You Are 40% Cynical

Generally you give people the benefit of the doubt. But there are exceptions. You buy into many of the things that mainstream society believes, but you’re not anybody’s fool.

h/t Blonde Sagacity

Does anyone know how many Missiles/Rockets Hezbollah has fired into Israel to date?

The last count I saw was 2200 but that was earlier in the week.

Kind of blunts that whole “dispraportionate response” thing, huh?

It’s going rather well, which is the reason I have not posted much over the last week…umm, since being let go from the last installment of pink-collar wage slavery. Timmer has been writing about that still little voice that whispers “It’s time”, when you have to let go and move on… and I just kept thinking, as I was driving home with my personal stuff thrown into a cardboard box (and it took about five minutes to clear out all of it from my desk) “Whoopee! I can stay at home tomorrow, and finish that chapter!” Maybe it’s time to do what I really, really love doing!

They gave me a decisive push, just as I was working up the nerve to jump, and I have hardly thought of the place at all this week, although I did wonder on Monday if anyone could call the house, asking if something had been ordered, or delivered, or whatever; although frankly I can’t see how they would have the nerve, and they can figure that out from my files anyway. And I swear, I was that close to snarling, the next time someone asked me for copies of this or that, “The copier is over there, and your legs aren’t painted on!” No, time to move on.

So, another milblogger, blessed be his name, referred me to a literary agent, who read the chapter and loved it, extravagantly. (I googled him, of course… do I look like a fool? Me, who worked for an intellectual property firm for three years?) This agent wants to see more, basically about a third of the projected work, just to be assured that I can, actually carry through with it. It seems that a discouragingly large number of first-time writers have a failure of nerve at about the 15,000 word mark, and as I have mapped out an outline for “To Truckee’s Trail” of 19 or 20 chapters of 5,000 to 6,000 words…. Well, that works out to 100,000-120,000 words. Or more, if I really start to get into it.

I am working full time at this, and if I keep to my schedule and detailed chapter outline, I will have six continuous chapters by next Friday. Half a chapter a day of at least 3,000 words of polished prose, witty conversation, exciting narrative, and vivid descriptions. Piece of cake, people, piece of cake.

So, that is where I have been, back in the 19th century, coping with flooded rivers, recalcitrant ox teams, quarreling emigrants, cooking over smoking campfires, and generally keeping everything moving; all those cute children, brave women, and gallant men… and there’s a bit with a dog, too. Everyone likes a funny bit with a dog.

One of the best behind the scenes looks at Hollywood, ever. It’s long, but it’s worth it.

Via Bill INDC.

If I don’t know or care who Glenn Greenwald is, does that mean I have to turn in my Blogger I.D. Card?

Da Winnahs:

1.) Adjustah: “Boy, I sure hope noone has a camera! I’d hate to end up in The Daily Brief’s caption contest!”

2.) Debby: “you know, they warned me something like this might happen when I took that course on nuclear reactors!”

3.) Sgt Mom: “The unfortunate result of answering one of those “enlargement” spam e-mail offers.”

Okay, the secret for maximum participation is something phallic. Interesting.

On 9/11/2006, 2996 names will be blogged about, by 2996 bloggers. I read about it on Sgt Hook’s blog, and he points back to the originator of the idea.

The concept is to remember the fallen, not their murderers. So far, 995 people have signed up. That will cover 33.2% of the names, so there’s still a ways to go.

I’m certain that some TDBers will be signing up, either for here or their personal blogs. If you want to sign up, click this link.

Thanks to the 995 who have signed up so far, representing not just the USA, but at least 10 other countries (maybe more, by now - that was as of June 20). Those who died deserve to be remembered.

This is what I have been doing on weekends for the past couple of months, in the name of a more beautiful and dog-proof backyard, with really rather striking results, once the finished product is set on a layer of sand, and surrounded with pea-gravel.

Go to a craft supply store like Michaels’ or Hobby Lobby, or even the aisle at Walmart where they have the flower-arranging supplies. Buy a couple of bags of those flattened glass marbles, or the sea-shell shapes, ornamental polished pebbles, or the pieces of tumbled sea glass, or little square tiles, or whatever, in whatever colors work for you as a truly creative human being.

Go to Lowes’ or Home Depot, or whatever they call the home DIY outlet in your neck of civilization and buy:

A bunch of those heavy, clear plastic plant saucers… the 14” to 21” ones work best, but last weekend Blondie and my neighbor Judy from down the road seriously came down on me for wanting to buy a 30”+ one! I wanted to seriously create! Help, help, I’m being repressed! The best ones are about two inches deep, or have regular ridges along the sides, which allow you to easily set a level.

As many sacks of mortar mix as the back of your car, and your own back can handle. It comes in 40lb bags which tend to leak, somewhat.

A bag of those rubber gloves they sell in the paint aisle. Seriously, working with mortar mix is not something you want to do with your bare hands. If you don’t have a large bucket or some kind of cement-mixing trug at home, buy one of those, too. I have a large bucket which once held about 10 gallons of kitty litter, and a small GI-issue shovel, which works for me.

A couple of stiff plastic and/or wire brushes. They have inexpensive ones in the same general area where they sell paint-stripper.

Set out the plastic plant saucers on a level surface.

Mix the mortar mix with water— generally about one quarter to a third of water, to the amount of mortar mix. It should be just damp and slushy enough to stick together. (Do not use too much water. It will not work well, trust me on this.) Stir well with whatever you have, and only handle the stuff with gloves on.

Slop enough gloppy mortar-mix into each plant saucer, and slap with your hands to pack into place. Don’t worry, if it seems too dry, at first. The water will rise to the surface, and saturate the whole mass of stuff in the mold.

When the mortar mix is packed into mold (one forty pound sack fills one large, two medium and a couple of small saucers, although your mileage may vary) level it off, and set the marbles, glass, pebbles or glass onto the surface. Slap it gently to embed them in the mortar. Be creative, this is when you let your inner artiste have free rein. Don’t worry if some of the mortar slops over the glass a little bit.

Allow to sit for at least 6 hours. If you haven’t added too much water to the mix, it will be solid enough to un-mould. Let them sit for another six hours, or overnight, and brush the dried surface with the wire or plastic brushes, to clean off the glass inserts, and make a nice roughened surface of the mortar.

These will look really cool. You can also lay flat leaves onto the wet mortar, and press them in just enough to make leaf-printed stepping stones.

