Author: Zero Ponsdorf

With Iron Jaw Kerry facing down Iran over them dang old nuke things it is with a sort of  giggle that I offer up  a Story I stumbled across just today from 2004. It HAS been said that laughter is the best medicine. It’s that or break my diabetic beer fast a few days early. And, to be candid, I’d forgotten this part of his illustrious career.

So from the Village Voice, no less, a tale celebrating John Kerry, the flawed hero. Join me in being deeply thrilled that this a*hole is “leading the charge” to protect the world from a nuclear Iran. Yeah, I’m feeling MUCH better now.

“Senator John Kerry, a decorated battle veteran, was courageous as a navy lieutenant in the Vietnam War. But he was not so courageous more than two decades later, when he covered up voluminous evidence that a significant number of live American prisoners—perhaps hundreds—were never acknowledged or returned after the war-ending treaty was signed in January 1973.

The Massachusetts senator, now seeking the presidency, carried out this subterfuge a little over a decade ago— shredding documents, suppressing testimony, and sanitizing the committee’s final report—when he was chairman of the Senate Select Committee on P.O.W./ M.I.A. Affairs.”

Before anyone misinterprets this post I should note that I was at the Kerry Lied Rally that also happened in ’04, and count some of the Swift Boat folks that served with, and condemned him, as friends.

 

Dystopia: “a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.”

I still lean towards Bizzaro World myself, but I HAVE spent  several days re-reading/skimming both books after the revelation I stumbled across.

“In 1949, George Orwell received a curious letter from his former high school French teacher.

Orwell had just published his groundbreaking book Nineteen Eighty-Four, which received glowing reviews from just about every corner of the English-speaking world. His French teacher, as it happens, was none other than Aldous Huxley who taught at Eton for a spell before writing Brave New World (1931), the other great 20th century dystopian novel.”

The last paragraph opens with chilling prescience:

“Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.”

I don’t really care about being thought as an odd sort of Luddite, but if you have spent any time around someone looking at their phone AND offering little, if any, connection to things going on around them perhaps you should wonder too. Toss in the notion of Texting While Driving, or this reaction to tech deprivation as discipline,  and maybe the modern day Luddite has a point.

Maybe, just maybe, Orwell and Huxley both missed, and yet sort of emphasized  a simple thing. Nobody was actually paying attention.

Why bother posting about things esoteric and a bit painful to deal with?  Most here have, at least, committed to watching the back of  their brethren. We’ve also committed by oath to defend this country. Still, when ennui becomes rampant what can we do? Yelling FIRE in crowded theater is only a crime IF there is no actual fire –  but what if no one is paying attention?

Oh well… Sitting around watching the world crumble is The Geezer Prerogative, ain’t it?

One thing that cheers me up is a song from some fellow hillbillies. YMMV:

Today is a “special” day. Among many it means little, still it matters to some.

“Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day is Monday”

For those who haven’t heard my grumps… I was spit at and called a “baby killer” when I came through SFO in ’69 while in uniform. The first welcome I experienced was in Hawaii. There was a parade for Gulf War vets and THEY decided to include us.  Members of my Rap Group were of a mixed mind. I said “What the hell” and showed up.

It was in Waimea on the Big Island where the wife and I were living on the side of a volcano.

Trivial crap for some, perhaps, but it did set the stage.

Forget my take, I had met ‘Nam vets who had shunned any form of public endeavor. A coupla of them were even there for the parade.

For me, when I finally stood in front of The Wall in DC I was thinking about those guys.

I dunno all the details behind This Day. Part of me is still angry. Still I simply can’t divorce the way many were treated from my own trivial memories.

But… Using this loud pulpit, I hope you each take  a look around, and maybe find one other of us and shake his hand.

There’s a story that has been showing up on the web that has some folks in a tizzy.

Operation Jade Helm is to get underway in July. Note: I chose this source to link to because it covers the other sources well enough.

“Seven Southwestern states will soon be infiltrated by 1,200 military special ops personnel as part of a controversial domestic military training in which some of the elite soldiers will operate undetected among civilians.

Operation Jade Helm begins in July and will last for eight weeks. Soldiers will operate in and around towns in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado where some of them wil drop from planes while carrying weapons loaded with blanks in what military officials have dubbed Realistic Military Training.”

First alarm bell is the apparent total lack of OPSEC. I mean even I will be looking over my shoulder and I don’t live in any of the States involved. But then that’s just me anyway.

Those readers who actually live in those states will need to beware. Of what… I ain’t exactly sure. Seems to me that “1200 Special Ops Personnel” might be grabbing lunch or some such while on leave any time of the year.

Maybe it IS part of a plot, as some suggest, but us TRULY paranoid folks doubt it would be publicized???

At this point we don’t know what has become of Jonn and TSO. I’ll admit I was considering some sillier options, but I realized there is an anthem of sorts that defines TAH. So I’ll offer this tune without pages of elaboration. If this song doesn’t capture us and those like us, I’m in the wrong place.

https://youtu.be/QDQ_wFC3Q_E

 

Saw this story via several sources in the past 24 hours or so and I reckon many of you have as well:

“In effort to prove once and for all that owning guns puts Americans in danger, States United to Prevent Gun Violence set up a fake gun store and shamed first-time gun buyers into foregoing their purchase.”

I’ll leave it to you to decide if ya wanna watch the video at the link. It IS really funny in an ironic sense.

Thing is… I suspect, with some confidence, that this was simply a scripted exercise with actors. And so I started writing my own scripts.

Scene: A hole-in-the-wall shop in NYC.

John Doe#1: “I wanna buy an atomic bomb, can you suggest one that is easy to use?”

Dealer: “Here’s the one used on Nagasaki. Our government used one like it to kill thousands in Japan.”

John Doe#1:  “Oh my, I thought it was easy to end a war.”

John Doe#1 Street interview: “I’m shocked that these evil bombs actually kill people.”

Er, Um, My script actually makes more real sense than the yahoos in the video are trying  to convey. AND I’ve been working on a coupla others.

Just keep in mind that those dark, foul, hunks of metal are evil incarnate. They force humans to do evil things.

One last bit of perspective. Matches light fires. We need to rid the country of matches. If we do no person will be at risk of being burned up.

 

 

A thing happened on this day 8 years ago. Any number of reference sources are available on-line if yer Google-Fu is good.

Some ‘Nam vets decided to stand up and be counted. ANSWER was gonna do some protesting at The Wall in DC. A coupla geezers decided to organize a counter effort. Captain Bailey and Colonel Riley managed to get the word out and The Gathering of Eagles was born.

I hope I can be forgiven for personalizing this post rather than dealing with the event in more generic terms. The latter has been done by many, and arguably better than I might offer.

The event marked my first trip to The Wall and my second trip to DC.

I, somehow, wound up being in charge of on-site communications. There were folks doing “security” that needed to be able to talk to each other and Captain Bailey made me his commo Petty Officer so I bought encrypted walkies-talkies and some (then) cheap cell phones as back-up. The day before the event we scouted the site and I picked the highest point for my headquarters. While technically the right thing to do, it had one significant downside. It snowed and the temps dropped. We were ready technically, but not so ready for the weather. We were “under’ a canopy on poles that both threatened to blow away AND periodically dumped snow on us.

Still… it was the first time I’d felt proud to be a ‘Nam Vet. I could see The Wall from my spot, and the thousands who had joined us. Needless to say… ANSWER didn’t get close to The Wall.

Someone took a pix of me that day: