That's About Right

"So is it okay to give the middle east to the Russkies because the people there are not as decent as the Ukrainians?" - Yep, that's about right. Truth be known, I don't know for a fact that the Ukrainians are decent people, but I have never heard or read anything bad about them, which is more than I can say for the Muslims. Well, not all the Muslims, just the extremist ones that are always causing trouble. Thing is, Russia wants to rule somebody, and the Middle Eastern countries need to be ruled by somebody. So why not match them up? Sounds like a win-win to me. The Ukrainians just want to be left alone, and they seem to be leaving everybody else alone. What's not to like about them?

While we're on the subject, I looked up ISIS over the weekend. According to Wiki, their goal is simply to take over the world, first the Muslim world and then the rest of the world. Their apocalyptic beliefs enter into it somewhere, but I'm not sure if they hope to bring on their version of the Apocalypse by taking over the world, or if they expect their version of the Apocalypse to enable them to take over the world but, one way or another, they want to take over the world and have an apocalypse where the bad guys are triumphant over the good guys. They have this guy they call the "Caliph" which, as near as I can tell, is their version of the Pope, or the Antichrist, or something like that, and they expect him to lead them to victory.

I seem to remember voting for at least one Democrat besides Wallace in my life. Stan McKervey had been Cheboygan County Sheriff for decades before I moved here. He was kind of like Andy of Mayberry on TV, and very popular. Then this smart aleck came up from Down Below, where he had been a Chief of Police or something, and ran against Stan on the Republican ticket. I'm pretty sure that I voted for Stan, but the smart aleck won, and then proceeded to piss everybody off. By the end of his first term, people were ready to put Stan back in office, but he had suffered a heart attack or something and declined to run. People around here generally vote Republican, but Stan was a Democrat, and the exception that proved the rule. Like I said, if Trump gets the Republican nomination I might have to vote for the Libertarian presidential candidate, but I'll still vote Republican for everything else.

Now that you mention  it, I don't think the Republicans gave me a card when I joined them, they just put my name in a book or something. I joined for a year, and I don't remember them asking me to renew after that, which I wouldn't have anyway. I'm sure the other two parties of which I was a member gave me cards, but I don't think I have any old ones that I saved. There must be a way to join the Democratic Party, otherwise how do they determine who is eligible to vote in their caucuses? The Democrats in Michigan chose their presidential candidates by caucuses instead of primaries for a long time, ever since Michigan voted for Wallace in 1972, but they must have changed back recently because I remember Obama being on the primary ballot last time. I'm sure that some states still use caucuses because I've heard it mentioned on TV.

The idea of the multinational corporations running the world is part of our folklore, and there's probably some truth to it. I used to believe that they and the government were all in it together, but now I'm not so sure. It might be that rich and powerful people just hang out together because they have a lot in common. They seem to be in competition with each other but, I suppose, deals are struck from time to time, just like national governments form alliances only to betray their allies whenever it becomes convenient to do so. I hate to tell you this, Uncle Ken, but everybody is not as nice as you and I.

hornswoggled again

As I understand it, the commies would not issue a card to just anybody who came down the pike, you had to earn it by, well I don't know, doing commie things.  They didn't want to be infiltrated.

I didn't know that the American Independent Party knew how to spell well enough to issue cards, and it seems to me that it would be against their principles for the libertarians to issue cards. 

For a little while in the early 80s I was a ward committeman, but I never took an oath or paid any dues and they never issued me a card.  The other day I googled 'join the democratic party,' and all I got was pleas for money.  For awhile there Barak used to email me about every week asking for money.  I voted for him twice, not counting the primaries, and you know I always take his side in arguments, but those emails got a little annoying.  

I think you may be more of a Republican than I am a democrat.  I twice voted for Republican governors.  When was the last time you voted for a democrat?

So is it okay to give the middle east to the Russkies because the people there are not as decent as the Ukrainians?

I think the way it worked is that the oil companies originally signed contracts with the sheiks which were very favorable to the oil companies.  When the time came to negotiate the next contract the sheiks wanted better terms, and in the case of Saudi Arabia which I just looked up, they eventually bought out the contract and now own their oil.  I imagine there was a component of force in that, inasmuch as the oil wells were on Saudi land, and all kinds of (ahem) unfortunate accidents could happen to the pipeline carrying the oil out.

I was talking about the movie Network in the last post and what you said about 'our' corporations reminded me of a scene in it.   Howard Beale, the anchorman who came up with the phrase, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not taking it anymore," becomes wildly popular, and at some point he is led into a boardroom of the movers and shakers who tell him something like in the halls of power there is no State of Illinois, there is no United States, there are just the multinational corporations.  There is no way our government can tell them what to do.

I think you are wrong about a guy being officially declared the frontrunner going on to victory.  Trump, and to a lesser degree Carson, has been the front runner, but most people still expect them to stumble.  How about the 2012 primary where each of the five crazies were front runners for a time, the wily Newt twice, and then the whole thing was taken by the grey ghost? 

I think we are mirror images in this year's election.  I will vote for Bernie in the primary knowing he doesn't have a snowball's chance and come the general election I will vote for the big girl.  I assume you will be voting for Son 'O Ron in the primary, in the regular, it's hard to tell, I'm guessing Thirsty Rubio or Nasty Cruz, though it could be the Donald, and he has recently hinted he might run as a third party if he doesn't like the way the other reps treat him, so you could have a choice of voting for him.  

Of course that would mean you were hornswoggled by Trump, but maybe that would be better than being hornswoggled by the regular reps.  I reckon you could write your own name in, and then the only person you would be hornswoggled by was yourself.

Card Carriers and Sympathizers

Remember, back in the Cold War days, the Communists had something called a "card carrying party member"? Well, every political party has that, even unto this day. I think anybody can join a political party, at least I've never heard of anyone being refused membership. You just pay your dues and they issue you an ID card that says you're a member. I was a card carrier with the American Independent Party for some years back in the 70s, with the Libertarians for over a decade around the 90s, and with the republicans for one year in between. If you want to join the Democrats, I'm sure they will welcome you. Look them up in the phone book and give them a call. With the Commies, they also had something called a "sympathizer", and another thing called a "fellow traveler". I'm not sure what the difference was, but they both applied to someone who believed in the cause, but never officially joined the party. I think you would fall into one of those categories with the Democrats, but I'm not sure if I would qualify as one with the Republicans. I generally vote Republican as the lesser or two evils, but I really wish there was some other choice, kind of like the Libertarians were before they pissed me off.

I never really was down on the Russians, it was the Communists that I didn't like. I read somewhere that only 10% of the Russian people were card carrying party members, and many of them just joined for the benefits, like preferential treatment in employment and housing. I assumed that the Russians would be rehabilitated after they abandoned Communism in 1990, but maybe not. It's probably still only a small fraction of the population who cause most of the problems, which is not unlike the situation in the U.S. and other countries. I don't think we should give them the Ukraine because, as far as I know, the Ukrainians are decent people. At least I never heard of them chopping people's heads off or setting off bombs in the marketplace. Truth be known, most of the Muslims are probably decent people too, but they aren't the ones you see on the 6:00 news.

I remember the oil embargo of the70s, and I said at the time that we should cut off all aid and trade with those people, but nobody listened to me. I still don't know how those goofy sheiks in their bathrobes got control of the oil wells. Weren't they drilled by American or British companies? I could suppose that the companies and the sheiks were all in it together from the start, but that would be just paranoid. I know an American guy who works for a Japanese auto parts company in the States, and they have sent him to Red China several times to work on something or other. He says that the Red Chinese government owns a controlling interest in all the private companies who operate there, and that they could just kick the Americans out and take complete control any time they wanted to. Maybe something like that is what happened in the Middle East. In one way, I think that would be just what those companies deserve for dealing with people like that. In another way though, I suspect that any losses they incur would be paid for by you and me, one way or another. The best scenario would be if our government wouldn't even allow our companies to form such alliances with the evil doers, but that's not going to happen because the government and the companies are all in it together. Whoops, there I go talking paranoid again!

You know, the only reason one candidate is a front runner and another is on the fringe is because people say so. I don't know who starts it, the news media or the poll takers but, once a candidate has been officially declared the favorite, most of the sheeple fall into line. I don't know why they bother to have elections at all, just let the experts choose the winner. They will anyway. When I go vote, it's just a symbolic act of defiance to let those bastards know that they don't have everybody hornswoggled. 

realpolitiks politics

The Arabs did have that time, roughly between Mohammed and the Turks when they were the height of civilization.  But that is probably part of their problem.  They are like some family that was once rich and powerful but lost everything but still carries on.

You certainly have softened on the Russkies.  Would you give them free reign in Ukraine too?  Not that they will be able to knock the mideast heads together, they can barely cope with Chechnya.  But I agree it would be nice to have them in there because it would mean we were out.

But you are right, the Arabs weren't much lately without oil.  Back in Champaign I knew a Kuwaiti guy.  Before oil they dove for clams and when tour boats sailed past they dove for the coins the passengers tossed.  When the locusts swarmed through the mideast they stood on their northern border with big bags, at last something to eat. 