Note: I have used purple and green marbles, and real grape leaves to make a lot of stones with bunches of grapes set in them. But remember to wear plastic gloves, this stuff is hell on your hands, otherwise.

You walk into the cubicles and your Airmen are having a critical discussion on the evolution of the Green Power Ranger.

Your Airmen are listening to bands you’ve never ever ever heard of…ever.

You set up a shared folder in the organizational folders to dump all the different form letters that folks in the squadron need, and a Chief thinks you’re brilliant.

A Lt Col thinks it’s hilarious that someone “your age” would own a RAZR.

You realize that the training that the Air Force has been promising for your career field for the past ten years, has been stashed in some CBT Library that rarely works and that you’re never going to get classroom time for it. The upside? No TDY to Keesler.

You inspect dorm rooms and one of the younger senior NCOs calls you an asshole for writing “Clean me!” in the dust on one of his troops’ T.V. set. My thinking was…I didn’t count it as strike three and fail the little pig.

Michele and Turtle are into another meme.

Name 26 song titles that have had an impact on you. Emotionially, physically, sexually or mentally. Or, cause they just rocked.

OK. That’s easy.

But, they have to all be different bands.

Okay, open up iTunes, alphabetize by song name, let’s see what we come up with. Please remember that I’m following the criteria above. I’ll explain only those where you all have questions. Also realize that this could change tomorrow.

A - Angel From Montgomery - Bonnie Raitt with John Prine.

B - By My Side - Soundtrack of Godspell

C - Candy’s Room - Bruce Springsteen

D - Don’t Leave Me This Way - Thelma Houston

E - Excitable Boy - Warren Zevon

F - Fly Me To the Moon - Diana Krall

G - Get the Party Started - Pink

H - Head On - The Jesus and Mary Chain

I - In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel

J - Just Another Nervous Wreck - Supertramp

K - Kung Fu Fighting - Karl Lewis

L - Let’s Get It On - Marvin Gaye

M - Mysterious Ways - U2

N - Night Moves - Bob Seger

O - Ooby Dooby - Roy Orbison

P - Paranoid - Black Sabbath

Q - Queen of Hearts - Dave Edmunds

R - Run Riot - Def Leppard

S - Slit Skirts - Pete Townshend

T - Take Me Home Tonight - Eddie Money

U - Under Pressure - David Bowie and Queen

V - Viva Las Vegas - Elvis Presley

W - When I Write the Book - Nick Lowe

X - X Offender - Blondie

Y - Your Song - Elton John

Z - Zoot Suit Riot - Cherry Poppin’ Daddies

I’ve got at least six other songs that begin with “Z” in my library. I don’t know what the problem was. I’m just happy that I’ve got that Blondie Collection and that I really love that song.

And I’m thinking Pablo and Damian need to be tagged with this one.

After an absolutely killer performance of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time, Dilana has completely won me over. It was between her, Lukas, Storm, and Toby up until tonight. Shot a shiver down my spine that I’m just not used to these days.

Amazing. I’m a fan.

This is tasty sample of the latest book, tenatively titled “To Truckee’s Trail”, the one for which I have a complete proposal all ready. The select few who have seen the story so far are fascinated, and I myself think it could be very, very big… could it be “Gone With the Wind” big, or “Harry Potter” big? Let’s see if the blogosphere can make it so…
I want to be able to sit at home and write the rest of it, I am deeply interested in the people I am writing about, enthralled by the process of working out how they pulled off their very daring adventure. I have had enough experience as an amateur “unknown” to know that just sending the proposal off to a handy selection of publishers listed in the Writers’ Guide is a waste of time and postage. Been there, did that, have a large collection of impersonal rejection slips that gave no indication that my submission envelope had even been opened.

I am posting this to show it off, and to get a serious publisher interested. I am bouyed by optimism, and the knowlege that big money has been paid for stuff that IMO is much, much worse than this. (Oh, and I have copyright protection for this. I did not spend three years working for an intellectual property firm for nothing.)

From Chapter 11, “To Truckee’s Trail”.

From Dr. Townsend’s Journal: “14th November, 1844 In the wilderness at the fork of Truckee’s River. This day, I can scarce put pen to paper, being distract’d with grief and worry. Our party is split yet again, this again being of our own decision. My own Dearest Darling is gone ahead with five others, judged fit and sound, and without the care of little ones to attend. Yesterday, our labors brought us to where a tributary came down from the mountains, athwart our path, and leading to the south…We made camp in late afternoon, and Captain Stephens called a meeting….”

“We can’t take the wagons much farther,” said Young Martin flatly, as if daring anyone to argue with him. “Unless we follow the west tributary.” He dropped down onto an upturned cask that he was using as a stool, and wincingly pulled off his waterlogged boots. He peeled off his socks, which were also soaked.
“Out of our way,” murmured Old Man Hitchcock, looking into the fire, past his eternal whittling, and the knife-blade. “The long way around.”
“The long way around, may prove the shortest, “said Stephens gently. “We done well before, always heading straight west. At the Green, and again from the Sink. I’ll wait to hear what Isaac says.” He sat a little way back from the fire on a half-rotted fallen log, Dog at his feet. Her great fawn and black head lay on her forepaws, golden eyes going back and forth as if she was paying intelligent attention to the conversation. The fire was the smallest of the three outside the circle of wagons and tents, set up on the lee side a barrier against the icy breeze roaring down from the high mountains, and the cold that came at sundown, the cold that was most particularly felt when the exertions of the day were over. Allen Montgomery, and the Murphy brothers, Jamie, Daniel, Bernard and Johnny hunkered around the fire. It had the air of an informal meeting of the men, while the women cooked a sparse, but much anticipated meal. The horses and Hitchcocks’ precious two mules were close-picketed for the night, just on the other side of the wagons, inside the circle jostling each other for mouthfuls of tall dry grass bristling up from the day’s accumulation of snow and armfuls of green rushes cut from the riverbank by the women and older children,. Around that fragile shelter of canvas, brush and fires, the snow was trampled to a muddy slush. At other fires, Isabella and Sarah, and the Murphy women moved in an intricate ballet, skirts, shawls and sleeves carefully held back from the fire, as they cooked the evening meal: stew and cornbread that tasted like sawdust with no butter to spread richly on it, dried apples stewed with a little spice Even Isabella’s milk cow had gone dry, months since. Mary-Bee Murphy sat with Mary Miller on a wagon-bench, dandling the baby Ellen, while her sons and Willie Miller and their cousin Mary leaned on Old Martin’s knees, or sat bundled in shawls at his feet as he told them another endless story about miracles, and goblins and old heroes of Erin. It was hard to judge by a casual looking, John thought, of how far along Mary-Bee was, all bundled in shawls as she was, but she still walked lightly. She was not far enough gone in pregnancy to be awkward, but she tired easily.

His glance was drawn finally, as it always would be, to his own Liz, her hair silver-gilt in the firelight, wrapped in two shawls and the buffalo robe that Old Man Hitchcock had traded for her at Fort Laramie, from the tribes. Sitting on another wagon-bench, she had Sadie in her lap, Nancy and Eddie leaning confidingly against her, under the shelter of that buffalo robe. Poor Liz, she had never been any shakes as a cook, had never even had to be, let alone over a campfire. But to do her fair, she tried her best, at a cost of some burnt fingers, scorching her own apron, and upsetting a pot a beans and near to putting the fire out, whereupon Isabella spoke out in tones of mixed exasperation and affection, somewhere back along the trail when the three families had begun to share a campfire. Elizabeth would do them all favors if she could but stay away from the fire and the hot kettles; chop the vegetables, if she would be so kind, and read to the children, give them lessons and keep them out from underfoot. In that mysterious way she had, of seeming to know when he was gazing at her, her eyes lifted from the book and met his for a smiling moment, quiet communion among the crowd around the campfire. He was here, she was there, and yet they were alone together. And then she went on reading to the children, and he was supposed to be also paying attention to the needs of others in the party.
They had all become a tribe, John realized, a tribe of nomads as like to any of the Indians, bound together, sharing hardship alike with those moments in the evening, those rare moments of rest. Across the trampled circle, Moses and Dennis Martin stepped out of the darkness between two wagons, each with an armload of firewood. They piled their burden roughly beside the largest of the fires, and a storm bright burst of sparks flew up like fireflies meeting the stars overhead.

“… tonight, after we’ve supped,”
“A meeting?” John was startled back from his nearly simultaneous contemplation of his own dear Liz, and of Young Martin’s left foot, dead white, nearly bloodless, propped up on his knee. “Pardon…I was lost, considering this interesting combination of foot-rot and frostbite. Dry socks, Martin, dry socks and liniment. And contemplate sealing your boots with tallow and paraffin… other than that, consider staying out of the water, as much as you can…”
There was a dry laugh, shared around the circle around fire. In the last three weeks, they had been forced into the river-bed time and time again, as it provided the easiest, and on occasion, the only passage for the wagons.
“We must consider what we should do now,” “Stephens said. “We might send a party ahead, along the south branch…” He fell silent, as Mary-Bee Murphy came with a basin and a steaming kettle and Isabella, bearing a dry cloth and her box of medicinal salts.
“Doctor, tell him to soak in this for a bit, and dry them carefully. We’ll bring a set of dry stockings, presently, and dry his boots beside the fire.”
“Mrs. Patterson, you are a tonic, “Extravagantly, John caught her hand, and took it to his lips.”And an excellent nurse; I shall see that the patient follows your advice to the letter.”
Isabella gave him a very severe look, as Mary-Bee awkwardly set down the basin and filled it with steaming water. Isabella added salts, and gathered up the socks and the sodden boots. Mary-Bee looked as if she would say something more, but she merely patted her husband’s shoulder and followed in Isabella’s wake.
“See that he does then, Doctor Townsend, see that he does.” Isabella shot, over her shoulder. When she was gone back to the cook-fire and out of hearing, Stephens remarked,
“A good woman is above the price of rubies.”
“I long to meet the man who would play Petruchio to her Kate,” John said, just as Greenwood appeared as silently as a ghost in the circle of firelight, shadowed by Britt, and heralded only by the scent of tobacco smoke. Stephens grinned, a flash of teeth in his whiskered face. “Nearly as much as I’d like to be warm again, and over those pestilential mountains; he must be a formidable man… I imagine a very Ajax.”
“Not so,” said Hitchcock seriously. “M’son-in-law’s a very mild-tempered man. Never has much to say for hisself.”
“Married to her, who’d wonder?” ungallantly ventured Bernard Murphy sotto voice, as Greenwood sank onto his heels, and held his hands to the fire, looking every day of his four-score. Britt took up a seat next to Stephens on the log, and casually gentled Dog’s alertly-raised head. She lay down again, with an inaudible “woof”.
Stephens merely lifted his brows, and Greenwood sighed;
“Not so good for wagons, Cap’n. Not ‘less you had a month of good weather and a hundred strong men and them with an ax in either hand. Horses? Yeah, easy enough. We blazed it, two, three miles, far as we could, ‘fore sunset. Horses and pack-mules. It looks right promising, otherwise… but I’ve always said if you want to be over these mountains by Winterset, you’ll have to leave all your traps and ride hard.”
“No.” It was Isabella’s voice. She had returned unobtrusively to the fire-circle, joining the men, as was her right as a wagon-owner and the head of a family. ”We cannot just leave our traps, as you say. We have chosen out all the most valuable and useful of goods, and brought them all this way; we cannot just drop them by the wayside as things of no consequence. ”
Greenwood shrugged. “They’re only things. You can get back things, or something like them.”
“Things?! Things, as you say, but they are our things! We considered them very carefully; these are things that are not only valuable to us, but things that we need! They are not frivolous possessions, but necessary tools to earning our livelihoods… without those “things” we should be beggars, dependant upon charity.” Her keen hawk-glance went round the circle of faces, and John thought of his books, the case of surgical instruments… Liz’ precious china tea set, that came from her grandmother, whose family had brought it from Germany and cherished through generations.
“And what about the children? Can they ride hard? Can Mary Miller ride, with a baby at breast, or Mary-Bee Murphy, so close to term? The wagon is our shelter, our home! I’ll not be a beggar, I’ll not be destitute. What if any of us fall sick, though lack of shelter? What do you say, Doctor? How many of us would be fit to leave all behind and ride hard?” Her hard, inimical hawk-glance pinned him, challenged him to speak, to venture his opinion.
“The very youngest or those of a weak constitution could not endure very long in such conditions as this without shelter, “John stammered. As many times as he had talked this over with Elizabeth in the privacy of their bed, be was still stuck on the two-horned dilemma, having never come to any conclusion in his own mind, “Nor the very old…” Old Hitchcock snorted derisively at this, and would have said more but for his daughter’s fierce gaze swinging around towards him. “The wagons… they are at least of some shelter. I would not choose to leave them.”
“I do not think we could carry enough food and blankets and tents on our backs for the weeks of traveling we still must endure… not if we had to carry the weakest of us, “ Stephens sighed, lines of weariness and responsibility harshly grooving his features in the firelight. “Our supplies diminish every day that we spend, this side of the mountains… I know that my own do, so I assume the same of you all. Old Man, how far do you think we might be from Sutter’s Fort?”
“I do not know for sure, “Greenwood said, bluntly. “Maybe a week’s journey on a good horse to the summit, maybe longer. Sutter’s place is down in the flatland, on the river, a good piece from the mountains on the other side.”
“What sort of man is he? If we sent for aid for ourselves, would he send it?”
“Aye, he would. I know nothing of him at first hand, though. But he is accounted to be generous, and he has ambitions.”
“As do most men… I’ve a hankering to know what he has ambitions for…” Stephens stood, wearily and stretched, “Doctor, I’d like to call a meeting… not now, after we’ve all supped. Not just the wagon-owners. Everybody. Tell them it’s to consider sending out a small party ahead. He saluted Isabella with a touch to his hat-brim, “Pardon, all. I shall check on the stock. No, “he added as Greenwood looked to get to his feet. “You’ve earned some rest, Old Man. ” Dog’s eyes had snapped open as soon as Stephens moved, and now she lurched to her feet and padded after him into the darkness outside the firelight. John sighed; he was wearied to his very bones, how Greenwood must feel after his long scout today, he could only imagine. The old man must be made of iron and buffalo sinews, to have endured this kind of odyssey for years.

