A Cold Civil War

10. September 2009 · Comments Off on A Cold Civil War · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Politics, War, World

I can’t remember where the concept was first bruited about – someone else’s blog, probably one of the radical non-ranting centrists like the Belmont Club, Neo-Neocon, James Lileks, or Classical Values. To be honest I have as much of a bad memory for where I read about something or other as I do a dislike for crazy rants, name-calling, straw-man construction and other social ruderies. I’d prefer to hang out, on line and in the real world with thoughtful, fairly logical people, people who can defend their opinion with a carefully constructed arguments and real-life examples and/or references. In short, I’d prefer the company of people who don’t go ape-s**t when another person’s opinion or take on some great matter differs from their own. Well-adjusted grownups, in other words – who are comfortable with the existence of contrary opinion – and do not feel the need to go all wild-eyed, and start flinging the epithets like a howler-monkey flinging poo.

So it’s not like I ever went out there looking for insane levels of contention in venues like the Daily Kos, or the Huffington Post, or conversely, Michelle Malkin, or Kim du Toit. That kind of partisan-ship on both sides … well, it just wasn’t me, I’m not particularly confrontational, I have a real life, and many other interests besides politics, and the Tea Party. I also write a lot, I do a non-political blog at Open Salon, and at TheDeeping, market my books, manage some websites and work for the Watercress Press … and all sorts of other stuff, some of it among people who do not share very much of my political opinions, such as they are. Which, inter alia, according to the last couple of surveys I participated in, put me in as tending toward towards the libertarian: strict constitutionalist, fiscal conservative, guardedly social liberal – look, I haven’t cared for decades what consenting adults do in private, just don’t be doing it in the road and frightening the horses. And you kids – get off my lawn! As regards foreign policy, I’m an unreconstructed Jacksonian, mostly because I’ve read enough history to be fairly clear-eyed about the power of national leaders, city-states and mass-movements of people over the long haul of history. What they are capable of doing, they eventually will do – as the Melians discovered of the Athenians. I believe more in the unspoken power of the community to enforce standards of behavior and decorum, rather than written ordinance, I believe in keeping things simple and uncomplicated. I believe that the United States is a pretty radical construct, almost unique among nations as a Republic, that the Founding Fathers put together an amazing document, and one which ought not to be amended or revised for petty reasons and partisan advantage. I also thought Sara Palin was a good choice for V-P, and that she was a pretty straight-up politician, and the citizens of Alaska had shown pretty good sense in electing her for a governor.

And for these opinions, over the last five months, I have been called a liar, a racist and the next thing to a Nazi, either directly on Open Salon, and Facebook, or indirectly in comments there and elsewhere. It’s getting just a bit wearisome, guarding what I write, biting my tongue, and considering what I may say and to whom, lest what I say set off some horrible diatribe from someone I have heretofore considered at least a friend, in person or on-line. Really, I don’t go looking for knock-down, drag-out confrontations, and if people want to believe three impossible things before breakfast, it’s no skin off mine, as I am pretty sure that it would be a waste of breath using logic to talk people out of a belief that logic never put them into. I had just expected better from the people I had chosen to hang around with, in the real world and on-line.

It’s also getting a bit frightening, seeing all this anger indiscriminately being unleashed among people who weren’t particularly confrontational all along, and to realize how terribly polarized a lot of places and spaces are becoming, fractured along red-state, blue-state lines, along statist and constitutionalist lines, and between people who bitched about government busy-bodies poking their noses into everything and the people who bitched about how there ought to be a law. Historically, it puts me in mind of the period just before the Civil War, when feelings about abolition and secession ran so very hot and high that ordinary citizens on either side of the issues could hardly have a conversation about it, each assuming the worst of the other. And then there came a point when there was no more talking – and it ripped our country apart for five bloody years, and set sullen resentments on the Southern side which simmered for a hundred years and more.

When I first came across the “cold civil war” phrase, all these months ago, I thought it sounded like an exaggeration, like the start of some inter-blog flame war, which would engage the participants as passionately as the North and the South, and amuse (or appall) the rest of us for a couple of weeks. But over and over again, the free-floating anger keeps breaking out in the real world. Early this spring, I repeated a joke to another lady in my Red Hat circle, but we were in a restaurant – and I looked around quickly, to see who was within earshot, and lowered my voice so that no one beyond our table could hear. This was a small thing, maybe even a little stupid – but a cold civil war is made up of small and stupid things. Having an old co-blogger call you a racist, being reluctant to put a bumper-sticker on your car, knowing that friends who still work for the DOD are keeping their heads down and their mouths closed, for fear of repercussions on the job, and being very, very careful in casual conversations … no, not an exaggeration any more. Just a cold, cold civil war reality.

(Regular Commenter Al, from across the pond, had this to say – sorry got caught up in the spam-torrent:

But then…the cries of “socialism” are name-calling on the side from which they’re made, are they not?

Obama is, as I understand it, a socialist / communist / terrorist / black supremacist for passing one piece of $1tn legislation (the bailout) and trying to pass another (the health thing). Both real numbers are lower, but let’s call it $2tn for now.

His predecessor, on the other hand, invaded a country which posed no threat and had nothing to do with what should have been his #1 job (catching Bin Laden) and, in the process, killed off more Americans than Bin Laden had and landed the US taxpayer with a bill estimated at $2tn (including long-term healthcare for those wounded).

So…how come one’s a patriot / hero / statesman and Obama’s the opposite for trying to fix the economy and the fact that Americans pay twice as much for healthcare as other civilised countries but get the same results? And why do I see right-wingers talking about taking up arms as a result? It all seems a bit deluded to me, if I’m honest, so if I’m missing something…

My response is: Well, if your source is the BBC, no wonder you are a bit perplexed about all this… and it’s not about the war, Al. Everything is NOT ABOUT THE WAR!”

Hallelujah

07. September 2009 · Comments Off on Hallelujah · Categories: General

Yippy. Skippy.

In Cincinnati tomorrow, President Obama will announce that he’s appointing Ron Bloom his Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy, White House sources tell ABC News.

Qualifications?  An MBA [1].  Worked as an investment banker.  Then he became the special assistant to the president of the USW.

A banker who worked for a union is going to advise the President on manufacturing policy.

Bear Facepalm

Via TJIC.
Graphic via SB7.
Title Reference.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

[1] I ain’t even going to go into ‘involvement‘ with Labor Zionist.  What the hell is that about?

Elegy

06. September 2009 · Comments Off on Elegy · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

So what is there to say – at the ending of two relationships, one fond, fairly intimate and long lasting and the other not-so-fond, purely professional and of a year’s duration – except that Blondie and I shared a bottle of champagne last night in sort-of-celebration? Both those relationships ended within the space of 24 hours, having been put into a final count-down stage some days or weeks before.

I sold my car, and I quit my job.

Well, one of my cars, and one of my jobs. Look, it’s the new age, and the new economy: I have juggled a number of part-time jobs off and on since retiring from the Air Force twelve years ago. I think at one point I had five different part-time jobs simultaneously. Maybe it was four jobs and a check for some voice-work, but the bank clerk commented, on the day that I went and deposited that many checks into my regular account, “Hey, lady – is there a place in town that you don’t work for?”
Although I did have some periods – two or three or even four years at a stretch when I worked for just one employer exclusively and full-time – I kind of like the part-time, multiple employer scheme. Every day different, every day something rather new; if I have been able to figure out anything at all about myself, it’s that I get bored easily, and I am pretty good at organizing things … and that, selfishly, I like to do what I like to do, and if I can get paid for what I like to do – well, then, I like to write, I can think about great things and boil them down to something that is understandable to the general public, I have a nice voice and I can talk well, I can think logically about things and come up with the odd good idea now and again … in other words, something like your typical English major, in the old days when being an English major might have counted for knowing certain things. Like being able to spell and put together a coherent sentence, and know who wrote “Robinson Crusoe.

There used to be all sorts of nice opportunities for English majors for fairly remunerative work along that line, before the market was flooded … fortunately, I can do data entry, read a script and understand marketing strategy, which skills made it possible for me to be hired on last year at a telemarketing firm. Let it me known now that I didn’t much like it, and put up with it only because it was local and the paychecks were regular. Until I receive the last of them, everything about the place is a deep dark secret – except that I had filed my resignation two weeks ago, and last night was my final shift. It felt so good to walk out of there, out of a grey institutional building, with rooms full of identical cubicles, bathrooms that smelled of ass, a horrible break-room with a pair of intermittently-functioning computers which were the only two in the building which employees could use to connect to the internet for purely personal purposes – on strictly-rationed breaks… oh, yes, the only bit of rebellion I displayed during the whole time I was working there was that I bailed last night at 9 AM. My shift was supposed to last until 10:00. They say – and I will affirm – that the worst job that you can have, indoors and working in a cubicle – is customer service at a telemarketing corporation. And I will agree – the only good thing about it is that the paychecks are regular. And that they do not bounce. I had planned to last it out until the Labor Day weekend. And so I did – I just reached my ration of **** at 9 PM, Saturday evening.

The car – the Pumpkin – otherwise known as the VEV, a 1974/75 2-door Volvo sedan, which had practically no rust upon it, of which I had been the sole owner since 1983, having had it repaired in five western European countries and three western states, and which was too old to be regular and reliable transportation – went on eBay in mid-August. My dear Dad had bought me a more reliable car, a 1991 Honda Accura Legend, with refreshingly low mileage and in practically pristine condition, outside and in, which made the Pumpkin extraneous to my needs, and left us with one car more than we had parking space for – not that certain of our neighbors seem to be worried about that. But still – parking on the street is an iffy proposition, given that we are at a well-trafficked corner … well, never mind all that. The Pumpkin went on e-Bay and finally scored a winning bid, from a serious local Volvo motor-head, who is now the envy of all his on-line motor-head friends… it’s not like there is a huge community of mad fans of vintage Volvo sedans, but there are a good few, apparently – and they were all madly envious of his mad skilz and luck. We finalized the sale Friday morning, when I signed all the papers, accepted the cash payment, and gave him the keys.

