Take Back Your Government

16. October 2011 · Comments Off on Take Back Your Government · Categories: General

Take Back Your Government!: A Practical Handbook for the Private Citizen Who Wants Democracy to Work
Robert Heinlein

From politics I have come to believe the following:

(1) Most people are basically honest, kind, and decent.

(2) The American people are wise enough to run their own affairs. They do not need Fuehrers, Strong Men, Technocrats, Commissars, Silver Shirts, Theocrats, or any other sort of dictator.

(3) Americans have a compatible community of ambitions. Most of them don’t want to be rich but do want enough economic security to permit them to raise families in decent comfort without fear of the future. They want the least government necessary to this purpose and don’t greatly mind what the other fellow does as long as it does not interfere with them living their own lives. As a people we are neither money mad nor prying; we are easy-going and anarchistic. We may want to keep up with the Joneses – but not with the Vanderbilts. We don’t like cops.

(4) Democracy is not an automatic condition resulting from laws and constitutions. It is a living; dynamic process which must be worked at by you yourself- or it ceases to be democracy, even if the shell and form remain.

(5) One way or another, any government which remains in power is a representative government. If your city government is a crooked machine, then it is because you and your neighbours prefer it that way – prefer it to the effort of running your own affairs. Hitler’s government was a popular government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the effort of thinking and doing for themselves. They abdicated their franchise.

(6) Democracy is the most efficient form of government ever invented by the human race. On the record, it has worked better in peace and in war than fascism, communism, or any other form of dictatorship. As for the mythical yardstick of “benevolent” monarchy or dictatorship – there ain’t no such animal!

(7) A single citizen, with no political connections and no money, can be extremely effective in politics.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Help!

13. October 2011 · Comments Off on Help! · Categories: General

The host for this blog just sent me an email saying that we seem to have been hacked by a spam-producer, and need to update to a newer version of Word Press at once… yes, this version is older than dirt. I’ve looked around, and I don’t think I can do it myself. The host can, but will charge me $75 to do it.

Any of our regular and trusted readers or contributors help us out here? I can authorized you to sign in and play around to your heart’s content.

Let me know.

Tea Party/Occupy

10. October 2011 · Comments Off on Tea Party/Occupy · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Tea Time

It has been terribly amusing for me to observe the genesis and development of the Occupy-Insert-Location-Here movement over the last couple of weeks, especially as it has been trumpeted as the liberal answer to the Tea Party. First on Open Salon a good few of the resident bloggers were sniffling over how this Terribly Important Movement was being callously ignored by the main-stream establishment media. As of last week, thought, conventional media can’t seem to keep their eyeballs or their cameras off them – especially the Occupy Wall Street faction. Cynicism leads me to suspect that this is because it is convenient to establishment organs such as the New York Times, who all but gave faux-movements like the Coffee Party essential life-support, but that’s just me.

So, is this the Tea Party of the left? Based on my experiences during the early weeks and months of the San Antonio Tea Party throughout 2009, I would say not – but with some caveats. There are a few similar aspects, notably detestation of business crony capitalism as it is currently practiced, suspicion of the works and ways of the Federal Reserve, and a similar deep distrust of establishment politicians. There was and is also a strongly libertarian streak, to judge by the presence of Ron Paul fans, or Ronulans, as we used to call them during the 2008 election season, when they were as noisy and ubiquitous as a sort of internet grackle.

The most notable likeness is the protesting thing: the earliest organizers organized via Facebook and held at least one protest on Alamo Plaza – the main motivation being the Obama-generated fiscal deficit, and the then-proposed economic stimulus. Interest snowballed at a local and grassroots level all during March, 2009, following upon Rick Santelli’s Tea Party rant. What with one thing and another, we held very public large public protest rally on April 15th in Alamo Plaza. There were some after-event quibbles about whether there had been 15,000 people or over 20,000 – but it was a lot, and all but a handful had never, ever been to a protest before. And – it was fun! Really, it was like the world’s largest block party, which may be the elemental reason to hold a protest in the first place. They’re fun. They grab eyeballs, especially if there is a huge turn-out.

I suspect that’s what motivates a lot of volunteer participation in the Occupy Whatever protests; newbies discovering this for the first time, old protest hands relieving their glory days . . . or spoiled young trustifarians making a grab at relevance. Ours was also a lot of work to organize beforehand, down to getting permits from the City, arranging for porta-potties and security, working out the program of speakers, holding a press conference – all that stuff. We’d made a splash, media-wise, and gotten a heck of a lot of people together in the service of a common interest . . . But it was just a single day. The government machinery doesn’t stop on a dime and turn around, just because of a protest, no matter how large or well-publicized. The SA Tea Party, and others that I knew about continued on – not so much with protests, but a sustained effort to recruit voters, to become involved politically at the local level and to support candidates running for office who espoused the principles of fiscal responsibility, Constitutionality and free (really free, not the crony-capitalist kind which only pretends) markets. It took months of effort, and I believe will take months and years more, past the election season of 2012.

As far as I can see and to date, in observing the Occupy Whatever from a careful distance, it appears that the rally/gathering/extended squalid camp-out has become an end in itself. Sure, there appears to be some kind of organizing principle, even if it is merely the finest all-plastic and a yard wide Astroturf. Some of the participants seem to be working up a list of demands after the fact, but I can’t see any evidence of follow-through to the protests. Not much organizational outreach, no continuing education, no outreach to those who might be sympathetic; I suspect that many of the protest participants are old career protest hands, ready to turn out at any time to protest whatever the cause du jour might be. Occupy Whatever is successful in getting media coverage, but I’m not really seeing that as a long-term public relations advantage. The images which have been revealed to us over the last week: a protester defecating on a police car, a truly squalid, garbage-strewn campsite in a neighborhood park, a lot of creepy/incoherent/clueless protesters, mobbing the National Air and Space Museum . . . these are not images calculated to draw political adherents and effective sympathy from the larger community of Americans who might otherwise been inclined to involve themselves politically.

