From the rock & roll diary

I was going to do a post a Patrick Buchanan. I got this far, and lost interest:

"I have always been a tad suspicious of Patrick Buchanan. He seems to have a faint odor wafting off himself; that “God died and left me in charge” scent. Maybe it’s my Libertarian bent, or just the personality disorder of not caring too much about humanity, but I don’t care much what people do, and I am not going to put a move on the moral high ground by telling them how to live. Telling someone to do (a) when they are hellbent on doing (b) is not productive. As long as folks aren’t practicing some form of murderous cannibalism, I figure whatever they do is their own business, as long as we’re talking consenting adults here.

However, I have to admit that Mr. Buchanan may be on to something with his latest book, State of Emergency. Already denounced as a xenophobe and a racist, Buchanan appears to be touching a nerve, i.e. the illegal immigration issue."

Then I lost interest, and got diverted into an e-mail about the old rock & roll days. Since the Iranians are going to start blowing stuff up at any given time, reminiscences of Ye Olde Days are a lot more satisfying than addressing the latest mad ravings of Howard Dean, or the politics of reconquista. Hence, we get this page from an old spiral notebook:

Let's see...

The Nobz started as a garage band in 1977. Tim, one of our two composers/guitar players, had lost a leg to an auto accident years earlier. We had an encyclopedia of about 60 original songs, including gems like "Cocaine and Roses" and "Lawnmowers in Love". Bear in mind that I had a day job, and children to raise.

Wendy O. Williams (a former porn starlet) and The Plasmatics stole the chainsaw shtick for their NY act, but they had to be satisfied with chopping up a guitar onstage. Only Tim Troutman could whack into his missing leg. It out-punked the punks, and we had better musical chops, as well. Johnny Rotten never had a chance.

Later, a one-trick wonder called "Jackal" also stole the chainsaw idea. The rumor is that they got crazed with a producer one day, did the redneck "Watch this!" stunt, and had to return to their day jobs.

We played the Great Southeastern Music Hall a week after Rotten and The Pistols brought their act to America, at the same venue. It was the first time we ever did "Disco Chainsaw" publicly, and it brought the house down. I have the 30-year old tape. Max, the other guitarist, dressed in a grey pinstripe 3-piece suit. Tim wore his white doctor's jacket. Dave, our bass player, was an EMT, and wore his uniform, as he'd come directly from work. I wore black pantyhose and hot pants, and though I'm straight as the mail, our singer Chastain almost died laughing when I pointed and said "Oh, I've got a run."

We opened acts for luminaries like the B-52s and The Ramones. When we played The Agora Ballroom ahead of The Ramones, Tim exercised his sense of humor. He had a day job at the J.D. Hanger Company, which manufactures prosthetics. Having access to the injection-molder, he would blow-dry legs without the steel strut they use for support. This made them very accessible to chainsaws.

The night in question, Tim did a "special" without telling anyone else in the band. A communications major in college, he knew how to make stage blood, which is essentially food coloring and corn syrup. He made a "squib" and packed it into the special, hollow leg he'd built that day.

"Disco Chainsaw" was easy to play, for a drummer. Your basic hi-hat, snare, bass disco riff, it afforded me a lot of opportunity to gauge the audience from the riser. We did a change-up into something dark and heavy at the end, when Tim dropped the Gibson Flying Vee and grabbed the chainsaw, but the disco stuff was a riff I could phone in.

So, we do the change-up, Tim grabs the saw, and starts working. I'm immediately alarmed; "Damn, he's working high on that leg tonight!" (He has a stump below the knee.)

The band plays on, and Tim hit the "blood bag". The spray pattern was like 30 feet. The foot fell off. I looked into the mob at the front of the stage, and saw a hard-core punk rocker faint dead away. I saw another hurling chunks. Yeah, I admit it, it scared the hell out of me, too.

So, we go downstairs to the dressing room. Tim's changing his leg for something more stable, and the rest of us are fishing beer out of the trashcan and trying to calm down. The Ramones' manager charges in, screaming "We can't follow that!"

Opening acts do not traditionally get encores. The Ramones' manager literally screamed us back onstage. The Agora was going nuts, and even tough-ass New York punkers were seriously put off by a chainsaw and a bag 'o blood. They thought we were genuinely insane.

