Of Activists and Cabbages and Kings

04. March 2012 · Comments Off on Of Activists and Cabbages and Kings · Categories: Good God, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, Working In A Salt Mine..., World · Tags: , , , , ,

I was so certain that the first postings about the sudden death of Andrew Breitbart on the ‘Bigs’ last week were some kind of prank – that someone had hacked his Twitter feed, or his email, or even the website itself. Unlike many other a blogger from the conservative-libertarian side of the blogosphere, I can’t even say that I knew him, personally or by email … but I have read the ‘Bigs’ every day for months, which in blog-time must equal to years – and always derived a lot of amusement from his various projects. He fought the good fight passionately, aiming true and never backing down. His style was piratical, swashbuckling and fearless. I am fairly certain that he had a brass pair so large they probably clanged like Big Ben when he walked down the street.

So many of us who blog about politics do operate these days in – if not fear, then at least some apprehension; bloggers who tackle controversial issues do tend to attract animus from commenters, at the very least. The tall dogs in this field do draw the fleas. It’s the price of having opinions, though – and one shouldn’t mind it, too much – but still… I remember being absolutely horrified at seeing some of the threats that someone like Michelle Malkin gets all the time, and even Ann Althouse got some very scary, and very specific threats at the height of the Madison ruckus this last year. It was heartening to watch someone who was not the least bit intimidated or discouraged by that kind of reaction to go on swinging. As I said – solid brass pair. He will be missed. Conservatives and Libertarians don’t have a particularly deep bench.

Conversely, Rush Limbaugh is the other big hitter on the Conservative-Libertarian bench – and he also had a bad week. I’ve never had much interest in following him – or Glenn Beck, either. Just not my cuppa; I managed to not know who Glenn Beck was, all the way up to the first big San Antonio Tea Party rally in 2009. And it looks like el Rushbo did manage to miss the whole point of the Sandra Fluke/Georgetown Law imbroglio. Can’t blame him, really – that a thoroughly modern co-ed at a very expensive uni has the need of $1,000 worth of birth control during a single year is pretty risible. (What? She can’t find the nearest CVS pharmacy or Planned Parenthood? I thought there was an app for that…and it doesn’t cost all that much.)The real point was that the innocent and dewy-eyed 20-something co-ed was actually a thirty-ish career activist whose mission was to force a Jesuit-sponsored institution to take a course of action counter to their firmly-held principles. That she was wheeled out there and touted as the innocent and dewy-eyed 20-something co-ed in spite of considerable evidence in the public domain to the contrary … that’s the part worthy of scorn, derision and contempt.
The administration is attempting to force Catholic institutions to provide a particular health service option which is antithetical to their principles. That’s the issue – and instead, we have another round of lefty squealing about civility. Which, considering some of the things that those very same lefties said about Breitbart … is most ironical.

Call it a Victory

26. February 2012 · Comments Off on Call it a Victory · Categories: Fun With Islam, GWOT, Rant, War, World

And leave. That’s the discussion going on over at Rantburg, today, where Steve White has laid out the case, here, (http://rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=339729&D=2012-02-26&SO=&HC=4)
and I have to say he’s made a strong argument. Oh, there are things that can still be done … like drop in a SEAL team or a Hellfire missile the next time a tall Taliban poppy raises his head, or gives support and shelter to a beturbaned goon with ambitions to knock down multi-story office buildings half a world away.

I honestly thought – and still think that there are workable solutions for the problem that is Afghanistan. But if we aren’t going to apply any of them – and it is very plain that under this current feckless, amateur-hour, drop-down-on-knees-and-apologize-in-heart-beat administration, will not – then perhaps it’s time to say so long and thanks for all the fish.

Consider the Michelles of the Field

21. February 2012 · Comments Off on Consider the Michelles of the Field · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General Nonsense, Rant, sarcasm, Working In A Salt Mine..., World · Tags: , , , ,

…they toil not, nor do they spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Enough of that simile, since it’s pretty obvious that Solomon in all his glory was not spread all over just about every fashion and women’s mag for the last couple of years, accompanied by cutlines, stories and editorials, all drooling over how chic, fashionable and oh-so-modern and otherwise laudable the spouse of the current occupant of the White House was.

Yep, upon the apotheosis of the Empty Suit known as Barack Obama, to the highest office in the land, I could hardly pass the supermarket checkout stand, without being assured that his Significant Other was the best thing since Jackie Kennedy or sliced bread… so lovely, so tasteful, so chic, the very model of an ultra-modern First Lady. Frankly, the sycophantic chorus got to the point where I began muttering to myself something along the lines of, ‘Sister, I remember Jackie Kennedy – and you, darlin’ – aren’t no Jackie Kennedy. If Jackie Kennedy had ever dressed for a public event by raiding her daughter’s closet and the nearest Goodwill outlet, she would have at least made it look good!’ Frankly, if I never see another picture of Michelle in a boob-belt and too-small cotton cardy, or one of Laura Ashley’s more unfortunate evening dress designs, it will all be too soon. And I speak as one who does raid her daughter’s closet, the local Goodwill store and loved Laura Ashley, but then I do not see any fashion mags out there breathlessly lauding Sgt. Mom’s inimitable sense of style.

About the only mystery left unexamined regarding Michelle Obama’s dress sense is how on earth one can spend a bomb of money and still finish up wearing such desperately unflattering clothes, or clothes grotesquely unsuited for the occasion – or both.

So, you will have gathered that Michelle Obama annoys me. I would have been content to dismiss her as I did, yea these many months ago as “a seething pit of resentment in spite of two high-end degrees, a large income and a mansion; a BAP with a limitless sense of entitlement.” I might have been able, eventually, to blow off the fashion and women’s magazine going all full Pravda on us … but for the vacations.

The incessant expensive vacations to lavish resort locations annoy me. I don’t grudge rich people their amusements, knowing that they mostly pay for such excursions themselves, and that spending on them will trickle down to make a good living for the people who own, run, and work at such places – heck, I live in a destination city, although I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not a tropical paradise like Hawaii, or an enclave of the uber-rich like Martha’s Vinyard. I certainly didn’t grudge President Reagan, or either of the Presidents Bush from taking vacations at property they owned and improved, and even hosted VIPs at. (I did derive amusement out of the White House Press corps being dragged to Crawford, Texas, in August, though. Awwww, poor cosmopolitan urbanites, being dragged to the ass-end of nowhere in the most miserable part of a Texas summer!)

But at a time when ordinary working people are cutting back to a week or so, taking a frugal holiday here and there, or even not taking a vacation at all – Michelle Obama taking a lavish holiday every two months or so, looks very, very bad to the general public. And the White House must know that it’s going over about as well as a case of the chicken pox at a kid’s birthday party. That someone whose job it is to consider damage control can’t or won’t talk her into slumming it at Camp David instead is not a good thing.

Desecrations

14. January 2012 · Comments Off on Desecrations · Categories: Ain't That America?, Devil Dogs, Fun With Islam, GWOT, History, Rant · Tags: ,

It seems that there is a bit of bother on in military circles … or rather in the media circles which concern themselves with the conduct of the military … going on with regard to the Marines who were recorded some years ago pissing upon the bodies of some dead Taliban fighters.

The Taliban, like other gentlemen of similar Islamic persuasion in prosperous and peace-loving locations like Somalia, Chechnya and Iran are, of course, known the world over for their upright moral principles. They are famous for this, as well as their strict adherence to the practices of the Geneva Convention when it comes to captured military and interned civilians like Daniel Pearl, and their gentle and respectful treatment of female and child noncombatants. It seems like every other day or so, the Afghan and Pak Taliban are burning down another school, or throwing acid into the face of another woman whose appreciation of the charms of an individual enthusiast for the Religion of Peace is somewhat lacking.

Gosh, I just don’t know what got into our Marines. I clearly recall seeing WWII-era pictures of the aftermath of fighting in the Pacific, where a truck or half-track hood was adorned with a Japanese skull. Now, that was serious desecration. This? I am reliably informed that there are pervs who will pay good money to be pissed on by a professional. Well, the perv is usually alive and wearing a codpiece, high-heels and a ball-gag, but that’s a small detail.

Anyway – Bad Marines. Don’t let us catch you doing this ever again, or it’s no dessert for you for a week. And if you do, don’t take pictures of it for pete’s sake. And if you do take pictures for you and your buddies to snicker over … don’t show them off in public for about twenty years.

If, on the other hand, you want to piss all over Michael Moore, or that creep at the Daily Kos, or Bill Ayers or someone like that – feel free. Claim they were on fire, and you just wanted to do your duty as a good citizen.

With a Crowbar

13. November 2011 · Comments Off on With a Crowbar · Categories: Domestic, Good God, Rant, sarcasm, World · Tags: , , , ,

That is the sarcastic answer to an ancient question lately revised in the matter of the Penn State University athletic department having enabled a coach to serially molest young boys for decades – the question being, ‘How you separate the men from the boys at ____?’ Understandably, a large portion of the public is upset to furious about this, and those who are Penn grads and/or college football fans, and/or Joe Paterno fans are particularly distressed and/or seriously disillusioned.

The very saddest result from this appalling state of matters is something that I had meditated upon five years ago, when it was the matter of the Capitol Hill pages and a one Representative Mark Foley, who was forced to resign once his apparent inability to keep his hands, metaphorically speaking, off the junior staff became public knowledge outside Washington. I noted that the long-term and most damaging after-effect was how this kind of predation – after the immediate damage is done – screws up any chance of a teenager having a good mentorly relationship with an older person not their parental unit. Any cross-generational friendship will be looked at with grave suspicion – and that is so not a good thing.

We came to the point several years ago – after the various scandals in the Catholic Church – of having to consider an apparently friendly overture from an older man to a teenage boy or child as potentially the first move of a chicken-hawk. This just has to poison the pool just that much more, adding one more smidgeon of crappiness to a teenager’s lot in life, or to that of a child from a dysfunctional home. Being a teenager is an awkward age, for a variety of reasons; being physically nearly an adult but emotionally nearer to being a child, craving respect and responsibility, but really getting much of a chance for earning either, the utter pointlessness of much that is taught in a public school setting . . . and then add to the fact that the average tweener or teen is stuck with their peers, by custom and institutional practice for much of each day.

Picture it, if your own memory of middle or high school is not painfully vivid in your memory: stuck with inane conversations, pointless rivalries, even more pointless academic curricula, bitter feuds, bullying and mind-games. Feeling ill and over-grown, flushed with too many hormones, and no outlet – and even if you are one of the lucky ones who do get along with your parents – they are, after all, your parents.

For a lot of teenagers, a friendship with an adult not their parent is a lifeline, and an anchor to sanity, a connection to a real world outside the confines of high school and their peer-group, a reassurance that they can connect with the real world. I have always had a conviction that teenagers – in order to get through the worst of it – need more than anything else, the companionship and example of adult friends who have common interests and enthusiasms. It tends to take the younger generation out of an insular round of strictly teen-approved interests, encourages them to connect and to get away from that sour view expressed in my own youth of “not trusting anyone over thirty.”

One of our joint enthusiasms, when my daughter was in middle school and we lived then in Ogden, Utah, was a regular meeting of the Salt Lake City Chapter of the Dr. Who Fan Club. Thirty or forty Whovians met socially once a month at a certain member’s house to watch an episode of Dr. Who on video and chat about their mutual liking for the series. (I rather liked the Whovians by the way; they were much more cerebral and grounded than the Trekfans. One felt that they had fairly successful and interesting lives, and their appreciation for The Doctor was merely an amiable eccentricity, not an overwhelming obsession.) Anyway, it gratified me as a parent to notice my daughter’s social assurance, and that of some of the other younger Whovians. At fourteen, she was much the youngest; I think the next youngest was sixteen, and the ages of the other members ranged well up into the seventies. But everyone always had a wonderful time at meetings, interacting as equals and friends, and I thought it was marvelous for the youngest fans, in that they were tacitly reassured that there was an escape over the walls of the teenage ghetto, and an wide world full of interesting friends on the other side. And at the very least, I am sure they came away from the meetings of the Whovians with the assurance that they would not be trapped in the teenage wasteland forever.

So the mentoring aspect in society is critically important, for boys and girls alike: How the heck and from whom – are you going to work out what being an adult really is – if all you have is your teenaged idiot peers, and the crazy-house hall of mirrors that is the media? Who can you pattern yourself after? What if your parents are dysfunctional and you do not get along with them? I had friends in the military in that situation, who were able to find another mentor to pattern themselves upon, and thereby have a chance at becoming reasonably well-adjusted and functioning adults. I have mentored a friend of my daughter whose parents were perfect studies in rotten parenting skills, and any number of young female airmen along the way. Adult friends and mentors are the fallback position, the rescue, and second chance at becoming a well-adjusted and functioning adult. That sexual predators can inject themselves into this situation, can extend a pretend hand of friendship and respect, while all the while be looking for their own sexual interests – this is an obscenity. It casts a more-than-decade-long shadow of suspicion and distrust on those – mostly male –volunteers willing to involve themselves in youth betterment-programs as well as discouraging any well-inclined adult from opening themselves up to potential accusation.

So, thank you, Coach Sandusky, and by extension those personnel in the athletic department faculty at Penn State U – who covered for your insatiable need to get your rocks off by molesting children – just thanks. You’ve proved yourself to be a really putrid, manipulative and exploitative human being, if the published indictments are anything to go by. And everyone else in the chain of command that enabled this? Well, just thanks again. Hope you feel good about having kept your job secure by keeping silent. In addition to having facilitated the serial abuse of kids, you have also put another obstacle in the way of well-intentioned men and woman wanting to do their bit for the larger community in ministering to kids and teenagers with issues and problems. Again, just thanks.

(Cross-posted at Chicago Boyz)

Stuff

17. October 2011 · Comments Off on Stuff · Categories: General, Rant

So apparently Governor Rick Perry of Texas has a Baptist pastor who’s going off on Mormons.  I guess Michele Bachmann has jumped on that wagon as well, haven’t seen it, just heard about that one so…  Ya know, we’ve retired in Idaho.  There are a lot of Mormons here in Idaho.  They make good neighbors.  Given a choice between living with Baptists and living with Mormons, I’ll take the Mormons.  Once you tell them you’re not interested in going to the temple with them, they have the courtesy to leave you the hell alone.  And seriously?  You really want to trash the Osmonds?!  Donnie?  Marie?  America LOVES Donnie and Marie!  I know it’s a way to discredit Romney, but come ON.  The only thing these nimrod, close-minded, gay bashing, moralists are doing is making Mitt Romney look like the only rational candidate for the GOP.

Herman Cain?  Kinda liked him for a minute.  Cool, business man.  Then he started talking.  Total meltdown.

Occupy Where-Who-What-Ever they are.  I’m for it!  Seriously.  They might be a conglomeration of all the leftist “pissed off ats” all in one, but ya gotta admit, they have a couple of valid points.  The chief one being that we’re a good 3 years past the economic melt-down that the suits brought down on us and the only Armani clad shit bird that’s in jail is Bernie Maddoff?  And not only did these suits NOT get prosecuted…they got rewarded for their f*ckups with OUR tax dollars.  The only thing that surprises me is that it took so long for someone to organize a protest.

President Obama.  Sigh.  What can I say?  Not a fan.  Don’t like a damn things he’s done other than capture OBL and he did THAT by sticking with the same strategies and tactics that he beat up President Bush for.  I REALLY hoped he’d do something to get a real, sustainable alternative energy program going and create a bunch of jobs while doing it.  We all know how THAT turned out.  To call it feeble is an insult to feeble.

Okay, so now we’re only leaving 5,000 armed “advisers” in Iraq and pulling out all the combat forces?  Meanwhile, last week it was announced that we’re sending 100 armed “advisers” into Uganda.  I guess there’s some Rebel faction there that needs cleaning out.  Uganda.  “Suddenly” we need to do something about one of the warlords in Africa?  Because…?

The Tea Party.  What the hell happened?  It was brilliant, it was exciting, and then…Buellor?  Buellor?  Ya let the media run your message and now we don’t hear anything BUT their version of your message.

Bottom line?  Everyone’s fed up.  They’re fed up with blowing up people who probably had nothing to do with hurting any of us.  They’re fed up with spending billions of dollars blowing those people up.  They’re fed up with the way we treat our vets when they do make it home.  They’re very fed up with losing their houses.  They’re fed up with spending thousands of dollars on an education only to find out that nobody is hiring.  They’re fed up with their movie collections being outdated due to ANOTHER format change.  And to quote Tyler from Fight Club:

“I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

Tuesday Miscellany

04. October 2011 · Comments Off on Tuesday Miscellany · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Home Front, Media Matters Not, On The Border, Politics, Rant, Stupidity, Tea Time

In no particular order of importance, I contemplate the following:

1. Regretfully, Morgan Freeman has now joined my personal celebrity s**t list, for pronouncing the Tea Party to be racist. Usually those who fall into my list have a long track record of offences; he has done it in one fell swoop of a lengthy TV interview. Yes, I know that most actors and entertainers are political morons – especially those who feel obliged to piss off a major portion of their fan-base.

2. So . . . thirty years ago, there was a rock on a hunting lease in West Texas with a racial epithet painted on it . . . which was painted over by the lease-holder, at the urging of his son, who is now presently the Governor of Texas. And this is all that the WaPo can find by way of criticism of the man. Hoooo-kayyy. From those wonderful people who brought us Watergate, this is a sad come-down.

3. And speaking of Watergate – it didn’t actually kill anyone, which is more than you can say for Operation Fast and Furious, or ‘hey boys’n’girls, lets have the ATF take the lead in supplying serious weaponry to the Mexican drug cartels!’ Seriously, if the Mexican government was to demand extradition of Attorney General Eric Holder, the head of the ATF, and every other numbskull who expedited the various gun-running operations on charges of criminal misconduct and accessory to murder, I’d say – have at it. Deliver them all to the border in handcuffs, with a big pink bow around their necks. Impeach now.

