An Acquired Taste

My mother let me have a drag on her cigarette when I was five or six years old.  I didn't like it and never tried to smoke again until I was about 20, and then it was a pipe.  I had always liked the smell of other people's pipe and cigar smoke, but I soon found out that it tastes much harsher than it smells, even thought I didn't inhale.  People told me I would get used to it, but I never did. 

 A year or two later I tried pot but, since I had no inhaling experience, the only thing I got out of it was choking and coughing.  Somebody suggested that I should practice with regular cigarettes until I learned how to inhale properly.  After trying several brands, I settled on a mild menthol with filter, I think it was L&M.  At some point I switched to True Menthol and smoked those until they stopped making them some years later.  I ended up making my own for about 1/3 the price of store bought.  When Obama laid a hefty tax on the raw materials, most of the brands started calling theirs "pipe tobacco" because the tax increase neglected to include that.  I don't know how they got away with it, although I'm glad they did, but this stuff doesn't taste anything like the pipe tobacco I used to smoke back in the days when I wasn't inhaling.  Ironically, I never did develop an affinity for pot.  All it did was make me feel goofy and, according to what people have been telling me all my life, I'm already plenty goofy without it.

I have been told that I still don't inhale properly because I don't suck it all the way to the bottom of my lungs like you're supposed to do with pot.  This may be true because, when I told a doctor back in 2008 that I had been smoking for 50 years, he was surprised that he couldn't find anything wrong with my lungs.  He did find something wrong with my blood though, said that my red cells don't carry as much oxygen as they should.  The more I think about it, I think I have been this way all my life.  I have always seemed to need to breathe more than the average person doing the same activity.  Like most other things, it has gotten worse over the years.  I suppose it wouldn't hurt me to quit smoking regardless, but I don't want to.  I have heard the you have to really want to quit if you're going to quit, and I don't.  

Redistricting in Michigan

As Uncle Ken pointed out awhile back, gerrymandering has been known to produce unintended consequences.  Michigan's new redistricting  commission seems to have pissed off people on both sides of the aisle, and they're not even done yet.  They got a late start because the census data wasn't ready on time, although that didn't stop those Democrats in Illinois.  I wonder what happens if the redistricting isn't done or is still tied up in litigation in time for the next election.

Redistricting commission faces pushback over draft maps, potential community-splitting | WPBN (upnorthlive.com) 

Michigan redistricting commission faces threat, kicks out public for legal memo discussion | WPBN (upnorthlive.com)

Redistricting commission defends closed session decision, citing attorney-client privilege | WPBN (upnorthlive.com)

I don't know what to think about those gunshot detectors.  Of course they would be impractical and unnecessary in my neighborhood, but they might be useful in the big cities.  If violent crime is indeed a cultural problem, I'm glad we ain't got no culture around here.

I am not familiar with the musical group that Old Dog mentioned.  I was enthusiastic about the neo-folk revival of the 60s at the time but, over the years, I came to prefer the more authentic old timey stuff without all the razzle-dazzle. 

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

That gunshot detection program is old news to me, Mr. Beagles, and I don't remember if I mentioned it to your guys or not.  Maybe not, because it seemed a bit dodgy to me; sounds good on paper but may not be very practical.  The efficacy of such gee-whiz ideas are problematic but who knows?  It seems to me that using sophisticated technology to solve what are basically cultural problems is a waste of time and money but that's a rabbit hole I'm going to avoid for the time being.

-----

We all build our own prisons, it's the same for me and you.
We build them out of deeds we've done and deeds we meant to do.

I had to do some digging but I found this lyric of Mr. Beagles from a song he wrote about his time pulling guard duty in Germany.  It ages well and I'm glad I found it.  I bring this up because I remember Mr. Beagles mentioning his folk singing days, if that's the correct term for it, and one of the news aggregators I read reminded me of him.  Way back when, in the early 60s, there was a group of guys in Minneapolis who were influential in the folk/blues genre but I've never heard of them except for one of the members, "Spider" John Koerner.  I have one of his CDs, bought many years ago and I can't remember what prompted me to get it.  I enjoy it a lot, and maybe Mr. Beagles will enjoy it, too.  More info on those guys is here and I'm looking forward to seeing the documentary.

-----

Those posts about cigarette smoking are pretty good, Uncle Ken.  Were they recently written?  I like them more than that stuff you wrote years ago, the writing quality is better in my opinion.

The first cigarettes that I smoked on a regular basis were English Ovals, oddly shaped smokes, no filter, but they came in a dandy little box.  At the time I liked pipes and pipe tobacco a lot more; stale pipe smoke wasn't as nasty as stale cigarette (or cigar) smoke, but I was only 16 so what did I know?  Now it's getting on to three years since I quit smoking and I really miss that nicotine; maybe it's a psychological issue and it's time I did some research on the matter.  I even tried chewing tobacco back in the day but the taste isn't very good and the constant need to spit is unappealing to me.  In the words of that great New Wave band, Bohemia, "I wanna cigarette."

smoke that cigarette

 As a resident of The Greatest City Inna World, I am of course quite aware of those issues that are news to Beagles.  Michigan can well be proud of having a citizens committee redistricting the wolverine state.  I am guessing this is the work of some sort of referendum as I cannot imagine that the Trumpist legislature would allow such a thing.  Maybe at last Gutsy Gretchen can rule with the dignity she deserves instead to being hounded by those mental midgets and their militia cohorts.

I seem to remember that at Dear Old Gage Park students were not allowed to smoke anywhere near the school, and I am not sure if this was true but the rumor was that they sent teachers out on patrol for students smoking east of California and west of Western and between 55th and 59th streets.  If that was the case I reckon they drove to the nearest alley and pulled out their smokes and lit up, and maybe pulled that pint of Jim Beam out of the glove box and had themselves a healthy snort while they were at it.

At college we were college men, and as such we were expected to do adult things like smoke cigarettes.  There were these little cardboard flats that could be folded into ash trays on the various tables that we might be expected to gather around when we discussed Nietzsche, or more likely who had the biggest dick.

What started me on this cig kick is there was an article in fb about Gauloises, wasn't sure of how to spell it so I googled what did Sartre smoke, and there it was.  The cool existentialists smoked these but not for more than a pack or two because (cough cough) they were really strong.  There were other exotic cigs to select from the tobacco store, but nobody smoked any of them too long because they were expensive and pretty weird.

I had gone through a variety of cigs. For awhile I smoked Camel shorties, and felt pretty he-man about that.  If I had to bum a cig I would make a show of tearing off the filter so that I could taste the rich taste of fine tobacco.  Eventually I had to give them up when I developed a heavy cough. I went through a few different brands and then I noticed that people who smoked Kools always knew who else smoked Kools and would bum only from them, and then I switched and never looked back.  

I quit out of nowhere in the mid eighties though I would bum cigs at the bar when I was drinking.  The two and a half years that I was in Texas I didn't know anybody who smoked and I never smoked any either.

Back in Chicago I got back to bumming while drinking, then I'd sometimes buy a pack and then I was up to two packs on a weekend, but that got too strong and now I am on one pack every two weeks, and later this afternoon I will buy that pack and the first cig I light up will be fantastic, after that not so much and by the time I stub out my last one Sunday morning I will be thinking good riddance.

