Crescendo for the Writers Life Waltz

20. July 2007 · Comments Off on Crescendo for the Writers Life Waltz · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Site News, That's Entertainment!, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

Just a quick update on the current book, scribbled between slaving over a hot computer, a couple of job assignments, and mundane things like… oh, I don’t know, cooking meals? Taking the dogs out for a walk. (Er, drag-around-the-block. They. Drag. Me. Just to make that point absolutely clear.)

The text is uploaded to the printers, and the cover is finished and approved… it has all taken nearly two weeks to accomplish this; much longer than I expected. I hope this might be some kind of indication that business is absolutely booming with the POD houses. I was clawing the walls with impatience all this week, but the cover is well worth the wait, thanks to B. Durbin’s very generous offer to let me use one of her photos of the Truckee River. (Appropriate credit is given, natch!)

So, once I have a hard copy in my hot little hands, and approve the whole thing, “To Truckee’s Trail” will be in the booklocker.com catalogue, all 272 pages and eighteen long chapters (with notes!) of it; a gripping read of adventure and discovery along the 19th century emigrant trail to California. I’ll be doing some more marketing, and scrounging for reviews and ad space here and there, and generally trying to sell a good few copies of it. At the very least, I can claim to write fewer clunky sentences per chapter than Dan Brown, of “The DaVinci Code” fame! (That blasted book was unreadable, to me… I kept tripping and falling headlong over sentences that sounded like entries in the current Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest!)

And I’ll be scribbling away on the Adelsverein saga, or “Barsetshire with Cypress Trees and a Lot of Sidearms”. Going by my latest chapter outline revision I’m about halfway through volume two, although as complications and side-stories develop, this is guaranteed to expand to epic proportions, so to say. There are just so many interesting people, and fascinating scenes, dramatic and historic events; a kid in a candy store has nothing on me! Of course, I can’t help writing about them, I tell stories, it’s what I am driven to do. I just completed a tension-filled account of the local Confederate provost-marshal’s men searching a house for a draft-evader… on Christmas Eve… the searchers being unaware that the man they are looking for is dressed as Father Christmas. (In the parlor, with his family… and everyone who knows what is going on is frantically pretending that nothing is the least bit out of place.)

But three volumes of about twenty chapters each… and my chapters seem to clock in at 6,500 to 7,000 words each… that will mean 400,000 words.

So, back to slaving over the hot computer keyboard…

Later: Just realized upon consulting the archives, that today is exactly one year to the date that I was fired from (Boring Corporate Entity Inserted Here) and decided to try for that “best-selling writer brass-ring-thingy”! With the very book that is about to be launched upon a hopefully breathlessly-anticipating world. So, I have way to go to beat out that Harry Potter book… still, funny old world, innt it?

I Love the Smell of Bovine Excreta in the Morning

20. July 2007 · Comments Off on I Love the Smell of Bovine Excreta in the Morning · Categories: Cry Wolf, General, GWOT, Iraq, Rant, sarcasm, War

I am following the latest milblog kerfuffle-du-jour with mild and expectant interest, and with absolute confidence that Mr. Foer of the New Republic was sold a bill of tainted goods as regards the charming reminiscences of one “Scott Thomas” and his service in Iraq. There is such a whiff of improbability about elements in the “Shock Troops” story, as if they were all proceeded by the statement, “No s**t, this really happened to this dude that this other guy told me about”!

But… severely burned and maimed woman survivor of an IED explosion being driven out of the dining facility by crude mockery? (And no one remembers this woman, or the incident, or stepped in to stop it?) Never mind about what she was still doing at a forward base… or who she was. Nine out of ten, any woman tough enough to hang with the military long-time, as a service member or contractor is tough enough to not only kick ass but to serve said ass up on a silver salver with a tasteful sliver of carved tomato and a spring of parsley.

A soldier wearing a decaying child’s skull on top of his head… presumably under his cover or Kevlar for a considerable period? Taken from a mass grave that no one else ever heard about? And no one else notices… let alone comments on the smell? I’ve been out in the hills and encountered dead animals enough to know that decomposing flesh has a particularly memorable and piercing reek. No mention is made in “Scott Thomas” story of other soldiers barfing up their socks at encountering it full-strength and at length..

And a Bradley driver making a sport of running down dogs. Wary, fast-running street dogs. With a very noisy, slow-moving tracked vehicle, which affords limited driver vision and not much maneuverability. In an environment were anything off the side of the road might be a hidden IED. Yep, sure… pull the other leg, sport, that one has bells on it.

Mind you, I am not insisting that soldiers are incapable of being crude, cruel or immune to the allure of gallows humor. I have quite good recall, as does my daughter, of many incidents in our own service, that if repeated, bald and unadorned would not reflect particularly well on anyone involved. But such stories would be congruent in details and with technical authenticity, and in a psychologically realistic fashion… and we both would be able to supply names, approximate dates, locations, units… all that stuff. Nothing happens in a vacuum in the military, as I have noted before. There are always other eyes. Perhaps the editors of NR are still unconscious of this… and a little too apt to throw themselves on a narrative which confirms their basic beliefs about the military and/or the war in Iraq. It’s not like this hasn’t happened before, (Jesse McBeth, anyone?) and no less a journalistic luminary like Sy Hersh has been cleaning up on the lecture circuit for years on material as revolting as it is thoroughly sanitized of confirmable detail. Winter Soldier, Redoux, indeed.

