Guillotines ‘R’ Us
You know how I know the protests thrown by the Service Employees International Union here last week were ineffective in pressuring Wall Street traders to accept any meaningful reform for their government-proped zone? It was partially because the attendees of the American Bankers Association at the conference were from small, community banks that took little, if any, of the bailout funds from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Unions’ Astroturf Falls Short Of Wall Street’s Beheading
CHICAGO, Ill. — You know how I know the protests thrown by the Service Employees International Union here last week were ineffective in pressuring Wall Street traders to accept any meaningful reform for their government-proped zone?
It was partially because the attendees of the American Bankers Association at the conference were from small, community banks that took little, if any, of the bailout funds from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Bob Schmermund, executive vice president of ABA membership, told the member bankers:
“What the protesters may not realize is who’s attending this meeting. This room is literally filled from stem to stern with traditional bankers whose life’s work is dedicated to serving the needs of their communities.”
According to Brian Sullivan’s Fox Business blog, only two of ABA’s hundred-plus member banks took bailout money, Bank of America and Citigroup. Wrote Sullivan on his blog:
“In fact, many of the ABA’s members would likely agree with the protesters’ position on bailouts, since not only did the bailouts help larger banks at the expense of smaller ones, but also the cost to the FDIC from the now 106 failed banks is forcing the FDIC to push a multibilion dollar prepayment plan for agency insurance, hurting banks’ balance sheets.”
Sure, the ABA was an appropriate target for the reasons claimed by Andrea Frye, communications director with the nonprofit National People’s Coalition.
“They’re standing in the way by spending billions of dollars to fight meaningful rules,” she told Reuters.
Still, those little banks weren’t Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, who wouldn’t have survived their near-fatal crash had it not been for the federal government’s trillion dollar capital injections last fall.
Actually, it was mainly because the propaganda the 5,000-plus union protesters waved in the air outside the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers for the “Showdown in Chicago” was tame.
There were cutouts of JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, retiring Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, and Wells Fargo & Co. CEO John Stumpf.
There were grim reapers with signs that read, “Greed Kills.”
There were more signs that said “Reclaim America,” “Bust Up Big Banks,” “Hold Banks Accountable,” “No Bonuses For Big Banks,” and “Foreclosures Ruin Communities.”
There were “Wanted” signs for those deemed “Wall Street Robber Bankers.”
There were chants of “Shame On You!” directed at the ABA bankers.
Yeah, U.S. Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois spoke in solidarity to the protesters on behalf of more regulation in the financial services sector.
Also, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair told the protesters that she backed President Barack Obama’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency.
There was even a prayer vigil.
Plus, when the protesters advanced on the downtown offices of financial giant Goldman Sachs, they offered a hand-delivered protest letter — yes, a piece of paper!
Moreover, the protesters allowed a representative from Goldman Sachs take the letter without harming his person. In fact, the G-Sachs representative reportedly shook hands with the protesters. Reported the The Wall Street Journal:
“A spokeswoman at Goldman Sachs said the bank’s security office in Chicago had received a copy of the letter. She didn’t comment further. The group then marched down the street to the Chicago offices of Wells Fargo. There they also attempted to hand-deliver a letter to Mr. Stumpf, the Wells Fargo CEO. Officials at Wells Fargo couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.”
Fox’s Sullivan suggested that the ABA and the SEIU should have shared a beer instead.
As such, Gary Younge writing for The Guardian/UK highlighted the notion that the agitprop of not only the unions but also the Obama administration has been a distraction to true reform on Wall Street’s financial trading sector.
Younge said that resentment for the bonuses for executives at AIG, Goldman Sachs, and the Royal Bank of Scotland is “both justified and predictable.”
However, there is a major difference between “class envy and class struggle,” he noted.
“The former is rooted in the popular antipathy towards the rich on account of their wealth; the latter, meanwhile, targets the system that makes some people rich by making others poor. Envy can lead to struggle. But it doesn’t have to,” Younge wrote.
In other words, when the Twitter feeds of National People’s Action and the SEIU point to the ABA’s “Roaring ’20s”-themed cocktail party, that’s class envy.
But the “main dish,” as Younge described, is the structure of the financial institutions, not the individuals running them.
So while the Obama administration’s compensation czar, Kenneth Feinberg, offered to cut the paychecks by 90 percent of those CEOs whose institutions took bailout money, the separation of commercial banking and investment banking (i.e. The Glass-Steagall Act) remained a pipedream.
Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, pointed out this facet in a recent column promoting the $200,000 CEO pay cap as “a good first step.”
“In most cases, the really big earners are traders — people who bet successfully on oil futures or some other financial asset. This sort of speculative trading should not be taking place at a government-protected bank, and until the deregulation of the last two decades, it would not have been,” Baker wrote.
But through all of this talk, there have been no torches lit. No pick-axes sharpened. No guillotines dusted off and tested. How can you reform populist anger without guillotines, the Italian Mannaia, the Scottish Maiden, or the Halifax Gibbet?
Such was the argument behind Alexander Cockburn’s CounterPunch.org piece “All the Populism Money Can Buy.”
In it, Cockburn recounted a recent anti-war protest in his adopted California hometown in which he spoke to a crowd in front of a guillotine erected by the daughter of Telford Taylor, the chief U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg.
The political journalist said he first questioned the effectiveness of employing such a political symbol, before taking the deadly instrument of the French Revolution seriously as had writer Mark Twain in “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.”
“Here, in America, the corporate class is now entirely out of control, lawless and beyond the sanction of prosecutor, juror or ballot box. If corporate lawbreakers felt that somewhere along the line the retribution of the guillotine might await them, it would concentrate their minds marvelously, and cow them into lawfulness,” he wrote.
And even after the unions’ staged protest last week, the following observation by Cockburn still stood:
“This amazing bailout for the existing corrupt system — as if Lenin had used the October revolution to restore the Romanovs — has been engineered without significant opposition from organized labor or the left-liberal end of Obama’s own party.”
It’s not like the hoi polloi have waited to feel the weight of the boot on its neck.
Mark Ames of AlterNet reported that Wall Street’s immoral behavior has stretched thin the physical and mental capacities of the residents of Alabama last March.
With the help of JP Morgan, Pilgrim’s Pride leveraged such a huge buyout of its competitor that the chicken processor eventually declared bankruptcy protected from creditors and lawsuits. But while the Pilgrim family made off with handsome treasure, its workers were left shortchanged and desperate, Ames noted.
As a result of this corporate corruption, the rural areas where Pilgrim’s chicken plants ruled could not sustain its own municipal services, including that of its police force.
This situation caused the U.S. Army to violate the Posse Comitatus Act by allowing federal troops from a nearby fort to patrol the streets of Samson, Ala. after 27-year-old Michael McLendon shot 11 people across three Alabama towns before taking his own life.
McLendon’s hit list included Pilgrim’s Pride, the former company for which his mother and others had a pending lawsuits, as well as Reliance Metals, the company whose employees bullied him with the nickname “Doughboy” due to his weight.
Ames suggested that McLendon’s shooting rampage fits a wider national pattern caused by what he terms “Great Depression 2.” He wrote last March:
“For years, these shootings were considered ‘random acts’ committed by people who ‘snapped for no reason.’ Now, hundreds of dead victims and a massive financial collapse later, we know better: They’re reactions against corporate oppression. If the super-rich and the corporations constantly squeeze their workers of time, money and health, a few of their victims are naturally going to ‘snap’ and fight back with guns. Call it a small price to pay for looting everyone’s wealth.
“Will it end? With the current economic crisis, there’s a chance the playing field might even out a little, that our culture might finally learn to stop humping the plutocrats’ legs while they plunder us and instead start biting them to get our fair share,” he concluded.
Bush Returns To Stage As Motivational Speaker
Former President George W. Bush is now a motivational speaker. Last week he spoke for 28 minutes to the 11,000-person crowd at the “GET MOTIVATED!” seminar at the Fort Worth Convention Center.
FORT WORTH, Texas — Former President George W. Bush is now a motivational speaker.
Last week he spoke for 28 minutes to the 11,000-person crowd at the “GET MOTIVATED!” seminar at the Fort Worth Convention Center.
Bush’s topic? No one is sure, not even the sycophantic Washington Post.
“Looking younger than his 63 years and relaxed, Bush did not appear to have an overarching theme, but strung anecdotes and jokes together and frequently mentioned his faith in God,” wrote the Post’s Mary Jordan.
She continued, “Many people interviewed afterward said they liked Bush, perhaps even because he wasn’t the best speaker of the day. He could have said a thesaurus was a big scaly creature that roamed the planet millions of years ago and they would have applauded.”
