Guardian Grandmas

Rio Rancho is in the midst of a sand-storm.

Which is really too bad, because I was looking forward to some mind-numbing work tempering one of my steel-work projects. But high winds mean no starting 1300 degree fires in the forge. Those same high winds and impenetrable dust mean, in the current state of things out there, it isn’t wise to play badminton.

And it may mean that we’ve finally lost Al Gore. He’s out there wandering aimlessly in the storm. But that seems unlikely, after all, he lives in a mansion on the East Coast - or is it the $9 million, Montecito Mansion on the West Coast, now? Hey, everyone needs multiple homes to fly their private jet between. Nope - he's not lost. He's just an asshole.

I can’t help but draw a few comparisons here, though. Like this: The Dust Storm outside is not as strange as the Alice In Wonderland arrival of the SWAT team to protect Obama from a gaggle of grandmas in East Nowhere, Quincy, Illinois.

Hell, it wasn’t even East Providence – or South Boston – or even the South Valley of Albuquerque. It wasn’t the drug-war, drug-ridden country of Mexico – It wasn’t Iraq or Afghanistan and it wasn’t Mogadishu, Somalia, which even Clinton had the balls to visit.

It was Quincy.

Illinois.

For God’s sake!  Someone use your common sense! If there’s a group of old ladies standing around in Illinois – regardless of whether or not they are wearing red – when you use the words “Tea Party” in that context, that may be exactly what it is! They may have been just about to break out the cards and coffee cake, when the shock troops rolled in – in formation! They were moving double-time! In formation! They were frightening the few children who were there, so just imagine what images those kids will carry forward (and that is no joke at all.)

Here's a statement released by Quincy PD about the deployment of their SWAT:


"During President Obama’s address, at approximately 1530 hours, the MFFT was deployed. A group of individuals positioned themselves on the south side of York Street near 3rd Street. This was within the area that was to be kept secure at the request of the U. S. Secret Service agents in charge of the site. Prior to the event only ticketed individuals were to be in this area; during the event it was restricted to the general public completely. Secret Service personnel requested these individuals leave the area and to go back to the north side of York Street. They did not comply. Quincy Police Department personnel made the same requests and again they did not comply. At that time the MFFT was deployed to stand post between the individuals and the site and, if necessary, remove the individuals. Once the MFFT was in place, the individuals agreed to move. Once everyone complied and the site was again secure, the MFFT returned to their staging point. No physical force was used during this deployment."

So yeah, I can see the danger, El Presidente.’ Don’t furrow your boyish brow over these simple ruminations. Those weren’t nice grandmas – they were demon-grandmas; kind of like demon sheep, just with blue hair! They are part of the Guardian Grandmas … they just weren’t wearing their red berets that day. I can see how it would be necessary to call out SWAT, because there’s no way Secret Service could handle that crowd.

Standing at parade rest behind the Guardian Grandmas were neat rows of elite cops in their black armored Darth Vader gear. What a sight. What a statement on how far we have fallen as a nation. What are these clowns doing to us? What’s the next step in the escalation process? We bring grandmas, they bring SWAT; we bring grandmas and cold drinks - they bring armored humvees; we bring grandmas, drinks and umbrellas – and they bring Mark 19 Grenade launchers. Where does it end? We bring grandmas and drinks, umbrellas … and the unthinkable: a card table! And yummy snacks – and they bring thermonuclear weapons.

This is our tax dollars at work – and this is our tax dollars at work … on Crack!

Frankly, dear reader, I don’t know how much more I can say on the subject – except what any of the Guardian Grandmas might say to Obama: “Shame on you!”

I’m going to go have a piece of coffee cake.


_______


And for those of you who want the ultimate weapon.... The Battle Fork .  - 
www.http://dsadventuregear.blogspot.com/

Stare at some goats - do it now!

I haven’t watched the news on television for some time. I haven’t listened to the latest smears and jeers by a boyish, imbecile president. I haven’t watched Al Sharpton claim everyone who isn’t him is racist. I haven’t watched the latest celebrities claiming everyone should ride bikes and wear sandals or wooden clogs – and squeeze our own milk out of cow tits because plastic and factories are killing the planet.