Sometimes I think that I smoke so little why bother at all.  But if I ever thought I was stubbing out my last I would feel so deprived that I'd be buying a pack within an hour.  But if I know that I can smoke again in two weeks, it's not near so bad.

Tell St Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait
But you just gotta have another cigarette  

News to Me

 I have never head of this, although the article claims it has been around since at least 2017.  Do either of my esteemed colleagues know anything about it?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/inside-the-controversial-us-gunshot-detection-firm/ar-AAQ4KCF?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

This is also news to me.  In Michigan we have a recently adopted system where the redistricting is done by a citizens committee instead of the state legislature.  Last I heard they had a draft proposal and were soliciting feedback from the public. At least some of this feedback has been negative, alleging that the plan gerrymanders by race instead of political parties.

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/illinois-dems-embrace-gerrymandering-in-fight-for-us-house/ar-AAQ4Omh?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

cigs

 I had an uncle who smoked.  He seemed kind of modern, kind of with-it, and nothing looked so cool as that cig hanging out of the corner of his mouth.  Well anybody's mouth, everybody looked cooler with a cig hanging out of the corner of their mouth, it made you look so sharp in a world-weary, streetwise way.

Not for the little group of nerds that I hung out with, just not something we did until a new guy came into the crowd, and coming out of the movie house one day pulled out a pack and tapped one out in that cool way that anything you do with cigs is cool.  He kind of apologized, he knew we didn't smoke but he just had to have one.  See food, you eat food when you're hungry, but you smoke a cig when you just have to have one.  

Seeing that cool, manly pack of cigs come out of Ted's shirt front pocket (nothing was so cool and made you a man of the world like a pack of cigs in that front pocket, why you could take on the world) we all asked can I have one.

And we all bummed one.  Bumming cigarettes, we were already becoming cool. But our folks did not think we were so world weary, street-wise, cool, men of the worlds that those cigs in the corner of our mouths so clearly indicated we were so there followed maybe a year of furtive smoking, getting caught, reluctantly promising not to do it again, stashing packs here and there, getting caught stashing, but oh, that glorious feeling of lighting up far from home. 

My mother had been a stay at home mom, but now that the kids were in high school she took a job selling yarn at Marshall Fields.  I got home maybe an hour before she did, and snuck up to my sister's room where I knew I would find a pack of Parliaments in her purse.  Both my sisters smoked because they were cool too.

The old coal bin had been converted into a kind of workshop for my dad who didn't do a lot of workshopping like dads were expected to do in those days, and instead of a lamp it had a bare bulb hanging from a cord, and a shard of an old mirror on the wall and I turned on the light, struck a pose in the mirror, and lit up and smoked up a storm.  The harsh light gave shadowy drama to my poses and the smoke from the cig glowed in the light and drifted into the shadows, and I was the coolest, the manliest, the most world-weary streetwise guy in all that old coal bin room.   

why ken paints

 

A friend of mine emailed me about how my show was going, and maybe I wrote too long a reply but here it is.  I have been doing these shows since 2005, usually once a year, sometimes twice, about twenty shows altogether sounds about right.

I remember after putting up the first show, walking back down Irving Park to the train, and thinking this could be my big break.  Lots of big time art critics surely find themselves strolling down Ashland Avenue on a sunny afternoon, and developing a thirst might drop into the Ten Cat to wet their whistle, and leaving four hours later, completely smashed, trip coming out the door, and look up at my array of cats and declare "A star eeez (they are French of course) born!"  And then it would be all fast cars and whiskey, long haired girls and fun.

It didn't turn out that way.  At first I thought I should have more shows in more places, spread my stuff around you know.  But there weren't that many places, and those places were kind of picky.  I'd heard about the Ten Cat from a friend in that Saturday adult ed watercolor class that I have been attending since September of 1989, and when I asked the owner, squeaky-voiced, on the phone, if I could put my stuff up in her windows she said sure.  When I asked her if she wanted to see my stuff first, she said nah.  So you see, it was easy. 

I've got it all down to a routine now.  The Ten Cat has eight easels and each easel can hold two paintings so every year I pick sixteen paintings I have done, usually as sort of a series, cats, birds, alleys, etc. http://www.bckat.us/KenSchadt/index.htm I go to the same framer to mount my paintings on 20x28 foamcore because they are much easier to haul on the train than framed paintings, the same printer to print my postcards (pretty useless in the age of the internet, but I like them, have a shoebox full of them in the plastic shelving that lines my bedroom holding all the paintings that never sold), bake a slew of corn muffins (getting better at that with every show), buy some chips and salsa and some cheap sweet stuff from the five dollar tables at the Jewel, haul it all over there and set it up and wait for my crowd (forty to a dozen, maybe twenty as an average) to show up and for a couple hours once a year I am a big shot in a small pond.

Sometimes I sell none, sometimes four or five.  Mostly it's friends or neighbors or friends of friends or friends of neighbors, and that's fine, but there is always a suspicion, are they doing this because they want to be nice to me?  But here is the thing.  I always put up a little note in the window with the prices (one or two hundred, the same price for all of them) and my email.  They are in the front of the Ten Cat so that any passerby can see them whether the place is open or not.  And sometimes, maybe once or twice I get an email from a stranger, wanting to buy say #6 from the Cats and Corn show.  I could finagle some deal where the bartender could take the cash and they could take the painting away.  But I always finagle it so that I am there for the exchange, because I want to see them, talk to them a bit, because they are paying money for my painting.

It's always a little bit disappointing.  They don't know shit about art, my deft use of burnt sienna is not noticed.  They are buying it for their brother's birthday because he is a trader on the exchange and it is a painting of corn.  But still, there are other paintings of corn and they chose this one, and they are paying a hundred or two so they are making some sort of sacrifice for this.  And you know there are a shitload of theories on art and what makes a good or bad painting, but still I think there is something, not in the heart, but in that deep dark subconscious mind that is always with us, but is mostly a stranger, but is somehow touched by that bit of derring do with the burnt sienna, and there, I have made a connection.

I paint early most mornings, and it is mostly fun, but sometimes I wonder isn't this stupid stuff that I am doing.  But then I think of that stranger taking the painting out into the night, and it was worth some dough to him to do it.  So you see, it means something.

the world series

 I have to admit that I have never experienced wedded bliss.  But I live in a big city and many of the people I come across are married and I have to say that I have never heard any talk of, or seen any evidence, that their marriages have been degraded or cheapened.  And Beagles says neither has his been, so I am at a loss that that the institution has been degraded or cheapened.

I guess it's just a case of a right that Beagles has that he doesn't want others who aren't like him to have.

But let's not begin the morning with one of those Uncle Ken/Beagles nitternatter conflicts, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Speaking of fury wasn't that a mighty storm last night, beginning sometime in the afternoon and continuing into this morning with its lightning-laced acme in the evening. thousands of furious wet fists pounding on my east-facing windows. 

Seems like a major weather event, and peeking about Cheboygan I see that they have the same strong northeast winds but without the rain.

Almost Halloween, almost time to turn our clocks back, and you know what else, the world series.

In the fall of 1970 I was doing my CO work in Herrin Illinois, mopping floors with my fellow janitors.  I was the goofy young hippie, and they were either guys who had not gotten too far climbing the corporate ladder or retired guys who still needed a little more money to scrape by.  I got along well enough with them, they didn't care much either way about that crazy Asian war, and we all got together and bitched about our boss, Sabrina.