(Cross posted at Chicago Boyz)

Books to Come!

05. October 2011 · Comments Off on Books to Come! · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Literary Good Stuff, Veteran's Affairs

All righty, then – we had a great time at the Evening with the Authors last weekend in Lockhart, Texas – sipping fantastic wines from Pleasant Hill Winery, and nibbling wonderful little noshes; the food and waitstaff were from the Austin Community College Culinary school, which has their own café and apparently does cater events like this.

I had only one opportunity to give a mini-lecture to a full table: how important it was to know our history, how I came to write historical fiction as a way to teach people about it . . . and the best way to teach history is to make a ripping-good and readable yarn (while still being historically accurate!) I also had the chance to face one of my greatest private dreads – a descendent of a villain. Ever since the Trilogy came out and I began doing book events, I’ve met people descended from those historical figures which I wrote about in it: C.H. Nimitz, Dr. Keidel, Herman Wilke, Louis Schultze and others. Those descendents I have met have been pleased with how I ‘wrote’ their ancestors, although one sniffed that she had never heard of CH Nimitz ever being called ‘Charley’. Anyway, one of the attendees was a descendent of the notorious ‘black hat’ J.P. Waldrip . . . and as she whispered to me, upon departing from the table it appears from the family records and memories – that he was pretty much as I wrote him. I love it when I get things right – even if it comes through instinct.

The Barnes & Noble outlet, who supplied the books to be sold at this event, to benefit the Dr. Eugene Clarke library sold out entirely of Daughter of Texas, and a lot of readers were asking me – well, when is the sequel coming out?

The sequel will be called Deep in the Heart, which picks up the extraordinary life of Margaret Becker Vining during the Republic of Texas era – and will be available on the 19th of November, just in time for Christmas. I am taking pre-orders through my book website – the copies bought will be mailed on the 15th.

I am also taking pre-orders for the second edition of To Truckee’s Trail – which I always wanted to do, since the typo quotient in the original edition was embarrassingly high. That also will be released on the 19th, and purchased pre-release copies will be also be mailed on the 15th.

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.

Ding dong Awlaki is dead

01. October 2011 · Comments Off on Ding dong Awlaki is dead · Categories: General

Anwar al-Awlaki is dead.  Fine: he wasn’t a nice guy.

I have some serious issues with how he was killed.  And you should, too.

The Executive, all by it’s lonesome, just murdered a  U.S. citizen, without pesky krep like due process, a speedy and fair trial.

Whacking a citizen with a drone is no different than executing him in the street.

So – we set a precedent.  Act against the interests of the United States, or threaten to,  and the government can order you to be killed and fuck due process. [1] [2]

[1] Who defines what is a threat?  Why, the guy with the gun.  Don’t worry – if you done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear [3]
[2] Not my words – that’s what Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said on the radio this morning.
[3] If you believe that I have some ocean front property in Arizona for sale, cheap.

Cross Posted to Space For Commerce.

Evening With the Authors in Lockhart

30. September 2011 · Comments Off on Evening With the Authors in Lockhart · Categories: Ain't That America?, Geekery, General, Local, Old West, Veteran's Affairs, World

Yea these many months ago, I was invited by the organizers to be one of those authors in a fund-raising event to benefit the Clark Library. This is the oldest functioning public library existing in Texas; and since Texas was not generally conducive to the contemplative life and public institutions such as libraries until after the Civil War, generally – this means it is a mere infant of a library in comparison to institutions in other places. But I was thrilled to be invited, and to find out that Stephen Harrigan is one of the other authors. There were two elements in his book, Gates of the Alamo which I enjoyed terrifically when I finally read it. (Well after finishing the Trilogy, since I didn’t want to be unduly influenced in writing about an event by another fiction-writers’ take on it.) First, he took great care in setting up the scene – putting the whole revolt of the Texians in the context of Mexican politics; the soil out of which rebellion sprouted, as it were. (And he also touched on the matter of the Goliad as well.) Secondly, he had a main character who experienced the Texian rebellion against Mexico as a teenaged boy and who then lived into the 20th century. I liked the way that it was made clear that this all happened not that long ago, that it was possible for someone to have been a soldier in Sam Houston’s army, and live to see electrical street lighting, motorcars, and moving pictures.

That just appealed to me, for as another author friend pointed out – we are only a few lifetimes ago from the memories of great events. For instance – my mother, who is now in her eighties; suppose that when she was a child of eight or ten, she talked to the oldest person she knew. Suppose that in 1938, that oldest person was ninety, possibly even a hundred. That oldest person that my mother knew would have been born around 1830 to the late 1840s; such a person would clearly remember the Civil War, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, possibly even the California Gold Rush and the emigrant trail, the wars with the Plains Indians. Now, suppose that the oldest person that my mother knew and talked to as a child and supposing that person as a child of eight or ten had then talked to the oldest person they knew – also of the age of eighty to ninety in the 1840s . . . that oldest person would have been born in 1750-1760. That oldest person, if born on these shores would remember the Revolution, the British Army occupying the colonies, Lexington and Concord, General Washington crossing the Delaware. All of that history, all of those memories, in just three lifetimes – three easy jumps back into time! Nothing worked better to establish how close we are to events.

Anyway, I am looking forward to this – and since my daughter and I will drive up to Lockhart around midday Saturday, and the event doesn’t even get started until early evening, we are planning to go to the Kreuz Market and prove to ourselves that it really is one of the five best BBQ places in Texas. And she wants to check out any thrift stores and estate sales going on.