For all of our 60 good songs, we'd already been through the best of the repertoire that night. We 'fessed up to not having a single good follow-up, since we didn't expect an encore. Fortunately, I'd stuffed the foam-rubber sandwich into my drum case as an afterthought. This was a gaint white-bread costume for Chas, our singer. It had red and green stuff hanging out. Think of those giant dancing cigarette packs of the 1950s, and you know what this piece of work looked like. Chas didn't sing when she wore it, she just danced like a pack of Pall Malls.

What we finished with was an instrumental titled "Negroes Ate My Sandwich." It was all we had left. In the tradition of The Allman Brothers, it starts country and finishes with a swingin' rock boogie. A giant dancing sandwich, while we did the Flinstones' Dino "BLLeahhh" on the breaks, made the rest of the song.

Some time later, the manager for The Tubes called Tim from San Francisco. He checked in the next day uncertain if he'd actually had the telephone conference at 0300. It was real, and we opened the Fox Theater in Atlanta for them. I have never played in front of 2000 people in my life since then, and I certainly never will again, but it was a wonderful taste of life on the high side.

I'm just dribbling from the left side of my brain. Is that a good rock 'n roll tale? Believe it or not, I kept a diary in those days.

So, where were you hiding when all this was going on?

Asked if there's anything I haven't done, I have to say "Yes, I failed at two marriages." In previous comments, I referred to movies and rock & roll as "drinking deeply from the cup of life". It was all fun, but these days just having someone around to hold my hand would be nice.

Who would've thunk I'd get old? I always took the Bob Dylan song "Forever Young" as gospel.

I don't play the drums, or raise horses, any longer. One of these days, I may take a hoss out for one last jump, like Scarlett O'Hara's daddy.

It was fun while it lasted, though.

Rock on!

I surprised at least one individual with the revelation that I have a professed affinity for Johnny Rotten and The Sex Pistols. I am also on record as getting some serious hoots from headbangers like Megadeth.

So, I'm up at 0400 to watch another re-run of "The Last Waltz." I get the satellite feed from the Left Coast, owing to the geography of my mountain hideaway. All the best movies are on in the middle of the night.

I should just buy the deluxe 4-CD boxed set, and treat myself when I'm in the mood for rock & roll.

There is something with peculiar hippie appeal to waking up pre-dawn, and catching a broadcast of Martin Scorsese's classic. I don't think a concert film with better production values has ever been made. Watching Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton and Muddy Waters rocking a stage with The Band is an event that lasts. I'm leaving a lot of folks off the list of guests, like Neil Young and my drumming role model, Ringo. The Band had everyone onstage for that last show. Great musicianship is appreciated.

I also like the "old school" of arena rockers like Blue Oyster Cult. I played the drums for a few minutes, hence the picture. The best band I ever played with featured a guitarist who sawed his leg off with a chainsaw. Seriously. We even got written up in Newsweek in 1988, as part of the long-lost Southern rock culture. Tim has a great sense of humor, and never let the loss of his leg be more than a passing joke. I'd like to reunite The Nobz, but we're scattered to fate's four winds.

I have come to appreciate classical music, especially the passion of Russian composers who captured so much pain. Neil Young, Clapton, "Buck Dharma" and Robbie Robertson can rip off guitar riffs that'll bring tears to your eyes, but there's something exalting about an orchestra going full-tilt boogie.

Joe Rosenthal, R.I.P.

Joe Rosenthal is dead at age 94. Armed with only a camera, he captured this image of the best of America.

The Marines are gone, the photographer is gone, only our memory of heroes lives on.

The lost post...

I wrote something on the fly yesterday, and it didn't post. Writing "on the fly" means I compose in the box allocated to Blogger™, as opposed to the cut & paste of writing in Microsoft Word, and being somewhat thoughtful. Actually, it did post. Scroll down.

I seem to recall that it was a diatribe about Hollywierd directors and their misuse of magnesium squibs. I don't care that the world is going to hell; as long as my TV works, and I can watch endless reruns of classic movies, I am a happy camper.

I also touched on the fact that the world bores me; I am jaded, and don't care about humankind all that much. It was a pretty good post, it just didn't survive.