So… just another fabulist encountering a credulous reporter or publisher? Perhaps. Or, maybe a soldier playing the old game of “gross out the civilian”, or even “Let’s see how much incredible s**t we can get this poor sap to believe” for his own amusement… which would be my guess. There is a sucker born every minute, as the saying goes. Unfortunately too damn many of them are now working for the legacy media.

Once more into the breech, my milblogger friends; putting this kind of story under a microscope is a necessary, if unpleasant chore. Sort of like taking out the garbage to the curb. Has to be done, regularly, otherwise the house becomes unbearable. Allowing narratives like this to go unchallenged is to let our friends, our children, or our comrades to be depicted falsely in the legacy media hive-mind… as falsely as Vietnam veterans were painted for years as drug-abusing, baby-murdering, unstable misfits and freaks.

And if you give a miss to this one, don’t worry. I am sure that there’ll be another one, bubbling up to the top of the media hive-mind; just as thinly sourced, just as revolting, and just as debunkable.

Another thread here, with nice graphic!

Carnival of Space #12: Galactic Extra Edition

18. July 2007 · Comments Off on Carnival of Space #12: Galactic Extra Edition · Categories: General

Flying Singer is hosting Carnival of Space #12: Galactic Extra Edition.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Committee of Vigilance

18. July 2007 · Comments Off on Committee of Vigilance · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Old West

California in the Gold Rush era was by all accounts a wild and woolly place for a good few years after discovery of gold, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Until that moment in 1848 when John Marshall found gold in a mill-race under construction at Coloma, California had dreamed away the decades as first a Spanish and then a Mexican colony, remote from practically everything, lightly settled, and with a small economy based on cattle ranching… not for beef, in those days before refrigeration and the railway, but rather for their hides. Yerba Buena , which would soon be renamed San Francisco was a sleepy little village of at most about 800 residents.

But in the blink of an eye, historically speaking, everything changed. The world rushed in, both in a matter of speaking, and literally. By 1851 some estimates put 25,000 people in and around San Francisco; those seeking gold and those seeking to make a living in various ways from those seeking gold. For a few mad months and years, even otherwise respectable and responsible citizens were more interested in gold than in attending to civic affairs. This was not at first much of a problem. Most gold-seekers, or Argonauts as they were called, were basically inclined to be law-abiding… even in the absence of heavy law-enforcing authorities.

But there was a minority amongst them who were not so inclined. In the absence of enthusiastic law enforcement, or even any law enforcement at all, they settled down to enjoy that happy (to them) situation to the fullest, forming a loosely-knit gang called the “Hounds”, which mainly targeted the non-Anglo, Hispanic miners and merchants, principally Mexicans and Chileans for bullying and general extortion. When a riot by the Hounds resulted in the destruction a part of town called “Chiletown” on the slopes of Telegraph Hill, a coalition of businessmen headed by long-time resident Sam Brannon concluded that up with this situation they would not put. They established a tribunal to housebreak the “Hounds”, arresting and punishing or exiling the gang leaders. Almost as an afterthought they also established a police department, charging a recently arrived Argonaut named Malachi Fallon with establishing a police department. Fallon had some tenuous connection with police business in New York City, in that he had been a prison-keep at the Toombs. On the strength of that sketchy resume, he went to work, establishing a force of about thirty constables operating from a single flimsy building.

Thirty police officers pitted against a shifting population of over 25,000 did about what could have been expected; at best, well-intentioned but ineffectual. Given that most of those 25,000 were young males, from a hundred different nations, hungry for adventure, riches and strong drink, touchy about personal honor and mostly well-armed… Malachi Fallon’s little band would have had as much luck emptying the Bay with a teacup as they did of keeping order. When crime eventually began to surge again, it was whispered that the police force was in cahoots with the criminal elements. Whether it was corruption or incompetence, the solid and law-abiding citizens were long out of patience by 1856 and not feeling inclined to debate the difference. Another committee of vigilance was formed, and when all the shouting was done, San Francisco had a reputation for being a place where lawbreaking was not tolerated. For long, anyway. And so it was, all across the West, especially in the mining towns, in the early years, when towns sprang up like mushrooms, practically overnight.

The people who lived in them would have law, and security of their homes, their persons and their possessions. They would demand it of the governments they instituted for themselves. And if those governments could, or would not deliver it, for whatever reason, the citizens would go and deliver it for themselves, however ham-fistedly.

Pass on the desert, but thanks

18. July 2007 · Comments Off on Pass on the desert, but thanks · Categories: General

Dava Newman and Jeff Hoffman from MIT are working on an old concept – using mechanical counter-pressure to maintain integrity in a pressure suit.

This will do wonders to promote good eating habits in space. Hard to hide a middle-age seat spread in that rig.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Trial by Media

18. July 2007 · Comments Off on Trial by Media · Categories: General

Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember the fundamental premise of American law – that we are innocent until proven guilty. Oh, I remember it well enough when it’s someone I like being accused of something, but if it’s someone I don’t like, then as soon as I hear of an indictment, I want to jump on the bandwagon, yelling “Crucify him/her!”