4. Michelle Antoinette’s little excursion to Target? Oh, please, woman – if you had any nerve at all, you’d have gone to Walmart.

5. Will Amanda Knox dethrone Casey Anthony when it comes to criminal justice tabloid fodder? Should I or anyone else not in the immediate family or social circle of either one really care one way or the other?

6. And why is it now October and we are still having to run the air conditioning?

PS – and one more thing: every time I hear something being flogged as ‘green’ and ‘environmentally sound’ or ‘renewable’ … I am fairly sure the object in question is a rip-off, and/or completely unsatisfactory compared to the non-green, environmentally unsound, and non-renewable version.

Squealing from the Same Sheet of Music

03. September 2011 · Comments Off on Squealing from the Same Sheet of Music · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, Tea Time, World

What a fascinating coincidence it is, last week it was Maxine Walters telling the Tea Party to go to hell, this week it’s another member of the Congressional Black Caucus insisting that unspecified Tea Party members of Congress and/or the House are all ready to get out the white KKK robes and start hanging Negroes from trees. To the very best of my recollection, it was a Dem – the late Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia – who started his political career as a member of the KKK . . . but in the current political climate, this is about as well-considered as throwing gasoline on a bonfire. It is also as insulting as hell to fiscally responsible, constitutionally strict fans of the free market, such as what Tea Party activists and sympathizers happen to be . . . and let it be noted that yes, indeedy, there are quite a few of such who are not, by any stretch of the imagination, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

It just looks like it is just about the only weapon left to hand, for a certain cadre of established politicians . . . and not just the CBC. They’re being only the screamingly loudest with it, of late. Just as an aside, are there any prominent long-time members of the CBC who are not bigoted, incompetent, mad as a hatter, badly-educated, infamously corrupt, repeatedly re-elected from gerrymandered slum districts, and with reputations as being absolute hell to work for? No, seriously, I am wondering. I know Col. Allen West is not any of the above, although I’ll bet that he would be seriously exacting to work for as a staff member . . . but then, he may not be a member of the CBC for much longer, so . . . is this just a case of 98% giving the rest of them a bad name?

Anyway, what it may all indicate – why the Tea Party has attracted such animus from this particular direction, and I’ll bet just about anything you like that this is a PR offensive ordered from the top down – is that Andre, and Maxine, Chollie and Sheila and the rest of them can see the writing on the wall. In this case, the indications that the money spigot will be turned off. No more easy goodies for their districts, no more chances for personal swag and graft. Hard times are landing on all of us . . . and historically awful and damaging practices in managing a district, a community, a city, a state . . . are getting to be pretty obvious. And it’s also getting pretty obvious that many historically black districts have been appallingly served by those who have always painted themselves as the stalwart champions of same – although some have escaped investigation and prosecution by the skin of their teeth – and one suspects judicious application of the race card. Indeed, it could be argued that most attempts to remedy the ills of the inner-city minority populations have made matters much, much worse. Hence the ear-piercingly loud squeals who suddenly visualize themselves being abruptly cut off from guzzling at the government trough; just as much as the Tea Party activists and sympathizers are pissed as hell at government waste and mismanagement, it’s a pretty certain bet they’ll have no patience at all in tolerating political corruption and incompetence.

And aside to Allen West? Quit the CBC now. Really, you’ll look like the stand-up guy that your district elected you to be – a real mensch. A real American and not a race-hustling corruptocrat and poverty pimp, looking for the nearest handy spigot of money and influence. My advice – take it for what it’s worth.

Memo: You First, Maxine

22. August 2011 · Comments Off on Memo: You First, Maxine · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Rant, sarcasm, Tea Time

From: Sgt. Mom
To: The Hon. Maxine Waters,
Re: Telling the Tea Party to Go to Hell
1.Dear Maxine, when I call into memory the particulars regarding your district, I can only assume that you are already well acquainted with Hell, and the audience you were addressing with your recent inflammatory and insulting diatribe are a pretty fair assembly of your constituents. So nice to see that you are upholding the new civility in our political discourse.

2. Allow me to enlighten you – or bring it to your own awareness – that the so-called Tea Party are a leaderless and distributed insurgency of involved and patriotic citizens united by three basic concerns: fiscal responsibility, strict dedication to the precepts for self-government outlined in the Constitution, and an affection for free markets – which is not anything like crony capitalism, as is currently practiced among the current corruptocracy. A limited federal establishment, state and local control, a high degree of personal responsibility also come into it.

3. I can also see why this Tea Party political tendency would greatly concern a certain kind of long-established political parasite; that kind of machine-based, racial-grievance charlatan who battens onto the American body politic like a tick, exploiting the life-blood of the Republic no less than the woes and miseries of their constituencies for decades. A new political class imbued with devotion to Tea Party principles is very likely viewed by such a politician as akin to the approach of someone with a pair of tweezers and a hot match . . . I only draw the parallel. You may take that simile as far as you like.

4. Finally, I expect that within my lifetime, there will be another person of color – man or woman elected to the Presidency of this country. He – or she – will definitely not be a product of the corrupt special interest, racial-grievance chasing, big-city machine-oligarchy. They will most likely come out of the larger business world or the military . . . and very likely will be Tea Partiers. This will probably not please you, but life is just full of these little tragedies.

5. Bless your heart, Maxine – you have a nice day, you hear?

I remain, most sincerely,
Sgt Mom

(cross-posted at Chicago Boyz)

Reissue of Memo: John Wayne is Dead and Arnie Has a Day Job

14. August 2011 · Comments Off on Reissue of Memo: John Wayne is Dead and Arnie Has a Day Job · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General, General Nonsense, Media Matters Not, Rant, sarcasm, War

(In light of the current ruckus over President’s Obama’s very personal wet smooch from Hollywood regarding the proposed “get Osama” movie, I am reissuing my historic memo, from 2004 or so. Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette has the whole depressing, infuriating saga of the world’s longest proposed political advertisement, here.)
To: Providers of our Movie & TV Entertainment
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Lack of Spine and Relevant Movies

1. So here it has been nearly three years since 9/11, two years since the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, a year since the thunder run from the Kuwait border to Baghdad, and all we get from you is a TV movie, a couple of episodes from those few TV serials that do touch on matters military, and a two-hour partisan hack job creatively edited together from other people’s footage. Ummm … thanks, ever so much. Three years worth of drama, tragedy, duty, honor, sacrifice, courage and accomplishment, and all we get is our very own Lumpy Riefenstahl being drooled over by the French. Where is the Casablanca, So Proudly We Hail, Wake Island, They Were Expendable? My god, people, the dust had barely settled over the Bataan surrender, before the movie was in the theaters. You people live to tell stories— where are ours? What are we fighting for and why, who are our heroes and villains, our epics and victories?

2. And it’s not like other media people have been laying down on the job: writers, reporters, bloggers have been churning out stories by the cubic foot: the brave passengers taking back Flight 93, the stories of people who escaped the towers, and those who helped others escape, as well as those who ran in, the epic unbuilding of the Trade Center ruins. What about the exploits of the Special Forces in Afghanistan, on horseback in the mountains with a GPS, directing pinpoint raids on Taliban positions, the women who ran Afghanistans’ underground girls’ schools? What about Sgt Donald Walters, Lt. Brian Chontosh, the 3rd ID’s fight for the strong points at Larry, Curley and Moe and a dozen others. There’s enough materiel for the lighter side, too: Chief Wiggles, Major Pain’s pet turkey, the woman Marine who deployed pregnant and delivered her baby in a war zone, the various units who have managed to bring their adopted unit mascots back from the theater. (Do a google search, for heaven’s sake. If you can’t handle that, ask one of the interns to help.) The shelves at my local bookstore are pretty well stocked with current writings on the subject, memoirs, reports, thrillers and all. Some stories even have yet to be written; they are still ongoing, and even classified, but I note that did not stop the movie producers back then: they just consulted with experts and made something up, something inspiring and convincing.

3. Of course, actually dealing with a contemporary drama in the fight against Islamic fascism would mean you would have to actually come down out of Hollywood’s enchanted world, and actually, you know … speak to them. Ordinary people, ordinary, everyday people, who don’t have agents and personal trainers and nannies, and god help them, they don’t even vote for the right people, or take the correct political line. Some of them (gasp) are even military, and do for real what movies only pretend to do … and besides, they have hold to all these archaic ideals like honor, duty, and country. (Ohhh, cooties!)

4. And since even mentioning the Religion of Peace (TM) in connection with things like terrorism, mass-murder, and international plots for a new caliphate is a guarantee to bring CAIR and other fellow travelers seething and whining in your outer office … ohh, best not. Drag out those old villainous standby Nazis, or South American drug lords, even the odd far-right survivalist for your theatrical punch-up, secure in the knowledge that even if you piss off what few remains of them, at least they won’t be unleashing a fatwa on your lazy ass, or sending a suicide bomber into Mortens’. Just ignore the three large smoking holes in the ground; cover your eyes and pretend it away. Never happened, religion of peace, all about oil, la-la-lah, fingers in my ears, I can’t hear you.