(Reposted to allow comments – that old punctuation in the post title bites again)

A Little Shadow, Who Goes In & Out With Me

16. September 2011 · Comments Off on A Little Shadow, Who Goes In & Out With Me · Categories: Ain't That America?, Critters, Domestic, General

Sigh – it’s happened again. Blondie, the Queen of All Yard Sales, went out prospecting last Saturday morning to the neighborhood on the opposite side of Stahl Road, and returned with a very cute stuffed bear (practically new!) who sat in his own (cheap but cute!) upholstered armchair, which was for sale for the OMG-have-to-have-it price of a whole $3!

And there was another item, accompanying her, upon this expeditionary trip into another neighborhood: something live, black-furred, wiggly and friendly. A small and relatively well-kept dog, about twenty pounds at a guess, somewhat gray about the muzzle – which Blondie found, running around in the street, a heavily-trafficked suburban street adjacent to the yard sale – a venue which could easily spell death to small dogs.

We’ve rescued a number of dogs, in our residence here – mostly lost, and now and again dumped. We can read the whole sad story in their demeanor and behavior. Someone gets a cute puppy, puppy grows up, becomes a handful and not so cute, someone decides not to want to cope with it any longer . . . short drive to a likely neighborhood, a quick dump out the door . . . and the problem dog becomes someone else’s problem. I wish we could put people like this in the stocks, so we could throw rotten vegetables at them. Better yet – dump them in a strange town, completely naked and gagged, and let them fend for themselves and find their way home. Dogs are . . . well, they are dogs. Thousands of years ago – wolves who decided to throw their lot in with us, to look to us as the leader of their pack of one or two. The love of a dog is the only kind of love that money buys – and sometimes a love that is horribly misplaced.

Why, oh why do we always seem to undertake these rescue missions on weekends? No collar, no tags. He (definitely he and neutered) is about 20 pounds, black fur with a grizzled grey chin. Mixed breed – almost certainly part Shih-tzu, for the body conformation is the right size and confirmation, although I think there must be something else in the genetic mix. He has a long muzzle, and the veterinarian’s assistant who regretfully turned up no chip guesses Maltese, or Maltese-poodle-Shih-tzu. He is inclined to be glued to whichever one of us is working at a computer, and lays quietly under the desk, unless provoked by a cat. This is what lap-dogs do, they want to be near their chosen person – He isn’t chipped, no collar, no tags. No one has papered the neighborhood looking for him. I’ve put his picture on a couple of local lost and found websites, but no one recognizes him. He was well-cared for, healthy, fairly clean, well-mannered, obedient and affectionate … the only rationale we can come up with is that perhaps he belonged to an older person, who either passed on, or was moved into a nursing home, and the next of kin just didn’t want to botherIn the meantime, we have another dog about the house. We will make one last stab at finding his owner this weekend, by going for a walk with the dogs in the neighborhood where Blondie found him – which will probably prove to be fruitless, for no one is papering that neighborhood with posters of him.

I confess – I have rather missed the rapid clicky-clicky-clicky-nails sound of a small dog’s toenails, as they follow me about the house. Another neighbor presented us with a barely used pet-bed – the kind with the removeable cover, over a heavy foam base. We washed it all, and put it under my desk, and there he is, every day after I work. He’s there now.

3,650 Days

10. September 2011 · Comments Off on 3,650 Days · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun With Islam, General, History, Home Front, Memoir, War

Three thousand, six hundred fifty days, more or less,depending on leap years – since the end of the 20th century. Oh, I know, calendar-wise, only a year or two off. But we don’t count strictly by the calendar. Afterwards, we count by events. Myself, I have the feeling that the 19th century didn’t truly end for good and all until 1914. That’s when the 20th century began, in the muddy trenches of WW1. All the previous comfortable understandings and optimistic assumptions of the earlier world were shattered right along with three monarchial dynasties, over the course of four years. When it was over, the world of the time before seemed impossibly far removed, to those who could remember it – a number which, as the decades passed, became steadily fewer, until that world was entirely the stuff of books, paintings and relics, rather than true human recollections. We eventually adjusted and accepted the new reality of things. The old way, and the shattering events in which it passed – became a date on a monument, a paragraph in a history text, a book on the shelf.

Being that humans are mostly optimistic and pretty adaptable, we patched together some new understandings and assumptions, which worked pretty well – or at least we became accustomed to them . . . until the 20th century ended on a glorious autumn morning, ten years ago. One day. And then we had to become accustomed to the new reality. More than three thousand dead, a hole in the New York skyline that will never be filled in again – the ghosts of twin silvery towers showing up in the backgrounds of movies, now and again, drawing your sudden attention with a catch at the heart and memory.

And three thousand-something men and women who went off to work one morning, families who took a vacation, catching an early morning airplane flight, firefighters going on shift, everyone living out those thousands of petty daily routines, most of them probably quite boring. I am certain that practically every one of those who became casualties on that morning – a name and a face on a makeshift poster, a black-framed picture on the mantel or in the obituary pages – were looking forward to the end of the workday, the end of their journey – to coming home for a good dinner, wrapping up that business trip and getting on with that portion of our life that is ours, and belongs to us and our families and loved ones alone.

But they were never allowed that luxury, of having a tonight, a tomorrow. Those lives which they might have had, would have – were brutally wrenched from them, in an organized act of terrorism, wrenched from them in fire and horror and blood, while the rest of us watched or listened – watched in person, on television, or were glued to a radio – ten years ago today.

Ten years. Time enough for children to grow to middle-school age, never remembering that time before, or the loss of a father or mother, who worked in a department in the outer ring of the Pentagon, or in an office on a high floor of the World Trade center. A foreign country to them, is that place, where once you could go into the airport terminal and go all the way to the gate to meet an arriving friend . . . and for travelers not to have to take off their shoes to go through security. Or even have to go through security, come to think on it. A world where one could have no reaction but idle curiosity upon noticing a woman in full black burka, or a nervous-appearing man of Middle-eastern appearance, taking pictures of an otherwise undistinguished bridge or power station. A world where a familiarity with the dictates of the Koran and the Hadith, the maunderings of Sayyid Qutb as regards America and the workings of a desert tribal autocracy are an eccentric interest and hobby – not a professional necessity.

