Time To Start Driving.

Well, it's time to begin the blogcrawl. Since it's been twenty two years, one month and four days since my last drink I am a designated driver. But since I got the location of the Fabled Tequila Mine of Cuervo before I quit drinking I loaded up a few cases of their best in the trailer. You drunks can have a few drinks at each stop.

o, here we go, in alphabetical order starting with the Bad Example Family. And no throwing up in the backseats!

Blogcrawls And Other Stories

The Bad Example and Frizzen Sparks Families are having a blogcrawl starting tomorrow, the object is to go to every blog in the two blogfamlies and leave a comment. Assuming that one is of drinking age and drinks, the idea is to leave a drunken comment. Others may be designated drivers.

My pal Contagion of Miasmatic Review is considering murder, drop by his blog and leave any good ideas of how to get away with it.

I'm noticing the big flap about Rush Limbaugh and the "phoney soldiers" comment. The Democrats and, sadly some conservatives, are all over the alleged antimilitary bias of Limbaugh. Unfortunately Limbaugh was speaking of real phoney soldiers, the Jesse McBeths. Remember him? The guy who claimed to have become an Army Ranger, a Corporal and a combat weary veteran breaking the news about the horrible war crimes by US forces. The guy who actually washed out of Basic after 44 days?

Now considering that Rush was speaking to a professional soldier, just back from Iraq, at the time, if there was an objection to his comment it would have come up right then, and not from lefty pols, either. Am I the only one who finds it disgusting to have John Kerry talking about someone being disrespectful of the troops?

Oh, and yesterday was my 300th post. To celebrate I'm having chili dogs.

I'm Important Now!

I guess I am getting almost as important as The Puppyblender now. I just got my first free book to review. Now I never have been important, outside the house, anyway. Does this mean I have to start drinking tea with my pinkie finger stickin' out?

Anyhow I got the sorta-autobiography of an old west lawman and shootist. I say sorta-autobiography because it was written by his friend and partner Eva Gillhouse, I haven't read enough to know yet just how he meant the word "partner". I'll write that up when (if) I figure it out.

Anyway this old lawman, one of the "Hanging Judge" Parker's Deputy US Marshalls, is mostly unknown today although his caricature is well known. He is the mascot of the Oklahoma State University Cowboys.

I am a lucky man. Born into the days of antibiotics and the Polio Vaccine and many other medical miracles, I still knew many people of the old west. When I was very young there were still some (very) old Civil War Vets around. Some of the older Mexicans around still remembered Pancho Villa. I had some neighbors from Roswell, New Mexico who had stories of Billy The Kid riding through and sometimes stopping. Now Roswell is known mainly for Youfoes.

And now this, the story of Frank "Pistol Pete" Eaton. Born in October of 1860, he lived to die in 1958. Born when the steam engines pulled trains he lived to see supersonic jets. I googled him and it seems that there is some controversy about how many people he killed, it seems to be between 11 and 15. I'll have to look and see if he counted Indians, everyone didn't back then.

Anyway I look forward to reading and reviewing this, stay tuned.

More Information

More information about Jena Louisiana is trickling out, not from the driveby media of course, they have their story and are sticking to it. It seems that the kids who strung those nooses said, and the school board believed them, that those nooses had nothing to do with race. It seems that it was a football deal, the team that they were about to play was named The Cowboys and the nooses were an old west thing.

Now I can believe that, my Cowboy Action Shooting Club has a gallows as one of the stages. We shoot from off and around it. See the picture. Note that none of the people in that picture are wearing white, pointy hoods and freshly laundered bedding.

I have never heard anyone go near our gallows and suddenly holler "let's go oppress black people!", including the occaisional black "cowboy".

Oh and sort of off the subject but not really, the cattle drives of 1866-1880 or so? About one quarter to one third of those cowboys driving those herds were black. Much of the trouble in those Kansas cowtowns was because the "Yankee" Kansans didn't want much to do with the integrated cowboys. Oh, and Brown vs Board of Education? Topeka, Kansas.

So, there is a lot more to Jena that meets the eye. That poor innocent kid that got fifteen years from the all white jury? Was that four cases of assault that he already had? Oh and would the jury have been all white if the black people had answered the jury summons?

Now, I don't know, I've seen cases where black kids have gotten the book thrown at them for minor fights while white kids got a talking to, but I've also seen a ton of thugs get away with things until nobody could ignore it anymore. Whichj is it this time? We don't know and the media won't tell us.

