Continuing Interesting Stuff at the Milblogger Conference

20. April 2010 · Comments Off on Continuing Interesting Stuff at the Milblogger Conference · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Military, Technology, Veteran's Affairs

Yes, it was a week ago last weekend, but I have several jobs, four books to market, two more to write . . . oh, and a tax bill to pay. So, forgive me for dishing out the good bloggy ice cream in small dishes, ‘kay?

One of the unexpected highlights of the conference was a late addition to the morning panel lineup; this man was almost a proto-blogger: Major Norman Hatch, who as a young NCO and combat cameraman in the Pacific during World War II oversaw the filming of the battle for Tarawa. Greyhawk provided a short version of this video, with the audio turned down, and Major Hatch gave us a live commentary – a sort of directors’ cut.

Anyway, as I have pointed out many times, the military is its whole ‘nother world. I swear, I’ve been convinced for years that most civilians get their ideas about it – not from a genu-wine military person, but from some (usually self-appointed) expert, anointed by the cultural powers that be. Which usually makes those of us who have long been domiciled in the military world just roll our eyes and laugh behind our hands. Or throw something heavy at the television – it all depends. BTW, really perversely-humored military members often amuse themselves by feeding tall tales to said self-appointed experts, just to see if they are going to bite on the tall tale, hook line and sinker. I know they do this – I’ve always called it the Wister Effect.*
Trying to put across something of what the military experience is really like to the average normal civilian is what got me started in mil-blogging, back in the Dark Ages of blogging. And sham-wow! Did Sgt. Stryker’s Daily Brief suddenly have a lot of readers! On one notable occasion just about the time that the drive into Kuwait began, CNN linked to our home page – and the resulting traffic crashed the server. We were included in a short list of mil-blogs listed in a short (is there any other sort?) article in Time Magazine, and Yours Truly was interviewed a couple of times by reporters for national newspapers, who were putting together a story about the Great E-Mail/Milblogging Adventure, and how it was possible for the deployed military to be in such very close contact with their families and friends. All very heady and amusing stuff, this was – but I kept thinking how odd it was that the official military Public Affairs offices seemed to be completely clueless.

Having worked in an airbase PA office, I knew very well that part of the PA staff’s duties was to scan print media for any mention of the service, the particular base, or the military in general. I didn’t think it likely, in other words, that the official military could NOT know about mil-blogs in 2003 – especially since I made a special effort to visit a local PA office and offer to blog about any particular needs the local command had, with regard to deployed troops from that post, or for any casualties they might be caring for. I talked to a civilian in the office – who seemed quite keen, and left my name, email addy and URL for his commander, and never heard another word. Eh – no skin off mine, as the saying goes. But at the first afternoon panel of the Milblog Conference, we had a full brace of commanders – including Admiral J.C. Harvey, Commander U.S. Fleet Forces Command, who is an enthusiastic blogger, and Col. Gregory Breazile, who blogs for the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan.

Obviously, the official blog has arrived; the technology has been embraced by the higher levels. I did get up and asked, precisely when and what event precipitated this interest, when we early bloggers were treated as if we smelled bad, early on. Eh – the answer seemed to be that the very high ranks realized the value of social media fairly early on. One does not achieve the high command rank in the military by being an idiot, by the way. I’ve met some colonels who were dumber than a box of hammers, but every general I ever met personally seemed to be pretty sharp. At the other end of the scale, the very sharpest of the junior ranks had embraced social media, blogging, twittering and youtube almost at once. It was just the intermediate level, or so the Admiral explained, who weren’t quite sure what to do with or about it. This tracked pretty well with my experience, being as the Daily Brief’s founding blogger was a smart-ass Air Force enlisted mechanic who loved to spend his nights on the intertubules. (He also got bored easily, which is why he recruited other writers for his blog after a year.) I have to admit, there is a decidedly different feel to a blog which is there because it’s essential to communicating about the mission, and one that’s a volunteer effort and done for sheer enthusiasm.

Final wrap up tomorrow – stay tuned, sportsfans.

* The Wister Effect: so called after Owen Wister, the writer of The Virginian, who related a story about some cowboys in a small Western town. When some traveling Easterners came to town on the train, and began hyperventilating about the violence and danger in the Wild West, the cowboys obligingly staged a mock-lynching for their edification. Wear your expections too openly – and very likely someone with a perverse sense of humor will make a special effort and arrange to deliver what you were expecting.

Still More of What I Saw @ The Milblogger’s Conference

18. April 2010 · Comments Off on Still More of What I Saw @ The Milblogger’s Conference · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Military, Veteran's Affairs, World

There were four panel discussions during Saturday, the one full day of the 5th Annual Milblogger’s Conference – some with panelists present front and center, and a few with either taped, or teleconferenced interviews. All of the panelists and the moderator, Greta Parry (who originated a blog called Kiss my Gumbo) touched upon the use of social media – that is, networking, blogging, tweeting and other uses of the internet in the service of various military enterprises. The first panel discussed the use of social media with regard to various military oriented charities, only one of which had been in existence longer than the last decade or so; the US Navy Memorial in Washington, DC. The VP for Marketing Communications confessed resignedly that she must still print out blogposts and email messages for many of the senior managers to peruse, since they are not exactly comfortable with this internet-thingy. The other organizations, such as Soldier’s Angels grew organically in response to various needs upon being publicized through mil-blogs and email appeals for items to be sent to deployed, hospitalized or disabled military members, or to assist their families. Soldier’s Angels started with family members sending ‘care packages’ to individuals – and then it just sort of snowballed.

Just to illustrate how these things grow: my daughter’s Marine unit deployed to Kuwait very early in 2003, and of course my parents and friends began sending her useful things – snack food and sanitary-wipes, drink mixes and big spray, books and magazines. She wrote to me about a kid in her unit who’s family had his APO address all mixed up, with the result that he was over there for almost two months and hadn’t gotten a letter or a care package from anyone. I wrote about this on my own blog, with the result that LCpl. Varnum was immediately adopted by about forty different people, and got so many boxes of goodies that there was no room for him to sleep in his little pup-tent shelter. My daughter’s unit was the recipient of boxes of books collected by another blogger, and a case of moon-pies from a lady in Virginia . . . eventually they had so much in the way of home comforts that I began referring people who emailed me asking to adopt-a-troop to Soldier’s Angels, which was formally organized and launched by this time. The milblogs have been supporting Soldier’s Angels every since. One of their big projects was to provide voice-activated laptop computers for the seriously injured – and another project I clearly recall was to collect clothing; underwear and sweats, and tee-shirts, for injured troops who had been medivacked from the field on a stretcher to hospitals in Germany to recover – and separated from all of their friends and possessions, had nothing but hospital PJs and robes to stand up in. Kind of hard, walking across the post to the PX in your slippers to buy more clothes; I suppose this problem must have come up now and again before, but in this case, Soldier’s Angels had an immediate solution.

I cut a certain “Doonesbury” strip out of the local newspaper the day it appeared, and it’s been on the front of my refrigerator ever since; the final panel of the strip contained the punchline. “Is it true that only 13% of American kids can find Iraq on a map?” And the reply from a cynical reporter character, “Yeah, but all 13% are Marines.”
During the first session, someone pointed out Garry Trudeau, among the conferees . . . yeah, that Garry Trudeau, the Doonesbury guy, who was not the very last person I would have expected to find at a military blogger’s conference – I’d say he’s have been among a list of a hundred or so. But it seems that he does a lot of quiet good for veterans, as well as providing a mil-blog venue. And yes, I did go up to him in the interval and tell him about the “13%” comic strip, still bravely magneted to my refrigerator door. Told him that he could have made another mint or so, selling the original art, or even prints of that strip. Just about every mother of a Marine would want one. Alas, he donated all the originals, all at once. (Yeah, I talked a little about my own books – do I look like an idiot! It’s all about the marketing, baby!)

The mild thrill from the second session came in a conference call from Afghanistan, from Michael Yon, who as of last weekend was lurking in the vicinity of Kandahar. Michael has been operating as a freelance journalist, covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for a good few years, now. He is supported through donations from his readers; all the milbloggers know of Mike Yon – the top story on his blog today is about one of those efforts to collect donations for a unit, or a place or a purpose . . . and how they expand. He thinks there is a ‘surge’ beginning to build up a head of steam in that part of Afghanistan; we’ll know by Christmas what kind of effect will be had by it. His next project is a means of introducing little biogas fuel generators to Afghanistan, in the hopes of replacing scarce wood as a fuel for cooking: off to Nepal to research on how they do it there. Apparently biogas generated from waste material is being widely used in Nepal . . . the technology is fairly simple, and straightforward. It would save the trees and save the time spent searching for a few little sticks of dry wood. I can see the sense in this – one of my books about the far west mentions that it was the constant quest by settlers for wood for fuel and for building that alienated the Plains Indians, at least as much as the ravages of buffalo hunters . . .

Seriously off-topic – more to follow, about the conference. Most amusingly – and I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of some of them doing so – about a third of them were tweeting and blogging each session as it happened. I did not have the advantage of a Blackberry, or i-Phone, laptop or notebook computer that many of the other conferees had, so I have to catch up days later.

More of What I Saw at the Milblogger Conference

15. April 2010 · Comments Off on More of What I Saw at the Milblogger Conference · Categories: Ain't That America?, Air Force, General, Military, Veteran's Affairs

Milblogging – alas, I have had to explain that concept to a number of my purely civilian contacts over the last few weeks. Just a plain old military blogger. A blogger on active duty, a veteran, a family member or someone just interested in aspects of the military life, all of whom are blogging about their experiences and life in the military, around the military, or as the military touches on their life. To mainstream America, since the end of the draft, this is terra incognita. If all one knows about the life military is what can be gleaned from current movies, television and popular culture, then there might just as well be dragons out there over the edge in DOD land. Another language, of slang and shorthand, of instantly understood references, certain subtle habits of manners and bearing, the quiet display of badges, rings, patches, souvenir coins or tattoos – all of which serve as tells to other residents (or past residents) of DOD land. Most pure civilians usually miss the ‘tells’ – which is why fake veterans will fool them practically all the time.

So, I have been a milblogger since 16 August, 2002, which is the Dark Ages of blogging, practically. I was invited to join this blog when it was still called Sgt. Stryker’s Daily Brief, at a time when there was a sudden and increased national interest in the military experience during the ramp-up to the Iraq War. SSDB was one of only a handful of milblogs carried on the Instapundit blog-roll. I had just barely discovered this newfangled internet thingy, I had a background in public affairs, wanted an outlet for my own writing . . . and my daughter was a Marine, heading towards a deployment in Kuwait and eventually, Iraq in the spring and summer of 2003. Comparing notes at the Milblog Conference, I discovered that the date of my first blog-post predated everyone elses’ by at least six months.

That entry is included, for your benefit, as a historical document –

Sgt. Mom’s Ancient Tech Story:

So the new colonel commanding was getting a tour of the AFRTS station, from the Station Manager. The colonel looks through the soundproofed glass window into the radio studio, and there is the on-duty DJ, stripped to his underwear, sitting cross-legged on the turntable*, going round and round and round. The colonel, slightly-bug-eyed, turns to the Station Manager and demands
“What the %#@&&& is he doing?
The Station Manager shrugs and says,
“Thirty-three and a third.” **

(footnotes appended for those under the age of 30ish)
* Probably a heavy, 16″ Gates turntable. They were used to play “records” also called ETs, or Electrical Transcriptions, which in the days when the only body parts being pierced were ears, were 16 or 14 inches across.
** Revolutions per minute. 16-inch records were played at 78 RPMs, 14-inch records (which replaced them) at 33 1/3

Yeah, I’ve gone a long way since then, although the audience laughed their hummm-hums off, when I re-told it at the conference. A good few didn’t even need the footnotes – but don’t let that lead you to assume that all attending were old fogies . . . I met a trio of earnest young college students, two veterans and one heading military-wards. A bit of an interview to follow about them, over the next two days. (Look, am I a public utility? I produce good bloggy ice-cream when I can!) There was also this young lady present, who is not only extraordinarily pleasant and patriotic, but possesses a charmingly retro aesthetic sense – as well as a sense of duty. (No, I never minded girlie pinups – as long as I could admire the equivalent and aesthetically pleasing male form . . .)

But enough of the wander down blogging-memory lane, more observations of the 5th Annual Milblogger Conference. It is the very first one which I have attended, which made for a curious experience. I have ‘known’ some of the other bloggers nearly as long as I’ve blogged and consider them as friends and fellow veterans, but this was the first time I ever met them face to face. I tend to think of them first as they named themselves with their original nom du blog – Greyhawk, Blackfive, Baldilocks – rather than their given names. Most of the early milbloggers chose to do so, not wanting to put absolutely everything out there.

Another curiosity – I’d guess that a little under a half of the conference attendees were women: fair number of veterans, or DOD civilian employees, some from various military-oriented charitable organizations, or military spouses. There were present, though, a fair number of active-duty men with the high-and tight haircut – that which makes them look as if they had shaved their heads entirely, and then parked a small, short-furred rodent on top. On the first panel of the conference – a selection of early bloggers, three of us were Air Force or AF veterans (Baldi, me, and Greyhawk – all NCOs), one Army veteran – Blackfive, and one Marine officer – “Taco”. (His last name is Bell.) This distribution drew some comment from the audience: I have no explanation for this. Another very early blogger was a Reserve Navy officer, Lt. Smash. My purely amateur and scientific wild-ass guess about this distribution is something along the lines of the Air Force and the Navy being more technically oriented, and drawing in a more middle-class and educated recruit. Another curiosity is that four of us have written or edited books, and “Taco” is planning to write one as soon as he retires and can uncork his best stories. Eh – one of my best-received one-liners: blogging is a gateway drug. (Did I mention that I do have a mad compulsion to entertain and inform? Laugher from an audience – manna to the starving!) More to follow, including how I had the neck ask a blunt question of a 4-star and to tell Garry Trudeau about the newspaper clipping that has been on the front of my refrigerator for almost eight years now – I promise. Real life and bills to pay will interfere. Really.

I’m from the Gov’t, and am here to help you….

14. April 2010 · Comments Off on I’m from the Gov’t, and am here to help you…. · Categories: General

*sigh* I really, really hate dealing with the IRS.

In 2009, I bought a house. Now, I’ve been renting since 2001, so I definitely qualify for the first-time home-buyer’s tax credit. To get that, you have to paper-file, and include a copy of hte settlement document. I did all that, and overnighted my return to them on Jan 25, to make up for the fact that paper-filing takes longer.

Each week, I went to IRS.gov and checked “Where’s my refund,” and each week, I got a response of “We have not received your return” even though it was signed for on Jan 26. Finally, on Feb 20, they admitted they had my return and were processing it. If they found no problems, I could expect my refund by March 30. On March 15, they said I could expect my refund on April 13. On March 30, they said I could expect my refund on April 27.

April 2 was my payday from work. I checked my bank balance online, and it was higher than it should have been from receiving my paycheck. So I looked at the detail, and there was a deposit from the IRS, but it was NOT for the full amount of my refund. So I head back out to IRS.gov and “where’s my refund,” and read “We decreased the amount of your refund. You will receive a letter dated April 12 explaining why.” Great. I didn’t need a letter from them – the refund was exactly $8000 less than I expected, but I had to wait until I received a letter dated April 12 before I could call and ask them why they don’t think I qualify for the home-buyer’s tax credit.

The letter came in yesterday’s mail. It tells me they think I have a prior home-ownership that would make me ineligible, and gives me a number to call.

So I call them, and spend 5 minutes on hold after telling the computer all my business so it knows I’m real. The nice lady on the other end of the phone explains that she can’t help me – she has to transfer me to tax law. Back on hold, with an estimated wait time of over 30 minutes. I hang up, figuring I’ll try again at 8am, when they won’t be so busy.

Call back this morning, expecting that the computer is routing me to the correct person to help with my issue. Lady answers the phone, and the conversation goes like this:

IRS: Can I help you?
Me: Yes, I need to have someone explain why they disallowed my homebuyer’s tax credit.
IRS: Did you get a letter from us?
Me: Yes.
IRS: Can you read me the letter?
Me: Reads the first 2 paragraphs of the letter.
IRS: There’s your answer right there. If you can’t understand that, I don’t know how we can make it any clearer.

More »

What I Saw at the Milblogger Convention

12. April 2010 · Comments Off on What I Saw at the Milblogger Convention · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Home Front, Media Matters Not, Military

Let’s see – I experienced air travel at the end of the first decade of this century. I can report that practically every shred of comfort, convenience, and excitement has been removed from the travel experience itself with almost surgical precision – although the ability to check in from your home computer and print up your boarding pass is a welcome development, and the lavish proliferation of food courts at the major hubs is similarly welcome. Especially as it seems that a tiny bag of peanuts, or a cookie and some juice or a soft-drink of choice is about the only thing served to coach passengers on short haul flights. I expect that the next step in the progression will be that the cabin staff will no longer actually hand them out from the narrow metal cart hauled up and down the aisles. Within a short time, I think they will probably hand them out after they swipe your boarding pass at the departure gate, and save the cabin staff considerable trouble. (It’s still better than MAC flights, though. Not much, but still better.)

The Atlanta airport is presently so big that it could possibly secede from Atlanta proper, and set up as its own municipality.

The area around the mid-Atlantic coast is green, green, green. Even from the air, you can make out vivid blobs of pink from the cherry trees in bloom. The dogwood trees are in bloom, too, and all along the parkway between Baltimore and Washington DC, there were tangles of purple wisteria. It’s very nice, to have belts of trees, along the parkways and highways, separating the housing tracts, warehouses and whatever from the highway. Looking at the ass-end of a strip-mall as you drive along is not aesthetically appealing. Sad lack of ground-growing wildflowers, though. I looked at the verges, which had grass and dandelions in plenty, but not much else, and thought, “Dandelions! Dandelions!!!That’s all you got, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia! Pah!”

I have seen the Washington Monument at a distance and close-up and from many angles, as I suspect the shuttle-bus driver actually circled through downtown DC several times. I have also seen the Capitol Building, and the White House, inspected the façade of the Department of Commerce building, and the quaint brick sidewalks and cobbled streets of Georgetown. We were stuck in traffic, so I had plenty of time to contemplate all of these structures. Teensy brick three and four-story townhouses in Georgetown about the width of a small yawn apparently sell for $500,000 when they come on the market.

This is a beautiful time to visit that part of the country; I am told that only the autumn foliage equals spring for sheer natural spectacle.

The Westin Arlington Gateway is a very pleasant place to stay, as hotels go, although slightly on the pricy side. The rooms are mega-comfortable, being designed around a tasteful luxury-spa theme, with lots of pale green, sage and white. The beds are piled with pillows and a thick comforter – all in pristine white. They have their own very special brand of scented white-tea-aloe soap and toiletries – and have them for sale in regular sizes for those who just can’t take away enough of the little individual bottles.

Contra the usual expectation of bloggers being socially inept loners and introverts, who cannot relate face to face to others of their species – the military version appear to be exuberant extroverts . . . even without having had much alcohol to drink.

No one that I talked to at the conference had been mil-blogging longer than I had. I started in August, 2002 – the Dark Ages of mil-blogging – and am still at it, although I have drifted into wider circles than a strictly military/veteran focus. Which makes me rather famous in those circles, although no one asked for my autograph.

To Be Continued – Garry Trudeau, a blogging 4-star admiral, the most gullible troop in all the world, three young men from Hillsdale, and other observations from the 5th Annual Milblogging Conference.

A Pair of Poopies

07. April 2010 · Comments Off on A Pair of Poopies · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, World

Actually they are really puppies, according to the strict definition of an immature, immensely appealing and sweetly clumsy canine. There are two of them, though. And they do poop. Dogs in good health do this, with joyful abandon, although how joyful an event this is for the human who collects it all up and disposes of it in the proper receptacle is a matter of considerable debate. When laboring under the suspicion that one of our dogs has ingested something unhealthy (like a sock, a rubber chewy-toy, or a wad of fiber stuffing from a comforter, pillow or doggie bed) having it appear out the other end commingled with the normal fecal material – or indeed, having anything appear from the other end – is considerable of a relief, for both the dog and the human. There’s another expensive veterinary/surgical bill avoided.

Anyway, my dearest daughter, who I swear has never laid eyes on an animal that she didn’t immediately fall in love with and bring home – found this pair, gamboling happily on a deserted suburban street in our neighborhood, last Saturday morning. (I found it, Mom – can we keep it? For a little while? I promise, I will take care of it – really, I will!) This has happened with dismaying frequency, over the last fifteen years, reaching some kind of record one weekend a couple of years ago, when we set our personal-best stray dog-return record – four of them, two on Saturday and two on Sunday. We find a dog – usually a singleton – wandering around, unescorted by an owner. Sometimes these dogs are wearing a with collar and ID and rabies vaccination tags, sometimes not. A collar and tags is an easy fix, since all that needs to be done is to call the veterinary clinic which issued the tag and tell them the number. With fiendish regularity, this happens most usually about mid-Saturday, or even Sunday of a week with a holiday Monday, so we are stuck with the stranger for at least two days.

Dogs who are beloved pets have a sort of aura about them. They are socialized; they have manners, and do not pick fights with our own dogs and cats. They are well-kept, well-fed and generally well-groomed. Quite often they are older animals – It’s been our experience that no one intentionally dumps an older dog – in fact, the dog with the graying muzzle is usually especially cherished, and has owners who are frantically searching for him or her. Sometimes, they have come from very far outside our neighborhood – a big dog can go a pretty fair distance if panicked. A dog without tags or chips presents a different set of problems: sometimes, they are so small and timid that you know they have not come from very far. In that case, it is a matter of going around with the dog on a leash, asking everyone we meet if they recognize it.

And then there is the routine of putting up posters on the mailboxes and light-posts, and the free ad in the newspaper, registering with a couple of local services and websites, putting up flyers at several local veterinarians . . . all those things that are advised, when trying to return a lost pet. Only in this case, it is not working. We have had them now for five days. We can’t even properly ID what breed they are – boxer or boxer mix? Pit-mix? Shar Pei? No one recognizes them. No one has called, or emailed, to claim them. They have no chips. They aren’t at the cute puppy phase of development; they are at the rambunctious adolescent stage. The very dismaying possibility now is that that someone just got fed up, drove through our neighborhood and dumped them. Which I find absolutely horrific – because they are sweet and endearing dogs, who have easily grasped the concept of ‘sit’ and ‘stay,’ even if only for a few nanoseconds.

We can’t keep them – my house and yard are tiny. We already have two dogs and barely manage to keep them fed, let alone the matter of veterinary care. The local Humane Society has wants us to call every morning at a certain time to see if they have spaces for them – and they also charge a fee to turn in animals. The Animal Defense League also has a fee, although they call it a ‘donation’ per animal; they have a waiting list also. Which is basically no help to us at all, if we can’t find another home soon. We can’t afford to keep them for very much longer, we barely can afford the fees and to feed them during the wait to turn them over to either. The city pound is just a no-starter: no chips, no tags and no one claiming them means they will be put down within three days and it is a hell-hole anyway. It would be kinder just to have them put down ourselves, and I am so stressed out about it that I can hardly think straight. How dare their owner not bother to be responsible – how dare they put it all off onto us?

Milblogger Conference 2010 – Update

05. April 2010 · Comments Off on Milblogger Conference 2010 – Update · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Veteran's Affairs, Wild Blue Yonder

OK – so it doesn’t look as if it will be a road trip, after all. There are some serious problems with the GG (sigh!) so that planned little jaunt is out. I’ll be traveling by regular airline on Friday morning (very early!) to Arlington, for the Milblogger Conference at the Westin Arlington Gateway, and coming back the same way on Sunday afternoon.
I am still holding off on a hotel reservation there – hoping to reduce expenses (hey, we’re in a recession, dammit! And there is work that I have done/services provided that I haven’t been paid for yet, so I must economize until those chintzy b**tards come through! ) so, if anyone of the femalion or family-oriented persuasion and a non-smoker wants to share a room this Friday and Saturday at the Gateway (or other nearby establishment) let me know! Like, ASAP!

Go Navy

31. March 2010 · Comments Off on Go Navy · Categories: General

Ladies and Gentleman: Congressman Hank Johnson (D-GA) articulating (for some values of ‘articulate’) his concern that the island of Guam will “actually tip-over and capsize.”

Forget – if you can – that this guy writes laws the rest of us must obey.

Note the iron discipline the Admiral demonstrated. Not a snicker, not a smile.  He did not cover his mouth. He did not glare at the Congressman for wasting his valuable time.  He did not turn to his aide and mutter ‘Geez Louise, can you believe this guy?”

Bravo Zulu, Admiral.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Lady or the Tiger?

30. March 2010 · Comments Off on Lady or the Tiger? · Categories: General

Health Care Reform, Henry Waxman issuing a subpoena to private citizens to account for why they’re following the law, demagoguery on the right and left, politicians making promises to get elected then making a u-turn in office, Abscam, Iran-Contra, Monica-Gate, Watergate ..

There are two ways to take the long view on this.

a. Politicians have always been this way.  What we learned in eighth-grade Civics was lies and whitewash.

b. The guys sitting in the D.C. are degenerate and not worthy of our heritage.

I’m not sure which bothers me more.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

The Shape of Things to Come

30. March 2010 · Comments Off on The Shape of Things to Come · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, Tea Time

Not being one of those terribly imaginative people – except when it comes to my books, and then it’s katy-bar-the-door – I’ve managed over the years to avoid being caught up in many of those OMG-TEOTWAWKI panics. I know that people with books to sell, and local television news reporters, not to mention the talk shows love this kind of thing, but the truth is, I’ve just seen too many of them fizzle out. Future shock, global nuclear winter, satanic abuse in day-care, overpopulation, Y2K, and AWG . . . not any of those sent me into any kind of panic, although it wasn’t for lack of trying on the part of various peers. Chalk it up to a skeptical gene, inherited from Dad the research biologist. Or maybe I just have a sort of mental time limit rule about this – if it’s still a concern after half a decade, then maybe I’ll dredge up some shreds of more than passing interest and concern.

That having been said, I wasn’t one of those entirely crushed by the election of our current President. You know, said I to myself cheerfully, ‘Self, although he is almost totally inexperienced, never been in the military, never managed a shop or met a payroll – he could develop into an effective administrator, since he doesn’t have a lot of pre-existing baggage to overcome. He’s supposed to be bright enough – everyone says so, and perhaps this time some of them could be right. He can adapt and learn – OJT! The United States is a big, strong, stable entity; this is just one president – how can just one kark up anything too badly in the space of one term? And since he is kinda-sort of black, or at least half of him is, maybe with him in office, people will get off our case about the inherent racism of the establishment, for once. What do you think about that, Self – room for optimism?’

And Self chuckled darkly, and answered, ‘Just have to wait and see about that, beeyoutch! And while you’re at it, pour me another glass of Chablis – the good stuff, not that gack-from-a-box.’

So – train-wreck. I hoped it wouldn’t be, but it’s been happening in slow-motion, all this year long. It’s not just a matter of ‘Will the administration kark up this?” but more a question of “How badly?” as the overall approval ratings for the One sink. Seriously, at this rate, by mid-summer, they’re going to have to batten down the hatches and do whatever it is with the ballast tanks that they do in old war movies to make the submarine ready for a deep dive as the alert horn goes ‘Ahhh-oooo-gah! Ahhh-oooo-gah!‘ This would all have considerable cynical amusement value for Self and me – save that a lot of other stuff will sink with the One – and no, this time I am getting worried with all the rest. Before, it had always seemed to me that the worry was more of a theoretical thing; all that was required seemed to be that you worry, too. Maybe sign a petition or two, post about it on your blog – even go to some long meetings and short protests, if you really, really felt strongly about the issue.

I keep sensing all kinds of oddball stuff, not precisely internet or news-media based, but in the no-kidding-real-world, or some mixture of the two – like a whiff of smoke in the air, or some straws blowing by, a casual comment here or there. Timmer remarking about how farmers are moving out of California, and setting up in his state. Friends of friends, moving up into the Hill Country, and having a well dug, buying a generator and plenty of emergency gasoline for it. My friend Alice’s internist grouching to her about how he is about to close up his medical practice, now that “Health Care Reform” has been voted through. Various firearm enthusiasts complaining to each other about how hard it is to buy ammunition now. And this last Sunday, when Blondie and I went out to a local nursery and specimen garden (a place of which I am terribly fond, since a lot of my money – when I had it to spend – wound up there). It was very, very crowded last weekend, more customers than I had ever seen unless there was a special event going on there. I asked one of the long-time managers of it was all right to take pictures, since I wanted to do a little feature about the beauties of spring flowers for one of my paying clients. This manager has known me casually for years, and asked after Blondie, and what she was studying in school. Blondie explained about her major – research biology, and the manger said cheerfully “Well, at least you can earn something of a living at that!” and went on, unbidden, to make mention of what Obama and his “Health Care Reform” were going to do to the medical professions – and then to tell me about how they had been selling flat after flat of vegetable starts this spring.
“Everyone’s starting a garden,” she said, “And it seems like everyone who started one already is expanding it.”
“Oh really,” I said, noncommittally.
“This is the best spring for vegetables that I’ve ever seen,” she said.
And now, I am really, really, wierded out.

Shock and Awe

29. March 2010 · Comments Off on Shock and Awe · Categories: General

Title refers to remembering my password.

Since I began dusting off DragonLady’s World, I thought I would come back over here and dust off this account too. I’ve started to feel the writing bug again, and hopefully I will actually start writing again before the bug moves on. 🙂

I think I’ve reached that breaking point they talk about…

26. March 2010 · Comments Off on I think I’ve reached that breaking point they talk about… · Categories: Domestic, General, Politics

I got snail mail today from some Republican Congressman. Apparently, he’s from the local area (2 towns south of me, and our towns are close together), but I’d never heard of him until his donation request showed up in my mailbox. He sounds like a nice guy, but his request came to me about one health bill too late.

My handwritten response is stapled to the donation request (which has my address on it, so they’ll know who I am), and does not include a donation.

Dear Congressman X —

Thank you for your recent donation request. Unfortunately, I cannot help you, for several reasons.

1. I’d never even heard of you until your donation request showed up in my mailbox.

2. If you’re currently in your fourth term, you share part of the blame. President Bush (who I voted for twice) never met a spending bill he didn’t like, and the Republican congress was just as quick to waste my tax money as the Democrat congress has been, although I must admit the Dems are doing it on a much grander scale.

3. After the latest assault on American values, American taxpayers and the US Constitution, I have promised myself that I will not vote for, nor support, any incumbents on the national level.

It’s a small gesture, and probably a futile one, but we all have to take a stand sometime, and this is mine.

Regretfully,
my real name

Walking from the mailbox to the house, it was too dark to see if the envelope was from an individual or the Republican party. All I could tell was it was political. Thinking as I walked, I realized that I no longer trust the leadership of the Republican Party to do what’s right for the Country, vs. what’s right for the Party. I don’t know if I’ll ever donate to a political party again, choosing instead to give directly to candidates that earn my support.

So… Sgt Mom for Congress, anyone? I honestly don’t know who else I’d trust to be honest, ethical, etc.

Battle space Preparation

25. March 2010 · Comments Off on Battle space Preparation · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, Tea Time

So, even though the so-called Health Reform Act was pushed through Congress by an interesting mixture of threats, bribes and general arm-twisting, over the objections of well over half the American public, and Botox Nan got her chance to strut her stuff with a gavel the size of a fifty-pound sledge-hammer . . . the denigration of Tea Partiers continues apace. In fact, it has gotten even shriller . . . gosh, you’d think the Democrats and their tools in the media would be just thrilled to pieces that they won, but the mere existence of opposition appears to constitute an unbearable offense to our very own House of Lords.

Yeah, it must be a real bummer for Democratic legislators and the Obama Administration, having people all over the Capital lawns, screaming “Kill the Bill” so loudly. You could almost hear them muttering to themselves; “Honestly, who are these rubes, and what in the world gives them the idea that we work for them?” Must have been a real bummer, expecting to stroll into an auditorium of bored elders, political cranks and busybodies and administer a bit of emollient verbal pablum, field a couple questions, and stroll back to DC and get on with it. Instead, all those obstreperous Tea Partiers showed – not just at the town-hall meetings, but at the district offices, bringing letters and petitions, sending emails and faxes . . . geeze, do you have any idea how much toner costs these days? And nothing contented these people, day after day after day, with the insistent questions and demands for answers; how’s the House and Senate supposed to do business and parcel out the pork if all these voters get ideas above their pay grade!

So, ignoring them didn’t much work, and ridiculing them as teabagging, sister-humping minority-hating morons didn’t much work; neither did all sorts of heavy breathing about the Homeland Security watchlist as possible terrorists, or painting them as such in Law’n’Order episodes or Captain America comic books . . . (look, I refuse to call them graphic novels. Same with places where mobile homes are parked. I call those trailer parks, ‘kay? And you kids – get off my lawn!)

Anyway, I am viewing the current antics of our American House of Lords, and their water-carriers in the traditional media with a wary eye. Now, from being ignored and ridiculed – Tea Partiers are routinely accused of encouraging violence, or even outright accusations of it. Not much actual evidence is offered for such claims. Videos from last weekend’s protest rallies around the Capital showing members of the CBC being spit on, or called racial epithets are at best inconclusive. Obscene and threatening phone calls to Congressional offices and homes, and un-sourced vandalism present a more serious problem; as your mother would say, someone could get hurt.

And when and if someone does get hurt, that’s when the fur will really fly, and don’t tell me that the Obama Administration, the Democrat side of the House and Senate, and the mainstream media creatures who adore them aren’t just aquiver with happy anticipation at the thought, especially if responsibility for an act of violence can be pinned to a frustrated citizen with some kind of Tea Party connection – no matter how tenuous the actual connection. And insisting, as I have had, over and over and over again, that Tea Partiers are generally responsible, law-abiding citizens, who really don’t have much of a race problem – that will have no effect. We will all be smeared, with the greatest vigor – and in fact, the smearing has already begun. The battle space is being prepped; and it is entirely possible that the required incident may be manufactured to order, if it doesn’t present itself naturally. Thoughtful and sensible commentators like Wretchard, at the Belmont Club, and Neo-Neocon are drawing unsettling historical parallels.

Yes, it’s going to be a damned long eight months. When we get to the end of that period of time, are we going to see anything that we recognize as familiar?

My Map of San Antonio

25. March 2010 · Comments Off on My Map of San Antonio · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Old West, Working In A Salt Mine...

I bought a map last month, when I got a slightly-more-than-usually generous check for work that I had done, a map that I had my eye on for a while: it’s a reprint of the 1873 birds-eye view of San Antonio, done by an artist-printer-mapmaker-entrepreneur by the name of Augustus Koch. There’s a very high-end reprint available from the Amon Carter museum, but I found a rather more affordable version from an antique shop, and bought a frame from a thrift shop for it. To cover the gap between low-rent map and low-rent frame, I had a matt for it cut at a big-box hobby store which does this at very reasonable rates. So there it is, hanging on the wall to my left at the corner of my bedroom chez Hayes which serves as my office. The magic happens here, people – adjust. Please ignore assorted dust bunnies and the very dirty and scrofulous Shi Tzu sleeping underneath my office chair, also the three levels of desk, piled with computer tower, monitor, speakers and reference books – the writers’ life is supposed to be so romantic and all, I would hate to demolish anyone’s fond illusions.