Bush’s motivation? He aims to lighten his unpopular image after two unfinished wars under his belt along with a world economy that nearly tanked, not to mention human rights abuses, during his eight years in the White House.
That, and the seminar reportedly paid the 43rd president about $100,000 to appear.
Also speaking were former secretary of state Colin Powell, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, retired football great Terry Bradshaw, and the Rev. Robert Schuller, televangelist and author.
Wayne Slater, Dallas Morning News columnist, noted that “the day belonged to patriotism and salescraft. To prospecting for leads. To mission accomplished.”
“The ex-president who once spoke from the deck of an aircraft carrier walked the stage alone with a microphone in his hand. He reminded the motivated that even presidents are a fleeting part of history,” Slater wrote.
Bush is expected to give another motivational speech for the seminar in San Antonio next month.
Conservative George Will Admits Drug War Bogus
Another member of the conservative elite in Washington has admitted that the United States’ so-called “war on drugs” policy is bogus. Columnist George Will said on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” that the drug cartel violence has escalated so much that making legal the importation of marijuana into America is a possibility.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Another member of the conservative elite in Washington has admitted that the United States’ so-called “war on drugs” policy is bogus.
Columnist George Will said on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” that the drug cartel violence has escalated so much that making legal the importation of marijuana into America is a possibility.
Will stated: “80 percent of the Mexican cartels’ revenue is from marijuana. If you really want to go after the Mexican cartels — and I’m not saying that’s the only criteria for public policy — you’d legalize marijuana.”
Will’s statement arrived the same week as a Gallup poll showed more support for the legalization of marijuana in the United States than ever before.
“We have legalized gambling in this country over two generations; it used to be considered a sin and a crime. We, with no national debate and no decision moment — we just did it – we legalized prostitution, as anyone who opens a telephone book and looks under ‘escort’ can tell you. And we may be doing,” he said.
“We’re probably in the process now of legalizing marijuana,” Will added.
Currently the state of California has a ballot initative to legalize marijuana for recreational use by adults.
So far, the idea has the support of 56 percent of Californians, according to a Field Research Corporation poll.
Should marijuana sales be taxed in California, the revenue could reach $1.5 billion, said California State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, of San Francisco.
Will and other have noted that a sin tax on marijuana sales could offset the rising costs of privatized healthcare in this country.
Hutchison Receives Huge Endorsement, Cheney’s
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison received a huge endorsement for governor of Texas last week.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison received a huge endorsement for governor of Texas last week.
The endorsement came from former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Hutchison’s Republican primary rival for Texas state governor immediately blasted Hutchison and her endorser.
“I don’t have any comment on it,” said Republican Gov. Rick Perry. “You gonna have to ask Texas voters about it.”
Perry was recently endorsed by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, the nominee for vice president on the Repulican ticket in 2008.
Of Palin, Perry said, “That’s the type of leadership and the type of proven conservative values that Texas Republican primary voters are going to be pretty excited about.”
Perry’s comments were given during a news conference where the Texas Association of Builders HOMEPAC backed his candidacy.
President George W. Bush has yet to officially endorse a candidate, though it is known that Perry threw Bush under the bus while campaigning in Iowa last election cycle for Rudy Guiliani for U.S. president.
Perry referred to Bush then as a “big spender.”
So far, most of the Republican Washington establishment from Texas has backed Hutchison, including Karen Hughes, Karl Rove, Margaret Spellings, and Rod Paige, as well as Dick Armey, Kay Granger, Michael Burgess, and Kenny Marchant.
The Republican primary is scheduled for March 2010.
Eat Vegetables, Fight Climate Change: Expert
The old saying goes, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
LONDON, England — The old saying goes, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
Now the world’s top scientist on global climate change says, “Eat veggies everyday to keep global warming away.”
“Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It put enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better,” said Nicholas Stern, the author of a 2006 review of climate change.
The former World Bank chief economist told The Times that methane emissions from the growth of livestock is hazardous to the planet’s health.
His comments come ahead of the climate change conference in Copenhagen this December.
A London School of Economics professor went so far as to equate eating red meat to drinking and driving.
“People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food,” Lord Stern said.
For a greenhouse gas, methane is more damaging than carbon dioxide by 23 times, scientists say.
Livestock itself dumps a fifth of the world’s methane into the atmosphere, according to scientific estimations.
First U.S. Official Quits Over Afghan War
The first U.S. official resigned in protest of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan last month.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The first U.S. official resigned in protest of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan last month.
Matthew Hoh, 36, a former Marine Corps captain stepped down from his post as the senior State Department official in Afghanistan’s Zabul province.
Why?
“I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan, he wrote in a four-page Sept. 10 letter.
Hoh said that he resigned not because of how the military is involved “but why and to what end.”
The White House tried to make Hoh stay at his post; however, he told The Washington Post that remaining “wasn’t the right thing to do.”
Hoh quit a week after taking a job with Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, ‘Listen, I don’t think this is right,” he said.
Hoh became disillusioned after two events: one, his observation that the insurgency is much more localized, not nationalized, and two, his belief that the Aug. 20 Afghan presidential election was fraudulant.
In his resignation letter, he described the war as a fight between two classes of Afghans, the urban elites versus the rural illterates, the later supporting the insurgency that perceives the foreign onslaught as a continuation of assaults going back centuries.
Hoh said he would advice a reduction in combat forces, not increase as the Obama administratoin’s military chiefs suggest.
‘Global Cooling’ Claims False: Statisticians
The claims that the world is cooling are false, according to four independent statisticians corralled by The Associated Press.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The claims that the world is cooling are false, according to four independent statisticians corralled by The Associated Press.
The statisticians were given temperature data from NOAA’s year-to-year ground temperature changes with which to interpret trends found no declines over the last 130 years.
The statisticians also found the same result after analysing the 30 years of satellite-measured temperatures used by skeptics and collected by scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
David Peterson, a retired Duke University statistics professor, told the AP that scientific standards cannot back up the global warming skeptics’ claim that a downward trend has occurred since 1998.
NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt noted that the global temperature was trending the opposite direction, in fact.
“The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record. Even if you analyze the trend during that 10 years, the trend is actually positive, which means warming,” he said.
This analysis comes after a new book promoting “global cooling” by the authors of the best-seller “Freakonomics” was released.
The Union of Concerned Scientists said the book lies about climate science by distoring the statistics.
Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford, called the book’s claim “ridiculous” since the authors focuses its claim on a small window out of the temperature record.
U.S. Military Ready For Openly Gay Troops: Army Secretary
The U.S. military might be ready to allow openly gay troops from serving the armed forces, according to an interview in the Army Times.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. military might be ready to allow openly gay troops from serving the armed forces, according to an interview in the Army Times.
Secretary of the Army John McHugh told the Times that the repeal of the “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy is possible if both Congress and President Barack Obama do it.
Obama seemed up to the policy change during his recent speech at the annual dinner of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay civil rights advocacy group.
Obama said, “We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who have stepped forward to serve the country.”
That said, skeptics noted that Obama failed to give a timetable for implimentation.
McHugh said plans have not been discussed as to where soldiers who are homosexual will be allowed to serve.
However, he added that there are no signs that would indicate the Army would rebel if the ban ended.
“The Army has a big history of taking on similar issues, [with] predictions of doom and gloom that did not play out,” McHugh said.
Pentagon Dumps Top Auditor
April Stephenson had only been director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency since February 2008.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — April Stephenson had only been director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency since February 2008.
But now she has been reassigned inside the Pentagon, according to internal email messages.
No specifics were given for her removal.
The Defense Department, however, noted that it wanted “to bring a fresh perspective to an organization critical to stemming waste and fraud in military spending,” as the Associated Press explained.
Stephenson, who was replaced with a senior civilian Army official, had been a fierce critic of defense contractors over suspected overcharges, poor performance, bribery, and other violations of the law.
Actually, that was just KBR, the company of which former Vice President Dick Cheney is the former CEO.
Between 2004 and May 2008, Stephenson said, her staff had sent 32 such cases to the Pentagon’s inspector general.
As Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch noted, these KBR cases account for 43 percent of the dollars the Pentagon had spent in Iraq.
“I don’t think we’re aware of a program, contract, or contractor that has had this number of suspensions or referrals,” she told the independent, bipartisan, congressionally mandated Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Still, the Pentagon already agreed to pay the majority of the $553 million the DCAA audited.
Stephenson’s department is understaffed, she has said, and it has also been found to lack independence from investigating the DoD’s waste without pressure from supervisors to perform on the side of the defense contractors.
“For every dollar GAO (Government Accountability Office) spends, it saves taxpayers $94. At DCAA, the ratio is $5 saved for every dollar spent,” said J.D. Kathuria of ExecutiveBiz.
