Fun and Games – Page 10 – The Daily Brief

Kiplingesque

24. April 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Domestic, Fun and Games, General, History, Home Front, Literary Good Stuff

I couldn’t bring myself to watch this program the other night. It flashed past as we were channel-flipping. Our neighbor Judy had come over for dinner (beer-can chicken with Memphis rub on the grill, if that is of any interest) and we had watched one of the Young Indiana Jones DVDs that I am reviewing. Judy said,
“Oh, I saw that in the TV guide and I thought it looked interesting – what was the story on that?”
“A very sad one,” I said and Blondie added,
“No, I don’t want to watch – it will only upset Mom.”

And she was right – it would have. Rudyard Kipling’s only son was only seventeen and as blind as a bat, quite unfit for military service. But in that surge of intense patriotism and sense of duty that attended the beginning of World War One, he asked his father to pull strings for him; and Rudyard Kipling obliged. He had friends everywhere, as one of England’s most famous writers, the poet-laureate and chronicler of all things Imperial. He wrangled a commission as a second-lieutenant in the Irish Guards for his son; John went off to France with his regiment, arriving on his eighteenth birthday. He disappeared in fearful combat sometime during the second day of the BEF’s attack on German forces at Loos six weeks later. Rudyard Kipling spend years hoping that he had survived somehow, more years searching for any witnesses to his son’s death, or clues to where his body lay… and finally worked tirelessly on various memorials to those dead in the Great War, the one that unfortunately did not end all war. A close friend of the family discovered from some surviving members of John Kipling’s unit that when last seen, he had been badly wounded, his glasses smashed and he was crying in agony; these details were kept from his parents. Other witnesses told other stories; at this late date there would be no earthly way to sort out which was the truth, or where his body was finally buried. Any time after 1919 was probably too late, anyway.

No, I didn’t much want to watch it; that kind of thing just comes too close to home. And I’ve always loved Kipling’s stories; the poems too. (I had a go at writing some Kipling-type stories myself, here and here) Loved the stories of the Jungle Book from when Mom read them to us as children. Later I thought Kim was absolutely sublime, and then I found the other India stories, the other animal stories, the stories about soldiers and travelers, ghosts and Masonic lodges, of madmen and beggars, railwaymen and elephant drivers, of colonial administrators and their desperate housewives, of schoolboys and small children sent ‘home’ for their health and continuing education. I loved the lot, and ploughed gamely through a copy of the complete collection which my high school library unaccountably had on its shelves. Lord only knows how that came about, because Kipling drifted out of fashion with the literati well before the end of his own lifetime, reaching a sort of nadir in the sixties. Imperialist, colonialist, racist, sexist – all the heavy brickbats of ‘ists’ flung his way! And he would have just as enthusiastically flung them right back, god love him – perhaps that’s why he attracted such enthusiastic animus.

But he was a story teller; I think an almost compulsive one. Everything and everybody interested him. Explaining how things worked interested him – everything from engines, to railway-bridges, to the workings of a lowly colonial district office and a pack of wolves. He also had a gift for writing dialog – not only dialect, which is not as common as you would think, but an ear for the way people speak and put their words together. I’ve always compared that to having perfect pitch. A perceptive listener can sort out all kinds of things from the way someone talks; and a good writer can put this down on paper! So many things can be given away in speech; age and education, origins and way of life. I think Kipling did this beautifully – even the animals that he gives speech to are consistent and unique; compare the Maltese Cat and his friends to the beasts in “Servants of the Queen.

And I still think this is one of the best explanations of journalism around; still relevant after all those years.

Waltzing as Fast as I Can

17. April 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Domestic, Fun and Games, General, Literary Good Stuff

So… how is that book-thing going, ask all both of my readers? Very well, thank you, in spite of the Great Amazon-Booksurge Kerfuffle of 2008. That, by the way appears to have died down to a small and resentful simmer. Way to go, Amazon – completely piss off a lot of articulate fans and customers by going all heavy-handed on small-press and independent writers. A couple of the bigger POD presses capitulated, accepting Amazon’s terms, but for now they are not pressuring any other presses. Something about the threats of legal action under certain trade laws might have something to do with it. That and the fact that there are other internet outlets for books. (Barnes and Noble, anyone?)

I am going ahead with plans to bring out the the “Adelsverein Trilogy” or as it is better known around here, “Barsetshire with Cypress Trees and a Lot of Side-arms” this coming December. Originally, I wanted to bring out just the first book, with the subsequent books a year apart, but Angela at Booklocker strongly advised against it, saying that it would be better to have all three available at once. Because it will be a set, with a unified ‘look’ to each volume, they are going to cut me a deal on the fees for the custom-designed cover. They will even offer a small discount to anyone buying all three at once, and we are working also on a means of putting all three into one volume at a later date – which may not even be possible, because it will be about a thousand pages long, all told. Drop that on your foot, you’ll feel the pain for about a week. (I am using my income tax rebate to fund this, and the continuing royalties for “To Truckee’s Trail”. Think of it as government really supporting literature and art!)

So, I am galloping through drafting the last five chapters, neatly wrapping up and tying off all the threads of a plot that has sprawled across a couple of countries, three wars, four towns, one blood-feud, a lot of romance, two interconnected German-American families, sudden murder, stolen children… and a lot of cows and horses. And a Texas Ranger or two, even. Then, what with revisions, editing, polishing to a high glossy finish, and scrounging for the usual reviews’n’links; my dance card is pretty well filled for the next few months. Blogging continues, of course, especially if the election follies continue to provide bitter amusement – really, didn’t I say months ago that Obama was a beautifully tailored but empty suit?

Stay tuned – more to follow.

Thoughts for Today

14. April 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, General Nonsense

(From an email posted to the Old FEN’ers Website – yeah, I’m just warped enough to find them amusing!)

Birds of a feather flock together and crap on your car.

When I’m feeling down, I like to whistle. It makes the neighbor’s dog run to the end of his chain and gag himself.

A penny saved is a government oversight.

The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat have gotten to be really good friends.

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

He who hesitates is probably right.

Did you ever notice: The Roman Numerals for forty (40) are ‘ XL.’

If you think there is good in everybody, you haven’t met everybody.

If you can smile when things go wrong , you have someone in mind to blame.

The sole purpose of a child’s middle name is so he can tell when he’s really in trouble.

There’s always a lot to be thankful for if you take time to look for it. For example I am sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don’t hurt.

Did you ever notice: When you put the 2 words ‘The’ and ‘IRS’ together it spells ‘Theirs.’

Aging: Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.

Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know ‘why’ I look this way. I’ve traveled a long way and some of the roads weren’t paved.

When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.

You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.

One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.

Ah, being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.

First you forget names, then you forget faces. Then you forget to pull up your zipper.
It’s worse when you forget to pull it down.

Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft.
Today, it’s called golf.

The Producers – Euro-Style

12. April 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: European Disunion, Fun and Games, General, Good God, That's Entertainment!, The Funny, World

So my first reaction to this story was a jaw-dropped five minutes of boggle-eyed amazement. The second was to double check – this wasn’t an intricate send-up by the Onion, or Iowahawk? April Fool’s day was almost two weeks ago, admittedly… but no, it appears to be a completely straight – in the sense of being accurate, not in the sexual sense – news story.

Third reaction – wow, what a horrible thing to do to a poor unsuspecting little Verdi opera. That rumble you hear for south of the Alps? That must be the great maestro himself, revolving in his grave at a couple of thousand RPMs. Hook him up to an electric generator, you could probably power a couple of good-sized American suburbs, or maybe all of North Korea with the resulting output. This is just the latest manifestation of a depressing and currently fashionable penchant for staging operas and incorporating trappings and conventions taken cafeteria-style from an assortment of sources, to include gangster movies of all ages, S&M porn flicks and bloody violence a la Peckinpah or Tarantino…no matter how unsuited the opera is to that sort of artistic vision, or how much violence it does to the plot, or the characters. (more here)

It seems to be the ultra-trendy thing in Europe, apparently; it doesn’t seem to have caught on much in the States, where an opera house actually depends on appealing to the subscribers, season-ticket holders and the audience in general. We’re… umm, kind of traditional, that way. Generally the people who want to revel in gangster movies, S & M porn flicks or whatever, can get their fix somewhere else than the stage of the Met or the Houston Grand.