5.To make movies about it all, is to have to come to grips with certain concepts; among them being the fact that we are all potential targets for the forces of aggressive Islamo-fascism, that it is not anything in particular which we have done to draw such animus, and that we are in this all together, and that we must win, for the consequences of not winning are not only unbearable for us all — but they would be very likely to adversely affect you, too. I would expect an industry dependent on the moods and fashions amongst the public at large to have a better feel for what would sell … but I guess denial is more comfortable, familiar space, Sept. 10th is what you know best.

6. Still, if you could pass a word to Lumpy Riefenstahl, about getting signed releases, for footage, interviews and newsprint. It would be the courteous gesture towards all the little people for whom he professes to care, and save a bit of trouble in the long run.

Thanks
Sgt Mom

So…Didja Watch the Debate Last Night?

12. August 2011 · Comments Off on So…Didja Watch the Debate Last Night? · Categories: Media Matters Not, My Head Hurts, Politics, Rant, That's Entertainment!

Me:  Looking at calendar.  “Why?”

Them:  “You watched the finale of “So You Think You Can Dance?” instead didn’t you?”

Me:  Holding up my fist.  “Melanie RULES!  Michele Bachmann’s got nothing on her.”

Strong Tea

08. August 2011 · Comments Off on Strong Tea · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Rant, sarcasm, Tea Time

Well, it looks like the accusations of Tea Partiers being terrorists may be falling a little flat, or maybe the usual media tools and pols have gotten some blow-back for jumping on that particular bandwagon. Me, I’m beyond outrage. Anyone mouthing that poisonous little meme –– is someone that I will cheerfully boycott, vote against, disregard and shun – and that even includes John McCain. I took his description of Tea Partiers as hobbits as meaning to be demeaning. Once, I had expected better of him. Now – just another bitter establishment RINO, one of a number of old-line Republicans, seeing the writing on the wall: Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin and not liking it a single bit. You have been tried and found wanting, and your kingdom will be divided between the strict constitutionalists and the fiscal conservatives. Rage, rage against the dying of the light of things in Washington as they have been for lo these many years.

Frankly, to me – for a professional politician of either party to have been happily ensconced within the Beltway for more than a term or two or three is now a positive dis-recommendation, and I shouldn’t be the least surprised to find out that my attitude is shared, and will be demonstrated in November, 2012. It is to laugh, though – to see the established political elite twist and squirm over the last two years since the first Tea Party rallies, and the conventional wisdom morph. Let’s see – first, just bitter clingers having a tantrum, and if there were more than a dozen or a couple of hundred, the protests would peter out for lack of continuing enthusiasm. I think this attitude among established pols and the mainstream media began to change after the humongously large gathering in Washington, late in 2009. I could almost hear the grinding of the gears inside the political and media Leviathans: Oh krep-we’d better start paying attention to those freaks with the Gadsden flags, there’s a whole lotta them out there! And then when Senator Bennett of Utah was given the bum’s rush by the Utah GOP caucus – packed full of Tea Partier sympathizers, who were only following up on the same earnest intention of the Tea Partiers I knew in Texas – to take over the local GOP caucus from the inside . . . well, it was to laugh.

Really, at first the local establishment Repubs were all enthusiastic about the Tea Party; some of them were naturally in sympathy anyway, but I am sure the higher-ups were seeing it as a new source of money, and volunteer enthusiasm, all ready to be bridled, saddled and ridden. It was sweet and kinda pathetic – they heard what they wanted to hear, and disregarded the rest. I distinctly remember a strategy meeting about this, sometime in the summer of ’09 or so; third party was out, no future in that. Taking over the Dems from inside – we did kick around the idea, but concluded that – given our various backgrounds and inclinations, probably the GOP was a better fit. And such was the genius of the self-organizing Tea Party, all of the leaders and local enthusiasts were talking to each other, emailing and sharing information on a grand scale; what one local party came up with swiftly spread by internet osmosis to others. It was a demonstration of the principle of the wisdom of crowds, or if you like – a number of minds tackling the same problem from many different angles and coming up spontaneously with pretty much the same answer.

And now the old-line, established Republican politicians and strategists – among others – are belatedly discovering that many of the Tea Party candidates meant exactly what they said, having said what they meant. Good luck with trying to marginalize them – that feline has already exited the fabric containment field.

2012 is shaping up to be a really fun election year, I must say. (Note to self – buy some more popcorn, before the price of it goes up. And note to everyone – last week was invited to be one of the contributors to the Chicago Boyz blog. I had been commenting there since forever, in blog-years time, and so Lex and Johnathan very kindly invited me. I’ll try and cross-post as much as possible.)

A Fact or Two for Hanoi Jane

17. July 2011 · Comments Off on A Fact or Two for Hanoi Jane · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Rant, War

So here we are, Jane dear – and I address you as such because this is a family-friendly blog and some of the other . . . ummm . . . words used in military circles in conjunction with a discussion of your person are not exactly family friendly, unless of course, your family is, say, Saddam Hussein’s . . . anyway, the news media is apparently agog with the intelligence that you have been bounced from a guest slot at QVC, because a lot of people have been calling QVC and complaining about your scheduled appearance.

OK – bounced from QVC . . . snort, giggle . . . bwah-haha-HAH-HAH! (wipes away tears of laughter) . . . I think I’ve got that out of my system. So you wished to flog your crappy book to the QVC audience, because you believe you have something to offer the audience demographic who watches QVC. I hate to be a snob, but wasn’t there anything on Oprah Winfrey’s Network?

Let me break it gently to you, Jane dear; your actions 40 years ago – which were widely photographed, broadcast and discussed at the time – are indeed not in the least forgotten. Not by military serving at the time, military serving after that time and down to the present day, the military establishment as a whole, blue-collar working-class guys subject to the Vietnam War-era draft, their spouses, girlfriends, children and grandchildren, their parents, cousins, second cousins, friends, members of the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Disabled American Veterans and former POWS . . . all of them remember. Possibly the Boy and Girl Scouts remember, too – this is a sort of heirloom memory, handed down from generation to generation like a bit of jewelry or a Chippendale escritoire. We do not need some vast Reich-wing and well-financed organization to support us in this either, unless you do consider the AL, the VFW and the DAV that kind of organization. It’s more of an organic thing, Jane dear . . . oh, I forgot; probably the Vietnamese refugees who came out of Vietnam upon the fall of the Saigon government – they probably remember your actions pretty vividly, too.

Jane, dear – a fairly large portion of the individuals represented in the above-listed groups hate you. They hate you with a depth of feeling ranging the gamut from scornful distaste to the depth of loathing equivalent to the burning of a thousand white-hot suns. They hate you for using your celebrity to set yourself up as a great authority, for providing a propaganda opportunity for the enemy in time of war, for appearing to rejoice in the deaths and/or captivity of American servicemen, for accusing former POWs of lying about the conditions of their captivity. There are mens’ latrines at military clubs and VFW halls that have stickers in the urinals with your face on them; they hate you that much, even after all this time. For myself, I hate that stupid exercise book of yours – exercise and healthy living to keep fit and shapely my a**; it was bulimia and plastic surgery that kept that little fraud going, but never mind.

You have never really apologized for your little stunt in going to North Vietnam; just offered up one of those mealy-mouthed “sorry of you were offended” non-apology apologies. So now, you want to flog another stupid book to the masses, and you discover to your shock and horror that a good part of the demographic it’s intended for don’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole, or see your face on QVC . . . Go get yourself some sympathy from the Dixie Chicks, they know all about alienating a key demographic, and watching appreciation for their celebrity go down the tubes. It’s called karma, and it’s just taken a longer time for yours to come around.

Well, Then

11. July 2011 · Comments Off on Well, Then · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Home Front, Politics, Rant

I am so spoiled for choice when it comes to political idiocy of the week, but this particular bit of arrogant ‘the proles are too stupid to live without the guidance of the best’n’brightest of the current administration’ just about tops my list when it comes to a list of people who – in a just world should be pelted with rotten vegetables and then shunned by all decent citizens. Words fail – but only momentarily, upon following the breadcrumb trail to the original account in the Wall Street Journal – which is unfortunately subscriber only – just the first few sentences only are quite enough:

“In a conference call with reporters, Mr. Chu said the more-efficient bulbs required would save consumers money over the life of the product, even if the up-front price is higher.
“We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money,” he said.”

Excuse moi! Or to put it in blunt military language – who the f**k died and made you god – that you and your disgusting ilk think yourselves have the right to dictate what or what we shouldn’t do, when it comes to personal choices as regards the care of our households? Or by extension, what we should eat, wear, drive, drink, where we should live – I had a bucket-load of that when I was in the military, bucko, that’s why I am a prickly libertarian today. And – you kids, stay off my lawn! Keeping people from wasting their own money, forsooth? How about closing down state lotteries? Or Indian casinos? Yeah, thought not.