Role Of Texans At Battle Of Vicksburg To Be Explored Nov. 21
Texans’ role in the 1863 campaign to defend Vicksburg will be examined in a seminar to be held in Abilene, Texas, on Nov. 21. It is the only symposium held in Texas that focuses solely on the War Between the States.
ABILENE, Texas — Texans’ role in the 1863 campaign to defend Vicksburg will be examined in a seminar to be held in Abilene, Texas, on Nov. 21. It is the only symposium held in Texas that focuses solely on the War Between the States.
Co-sponsored by the Hood’s Texas Brigade Association, Re-activated (HTBAR), the Department of History at McMurry University, and the Grady McWhiney Research Foundation, Inc., it features an impressive line-up of scholars. Book vendors and other exhibits, including displays of artifacts from the period of the war will be special highlights.
According to Martha Hartzog, President of HTBAR, men from this county and adjoining counties played an important part in the defense of the famous Mississippi city.
“Practically every county in North, East, Southeast, and Central Texas,” she noted, “sent soldiers who were involved in the campaign. This seminar will tell their story.”
Leading off the speakers will be the noted Ed Bearss, Historian Emeritus of the National Park Service, whose tenure at the Vicksburg Battlefield in Mississippi resulted in the raising of the USS Cairo.
Speakers also include Charles Grear, Department of History at Prairie View A&M, who will explore the roles of the 2nd Texas Infantry, Waul’s Legion, and the 7th Texas Infantry in the Vicksburg Campaign. Susannah Ural, Deparment of History, University of Southern Mississippi, will illustrate the effects of the two defeats at Vicksburg and Gettysburg through letters of soldiers serving in Hood’s Brigade;
The relationship between Port Hudson and Vicksburg will be discussed by Dale K. Phillips, Superintendant of the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park; and Richard Lowe, Professor of History at North Texas University will feature Walker’s Texas Division and the attempt to relieve Vicksburg from the west.
“Texas sent over 90,000 men to fight over the course of 1861-1865,” observed Don Frazier, CEO of the McWhiney Research Foundation, “and the fighting ability of all Texas sons is without peer in the annals of war.” Frazier adds that in the Vicksburg Campaign, Texas troops were heavily engaged in defending against a possible invasion of Texas by Union forces.
In addition to the all-day seminar on Nov. 21, there will be a pre-event Friday evening, the 20th, which features a Lantern Lit Tour and Chuck Wagon Dinner at the Buffalo Gap Historic Village in nearby Buffalo Gap.
Cost for the seminar, which includes lunch is $50.00; the pre-event at Buffalo Gap will be $65.00.
For information on registration, see the Hood’s Texas Brigade Association, Re-activated website at (www.hoodstexasbrigade.org), the Grady McWhiney Research Foundation Website at (www.mcwhiney.org), email Martha Hartzog at (m.hartzog@mail.utexas.edu) or call (512) 447-3881. Deadline for reservations is being extended until Nov. 13. Walk-ins to the seminar are accepted but lunch cannot be guaranteed.
36th Infantry Division Trains With British Army Counterparts
Texas Army National Guard Soldiers of the 36th Infantry Division surprisingly found themselves within a few miles from England’s world-famous Stonehenge while training overseas. They could see the mysterious stones as they traveled across the rolling hills of the plateau to various British Army military sites for their training.
SALISBURY PLAIN, England — Texas Army National Guard Soldiers of the 36th Infantry Division surprisingly found themselves within a few miles from England’s world-famous Stonehenge while training overseas. They could see the mysterious stones as they traveled across the rolling hills of the plateau to various British Army military sites for their training.
During late Sept. and early October, approximately 100 members from the 144th and 142nd Infantry Battalions joined the British Territorial Army’s 3rd Battalion, Royal Anglian Regiment (3RAR) for the second phase of Operation Glow Worm. Joining them were members of the 56th Special Troops Battalion and the 949th Battalion Support Brigade.
Just as the U.S. has its National Guard, the Territorial Army consists of Britain’s reserve Soldiers. Members of the 3RAR, known as the Steelbacks, visited Texas during the intense August heat and trained with the 36th Inf. Div. T-Patchers at North Fort Hood and Camp Swift.
The Texas infantrymen attended numerous weapons classes, live-fire ranges, conducted assaults in training villages and viewed weapons of the past, present and future. Each day they became more familiar with the British Army’s weapon of choice, the L85A2 rifle. They also learned the basics of mortars, archery, Molotov cocktails and setting up trip flares.
After completing their training rotations, they were privileged to experience English heritage and customs from within the sacred walls of The Tower of London and behind the gates of Buckingham Palace.
Multi-National Training
Numerous world-wide operations are currently underway that include combined forces from many different countries. Naturally, they possess different political ideals, command systems, strategies and weapons.
British Maj. Ged Murphy, the new training major for the Territorial Army’s 3 RAR, said international training programs help iron out mission complexities, potential frictions and difficulties which ultimately leads to earlier success for everyone involved.
“It’s absolutely imperative that we do everything we can before we end up on operations when things can go wrong and be dangerous,” said Murphy. “It’s important not only to train together, but that we actually understand each other. This is a fantastic opportunity for the U.S. and the United Kingdom (personnel) because they will inevitably find themselves working together.”
Often, 36th Inf. Div. Soldiers find themselves working with their foreign counterparts, whether in Texas or overseas. In the past five years alone, they have joined forces with militaries from Japan, Iraq, Honduras, Chile, Egypt and the Czech Republic, just to name a few.
Lt. Col. Michael Houston, who commands the 144th Inf. Bn., emphasized that conducting overseas deployment training (ODT) following a unit’s mobilization is the ideal time for effective training
“That’s when everyone’s skill sets are finely honed from recent combat,” said Houston. “This launches us into a phase of tactical training that will carry us forward to our next deployment. We need to continue these ODTs and partner more units together. Having a sister unit overseas maintains (multi-national) relationships that will carry forward regardless of changes in a unit’s leadership.”
Urban Operations
One of the favorite training sites for the Arrowhead troops was Copehill Down, the site of a modernized urban assault village like none they had seen before. The numerous buildings varied in exterior and interior designs; creating all types of door, window, stairs and wall-mounted ladder entry points for the infantrymen to overcome. Beneath the streets, a maze of inactive sewer and drainage pipes added another unique challenge.
According to British Sgt. Major Chris Jewell, a senior permanent instructor for the 3RAR, approximately 130 British Soldiers joined the 36th Inf. Div. troops for the urban assault.
One special high-tech building contained the sophisticated LLUST system, the Low Level Urban Street Trainer. With interactive walls and floors, the building tracks every move made in its interior.
“It knows when we are standing, kneeling or in the prone position by using the small electronic tags we put in our pockets and on our boot laces,” said Spc. Don Barfield of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Bn., 144th Inf. “Afterwards, we watch the results on a big screen in a different building. It was very interesting, very high-speed.”
Following his platoon’s rotation through the village, Spc. Daniel Ovalle of C Company, 2nd Bn., 144th Inf., said he was impressed with the British instructors and what they were teaching.
“This is a great training environment and a once in a lifetime chance for us,” Ovalle said during one of his breaks. “We’re grunts, so we’re all about hands-on training because we like to kick in doors and cause havoc. My adrenaline was really going today.”
Equipment Exhibits
While in Warminster at the Land Warfare Centre, the T-Patchers visited the Infantry and Small Arms School Corps’ comprehensive collection of 3,500 weapons from dozens of different countries. The remarkable assortment varied from small hand grenades and pistols to mines, mortars and enormous anti-tank guns.
Self-professed history buff Staff Sgt. Michael Watts, a recruiter from Team 8, Region 2, said the tour guide was a walking encyclopedia of weapons history.
“It was unbelievable, the amount and variety of everything,” Watts said after completing his tour. “One of my favorites was a Fourteenth Century Chinese-made rifle that had to be ten feet long. It took two people to actually fire it.”
The visiting T-Patchers were also allowed to see the latest high-tech equipment being fielded by British troops. Items ranged from individual combat packs to large combat vehicles.
A Different Language
Besides learning British Army training procedures, techniques and equipment, Arrowhead Soldiers also experienced historic English culture each and every day; whether at the training camp locations or while visiting the sights of London.
Their first hurdle was learning a new language. It’s English, but vastly different from the dialect of the Lone Star State. The Texans learned vital words such as “ablutions” and “scoff” — which meant latrines and chow respectively. A simple American “no problem, thank you” was known as “no dramas, cheers mate.”
Lt. Col. Houston said the unique language of the hosting unit was certainly noticeable.