Michael Mann, Sir Ridley Scott, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Jackson, and a few others, like the late, great Peckinpah and Stanley Kubrick, keep me watching movies. I should perhaps be making commentary about the sorry state of the world, but movies are pieces of life that blow reality back in our faces.

As for those magnesium squibs...many directors don't know how to handle action sequences. They play it large, and go for the fireworks. Hollywierd can never capture the intensity of close quarters combat, but those directors who underplay it are much closer to the mark. Bullets don't strike giant magnesium sparks. The effective gauge for this movie critic is how much magnesium goes off in the first shoot-out.

I am truly jaded. Real life awaits commentary; the world approaches a crossroads, and I live in denial with old movies. We are all living in some post-9/11 denial, like it was a movie with a bad ending, and some creative editing will change the outcome. Are any of my readers old enough to remember Nevil Shute's On The Beach? That movie, and the book it sprang from, scared the hell out of me. The empty city of San Francisco, and that Coke bottle tapping out Morse code, was much more frightening than "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome".

There is a lot of re-examination of 9/11 right now. Five years seems to be a safe window. Half a decade, as someone put it, seems a safe time. We put too much precedence on anniversaries. The Islamofacists will kill us where we stand, while we light anniversary candles. I was in Mrs. Todd's geography class at GMA when JFK was shot; I was in a hospital room on 9/11. Certain times and places do not escape memory.

More movie critic time wasting....

Past that #101, I should be addressing world issues. The last thing I should be doing is addressing the values of old movies that show up on my TV. No one cares, and if I was a cutting edge movie critic, I'd be getting sneak previews of flicks that are on the way, not something that's played out onto my satellite rotation.

Ya wanna know the truth? The real world bores me. Islamic madmen have already decided that they will end the world as we know it, in the name of Allah. They're going to be aided and abetted by "progressive" American politicians, some of whom will assume the highest office in the land.

I am a Baby Boomer, and I will be gone soon. I thank God for it. I had my fun with sex, drugs, and rock & roll, I raised a decent family, and now it's all amusement watching Those People trying to regain power and show us how to run things.

I am writing this on the fly; I have no clue to my life span. I know there is a promise in The Bible that says I will be called forth when I least expect it, and my soul will be examined.

The Israeli war, the nuclear threat of Iran and North Korea... I'm sorry...the end of the world bores me. I have one foot in the grave...bring the rest crashing down upon me.

Oh, this is supposed to be a movie column...

Too many directors use magnesium squibs for bullet strikes. Lacking an accurate vision of of close quarters combat, they play their action too large and with too many fireworks.

So much for movies. If you don't think the end of Western Civilization will be a nuclear incident with an Islamofacist, then you must be a Democrat voting for Hilley.

A minor passing...

...a candle in the wind.



The previous post was #101. I broke one hundred without realizing it. I have had over 2900 visitors since deploying the site meter; I am grateful to each and every one of you. I don't know what my tiny opinion counts for, but I rejoice in having this little corner of the net to vent it. All of this can be gone in the push of a button or an EMP, but making contrary opinions heard in far corners of the world keeps me alive in the face of grave illness. Thank you all for peeking in.

This JonBenet thing...

I have been waiting over 20 years for someone to solve my father’s murder. As Ringo Starr sings, “It don’t come easy”. There is no simple closure, and despite the forensic proof that a serial killer was at work, no arrests have been made. My personal conclusions, that there is collusion among law enforcement regarding a “protected witness”, will remain closely held.

JonBenet Ramsey was an abused child long before her murder. I should not speak ill of the dead, so suffice it to say that Pat Ramsey was the penultimate stage mother. I am the father of two grown girls, so I think I’m qualified to say a word or three here. I never tried to shelter my daughters from the slings and arrows of the real world; I taught them how to deal with it. For sure, I never pimped my kids out as sexual objects at the ages of five or six. JonBenet was a cute kid; what was done to exploit her was unspeakably evil. I can’t fathom the mindset that parades a child around the way this little girl was presented.

I am sorry for the Ramsey family, in a deep sense that my own loss induces. There is no description for the emotions that follow being touched by murder. Losing my father is bad enough; if someone touched my children, I would be an unstoppable psychopathic avenger.