So, here’s the down-low, Mr. Chu darlin’ – the only possible way that I accept someone dictating to me what is a waste of my own personal money, is either to be my dad (who has passed on) or to marry me (and a couple of million other citizens). Pucker up, buttercup – or take your worthless dictatorial *ss off and get yourself another hobby. Otherwise, this – *0 – is a rotten tomato, headed in your direction with considerable force. And I will be purchasing another case of 100w incandescent light bulbs as soon as possible. Anything to put the tiniest crimp in our government’s grand intentions of foisting off all those insanely expensive curly-whirly, un-flattering light-producing, un-dimmer-switchable, so-called energy-saving bulbs . . . which really don’t last all that longer than incandescent bulbs anyway.

You heard me, Mr. Chu. I’ll spend my money on the light bulbs of my own choice . . . and if you don’t like it – come and take them. Be warned, though; it didn’t work out all that well, the last time someone in Texas tried to come and take it.

I Swear…

06. June 2011 · Comments Off on I Swear… · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Rant, Stupidity

If I see one more politico or blogger who I used to respect stand up and tell me that Paul Revere actually WAS warning the British on his midnight ride, I’m going to vote for Obama just out of sheer spiteful frustration with the WingNuttery of it all.

No, it’s NOT worse than 57 states, but come ON people.  We learned this in 8th Grade.  And it wasn’t a “reasoned” response, she was spewing word salad.

I don’t care if it’s a Dem or a Rep, if you goofed, just say so.

May Monday Morning Miscellany

22. May 2011 · Comments Off on May Monday Morning Miscellany · Categories: Ain't That America?, Devil Dogs, General, Good God, History, Israel & Palestine, Politics, Rant, World

Paid work is piling up, and neither myself, my creditors or my employers were raptured on Saturday, so . . . hey, buckle down to it and provide that good bloggy ice cream. Top o’ Sgt. Mom’s list of stuff to blog about – the discovery that the Pima County Sheriffs department is about as good at doing no-knock SWAT raids on ordinary citizens as they are when it comes to protecting local politicians doing a meet’n’greet with constituents from an obvious and frequently offending nutcase like Jared Loughner. Which is to say – not very good at all, which accounts for the stonewalling from Sheriff Dupnik’s department. SWAT . . . I’ve always been told it was an acronym for Special Weapons And Tactics. It this case “Special” is more like “Special Ed.” The fact that all this went down early in May and two weeks later, there is nothing much about what the SWAT team was after, or found in the Guerena house only reinforces my suspicion that they had the wrong damn address. It’s not the crime, Sheriff Dupnik – it’s the cover-up.

On a cheerier note, the gourmet foodie suppliers Harry and David are encouraging customers to donate quantities of their Moose Munch chocolate bars to the troops – more here. Note that if you go to the linked Facebook page, they will provide another Moose Munch bar for every ‘favoriting’ of that page. I like Harry and David, by the way. Their fruit basket assortments are to die for.

In a satirical response to President Obama’s speech demanding that Israel return to its’ 1967 borders – Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that the United States return to it’s 1847 borders. The sarcasm, it burns. Finally, courtesy of Weasel Zippers – pictorial comparison of the commando and the hipster – comment is superfluous.

Shoot, Shove Overboard, and Shut Up

05. May 2011 · Comments Off on Shoot, Shove Overboard, and Shut Up · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General, Media Matters Not, Rant, sarcasm, War, Wild Blue Yonder

Ya know, at least Obama actually did a very good speech, announcing that Osama Bin Laden had been taken down, and he did have the stones in the first place to step up to the plate and give the order for the SEALS to take out the trash. No shilly-shallying around and voting ‘present’ on that one, even if there are reports that he chewed over the decision for 16 hours. Well, it was momentous decision; a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize authorizing a targeted assassination, within the sovereign territory of a nation frequently described as being an ally. The irony abounds – one can only imagine the political and media response to GWB giving the go-ahead. So, our boy-king has the advantage of being one of those with a D after his name, which – when it comes to this sort of thing pretty much affords all-over protection against blowback.

So, approving noises all the way around, all the day long on Monday and into Tuesday this week: OBL sleeps wid da fishes, and the most sycophantic media tools are crowing that he will be a shoo-in for reelection in 2012 on that account . . . never mind that gas will probably close on $5.00 a gallon by mid-summer, and joblessness is endemic and the prices for basic groceries are sneaking up. And then . . .

And then . . . oh, oh. Different stories: firefight with the SEALS . . . or not. Use of a woman – perhaps wife, perhaps not – as a human shield. Plain old down and dirty execution, or did the plan call originally for everyone in the house in Abbottabad to be taken away for leisurely interrogation? Video or still documentation of the whole thing – as well as that rushed burial at sea, proving that OBL did indeed go over the side of the Carl Vinson? And now, not releasing any of the pictures of OBL, pining for the fijords because of inflaming the Muslim street, or something? People, get a grip – the Muslim street is always inflamed over something or other. Besides, they are always telling us that OBL was a bad Moslem, that he hijacked the Religion of Peace . . . so, wouldn’t they also want to see visual proof of his demise. There have been enough bloody pictures circulating in the last ten years, and anyone who has ever watched an episode of CSI has probably already seen many scenes at least as bloody and stomach-churning.

And no one at the higher levels of the administration had any idea as to how to deal with this, as an important news event and public affairs challenge – other than the boy-king making a speech. It was as if that was as far as they could see it going; the Administration appears to have felt no need to work out an in-depth response. Just take their word for it, no need to work out a coherent narrative, backed up by pictures, video, carefully shielded witness testimony, et cetera. Just shoot, shove overboard, and shut up.

Not gonna fly, in this wired world, not with so many people wanting to see just a little bit more, within the boundaries of operations security. I’d guess that the pictures and video outlining just a few more answers to questions will leak or be released within days. Just too many people, who are just too damn curious and haven’t had that curiosity satisfied in the least. I’m a long-retired military media professional – and I am offering this feedback gratis. The Administration better start working out a better response to this, and any future-type events.

Later: Froggy and Blackfive thinking along the same lines…

A Miscellany of the Writer Life

12. April 2011 · Comments Off on A Miscellany of the Writer Life · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Literary Good Stuff, Old West, Rant

Just spent most of my working day editing a MS which features lots of chapters which are transcripts of various late-night radio shows, of which the less said the better, since this client have actually paid me money in advance.

Paid a large part of the SAWS bill, and also on Saturday – thanks to that same client – paid the tax bill due on my California real estate. This land, which is about three acres of howling unimproved wilderness in the neighborhood of Julian, California, is currently on the market. At this point, I do not think I can, want to, or ever will go back to California to live and to build a nice little writer’s wilderness retreat on the property, which is what I hoped when I bought that land, ever-so-many-years ago. But I am damned if I will let it go for lack of payment of taxes, which is why a good few parcels of eventually-valuable real estate that my G-Grandfather George owned were lost to the family treasury during the Depression. G-G George was a wiz at this sort of thing; unfortunately his wife had neither the skills nor the pocketbook to hold on to them all. If she had, Dad and I might have been real estate/trust fund babies. We might have taken different paths in life – I am sure I would have been a writer, no matter what.

Daughter of Texas is launched, with lots of review and pre-paid copies going out this week. Just have to see which ones will hit the interest and resulting sales jackpot. Da Blogfaddah – Instapundit – probably won’t be one of them. I didn’t bother sending a copy or a query to him . . . it seems that we have been dropped from his blog-roll. Anyone notice at all? Meah – I didn’t, for weeks. It has never seemed in the past couple of years that being on his blog-roll got me any notice as a writer or as a Tea Partier – thank you very much and I otherwise would be rude about this – but this is Instapundit that we are talking about, and the occasional lordly-dispensed link was very good. I guess this is just an ordinary unobserved milblog once again. There is a review for Daughter of Texas posted on Amazon. The first of many, I should hope.

I am kicking about the notion of doing a hard-cover version of the Adelsverein Trilogy, through the Tiny Publishing Business that I am now a working partner in: I would like to offer a hard-bound version of all the separate volumes of the Trilogy, at slightly under the rate of buying all three in paperback. So, what would please all the fans – a cloth-bound and paper jacket edition, or a hard-cover version with just a bright-color laminated cover. Let me know – the laminated cover is slightly less expensive to publish than the cloth-bound and paper dust-jacket version – but the cloth and dust-jacket version just looks so classy! This wouldn’t be something I would look to put in the big-box stores, since to do so would involve a discount more than would make this doable, economically.

So – are there any readers out there?