“Supper’s ready,” said Isabella abruptly. “The table is set… that is, if we had a table.”
John stood, and bowed, elaborately offering her his arm,
“My dear Mrs. Patterson, may I then escort you to… our lack of table and our evening repast?”
Isabella nodded, regally, her lips twitching with her effort not to laugh.
“How very kind of you, my dear Doctor.” She took his arm with a flourish, and they moved with elaborate gentility across the trampled mud to their own fire, where Elizabeth watched them, laughing, while the children stared in baffled astonishment.
“La, Mrs. Patterson, I fear you are flirting with my own husband!” she said, while Isabella dissolved into hearty and infectious giggles.
“My dearest, I am wounded at the heart!” John slapped his chest theatrically, “How could I consider being unfaithful to you, even in thought!” He sank onto the bench next to her, as the children had sprung up to help Isabella pass out tin plates. He added in a low voice, “Although I confess, Darling Dearest, I now can see how Mr. Patterson’s affections might have been drawn towards our own Kate.”
“Because she is altogether splendid, “Elizabeth replied, “But too many men are fools. A pretty face and a kind regard is all that is necessary for their attentions. A strong mind and a stout heart are not obviously apparent.”
“I am properly rebuked,” John said, and they sat together in perfect companionship under the buffalo robe, while Sadie brought around the tin plates and her brother a pan of cornbread. Isabella carried an iron Dutch oven, from which the most savory scents emanated. She carefully doled out a ladle and a half to each. Across the fire, John noticed that Allen and Sarah sat next to each other, but separate. Elizabeth followed his gaze, and intuited his thoughts, perfectly.
“They are not happy, Dearest Darling. I doubt they will ever be. They married in haste, thinking they would come to love each other… but I cannot think how that will happen, under the trials of such a journey as this.”
“Perhaps when we get to California…” John ventured, “It may yet work out….” He took a mouthful of the stew. “Oh, this is truly succulent fare… or am I just amazingly hungry?”
Elizabeth twinkled at him.
“It is a most Luccellian feast, is it not?”
“This cannot be a potato, surely? I thought we had eaten the last of the potatoes months ago… Murphy made such an event of it; I made a note in the trail diary.”
“No, “Elizabeth replied, serenely. “Those things that taste somewhat potato-like are roots of water-reeds. The Indians eat them, even dry and grind a sort of flour out of them or so Mr. Hitchcock says. And we found stands of wild onions when we first came up into the mountains. Truly, this wilderness is a garden if you know where to look.”
“Ah, well… “John looked with new interest into the contents of his tin plate. “We are well served, and well fed, Darling Dearest. I could not ask for better companions in all the world.”
“So…” Elizabeth ate with renewed interest, “What does Mr. Stephens think we should do next?”
“He wants to hold a meeting.” John replied, “I think he wants to send an advance party, following the creek towards the south, whilst we move the wagons west along the main body. We cannot spare too many men, or horses, though. But at least, they could bring fresh supplies and teams from Sutter’s.”
“Who will he send?” Elizabeth looked around the camp. “Who can be spared? Who can be asked to leave their families behind?” John followed her gaze. Across the fire, Moses and Allen laughed together. Sarah’s back was to her husband; she talked quietly with Isabella, who seemed to be listening with half an ear while she supervised the children. A tiny line worry-line appeared between Elizabeth’s level brows.
“He’ll ask for volunteers, first.”
“Moses will ask, I am sure of it.”
“Darling Dear, he is not a child any more. He is a man, or close enough to it. And we will talk it all over tonight after we have supped.” Elizabeth’s merry mood seemed to have fled, though, and they ate in companionable silence, until they could see that other men were drifting to Stephens’s campfire, carrying benches and stools; Old Martin Murphy and his sons and James Miller, Patrick Martin and his boys, young Sullivan, and the various drovers. Sarah and Elizabeth hastily scoured the plates clean, and followed Isabella. John clambered up into the wagon for his little writing-case; he had a sense that he ought to be taking the minutes.

The wagon-owners settled themselves in the first circle around the fire: Stephens and Greenwood, Isabella and her father, Allan, Martin Murphy and his sons, and James Miller, John Sullivan and Patrick Martin. Wives, and older children, brothers, and the hired men filled in the spaces, and spilled over to a second circle, and stood in the gaps behind benches and chairs brought out from the wagons. Coming to the confluence of waters meant a very real decision about what route to take now, a decision with nearly unbearable consequences, now that snow had been falling for weeks. No wonder Old Martin looked particularly worn, and cosseted his grandchildren. Fully half the party was his blood kin, and he the person most responsible for bringing them here, too.