Petraeus And The Senate

Let's get this staight in our heads. The Senate voted unanimously to confirm Gen. Petraeus to command in Iraq. Unanimously as in all of them except the guy who's brain half disolved and the couple others who were too important to vote. Unanimously.

Now, about a year later 25% of them couldn't condemn this moveon.org slander. Twenty-five, all in one Party could not remember a whole year. Scumbag Democrats can't even honor their own votes. How is that battle against the Culture Of Corruption (tm)going? How about those earmarks, weren't you supposed to have a handle on them by now?

I've Never Heard Of Jena, LA But It's Coming Apart

So I was wondering why the Reverend Jackson wad complaining that Obama is acting like a white man. Naturally Brother Jesse tends to get a bit overwrought so I wasn't wondering real hard but still, wondering.So I put it in the back of my mind and went about my business. I mean Jackson and Obama, if they fight one would root for both of them to lose by a knockout.

So I was looking at the puppyblender's site and found out what Jackson is so excited about, seems that the '60s and '70s bypassed Jena and they are having those same kind of troubles the rest of us in the south went through forty years ago.Well, Jena is off the main highways but one would think they'd heard something by now.

Seems the trouble started over the white tree. Now I don't think it was covered with snow, I think the white kids liked to congregate in the shade of one tree. This is, beforof course, unthinkable. After all they can have black tables and black dorms at universities but white kids can't congregate, it's racist. And we don't get separate but equal trees, either.

So the black kids tried taking over the white tree. Trouble is, white and black still don't get along in groups. Individually most of us get along, I don't think David Duke of Louis Farrakhan (sp?) have many friends of a different hue but most everyone else does. As individuals. Most black folks I know get a tad nervous when they're surrounded by whites, most whites have the same problem in reverse. Note: before screeching about my horrible racism please note that the black tables and black dorms in college don't come from white folks. I notice trends and comment, doesn't mean I approve.

Now came three nooses hanging from the now bi-color tree. It seems the school authorities "knew" who did the nooses and expelled three white kids, the school board turned the expulsion into three day suspensions.

Then somebody burned down the building where the school board met. Now conventional wisdom says that the nooses were hung up by whites, although many of the recent examples seem to have come from blacks trying to call attention to racism. Much of the perceived racism lately has been not paying enough attention to how bad the situation that blacks find themselves in. Some how it is my fault when black kids beat each other for "acting white" if they study. And it is certainly my fault that 70some percent of black kids grow up in fatherless homes. Seems I would have noticed getting all that stray poontang but it's all my fault.

So now I'm noticing that a town of less than three thousand at the last census had a demonstration of thousands. Now I don't believe those six black kids ought to be facing felonies and it seems strange that I read of a white kid pointing a shotgun at black kids in a convenience store. Last I heard there were rules about kids running around town with a gun.

What I would really like is some honest news. It's no surprise that folks don't get along, there are entire industries built on making things worse. I would like to think that no DA would be dumb enough to try to railroad black kids but then there is Nifong. I would like to think I'm getting straight info about Jena but there is the whole of the mainstream media at Duke.

What I'd really like is for us all to fire all those bright young kids who went to J-school to "make a difference" and hire some bright working class kids who can spell "cat" and would like to make a nice middleclass income telling us what is happening, we could all decide on our own what to think about it. We'd all think something different, of course but we'd have a chance at making informed decisions.

Arrr! What if they'd waited?

Suppose the Campus Police had waited until today to Taze Andrew Meyer. Would he have screamed like a girl in Pirate Talk? Maybe "Avast with the Tazer!"

Seriously, though, he seems to have done everything but beg to have a large can o' whoopass opened up on him. I'm not sure but I believe that before he was tazed he got that one arm that was cuffed free and was flailing around with that cuff slicing through the air like a small mace. Ever seen a bluesuit that got a loose cuff 'cross the face? Lost teeth, fractured cheekbones, jaws and skulls happen, and on a regular basis. The least that happens is multiple stitches.

Now Meyer had his chances. The Police were just trying to escort him out. He then fought. So they tried arresting him. He fought some more. Now perhaps in 1971 they wouldn't have had to use a lot of physical force. Of course back in 1971 the LEOs would have been men. Men who met a minimum height requirement. There is a certain calming effect when one looks straight out and there is a badge at eye level.

There was one a day when average sized men who pinned on a badge knew full well they'd have to fight a lot more than those beefy old Irishmen. Today we've lost the size restrictions so that women and small statured men get to work the streets. Now this wouldn't be so bad, there are a lot of situations where a women can calm things down, or someone who speaks, say Vietnamese, can keep a fight from starting.