The JonBenet mystery is ten years old, and getting older. I heard a succinct, cynical comment about this Mark Karr squirrel: “If I was doing time in a Thai prison, I’d confess to anything to get back to the States.”

Makes sense to me. He faces some misdemeanors in California for possession of kiddie porn, and there may be some add-on charges for whatever lies he’s told to be extradited from Thailand. As the affair unfolds, with more media attention than it deserves, there is one thing for sure: whether he ever got within looking distance of JonBenet Ramsey, Mark Karr will be one happy pilgrim when he touches ground in Colorado. It’s very unlikely we will send him back to Thailand to finish his sentence there.

The fact that this sick, sorry individual got arrested in Thailand begs a question: considering Bangkok to be the equivalent of Alice’s Restaurant, where you can get whatever you want with the blessings of the local authorities, what did this guy do to get arrested in the first place?

So, we’ll bring him home, and lock him up at $40,000 per year for a while. I’ll wait on the jury, but the evidence indicates he didn’t have any connection to JonBenet Ramsey besides prurient interest.

If my father’s murderer would like to step up to the plate and confess, I’d be extremely interested in your reasons for shooting down a 78-year-old War II hero. He deserved better. Born in 1907, he’d probably be gone of old age by now, but who appointed you God with your .22 rifle, Mr. Serial Killer?

The Bible says vengeance is The Lord’s, but Ringo sings on…"It Don’t Come Easy."

Welcome home, Mr. Karr. I’m sure a federal prison won’t be half as bad as some Thai holding pen.

"Open the pod bay doors, HAL..."

I'm having serious computer "issues". They are currently under repair. When Al Qaeda detonates an Iranian device over Cleveland, the EMP [ElectroMagnetic Pulse] inherent to nuclear weapons will fry every electronic gadget within hundreds of miles. (More if they get an airburst over 10,000 feet; that might reach Wall Street and the stock exchanges. "Oops! We just lost the national economy!") We depend too much upon the very medium that is allowing you to read these mutterings. The Stone Age barbarians who are currently seeking to destroy us in the name of Allah recognize this dependency as a weakness they can exploit.

Before my home version of HAL-9000 crashes again, here's a pop quiz to keep my faithful readers on your toes. (It's a cut-and-paste job; thanks to Patriot Post, Mack, and other "did you see this?" follow-ups.)

Food for thought; I'll grab an idea out of what's left of my mind when I stop getting the ubiquitous "disk read error...sorry for the inconvenience...fatal" messages.

Criminal [not "racial"] profiling and why it works :

In 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by:
a. Superman
b. Jay Leno
c. Harry Potter
d. a Muslim male extremist between the age of 17 and 40

In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by
a. Olga Corbett
b. Sitting Bull
c. Arnold Schwarzenegger
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 403.

In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:
a. Lost Norwegians
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
a. John Dillinger
b. The King of Sweden
c. The Boy Scouts
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
a. A pizza delivery boy
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. Geraldo Rivera
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:
a. The Smurfs
b. Davy Jones
c. The Little Mermaid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by:
a. Captain Kidd
b. Charles Lindberg
c. Mother Teresa
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:
a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Michael Jordan
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
a. Mr. Rogers
b. Hillary Clinton, to distract attention from Wild Bill's women problems
c. The World Wrestling Federation
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:
a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
b. The Supreme Court of Florida
c. Mr. Bean
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

12. In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against:
a. Enron
b. The Lutheran Church
c. The NFL
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:
a. Bonnie and Clyde
b. Captain Kangaroo
c. Billy Graham
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.

And guess who just got arrested in Britain for plotting to bring down over a half-dozen airliners at once...Nope, ..I really don't see a pattern here to justify profiling, do you?

So, to ensure we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing us, airport security screeners will no longer be allowed to profile certain people. They must conduct random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, secret agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85-year old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winner and former Governor Joe Foss, but leave Muslim males between the ages 17 and 40 alone lest they be guilty of profiling.

'Nuff said. HAL-9000 is making those peculiar squeaking noises that indicate a search for updates, and predicates a shutdown when it doesn't find them. I urge my readers to explore the consequences of EMP when the terrorists manage the nuclear event they dream of. I'm getting my precursor in trying to get this rambling posted...

"Anarchy in the U.K.!"