No wait. It’s cow farts, isn’t it? So, we should stop drinking milk because that has too much fat and probably salt – and eat the cow – but not all at once, because that’s too much red meat in our diet. Or something.

No, I just haven’t watched any of that crap. I haven’t listened to it on the radio – and if I see a photo of someone distasteful on the internet, I very calmly click off of the link and look at something peaceful and meaningless – like the slowly scrolling lines of Twitter – or a movie, like Men Who Stare at Goats.

In fact, it is during this movie that I realized what an interesting world this would be if we had Jedi Knights. These guys would be able to see into the future and know we are heading for a fall similar to the one expected by 14^th century explorers – blip; off the end of the flat Earth.  Monty Python had some cartoons to that effect as well – and it would look just like that in the mind of the Jedi.

Jedi Knights would be able to see into the hearts and minds of our elected officials and know who was a bad guy – unless he was really bad, like that Sith Lord dude in George Lucas’ films. Then they wouldn’t know, but they could band together and kick his ass – or have their kids kick his ass. Yeah, it would be great.

Jedi Knights could also stroll around in those cool robes, looking regal and somehow, above it all – like Obama if he was a Supreme Court Justice, instead of a Supreme Being. Jedi dudes could stride purposefully around the White House, looking purposeful and stuff. And they could do kind, considerate things, like speak to the gathered angry crowds in soothing, lofty voices – like Obama, if he actually did that – and if he wasn’t an arrogant pimple.

Jedi Knights would be able to use their mind tricks to make Biden look smart and cultured. They would also be able to levitate him – which would be cool, although I don’t know why.

The Jedi would be able to use their minds to influence the biased, rat-bastard news media, and have them report the news instead of interpret it through some plastic, botox injected, hairplug ridden, boob enhanced, bleach-blonde who can read, or was once a lawyer who learned how to read.

The Jedi Knights would be able to whip out their light-saber thingies and carve irritating people into small smoking bits while giving significant looks to the rest of the nearby miscreants. Terrorists would be eliminated almost immediately, although unions would for the most part, hang in there – as we saw with Jabba The Hut – or Pizza The Hut, depending on which version of the movie you saw.

Yep, everything would be so much better with Jedi dudes. No Obamanator, no Pelosi Skin Walker, no Barney the bend-over dinosaur, no evil ACORN creatures or ACLU zombies lurching about, no brainwashed school teachers and second-hand brainwashed kids, no prosecutions of our nation’s heroes, no drug problems, immigration issues, financial meltdowns – and no environmental concerns, because we could move all the environmentalists to that planet with the Ewoks, where all those nature-lovers would be cooked in big Ewok pots until they were nice and crunchy.

There would be no traffic jams, because we could just fly around the jackass in the Fed Ex truck. There would be no starvation or disease, because the Jedi would see that coming easy, and divert the appropriate relief efforts long before things required Sean Penn to get dickheads like Chavez to send cruise ships for relief workers. In fact, small-time dictators like Chavez and smoochy admirers like Penn, would be carved up into bouillon cubes by multi-colored light-sabers, for use in Ewok stew. It would be a very festive process and produce a hot export for a booming economy – and no one would be sick, unless they got really old on some swamp planet exile, like Yoda – or Yogurt – again, depending on the version you watched. But no sickness would mean no need for universal health care, new-age Hollywood diets or Richard Simmons – oops, too late.  Way too late on that last one.

Yeah, basically life would be grand.

But I, dear reader, would live on a distant moon, where the television signals were still rolling in episodes of the Honeymooners, I love Lucy or Gilligan’s Island – because this whole fight the Dark Side thing, sucks tremendously. And having to watch it every friggin’ day on the tube and not be able to do a thing about it – well, that sucks too.

Makes you want to stare at some goats. Because if you can drop one of those suckers just by using the Force, we’re in business.

Terrorist Tartare

I used to transcribe police logs.

If you’ve ever worked at a newspaper – a real newspaper and not the New York Times – you might know what I mean. If you don’t, sit down, shut up – you’re about to learn something.

In New Mexico’s Otero and Lincoln County, characters like Billy the Kid and other Old-West notables used to roam the empty expanses, testing their will against tough terrain and a tougher population. The results were often recorded by the lawmen of the day. Which got me to wondering one afternoon, what a typical police blotter from that time might have looked like. So I took a trip to the Alamogordo Public Library and found out.