“We joked that we’re two different people separated by a common language,” Houston said amusingly. “During our conversations, they’ll (the British personnel) tell us that they are the only ones speaking proper English.”
British instructor Color Sgt. Tiger Gardner, who has taught combat tactics to foreign militaries all over the world, said the exchange training experience teaches everyone a new military language as well.
“Many of the abbreviations are different,” explained Gardner after completing one of his weapons classes. “For example, our FRP means the final rendezvous point which is the same as the Americans saying ORP; their objective rally point. To overcome the confusion, the more often the British and American Soldiers can interface, the better.”
Experiencing
English Culture
Upon completion of their combat training, the T-Patchers packed up and headed north to London for once-in-a-lifetime experiences at The Tower of London and Buckingham Palace. Dressed in their finest uniforms, American officers and senior NCOs attended a British Army Regimental dinner and viewed the jeweled crowns from Queen Elizabeth’s coronation.
The following day, a select group of enlisted infantrymen were honored with a behind-the-scenes tour of the Changing of the Queen’s Guards from inside the gates of the palace. The T-Patchers, dressed in their Class A uniforms, were watched by thousands of spectators as they marched to and from Buckingham Palace. Many of the spectators crowded near the entrances wondered who the special guests were and where they were from. After the prestigious ceremony, Sgt. Kyle Mallette of 2nd Bn., 142nd Inf., said it would be an unforgettable day.
“There’s so much history involved with everything they do,” he said. “It was a special event and I learned a lot. Some of the things they wear on their uniforms are as old as our country. It was so cool … I felt like a rock star.”
My Own Ghost Story
It’s Halloween again, and having borrowed my headline from Kipling, I shall now borrow this column from myself. I wrote it a dozen years ago, and it seems to have lost none of its popularity. One can hardly lose what he does not possess.
Most people like ghost stories.
The lover’s lane killer with the hook, the headless corpse, the disappearing midnight hitchhiker all are timeless tales that have chilled bedtimes since bedtimes began.
Why?
It’s fun to be scared.
Well, it’s fun to be scared when being scared is all in fun.
There are no intriguing yarns about things truly scary: poverty, oppression, loneliness, madness.
No, real ghost stories are about things surreal, things that, in the cold, clear light of day we know can never be.
Such fanciful fears excite us, stimulate our imaginations, make us appreciate that we are alive and, regardless of our goose bumps, well and safe.
But some ghosts are real; though not in the way we imagine.
I know.
I once did battle with just such a ghost.
When I was a first grader in Avery, Texas, my parents moved into an old house near the tracks.
It had once been a grand Victorian, but had fallen into disrepair over the years and divided into apartments.
My parents, my brother, older by three years, and I lived in one and a pleasant, elderly couple named Marsh lived in the other.
Across the rear of the house we shared a large screened-in porch.
Before public water service became available in East Texas, most folks depended on cisterns, large, brick-encased holes in the ground that captured and stored roof runoff for household use.
Even though Avery had long since installed a city water system, many homes still had a cistern.
Our cistern was located in the middle of the back porch.
After school one day, my older, smarter brother, Fred, and I learned some eerie facts about the house in which we lived.
“It’s haunted,” pronounced my friend and classmate, Guy Lemmond.
“The feller that lived there taken a butcher knife to his wife and kids. After he cut ‘em up and throwed ‘em in the cistern, he tied the wringer off’n that big warshin’ machine on the back porch ‘round his neck and drowned hisself down there, too. Ever since then, his ghost climbs up out of that cistern an’ roams the house with a bloody butcher knife lookin’ for his wife and kids.”
“How come he roams the house lookin’ if he threw ‘em in the cistern? Why don’t he look for ‘em down there?” I asked. “That don’t make no sense.”
“How do I know? I ain’t no ghost. ‘Sides, ghosts don’t have to make sense. They’re dead.”
“That ain’t true,” scoffed Fred.
“Is too!” Guy whined.
“Ain’t neither. You don’t know nothin’. You’re just a little kid.”
“Oh, it’s true, all right. ‘Least the part about him jumpin’ in the cistern,” added Paul Wayne Meggason.
He was older than any of us.
“I seen th’ sheriff an’ th’ farmen when they come to drag him out with ropes and big ol’ hooks.”
Neither Fred nor I said much more about it, but I knew that the tale was much on my brother’s mind.
Certainly it was much on mine.
That night at supper, we asked the ultimate authority in all such matters, our father.
“Yes,” he said, adopting a grave, school principal’s expression.
“A man named Farley did live here before us. Poor man went nuts.”
“And did he kill his wife an’ kids and cut ‘em up an’ throw ‘em in th’ cistern?” I asked, already dreading his answer.
“I heard that, but I’m not sure it’s true. I also heard that he just attacked his wife; that she ran out of the house and escaped with only a badly cut arm.”
“And is his ghost….”
“This is not fit conversation for the supper table,” pronounced my mother.
While my father was the ultimate authority, my mother was the ultimate authoritarian. The subject was closed.
We wondered about the dreaded Farley ghost for some time after that, but it effected us little until basketball season.
Both our parents coached; my father, the boys’ team and my mother, the girls. Each Tuesday and Friday night they were away from home until quite late.
Fred and I were left on our own with a cold supper and strict orders to be in bed by nine. It was only on nights that our parents were away that the ghost of Farley began to move about.
Ghosts are clever like that.
They never appear around those who can dispel their mythology.
After we were in bed, the noises began.
First we would hear a seemingly harmless drip from the dank cistern.
Or perhaps it would disguise itself as a sound like the scurry of a cat or some other innocent night-prowling animal.
But we knew better.
We knew it was the Farley ghost beginning his ghastly ascent, gory knife clinched in his rotting yellow teeth, searching for innocent children as his next victims.
“Did you hear that?” I would ask from beneath the covers.
“No!” would answer my brother, a little too loudly.
“Yes, you did!”
“It wasn’t nothin’! Go to sleep. Ooo! There it is again.”
“He’s comin’ up! I know it!”
“One of us has to go and throw somethin’ down there an’ knock him back down ‘fore he gits out.”
Fred always had a plan. Rarely did it involve him.
“O.K. You go.”
“No! You!”
“No, I’m too skeered.”
“Well, if you don’t go, he might git us and he might not. But if you don’t go, I’m gonna hurt your face. Ain’t no ‘might’ about it!”
There are terrible consequences to being born three years late.
I crept through the kitchen to the back door and eased it open, dreading with each step a sudden attack from the rank, decomposed, dripping Farley.
I could practically feel the icy plunge of his terrible, ooze-coated blade ripping through the soft flannel of my pajamas as the door yielded to my timid touch. I leaned frozen across the sill.
No Farley.
But I knew he was down there, perhaps inches from the top of the cistern ready to leap from ambush once I stepped onto the porch.
“What are doin’?”
“AH-H-H-H-H!” I screamed and dashed back to the bed, running headlong into a dark figure that I knew must be Farley, knocking it sprawling to the floor as I scrambled back to the uncertain safety of the covers.
“Git out there!” growled Fred, getting up from the floor.
“You skeered the far outa me!” I said, peeking from beneath the quilt.
“I’m goan do more’n skeer you if you don’t git out there an’ knock that ghost back down in that cistern,” he spit through clinched teeth.
“But what’ll I throw?” I pleaded. “If we throw anything we got, mother or daddy’ll miss it, an’ they ain’t goan believe there was no ghost in that cistern.”
“Yeah, you’re right. O.K. Throw something from the Marshes’ side of the porch.”
“Plumb t’other side of th’ porch? That’s too far. ‘Sides, won’t they miss it?
“They won’t care. They’re nice folks. ’Sides, they’d let you if they’d knowed it was to git rid of a ghost! Now go on.”
This new plan meant that twice I had to risk exposure to Farley’s dread realm.
I had to pass the cistern on the way to find some missile, then actually approach the opening, the very yawning maw from which he might spring at any moment, upon my return to hurl it down at him.
The porch was a moonlit blue realm of unnatural shapes and shadows. My bare feet on the worn planks released a cacophony creaks and groans as I tiptoed across what seemed miles until I passed the cistern. Then something, who knew what, made a scritching, wet plop far in its depths. I dashed to the Marsh’s side, looking frantically for a weapon. A rusted toolbox. Maybe it would do. It was heavy. My fingers slipped on the dust-covered rust. I could only lift one end, but there was no time to find something else. I managed to hoist one end and drag it to the cistern. I more pushed than lifted it up the barely sloping sides, got my weight under it and, sprawling across the brick face of the cistern, worried it over the edge.
I never heard the splash.
There was half a porch, 15 feet of kitchen floor linoleum, a bedroom door, two quilts and a sheet between me and the cistern ere that toolbox hit water.
