Sorrow

Yes, Had I Been More Circumspect...

...Not only would I have worn asbestos to the flame war with Charlie from FIRESTARTER, I also would have made sure everyone else who could have possibly been involved was protected by similar to avoid the collateral damage that has recently tried to hide itself from me.  In any event, I thank one friend for giving me the credit to know that even though I might annoyingly and wrongly blame myself for what the bad guys did to him, I would soon smarten up before any such wrongthink did further damage.

Taking some time to nurse my psychic wounds, for which not even I have pity, and I hope no one else has pity for them either...

Pulse

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and souls deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death, thou shalt die.

- John Donne

Here's A Tip

I would encourage the younger guys -- guys who served in Afghanistan and Iraq -- to watch FIRST BLOOD (1982).  Excellent movie for them.

(See?  Huh?  That'll teach you to be homeless and a veteran...)

Internationally

Still ecstatic about Myanmar, cautiously optimistic about Tunisia.

My worries about Tunisia include CIA rat-fuck activities in the country. Right now, Tunisians are trying the tactic of combating radical Islamists with efforts that promote democracy, at the very moment the Pentagon's balloon has gone up in their request for funding to address threats like ISIS with yet more military force. I could see many in the intelligence community being less than thrilled with any success achieved by those who counter radicals with other than might -- who fight with an eye to what they want and need and what's best, rather than with an eye to what they fear.

Some folks in Tunisia have decided to go with the truism that violence begets more violence, and that hatred can be defeated only by what is right and good, not by more hatred.  Let's hope the agency doesn't fuck this up.

UPDATE:  All this said (especially about CIA rat-fucks), the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  It could really harm the elements I support to have visible American back-up.  Maybe the intelligence community should just leave well enough alone in Tunisia.  Don't try to help -- you might hurt, them and yourselves.

Reno Screamer

I can't be the only one who's fed up with stories of cops shooting naked, unarmed, fucked-up people in public.  It's 2016 and this shit is still going on!

Six (II)

So they were airmen.  My bad, thinking that because of the news they must have been Army or Marines.  Anyway...

Today we honor and remember the following:

Joseph Lemm
Adrianna Vorderbruggen
Louis Bonacasa
Chester McBride
Michael A. Cinco
Peter W. Taub

Thank you.

Six

More meat into the grinder.  As of this writing, the names of the six could not be immediately released.  We do not know their branch affiliations.  I don't know if they were Marines or Army.  They were NATO, which is important.  I just don't know what to think.

I will pray for these troops and their attacker.  All need our prayers.

I never agreed with this war and my heart breaks every time a story like this comes out.  But those are just feelings, not hard pragmatic thinking.  Oh well, they were only six.

Frankie Haros At The Movies

Frankie and I like movies, but seldom the same ones.  The following terrified or repelled Frankie, but I found them to have their charms:

• LUCY (2014):  An American party girl in Korea overdoses on some fly-ass dope and acquires god-like powers, without any apparent downside.
• MAMA (2013):  The bitch stabbed a nun and gets run down by a hunting party.  After death, she's got voices and moths -- I fold.
• CARRIE (1976):  "You get in that closet and you pray, little girl!"
• MATILDA (1996):  Okay, so Miss Honey should have killed this little monster and saved the world.  But Matilda is the hero of the story, and that's so deliciously immoral that I love it.
• FIRESTARTER (1984):  Go Charlie, it's your birthday!  Set that motherfucker on fire WITH YOUR GODDAMN BRAIN!
• X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (2006):  I love the scenes where Dark Phoenix goes apeshit and blows people up with her mind.