Ten years. The world that was passes from memory, and we have the brutal world of ‘now.’ As an amateur historian, one of my own comforts on this anniversary is that – it was always like this. We will survive, we will live in a world that is made new and eternally renewed by events, events that will eventually fade . . .

But today, we remember.

Past anniversary posts –
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
I didn’t write a specialized post for 2009, and last year I only reposted some music videos.

Military Geek Humor

09. September 2011 · Comments Off on Military Geek Humor · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Media Matters Not, That's Entertainment!, The Funny, Wild Blue Yonder, Working In A Salt Mine...

Yes, never underestimate the capacity for extremely bored and intelligent military personnel in amusing themselves.
Yeeks – and this was even published in a presumably responsible military-oriented publication.
Kinda puts my whole being sarcastic about the movies scheduled for late Friday night at Zaragosa AB in the local TV Guide kinda pale … although I did have viewers now and again tell me that they stayed up deliberatly to watch them, just so see if they were as awful as I hinted that they were.

Enjoy. This is funnier than any of my movie promos were.

A Friday Diversion

09. September 2011 · Comments Off on A Friday Diversion · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, That's Entertainment!, World

A Question for the Tea Party Folks

06. September 2011 · Comments Off on A Question for the Tea Party Folks · Categories: General, Tea Time

So…Michele Bachmann…why exactly is she getting support?

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.

Here We Go Round and Round

29. August 2011 · Comments Off on Here We Go Round and Round · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Literary Good Stuff, Old West

So here, we go, all around the mulberry bush, now that the all-in-one hardbound version of the Adelsverein Trilogy is about to be launched. I had intended this as a first step . . . no, actually this was the second step in having my books come out through Watercress Press in second editions. (The first step was Watercress publishing Daughter of Texas early this spring.) I had planned to transition Truckee’s Trail, followed by the single-volume paperback versions of the Trilogy gradually over the coming months, but as it turns out, I can’t be with two publishers at once. Never mind that the Trilogy was originally done by two of them – one micro-house edited and marketed, and another, a slightly larger establishment did print and distribution . . . but anyway, the result is that Truckee and the single volumes of the Trilogy are from today only available as Nook and Kindle editions for the next month or two. Which is not that much of a hassle, since the all-in-one print edition will be available after Thursday on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and the Kindle edition of Truckee has been downloaded like hotcakes for the last couple of months. Since it was my first adventure in historical fiction, it was also top on my priority list to do a second edition. There were things that desperately needed to be fixed, and the senior editor at Watercress has been just itching to get her hands on it anyway. It’s my first priority to get the second edition of it out there in print, as soon as absolutely possible, so nobody panic at not being able to get a copy, unless from one of those venders who have gotten them second-hand and have it actually in their physical inventory.

So, that’s where that stands – and, hey, all the readers who have Kindles and Nooks? Carry on – tell your friends and pass the good word.

Things That Make You Start to Laugh Uncontrollably

28. August 2011 · Comments Off on Things That Make You Start to Laugh Uncontrollably · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, General Nonsense, Media Matters Not, The Funny

So there we were last Monday evening , sharpening up our awareness of odd things one might pick up at a yard sale or a thrift store for fifty cents or a dollar and which might later turn out to be worth a small or medium-sized fortune, by watching Antiques Road Show (US version) when this particular item was spotlighted for an appraisal. (Go ahead, take a look, you won’t regret it. I’ll wait.)
This episode was a repeat from 2009, actually – our local PBS station depends heavily on repeats, which is one reason I have never pledged to them. (The other being that they would never hire me, although as a retired AFRTS type, I was perfectly qualified for any job they had on offer. Deal with that, KLRN!)
And my daughter took one look at it: having picked up a considerable vocabulary of Brit-speak, through hanging out at various on-line fora, (as well as reading the Daily Mail Online every morning) she exclaimed,

“Balls!”

It’s a family curse – an unexpectly ribald sense of humor, which I blame on my father — or the fact that both of us were some years in the military — not a place you go for refined comedy … because the pictured item immediatly called this novelty item to mind. I began to sing,

“Do your balls hang low?
Do they wobble to and fro?
Can you tie them in a knot?
Can you tie them in a bow?
Can you throw them o’er your shoulder
like a Continental Soldier?”
I swear, we laughed, hysterically and uncontrollably all the way through the segment featuring this pot. We even laughed through the following segment, about a pretty piece of custom-made early 19th century jewelry.

One of my daughter’s career ambitions is to buy something at a yard sale, estate sale, thrift store, or even to pick it up from the curb, take it to the next Antiques Road Show and discover it’s worth . . . well, a whole lot.

A pot like that isn’t one of them, though. Although in this current economy, we could certainly make use of the amusement value.

(Cross-posted last week at Chicago Boyz)

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)

Indians

19. August 2011 · Comments Off on Indians · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Old West

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter drew my attention to this story in the UK Daily Mail, with considerable amusement; both for the breathless sense of excitement about the headline – about something that was very, very old news to students of Texas history – and the matchless idiocy reflected in some of the resulting comments – the kind of crystalline pure idiocy that one can only gain from learned every darned thing they know about the aboriginal inhabitants of North America from having watched Dances With Wolves. I’ve always given handsome credit to that bit of cinema as excellent and almost anthropologically detailed peep into the world of the Northern plains Sioux in the mid-1860s . . . did anyone else ever notice how all the tribes-folk are always doing something, while carrying on a conversation in the side? Almost without exception, they are working at something. Pay no attention to the plot, just watch the people. Anyway, this bit of Brit excitement seems have been inspired by this book – which came out over a year ago, and is pretty fascinating on it’s own. Reading the story and the comments exasperated me yet again, reminding me of my own particular exasperations with the popular culture version of the American frontier. As far as movies and television go, pretty much the whole 19th century west of the Mississippi is a big-one-size-one-location-just-post-Civil-War generic blur. And all the Indians in these generic Western adventures were also pretty much generic, too . . . which means that historical knowledge gleaned from TV and movie westerns is – to be kind – not to be relied upon.