An Essay in Frustration

24. March 2011 · Comments Off on An Essay in Frustration · Categories: General, Literary Good Stuff, Rant

I am trying not to loose my temper over this, and lash out indiscriminately – because I have done that before and probably cut off a potential source of income from freelancing for a local magazine through having given way to anger-driven impatience a couple of years ago . . . but honestly, my fans and fellow scribblers – is it a bad thing to want to get paid/reimbursed for services rendered and goods performed in a timely manner, and without having to hector, and send emails and make telephone calls and even show up in person for weeks and months on end, in the expectation of a payment? Don’t keep stringing me along – that’s actually a sign of instability in your enterprise, to keep it going for more than a couple of weeks. Either that or truly epic incompetence in the financial administration of your enterprise, and I really can’t decide which is worse. And I speak as one who actually worked for a slowly-failing business in the early oughties. Over the last six months of its life, I was the one who had to stall vendors and suppliers, to make excuses for the owner/management. Oh, and hector the owner into triaging the various bills due, and apportion out the payments that would actually keep the doors open for another day, week and month. Look, I know the peculiar smell of that situation – so don’t you dare piss on me and insist that it is raining, or spin me the tales of personal woe. I’m frankly not all that interested – besides, my own family loss was of the same magnitude but I’m not using that as an all-purpose excuse.

Yes, I know that life is rough for various indy commercial enterprises, and my heart pumps pure piss for your sad situation, but honestly – I’ve also worked for enough others in the same condition and degree, both corporate and individual, in the last couple of years who were totally straight and paid up on the dot of when payments were due – to have all that much sympathy for those who can’t. Lately, I am less in sympathy with those who seem to be of the notion that because of being a local/indy, I have no choice but to suck up this kind of treatment – just because. This is serious stuff to me, as well as being quite frustrating. I have bills, too, as well as a strong desire to plow some of my royalties into additional inventory of my books for resale or consignment. They do sell, BTW – and very nicely, too. The places which do have them in stock usually have them flying out the door, double-quick.

The trouble is that one of my author-expectations is – that when I put books on consignment in a particular place, I’d like to be reimbursed for sales. Either that, or have my inventory returned to me. It’s just business, thanks. I don’t write for free, I write in the expectation of eventually making back my expenses and then a little more. I bought that stock of consignment books out of my own resources – and now this particular enterprise later turns out to be too strapped or disorganized to actually write me a check to reimburse me for those sales? Gee, that really puts a hiccup in my whole cycle of get paid for sale of books- purchase inventory-place on consignment- sale of books (yay!)- get paid for sale of books, und so weiter.

OK, I feel better now. Not paid by this particular creditor, but better.

Obama: Not Melting Down Yet

13. December 2010 · Comments Off on Obama: Not Melting Down Yet · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant

. . . But definitely starting to get a little runny around the edges, with last Friday’s presser. I speak of our present chief executive, of course; the one so fond of all the perks and parties – not so much the hard grind of actually managing something. Well, he had to learn about it sometime, pity it’s been at our expense. I swear, there are times when I would like to go back in time to the campaign season of 2008, extend a hand to the major media . . . and grab them around one massive throat, shake them and scream – “Get up off your knees, you morons! Can’t you see that he’s a flashy, empty, affirmative action fast-burner, effortlessly hoisted higher and higher above his level of expertise? Just do your job!” And then I’d like to likewise grab that portion of the electorate who put him there (the non-dead, non-imaginary portion thereof) around the one massive throat and scream “What were you thinking! He’s never run a business, a military unit or municipal entity! He’s never done anything but run for office!” So he got the highest office in the land so a portion of the American electorate could feel good about themselves voting for the Ultimate Diversity Hire. I blow a subdued Bronx cheer in the direction of those fools who thought everything would turn out just peachy.

Ah, well – and just as well. I wrote about the Fresh Prince of Chicago often enough then, and take no particular joy in being proved more or less correct. Pity he wasn’t the least particle of what everyone in the rarefied intellectual and journalistic circles were convinced he would be – a fine intellect, well-tempered, a soaring public speaker. Alas, he’s a Chauncey Gardiner-type celebrity without the intellectual self-knowledge. Observing various public intellectuals and experts reluctantly come to that conclusion has been grimly delicious – for me, anyway. Experience is a valuable teacher, even if the learning of lessons acquired thusly tends to be painful. Why some of these people even have any credibility after going so coo-coo for the faintly cocoa-tinged community organizer is a mystery for the ages.

Do have to admit, some of the pratfalls have been as amusing as hell; giving the Queen an Ipod loaded with his own speeches was a particularly cringe-making move – but bailing on a Friday afternoon press conference to go to a party, and because Michelle Antoinette would be mad . . . and then leaving Bill Clinton in charge. That’s a trifecta of disengagement. I can hardly wait to see what happens next.

The Junkman Cometh – And Goeth

19. November 2010 · Comments Off on The Junkman Cometh – And Goeth · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General, GWOT, Politics, Rant

Having witnessed one form of American rebellion flame up from small individual local protests into a political movement that is about as unstoppable as a wild-fire with a Santa Anna wind behind it, now I am wondering if I am not seeing another, in the current ruckus kicked up about the TSA.
It has often seemed of late that just about every simple pleasure of air travel – and there used to be a good few, even when it just seemed as if flying by commuter air was just a Trailways bus with wings – has been precisely and surgically removed. Cram-jammed flights. A seat about the size of one of those chairs in a kindergarten – and about as comfortable. No meal service. No movies save on long-distance hauls. Fewer direct flights . . . And then, post 9-11 – security. No meeting someone at the gate upon arrival. No seeing someone away, by accompanying them to the departure gate. Emptying your luggage of nail-clippers, lighters, and any sort of liquid. Wearing shoes that can easily be slipped off. Getting to the airport at least two hours early to be sure to make it through the security line to start with. And now this: the unedifying choice between having to go through the stark-naked scanning machine, or a humiliatingly intrusive pat-down search.

Frankly, if I am to be seen in the altogether, or to be intimately groped by another person, I’d like it to be consensual and after a good dinner, a couple of drinks and a movie.

We put up with all of this in the name of “safety” – but my sense is that it has hit a wall of not only diminishing returns, but our own patience. The final straw, as it were. The far frozen limit. The TSA makes a great show of searching for things and of avoiding seeming to ‘profile’ those who might actually be terrorists intent on airborne mayhem. It’s not the tool, fools – it’s the person with the will, training and intent to use the tool – but oh, my – we can’t be caught singling out those specific persons. Might upset them, and then what might they do? So, in order to prove that we are not ‘profiling’ –screaming three year old kids, elderly nuns in full habit, semi-invalids in scooter-chairs, teenage girls, respectable middle-aged business persons with no record of brushes with the law whatsoever, get to be treated like convicted felons on intake to a long term in the state pen. There have been reports lately of terrorists smuggling explosives by stuffing them into body cavities; given how the TSA goes into full reaction mode to counter past terrorist tactics, I can only expect the next step is to administer colonoscopies and issue speculums. Complaints about unprofessional behavior by the TSA agents have become legion. I don’t have any myself – having only flown once in the last five years, but travelers who do have some real doozies to tell, and some of them even have video.

It’s going to be real interesting, seeing how this avoidance of air travel might go, in the next couple of weeks. With the economy the way it is, probably not as many can afford or want to fly, but I have a feeling that unhappiness over the back-scatter screening and intrusive pat-down searches have driven travelers to the limit of saying ‘heck with that, might as well drive.’ Interesting to see what the airlines may do, if travel falls off that far. Any bets?

Tea Leaves

05. November 2010 · Comments Off on Tea Leaves · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Rant, sarcasm, Tea Time

Ok, so I can’t stop snickering at all those poor lefty-progressives at Open Salon, now that they have stopped whimpering and sucking their thumbs. Gosh, I wouldn’t be so cruel as to begin deriding them openly, for I have made a solemn vow not to be to terribly candid about my Tea Party sympathies over there. For several reasons – one being that OS is to promote my mad writing skilz, a second being that the Tea Party is a state of mind about fiscal responsibility-strict Constitutionalism-free markets, and thirdly, that the old axiom about teaching a pig to sing grand opera applies when trying to teach lefty-progs about the Tea Party. In that it’s a waste of your time and only annoys the pig. Intelligent people will eventually figure it out on their own, or when reality applies the clue-bat on a regular basis.

Hey, the radical libertarians are taking over . . . and they’re going to leave everyone alone!

It is refreshing though – that the frequency and use of the word “tea****er” seems to have fallen off markedly, though, although there are some interesting hissy fits going on over at Daily Kos. (Notably with this lefty-progg screamer – I’m posting the link as an example of the genre, but all you really have to know is that his screed is called An Open Letter To The White Right On the Occasion Of Your Recent Successful Temper Tantrum). I can only suppose that those most prone to brandish the “Raaaacist” stick at the Tea Party have only got around to noticing that candidates like Nikki Haley, Allen West and Quico Canseco were carried to victory on the shoulders of extensive Tea Party interest. Ah, yes – the reality clue-bat – fair and impartial.