You’ve got to hand it to the director of this 9/11 Masked Balls-up, though – for sheer Teutonic thoroughness in including every single stupid, tired and overworked anti-American trope in the eu –repertoire: ugly naked people in Mickey-Mouse masks, same old anti-capitalist political posturing, Uncle Sam and Elvis impersonators… the whole ugly collection, calculated to demonstrate American vulgarity and European cultural superiority and creativity. I’m imagining the creative types sitting around, brainstorming and shouting out their ideas for every element and laughing their asses off the whole time at the credulity of their audience. It would be reassuring to think this was some kind of ‘Producers’ type scheme, to deliberately create a production guaranteed to go down in flames on opening night, but apparently not. According to the linked story, it’s sold out, or near to being so.

Ah, well – the next time I read of some euro-snot looking down his artistic nose and condemning Americans for being crass and vulgar and generally uncaring of our artistic heritage, I shall think of this production… and laugh, and laugh and laugh.

Guest Post – Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Amazon.com

11. April 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, Literary Good Stuff, Media Matters Not, Technology, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

(Although the following appears with my name on it, ths is actually a guest-post by another IAG member, who did a lot of numbers-crunching and came up with some recommendations: Michael S. Katz is an attorney, editor-in-chief of Strider Nolan Publishing, board member of the Independent Authors’ Guild, and author of the comedy novel Shalom On The Range Take it away, Mike!)

Amazon.com recently announced a new policy requiring all Print On Demand authors to use Amazon’s own printing company, Booksurge, in order to be sold through Amazon. Many POD authors and publishers are understandably upset by this, as this can only serve to cost the authors money, and cost the printing companies business. But in terms of Amazon’s market share, how much business are we actually talking about?

WHO’S ON FIRST?

Sales of books totaled $2 billion in 2000, at which time on-line sales made up between 7.5% and 10% of that total.1 Amazon and BN.com now account for more than 85% of online book sales.3 Recent data shows that Amazon’s book sales are approximately four times that of BN.com,4 and Amazon has a 70% share of the Internet book market, so this translates into a 15 to 17.5% market share for BN.com.5

Amazon’s total sales in 2006 were $4.63 billion, but this includes books, music, and various other items, including a lot of high-end electronics, jewelry, and the like. Barnes & Noble actually outsold them at $4.68 billion (and they were basically limited to books, music and movies), but their on-line presence had only $477 million in sales. Why are people flocking to Amazon over BN.com?

A LOT TO RECOMMEND IT

A lot of it has to do with programming. Amazon has a reputation for being the best at tracking customer habits, having collected information longer and used it more proactively. Over the years they have collected detailed information about what its customers buy, considered buying, browsed for but never bought, recommended to others, or even wished someone would buy them.10 Amazon uses this information to calculate recommendations that boost sales.

In the entertainment industry, recommendations are a remarkably efficient form of marketing, as they enable films, music and books to more easily find the right audience.9 For example, the book Touching the Void, a tale of a mountain-climbing tragedy, was released in 1988 to good reviews but modest success. In 1998, the book Into Thin Air, about another mountain-climbing tragedy, was released and became a bestseller. All of a sudden, people began buying the older book again. Touching the Void began to be displayed side by side with Into Thin Air, and actually wound up outselling the newer book. How did this happen? Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, attributes this to Amazon.com recommendations. Amazon’s programs note buying patterns and suggest similar books to readers. Some people follow the suggestion, enjoy the book, and post excellent reviews. These purchases and reviews lead to more sales, more recommendations, and the cycle continues.9

Readers’ reviews also stimulate sales, although moreso on Amazon than BN.com. One study (Chevalier and Mayzlin) examined how sales on both sites correlated with number of reviews and customers’ ratings.12 They determined that a good review will increase the number of books sold, although with much greater effect on Amazon than BN.com. A bad review has a greater effect than a good one, based on the assumption that many 5-star reviews are believed to be “planted,” whereas 1-star reviews are seen as more legitimate.12

GETTING FROM POINTS A(MAZON) TO B(ARNES & NOBLE)

How do prices compare between the big two? A study (Chevalier and Goolsbee) collected Amazon and BN.com data for 18,000 different books during three different weeks in 2001. They determined that there was significant price sensitivity for online book purchases at both sites. But the demand at BN.com was much more price sensitive—both to its own prices and to Amazon’s prices—than at Amazon.4

A one percent increase in a book’s price at Amazon reduced sales by about 0.5 percent at Amazon but raised sales at BN.com by 3.5 percent, implying that (based on the 4-to-1 ratio in sales) every customer lost by Amazon instead bought the book at BN.com. Conversely, raising prices by one percent at BN.com reduced sales about 4 percent but increased sales at Amazon by only about 0.2 percent.4 Therefore, a customer lost by Amazon would usually wind up buying the book at BN.com, whereas a customer lost by BN.com would not necessarily go to Amazon. If BN.com keeps its prices right, they can steal away a lot of Amazon traffic.
More »

The Advance of the POD People

04. April 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, Literary Good Stuff

Here we are, after a week of the Great Amazon-Booksurge Kerfuffle of 2008; wherein the great 800 pound gorilla of internet retailing has strong-armed various small POD (publish on demand) houses into having any of their books sold through Amazon printed for delivery to the customer by Amazon’s in-house print division. They did this by the simple expedient of threatening to ‘turn off’ the Amazon “buy” button for those authors who publish through those POD houses. Essentially, the book would still be there on the Amazon page… but if you wanted to actually to buy, you’d have to go through one of the secondary vendors… and it wouldn’t qualify for the free Amazon shipping. And having Amazon do the printing – through a POD publisher notorious among the cognoscenti for shoddy work – and charging for it, chipping away even further at author royalties… the fur is still energetically flying among the book-bloggers and writers’ discussion groups. It was the blatant bullying of the Amazon/Booksurge reps which got up peoples noses the most. Honestly, it’s as if they never heard the old saying about catching more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Scroll down for my previous posts on this – and check out this page of updated information from Writers Weekly is here Oh, goody, the American Society of Journalists and Authors is adding their voice to the mighty chorus! This doesn’t look like it is going to die a quiet death and very soon, as much as Amazon probably hopes it will.

Now there seems to be a lull in the storm while everyone takes stock and figures out what to do next. Although my publisher, Booklocker, has declined the offer of a contract for Amazon-Booksurge’s services with the vigor and force of a concrete block thrown through a plate-glass window – indeed has taken a very prominent place in aggressively reporting on the tidal wave of criticism crashing upon Amazon.com as well as practically surfing on the leading edge, “To Truckee’s Trail” is still available through Amazon. (No link, I’ve sworn off Amazon for the moment!) To the best knowledge of the other IAG members, no one’s buy buttons have been turned off, and we have member-writers published by just about all of the various POD houses. The fury continues unabated, though – and it’s hard not to imagine various lawyers hastily brushing up on various anti-trust regs and laws though. And whatever in-house emergency meetings at Amazon this week must have been eventful. Oh, to have been a fly on those walls!

Standing back and taking a long look, and considering other developments though – as the release of the handy-dandy-Espresso Book Machine and perhaps this kerfuffle-du-jour is just one more of those harbingers of change in the world of books and publishing. Everything changes, nothing stays the same for long. Having been hanging out in among the book blogs and in the author discussion groups for the last two years has been enlightening. Many of the other writers in the IAG have been in and around the writing game for years . They don’t have the five-figure royalty checks – if they did, they wouldn’t be hanging around in the discussion group skulling out ways to market their books if they did. But what I picked up, over and over again was a feeling that for most writers, the way the literary industrial complex is set up… it just was not working, and not working in a big way. This guy (now on hiatus, unfortunately) was a shrewd and extremely knowledgeable insider.
This blogger is another: and what they were saying was confirmed by the writers that I met in putting together the IAG; which is that it is nearly impossible for interesting, genuinely original books with niche appeal to even slip in over the transom at traditional publishers.