Unfortunately, we've gone way too far. Everyone isn't going to be reasonable. In the pictures and short videos I saw there wasn't a big Irishman or a very large black guy. From my screen it looked like an out take from "When Midgets Attack". I have no quarrle with hiring women for law enforcement. But can't we team them up with someone who has the size to stop trouble?

Now come the civil libertarians, none of which have ever been on the losing side of a fight to get someone into the back of the Patrol Car. Sorry, he asked for it. He got it. Now, maybe ninety days on a road gang in high summer, he might think about what he's doing.

Cochise' Apache Princess turned Eight Months Old

So I was wishing to be up in DC with the Gathering of Eagles, instead I was down here in Texas celebrating CAP's eight month B'day. Actually if the truth were known I would suspect that most of the guys and gals at the GoE would have rather been with some good dogs instead of near those protesters. Or cats. Or hyenas, jackals and buzzards.Or leeches and cockroaches or...what? Oh, sorry, I digress.

So I finally finished the last Harry Potter. Somehow, because I was retired I got to see if the first one was grandchild safe and got interested in Harry and Hermoine, Ron and the rest of that crowd. At any rate I finished the series and judge that it is granchild safe, with the following caveat. The series starts with Harry at age eleven or so, and goes with the main charecters aging a year per book. I would not suggest that this series go to a child much younger than the main charecters in each voluume.

In other news I've been rereading some old handloading books, the other month I got an E-mail wanting some information so I had to dig through the library. It is amazing the differences in the last forty years or so. It was "just yesterday" that The Answer to bluesuits being outgunned by criminals was the .41 Magnum. Now it is known that the only police problem the .41 solved was that it was heavy enough to solve the lack of backaches cause by gunbelts being too light.

Gloves Are Off, On One Side

So, The Viet Nam Memorial in DC has been defaced, so has the one in Sacramento. Someone smashed the War Memorial in Beeville, Texas, BEEVILLE!

The New York Times gave a super low rate for the slander against Gen. Petraeus and no prominent Dem has denounced it.

Hillary has hired Sandy Burglar in for her campaign.

Is it okay to question their patriotism yet?

Trip To The Vet

Today we had to take Eddie T. Dog to the vet for his annual shots. It's hard to believe we've had him well over a year. Or has he had us?

Awk! We got Eddie in late July of '06. I should have written something. Oh well, nobody tell Eddie and Ming,

We took Cochise' Apache Princess along because we had run out of Heartworm Medication for them and I needed to have them weigh her. The heart worm pills are taken according to weight. Eddie is twenty five pounds now, that's just about the right weight for a near-grown Pug.

We bought enough heartworm pills to last until February, six for CAP and a dozen for the Pugs...$238.00. TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY-EIGHT DOLLARS! Eighteen pills. Holy Crows. We spent only about twenty bucks more for a water heater. That's the good news, the bad news is that it will be a week or more before we get the water heater installed. The fellow that is going to help me is in the middle of remodeling a bathroom.

What we are doing is turning the water off at the meter and only turning it on twice a day and filling gallon jugs for general use. So far it's working. It does remind me of living a hundred and thirty years ago.

Oh, CAP now weighs sixty and a half pounds, she will be nine months old a week from tomorrow. I don't think she will get much taller than she is now but I believe she will get about twenty pounds heavier before she is through growing. She is a lot skinnier than the other German Shepherds I've lived with. She is like teenagers used to be, all feet and appetite. Oh yeah, and ears.

Josiah's First Birthday Party

So we drove up to Plano yesterday to Josiah Dean's first birthday party. I don't exactly know what a one year old thinks about a birthday party, he seemed to be sightly nervous about the whole thing.

His big brother, who will turn five on New Year's Eve and his friends all enjoyed it. Except that William was slightly disappointed that none of those gifts were his. A near five year old is a natural Democrat, everything is about him.

Hunting season is here, Dove season to be exact. Now to get to Plano from my place, I take county roads and Farm To Market Roads until I hit Rockwall, Texas on Interstate 30, then I drive on Interstates the rest of the way. I moved up to North Texas in '74. Back then there was quite a bit of distance between the smaller towns surrounding Dallas, now it is wall to wall suburbs. I drove through miles and miles of prime dove hunting territory. Now built up, the hunting gone.

Meanwhile the press is lamenting the drop in the number of hunters, well, duh. The less land for hunting, the more expensive the cost to lease some land to hunt on.
I remember when day leases for bird hunting was well under five bucks a day for some pretty good land. I don't know how I'm going to teach these boys to hunt. When I was a boy the most common sight in the world was a boy or three on bicycles with .22s or single shot shotguns, usually with a dog running alongside.

