My mission was to secure two three pronged extension cords shorter than 5 feet in length, and on my way to that aisle in the store, and elderly man asked for some help. Something to do with a large filter screen and how it would be installed. I had a couple ideas, but was mostly just being nice, having sensed that his knowing how to install the part probably wasn’t the reason he initiated conversation. Sure enough, as I was trolling the electricity asile for the cords I needed, he was haming it up with another stranger about the filter, then proceeded to the checkout aisle.
As luck would have it, I arrived just as he was sharing a few facts with the checkout clerk, like that he hadn’t had a headace in his entire life prior to turning 71 years old, that he was 82 years old now and had spent 20 years in the Marine Corps. Stepping aside so I could conduct my business, he lagged a bit and we headed out of the store at the same time.
“So you’re telling me that none of the junior officers you served under gave you a headace over 20 years?” This was a good opening, as my intention when engaging strangers in conversations is generally to extract some knowledge, hear a story that might get me thinking about something other than the mundane bullshit swirling around upstairs most of the time.
His take on life was that it’s been good, and in looking back, his military service was an entirely positive experience. Even when he was patrolling the Yangtzee river during the 1930s, getting poped at by snipers, it was good. Even though the method most often used to escape these attacks was to jump over the side of the boat opposite of where the bullets were coming from, and everyone ducking underwater as long as they could before the ship’s lone gunner took care of the attackers. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 12:02 PM GMT+4
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This is an excerpt from Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72, around the time when McGovern was gaining ground by going the opposite way of his counterparts after George Wallace won the primary in Florida. While Muskie railed against the racist scum and the half-wits who had voted for him, McGovern said things like, “I feel the same way, but unlike Governor Wallace, I’ve proposed constructive solutions to these problems.” The tactic here was to avoid alienating voters in upcoming primaries wouldn’t vote for a liberal candidate who considered them stupid for agreeing with Wallace, while counting on the fact that these same voters knew deep down inside that they might just end up in hell if they kept it up. Hunter describes this aspect brilliantly as always, then goes into a deeper description of this southern voter:
The root of the Wallace magic was a cynical, showbiz instinct for knowing exactally which issues would whip a hall full of beer-drinking factory workers into a frenzy – and then doing exactally that, by howling down from the podium that he had an instant, overnight cure for all their worst aflictions: Taxes? Nigras? Army worms killing the turnip crop? Whatever it was, Wallace assured his supporters that the solution was actually real simple, and that the only reason they had any hassle with the government at all was because those greedy bloodsuckers in Washington didn’t want the problems solved, so they wouldn’t be put out of work.
The ugly truth is that Wallace had never even bothered to understand the problems – much less come up with any honest solutions – but “the Fighting Little Judge” has never lost much sleep from guilt feelilngs about his personal credibility gap. Southern politicians are not made that way. Successful con men are treated with considerable respect in the South. A good slice of the settler population of that region were men who’d been given a choice between being shipped off to the New World in leg-irons and spending the rest of their lives in English prisons. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as History at 12:32 AM GMT+4
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Pictures will accompany this post once I find the cable that connects the camera to the PC…feeling guilty right now as I’ve had several posts on the slate to show off the deadissue children, which now total four…I’ve got pictures from Right and my brother to upload. This WILL happen before the end of next week.
Back to the pool though, it’s half full right now with a mess of leaves and dirt in a few spots. This past week I’ve been spending my spare time scooping leaves off the top of the cover, an operation that has bulked up my arms better than pushups ever could. Many hours were spent on this portion of the task, as the pool lies directly below several branches from the tree to the right of our house. The idea being that the more leaves I could scoop out would reduce the amount that could end up in the pool once the cover came off.
Expecting some help this weekend, I put it off until today, but couldn’t wait any longer…like a child on Christmas morning, I eagerly tore off the top alone, and a portion of the muck got through my un-sophisticated planning, which equals more work with the skimmer…my mind weeps, my “guns” rejoice.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 3:33 PM GMT+4
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The article contains a LOT of information, as the archives were delved into, rendering the mountain of hearsay irrelevant. It’s interesting that Kerry didn’t think to have all of this on hand during the campaign, like he thought that his service record wasn’t going to be brought out and pissed on…
His claim of being in Cambodia, his purple hearts and silver star – these were the details of his service the Swift Boaters focused on. And now…OVER A YEAR AFTER THE ELECTION…he’s got the official paperwork to prove they lied about everything. The lesson here of course is, have the paperwork on hand BEFORE you decide to run for President.