Sometimes the crime is so disgusting that even if I have no opinion of the person involved, I start dreaming up punishment before the trial has even begun.

The newest example of that, for me, is Michael Vick. Apparently, he plays for the Atlanta Falcons (I don’t follow sports, so he means nothing to me), and has a large home in Virginia. Earlier this year, a relative of his was arrested for holding dog-fights on the VA property. Vick swore up and down he was not involved, that his relative lived on the property, not him, etc.

Well, last night on the news, one of the big stories was that Michael Vick has been indicted for dog-fighting. The indictment is more detailed than that – conspiracy, illegal gambling, taking fighting dogs across state lines, etc.

On the news, they showed the dog pens with the pit-bull-looking dogs, and they talked about the methods used when the dogs who weren’t good enough to fight were put down.

Let’s just say they were NOT humanely euthanised.

I had to change the channel – what I heard described in the news story was every bit as offensive to me as the reports of Saddam Hussein’s human shredders. I’m certain you can find the details online if you want.

I was SO angry last night – all I wanted to do was treat Vick the same way those dogs were treated.

But you know what? Technically, he’s innocent, no matter what I might think, no matter how disgusted I am by what has happened, until there is a trial and he’s convicted (if he is), he’s innocent.

But to watch the news story last night, he might as well have already been convicted. Why is that?

Wow, I Really Hate Ted Rall

16. July 2007 · Comments Off on Wow, I Really Hate Ted Rall · Categories: Politics, Rant

There are very few people I allow myself to loathe. Loathing’s not good for me. It does them no harm and it takes up space in my already crowded head. I’m down to about a handful of people I can say I truly despise.

Ted Rall is one of them.

Welcome to the Future, Mr. Andreessen

16. July 2007 · Comments Off on Welcome to the Future, Mr. Andreessen · Categories: General

Andreessen is a bright guy and I’m happy he’s paying attention to press releases from the Air Force

I’m very happy for the Air Force pilots who will no longer have to risk their lives, and can go home every night to their families.

I’m very concerned that we will be able to declare air war without any concern for consequences other than loss of military hardware.

but he’s never read Fehrenbach’s This Kind of War

“You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life, But if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud.”

Drones don’t allow us the comfort of push-button warfare – nothing will. It ain’t about sleeping at home with the wife and kids, it’s about being a more effective fighting force.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

YouTube Activism

15. July 2007 · Comments Off on YouTube Activism · Categories: General

It bothers me that YouTube hosts trash like this (warning – graphic content).

I identify with the guys on the receiving end, I can easily picture my step-son there and .. damnit I may not like the campaign in Iraq very much but those are our guys over there.

I know what I don’t want. I don’t want the State to reach out and tell YouTube to stop it. Censorship worked in 1943 – but this ain’t 1943 and this isn’t that war – censorship isn’t the optimal path. But the appropriate verbage reads

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Looks like it’s down to an informed private citizenry. And hey look here is a guy with an idea ..

1. Log into YouTube and run a search. Any of the following key words will land you in the right spot: IED, Jihad, Death to Israel, Islamic Republic of Iraq, etc. You won’t have any trouble finding them; they are legion.
2. Open the jihadist video, then click the icon that says “Flag as inappropriate.” Use the drop down menu and click on “hate speech.”
3. This last step is going to take a great deal of self-control. You’re going to see a lot of comments cheering on the terrorists as they blow up American and allied soldiers. Don’t answer these comments directly. We want your comment directed at YouTube management. Something like: “This video aids and abets our enemies in time of war and should be deleted” will be sufficient.

I like it because the approach echoes Flight 93 – the only thing that worked on 9/11 was an informed citizenry.

Waiting around for the government to save you is to be a bystander in your own life.

Cross Posted to The Daily Brief.

Via.

Interesting Thought

15. July 2007 · Comments Off on Interesting Thought · Categories: General, Home Front, Politics, World

Found at random, though Chicago Boyz…
All we need is time.

If we have time, of course.

Hearts and Minds

15. July 2007 · Comments Off on Hearts and Minds · Categories: General

By chance happened across this YouTube post called ‘Afghan: Other War LAV3Strykers Ruin Effort 1, which is a clip from a PBS special.

The poster obviously has a thing against wheeled fighting vehicles but apart from that what struck me was that the guy in charge of the overall NATO effort in Afghanistan, General David Richards, made no effort to speak the local language during an opening of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).

He’s speaking at a crowd of local notables. Some of whom can mutter a bit of English, others might or might not understand it – that’s not the point. The point is that the guy in charge is doing a speaking thing, being nuanced and all as if he’s talking to the Rotary and is making no effort at all to speak to the locals, and is instead speaking at them.

I have no doubt he had an interpretor. I have no doubt that when the head cheese makes an effort to speak the local language can have a positive, nay, electrifying effect.

…

I had a very minor and completely non-essential role with JTF Sea Angel. My job was to rush as quickly as possible to the CP from Okinawa and explain to the S1/G1 team how to read the manuals and build a personal database. Once I got THAT out of the way I stood radio watch (as messenger because I wasn’t qualified to  touch the radio), and fixed a few computer problems. It was like being on vacation except I could not go anywhere, the bugs were huge and plentiful, the food ‘meh’ and I wasn’t on vacation. Oh and the water in the shower would kill you if you ingested any.