In their special section, which dealt with such things, I found my answer. It was a statement written by a deputy sheriff in the 1800s. He said “I went to talk to old Jim. He was ornery. So, I shot him dead.”

And herein lies the point of my article: We have come so far in our idiot dealings by politicians and the like, that we would send America’s premier assault team to bag a really bad bean like Abed, and then we prosecute members of the team for assaulting the guy. What’s wrong with that picture? What kind of half-assed government do we really have when they allow the military leadership to go forward with such a ridiculous charge?

Why is it ridiculous, dear reader? I hear you moaning back there behind your computer, you politically correct weenie. Go chew some Granola, you’ll feel better.

The charge is ridiculous because I, for one, want Abed assaulted. In fact, I want Abed punched repeatedly, just before I teach him how to fly. As a former military guy myself, I can only say that given the job to bring Abed in – I would likely have done just that, but I would have dropped him out in front of headquarters from a height of about 250 feet. Why that particular altitude? It’s high enough to make sure the deceleration kills him, but low enough for myself, Abed’s buddies, and even God, himself, to appreciate the bounce.

They would have enough of the guy to scrape into a paper bag – enough for a DNA test if it didn’t get mixed up with the camel dung.  But Abed wouldn’t be in a talking mood. His buddies might be – but not him. So no courtroom antics, no teary-eyed terrorist-rat-bastard recounting on the stand – and what’s key here – no Abed.

Coarse you say?  Callous? I don’t give a rat’s ass. Shove it somewhere dark and personal if you don’t like it. Sit down and shut up.

But hey - that’s me. I was just a meathead sergeant. I was a nobody. I wasn’t a trained professional like our SEALs. They fulfilled the job and brought that sack of human shit, Abed back intact – with all his fingers and toes, even! And I don’t give a hoot if one of them whacked Abed and made him cry. In fact, I’d like them to whack him some more. Give him one whack for every one individual who died in New York on September 11. Then give him one more whack – just as a parting gift from me. Please. Turn him into a damned piñata and drop him off in Otero or Lincoln County, New Mexico – or hell, leave him in my backyard. We’ll welcome him to the U.S. properly.

But our suits want to prosecute the guys who went in and got Abed – so just ask yourself this… next time we have to go get one of these pricks, who are we going to send? Are we going to send the Ghostbusters? Are we going to drop in Anthony Bourdain, the globe-trotting, snarky, liberal chef? Are we going to send the local Bridge club from the senior center? How about that pencil-necked pizza delivery guy, or the dickhead who until recently, used to do the voice-overs for the GEICO commercials?

I just don’t know – and I guess our leadership doesn’t know either.

But they can do the world a favor – they can send me along. Let the hard men drag the rat out of his tent and over to the chopper. I’ll be happy to take it from there. Then I will say something, when the ride is over, which will no doubt, go into the history books. I will say it with a smile, as the leadership is busy scraping the paper-thin smear of “terrorist tartare” into a zip-lock. Because that’s the best way to ensure it stays “fresh.”

I will say, “I went to talk to old Abed. He was ornery. Had to kick him out of the chopper.”

Obama or his Defense Secretary, Gates – listen to this: Let the SEALs go. Let them get back to doing their jobs, or you’re going to have to reinstate me, and other old sergeants like me.

But you better pack a spoon and spatula if you do.

Mission Impossible

In the dustcloud surrounding the tea party, no one is watching the small stuff.

But then again, the small stuff is actually big stuff – it’s just so big, it is impossible for most people to see the edges – subsequently, like a big stupid bird with its’ head in the ground, it is possible to believe the Earth doesn’t exist. Even if your head is in it – I mean.

And so we come to Tom Cruise. Well, not really Tom Cruise – just one of the characters he played. Remember the super secret guy in Mission Impossible? Yeah, that one. Remember the plotline of the first movie – the NOC (Not Official Cover) list – and how it was so important to ensure the list not fall into the bad guy’s hands, that the U.S. Government had it hidden in only one computer with a climate-controlled, laser, heat, motion, sound vibration and moisture sensored room? A room with with only one vent – sixty feet up - through which it was - of course - possible to stuff Tom Cruise, so he could steal it and carry forward the plotline?