The next list gave Frankie a wide-on, whereas I could have done without seeing them, thankyouverymuch:

• FATAL BEAUTY (1987):  A bad batch of drugs is made and bagged by a naked Asian girl in San Francisco.  A poor, refrigerator-sized, unarmed black man gets high as a kite on those drugs, walks out of a house, and gets dozens of rounds put in him by the SFPD, which is so like them.  Frankie loves that scene, but I see it and want to beat Whoopi Goldberg to a pulp.  Goddamn you, Whoopi.
• THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY HARTLEY (2008):  Infuriating teenager Molly Hartley is spotted by the community as an unholy creature, and is persecuted and nearly killed -- including by a clergyman's daughter.  Finally, Molly embraces her true evil nature and joins the ranks of the sinister Them. Frankie wanted this to happen to me.
• THE OTHERS  (2001):  The voices Nicole Kidman hears are the living and she's the one who's dead...Boo!  Good one, Frankie...

We both liked CHILDREN OF THE CORN, and both wanted to be He Who Walks Behind The Rows.  I don't know what we would have done with SCANNERS...

November 11 -- Silence

What is there to say when you've seen all you've seen and done all you've done?  Maybe nothing, maybe a lot.  Many of you guys seem very reticent, and you have your reasons.  Besides, talk is cheap.

But it's also healthy.  If you ever feel like talking, you can talk to me -- I'm a good listener.  Maybe you think it will sound stupid, or that I couldn't possibly get it, but I contend it might be worth a try.  I'll be here.

Secret Squirrel Vs. Harriet the Spy

I have something absolutely fascinating for HUD, the IRS, and the FBI to have coffee over and chat about among each other.

Sorry To My Frienemies At The CIA

But you would have shown little to no loyalty to the psychologists who colluded with you and lent your efforts an air of legitimacy.  The Obama Administration may have shown little interest in prosecuting what journos have found festering under a big rock, but let's hope either the current President changes his mind on this (he may, with only a year or so left in his presidency), or a Clinton or Sanders administration is less reluctant.  (I don't expect much from Clinton, but Sanders or Warren would be great.)

Neil Bush for President in 2016!

Doesn't everyone in the Bush clan, even George Herbert Walker, feel like a black sheep under matriarch Barbara's flinty glare?  Still, Neil's the closest thing they've got to a real black sheep, so I'll be writing his name in for President after I change my registration to Republican.

I mean, syphilis from a Southeast Asian sex tour is so reminiscent of the JFK years, isn't it?  There's real political cachet there...

Was The Iraq War A Crime Or A Mistake?

Yes.

Sort of Reading Between the Lines (Not Very Subtle Stuff)

"And do not say because of the lies which your tongues utter, 'This is lawful and that is unlawful,' lest you should forge a lie against Allah.  Those who forge lies against Allah will never attain the goal."

There is a lot wrong with this story.  Reading between the lines, what comes out is an admission of an unnecessary sting operation carried out by some public image-obsessed FBI employees.  The unintended consequence of their doing so and then suckering some thoughtless journalists is that I feel sorry for this misguided young man, who was strung along by FBI agents and a horrible excuse for an imam -- all of whom took advantage of his mental illness in order to have a laudatory turn at the spotlight.

I mean, the kid was in the bag pretty much from the moment the FBI started investigating him, something that happened as soon as he tried to enlist (not unusual, by the way, as my father was investigated by the FBI when he applied to enlist in the Navy during the Vietnam War -- he almost didn't get in because of my Grandmother's communism and Black Panther associations.)  What the hell?

(And as for Imam Omar Hazim, shame on you for breaching confidentiality as a cleric offering counseling, and for being so crass about someone's disability.  Just as much a failure as a Muslim as any violent criminal or terrorist who claims to act for the will of God.)

The Student Becomes the Master

"I'm the rain spattering itself on a pond's surface as three maple leaves glide by.  I am the clatter of hailstones on an old-fashioned blue tile roof.  I am the typhoon, as copious and as warm as the shower you took this morning before the hapless cicada scared you out of the bathroom."

It was as though Miwako heard the last word, "bathroom," before it was uttered.  In a flash, she had drawn her katana from the scabbard far enough to block the stroke of her master's cane sword.

Her master broke away and swung from the other side.  That's when Miwako achieved satori:  the time a move took had everything to do with its effectiveness.