At any rate the day before flew home* we were all treated to dinner at the Bangladeshi Army Officer’s Club. Speeches were given, by some Bangli flag officers and civilians, in English and Bengali. The American ambassador gave a speech, duly translated into Bengali by a translator. Then LGen Stackpole** stood to give the last speech of the evening.

Now – we liked the guy well enough. He cruised through the CP once a day or so, was the thoughtful boss and not at all a screamer. His Bengali Army MP*** detachment that followed him around seemed impressed by him as well.

Stackpole opened his mouth to speak .. and gave a twenty-minute oration. In Bengali. Which was spoke well enough that the Bengalis gave him a standing ovation at the end. I doubt any of them present have forgotten, I have no doubt if there is any good will generated from JTF Sea Angel it was improved by that single speech.

That is how the head cheese wins hearts and minds in a strange land far from home.

Cross Posted to The Daily Brief.

* The mood the week we were packing up and flying out was summed up nicely by a banner hung in the Operations Office: “We’re done, Sir. Can we go home now?”

** Semper Fi!

*** They called themselves MPs but their demeanor reminded me of Colonel Hammer’s ‘White Mice’. Nice guys for all that – they let us fondle their AK-47s and were openly envious over our foot gear. I paid, out of pocket, more for my jungle boots than they made per month.

Renaissance Man

15. July 2007 · Comments Off on Renaissance Man · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Military, Old West, World

Among those brawling, restless borderers drawn to Texas like a trout going upstream during the tumultuous decade of the 1830s was a tall, ambitious and somewhat eccentrically skilled young man from Tennessee named John Salmon Ford. Like fellow adventurers, James Bowie, William Barrett Travis, and Sam Houston, his personal life was already fairly checkered, including one divorce. Unlike the first two, Ford would live through the tumultuous affair that was the Republic of Texas. Like Sam Houston, he would survive all the vicissitudes that an active life on the Texas frontier could throw at him, and die in bed at the ripe old age (for the 19th century) of 82. I assume he was mildly surprised by this happy chance. He had survived the usual accidents and epidemics of an age which predated antibiotics and germ theory in general, any but the crudest of surgeries, and routine vaccination for anything other than smallpox. He had also survived service in two wars and innumerable campaigns along the borders and against various hostile Indian tribes, several rounds of frontier exploration, election to public office… and as a newspaper editor, in the days when public discourse was conducted metaphorically with a set of brass knuckles.

He arrived in Texas in 1836 at the age of 21, having missed Santa Anna’s campaign against the recalcitrant Texans, and Sam Houston’s momentous victory over him at San Jacinto by a bare month. That was about the last significant historical event in Texas that John S. Ford would miss. He would be in the thick of it for the next sixty years, and at the end of his life he would sit down and turn his pen to writing his memoirs, which would fairly double as a history of Texas in the 19th century.

Over that time, Ford embraced a variety of causes with vigorous if sometimes unwise enthusiasm: unionism, temperance, know-nothingism, and secession, and education for the deaf. But he began his career in Texas with a medical practice in the settlement of San Augustine. He had studied medicine in Tennessee, with a local doctor, and under the rather sketchy standards of the time was qualified to hang out a shingle. He spent eight years there, practicing medicine, teaching Sunday school, and riding as a volunteer ranger with a series of local companies… including one commanded by Jack Hays. He also taught himself law. One supposes that San Augustine was a small town, where residents had to double-up on various jobs. In 1844 he was elected to the Texas Legislature as a pro-annexation platform, and took himself off to Washington on the Brazos. He served a term, married (for the second time) and decided to give up medicine for the newspaper business, specifically a weekly paper called the Texas National Register.

Ford was very much a partisan of Sam Houston, the hero of San Jacinto, who was not all that popular in Austin; Ford leapt to his defense with gusto. He and his partner changed the name of the paper to the “Texas Democrat”, and campaigned persistently for such things as more and better schools, and effective defense of the frontier. It was for the time, a rather liberal newspaper… and Ford participated gleefully in every ruckus raised in a state where the political scene usually resembled the ‘tomcats in a sack’ model. But in late 1845, Ford’s wife fell ill, and soon died, in spite of all he could do. Grief-stricken, he took himself off to join the company that his old friend Jack Hays was raising… for Mexico was disputing with the United States over the Texas border. Ford eventually became the regimental adjutant, and from his practice of writing “rest in peace” or “RIP” below his signature on the required reports of casualties, the nickname of “Old Rip”, which followed him for the rest of his life.
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Carnival of Space

15. July 2007 · Comments Off on Carnival of Space · Categories: General

A note about Carnival of Space – Week 11.

I enjoyed hosting Carnival of Space a great deal – it certainly puts you in touch with a wide variety of people.

At great risk of sounding like a 2nd tier NPR personality during pledge week … please participate! Public interest can’t do anything in space .. but nothing in space can be done without it. A blog carnival is one way to build awareness that ‘space’ can be for everyone not just a few government employees or scientists.

Host, post or link. A blog post isn’t much in the grand scheme of things – but it’s better than nothing.

Carnival of Space (COS) submissions – here.
COS Archive – here.
COS Schedule – here.