“Aye, we must send for assistance, while we can, “Old Martin agreed. Like Isabella, he would not countenance abandoning the wagons; consensus regarding taking the slightly more open but possibly longer route along the creek was complete. “And how many shall we send? And who can we spare, when we’ll need every strong man to move the wagons, hey?”
“No more than six, “Greenwood replied. “Strong riders, with little gear and just enough food. Eight of the horses are in fair condition, still— six to ride, two for spares and packs.” He cleared his throat and spat thoughtfully into the fire. He seemed almost to hesitate before saying more. “Whoever they be, ‘twill be six less on the foodstuff left to the main party. And they need not all be men, either.”
That was a notion to cause an intake of breath around the fire, and a sudden, thoughtful silence. Old Martin was the first to break it.
“I’d not countenance asking a mother or a father yet, to leave children behind in a place such as this… no, no, never, ‘tis an unnatural thing you would be asking. Not even the heathen savages would ask such.”
“No,” Agreed Old Man Greenwood, “But among the tribes, women without children commonly ride with the hunting parties. They do the butchering and dressing out, and cooking and all.”
“What a wonderful time they must have, doing all the work of it!” Sarah said, in a voice that carried just far enough, and there was a rustle of wry laughter from the women on the edge of the campfire.
“So how do we choose the six; should we draw lots from among those of age, young, fit and without children?”
“Aye,” agreed Old Martin readily, “But it is in my mind; we should first pledge to assist the families of those chosen, in whatever they may require. Our needs might leave them short of a provider, and ready hands.”
“So… are we agreed on that, then? To draw lots for a place and to see to the needs of any family left short.” Stephens’ ugly, lined face appeared more than usually like a grim, fire-gilded gargoyle, looking around the circle. “We are agreed then? Are there any exceptions?”
“None but you, Captain…and the Doctor. You are more needed here with us.”
“I had no intent of leaving this company, until we are all safe,” replied Stephens, dourly. “Nor does Doctor Townsend; so, how many will draw?” He leant down and began pulling stems of dried grass from the brown tufts which were still un-trampled around his log seat.”
The quiet murmurs ran around the campfire, quickly tallying names; Alan and Sarah, Greenwood’s two sons, and Stephens’ young drover, Tom Flombeau, Oliver Patterson, old Martin’s youngest children, Daniel, Bernard and Johnny, and their sister Helen. The four drovers, Edmund Bray, Vincent Calvin, Matthew Harbin, Oliver Magnent, and Francis, John’s own hired man. Joseph Foster, and Moses’ close friends, Dennis and Patrick Martin. Not the Sullivans, though, after some discussion, since John and Mary had the care of their younger brothers. But that left Moses himself… and his Elizabeth. John’s heart seemed to turn over in his chest; all of them, fit and strong and young, and childless, twenty of them, nearly a half of the party. Stephens cut twenty straws, and then cut six of them in half. He set them in his palm so they were all level, and then closed his fist. He held out that fist towards Allan Montgomery first, then Britt and John Greenwood. Allan and John Greenwood drew long straws, and so did Britt. Moses also drew a long straw. His disappointment was obvious, but John hoped that his own relief was not. The hired men drew in a body: the Irish drover boys and Stephens’s drover lad, the dark Louisiana French boy whose name was such a tongue-twister, all drew long straws, but Oliver Magnent, and Francis Deland both drew short. Joseph Foster stepped forward to draw: another long.
“Ach, another two months of this!” he said, in good-humored disappointment. “And all on short rations, too!”
“Daniel… Johnny, ye and Bernard step forrard… and where’s Helen?” Old Martin chided his three youngest into the circle and looked on with a deathly countenance, when Helen, Johnny and Daniel all drew short straws. Oliver Patterson stepped forward into the firelight to draw, and Stephens looked at him with a particularly severe and interrogatory frown.
“Boy, are you of age for this venture?” and Oliver blushed deep red as Isabella said, white-lipped.
“He will be eighteen in three months.”
Oliver drew a long straw though, leaving a pair of wispy straws in Stephens’ fist; Sarah and Elizabeth stepped forward, and John’s heart felt like was turning over entirely within his chest. Sarah drew a long straw, and could not hide the disappointment on her face. And Elizabeth then took forth the last of the straws from Stephens’ hand: a short straw for the horse party.
Elizabeth, not Moses; John was shaken down to the soul. Old Martin looked hardly better. Stephens let the murmurings of excitement and sympathy die down and quietly said,
“Doctor, take down their names into the trail journal… I’ll want to talk to them, all together. They must leave in the morning, as soon as we are ready.” He spoke a little louder, to the gathering at large. “Thank-ee all, sitting out in the cold for this. It’s only trail business we had to settle tonight.” Taking their cue, the women began chivvying away the children who already had not been settled to bed. The younger men and the families of those who had not been chosen drifted away from Stephens’ campfire in their wake; after such a day of travel, a warm bedroll had a powerful and irresistible allure. As the evening meeting broke apart, Greenwood thoughtfully sized up the six chosen.
“You were well-guided, Cap’n… they are well-suited. Among the women, Mrs. Townsend has the best seat, and little Helen is young and strong. It is good that her brothers are among them, they are both good hands with the beasts, and fearless about venturing into wilderness. Magnent and Deland are good shots, and as trail-wise as they come, besides being used to the cold and the snow…”
“For myself, I am glad Mrs. Townsend is amongst them.” John said. His voice sounded hollow to his own ears. “The cold and the hardships are so extreme, I fear for her, under these circumstances, and welcome any means for her to escape farther exposure.”
“Aye, it may be best at that.” Old Greenwood sighed, grimly. “Would that I could urge all to travel so light, and escape these mountains. At least, they will be six less appetites upon the supplies we have left.”
Old Martin and his children, Elizabeth and the two French lads, all of the chosen lingered by the fire as they were bidden. In the firelight, Elizabeth looked as young as they; all of them so eager, fired by the prospect of adventure, just as they all had been six months ago at Council Bluffs, when the grass was lush and deep, escaping the drudgery of a mundane existence. Now they looked fair to escape another one, of everlasting cold, and the brutal labor of moving the wagons another mile or so farther up the river, the river whose jaws were closing in on them like a trap. Stephens looked at them, and smiled, wryly,
“No great words… wish I did. Ride hard. Look after each other and the horses. Get to Sutters’ place and bring back help.”
“We shall!” Elizabeth’s chin lifted, and her eyes were fired with determination. “We are leaving our kin and dearest ones, and our friends, knowing that their very salvation depends on us. Depend on us, Captain Stephens, we will not fail.”
And even if Old Greenwood seemed to hide a half-cynical smile, the others; Helen and her brothers, the two Frenchmen, all shared the same look of bright dedication. They could not fail; they would throw themselves at the high mountains, the rocks and rivers and the ice, they would win through it all, they would come through, rescue their families, and John’s heart felt as if it would burst with a combination of pride and dread.