“Didja git ‘im?” Fred asked, sticking his head under the edge of my bedclothes shelter.
“I don’ know.”
“Whatcha mean, ‘You don’t know?’ Didja hit ‘im ‘r not? Maybe you better go back an’ see . . .”
“NO! I got ‘im! Busted ‘im smack dab in th’ face. He won’t be back no more!”
True to my word, we heard no more from Farley that night, nor did we for the next few evenings.
But eventually, his dank stirrings began again.
And again I hitched up my courage and my pajama bottoms to make my trepidatious journey across the back porch haunts. Each time I would fling another object down the cistern and dash Farley back into his tormented lair.
Once or twice, Fred actually made the journey himself.
Farley no longer ruled our lives, and we had a lot more play room on the back porch.
Meanwhile, all over Avery Elementary School, we gained the reputation as fearless ghost hunters. Every recess would find the Fisher boys out under the big sweetgum, regaling our peers with the latest skirmish with the dreaded Farley ghost, ending, of course, in another hair’s breadth victory.
Life was good again.
Until one day I came home from school and saw Mr. Marsh and my father standing out in the front yard, then overheard their conversation as I stood half concealed trying to look inconspicuous, invisible if I could have managed it, behind a corner of the house. A dread more terrible than any Farley inspired crept along my spine.
“I tell you, Mr. Fisher, I’ve never seen or heard of a burglar like this. He never takes anything valuable. An old toolbox I kept some window weights in. A singletree. Busted lawn chair, things like that. And you haven’t missed anything?”
My father recognized guilt even out of the corner of his eye.
“Son, do you know anything about this?”
I was caught like a fly in lard.
It would have done no good to lie.
I was never very good at it, especially to my father.
I blurted out the whole terrible Farley saga, now made truly terrible by virtue of our discovery. My father’s knowledge swiftly killed the Farley ghost, finally and irrevocably, there in our front yard.
Farley was no longer frightening.
Now he was just silly.
I thought Mr. Marsh was going to have a heart attack, laughing like that. Years later, even after I was grown, he would see me on the street and burst into fits of mirth, regaling any passerby within 20 yards with the story of that dull-witted Fisher boy and the ghost in his cistern.
I don’t remember whether my father spanked me.
I doubt it. My spankings were rare, but memorable events.
But I do remember what he told me.
Farley wasn’t worth much when he was alive.
Certainly less after he was dead.
His troubles were of his own making and his fate was sealed by his failure to deal with his misfortunes.
But I had made of him in death much more than he had ever hoped to be in life.
I had extended Farley’s troubles beyond the grave where they should have lain rotting and forgotten with him.
There are no such things as ghosts, he said, until people decide to make them real.
Ghosts are like toys.
We can take them out and play with them in fun. Left out and in the way, they are at best annoying and at worst, dangerous.
When we trouble others with our superstitions, we plague the world with our own foolishness.
And the fears of a fool are to be feared far more than any ghost.
Why Aren’t We Waterboarding Billionaire Tax Cheats?
Imagine Superman not being able to use his x-ray vision in battle with the evil Lex Luthor.
Either the criminal mastermind had placed his laser weapons behind lead shields, or he had exposed the human-friendly alien to radiation from a special kryptonite rock.
Either way, the superhero wouldn’t get the job done because the villian exploited his nemesis’ weaknesses.
Similarly tied are the hands of the Internal Revenue Service at odds with super-wealthy Americans who evade paying taxes to the United States.
The super wealthy can currently keep their finances secret in offshore accounts and avoid taxes through the “offshore dividend tax loophole.”
Essentially, a shell company with an account at a foreign bank outside the United States could dodge taxes on its dividends by using a derivative transaction called a “total return swap.”
The swap entails investors selling stocks to Wall Street at the time of their dividend payments while the securities firms would pay the investors equal to the dividend plus stock gains via special contracts.
So the investors could claim that since they don’t earn dividends, they don’t need to pay the 30 percent tax; the Wall Street firms, though, might still pay 15 percent on the dividends plus claiming more deductions for the swap.
And the IRS could do nothing about it because the practice is legal.
But that could be changing, according to a bill filed in Congress last week. Well, sort of.
The Baucus/Rangel legislation would levy a 30-percent “withholding tax” on the income of U.S. assets held by foreign firms that fail to disclose their American account holders and their balances, deposits, and withdrawals.
However, it seems odd that the U.S. government would merely impose “a fee for maintaining bank secrecy,” as described by Philip West, a former international tax counsel at the U.S. Treasury.
In other words, think of Superman allowing Luthor (or even non-U.S. citizens owning U.S. investments) to blind him in exchange for a quick buck.
Said Reuven Avi-Yonah, a tax law professor at the University of Michigan: “This really becomes a fight between two countries over bank secrecy.”
Plus, the Baucus/Rangel bill stops short at hitting these tax cheats where it hurts — their island havens.
Even Rep. Lloyd Doggett’s proposal to make all companies with U.S.-based executives “American companies” for tax purposes falls yards short.
Why the federal government doesn’t waterboard, after kidnapping, all of these tax cheats worth multi-billion dollars and their accountants is beyond us.
However, the IRS’s new Global High Wealth Industry group gives us hope. If it does its job as IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman says, then the richest Americans worth at least $10 million and up will feel at least a pinch.
Audits starting next month will target partnerships, offshore trusts, and other complex practices that dodge tax payments,
Shulman said, “Our goal is to better understand the entire economic picture of the enterprise controlled by the wealthy individual and to assess the tax compliance of that overall enterprise.”
Go get them!
— Nathan Diebenow
The Run Away Balloon — Centennial For American Ingenuity
Falcon Heene did not ride the winds in a balloon, soaring to over 10,000 feet. The six year old was never in danger, the staged event costing taxpayers 10s of thousands of dollars, stealing the time and abusing the trust of millions of Americans.
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Falcon Heene did not ride the winds in a balloon, soaring to over 10,000 feet. The six year old was never in danger, the staged event costing taxpayers 10s of thousands of dollars, stealing the time and abusing the trust of millions of Americans.
But one century ago a man was carried off in a run away balloon, his death reported in the afternoon newspapers in San Francisco. His wife was besieged by reporters eager for the sensational story and were disappointed when he walked in, covered with mud.
On Saturday, Oct. 30, 1909, Arthur C. Pillsbury was looking for new photos to keep the stock in his shop in San Francisco at 174 Geary Street, briskly busy. He had gotten the best photos for the arrival of the White Fleet in 1908 and tried using a balloon, as did Jackson of Chicago. But he wanted better pictures. He wanted to be holding the camera and making the decisions on what to shoot.
Pillsbury had shot the famous panoramas of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, showing the St. Francis Hotel boiling in flames and smoke. The photographs, usually unidentified, of the chaos which went on for days, are usually his work. The circuit panorama camera was his senior project at Stanford where he majored in Mechanical Engineering in 1897.
Our world was changing. The advent of air flight, via balloons and airplanes, was just beginning. Pillsbury’s autobiography reads, “Air pictures had great possibilities and I wanted them. Roy Knabenshue, and Beachey, afterward the star of the airplane, were making a cut-away ascension in what had been a captive balloon. I went with them and made my first air pictures we sailed over the city and the bay crossed the Berkeley hills and landed in a little meadow, all very fine with two such experts, but as it was foggy, the pictures were not so good.”
Pillsbury had purchased the balloon from A. Roy Knabenshue, having learned “that he had a small silk balloon that would lift me and my cameras. It was of fine white Chinese silk, oiled to make it air tight, the net of linen thread, and the basket, about as large as a half barrel, was made of fish line. This complete outfit which weighed seventy pounds, and could be packed in an average suit case, was when inflated, twenty-five feet in diameter, and contained ten thousand feet of gas.”
Pillsbury describes his new balloon as, “the sun shimmering on its white sphere, was one of the most beautiful of mechanical air visitants. The Fairy, I named her, on account of her ethereal beauty.”
In his autobiography Pillsbury recalls filling and moving the balloon to the Bay saying, “we tied it to a launch with about 500 feet of rope. Luck was with us, for it was not only a beautiful day, but what is much more unusual, in San Francisco, a nearly windless one. These conditions were ideal and I made picture after picture as the launch towed the balloon down the water front.”
But the weather, which had been calm, changed suddenly. “I finished my film and signaled the launch to start back; in the mean time the wind had sprung up and the balloon, instead of being vertically over the launch, was blown off on an angle of 45 degrees.