She was on our case Man.  No floor was sparkling enough for her, no baseboard free enough of soap scum.  Sneak off the floor for a little break in the cool basement and there she was.

Man oh man.  Anyway it was this very time of year, fifty-one years ago, and a couple of us were mopping the waiting room where there were tvs and the tvs were showing The World Series.

The World Series.  We remembered it from our boyhoods, it was a big deal.  It took us back to our youths on the sandlot, far from parents or teachers or anybody to tell us what to do.  And our whole lives before us.  Who could have imagined we would one time be doing shit work at shit pay, and above us, like some fairy tale ogress, that damn Sabrina.

One of the guys put his mop back in the bucket, sat down in one of the easy chairs, leaned back and crossed his legs.  He was watching the fucking world series.  The guy next to him shrugged and sat down too, and then another guy, and then the word spread through the hospital via the janitor hot line.  We were going to watch the world series.  Were we not men?  Proud American men?  If we chose to take a little break and watch America's Pasttime, why who could deny us.  We chuckled among ourselves, the easy chuckle of Free Men.

But hark what was that sound, kind of a clacking, Heels!

And there was Sabrina breezing into the doorway and we were all gone justlikethat.

There Goes the Neighborhood

 That Duda sounds like a Trumpy kind of guy, so I can understand why Uncle Ken doesn't like him.  I might dislike him myself if I knew more about him, but that's beside the point.  My point is that the Polish government is trying to do something about their immigration problem and the US government is not.  Trump tried unsuccessfully and Biden isn't trying at all.  He doesn't seem to know what he wants to do.  First he invited them to come, then he told them not to come.  When they came anyway, he allowed some of them to stay here and shipped some of them back.   He has announced multiple times that "the border is closed", while not doing anything to stop the thousands of illegal crossings that are going on every day.  He seems to be currently ignoring the issue in order to concentrate on getting his big pork packages passed.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/illegal-border-crossings-soar-to-record-high-new-data-shows/ar-AAPQEIf?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

I stopped calling myself a reactionary after Trump came on the scene and carried the concept to reducto absurdum.  I still believe that his original mission was to give the Republican Party a bad name and, in the process, he has also given a bad name to reactionaries, conservatives, and Americans in general.  

I never meant to say that allowing gay marriage would jeopardize my own marriage.  What I meant to say was that it would degrade or cheapen the general concept of marriage as an institution.  Maybe that was already happening in popular culture, but the gays certainly did not help any.  

those were the days

 I am certainly not confusing Belarus with Poland.  Belarus's current head is very, very, bad.  Andrzej Buda is merely pretty bad.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrzej_Duda

On 28 December 2015, Duda signed the Constitutional Tribunal bill (passed on 22 December 2015 by the Sejm), which unequivocally breaches the Constitution of Poland according to the National Council of the Judiciary of Poland,^[38] the Public Prosecutor General^[39] and the Polish Ombudsman.^[40]

In June 2016, Duda rejected appointing 10 judges selected by the National Council of the Judiciary of Poland.

In February 2018, Duda said that he would sign into law Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, making it illegal to accuse 'the Polish nation' of complicity in the Holocaust and other Nazi German atrocities.

On paper I suppose you could call Poland a representative democracy.  Andrzej was elected by a narrow margin, but once he was elected he has shown contempt for the constitution, not unlike, dare I say it, Donald Trump.  I expect Beagles might draw the line on the holocaust, but otherwise he probably likes most of the other stuff especially his behavior towards the LBGTQ crowd and on immigration.

I was going through the wiki looking for stuff that I thought would put the guy in a bad light, but then it occurred to me that most of the stuff that repelled me, would please Beagles.  He is Beagles's kind of guy.  I remember he used to refer to himself as a reactionary, which he later rejected, I don't remember why.  But wait, I typed reactionary into that search bar and here it is.  http://talkswithbeagles.blogspot.com/2019/04/beagles-reactionary.html

He said that he was a reactionary in matters like gay rights, but he wanted to keep civil rights as long as they did not give minorities more rights than straight white people.  I would say that basically what they want is the same rights that Beagles has.  

These political labels change all the time. I don't know of anybody else who thinks fascists and commies are the same thing.  Teddy was a progressive.  The republican party was progressive until Nixon adopted the southern strategy.  The conservatives trashed the name, and I think it was cowardly but rather than defending it the dems just stopped calling themselves liberals and now use the term progressive.

I just wanted to paint a picture of domestic bliss. with the image of Beagles stepping in to peel the potatoes to illustrate the point that the legalization of gay marriage did not trash Beagles' marriage as he had said it would.

I've never eaten at the Orange Garden.  What appealed to me about it was the way it looked, which was the way most Chinese restaurants looked back in the days when I worked at the House of Chin which had all the same gimcracky Chinese decor which you could buy from a catalogue, and those same dishes, Oriental Plate (fried rice, an egg roll, maybe some wontons), a pot of tea and a fortune cookie.

The kind of place where we could put a quarter in the jukebox, and play that song that in our youthful wisdom we knew would never be us.

… Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way

More Debunking

"What I was commenting on was Beagles' embrace of the policy of a dictator who was not even following his own country's rule."

Uncle Ken seems to be confusing, or possibly conflating, Poland with Belarus.  My research suggests that they are not the same thing:  

Poland is a representative democracy, with a president as the head of state.^[258][259] The government structure centers on the Council of Ministers, led by a prime minister. The president appoints the cabinet according to the proposals of the prime minister, typically from the majority coalition in the Sejm. The president is elected by popular vote every five years. The current president is Andrzej Duda and the prime minister is Mateusz Morawiecki.^[260]

Poland - Wikipedia

In a formal sense Belarus is a presidential republic enjoying a separation of powers, governed by a president and the National Assembly. In reality Belarus is an autocracy where power is concentrated in the hands of the president, elections are not free and judicial independence is weak.^[117]

Belarus - Wikipedia

I think that Poland is reacting to an immigration crisis not unlike our own.  While the refugees from Belarus might have good reason to seek asylum in Poland, their sheer numbers are overwhelming Poland's system and the Poles are trying to bring the situation under control.  There has been some talk of Poland withdrawing from the EU if it insists on opposing this effort.  If that happens, Poland will not be the first EU member to bail out over this issue, and probably not the last.  

Getting chilly

Good news about your monitor, Mr. Beagles.  Your problem as you described it drew a blank.  If you had an old style CRT monitor a big magnet could cause that kind of distortion but it would have to be very big and very close.  A flat screen LCD monitor can act funny if the cable is kinked, but that's all I've got regarding a solution.  My laptop screen is completely non-functional because of the cable and hinges but HDMI to the rescue; it's really nice to use the 32" TV as a monitor.  The resolution is good enough and with an external keyboard (nice, big Microsoft unit) and mouse I can kick back and get some work done without hunching over and squinting at a little screen.  There are a couple of USB peripherals I'd like to use but I don't think the laptop has enough juice for them, some kind of issue with the USB 3.0 drivers that I have installed.  Old computers with old operating systems can be problematic, lacking support from the manufacturers.  Neither Intel nor Microsoft can be bothered, it seems.  I might have to go to the local computer recycle shop and see what they have; many good deals are to be had.