Next Week’s COS is hosted at Music of the Spheres. He’s thinking about buying an IPhone – someone stop him before he drinks the Apple Kool-Aid and becomes one of the Mac Faithful.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Memo: On Nothing Certain Events

13. July 2007 · Comments Off on Memo: On Nothing Certain Events · Categories: General, GWOT, Iraq, Media Matters Not, Military, Rant, sarcasm, Veteran's Affairs, World

To: Senator John Murtha, D. Penn (12th District)
From: Sgt Mom
Regarding: A Certain Matter in Regards to Certain Marines

1. That would be the Marines accused of murdering civilians in Haditha, Iraq in November of 2005, by you among a host of others.

2. This story seems to indicate that the whole case is falling apart faster than the Duke Lacross rape case. (see attached)

3. I, and other veterans await your apology to those Marines charged. You were quick enough to pile on with accusations of war crimes and atrocities, using the handy pulpit afforded to you as a member of Congress…. regardless of how it might have affected the outcome of an investigation and/or trial.

4. I’d like to see the apology given the same placement on the front page, and the same depth of coverage as your original statements, but I am not holding my breath.

Sincerely,
Sgt. Mom

PS: Congressman Murtha’s contact information is here. For… ummm. Whatever. (Keep it civil, people…)

Carnival of Space – Week 11

12. July 2007 · Comments Off on Carnival of Space – Week 11 · Categories: General

Carnival of Space – Week 11 – is up at Space for Commerce.

So what do we have on deck for this week? Archeology in the Shetland Islands. Asteroid mining – it’s not going to be for the faint of heart. A liquid telescope on the moon. Why Shubber picks on the drinkers of Kool-Aid.

Plans for world domination proceed apace.

No I’m Not Dead, Just Unemployed

11. July 2007 · Comments Off on No I’m Not Dead, Just Unemployed · Categories: General

I know, I’ve been lax in blogging here and mostly posting pop culture silliness over at Faster Than the Blog.

I have no excuse.

I will tell you that I LOVE being retired from the Air Force.  I didn’t realize how stressed out I was, worrying about my people being deployed, worrying about ME being deployed, just worrying in general.  I’m still worried about finding a job, but not much yet, and it’s nothing like being in uniform.  There’s an overall feeling of a huge relaxing exhale that isn’t going away, it just keeps getting better.
We’re living in a house that we’re going to buy as soon as I have a job good enough to make the mortgage broker calm the hell down.  She’s kind of a spaz.  But we like the house.  Only about 1000 sq/ft in the main house but the basement is fully finished, including another kitchen and we’ve taken over the “Family Room” as our Master Bedroom, including fireplace thank you very much.  Greedy?  Ummm, yeah, but I’m paying for it so, Boyo needs to get over not getting the whole thing as “his” room.  He got the master bedroom on the main floor, he should be happy enough.

The job search goes on.  I know I have an eclectic set of skills, but I figured that some of them would have attracted one of the ginormous companies in town by now.  I think part of the problem is that they think they know I’ll only work for them until something better opens up.  Either that, or they know that on average, most military retirees only work at their first job after the military for about six months before they find their actual second career.

I’ve got LOTS of offers to sell stuff.  I guess we make good salesmen or something, plus, we’re not known for our felony convictions so we can get all sorts of certificates and legal standing with minimal research since most military folks already have at least a Secret security clearance.  I used to be really good at sales back in a previous life, I just don’t like it.  Besides, 90% of them are sales jobs where most of my work/profit goes to my boss and the company in some Multi-Level-Marketing scheme that no bank in the world will accept as a “real job.”  I’ve been avoiding/ignoring most Government jobs mostly because…23 years is enough for anyone dontcha think?  And they really don’t want to start me off at the level of responsibility or pay that I just left.  I don’t expect to be managing the first day, but at the same time, I don’t expect to be doing entry level silliness either.
Mostly I’m thinking it’s just really good to be home.  Chicagoland is where my Mom and my Sister live but it hasn’t been home for the longest time.  Being five minutes from our daughter and her husband just plain rocks.

Dogs and Cats Sleeping Together

11. July 2007 · Comments Off on Dogs and Cats Sleeping Together · Categories: Critters, Domestic, General, General Nonsense, The Funny

Such an occurrence is popularly said to be a sign of the impending apocalypse, or global wamening (or coolerizing or whatever the current cause for hysteria is) or even just something like another Michael Bay movie.

Wait, there is another Michael Bay movie out? No S#*t?! Well, just goes to show you, there might be something to it.

Because it’s happened, and if I had thought of it and Blondie were quicker with her cellphone camera, we’d have the evidence that the Lesser Weevil and the Percival-Cat are more than just a large, rawboned boxer-pit mix of a dog, and a small, timid grey cat who happen to share the same house and a mutual affection for the same set of humans. They are indeed, the best of friends.

Or they just might share a freakish interest in soft furniture and mutual body-warmth. You can never tell, I suppose. The two of them are a bit of an odd couple, in more ways than just the species difference.