Remember OPEC?  Remember the oil embargo?  Remember the guys in the bathrobes and funny hats, but regal bearing, telling the cowering western reporters that they had decided to double the price of a barrel of oil, and then with a sneer, adding maybe triple it, and they all laughed.

I think the tea partiers paved the way for Trump with their contempt for anybody with experience or any kind of learning.  They are mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore.  I'm going to put that movie, Network, in my Netfflix queue.  I remember in 1976 when everybody yelled "I'm mad as hell and I'm not taking it anymore," I thought that was a good thing, but now I shudder. 

I don't know what percentage of people didn't trust Clinton when he was running for his second term.  I was thinking that might have been the blue dress but wiki tells me that that was 1998.  Well he was always an oily guy, a smooth and slick talker, but that's not such a bad thing,  I think people thought he steered the ship of state pretty well and if he told a fib now and then what's the harm.

Trump on the other hand, I think his fans trust him in all things.  If he said he saw a million angels dancing on the head a pin and singing his praises, his fans would believe it must be so.  After all doesn't he have the greatest vision in the world?

I will probably vote for Bernie in the primary.  I say probably because even though I like his agenda, I am not sure he could enact it, so then what good is it?  Mostly I will be voting for him as a way of nudging the big girl to the left.  But if it's close between Bernie and her, and the reps nominate somebody with half a chance, I might vote for the big girl because I think she would have a better chance of winning.

We have had this conversation before.  I think you should vote to get the best (least worst) possible outcome, whereas I believe you think you should vote to express your opinion. 

Even though I am a bit of a yellow dog, I am not a member of the democratic party.  I mean where would I sign up?  I think there was a time when you had to declare your party to vote in the primary and then the next time you voted you couldn't vote in the other party's primary, but I think those times are long gone.  As far as the parties go whoever votes in their primaries and votes for their candidate in the general election is a member of the party.  You may have kookie ideas, but that doesn't make you dissimilar to other republicans, and since you walk and talk, or in this case vote, like a duck, you are a republican.

The question was why does the republican party, to their detriment, have so many candidates?  And the answer is because they have people like you who will vote for fringe candidates in the primary.

Oh dang, time is up and I still haven't gotten around to explaining why people want to join ISIS.  Well I guess we will have to wait.

"Another Country Heard From"

I don't know the origin of that quote, but my hypothetical wife's family used it to respond to a crying baby or anybody who complained about something trivial.

Throughout history, most of the Middle East has been ruled by somebody, they have had little experience being independent nation states. The Turks ruled it for about 500 years after they took it away from the Byzantine Romans. After the Turks lost World War I, The British ruled under a League of Nations mandate, which outlasted the League of Nations itself. By the end or World war II, the Brits were happy to be rid of it, concluding that it was more trouble than it was worth. What that region needs is some major power to knock their heads together and make them play nice. None of the Western powers seem eager to take on that job, so maybe we should encourage the Russians to do it. They did a pretty good job with the Balkans, and look what happened after they left. I was no great fan of the Russians back in the Cold War days but, since Communism crashed and burned, they just might be the lesser of two evils. I think what makes those people so arrogant is their oil. Without oil, they would still be raising goats and riding camels. I think it was American companies that started it all but, somewhere along the way, the natives were allowed to take control of the oil wells. The Russians, mean pricks that they are, and having some experience in the oil business, should be able to set things right in short order. Those people deserve each other.

I don't know what to think about those Trump fans, What are they, nuts? It reminds me of a poll that somebody took when Bill Clinton was running for his second term. I don't remember the numbers, but a lot of the respondents said that they didn't trust Clinton, but they were going to vote for him anyway.

Why is it that, whenever I tell people who I'm voting for, they say, "But he'll never win."? What the hell does that have to do with it? I vote for who I want to win, not who I think is going to win. The guy who is going to win doesn't need my vote anyway but, even if he did, that's no reason to vote for somebody. If I was betting money on the outcome, naturally I'd bet for the guy who I thought was going to win, but I'm not betting money, I'm voting.

How can I be what's wrong with the Republican Party when I'm not even a party member? The Republicans are not my party any more than the Democrats are, they are both included in the "they" group, meaning they are not me. I am "me" and they are "they". Why is this so hard to understand? 

news of the world

I saw a map, it's just a little peninsula of Iraq maybe a couple miles wide that juts into Syria.  I thought Jeez, couldn't the Turks just have let that one go by.   On the other hand people are tetchy about their borders and that Turkish/Russian enmity goes way back.  And then there's that thing where if you warn somebody not to do something (there is some controversy about that, but it seems likely that the Russkies would know what frequency the Turks were using) and they just ignore you it kind of gets your back up. 

And just now I am hearing that the Russkies are saying that it only took like 17 seconds for their plane to traverse that peninsula and the Turks are saying this wasn't the first time it happened.  I guess my takeaway is how hard would it have been for the Russkies to go around that peninsula, but even then the Turks should have made a big complaint, fired some warning shots, something short of shooting the plane down.

But either way it's done.  I expect there will be some backing away now (though with Putin you never know) because the first Crimean war didn't go so well for anybody.  I mentioned the Crimean war because it was between the Russians and the Turks and a couple other nations, but now that I mention it, it was fought in the Ukraine, which is not so far away from the current mess.  Perhaps it could be dragged in.

I think there is some big conference in the wings with all the powers from Iran to ISIS.  Maybe we need something like the Paris peace conference after WW 1, the powers drawing lines on maps, and then calling it done.  That didn't turn out too well either.  Maybe they ought to get out a big Risk game and roll the dice and however it turns out that is how it turns out.

Now Trump is claiming that he saw the cheering (yes by Muslims, I assume he could see their bathrobes and funny hats) from his apartment four and a half miles away.  No wait a minute maybe that was the towers falling and people jumping out, it's hard to keep track sometimes.  I am sure he has the greatest eyesight in the world.  The thing about these latest two whoppers (the first one about the thousands and thousands cheering from the rooftops he saw on national tv), is that they are so easily disproved, and yet Trump does not back down.

And you know reasonable men like me, and even you, after every Trump rant we say, this will surely be the end of him and every time he comes back bigger.  And last night I watched them interview his legions of fans, and when it was pointed out that what he said couldn't possibly be true, they were like if he said it, it must be true, or it didn't matter whether it was true or not, it might as well be.

You complain about the Republican party having so many candidates and yet you are backing a guy who doesn't have a snowball's chance.  The problem with the Republican party is guys like you who are voting in the primaries but feel no fealty to the GOP.

Planes and Politics

I heard about the Russian plane that the Turks recently shot down. The Turks claim that the plane was warned several times that it was in Turkish air space, and that the Russian pilot didn't respond. I assume there is a protocol for that. I mean the Russian pilot couldn't have been expected to understand Turkish, so there must be some standard signal or something that is used in cases like that. I understand that English is the lingua franca of commercial aircraft and air traffic controllers, so maybe it's the same for the military. I haven't heard the Russian version of the story yet. I'm pretty sure that, if the Russians shoot down a Turkish plane in retaliation, nothing will be done about it. After all, nothing was done about that commercial jet that they shot down over the Ukraine. I also remember, decades ago, when they shot down a commercial jet out of South Korea with many Americans on board, I believe the flight number was 007. There was much ranting and raving but, in the end, nothing was done about it.

I haven't heard about the latest Trump-ism. You say he claimed that thousands of people were cheering from the roof tops when the World Trade Center was destroyed? What kind of people, Muslims? Mexicans? I remember, when the ashes had not yet cooled, that some people were saying that the Jews were actually responsible, and that the Muslims were pure as the driven snow. Then there are some who still believe that our own government did it. There are enough real bad guys in the world, why do some people see the need to manufacture more of them out of thin air? You know, it's people like that who give us paranoids a bad name.

I find it incredible that many people are taking this Trump guy seriously. This whole Republican primary race is nothing but a three ring circus anyway. Why do they need to put up so many candidates in the first place? They did that last time and they lost the election. I'm still voting for Rand Paul. He's dead last in the polls, but he seems to be the only one not intent on making a fool of himself, at least not yet.

I won't be writing Thursday because we are going to my daughter's for Thanksgiving and won't be back till late. She has bought a house in Charlevoix, which is a half hour farther away than where she used to live in Petoskey, which was an hour's drive from Beaglesoina. I don't know what's wrong with kids nowadays. Why do they need to live so far away from their parents? I may not log on tomorrow either. We've got company coming in the evening, but I might stay home and go on line in the afternoon instead, depends on whether or not I go hunting in the morning.

Uncle Ken's deer season

I guess it's one for the deer and none for Beagles.  Hope that guy gets out of this ok, maybe with a fashionable scar to impress the does.  Of course maybe not too, but then coyotes and vultures and whatnot have to eat too.

In breaking news the Turks have shot down a Russian plane.  The Turks and the Russkies have been enemies since Czarist times.  What happens when the Russkies shoot down a plane of the Turks, our NATO ally?  What do we do?

In other news this Trump and the thousands about thousands in New Jersey standing on rooftops and cheering as the towers toppled.  Oh he has told some whoppers before but they were subject to interpretation, and a little vague, but this one seems uncommonly bald-faced.  It's like our discussion some time ago about objective reality.  You can say it's hot and we can discuss that forever, but if you say you have a tree about fifteen feet tall in your yard we can walk over there and it either is or it isn't.

The other guy, the soft-spoken one, initially went along with Trump, but has now back peddled.  He had told whoppers aplenty, especially about this youth, but he mumbles and wanders and is so polite, and anymore doesn't seem to be much of a threat, so the reporters kind of let him be.

But Trump, a bigger threat than ever, always has his jaw thrust out, and it's hard to see him ever admitting that he was wrong about everything, and he has already announced that he has the world's greatest memory.

So where does this go?  Do his followers realize that he is a bald-faced liar and abandon him?  I rather doubt it.  Do his followers just decide to believe whatever the man with the world's greatest memory says?  Of course they've always believed that the media were lying liars, well the media that is against him.  And here it occurs to me that those other guys who are always rapping the media have the Foxies and a coterie of conservative commentators behind them.  But is there anybody in any media who likes Trump?  I saw Limbaugh, remember him, on a Sunday show last week and the best he could do was assert that Trump was better than Hillary.

So has Trump, like those satellite shots of yore, broken the surly bonds of Earth, or of truth in his case?  Can he just say anything at all and watch his polls soar? 

Well as a dem who sees Trump as wrecking the republican party, I love this.  Surely the big girl will then sweep to victory (not so hot on her, truth be told, but compared to the monsters in the republican primary I would be glad to climb into her lap and have her whisper her sweet little lies (not lies really, just a little truth bending) into my ear.)

But even though these early polls mean nothing they do show her losing to almost all the republican candidates, so what if she doesn't sweep to victory, and we see Trump and Putin man the controls of who shot whose jet down in the middle east?

I know you don't take much interest, but the republican primary is my deer season.

Thankfully I don't have anytime left for my explanation for how ISIS rose or why anybody joins it, because I don't think I have much more than head scratching.

Deer Season Update

I seem to have run out of things to say about the Middle East, so I'll take this opportunity to catch you up on deer hunting stories.

The season started out unseasonably warm, which most hunters don't like, but the last few days have been close to ideal, nights in the 20s and days in the 30s, with an inch or so of snow on the ground. On the third day, when it was still warm, I had a spike horn buck walking straight towards me at 9:00 AM. This is not perfect presentation, but I successfully made the same shot four years ago on a big 10 point, so I didn't see how I could screw this one up.....but I did. I was aiming for the center of his chest, but the shot must have went low and clipped his brisket. I could tell because there was only a few drops of blood, nothing that would help me track him down. I spent two hours combing the brush around where I had last seen him, but he was not to be found. Even if there had been tracking snow, I doubt that I would have been able to catch up with him. All the experts say that a hit like that doesn't even slow a deer down, and he usually recovers and survives. You may remember that I lost a doe like that two years ago, and it ruined my whole season. I took the next three days off to recuperate from the ordeal. That's how it is when you're old, it takes you longer to rest up than it took you to get tired.

I felt better by the seventh day, so I decided it was time to get back in the game. It's like riding a horse or a bicycle, once you fall off you never forget. Around 10:00 AM this doe came walking straight towards me just like that spike horn had. I don't have a doe permit this year, so I thought I would try to take her picture but, by the time I got the camera out, she had already walked past me. Then I coughed, and she came back and posed for me real nice. I'll have to remember that and do it on purpose if the need should ever arise. She stood there for the longest time trying to figure out what I was, but I don't think she ever did. Deer can't see me in that blind because it's darker on the inside than it is on the outside. She finally bounded off, back from whence she had come, but she didn't seem to be in a panic, just didn't want to fool around with me anymore. The picture didn't come out so good, probably because the camera didn't know if it was supposed to focus on the dark interior or the bright snow outside, but a trophy is a trophy, especially when you don't have to clean it.

Mess O' Potamia

Very good internet research Beagles.  That Santa Anna, I believe at some point he lost his leg and it got mummified or something and went on to have a little bit of a career itself.  I'm not exactly sure of this and I should do some internet research, but not this morning.

I think oil was the reason we got involved in the mideast in the first place, well and Israel too of course.  But maybe they overplayed their hand because then people started drilling all over, and then we discovered fracking and anymore we seem to have more oil and gas than we know what to do with.  Remember when energy independence was a big campaign issue?  As for foreign aid if we gave the Palestinians as much as we give Israel there would be no Israel.

You know it's kind of hard to figure out how we got where we are in the mideast right now, well how to figure out where we are.  Well mostly we are not there, we are this shadowy presence with drones and advisors and shipping weapons here and there.

I've read a lot of articles about how to deal with what is going on over there like that Lyons article.  When you read the political guys they always seem to have some plan, but when you get down to people who seem to be more expert (they cite more historical stuff, they seem to be taking many more factors into account), they are like, well we could go in full bore with boots galore on the ground and surely we could defeat ISIS and Al Qaeda and whoever, but then we would have to stay there and rule with an iron fist, while taking potshots from them, until hell, and the mideast freezes over.

I think this is our goal, Obama's goal, to just play that shadowy presence, assassinate some guy here, sell some weapons there, keep the whole thing at a low boil, keep it cheap with no big risks.  And then up pops ISIS, and these guys are really bad dudes and not only that but they are holding land.  Even so we stuck to our plan amped up the rhetoric a bit, maybe gave more weapons to the Kurds.  (The Kurds are great, but they are not going to fight for an inch of land that won't later become Kurdistan, and all the international coalition plans count on Turkey who hates the Kurds.)

And then Paris.  What the fuck?  Well it's not us, and we are a lot harder to infiltrate then France, although how hard can it be to do a terror attack?  Look at Timothy McVeigh.  So we amp up the rhetoric and the drones and whatever.  And certainly if France wants at them let them do it, but if we couldn't do it what can France do?  I don't think I have heard any talk about French boots on the ground.

Boots on the ground are the real issue, though the number depends on who you talk to and when you talk to them.  We have an election going on right now, so all the candidates have a plan.  Anybody that is not boots on the ground has the same plan as Obama, only more of it, whatever that means.  Then you have the guys who say they'll listen to the generals, but the generals are all military politicians or else they wouldn't be generals, and they know that the path to greater success is figuring out what the prez wants them to say.

I think we will have to watch the Russkies.  I don't think we can make the Ukraine deal because they want both and they are not giving up either one, but that doesn't mean they will succeed.

And ISIS is no threat to the United States although the politicians will tell you otherwise.  They are an irritant and they certainly piss us off, but we really should know now to stay out of the briar patch.

The best thing I've heard, and I believe, is to understand you enemy, and these ISIS guys, I have a hard time understanding this, but I'll give it a stab in the next post.

Wars and Rumors of Wars

Mexican President Santa Anna was captured by the Texans in the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. Shortly thereafter, he was strongly encouraged to sign the two Treaties of Velasco. One treaty promised that all Mexican troops would be withdrawn from Texas, which they were. The other treaty promised that Santa Anna would try to persuade his government to recognize Texan independence when he got back home. He did try, but his government refused to ratify the treaties because Santa Anna was a prisoner when he signed them. Also, they were pissed at him for botching the Texas campaign and getting himself captured in the first place. The Mexican American War started when the U.S. admitted Texas as a state, which prompted Mexico to declare war on the United States. After they lost the war, Mexico ceded a bunch of land, including Texas, to the U.S., but I don't think they ever formally recognized Texan independence. The Treaty of Paris, ending the Revolutionary War and recognizing American independence, was signed on September 3, 1783, but it took a few months for both governments to ratify it. (I actually looked this up before mouthing off about it. Aren't you proud of me?)

I keep hearing that oil is the only reason our government is involved in the Middle East is, but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Most of U.S. oil imports come from Canada and Mexico, and we don't have any troops stationed in either country. In addition, about half the oil produced in the U.S. ends up getting exported, mostly to Japan. I think we send some crude oil to be refined in Mexico, and then re-import the finished product, because we don't have enough refining capacity in this country. (I didn't look this part up tonight, but I have previously read it all somewhere, so I'm not making it up.)

I think the reason the Islamic nations got mad at us in the first place was that we were giving foreign aid to Israel. I understand we are also giving foreign aid to the Palestinians, but nobody seems to be mad at us for that.

The "War" on Terror is hard to define because it is not against any sovereign nation. Funny, they called the Korean War a "police action" when it was really a war. If any war should be called a police action, it should be this War on Terror because it is being fought against multiple criminal gangs that may or may not be affiliated with each other. Be that as it may, I assume that the goal in this "war" is to cause the terrorists to cease and desist. Come to think of it, I don't believe I've ever heard any of our politicians say that in so many words, so maybe you're right to question their goals, if they even have any. I could assert that the goal of our government, in most of the wars fought in our lifetimes, seems to have been to prolong the conflict as long a possible and then lose, but that would be just paranoid.

All Muslims are not terrorists, and all terrorists are not Muslims, but some Muslims are terrorists, and most terrorists these days seem to be Muslims. I don't see a problem with calling people who are both Muslims and terrorists "Islamic terrorists", just so we recognize that they are two different things. I don't like to use that "jihad" word because it is an Islamic word, and I don't want anybody to think for a minute that those bastards are assimilating me.