He was a very young-looking guy, with his baby son along with him; I rather hope that the baby kidlet will have the fully-restored Pumpkin to drive to his senior prom, and what his date will think of that, I can hardly think, except that hope she will be incredibly impressed. Anyway, I gave the buyer the keys, said that I would be home a good part of the day, and that the Pumpkin would fire up OK, and that it would probably make it all right to his place, out in Schertz … and that all day, I kept checking to see if he had come and gotten it. No, for most of the day, it was still parked on the street. But it was gone sometime Friday evening – the new owner, the very young-looking ancient-Volvo motor-head guy came with someone else, and drove it away. Funny, I thought I would have been able to hear it, the sound of the engine, and all, since I had driven it so long, and knew it so well. I thought I might hear someone driving the VEV away. But I guess not – the street in front of my house was empty. And I never heard it go away.

A Sunday Morning – September 3rd

03. September 2009 · Comments Off on A Sunday Morning – September 3rd · Categories: European Disunion, General, History, War

(this is a reprise of a post from five years ago, slightly re-worked, but still relevant, especially since probably no one but me could find it in the archives!)

A Sunday September morning, on one of those mild and gorgeous fall days, when the leaves are just starting to turn, but the last of the summer flowers still linger, and the days are warm, yet everyone grabs hold of those last few golden days, knowing how short they are of duration under the coming Doom of winter.

And there is another Doom besides the changing of the seasons on this morning, a Doom that has been building inescapable by treaty obligation for the last two days, clear to the politically savvy for the last two weeks— since the two old political opposites-and-enemies inexplicably signed an alliance— deferred by a humiliating stand-down and betrayal of the trusting two years since, a doom apparent to the far-sighted for nearly a decade. The armies are marching, the jackals bidden to follow after the conqueror, a country betrayed and dismembered, the crack cavalry troops of an army rated as superior to the American Army as it existed then charging against tanks, their ancient and historic cities reduced to rubble – and by obligation and treaty, the Allies are brought to face a brutal reality. That after two decades of peace, after four years of war that countenanced the slaughter of a significant portion of a generation, that left small towns across Europe and Great Britain decimated and plastered with sad memorials carved with endless lists of names, acres of crosses and desolation, sacrifice and grief, for which no one could afterwards give a really good reason, a decade of pledging Never Again – war is come upon them, however much they would wish and hope and pray otherwise. Reservists had been called to active duty, children had been evacuated en mass from the crowded city center, and Neville Chamberlain, who had been given a choice between war and dishonor, chosen dishonor and now had to go before the nation on radio and announce the coming of war:

“I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government an official note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock, that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and consequently this county is at war with Germany. You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different that I could have done and that would have been more successful…. We and France are to-day, in fullfrnlment of our obligations, going to the aid of Poland, so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack on her people. We have a clear conscience, we have done all that any country could do to establish peace. The situation in which no word given by Germany’s ruler could be trusted and no people or country could feel safe has become intolerable. Now we have resolved to finish it, I know you will all play your part with calmness and courage…

When I have finished speaking certain detailed announcements will be made on behalf of the Government. Give these ‘your closest attention. The Government have made plans under’ which It will be possible’ to carry on the work of the nation in the days of stress and strain which may be ahead of us. These plans need your help; you may be taking your part in the fighting Services or as a volunteer in one of the branches of civil defense. If so, you will report for duty in accordance with the instructions you have received. You may be engaged in work essential to the prosecution of war, or for the maintenance of the life of the people in factories in transport in public utility concerns, or in the supply of other necessaries of life. If so it is of vital importance that you should carry on with your job.

Now may God bless you all, and may he defend the right. For it is evil things that we shall be fighting, against brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution, and against them I am certain that Right will prevail.”

The filmmaker John Boorman in the movie “Hope and Glory” noted the queer occurrence of all the lawnmowers in the suburb suddenly falling silent, everyone listening to the sad speech of a man who has seen his worst fears realized followed by the sound of air raid sirens. It was a false alarm, that morning, but within a year the alarms would sound for real. The docklands would be reduced to rubble, historic churches would fall, the city would burn, but in the aftermath, defiantly humorous signs would appear “More Open Than Usual” and “I Have No Pane, Dear Mother Now.” It would be entirely possible for men who had served in the Western Front to see grim and tragic duty again as firemen and wardens in the streets where they lived in this new war. By the time the Blitz became a reality, most everyone had gotten more or less accustomed to the idea. My Grandpa Jim, though, would take the bombing of London as a personal insult, and be restrained from going downtown and assaulting the German Consulate in Los Angeles, while his son and namesake collected newspaper clippings about the war, and aviation for his scrapbook. I do not think the news of war that came to them on another Sunday morning, nearly two years later came entirely as a surprise, only the direction form which it came— east, and not west.

In any case, the news would have come, late on a Sunday morning, after the early service. I like to think this is a hymn that might have been sung in the last few quiet hours before the storm— as it was at the service I attended the day that the ground offensive began in the first Gulf War.

God of Grace and God of Glory, on your people pour Your Power;
Crown your ancient church’s story, Bring it’s bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, For the facing of this hour
For the facing of this hour.

Lo, the hosts of evil round us, Scorn the Christ, assail his ways!
From the fears that long have bound us, Free our hearts to faith and praise.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of these days,
For the facing of these days!

Cure your children’s warring madness, Bend our pride to your control;
Shame our wanton, selfish gladness, Rich in things and poor in soul.
Grant is wisdom, grant us courage, Lest we miss Your kingdom’s goal
Lest we miss Your kingdom’s goal.

Set our feet on lofty places, Gird our lives that they may be,
Armored with all Christ-like graces, In the fight to set men free.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, That we fail not man nor Thee,
That we fail not man nor Thee

Save us from weak resignation, To the evils we deplore;
Let the gift of Your salvation, Be our glory evermore.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, Serving You whom we adore,
Serving you whom we adore.

Tune: Cwm Rhondda
Words: Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1930


September 3, 1939: 70 years ago today.

On the Uses of Certain Epithets

30. August 2009 · Comments Off on On the Uses of Certain Epithets · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Tea Time

So, I’d put it out there that a liberal commenting on the Tea Parties, or hoping to have some sort of dialogue with a member of a Tea Party, and using the derisive term “tea-bagger” is rather like a white racist using the word “ni**er” in reference to a discussion on civil rights.

Discuss.

Talking about the C-C-Camelot Generation

29. August 2009 · Comments Off on Talking about the C-C-Camelot Generation · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Good God, History, Politics

The title of this post really should read “Talkin’ ’bout the C-C-Camelot Generation” but unusual punctuation in the title freaks out the whole entry, and prevents anyone posting comments.

No – for whatever reason, I was never much enamored of the Kennedy clan, all their works and all their ways, even during the so-called Golden Age of Camelot. Blame it on Mom and Dad, who were moderate Republicans at the time, and politically aware, if not particularly active. Blame it on the fact that we weren’t big TV-watchers, in any sense of the word, blame it on the fact that generally we were resistant to going along with the flow: no, we were never spectacularly non-conformist, we just dug in our heels whenever everyone else seemed to be urging us to go along with the flow. In the words of Granny Jessie, “Would you be jumping off a cliff, if everyone else were doing it?”

Whatever the appeal of Camelot was, perhaps we just had a sense that it was glamour, in the old sense of the word, of a fair appearance created by a magic spell, of something shimmering and marvelous in appearance, cast over an unappealing, and even ugly reality, something tinsel and fake, manufactured by experts to beguile the susceptible. And so it eventually turned out to be, as the spell faded and more and more of the ugliness began to show. The Kennedys were, in the words of P.J. O’Rourke, just a rich, bad, arrogant family who thought the world would be a much better place if only they were in charge – and they ought to be in charge, of course, because they were so handsome, rich and clever. But overweening pride – or hubris, as the ancient Greeks used to call it – leads the proud to their own downfall, and so we have been watching the Kennedy drama unfold for the last forty years or so. Sophocles couldn’t have done any better, although I think only one of those spectacularly overwrought and multi-generational telenovelas could have done the Kennedy saga true justice, in every twist and turn – of trials, divorces, and sudden deaths, dizzying ascents, and the sudden hand of tragedy sweeping the chessboard, of lackeys and lick-spittle toadies, death in war, in accidents and by assassin, sex and drunkenness, dirty political deals and corruption, of unspeakable heartbreak and infidelity, of behaving like a drunken lecherous boor in public or in semi-public, and yet being able to a compliant press draw a nice tidy veil over it. It is the stuff of soap operas, to have a have a daughter with emotional or developmental problems lobotomized and ‘disappeared’ for decades, to have cavorted with movie stars, relatives by marriage, and campaign volunteers, flirted with Nazis in the days when it was (barely) politically possible to do business with Herr Hitler, to have contributed to organizations underwriting terrorism in Northern Ireland, and to walk away from an auto-wreck leaving another human being to drown.