Because the tribes varied enormously as to culture and capabilities, as any anthropologist will tell you. I’m not one myself, but I have had to read pretty thoroughly in the course of writing about the American west – and that is one of the things that emerges almost at once; the various Tribes fell into a wide range of cultural and technological levels. This range went all the way from the hunting/gathering peoples, like the various divisions in California (who being in a temperate and generous land did very well) and in the deserts of the Great Basin (the Utes and Paiutes did rather less well) to the Cherokee of the southeast who farmed, traded, and swiftly adopted an alphabet for their language, and embraced printing presses and higher education. In between these two extremes were those tribal divisions who farmed, like the Mandan and others of the Ohio-Mississippi-Missouri River basin, and the sedentary tribes of the Southwest; the Hopi and Navaho – farmers, weavers, potters and basket-weavers . . . all of whom, at somewhat of a squint, were not all that remote, technology-wise, from the white settlers, although one thing they did have in common was a lack of resistance to the diseases which Europeans brought with them.

And then there were the hunter/gatherer tribes of the high plains, those who were the first to take full advantage of the horse . . . the horse, which ironically, had been brought into North America by the Spanish. The various Sioux divisions, the Kiowa, and most especially the Comanche – became peerless horsemen and hunters. They took the plains as their own, hunting the vast herds of buffalo who made their home there – all the land between the mountains and forests to the north and west, the Mississippi on the east, and nearly as far as the Gulf Coast to the south. For nearly two hundred years, the horse-tribes of the plains took it all for theirs, and lived for the hunt . . . and for war.

No, war did not come with the white settlers – it had been there all along, for the various tribes warred vigorously, frequently and with every evidence of keen enjoyment upon each other; for the rights to camp and hunt on certain tracts, for booty and slaves, for vengeance and sometimes just for the pure enjoyment. The Comanche warred with such brutal efficiency on the Apache, that the eastern Lipan Apache were nearly wiped out, and pushed them, along with the Tonkawa, into alliance with the new-come Texian settlers. But for about fifteen years, the Penateka Comanches held a peace treaty with Texas German settlers – as allies against other enemies – a peace treaty which held for a lot longer than anyone might have expected, which goes to show that reality is almost always stranger than fiction. From the mid-1830s on, the Comanche’s enemies in Texas, Lipan and Tonkawa warriors served with the Texas Rangers on various battlefields against the Comanche. In the Northern plains, the Sioux likewise warred with the Crow – with the result that the Crows were very pleased to serve with the US Army in the west, as scouts, guides and fighters. During the Civil War itself, the Cherokee split into Union and Confederate factions. Indeed, one soon gains the impression from the accounts of early explorers encountering various tribes and peoples, that those peoples were most interested in enlisting the European and American explorers – with their strange new gunpowder technology – as allies against their traditional tribal enemy. This all made a very much more complicated and nuanced picture. Individuals and tribal groups reacted in practically as many different ways that there were individuals and groups; the whole spectrum of adaptation, resistance, and acquiescence, or even in combination and in sequence. The stories are endlessly varied, with heroes and villains, triumph and heartbreak aplenty . . . on all sides.

(Crossposted at my book blog)

A Book the Size of a Brick

17. August 2011 · Comments Off on A Book the Size of a Brick · Categories: General, History, Literary Good Stuff, Local, Working In A Salt Mine...

Oh, lord, I thought on Monday afternoon, when I ripped opened the industrially-strong sticky tape that held the cardboard mailer closed around a hardbound book the weight and dimension of two bricks – did I really write all that? The UPS guy had just brought it, and left it on the porch after ringing the doorbell, and departing as swift as the wind . . . or as swift as one can be, working a delivery job at the height of the summer inSouth Texas. I wouldn’t want to linger on a doorstep either, when it’s over 100 degrees in the shade and towards the end of a working day.

But the “OMG – did I write all that?” moment – It’s the same thing I thought, when I opened up my writer’s copy of Book Three of the Trilogy: all five hundred pages. Well, the story did kinda carry me away: the saga of the Germans in the Texas Hill Country. The research and writing of it I had nailed down within the space of two years, but I measured out the resulting books into three separate stories, all published through Booklocker, three years ago. Let’s just say that it has sold very well, as these things go when one’s nom du plume is not Philippa Gregory, Dan Brown or Larry McMurtry. The Trilogy continues to sell, in paperback and e-book categories . . . but one of my biggest fans and I decided to bring out a hard-bound with dust-jacket version of all three books in one. As I said, it is the size and weight of a couple of bricks, a solid 1040 pages (including historical notes) . . . and although a bit pricy, the retail price will be much less than the cost of all three volumes in paperback, and will probably last a titch longer, under the weight of constant re-reading. And did you see the dust-jacket cover? My little brother, the graphic artist, did that – and from a picture I took on the grounds of old Fort Martin Scott, just outside ofFredericksburg . . . where a lot of the action and drama took place.

