go ahead and secure an overflow site on Hemisfair Plaza. At some point, to be left to the SAPD on-scene, we would start directing partiers there. We had made arrangements for portapotties and a jumbotron or two, but pretty much forgot about it in the press of everything happening in Alamo Plaza. Our bad – when we compared notes afterwards, none of us had been able to make our way over there; I sure as heck didn’t have the time on Tea Party Day.

Monday and Tuesday, after Easter was just flat-out insane; I think I did a call-in to most of the radio morning shows, with updates about what was happening. I did venture over to the public radio station where I used to work, otherwise it was phone-in. And three print media interviews… and it’s all a bit of a blurr now, but on one day I had three stand-ups for local news – for which they were all so eager that they hied over to the house to do a stand-up in the garden. Well, too of them did, KENS-5 set up in the street; the neighbors were curious, I am sure, but too well-mannered to come over and ask what the heck. And one of the cats yacked up on KSAT-12’s extension cord. (At least, I hope it was cat vomit, and not from the other end…)

There were so many more things that we could have organized, so many more people we might have brought into it – but it happened so fast, especially over the last four days that we had barely enough time to make an immediate decision and move on to the next three or four items screaming for attention. I still have a list of things screaming for attention at a slightly lesser decibel level, such as a pair of very apt cartoons, done up as posters, which we used for the media center, and for which I still owe a thank-you email… it just never stops. Apparently I am a political activist now. Or as Robin and the others keep pointing out – community organizers.

I knew it was going to be a long day when we headed downtown, and heard an update on the Tea Party on the car radio… which brings me neatly back to where I started this epic, with a walk-through of Alamo Plaza, and helping to assemble the media badges, at desk in the Menger Hotel lobby. I walked back to the Emily Morgan with a thick handful of them, held by their elastic leashes, set up to hand them out at 2 PM to the anticipated descending media hordes. It was about noon by the time I finished with that, so I went with one of the photogs to grab a hot sandwich and fries at a funky little restaurant on the Plaza, just across from the Menger where all the important celebs, VIPs and members of the committee were probably eating something a lot more higher end, culinary-speaking. Back to the Emily after we were finished – the Plaza was even more crowded, and I could hear amplified music, an electric guitar and wild applause. It seemed that they were testing the sound system, with Ted Nugent’s assistance – he was out there, goofing around, even though it was still only mid-day, the streets weren’t even blocked off. It was getting crowded, too – one hour to go until the media people came to pick up their passes, two to the press conference, three until the start of Glenn Beck’s broadcast, five until our own event.

There was a crowded room for the presser – just Robin, and Eric G. and I on one side of the table, and a room full of press, cameras and laptops on the other. I think we may have run out of chairs, for the first five minutes or so, until the major TV media reps got the couple of seconds they needed, folded up their tripods, bagged up their gear and left. No surprises among the questions, pretty much what we had expected. Robin expounded on the almost-by-now-standard accusation that the Tea Parties are astro-turf; a false front for some shady corporate or political party. No, calmly and rationally, one more time – none of us were ever politically active before, all of us have day jobs, and we were brought to participate in the Tea Party for various reasons, but the insanity of a cripplingly large stimulus package passed by legislators who hardly bothered to read the darned thing proved to be the final straw.

One hurdle safely over – I thought I would go upstairs to a room at the Emily taken by a friend of ours and put up my feet for a while. Blondie and I had a key-card for it, so we could leave our purses there. The room had a view of the Alamo grounds and the Plaza, from eleven floors up, and even with the windows sealed I could hear the cheering from down below. Reconsider original impulse – I would circulate, and take some pictures for myself, with Blondie’s digital camera, and get a sense for myself of how it was all coming together. I meandered through the Alamo Gardens, across the famous front of it, and into a long pergola, behind an arcade that lines the Plaza; a fair number of people, not terribly crowded. I came out of the Alamo Gardens across the street from the Menger Hotel.

Not being an aficionado of protests and political action projects I have nothing much by way of comparison, but it felt rather like a rather jolly block party – but with signs and banners. Everyone seemed to be polite, and having a wonderful time, discovering how many other citizens felt just they same way they did. There was one strange man with a bible in one hand and a sign of the “Repent or you are DOOMED!” variety in the other, shouting a blood and thunder sermon at the top of his lungs. Everyone seemed to be ignoring him, and I overheard someone in the crowd say that he was a regular; anyway, his voice gave out after fifteen minutes. A number of people noticed my committee badge and thanked me and the other organizers for having thrown such a nice party

The crowd became thicker, the closer to Glenn Beck’s stage that I got. I gave it up, by the entrance into the Hyatt. There was just no going any farther; people were standing so close together that it was impossible, not unless I wanted to push and shove. One of the photogs later said he was stuck for half an hour in the dense crowd there. I went back the way that I came, towards Ripley’s and the bandstand in front of the Menger. About halfway there I found three guys, one with an Obama shirt having a shouting match with another Tea Partier. For all that we were worried about agent provocateurs picking fights with other Tea Partiers, filming the results and winding up on YouTube as brutal reactionary racist KKK thugs beating up on some innocent counterprotester; these three were the only ones. Sigh; well, here I was, one of the committee members – better look like I had some authority over all this, in my best Catholic high-school principal style. It hardly seemed necessary to remind the people standing around that well… the Obamanauts were trying to provoke a reaction. Just about everyone seemed to know that already. Politely pointed out to the shouting Obamanaut that he could perhaps win over more agreement with his views if he stopped shouting, actually read the Constitution, and engaged in calm and rational discourse… and could everyone please recall the manners that their mama’s taught them? They did appear to have a confederate in the crowd with a video camera; another committee member said that I did show up on a brief and thankfully boring YouTube video. Other reports have them giving up and going away shortly afterward. Ah well – just recall, dissent is patriotic.

Just before six, Blondie and I and some of the other speakers – the non-celeb ones and some committee members and their families- assembled in the lobby of the Emily Morgan, to be taken from there through the crowd to the backstage area. We did have a law-enforcement escort, an off-duty county sheriff who looked for all the world like a huge concrete car-bomb protection bollard dressed up in a black suit and cowboy hat. We threaded through a couple of barriers, across a raised planting made bumpy with tree-roots and into an area behind the stage, which was only a little less crowded than the area outside of it. No place to sit, except on some leftover staging. Someone brought us bottles of ice-cold water – and there we waited and talked, and looked nervously at the stage from the back. Someone pointed out Janine Turner, with her middle-school-aged daughter, sitting with Matt Perdue on the staging along with the rest of us. It turned out that she was a last-minute addition to the program – eh, what the heck. She had a draft speech, which Robin asked me to check out. Otherwise, it was something like the military; sit around and wait. She is a very pleasant and unpretentious person, by the way; also physically very tiny. I had never known she was from Texas – Matt and I talked about books, and the weird coincidence that I had written about his great-grandfather in Book 2 of Adelsverein.

The seriously celeb speakers – Glenn Beck and Ted Nugent – came in through another passage-way through the crowd, from the Menger, practically swamped with security… that is, large, tough-looking gentlemen with earphones, speaking quietly into their sleeves. They were delivered to the back-stage a few minutes before their appearances, and lingered a little bit afterward. I had the feeling that we were all just sort of a blur of faces, passing in front of Glenn Beck. He was hurried away by his bodyguards, but Ted Nugent hung around for a bit longer. It seems very odd to say that he has charisma, but he has, and also the gift – when he is with other people – of seeming to be very intensely focused on that individual. Blondie and I talked about this, and with some of the other committee members who also talked with them both, and they all agreed. When he talked with anyone, even briefly as he scribbled an autograph – he was just overwhelmingly interested in you. On-stage in front of an audience he was just magnetic; he seemed to draw in the energy of the crowd and feed it back to them, amplified up to the max – and that this was something that he lived to do. In a strange way, it was the class clown, grown up; Oh, there is a crowd! I must get in front of people, entertain them, excite them, make them cheer! It was actually kind of endearing – and he did get rather carried away, and uncorked some pretty uncensored language, permanently bollixing any of our claims to be a strictly family-friendly event. But even the most strait-laced members of the committee seemed prepared to be indulgent about this – I guess they felt the endearing-class-clown vibe as well. Curiously, one of our non-celebrity speakers, Katherine Moreno seemed to feed on the audience in the same dynamic way.