This weekend, the regular media are full of elegies for Camelot, and the last and least of the sons of Old Joe Kennedy, who groomed them all with brutal energy to assume the highest offices in the land, but never got farther than a comfortable berth in the most exclusive gentleman’s club in the land. And so the story has come full-circle, the spell of glamour – if not broken – at least in tattered and unconvincing shreds. As hard as the Kennedy machine, and the Kennedy magic could work, they never managed to pull him much farther than that – and one senses the wheels and gears within are about stripped. The generations of Kennedys following after have barely managed to accomplish even that: not even Caroline Kennedy could talk herself into assuming a vacant seat, not after coming off like a ditzy East-coast Valley girl in television interviews. I think my last word on Ted Kennedy would be what I wrote in a comment at Chicagoboyz last week –

“That’s the failing that people – across the board, politically – can never forgive. Not so much because his initial actions, his drunkenness and stupidity put his car off the road in a relatively shallow body of water – it’s because he panicked, and thought only of himself.
And if he had any scrap of self-awareness, any sense of the obligations that are due from anyone who has a pretense of calling themselves a responsible human being, he wouldn’t have been in the position that he has been, ever since that fatal night.
He must lived the rest of his life knowing that if he had only thought heroically, thought of someone else besides himself, been a sensible, sober and responsible human being – gone to the nearest house and called for help – she might have been rescued in time. He might have been able to live down the temporary embarrassment, had a heck of a lot to explain the next morning but … He was a Kennedy, and one of those-so-called charismatic Kennedy-generation Kennedys, after all, of whom much is expected and a lot forgiven – but no. He thought first, foremost and always of himself, drunk and sober.
What we want, I think, of our politicians, is that they at least make a good pretense of thinking of the better good, and of making a more convincing show of caring abut of the people they make a great show of pretending to care about. Ted Kennedy couldn’t even be bothered, in that particular instance and that particular crisis, and so the very nakedness of that ‘don’t care-think-of-myself’ resonates after all this time.
His older brother, for all you might say about him politically – swam a good distance in a South Sea ocean, towing an injured crewman from his PT boat, after the same was sunk in a collision with a Japanese warship. JFK didn’t leave a friend/crewmate/acquaintance behind. And Teddy did. And had to bear that knowledge for all time.
No wonder he turned into a drunk – if he hadn’t already been one before.”

Who Really Owns This Country?

29. August 2009 · Comments Off on Who Really Owns This Country? · Categories: General

I agree with maybe that Glenn Beck at times seems like a marmoset monkey on WAY to much espresso, but as Ace of Spades and others have pointed out, there is very little, if anything, in what he says that is factually indefensible. He has ideas on what to do about it. What say the readers of this august blog? In this request I hope to hear from a certain Kevin Connors and maybe even Sgt. Stryker himself (unless he has become a “contractor” for you know who).

Radar

The Last Kennedy RIP

27. August 2009 · Comments Off on The Last Kennedy RIP · Categories: General

I grew up in the thrall of the Kennedy mystique. I remember clearly when it was announced in class when JFK was killed, and when not so many years later that RFK was Killed. History has questioned whether either of these martyrs deserved the accolades. Now the same scrutiny is placed on Ted Kennedy.

Shortly put, I believe that his reckoning with regard to a certain boiler room girl has his entire life been a motivating factor, and that it is now between him and God. I also think that it is proper to respect the fact that few people in our nation’s leadership have lost so many that were close to them. I personally temper my memories of Mary Jo, Robert Bork, and the almost unbelievably dishonest flaming of Gerald Ford when he pardoned Nixon (…Are there two standards of justice…?) with the almost obsessive desire to meet the conservatives somewhere in between. So fine, I will go along with Winston Churchill’s advice; embalm him, cremate him, and then bury him to make sure he is dead. But deep down I will feel sorry for the fact that the events of his life inexorably led him to both the good and the bad behavior that defined it.

Radar

Light at the End of the Tunnel

25. August 2009 · Comments Off on Light at the End of the Tunnel · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Local, Working In A Salt Mine...

So, I thought it over, tallied up what I was making, or could make from two of the part-time jobs (the real estate office owned by the World’s Tallest ADHD Child) and the Tiny Specialty Publishing Bidness – business in both cases seems to be picking up – accumulated another paying gig providing content for a San Antonio realtor who has a blog associated with his website which attracts plenty of hits but for which he is tired of producing content … considered that business at the Hellhole phone bank will doubtless fall off after Labor Day … and turned in my resignation. Yep, fourteen days notice required, and cannily, I cashed in some paid-time off on two of the days when I might otherwise have to have worked. Last Night At the Hellhole (sounds like some sort of arty sub-titled French auteur movie, where everyone droops around in fancy costumes and whispers improvised lines, and the camera focuses on all sorts of odd stuff, like cigarette butts in an ash tray) will be the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. If they don’t take away my employee badge at the security desk as I walk out – which is probably what they will do – I will bring it straight home and burn it in the fire pit. Maybe I’ll dance around the flames, sky-clad and drinking some very nice brandy straight from the bottle. Or maybe not. I have had jobs that I hated as much – and spent months and years plotting my escape from them, but this is the first job I ever had which I loathed from the moment I walked in and started on the very first day.

The immediate-supervisor types who know of this are eh-somewhat resigned and completely understanding. Of course, they know it’s a hellhole job, at which only a handful of people last even longer than six months, of course the employee turnover – even in hard economic times – is faster than the turnover of customers in a hot-bed hotel, but I fancy they are at least a little regretful at loosing someone who at least showed up as scheduled, never hung up on or cursed out a caller, grasped most of the sales and computer essentials fairly readily, and followed the dress code most of the time. (Weird – we couldn’t wear jeans. Why you couldn’t wear jeans, or even bother with a dress code when it was answering phones and never coming within two thousand miles of the public we were employed to serve … eh, another incomprehensible. Perhaps they were trying to start employees off on the right foot, get them used to the whole concept of having to dress professionally … oh, bugger it, most everyone working the phones was old enough to have a fair notion. It just seemed pretty pointless.)

And I’m working on the next book, and the Tea Party perks along. Blondie fears that of course, right at the very moment that I’ve given Hellhole Job the shove, all the other work will dry up – but one of the reasons that I didn’t go back to temping was the lack of reliable transportation. I couldn’t depend on the Pumpkin to transport me reliably back and forth to anything more than a couple of miles away, which limited my availability for temping pretty severely. The Acura is a life-saver in that regard. So, three more shifts at the Hellhole, over the next week and a half, and there I am, never to set foot in those drab grey corridors, in that huge windowless room with the sea of work-stations, ever again. I can hardly wait. Oh, and I’ll never, ever set a foot in any of the hotel properties that I took reservations for, or in Atlantic City. God is my witness – never. I may never even want to set foot in New Jersey again, either.

The Mockery, It begins

22. August 2009 · Comments Off on The Mockery, It begins · Categories: Domestic, General, General Nonsense, Media Matters Not, Politics, sarcasm, That's Entertainment!, The Funny, World

And it burns, it burns us, it does!

Yeah, I saw this at Protein Wisdom. In a perfect world, this would have been on Saturday Night Live. Alas, most funny and deeply sarcastic stuff is on YouTube, these days.

The Politics of Fear

18. August 2009 · Comments Off on The Politics of Fear · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Tea Time

Still – like da Blogfaddah – tracking the fall-out from the raucous and rancorous town-hall meetings about Obama-care. It kind of restores ones faith in the general good sense of the mostly-silent middle, knowing that not everyone is paying more attention to American Idol or whatever the current mainstream TV fixation is. Not everyone drank deep of the hopey-changy kool-aid last November, or listened to the siren-voices of our legacy media, who were mostly on their knees with their eyes fixed adoringly on the One. My faith in that old saw about fooling some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but not being able to fool all the people all the time is somewhat restored. Yes, indeedy – people are paying attention, getting involved in political matters and speaking up, just as we were always told to do by our high school civics teachers, and the plummy-voiced media plutocrats at NPR.

Except that what ordinary here-to-fore-uninvolved people are saying isn’t what the Administration and it’s acolytes wanted to hear, and good lord – are they screeching about that! Nazis and KKKers and haters, oh my! Nancy Pelosi looks like she bit into a breakfast taco and discovered half a cockroach in it, and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership aren’t looking any happier. Henry Waxman looks about to die of dyspepsia … say, does he sleep during the day in a sealed coffin half-filled with Transylvanian soil? Just asking – even when he smiles, he still gives me the creeps.

And the legacy media piling on, along with the leftish or Kossack side of the blogosphere, all screeching together like a chorus of howler monkeys: all those rude and inappropriately-dressed people showing up, asking disconcerting questions and getting in the face of those poor, well-intentioned overworked, innocent representatives who are selflessly only doing their best, and are too busy with their exhausting schedule to actually read the damned legislation. Of course, all those pushy people just must be racists, and organized by the health insurance companies, or the Republican Party, or Fox news, they just must be repeating the lies that Rush Limbaugh told them … really, it infuriating but mostly sad to read much of this, and to also know that the people saying it will in the next breath be congratulating themselves on being so intelligent, independent, perceptive and non-judgmental.

Like J.Lawson, who commended on my last post – and I have also tried to disabuse certain of our internet acquaintances of this kind of delusion, but to no avail. There’s this hysterical insistence that what they say must be so, and after a certain point one just kind of gives up. It’s almost as if they are angry, too angry to be reasoned with. After thinking it over a little more, and digesting comments on blogs like Belmont Club and Neo-Necon, I am thinking that a lot of this anger can be chalked up to fear.

Fear of having been made a fool of, fear of having anchored yourself with chains to a doomed piece of legislation, and to a hollow man in a good suit, fear of embarrassment at having to admit that you made a mistake, and even a good chunk of embarrassment at being outflanked by thousands of ordinary citizens using your own tactics against you. There is also fear of being made to apologize to people you have insulted and demeaned, or of having the dirty tricks you used against others being used against you and yours. And what might be the biggest fear of all, with elected officials and the legacy media who do their bidding, especially when it touches on the Tea Parties: that there is no real leader, that the Tea Party is some huge political amoeba, moving at its own pace and in it’s own time. Imagine that – no leader, to be isolated and cut down with ridicule, no central authority to be corrupted or interdicted. There is no one person or power with a collar and a choke-chain exerting control, as if anyone could control a swarm of bees! While some of us made a hobby out of being local gadflies on some issue or other, most Tea Party volunteers weren’t on anyone’s political radar – so here is this large group of people who came out of apparently nowhere, controlled by no one, and accountable only to our own conscience and set of beliefs. That has got to be as scary as hell to politicians and the commentariat who love them.

Myself, I’m having two scoops of schaudenfreude, with a sprinkling of toasted almonds, some whipped cream and a maraschino cherry on top.

The Smell of Napalm…

14. August 2009 · Comments Off on The Smell of Napalm… · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant

Which, according to the deathless line from Apocalypse Now, is loved by the speaking character because it smells of victory … and so am I detecting faint wisps of napalmy odors, now that our elected Congressional aristocrats – at least those of them who have enough nerve to hold an open forum with their constituents – are getting an earful and more from those very constituents. Oh, and the squealing and screeching from oiks like San Fran Nan, and her side-kick Harry-Palms Reid, and their whole amen-chorus in the legacy media is just too rich for words. It’s music to my ears, reading lectures on decorum and civility, the unsuitability of Nazi symbols and imagery, and the evils of –gasp – astroturfing. This from out of the mouths, pens and keyboards of the very people who cheerfully and frequently compared GWB to Hitler, called for his assassination, had no problem with screeching like a cage of howler monkeys at people they had differences with, and over and over again urged us poor ignorant sheeple to get involved, to move ahead politically, and make our voices heard. Double-standards, much?

OK, so an unexpectedly large proportion of the heretofore fairly quiescent and silent middle-of-the road constituency got up to speed, we got involved, organized ourselves and showed up at meetings, demanding answers from our elected aristocrats … and look at where that got us. We scared the ever-loving be-jesus out of a great many local pols who seem to assume they would come home during the break, whip up a quick dog-and-pony show in their home district, bloviate about health-care reform in front of a respectfully submissive audience, and go skipping back to DC having manufactured a pretty little box of consent, all tied up with a tasteful, rainbow ribbon. Whoops – talk about walking into a buzz-saw. Hey, Mr or Ms Congressperson, put town the cellphone, and talk to us – and answer the question! I think about now, most of them would rather put naked in a barrel with a dozen rabid weasels and rolled down hill than take the chance on that … especially since a lot of town-hall attendees are showing up with cameras. Which brings up the old saw about being careful what you ask for, as you may get it. And the other one, about not asking the question, if you don’t want to really hear the answer.

But there has developed somewhat of a down-side to all this. Perfectly ordinary Americans of all ages and political persuasions, exercising their rights as citizens are now are denounced and ridiculed as deranged, ignorant kooks, radical teabaggers, as closet Nazis, puppets of the health-insurance complex and I don’t know what else all, by much of the media and a lot of the so-called intellectual set. I haven’t the nerve, the stomach, or a pair of hip-waders to go venture into Kossack country, or the Huffington Post – just checking out the front page and a couple of links on Open Salon during the last couple of days was enough for me.

Yeah, I post at Open Salon; I have a good few blog-friends over there, as they are not all a raving collection of left-wingers. In fact, many of them are literate, amusing, fairly sane, are excellent and polished writers, and have the excellent good taste to appreciate my own stuff, not that I do much of the in-your-face political stuff there anyway. There was sudden flurry of “OMG-those awful teabaggers are destroying everything that’s good and fair” posts. I went into one comment thread, trying to break it gently to the author of the post that no, the Tea Party that I am associated with is all volunteer, and few of us had ever been politically active in anything much above a church council, that we are funded by donations and our own work, that it doesn’t cost that much to set up a website, or host it either, that we weren’t being directed by anyone but ourselves, or programmed by some sort of mind-control beam directed from Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. To no avail – she eventually wound up calling me clueless or a liar and closing the comment threat. I’m afraid that her mind was already made up – there was no point in confusing her with facts straight from a witness with first-hand knowledge.

So, yeah, it’s a bit insulting to be personally called names over this, but there is the light of a faint, guiding star, an Erandil, shining in the darkness – and that is, that we may be turning the tide. We might be on the verge of winning, now that so many ordinary people; old and young, working class and bourgeoisie, libertarians and former Democrats, veterans and college professors are looking at the situation, and getting pissed-off, and insulted, first by our elected aristocracy, and then by a partisan media throwing every scrap of garbage that they can. Way to win friends and influence people, President O, your administration, your friends in Congress, and your house-trained media organs – you’ve stepped right in it now. I don’t know when or how soon victory will come – but it will be sweet, and not a moment before time.

(Later … sigh … comments on this post are frelled because I put punctuation in the title. Reader JL sent the following comment to email, and I thought it so relevant, that I am pasting it in:

I’ve noticed the same thing you’ve noticed about massive, MASSIVE denial
on the left. I left some comments about what I observed at a recent
visit to an ER when my mother fell and hurt (thankfully, not fractured)
her hip – there were two people who passed through the other side of the
bay while we were there who had no insurance, but were given care.

That I wasn’t believed would be putting it very mildly. They simply
cannot believe that their view of the world may be in error – no matter
what evidence is shoved in their face. Even the existence of my mother
was called into question – and this on a ‘feminist’ blog.

(The left is kind, compassionate, and caring. It says so on the label.
Package contents may vary considerably from label descriptions.)

I wasn’t saying the right things – therefore I HAD to be lying, trying
to deceive them. But why? Why would THEY think they were so important
that someone would bother coming on the blog to try to hoax ’em?

I finally found a good description of what’s going on with some of the
more rabid left – it seems to be a combination of paranoia and
projection. Dr. Sanity (she used to work with NASA, btw) has an
interesting post on it here It’s a long one, but worth the time to read.

There has been a series of bizarre conspiracy theories emanating
from anxious leftists for the past 8+ years as they have desperately
attempted to keep the holes in their ideology plugged; and thus
preventing any **reality** from washing over them or flooding their
cognitive processes.

Every time a leak in that ideological dike appears, the
postmodern-progressive-paranoid chewing gum is brought out to plug
it up. The TNG memos were a clever plot by Karl Rove. The Bush
Administration was behind 9/11; Katrina was allowed to destroy New
Orleans because Bush hates blacks. George Bush is about to impose a
theocracy on the unsuspecting U.S. Pat Tillman was murdered because
he wanted to meet with anti-war activist Norm Chomsky. Sarah Palin
is not the mother of Trig and faked her pregnancy. The list of the
paranoid delusions goes on and on and on.

Taken as a whole, they are evidence of an ongoing and determined
refusal to face reality–because it is a reality that threatens the
belief systm of a very large section of the American population.
Without the delusions and conspiracies concocted by the always
creative political left, their whole house of Marxist cards will
come crumbling down.

Some have said that Unwillingness To Face Reality And Its
Consequences is the most serious mental illness of our time; and that is most
certainly true.

The post I referred to on the liberal blog is here – my
posting name was JLawson. I’ve tried posting a couple of other times
there, but my comments disappear in moderation. Oh well.

The left do not want to see that they’re not what they think they are,
or that their ideas aren’t as good as they believe them to be. They
prefer to believe that government’s got a whoppin’ big credit card, and
they can spend as freely as they want without ever having to pay
anything. They prefer to believe that anyone who DOESN’T believe as
they do is evil – not just wrong, or mistaken, or simply offering a
different opinion – they’re EVIL with a capital EV. And sadly, all too
many of them have made their way into our elected aristocracy – and with
their elevation to that lofty position believe that suddenly they’re
beyond their responsibilities to those who put them there.

So, like you, I’m VERY encouraged by the Tea Party phenomena. You’re
right – they ARE scared about it – and if they weren’t they wouldn’t be
trying so blasted hard to discredit them. Same thing with the town hall
meetings – you don’t go through the time and effort and expense to
coordinate and transport your people to block out folks who you think
are being ineffectual – you allocate your resources to take care of a
perceived threat – and the more resources you allocate are a significant
indication of how seriously you take the threat.

The left is scared. Of the right, to be sure – but I think also
somewhat of their own freedom. With no one to basically tell them ‘No’,
what they’re doing now, unfettered, is what they’ve wanted to do for
decades. The results are not what they were hoping, but they have no
ideas other than what they’ve dreamed of for years, so they’ll press on
no matter the cost. But people simply won’t stand by and be silent.
The left realizes they’re waking up the folks they’d rather keep asleep
– but there’s no way to stop it. All they can do is hope for the middle
and right to hit the snooze alarm one more time…

Because if we really wake up – they’re screwed as far as a social
movement goes.

Good luck, and keep up sounding the alarm!

JL

Memo: The Coming Tsunami

10. August 2009 · Comments Off on Memo: The Coming Tsunami · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Politics, Rant

To: Various
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Current Events WRT Tea Parties and Town Meetings

1 – Madam Speaker “San Fran Nan” Pelosi – The kindest way to account for seeing swastikas being carried by members of the crowds at various so-called open town meetings may be that too much botox numbs mental processes as well as facial tissue. That, or you were mixing up Nazi emblems with people who had actually fought Nazis. Or perhaps you were having flashbacks to anti-Bush demonstrations. Or that the signage compared the administration’s proposed health care plan to the Nazis. In any case, Madam, you are suffering from an irony deficiency.