Alas, have to tweak a couple of pages of content; namely the family trees. My own late dear Dad asked me to include family tree/trees, so that he could keep all of the main characters and their children straight. I did this with a mind fairly split: yes, it would be good to keep casual readers appraised of who was related to whom, especially as the story began to focus on the second and third generation, but I hated, hated, hated to give away plot developments: Readers could go to the family tree and plainly see who was going to marry whom, and who was going to eventually drop off their perch in the branches, and when, and given significant dates and events, probably from what cause . . . ugh. I hated to telegraph future developments, especially after taking such care in setting up plot and characters, and making people care and invest their interest in them, and all, and then hitting them with the surprise twist. It’s like – oh, she’s/he’s toast in Chapter Umpteen-whatever, don’t emotionally invest her/him at all. Or; he and she are going to marry anyway, so why bother with building up any suspense and wonderment about it all. So, I compromised and put the family tree in the last volume. One more thing to tweak . . . and anyway, here it is. The hardbound all-in-one publication of the Trilogy will be available on or about the first of September, through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the usual on-line and big box store outlets. Enjoy . . . just as I have finished this one last tweak.

And I’ve been asked about pre-release orders: I’ve set up a page at my website to take pre-orders of the hardbound Complete Adelsverein Trilogy – to be autographed and mailed on 1 September, 2011 at a price slightly reduced from the official selling price (which Amazon will probably discount slightly anyway) but your copy will be autographed – personal message and all that. And I am extending the drawing for the Adelsverein tee-shirt to 1 September. Anyone ordering a copy of the Complete Adelsverein will have their name put into a drawing for one of two very nice customized tee shirts from ooshirts.com.

The hardbound version has all three volumes of the Trilogy, and the historic notes – and although it makes a … er … rather hefty volume (suitable for having a small child sit upon, at the Thanksgiving supper table in lieu of a telephone book) the retail price of it is about 2/3rds of what it would be to get all three separate volumes in paperback. And with luck, it will hold up to being read and re-read a little better than the paperback versions will. And you will be able to work on your hand and forearm strength in holding it up to read for hours at a time! Such a deal!

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.”

London Burning

09. August 2011 · Comments Off on London Burning · Categories: Ain't That America?, European Disunion, Fun and Games, General, Tea Time, World

Another night, another night of riots, arson and casual lootery, relatively untrammeled by the efforts of law enforcement, and perhaps slightly slowed down by the efforts of massed local residents and business owners. After three or four nights of this destruction, which leaves the internet plastered with pictures that look like the aftermath of the WWII Blitz, I would have hoped that the local residents were beginning to assemble and barricade their streets, rather than leave them open for the ‘hoodies’ to do their worst. I’d have also hoped that the police were starting to think about responding to the mob hoodlum element with more than sandbags and rubber bullets, but hey – I’m just one of those terroristic Tea partiers, presently resident in the state of Texas. Of which many and sometimes justifiable criticisms might be made, and usually are, by superior Euroweenies having a fit of lefty vapors over the relative déclassé-ness of it all – but one of the good points about living here is that the incidents of home-invasion robberies are refreshingly few in number.

Not a claim that can be made in once-Great Britain for the past few years, alas – where those who uphold Her Majesty’s laws of late seem to be more inclined to prosecute those who use any kind of weapon at hand to defend themselves in a robbery or home-invasion situation. Nope – not the case around these parts: it’s very likely that a canvass of my immediate neighborhood might turn up more weapons than the standing army of many small-to-micro European states. Law-enforcement is also rather refreshingly understanding with regard to the plight of those citizens who – under fairly strictly defined circumstances and in legitimate fear of their lives or the lives of their family – have defended their homes and castles with deadly force and dropped a miscreant stone cold on the hearth-rug, or as was the case a couple of years ago, on the doormat. (Elderly woman, living alone, local scumbag energetically trying to force open her front door. She warned him three times that she had a gun, local scumbag ignored the warning, and she drilled him straight through the front door.) Usually in these cases, the homeowner has the subdued congratulations of the local police for taking out the trash. To your average superior Euroweenie this is just the same exactly as Old West gunfights in the street practically, and an excuse for a bit of hyperventilating. Eh – whatever. It might also be the case that – depending on the year and location – communities in the Old West could just have been a good bit safer than certain of the big cities in the Old East, but that’s a discussion for another day.

No, I started on London. Ancient. Historic. The cynosure of an Empire, the great queen city of the Anglosphere. I knew it before I even set foot in it, so marinated in it for having read two thousand years worth of history and literature, in which it was the center – or near to the center – of all things. Built and rebuilt again, from Roman to Anglo-Saxon, to Norman, Elizabethan, Georgian, re-engineered by the great Victorian builders, rebuilt after the Great Fire, and again after the Blitz, and so many other relatively minor disasters . . . eternal, grand, sometimes scruffy around the edges, but comfortable and welcoming to my younger brother and sister and I, when we arrived in the early summer of 1970. We stayed in a tiny B & B in Clapham Common, one of those miniscule late Victorian brick row houses, just wide enough for a single room and a hallway alongside, and a walled garden out in back. The owner who confirmed our reservation included in his letter exhaustive, detailed and step-by-step instructions for reaching his place from the airport where our student charter flight landed. We were to take a certain train, which we would find upon walking out the front of the airport, get off at a particular stop, then walk down so many feet on a certain street to a bus stop, which we would find opposite a certain shop (he included a detailed street map for this) take a specific bus, which we would exit on Clapham High Street at another stop (which he instructed us to tell the bus conductor that we were to exit the bus at, and this part included another segment of street map), thereupon to walk so many feet on a particular direction, before turning left . . . and his establishment would be so many houses down that street on the right.

And so we did – and we stayed for three days, before relocating to the Youth Hostel just around the corner from St. Pauls’ on Ludgate Hill. In the six days of our wandering summer, we saw all the sights, to include the Tower of London, I bought books at Foyles, and explored Westminster Abbey . . . and one of the ancient established street markets – was it Golder’s Green? – where I bought a length of wool for Mom to make a bespoke pair of pants for Dad – which I don’t think she ever did. Fleet Street, and Downing Street, Trafalgar Square and Regent’s Park, and all these little hidden-away neighborhoods; we met nothing but nice people. And now that town is burning again. Is this the way that civilization ends, at the hands of insolent and brutal looters, while the populace and the government stands helpless against them? Is that little side street in Clapham one of those threatened? Are the little, old-fashioned Victorian store fronts along Clapham High Street among those smashed and looted, while the owners of those small businesses wait for a sure defense, or perhaps take matters into their own hands at last?

Interesting times. Interesting times.

(cross-posted at Chicago Boyz)

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.)

Who Gets the Flute

03. August 2011 · Comments Off on Who Gets the Flute · Categories: General

An Open Question [1] [2] for the 2012 candidates for President.

This letter has been sent – or will be sent – to most of the candidates for the presidency in the Democratic and Republican parties in 2012. Some won’t get it – their web site utterly lacks ‘contact me’ email or a web form.

I have no pretension that I’ll get anything but a form letter back. If that.

It would be instructive if they would answer the question. But that will have to wait until a person with more umph asks the question at a debate, or a member of the press with some brass ones pitches it to them. Or, possibly, if a lucky member of the public finds themselves face-to-face with the candidate.

Or maybe you could re-blog, pass it along, send it to the candidates, put a bug in the ear of a reporter.

Sir / Ma’am,

I am asking this question of the announced candidates for President.

The answer will be very instructive, will tell the voters a great deal about your philosophy, how you will perform in office.

I will publish the results on my blog, Space For Commerce, and a mil-blog that I contribute to, The Daily Brief.

Amartya Sen wrote in ‘The Idea of Justice’ this thought experiment;

Take three kids and a flute. Anne says the flute should be given to her because she is the only one who knows how to play it. Bob says the flute should be handed to him as he is so poor he has no toys to play with. Carla says the flute is hers because she made it.

Sen argues that who gets the flute depends on your concept of justice.

Bob will have the support of the economic egalitarian.

The libertarian would opt for Carla.

The utilitarian will argue for Anne because she will get the maximum pleasure, as she can play the instrument.

Who gets the flute?

R/s

Brian Dunbar
Neenah, Wisconsin


[1] On review I see the summary owes a great deal to – if not an outright theft from – Eric Falkenstein at Falkenblog.

Sorry about that.

[2] Tip o’ the hat to SouthBend7 for sparking the idea.

Stuff Going On This Week

03. August 2011 · Comments Off on Stuff Going On This Week · Categories: Ain't That America?, General

I’m up at Stephanie Barko’s blog with some thoughts on book marketing – here.
And I posted a guide for the perplexed with regard to Tea Party and Terrorism here at Open Salon.
Snowed under with paying work and trying to finish Deep in the Heart. I’ll post another chapter at the end of the week. Promise.

What We Have Here

01. August 2011 · Comments Off on What We Have Here · Categories: AARRRMY TRAINING SIR!!!, Ain't That America?, General, Stupidity, War, Working In A Salt Mine...

. . . in the words of Strother Martin, from the old Paul Newman movie Cool Hand Luke, “is failure to communicate.” Although, in the case of one Private Nasser Jason Abdo, one really does wonder how much of that deliberate non-receptivity is on the part of the receiver; firstly – being eighteen years of age. Most eighteen year olds are idiots. I was one, and I remember thinking that yes, most of my peers were drooling morons. (Most of them did grow out of it, so there is hope.) Secondly – he willfully and with aforethought enlisted in the Army. Enable routine, inter-service slam here: oh, yeah, he enlisted in the Army. Any brains, you’d pick the Air Force or Navy, any balls, you’d go for the Marines. Disable routine, inter-service slam, and for the record I have known many brainy and ballsy Army troops, it’s just that . . . hey, opportunity presents and custom demands.

Anyway, our young hero decides to join the Army, go through Basic and probably tech school, and oh, wow – suddenly discovers that he has enlisted in a wartime military, where . . . umm . . . they kinda expect you to go out there and kill the enemy and blow up their stuff, routinely and regularly, in exchange for a paycheck, PX privileges and the burden of not having to decide to wear what to work each morning. This war thing, in Afghanistan – it’s a thing which has been going on since 2003. I know it doesn’t make the headlines every damn day, but really . . . if you were deciding to join the military in late 2009 or early 2010, it’s one of those things that I would have hoped that a bright young enlistee would have noticed, even if his recruiter failed to point that out. And if his recruiter had not made it relatively clear, I’d have thought Army basic training would have. So, anyway, upon receipt of notice that he is bound for deployment to Afghanistan, our your hero suddenly gets in touch with his inner Muslim and discovers that he is, in fact, a contentious objector, and the requirements of religion forbid him to kill other Muslims. Note; historically and in current events this particular stricture would come as rather a surprise to . . . say, participants in strife between Sunni and Shia, between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s . . . and in Afghanistan itself, where the local Muslims seem to kill each other, frequently, bloodily and with every evidence of keen enjoyment. And also – past times in the US military, declaring yourself to be a conscientious objector in the US military did not automatically relieve one from an obligation to serve in uniform. During WWII many conscientious objectors served as combat medics, and in fact, there were two Medals of Honor awarded for having performed heroically in that role.

So, on the basis of his suddenly-discovered pacifistic inclination, our young Private Abdo is made much the pet and prize of the anti-war movement, such as it exists in these strange days, but just as the Army is about to wash its hands of him metaphorically speaking, investigators find kiddy porn on his government computer . . . which is either very convenient for the investigators, or the abyss of stupidity on Private Abdos. I’m kind of torn on this one, but our young hero doesn’t exactly strike me as Mensa material – note above, regarding joining the Army in time of war and then being horrified to discover that participation in said war is obligatory.