Ah well – it took me almost longer to write about it, than it did to happen, from start to finish. My feet hurt so much that night, from walking around in boots – next time, I swear, it’s running shoes for me.

And there will be a next time. We are finalizing our location – a destination ranch, in a loop of the Cibolo, with a grove of trees, some ready-built stage venues and a herd of longhorns. Think of it as Woodstock, Texas-style. The April 15th party was just the opening shot across the bows.

A Rose By Any Other Name

03. May 2009 · Comments Off on A Rose By Any Other Name · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, sarcasm, Tea Time

So, there we were, a good part of the SA Tea Party executive committee, sitting at a picnic table under a shady tree, at a site which we were touring with an eye towards making it the venue for our great 4th of July San Antonio Tea party Blow-out, when one of the other members had a story to tell.

She was at a bar the other night with a friend of hers – (what? You thought we were all a bunch of prudes and blue-noses? Honey, this is Texas; Football Friday night, bar Saturday night, church Sunday morning. Life is a wonderful thing, you have to live it in the right proportions!)

– Anyway, she and her friend were stragegizing about the event, discussing who we could get to come and speak, and who else might come and entertain – not without mentioning a lot of big names – and all the while, there was a guy sitting next to them at the bar, eavesdropping like mad. Finally, he couldn’t stand it any more; he said,

“Hey, what are you – some kind of political activist?!”

And she turned right around and answered …

(wait for it)

“No – I’m a community organizer!”

A Little Light Entertainment

29. April 2009 · Comments Off on A Little Light Entertainment · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, General Nonsense, That's Entertainment!

(These are lifted from an email sent out to the Yahoo group for FEN broadcasters. The following are alleged to be quotes from translated kung fu movies. No idea of they were really in movies or not; they just sounded pretty funny.)

1. I am about to choke you like a chicken!
2. Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep.
3. Gun wounds again?
4. Same old rules…no eyes, no groin.
5. A normal person wouldn’t steal pituitaries.
6. Damn, I’ll burn you into a BBQ chicken!
7. Take my advice, or I’ll spank you without pants.
8. Who gave you the nerve to get killed here?
9. Quiet or I’ll blow your throat up.
10. You always use violence. I should’ve ordered glutinous rice chicken.
11. I’ll fire aimlessly if you don’t come out!
12. You daring lousy guy.
13. Beat him out of recognizable shape!
14. I have been scared shitless too much lately.
15. I got knife scars more than the number of your leg hairs!
16. Beware! Your bones are going to be disconnected.
17. The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?
18. How can you use my intestines as a gift?
19. This will be of fine service for you, you bag of scum. I am sure you will not mind that I remove your manhoods and leave them out on the dessert flour for your aunts to eat.
20. Yah-hah, evil spider woman! I have captured you by the short rabbits and can now deliver you violently to your gynecologist for a thorough extermination.
21. Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person.
22. I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way.

Party Hearty in San Antonio, Part the Third

26. April 2009 · Comments Off on Party Hearty in San Antonio, Part the Third · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Local, Politics, Tea Time, Veteran's Affairs

We had basically concluded that Alamo Plaza would be impossible to get as a venue site; perhaps Fox would be able to gain permission to broadcast from there, but our Tea Party would probably be best held nearby, perhaps at Alamo Stadium. We were checking out other urban venues as well, but when Robin announced this and explained some of the difficulties in securing the Plaza, an attendee at the open meeting leaped up and challenged him; Hadn’t we even tried? Who had we talked to, in securing permits – didn’t we even KNOW anyone? This was Matthew P., who insisted forcefully that it was quite possible, and that he could do it. Matthew looks a bit like General Grant on one of his dyspeptic days. But he has all of Grant’s iron stubborness; he was all for the Tea Party, and all for having it on Alamo Plaza, and he knew just the people to talk too. So we kept his name and telephone number, and Robin told him to go for it, and to coordinate with another key volunteer, Eric G., the lawyer better known among us as The Other Eric. In the mean time, Eric A., the video producer had another stroke of genius – as many of the volunteers on the committee would meet him on Alamo Plaza Monday morning, and he would do a quick guerrilla shoot of us inviting Glenn Beck to come to our Tea Party – it turned out that this was not needed at all, as it appeared that Glenn Beck committed himself that morning to coming to San Antonio.