This was in our local newspaper yesterday and I thought it was pretty insightful and certainly relevant to our discussion. I was going to just summarize it for you but I tracked it down on the internet so you can read the whole thing for yourself. Aren't you proud of me?

http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/isis-isnt-an-existential-threat-to-us/Content?oid=4175974

I think that Lyons is right, there is no magic bullet that's going to solve this problem anytime soon, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying. How about this? It's not a magic bullet either, just another arrow in the quiver that might be worth considering. Since the Russians have expressed an interest in Syria, let's just give it to them, on the condition that they leave the Ukraine alone.

one hot mess

The guerrilla war is fought by the home country who has the weaker force and dares not attempt a set battle, but who has the advantage of being able to live off the land and to blend in with the populace when not at war.  You can sort of win a war that way.  You don't have the big battle and the ceremony of signing a paper, but the big power just decides the whole thing is not worth the big fight it will take for a victory and declares victory and pulls out.  I don't believe that we signed a piece of paper with the British until like ten years later.  Texas and Mexico never did sign a paper.  Well the US probably made them sign something after Texas was part of the US and we had beaten the Mexicans in that odd little war that ended up with us bringing the US to the Mexicans, rather than the Mexicans bringing themselves to the US, as they do now.

War between nations is somewhat tidy.  One side wins, the other loses.  Some kind of treaty is signed and things go on.  Guerrilla wars are messier.  The guerrillas can call it a victory when the occupying power pulls out, but the guerrillas can always come back from a defeat and resume it whenever they want. The war on terror is even messier because what does it even mean?

You talk about the jihadists (There has been some controversy about what to call them.  The republicans want to call them Islamist terrorists or radicals while the dems don't like that because when you put Islamist in there it sounds like this is a war against Islam, and we want a lot of Islamists to be on our side, so I am going to go with jihadists since I am a dem) not having a goal, what about us, what is our goal in this hot mess?

You know the Islamists never really did have countries like we do in the west.  They were more like Europe in the middle ages before modern nation states came into existence.  They didn't get nations until we colonized them and cut them up into these weird nations to suit the occupying forces.  Sometimes we in the west get the blame for the hot mess because we did that carving, but really, after a hundred years haven't they had time to rearrange themselves?

Myself i think it would be a good idea to recarve the area, to have Shiite countries and Sunni countries and Kurdistan, but I don't know how that would happen.

How did we get into this hot mess?  I guess it begins with Israel and oil.  We started meddling with them to get our way on these issues, and along the way we cozied up to some of the countries, most notably Saudi Arabia.  Al Qaeda began with trying to overthrow the Saudi government to get our forces out of there and then they went into Afghanistan, and then 911, and then we toppled the odious but somewhat stable Iraqi government and all hell broke loose.

When i first started subbing I thought it would be me vs the kids, which would be tough but something to deal with it, but then it turned out that the kids were also fighting among themselves, and that made it even tougher.

I don't know, it's one hot mess.

They Have Goals?

Of course we don't have to talk about mythology if you don't want to. I don't remember how we got on that subject, we must have segued into it from somewhere else, so I don't see why we can't just segue out if it.

I think the Vietnam war was ramping up a year or so before I got out of the army. The reason I think that is they were accepting volunteers to go there, but you had to have 13 months left on your enlistment or you had to re-enlist. When I first joined the army in 1964, I wanted to go to Vietnam but, at that time, they only had a few Special Forces advisors in country. When they announced that anybody could go there, it must have been early '66 because I got out in March of '67. I wasn't about to re-enlist for it but, since I had just enough time left, I considered going there for my last year. I was walking down the street on my way to sign up for it when I heard this voice. I don't know if it came from God or just from inside my own head, but I distinctly heard it say, "Are you out of your fucking mind?" I took it as a sign that I shouldn't volunteer for Vietnam, so I didn't.

That harassment thing they taught us about was not specific to Vietnam, it was just one of the standard tactics right out of the book. It's one option you have if you're not ready yet to launch a full scale offensive but you want to keep the enemy engaged. It can also be used against an occupying force, and it falls under the heading of guerilla warfare when used that way. You're right that the Boys of '76 used it against the Red Coats in the early stages of the war, and the resistance fighters of World War II used it against the NAZIs. The Viet Cong used it against our guys, but I don't think our guys used it against them. You don't usually hear of both sides using harassment tactics against each other at the same time, but I suppose it's possible. Maybe that's what's going on with those Sunnis and Shiites. If that's the case, they are going to fighting forever because you can't decisively win a war that way, all you can do is buy yourself some time. If you want a decisive victory, you've got to escalate to a full scale assault sooner or later. I read somewhere that's what the Viet Cong were trying to do with their Tet Offensive. Although the offensive was a military failure, it is generally regarded as the turning point in the war because it seems to have weakened the resolve of our already ambivalent political leadership.

Do the current Islamic terrorists actually have any goals? I seem to remember that it used to be about "pushing Israel into the sea", but I haven't heard that slogan for a long time. Are these even the same Islamic terrorists? Maybe that generation has died off and the newbies don't even remember why they're supposed to be mad at us. I knew a guy like that at the paper mill. He was mad at somebody seven years after the person had died, and he still resolved to settle the score someday. I asked him what the guy had done to anger him so and he said, "You know, I don't think I remember. I don't always remember why I'm mad at somebody, but I never forget that I'm mad at him."

DOING something

All that bible stuff, and now some Gilgamesh stuff.  I don't doubt they say something, but I don't care what they say.  You know how it is sometimes when you have a friend who has seen some movie which you have no intention of seeing and they settle into the bar stool next to you and proceed to tell you all the details and no matter how you try to change the subject they won't stop until they have told every single boring detail?  Or how about this, what if i proceeded to write down the plot of Catch 22 in this post?

Suicide is a sin in the muslim religion.  The bombers excuse is that they are martyrs for a greater cause.  Their cause could be the worldwide caliphate, or maybe the caliphate with all the territories that it controlled at its height, or maybe death to the Sunnis/Shiites depending on which they are, or maybe death to the Americans, or maybe death to some local leader.  But what it turns out to be is death to whoever happens to be in the same place when they blow themselves up, and it's hard to see how that advances any cause.

I don't think we were that involved in Vietnam at the time you were in the army.  I don't remember ever hearing anything about harassment when I was in ROTC, but there was kind of a big thing when we got involved in Vietnam that we were fighting a guerrilla war, and it was like, oh my goodness we don't know how to fight this kind of war, although that is the kind of war we fought to drive out the Brits.

As you will recall we did not fight that guerrilla war very effectively.  Well one thing was that we had that awful South Vietnamese army, and surely the people there did not want to be ruled by that crappy South Vietnamese government.  We could have shuffled them aside and just said okay then you will be ruled by us, the freedom loving people of the United States of America.  And even if we were the fine upstanding people we think we are, people would always rather be oppressed by their own people than by strangers.

And we are not really the fine upstanding people we think we are, nobody is.  If we were ruling them, we would kind of fuck with them, we would give them the short end of the stick in any deal like people with power over others always do.

Back to the terrorists, why do they do the things they do, even though they know it won't achieve their ends.  I think it's because people want to DO things.  They don't want to sit around and argue all day. 

Same like us I guess, after this Paris thing we want to DO something.  But we are a little more educated, we know that there isn't much we can really do, outside of sending in troops, which would cost a lot of money and kill a lot of our people, and when it is all done, what do we do?  Say ok guys, I guess we taught you a lesson, now go ahead and do whatever you can with the stone age country we've left you with?  The first thing they will do is set up the Son of ISIS. 

You know that 30 virgins thing, I haven't done a lot of research into it, but I am pretty sure that only some muslims believe that, the way only some Christians believe in a specific theory of the resurrection. 

I hate to take guidance from fb, but I saw something posted there last night, possibly by your sister, that i think makes a good point.  There is a photo of Ku Klux Klan guys next to a photo of ISIS guys and the caption is We don't judge Christians by these guys, why do we judge Muslims by these other guys?

I Am Not Making This Up!

Well, not all of it anyway, just the parts that I don't remember, so as to provide continuity to the story. That's what story tellers do, you know.

I don't think that all ancient culture have a flood myth, although I understand that some of them do. To my knowledge, none of them except the Hebrews and the Mesopotamians describe anything resembling Noah's Ark in their flood stories.

They told us at Elsdon that "ark" is an old fashioned word for a conveyance that carries something, it wouldn't necessarily have to be a boat. There are two different and dissimilar arks in the Bible, Noah's Ark, and the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was a big fancy box that the was supposed to contain a signed agreement between God and Moses. The Hebrews had to take Moses' word for the contents because nobody was allowed to look inside or even touch the box. That ark was carried off by the Assyrians when they trashed Jerusalem, and was never seen again, unless you believe those guys in Ethiopia who claim to have it stashed in a building that nobody except one caretaker is allowed to enter. The caretaker will talk to you through the fence, but he won't let you see the Ark for yourself, you just have to take his word for it. (I saw that part on PBS television. so it must be true.)

Now where was I? Oh yes, Noah's Ark is described in the Book of Genesis as being of a rectangular shape, while Utnapishtim's Boat is described in The Epic of Gilgamesh as being square. (English translations of both sources are available, so I didn't need to learn Hebrew or any other language.) I think most people would call a rectangular or square watercraft a barge although, technically, a barge is defined as any watercraft that cannot move under its own power. Neither the Bible nor Gilgamesh mentions a power source for either craft, but it is reasonable to assume that a craft of that size and shape would be too unwieldy to sail or row, which would have been the only two power sources available at the time. The purpose of both crafts was to ride out the Flood, not to sail to any particular destination so, by any definition, they were probably barges.

