A Literary Interview

20. October 2008 · Comments Off on A Literary Interview · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Literary Good Stuff, Old West, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine...

This is the game that some of us ‘real arthurs’ are playing over at the IAG Blog; each author so inclined is doing an interview with his or her own characters. Some of us have done this already for our own sites, with most amusing results. I thought I should cross-post my own effort here. The corporate entity/sweatshop that I work at, of late for a steadily diminishing number of hours, just slashed my work hours again. Any income for readers wishing to buy “To Truckee’s Trail” , order a set of the “Adelsverein Trilogy” or even the little memoir cobbled together from my early entries (when this site was still called Sgt. Stryker’s Daily Brief – which entries are now, alas, almost impossible to find due to an inability on our part to work out where the hell they were hosted, but if you really would like to read again any of them that you are most fond of, let me know and I will pull them out of my archive and re-post… oh, hell where was I?) Interview with my book characters… got it.

Elisha Stephens (ES) and Isaac Hitchcock (IH) from “To Truckee’s Trail”

Sgt. Mom: So, gentlemen – thank you for taking a little time from your duties as wagon master and… er… assistant trail guide to answer questions from The Independent Authors’ Guild about your experiences in taking a wagon train all the way to California.

ES: (inaudible mumble)
IH: (chuckling richly) Oh, missy, that ain’t no trouble at all, seein’ as I ain’t really no guide, no-how. I’m just along for the ride, with my fuss-budget daughter Izzy an’ her passel o’ young ones. Heading to Californy, they were, after m’ son-in-law. He been gone two year, now. Went to get hisself a homestead there, sent a letter sayin’ they were to come after. Me, I think he went to get some peace an’ quiet… Izzy, she’s the nagging sort…

Sgt. Mom: Yes, Mr. Hitchcock… but if I may ask you both – why California? There was no trail to follow once past Ft. Hall in 1844. Neither of you, or your chief guide, Mr. Greenwood had even traveled that overland trail, before Why not Oregon, like all the other travelers that year?

ES: Nicer weather.
IH: Waaalll, as I said, Samuel Patterson, Izzy’s man, he was already there, had hisself a nice little rancho, an’ o’ course Izzy wouldn’t hear no different about taking a wagon and the passel o’ young-uns and going to join him. (Winking broadly) And it ain’t exackly true that I never had been there, no sirreebob. I been there years before, came over with some fur-trapping friends o’mine. But it was unofficial-like. We wasn’t supposed to be there, but the alcalde and the governor an them, they all looked the other way, like. Beautiful country it were then – golden mustard on all them hills, and the hills and valleys so green and rich with critters – you’d believe they walk up and almost beg to be made your dinner! (chuckles and slaps his knee) Missy, the stories I could tell you, folk wouldn’t believe!

ES: (inaudible mumble)
Sgt. Mom: Captain Stephens, I didn’t quite hear that – did you have something to add?

ES: (slightly louder) Most don’t. Believe him.

Sgt. Mom: And why would that be, Mr. Stephens?
ES: Tells too many yarns. Exaggerates something turrible.

Sgt. Mom: But surely Mr. Hitchcock’s experience was of value…
ES: Some entertaining, I’ll give him that.

Sgt. Mom: Would you care to explain?
ES: No.

IH: (Still chuckling) The Capn’ is a man of few words, missy, an’ them he values as if each one were worth six bits. The miracle is he was ever elected captain, back at the start in Council Bluffs.
ES: Doc Townsend’s idea.
IH: And the Doc’s doing, missy! Everyone thought he’d be the captain of the party, for sure, but he let out that he had enough to do with doctorin’, and didn’t want no truck with organizing the train and leading all us fine folk out into the wilderness.

ES: Sensible man.

Sgt. Mom: I take that you are referring to your party co-leader, Doctor Townsend. Why do you say that, Captain Stephens?

ES: Knows his limits.
IH: Ah, but the Doctor, he’s a proper caution! He’s an eddicated man, no doubt. Took a whole box of books, all the way over the mountains. I tell you, missy – everyone looked to the Doctor. Everyone’s good friend, trust in a pinch and in a hard place without a second thought. Did have a temper, though – member, ‘Lisha, with old Derby and his campfire out on the plains, when you gave order for no fires to be lit after dark, for fear of the Sioux? Old Man Derby, he just kept lighting that fire, daring you an’ the Doc to put it out. Onliest time I saw the Doc near to losing his temper…

Sgt. Mom: (waiting a moment and looking toward ES) Do you want to elaborate on that, Captain Stephens?

ES: No.

Sgt. Mom: Very well then – if you each could tell me, in your opinion, what was the absolute, very worst part of the journey and the greatest challenge. Mr. Hitchcock?

IH: Oh, that would be the desert, missy. They call it the Forty-Mile Desert, but truth to tell, I think it’s something longer than that. All the way from the last water at the Sink… Me, I’d place it at sixty miles an’more. We left at sundown, with everything that would hold water full to the brim, an’ the boys cut green rushes for the oxen. Everyone walked that could, all during the night, following the Cap’n an’ Ol’ Greenwood’s boy, riding ahead with lanterns, following the tracks that Cap’n Stephens an’ the Doc and Joe Foster made, when they went on long scout to find that river that the o’l Injun tol’ us of. A night and a day and another night, missy – can you imagine that? No water, no speck of green, no shade. Jes’ putting one foot in front of the other. Old Murphy, he told them old Irish stories to his children, just to keep them moving. The oxen – I dunno how they kept on, bawlin’ for water all that time, and nothing but what we had brung. We had to cut them loose when they smelled that water in the old Injun’s river, though. Otherwise they’d have wrecked the wagons, and then where would we have been, hey?

Sgt. Mom: In a bit of a pickle, I should imagine. Captain Stephens, what did you see as the most challenging moment?
ES: Getting the wagons up the pass.
IH: Hah! Had to unload them, every last scrap – and haul them wagons straight up a cliff. Give me a surefooted mule anytime, missy – those critters can find a way you’d swear wasn’t fit fer anything but a cat…

Sgt Mom: (waiting a moment for more from Captain Stephens.) Did you want to elaborate, Captain Stephens.

ES: No.

Sgt. Mom: Well… thank the both of you for being so frank and forthcoming about your incredible journey – I think we’ve managed to use up all the time that we have…

Early Voting in Texas

20. October 2008 · Comments Off on Early Voting in Texas · Categories: Domestic, Fun and Games, General, Politics, World

Today was the first day of early voting in Texas. I was supposed to work today at the corporate call-center sweatshop, which just this last week cut my work hours to the bone, and today sent me home after the inbound calls trickled off to the point where we were all sitting around with five and ten minutes between calls. This is supposed to be a temporary measure, just until things pick up in November, but I swear that if this keeps up I will have to get a job…. Anyway, I thought what the hell, I was going to vote tomorrow anyway.

The nearest early polling place was the library on Judson Road, just around the corner – and the line went out the door. No kidding, the poll-watcher handing out sample ballots and directing traffic said that it had been going on all day, to the tune of about 800 voters so far. It showed no signs of letting up, either. Early voting is supposed to go on for another two weeks, which must put a heck of a crimp in any campaign strategists’ or mainstream news media plans (I am so looking straight at you, 60 Minutes!) to throw the election one way or the other with some last-minute surprise.

I never noted so much traffic at other early-polling places; one of them used to be at the Oak Park HEB, where it seemed to be a pretty desultory affair. This seemed to me to be an absolutely huge number of voters getting out there and committing themselves already. Two more weeks – I wonder who is going to be deeply surprised at the closing of the polls on November 4th? At this point I am just praying that it is a strong and unmistakable win. I don’t think I could bear another four or eight years of screeching about elections being stolen and ‘selected not elected’.

Oh, and frankly, I hope ACORN is investigated so hard that their kidneys come out their nostrils. The cornerstone of a democracy is the ballot-box. Any attempt to screw with it will have consequences that you a**holes don’t even want to think about.

Oliver Stone’s Next Movie Trailer

17. October 2008 · Comments Off on Oliver Stone’s Next Movie Trailer · Categories: Fun and Games, General, Politics, sarcasm, The Funny

Link sent to me by a contact who works for a publicity company which provides me with DVD movies to review… Funny thing, I think this is meant to be disparaging to Governor Palen, but for various reasons it comes off as more of a slam on Oliver Stone.

Certainly, her last line is a a sentiment to be approved of by more than a few military members.


Find more videos like this on The Spill.com Movie Community

Getting to the Starting Gate

17. October 2008 · Comments Off on Getting to the Starting Gate · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, History, Home Front, Old West, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine...

I’m almost there, with the Adelsverein Trilogy, or as Andrew B. called it so many months ago, “Barsetshire with cypress trees and lots of sidearms”. I began doing work for a local small publisher here in San Antonio; most of it has been spec work, but I did earn something for re-vamping their website, and have a prospect of earning more, doing writing, editing, general admin work, customer hand-holding and building or maintaining websites. The final volume is being edited, the cover is designed and approved – I even put up all three on my literary website, here. (Don’t they look georgous? I am still taking pre-orders, for delivery just before the official release date of December 10. I have a signing at the Twig Bookshop in Alamo Heights December 11, another at Berkman Books in Fredericksburg on December 19th… and the first Saturday in January I will have a discussion of the books and a signing at the Pioneer Museum in Fredericksburg. A certain number of reviews are scheduled to come out in November – links to be provided when available. I would so like the Trilogy to hit big; tell all your friends, pre-order from me or from Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Not just the Trilogy, too – Truckee’s Trail is still selling, and every once in a while someone buys “Our Grandpa was an Alien”.

I am taking a break from writing, from starting on the next project until after getting Adelsverein fairly launched. Just the odd bit of book and movie reviews, blogging and tooting my own horn, market-wise, and reading a tall stack of books to get ready for the first installment of a new trilogy; this one set in the last days of Spanish and Mexican Texas, when there were all sorts of odd characters wandering around… oh, and working for reliable (mostly reliable) pay at the corporate phone bank enterprise up the road, three and a half days a week, in an attempt to at least pay some of the bills regularly, while waiting for the publishing work, and the royalties for my own books to roll in.

It’s a corporate, customer service-type job, not as onerous as some, since it involves booking hotel reservations, so most of the people who call are happy, pleased to be going on a holiday… not furious and spitting nails because their (insert expensive bit of technology here) can’t be made to work and they have been on hold or navigating the phone tree for x amount of time. Alas, it seems that either the economy is beginning to adversely affect them; they were sending people home quite regularly for the last couple of weeks, some of them almost in the first few minutes that they walked in the door. Yesterday I find that all the part-timers’ work schedules have been cut by a day – which essentially reduces my paycheck by almost a third. I can’t say that I am entirely heartbroken about this. I am not entirely enjoying anything much about it; not sitting in a small cubicle having every word recorded, and down-graded because I spend so many more seconds on calls than the person in the next cubicle, or wrestling with entering data into a DOS based system at least twenty years old, (maybe thirty), a pointless dress-code and about thirty things you might do that would justify instant firing. I had reckoned on being able to stick it out for six months, past Christmas, but at the rate they are cutting hours, I think they may be just trying to let us go by slow degrees.

Just to put the icing on the cake, Blondie was let go from her 20-hour a week job, as that little company may be circling the drain. Hardly anyone wants to install permanent shade structures, since they are a fairly big-ticket item. There was barely enough business to keep the office open, so there went that source of income. I have taken her over to my own occasional office job at the ranch real estate firm, and trained her on that she can pick up work there on days when I simply cannot. She starts school again after Christmas.

Aside from all that, nothing much to report. You?

A cramp 200,000 voters big

15. October 2008 · Comments Off on A cramp 200,000 voters big · Categories: General

John Scalzi

Dear Republican Party:

You’re aware that to the rest of us, your transparently insincere whining about voter fraud every time you’re about to get your ass handed to you in an election makes you look like that second place runner who mysteriously gets a leg cramp as soon as it’s clear he’s got no chance to win the race, right?

AP

(Ohio) Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner estimated that an initial review found that about 200,000 newly registered voters reported information that did not match motor-vehicle or Social Security records, Brunner spokesman Kevin Kidder said. Some discrepancies could be as simple as a misspelling, while others could be more significant.

200,000 potential fraudulent registrations.  In one state.  That’s a pretty serious mysterious leg cramp, all-righty.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

With Thunderous Applause

15. October 2008 · Comments Off on With Thunderous Applause · Categories: Fun and Games, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant

I am not the first blogger to note how depressingly appropriate is Padme Amidala’s line from the last Star Wars movie. So this is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause.” There are about 12,000 google hits on it, and probably not all of them are lamenting the (insert sarc tag here) depredations of the Bush administration in stealing elections, shredding our liberties, values, constitution, interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, crushing dissent, etc. (close sarc tag here) Probably a lot of them are looking ahead to the prospect of an Obama administration, and wondering if The One and his Democrat minions, allies and supporters are going to perform – for the good of us all, most assuredly – those very actions they have spent the last four years screeching about the Bush Administration doing.

Frankly, it’s depressing enough just looking at the current campaign season, never mind the fresh hells just around the corner, when the ‘Chicago way; of doing business and machine politics goes nationwide. It’s also depressing enough, considering how the major media has just about given up any pretense of even-handedness. Even Blondie, who is only lately come to take an interest in politics noticed how a local news anchor on the 10 PM news last night referred to Obama with his proper title of senator, but to John McCain with his name only, no mention of his title. I caught a few minutes of NPR discussion the Obama-McCain debate last week, and was struck by the fact that all the included sound bites were of Obama, sounding ever so presidential. Nothing from McCain; little things, to be sure, but the constant drip-drip-drip is very wearing. Adorable little moppets singing songs about him, teenagers chanting his name, crowds roaring applause call to mind all sorts of unsavory parallels, everything from Hitler Youth to Mao’s Little Red Book waved in every hand. ‘Change and Hope’ are vague and inspiring slogans. Too many eventual dictators surfed into office on a high tide of such offerings. Most of them were not dislodged as easily. Where did he really come from? What is his real resume and his solid accomplishments, who are the people and interested parties who got him were he is, this very day? We know who some of his friends are – the Reverent Wright, William Ayers – and some of the operatives like David Axelrod, the king of political Astroturf – and the ACORN organization. This intelligence is not the least bit reassuring. These sorts of questions are only being raised now, with three weeks to go. The mainstream media should have been dissecting him long since; so much for being the guardians, the unblinking eye upon the political process. Is the way for the One being paved with fraudulent voter registrations, smoothed by ballot-box stuffing on a grand scale in key districts and states? Is this what the grand plan is, to put him across the finish-line no matter what it takes? Stabbing our trust in the electoral process to the very heart, while the cheering section in the media shouts hosannas? While those of us with doubts are told brusquely to shut up and go along with the rest because we don’t want to be called racists, do we?

If there was anything that to me was the equal of the 60 Minutes fraudulent TANG memo story of the last presidential election cycle, it was the almost universal trashing of Sarah Palin, a whirlwind of loathing from the mainstream media which sprang up seemingly overnight, and the constant recycling of debunked stories – the rape kit one, the banning-of-library books one, the baby-isn’t-hers-but-her daughters one, the stupid-and-ignorant-redneck meme – on and on it goes. How horribly depressing all these memes are, especially mouthed by supposedly liberal and feminist types. Pointing out that she had better than 80% approval ratings in Alaska, was take-no-quarter reformer, with apparently no intent on shoving her personal pro-life inclinations down anyone’s throat, it’s like spitting into a hurricane. What decent person would want to go into politics after this, knowing that their family would be slimed by a complicit media – and their fellow-travelers in the intelligentsia -all in the name of hauling the One over the finish line and into the White House. The Chicago way, indeed.

Politics has always been dirty, but watching the mainstream media and the entertainment world become so very insanely partisan has been quite a startling thing to me, and I thought I was a cynic. Obviously, not cynical enough.

Obama Tax Cuts – Explained

14. October 2008 · Comments Off on Obama Tax Cuts – Explained · Categories: General

As I’ve written before, economics is something of a black box to me. You’ve got your gozinatas and your gozoutas and beyond that .. well that’s why you have experts who can explain the hard words to dummies like me.

But when guys at the Wall Street Journal explain it in 9th grade English, I can understand it: Obama’s Tax Cuts aren’t and in the end we’ll get screwed.

It’s a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he’s also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of “tax cut.”

For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase “tax credit.” Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals:

  • A $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to “make work pay” that phases out at income of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 per couple.
  • A $4,000 tax credit for college tuition.
  • A 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies).
  • A “savings” tax credit of 50% up to $1,000.
  • An expansion of the earned-income tax credit that would allow single workers to receive as much as $555 a year, up from $175 now, and give these workers up to $1,110 if they are paying child support.
  • A child care credit of 50% up to $6,000 of expenses a year.
  • A “clean car” tax credit of up to $7,000 on the purchase of certain vehicles.

Here’s the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be “refundable,” which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer — a federal check — from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this “welfare,” or in George McGovern’s 1972 campaign a “Demogrant.” Mr. Obama’s genius is to call it a tax cut.

It’s harnessing Boxer to the plow until the day he’s sent off to the ‘hospital’ and rendered for parts.

You, me and about 90% of the people reading this are Boxer, and that ain’t no shit.

George Fuckin’ Orwell knew his stuff, that’s for damn sure.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

I am now a politics-free zone (thank goodness for early voting)

14. October 2008 · Comments Off on I am now a politics-free zone (thank goodness for early voting) · Categories: Domestic, General, Politics

Yep, I believe in following at least half of that old political adage: Vote early & vote often. So today I found my way to the local board of elections and cast my ballot. I am now free to ignore all the political hype that will be inundating us in the next 3 weeks.

HOORAY!!!!! (I hate the political hype)

You know, when it comes to early voting, I think Texas does it best (well, out of Texas and Georgia, the only 2 places I’ve ever experienced it). In Texas, I could go to any of the early polling places they set up in San Antonio and cast my ballot. I’ve voted at a Wal-Mart near my office, 20 miles from where I lived, in a grocery store entryway, and in the hallway of a north-side shopping mall. I’ve even voted at my precinct, once, when I was out of town during the early voting time-frame.

In Georgia, at least in my current county, I had to find my local board of elections office. That’s actually not too hard to find from where I live – it’s about 20 minutes away, maybe, and easy to get to, although parking was almost non-existent. There were quite a few folks there at lunchtime today. Had I waited until the last week in October, I could have driven 3 miles to my local library and voted there. But I’ll be out of state the next 2 weeks, and busy on election day, so this was my best chance.

Trooper Gate – Lesson Learned

14. October 2008 · Comments Off on Trooper Gate – Lesson Learned · Categories: General

The real lesson from Trooper Gate? 

You can use a taser on your kid, shoot game out of season while on duty, drink while on duty, treat your wife like a speed bag … and keep your job as a law enforcement officer.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Texiana: The Real Philip Nolan

12. October 2008 · Comments Off on Texiana: The Real Philip Nolan · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Old West

Yes, there was a real Philip Nolan, and the writer Edward Everett Hale was apparently remorseful over borrowing his name for the main character in his famous patriotic short story, “The Man Without A Country”.

The real Philip Nolan had a country… and an eye possibly on several others, which led to a number of wild and incredible adventures. The one of those countries was Texas, then a Spanish possession, a far provincial outpost of Mexico, then a major jewel in the crown of Spain’s overseas colonies. Like the fictional Philip Nolan – supposedly a friend of Aaron Burr and entangled in the latter’s possibly traitorous schemes, the real Philip Nolan also had a friend in high places. Like Burr, this friend was neck deep in all sorts of schemes, plots and double-deals. Unlike Burr, Nolan was also this friend’s trusted employee and agent. That highly placed and influential friend was one James Wilkinson, sometime soldier, once and again the most senior general in the Army of the infant United States – and paid agent of the Spanish crown — and acidly described by a historian of the times as never having won a battle or lost a court-martial, and another as “the most consummate artist in treason that the nation ever possessed”. Wilkinson was an inveterate plotter and schemer, with a finger in all sorts of schemes, beginning as a young officer in the Revolutionary War to the time he died of old age in1821. The part about ‘dying of old’ age’ is perfectly astounding, to anyone who has read of his close association with all sorts of shady dealings. It passes the miraculous, how the infant United States managed to survive the baleful presence of Wilkinson, lurking in the corridors of power. It might be argued that our founding fathers were a shrewd enough lot that Wilkinson didn’t do more damage than he did. It would have argued even more for their general perspicuity, though, if he had been unceremoniously shot at dawn, or hung by the neck… by any one of the three countries which did business with Wilkenson… and whom he cheerfully would have sold out to any one of those others who had offered a higher bid.

But it is this particular protégé who is the subject of this essay – supposedly born in Ireland, and apparently well-educated, who worked for Wilkinson as secretary, bookkeeper and apparently general all around go-to guy. He was possibly also the first American to deliberately venture far into Texas – and return to tell the tale, not once but several times, at a time when an aging and sclerotic Spanish empire was looking nervously and very much askance at the bumptious and venturesome young democracy… whose frontiers moved ever closer to its own. The welcome mat was most definitely not out; adventurous trespassers were either driven back… or taken to Mexico in irons and put to work in penal servitude. (Certain exceptions had been made for Catholics, or those who could make some convincing pretense of being Irish, or otherwise convince the Spanish authorities in Texas of their relative harmlessness.) In the year 1791, Nolan procured a passport from the Spanish governor of New Orleans, and permission to venture into Texas, ostensibly in pursuit of trade; goods for horses, which were plentiful, easy to catch and profitable. Still quite young, around the age of twenty, and not quite as wily as his employer, Nolan had his trade goods confiscated in San Antonio, and was forced to flee into the back country to evade arrest. Amazingly, he lived among the Indians (of which tribe is unknown) and earned back his stake by trapping sufficient beaver pelts to buy his way out of trouble with the San Antonio authorities – and a herd of horses. Several years later, armed with another passport, Nolan ventured into Texas again, remaining in San Antonio long enough to ingratiate himself with the governor, Manuel Munoz, be included in the census – and to court a local belle. This time, he returned to Louisiana with a larger herd of horses. For a time after the second trip, Nolan worked for an American boundary commissioner, surveying and mapping the Mississippi River, which seemed to have aroused the suspicious of other Spanish authorities, including the Viceroy, the King of Spain’s good right hand in Mexico. Obviously, some of these Spanish and Mexicans were not quite as susceptible to Nolan’s charm and the ever-slippery Wilkenson’s conniving – for he was still very much Wilkenson’s protégé and possibly agent. Still – he managed to get a legitimate passport for one more trading trip into Texas. Trading was the cover story, but Nolan was also supposed to map what he saw in Texas, although no maps have ever been found. He remained in Texas for two or three years, marrying and fathering a daughter, before leaving at top speed. The Viceroy had given orders for his arrest, but protected by his friendship with Manuel Munoz, he left Spanish Texas under safe-conduct, accompanied by a herd of nearly 1,500 horses.
More »

Socialist Redemption and Senator Obama

10. October 2008 · Comments Off on Socialist Redemption and Senator Obama · Categories: General

Hawkfist wrote . . .

I find it hard to care about Bill Ayers, but if we’re going to dredge up the past, lets look at Palin and her sense of “Our America”

Full Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/alaskan-independence-part_b_133261.html

Now – if Michelle Obama had belonged to an equivalent organization, imagine how the GOP would howl in outrage!

I’m not ‘the GOP’, I’m just this guy.  But he’s right – caring about what Michelle Obama did back when would be lame. 

Now about Senator Obama’s membership in an organization called the ‘New Party’ in 1996 … that might be another kettle of fish, hunh?

The ‘New Party’ was a political party established by the Democratic Socialists of America (the DSA) to push forth the socialist principles of the DSA by focusing on winnable elections at a local level and spreading the Socialist movement upwards. The admittedly Socialist Organization experienced a moderate rise in numbers between 1995 and 1999. By 1999, however, the Socialist ‘New Party’ was essentially defunct after losing a supreme court challenge that ruled the organizations “fusion” reform platform as unconstitutional.

For all of me – it’s not terribly damning.  We all make mistakes: you own up to them, you say “well I done messed up” and you move on.  Redemption, forgiveness – that’s what its about.

After allegations surfaced in early summer over the ‘New Party’s’ endorsement of Obama, the Obama campaign along with the remnants of the New Party and Democratic Socialists of America claimed that Obama was never a member of either organization. The DSA and ‘New Party’ then systematically attempted to cover up any ties between Obama and the Socialist Organizations. However, it now appears that Barack Obama was indeed a certified and acknowledged member of the DSA’s New Party.

Unless you’re not fessing up to your mistakes.  Then the rest of us might be forgiven for wondering what is going on inside your brain-housing group.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Eat the Rich

09. October 2008 · Comments Off on Eat the Rich · Categories: General

Senator Obama: Vote for me – you’ll get a tax break plus we’ll stick it to those no good dirty rich folks.

You ever try to get a job from a poor person?

Homeless woman with dogs by Franco Folini.

from http://flickr.com/photos/livenature/256934977/

Yeah.  Good luck with that.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Family Tech Support

08. October 2008 · Comments Off on Family Tech Support · Categories: General

There is one nice thing about providing tech support over the phone for your family . . .

Put the CD in then ..

It is in.

.. shutdown the computer . .

You mean turn it off

.. yes turn it off, count to three turn it on

I’m doing that

… and boot from the CD ..

How do you do that?

Shut up – I’m trying to tell you that.

They (or at least the Older Monkey) takes ‘shut up’ to mean ‘let me finish’ and doesn’t get all ‘he’s being rude and I must go have a hissy fit’.

Also .. thank God for my wife. My boys started the school day off with a spirited wrassling match in the living room: I can’t imagine what it would be like without her around to impart a civilizing influence.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

We’re from the government . . .

06. October 2008 · Comments Off on We’re from the government . . . · Categories: General

Dear Government,

Stop Helping by you.

You’ve helped enough.  Please stop now.

r/s

America

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

For two points . . .

05. October 2008 · Comments Off on For two points . . . · Categories: General

For two points, read this article by Douglass Daniel of the Associated Press and determine if this is an opinion or analysis. Attention should be given to the lead paragraph(s) setting the tone for the article as explained in chapter three of your text. Appropriate definitions are given below to assist you.

WASHINGTON (AP) – By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is “palling around with terrorists” and doesn’t see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign.

And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.

Analysis – a-nal-y-sis.
3. a presentation, usually in writing, of the results of this process: The paper published an analysis of the political situation.

Opinion – o-pin-ion
2. a personal view, attitude, or appraisal.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

The Other Marketplace

05. October 2008 · Comments Off on The Other Marketplace · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Memoir, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

Blondie and I went out to what may be possibly the most marvelous permanently-revolving street market in a permanent place, this afternoon: Busey’s Flea Market, on 1-35 North, along about the other-wise invisible town of Schertz. It’s about fifteen minutes brisk driving outside the San Antonio city limits. As Blondie describes it, it’s a yard sale on steroids, a range of three long parallel sheds extending uphill from the frontage road. The front of Busey’s is adorned with a gigantic concrete armadillo. It’s been freshly repainted this year, business must be good, although one of the regular stallholders lamented that the rents had been raised, which drove out a certain number of old regulars. Damn if I could tell the difference, though. Actually, it seemed like the pickings were unnaturally good. The stall with the WWII and German aviation memorabilia was as unattended as ever. Will has tried to buy stuff there, and been frustrated because no one can ever locate the person authorized to make sales. The guy with the nice and orderly selection in books was having a going-out-of-business sale, but that was the only harbinger of immanent change.

See, there are a number of different tiers of vendor at Busey’s – the well-established ones with medium-deep pockets and long-term plans have a space in one of the sheds, with a locking door, although what sort of permanence that can mean, when the shed is roofed in un-insulated tin and the walls are made out of something-not-very-permanent-at all… 2 x 4’s and tissue paper, I suspect. Never mind – the permanent vendors have their stalls packed so full, and their premises so well-organized it is obvious they are not going anywhere soon. Not without the aid of a couple of moving-vans and some strong backs, at least. Carpets, hardware, antiques, military surplus, books, kitchenware, Mexican ceramics … and all that. And more. Much, much more. There are a also a good few vendors of fast food – ice cream, hot dogs, BBQ sandwiches, chili-cheese fries (an interesting and artery-clogging combination, sort of the entrée-course variant of a deep-fried Mars-bar) and thank god, cold water. There is also a curendera/palm-reader advertising her ability to tell the past, present and future, a pet store with an array of birds, and today a guy outside the venue, offering Chihuahua puppies – very cute, light-chocolate colored with white feet. Yeah, The Lesser Weevil would have liked them very much. “For me? Thanks very much for the lunch!” The cats, however, would have preferred the birds.

After the permanent, enclosed stalls, there are the tables, under one of three long awnings, rambling up the hill. People back their cars and pick-ups up to their pitch, and unpack what they have – plants, ironwork, DVDs, spurious folk art, tools, garden ornaments, house wares, small and large appliances— practically anything you could imagine. Blondie insists that the pros – who hit all the yard sales, swooping down with lightning fast-speed and scooping up the good stuff — they show up at Busey’s with their gleanings within a day or so. They also hit the various ‘everything marked down-absolutely must go! sales, and thrift stores instantly when the new donations are put out. Their stock must come from somewhere, after all. Some of this still has the original tags still on it. These vendors, although regular, have the chore of packing it all up and taking it away every Sunday afternoon. Be warned – they usually start at this by about 3 PM.

The last tier of vender must be those people who are not regulars, who have a table for a weekend only. Dad always said that those are the vendors whom are most likely to offer really good bargains – they just want to get rid of it for a so-so price. Unlike the regular vendors with a permanent pitch, with doors that can be locked, they are not canny and not particularly knowledgeable about what they have to vend. This is where the stunning coups are made, where people buy something for a couple of dollars, and turn up with it on “Antiques Road-show” a couple of years later. This afternoon, Blondie scored a pressed-glass bowl of deep black glass, nearly half an inch thick. She got it for $12 dollars, and according to one of the permanent dealers, something like that could sell at Busey’s for about thrice that. Deity only knows how much to an expert – but we liked it. It met the criterion of being strong and thick enough to kill someone if you hit them with it.

Me, I would only love to be asked to host a TV show where the challenge would be to entirely fit out a whole house with the gleanings from a place like Busey’s and assorted other local thrift stores. Furniture, linens, curtains, knick-knacks, wall art, kitchen fittings, china and glass – the whole thing, at drop-dead bargain rates .

I don’t have an agent – if the Home and Garden Network is interested, let us know through this website… Oh, and we were only going there to look for drawer pulls for the 1880-1920 dressing table that Blondie picked up for $25 dollars at a yard sale. She beat the pros to it. The backs of the drawers are all dove-tailed… but the front of it was such a wreck, that’s why the pros gave it a miss.

Taxes

02. October 2008 · Comments Off on Taxes · Categories: General

They [1] keep going on .. and on and on .. about taxes and tax breaks for the middle-classes.

Phhbtt.

If I cared about high taxes I would not have moved to Wisconsin, would I?

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] You know .. they. Them.  The candidates.

The Juggernaut

02. October 2008 · Comments Off on The Juggernaut · Categories: Domestic, Fun and Games, General, General Nonsense, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, sarcasm, That's Entertainment!, World

The juggernaut was-and still is, according to a quick internet search, an enormous, towering wagon, with the image of a locally-worshipped Indian deity enthroned at the very peak of it, under a vast canopy, which is taken out for a grand procession once yearly, pulled by devotees through the streets of the city. This is no quick spin around the block and back again, for this wagon is enormous, clumsy, and heavy. Picture Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, arriving to meet Mark Anthony, or the Persian emperor Darius grand entrance in 300; it’s an arresting image, which must be why it was used to indicate a certain sort of power and will.

And it also comes to my mind, increasingly often, this election season. Rather than picturing our very dear mainstream press creatures as deep-sea divers so far into the tank for Obama that they must have a couple of handlers and a pump feeding oxygen down to them, now I visualize the Obama campaign vehicle as a garganutuan, creaking juggernaut, pulled along by the masses of our media, along with lashings of the more loudmouthed and stupider popular entertainers. I visualize them straining at the chains, the ropes that bind them to the axles of this impossibly heavy vehicle as they tug it painfully onward, as they push at the back of it. They lean their shoulders to the wheels, willing the tottering structure ever onward towards the finishing line. They will accomplish this, of course – it is in the power of their will to move the One to glorious victory, and never mind those concepts – or those among them who fall under the wheels or are crushed against the side of a stone building as the juggernaut lurches briefly out of control.

I have honest to god never seen it as bad as this, as blatant – and I was paying attention during the last election. As hard as they could, the mainstream media couldn’t make the sow’s ear that was John Kerry into a presidential silk purse. It wasn’t for lack of trying, though – and they weren’t helped that he appeared to have all the actual, personal charm and charisma of Frank Burns and Eddie Haskell put together.

This time, they appear to have thrown any pretense at impartiality under the wheels. What can you think after seeing the storm of vicious editorials and outright fantasies about Governor Palin that somehow appeared out of the clear blue, upon being named to the VP seat? How can anyone not compare and contrast the energetic digging into her past, personal life and professional career in the last few weeks, with the elaborate disinterest in Senator Obama’s over the last 18 month and not begin to wonder if there is something just a little unbalanced about this sense of focus.

It’s not been unknown for members of the working press to have sentimental favorites – look, they about got down and drooled over John. F. Kennedy, and the deity knoweth some of the old press guys and gals still view him through a hagiographic haze. Similarly, Lyndon Johnson was so universally despised by the press and the intelligentsia that I (as a middle school kid just getting interested in that kind of stuff) rather felt sorry for him. Nixon was loathed, and Gerald Ford lampooned as a clumsy oaf – but in between all that, the serious media still were capable of some kind of detachment. Well, mostly – and mostly those in the middle of the road, not veering off onto the lunatic fringe. Which sense of impartiality still lingered long among us- but it just seems now the lunatic fringe is driving the whole thing. And that sense of even-handed detachment is what the media is losing, or has already lost this season. It’s gone; no one who has been paying attention the last couple of weeks, months, years – no one believes that mainstream media is neutral and independent any more. They are become the organ of state, or the state that they hope will be, once they drag the juggernaut over the finish line.

It’s as if NPR and the New York Times were about to morph into Pravda, or the state media in one of those third-world nations where el Presidente’s cousin is the head of the national press council – and no one dare print or broadcast a critical word about either of them. What a pity – for a lot of the last century, being a journalist in the mainstream American media was a respected profession . . . and now they are reduced to shoveling out propaganda and dragging the juggernaut along.

An Old Mission Church Half Tumbled Down – Part Two

01. October 2008 · Comments Off on An Old Mission Church Half Tumbled Down – Part Two · Categories: General, History, Old West, World

That most northern, fractious and rebelliously-inclined of those northern provinces of the nation of Mexico was in ferment in the 1830s, some of which might be chalked up to the presence of settlers who had come to Texas from the various United States looking for land. Texas had plenty of it to go around, and a distinct paucity of residents. Entrepreneurs, such as Stephen Austin’s father were allotted a tract of land, based upon how many people they might induce to come and settle on it, to build houses and towns, businesses and roads. All they need to do was to swear to a new allegiance – initially to the King of Spain, later to the Mexican government, which was making tentative and eventually unsuccessful efforts to model itself after the United States’ experience in democracy. Oh, and convert to Catholicism, at least on paper, although most American settlers were assured that they would be left alone thereafter, as afar as matters religious.

Texas was thinly settled, and a long, long way from the seat of authority in Mexico City anyway. So, Americans trickled in over two decades; undoubtedly many like Stephen Austin were honestly grateful for the free land and consideration from the Mexican authorities, and initially had no thought of trafficking in rebellion. Probably equal numbers of Americans did have an eye on the main chance in coming to Texas, as the initially small and poor United States spilled over the Appalachians, purchased a great tract of the continent from the French, and began to think it was their unique destiny to reach from sea to shining sea.

But the land drew them – and it was a beautiful, beautiful place, that part of Texas that forms the coastal plain. Wooded in the east, in the manner that the American settlers were accustomed to, crossed and watered by shallow rivers, a country of gently rolling meadows and hills, fairly temperate, especially in comparison to more northerly climes. Winters were mild – there was not the snow and brutal cold that forced a three or four month long halt to all agricultural and herding pursuits. The sky seemed endless, a pure clear blue, with great drifts of clouds sailing through it.

And so three men came to Texas in the 1830s, three men of different backgrounds and experience, and all of them looking for a second chance after various personal, political and business screw-ups. One more thing had they in common – they all died on a dark March morning in a single place, within the space of an hour or so.

James Bowie was the one who came first; a hot-tempered roughneck with a series of distinctly shady business dealings in his immediate past – which included slave-smuggling and real-estate fraud. He was famous for the wicked-long hunting knife which he always carried, after a particularly bloody brawl in which he had been armed with a clasp knife, which he opened with his teeth (losing one in the process) while gripping his opponent one-handed. A charismatic scoundrel, a bad-hat, a violent man, occasionally given to moments of chivalry; he does not come across as someone whose company would have been totally pleasant. It might aptly be said of him, as it was of Lord Byron, he was ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’.

William Barrett Travis was the second; almost a generation younger, but driven by similar impulses, grandiose ambitions, and with an ego almost as big as Texas itself. He would also not have been very good company, laboring as he did under the conviction that he was meant to do great things. Moody and impulsive, somewhat hot-tempered, he had come to Texas alone, abandoning a wife and two children and set up a law practice in Anahuac, the official port of entry for Texas. He drifted into a faction opposed to the Mexican rule of Texas, and in contention with the local Mexican authorities.

Davy Crockett – who rather preferred to be known as David Crockett, as a gentleman, rather than as a simple, blunt-spoken frontiersman — was in his lifetime the most famous of the three, and also a latecomer to Texas. A politician and a personality, he was a restless spirit, never quite entirely content with where he was, or what he was doing for long. One senses that he would have been the most congenial of the three: relatively soft-spoken, adept with words – a skilled politician. He played the fiddle, and probably did not wear a coonskin cap or a fringed leather jacket; he looks quite the polished, genteel and well-dressed gentleman in the best-known portrait of him, in high collar and cravat, and well-tailored coat.

And so by different paths, they came to the Alamo, a sprawling and tumbledown mission compound, much too large to be defended by the relative handful of men and artillery pieces they had with them. They stayed to defend it, for reasons that they perhaps didn’t articulate very well to themselves, save for in Travis’s immortal letters. Bowie was deathly ill as the siege began, Crockett was new-come to the country, in search of adventure more than glory. None of them perfect heroes by any standard, then or now… but of such rough clay are legends made of.

Perhaps this speech, from the 2004 movie articulates it best, what they came for, and why they stayed.

Sing for Change Obama – a creepy idea whose time has passed

30. September 2008 · Comments Off on Sing for Change Obama – a creepy idea whose time has passed · Categories: General

A half-assed – but still valid – reason to vote for McCain .. because stuff like this is creepy and verging on evil.

The idea of a bunch of tots singing praises of the Dear Leader needs to be mocked until the adults in the room sheepisly admit that, yes, it’s really dumb to idolize a politician and program your children.

It’s like the 20th century didn’t even happen.  What in the f*** are you people thinking?

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Update!

The first link is gone – but the song lives on!

And lyrics!

We’re gonna spread happiness
We’re gonna spread freedom
Obama’s gonna change it
Obama’s gonna lead ‘em

We’re gonna change it
And rearrange it
We’re gonna change the world.

The People Has Spoke

29. September 2008 · Comments Off on The People Has Spoke · Categories: General

Your representatives heard you when you demanded affordable housing, they heard you when you insisted that the programs were fine, and they have heard you when you insisted that Wall Street pay for it all by melting into a puddle of slag.

bailout_2 by you.

Yes, I know: simplistic. Also not everyone demanded all of that.  Still, this is Democracy and we get to live with our folly.  That includes your neighbor’s folly as well as your own.

If this gets real bad and fifty years from now historians look back and say ‘you know, if they’d voted ‘aye’ they could have saved themselves a whole lotta misery’, I hope the guys up on the barricade have the grace to feel like retards.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

I’ve Got a Bracelet, Too

27. September 2008 · Comments Off on I’ve Got a Bracelet, Too · Categories: General

Real life provides better lines than fiction ever will.

Senator McCain: Long ramble about service, sacrifice, the suckitude of defeat.
Senator Obama: “Jim, let me just make a point. I’ve got a bracelet too. From, Sergeant, uh, uh, from the mother of, uh, Sergeant, Ryan David Jopek.”

He certainly does appear to be looking at his wrist for Sergeant Jopek’s name, doesn’t he?

Why is this a big deal?

The point of those bracelets is to remember the individual.  If you gotta look at the thing to recall the name, it sorta brings home the point that it’s there for political reasons, hunh? 

People in the military – and their families – are not blind to the reality that we’re an instrument of national policy [1].  But we prefer not to have that fact shoved into our faces by people who want to be the boss.

When President Obama pulls the trigger to invade Pakistan [2] we’d like to think he’s giving at least a passing thought to Joe Snuffy.

Not remembering the name of the guy you’ve said you would honor as an individual makes it hard to do that.

[1] War is a continuation of politics by other means – Clausewitz.

[2] Or any of the other eleventy-dozen countries where Al-Queda is operating.  If the world thought an ill-defined Bush Doctrine was a big deal just wait until we see the Obama Doctrine in action: Invade whomever we want whenever we want because a few dozen gomers are recruiting for an amorphous network of terrorists.[3]

[3] Add to this Representative Steve Kagen’s promise to interfere with free markets outside the jurisdiction of the United States, Senator Obama’s plan to draft high school kids into national service and we might be forgiven for asking people: You won’t vote Republican because Bush was a war monger, an idiot, and a guy who is reviled by right-thinking people everywhere .. but compuslory service, a promise to roll panzers across recognized national borders ‘just because’ and plans to keep people from making money in their own country .. this is somehow better?

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

A Question…

27. September 2008 · Comments Off on A Question… · Categories: Domestic, General, Politics

Last night during the debate, Senator Obama said:

The third thing we have to do is we’ve got to make sure that we’re competing in education. We’ve got to invest in science and technology. China had a space launch and a space walk. We’ve got to make sure that our children are keeping pace in math and in science.

And one of the things I think we have to do is make sure that college is affordable for every young person in America.

While I agree that we need to keep pace in Math & Science (or even, to move ahead in both), and while I think that affordable college is a worthy goal, not every job requires a college degree. Nor is every person a good fit for college.

So, Senator, my question is this. What about the young people who have no interest in, or desire for college? What about the ones who want to be plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics, cabinet-makers, and the like? What will you do for them?

Will you be as generous in providing funding/financing for those who want to attend a trade school, or a 2-year college? What about grad school, for those whose chosen careers require post-graduate work?

And what about Americans who are NOT young, but finally have the opportunity to pursue a degree? Should it be affordable for them as well, or does your largesse only extend to YOUNG Americans? Which begs the question: at what point does a person stop being “young”?

I suppose, as long as I’m asking questions, I should also ask what you’re going to do about the young Americans who don’t qualify for college. Affordable college is great, but only if folks meet the entrance requirements. We can’t continue to dumb down the entrance requirements just to ensure that everyone can attend.

How will you make college affordable? Are you going to mandate tuition prices? I don’t understand how the federal gov’t has the right to mandate tuition fees for non-federal schools. Oh, you’re probably NOT going to mandate tuition – you’ll provide subsidies instead. But it’s an interesting fact that as federal aid increases, so do tuition prices, so increasing subsidies will have no real effect on the cost of attending college.

Notice I’m not asking you where the money’s going to come from – I know the answer to that. You’ll raise my taxes and make me pay for it. I suppose I should be grateful for having the opportunity to help others succeed, but somehow, gratitude isn’t the emotion that pops up when I think about this.

RIP, Mr. Newman

27. September 2008 · Comments Off on RIP, Mr. Newman · Categories: General

Paul Newman has passed away at age 83. Cancer.

Not only will we remember him for those deep blue eyes that any red-blooded woman could get lost in forever, but for his faithfulness to Joanne Woodward, his wife since 1958. Playboy magazine asked him one time if he was ever tempted to stray. His reply: “I have steak at home- why go out for hamburger?”