If you aren’t an established best-selling writer already, forget trying to break into the club. Still, there were all sorts of interesting bits of knowledge floating around – like the day of big advances from a publisher is probably over. And if you do get one, you might have to pay it back if the book doesn’t sell. And that more and more publishers were using print-on-demand, for exactly the quantities needed, rather than print a warehouse full of cheap copies that would be remaindered and pulped. And all but the very top rank of best-selling authors had to go out and do their own marketing, organize their own signing events.

In the light of all that, I speculate that Harper Collins’ new imprint is trying to tap into the indie-author and POD paradigm. From what I can make out of this story and from some of the IAG group discussions, it all seems like Harper Collins is having a go at what we’ve been doing with our various POD houses – Booklocker, and iUniverse and all the rest for the last couple of years. We’ve saying with varying degrees of desperation, hope and passion that big publishing just couldn’t go on the way it has been; it had to change, or go down. Now we see the very first cracks in the wall of Things as They Are, and hope that the paradigm shift has really and truly happened.

One of the big traditional publishers is tentatively trying out something new, and trying out what indie writers have been doing in the last five years. Why, yes, I think I’ll have a drink, so that I can toast to them.

And to myself – I sold a copy of “To Truckee’s Trail” to a contractor doing work on a house in my neighborhood, and two copies to co-workers at one of my jobs. There is a reason to keep a box of copies and a fistful of promotional materials in the car, you know!

Round Two of the Great Amazon Imbroglio

02. April 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, Literary Good Stuff, Media Matters Not, Technology, World

Well, this is getting interesting – last weekend the writing world – or that portion of it that doesn’t have a name which frequents the New York Times best-sellers list – was all agog over Amazon.com’s fiat that all books sold through Amazon must be printed by it’s POD subsidiary, Booksurge. (Gruesome details here in my post of Sunday last).

Many of us ink-stained scribbling wretches are being advised to A-remain calm, it is not the end of the world as we know it and B- that Amazon doesn’t own the bloody world yet, anyway so change over all of your links to Barnes and Noble and sit tight.

Angela Hoy at Writers Weekly has the latest development here; yes, a couple of POD firms have caved, given yesterdays deadline to stand and deliver, or else their authors ‘ buy buttons’ be disabled on Amazon’s website. Angela has some shrewd guesses about why and how this is all going down the way that it is, as well as a link to further developments – and the cheery news that no buttons have actually been turned off or harmed in the making of this power-grab/controversy.

The Independent Authors’ Guild forum has been all of a twitter though: what would Ingram/Lightning Source do about this? (Break out the terrible swift sword and start trampling those grapes of wrath, some of us hoped!) How would the various POD firms react ? (Stand tall and tell ‘em “Nuts!”, some of us hoped!) And how would the general public react? A volcanic outburst of rage would be nice, but perhaps a little much for us mere scribbling mortals to hope for. Some of us still have day jobs, you see, Although book-blogger PODdy Mouth has a nice takedown here, including a number that can be called…

OMG Amazon has a actual telephone number for people to talk to a real live human?

Well, OK, probably some poor barely-minimum-wage call center drone, so keep it civil and dignified, people. It isn’t their fault; the guys whose f**king brilliant idea this was are well beyond being reached by a phone call. Maybe not beyond subpoena… eh, call me a dreamer. It goes with the territory, I write historical novels and would like to make a living from it, for f**ks sake! Given that there are so many lawyer-bloggers, perhaps some searching analysis of whatever basis there might be for anti-trust action. All well and good; and this sort of controversy is bread, butter and circuses to the blogosphere.

But I have long predicted that the towers of the literary industrial complex would totter, crumble and fall when a certain technological point was reached – when there was a desktop gadget that would print and bind a nice little paperback or hardbound book. Even if it was so expensive to buy that only places like Kinkos would have them, even if it could only crank them out one or two at a time, even at a cost per unit substantially above that of one of those industrial print shops that could churn out a thousand in a minute – it would mean the end of the literary-industrial complex. Anyone could take their book content and cover file, with ISBN and everything, down to the corner copy place, pay them to print and bind a couple or three or half-dozen copies of your book… and you could mail them to whoever had bought them. Or who you wanted to send them! That’s the future, and according to this release, may be here already, in the form of the Espresso Book Machine. Think of this as Ingram/Lightning Source looking across the poker table with a steely gaze and saying, “raise.”

“It’s always been the holy grail of the book business to walk into a store and get any book,” said Kirby Best, president and CEO of Lightning Source. With the signing of today’s strategic agreement with On Demand Books, proprietor of the Espresso Book Machine, Best sees that goal coming a little bit closer.”

And savor the discription and call me a prophetess: “We’re building a new machine that’s much smaller that can be mass produced, version 2.0,” said cofounder and chairman Jason Epstein. Neller adds that a beta machine, which will be the size of a copier at Kinko’s (3’ X 2-1/2’ for the finishing unit with another 2’ for a duplex printer), will be ready in the fall. If all goes well, a less expensive model will begin leasing in 2009. “The point of this machine is to represent the ultimate in POD,” said Epstein, who sees it as the best way to preserve backlist. If the machines catch on and proliferate like so many Starbucks outlets, the marketplace would become radically decentralized and book distribution would require simply an Internet connection.”

Oh, yeah… definitely we’re into round two. Pass the popcorn.

(Crossposted at the IAG Blog)

(And yeah, my blogosphere cover is now comprehensively blown – I blog under the name “Sgt Mom” and write books under the name “Celia Hayes”. It turns out that someone is already using my real name and has somewhat of a reputation under it. I understand that Elizabeth Taylor had something of the same problem.)

Ebony and Ovary

13. March 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, Politics, Rant, sarcasm, That's Entertainment!, World

Oh, my goodness gracious me, the presidential-race politicking is just betting more and more engrossing, in that tacky drive-by on the high-way and slow down to take a look at the interestingly arrayed wreckage sort of way. Honestly, as an independent-tending-to-the-Republican side of the political side of the scale for the purposes of this particular race, I am a mere interested spectator to the machinations of the Democratic Party side of the houseï¿½ rather in the sense of a spectator in the seats of the ancient Roman Coliseum was to a show on the sands down below to a match pitting a team with nets and tridents against a team with swords. There will be blood. Just not sure at this point who will be left standing, to receive the thumb-up or thumbs-down at the end of it all. Or how many corpses will be left strewn across the sand.

Yeah, well – I’ve beaten that imagery into the ground – ooohh, now we have a comic interval, with the Spitzer-fest. A prominent crusading New York DA, who made his political bones (and strewed his path lavishly with the bones of others, through strategic leaks to a compliant media) on prosecuting crime! Prostitution Rings! Wall Street White Collar Insider! Hoist on his own petard, stewed in his own juice! Great heaping plates of just desserts, just entrees, just salad course! All the way to the governors mansion on his record (and his family money) but wow – usually my dread is that someone this spectacularly big of a hypocrite and all around a-hole is a Texan. Thanks, New York – this one is all yours! Is he any sort of relation to crusading DA Mike Nifong of infamous Duke University rape case memory? Pity the wife doesn’t have the nerve of some wronged Texas wives- she just appears to be too lady-like to kick him out of the house, loot the bank account and run him over a couple of times in the parking lot with her BMW.