If Islam doesn't condone suicide, then from whence are all those Islamic suicide bombers getting their marching orders? Come to think of it, I don't remember reading anything about suicide in the Koran, but a certain amount of memory loss is normal at my age. I do remember reading about the virgins in Heaven, but I don't remember that everybody is supposed to be issued exactly 50 of them, so that may be something that somebody made up.

They didn't teach us about terrorism in the army, but they did teach us about harassment tactics, which sounds somewhat similar. What you do is launch a series of random limited attacks to demoralize the enemy, or at least make him nervous because he doesn't know where or when the next attack will hit. Harassment can be used to soften an enemy up or stall him off until you're ready to launch a more effective action. Since they are called "terrorists", I assume that what the Islamists are trying to do is spread terror among the people. This might be in preparation for a more concerted action, or it may be that it's all they will ever be capable of. One theory that I read about somewhere is that they are trying to provoke an all out war between Muslims and everybody else, which would be consistent with their version of the Apocalypse scenario. Then again, they seem to be fighting among themselves at least as much as they are fighting against the good guys, so go figure. If I was in charge, I'm not sure what I would do differently. The reactionary in me says to just kill them all and let Allah sort them out, but the old divide and conquer tactic can also be effective. One way or another, those people need to be taught a lesson and put in their place, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

revolutionary theories

Oh I remember those bibles with the pictures in them, the odd clothes the people wore and everything seemed to be happening in the desert, and it seemed like there were a lot of donkeys, and how cheesily the illustrations were executed. 

I guess you've read the bible in the original classical Hebrew and Aramaic so you know when it is referring to a boat and when an ark and when a barge.  I don't know if you know that all creation stories, even in North America contain a flood, but you know what I am going to go back to the labor saving device i used a lot a couple years ago and just dismiss things out of hand.  Why should you have all the fun of saying whatever pops into your head, while i do the backbreaking work of googling? 

I don't care what you think the Babylonians or the Jews said about a flood.  I dismiss both accounts out of hand.  Muslims certainly do not condone suicide, whatever else you think that they think, I am going to dismiss that out of hand also.

Here's one thing I've been thinking about.  There seems to a theory common among revolutionaries that it is a good idea to be disruptive because that is going to cause the government you are trying to overthrow to clamp down by becoming more oppressive and that will piss off the people who will then be more likely to rise up and overthrow the government. 

Maybe disruptive is not the word I want.  I don't mean things like riots or marches which maybe have some effect, or even things like assassinations which at least get rid of the king or the guys close to the king, but more like bombings, pointless terrorist acts that kill a lot of random people.  How do they ever accomplish anything?  I don't think they do.

I think a lot of revolutionaries are in it mainly for the fun of it.  It is a lot more fun to blow something up than to talk yourself hoarse trying to explain to some crotchety old fart why your idea of government is better than theirs.

"Once I Built a Tower"

I am reminded of a verse from the old Depression era song, "Buddy, can you spare a dime?" It's not really relevant to our discussion, I am just reminded of it.

"Once I built a tower, way up to the sun,
Of bricks and mortar and lime.
Once I built a tower, but now it's done.
Buddy, can you spare a dime?"

You're right, the Bible just says "tower", but any Bible that has pictures in it includes an old painting that resembles one of those ziggurats to illustrate what the tower might have looked like. The Biblical description of Noah's Ark doesn't look anything like the commonly accepted pictures of it either. The text describes it as looking more like a barge than a boat.

The Tower of Babel myth predates the Babylonian captivity period by a thousand years or so. The Mesopotamians also had a flood myth that is somewhat similar to the one in the Bible. The only difference is that the captain of the ark was named Utnapishtim , or something like that. Actually the Mesopotamian version calls it a boat instead of an ark. Utnapishtim's boat is described as having a similar barge like appearance, but was way bigger than Noah's Ark. Instead of one god causing the flood, it was a coalition of gods and goddesses. The victims of the flood weren't described as evil, just noisy. In addition to his family, Utnapishtim had a whole crew of workers to help him build his boat, and he took them aboard when the waters started rising. Utnapishtim and his wife were made immortal by the repentant gods after the flood but, instead of going out and repopulating the world, they were told to stay on an island and avoid contact with other people.....Other than that, it's pretty much the same story. Coincidence? I think not!

I looked up Armageddon over the weekend. It seems that the Biblical prophesies about it are so vague and cryptic that you can interpret them any way you want, and people have been doing exactly that for some 2,000 years. One thing they all seem to agree on is that the whole Apocalyptic scenario is going to happen any day now, and they have been saying that for 2,000 years too.

I don't know what to tell you about those ISIS people. Every time we knock off one fanatical regime in the Middle East, a worse one takes its place. Muslims believe in the Apocalypse too you know, only their version has the good guys (us) cast into the lake of fire, while the bad guys (them) go to Heaven, where they are each given 50 virgins to play with. They believe that, if you don't want to wait another 2,000 years for the Apocalypse,  committing suicide is a short cut that can  get you to Heaven right now. As I remember it, dealing with just one virgin for four years was really frustrating. If I had to deal with 50 of them for eternity, it would make me want to kill myself all over again.

current events

Just to continue to be a pain in the ass the bible doesn't say anything about ziggurats (you know writing this biblical posts I am learning to spell a lot of words, the problem is I'll probably never get to use them in my everyday life) it just says towers, and everybody that could put a brick atop another brick could build a tower.  It is a historical fact however that the Israelis were in Babylon, we know because among other things Cyrus freed them, but they were already Israelis before they got to Babylon, and surely most of them stayed behind.

I accept your distinction between mythological and legendary.

If you google 'Cheboygan cougar sighting' you come up with these two articles from the Cheboygan News about three years ago.

http://www.cheboygannews.com/article/20120801/NEWS/308019997
http://www.cheboygannews.com/article/20121129/News/121129535

Earlier you had mentioned DNR and I thought you meant DNA, but I see now that you meant the Department of Natural Resources.  Apparently they make a distinction between transient and breeding cougars, but surely the one leads to another as night follows the day.

I remember that poop joke from grade school at which time it had a distinctly racial connotation.

As I recall although Catch 22 was mostly about bureaucracy, since it was about military bureaucracy we hippies took it to heart as an antiwar book.  But I like your scientific analysis of the book as 'stupid.'  It reminds me of that Ring Lardner line, "Shut up," he explained.


What about ISIS?  What did they expect to gain by the attack on Paris?  How do they expect it to improve their position? 

So what do we do, the Prez says to stay the course, half the republican candidates say the same only louder, and a few of them are calling out for boots on the ground.  It's hard to say what the big girl is thinking, and who would believe her anyway, but she does have hawkish tendencies.  There is some nonsense about a no fly zone, which is an indication that those guys have no idea what they are talking about.

I know you are more a big idea man than you are a details man, but what does Beagles think?

Myths and Legends

The Tower of Babel story is generally regarded as a myth, except by those holy rollers who believe that every word in the Bible is literally true. I would be surprised if anybody, except a roller, would cite it as an actual explanation of why people speak different languages. Like many myths, the story gives us a clue about the people who told it. Notice that I said "clue", not "proof". To my knowledge, those ziggurat ruins you mentioned are only found in Mesopotamia, not in either Israel or Egypt. The fact that a story about a ziggurat appears in the Hebrew Bible suggests that the Hebrews might have originated in Mesopotamia, which would tend to confirm the story of Abraham. Notice that I said "tend to confirm", not "prove beyond a reasonable doubt".

Of course Abraham himself might be mythological, but he also might be legendary. Although the two words are often used interchangeably, I think a distinction should be made for the purposes of this discussion. In the Beaglesonian Dictionary, a myth is a story that has little or no basis in historical fact, while a legend is a story that has some factual basis, but has been embellished and exaggerated with fictional elements. For example, Paul Bunyan is mythological, while Davy Crockett is legendary. Adam and Eve are almost certainly mythological, while Jesus is most likely legendary. I have always thought of Moses as a legendary character, but am now willing to admit that he might be mythological. At no time did I believe or assert that everything in the Moses story is literally true.

The assertion that North American wolves have never killed anybody has been around for a long time, although I don't know how many people have ever believed it. I also don't know its origin, but I have read it many times over the years. I have always doubted that assertion, but I never had anything with which to challenge it until recently.

The cougar story I told you about came from our local newspaper. As I remember it, the only evidence was a trail cam photo. The experts pronounced it "confirmed" based on a critical analysis of the photo. Other cougar photos in the past have been debunked because the size of the cat was out of proportion to its surroundings, while this one wasn't. Of course, a certain amount of memory loss is normal at my age, so you may be right about the DNA. There was another story a few years ago about some scientists who went out looking for cougars in the Lower Peninsula, I believe it was Emmet County, which is adjacent to Cheboygan County's western border. They didn't sight any cougars, but they found a really big pile of shit that was identified as cougar shit by laboratory analysis. I visualized a group of white coated scientists gathered around a lab table saying "Looks like cougar shit. Smells like cougar shit. Tastes like cougar shit. It must be cougar shit. Good thing nobody stepped in it!"