Now they'd call the SWAT Teams. For that matter, how many kids ride bikes unsupervised anymore?

The Body And Fender Shop.

If you haven't yet, drop over to the sidebar and click on Quality Weenie's Site. She just got out of some surgery and could use a little company. She is lucky enough to be home now. I'm not quite sure she's up for a comment party yet, though. Maybe next week...

I've spent enough time in the body and fender shop to know that it's a pain, although it's better to go in as a civilian that as an enlisted man in the Service. A mistake the military made was to give medical people rank. When I went to the hospital in early '67 I had a couple of stripes, I finally left the same rank as that Beauchamp character was when he got published...

This was not unusual. It wasn't just the real silly stuff, laying at attention was always a pain but there is something about medicine that attracts bossy people in general. Now I got hurt in February of '67 and eventually ended up at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California, after the stabilisation work in other places.

I was just about 20 when I got to that hospital, they sent me there because I had family near there, otherwise I would have ended up in one of the other big hospitals, Maybe Balboa down in 'Diego or Bethesda outside of DC. The one thing the Services did good back then was as soon as you were able to travel they'd put you in the closest hospital to your family that was able to handle your condition. If it had room, of course.

Oak Knoll was huge, at the time, dozens of buildings spread all over a hilly section of Oakland. These buildings were all connected by ramps for ease of moving in a wheelchair or gurney. Now a military hospital is different from the civilian hospital. Most of the patients are young and, especially in wartime, injured rather than sick. Now a patient was kept longer than a civilian, too. Most of the civilians were sent home as soon as possible we, on the other hand mostly had no civilian homes nor was our pay enough to handle going back and forth as outpatients. Most of us were two years in before our pay got more than a hundred and ten bucks a month, outside of the whopping $55.00 bucks a month combat pay. Yanno, back then lots of us volunteered for 'Nam for that $55.00 a month.

Now, imagine this great big place full of (mostly) young, healthy men recovering from injuries. Even when hurt, young men have energy. Young men in the Services haven't lost their competitive zeal just because of an injury. I was in the ortho ward, my right leg was badly broken. The other guys had broken bones, amputations, etc. My ward had few men with internal injuries, those of us that had bullets through lungs and bellies were on a different ward.

It wasn't long at all before we had to go to the Mess Hall for our meals, first in wheelchairs or gurneys, then walking or on crutches, depending on the injury. Now it wasn't so bad with an injury to the lower leg or foot or an arm, or ribs, it got bad though when it was a spine or upper leg injury. A broken thigh or hip required a spica (sp?) cast, a cast from the toes to above the belly button on one side and down below the knee on the other, with the um, elimination ports uncovered. There was a plaster covered piece of broomstick between the knees to keep everything good and rigid. Imagine the itching during the summer, those wards weren't air conditioned.

The Navy, being what it was, did not bring these guys their meals, either. Nor did they push us to the mess hall. Instead they'd put us on gurneys and give us one crutch, we'd use it like a stick on a raft, poling ourselves from place to place. Others were on wheelchairs or crutches. Given the competitive nature of young men, racing was real common. Crutch races, wheelchair races and the most fun of all, gurney races.

It was always an adventure, a new guy learning to use crutches or a wheelchair, or even a guy in an upper body cast trying to learn the new balance, and here come two guys racing gurneys down the walkway at a full tilt boogie.

All Docs and Nurses are Officers plus all kinds of other Officers running around, medical supply, medical services, etc. Every one of them would have hysterics at the racing, arm wrestling, etc. This led to a lot of fines and demotions. It alawys started the same way...."Don't you know you know you could get hurt?" "Why didn't you think of that before sending me to get shot at?" "You have a Bad Attitude!" "Why yes, I do. There is something about having to lay in bed at attention for a bunch of people who have never heard a shot fired in anger that gives me a Bad Attitude. And why can't you do something about my pain meds being late, again and why am I trying to mop a floor from a gurney?" "Why can't these important people do their damn' jobs?"

Boom! Another Article 15. I've been a civilian for a lot of years now, and hospitalized a few times since. It's still hard not to "lay back, tall when the Doc comes in the room.

I wonder if the military hospitals are still such a mess. Probably, they're big on tradition.

I just read that the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital was closed in '96. Part of the Peace Dividend. So wounded, injured or sick Sailors and Marines from that part of the country won't be anywhere near their families.