Eh, well – the political season is young, yet. Iï¿½d have had a lot more respect for Her Inevitableness – er, Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton if she had done something along those lines to demonstrate her displeasure after The Big He had confessed to his extra-curricular antics in the Oval Office. Sorry, it’s not a shock to me to learn that big men in high political places might be tempted to play hide the salam with women not their legal spouse. I just wish that if they must, they would have better **$#^!#!!! judgment about who they do it with. And that perhaps their spouses might be just pissed off enough about being paraded out for the big ‘stand by your man’ finale. Sorry, I don’t mind sex – it’s the stupidity that I canï¿½t make allowances for.

So, the Fresh Prince of Illinois has for two decades attended a church and accepted the spiritual guidance of a minister who is given to saying things like this in the pulpit of a Sunday morning. Hooo-kay – is he some sort of weird kin to Fred Phelps? So much for the appearance of having moved beyond race in this happy shiny 21st century America. At this point, the great insert-whatever-here just looks like Al Sharpton with nicer suits and a bit more polish to him. Note to Sen. O-B.: the clue to being the first ‘black’ whatever in America, is not to be ‘black’. It’s to be – American. Any message, any person in your campaign that counters that impression does not play well, outside whatever bubble you may have been playing in heretofore.

Let the games begin. It’s gonna get very interesting, if this week has been any indication.

(link courtesy of Roger Simon, and practically everyone else who has been linking to the ABC report all day. Note â€“ this intelligence about Sen. Oâ€™Bamaâ€™s church has been kicking around for a bit in the conservative blogosphere, so it shouldnâ€™t be too much of a surprise)

Food Fight

09. March 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, History, Military, War

Interesting take on international relations beginning with WWII, in this animated short. Seriously warped and very creative, although you might develope the munchies after watching.

Rock and Hard Place

18. February 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, Politics, Rant, sarcasm, World

The run-up to this presidential election has a horrid fascination about it, kind of like watching a train wreck in slow motion. We have on one side, Her Inevitableness and the Fresh Prince of Illinois, in the words of a recent blog commenter, vigorously throwing melanin and ovaries at each other. It would be funny, if not for the sure and certain knowledge that one of them will be the Democrat’s anointed by convention time. And also that our grandees of the conventional media establishment will have pulled themselves together by that time and tied a big best-of-show ribbon around the neck of one or the other. Never mind that half the MSM are at present going all wobbly-in-the-knees for Mr. Obama and the other half are indignantly insisting that there is nothing wrong, nothing the least bit wrong with the spouse of a two-term president waltzing into the White House for a term of her own, born up on a rising tide of her previous experience there.

Me, I am left relatively unmoved by the dreaminess, charisma, vision and whatever of Mr. Obana. Like P.O’Rourke, I consider the desire to adore a head of state, or any prospective applicants for that office, to be a grim transgression against republicanism (Small r there, meaning the system of government, not the actual political party). I am also left similarly unmoved by the notion that just because Her Inevitableness is a woman of certain age, with all that long memory of feminism in the last quarter of the last century, that OF COURSE I am going to vote for her. Fight the Patriarchy, the glass ceiling, sisterhood is powerful! Umm, no. Sorry; this is not Argentina and she is not Eva Bloody Peron. Frankly, the thought of Bill “It depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is” Clinton prowling the corridors of the White House trolling for interns – yet again, sort of makes my skin crawl. I would have respected Her Inevitableness so much more if she had dumped his sorry ass, after L’Affaire Monica. And dumped it with vigor and sufficient force to achieve low orbit

On the other side; not much better, really; either Mitt Romney or Rudy Guiliani would have worked for me. I could have voted for either one without too much cringing – but alas, neither had the stamina to hold out long enough to be a serious contender. Which leaves me with John McCain; and I keep thinking I ought to be more enthusiastic about that. Way back in the primordial dark of the 2000 primary season, I had rather liked his candidacy, and held considerable of a grudge against GWB for certain dirty tricks pulled against McCain in the South Carolina primary. So, the man has a good shot at the Republican nomination now – and I ought to feel better about that. But he has a long record in public life, he is a cranky maverick with a bad temper and has gotten into political bed with some pretty unsavory people…so, who knows?

God knows, I don’t. All I can do come this November is to walk into the voting booth and vote for the one that I think is the least worst.

And then I remember – and hope! Even given that the worst of the three takes the oath of office next January. It’s only four years. God knows, we should be able to survive. I mean, we got through the presidency of that blob of vacuous sanctimony known as Jimmy Carter, even if we are still cleaning up some of the mess from his term.

Memo: A Reminder of Basic Principles

14. February 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Fun and Games, Fun With Islam, General, Good God, Rant, sarcasm

To: The Arch Bishop of Canterbury
From: Sgt Mom
Re: The discrete attractions of sharia vis a vis English Common Law

1. Having been raised in the relatively intellectual and logic-based tradition of the Lutheran church, the temptation to take a swipe at a church founded on Henry VIII’s scheme to get out of one unrewarding marriage and into another more to his liking is almost overwhelming. The Church of England came about because King H. had the hots for Anne Boleyn and she wasn’t giving him any until he ponied up a ring and a crown and lots of other pretty shiny baubles. Lutherans have the 95 Thesis nailed to a church door, and the C of E… has Henry VIII’s gonads. I admit, Bish – you made a damn good show of it though, especially with the Book of Common Prayer, the King James Bible and all that. Speaking as a wordsmith, it beats Luther’s Small Catechism all hollow. Pure ecclesiastical and literary gold, but lamentably, it looks like your church has been running out of steam ever since.

2. What on earth where you thinking, urging your fellow citizens to acquiesce to the use of sharia law in Britain, as anything other than a small-scale, mutually-agreed-upon-between-the aggrieved parties adjunct, a sort of counseling service? Did you have any idea of the ruckus that would arise, upon suggesting that it was inevitable and by implication a good thing in this pretty, shiny multi-culti 21st century Britain? Do you even, god save us, have any idea that your casually tossed off remarks appeared to approve of grafting an alien sprout onto the tree of common law? An alien and wholly contradictory sprout that no matter how often or how loudly the praises of sharia law are sung by the usual chorus, casual consumers of recent media reports cannot help concluding those places in which sharia law holds sway are violent and benighted hellholes? In the eyes of those innocent of spectacles constructed of industrial-strength rose-colored glass, it is a turd. No amount of gold-plate will make it acceptable, not least, I suspect, to those who have had first-hand experience of it. (Especially those of the female gender.)

3. It is one thing, my good Bish, to discuss theoretical constructs – it is quite another to install them as workable and working systems, when real-world experience of them suggests that the outcome will be something comprehensively different, from what it appeared to be in ones’ airy world of theory and abstraction. See the practice of communism, when tried out in any place you could name.

4. Hoping that this memo will be of assistance to you, in explaining the storm which has descended upon your miter-capped head.

5. Sorry; coming up with an explanation for all those gorgeous but empty church buildings the length and breadth of Britain is more your line of work. Good luck with that.

Sincerely
Sgt Mom

Later:This lovely monologue/rant courtesy of I-don’t-know-who-it’s-a-couple-glasses-of-chablis-into-my-birthday-eve here

Eh – Rantburg, the source of all things sour and sarky

A Comparison: North & South

12. February 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, Fun and Games, General, General Nonsense, The Funny

(Another one of those rather amusing emails, forwarded by a friend)

The North has Bloomingdale’s, the South has Dollar General.

The North has coffee houses, the South has Waffle Houses.

The North has dating services, the South has family reunions.

The North has switchblade knives; the South has Lee Press-on Nails.

The North has double last names; the South has double first names.

The North has Indy car races; The South has stock car races.

North has Cream of Wheat, the South has grits.

The North has green salads, the South has collard greens.

The North has lobsters, the South has crawfish.

The North has the rust belt; the South has the Bible Belt.

FOR NORTHERNERS MOVING SOUTH :

In the South: –If you run your car into a ditch, don’t panic. Four men in a four-wheel drive pickup truck with a tow chain will be along shortly. Don’t try to help them, just stay out of their way. This is what they live for.