That's the thing about "Catch 22", I just didn't like the story, I thought it was stupid. How's that for a scientific analysis?

the tower of babel

Seems to me that if you are going build that tower to the truth you seek, you are going to have to use bricks made of fact or else the damn thing is going to topple.  And speaking of towers, how about that fine old bible story of Babel?  Kind of makes a point, well the one it makes over and over, don't fuck with the Lord.  It also tucks in a little explanation about why people speak different languages.  So I'm fine with it.

But I wouldn't accept a citation of the story as an explanation of why we speak different languages, and I don't believe there was ever an actual tower.  I'm sure some crackpot can be dug up who says well there used to be those ziggurats in Mesopotamia, and maybe there is some ancient local myth, and surely some verses can be found in the bible, so maybe there actually was blah blah blah, but for all we know somewhere among the people the story was passed along there were some guy who didn't like bridges which is what the story was originally about and decided to substitute towers.  It seems like such a waste of time to manufacture explanations for improbable stories when with one swoop of Occam's razor the problem is solved for good.

I suspect that that story about wolves never killing anybody in North
America was dreamed up by some pro wolf people, and they do like you gun nuts do, just keep repeating it whether it is true or not. 

The thing about credible citations is, if it is in a newspaper, than it was written by a guy who is kind of a professional, who could lose his job if he lied too much, and it was probably overlooked by an editor, and it gives a location and some details which you could probably go there and check out.  It's still possible that the newspaper was ill informed or maybe just told a whopper for some reason, but it is a lot more reliable than what some guy you never heard of said.

I'm sure the DNA was from cat poop or hair and not a photograph.

Catch 22 is not the kind of book you would ever read to find out what the army was like, it was more about bureaucracy.  We were talking about suspension of belief a few posts ago, and if you like the story well enough you can tolerate some stuff that doesn't seem realistic.

I'm always skeptical of these movies that are promoted like, this is what the war in Vietnam, or life in the ghetto, or winter in Cheboygan is really like.  Things like those are different things to different people and it's stupid to pretend that this is what it is like for everybody.

Lions want to eat and everybody wants to go to heaven, and the colosseum crowd wants a good show.  It's a win-win for everybody.  Reminds me of those famous blues lines:

Ev'rybody wants to go to heaven
But nobody wants to die

Ev'rybody wanna hear the truth
But yet, ev'rybody wants to tell a lie

"Truth is Stranger Than Fact"

That was a recurring line on the old "He-Haw" TV show, which demonstrates that wisdom can sometimes be found in unlikely places. I think that's the difference between you and I, all you care about is facts, while I am a seeker of truth. Those old myths and legends may be short on facts, but they tell you something about the people who lived in those days. Whether they come from Mesopotamia, Israel, Greece, or Rome, they demonstrate that all those people respected was raw power, with a dose of treachery thrown in for good measure. You don't find anything about love or mercy until Jesus came along. Perhaps He was a ahead of his time, and still is even unto this day.

I'm surprised hat you've never heard the myth that wolves have never killed anybody in North America.  I think I have read that Wiki reference you mentioned. If it's the same one, it got most of its information from newspaper accounts, which sounds like documentation to me. I wonder who gets to decide what constitutes documentation or confirmation of a story. If you or I write something on paper, it seems like that ought to constitute a document. If you and I both witness the same event and tell the same story about it, it seems like that ought to constitute confirmation. I don't think that's how it works though. I think you have to be somebody, like one of the cool kids in school. Either you're one of the cool kids or not and, if you have to ask, then you're certainly not. By the way, how did the experts who confirmed that cougar photo get a DNA sample from a photograph?

I read "Catch 22" back when I was in the army. The book came highly recommended, but I didn't think it was all that great. I found it to be just silly and sarcastic, not at all like the military life I was leading at the time. Call me old fashioned, but I have always believed that even a work of fiction should have a ring of authenticity to it. The old "Mash" TV show was like that, you knew it wasn't true, but you got the impression that something like that could happen in the real world. The only unauthentic thing I remember was the guys' hair. I know that the rules often go by the board in combat situations, but even civilians didn't wear their hair that long in the 1950s.

I am not familiar with the name "Donatists", but I am familiar with the story about how the Romans tried to get the Christians to make token sacrifices to their heathen gods. The Christians weren't the first people to resist the practice. The Jews raised such a fuss about it that the Romans finally gave them a special dispensation so they didn't have to do it anymore. It seems that the first Christians, who were mostly Jews, could have weaseled out of it that way. As for the Gentile converts, well the lions have to eat too, you know.

pledging allegiance

Yes that's the difference for me between the reality of the existence of Moses and Jesus.  Because someone is mentioned in the bible is not proof of existence for me.

I have never heard that there is no documented case of wolves killing a human in North America, and i have to say that didn't sound right to me.  Likely it doesn't happen often, but surely it has happened from time to time.  I googled 'deaths by wolves in North America' and the second article that came up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wolf_attacks_in_North_America lists about twenty and seems to be well documented.

Cougar sightings in the midwest until maybe five years ago, used to be pooh poohed, the photos were fuzzy and upon close investigation some of them turned out to be large dogs.  But since then there have been documented cases.  Seven years ago they shot and killed a cougar about six miles north of me in a city alley, and anymore I think it is acknowledged that they have returned to the midwest.

There is a difference between twenty local yokels, who have often reported that they have seen UFOs and some kind of expert.  In the case you cite the guy was able to test for DNA.  I suppose if the twenty local yokels were also able to test for DNA then they would have been believed.

The Pledge of Allegiance is in full force today in Chicago Public Schools.  In my subbing career I was in maybe fifty different elementary schools and in only one of them did they not pledge allegiance every morning.  It was a bane of my existence because I would be trying to collect lunch money or something and then bang, the intercom would come on and everybody would be snapped to attention to say the Pledge of Allegiance, sometimes that would be followed by the star spangled banner or God Bless America, and then maybe a school song and then maybe a few words of wisdom from the assistant principal, and I'm just standing there wondering when it is going to end. 

There was one time when i was sitting in the office waiting for my assignment and the intercom clicked on with the pledge.  I took a quick look up from my newspaper, some clerks, maybe a janitor on a ladder changing a lightbulb, but no kids.  So I went back to my newspaper, but there was an eerie murmur and when I looked up all the clerks and the janitor on the ladder had their hands on their hearts and were mumbling the words.  I dropped my paper and stood up ramrod straight and joined them.

Did you ever read Catch 22?  It was a big book in the 60s.  It takes place during WW 2, and there is a character in it named Major Major, who becomes a major.  None of the other guys like him.  For some reason they think he is a commie.  To thwart him they create some pledge that everybody has to recite several times a day.  Major Major Major, not being a commie, has no problem with this and says the pledge along with everybody else.  This pisses off his enemies who realize that of course a commie would have no problem reciting anything, so they changed the rules so that Major Major Major was not allowed to say the pledge.

Have you heard of the Donatists?  It isn't in the bible, but it is church history.  As you know the Christians got into trouble with the Romans because they refused to sacrifice to the emperor, or the gods of Rome or whatever.  It wasn't a big deal, not unlike saying a pledge and once you were done with that you could go on and worship whoever you liked.  But you know how they Christians were, they refused to do even this little token and that got them in big trouble with the Romans. 

Well not all of the Christians.  Some of them said what the heck and went along to get along, it was only some little sacrifice for Chrissake.  Later on the Christians took over the Roman empire, and the ones who had been persecuted were pissed that the ones who went along to get along were good standing members of the church and wanted to toss them out.  It was a big deal, there was a lot of fighting, in the end the Donatists lost out.

Historical Proof

Exactly what do you mean by "historical proof"? I assume you mean that you read it in some other book besides the Bible. I have heard before that there is historical proof that Jesus was a real person, and I assume that means the Romans or somebody had a record of Him. Of course the Romans would deny that Jesus rose from the dead, but they might have acknowledged His crucifixion. The ancient Egyptians don't seem to have a record of Moses, at least none has been discovered yet. Is that what the difference is?

This reminds me of the wolves and cougars. I have read numerous times that there is no documented case of wolves killing a human in North America, although it is generally acknowledged that they have done so in Europe. I find it hard to believe that the North American wolves are any less dangerous than European wolves. So what's the skinny here? A few years ago, a woman somewhere in the East was killed by wolves while out jogging, and it was reported in the newspapers. I read somewhere that this incident didn't count because those were wolf-coyote hybrids. If wolves and coyotes are capable of interbreeding, that makes them one in the same species, according to my high school biology book. I remember another incident, way back when we were kids, where a young child was killed by "wild dogs" in a Chicago suburb. If wild dogs could kill somebody right in town, why haven't wolves ever killed anybody anywhere in North America?

Then there's all those "unconfirmed" cougar sightings. What does it take to confirm a sighting? Not long ago, somebody in Northern Michigan published a trail cam picture of what looked like a cougar. After careful inspection of the photo, our DNR confirmed that it was indeed a cougar, and said that this was he first confirmed cougar sighting in Michigan since the 19th Century. Apparently, if 20 other people report seeing something, it's not confirmed until some official person declares it confirmed.