Can’t help wondering if the various traditional news orgs haven’t been taking notice and pulling up their socks: OMG, those Tea Party people are successful! And coming close to being a majority! And perhaps we might rethink constantly denigrating them, ‘cause our ratings are tanking worse than the post-iceberg Titanic and selective appeal doesn’t sell the advertising. I’m amused as heck that Keith Olbermann has been given the sack from MSNBC – you suppose he and Juan Williams are going to get together for a drink?

See, it’s not the beginning of the end – it’s more the end of the beginning. What got overlooked perhaps, in the national election-night coverage, was how many state legislatures have turned from Dem to GOP, and how many of those GOP legislators are now more aligned with Tea Party sympathies, and how many local GOP caucuses have been also taken over by those with a taste for Tea and a new enthusiasm for political involvement. No more the go-along-to-get along career RINO squishes; they’re almost as disconcerted as the traditional mainstream media. That’s another part of the real story – and it wasn’t any big secret, it’s just that no one was looking. No wonder the senior GOP leadership cadre and strategists like Karl Rove look – and are acting – just like they have just discovered half a dead cockroach in their breakfast taco.

Just wait until 2012, people. It’s gonna be fun!

Tidal Wave

19. September 2010 · Comments Off on Tidal Wave · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Rant, Tea Time

So it begins – the seeing of what was screamingly obvious to me a good few months ago; the horrified realization among the politically connected (especially in the GOP) that the loose confederation which amassed under the yellow Gadsden flag with the coiled rattlesnake motif and goes by the name of the Tea Party is not just a sort of mass temper-tantrum, or a collection of irate voters to be gentled, tamed and gelded to better serve the purposes of the Grand Old Party. Nor are they – being a loosely connected and leaderless network of fiscal conservatives, free-market small business owners and strict constitutionalists – a tool and Astroturf organization deliberately created by the machinations of the Dark Lord Rove. Nope – the fact the Dark Lord himself got downright pissy over the fact that Christine O’Donnell scooped the primary in Delaware over the favored GOP candidate . . . and then went on to demonstrate that financially, she has no need of the established lords of the GOP and their deep coffers. It’s not just a case of the tail wagging the dog; the high lords of the established American political process (Republican Division) have discovered to their absolute horror that in this political season, the Tea Party is not the tail . . . but the dog itself, and they have been reduced to being the tail. Or possibly the materiel which emerges regularly from a little bit south of the tail – but I don’t think they will be the first to come to this realization, nor will they be the last.

See – if you really had paid attention to the Tea Party, or been deeply involved from the get-go, you’d have known a number of things about them. One of those things is that – although a fair number of original Tea Partiers are social conservatives, even evangelical Christians – the fiscal-conservative/free market/strict constitutionalist mindset trumps all that. There’s also a strong libertarian bent among them, and a prejudice towards individual responsibility. Basically, it’s ‘let me alone to work out my own economic/personal salvation’ which usually results in statist tools pouncing triumphantly and saying things like “Ah-ha! So you don’t want roads, or police departments, or an FDA screening dangerous drugs, or social security – hah! You hypocrites!” This is something of an exercise in straw-man construction when it comes to Tea Partiers; generally we acknowledge that a government is good for something: roads, delivery of the post, defense of the nation, and a care for the health of the public are good things, and the rightful interest of a representative government elected by the people. It’s just that a good thing taken too far eventually becomes a bad thing . . . and in the words of that wonderful document, the Declaration of Independence ‘destructive of those ends.’ The way to Hell is paved with good intentions – in the eyes of Tea Partiers, a cold and unsparing look at the long-term results of those various good intentions is way, way past due, as well as a reconsideration of maintaining such programs which grew, like Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, out of good intentions some thirty, fifty or eighty years ago. Or even severely modifying them – because one of the other unspoken tenets of people who tend to become Tea Partiers – is that if well-intentioned laws, programs and practices have a bad result in the real world, than perhaps such laws, programs and practices out to be revised, amended or terminated.

All the good intentions in the world do not – repeat, do not – excuse or justify a destructive result. In the real world – that one where one in which most of us live – that which has a bad result should not be continued, full stop, end discussion. It has also been noticed that frequently those who insists that such a law, program or practice ought to be continued with just because of the original good intentions were noble, and that it hasn’t worked because we haven’t worked hard enough at it – have a vested interest in such continuation. As it looks to be shaping up this election season, that kind of blind devotion to principles, lack of consideration to results and self-interest has consequences, some of them severe. Life-threatening, even. Certainly career-threatening, to judge by the way that long-time career Dem politicians are distancing themselves at speed from bagatelles such as Obama-care, and top GOP strategists are regarding primary victories by Tea Party oriented candidates over the properly anointed candidates with horrified disbelief. I can almost hear them saying ‘OMG – they are serious about small-governments and the Constitution!’

PS – as it turns out, O’Donnell is said to be a witch! Three Beers Later…: O'DONNELL 2010“>This kind of witch, I think…

Standards, Double, Society, for the Use Of

09. September 2010 · Comments Off on Standards, Double, Society, for the Use Of · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General, GWOT, Politics, Rant, sarcasm

So, now in the multitudinous fall-out from the Ground Zero Mosque, or Cordoba House or Park51, or whatever the heck it’s being termed – is a threat by a Florida whack-job minister to burn Korans as a public demonstration of something or other on Saturday. Cheesncrackers, people, just when I thought this whole issue couldn’t get any more demented. Is there someone I have to sleep with, in order to live on a planet with sane people, preferably ones with a sense of proportion and humor, not to mention toleration for those who don’t agree with them in every aspect of existence?

Frankly, I’d like to set the good Iman Rauf and the good Reverend Jones down on the other side of my official Sgt. Mom desk for a nice discussion of principles. And those would be principles which would apply to both of them, and yes, I expect to be the one doing the talking.

Yes, there is nothing in this supposedly free country which would prevent the Reverend Jones from incinerating copies of the Koran, as a demonstration of his lack of appreciation for Islam and his ingratitude for the many blessings that the strict practice of Salafist Islam brings to the modern cultural table. And yes, there is also nothing which would legally prevent a mosque/community/cultural center from being established adjacent to that place where there were 5,000 people (give or take) crushed or incinerated when a pair of hijacked airplanes were deliberately crashed into two tall and shining skyscrapers nine years ago to the day by representatives of the Religion of Peace.

So, established – they each can do this thing which they want to do, for whatever reasons. And Andres Serrano can take pictures of a crucifix in a vial of his own pee, and Chris O-whatever can adorn a painting of the Virgin with mounds of elephant dung, and Danish cartoonists can do cartoons about how fear of drawing a picture of Mohammad leads to self-censorship, and Salman Rushdie can joke around with Satanic Versifying and all of that is perfectly OK in a free country, or it ought to be.

But where is the line to be drawn, then? And if you are offended by one or the other, than what is the acceptable response? Letter to the editor, an angry post on a blog, a boycott? Threatening violence? Should the fear of violence lead one to self-censor? What about a fear of offending people? Why is it OK to offend one particular class of people by your actions in support of religion or art, but tip-toe around giving offense to the other? Exactly what is the standard at work here, and who decides to apply it? And hey, isn’t the poor old bourgeois getting a little tired of being constantly epatered?

Just as a final aside – the copies of the Koran that Reverend Jones is planning to flambé – are they English translations of the Koran, in which case it doesn’t really count as a Koran, per se, because the only Koran that counts as a Koran is the one in Arabic. Revelations straight from The Big Guy to Mohammad has been my understanding. Everything else is just a translation, and so it really isn’t the Koran, except for when it is. And I think Pastor Jones looks amazingly like the historic John Brown, of Pottawatomie, who tried to kick-start a slave insurrection, pre-Civil War. If The Reverent Jones really wants to cover his posterior for this little venture into protest, he ought to announce the Koran-B-Que as a piece of performance art and apply for a NEA grant. Your mileage may vary. Discuss.

Another Monday Miscellany

15. August 2010 · Comments Off on Another Monday Miscellany · Categories: Eat, Drink and be Merry, General, Local, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, Tea Time, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine...

I am, praise be to certain workaholic habits of mine (the one which goes into hyper-space warp-speed drive when faced with an impending deadline) actually able to come up for air today. One large chunk o’impending deadline all but finished but for the polishing and tweaking, and the other all but finished save for the author getting back to me to answer some questions about her MS. Life is good. And so is that 12-ounce bottle of Shiner Bohemian Black Lager that I have drunk about half of, as a reward to myself. Nice burnt-sugar overtones. I’m writing this Sunday evening at about 5:45 PM Sunday, so no need to go all interventionish on me.

Of course, I still have about three other big projects hanging over me – but the largest are out of the way, so I can come up for air and take note of some of the weirdness around me.
OK, so it looks like America’s next top model . . . is six foot something and so impossibly thin that a man’s hands can span her waist: Which was a charmingly old-fashioned standard of feminine beauty in the 19th century, when it was achieved only by the use of a fierce whale-bone corset and a couple of strong maids, hauling away. Dear god, the girl looks like she is morphing into a praying mantis. So, if this is what the fashion designers want to hang their clothes on, just animate a wire hanger and be done with it, and leave the rest of us alone with our cellulite.