-----

Ah, the Orange Garden.  I know it's been around since the late 50s when my family moved into the area but I didn't know it's the oldest Chinese restaurant in Chicago and their neon sign might be the oldest one in Chicago, too.

I may have eaten there twice, the last time being ten or fifteen years ago.  Not impressed, much better restaurants around and nobody I know, friends or family, have a good opinion of the place.  All of the good reviews online are a mystery to me unless they've greatly improved the quality of the food.  Some of the best Chinese food I've eaten lately is from Young's, a few doors north of the Ten Cat but I haven't eaten there in quite a while.

-----

Standing guard duty is something I was able to avoid for the most part.  Due to some fluke my name didn't make it to the duty roster and I wasn't about to correct the oversight.  By the time I made it to the duty roster I had enough rank that I just had to sit in the office most of the time and ride in the jeep during shift changes.  They gave me one of the 1911 Colt .45 automatics but no ammo, strictly for appearances.  It was a little scary handling that thing, even with no ammo since I had no training whatsoever with it.  All I could really use it for would be to conk somebody on the head; it was a hefty bit of steel.  If I was into handguns I would definitely want one of them.

-----

Not long before the frost is on the pumpkin.  The other day I noticed a few porches with Christmas lights on them already.  My, how time flies!

 

 

Debunking Uncle Ken

We interrupt this debunking to bring you this breaking story:

 https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/sinclair-broadcast-group-identifies-data-breach-80640053

Our local news is still broadcasting but without commercials.  They are filling in the gaps with extra weather reports, which I find to be a refreshing change.  And now back to our regularly scheduled debunking:

Political labels are changing all the time.  Back when Teddy Roosevelt was president he called himself a "progressive", and he was a Republican.  When I went to school, a fascist was a national socialist while a communist was an international socialist.  Hitler turned out to be more of a Hitlerist than a socialist, but he kept the national socialist label, which is what the anacronym "NAZI" stands for in the German language.  Generally, communists have always called people they don't like "fascists", so I figure if somebody calls you a fascist, you must be doing something right.  

 "A short google search reveals no treaties ever signed between Red China and Taiwan, and in the case of Taiwan and Panama, their change of hands took place only after their treaties expired."

Of course Red China and Taiwan have never signed a treaty with each other.  The treaty to which I referred was between Taiwan and the US.  We did not have diplomatic relations with Red China until Nixon recognized their government and threw Taiwan under the bus.  To this day, the US maintains an unofficial relationship with Taiwan while maintaining an official relationship with Red China.  Taiwan has since given up their claim to be the legitimate government of all China, but Red China still claims to own Taiwan, although they haven't done anything to enforce it, at least not yet.  Taiwan maintains a fragile hold on its independence, possibly because they have never formally declared it to the world, which might cause Red China to dispute it militarily in order to save face.  

The Panama Canal treaty was between Panama and the US, not Taiwan.  It was supposed to last forever, but was later re-negotiated. 

In 1904, the Isthmian Canal Convention was proclaimed. In it, the Republic of Panama granted to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of a zone of land and land under water for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, and protection of the canal. From 1903 to 1979, the territory was controlled by the United States, which had purchased the land from the private and public owners, built the canal and financed its construction. The Canal Zone was abolished in 1979, as a term of the Torrijos–Carter Treaties two years earlier; the canal itself was later under joint U.S.–Panamanian control until it was fully turned over to Panama in 1999.

Panama Canal Zone - Wikipedia

Last I heard, the change in Poland's immigration law had passed their legislature and was only awaiting their president's signature, which was predicted to happen any day now.  I believe their international agreement was with the European Union, from which Poland might withdraw if they gave them any shit about it.

I don't care how many politicians buckle under to the gay lobby, I never voted for gay marriage and I never will.  I would vote for Liz Cheney if she ran against Trump, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with every position she takes.  Peeling potatoes has nothing to do with marriage, gay or otherwise.  If you want peeled potatoes for supper, somebody has got to peel them, and it might as well be you.

Orange Garden

 Came across this photo in fb this morning.  Once when taking a walk through Old Dog's hood I came across it but unfortunately it was Monday and it was closed.  Looking at the menu I see that it has a lot of the same goodies that Chin's had in the early seventies.  I wonder if Old Dog ever drops in here for something tasty.

enlightening Beagles

 The captive nations are not slipping back into communism, they are slipping back into fascism.  Not that there is a lot of difference to the unfortunate folks being ground under the iron wheel of either.  The difference of course would be ideology, the commies have a fully written guidebook where the fascists just have whatever the dictator said last.  But in effect the latest constructs of communism have given rise to people who are for all intents and purposes dictators so the difference is pretty slim.

Communism is a side issue.  What I was commenting on was Beagles's embrace of the policy of a dictator who was not even following his own country's rule.  The fact that they plan on changing the rule does not mean that they can break it before they change it.  But that's a narrow issue that I bring it up because Beagles has often asserted that all laws on the books must be enforced.  

As far as treaties of course Hitler broke them all the time, if that is the sort of bloke you look up to.  A short google search reveals no treaties ever signed between Red China and Taiwan, and in the case of Taiwan and Panama, their change of hands took place only after their treaties expired.

I wonder if Beagles has read that his hero, and a little bit mine, Liz Cheney, now backs gay marriage.  I think it has a lot to do with her sister being gay, but it took an awful long time.  I reckon if Beagles had gay people in his family he would change his tune.  It's not so hard to make life hard on strangers, but when it's your own kith and kin you can be more charitable, especially since it is no skin of your nose.  I remember Beagles ranting about how if they allowed gay  marriage it would devalue his own, but upon reading how he tenderly peeled the spuds for her six years after gay marriage became legal I contend that his marriage is as strong as ever.

Actually I think after the hiccup of getting off the tiger's back the Republican party would be stronger, which would displease me, but still I would rather that than risk Trump taking power again.    The dems played very nicely together in dumping Trump, but now that he is on the sidelines they are fussing.  Maybe if Trump came roaring back it would bring them together, but still, I would rather see Trump quiescent.

There that should set you straight until maybe Friday when I will be returning to hallowed halls.

Another Country Heard From

 This is the first I have heard about the former Soviet captive nations slipping back into communism, but I have commented in the past that Russia itself seems to be doing just that.  Uncle Ken advanced the theory that it wasn't communism that made Russia bad, it was Russia that made communism bad, and I tended to agree with him at the time.  I can understand why some people like Marx's version of communism, it does indeed have a certain appeal, at least on paper.  What Stalin and Mao did with it, however, must have caused Marx to turn over in his grave.  I fail to see what all this has to do with my stand on immigration.  The commies built walls to keep people in, while I want to build walls to keep people out.  As for the gays, I don't believe they should be persecuted, but I don't think they should be allowed to marry each other or adopt children. I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere.

My understanding of the immigration problem in Poland is that they are in the process of changing their laws by legitimate legislative process.  As for treaties, they get changed all the time.  Unless a treaty specifies otherwise, any party can opt out if they want to.  Nothing lasts forever.  If it did, the government in exile in Taiwan would still be the recognized as the legitimate government of all of China except for Hong Kong, which would still be under British rule, and The US would still own the Panama Canal.  