I got to thinking about the Pledge of Allegiance after I signed off last night. Or course you're right that most people recite it without thinking, because that is what we have been conditioned to do. I was half way through first grade before I discovered that we weren't pledging allegiance to the Republican, Richard Strand. I had the pledge memorized long before I was capable of reading it for myself, much less understanding it. I now think it's a mistake to have kids reciting the pledge every day at school, if they even still do that. It should be reserved for instances when it is really necessary to confirm somebody's allegiance, like when admitting immigrants to the country. I read somewhere that, when immigrants used to go through Ellis Island, that they were required to renounce their allegiance to the king or ruler of the country from whence they came, which is where I got the idea.

It wasn't a couple of days after Rev. Al dropped the MYF bomb that I left for Alaska, more like six months. I was in the MYF before Rev. Al took it over, and it was nothing but a social club at that time. I was the youngest member, and everybody else soon graduated from high school and went on to form a young adults' club, taking their leader with them. Then Rev. Al took the reins and tried to put more of a religious spin on it. Suddenly I wasn't the youngest member, I was the oldest, and the newbies elected me president. It was good for a year or two, and then I did something really stupid involving the opposite sex. It wasn't a sin by your definition because I didn't realize before the fact that it was wrong, although I should have, which is why I said it was really stupid. Be that as it may, if I end up in Hell because of that one incident, I won't even  argue about it. If you want details, I will send them in an email, but I need your solemn word that it won't end up in our blog, or in your movie script either.

no more myf story

I have a little trouble with that suspension of belief thing in movies.  I can get along with science fiction since that premise is right there at the beginning, and sometimes there is some strange event that you accept because it is the reason for the story.  But if there are too many coincidences or if the people act in a way that I don't think people act in the real world, then I don't like the movie.  What I particularly don't like is when there is an obvious good guy and an obvious bad guy, especially when the good guy is all good, and the bad guy is all bad, and especially then because you know exactly what is going to happen.  It is going to end with the good guy punching out the bad guy in the abandoned warehouse.

It's not the mention of God that incurs my disbelief.  I believe that there was a guy named Jesus and that he was crucified and certainly God is all over that story.  And I believe that because there is some historical proof to back it up.  I don't believe any of the Greek myths, and it seems like everybody has some kind of creation myth and I don't believe any of them.  I am a very skeptical person.  That thing where people already believe something and then just pick facts and theories to back up what they believe and toss out everything that would contradict it, I dismiss it out of hand.  Haven't used that phrase in awhile.  Feels good.

You are aware that almost everybody mumbles the pledge of allegiance with no thought of its meaning.  I don't think it's a sad commentary on the modern world, I think it was ever thus.  I certainly didn't pay any attention to it, except to remember to splice in that 'under god,' in the right place, back in the fifties.  The problem with all those pledges and oaths and creeds is that they are mandatory, you have to say them.  I suppose you could refuse to say the pledge, but any grade schooler knows they would get in trouble for that.  I imagine young Beagles might have said something if he had trouble with it.  I am surprised that he did not refuse on the grounds that it was written by a socialist but maybe he didn't know it at the time.

What I do when I have trouble with spelling a word is I google it, and you know by the time you have three or four letters into the little box, google is giving you suggestions and sometimes you can tell from that what the correct spelling is.  For something like suffrage I would type in 'right to vote,' and see what the google tells me. 

I type my posts into a blank email, that way I am using my own spellchecker who I have already told what words I consider correct.  Then I copy and paste it into the blogger box.

I'm not trying to make a point with the MYF story.  I just like to tell stories.  I look at a painting and I see a story in it.  I see a couple walking down the street and stepping into the frozen yogurt shop and I want to tell a story about them.  That whole thing about the Rev Al blowing the door off and you leaving for Alaska (even though I know the two are not related) a couple days later just seemed like such a good story that I wanted to write it just to see where it went. 

I guess it's sarcastic because I am sarcastic, it's just something I gravitate towards.  Sometimes I thought that I might have had a career in advertising except that I would never be able to resist sarcasm.  I didn't mean the story to be sarcastic about you, just sarcastic in general, but if you don't like it I'll stop doing it.

I've always wondered about the MYF.  I guess it was ostensibly for young people to learn more about god, but it seems like the main reason young people went to it was to rub shoulders with the opposite sex, which was probably something the church elders would like so that the kids didn't end up running off with Jews or Catholics or Hare Krishnas.  I'm sure that there were all kinds of kids in it, kids who were there mostly for Jesus and kids who were there mostly to meet the opposite sex, and all degrees in between.  It seems like it would be a good background for the story.

Oh Ye of Little Faith!

People believe what they want to believe, it's part of human nature. I used to believe a lot of things but, as I grew older, I became more skeptical. That doesn't mean that I don't believe stuff, it just means that I try to keep an open mind. I read somewhere that, in order to enjoy a novel, movie, or TV show, you have to "suspend disbelief". That doesn't mean you swallow it hook, line, and sinker, it just means that you are willing to put your skepticism on hold for the duration of the show. There is no harm in it, as long as you know that, when the show is over, you have to come back to the real world. All this ancient stuff is like that with me. It has no impact on my real life, it's just something that I like to play around with in my spare time. You, on the other hand, refuse to even consider the possibility of any part of a story being true if it has the word "God" in it. All the ancient stories have some reference to God, or a god or goddess, so that means the only things you believe about ancient people is what modern people have written about them. I guess there's nothing wrong with that, if you're not interested in what those ancient people had to say about themselves.

Interesting that you should say that the Pledge of Allegiance is non-binding. Why then do they call it the "Pledge of Allegiance" instead of the "Suggestion of Allegiance"? I can respect somebody who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance because he doesn't believe in it, not so much the guy who stands up and mumbles the words just because everybody else is doing it, and gives no thought to their meaning. I'm sure that the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed were intended to be binding when they were written. The fact that many people today don't consider anything like that to be binding is a sad commentary on modern society, which is why I have renounced it.

Thanks for clearing up that "suffrage" thing for me. That explains why I couldn't find it among the other permutations of the word "suffer". That's the problem with the dictionary, if you don't know how to spell the word it's hard to find it to see how it's spelled. If we had a decent spell checker on Blogger, it would offer suggestions about alternate spellings of a word instead of just telling us that we have it wrong. I guess the squiggly red underlines go away when we post the blog, but I still don't like being told that I'm wrong without being told why I'm wrong.

You have always been good about telling me why you think I'm wrong, so I guess I should tell you why I'm not interested in your MYF fantasy. Truth is, I'm not sure exactly why myself, but I think it has something to do with its sarcastic and frivolous nature. Are you trying to make a point with this thing, or are you just fooling around? Not that there's anything wrong with that!

let Elvis's people go.

I never, ever, ever, ever, said there were no Jews in Egypt.  I have said time and time again that there were surely Jews in Egypt seeking their fortune.  What I have said simply is that I doubt that the Israelis all of a sudden at some point took leave en masse from Egypt pursued by Pharaoh's army.  Makes me wonder if you read what I write.  I wonder if you are even following my serial about The Night the Rev Al Blew off the Doors at the MYF meeting.

I think it's an archaeological fact that Egypt ruled Canaan probably more than once, I believe it is also an archaeological fact that the Sinai was a desert all that time that all of this stuff never happened. 

You appear to be operating on the theory that if somebody has a theory or that if something is written down somewhere, there must be a germ of truth in it.  I believe plenty of those theories and writings have no truth whatsoever in them.  What about the birthers and the truthers and the folks that thing Elvis never left the building?

I don't want to get into this whole god thing again for Christ's sake.  All I am saying is that a lot of those bible stories, especially the old testament and I guess the older they get simply never happened.  If you want to be believe that Elvis was the renegade Pharaoh who crossed the Red Sea during a seiche, I guess it is a free country.

I have heard catholic used in the sense of universal but not very often.  Still, considering that when this was written it surely did refer to the Catholic church since Methodists were about thirteen hundred years down the pike.  I don't know when the particular version we recited at Elsdon was translated into English, but still wasn't the creed something like the pledge of allegiance, that is to say non-binding, and I don't believe it was much trouble when 'under God' was inserted, though I still, when reciting it, take a quick breath after 'one nation,' to remember to insert that phrase.

It's suffrage, not sufferage, if you are refering to voting.

There were only a few MYFers in the basement when Cindy entered.  Beagles was there of course, he was always the first one to arrive at the meeting, it was said that even though the MYFers were all without sin, although one had to wonder about Sally, that Beagles was even more without sin than all the others.  She sat right down next to him, waved her ring and they smiled their secret smile. 

She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something a little off about Beagle's smile.  Honestly sometimes in his mind he seemed miles away, like about three thousand, Judy reckoned, in a northwesterly direction.

Picking Cherries

I never said, nor do I believe, that the Biblical account of the Exodus is literally true. I'm a Deist, remember? All I'm saying is that stories like this come from somewhere. You have asserted that the Israelites never were in Egypt because no archaeological evidence has been found proving that they were. While I admit that's possible, I don't think it's bloody likely. The Israelites were nomadic herdsmen who wandered all over Canaan, and Canaan is right next door to Egypt. Well there's the Sinai Desert between them, but it's possible that the Sinai wasn't always a desert like it is today. Haven't you ever heard of climate change? Secular sources claim that Egypt once ruled Canaan. If the Egyptians could cross the Sinai to invade Canaan, why couldn't the Israelites cross the Sinai looking for greener pastures in Egypt? I gave no ax to grind here, I'm just exploring the possibilities.

Perhaps it is you who are picking cherries. You don't believe in God, so you disregard any evidence that makes mention of God. Okay, there's no scientific evidence that God exists, but people have been telling stories like this for thousands of years before science was invented. Even if you take God out of it, the Bible is a collection of stories that have been told for centuries before they were ever written down. I would be surprised if any of those stories proved to be literally true and scientifically accurate, but I doubt that they were made up out of a clear blue sky by a bunch of old rabbis whiling there time away in Babylonian captivity. I believe that most stories have a grain of truth in them, and also contain a certain amount of bull shit. My mission is to sort the grain out from the bull shit, and to speculate about where the bull shit came from. It's just a hobby, nobody is paying me to do this, I do it because I like to.

I think the reason they used "catholic" in the Apostles' Creed is because that's an old fashioned word that probably was in use at the time the creed was written. Well, the creed was written in Latin, so it would be whatever the Latin word for "catholic" is. I have come across references in old literature describing somebody as "a man of catholic tastes". I don't think it has anything to do with his religion, it just means that he likes all kinds of things, perhaps specifically, all kinds of food and/or drink. It's like when Jesus said "Suffer the little children to come unto me." When I first read that or had it read to me, I thought those poor little children must have been suffering and Jesus wanted to comfort them. Turns out that "suffer" is an old fashioned word that means "allow", and indeed, the RSV translates that passage as "Let the little children come unto me". An old fashioned word for the right to vote is "sufferage", as in "women's sufferage". Our spell checker says I'm wrong, so I looked it up. Sure enough, there is no word "sufferage" in my dictionary, the closest thing being "sufferance". Nevertheless, people have been calling it "sufferage" for a long time, and probably will continue to do so. Dictionary be damned!

you think, therefore you are

I'm sure you can find somebody that has any theory, and it's pretty hard to figure out what happened a few thousand years ago, but it seems to me that you are cherry picking theories outside of the general consensus on the basis of whether or not they appear to be be in agreement with bible stories.  Maybe this maybe that, but apply Occam's razor and you come out with probably not. 

Wiki sez the Hyksos took over the eastern Nile Delta, not the sort of thing I would think a bunch of crabby Canaanites would be capable of.

You know if you already know what you want to believe it is not a problem going through history and picking things that support your theory and ignoring things that don't.

If you want to get close to the truth you have to start out like Descartes believing nothing and then only accepting the things that have the most proof.  I'm sure that some guy believes Moses was a renegade pharaoh, just as I am sure that there are thousands of people who believe Obama is the antichrist.

Oh yes Aten, that is a big story, often fictionalized, generally with Akenaton and his beautiful wife as heroes, because this sun god thing appears to be a monotheism and hence closer to Christianity than that spooky panoply of creepy animal-headed gods that they worshiped before and after.

Still doesn't answer why they didn't change catholic to universal when they translated it into English. Doesn't that smite of the antichrist?

Three's a crowd is really just used to get rid of the extra member of the sex of which there are two, so that the remaining two, composing one of each sex, can get down to some hanky panky.  But now that I think about it, in this age of gay acceptance of gayness, all three could be of the same sex, or it might be that the one of the sex of which there is only one is the one who has to be shed before hanky panky can be commenced.

You're right, things are more complicated now that they gays have taken over.

I still like, 'that's not people, that's traffic.'  It's a little like this phrase a friend of mine came out with driving down I-35 in Austin Texas.  He was complaining about people driving too slowly and said, 'if they're not in a hurry they should have stayed home.

It was strange that the room where the MYF meetings were held was in the basement, since after all hell is underground, but it made it a little thrilling for those without sin.  And maybe hell isn't really underground, at least not to Rev Al, who you got the impression had some strange ideas about heaven and hell, and last Thursday night he had hinted that he might be discussing them tonight.  Cindy hoped not, she hoped for a quick sock hop, flashing her ring in front of Sally's false-eyelashed lashes, and then going out with Beagles afterwards for vanilla shakes at Gerties where they could discuss their relationship.

Living in de Nile

I may have told you wrong about Armageddon, maybe it is the good guys versus the bad guys, but I don't think the good guys win it on their own, Jesus has to come bail them out. Another rainy day research project.

I spent last weekend looking up those elusive Israelites. It seems that the consensus of modern historians rejecting the Exodus story is by no means unanimous. Over the years, numerous theories have been advanced about what might have really happened. Maybe the Egyptians were in Canaan, or maybe the Israelites were in Egypt, but there seems to have been some kind of confrontation between them, and the Israelites prevailed. One story says that the people the Egyptians called "Hyksos" might have actually been the Israelites. This version says that the Egyptians drove the Hyksos out after they tried to take over the neighborhood. Another story says that Moses might have actually been a renegade Egyptian pharaoh who usurped the crown and was subsequently overthrown.

It is generally assumed that the Egyptians kept better records than the Israelites. We certainly have more documentation of Egyptian history, but more is not necessarily better. The Egyptians were notorious for deleting embarrassing chapters from their history books, which is impressive when you consider that a lot of Egyptian history was literally carved in stone. Instead of just selecting a passage and hitting the delete button, they had to go to work with a hammer and chisel. I first heard about this while visiting the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago. This was a traveling exhibit, and we happened to be in town visiting my parents, so we went to see it. My daughter was a pre-teen at the time, so it must have been around 1980.

When they first discovered King Tut's tomb, they had trouble putting him in historical perspective because all references to his father had been chiseled from the records. Eventually they found a wall that the chiselers had overlooked and determined that Tut's father was probably Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akenaten, or something like that, when  he got religion. Akenaten tried to persuade the Egyptians to dump all their traditional gods in favor of Aten, the Sun God. I had previously heard of this guy in Fred Sears' history class, but I didn't know that he was Tut's old man until the tour guide at the museum told us. It seems that Akenaten stirred up quite a ruckus with his vain attempt to convert his people to monotheism. After he died, somebody must have decided that Egypt would have been  better off if this guy had never been pharaoh, so they just pretended that he never was. Tut's full name originally was Tutakaten, but his handlers changed it to Tutakamen, replacing the reference to Aten with a reference to a more acceptable deity. (Our spell check program doesn't like my spelling of these names. I tried a few alternate spellings, but it didn't like those either. That's what happens when you try to translate a heathen language that doesn't have a proper alphabet.)

The Apostles' Creed is an abbreviated version of the Nicene Creed, so named because it was written by the Council of Nice back in the three digit years. Both creeds were in our Methodist Hymnal, but we almost always used the Apostles' Creed. As I remember it, the Nicene Creed is longer and has even more weird stuff in it than the Apostles' Creed.

"Three's a crowd" is just one of those old sayings that doesn't mean much. I think what makes a crowd is not so much how many people, but how close they are packed together.

they call it a universal joint, not a catholic joint

Yeah that is another thing about Christianity that doesn't make any sense, how you come back.  Generally your body is not so hot by the time you die, let alone after tossing and turning in the graveyard for however long it takes for the apocalypse and the antichrist and armageddon.  I read a science fiction book where the good guys really want to win armageddon and since they are all high tech they build an army of robots who kick ass, but then when Jesus comes to take the victors into heaven he leaves the good guys behind. 

Anyway if they are going to bring you back as your old decrepit body heaven doesn't seem so hot, who wants to spend eternity as a handful of dust?  If they bring you back at the height of your powers then why bother with the body at all? 

I thought Armageddon was a fight between good and evil, actually I rather thought it involved like angels and devils which doesn't make sense in light of my science fiction story, but then it is a science fiction story.  And the antichrist, I thought he was more than some guy, I thought he was like to the mortals who viewed him like the perfect man and I thought almost everybody loved him. 

That's what they told me at Elsdon too about the capital letter, but still why not just leave it out, especially since when you are speaking it a lower case c sounds just like an upper case C.  It's not like this creed thing is such a big deal.  And you know, as long as you mean universal why not just say universal?  Whenever this creed was written it wasn't in English, so whatever word in that language that meant universal why not use that word? 

Maybe because they were under the control of the antichrist, or maybe they were all mini antichrists (maybe it says so in one of those books they tossed onto the ash heap at that long ago council), and every time you said that accursed creed the mark of the Whore of Babylon grew deeper on your brow, so that when we stand before St Peter he will put his finger on the mark sending us ass over teakettle into the fiery pit.  See you in Hell Beagles.

Kind of a fine point, liking people but not crowds.  We all know that three is a crowd, so if you are with two other people you are in a crowd, and you are as much a part of that hated crowd as they are.

I like that phrase though, "That's not people, that's traffic."  I will be looking for ways to work that into conversations.

It wasn't very Christian of her, but Cindy had to admit that she especially wanted to show it off to that slutty Sally O'Maye, she had seen her make eyes at Beagles, heck, she made eyes at everyone including, and sometimes it seemed like especially, Reverend Al himself.