So – this is the mental foundation which serves me when I try and visualize mid-19th century San Antonio – a spaghetti-tangle of streets, eight public plazas of various shapes (the oldest of them being the most asymmetrical as to layout) and an aqua-blue river which can’t actually be said to cross it. Lord no – the river rambles like a spastic snake in the middle of a particularly energetic fit, although the course of San Pedro Creek, and the remaining constructs of the old Spanish aquicias describe a considerably more rational line. The San Pedro Springs once came leaping out of the ground, such was the pressure exerted by the Edwards aquifer: so much water seeping down into the limestone layer of the Hill Country – when it escaped, it escaped with a bang. There are still natural springs and seeps, visible for weeks after it rains, even in my neighborhood. In the 19th century, the San Pedro Spring was focus for a summer excursion, a nice relaxing afternoon in the park-like setting and in the local beer-gardens.

This map was drawn and published before the railway arrived, when the middle of all but the oldest city blocks were open – even if the streets were lined with Monopoly-block little houses, plain little cubes with pale walls and dark dashes for windows. Throughout, significant buildings and mansions are given a trifle more detail than the “Monopoly-house-and-hotel” treatment: a second or third story, a tower, ornate apse or merely an eccentric lay-out relative to the street adjacent. The Menger Hotel is clear, on Alamo Plaza – where it exists to this day.

The aspect is from an imaginary viewpoint somewhat to the north of modern downtown, looking out towards the south and east. It looks a very tiny town, my town of the past and my imagination. As such, it devolves very rapidly from a tight-packed huddle around Commerce Street and the old Main Plaza, dominated by the spire of San Fernando – which would be re-built in grey-stone neo-gothic splendor within a few years.
During the siege of the Alamo, the blood-red banner of ‘no quarter’ was flown from the stumpy tower which existed then – an event which would be well within the memories of anyone above the age of forty, who had been living in the town at the time. In my mind, and aided by this map, I can place so many landmarks now overbuild with steel, concrete and glass. Samuel and Mary Maverick had a house on the corner of Houston and Alamo. The last few structures remaining of the mission of San Antonio de Valero are relatively unchanged, save that they are now a shrine of another sort. The Veramendi Palace on Soledad Street just a little way from what the Main Plaza (would they have called it the Plaza Mayor, back in the day?) is gone now, but it still remains on this map – a long low, windowless building, so-called because it was the town-house of a powerful Tejano family. James Bowie married a Veramendi daughter, and lived there briefly: by the year of my map, the building housed offices, and around in back – a beer garden. The grand double front doors of the Veramendi Palace are on display in the Alamo.

Mid-19th century San Antonio’s city blocks devolved very rapidly from that core into city blocks, loosely lined with houses, then to blocks with just a scattering of them, interspersed with regular plantings of trees which could be seen as orchards. As the pale, buff-colored streets ravel out into the countryside, the houses become sparse – although some of them are distinguished by a bit more detail, a porch perhaps, or a row of miniscule dormers along the roof. The present King William district – almost the first high-end suburb – is a twelve-block stretch of town laid out to the south and adjoining the San Antonio River as it rambles off in a coast-wards direction, or at about 2 o’clock as I view the map. This is where the good German bourgeoisie magnates and men of business built their homes, when Texas began to recover some semblance of post-Civil War prosperity. C.H. Guenther’s Pioneer Flour Mill anchors this district today – but it does not appear on this map, although it is there and plain to see in the follow-up birds-eye map done a little more than a decade later, when the railway had come in, connecting the town with the greater world. But that’s what the 19th century American rail system did – connect far-spread communities with the larger world. There is another birds-eye view, by the same artist, done a bare ten fifteen later, in 1886, after the railway, after the Army had decamped to a new-built post somewhat to the north – the Fort Sam Quadrangle and the clock tower in it, all clear and neatly inked in. The houses are tinier, and even less detailed in the second man – for by then, San Antonio had become a city.
I think I will go and buy the second map, also – as soon as I have a bit more of the spare change.

*THERE* was an Orator…

24. March 2010 · Comments Off on *THERE* was an Orator… · Categories: General

Two hundred thirty-five years ago yesterday, Patrick Henry gave a speech in the House of Burgesses that still resonates today. Mostly Cajun provides the full text, interspersed with his thoughts.

In this excerpt, I’ve italicized Henry’s words.

We’ve talked. We’ve voted. We’ve written. Made phone calls. Sent email and fax. Taken to the streets.

And had all that treated by the Left as if we were children engaged in childish games. With the willing complicity of the mainstream media we’re called names and accused of every calumny possible from racism to abject ignorance.

We’ve trusted “the system”.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?

Go.

Read.

Then resolve to change your world, as Henry & his fellow patriots changed theirs.

So if the HCR Act is Rammed Through Today

21. March 2010 · Comments Off on So if the HCR Act is Rammed Through Today · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, sarcasm, Tea Time, World

…It’s not over. Oh, no, my friends – it’s definitely not over.

It’s just beginning. And the gestures won’t be stupid and futile.

Later – yep, just as I suspected. As one of those e-mails going around says:

Let me get this straight……we’re trying to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn’t read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president that also hasn’t read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s broke.

What the hell could possibly go wrong?

Still Later – While I am doing quotes, howsabout this one?

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” – Samuel Adams

A 21 Story Salute

19. March 2010 · Comments Off on A 21 Story Salute · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Memoir, Veteran's Affairs, War, World

Take a look at this –

Looks nice, doesn’t it? Finally, in February, Alice and I finished the latest book project from Watercress Press, the tiny specialty subsidy press bidness which affords the both of us some kind of living and a fair amount of amusement, as well as entrée into what passes for the literary scene in San Antonio. Alice does the fine editing and some of the admin stuff, I do the rough editing and the author-wrangling, and keep the website updated. We hire an independent contractor to do the book design and layout, to ours and the author’s specifications; I must say that when the pocketbook permits, we can do some very nice, high-end books indeed: History, Texiana, memoirs, some poetry – that kind of thing.

A 21 Story Salute combines two of our favorites; history and memoir. Barbara Bir, the author/editor went around to twenty-one World War II-era veterans and a couple of spouses, and interviewed them about their experiences during the conflict, and about their lives afterwards. All were pretty interesting, in themselves, but a good few of them were downright fascinating; it depended, I think, on how good a story-teller they were.

Bob Ingraham, for instance: he had some great stories. He survived being shot down flying a Spitfire over Dieppe in 1942, and a round of imprisonment as a POW in Sagan, where he helped to dig the Great Escape tunnel. There were three American diggers, helping with Tom, Dick and Harry – he is the only one still living.

Clara Morrey Murphy, and her friend, Aleda “Lutzie” Lutz – Clara and Lutzie were two of the very first Army air-evac nurses – there is a picture of them in the book, trying out their flight gear, while in special training in 1942. They went on to air –evacuate patients during the campaigns in North Africa, Italy and France. Clara Murphy’s military uniform is now on display at the Brooks ‘Hanger 9’ aerospace medicine museum, in San Antonio. “Lutzie” died in 1944, when the air-evac flight she was on crashed into a mountainside in Southern France.

Eddie Patrick? He was the kid genius, when it came to radios and electronics: he wound up as a senior NCO at the age of 19, in charge of the comm gear, serving at a Flying Tigers airbase in China, well behind the Japanese lines.

Litzie Trustin was Jewish and born in Vienna. She escaped to England on one of the last Kindertransports, just before the war began in Europe in 1939. Returning to Europe to work with the American forces as a translator, she married a transport pilot and came to Omaha to settle down and raise a family – and to work for civil rights.

Bob Joyce kept a diary, all through his tour of duty as a B-17 radio operator, flying a series of nerve-wrackingly dangerous missions from Italy. He carried with him on those missions a pair of regular Army boots, his father’s rosary, a good-luck bracelet from his home-town girlfriend, and a $2.00 bill, so he would never be broke.

Ignatio “Nacho” Gutierrez never saw snow until he went into the Army for basic training. He and his unit came ashore on D-Day in the early evening of June 6th, 1944 – and he painted signs – and sometimes stapled them to trees himself – for the constantly-moving XIX Corps, First Army headquarters, all through Normandy and into Belgium and Germany.

During the war, Marshall Cantor directed the building of runways and scratch airbases on Ascension Island for Air Transport Command, and then moved on to do the same in New Guinea and in the Philippines. He met Ellen Berg, who was a nurse serving at a forward hospital in Papua, New Guinea. They married in 1944.

More excerpts and a few more pictures are at a section of Barbara’s website, here.

Now that is a good dog

17. March 2010 · Comments Off on Now that is a good dog · Categories: General

He counted loud he counted long he waited for the shock.
He felt the wind he felt the cold, he felt that awful drop.
The silk from his reserve fell out and wrapped about his legs,
WOOF ARF WOOF WOOF ARF WOOF ARF!

Airborne!<br/><br/>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7063359.ece

“Dogs don’t perceive height difference, so that doesn’t worry them. They’re more likely to be bothered by the roar of the engines, but once we’re on the way down, that doesn’t matter and they just enjoy the view.[1] It’s something he does a lot. He has a much cooler head than most recruits.”

Blah-Delta-SAS-Afghanistan-blah-HALO-dog scouts-blah.