Starting back, against the increasing wind the basket kept diving into the bay. So I was compelled to hold the cameras in the air to keep them dry. The wind increased in force and between the gusts the launch crew hauled in the rope & I passed the cameras to them. The wind had now reached such velocity that the balloon acted as a huge sail and made progress by the launch impossible. Seeing my predicament, a launch was sent to my assistance from a battle ship then in harbor, but before it reached me, the rope parted close to the basket and I, shouting “Goodbye” to the anxious launch crew, shot up into the air in the basket whose sole ballast and equipment was the one small man who was I. Although this was my first solo aerial flight, I realized that to prevent an explosion in the higher air I must open the neck of the balloon which had been tied at its inflation.”
Pillsbury climbed onto the ring above his head to untie the string closing the bag. He reported, “the shivers chasing themselves over me were not all caused by the increasingly cold air. It was about 4:30 it had taken all day to do the things that afterward I could do in an hour and a half. I was wet + cold.”
In his autobiography Pillsbury reports the balloon shot up over 10,000 feet providing, “ a most wonderful sight, the entire peninsula of San Francisco was below me. I could see the cities San Mateo, Palo Alto and San Jose to those south-ward Alameda Oakland & Berkeley across the bay Tamalpais (Mount) and the Golden Gate to the Westward and the Faralines (Farvaijone Islands) in the distance.”
Sitting with his feet over the edge of the basket he caught the sun, making notes every five minutes on what he could see. Drifting low over the Bay he ran into a cloud bank, condensing the gas.
The balloon began to sink towards the water. Then, just before it struck the land breeze caught the balloon and he came down in the tulles a hundred yards in shore, bouncing up 50 feet to land in a slough, plowing through it making a big splash and a thump as the balloon, rising again, went through a fence, knocking it down to continue across the marches as fast as a horse could run. Finally, the basket caught on the edge of a slough so he could sit on it, allowing the remaining gas to escape.
Pillsbury wrote, “this all took less time than it does to write it.” His account of the event goes on to report he looked like a mud hen, without a hat, his having been lost on the first bounce. However, the balloon was not even wet.
Pillsbury then folded up the balloon, weighing 25 pounds, and was just starting off with the balloon on his back when some engineers on the Bumbarton cut off, then just being built, who had seen him come down and then disappear, came out looking for him, providing a ride in their row boat, which the retreating tide stranded. A laborious wade through thick mud followed for all the men. When they at last reached shore a convenient train came along and, thanking his rescuers, Pillsbury sat down in the Smoker car, close to the stove, to thaw out.
The photographs sold briskly at the shop on Geary, and American innovation and enterprise continued. On the anniversary of this Centennial, remember Americans who rescue themselves, and let that be us.
Next Centennial: The First American Air Show — Dominguez Hills, January, 10-20, 1910. Pillsbury was there.
Texas Leadership Riddled With Dumb-Asses
What is in that Texas drinking water? It’s not the first time that Bill Hammond, the President of the Texas Association of Business, has shared some pretty ignorant comments, e.g., when several years ago Hammond stated that public education should increase class sizes to cut back on teacher personnel costs. Sorry, that’s just dumb.
What is in that Texas drinking water?
It’s not the first time that Bill Hammond, the President of the Texas Association of Business, has shared some pretty ignorant comments, e.g., when several years ago Hammond stated that public education should increase class sizes to cut back on teacher personnel costs. Sorry, that’s just dumb.
The latest oddball tidbit from Bill Hammond likens the unemployment money coming from Washington to an overture from a drug dealer.
“He gives you your first bit of cocaine for free, and then you are addicted and have to pay for it the rest of your life,” Hammond told a legislative panel a few months ago, adding that employers would have to pick up the tab for extended benefits after the federal well runs dry.
Is Hammond speaking from personal drug buying experience?
First of all, the federal money could be used for many different opportunities to provide some one-time relief to many hard-working and hardly-working Texans. There is nothing carved-in stone that requires the state to initiate new ongoing services and thereby incur a new continuing “debt.”
We have to hope that state officials have enough intelligence to use some common-sense when it comes to acquiring and using the federal stimulus funds to help and not hinder our state economy.
Perry continues to make dumb remarks as when he refuses to take federal money and then has a mental breakdown stating that maybe Texas should secede from the United States. He made a splash in newspapers across the nation with that idiotic remark.
Although, upon hearing such absurd comments from “leaders” like Hammond and Gov. Rick Perry who appear almost afraid of accepting the stimulus money, we could be mistaken re: the intelligence and ethics of our elected officials. They are too busy playing political games instead of working to improve the Texas community.
(Peter Stern, a former director of information services, university professor and public school administrator, is a disabled Vietnam veteran who lives in Driftwood.)
For Flu Sufferers, Things Are About To Get Messy
Today, in an unprecedented move, I am joining hundreds of other columnists around the nation who will be addressing the flu vaccination crisis while simultaneously wiping “Influenza blowback” from their computer monitors. For those unfamiliar with this term, here’s how it might be used on an episode of CSI:
Today, in an unprecedented move, I am joining hundreds of other columnists around the nation who will be addressing the flu vaccination crisis while simultaneously wiping “Influenza blowback” from their computer monitors. For those unfamiliar with this term, here’s how it might be used on an episode of CSI:
“Well, judging from the chew marks on this Robitussin safety cap, and the presence of oozing and gelatinous Influenza blowback on his computer monitor, I’d say our suspect has the flu. [Cut to lightening-quick journey through mucus-filled nasal cavity]. Chances are, he’s still in the area. Maybe even in this very room.”
“Ahhh-CHOO!”
“Gesundheit. By the way, which investigation team did you say you’re from?”
While national attention remains on the shortage of flu vaccine, health department officials say, as a result of the vaccine crisis, we are now facing what was once unthinkable.
“The nation’s supply of facial tissue has become dangerously low,” warned Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. “If we’re not careful, many Americans will be left using standard bathroom tissue during the peak of flu season.”
According to health officials, the current crisis began when Chinese regulators unexpectedly shut down tissue manufacturer Bung Corp. last Tuesday after it was discovered that millions of boxes bound for the U.S. had been printed without the necessary safety instructions required by the Consumer Products Safety Commission.
Clark T. Randt, America’s ambassador to China, immediately flew to the factory where he demonstrated, before a panel of regulators, that he was capable of using the instructionless tissue without injury. In spite of multiple demonstrations, including one in which Randt, bound by Chinese finger cuffs, was forced to blow his nose with the help of a blindfolded aid, Chinese regulators remained unconvinced.
As a result, 43 million boxes of tissue once bound for the U.S. has been shipped to France where, according to one French official, “It will be stuffed into jackets and used as body armor.”
Faced with the impending shortage, the CDC introduced a nationwide “voluntary rationing” system yesterday to ensure that supplies of tissue would meet the needs of high-risk users in the months ahead.
“The bottom line is, don’t blow your nose until absolutely necessary,” advised Dr. Gerberding. “This is a time of crisis. I think, as Americans, we should all be willing to overlook a few snot bubbles.”
As a responsible member of the media, I plan to do my part by blowing my nose as little as possible until this crisis passes.
For those of you planning to attend any of my speaking engagements in the near future, let me apologize in advance to anyone seated in the front row.
(You can write to Ned Hickson at nhickson@thesiuslawnews.com, or at the Siuslaw News at P.O. Box 10, Florence, OR 97439.)
Searching For Relevance
I’ve been sitting here for two days, wracking my brain in what is quickly becoming an ever more futile attempt at writing about something of relevance.
I’ve been sitting here for two days, wracking my brain in what is quickly becoming an ever more futile attempt at writing about something of relevance.
I could comment on the latest rantings of the Dick Cheney, ever the pompous, greedy, lying, chickenshit blowhard who refuses to accept the reality that his own self-exalted importance is diminishing into insignificance even faster than Jay Leno’s ratings.
His politically-obstinate, wrongheaded denouncement of President Obama as a “ditherer” because the man wants to weigh all the facts before making an informed decision regarding Afghanistan is not simply divisive, it’s downright unpatriotic.
And reveals precisely the truly nescient ignoramus that is Darth Cheney.
Still, are we to expect anything more substantive from this five-time draft-dodging slug who laid low in various colleges while using his wife and children as shields from military service?
(Let us not forget that, as much as the Dick cowered at the thought of being sent to VietNam in the role of combat participant, a large percentage of draftees were assigned duty elsewhere. Besides, there were no elderly dudes to shoot in the face with birdshot.)
The Dickster reminds me of the scorpion who convinced the frog to give him a ride across the lake, only to mortally sting poor Kermit halfway across — iterating the rationale involved just before his own drowning by explaining, “You should have known that I can’t help myself, it’s what I do.”
For paranoid delusional the Dick Cheney to express concern regarding the safety of our troops caught up in bogus imperialistic wars he had (for years) dreamed of igniting is akin to… well, try as I might it’s impossible to come up with any comparison of similarly vile contemptibility.