The Article
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 12:32 AM GMT+4
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The similarities between Tony Soprano’s son AJ and President Bush are undeniable. Earlier in the season, AJ paid a visit to Uncle Junior with a hunting knife stashed in his shirt. After bungling the murder attempt, orderlies piled on him as he screamed and cried “he tried to kill my dad!” Never mind how ill-equipped the kid was, both emotionally and mentally, in the end it’s all about a lifelong struggle to somehow live up to the legend of a man he knows he’ll never be good enough to emulate. Uncle Junior shoots Tony, and his lack of a response equals an opportunity for his feeble-minded son to do something - anything - and that’s when people like him start believing the words of all those who’re kissing his ass every minute of every day. A true simpleton can never tell the difference between a friend and a leech, as that’s an ability one learns through experience. So when these leeches start tossing around bright ideas (invading Iraq-murdering Uncle Junior), the fortunate son gets to feel like he’s privy to a path that leads to glory, one that they figure daddy wasn’t man enough to travel. Since the foolish prince hasn’t done a day of hard work in his life, nor has he fallen and had to pick himself up, lazily he becomes convinced that one act of macho-induced stupidity will ensure the legacy he longs for. It’s a condition these two share, and in both cases there’s a gaping hole inside of them, the result of idolizing a man who was always too busy being a ‘captain of industry’ to bother with the mundane business of fatherhood. In Tony’s case its booze, strippers, power, greed and a desperate longing for peace, quiet and a jumbo-sized ice cream sundae. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 12:06 PM GMT+4
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President Bush (5-23-06):
It is a difficult task to stop suicide bombers. That’s the — but that’s one of the main — that’s the main weapon of the enemy, the capacity to destroy innocent life with a suicider.
I can believe that Bush would tell lies concerning Iraq, and unfortunately I also believe that plenty will take him at his word. What neither he, nor his crew of lackies, understand at this point is the American public is on to him. So when he says that suicide bombers are the “main weapon of the enemy”, more than half of the people who read or hear it know that he’s lying through his teeth.
Now imagine being a soldier who was crippled by an IED hearing this. Many already feeling like they gave up their life for a lie, now they hear the President of the United States talking ragtime about what’s actually killing our guys over there.
Mortar rounds and IEDs – the insurgency’s version of what we’d call…well, mortar rounds and remote claymore mines. The difference between us and them though is that we’re driving around like ducks on the pond every day, whereas the insurgency is keeping themselves hidden. For every one of ours they wound or kill, how many of them do we get? Whoever pretends to know the answer to this question is full of shit!
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 8:35 PM GMT+4
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It’s a documentary shot in Baghdad at a hospital mostly, but footage from patrols is also a part of it. Heart wrenching, void of any director commentary, no manipulated shots or short piece editing done for effect, no soundtrack, nothing is staged, nothing is censored. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 12:41 AM GMT+4
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Very dark…
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 11:40 PM GMT+4
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When you ponder the enormity of earth and its wide array of life and death scenarios, eventually the reality of how miniscule a single one of us truly is can cause the mind to shift into overdrive. In the case of someone whose mind spins constantly on these themes from inside a prison cell, realism can often manage to pummel religion over time, as ideas once excluded from consideration slowly start becoming plausible. It’s all about pressure, and how our minds react to it over time. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 12:16 PM GMT+4
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Sorry for hitting this up again so soon, but the sheer stupidity of it all is so rich, you’d swear it had to be a government operation. Let me take you into the negotiation room for this brilliant exchange:
Army: You rang?
Government: We need to deploy 6,000 soldiers to the border.
Army: Most of the ones we’ve got really belong to states, and most of them have already been in the desert over in Iraq for a year. (break-injection is administered-3-2-1) We’re sending them down to the border this summer? Interesting…
Government: Look, we know you’re straped, and we know you guys were picturing yourselves being able to save the country from another disaster like Katrina, God Forbid…but the fact is, we’re in trouble. That means YOU’RE in trouble, understand?
Army: Yes sir.
Government: Numbers are down, the hoopleheads are dying for something to talk about. They demand a show, we’re going to give them a show. Hear that?
Army: I’m gonna to be famous?
Government: You bet your ass you are!
Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 12:06 AM GMT+4
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It ensures one thing and one thing only…government’s gonna be spending a LOT of dough every year fixing it. Then of course there will come the day when some politician wins by running on the “tear down that fence” platform, and the fence fixing lobby loses out. All the fence fixers get fired, then sign on with the company given the fence removal contract…live off of that for a couple years.
And then when it’s all over, the laid off fence fixers turned fence removers really get their act together, scatter out across the country to find work as right-wing talk radio hosts, and eventually the “build a fence” crowd gets off the ground.
It’s the circle of life.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 10:11 PM GMT+4
1 Comment »
To study is to cut some grass or knock out a set of pushups – accumulative progression that relies on consistent effort in pursuit of a goal. As a younger man (look at that, I just sounded like Morgan Freeman) I either didn’t understand or didn’t appreciate this concept. Different story now, as the textbook I receive in the mail is basically the begining of a long chug at slow speeds, sometimes (with a dry subject) it’s like traveling through Kansas at five miles an hour, sometimes (with certain math concepts) it’s like driving from one end of Boston to the other during rush hour…imagine two 10 month olds and a cat who likes attention mixed with a shot of “x=4?!?! That’s BULLSHIT!”