I wouldn’t have expected Percy to have become the boldest of the resident cats, when it came to establishing a rapprochement with the dogs. When I first began to tame him, he was so timid that I thought he was a feral. It was the careful and gradual work of months for him to become so accustomed to me that I could even touch him. Once translated into an indoors cat, he spent the first three or four months huddled miserably in various hidy-holes, fleeing all human approaches besides my own, and having any friendly feline overtures cruelly spurned by the senior cats, Henry VIII, Morgie and Little Arthur.
Over time, though, he adjusted… especially when Blondie’s three-legged flame-point Siamese, Sammy joined the household. Sammy and Percy buddied up together, in the manner of two nerdy kids spurned by the middle-school in-crowd becoming friends… even though they both have since reached some kind of grudging acceptance with the senior cats.

The advent of Lesser Weevil and Spike made for a drastic re-grouping of the territory. Instead of the cats having the run of the house all day and night, and sleeping wherever they wish, the dogs now pretty much have my room, the den and the living room during the day, and the cats have the other half; Blondie’s room, the hallway and the closet where the washer and dryer live. Only at night, with Spike sleeping in my room, and Weevil in her crate, do the cats have undisputed reign over the entire house. The senior cats, that is.

Sammy and Percy don’t seem to care in the least about the dogs. Sammy was raised by some people who kept a large herd of Chihuahuas, so that was no surprise, but for Percy to be similarly casual… playful, even! That’s one for the books. Over the last couple of months, he would romp with Spike, and allow her to nip at him, responding with a bat of his front paws, only fleeing to a windowsill when the play got too rough. He wouldn’t do that with Weevil; she is an enormous lump of dog, compared to his dainty grey self. But when he was curled up on the seat of a chair, Weevil would park her nose and head next to him, and he would set to work washing her ears and licking the top of her head. Very amusing to see; this is why we took to calling Percy our little gay hairdresser of a cat.

Last night, we were watching television in the den, and Weevil came and curled up on the sofa next to me… yes, we let the dogs onto the furniture. I mean, the cats are allowed onto the chairs, and so is Spike who is hardly any larger than the cats, so why not the Weevil? How can we make the distinction? That would be size-ist, or something… and really, she curls up into a very small shape, quite compact for such a large dog. (Look, I hold on to some standards, ‘kay? I don’t let any of them onto the kitchen counters!!) And after fifteen minutes or so, Percy hopped down from the back of the sofa, and curled up next to and half on top of her. They slept so for the best part of “Eureka”.

If I had a big enough den, I swear I would buy another sofa… with the dogs and cats and all sleeping on it, there is barely enough room for me, these days.

Another Heartfelt Book Bleg

09. July 2007 · Comments Off on Another Heartfelt Book Bleg · Categories: Domestic, General, Literary Good Stuff, Media Matters Not, World

So the writers’ life waltz as it applies to the current book project “To Truckee’s Trail” has accelerated to a particularly mad whirl. The final text of it has been reviewed and is set to go to the printer, and all that I lack right now is the final cover, which one of Booklocker’s designers is working on, presumably even as I write this.

I have a list of possible reviewers to send hard copies to, when I have them, and another much longer list of possible markets; various museum bookstores and independent bookstores in towns along the historic emigrant trails.

And I have promise of aid and assistance from a couple of proprietors of various blogs as regards an advertisement… but I need to put together a “skyscraper ad” 160 x 600 which they can plug easily into their ad-space. I have no idea how to do this… (sob! I’m only a writer, I’m not a designer or a techie!) Is there anyone out there who can do this, or advise me, or walk me through it? This ad will have a pic of the cover of “To Truckee’s Trail” and some interesting blurbage.

Email or comment, please. I can promise a copy of the book, with a personal inscription, and my heartfelt thanks.

Wrong Kind of Fireworks

09. July 2007 · Comments Off on Wrong Kind of Fireworks · Categories: Air Force, Domestic, General, Military

Baldilocks has a story up this morning about a McGuire AFB loadmaster who was killed shot over the weekend. Seems some guy drove to the 22yr old airman’s home on Wed evening (umm, that would be July 4), and shot him in the chest, then killed himself.

The airman, Jonathan Schrieken, is in critical condition at Cooper University Hospital in Camden.

He and his family need your prayers and good thoughts. For that matter, so does the family of the killer shooter.

Authorities have no idea what prompted the shooting admit the killer shooter left 2 suicide notes, but the AP articles doesn’t mention that. Authorities do not know whether the two 22-yr olds even knew each other.

News Article

UPDATE: I should have followed the links in Juliette’s post before I posted this. She got the news from LGF. LGF posted an email from a reader who knew knows the airman, and has lots more details about the killer’s shooter’s motivation, which the AP chose to leave out of their article.

[The airman] had been on leave here in Ohio and got back to his home off base and was unpacking stuff from his car when this 22 year old guy walked up to him and asked him if he lived in the house. When Jon said yes, the guy said “not any more” and shot him point blank in the chest. He tried to shoot him again, but his gun jammed. Jonathan made it into the house. The guy then shot himself. Turns out the guy left a couple of suicide notes stating how much he hated the military and he wanted to go out making a statement, so he chose to make his statement on Independence Day trying to kill a soldier.

UPDATE 2: I should never write posts before coffee. The airman is ALIVE, not dead. So the creep is a creep, not a killer.

A Milestone to Remember

07. July 2007 · Comments Off on A Milestone to Remember · Categories: General, General Nonsense, sarcasm, Site News

As of approximatly 6 PM, CST, this blog passed a not-insigificant milestone… our 200,000 auto-spam comment!