What exactly are these people fed or given to drink, the Right-wing extremists of a fast-fading Republican Party who willingly salivate at every psychotic utterance of fear and loathing put forth by the Dick in that ominous monotone?
The complete lack of emotion in his delivery sends chills up and down my spine, as though he were one of the good folks of Santa Mira, California unwittingly assimilated by seedpods from outer space in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
Only in the Dick’s case, he would have willingly agreed to the transformation.
I can understand how Elizabeth Cheney Perry could be so perverse in her rhetoric; she had no choice, being the spawn of the Dick and Lynne.
It’s apparent that Liz is even more belligerently toxic than her maternal unit, but what’s even more frightening is she has regenerated five offspring of her own, thereby multiplying the potential for self-righteous Cheneyistic hatred exponentially — with the possibility that such pigheaded warmongering slathered in jingoism could fester and breed like the cancer that it is for generations to come.
But, I honestly didn’t want to write about anything Cheney.
Really.
On the lunatic ravings of the Dick, I agree wholeheartedly with Vice President Joe Biden: “Who cares?”
So, what else is there?
Remember, when FAUXNews crows about being number one in the cable news ratings, they’re really only getting two million viewers, most of whom never watch any other outlet — or real news. As for demographics, FAUXNews is not pulling in the highly-desirable college-educated young adults, aged 18-34; rather, they are the misinformation destination of predominantly retired (or close to it), non-discerning blue-collar types.
Not only that, but the larger segment of the viewing public is fragmented between all the other outlets. (I must say, it does my heart good to see CNN slip to the bottom of the ratings barrel in prime time, given the ever-deteriorating lead-in from the alarmist hegemony of an aging Lou Dobbs.)
Say… How about Joe Lieberman? Is this guy a douche or what?
Rather than stick a knife into the Republicans and Conservatives who helped keep him out of the vice presidency to which he was duly elected in 2000, he’s chosen to side with them against the health and welfare of the American people and the party he abandoned — just to placate the insurance companies that own him (along with most of Connecticut).
Well, thankfully I’ve got VA coverage, and shall go on Medicare in January.
But what about my son? Or your child?
We’d all be okay and able to pay for any healthcare problem that came along if we had made the tons of cash amassed by the Dick Cheney on the backs of regular Americans — taxpayers, fuel consumers, food eaters, etc. — and the mangled bodies of brave military people.
Oh, jeeze, I’m back to the Dick again… time for me to say, “Shalom.”
(Erstwhile Philosopher and former Educator Jerry Tenuto is a veteran who survived, somewhat emotionally intact, seven years in the U.S. Army. Despite a penchant for late-night revelry, he managed to earn BS and MA Degrees in Communications from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. On advice from a therapist, he continues to bang out his weekly “Out Of The Blue” feature in The Lone Star Iconoclast — providing much-needed catharsis. Jerry is also licensed to perform marriage ceremonies in 45 states.)
Air Sickness
When I first heard about those two pilots who recently overshot the Minneapolis airport by over 100 miles, I was stunned. However, when they said the reason they weren’t paying attention to flying was because they were looking at one of their personal laptops, I just nodded my head, knowingly. We’ve all seen people who get so absorbed in their computers or other electronic devices that they lose track of time and everything else. I’ve done it now and then. Of course, when I do it, I don’t have 144 passengers sitting behind me.
When I first heard about those two pilots who recently overshot the Minneapolis airport by over 100 miles, I was stunned. However, when they said the reason they weren’t paying attention to flying was because they were looking at one of their personal laptops, I just nodded my head, knowingly. We’ve all seen people who get so absorbed in their computers or other electronic devices that they lose track of time and everything else. I’ve done it now and then. Of course, when I do it, I don’t have 144 passengers sitting behind me.
For an hour and 18 minutes, the pilots didn’t respond to their radio. Air traffic controllers had no explanation for what was going on. Federal counterterrorism agencies were so alarmed by the plane’s erratic actions that they put fighter jets on alert. The pilots claimed they were on the computer for the entire hour and 18 minutes going over some new airline scheduling software. Come on. If these pilots are the kind of people who are on their laptops every chance they get and they were on it for an hour and 18 minutes, do you really think they were just checking out some dull airline software the whole time?
During those 78 minutes, if they got an email, don’t you think they read it? Maybe they checked on how their stocks were doing. Perhaps they were playing “Tiger Woods’ PGA Tour” or “Street Fighter IV.” For all we know, they were looking at porn while the plane flew at 37,000 feet.
I’m sure they felt that they could be on the computer and still pay attention to flying the airplane. And why not? How hard can it be to fly an Airbus A-320?
We don’t see something as serious as this every day, but we all know this mentality. It’s the rationalization used by people who talk on their phones while they drive: “I can concentrate on the road while I talk.” It’s what people say when they’re being electronically rude: “Don’t worry, I can pay attention to what you’re saying and send an email at the same time.” It’s the same thought process used by all those people who text while they’re making love. Well, I’m sure somebody does that.
The point is that, without realizing it, people get completely engrossed in their computers, Blackberrys, and iPhones. The New York Times recently reported a Western Washington University experiment that demonstrated this.
They surveyed some people walking around a campus square while a unicyclist in a clown suit pedaled around the same square. After stopping the walkers, the researchers asked, “Did you see anything unusual?” One third of the people who were listening to music while they walked and nearly 60 percent of the people who were walking with a friend mentioned the clown. But of those people who were walking while they talked on their cell phones, only eight percent remembered the clown. Eight percent! How can they drive or pay attention at a meeting while they’re on their phones if they can’t spot a clown right in front of them? On a unicycle!
The researchers refer to this phenomenon as “inattentional blindness.” Maybe that’s what the pilots had. Maybe that’s what your kid has as she talks on her cell phone and you’re waving your arms in front of her. Maybe that’s what that guy in the elevator has as he ignores everyone else and shouts into that ridiculous thing on his ear.
So I guess some people aren’t as good at multitasking as they think they are. They should stick to doing one thing at a time — especially if they’re flying a plane. There’s just one thing about those pilots that I can’t get out of my mind: I hope they weren’t using that computer to play, “Flight Simulator.”
(Lloyd Garver has written for many television shows, ranging from “Sesame Street” to “Family Ties” to “Home Improvement” to “Frasier.” He has also read many books, some of them in hardcover. He can be reached at lloydgarver@gmail.com. Check out his website at lloydgarver.com and his podcasts on iTunes.)
Just Back From Russia: How To Survive Jet-Lag
After spending 16 hours in the air between Russia and SFO — and five additional hours sitting around in a French airport — I was really, really glad to get home to Berkeley. And my granddaughter Mena still remembered me. And the roof of my apartment had only leaked a little bit. And only a few of my houseplants had died. Good to be home! I was, however, completely overcome by jet-lag. Is jet-lag a pre-existing condition?
After spending 16 hours in the air between Russia and SFO — and five additional hours sitting around in a French airport — I was really, really glad to get home to Berkeley. And my granddaughter Mena still remembered me. And the roof of my apartment had only leaked a little bit. And only a few of my houseplants had died. Good to be home! I was, however, completely overcome by jet-lag. Is jet-lag a pre-existing condition?
When I got back from Russia, the first thing that I noticed here — aside from a big stack of unopened mail — was that, in my absence, America had become completely obsessed with the Great Swine Flu Scare. Nobody had even mentioned the H1N1 virus when I was over in Russia, but in America the media everywhere I turned was blasting stories about “1,000 people dying” and the big “National Emergency Declaration”. I also noticed that the debate over single-payer healthcare was still going strong. And you know which side I’m gonna be on regarding that one. If a huge pandemic ever does hit the U.S., I surely will not want to have to deal with any for-profit health insurance companies before I can get treated. “I’m sorry, Jane, but swine flu is a pre-existing condition.”
But I digress.
Forget about getting taken to the cleaners by for-profit health insurance companies and having weird substances shoved up you nose by Big Pharma. Let’s talk about what really interests me most right now — jet-lag. How does one get over jet-lag? If there is a vaccine for jet-lag, sign me up!
But until a vaccine for jet-lag is finally discovered, here’s a list of the things that I myself have discovered to actually help. First of all, there is yoga. I HATE yoga. But it works. If you tie yourself up like a pretzel, you won’t even be thinking about jet-lag. I guarantee it.
Next, do try acupuncture. It works too. If someone is sticking a bunch of needles into your ears, you are not gonna be worrying about jet-lag. Jet-lag will be the least of your worries. Trust me on that one. But acupuncture does help. At the AIMC clinic on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, You can have student interns acupuncture your ears for only five dollars per session. A miracle cure!