It appears that Western Civilization dodged a large-caliber bullet last night. Only someone living in Osama’s old cave in Afghanistan hasn’t heard about the foiled UK bomb plot by now. Someone living with Osama would likely know all the details, but the involvement of Al Qaeda hasn’t been confirmed yet.

The magnitude of the plot leaves me slightly astounded, but I can’t say it surprised me. Since the affair is still under investigation, and developing rapidly, I only have a few random initial comments at this point; things that ran through what’s left of my mind since I started watching the non-stop coverage at 0230:

First, I hope this near-miss is another clue for those misguided souls who keep insisting we can negotiate with Islamofascism. If only we accede to the terrorists’ demands, we are told, they’ll get all warm and fuzzy and stop plotting to kill us. Wrong! They are both temporal and fanatical by nature, and are convinced they get their marching orders from God. That’s a deadly combination. They don’t care what we think, or want, or feel. Their thinking is best paraphrased by an old bumper sticker I don’t see much any more: “The [Koran] says it, I believe it, and that settles it!”

When I heard the circumspect detail that a liquid explosive is involved, I immediately thought “binary agent and a nucleation catalyst”. (For those not conversant in the language of mischief, that means “two harmless liquids that can be mixed together, and something that can be dropped into the mixture to make it go BANG!” Kind of like dropping Mentos into Diet Coke for that big fizz that occurs, but much more lethal.) I’m not going to print recipes from The Anarchist’s Cookbook here, but something like that can easily be done, and it saves the suicidal maniac from the embarrassment of having the other passengers stare at him while he fumbles with wires, a detonator, and a modified I-pod at 30,000 feet. People might not notice you pouring your eye drops into your mouthwash in mid-flight, but when you start hooking your cell phone up to the bottle, they might get a little suspicious.

I’m not trying to be overly cute here. I’m just affirming that two liquids and a tiny detonation catalyst is imminently do-able, quickly and virtually unnoticed. People strolling to the washroom with their toiletries kits are a frequent sight on trans-Atlantic flights. The airlines are more concerned about you sneaking a cigarette in there than they are about you mixing your “eye drops” into your “mouthwash”. (Granted, that seems to have changed since yesterday.)

The title of this post is also the title of an old song by Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols. It started playing in my head early this morning, and like the voices I hear when I wear my tinfoil hat, it hasn’t let up yet. Thanks to M.I.5, the London police, the CIA, and others, anarchy seems to have been avoided in Britain today. Watching the ongoing coverage of delays and cancelled flights, I have to wonder what the impact on the airline industry and the economic ripple effect will be. Even in failure, the terrorists may have made a big score.

And finally, sleeplessness and too much caffeine led to one last speculation: How long will it be before the moonbats on The Loony Left start yowling that this is another sinister plot—contrived by George Bush with the collaboration of his “lapdog” Tony—to divert world sympathy away from the Hezbollah/Iranian terrorists during the Middle East war du jour? I don’t think Robert Ludlum or Tom Clancy could come up with something that elegant, but it’s no more outlandish than college professors and unemployed Congresswomen running around saying we attacked ourselves on 9/11. At any minute, I expect Those People to start their usual hue and cry about the increased security measures stealing our civil liberties.

Speaking of unemployed Congresswomen, as a fellow Georgian I have four words for Cynthia McKinney: Goodbye, and good riddance!

"World Trade Center" or bust!

I don't get out much, so I will be expecting reviews from my constant readers on the opening of "World Trade Center".

I recieved a sneak preview of this movie today. As I suspected, I'll pay $7.00 to cry for two hours.

Oliver Stone has maybe redeemed himself as a filmmaker. I have boycotted this gentleman since his urination upon Vietnam troopers with "Platoon". He reached heights of idiocy with "JFK". "Natural Born Killers " was sheer trash. He may just be finding his way home with "WTC". I hope he overcomes his demons, and allows his visions to come through unobscured. Stone can be a great director, if he becomes unhinged like Sam Peckinpah and quits playing partisan politics with his visions.

I though it was a great inside joke that Stone did a cameo in "The Doors" as Jim Morrison's film school teacher. Only Alfred Hitchcock could have done a better job. At some future point I'll praise Val Kilmer's work in that movie; only his role as Doc Holliday in "Tombstone" impresses me more than his portrayal of Jim Morrison.