Don’t be surprised to find movie rentals and bait in the same store…. Do not buy food at this store.

Remember, “Y’all” is singular, “all Y’all” is plural, and “all Y’all’s” is plural possessive
Get used to hearing “You ain’t from round here, are ya?”

Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed later on how to use it.

Don’t be worried at not understanding what people are saying. They can’t understand you either. The first Southern statement to creep into a transplanted Northerner’s vocabulary is the adjective “big’ol,” truck or “big’ol” boy. Most Northerners begin their Southern-influenced dialect this way. All of them are in denial about it.

The proper pronunciation you learned in school is no longer proper.!

Be advised that “He needed killin'” is a valid defense here.

If you hear a Southerner exclaim, “Hey, Y’all watch this,” you should stay out of the way. These are likely to be the last words he’ll ever say.

If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the smallest accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store. It doesn’t matter whether you need anything or not. You just have to go there.

Do not be surprised to find that 10-year olds own their own shotguns, they are proficient marksmen, and their mammas taught them how to aim.

In the South, we have found that the best way to grow a lush green lawn is to pour gravel on it and call it a driveway.

AND REMEMBER: If you do settle in the South and bear children, don’t think we will accept them as Southerners After all, if the cat had kittens in the oven, we wouldn’t call ’em biscuits.

Magical Spam

04. February 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, sarcasm, Site News

Among my regular chores as regards maintenance of this site is that of emptying out the spam queue – which, unless there is more than a couple of hundred entries in it – I feel obliged to do a quick pass-over just to make sure that no ones legitimate comment has been caught in the spam torrent. This does happen, on occasion, although the program that Timmer plugged in more than a year and a half ago is supposed to be self-regulating. It learns, in other words. But the most marvelous part is that none of the automated comment spam has ever “leaked” into the blog, thus depriving our many readers of a handy link with which to purchase or download a dizzying variety of pharmaceutical products, porn, online games of chance and cell phone ring tones. Every once in a while, there is a spam which looks like a completely conventional and legitimate business; a spam with somewhat of an embarrassed look to it, as if not being able to figure out how it got into such disreputable company. But such are very rare – and since I do not click on the links, I have no way of knowing if they are indeed legitimate – or just generated by someone who is a little cleverer about disguising themselves.

Most of this stuff is so inept, so very bad at even looking like a blog comment that I wonder what they are getting out of generating it to start with. Sometimes it comes in Russian, sometimes Italian and Spanish, but most often in fractured English. Last week, it came with topic headings like this: “Cartoon Alien Porn” “lindsay lohan razzie” “limewire 2008 free download” and “Celebrity Cartoon Porn”. Some of the most curious comes with a two word comment that looks like someone has been playing a random matching game with a thesaurus. It results in such madly poetical conceptual pairings as “shooing inosculate” ” trimmed pestiferous” “dilutions hernial ” “fecundated anticorrosive” “surfeit psychoanalyze” “adumbratively tawdries” ” insolvent joists” “nettlier intarsia” “glutinously cosmos”. Yes, those phrases came from last weeks spam haul – I copied over the most hilarious for your delectation.

Some spam comments have just a random string of letters as text: thusly – “qjkdgtvf tdelpfnq ngwakhqb phkm ncyflb jhgikz ykwlqrcvp” but others have made a go of inserting a sentence – or at least half a sentence. All the following examples came as text for links to various porn sites. At least someone is trying. Not very hard, or with much success, but at least they are trying:

An English-language quarterly magazine targeting professional

Suzanna Gratia Hupp (born 1959) is a former Republican member

Jon Tester is a third-generation Montana farmer who understands

Hyperlinked encyclopedia entry provides a personal and political profile of the US Senator for

The last variety of spam is a real head-shaker: that’s the one that comes as a couple of hundred lines of text with links embedded in every two or three words. These go on and on and on, to the point where one wonders where the hell whoever generated it has been for the last couple of years. I believe most blog spam-filters kick back comments with more than one or two embedded links. One would think one with two or three hundred would be kicked back so far it would come out the backside of whoever sent it out – but hey, I don’t know anything at all about the thought processes of whoever generates this stuff. I just deal with the results.
More »

Good Dhimmi

29. January 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: European Disunion, Fun and Games, Fun With Islam, General, Media Matters Not, World

“Here, dhimmi! Sit! Stay! Roll over! Want a treat?! There you go – such a good dhimmi!

“Now, give up your minorities… there’s a good dhimmi, now!”

“Sit! Stay! Who’s a good dhimmi then?

“Quiet, now! Good dhimmi!”

“So obedient! I hardly have to tell them what to do!”

(All links courtesy of Da Blogfaddah)

Later: “Now, Dhimmi – quiet! Sit still!”

On the Lighter Side

08. January 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Fun and Games, General, General Nonsense, The Funny

OK, before anyone gets into a pissier mood, herewith an amusing email, courtesy of the FEN Yahoo group:

Subject: Things to avoid for seniors

Many of us ‘Old Folks” (those over 50, WAY over 50, or hovering near 50) are quite confused about how we should present ourselves. We are unsure about the kind of image we are projecting and whether or not we are correct as we try to conform to current fashions. Despite what you may have seen on the streets, the following combinations DO NOT go together and should be avoided:

A nose ring and bifocals

Spiked hair and bald spots

A pierced tongue and dentures

Miniskirts and support hose

Ankle bracelets and corn pads

Speedos and cellulite

A belly button ring and a gall bladder surgery scar

Unbuttoned disco shirt and a heart monitor

Midriff shirts and midriff bulge

Bikinis and liver spots

Short shorts and varicose veins

Inline skates and a walker

And last, but not least… My personal favorite*

Thongs and Depends

OK, everyone in a better mood now? Thank you, I live to serve…

Caption This One (080108)

08. January 2008 · Comments Off · Categories: Fun and Games

Couldn’t resist this one. From The Guardian.

Caption This One, Da Winnahs (071201)

01. December 2007 · Comments Off · Categories: Fun and Games

Thought it was time to bring this back. I’m not as bored with captions as I was earlier in the year and I’ve been captioning at other places again.Rodney has a good roundup of other captions going on.Winners on…hmmm…Tuesday…okay Wednesday. Perhaps we’ll do better next week. I like them both.

De Campptown ladies sing this song,
Doo-da, Doo-da
De Camptown racetrack’s two miles long
Oh, de doo-da dayGwine to run all night
Gwine to run all day
I bet my money on a bob-tailed nag
Somebody bet on the gray!Comment by Sgt. Mom — 20071202 @ 1224
Initial testing of new “anti donkey” armor appears successful, however the camouflage segment leaves something to be desired.Comment by Sam Parkins — 20071203 @ 0707

A Plague of Politicians

26. November 2007 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant

Not even in the election season yet and I am tired of it already. God give me strength to endure. I think I’ll go hide out in the 19th century and review the build-up to the Civil War for a while, refresh my memory of what bare-knuckle, no-holds-barred, knock-down-and-drag out national politics really was like. Puts it all into proper proportion, I guess.

I’ll come out of my burrow in about eight months. I can always hope that there has been a vicious caning, or a duel on the Capitol lawn, something to break up the monotony of leaks and counter-leaks and he-said-she-said gabfests on the Sunday morning political affairs TV shows, and of political pundits knitting their brows and talking through their hats about who is ahead in the polls and why. Newsflash – they’ve got about as much chance of being right as any fool with a Magic 8-Ball.

Seriously, who the hell talks to people who call out of the clear blue and want to take up fifteen minutes of your life asking stupid-ass questions? I don’t – who the hell doesn’t have caller ID and an answering machine?

I will commit myself to two principles: one, I will try and refrain from using sarcastic names for the various hopeful pols parading their various qualifications or lack of same in the 2008 version of our national political game of “Survivor on the Potomic”. Her Thighness, the Silky Pony, Pretty Boy, or the Hildabeast – such derisive nicks shall not cross my keyboard after today. That is just too junior high, so very Maureen Dowd. I promise to stop it at once. Mom raised me with better manners. When someone made a disgraceful display of themselves in public, Mom said that nice people do their best not to notice – or at the very least least, to be gracious about it.