I agree that equating Trumpism to Stalinism isn't much of a stretch.  I have said before that the Republican Party is doomed unless they manage to purge themselves of Trump and his ilk.  This should make Uncle Ken happy because it would make the Democrats the only show in town.  Of course the Democrats might be rent asunder as well.  Last I heard, their radicals didn't like Biden because he was too moderate, while many of their moderates think he is being too radical.  One can only hope.

Most of our guard posts in Berlin were around ammo dumps and motor pools, both of which would be tempting targets for thieves of any political stripe.  We also guarded gates to our compound and Spandau Prison, where seven of the Nuremburg war criminals were incarcerated.  There were only three of them left by the time I got there. Two were released about the same time I was, and the last one died some years later.

I only peeled potatoes one time in the army when their peeling machine broke down.  I also did it a few times in civilian life when my wife broke her hand last winter.  It's not a bad job.  It's not nearly as messy as cleaning fish and game or butchering poultry and livestock, which I don't mind either.  As Marx or Lenin said, "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."   

not much to say today

 Guard duty?  Among the postwar krauts?  Was this really necessary or was it just one of those ways that the army could punish you when they were in the mood?

It doesn't sound too bad.  I guess that two hours would just be like hanging out on oh, the corner of 55th and Kedzie, watching all the cars go by.  I could do that.  Peeling potatoes not so much, dealing with food is messy.

I don't know that you can just decide not to apply a law because too many want to avail themselves of it.  Kind of like the current day Trumpists who say voting is fine, but too many citizens are doing it so we will have to make it harder for them.  I suppose international law can be changed, but aren't the parties obligated to obey it until it is changed?  You think that Poland, with their current dictator is ahead of the US with its former dictator deposed, though still not behind bars?  

Here take a look at this,  https://news.yahoo.com/trump-republicans-found-authoritarian-love-120004380.html I don't know if you have seen this on your narrow news feed.  It reminds me how before WW II a lot of prominent Americans and Brits were very fond of Mussolini and Hitler.  

Sun rising a bit after seven this morning, it will be setting a bit after six this evening as we approach the winter solstice, shockingly only two months away.  The weather is still pretty nice.  Had supper on the banks of the Chicago River, but at 45 degrees it may just be too cold to enjoy reading the paper on my balcony with my cat on my lap.  Oh just another winter.  Not much to say this morning.  Early Wednesday morning I will be boarding that old grey dog for a foray down to Nap Town.  The main activity there will be riding this big bus that is hooked to other busses like a train and drives up and down the main street and picks up and drops off people for free and we will be visiting seven or eight brewpubs.   Maybe some adventure will occur in the course of that to kick me out of my doldrums.

Guard Duty is Good Duty

 Nobody mans a guard post for 16 hours a day, it's two hours on and four hours off for 24 hours.  During your four hours off, you can eat, sleep, read, or play cards, but you can't leave the guard house except when they march you to the mess hall if it's close by.  If it's not close by, they bring you your chow in a truck.  It takes about an hour for the oncoming shift to go around relieving the off going shift.  This leaves you about two hours to actually sleep, providing that you don't waste any time reading or playing cards, but you go through this cycle four times in 24 hours, giving you a total of eight hours sleep, which is more than you usually get on a typical infantryman's day.  We were not supposed to pull guard duty two days back to back but, for awhile when we were under strength, we pulled it up to five days in a row.  If you are on permanent guard like you would be on the border, they work out some kind of rotation so that everybody can get a day or two off a week.  I agree that the photo in the article looks staged.  It may have been a drill to see how fast they could deploy a bunch of guys along the border in a situation.  If the situation became permanent, there would be little shelters or towers for the guards to get out of the weather.  Walking a perimeter in cold or rainy weather is not bad if you have the proper clothes, but standing still for two hours in the same weather would be brutal.

We have discussed this asylum thing in the past.  I don't believe the asylum laws were meant to deal with the sheer numbers of refugees involved in those mass migrations.  It seems that Poland is ahead of the US in making theirs more feasible.  As for international law, which I understand to mean treaties, that can also be changed.

When I logged on tonight, I couldn't access any internet sites, although the little icon said that I had connectivity.  After checking all my wires, I unplugged everything and plugged it back in again.  When the screen came back up, it said that an update was 100% complete and to not turn of my machine.  This only lasted a few minutes and everything came back to normal, including my blurry monitor.  Indeed, I can't remember when it ever looked this good.  My guess is that an update from Microsoft got stuck in there and was dislodged by my unplugging and re-plugging.  

  

lights going out in eastern Europe

 I might add to Beagles's assessment that most of those countries that we invaded are now less safe.  Kosovo is safer but I can't think of any other country.  And that is the reason the people of those countries did not want us there, because we were making them less safe, and of course people don't like being invaded by another country.  

Once the neocon dream for Iraq went kaput the official reason why we were there killing strangers is that we were fighting terrorism, the idea being that if we stopped them there they wouldn't come here.

But there are like a hundred terrorist groups and while we are fighting some there, others could easily slip over here and do something.  But they didn't because what would that accomplish?  Their fight was never with us, it was with each other.

What have the terrorists done in the US since 911?  Pretty much nada. We have way more to fear from home-grown terrorists than guys across the sea.

This is not immigration, this is asylum, this is international law that is being broken, but it's no big deal for this Duda guy who is part of the new wave of dictators in Poland, Belarus, Hungary, the Stan countries, the Philippines, Brazil, etc.

The photo that Beagles admires is obviously some kind of propaganda.  There is no way that the Polish army could stretch itself ten feet apart across the entire border with Belarus.

Would Beagles have been happier with his deployment if instead of going to Germany and chasing the Frauleins he had spent it standing on the north bank of the Rio Grande staring into Mexico sixteen hours a day?  Would that be the best way to deploy our current army.  Well at least we wouldn't be invading anybody.

But I have to say nice link, clickable, functioning, and with an explanation.  Thank you.

If the problem is with the settings getting a new monitor is not going to solve Beagles's problem.  As a helpful guy I googled monitor is smearing icons but again came up with too many different solutions.  I was going to burnish my fixit guy cred by reminding you of how I had fixed my vacuum cleaner.  I put vacuum cleaner into that search box and I got four or five posts, but apparently I have never posted my vacuum cleaner saga.  Well perhaps I will do that soon since my Waitress story is falling flat on the dawgs.

This is How to do It

 A few days ago, Uncle Ken asked me what the US military has done to make our country safer in the last 70 years.  After due consideration, the only answer I can come up with is "not much".   They have been too busy trying to make other countries safer, even when many citizens of these countries apparently don't want them to be made safer.  Soldiers don't usually get to chose where they are stationed, they go where they are sent.  I can't speak for the soldiers of today but, back in my day, I'm pretty sure that, if given their druthers, most of the GIs stationed overseas would druther be sent back to the good old USA for the balance of their enlistments.  There they could be employed like this to make the country safer.  I came across this article on my news app.  This is the first I've heard of Poland's current immigration problem, so I'm not sure about the politics of it, but I linked to the article because of the photo.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you guard a border:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/poland-moves-to-expel-migrants-at-border/ar-AAPxE00?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

****************************************************************************

Thanks to Uncle Ken for the techno tips.  I don't want to get into my settings at this point because I haven't changed them, so I doubt I could do anything to un-change them, and I could easily make matters worse.  This problem arose spontaneously, so It might go away by itself.  Either that or it will get worse and I will eventually get a new monitor.    

baking, standing up in the boat, and solving your hardware problems

 My friend did not claim to have coined the phrase about baking and cooking.  She probably ran across it, liked it, and adopted it.  Cooking consists of many things, but once it goes into the oven isn't it pretty much time and temp?  