Yes, of course it was deleted… and, thanks to the anti-spam software installed by Timmer (all hail, all hail!) sometime around Christmas, none of these disgusting abominations actually sifted through to be posted. But the software includes a spam-o-meter. It was kind of like watching the odometer of the VEV turn over to 200,000. I can vividly recall that moment! It was while I was driving to work at Lackland AFB – On the 90, just a little way east of Wilford Hall… but a little uncertain about the year. Say early fall, 1996, just before I retired from the USAF!

I run my nimble fingers through the moderation queue a couple of times a day, heartlessly emptying them, all these pitifully miss-spelled attempts to look like a chummy, friendly comment, flogging prescription drugs, diverse alternate sexual experiences and perversities, payday loans… and now and again the occassional almost-legitimate looking business or service, which looks almost embarrassed at being caught in such disreputable surroundings.

Really, most of the spam comments are of such resounding stupidity as to make me wonder why on earth they bother. Absolute gibberish with a link to a website flogging pharmaceuticals sent out several hundred times over to the same website isn’t likely to last long enough to garner a link or two… nor is a vaugely complimentary mention of the colors and design of this site, especially if it has been sent about three or four hundred times with the same exact errors in spelling. And a comment larded with a hundred links to assorted pharmaceuticals or sexual kinks… like, if it wouldn’t make it through a Yahoo spam filter, why would it make it through ours?

Anyway, thought I would make a note of this. Carry on with your regularly assigned duties.

Carnival of Space – is it July already?

05. July 2007 · Comments Off on Carnival of Space – is it July already? · Categories: General

Zzzz. Zzzz. Hmph snort .. wha? It’s July already?

The Carnival of Space will be held next week at Space For Commerce, click here for information on submitting a post.

Wow – guess I’d better get busy and gussy the place up a bit for company.

If you feel like contributing, please do.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

End Run

05. July 2007 · Comments Off on End Run · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Literary Good Stuff, Technology, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

The crescendo of the writers’ life waltz, as I have been calling it, is yours truly making a determined end-run around the established behemoths of the literary industrial complex, thanks to contributions gratefully received from fans and supporters… and from Mom and Dad. I have been able to pull in enough to start the process rolling for “To Truckee’s Trail” with those nice people at Booklocker.com. I have sent them the formatted text, and in a short time, they will have one of their contracted artists do the cover, and once I approve it, they will include it in their website and catalogue… and there you go, Sgt. Mom’s next book. It’ll be available on Amazon.com, of course.

It’s not just going to stop at that, though. It just doesn’t. I will be buying a box of copies, to use to generate reviews in various websites and magazines. Once I have a nice collection of kind words, then I will use the cover art and the kind words to purchase advertising space, and to print up some folders or flyers to send to various bookstores. Do you know how many museums there are, along the Western emigrant trail, and how many of them have bookstores? You may not, but I am making a concerted effort to build a list of each and every one, and I’ll know when I am finished. I’ll also know about any independent bookstores anywhere in towns of note along the trail… especially if there is any kind of trail-related tourism in that town. All hail Google, the avatar of the DIY advertising campaign!

It’s been dawning on me, that perhaps the world of book-publishing, or as I have begun to call it, the “literary industrial complex” is beginning a slow downward spiral in the face of the POD revolution, the internet and DIY marketing, and even the availability of quality color printing at Kinkos. All those processes that were once owned by a big publisher because the technology involved was huge, complex and expensive… now they are reduced, pared down and available to anyone who cares. Once upon a time, doing a book on your own used to be called a vanity press, and it cost a bomb, but now self-publishing is within reach. The resulting books aren’t any more dreadful than what is churning out of the traditional publishing houses; so much for the sneering about vanity presses, and writers so pathetically eager to be in print.

It’s been kind of curious, to hang around in the book and publishing blogs, and read what insiders say about it: that agents are harried and harassed, and have only enough time for a tenth of the good-quality stuff that crosses their desks. That publishers are risk-adverse… and like the producers of block-buster movies, want that sure-fire good thing that is just like the last fifteen or twenty sure-fire good things that came down the pike. It’s a crapshoot for writers; even if you do grab the brass ring, and get a deal from a traditional publisher, you’re likely to be treated like dirt anyway… and wind up doing most of the marketing yourself. So, POD looks more and more like a viable alternative.

And I am wondering if the literary-industrial complex is going to start feeling the pinch of competition, and considerable dissatisfaction from the consuming public… just like the major news media is feeling now. Old news stalwarts like the NY Times, Newsweek and the CBS evening news are all beginning to tank. Bloggers like Michael Yon can do news reporting from a war zone, expert analysis comes from someone like Wretchard at Belmont Club, and the dreaded Mo-Toons o’Doom were featured on more blogs than were published in newspapers. The entire news industry looks fair to going down like that enormous spaceship in that old Disney movie that spiraled down into a black hole, emerging in the fourth dimension as something entirely different… what was the name of that flick? Anyway, I wonder if current technology is going to send traditional book publishing in the same direction.

Another Independence Day Message

04. July 2007 · Comments Off on Another Independence Day Message · Categories: Domestic, General, History, Local

Independence Day celebrations in small towns haven’t changed all that much over the years, and the one here is no exception. Our town is the county seat, with a large lawn on the town square that is perfectly suited for such festivities. Of historical significance, in 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas spoke on the courthouse lawn on October 11th and 22nd respectively.