It's ironic that this ex-Marine, Ollie Stone, is the first to step up to the plate on 9/11. He gave a good explanation of why "WTC" is an "old-fashioned" movie, made with the sensibility of drawing upon common emotions. I will depend upon my constant readers for an ultimate judgement; then I'll pay $7.00 to cry for two hours.

Tell me I'm wrong!

Will someone explain geopolitics to this child? This kid is dead, a legacy of Saddam Hussein, a walking dead man.

It took forever to post this picture on the site. Look closely. That child is dead. This is the legacy of diplomacy and what reasoning with madmen will avail you. I certainly look forward to our new, gloating Democrat leadership, epecially when the She-devil controls the White House. I look forward to more dead babies, and assertions by our leadership that we bought and paid for them by challenging terrorism.

You will get what you pay for in '08.

I don't need an explanation; tell it to this child.

More war news...

In response to a collapsing door frame, I received a visit from my decidedly liberal carpenter friend today. My friends are not chosen on the basis of political affiliation; I stick by people because they think, and stand for what they believe, whether it’s crossways with my beliefs or not. If I start to hew the conservative party line too stridently, those friends can always be called upon for a reality check.

In the aftermath of restoring a warped, quick ‘n easy doorframe installation, the easy conversation drifted to the Middle East. James [we’ll call him that, since it’s his name] gave me mixed input. He supports Israel, and thinks they’re doing the right thing, in spite of world opposition. He also believes the Bush administration is dead wrong on Iraq, and is driving us into debt on a daily basis by our continued commitment there. A small businessman in his own right, he reports suffering and business failures as a result of National Guard service extensions in Iraq. Those troops should be home, closing our Mexican border.

I am only going to say this once, and it galls me to do it. We are wrong in Iraq. I never thought I’d see the day, but it has turned into another Vietnam. We need to declare victory and get the hell out. If a civil war ensues, so be it. Saddam Hussein is a walking dead man. He will never again hold a torturer’s power. We have done all we can do, for the moment. Our military equipment, the technology we rely upon, is seriously degraded. We have too many boots on the ground in an unappreciative region of the world. I acknowledge that having made the commitment, it’s tough to break it.

Some of today’s conversation included observations that blacks, Muslims, and others are human. Never denied that; we’re all just trying to survive. I have never denied another person’s values or beliefs; just don’t shoot and try to kill me for being nice.

We will have to fight the Iranians, and the North Koreans. There will be a thermonuclear incident. In wishing a friend birthday greetings a short time past, I stated that “I hope you won’t look back on this time and view it as ‘kinder and gentler.’”

One thing my liberal friend agrees upon is that if you have to fight a war, you do it as fast and bloody as it needs doing. America has always been “the good guy”, the cowboy who shoots the weapon out of the bad guy’s hand. The time for that idealization is past; we must shoot to kill. There are those who will always cringe at the idea, but the time comes when we must center up the crosshairs, and squeeze the shot off.

The question redefined...

In the previous post, I asked the question “Why are we supposed to hate the Jews?” The most compelling reply to date was an unspecific suggestion that I check out my Bible. (See comments section on the last post.)

I also received some comments that detail human nature, and are close to the truth, as Jesus told the Philistine in the book of Mark. (That passage, “Thou art very close to the truth”, brought me back to faith from a world of angry bitterness, agnosticism, and denial of divinity.)

In asking the question “Why should we hate Jews?” I was hoping for some really rabid anti-Semitism. That would allow us all to examine the true nature of the enemy we face.

To reiterate a point I made earlier, I have never suffered a grievous wrong at the hands of a Jew. Some of my closest friends and confidants are Jewish, if I may deploy that cliché. ‘Tis true, hackneyed or not.

Most of the misery in my 50+ years has been brought to bear by “Christians” of the Caucasian persuasion. I am trying to keep an open mind and not demonize all Muslims as “the enemy” simply because they have a different belief system and value set, but they are doing nothing in the mainstream to encourage this acceptance. The reportage of Islamics celebrating in the streets after 9/11 does not promote an acceptance of said value sets.

So, to redefine the question: In the context of current events, why are we supposed to hate the Jews? Because of their “aggression?” Because they’re lashing out at cowardly murderers who have wreaked terror upon them since 1982? Because they are trying to root out an evil proxy that hides behind women and children?