Maybe not exactly.  In my previous muffin experiences I have been hung up on the phrase golden brown, and following the times given after fifteen minutes (350 degrees) my muffins have emerged golden brown.

But you know golden brown translates in a mini muffin to somewhat charred.  Actually I like a little char in my muffins, but these are baked for the multitude who considers them, well, burnt.  And in fact in this last fleet I deduced that fifteen minutes was for a regular sized muffin and not a mini.  The current batch I pulled when they were just an off-white variation of yellow, and turned golden in the process of cooling in their little tins.  Nobody gushed to me about them, but when I passed the food I always had to refill the muffin box.  

I didn't call myself a knucklehead who slops paint around sometimes, but I used similar phrases when somebody called me an artist, but now I just nod because it is much easier.  I do make art of a sort.  To my mind if you spend a lot of time oh, baking or painting, regardless of the results then you are a baker or an artist.  But it's a free country, and if Old Dog chooses not to want that appellation, well then that is why George Washington was standing up in that boat on Christmas.

George Washington went forth

His thoughts were of redcoats and his teeth were white oak

The Hessians were partying hardy, but he gave them death

George Washington the beautiful.

Okay the Hessians did not wear red, I took a little license to match Sredni Vashtar.  I can do that because I am a writer and not a knucklehead, ok maybe both.

Dropping in on Mr Google with the print on my monitor is smeared to the right I found a plethora of answers to Beagles's problem.  I did not look any deeper because I assumed the answers went from change the comma on the 142nd line of your registry to a semi colon, to have you tried turning it on and off again, and I am sure the ever popular sacrifice a virgin was in there too.

I suggest that Beagles dig into that and waste a perfectly good afternoon trying all the solutions till he finally gets so pissed off that he kicks in his present monitor.

Then he can go out and buy a new one and the problem will be solved.  Or maybe not.

Fall in Beaglesonia

Our leaves started to turn about six weeks ago, and they have been falling for a couple of weeks, but I think more than half of them are still on the trees.  Unless we get a lot of wind, it will be another month or so before the trees are all bare.  I don't have a snowmobile, but my pickup truck has 4WD, and I have no problem getting out when it snows.  I don't drive it in the woods anymore, I use my tractor for that and for snowplowing.  I have several small engine tools, but I only drain the gas out of the string trimmer.  I use the chainsaw off and on all year so it doesn't have a dormant season.  I have found it's better to not run the gas out of the hydraulic wood splitter, which has a 4-cycle engine, because it makes it hard to start next time.  I have a couple other units that I haven't used in years, and I seem to remember running them dry after their last usage.  Everything is kept in an unheated steel barn, so there is no need to cover anything up.  I blew out the garden hose the other day, and the gas grill is going to join it in the barn any day now.  

My computer monitor has been looking weird lately, all the text looks like it's being smeared to the right, and  I can't find an adjustment for that.  It must be about 15 years old, having outlived two previous computers.  How long are these things supposed to last?  

Autumn leaves

"Cooking is an art, baking is a science” has been cited in print since at least 1967 and is said to have originated in a King Arthur Flour catalogue.

Plenty of debate on that one, Uncle Ken, and I'll stay out of it, too many rabbit holes are opening up.  All baking is cooking but not all cooking is baking, and where does that leave the sandwich makers?  I'll leave it all under the big umbrella of "food prep" and leave it at that.

And please don't imply that I'm a baker.  I consider myself a knucklehead that likes to play in the kitchen like a mad scientist, with tasty results.  It can be a lot of fun.

I'm not hung up on following "the straight and narrow path of science" because of the forgiving nature of "food prep."  There are so many variables that you can make yourself crazy, such as humidity, ambient temperature, and freshness of the ingredients so you learn to be a little flexible.  I think the only time you should adhere strictly to a recipe is when you are expected to have consistent results over an extended period of time, such as in restaurants.  Otherwise, it's fine to adjust and tweak ingredients and cooking times or temperatures.  I'm sure that Mr. Beagles will agree that baking bread in the summertime is much different than in the wintertime.

So, lately I've been messing around with apples.  There was a YouTube suggestion for apple fritters and I thought that would be a swell idea; I'm always buying them from the bakery section of the Jewel and I didn't think they could be very difficult.

And they weren't, except for the deep fat frying part of it.  I've never done any deep fat frying because it seemed a little messy and possibly dangerous.  But what the hell, no time like the present to try something new.  The only thing stopping me was the lack of enough neutral oil for my dutch oven and Granny Smith apples, so off to the store I went.  The results were ugly, maybe a little under cooked, but tasted better than store-bought ones in my opinion.  The glaze was a little too thin but I'll do better the next time.  I'll call the project a success.

But there's more.  The guy that posted the video had a variation made with bacon and a bourbon glaze.  Oh, yeah; now you're talking!  Still had a couple of apples and plenty of bacon on hand but no bourbon.  A quick trip the local Kwik-E-Mart solved the bourbon problem.  Side note: did you know that you can substitute a dark liquor for vanilla in many recipes?  Anyhow those fritters were great and took to freezing very well.  Very savory, but the taste of bacon and bourbon are subtle; another win.

Okay, that was a good recipe so I decided to hit up YouTube and look at other recipes for apple fritters.  No two recipes are identical, which makes it interesting because you can get good idea of how much leeway you have with the ingredients; taking notes is a good idea.  Then I saw a recipe for cinnamon apple bread, another favorite of mine, at least the cinnamon version sold at the Jewel.  Pretty much the same ingredients as fritters but you use a bread pan and you bake it instead of fiddling around with hot oil.  Another win, even better than the fritters.

I've accumulated a lot of recipes of my own, based on recipes I've tried from different YouTube channels.  There is no one recipe for chocolate cake, cornbread, blueberry pie, or anything else.  As long as the results are edible I'm a happy camper and the process is getting easier as I move along.  It certainly isn't boring.

-----

As I gaze across the treetops I see that the leaves are quickly changing colors.  Are all the leaves still on the trees in Beaglesonia?  Aside from stockpiling firewood, is there a lot of pre-winter prep required?  I don't know your vehicle situation but I understand that you have to drain the gas on some items, grease them up good, check the oil and cover them up for the frozen duration.  Do you have a snowmobile?  Something like that would be very useful up north, I think.  How else can you get to public house for a little hot toddy?

 

 

Elizabeth say it ain't so

 Right below A forum for reasonable discussion among reasonable people is a search box.  If you want to find a former post you can just enter a word or two or best of all, a phrase you remember using to find that post.  Generally when I disagree with you, it is not over the content of some source but with your interpretation of the material from that source.

I think those districts that Britain gave to Pakistan (then part of India) are what we now call the tribal territories, particularly the Waziristans, North and South, just like the Dakotas, for no apparent reason.  I say that because I really don't know much about them.  John McCain, if I remember correctly, made a big deal in his campaign about having been to South Waziristan and therefore having a greater grasp of world politics than of his opponent who I believe was Obama, or maybe the inhabitants of that ship of fools which constituted the 2008 republican primary (all of whom I might add, were statesmen compared to their 2016 candidate).