And to crown the whole farrago of self-serving stupidity to go AWOL and be captured in Killeen, Texas . . . for trying to purchase guns and bomb-making materials, with the apparent intent of setting off explosions in an off-post eatery popular with the local troops. Okay, then . . . Private Abdos apparently does not grasp that whole conscientious objector concept, as we in the wonderful world of the military – and possibly even most of those on planet Earth – understand it , and in a fairly comprehensive way. This is an irony so dense that it threatens to drop through the earth’s crust, all the way through the molten core and come out the other side, and having a particularly dark and ironic sense of humor, I am getting at least a few chuckles out of this from watching the anti-war organizations dropping him as if he were made of plutonium, nearly as much as I did from the unmasking of Jesse McBeth.

(re-edited to permit comments)

What? The End of the Week Already?

28. July 2011 · Comments Off on What? The End of the Week Already? · Categories: General, Old West, Wild Blue Yonder, Working In A Salt Mine...

I’m sorry, people – I am just swamped, with two huge paying projects with deadlines … OMG .. in a day or so, since this is Thursday.
I’ll be back on Monday. Stuff happening, got a raffle for tee – shirts going. Particulars at my book blog, here.

This is all courtesy of some lovely peole at www.ooshirts.com!

Something Happening Here

24. July 2011 · Comments Off on Something Happening Here · Categories: Ain't That America?, European Disunion, General, World

There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down…

Exploding cars, and a Beslan-like massacre of teenaged campers, plus a claim of responsibility from the usual suspects (until the full horror perhaps persuaded the be-turbanned goons that perhaps they’d better walk back from that one) nothing says long hot summer and interesting times more than what happened last week in Norway.

I visited there once, in 1970 – Oslo, Bergen and Stavanger, as a Girl Scout doing that youth hostel and backpack thing. Lovely country, very wet and rainy, even in summer it seemed to drizzle about forty-five minutes out of every hour, and it was a miracle to me that anything but moss and lichen had enough sunlight to grow along the coastal rocks. We stayed in a sailboat, which had been converted to a Youth Hostel, ate fish pudding for dinner once (it’s white, gelatinacious and completely without taste), had wonderful smorgasbord breakfasts and saw Edvard Grieg’s home – being raised on classical music, I very much fear I was the only one of our group to really appreciate it. And we took a long train ride to Stockholm, sharing a long open rail car with a touring chorus from an international music camp on the US/Canada border. It was about a three-hour trip, and we sang all the way, having between the chorus and our group, several guitars and a considerable repertoire of folk songs, summer-camp songs and other musical arcana. I have no idea what the regular passengers thought of all this, by the way. That was then – this is now, and sometimes the summer of 1970 seems as far away . . . well, another time-space continuum. The horror of last week on Utoya Island would have been inconceivable, then – in Norway or anywhere else in the Western World.

There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down…

So, on past form, just about everyone over the sentience level of a mollusk assumed it was one of those horrible, unexpected outrages perpetuated by an unrepresentative member of the religion of peace who hadn’t gotten the word about being an adherent of the religion of peace or given any consideration to the backlash such an act would ignite against innocent coreligionists. Hey, it’s not cynicism, it’s just good pattern recognition – when something goes boom among noncombatants in a fairly major way of late, usually there’s someone named Mohammed involved, no matter if the venue is Afghanistan Thailand, Bali, Somalia, Iraq, Spain, Britain, India or Israel. It’s just how this has worked out. And flog that line about the IRA, Tim McVeigh or assorted small abortion-clinic bombers as hard as you like – the sheer quantity of the occurrences of kabooms involving gentlemen named Mohammed (as well as the numbers of victims involved) are kind of overwhelming.

So here – as it turns out – we have another freelance nutter, supposedly from the conservative and supposedly anti-Islamic immigrant side of the political aisle, going all mad-dog and deciding that his particular mission is to slaughter teenagers and young twenty-somethings at a political party-sponsored summer camp . . . careless of the fact that by this particularly vile act, he will have alienated just about every potential ally and sympathizer towards his particular concerns – which might (or might not) have had a chance of a fair hearing, up until July 22. Strange days, indeed – strange and brutal days.

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down…

Of course, the eventual truth about Anders Breivik will eventually out – although I fear, not before the meme/conventional wisdom will congeal about him. But there are so many contradictory notes, so many . . . not quite wrong, incomplete, contradictory or curious things about him, as he is being presented by the mainstream or even the new media. Businessman, well educated, plenty of guns (Hey, I live in Texas, supposed to be bristling with free-lance gun-slingers.) Supposed to be a Christian, supposed to be a freemason, supposed to be . . . well, a lot of things. A manifesto cribbed from Theodore Kacznski’s writings, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts that come and go. Nutter, stooge . . . or what? Definitely a stone-cold killer; for which he may serve 21 years in the Norwegian equivalent of the super-max; and if it doesn’t be violation of his civil rights and upon being formally found guilty, I hope that he serves a bit longer. The parents of the murdered campers may have hopes for even longer than that. But all I really know about this is what I read in the newspapers. Or on-line.

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down…

I can’t say that I really know Norway, after all – the closest I came were those nice people that I met in various Youth Hostels and train stations, and on a motor-boat ferry ride between Stavanger and Bergen, all those decades ago. And what I read in various venues, of course. It’s comfortable to assume –a nutcase with delusions of glory and Wagnerian grandeur, even perhaps a brain tumor, a la Charles Whiteman, the UT Austin sniper, or a Ted Kacznski wanna-be. But what if – just suppose – he is a kind of Nordic John Brown, frustrated beyond all patience, feeling marginalized and insulted by the ruling political elite with regard to his particular concern . . . and deciding that the perpetration of a horrific crime would be worth it, just for the opportunity to make an unmistakable and irrevocable gesture. What then, oh wolves?

Much more comforting, I suppose, for the transnational political ruling class to write this off as the act of a brilliant but unfortunately deranged actor. For the other consideration would be just too unbearable to contemplate.

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