Newman’s Own Foundation has issued a statement.

“Paul Newman’s craft was acting. His passion was racing. His love was his family and friends. And his heart and soul were dedicated to helping make the world a better place for all.

Paul had an abiding belief in the role that luck plays in one’s life, and its randomness. He was quick to acknowledge the good fortune he had in his own life, beginning with being born in America, and was acutely aware of how unlucky so many others were. True to his character, he quietly devoted himself to helping offset this imbalance.

We will miss you, sir.

An Old Mission Church Half Tumbled Down

26. September 2008 · Comments Off on An Old Mission Church Half Tumbled Down · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Military, Old West, World

That is just what it was, when the building which is the premier landmark in San Antonio – and perhaps all of the rest of Texas – first achieved fame immortal, in the short and bloody space of an hour and a half, just before sunrise on a chill spring morning in 1836. People who come to visit today, with an image in their mind from the movies about it – from John Wayne’s version, and the more recent 2004 movie, or from sketch-maps in books about the desperate, fourteen-day siege are usually taken back to discover that it is so small. So I know, because I thought so the first time I visited it as an AF trainee on town-pass in 1978. And it is small – one of those Spanish colonial era buildings, in limestone weathered to the color of old ivory. That chapel is only a remnant of a sprawling complex of buildings. Itself and the so-called ‘Long Barracks’ are the only things remaining of what was once called the Mission San Antonio de Valero, given it’s better known appellation by a company of Spanish cavalry stationed there in the early 19th century – they called it after the cottonwood trees around their previous station of Alamo de Parras, in Coahuila. It was the northernmost of a linked chain of five mission complexes, threaded like baroque pearls on a green ribbon, and originally established to tend to the spiritual needs and the protection of local Christianized Indian tribes. The missions were secularized at the end of the 18th century, the lands around distributed to the people who had lived there. Their chapels became local parish churches – while the oldest of them all became a garrison.

There is in existence a birds-eye view map of San Antonio in 1873, a quarter century after the last stand of Travis and Bowie’s company that shows a grove of trees in rows behind the apse of the old chapel building. In the year that the map was made, the chapel and the remaining buildings were still a garrison of sorts – an Army supply depot, and the plaza in front of it a marshalling yard. One wonders if any of the supply sergeants of that time or any of the laborers unloading the wagons bringing military supplies up from the coast and designated for the garrisons of the Western frontier forts gave a thought to the building they worked in. Did they think the place was haunted, perhaps? Did they hear whispers and groans in the dark, think anything of odd stains on the floors and walls, of regular depressions in the floor where defensive trenches had been dug at the last? What did they think, piling up crates, barrels and boxes, in the place that the final handful of survivors had made their last stand, against the tide of Santa Anna’s soldiers flooding over the crumbling walls?

Probably not much– whitewash covers a lot. And a useful, sturdy building is just that – useful. By the 1870s, those Regular Army NCOs working in there were veterans of the Civil War, and perhaps haunted enough by their own war, just lately over. The growing city had spread beyond those limits that William Travis, David Crocket and James Bowie would have seen, looking down from those very same walls.

In 1836 that cluster of buildings, and the old church with it’s ornate niches and columns twisted like lengths of barley sugar sat a little distance from the outskirts of the best established provincial town in that part of Spanish and Mexican Texas, out in the meadows by a loop of clear, narrow river fringed by rushes and willows. San Antonio de Bexar, mostly shortened then to simply “Bexar”, was then just a close clustered huddle of adobe brick buildings around two plazas and the stumpy spire of the church of San Fernando. It is a challenge to picture it, in the minds eye, to take away the tall glass buildings all around, the lawns and carefully tended flowering shrubs, to ignore the sounds of traffic, the SATrans busses belching exhaust, and see it as it might have appeared, a hundred and sixty years ago. I think there would have been cottonwood trees, close by. Thirsty trees, they plant themselves across the west, wherever there is water in plenty, their leaves trembling incessantly in the slightest breeze. There might have also have been some fruit orchards planted nearby – the 1873 map certainly shows them. But otherwise, it would have been open country, rolling meadows star-scattered with trees, and striped across by two roads; the Camino Real, the King’s road, towards Nacogdoches in the east, and the road towards the south, towards the Rio Grande. In the distance to the north, a long blue-green rise of hills marks the edge of what today is called the Balcones Escarpment. It is the demarcation between a mostly flat and fertile plain which stretches to the Gulf Coast, and the high and windswept plains of the Llano, haunted by fierce and war-loving Indians.

This is the place where three very different men came to, in that fateful year that the Texians rebelled against the rule of the dictatorship of what the knowledgeable settlers of Texas called the “Centralistas” – the dictatorship of the central government in Mexico City.

(More to follow)

Palin the Death Monger

25. September 2008 · Comments Off on Palin the Death Monger · Categories: General

We warned him: The Palin-Rove machine will not tolerate dissent. 

He stepped up with courage and love for his country.  And now … the moose is gone but the message will live on.

Bullwinkle - assasinated by you.

From.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Tulsa

24. September 2008 · Comments Off on Tulsa · Categories: General

The Army tasks a brigade with a Homeland Security Mission.  Paul Watson – and 190 commentors-  promptly freak the f*** out and get their panties in a collective twist:

Ominously, the report states that, “The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.”

The unit would also be deployed to deal with hostile crowds of Americans in the aftermath of a massive economic depression, potential food riots and race riots, if one defines the term “crowd control” to match its reasonably applicable scenarios.

Calm down before you hurt yourself, please.

Stuff like this happens all the time – you just never notice.  Units get assignments like this like my Aunt Masie loads up on desert. It’s only news because of the novel command and control arrangement.

When you read about a battalion of Marines flying up to Yellowstone to help fight forest fires?  Secondary tasking.  The jarheads who deployed to support the National Guard in LA last time they had a riot?  Secondary tasking.  Those guys were already on call for that stuff and had a modest amount of training for the task.  Sometimes very modest but there you go.

And .. seriously.  So ‘they’ are planning an October Surprise.  What in the world is a brigade combat team going to do?  It’s a battalion of infantry, with guns and air support.  Call if 5,000 guys at the most.

It’s a big country.  If the entire place goes up in flame and smoke, a BCT is going to be a drop of water on a hot grill.

So the Army could send a brigade to take over … Tulsa.  And if they want Tulsa they can have it.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

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