These provinces were probably never really under the control of an Afghani govt, nor are they now under the control of the Pakis, they are full of guys in the hills with guns who nobody fucks with because they fuck right back, and there is really nothing there worth fucking with.  Well that is my interpretation.  

But look at this: https://tribune.com.pk/story/1449352/john-mccain-led-us-team-visits-south-waziristan-praises-pak-armys-efforts

Note that this is a link you can just click on without having to copy and paste into that box on the top of the screen.  Also that it has been tested and it does work, also I am not just saying look at this I am commenting on the link and why I put it there.  For somebody who prided himself as a hard-headed guy who never saw a war he did not like, he seems awfully addled about those freedom-loving Pakis and tribal guys, who they got a full measure of by flying high over,  certainly above weapon range of their mountain redoubts.

But wait a minute.  As I was scanning down that article I came across that photograph at the bottom and I had to wonder who's that girl.  And it turns out that she is my favorite candidate in the 2020 primary, Elizabeth Warren.  I wonder if during the primary debates she had casually dropped the info that she was the only one among the candidates who had been to South Waziristan if she might be prez today.

We may disagree about if having a big army is the main reason for having a government, but even if I were to allow for that it still doesn't explain why our well-fed generals have not done anything that made the USA safer in the last seventy years.

Yeah, run on sentences and sentence fragments, I kind of consider them my style.  My hero, Big Bill Faulkner, when questioned about whether, when he wrote those run-on sentences that went on for pages, he was drunk, replied, "Not always."

But I am glad that Beagles is more or less still following it.  Is he getting any yucks? 

Not Exactly

 I looked this up awhile back and it's in one of my former posts, including the link to Wiki, but I have forgotten which post.  I could look it up again, but Uncle Ken would just refuse to acknowledge it, so I'll try to work from memory.

Afghanistan was a monarchy until about 1973 when the king was ousted by a military coup.  According to Wiki, the coup was soon overthrown by local commies.  Another source, I think it was National Geographic, says that the local commies were the coup, but that's an insignificant detail not worth arguing about.  At any rate, the local commie regime soon became unpopular and there was some kind of uprising against it, at which point the Russians came in allegedly to support their Afghan comrades.  I seem to remember that the local commie regime actually survived for a few years after the Russians left, which would mean that communism went down in Afghanistan about the same time that it went down in Russia, but I'm not sure about that.  At any rate, Afghanistan soon reverted to tribal feudalism until the Taliban knocked the warlords' heads together and made them play nice.  About five yeas later, we had 9-11 and I think we agree what happened after that.  

Back in the 19th Century, Russia and Britain fought with each other over Afghanistan, mostly because neither one wanted the other one to have it.  I believe Afghanistan eventually did lose some territory to the British, which they annexed to India, which was being ruled by them at the time.  After Indian independence, that part of India became Pakistan, and I don't think the lost territory was ever restored to Afghanistan.  Okay, I'm pretty sure that this information came from National Geographic, and I no longer have that issue in my possession, so you'll have to take my word for it, unless you want to check with my daughter in Charlevoix, who might still have it, unless she has passed it on to a local school, which is what she usually does with the National Geographics I give her when they start to pile up on her coffee table.

Speaking of run-on sentences, that one in the first paragraph of the second installment of the waitress story in a doozy.  I couldn't make any sense out of it at first, but I was able to sort it out after I read the rest of the installment.  I used to try avoid run-on sentences until I read one in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon that ran on for several pages.  I figured that, if it was good enough for such an esteemed author, it ought to be good enough for me.

I don't see anything wrong with military spending being the largest chunk of the federal budget, since national defense is the primary reason that governments were invented in the first place.  Like I said, though, I would rather see it being used to defend our own nation instead of everybody else's.  

more on that waitress story.

 I don't think the Russkies were ever planning on converting the Afghanis into commies.  I mean what was there even to communize?  They were nervous about all the muslim restiveness throughout their soft underbelly.  They took it for Mother Russia, a buffer state like they still had in eastern Europe in those days.

They did a lot to help the Afghanis out in the way of building roads and hospitals and schools which the Afghanis really liked, except maybe not so much the schools.  Of course they also killed a lot of Afghanis because you know how it is when you make an omelette.  But the Afghanis weren't all that grateful, and the Russkies hated their religion, and we gave those helicopter blasting missiles to the Mujahideen (We really had no point in giving those missiles except to fuck with the Russkies.  We really didn't give a shit what happened there) and in ten short years the Russkies were gone.

I remember at the time patting the USA on the back because we had a free press and democracy so that we were able to see what a mess we were in in Vietnam and get out of there for five.  But then when we got into Afghanistan we were there for twenty.

But then 911 and we had to get revenge.  And Iraq, how did we ever get in Iraq.  That whole WMD thing always sounded specious, and then it turned out to be completely false.  But this was the fever dream of Cheney and the neocons, build a sparkling nation of democracy and capitalism smack dab in the middle east and all the surrounding muslim nations would toss their religion aside and line up to drink Coca Cola and dine at McDonalds.

Fever dream it was after all the money that was supposed to make this happen had been soaked up by American and Iraqi grifters, well, like Shane, we just moved on.

Remember early on in the Afghani occupation when our newspapers were ablaze with grinning Afghanis holding up purple thumbs, which meant they had voted?  How proud America was.  Once they tasted democracy they were on a glide path to Coca Cola and McDonalds.  But the fact was that they could neither read nor write and all they voted for was the particular picture that represented their particular tribe.

But then the mission became we would just keep a small army there and we would no longer think about nation building we would just fight terrorism.  And that's where we got into the business of backing warlords who said they were fighting the taliban, and maybe they were a little but mostly they were just terrorizing the local population.

I think this tells the story. Korea was a tie, and I'll give them that but since then we haven't had even a tie.  What has the army done for us since then?  

Here is another installment on that Soul of a Waitress story.  It is meant to be funny but it is quite disjointed.  It was my manner at the time to write a couple pages when I got back from the Ten Cat without reading what I had written before so that's why it runs off in a different direction every so often.  I am wondering if you can follow it and if you think it is worth following.

These doubts had prompted her, when the two sophisticated ladies from Carefree Car Rentals in their Carefree Car Rental uniforms which were designed to look like stewardess uniforms, but with more flair, as the manager had described it to Anne, raising his eyebrows, as if one of the perks of the job was looking like an airplane hooker, to give Deena a little shove as they passed by Bag Beverage’s table, which served only to mash her chicken pesto sandwich into Deena’s back, as her colleague was rooted to the spot, impressed possibly by the clean Bud Lite t shirt Bag Beverage was sporting, like maybe he was a business major or something.

“Are these seats taken?” Deena had asked. 

“Why yes my Dears,” Bag Beverage had answered. “Just this minute, by two lovely stewardesses,” his tiny teeth glistening from his hobo beard.

If eyes rolled with the weight of bowling balls then Anne would have tumbled into the grass.  Deena’s eyes darted this way and that, and then her large teeth glistened as she whipped her airline looking scarf from her throat, gave the bench a couple swift dustings, and settled in, her face flushing nicely.  She had liked that airline mention.

Which left Anne with nothing to do but follow her down, setting her squashed sandwich down on the bench and unwrapping it from its pesto sauce squished bag.  She unwrapped it carefully paying no mind to Deena’s gushes and Hairface’s chuckles which passed for conversation.  The pesto sauce stuck to her fingers from which she began to lick it off.

Which caught Hairface’s attention in mid-chuckle.  He turned away from Deena towards Anne and with his eyebrows up like the Carefree Car Rental honcho’s when he was explaining flair declared “Waste not, want not,” wiped his bag beverage moistened hobo beard with the back of his hand, and added in a sage manner, “Benjamin Franklin.”

Founding father, I find you disgusting was her first whipstitch response, but that was weak and anyway she was caught in mid lick and it was too late to stop the end of finger suck.

Which brought his eyebrows up even higher, and Deena how did she do that thing where her smile kept all its curves while her eyes were nothing but razor blades? 

Had he seen that?  Hard to tell.  He settled back, his arms crossed behind his neck, and opening up a new topic, a serious and sensitive topic said, “You know, it’s refreshing in these times, when women are made to be so conscious of their body images, to see someone so enjoying their food,”

Deena didn’t miss a beat, was right in there, something about diets, how stupid they were, she herself ate whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and if people thought that she, or parts of her, were too fat, and here she carefully tucked her scarf between her breasts, well was that was just too bad.

He so agreed, watching the scarf disappear down Deena’s airplane hooker jacket, and the conversation moved away from Anne, leaving her with her kind of dry chicken sandwich now that the pesto sauce was gone.

FTA-2

"I am glad to hear that Beagles concurs with me that we are tossing a whole lot of dough into a ditch by giving it to the army. "

I did not mean to imply that.  The US military doesn't need to be de-funded, it just needs to be redirected.  Last I heard, many of the units being deployed to the Middle East are not regular Army, they are National Guard.  The primary duty of the National Guard should be to guard our nation, not everybody else's.  Of course the Guard may be called to federal service in times of emergency, but I wouldn't classify a foreign conflict that drags on inconclusively for a decade or two as an emergency.  I am reminded of the sign posted in the office of my old boss at the bus garage:  "Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."

FTA

 About the time I enlisted, the recruiting posters for the army were displaying the slogan, "Fun, Travel, Adventure".  I don't know who started it, but the guys in our outfit were fond of making fun of this slogan by saying the initials "FTA" really stood for "Fuck The Army!".  Another popular epithet was, "The Army Sucks!" Whenever somebody would shout out one of these slogans, some other smart aleck would always reply, "You know, it's not the army, it's the people in it."

The difference between what the Russians and Americans were doing in Afghanistan was that the Russians were fighting to defend Communism and the Americans were not.  Since Russian Communism was out of business by the time the Americans got there, I'm not sure what they were fighting to defend.  I might say "democracy", but the Afghanis had never known democracy.  Maybe they were trying to teach democracy to them.  If so, it obviously didn't work.  As they used to say in the army,  "If the student fails to learn, the instructor failed to teach."

The Americans

 When I was thinking of a title for my last post fuck the army came immediately to mind.  Contemplating it I realized that it came straight from my draft dodging days.  The rumor was that if you tattooed FTA across the heel of your right hand the army would reject you because those initials stood for Fuck the Army. and that's what would show when you saluted.  Pretty sure this was not true. 

I am glad to hear that Beagles concurs with me that we are tossing a whole lot of dough into a ditch by giving it to the army.

I've been watching an odd series lately called The Americans.  The Americans are a charming young couple with charming young kids who live in a nice suburb of DC, and are Russian spies.

They both grew up in Russia where they were recruited by the KGB to spy on the USA.  They had never seen each other before they were put together as a married couple.  Eventually they fell in love enough to have a couple clean cut American kids who have no idea that their parents are Russian spies.  They spy mostly on the FBI and the CIA, who in turn spy on them.  Shitloads of people are killed in the process, mostly, but not exclusively by the Russkies.  But it's also kind of a very dark comedy. because there are all these soap opera elements. 

Anyway the reason I bring it up is that it is set in the Reagan years with the cold war in full swing and Russia ass deep in Afghanistan.  These Russian spies, though they kill shitloads of people, believe 100 percent in what they are doing (well she more than he, another element of the romantic comedy). and one of them is bringing civilization to the Afghanis. and they are deeply disappointed with how the Afghanis don't appreciate it a bit.  This is just a tv show of course but if you think about it there is hardly any difference between what the Russkies and we were doing in Afghanistan.

It has been awhile since I regaled you with a story and I found this one in my archives yesterday.  It is a bit wordy and sometimes hard to follow, but if you just follow the words and don't worry overly about the plot I think you will get through it ok.  Here is the first part.

I – Before the Soul

"You have the soul of a waitress," he told her.

She had scarcely noticed, she had been talking to Deena, and there was just a bit of silence after she ended her sentence and then she realized that he had been talking to her, and she turned to him not knowing what she was going to say, but it came out smoothly enough, "You have the beard of a hobo."

And she was pleased enough with that, it took him aback, shut his big fat mouth.  It was like a gift she had, her whipstitch she liked to call it, hadn't she sewn his hairy lips together?  She had to smile.

But Deena wasn't smiling, oh poor sweet Deena, she just hated any unpleasantness, that's what she called it, unpleasantness.  "I don't see why we can't all get along," she would say with a sigh, that sigh like she was Jesus H Christ nailed up on a stick on a hill with all that lightning and thunder behind him and just sighing that beautiful sigh of forgiveness, but also a little bit of, I don't see why you guys can't be as good as me?

And see, there she was right now, sighing in Anne's direction, accompanying the sigh with that sad little shake of her ringletted head for emphasis, and then turning quickly, so that if her ringlets had been bells they would have chimed a sweet tone, towards Hairface and saying, "I think it's a very nice beard."

Childish it would have been indeed had Anne stuck her finger down her throat and goggled her eyes, and maybe even brought forth a thin trickle of vomit.  Well probably not the vomit, that would have been, well just not witty, not at all.  All in all, she was glad she hadn't done it.

Not that anybody would have noticed if she had.  Already Hairface was asking, "Do you think?" kind of beaming, but a little hesitant, a little afraid that he might be falling for sarcasm. 

Something about those sky-wide blue eyes, those ringlets clanging to beat the band, anybody with any sense right away sensed sarcasm.  Which had been Anne’s mistake her very first day at Carefree Car Rental.  Omigod Deena was putting down all these idiot customers and none of them even noticed.  At lunchtime Anne quickly introduced herself and happily tagged along to the Au Bon Pain and then to the picnic table in the park next to the college, and then halfway through their Harvest Rice Bowls, she realized that Deena was not sarcastic at all, that was just the way she was, and by then it was too late, and now she was stuck with Deena for every lunch.

And every lunch it was Au Bon Pain because Deena was fond of French cuisine, and it was always eaten in that same park, because she liked to make the acquaintance of college men.

“College men?” Anne had protested. “It’s a junior college.”

“Community college,” Deena corrected her, “A college in the community.”

 And frankly Anne had her doubts that Hairface was a member of the college in the community which arose from the fact that he was drinking his beverage out of a paper bag.  When those guys are hoisting their drinks, singing that Whiffle Poofle song there are no paper bags to be seen.