The important part: Airborne Dogs. That is AWESOME.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] You know there is a whole of tail wagging going on at this point.

Whither Hollywood?

16. March 2010 · Comments Off on Whither Hollywood? · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Rant, That's Entertainment!

Seriously, what is it with the people that make our movies? I might almost believe there was something about the higher reaches of show biz that turns people into complete and raving loons. What with a long series of much-ballyhooed movies culminating in The Green Zone, most which in some degree or other, can easily be construed as anti-troops/anti-war productions and most of which have tanked at the box office, an Oscar evening which I didn’t even bother to watch, let alone seeing any of the movies involved, and Tom Hanks near as dammit shooting himself and his TV series The Pacific in the foot with statements about American racism in interviews . . . oh, heck, can I be forgiven for wondering if there something in the water? Never mind how the Hollywood good and the great appeared to jump on the global warmening and the Obama bandwagon, almost simultaneously. Never mind how the Law’n’Order TV concession painted tea partiers as dangerous terrorists. Never mind the incessant slams against the religiously observant, or the monstering of Sarah Palin. The cumulative idiocy is almost too much to be born; it’s almost as if they don’t want us to be watching any of their damned movies or TV at all.

For the record, this last weekend, we went to see Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, which is about the first time in a year that we went to see a first-run movie in the theaters. (Last time it was Gran Torino, if memory serves, and no, I can’t remember what we went to see the time before that.) I might have gone to see Up, and Blondie and I were considering Julie and Julia, but just didn’t feel strongly enough about either to make the effort. Seriously, I used to love going to movies, but somehow and somewhere in the last decade or so I lost my enthusiasm. Between the expense and hassle of actually going to the theater, the sheer badness of most current releases, the speed with which the best of the current crop show up on DVD (where I can ask to do a review and get the darned thing for free) and the steady drip-drip-drip of ignorance and insult directed at flyover, working-class Americans, conservatives, military, and tea partiers – all sourced from the glitterati . . . well, really, what’s the point? Why should I put up with having my values routinely insulted, right along with my intelligence? I have long insisted on skipping anything which features car chases, machine-gun fire and massive explosions, in lieu of plot and dialogue. And I’d prefer to think of actors as a kind of well-trained performing monkey, whose job is to amuse the audience. I do not want them to be lecturing me on politics, history, international relations, global warming or ecology at the drop of a hat or Charlie Sheen’s trousers, whichever happens oftener. Not unless they actually have some professional education or expertise in those fields, which damn few of them appear to do anyway. Stick to entertaining me, dammit.

Check…One-Two, Check-Check…This Thing On?

03. March 2010 · Comments Off on Check…One-Two, Check-Check…This Thing On? · Categories: General

Yawns…stretches, cracks knuckles, cracks neck, cracks lower back “ow-ow-ow…sigh.”  Sips coffee.  Thinks.  Alrighty then.

So an “old HS Friend on Facebook” posts that he’s joined “The Coffee Party” (giggle, really?  The best they could do?) and so I come over here to see what Mom’s got and apparently she’s been writing up a storm and then I figure I’d see if my sign-in still works and lo and behold it DOES and so I started thinking about some stuff and what I might want to write about and…deep breath…why yes…yes MY coffee is particularly strong this morning, why do you ask?

Same Old Same Old

02. March 2010 · Comments Off on Same Old Same Old · Categories: General, Local, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, Tea Time

One of the most exasperating elements WRT to tracking the fortunes of the Tea Party movement is going into comment threads here and there and running slap into the constant insistence from commenters of a certain persuasion that Tea Partiers are stupid! Stupid, I say, dumber than dirt! Drooling morons, apparently barely able to find their way to the latrine, the voting booth or to tune their radios to whatever channel is carrying Rush Limbaugh!

They bang on and on about the stupidity and reckless lack of clue among the Tea Party set constantly, seemingly impervious to any contrary evidence – such as that of my own lying eyes. Of the activists who launched my local tea party, included among them was a corporate lawyer – an A & M grad (so of course the jokes about that are endless), a professor at a local and notoriously expensive and upscale private university, a madly creative and seriously eccentric video producer, a IP techie of proven skills and a very hot temper, a military contractor specializing in very high-end specialist software, a good few scrappy real estate agents, an academic doctor . . . and then myself, the historical novelist. There was also the married lady of irreproachable virtue and deeply Christian principles who had at one point in her now-distant youth been a Playboy Bunny, a guy with a long career in print media sales who now runs a tiny construction bidness of his own, and we have since added another two lawyers, an insurance-firm executive and others of the same professional ilk. In other words, lots of professionals, managers, and graduate degrees The picture ought to be fairly clear, I would think – not too terribly many mouth-breathers among the cadre of the seriously involved, but bless their hearts, the leftoid commenters everywhere have only a few horses to flog when it comes to the Tea Party, so they flog it relentlessly. (The other equine targets being ‘you’re all raaaaacist!’ and ‘you’re all tools of the GOP/Fox News’ being the main ones, although “where were you when Booooosh maneuvered us into two illegal wars/put us into a deficit first!” is being brought around from the stable.)

It’s pathetic – this is all they have, when anyone who has ever attended, or had anything to do with a Tea Party knows that the dumb/racist/GOP tool is not only false, but completely lame. Seriously, pukes – do you want to have any credibility left as a sentient being, after November, 2010? And then I think – perhaps that is all they have. No real and workable ideas, no energy, no stamina for the dull and boring labor of actually doing political activism, the kind that takes years, the kind which consumes your life, the kind of work done by William Wilberforce and Tom Paine, by Abraham Lincoln and Lucy Stone. For a while, I did battle in comment threads, regarding the derisive epithet “tea-bagger” – I said (over and over) that using it in a discussion of the Tea Party was like using the word “n****r” in a discussion of civil rights. Eh, I think my point has been made. Of late I don’t much waste time objecting to the use of it, since it has become a time-saver. Someone using it has already marked themselves as so bigoted and essentially closed-minded that they are hardly worth wasting time and pixels over. I have to save my energy for the long fight. I can’t waste time over correcting fools.

Oh, and yeah – I have to save enough energy to earn a living, and to write some more books; currently have drafted six chapters for “The Quivera Trail” and five and a half for “Gone to Texas.”

In the meantime, it looks like my suspicions from last week about the so-called Coffee Party being nothing more than a fresh roll of Axelrod Astroturf? Oh, yeah – big time. The blogosphere is on the hunt. I deduce that fresh scalps will soon be joining those on the drying-rack next to those lifted from the heads of the global-warming crowd. Good times, people, good times.

I am breathless with laughter

24. February 2010 · Comments Off on I am breathless with laughter · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Tea Time

We just got a telephone mecho-call from Kay Bailey Hutchison – claiming that she had been endorsed by National Tea Party leader Dick Armey…
So, Blondie said… “Er… who?”
And I said, “We have a leader?”

Seriously, we have a leader? OMG, if this call went out to everyone in Texas with a telephone … she has seriously just stepped all over her … er. Whatever.

Down By the Station

24. February 2010 · Comments Off on Down By the Station · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Tea Time, Veteran's Affairs

Sunset Station, that is – the turn-of-the-last-century historic railway depot in San Antonio, a splendid pile of Mission Revival stucco and russet-colored roof tiles, which was the pride of the town when it was completed in 1903. The main depot building had electric lights up the wazoo, and a pair of round stained-glass windows in the peak of the roof on either end, glass windows that were as big as ornamental fishponds. There was a grand divided staircase at one end, and heavy wood benches arranged to best effect on the lower level. It was the waiting room, then, although I think most people waiting for a train would have been out under the awnings, where there would have been a bit of a breeze, and train travelers could have appreciated the gardens and the ornamental trees – the Southern Pacific architect and landscapers did not do things by halves, back in the days when rail travel was the thing, and automobiles were cranky and unreliable toys for rich men.

After mid-century, the rule of the steel rails diminished, and the rule of the automobile came to pass: city planners slapped six lanes of highway along the edge of Downtown, thirty or so years ago. This amputated the railway station and the blocks of hotels, warehouses and cafes off from the rest of Downtown, the part with the Alamo and the Riverwalk and the people – still the old Depot remained. Fortunately, they re-vamped the old depot building as an event venue a decade or so ago, lovingly re-constructing every bit of plaster ornament and stained glass, and out in back of the main hall is an open terrace with an arcade along one side, and landscaping and an iron fence along the other. There are some fine old buildings surviving in the blocks around the Station, although I don’t think it will ever be as lively as it was in it’s heyday.

Facing the back of the old Depot is a covered pavilion with a raised stage, and all that is necessary for concerts and entertainment. I had never been there before – but that is where the San Antonio Tea Party held their first anniversary rally on Sunday. We drew a fair number of people, about 230 or so, on a lovely breezy Sunday afternoon. We were gifted with a fine warm day, wedged in between a couple of cold and icy ones, just right for a meeting which turned out to run about an hour longer than expected. At the last minute, we had added Kevin Jackson, Sheriff Mack and Stewart Rhodes of the Oathkeepers to Joe the Plumber – which proved to be at least semi-attractive to three out of five local TV news networks. And after the rally, our Cap & Trade working group had set up another guest speaker, who had a presentation about Global Warming. To be precise, his presentation concerned the fraud thereof, and that apparently drew out some counter-demonstrators.