“And we will not fail, “Elizabeth whispered, when they lay tucked together in their bedroll of blankets and quilts, and the trusty buffalo robe, all spread out on top of the platform of boxes and flat-topped trunks in their wagon. The drawstrings and flaps were drawn tight against the cold, and a kettle of coals taken from the fire lent an illusion of warmth to the tiny, canvas-walled room. A pair of flat stones heated in the fire, wrapped in a blanket and tucked in the bottom of their bed produced a slightly more convincing degree of warmth, together with the warmth of each other, curled into each other, spoon-fashioned. Around and outside this fragile shelter, came the quiet, near-to sleep voices of Isabella’s children, Allan Montgomery’s irritated voice, raised and quickly hushed, a quiet crunch of regular footsteps in new snow, the horses pawing the frozen ground, searching for more of the thin dried grass. Under it all, a nearly-imperceptible yet menacing rustle, the constant sound of more snow falling, brushing the canvas and pine branches; fat flakes like feathers, like falling leaves.
“I wish…” said John, into her hair, hugging her dear and familiar self into the shelter of his own body, “…I wish that we…”
“Had not taken this journey?” Elizabeth picked up the thread of his thoughts as expertly as she had always done. “Dearest Darling, never wish that. No, never. For I am glad that we have, even if this would be the last night we spend in each others’ arms… and it will not be, “she added firmly, and took his hand in hers, and held it first to her lips, and then her cheek. After a moment, she continued, thoughtfully. “I almost feel as if my life before we started this journey was lived in shadows, a sort of half-life, and then I came out into bright sunshine. Did not we decide upon this great adventure partly because of my own health? And now I am in good heath, and have shared your life in a way that I never could before… in our present emergency, I am accounted strong enough to be given a great task, a responsibility? There should be no greater reward, I do not ask for any such. My Dearest Darling, there is nothing to regret… I love you all the more for having made this possible. Have no fear for me… I will be safe, and we will not fail.”
“I pray that shall be so, “ John tightened his arms around her, at once wishing for this night with Elizabeth never to end, full knowing it would be the last they would spend together for months, and yet wishing that it were tomorrow already, and the agony of parting already over. He was torn between pride in her courage, and worry for her that shook him down to his bones. “We should go to sleep, Dearest Darling, you’ll need as much rest tonight as possible.”
“Mmmm. Don’t stay awake yourself, watching over me, “Elizabeth said, teasingly, but John did try to fight off slumber for a while, until sleep claimed them both. And then too soon it was dark morning, and snow still falling, and he was standing, wretchedly tongue-tied in front of people, for once. He had promised Elizabeth, back in the desert, that he should not have to go on a long scout again, and be separated from her. And now, ironically, she was riding on a long scout, leaving him to plod behind. “Promise me rather, that wherever one of us will go, the other will follow after in a little while,” she had said, and so he would be following after, but it was bitter, bitter. Moses and he had saddled Beau, had rolled up the buffalo robe and two or three blankets around a pitiful bag of dried meats and hard-tack, and a little ground coffee and strapped them behind her saddle. Isabella and Sarah had fussed over what to send with her, just as the Murphy women had fussed over Helen, Johnny and Daniel. Old Martin had tears rolling down his cheeks as he gave his youngest daughter a boost into the saddle. Daniel’s paint pony danced impatiently, crunching the fresh-fallen snow underfoot; the lads were eager to be away.
“Dearest Darling, I must go now.” She leaned down from the saddle, and brushed his cheek with her lips, and then she was gone, following the rest of the mounted party. They were veiled in falling slow before they reached the first bend and were lost to sight, but he was almost sure she turned in the saddle and lifted her hand in one last farewell.

1.) Paul: “If the pilot’s good, I mean if he’s reeeally sharp, he can barrel that thing in so low, oh it’s a sight to see. You wouldn’t expect it with a big ol’ plane like a ‘52, but varrrooom! The jet exhaust… frying chickens in the barnyard!”

2.) Rodney Dill: “OK, now which one is for ‘loser?’ I never seem to remember?”

3.) Chief: “The regulation 33G7-32-447 for toilet training is this wide and this thick and that is only volume one. The new manual will have 3 volumes for senior enlisted personel and above.”

After reading and watching some of the news today, let me see if I’ve got this straight:

After decades of cycles of being attacked, retaliating, told to quit winning, which allows their enemies to resupply and recruit new members and begin the cycle all over again, the rest of the world, including the Vatican, is pissed off because Israel isn’t fighting fair?

And Lebanon, who hasn’t lifted a finger to get the terrorists out of their own country, is bitching about Israel doing the job that they refuse to do, and is threatening to join the terrorists in repelling Israel should they come in to finish the job that they wouldn’t do?

Do I have that just about right?

Sometimes I’ve very proud to be an American and extremely proud of the fact that we seem to be the only country on the planet that’s on Israel’s side.

I’m curious…does that assume that the rest of the world is okay with Israel’s destruction? After a day like today, I have to wonder.

…and while I’m thinking about it, does this point of view make me a Republican, or just an asshole?

Well, this is one of these good-news, bad news things— I was let go this afternoon from my latest job. I am wondering it it isn’t a case of cosmically being pushed before I could work up the nerve to jump, because for the last two months or so, I have been thinking constantly about how I didn’t want to be doing this, and I didn’t want to be there. The whole place and the duties inolved it bored me rigid … and I would rather be at home, writing.

I had worked up a proposal for a book, and I was spending every minute that I could working on it. The “book” is something– and about people that I would just rather be spending time with. I’ve been thinking about this— how increasingly discontented I have been with the pink-collar wage slavery. I am at a stage in my life when I want to do what satisfies me, what I feel good about doing 24-7. I hate the thought of stealing a little time to work at what I am good at and keeping it as a sideline, a hobby, when I know that working at something boring keeps me from what I am good at, and could concievably earn a living from.