It’s interesting around here now. A sense of something new. Colorado Technical University Online is the school I’m attending, and Software Engineering is my major. Networking Concepts and College Algebra are the first two courses to come down the chute, and in 6 weeks the next two will come right behind. Add in about 8 CLEP tests I need to pass by 8/8 to be a junior (key thing here is saving time and tuition)…NBA playoffs, Papplebon, Cheney…I hardly knew ye.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 10:25 PM GMT+4
12 Comments »
Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report – Saturday 13 May 2006
Probably a year ago I made a bet with Lee from RTFTLC that Rove would be charged with a crime, something about admitting whoever was wrong on both sites. Can someone reach out and remind our friend of that? This is one I was right about from the begining. His habit of telling lies in practically all situations involving what he does behind the curtain caught up with him, and like all headstrong spin hoars, they fly too close to the sun. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 2:32 AM GMT+4
25 Comments »
Sonicrusk posted about spiders a little while back, and it reminded me of a story. One that brings out the true coward inside all of us…well, inside of me anyway.
Jimithy Johnson, welder by trade, can’t call him a friend of mine without cringing, not because of his body odor or attitude towards life, but this affliction he suffered a few years back. We were working security for Jordan Marsh (department store chain), our shifts overlaped by 6 hours every day from noon to 6PM, with one of us closing up the store at 8PM every night.
I’d gone out drinking with him and his buddies one time, but it wasn’t my bag. Too much of something and not enough of something else, like all things in life I suppose, and perhaps it had something to do with sports or humanity, the crowd he ran with tended to view the combustion engine as something 500 times more exciting than anything Tom Brady was doing at the time, and so the talk generally centered around such-n-such a part ordered from somewhere to go onto such-n-such, to which the group would split down the middle most times, one half calling whoever shared their story an idiot or a genius depending on what they had done to their car or was going to do to it at some point.
Important part of the story being that, on the night in question I was too drunk on tequilla and superiority to notice anything like a spider. Though that’s where Jimithy insists he got bit – I suspect that he was building up the courage to file a lawsuit or something – typically, he’ll talk a lot of shit about something like this and never follow up. Important thing to remember at this part though is he was BITTEN. In the FACE.
Swelling up to the size of a golfball some time afterwards, I was the one who had to have a heart-to-heart (supervisor was a woman and afraid to be alone with him) about how he should really go see a doctor about the bump on his upper cheek. “Talbots (our nickname for the bosslady) put you up to this, huh? How ’bout getting that bitch to kick down some medical insurance. ”
I told him it was beside the point, that the wound on his face was starting to be talked about all over the mall, that little children were reported to have serious bed-wetting nightmares about it all over town, with even some reputable plastic surgeons refusing to step foot into the mall until he gets that thing checked out.
He never does, not for any militant or political reason (even though that’s how he played it to everyone who’d listen), but really it’s a part needed to make his car drive faster using nitrous oxide he was saving up for, couldn’t be accomodated…this swollen, disgusting lump on his face would have to get in line.
Then it started pulsating one day. Jimithy had gone on a spin an hour earlier and was still high from what he smoked on the way to Dunkin Doughnuts, so as I started commenting from a distance, he thought I was just fucking with him. Who knows, maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I wasn’t going to touch the thing to find out. All I know is, I had the camera room while he went to get an ice cream downstairs. Next thing I know, people are going nuts on camera 4, parents swooping in for their kids, running away, and there’s my partner, hunched over the ice cream counter with little black things coming out of his face, crawling all over the counter, into the ice cream vats, down into his shirt, onto the hair and down the shirt of the poor girl who was serving him…
Took off my nametag and droped it on the floor, Beck streaming into my ears a minute later. That’s right, I quit on the spot…the old fashioned way, NO CALL NO SHOW…haven’t seen or heard of Jimithy in years.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 11:30 PM GMT+4
6 Comments »
by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
PRIVATE FIRST CLASS ELMO C. HACKETTS, JR., approached the Shah of Bratpuhr, Doctor Ewing J. Halyard, of the State Department, Kashdrahr Miasma, their interpreter, General of the Armies Milford S. Bromley, General William K. Corbett, camp commander, Major General Earl Pruitt, division commander, and their aides.
Private First Class Hacketts was in the middle of the First Squad of the Second Platoon of B Company of the First Battalion of the 427th Regiment of the 107th Infantry Division of the Ninth Corps of the Twelfth Army, and he stayed right there, and put his left foot down every time the drummer hit the bass drum.
“Dee-veesh-ee-own–” cried the Division Commander through a loudspeaker.
Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Military at 2:26 PM GMT+4
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As a matter of principle, polygamy doesn’t offend or scare me in any way. My belief is that families are the engine that runs every successful nation in the world, and as long as whoever is up to it, more power to them. Love being the standard, not appearances.
Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Religion, Words at 4:02 PM GMT+4
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He walked into the mini-mart with his Class A uniform on, specialist, with three rows of medals and a mountain division patch. I asked if he was stationed at Fort Drum, he was. Asked if he was deploying to Iraq again, and he is. Two tours already completed, he’s going back over on the exact date he’s scheduled to leave the Army for good. No orders have been issued pertaining to his seperation date, as ’stop loss’ has become an assumed reality for thousands just like him. His unit doesn’t talk about it, in typical Army fashion it’s treated with the same “suck it up and drive on” explaination given to any situation where the government is responsible for most, if not all, of the bullshit a soldier is being forced to deal with against their will.
I asked whether he was even being given word on whether or not this final deployment will be the end of his obligation, and his answer was, “it’s useless even asking about that, because nobody knows anything”. I didn’t press the issue, knowing from experience that hashing out such things over and over only makes it worse. Instead I asked about the equipment his unit was shipping out with, what condition it was in. Turns out, this unit he and others were transferred to was new, and hadn’t yet received, inspected or operated up to half of the vehicles they’ll be deploying with in two months. What they did have was hand-me-down from other units, received “as is”, meaning the broken down equipment was on the new unit to fix. This is how the Army system works when units have to give up men or equipment to another, unfortunately, the best is retained while problems are passed on for someone else to deal with.
One rotation at NTC (45 day training rotation – in peace times combat units do this around 3 times a year), with an entirely new unit, half of the required equipment, and a dreadfull reality to face, that nobody in their chain of command, from squad leader to the President, knows how, when or if ever this military unit is going to receive what they need to do the job, let alone whether each individual is ever going to be able to take off the uniform. Indeed, this Army of ours is in dire straights, and while you and I don’t have to actually DO any of this work ourselves, it should concern everyone who cares about our military that this is the best we can do right now.
Like a carpenter asked to build a house without tools, this soldier is told he’s going back to Iraq (contract seperation date be damned), with guys who have only been together for a few months and half of the required equipment, most of which is already on its last legs.
I’M SO GLAD I GOT OUT WHEN I DID, BECAUSE NOBODY GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THIS GUY!
Posted by Al Swearengen as Military, Words at 12:00 PM GMT+4
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By the looks of it, Rove was counting on Cooper keeping his mouth shut, in a jail cell for however many months or years. The following exerpt is from the new issue of Newsweek. Luskin, Rove’s lawyer, finds out that his client hasn’t provided him all of the facts. I my many years as a defense attourney this happened once or twice, but of course my clients were heavily sedated throughout our encounters. Rove may in fact be a dope fiend, but if that’s the case, he’d better start showing Fitzgerald track marks soon…otherwise, he’s probably going to jail:
Luskin told the prosecutor that sometime between October 2003 and January 2004 he’d had a drink with Time reporter Viveca Novak. An old friend of Luskin’s, Novak (who is no relation to the columnist of the same last name) surprised Luskin by telling him that Rove might have been Cooper’s source. Last week, in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Novak described the conversation. Luskin, Novak recalls, said that Rove “didn’t have a Cooper problem,” meaning that Rove had not been Cooper’s source. “That’s not what I hear,” Novak recalls responding. At that point, Luskin’s demeanor changed, says Novak. “He got very serious from what I told him. He reacted as though he were learning it for the first time.” (Novak had heard about Cooper’s source from chatter inside the Washington bureau of Time; she recently took a buyout from the magazine.)
Luskin alerted Rove to the conversation, but his client still didn’t remember it, according to a source close to Rove who declined to be named discussing sensitive legal matters. Luskin seemed to be signaling to Fitzgerald that Rove was truthful when he said he didn’t remember the Cooper phone call; otherwise, why would he testify as such when he knew that others, including Cooper, could contradict him? (One possible explanation: Rove may have assumed Cooper would protect him as a confidential source.) Luskin did make a renewed search of Rove’s files, the source says. That’s what turned up the e-mail to Hadley. Fitzgerald was sufficiently slowed up by Luskin’s story to hold off on indicting Rove, according to the source.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 11:01 AM GMT+4
41 Comments »
STEPHEN COLBERT: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Before I begin, I’ve been asked to make an announcement. Whoever parked 14 black bulletproof S.U.V.’s out front, could you please move them? They are blocking in 14 other black bulletproof S.U.V.’s and they need to get out.
Wow. Wow, what an honor. The White House correspondents’ dinner. To actually sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I’m dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what? I’m a pretty sound sleeper — that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face. Is he really not here tonight? Dammit. The one guy who could have helped. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as History at 12:04 AM GMT+4
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