2 – For Whom It May Concern – (Which seems to be much of the domestic legacy-media commentariat, as well as the current administration, and the leadership of the Democrat party) For the thousandth time, no; no one is paying any of us in the San Antonio Tea Party for our activities. Nope, not a penny. We are all volunteers, and all of us have taken time from our real jobs to educate ourselves and others, to plan and organize events and protests, and to stand on the streets with our charmingly individual and hand-made signs. There is no right-wing avatar of George Soros playing Daddy Money-Bags. And if there is, perchance, can you tell me where to file my time-sheets for my hours since about mid-March? Thanks.

3 – And Also for Whom It May Concern, Most Especially Including Janeanne Garafolo –
(Janeanne, you lying slut … sorry, flashback to SNL, back when it was funny) It is not about having a so-called black man in the white house. Frankly, the color of his skin doesn’t seem to particularly bother anyone I’ve had communication with in the last few months, either online or in the so-called real world. It’s more the content of his character, his public statements and actions, his origins in the Chicago Political Machine (than which there is probably no equal for naked corruption) the relative thinness of the resume, and the inexperience at anything but community organizing. I have to say he’s been a genius at organizing my particular community, so mad props for all that. It’s just that the community didn’t turn out to be organized in quite the way or to the degree that his administration and his starry-eyed fans probably intended. Hey, life is full of these little disappointments. (Say, Miss G. – can you wash your hair for your next media interview, and maybe put on a long-sleeved shirt? The tats and the oily locks do nothing for your appearance, and frankly, it probably revolts other people besides me.)

4 – Various Television Commentators – You know who you are, all of you sniggering over using the phrase “teabagger” in reference to Tea Party protests and events. Newsflash – doing a Beavis-And-Butt-At-A-Frat-Party on nationally broadcast news or commentary programs is not all that funny. To the grownups watching it, if any; increasingly, fewer and fewer of us are.

5 – To the Obama White House – About that email address to report “fishy” conversations and emails going around between neighbors and friends? I’d make a joke about the Fish Police, but asking citizens to inform on each other is just a tad too far. Enjoy the deluge of emails and faxes though – and I have already denounced myself. I may go back and do it a couple of times more. How much more will your server be able to handle by the time everyone gets to work on Monday is anyone’s guess, but I hope to see amusing speculation in the comment section.

6 – To the Service Employee International Union – Texas has a widely popular and widely-exercised concealed carry law, so roughing up on Texas Tea Partiers who have attracted your ire at any future events, protests and town hall meetings may have interesting consequences. No threat – just an observation.

7 – To our locally elected officials – Yes, as a matter of fact, we are having fun playing “Where’s Waldo” with y’all, in finding out where you will be holding your events, and getting out the word to your constituents … that is the ones not carefully picked by your office to attend. Look, we know all about how consent is manufactured, tastefully gift-wrapped and tied up in a pretty pink bow. You want to go back to Washington at the end of the recess and tell everyone there you had a town hall meeting with your constituents and they’re all on board with Obamacare, yessir, yessir, three bags full … but it’s fairly clear that after recent meet ‘n’greets you’d rather be stark-naked in a small room full of giant scorpions than actually meet with real, live, concerned constituents and make a calm, rational case for Obamacare. Have a fun recess – we’ll be seeing you in Washington on September 12.

Sincerely,
Sgt. Mom

PS – Are there any sane Democrats in Congress at all? Anyone who can see that insulting and dismissing at least half the electorate as unpatriotic and ill-informed is to be pouring gasoline on a bonfire, and adding a couple of buckets of C4, just to make sure? Seriously, isn’t there one sensible Democrat, standing back, shaking his head and saying, “Umm … that is so NOT a good idea.” I’d like to know his or her name – really.

Long time No Write

09. August 2009 · Comments Off on Long time No Write · Categories: General

It’s been awhile and thanks to either the continued good grace of Sgt. Mom or a lack of website maintenance, I am still able to log on. I have so much to say, but for now I present the mantra for now and the next three years.

OBAMA LIED, CAPITALISM DIED.

Radar

A Set of New Wheels

08. August 2009 · Comments Off on A Set of New Wheels · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Memoir

So it turned out to be fairly painless, finding a sensibly-priced and in good-condition automobile to replace the VEV – which served long, perhaps longer than a good few people close to me, such as my father and daughter felt altogether comfortable with, especially as the frequency of unexpected auto malfunctions leaving me stranded by the roadside had begun to increase. Well, really – I could do the math. The VEV is a 35-year old car, with better than 200,000 miles on it, about the oldest Volvo that my local garage maintained, necessary replacement parts were getting rarer and harder to find – jeeze, even finding a replacement light bulb for the side running light at Riley’s or AutoZone was a flat impossibility, thank god I had a very aged packet of them buried in the bottom of the glove-box. So I considered that the VEV had crossed over the line from “reliable, comfortable, daily transportation” into the category of “classic automobile, carefully maintained and occasionally taken out to drive short distances mostly to show off its very special classic-ness”. Alas, not being well-paid enough from book royalties to keep and maintain that sort of car, it was time (well past time, to hear my daughter Blondie tell it) to move on. I put the VEV on EBay, where it has excited some interest and an acceptable bid from a buyer … and last week I consulted Craigslist and went the rounds of some private sellers, a couple of used car lots and finally wound up with a well-kept 1990 Acura sedan, henceforth to be called the GG, or the Golden Ghost. It has had only one owner, has much lower mileage than would be expected, was top-of-the-line when new, and everything – including the AC works very well, thank you. I don’t think I’ll ever have an entirely new car of any sort, but a 1990 is a considerable of an improvement on a 1974.

The St.Christopher ikon, which the last owner’s wife glued to the dashboard of the VEV, to keep it safe on the roads in Greece (and over all those miles ever since) has been transferred to the Acura, and with luck, the VEV’s new caretaker will be coming to collect it sometime this weekend.

(Comments still frelled … just send an email to me, if you are moved to comment on this once-every two decade phenomenon of me, getting a newer car.)

Talking About Revolution…

06. August 2009 · Comments Off on Talking About Revolution… · Categories: Domestic, Fun and Games, General, Politics, Rant, Working In A Salt Mine...

Really, the title of this ought to be “talkin’ ‘bout revolution” but WP does not handle apostrophes or any other weird punctuation in titles for posts. It tends to frell comments, but comments are frelled anyway, but against the moment-hour-day when they are unfrelled… old habits.

Anyway – my point, and I do have a couple – is that a certain shake-up to the established order of several things has been in progress over the last couple of weeks. And having had some small part in bringing a tiny corner of it to pass, I have to say that I am sorta thrilled. And relieved, and reassured … and laughing my ass off at the reaction to the Obama-as-Joker poster. I first saw it early this week, and called in Blondie to have a look: it was disturbing, subversive, and very much to the point, which is good, and going viral, which is even better, because it has tapped into a rich vein of untapped derision for our very own “Dear Leader”. It’s not the first crack in the perfect façade, but it’s the breakout one … and watching the very same people and publications who thought it was just jake to have GW Bush parodied as an ape, a vampire or a NAZI melt-down in hysterics is absolutely rich. As in two-scoops of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey with some whipped cream and a maraschino cherry on top rich. Talk about an intellectual glass jaw, and people who can dish it out but can’t take it. Not everyone adores the Dear Leader, people – adjust. Let the derision flow, freely. It’s good for the body politic, and for the last eight years weren’t these the same people claiming that dissent was patriotic?

So, the town-meetings held in their home districts by our resident congress-critters are meeting with … shall we say, a somewhat less than cordial reception? That almost universally, the congress-critters are meeting up with constituents who are angry, frustrated and have a mind – as citizens of a free republic – to voice their opinions instead of having said opinion manufactured by so-called public interest groups and lobbyists. And that the congress-critters are having their feewings hurt, by people yelling at them for not reading the damn bill, or the stimulus bill before it. OK, all with me, and all together: Awwww! Tough titty, said the kitty. Deal with it, congress-critters. Remember, we hired you, through elections to work for our best interests, and we actually might have a strong opinion on what that best interest is. Don’t let Washington and the life of privilege inside the Beltway go to your head.

Apparently, some of the brighter sparks in the Democrat Party establishment (Ooops, almost called them the House of Lords!) are sure that everyone protesting current administrations dictates and policies must be hirelings of some anti-national health-care org, or maybe the Republican party, or some malevolent right-winger mirror image of George Soros, or someone. If this is true, can they tell me where and to whom I should turn in my time sheets for work performed over the last five months? And should I charge varying rates for general secretarial work, as I would for drafting news releases, doing radio interviews, and standing on the sidewalk, holding a sign in front of a senator’s office. Can I also charge for prep-time, for TV interviews? What about hastily cleaning up dog-poop in my garden, so that KENS-5 can do a quick stand-up interview? Does that count? Maybe I should have hired someone else to do that, and spread around the wealth a little bit? Let me know, in any case

Finally, a commenter over at the Belmont Club pointed out that maybe it is time for a middle class revolution – our natural elites, of the upper classes in everything – appear to have abandoned everything but the appearance of a democratic republic. Our so-called leaders are happily looking forward to being the oligarchs, feudal nobility, or nomenklatura in whatever would come next, secure in their superiority and their natural ability to rule. Nothing would appear to excite them more than am ability to discipline and silence those uppity lower-classes, that rabble who have the nerve to think they can run their own lives, when really … they didn’t go to the elite schools, know the right people, speak with the correct upper-class accent and mouth the politically-correct verities. It’s up to the remains of the middle class to do it – the poorer are already choke-chained and leashed, with the necessity of earning some kind of living, or by whichever power which controls whatever subsidies they receive. It’s left to us, while we still can, before the serf’s collar is riveted around our necks, and we are no longer free citizens, controlling our own lives and our own property; but rather a species of two-legged, talking sheep, to be sheered whenever the rulers feel the need to pass another subsidy to a well-connected member of it’s own class.

Nightvark

04. August 2009 · Comments Off on Nightvark · Categories: General

Aardvark

Via.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

L’Affaire Gates

03. August 2009 · Comments Off on L’Affaire Gates · Categories: Ain't That America?, Fun and Games, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, World

Well, now that all the gourmet beer has been drunk and all the initial dust has settled, I guess it may be OK for me to venture out of hiding, and as a person of decided pallor, to venture some kind of opinion. May as well, since darned near every other sentient being has, in the last week or so. Kind of comic, watching a distinguished and famous gentleman and possessor of skin of a year-round dark-tan color, as well as a professorship at a prestigious university – and boasting the instant and unreserved support of everyone from the chief of police of his fair city to the President of the US – carrying on as if he was a 1960’s Civil Rights marcher being whomped on by Bull Connor’s cops. So amusing, watching a grown man acting like a wanna-be street badass picking a fight, in the total assurance that the person he is picking the fight with won’t actually dare respond.

And the fact that the policeman in question – like me, a person of pallor, and probably a veteran of forty years’ worth of indoctrinating lectures on tolerance and diversity, and respect, and judging others by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin – behaved professionally throughout, and moreover seems to have the trust, and respect of his colleagues in the force … well, that’s pretty damn amusing, too. Thank god one of the participants in this little fandango acted like a mature, well-adjusted and responsible grownup.

Kind of puts the cherry on the top of the whipped cream on the sundae, how we were going to be all cool and post-racial, once a man who – if you kinda tilted your head sideways, squinted and used some imagination – could reasonably call black … Black with a capitol B, that is. Who is actually the son of a Kenyan bigamist, and a seriously mixed-up white anthropology student, who was raised by white grandparents in Hawaii, and educated at an upper-crust private school and a secession of equally upper-crust universities. He seems to have magically and effortlessly floated up to higher and higher levels in academia, local and national politics, without any exhibiting any notable talents or specific skills, other than that of standing there and looking gorgeous. No, it is perplexing, and the apotheosis of Barry O. brings to mind the crack made about a relatively undistinguished 19th century British politician: “Canning in office is like a fly in amber. Nobody cares about the fly: the only question is “How the hell did he get there?”

No, the current resident of 1600 Pensylvania Avenue is not by any means straight outta Compton, although he has been taken quite to the hearts of many who are, or wish they were, or hoped that other people would think them so. Basically, Ms Dunham-Obama-Soetero’s little boy Barry has the unqualified, unquestioning and enthusiastic support of 97% of that segment of the American public defined as black or Afro-American, or whatever the hell the current racial designator is. And that may be the soil from which the poisoned tree grows, and where the problem begins, when considering L’Affaire Gates. I can’t say it’s never been a problem for elected officials who came out of various ethnic minority groups, to think of the welfare of their own groups first, and then of the wider constituency . Human nature works that way; mostly you are drawn to, and have much more in common with people who have the same background, the same values and pretty much the same experiences. But in the military I know – and in politics I would hope – that in order to best serve the nation, it is one’s duty to transcend that. It’s been a given in the military for at least the last three decades and more, that there is no black or brown, or yellow or white – there is just Army green, Air Force blue, Navy/Marine whatever. It has to be that way for the military, and it may come to having to be that way for our presidents, legislators and judiciary.
See, there are people who do a job, and do it either well or not so well, and who just incidentally are black, or Hispanic or whatever. Whatever their color or ethnicity is … it’s just an aspect of them, not at the center of their being. Where you get into dangerous waters is when this particular aspect is at the center of all, for certain politicians and activists. That’s the core of their character, the center of their self-image, it’s bread and butter, meat and drink – they could no more set aside that aspect than they could chop off a limb or two. A long time ago, when Jesse Jackson wasn’t half the philandering self-parody that he appears to be today, he conceived the bright idea to run for higher office than just all around racial busy-body. And I thought at the time – no, it would never work.

He is Black, with a capitol B, not black with a small-b, like then-Los Angeles Mayor (and former police officer turned lawyer) Tom Bradley. Say whatever you liked about Mayor Bradley, he was a serious and dedicated public official, who went on transcending color for what seemed like forever. You could picture him campaigning for office anywhere, with anyone, while I couldn’t really picture Jesse Jackson kissing white babies with any particular enthusiasm. I think that during the 2008 presidential campaign, that a lot of people – of all races but mostly white – rather hoped that Obama would prove to be an Tom Bradley … and not another professional race-hustling Black-with-a-capital-B-what’s-in-it-for-me-and-mine-sleaze-bag like Al Sharpton.
And that’s the unintended fallout from L’Affaire Gates, you see; that increasing numbers of people of pallor who gave the President the benefit of the doubt, or who just hoped against instinct for the best, are now looking him over and thinking … Nope, just another Al Sharpton, just another racial huckster with a smoother manner, a glossier education, slicker friends and a much more expert tailor. And I have detected fearful speculation here and there in the small tidepools at the edge of the great sea that is the blogosphere, that if the Yes We Can-man really, really karks up the office of the POTUS and by extension the rest of the United States – our economy, our medical care, our employment and subsequent electoral and judicial processes, it will be a cold day in hell before another person of color of his particular perceived ilk, either with a capital B or without, would ever be considered. No, very few people will ever be so crude and racist to come out and say so, up front – we’ve all had thirty years of lectures on that very subject from the properly accredited diversity experts on what is acceptable to say and do WRT to race, in the arena outside of our own thoughts and our private circles. Nope – it would never be overt, in public and out there. But I know the thought is out there. And I also know the threat of being called a racist for saying so is getting pretty damn hollow.
And here’s another uncomfortable thought – if the Black with a capital-B, post-racial, Yes-We-Can-man goes down, who goes down with him? Legacy media? Possibly, unless they can shift gears fast enough. And the Black-with-a-capital B support system, all those celebrities, activists, intellectuals like the thin-skinned Professor Gates? All of those who cling to solidarity with someone whose skin-color is somewhat like theirs, regardless of the content of character, or the results of his policies? That is an interesting thought, isn’t it?

(Comments seem to be frelled at the moment – but have a go. If you can’t post comments send me an email, and I’ll post them at the bottom of this post.)

Later – Comments still hosed: Danny H. sent me the following comment – Hiya Sarge. comments seem to be hosed so just wanted to let you know that was some great commentary. Thanks

Time for Letting Go

29. July 2009 · Comments Off on Time for Letting Go · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Local, Memoir

So, it’s come down to this – I have to let go of the Very Elderly Volvo, AKA “The Pumpkin” which I bought from another NCO at EBS-Hellenikon early in 1982. It is a 1975 242 Volvo two-door sedan, which I drove all over Greece and Spain, across Europe and up and down the IH-15 between Southern California and Utah too many times to count, to Albuquerque and back, and from San Diego to San Antonio when we first came to Texas. I’ve had it fixed in five European countries and four Western states, but it is now at the end of it’s reliable life. There are two many little things wrong with it now, things that make it harder to drive, things that I can’t afford to fix, and every essay out of the neighborhood with it was a nerve-wracking experience, both for me, and for Blondie waiting nervously at home. Eventually, and as my daughter repeated pointed out, the likelihood that the VEV would break down in a bad spot, resulting in a degree of personal danger to me had increased dramatically. People had always been kind and helpful, during these incidents, but I really couldn’t go on trusting in Providence and the kindness of strangers for much longer. This had the result of limiting driving the VEV to within city limits – no long road trips, and then to within the radius of a AAA tow to my favored garage. This orbit gradually narrowed – only to the Hellhole job and back, and then one night I had an awful time getting it started. I began borrowing Blondie’s Montero for trips to work, and finally just left the VEV in the driveway, not even risking driving it within the neighborhood. And that essentially negates the whole purpose of having a car, never daring to take it out of the driveway. I had hoped that by this time I might be able to afford to have it rehabbed and made mechanically reliable – and although sales of both Adelsverein and To Truckee’s Trail are gratifyingly steady, neither of them are nowhere near #1 on Amazon.com (More like #100,000, give or take a couple of thousand – nice, but nothing enabling me to quit one of the day jobs.)

So, we’re going to put it up for sale, with the trunkful of spare parts included, in hopes of attracting the interest of someone with a mad passion for re-habbing classic Volvo sedans. I know they are out there, and it may take a bit, with the combined mighty second-hand sales organs of E-Bay and Craigslist. Knowing that Blondie and I were essentially sharing one car, and that our schedules would be completely incompatible, once she goes back to school this fall, Dad offered to straight-up buy me a car last weekend. He specified a budget that he was OK with, and suggested a 90’s Honda Accord with about 150,000 miles on it, as being tops for ease of maintenance and reliability, and old enough to be affordable. So, over the last two days, I ran a fine-toothed comb over all the Craigslist ads in San Antonio offering Honda Accords, and made the discouraging discovery that Dad’s target sales price of $2,000 pretty much limited to me to something not much more reliable than the VEV, and anything less than that was truly a beater. $5,000 seemed to be the going rate for what I really needed, and one dealer advised us that if I located any Accords on the market in decent condition and in good repair for less than that, to jump on it at once. We had actually found one – owned by an elderly lady who’s son was selling it, as she was unable to drive any more. It had high mileage, and needed a new compressor, but was in excellent condition otherwise, and had only the one owner – but as the car dealer had warned, that sold twenty minutes before we were to take a look at it.
Dad and I have settled on a low-mileage 91’ Acura sedan, at a price of a little less than $3,000, through the good offices of a dealer on O’Connor Road. Why we had to drive all over town, before finding the perfect car a mere hop-skip-and-jump from the house is just another one of the ironies. It’s sort of a pale gold color, was high-end with all the bells and whistles when new, the interior features buff-colored leather upholstery (somewhat worn, admittedly) and the exterior is pristine – no dings, dents or scratches. It seems to have had only one owner, who took excellent care of it. I test-drove it yesterday – it has a very smooth ride, turns on a dime, feels much more solid, and the AC works, too.