Well, I need that living, now. I have a severance, and a pension, but I am just old enough to want to spend my time and energy at what I am really rather good at, and want to spend my time doing. Any good offers will be carefully considered, of course. And I have a Paypal account. Writing prospects greatfully accepted, or at least carefully considered.

Don’t worry about my long-term economic survival, I have a spare job and an AF pension and am hooked up with a couple of temp agencies, who offer me enough of a paycheck… I just would like to spend time, doing what I really want to be doing. I went to a sort of executive job counselor last year, when my last job went under, and the counselor there told me flat out that I should be doing what I really love, and am good at.

At this point, I really agree.

(Additional Note added the following morning)

Looking back on my most recent stint of employment, it strikes me now that there were a lot of people let go, while I was working there. Whenever the combination on the employee entrance was changed, we’d all be looking at each other and whispering, “OK, who got the chop this time?” One of the last things I took off the fax machine was a couple of resumes… it appears that a new receptionist was being advertised for. And I completely overlooked one of the key warning signs: a great deal of turnover in the position I held until yesterday afternoon, and none of them staying in the company or moving up. Hmmmm…

Our TI, Sgt. Petre’s pre-liberty lecture as regards the possibly alien mores and amorous intentions of various foreign military members that we might encounter was all of a piece with other informative lectures, mostly tinged with a certain air of dark warning. The famous Dempsy-Dumpster story was featured prominently, presumably as a cautionary tale for those of use whose lusts were so uncontrollable and whose aesthetic senses were so un-fastidious as to pick exactly that venue for a tête-à-tête. The choice of venues for engaging in sexual congress were pretty slim, on Lackland AFB’s training side, where total privacy was by practice and edict impossible. For that substantial portion of the world who has not gone through USAF basic training during the last four decades, the Dempsy-Dumpster story involved a male and female trainee who chose one of those enormous metal industrial trash containers for their particular brief encounter, only to be brutally interrupted in coitus by one of those enormous trash trucks, mechanically picking up the dumpster, and dumping all contents into the back of the truck. Hilarity ensued, along with least one broken limb, a considerable amount of embarrassment and a folk-tale for the ages. It might even have really happened, sometime in the early 1970ies, but I myself would have to see the contemporary incident report to believe it.

Anyway, we were forewarned, and presumably forearmed about the dangers posed to our virtue… although I thought it was very amusing that we had the birth control lecture a couple of days before we had town liberty, by an NCO who frizbee’d a diaphragm the entire length of the classroom, by way of catching our attention. Which she certainly did for some of us; that was the first time in my life I had actually seen any such thing. It was probably lost on others, though; one of our number included the wife of an E-6 who had four children. Others women were married, or had been married, or hoped to become married, and had practiced a bit… but we didn’t have much in the way of illusion about some of the foreign troops, after what happened to four of us, one drear December day.

It was at the point in our training when we were allowed in pairs and fours to go to various places on base by ourselves, on formally sanction errands… after overcoming a certain amount of disorientation. Like: how the hell can you find your way back to a place when all you have ever seen of the way there, is the back of the neck of the girl in formation ahead of you? And what the hell do you do, when the four of you are marching along, two and two— as you have to, because your TI said so— when you are about to intersect with a full flight of fifty or so other trainees, with their TI and guidon and all the pomp and majesty of a flight of trainees marching on their way to somewhere or other? Why, of course, just has you have been told— stand at full attention, until they have marched by, and then you can go about your own business.

But this flight was a flight of Saudi tech school trainees, and I had the dubious honor of standing at rigid attention on the sidewalk, while an entire flight of them marched by, making every sort of vulgar comment, sotto voice out of the ranks; bird-whistles, crude suggestions, rude noises, low whistles… the entire armory of disgusting guy behavior, all in one fell blast, on four female Air Force trainees, who were under orders to stand there at attention, without responding, in obedience to military protocol, as we were verbally treated like whores in a particularly disreputable neighborhood. Sgt Petre looked particularly black, when we reported this to her, afterwards. We were distraught, and particularly outraged that this would happen to us, on a military base, and when we were constrained from showing any kind of reaction. It was a thoroughly nasty experience, and during twenty subsequent years in the military, nothing quite equaled it for the feeling that it gave me of slugs crawling over my bare flesh. We all agreed that if we were ever out and about again, and spotted a Saudi flight, we would turn around and go a couple of blocks out of the way. No one wanted to repeat the experience, although Airman Duncan— tall, gawky, plain and outspoken— was haunted for the rest of her base liberties by a short, squat and silent Saudi student who magically appeared in any place were Duncan was, and spent the time watching her yearningly from across the room. We couldn’t figure out how he always knew where she was. Efficient information pipeline among the male students, I suppose. I had developed my own admirer, but at least he could bring himself to make pleasant conversation.

On Christmas Day, we had liberty base liberty for all of that afternoon, but no better place to spend it than the bowling alley. The snack bar was open, and a half dozen or so of us were making the most of a couple of hours of freedom; free to drink soft drinks, to laugh with the usual constellation of male trainees. After a certain point, I noticed that one of the Iranian trainees had been drawn into the happy little group. We knew he was Iranian because his uniform was hung with a lot of ornament, and in two clashing shades of blue. Oddly enough, he reminded me of Kiet, my Vietnamese foster-brother; the same air of gentle diffidence, even shyness. He lingered on the edge of the group, not speaking very much at first, but eventually he began talking to me. His name turned out to be Nassir. He had a picture of the Shah in his wallet, and one of the Empress Farah, too. We pointed out Dunc’s admirer, watching her as per usual from across the room, and Nassir laughed and told us how the Iranian students looked down on the Saudis as uncouth and ignorant country bumpkins— hicks from the sticks, with no culture.