And two: I will most likely not vote for Hillary Clinton, AKA her Inevitableness. I am qualifying this, because you never know. An unforeseen political tectonic spasm in the next few months may throw to the surface some morally disgusting, totally unacceptable, completely charmless dreg with a murky background and apparently bottomless sources of funding… sorry, Senator Kerry, I wasn’t talking about you. Anyway, someone who makes Her Inevitableness appear to be the lesser of two evils. Hard to picture anything short of Cthulhu performing that feat; but so far one thing about her which disinclines me toward her how the legacy media has sort of crowned her in advance. Oh, and the way that some people blithely assume that just because I am a woman, and a small-f-feminist of many years standing that I will of course vote for here.

Think again. Frankly, I think Rudolph Guiliani might do. At least he looks better in a dress.

Happy Birthday, Devil-Dogs!

10. November 2007 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, History, Military

USMC, 232 years today and still kicking ass and taking names!

Now, y’all go and party like it’s 1775, you hear?

Good Grief, Here We Go Again

09. November 2007 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, General Nonsense, Military, Rant

According to this story, this lot of blue-nosed busy-bodies is having another go at banning mags like Penthouse and Playboy from being sold in military PXs and bookstores on base. God save us, and as a small “f” feminist and mother I object to acres of objectified flesh on display next to the Air Force Times and “Family Circle” as much as any other woman with taste.

But hey, to each their own. I am fully cognizant of the fact that the military is largely made up of men. Most of them are young men, supposedly straight, and historically with an abiding interest in the female form – either in the flesh or pictorially. This is just one of those facts of life that one has to accept, as tacky as the morally over-fastidious may find it. Like the poor and recipes for tuna-noodle casserole that call for a can of cream of mushroom soup, these things are with us always. I can adjust, although apparently the good Reverend cannot.

Because, you see… the BX/PX Navy Exchange are there to supply the military community with the materiel items they need. Think of it as Wally-World with cammies and jungle boots. Embrace that concept, my dear little well-meaning anti-porn crusaders; the stuff for sale in military exchanges is there because the military members want to buy it – not necessarily because it has been judged good for them, or in good taste. And in overseas military bases, there is often no other alternative than the BX/PX, other than mail order.

Getting on a blue-nosed high-horse about banning certain magazines being for sale in the BX-PX is the start of a slippery slope – which is why I give a damn in the first place. The danger is that if every moral crusader and his brother, or sister can make a show of their virtue by pitching a fit about magazines whose appeal is contingent on displaying acres of siliconized boobies and Brazilian bikini-waxed hoo-hoos… well, what can be next, then? Eco-crusaders banning car magazines? Feminists wanting drive out “Cosmopolitan” or “Martha Stewart Living”?

I can very well recall how “The Last Temptation of Christ” was ostentatiously dropped from the Exchange inventory, never mind that some of us stationed overseas wanted to watch it, even if only to see what the fuss was about. The book and magazine selection used to run the whole political gamut, right to left and every shade and relevancy in between – but allow someone to burnish their image by engaging in a campaign to ban this, that or the other for the ostensible good of all military members… not good. It treats members of the military like children, with the good reverend and his ilk deciding what they think is good for them to have. And it sets a damn bad precedent.

I may not like the skin mags much – but someone obviously buys them, and if the BX/PX is in the business of supplying what military members buy… well, then… there you go. They are the military Walmart, not the YMCA.

Scroll down and take the poll in the middle of the story.

The Meme Pool

31. October 2007 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, GWOT, Iraq, Media Matters Not, Politics, Reader Mail, Veteran's Affairs, War

For no particular reason, over last weekend I was re-reading David McCullough’s account of the Johnston Flood, and was struck by the chapter which recounts the aftermath. Scores of reporters for American newspapers leaped upon the story – it wasn’t every day that a thriving industrial town gets wiped out in forty minutes flat by a sudden colossal rush of water from a catastrophic dam failure upstream, not even in the admittedly accident-prone 19th century. Among the first sensational stories reported from the wrecked city were lurid tales of gangs of Hungarian immigrants – the downtrodden and resentful minority du jour of that time and locality – looting the dead and raping the living, and of vigilante justice on the part of other survivors… all of which turned out to have been untrue. Even retractions and corrections afterwards wouldn’t squash those accounts dead in their tracks, and it reminded me of the stories of horrors in the New Orleans Superdome after Katrina; also lurid, also untrue… but widely disseminated, and even when debunked at length, with footnotes, forensic evidence and pictures… still passionately believed.

It all comes down to memes. They are a set of assumptions which have a life of their own through being repeated, especially by organs like the news media and beacons of popular culture like the entertainment industry. Thus propagated, memes are pernicious as nut-grass. No matter how many times they are debunked… still they exist, springing up sturdily in the cracks of public discourse and popular culture. Most of them do little harm, and even boost the subjects’ ego in a small way: Frenchmen are good lovers, New York is the center of American intellectual life, you get the best education at the most expensive college. Others exasperate experts by their persistence, in spite of being debunked, corrected or explained, over and over: Columbus was NOT the first European to believe the world was round, aliens from space did not build the pyramids- or any other monumental structure in the ancient world, and President Bush did not serve up a plastic turkey to the troops.

This morning the Blogfaddah linked to a discussion of l’affaire Beauchamp, which began with the lament “Isn’t it sort of disappointing that one has to spend this much time telling journalists, and journalist’s most ardent supporters, why it is important that journalists don’t lie?” Discussion immediately lurched away from examining what I thought was the point of the essay in question; why the milblog community landed on the New Republic’s fables with such energy and enthusiasm.

The answer is because it was another brick in the wall of meme under current construction, itself is an extension of the one constructed around Vietnam war veterans, which almost without exception painted them as tormented and drug-addled lost souls, riddled with guilt over having committed atrocities, and unable to make anything of their post-service lives. This meme had far more damaging results than just providing a handy stock character for movies, television and news documentaries; it impacted the lives of real veterans, essentially isolating and silencing them. Men and women who had satisfying, productive and well-adjusted lives did not particularly want to be identified as Vietnam war veterans, not if it meant being dismissed as a freaked-out looser.

That is why milboggers came unglued over Beauchamp’s and other fraudulent and malignant stories given credence by self-isolated specimens like Franklin Foer; because it’s being attempted, all over again with a new generation of veterans. Last time, it went unchallenged for decades. By my recollection it took about fifteen years for a TV show to feature a well-adjusted non-traumatized Vietnam veteran hero. It’s not going to happen again, not if we have the ability to forcefully question the individual meme-bricks before the mortar has set. Doesn’t matter that The New Republic is a small-circulation magazine or that some kind of truthiness about the brutalities of war -blah-blah-blah, or that our pop-cult gurus are too damn lazy to work up another set of clichés. This one we’re going to fight on the beach.

A more interesting line of thought is – is there something more than just intellectual laziness and the comfort of slipping into a well-worn track at work here, even if only subconsciously? Could there be something to be gained on one side of the debates about war, Islamic-inspired imperialism, the whole tar-baby of nuclear Iran, if military veterans whose service at the pointy-end-of-the-spear might have given them some particular interest or insight can be easily silenced and isolated… simply by being routinely characterized as ignorant, out-of-control redneck freaks?

Yeah, I’ve wondered about that myself, lately. Discuss among yourselves.

Memo: A Rich Banquet

26. October 2007 · Comments Off · Categories: Domestic, Fun and Games, General, Media Matters Not, Stupidity, World

To: Various
From: Sgt. Mom
Re: A Surfeit of Crow

1. What a deliciously rich week this has been, as regards legacy media meltdowns! I can barely keep up with it all. Every time I repair to the kitchen for another bowl of popcorn,( lightly salted with schadenfreude) there is another development. At this point it looks rather like the stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers “Night at the Opera”. It’s as if everyone wants their fifteen minutes of infamy all at once.