So, I shall have it by the end of the week, most likely – and perhaps I will feel better about emptying out all the stuff on the VEV – the maps in the glove-box, the odd things in the trunk, washing off the dust and the bird-crap, and taking some pictures of it to appeal to the auto-restorer who will – with luck, decide that he or she wants it for their next project.

Time for letting go. Of everything about the VEV, but the Greek medallion of St. Christopher on the dashboard, which the Greek wife of the guy I bought it from all this time ago stuck there. That goes onto the Acura – it did a good job for thirty years, and should be good for thirty more.

A mad world

27. July 2009 · Comments Off on A mad world · Categories: General

A MAD MAD MAD MAD world.

Recently, Hillary Clinton stated that–should Iran obtain nuclear weapons–we will protect countries in the region by including them under a “defense umbrella.” What does she mean by a defense umbrella?…given this administration’s hostility to antimissile technology, it should be pretty clear that she does not mean a comprehensive missile defense system. Rather, she means that the U.S. will retaliate against Iran with nuclear weapons should it launch a nuclear weapon at any of the protected countries. (During her Presidential campaign, Ms Clinton spoke of “massive retaliation” by the U.S. against Iran should that country attack Israel with nuclear weapons.)

The finest minds of our generation – to contain a second-rate [1] power – are unable to come up with a strategy other than “incinerate each other’s civilians“.

And to go on to beat this sucker into the ground – can anyone see the Current Occupant [2] trading Chicago for Az Zarqa?

Tip o’ the hat for the title.

[1] Second-rate in technical terms, not pejorative.
[2] Whoever it is.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

What Sgt. Mom Did on Her Summer Holiday

27. July 2009 · Comments Off on What Sgt. Mom Did on Her Summer Holiday · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Literary Good Stuff, Working In A Salt Mine...

I went on a road trip to Fredericksburg on Thursday afternoon. It’s about an hour and a bit, driving north on IH-10 as far as Comfort, and then another jaunt down a side road up and downhill to Fredericksburg. A lot of Main Street is pretty much tourist attraction – and local residents laughingly confess that they try and avoid Main Street on weekends – and in fact, all the shops that they personally shop at are anywhere else than Main Street, or at least, that stretch of it for about four blocks either side of the Marketplatz. I have noticed that the only mercantile establishment stocking items that ordinary, non-tourist shoppers might have a need for is the old 5 & 10. Which didn’t have AA batteries – but that’s a minor point. My daughter’s camera did have enough juice for Thursday afternoon and evening, when I had a signing at the Pioneer Museum. This would be the second event that Richard Bristol, the director, has set up for me – the first being in January, when I had just launched the Adelsverein Trilogy. Although two of his ancestors (one on the paternal, and another on the maternal side) are mentioned in the Trilogy – he still hasn’t had the time to read it. He is taking his own copies of the Trilogy on his vacation, a cruise to Alaska, and plans to read all three books then. When he has time. A museum director’s job is never done. Blondie tried to talk him into adopting Rossi, one of our resident rescued cats, who- from the way he makes nice to male visitors – was a man’s cat. No luck – but we’re kind of fond of Rossi, anyway.

The museum volunteers’ dinner was in the old Methodist Church parish hall: the Historical Society offices are in the facility – and the sanctuary is now available for weddings. Otherwise, it’s all part of the Pioneer Museum grounds. I’ve done a talk there before – and it’s a church parish hall, which is the sort of place which is comfortable and familiar to me. There were about fifty people there; much the largest crowd I’ve given a book talk to. Dinner was terrifically good – catered by a local small firm: Blondie wishes she had the chutney recipe for the grilled pork skewers. I asked one of the ladies to take me around and introduce me to everyone: one of the awkward things about this ‘guest author/stranger’ things is that people are hesitant to come up and talk to you: so best ask someone else to take you around and break the ice. It turns out that about half the people present had read the Trilogy – which was wonderful for me, since most of them liked it very much. Kenn Knopp, who is a local historian and member of the Historical Society – and had read the Trilogy in manuscript – did an introduction. I had been referred to him by David and Jenny at Berkman Books, yea these many months ago, as the local history expert. I was nervous about the Civil War portion of the Trilogy, and wanted to have someone who was pretty much immersed in local history, have a read-through. He confessed at first that he was pretty unenthused about the whole prospect of reading a MS by a relatively unknown author – and moreover, one that ran to about the same word-count as Lord of the Rings – but he was won over within a very short time. After my father, Kenn is about my biggest fan; he is sure that I was inspired and guided by something divine – I insist that if anything, I was guided by the San Antonio Public Library, which provided me on loan with about every book I needed for research purposes.

And we spent that night at a wonderful local bed and breakfast, thanks to the hospitality of the owners. It’s out in the country a little away from Fredericksburg – and that evening we looked out at a little scrub-wood covered valley while sitting on the porch, enjoying a tasty adult beverage. The B & B was actually a little self-contained cottage, with a bedroom, and well-stocked little kitchen and full bath.

And then we were off for a full day of sightseeing. We checked out a parish rummage sale, where my daughter rejoiced that she was finally able to afford to buy antiques in Fredericksburg. (She spent a whole $2.00 at the rummage sale in the parish hall of St. Mary’s Catholic Church) and I regretted that I couldn’t afford to go much higher than $30 on a silent auction for an antique low-post bed. But we did talk up it’s many fine details to another woman – hand-made, the footboard and headboard were elaborately curved and out of a single wide plank, and it really wouldn’t cost all that much for slats to rest a mattress on, and to have a futon-mattress made in 3/4 size. I think we talked her into it, for it was a very nice bed, and she would give it a good home.

Then we went off for a tour of a local cemetery, and the old and new St. Mary’s church buildings. The old St. Mary’s was finished during the Civil War – a sort of agreeable, unadorned neo-Gothic building. No one can put a name to the architect, or even if there was one. Apparently, the parishioners just picked up their tools and built it. The new St.Mary’s is right next door. The newer building is still 100 years old, and beautifully painted – IIRC the inscription over center arch, with Christ enthroned, means “I am the bread of life”. The windows are all stained glass, and very ornate. Strictly speaking, the windows are not really stained glass, with every separate color cut out of a pice of colored glass and pieced together with lead canes – this is glass which is painted in small panels and then assembled together. My mother informs me that this is nearly as difficult as true stained glass. This is the kind of church glass that I knew from growing up. Very nice to look at, during very long and dull sermons.

We were treated to lunch at the Peach Tree… and by late afternoon, the dreaded author’s table for the book event at Berkman Books was calling. But the signing worked out very well, for there were other authors there to talk to, and a constant stream of shoppers in and out of Berkman Books. (They’re having a sale, BTW.) One of my nicest conversations was with a nice gentleman who read the Trilogy on loan from the Harper Library, on the recommendation of the librarian – and he liked it so much, he wanted his own copies. Yes!

And, as expected, my daughter made friends with Emily the Berkman Books cat… all in all, a nice experience. About the only thing they didn’t do for me was a key to the city!

Baiting the Humorless

26. July 2009 · Comments Off on Baiting the Humorless · Categories: Fun and Games, Fun With Islam, General, Israel & Palestine, That's Entertainment!, The Funny

Oh, man – there are some people who just cannot take being laughed at, as richly as they deserve it. Kudos for Sacha Baron Cohen, for having a brass pair … tastefully trimmed with some fashionable and expensive designer-something-or-other, I am sure.

Road Trip!

23. July 2009 · Comments Off on Road Trip! · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Literary Good Stuff, Working In A Salt Mine...

Off to Fredericksburg, in another two hours, as soon as I finish packing, water the plants, put out food for the dogs, put out food for the cats, post one last book review, make the bed, clean up the cat-puke, draft a Tea Party mass-email and print up some more marketing material for the Adelsverein Trilogy…

Event at the Pioneer Museum this afternoon – book signing. Tonight, speaking at the Museum Volunteer’s dinner. Tomorrow, a joint IAG author event at Berkman Books, all the way down at the other end of Main.

(Must remember camera….)

Those cards at Vanity Fair are so, so, witty

22. July 2009 · Comments Off on Those cards at Vanity Fair are so, so, witty · Categories: General

Oh well played, Vanity Fair: a man’s job.

If you watched Sarah Palin’s resignation speech, you know one thing: her high-priced speechwriters moved back to the Beltway long ago. Just how poorly constructed was the governor’s holiday-weekend address? We asked V.F.’s red-pencil-wielding executive literary editor, Wayne Lawson, together with representatives from the research and copy departments, to whip it into publishable shape.

VF got their mitts on a speech designed to be listened to, edited that sucker to be read.  Had the girls from research green-ink a few phrases.  Copy-edited a transcript written by a third party.

You sure showed them who is the ignorant yahoo.

By ‘them’ I mean the suckers who subscribe to Vanity Fair and by ‘yahoo’ I mean the editor who green-lighted that feature. 