Earlier that year, on July 10th, Lincoln gave a speech that rings with relevance even today, although framed in the notoriously contentious debate with Douglas about slavery. He said, in part:

“If they (the immigrants that arrived in the U.S. after its independence) look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”

Just three blocks from where Lincoln spoke, and fourteen years earlier, Joseph Smith (founder of the Mormon Church) and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob that had shown much animosity toward the Mormons settled in nearby Nauvoo Illinois since there arrival from Missouri. This led to the Mormon migration west into present day Utah. When I moved to this community (into a house just a block from the jail where the killings took place) twenty-nine years ago, there still was considerable animosity toward the Mormons; not for any particular reason that I could discern, but rather traditional distrust passed down through the generations and the typical blather we hear today when referring to concerns about Mitt Romney (which, by the way, does not at all fit my own experiences with members of the LDS church with whom I work and do business) and, in 1960, John Kennedy.

Since that time the LDS church rebuilt their temple in Nauvoo that had been burned soon after the exodus to Utah, and they purchased the entire block where the old jail is located and built a very nice visitor center. None of it came easy, for either the Mormons or the local inhabitants. Over the years, however, I have noticed a sea change on both sides. Individual members of the Mormon Church have moved to, and become assimilated into, our community. The discovery that we all share the same fundamental values, as Lincoln so eloquently expressed in his 1858 speech, has I think finally started healing the poison that spread some one hundred sixty years ago.

Today was a landmark occasion, however. A small troupe of Mormon singers, accompanied by a bagpiper and pianist, traveled from Utah and took to the stage during the activities on the square to perform patriotic and traditional American music for an audience of several hundred people. The concert, lasting a couple of hours, left not a dry eye in the house. Between musical pieces, various of the performers spoke of defining moments in our history and memorialized the true heroes comprising our national identity, from the founding fathers to the men and women who have worn the uniform since those early days, to the every day Americans who understand and appreciate the gift of liberty and equality bestowed upon us. While not wanting to sound like an apologist for either side of the events that led to such a terrible schism, these performers gave what I consider to be the ultimate offering of friendship, that being a poignant reminder that all of us who hold the truth to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are, as one, Americans. How ironic that such an event should take place literally yards from where Abraham Lincoln likely delivered the same message, albeit in a different context, so many years ago.

Happy Independence Day

Of the People, By the People, For the People

04. July 2007 · Comments Off on Of the People, By the People, For the People · Categories: General

Sgt Mom already posted the Unanimous Declaration, but I think this is another that bears reading at every opportunity.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth

source

On This Day in 1776

04. July 2007 · Comments Off on On This Day in 1776 · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History

(It was the custom in many 19th century communities to have a public reading of the Declaration of Independence as part of the 4th of July Festivities. It’s a good tradition, and I hold to it on this site.)

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

More »

Can anyone spell decorum?

03. July 2007 · Comments Off on Can anyone spell decorum? · Categories: General

“This decision to commute the sentence of a man who compromised our national security cements the legacy of an administration characterized by a politics of cynicism and division, one that has consistently placed itself and its ideology above the law,” Barack Obama

“Today’s decision is yet another example that this administration simply considers itself above the law,” said Clinton of Bush’s decision to commute Libby’s sentence. “This case arose from the administration’s politicization of national security intelligence and its efforts to punish those who spoke out against its policies.” Hillary Clinton

“I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby,” Wilson said. “I don’t owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor.” Joe Wilson (husband of Valerie Plame Wilson)

I don’t think I can recall a time when such deceit and hypocrisy was so prevalent across so wide a swath of our political leadership. Senator Obama, a law professor, practices the very cynicism and diversion that he decries, and the last I knew, commuting a sentence, particularly one as egregious as that handed down to Scooter Libby, is not above the law.

Senator Clinton, my message to you is simple – do you remember Marc Rich?

And Joe Wilson, look in the mirror before you start throwing out names such as traitor. You have shown yourself throughout this entire affair to be beneath contempt. Your fifteen minutes of fame has passed, so I sincerely hope that you shut up and enjoy your book royalties.

Finally, I hear that Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has called for George Bush to be impeached over this. You guys just can’t get over Clinton’s impeachment can you?

I have no love for politicians in general, but the current crop absolutely sickens me.

Update: Powerline blog informs us that the House Judiciary Committee plans to hold hearings next week on the sentence commutation. Would that Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington et al. could be with us on this two hundred thirty-first birthday of our country to comment on this. They would most definitely be far more eloquent than I could ever be. On the other hand, they may have taken these left wing zealots to the woodshed for a proper flogging.

Try to get this one out of your head

03. July 2007 · Comments Off on Try to get this one out of your head · Categories: General

My favorite part of our house is a twenty by twenty five foot patio, screened floor to ceiling. I have a decent stereo, and a fairly extensive collection of music that is well suited to watching the summer go by. This year, I have designated the Official Summer Patio Song as (drumroll) Sleepwalk, by Joe Satriani. It is a remake of the original recorded by Santo and Johnny in 1959. I liked the original, but this version is juiced up nicely with a strong drumbeat and bass. I even got a slow dance from Real Wife:-)

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