2. Ted Rall has flexed his buns and squeezed out another offensive turd of a cartoon, alleging the extreme stupidity of those who join the military and claiming (if I can read his lettering correctly) that every one of them killed raises the overall IQ of the United States. To which I have two reactions: One – someone still publishes Ted Rall? And two: He hasn’t met too many military people lately, has he? A fair percentage of them do attend college, one way or the other – the conventional indicia, for what that is worth. Regardless, I’d bet most of them could draw better drunk than Ted Rall can sober.

3. A formerly obscure reporter for McClatchy Newspapers decides to be a total d**k to a soldier guarding an entry point to the Green Zone in Baghdad, and play the “Do you know who I am?” card? Note to Mr. Bobby Calvan – this gambit is only really effective if the public easily recognizes your face, or in Brittny Spears’ case, your nether regions. Mr. Calvan then compounds this bad judgment by lovingly detailing the incident on his blog, in an account which fairly oozes with faux-macho bravado and self-regard. He is promptly slammed with nearly two hundred comments unanimously pointing out with varying degrees of wit, exactly what kind of d**k he is. As was the phrase at Mount Gleason Junior High School, “he was chopped down so low he could play Sea Hunt in a loogie”.Such a beat-down is rare and to be cherished; and although Mr. Calvan took down the whole post and the comment string, it was saved and replicated by others for the delectation and amusement of us all.

4. Hollywood’s current string of anti-war movies are tanking like the Titanic… all except possibly “The Kingdom”, AKA “CSI-Riyadh”. Well then, what did you guys expect – as I pointed out here “No, we will not line up and plunk down our movie ticket dollars to have our country slimed, our military family members defamed and our efforts to fight terrorists belittled, and all the glowing reviews from your media buds will not make us toddle down to the multiplex to watch your damned movie. At least the Hollywierd ‘tards can comfort themselves with the thought of how well their anti-war wankfests will play on foreign movie screens. And all their media syncophants will coo and ahh and tell them how brave they are, speaking “trooth to power”! Apparently none of these “creative geniuses”* paid attention to the guy from www.boxofficemojo.com who pointed out “…audiences seek out movies for inspiration, for laughter and to be moved.” Yes, the audiences in flyover country America have indeed figured out that the yellow stuff pissing down on us from the cinematic clouds is not rain. You want to make movies for the overseas audience? Be my guest – everyone needs a hobby. But it looks like American audiences outside your little circle have a better use for their time and money than indulging you in yours.

5. And the wall of denial regarding Baghdad Diarist and Hemmingway wanna-be Scott Thomas Beauchamp finally crumbled, spectacularly! To quote P.J. O’Rourke – just desserts! Just hors d’ oeuvres! A just main course of crow! Practically every veteran or serving military member took one look at the infamous posting (once their attention had been drawn to it) and thought – “Gee, that doesn’t sound quite right…” Young Pvt. Beauchamp may survive the debacle relatively unscathed, but it doesn’t look like gullible editor Franklin Foer will for long. Frankie, Frankie, Frankie – it’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up, as I am sure anyone who recalls Watergate could tell you. Jeeze, I’ll bet he falls for Nigerian spam emails asking for his bank account number. Some people are just too damn gullible to be in the news business!

Thank you all for providing this rich vein of amusement. I can hardly wait for next week.

Sincerely,

Sgt Mom

* viciously skeptical quote marks

All The News

14. October 2007 · Comments Off · Categories: Fun and Games, General, Media Matters Not, War, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

…Thatï¿½s fit to print.

Or not, as the case may be. My own disillusionment with legacy media over the last three or four years has been pretty profound ï¿½ not that I had them on all that high a pedestal to begin with. Being in the military media afforded enough occasions for brushing up against the big guys, either at first hand, or at second. There were enough stories filtering around the world of military broadcasting, of incredible arrogance, lack of accuracy and lack of professionalism displayed by the big names to give me a bad taste in my mouth anyway. I was already aware of the tendency for blow-dried big-name anchors and reporters to helicopter in, do an on-scene standup reading words that some lowly staffer had written for them. I already knew of how news luminaries like Peter Arnett had to back down over the bogus ï¿½Tailwindï¿½ story ï¿½ which had made my eyebrows raise skeptically from the very first; I mean, guys handling a chemical so dangerous that a single drop on bare skin could be fatal? And not being in MOPP-gear (or the Vietnam-era equivalent) up to their eyeballs? Pull the other leg, chaps ï¿½ that one has bells on it. I could cheerfully write off the cack-handed treatment of all things military by the legacy media to sheer bloody ignorance ï¿½ after all, the military is a weird and wonderful world, all to itself.

What became harder to take over the last couple of years is their ignorance, credulity and bias regarding just about everything else. This list is a pretty comprehensive encyclopedia, although I am given to wonder how many bogus stories were never noticed until the rise of the internet, and the ability of astute news consumers to fact-check legacy media asses from here to the ends of the earth.

And to add one more depressing example, there is the matter of General Sanchezï¿½s recent double-barreled blast. Of course, it was relayed to us by legacy media in the manner which we have come to expect of them; omitting the withering criticism directed at themï¿½ which formed the larger part of General Sanchezï¿½ remarks. (linked here) Now thatï¿½s a shocker ï¿½ one might think they didnï¿½t care for criticism directed at their impartial and noble selves, so down the memory hole it goes, at least as far as the headlines are concerned.

And finally, another writer friend of mine is curious about this photograph ï¿½ an AP stock photo which has been used lately in venues such as the LA Times and Newsweek in their stories about Blackwater. He is a veteran, a combat photographer and former AP editor himself ï¿½ and he thinks it is a little too perfect. Well, the two Blackwater guys rushing towards the camera while the guys behind them are all sitting about, in apparent relaxation. Take a look ï¿½ what does it look like to you? Firefight or lunch break? Both? Or just another example of AP faux-tography?

Happening Here

09. October 2007 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, Fun and Games, General, Home Front, Veteran's Affairs, World

Tuesdays and Thursdays are mornings when Blondie and I can take our time, letting the dogs drag us briskly through the neighborhood, especially those days when I am not needed at the ranch realty office. We talk about things we notice in the neighborhood, like who’s house is for sale, how the renovation work on the “burned” house three streets over is going, say hi to some of the neighbors and/or their dogs, note any interesting garage sales shaping up on the weekend, encourage Weevil and Spike to piss on the lawn of the neighbor who yelled after us last year because someone else had let their dog poop on her lawn… and us with our pockets bulging with plastic bags, I ask you! She has moved away, but we like to see our dogs carrying on with the tradition. It does get pretty dry around here: moisture is moisture, y’know.

This morning we were carrying out a practical exercise, brought about because last night we had been watching the DVD of Jericho- Season One. I’m doing a review, and had to catch the ones that I missed, early on. Chilling stuff, actually; how the world ends, in the middle of the morning with hardly anyone noticing, until static fills the broadcast channels. One thing and another reminded me of a story about a poor neighborhood in New Orleans, whose residents rode out Katrina and the aftermath comfortably tucked up in a local school. It was one of those small stories which didn’t get much play, probably because most of the reporters were drooling over what was supposed to have been happening at the Superdome and the Convention center. I did hear of it on NPR, and read a brief feature on-line, and of course recall nothing but the general outline of events. Basically some of the neighbors got together, led by a couple of local military veterans, and set up their own shelter on the upper floors of the school, which they assumed would be safe enough, as some of the older neighbors remembered taking refuge there during the last ginormous hurricane. They laid in plenty of supplies, bedding, cots, lamps, batteries, cooking equipment – everything they would need. And there they remained, setting up a soup kitchen for themselves, looking after elderly neighbors who refused to leave their flooded houses; tidy, efficient and comfortable. They had even thrown out a couple of thugs, who came looking for trouble… and when anyone came around asking if they wished to be evacuated, no one really wanted to, as they were doing quite well through their own efforts.