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

All the News

18. July 2009 · Comments Off on All the News · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Media Matters Not, Politics, Rant, Tea Time

… that’s fit to ignore in the desperate hope that it will go away. So here there was a big Tea Party push on yesterday, to have moderate numbers of Tea Party protesters show up in the street at the local offices of every elected federal official in the land at around midday. Not an inconsiderable effort, considering that it was nationwide, in the middle of a working day, and that most of the people making that effort – at least those of us in San Antonio – have day jobs. Perhaps the hours are flexible, or maybe not – but we all have day jobs. And there were no less than five offices in Greater San Antonio to cover, but we had enough people to send to every one, no need to make a progressive protest from one to one to another. Me, I went to Charlie Gonzalez’ office, in the Federal Building on Durango; it’s my second protest there. At this rate, the policemen routinely on duty there are getting to be old pals with the Tea Partiers. I met about thirty other people there, nice assortment of ages, good mixture of Anglo and Hispanic, including one lady who came with her sister, visiting from out of town who wanted to get in on the Party, and her school-aged daughter. She abominates Charlie Gonzalez, by the way – she has communicated quite often with his office, and received nothing for her pains but mealy-mouthed evasion in print.

So, gather with the flags and signs, stay on the sidewalk and in the shade as much as possible, the guy who organized it had thought to bring a cooler with ice and individual water bottles, and five of us went in to present our petition and a list of questions to the staff in his office. The good Congress-critter was not there, of course. I have to say that although his staff really couldn’t answer any of the questions – the office-manager elected to deal with us had that barely-veiled panicky expression of someone without any real authority or guidance shoved out in front to deal with an unexpected development, and kept referring us to his Washington staff for answers. They were at least courteous and polite. We were not received as the Tea Partiers in St. Louis, where Senator Claire McCaskill’s office staff rolled down the blinds, locked the doors and called the cops — way to treat constituents, people.

(I guaran-damn-tee that every one of those people, their family members, friends and neighbors will remember how they were treated, when election time rolls around, Senator. Word to the wise, and better have a nice sit-down come-to-Jesus talk with your office staff, too)

We fielded about the same numbers to the other federally elected official’s offices in San Antonio– that of John Cornyn, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Ciro Rogriguez and Henry Cuellar. From a quick scan of reports and updates on Da Blogfaddah, that looks about par, for protests all across the countryside; mainstream big media news is absent – bizarrely so, considering the cumulative numbers of people, and the numbers of events. Last night, elements of the SA Tea Party was burning up the e-mail, trying to figure out why there was no coverage; not at any one of our events. Nada, zip, zilch, although I had sent out three different releases over the three days before the protest: I know that they were received, and I know that we have gotten coverage before; I had a call from the Spanish-language channel, Univision almost immediately, and someone from KENS 5 called on Thursday morning, who didn’t leave a message and never called back. Perhaps this reporter – about the only newspaper reporter I could find through the miracle of google might have the right explanation of this curious turn of events.

Or, on the other hand, it could be one of those untouchable things like the l’affaire Swiftboat, of the 2004 Presidential campaign, when John Kerry’s wartime Navy comrades all emerged, almost to a man portraying him as the Frank Burns/Eddie Haskell of the Vietnam era Navy Swiftboat service. That was all over the internet, all over the milblogs, and a matter of most lively discussion, barely a word of which emerged into the mainstream print and broadcast media for months.

Still – exasperating to contemplate: simultaneous grass-roots rallies of ordinary and normally non-activist citizens, all across the country – and nary a word in the traditional media. But let ACORN or Moveon.org belch heavily … and like a cheap plaid suit, the camera crews are all over them instanter.

Thursday Random Assortment

16. July 2009 · Comments Off on Thursday Random Assortment · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Media Matters Not, Military, Politics

(Insert ritual apology for apparent disinterest in providing rich bloggy ice-creamy goodness in the way of posts in the last week. Sorry, blog-fans, beat to a crisp, and not for lack of material. Just … well, beat to a crisp and the necessity of earning a living, mixed in with a greater-than-expected number of duties post 4th of July Tea Party…)

Well, I deduce that the income stream for the Southern Poverty Law Center must be drying up, so a new money well must be drilled, somewhere. Dammit, folks, there must be a rich vein of rampaging white bigots somewhere that we can raise a fresh alarm about! Don’t you people realize, we have offices to support, and salaries to be paid! So after much ado, they find no less than forty saddoes on a white-power website who claim to be members of the US military … well, leaving aside the fact that people on the internet can claim any damned thing they like, forty out of what… something like two million active duty and reservists, doesn’t seem like a threat worthy of a whole new massive fund-drive. Now, if Mr. Dees would like to drill farther down, in his mad search for racial extremists who just happen to be members of the military, and consider members of – oh, I don’t know, La Raza and the Black Muslims spring to mind; he might then find numbers worthy of a full-court-press as far as fund-raising goes. Or maybe not – the military has a way of kicking a lot of racist attitudes out of individuals, a peculiar capability of which Mr. Dees seems to be fairly ignorant.

Speaking of the military, now there’s a push on to ban smoking entirely? Hey, good luck with that. Note – I do not smoke, never did smoke, was never event empted to smoke and the smell of it drives me mad, but seriously, are these nanny-state types picking on G.I. Joe and G.I. Jane just because they can? Ohhh, here’s a captive element we can screw around with for their own good, and because it makes us feel well in control of lesser mortals.

Sarah Palin, resigning from the governorship of Alaska … I dunno, but I don’t think she should be written off as a dead duck, just yet. She drives the elite political/media establishment seriously nucking futz, which is good for the rest of us, pointing and laughing at their spasms of incoherent temper. Leading the Tea Party insurgency? Eh – I don’t think it’s a good idea to pin our homes on one person, one shining leader on a white horse out in front. Seriously, they’re too good a target. I like better the idea of a thousand anonymous leaders, all moving in more or less the same direction. Relentless, swift-moving and unstoppable, too many for the usual media attack machine to concentrate fire upon: We are all Spartacus. No one holds a leash on us, we are beholden to no political combine, the usual political observers have never heard of us in a meaningful way until now. Spartacus – that’s the way to go.

Oh, and if anyone has read the Adelsverein Trilogy, and loved it, can you post a review on Amazon.com? Pretty please? Reviews – even just short ones – generate interest, which generates sales, which move me closer the day that I can quit the hell-hole. (And spend more time working on the next book!) Thanks!

Life is Good….

15. July 2009 · Comments Off on Life is Good…. · Categories: Domestic, General

It’s 3pm on a weekday afternoon, a balmy 85-ish Farenheit here in the Hotlanta area, and as I sit here attending a webinar on my computer, I’m watching the birds exploring my back yard, and the dogs sleeping beside my chair.

I love being able to work from home, for the most part, and even though it’s a little muggy out here on the back porch, it’s not often I can indulge myself this way. It just happens that I’m attending today, instead of facilitating, so I don’t have to worry about extraneous noise going out over the audio channel.

Yeah, I have to listen to the sound of a neighbor’s lawn mower or weed-eater, but that *just* kicked in – for the most part, it’s been very quiet out here this afternoon.

Every now and again, a juvenile ruby-throat hummingbird will visit my feeder – it brightens my heart every time he shows up. In my 8 years in Georgia, this is the first time a hummer has deigned to accept my sugar-water. Unfortunately, the pictures I’ve taken are poor-quality – I’m taking them from the back porch, through the screen.

hummer

Earlier this summer, I got to watch the young bluebirds leave their house for the first time – the other day, I got to watch a couple young bluebirds thoroughly enjoying my home-made birdbath. I stacked several terra-cotta flowerpots upside down on each other, and glued a saucer to the top of it. The bluebirds were DELIGHTED. Again, that’s not something it’s been my pleasure to see before.

birdbath

Not a day goes by that I don’t think of the previous owners of my house, and silently thank them for the screened-in back porch (complete with ceiling fan). I spend a couple hours out here each morning, with my coffee and either a book or a notepad. Friends who are accustomed to only receiving emails from me have been astounded to find hand-written letters in their snail-mailboxes.

Most of the letters have been long and involved, detailed descriptions of the changes I’ve made to my yard since buying this house in February. I’ve been living here for almost 2 years now, on a lease-purchase agreement, so I’ve had plenty of time to plan yard changes.

Since late March, I’ve planted 10 trees (8 are still doing very well), probably two dozen shrubs of various types, and uncounted seeds. My little Mantis Tiller and I have created a “wildlife garden” that is around 1000 sq ft in size. I’m trying to plant things there that will appeal to our native birds, hummingbirds, butterflies, and other critters. The butterflies haven’t shown much interest yet, but the birds seem to be loving it.

I had a Bradford Pear next to the house when I moved in – it was near the end of its lifespan in fall 2007, and gave up the ghost about 3 weeks ago. So for now, I’ve scattered sunflower seeds where it used to stand, and I’ll give myself until fall to decide on a replacement for it.

My focus is on native, non-invasive plants, that will look nice for the neighbors, and provide homes/food/shelter for the local critters. I have red-bellied woodpeckers living in the sweetgum tree in my backyard, cooper and red-shoulder hawks in the vicinity, and last spring I saw a pileated woodpecker in the trees behind my back fence.

My lot is just under an acre, mostly lawn, but there’s a bit at the back behind the fence that is still the original woodlands. I have 2 neighbors who share that wooded section, and we all do our best to just leave it alone, and let it be the critter-haven that it needs to be. Critters have a hard time in today’s urban environment — I’m delighted to share my little bit of Georgia with them.

I’m watching it rain, now – the hard, fast thunderstorms of a humid summer afternoon. And as I sit here looking for a gracefull summation of this stream of consciousness post, a way to tie the thoughts together in a coherent ending, all that comes to mind is a Louie Armstrong song:

“And I think to myself… .what a wonderful world.”

Indeed it is, Satchmo, indeed it is.

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