We met a couple of more times, after that, and spent some pleasant hours in the darker corners of the Skylark, holding hands and kissing shyly, while he paid me elaborately flowery compliments… which amused me no end. I had never met a man in real life who could unreel yards and yards of it, like Elizabethan love poetry. I never took this gallent compliments seriously, being fairly level-headed about my own attractions; knowing that my own citizenship probably featured rather highly among them. No, I took his attentions not the least bit seriously, but I liked him and wished him well. He wrote to me a couple of times, after I departed for tech school and that real world outside from those stolen hours of base liberty. I fell in love with someone else, and went on to Japan, and about four years later the whirlwind of Khomeini’s Islamic revolution swept away the Shah’s government. I’ve always hoped that Nassir was able to avoid being caught up in that, or the war with Iraq that followed; it would have been such a bad place for a gentle, courtly poet, who was so proud of being a Persian, and had a picture of the Shah in his wallet, and stole kisses from the girl I used to be, in the shadowy corners of the Skylark.

More than half of the airmen you know were born after you enlisted.

All of the lieutenants you meet were born after you enlisted.

You’re older than half of the Chiefs (E9s) in your unit.

The Chiefs you deal with on a regular basis are still jockeying for position.

You get briefed on new upcoming official Air Force policy changes to the network by a contractor instead of a military member from the Comm Squadron…and there were two in the room.

Your career field is cut by 50% across the board and yet still, no one is willing to admit that they’re phasing you out.

You call another Master Sergeant in another shop to to get some clarification on a policy, and they tell you that what you’re reading in black and white in an Air Force Instruction, doesn’t really say what it says.

Every contractor you meet realizes you’re retirement eligible and quits working the issue at hand and starts actively recruiting you. Flattering, yes, but I killed an hour yesterday getting a rundown on the benefits of being an investigator for security clearances.

Every time you work out to stay “fit to fight” something new begins to hurt…in places you didn’t know existed on your body.

You have to stretch your feet first thing in morning so you don’t gimp around for the first two hours of the day.

You haven’t gone more than a couple of months in the last three years without a waiver for some part of the physical fitness test.

You watch Military Fear Factor and two zoomies, a geek from AFRTS and a gal from Combat Camera beat two Marines in a physical challenge. This to me is a sign of the apocolypse. From the look on the Marines’ faces, they’d concur.

You realize that you yourself aren’t afraid of going to Iraq or Afghanistan, but that your family is absolutely terrified by the idea.

Some airman writes the Air Force Times to comment on the new t-shirts for the new Digi-Cammies and wins himself a four-day trip to D.C.. Somehow this is considered punishment. When is leadership going to realize that maintainers have no shame and that anytime out of the shop is a holiday?

———–
Add your own in the comments.

I suppose a lot of midnight oil is being burned, in the Manchester Guardian editorial offices, at the UN and other various Euro-Transnational entities, the various offices of CAIR, and departments of Middle East Studies at universities everywhere, where the denizens thereof are trying to figure out and explain just why the general run of Americans— despite every inducement; intellectual, political and economic— continue in their stubborn, sentimental and persistent attachment to the State of Israel, and ensuring it’s continuing, if perilous existence. (Hey, wow! Totally complicated sentence— do I get any prize for this from the 19th Century literary appreciation wonks? No? OK, then, on with the explanation.).

I think there are a great many reasons for this; chief among them being that Jews have been part of the American scene, and more or less integrated into the great nation-building adventure since Colonial times. There has always been— depending on the time, place and social caste— a certain degree of social anti-Semitism, but generally achieving nothing like the degree of virulence it takes to achieve a pogrom, a Dreyfus Affair or a Holocaust. Congress making no law respecting a particular religion left us in the habit of seeing ones’ particular religious beliefs as a personal one, however outré they might be. Frankly, more political outrage and general suspicion was expended on Catholics— Popery! The Bishop of Rome! The Whore of Babylon! — at the time of the great Irish migrations in the mid-19th century. It was pretty difficult to work up much alarm about off-standard religious beliefs when Jews were compared against groups like the Shakers (no sex, communal living, workshops and free enterprise!) and the Mormons (plural marriages, communal living, free enterprise and separation!) and a whole other range of non-standard and extremely creative social and religious communes. All our base impulses leading towards rioting, lynching and intermittent attempts at genocide were pretty much focused during the 19th century on parties other than those of the Jewish persuasion; towards blacks, Hispanics, Mormons, and Native Americans, mostly. From reading various 19th century American writers, one gets the general impression that they knew of anti-Semitism, but didn’t quite grasp what all the fuss was about and relegated it to the intellectual back burner. Some time ago I had read of a famous American literary personality — I believe it was General Lew Wallace (the author of “Ben Hur”) who was asked what he felt about Jews, and he replied in all seriousness (IIRC) that Jesus had been born a Jew, and for him that pretty much settled the matter.
(more…)

Things are happening so fast in and around Israel, it’s hard to get a handle on what’s happening. I mean just a couple weeks ago it was Hamas kidnapping Israeli soldiers out of Gaza and now we’ve got Hezbollah kidnapping Israeli soldiers and lobbing rockets across the border from Lebanon. It’s hard to know the players without a program.

And as I surf around the news sites this morning, I see calls for the West (translation, The United States) to step in and do something before Israel kills any more civillians or destroys more Lebanese infrastructure. Shakes my head a couple of times and gives it a biff with my hand. Come again?

What is happening in the Mid-East is proof that trust in the West will never help Muslims. –Some Guy named Hosan in Egypt quoted on the BBC Web Page.

Hosan, no offense Bro, but I would counter that what’s happening in the Mid-East is proof that trust of Fundamentalist Islam will never help Muslims.

There wasn’t enough crap going on in that part of the world, no, Iran and Syria decided that Hamas had a good idea and kicked it up a notch by getting Hezbollah involved and attacking from Lebanon. Now Iran and Syria get to giggle like the little instigators they are and wring their hands as they watch Lebanon destabilize, and Israel take shit, once again, for defending itself.

If the Muslim world doesn’t want any more innocents dying then they’re looking to the wrong country to help them out. It’s time, once and for all, that the Muslim world take responsibility for their more psychotic members and throw a choke chain on them. You want help from the U.S. in calming down Israel? Fine. You calm down Iran and Syria and maybe we can talk about it.

I once had a call from base housing in Hawaii asking me if I could calm down my wife over a particularly stupid circumstance that they had created. I told them, “Absolutely not.” He asked why? I told him, “Because I didn’t piss her off, you did.” And that’s the way I feel about Israel. We didn’t piss them off, it’s not our responsibility to calm them down.

We finally got around to seeing Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest this evening.

We had an absolute blast.

I’m sure some folks absolutely hated the ending but I laughed my butt off.

The most fun we’ve had at the movies so far this summer.