So, the same breed of statist limpd**ks that tried to launch the Coffee Party and are trying yet again, with yet an amazingly stupid tee shirt and mug with the logo ‘f*ck tea’. Apparently that’s all you have to do, to get a movement really going. Print up some tee shirts and get your friends in the juice-box mafia (aka whatever has taken the place of JournoList) to push the meme.
Hey, boys and girls, we can put on a show ourselves, around in back in the barn!

Apparently, they insist they are trying to bring about a serious discussion of serious issues and
the something like 54% of citizens who approve and support Tea Party principles should just . . . I dunno, sit down and shut up and be ruled over unquestioningly by the new aristos. OK, one more time: strict interpretation of the Constitution, fiscally responsible, free markets. The Tea Party is a distributed, leaderless insurgency, based on a few core principles, not one person. I don’t know how I can make it any more plain than that. Aside from that, boys and girls, if it looks like bought n’paid for Astroturf, smells like Astroturf, feels like Astroturf and is being rolled out there by the same ol’ Astroturf purveyors . . . then it probably is indeed, Astroturf. Here’s hoping that not too many of the ‘f*ck tea’ ‘tards don’t get stuck with a garage full of un-sellable tee shirts . . . oh, f*ck that – I hope they do.

So, the Mighty O’s approval ratings continue to crater. Time to take another vacation. Look, Mr. Hopey-Changey, coming out with support of a mosque/community/center/arms bunker whatever in the neighborhood of New York’s Ground Zero on one day, then walking back the next – not a good idea. Indecisive, duplicitous, or just plain old telling-the-audience-what-they-wanna-hear? I don’t know, I’m not a licensed political professional, or a mind-reader, but you are getting bad advice from someone. Or if you are getting good advice . . . oh, f*ck it . . . take the bad advice. No one will ever notice. Really. November is a little more than a month and a half away. Kick back, you and the wife and kids take another vay-cay. It’s all on us, I insist.
Yes, freedom of religion in America technically would permit the mosque/whatever to be built wherever . . . good taste and a sense of tact would argue that Ground Zero is perhaps a good place. Sorta like a museum of the Confederacy would not be a good fit in downtown Harlem. (But it might give Cholly Rangel a case of the vapors, so it wouldn’t be a wasted effort to suggest it.)

Ah well – enough of a rant. Blondie and I went up to Boerne yesterday, and brought back some smoked ribs and BBQ sauce from (I kid you not) a Shell gas station quickie-mart on the corner of Main Street and SH-46, which has a meat counter and a BBQ stand which has the best BBQ around. It’s called the Riverside Market. We stopped in for some soft drinks, and it smelled so enticing that we stopped in on our way home from Boerne Market Days and bought some for take out. Remember – Boerne, Shell Station, on Main Street, and SH-46, just as you cross the river. The place was wall to wall with local people. And the BBQ smelt like the food of the gods.

The Shape of Summer 2010

01. August 2010 · Comments Off on The Shape of Summer 2010 · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Local, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, Tea Time

The first day of August, in South Texas. It’s hot. I should probably not have to reiterate this; it should go without saying, like the North and South Poles are cold, Saudi Arabia has oil, Russians drink a lot of vodka and NY Rep. Charles Rangel is as corrupt as the day is long.

Speaking of good ol’ Chollie Rangel, I guess that he is the next one under the Obama-bus, he and Maxine Walters both. What brought that on that spot of Capitol Hill Cleanup, BTW – a bit of pre-emptive housecleaning against a turnover in November? Ah, well – enjoy the view of the axles and transmission. Heck, there are so many others under that bus it must be jacked up like one of those monster off-road vehicles that you need a 16-foot ladder to get into.

I see – mostly through noting the Yahoo News cliplets which come up whenever I access my email – that Chelsea Clinton got married this last weekend, in a lavish, celebrity-studded, ultra-high end round of festivities at some grand estate in scenic upstate New York. Two or three million is the price-tag . . . which I presume has stimulated some segment of the economy, at least the bridal-industrial complex portion of it. Oh, and air traffic over that part of NY was cut off – security concerns, of course, and between the guests, their entourages, the news crews and the rubberneckers, I presume the related traffic has been a nightmare for the ordinary residents. Three million. On a wedding. While the peasants watch from the sidewalk, tugging their forelocks in obeisance to their betters. Look, I don’t mind weddings, and even wish the presumably happy couple the best, and all that . . . but wasn’t this exercise a little . . . I don’t know – vulgar? Unnecessarily ostentatious, kind of Marie Antoinettish, in time of severe economic downturn? Again, the two or three million wasn’t flushed down the john, I am sure a lot of people got a nice few days or weeks of work out of it, from the waiters hired by the caterer, the flower-arrangers, the owners of local hotels and motels, the limo-drivers and the extra security . . . but still – it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth – it smacks of royalty putting on a show. Jenna Bush’s wedding, and John F. Kennedy’s wedding just seem comparatively more sensible, suitable and tasteful.

Where in the world is Shirley Sherrod, the Mouth from the South – and are her fifteen minutes of fame over? Is she still planning to sue Andrew Breitbart – and on what grounds? You know, PBS could make a kid’s show out of this, a la Carmen Sandiego, with Shirley zipping around to racial hotspots, and dropping clues to the audience. Hey, they could even do an international edition. If any producers want to discuss this concept with me, drop me a private message.

And speaking of the NAACP – how come their president, Ben Jealous looks about as white as my brother JP? No kidding, he looks a lot like my brother – dark hair and eyes, gets a decent tan in the summer.

And finally – JournoList. So I wasn’t having a tin-foil hat moment, wondering why suddenly some news stories, such as that about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the Fred Phelps of the Chicago area mega-church scene – just seemed to suddenly vanish down the memory hole during that 2008 campaign season. Here I was thinking that having listened to that nutcase in the pulpit for twenty years would surely have been the kiss of death for a candidate for any office, let alone the highest in the land. My bad – here came the JournoListers to save the day for their guy! Note to self – memorize the lists of members, and consider with a handful of fleur de sel anything they write which I happen to come across. Give them a ration of &$#@! in any comments permitted about having aided in the corruption of the newsgathering process – and the political process.

Seeing November from My House,
I remain,
Sgt Mom

Memo: Racial Prejudice and Other Current Matters

15. July 2010 · Comments Off on Memo: Racial Prejudice and Other Current Matters · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, Tea Time, World

To: The NAACP and others
Re: The Events of This Week WRT the Tea Party
From: Sgt Mom

1. To the NAACP – Well, thanks. Just thanks. After god-knows-how-many years of being carefully schooled – by the public school system, the military and by the mainstream media (to include the TV and motion picture establishment) to judge people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin – and obediently taking every word of four decades of lectures about racial equality to heart, now I confess to being rather whipsawed by the discovery that you all are just another squalid, money and vote-grubbing racially-based faction seeking political advantage, fearful about loosing what little control you have over events, and doing the bidding of one particular political splinter of one particular political party. So much for appealing to justice, honor, equality before the law, and all the rest of it; that rumbling sound you hear – that must be MLK revolving in his grave with sufficient RPMs – that if hooked up to a generator would power a small city. In my eyes, your crime this week is that you have basically bought into a Big Lie. You have essentially joined a political lynch mob, in accusing the Tea Party (a widely spread and officially disorganized popular insurgency based upon fiscal responsibility, free markets and strict adherence to the founding tenants of the Constitution) of being something akin to the KKK sans white sheets. Duly noted; I thought one of your own founding tenets was opposition to things like lynch mobs, inflamed by thin and unsubstantiated rumor and the bigoted vaporings of press reports with a naked agenda. How does it feel, joining the rush of easy and facile judgment – enjoy the nice glow of satisfaction? What fun, to join in on the wilding of an officially-approved target! Waiting for a pat on the head, for having been obedient to your master?

2. Which brings me to the second part of this rant; the folly of having joined your socio-political fortunes to someone whose skin is (at a squint) of color, but whose life-experience seems only distantly American, whose resume of actual managerial experience in any enterprise (military, commercial or governmental) is cobweb-insubstantial, and whose actual skill at what is required of him as POTUS and therefore ostensible leader of the so-called Free World (insert brutally skeptical quotes wherever you see fit) is sub-par. Heroically, mind-bogglingly sub-par . . . and what is the saddest part of all is that there were and are good solid candidates of color, with real-world experience, and undoubted abilities who would have been fairly able to excellent Chief Executives. How sad that you could not bring yourselves to examine the content of character rather than color of skin. Might have saved yourself the embarrassment of metaphorically chaining yourself to a political disaster.

3. As for demanding that a broadly based and distributed, leaderless, volunteer, non-formal-membership, non-dues-paying movement stressing fiscal responsibility and a strict adherence to the Constitution . . . well, what is it that you want us to do about so-called racists who might or might not be informally associated with us? Tell you what – you all formally disassociate yourself from the New Black Panther Party, and race-mongering bigots like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. You first. I’ll wait.

Sincerely
Sgt Mom

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