Yeah that part.

Well, people like Tom played in that movie, are real. They just aren’t your average schmucks. And no movie will be made about them – no monuments raised – no mention of their actions beyond their own small community. You and I won’t know them. They will seek no fame and likely no fortune, and despite doing horrific duty in the toilet bowls of the world, our government may seek to prosecute and jail them for smacking some terrorist, or doing other things they either didn’t do – or in my personal view – should have done more of.

But as bad as it is for our elected fools to be attacking the very people who carry out their policies and orders – as bad as it is for stuffed shirts who ask these folks to do the “impossible,” then question the methods used to achieve those goals, it is not the problem I am writing about today.

Because if you take the current prosecution of the SEALs over the alleged smackdown of some scumbag who probably bit his own damned lip – you will discover that this very same scumbag was responsible for stringing up the mutilated corpses of former U.S. Special Forces operators working as contractors after their time in the service was up.

You will note, that those operators who were tortured and hung, were targeted – and you should then ask yourself why. Because reports are being circulated that the New York Times – the same newspaper who’s Communist and Marxist Pulitzer Prize winners I have reported on before – is preparing to go public with a list of Americans providing force protection for our troops in Afghanistan.

The NOC list.

“Wait,” you say, “isn’t that under lock and key in some kind of climate-controlled, laser, heat, motion, sound, vibration and moisture sensored room?” The short answer is “apparently not.” And if it was, someone let the biggest leftist publication in the world have the passcode.

In fact, the truth is that the New York Times has been waging a very private war over the use of “contractors” in our hot zones, sparking some writers to question whether activities of the Central Intelligence Agency are actually behind the Times’ inside information. Whether or not that connection could be proven, is beside the point. The release of such a list will provide terrorist scumbags the world over with the names of not only the operators, but their families – their children and grandchildren!

What would you do to protect your family? Or do you think that somehow your family is excluded because you aren’t on the list?

What you should be asking yourself, then, is: Who is on the list? Is it your neighbor? Your co-worker’s spouse? The husband who’s wife you sit next to in the subway each morning? The brother of your kid’s school teacher? A friend of a friend? Then ask yourself this – what happens when the bad guys come to take revenge? What moment will that be – and where will you be when it happens? Can you even remember the images of people leaping to certain death from the top floors of the World Trade Center? They weren’t even specifically targeted. They just went to work that day, and they – and most everyone around them – died horribly.

So, back to the point of this article. When all is said and done, you can ask yourself this one: Who is worse – the terrorists overseas setting roadside bombs and hanging our people from bridges, or the terrorists here at home in places like the New York Times - with their lists, and the power of life or death by simply pressing the “enter” key and publishing death itself.

It isn’t some crap Tom Cruise movie after all – is it?

POST-SCRIPT: The following is a statement I received yesterday from one of those individuals who did the “Mission Impossible” stuff in the real world, to keep you safe. I have done you civilians the kindness of explaining in parentheses, what the military terms, here, mean…

“An old master chief friend told me when all this shit was brewing. Keep your ear to the ground and stay frosty & hidden. The lefties are in love with the tangos (terrorists) & they’d love nothing more than to hand us over to be crucified. Be ready on a moment’s notice to swim off and save yourself, to fight another day. But be very careful about sky-lining yourself (identifying yourself). They’ll come after your family and your 20 (your exposed flank) will be exposed to the world.

The New York Times has become as much of a threat as any tango out there. America’s warriors young & old have been betrayed again. I will never forget and will definitely NEVER FORGIVE!!!!”

More information: http://bigjournalism.com/bthor/2010/04/14/sos-red-alert-new-york-times-about-to-put-american-troops-in-deadly-peril/

Taking Flight

In the desert there is a horizon. It is always there and always unreachable – the thin line where the brown of the earth meets the blue of the sky – a reminder that there are limits to existence.

I remember times when those limits weren’t so harshly defined.