And by Friday, April 3rd, we got the word from Matthew P. and Eric G. that the miracle was done; we had secured the Plaza – with about a week and a half to go until the Tea Party. Matthew P. would coordinate between the City of San Antonio and the Fox people, Eric G. would handle all the considerable legal stuff … and Dee M. and Jerry H. would manage fund-raising. Keep it in mind that most of us only met face to face for the first time around the last of March and the beginning of February.

We had barely enough time to take in this news – ten days to sort out all the logistics, which were enormous, and to raise the funds to pay for the necessities. I think it was that Friday morning that I spent about an hour on the phone with a woman who had organized many such events downtown. She couldn’t be involved to any extent in the Tea Party, because of her own full-time job, but she expounded forcefully on several aspects that we had never considered until that moment: barricades, and security, crowd control, securing places to park jumbotrons, which would mean another permit, of security badges for our personnel, of me as the media representative being constantly available to the minions of the press. I took notes, lots of notes, and went to Robin over the weekend with them; we needed someone dedicated to event-planning, someone who had done massive events. I had only done one, years before, and in the military at that, and with six months to pull it off. I’d be out of my depth on that and knew it.

But among us, we already had a volunteer, Diane E. who had set up a sign-painting party that very weekend – she’s a local realtor and by good fortune, had done some big golfing events… which involved the media, set-up, security, crowds – the whole ball o’wax. So Diane was in play as the overall event organizer, working with Matthew. We had a couple of epic telephone conference calls during that week, which clocked in at well over two hours, and another set of meetings on Palm Sunday, which also went on for hours; who to have as master of ceremonies, who to have as speakers besides Glenn Beck… absolutely no politicians, we had agreed from the start. Not even as VIPs attending, although they were welcome to come and attend, and listen like everyone else.

The financial crunch was alleviated somewhat, by Glenn Beck offering to host a fund-raising luncheon for us at the Menger Hotel on the day of the Tea Party. He had already withdrawn as keynote speaker for our event – which, upon consideration was probably a good thing. This was supposed to be about us, not about celebrities. He would open the event, and then give over to our program of local speakers – and this was when Ted Nugent got into the picture; coming to perform the National Anthem. Just how cool was that going to be? In that case we could handle another celebrity, but the line on politicians was set in cement, no matter how much they asked. By this time, we had all begin to sense that we were riding a wave – best not to look down, just keep going forward.

At the Palm Sunday meeting, we gained another key volunteer – to oversee security. Early on, we had a pair of volunteers who worked in law enforcement, but the way that this event was growing, we knew very well that we would need someone with command experience, and more than that – command experience at large events … and out of the blue, another volunteer, Dennis O., who was an acquaintance of Robin’s. Dennis spent some time talking to me after the meeting, Robin being tied up talking to other people. After my educational lecture from the experienced organizer-of-events, someone like Dennis seemed to have the right skill set; retired LAPD at a fairly high level. He was brought in, just in the nick of time, for a final executive meeting on Easter Saturday.

I would guess that at least part of the reason that we came together so quickly is that San Antonio is a small town cunningly disguised as a large city, and so all of us brought our ready-made acquaintance-network into the mix – and in some cases a pretty fair idea of their skill-set. It turned out that a lot of our networks overlapped and intertangled. Robin knew me through blogging, and knew Dennis through his church; Matthew turned out to also know the lady who gave me the quick course in event-planning, who also is acquainted with Diane… and as it turned out I had written about Matthew’s g-g-g-grandfather in Book Two of Adelsverein; the Fredericksburg school-master Louis Scheutze, who was murdered by the Hanging Band during the Civil War. Topping that off, the publisher of a local construction newsletter who came to help in the newsroom may be a distant cousin of Matthew’s. I am fairly sure if I asked other members of the planning committee about their own networks, it would turn out that we were pretty thickly connected already, through friends and friends of friends and various civic organizations.

(Next – riding the wave at the San Antonio Tea Party, and why Ted Nugent is so darned popular.)

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