And then there’s Jin Shin Jyutsu. Jin Shin Jyutsu is amazing. It helps us to immediately get into physical, mental and emotional balance — and it’s easy to do. JSJ basically consists of holding onto your fingers and toes (and, no, you don’t have to recite “This little piggy went to market” while doing it). First you grab your left little toe with your right hand and hold onto it for three minutes — grab onto all three joints of your toe bone, descending down to the pad at the top of your foot. Then you hold the next toe for three minutes, and then the next one — do all five. Then switch to the other arm and foot. And do it while watching all the episodes of “Survivor” that you missed while you were gone. JSJ is amazing stuff. And it works.
I just made three demonstration videos about Jin Shin Jyutsu. The first one shows my daughter Ashley and I demonstrating some basic finger holds (ignore the eight more complex holds on this video. I got some of them wrong): . The second video shows me and toddler Mena demonstrating eight more complicated finger holds: And the last video shows me using the proper techniques for clutching one’s fingers and toes. .
Still suffering from jet-lag even after all that? Then go for a walk. I HATE to walk. My knees hurt. But you can at least hobble around the block once or twice. Fresh air is nice. Fresh air also works.
And speaking of fresh air, I’ve noticed that the air over America is not as clean and clear as the air over Russia. That’s probably because Russia has more trees. Imagine an area the size of, well, the continental United States — only all covered with trees. And all those trees will be breathing out clean oxygen. No wonder Russia’s air is better. Their secret weapon is trees.
Breathing is a good way to get over jet-lag. You gotta remember to breathe. Also eating healthy stuff helps a lot. I HATE to eat healthy. But it does help. And they say that sex gets you over jet-lag sooner too. But I haven’t yet tested that theory because apparently MediCare doesn’t cover sex even though, for me, sex is not a pre-existing condition.
Speaking Out
I just have to say something (as usual). I’m torn between two things lately: On the one hand, I have a great deal of concern for the incredible dumbing down of America, especially by the public school systems in large cities. Please understand that I’m not writing specifically of our local school system, but of the average in the nation. I also have a great concern for the rewriting of history books (again). But the decrees defining “acceptable” performance (or not) come from on high, from bureaucrats who seem often to have less common sense than the children they’re responsible for educating. These decrees affect all our public schools, and indeed the future of us all.
I just have to say something (as usual). I’m torn between two things lately:
On the one hand, I have a great deal of concern for the incredible dumbing down of America, especially by the public school systems in large cities. Please understand that I’m not writing specifically of our local school system, but of the average in the nation. I also have a great concern for the rewriting of history books (again). But the decrees defining “acceptable” performance (or not) come from on high, from bureaucrats who seem often to have less common sense than the children they’re responsible for educating. These decrees affect all our public schools, and indeed the future of us all.
What was once considered completely unacceptable scholastic performance is now praised with relief. If children are not encouraged to strive for excellence, where is the example? In some schools, as long as few fights break out and everyone is relatively quiet, it’s considered a good day. Scholastic, ethical, and moral mediocrity seems to be the norm (as in, “It’s only bad if I get caught”). Pregnant teenagers are no longer looked at in some cities as a problem. I just don’t get it.
Plenty of kids find it necessary to attend junior and community colleges for remedial classes, because no child can be left behind. So they graduate without the goods to back it up. And they didn’t go an alternate route to learn a worthwhile trade they might be suited for. This all adds fuel to the fire of those who claim that some of our public school systems are no more than day care centers. A year or so of community college may bring a student up to the level of a graduating high school senior (sometimes just BARELY graduating).
It’s not only the kids who are satisfied with less. Look at what many adults are watching on television. Have you ever checked out reality T.V.? I’m rather ashamed to admit that I have. It’s like a train wreck; you just can’t look away. But eventually you do, or you get sucked in forever to a black hole from which you may never return. Is this the best we have to offer? Has anyone else noticed that the quality of the moving picture industry has also gone south markedly? They’re spending more and I’m enjoying it less. And the “celebrities” our kids look up to — Wow. What a bunch of losers, most of them. I must sound like my parents did when I was young.
Part 2
So here I am thinking that there is simply no hope for this country (and perhaps there is not, considering the economy and other enormous problems). I’m lamenting our downfall, watching politicians fiddle while proverbial Rome burns. Then low and behold, regular people, normal folks like you and me, start standing up for themselves at town meetings and in various other venues. I say “Bravo.” It’s about time. (Whether or not it will eventually make any difference is uncertain.) This country was built on protest, free thinking, and free speech. Long ago the founders of the United States stood up for their principles and their needs. I’m certain there was plenty of stupidity, graft and corruption even then, but communication wasn’t instantaneous as it is now. It wasn’t nearly as easy for people to air their dirty laundry or sordid affairs or unclothed bodies on the Internet for all to see. It wasn’t quite as easy back then to find out whose husband was cheating on which wife or mistress or who was a lesbian or which male politician solicited sexual favors in public toilets.
We’re a more informed public now, thanks to this same media. Hopefully America isn’t as dumb as I had once feared. As a large men’s clothing warehouse slogan claimed for years, “An educated consumer is our best customer.” The same could be paraphrased now. “An educated citizen is our best citizen” — and the one who is better prepared to make decisions that will affect his or her future.
Why don’t politicians applaud the participation of individuals now, their questions, their involvement? Well, duh, because they don’t really want us to do anything but agree with them.
Protests began long before my time, but DURING my time, I have experienced a few. From what I can see, the free expression of opinions never hurt any forum. (It’s best done with respect and dignity, but that applies to both sides, even when one side may be the President or the government or any of its long arms. Most of all, no one wants another Kent State.) One of our First Amendment Rights is free speech. I’d like to see a politician try to tell me I don’t know what’s good for ME. I expect all of you feel the same way.
Part 3
So we don’t want government dictated health care forced down their throats. Good for us. Many have found the courage to question and complain, to say not only “NO” but “HELL NO.” Finally folks are speaking out instead of just going along and thinking, “Well, if the government says it’s good for us, it must be OK.” We’ve all been duped by politicians long enough to be wary and suspicious of them. You know that old saying, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on ME.” How many times must we be promised things and the promises blatantly broken? How many times must we be lied to? How many times must we hear a politician swear to a belief or action only to look back in easily attainable public records to find he or she claimed exactly the opposite when it suited his or her purpose? Do they think we’re too stupid to notice? (This is why God invented investigative journalists.) What astonishes me is that the great unwashed masses (this includes me) took so long to speak up. Were we unconscious? Too trusting? Too tired? Too busy? Were we completely stupid? Well, better late than never. I hope it’s a trend.
So we don’t want a vaccine forcibly injected into our bodies because the government says we must. No way will they put that stuff into me! Finally people are standing up for themselves. Hoo-freaking-ray! What surprises me is that it took so long. I have often been suspicious of many of the forced vaccinations we give our children, and the flu shots “recommended” by the government. Speak to your trusted physician (assuming you have one in this day and age, someone who knows you and whom you know). Ask your doctor what he or she recommends for you personally. Ask about safety. Then make the decision with your physician or health care professional.
Anyone with a brain knows that some big business somewhere is making a load of money off immunizations. So prove to me that I need it. And prove to me that it’s safe. And be forthcoming about the possible side effects (if the vaccine has been tested well enough to know such things). I can assure you from statistical history that one person in a million will get Guillain-Barre Syndrome from flu vaccine. Give me the facts and the statistics, and let me decide for myself which risk I wish to take. Let me make my own gamble, with the advice of my physician. Don’t tell me I’m too dumb to decide. The medical community has been forcing us to make many of our own medical decisions for years now — so physicians and hospitals can avoid malpractice suits.
And don’t tell me I am too stupid to know what I want for my children. Thank goodness many school districts and parents said “no thanks” to the offer of a 30 minute or more speech by the President piped into schools, interrupting classes. I expect the President’s advisors NEVER expected even a whimper over this one.
They are so out of touch with the suspicion that’s growing in this country against government. And did they not think that someone might look back to see that Democrats were up in arms when President George Bush Senior did the same thing back in the 90s, made a speech to all public school children? Some people thought Obama’s speech was innocent enough (and perhaps it was. Or perhaps in the final form, after all the protests registered — and maybe the speech writers tweaked it — it was. Did propaganda exist in the original version? Maybe some subliminal message? I have no idea. The point is that people finally realized they had a CHOICE and didn’t follow like sheep or ask, “How high” when told to jump.
Isn’t it about time?
(Gene Ellis, Ed.D is a Bosque County resident who returned to the family farm after years of living in New Orleans, New York, and Florida. She is an artist who holds a doctoral degree from New York University and is writing a book about the minor catastrophes of life.)