For the rest of the match, she parried her master's blows easily.  When it came time for her to issue a kill, kendo style, where his neck met his shoulder, she stopped short by a millimeter.  She was training, and not out for blood or vengeance.

I'm Ready To Throw My Hands Up...

...Out of sheer exasperation.  I hate the way these cop deaths in NY and FL have been politicized. It just does not seem like the thing for people upset about police brutality to do -- it's the one thing people protesting police brutality would probably never do. Nor do I buy the conspiracy theory that the cops set up the murder of other cops whom they wanted dead (not to say it's inconceivable, but it is extremely unlikely). One of the more common delusions I've heard of from, say, tweakers, schizophrenics, and assorted other paranoiacs is that the cops are "out to get them." Chances are, a little digging into both shooters' pasts will uncover mental health issues -- they probably heard voices and hallucinated police hurting them in some way. I doubt that they themselves were victims of actual police brutality who were on some vengeful rampage. All this talk of assassination and retaliation seems extremely ill-informed, premature and irresponsible.

Back In The World

"And knowing's half the battle!"  That's what they say before the rousing theme designed to inflame your spirits and sense of patriotism, but they never tell you what the other half is:  a lot of pain and blood and heartbreak.  They never warn you about the shit you can't unsee:  half of Scarlett lying in a ditch, her intestines trailing away from her.  They never tell you that guys like Duke and Ace will come back so chewed up, they may as well not have come back at all -- you want to sneak into rehab at the VA and break their fucking necks because it would be a mercy.  They never tell you after Allah knows how many tours that you'll go so far beyond section 8, Cobra Commander's propaganda videos are more precious to you than a Carrie Underwood sex tape.

It's harder than you know.  People are so universally loving and supportive when you come back, but they don't understand how you never really come back.  Certainly, nothing below my knees came back.  And when civilians see the knee-hinge with those tell-tale dangling rubber bands -- I tell you, those who don't pretend not to look try to thank me for my service.  I tell 'em right away it happened when I was drunk and dicking around by the railroad tracks.  I don't even bother to slip my dog-tags into my shirt -- I just bald-face lie and dare them to call me on it.  Fuck, I'm so fucked up on this fucking hillbilly heroin and nightmares about reality I can't even hold on to the same IHSS worker for more than a week...

Reprinted From Facebook

Yeah, so no indictment. [It doesn't matter] whether you call them protests or riots, or what names you call the participants. At some point, words are shown to be the lies they can be, and are of no importance. I approve of the fact that there has been a populist response to the situation. That means people are still pissed off about the injustices ingrained in our culture -- good. Fine. I support any and all instances of civil disobedience in the wake of the jury's decision.

I have never in my history on facebook unfriended anyone. But I will unfriend the first moment I read a post in which the people's response is characterized as riots, if I see any talk of "savages" or "animals," or if I see that fucking ugly as sin meme in which a cop says "This is why we shoot you guys." I'm all for raw humor myself, and have been known to go places that will make South Park fans blush, but that shit -- especially that final meme I just mentioned -- is not cute or funny at fucking all.

EVERY 28 HOURS

(PS:  Much love to the veterans who wrote to protest to their brothers and sisters in the National Guard that the latter please stand down.  Thank you for using your voices in such a way, and bringing your thoughts and feelings to the table -- and as always, for your service to our country.)

Every Day

Seems like a test of every value I hold dear, every value without which I would happily die.  Reverence, humility, compassion, wisdom, respect, honesty, piety, disobedience to our vested authorities -- all of these feel weighed and their worth now decided on by those capable of positing pure mockeries of them.  My soul is being hammered at by the soulless, and one day it might crack.  I may be sanctimonious and naive, but my life refuses to be reduced to a simple formula for easy digestion by a factotum I've never met and has absolute control over my life or death.  It's been a daunting few years, to say the least.

What can I say?  You have to put a bullet in me to stop me from believing in the things that make life worth living.