The Discovery Channel, which is always suspect now because it’s openly owned by the New York Times, ran a series about the anti-Christ last weekend. Among their gems of enlightenment, they asserted that the re-founding of the state of Israel is a “supersign” that the end is near…at least according to some. Since the ’67 war, I have kept an eye open to the possibility that war in the Middle East might actually end in the prophesized battle of Aramageddon. I know it’s silly to modern, progressive thinkers, but I grew up with a book containing scary images of War I trench warfare with exploding nukes. (It was an illustrated text, and scared my young self spitless.)

I have a moderate suggestion: Leave the Jews alone! They are immune to world pressure; they stand on their own, and make a good showing of it. I have pride for Jews; when the concentration camps opened, they sort of wimped-out in Europe because they denied the Nazi terror was happening, but they learned PDQ, and adopted that motto: “Never forget!”

I have heard all the moonbat ravings that Israel is creating terrorists by “aggressing” on the citizens of Lebanon. Er…sorry…if some crazed gunman is hiding behind you, the best your rescuing cop can hope for is a takedown shot that will miss you.

So, as the heat wave thunderstorms approach, tell me again: WHY AM I SUPPOSED TO HATE JEWS?

Tell me they eat babies, or control the world’s money supply. Tell me white people fell off UFOs in the Caucasus, and us white folks are descendants of space aliens who lost their way.

Go to the edge; speak your faith. You believe it, don’t be shy about posting it here. I wanna know! Tell us Islam is “the religion of peace”, and then tell me why we should massacre the last of the Jews. I am really hoping someone can put this in context for me.

A month-old postscript

Back at the first of last month, I posted some mutterings about “Where are the Marielitos when we need them?” It was intended as a broad, rhetorical overview comparing the actions of our government in the past with what they are accused of today.

The History Channel, for those of you with access, has an excellent series entitled “The Enforcers.” This past weekend, they aired an episode about Atlanta ’87 that provides chapter and verse on the unfortunate incidents that occurred there. The re-enactments [history as entertainment] were not filmed on-site; USP-Atlanta is still a working penitentiary, and eschews cameras.

The episode is entitled “Prison Siege.” It details the events at Oakdale, Louisiana, in November 1987, and the 1991 riot in another detention center in Talladega, Alabama. My rhetorical overview should not be confused with facts.

I was shocked at how those participants in the interviews have aged. Then it struck me; that incident occurred almost 20 years ago. The past softens with time. I’m showing my age by being amazed that history I lived is now fodder for the revisionism of the merciless TV cameras. I never thought I was living in history, so let that be a lesson to you’uns. No amount of book-learning will prepare you for the moment when things start happening fast.

Should any of my constant readers desire chapter and verse on the Marielitos, they need look no further than The History Channel website. I will be there myself, doing grudging research into the fact that some of those unfortunates are still trapped in the labyrinth of the federal prison system.

Criminals deserve to be locked up, and terrorists have no rights by our Constitution, despite the ACLU’s assertions. Despite this, the Marielitos deserve a second look, no matter how the world diverts us with yet another Middle East War.

By the way:

I know that I have a few readers who have never commented on my mutterings. The super-secret website technology tells me so. I now want to pose a question to the world at large:

Why do people hate Jews?

I’ve heard it all before, from “Jews eat Christian babies and use them for blood sacrifice on Passover” to the more moderate “Rothschild Banking-World Domination” conspiracy theories to my own fundies’ assertion that “they killed Christ!”

Okay. What’s left of my mind is open. Let me hear it again. Don’t be shy; I will not delete replies that are kept family-friendly. I am a serious Christian; I don’t get it. If you are a skinheaded European surrender monkey, or a towel-wrapped Islamic cleric, don’t be shy. Inquiring minds want to know.

WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM WITH THE JEWS?

It’s a simple question, and one that I have never understood. I will tolerate any reply, no matter how outrageous I might personally consider it, if only some enlightened person will explain things to my simple self. Tell me again, I’ve heard it all before: WHY ARE WE SUPPOSED TO HATE JEWS?

I will entertain all points of view on this question. I really want to know. Keep it family-friendly, and jump in, please.