There was a time many of us remember, when televisions didn’t have a thousand channels and there were no remote controls or cell phones. There was a time when radios would be propped against sand dunes, the sound coming from them a gentle, tinny background voice, as out in the distance the waves rolled in – and in the further distance, ships navigated somewhere between the sea and the sky.

In those days, there were no ipods, ipads, home computers or internet. Newspapers could be seen unfolded in corner babrber shops daily, and astronauts were visiting the Moon. There were all sorts of people whom you could look up to – and even if you didn’t agree with the government and the president, there was still a kind of respect you could find – a level of statesmanship you might someday hope to aspire to.

In those days you could recite the pledge of allegiance in school, and not wonder if someone was going to object. You could fly your flag in your front yard and not have to wonder if the day was coming when you would be told to remove it because it offended the family living next-door.

A kaleidoscope of images come to mind when I think about these things. Memories, some dark, some bright – all clamor for attention on the surface of my mind. I remember the call of gulls late in the day as the fishing boats returned. I remember when people used to receive their day’s milk in bottles delivered to boxes at their back steps. I remember when the mailman was trustworthy and had time to stop and chat. I remember when a ten-speed bike was a miracle of engineering and when having power windows on your car, meant you probably had an Olympic-sized pool in your backyard, a house filled with fine-china and finer furniture. I remember when housing developments seemed unusual – when it was strange to see so many places side-by-side, looking so similar. I remember seasons of salt-laden summer breezes, falls filled with bronzed, fallen leaves and new maple syrup and candy apples. I remember winters of cold temperatures, but warm family visits. There were holidays filled with strung lights and song and there were spring-times when the girls always seemed prettier and you just knew things were going to get better and better.

It’s a kind of sadness I feel, I suppose, when I compare the future we have traded for that past - which I know in my heart to have been somehow purer and more complete. We made that trade with our eyes open, grasping at the shiny magic beans – giving away a world of life on Earth for a hoped for place in the clouds.

But here in the desert, the world speaks few lies. Look at these things we have now. All the accoutrements of a modern age have cluttered our homes and our lives, and left us with less, not more. The progress of science and reason has made for greater technology, but a dearth of spirit. Like Orwell’s Winston, we are beaten down and left tired and sickly by the crush of our own personal institutional monsters. Many seek solace in the voices of big media concerns, but the men and women of those businesses always make their money on the controversy and carnage. It isn’t in their interest to have a better world.

Our answers seem always out of reach. Despite promises of change and progress we are always offered one more magic bean through technology and politics and science and religion. And despite living in the world promised by Frank Dille, in his Depression-era Buck Rogers cartoons, we seem no closer to that horizon. We can reach the shores of a new sea from our space-station foothold in the infinity of space, but are no closer to a better life. There’s no promise of a new diaspora. The horizon remains unreachable.

But remember, there was a time when the days ahead of us were endless, and this place held nothing but possibilities. Hope was real and change was a word, which had meaning. We had a future that was wide open to us all. There was room for heroes and explorers. There were great men and women of all kinds. We could believe.

The difference between then and now is really a simple one. We knew our world for what it was. Freedom was part of our being – we stood certain in our identity. We were Americans and we could be proud of our country’s short 200+ year journey. This has been a journey, which resulted in each of us alive today - walking and talking and running and screaming and laughing and crying in delight and pain and the range of all emotion in between.

 Believe in that place again. That’s all it takes. Believe in the country I saw from shore in 1976, as the Tall Ships gathered in celebration of the Centennial. Liberty isn’t in the titan’s flame, held aloft by a statue in New York. It exists small and always nearly flickering out, in the hearts of men and women everywhere.

As it turns out, we are as close to the perfect horizon as we want to be. We can choose to see it as an expression of our tired, earthbound nature, or we can seek our future with gladdened hearts seeing each day as a gift. We can keep safe that small light inside us. We live in the end-times only if we choose to. Dille knew it when he commissioned the Buck Rogers comics in the ‘30s and influenced a new generation of people. But it wasn’t technology he was selling then – it was the clarity of belief.

We can be so much more if we choose to be. And in that simple thought, the horizon disappears, and we understand that the line where the desert meets the sky wasn’t reminding us of our limitations – it was proof of the music of our immortal souls. Within that symphony we can finally know that we are completely free – and that we are truly alive.