I think this must be the first time that the local progressives actually organized something: usually it’s just been a handful of regulars showing up with singularly uninspiring signs. It would appear, from the TV news stories posted on Sunday evening, that one of the things which raised their ire (well, besides even having a Tea Party to start with) was the presence of the so-called “global warming denier.” That apparently is still a high crime, to those who haven’t yet managed to hear about Climate-gate. They came on a bus, pranced down the street to opposite where we were, and chanted “Health Care Now!” and “Green Jobs Now!” – although they did break it up at one point by singing Happy Birthday – although to whom, I can’t be sure. Then the bulk of them did hop onto their bus and depart – I guess forty minutes was about as much as they had stamina for, or maybe that was all that the Acorn budget allowed.

There were a handful of die-hards, though; one with a video camera, and another with a bullhorn who kept shouting incomprehensible questions from across the street; basically that we were all rich racists, and something about the jerk in Austin with IRS issues and a small plane. It seemed rather laughably pointless, as they were doing this while a succession of candidates for local office were acquainting us with their campaigns and their fitness for the various offices they were running for. Here we are, basically holding a town meeting, being serious about evaluating people we are about to vote into various offices, attending to our basic civic responsibilities . . . while a stupid woman with a bullhorn shouts irrelevant insults through the hedge. I did stand up in a gap between the bushes and waved cheerfully at her companion with a video camera in front of her face, and Blondie wrote “Hi, Mom!” in her palm with a Sharpie and waved also.

So, they couldn’t be bothered to come to the Tea Party rally – which was free and open to the public, or to the Global Warming talk, which also was free, etc., and ask questions, and enter into a real debate, and take part in a fairly serious encounter with people who are asking us all to vote for them . . . but still preferred to stand on the sidewalk and screech like howler monkeys. As Blondie said at the time, “Mom, sometimes you can’t fix stupid.”

And the funniest part? I went a googling here and there, and found some of their own videos and websites – and this little event was put together in part by what appears to be a joint effort of activists from San Antonio and Boerne (all thirty of them or so), some of whom are calling themselves “The Coffee Party.” No, I didn’t make that up. They have a website and all, with a nicely designed logo and some facebook meet-ups, although the nationwide chapters still seem pretty thin on the ground. I am thinking that I have probably found the follow-on to last week’s little patch of Astroturf, “The Tea Party is Over.”

Memo: Monday Morning Miscellany

14. February 2010 · Comments Off on Memo: Monday Morning Miscellany · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, General Nonsense, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, Stupidity, Tea Time

From: Sgt Mom
To: Various
Re: Some Apparently Inconvenient Home Truths

1. Oh, my – the case of the absent-minded professor, the irreproducible results and the ‘dog-that-ate-my-data.’ Yet another stake through the heart of man-made-global-warming, to add to the existing collection; I swear, in popular media culture this global-warming c**p has more lives than Freddy Kruger. Hey, aren’t we all ready to have a good long laugh at Al Gore, now? And can we at least have our incandescent light-bulbs back? Thanks, ever so.

2. Note – to aspiring politicians (I’m looking at you, aspiring candidate for governor of Texas Debra Medina, who was about to break out on the national media level, but flubbed a key question asked by Glenn Beck – who, I may add, was not exactly hostile media to fiscally conservative, independent and grassroots candidates, m’kay?) – there is only one acceptable answer to that particular question. That acceptable answer is “no.” Or “hell, no.” Although the Bush administration, and before that, the Carter administration, might have been able to put together the pieces of the intelligence puzzle a little more efficiently, or take more seriously the rantings and threats of a wierdy-beardy Islamist squatting in an Afghan cave – the US government most certainly did not coldly and callously enter into a labyrinthine plot to murder 5,000+ of their own citizens in one morning. If you well and truly believe that a conspiracy of that magnitude is doable, probable and technologically possible – than why do you chose to remain a citizen of such a monstrous country? And more to the point, if you believe in 9/11 as a government plot, why would you even want to become a part of the government? S**t, people, the X-Files was a fictional TV show, not a documentary – get a grip.

3. OK – one more time: the Tea Partiers are not knuckle-dragging, sister-humping, room-temperature IQ racists, and the more certain of you choose to bang on about this meme, the more you are blowing your credibility with the public, outside your own cozy little echo chamber that is. One more time – they are fiscal conservatives, small federal government, free market and libertarian. The Tea Partiers I know don’t give a good g***amn about the color of your skin, the color of the POTUS’ skin – and we wouldn’t care much about what Captain America thinks of us either, except that once a meme gets going, it’s a pain in the *** to uproot. See item 1, above.

Oh, yeah – and our protests are fun. Lots of smiling, friendly people, lots of laughter, music – kind of like a very laid-back neighborhood block party. And we clean up after ourselves, too.

4. And in reference to item 3 above? Yeah, for a while I went around explaining earnestly that using the word “teabagger” in a discussion of the Tea Party movement was kind of like using the word n*gger in starting off a discussion about civil rights – now? Eh, not so much. When I see it being used, I can be pretty sure the person using it is as aggressively ignorant as they are bigoted and rude, so I can safely disregard anything they have to say. Just by using it, they’ve already proved they have nothing much to say, so I can save valuable time.

5. I’d write a good scathing essay about Courtney Cook – except that it looks like pretty much most of the milblogosphere already seems to have taken some good hearty thwacks at her Salon essay. (Jeeze, what is it with Salon and Open Salon these days? Is there some kind of convention going on for shallow, narcissistic writers over there?) Passive-aggressive, self-absorbed and immature is no way to go through life, dear – just my opinion.

Sincerely,
Sgt Mom

Tea Party and Tea Parties

11. February 2010 · Comments Off on Tea Party and Tea Parties · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Local, Politics, Rant, Tea Time

You know, the funniest thing about being active in a local Tea Party – aside from some of the soap opera antics resulting when people involved have different ideas about where we should go and what we should do – comes from going back and reading, over and over, in comment threads, editorials/commentary and news stories, those unsupported and wildly asserted claims about what we are and what we want. Strict Constitutionalists, limited federal government, free markets . . . nothing more radical than that, actually. No, seriously, nothing more than that. Really, cross my heart, et cetera – it’s nothing more than that, as a handful of the media anointed who have come down from their lofty heights and actually did their jobs have discovered. Much to their own mild surprise, I might add. However, sometimes it seems that the larger portion – or at least the noisier portion of academia, the media, the political elite and dumbasses commenting on blog and news threads are still convinced otherwise. According to this particular assortment of gits, such beliefs in the strict interpretation of the Constitution, and a small federal government with limited powers are horrifically radical and dangerously un-American notions. This would suggest that in general, public education has reached astonishing new lows in total incompetence, when it comes to education in basic civics and history – Especially, it would seem, among those in the leadership cadre among certain unions.

No kidding, looking around at all that is said of us in various fora – it’s an absolute hoot. I am following one comment thread now where it’s being asserted, over and over again that the Tea Partiers are the tools of big corporations. No actual proof of the assertion are posted, mind you – such as details about which corporations, and how they are supposed to be commanding us Tea Party sheeple. If anything, and to go by my personal knowledge of Tea Partiers – more of them are owners of small, and even micro-small businesses. There’s a fair number of retirees, lots of military veterans, heaps of fairly observant churchgoers; all of this makes one particular assertion fairly risible – that we were all stupid dope-smokers in high school who couldn’t into college or get real jobs and don’t pay taxes. Have to admit, I was shaking my head over that one. If anything, most of us were probably totally earnest, clean-cut parent-respecting nerds, back in the day – and were roundly laughed at by the dope-smoking crowd.

Seems to me also, that the level of disparagement aimed at the Tea Partiers is rising, of late – and so is the ugly slant taken by some popular culture outlets. At least those responsible for the latest kerfuffle, which has a plotline of Captain America meeting what appears to be a Tea Party protest, have had the grace – or at least the economic good sense to back down and render an apology. Even if it does seem more along the lines of “I’m sorry you were offended/I’m sorry we got caught” sort of weasel-apologies.

Oh, and for the umpteenth time – Sarah Palin is not our leader. Glenn Beck isn’t either, and Rush Limbaugh certainly isn’t. And most of us are at least as angry at the Republicans as any else, so please spare me the insistence that the Grand Old Party is our puppetmaster. If fact, most of us wouldn’t bother pissing on the traditional Republican leadership cadre if they were on fire.We have no leader. The whole thing is a distributed insurgency – and for what it is worth, some of the loosely-associated groups are going and doing their own thing. With greater or lesser degrees of success. Personally, I think those groups who are depending on a handful of funding sources with deep pockets and paying for services rendered, rather than the dedication of volunteers and many small donations are on the wrong track. That runs the danger of becoming what made us angry in the first place. But as I said before: a herd of cats, all moving more or less in the same direction.