So Blondie and I were thinking out loud of how our neighborhood could be organized; we’re on high ground, so flooding wouldn’t be so much of a problem, but no electrical power and a breakdown of local law enforcement would present a bit of a sticky wicket. The neighborhood is thick with military retirees, and active duty; we agreed that the problem at first would be everyone trying to be in charge, before sorting out how everyone’s experience and training would best be applied.

In the interests of security, we’d have to cut off access into the neighborhood, first. There are four main entrances, and privacy fences along all four sides. So, block three of them with parked vehicles, and keep the gate nearest Stahl Road and Judson open, set up roving armed patrols of two or three each, along the outside fences, and guards at the entrances. Mark them with some kind of armband, nothing fancy, just a strip of cloth. This is Texas, god knows if you canvassed the neighborhood, there’s probably enough weapons to supply the army of a small European state, and their police force, too. Secure the perimeter, and begin canvassing every house. Who is home, who is in need of medical attention, who is gone, but has left pets or children alone? We’d have to assume that the active-duty military would be gone, and so would the reservists, leaving us with a lot of retirees in varying degrees of fitness, and a lot of family members of all ages. Who has a portable generator, a charcoal or bottled gas grill? A freezer full of food which will thaw, when the power has been off for a week? Who has large cooking pots, has managed a restaurant or a dining hall kitchen? Who is a doctor, a nurse, an electrician? Can we set up dining facility at the elementary school, and is there a generator there? What about the assisted living facility and the day-care just outside the entrance at the other end of the neighborhood? If we could secure them, we’d have a facility to care for the frail and elderly… even better, if they have generators. Canvas the neighborhood; collect batteries and over-the-counter drugs, medical supplies, bleach, pet food, lanterns and candles, blankets and bedding. Trees, Blondie pointed out. After a bit, we can start cutting down trees, and taking out wooden fences within the neighborhood. Most houses have functioning fireplaces – not terribly efficient when it comes to keeping a room warm, or to cook over, but better than nothing. Blondie also favored dividing the neighborhood into quadrants as far as security patrols went, and stockpiling food at one house within each quadrant.

We’d be good for at least a week, we agreed, but after that, we’d have to send out foraging parties for food supplies, gasoline and medicine. A slightly off-kilter way to spend a morning, but sometimes just having thought about things like this is a good way to begin coping with the situation, should it ever arise.

Dan, Dan, Dan

20. September 2007 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Stupidity, World

What is it they say; the first time tragedy, second time farce? What do they call it when it was a farce the first time around – only dressed up in the high seriousness of a Searing Sixty Minutes (dum-de-dum-dum!) Expose? Here it comes around again, with Mr. Rather’s suit against CBS News for making him the scapegoat in the whole “not only does the Emperor not have any new clothes he is as nekkid as a jaybird” imbroglio that was the 6o Minutes “scoop”, concerning the so-called finding of some 1973 Texas Air National Guard.

For those of you who spent 2004 in a coma, the memos appeared to give backing to the contention that President Bush spent part of his Air National Guard service AWOL, and that his then-commander (now deceased) was exceeding wroth about this. Unfortunately for CBS News, for 60 Minutes and all of Mr. Rathers’ minions, those documents appear to have been inexpertly forged; a fact that became fairly obvious early on. One can only assume that Mr. Rather and his team desperately wanted them to be authentic, in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary. And that they desperately wanted to drop a just-before-Election-Day bomb on the Bush campaign, and didn’t care how thin the evidence was.

Quelle tacky, Mr. Rather, quelle tacky. Kind of makes one wonder about all the other documents uncovered by Sixty Minutes over the years, which made one or two flash appearances on camera and then were gone before anyone could say, “Hey, wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute!” Ah well, just another reason that legacy media is melting faster than the Wicked Witch of the West when Dorothy threw a bucket of water on her.

Anyway, enough of a stink was raised about this at the time… and now it looks like we are in for another round of slapstick. Dan Rather is going to sue CBS for mishandling the resulting s**tstorm. Cooler and more legally-oriented minds than mine are betting A) that it is just a means of squeezing some more retirement monies out of CBS and B) that if it continues, the process of discovery is going to be embarrassingly revealing and C) Pass the popcorn, it’s a pity they both can’t loose.

Myself, I keep imaging the hostage-taking scene from “Blazing Saddles”… only instead of Cleavon Little holding a gun to his own head and begging for mercy, I’m seeing Ted Baxter (the hamster-brained newscaster from the Mary Tyler Moore Show) holding himself hostage and squeaking “Lemme out of here or the newscaster gets it!”

Oh, yeah… pass the popcorn. I’ll take mine with melted butter, but hold the salt.

(Later: More here from Captain’s Quarters)
Even later: still more giggling and requests for popcorn, here

World War Two Chat

04. September 2007 · Comments Off · Categories: Fun and Games, General, History, Technology, The Funny, War

Ran across this a couple of days ago, via Rantburg – if World War Two had been a real-time, on-line strategy game, this how the chat-room might have appeared:

Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now u got a huge fockin army
Hitler[AoE]: thats bullsh1t u hacker
Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler
Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me!
T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of the world retard
Hitler[AoE]: fine ill clear you a path
Stalin: WTF u arsshoel! WE HAD A FoCKIN TRUCE
Hitler[AoE]: i changed my mind lol
benny-tow: haha

The rest is here

Memo: Another Bottle of That Whine?

02. September 2007 · Comments Off · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, GWOT, Iraq, Politics, War, World

To: Representatives Moran, Tauscher and Porter
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Slimed in the Green Zone

1. Well, my heart pumps pure piss for your pathetic predicament and your wounded sensibilities. Traveling all the way to Iraq, to demonstrate your tender consideration for the troops serving there at the whim of the Bushchimphitler and his eeeeevil war, only to find out that they had your number, short bios and an assortment of your previously reported remarks on the war. What a shocker, eh?

2. Yep, it sure was just another example of the deep-laid plots of the eeeeevil Bushchimphitler and his crafty minions… that troops assembled to meet ‘n greet should actually have read news reports. Really… how damn stupid do you really think the average military member is? Wasn’t it enough of a warning, when John Kerry’s adlibbed comment about dropping out of college and being stuck in Iraq rebounded within twenty-four hours with this priceless repost from troops in-theater?

3. Allow me to break it to you gently, lady and gentlemen; the military mind-set, like that of the Boy Scouts worships at the high altar of preparedness. It is an essential part of the culture to swiftly acquisition and disseminate necessary intelligence about whatever task they are ordered to accomplish. Doesn’t matter if its’ taking Omaha beach, Baghdad or providing the suitable background for a collection of globe-trotting pols burnishing their credentials; be assured that they will do their homework, and come to the party with all the angles covered.

4. Trust me on this also; while there a great many in the military today are apolitical, indifferent, or otherwise un-interested in the current political landscape, many more are intensely interested. They are betting their lives, in a manner of speaking, on their ability to transform Iraq and Afghanistan into something with a closer resemblance to a functioning and fairly democratic nation. Which may yet be possible: South Korea didn’t look like much of a good bet fifty years ago and look at the place now.

5. Finally, this is a wired and interconnected world these days; military bases overseas are not nearly as isolated as they were fifteen, or thirty years ago. That you could innocently assume that what you had said to your constituents or in the halls of power would not reach the ears of those serving in a garrison on the other side of the world indicates that you have not taken this to heart. You assumed that all the good little uniformed peasantry would trot obligingly up and tug their forelocks for their betters, and never mind in the least that your previous remarks could be construed as undermining their mission. I trust that you have been enlightened.

6. Military people do vote, you know. And sometimes their votes even get counted.

Sincerely,
Sgt Mom

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