Ah well –interesting times. And on the anniversary of the start of the whole Tea Party movement (February 21, which strangely enough is also my birthday) they may get even more interesting yet.

Zinnification – Or Through the Historical Glass, Darkly

03. February 2010 · Comments Off on Zinnification – Or Through the Historical Glass, Darkly · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History

If there is a phrase which makes my socio-political antennae begin to quiver, that will be anything that begins with the words “The People’s – whatever.” The People’s Park, the People’s Republic – the People’s Whatever. I suppose at one time – around the early part of the 20th century, perhaps – dubbing something as belonging to the ‘people’ sounded fresh, innovative, democratic, not the exclusive preserve of some elite or other. Alas, by the middle of that century, it usually meant some grim, joyless and grinding totalitarian establishment, with a rhetorical smiley-face painted on the front, which increasingly fooled only the starry-eyed true believers.

And so it is with the late Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” – not so much a straight history, but a grim and joyless Marxist slog through American history. Which in the end amounts to an unrelenting snorkel through the sludge at the bottom of the national sewer, as seen through the lenses of a late 19th century political thinker, with the helpless lumpenprolitariat being royally screwed over and over by the capitalist and plutocrats . . . oh, and we murdered the Indians! And lynched black people! And slavery – don’t forget about slavery! From the way the man banged on and on about imperialisms of every stripe, war, social injustice, and all the rest of the progressiveist bug-bears you’d have thought that no other nation in the world evah! had perpetuated any of those numerous crimes against humanity which the Zinneastas gleefully charged the United States with. And God help us – the whole grim polemic is frequently assigned as a history textbook.

And yes, we should know our history, including the inglorious parts – but all that, only that, and to the exclusion of anything else? Debunking is a worthy exercise to be sure, but there ought to be some bunk there in the first place, some basic knowledge and understanding, nay, even some appreciation for those people who built their little corner of America, who made a life for themselves, built towns and railroads, fought to end slavery, and to devise a political system which invested citizens with rights as well as responsibilities. That kind of history is endlessly fascinating to those of us imbued with ordinary curiosity about ‘what happened way back then,’ and lacking a mindset which insists on jamming the square peg of events and people into the round hole of ideology.

The trouble with Zinn and his ilk, when it comes to history – there is no place for complicated stuff, nothing meaningful exists outside the round hole of ideology. Which is a pity as well, for history is a treasure-store of riches, in the experiences of people, of fame and name, or no-name and no fame. I make a part of my living from telling some of their stories – and now and again readers have written to tell me how they wish they had been able to learn such stories in school, for then they might have taken more of an interest at the time. What is also a pity is that a relentless diet of Zinning our history is to leave us guilt-tripped, short-changed and ashamed – instead of seeing our history whole, and steadily.

It could be that this is what the Zinneastas intend – for how much easier it is to destroy a people, once you have demoralized them from within.

Amazon – And the Perils of POD-ing

31. January 2010 · Comments Off on Amazon – And the Perils of POD-ing · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Literary Good Stuff, Media Matters Not

It didn’t seem to have made much of a ripple in the political blogosphere, but two years ago among the various writers’ discussion groups, websites and e- newsletters, discussion of the Amazon-Booksurge imbroglio achieved a melt-down-and-drop-through-to-the earths’ core degree of nuclear passion. Amazon basically announced that they would require those independent and publish on demand (POD) presses who wanted to sell through Amazon to print those books through Amazon’s Booksurge publisher-printer entity. (It’s now called CreateSpace, BTW.) The implications of that policy were chewed over like a mouthful of rubbery and vile-tasting bubblegum for weeks.

A short background refresher in the vagaries of independent publishing may be in order here. Once upon a time, in a universe far, far away there used to be two ways of being published. The first kind was the respectable kind, with one of the big name publishing firms that with luck and if you were any good, or fairly good or even a literary genius, and you had any sort of agent, you would wind up with stacks of copies of your book in all the bookstores, a nice royalty check, maybe even an advance, good reviews in the right magazines, and hey, presto – as my daughter says, pretty soon you were a “real arthur.” The other kind of publishing was disdainfully known as “vanity”publishing. The assumption was that untalented hack with lots of money would contract with a publisher to print quantities of a book that “real” publishers wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole and no one but the author and his family and friends would ever read. Classically, the assumption was that such an author would wind up with a garage full of expensive books that would never go any farther than that.

That whole picture was turned upside down and shaken like some vast etch-a-sketch, what with the internet, the development of POD, or print-on-demand technology, just as the big-name publishing houses became risk-adverse, unadventurous and stodgy. Rather like Hollywood and the music industry, come to think on it: stuck on established big names, carefully constructed sure-fire blockbuster hits and guaranteed big returns. The quirky, original, eccentric and genuinely creative will likely never be invited in the door – even if they are talented, too. The result was an explosion in the numbers of writers who have gone “indy” – just like filmmakers and musicians, because the technology has allowed it. Getting in through the doors of the big-name publishing houses was no longer the only game in town.

Print on demand technology allowed a printer to print up copies of a particular book as they are ordered from a formatted electronic text file. Because they are usually printed in small batches, not in 10s of thousands at a whack, the cost of the individual copy is somewhat higher. And being printed to order, the matter of warehousing thousands of copies doesn’t come up; all very ecologically sound. It allowed writers who couldn’t or didn’t want to publish through a traditional publisher and couldn’t afford to pay for a print run from a vanity press to pay a small set-up fee for their text and cover, which would be available to the printer. Whenever orders came in for their book, the printer could run off as many copies as needed and drop-ship them to the customer.

Sensing an opportunity, a whole host of new publishers sprang up or morphed from their previous incarnation. Most of these were and are internet-based: just check out the IAG books and members page to get an idea of the range. A fair number of authors set up as publishers themselves, since the actual printing of the books was now relatively inexpensive and accessible. While a good many of resulting POD books are just as much vanity publications as ever were, and are pretty dreadful besides – quite a few are not. In fact, the best of them are as quirky, literate and as high quality as anything available from the big traditional houses and those authors who took it seriously have reached a wider audience. As another IAG indy writer pointed out, readers don’t much care how a book that they love to read was published – they just want to read it. Nothing is in stasis for long: POD publishers grew, or were absorbed by others.

Amazon.com purchased the POD publisher Booksurge in 2005; not a large publisher or a particularly well-regarded one. In fact the worst POD book I ever reviewed was a Booksurge product, although that seemed to have resulted from author stubbornness rather than Booksurge incompetence. Still, it didn’t seem to be terribly out of line for a book retailer to be also in the book publishing business – and Booksurge books didn’t seem to be given any special favors among all the other POD books available from Amazon – until a little less than two years ago. (Up until then, I thought it might indicate that the bright sparks at Amazon thought that POD published books were the wave of the future.)

The main printer for many, if not most POD publishers is called Lightning Source; it’s owned by Ingram, the mega-huge book distributor, and puts out a darned good product at a reasonable rate. It’s also essential for POD books to be included in the Ingram catalogue; it’s a main line into brick and mortar bookstores; otherwise you might just as well be back in the vanity-press days, with a garage full of copies to hawk around.

But it’s also essential for your books to be available on-line, and on-line means Amazon.com, the proverbial eight hundred pound gorilla of internet book marketing. If it’s published, it’s available from Amazon. Over the last couple of years, Amazon.com was relatively welcoming to readers and writers alike; offering opportunities to review and blog about our books, to do Kindle reader editions of our books, to do wish-lists and recommendations, to set up discussion groups; as a matter of fact, the IAG – the Independent Authors Guild started as an Amazon discussion group.

So the demand by Amazon.com, that a number of small POD publishers had to have their books be printed by Booksurge, or else their authors books would not be sold directly through Amazon came as a rather thuggish slap in the face. In essence, POD writers were told to make a choice between doing business with their chosen publisher and printer – or being sold through Amazon. Richard and Angela Hoy, at Booklocker.com (who published two of my books, and printed and distributed three others) 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 – in fact they went ahead and filed a class-action lawsuit against Amazon, alleging their actions violated federal antitrust laws. Just this week, Amazon has moved to settle – just before the phrase of discovery would have begin. More about Booklocker and the Amazon settlement here, from Angela.

For myself, I was just asounded to discover that there are actually real people at Amazon. Ordinarily, my vision is that of a huge, cavernous underground warehouse, piled high with books and other goods, sort of like that in the final scene of the first Indiana Jones movie. Up in the dim ceiling overhead, there is some kind of vast, clanking machine, with tracks and pulleys and long arms which reach down and pick up something, and carry it away. I visualize those items being dropped into a huge hopper, and eventually they emerge on the other end – which is an anonymous UPS drop-box on an anonymous street in a featureless urban warehouse development. The point is, there don’t ever seem to be any humans involved, save for someone in a long gray cloak that slips around the corner and runs away, immediately you catch sight of them … or the whole place may be run by rubbery-tentacled aliens, like the Thermians in Galaxy Quest. In any case, interaction with a real human at Amazon always seemed just about impossible, to me. But Richard and Angela did it – and made them back down. Victory is sweet – even if it took two years

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