So, we went to see Ratatouille this afternoon, and are still giggling. I will do a review tomorrow, when I am finished giggling.

Or, I may be giggling until next weekend. To tide you over, a recipe for “ratatouille”… in which no rats are harmed.

Combine in an 3-quart ovenproof casserole:

3 TBsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove minced garlic
1 1-lb eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 medium zucchini, cut in 1-inch slices
1 1-lb can whole tomatoes and their juice, chopping tomatoes roughly with a spoon
1 tsp basil leaves
1/2 tsp salt

Cover and bake in a 400 deg.oven for about two hours, until vegetables are very soft, uncovering and stirring once or twice. Serve garnished with parsley.

(from Sunset “French Cookbook” 1976 edition“)

As an aperitif, the website for the movie.

And I am still blegging for funds to cover printing and publicity for my next book, “To Truckee’s Trail.”

PS: The introductory short to this is a hoot, too!

“The vision of Sprague’s three destroyers . . . charging out of the smoke and the rain straight toward the main batteries of Kurita’s battleships and cruisers, can endure as a picture of the way Americans fight when they don’t have superiority. Our schoolchildren should know about that incident, and our enemies should ponder it.’”

Herman Wouk
War and Remembrance

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Sweet thorny-headed Jesus;

Six of the 13 teenagers arrested after a boozy party that trashed a Haddonfield home while its residents were away struck plea-bargain deals yesterday that allowed them a year’s probation..

We’re sorry. Really. Cross our hearts, we won’t do that again.

The party house sustained about $18,000 in damage. Youths defecated on a Steinway grand piano, ejaculated onto stuffed animals, and sprayed a urine-filled Super Soaker water gun at upholstered furniture.

In yesterday’s deal, four of the teens pleaded guilty to criminal mischief and two to trespassing.

All escaped detention, unless they get into other trouble with the law or with drugs or alcohol in the next year. If they stay out of trouble, the charges will be dismissed.

Despite the heavy damage, DiCamillo ordered the 10 youths who have pleaded guilty only to pay a combined total of $750, the amount that the victim’s insurance did not cover.

Golly, Judge DiCamillo, that will teach ‘em.

DiCamillo told the defendants not to bother the family and to tell their friends.

“Go tell everyone. Leave this family alone,” DiCamillo said. “They’ve been harmed enough.”

I am certain the little darlings are quaking in their boots and will certainly pass the Word that The Man is to be feared and obeyed. ‘Cause you certainly showed them that The Laws are not to be trifled with.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

After gamboling playfully in the literary trenches for much of the last year trying to get some official interest going, as far as rewarding my own literary ambitions with… I don’t know, the odd spot of cash and acclaim, I have somewhat mixed results to report. It takes the form of a sort of good-news, bad-news joke.

The bad news is: Tor Books (or their subcontractor who actually has to plough through the submissions showered upon them) have rejected both “To Truckee’s Trail” and “Adelsverein, Pt. 1” (or as we like to call it “Barsetshire with Cypress Trees and a Whole Lot of Sidearms”)

The Good News is that they have done so just this last weekend, instead of when I expected to hear from them, which according to my original calculations was September… which means that I can briskly move on to Plan B now, without wasting another two months.

What, you didn’t think I had a Plan B? My dears, I was a single parent and a career NCO, I always had a Plan B. And a Plan C through M, N, O and P, too, come to think of it.

It’s not been a wasted year; I am becoming as insouciant about brushing off rejection letters as if they were mosquitoes. Really. I am seriously amazed at how little impact the usual sad little SASE envelope with the rote rejection form or letter enclosed has on me now. The depression lasts for about ten seconds, and then I throw it into the file I keep for them with a cheerful comment along the lines of “Your loss, dickweed!”… And then forget about it as I go on and write another half chapter. I used to be quite crushed by this, but now… as the T-shirt says, “I’m just amused”.

I’m also obsessed… but as I am a pretty OK writer and a not-to-bad storyteller, this is a somewhat useful quality. The race is not always to the swift or the strong; sometimes it goes to the persistent and/or obsessed. And sometimes I do come up with a right pretty turn of wordsmithing.

During this last year I have been scribbling madly, some of it even for work that I got paid for. OK, so some of was for laughably small amounts, but I have made some connections, and credentials along the fringes of the scribbling game that will — I hope — help quite a bit as I carry out Plan B.

It’s been pretty educational, also to lurk meaningfully in the comments neighborhood of a lot of book and literary-industrial blogs. Such interesting and fascinating nuggets to be mined out of the gravel there, some of which confirm what I suspected from the beginning… like whenever I set foot in Barnes and Noble and took a good look at the shelves… which is that there is a hell of a lot of dreck out there. The traditional publishing world seems to be swamped up to it’s gorgeously nipped and tucked neck, which kind of seriously affects how they can handle the not-inconsiderable quantity of fairly OK to Pretty Damned Good. It’s still a numbers game, as the head of the consulting firm that I worked for, something like four or five jobs ago used to say.

So, maybe if only 5% of the manuscripts floating into agents’ offices, and publisher’s submissions sub-sub-sub contractors are good for anything other than landfill. Everyone thinks they have a book in them, and the fact that in most cases it should have stayed right there is beside the point. The OK to Pretty Damned Good stuff is still an absolutely unmanageable quantity. All the competent and ethical agents seem to have about all they can do to look at hundreds of similar OK to Pretty Damned Good submissions clamoring for their attention and time and make a snap decision on accepting and managing the tiny percentage that will pay off with the least amount of effort on their part.

Yeah, they kept sending me these letters admitting that they just didn’t feel the passion for my book that they felt was necessary to represent me adequately. So, apparently no one feels sufficiently passionate about “To Truckee’s Trail” except for me, and about a dozen people who have read the entire thing and loved it passionately as well.

Unfortunately, all those people were just readers and other writers… so, here goes Plan B.; a fund drive to do a POD version, to buy advertising, and put review copies where they will do the most good. I think I can promise an autographed copy of “To Truckee’s Trail” to anyone who contributes over a certain amount. *

Hey, it works for Public Radio, doesn’t it?

*Later - suggestion from commentor Peregrine John on amount: A paperback copy - autographed! - for donations north of $30

Interesting article in this morning’s OpinionJournal.com. It’s not all that different from points that our very own Sgt Mom has made, on occasion.

The article, written by Joshual Muravchik, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is titled: Winds of War: Iran is making a mistake that may lead the Middle East into a broader conflict. It looks at recent actions by Iran and compares them to actions that have occurred at other points in history - actions that led to two world wars and other, “lesser” conflicts.

Several conflicts of various intensities are raging in the Middle East. But a bigger war, involving more states–Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, the Palestinian Authority and perhaps the United States and others–is growing more likely every day, beckoned by the sense that America and Israel are in retreat and that radical Islam is ascending.
Consider the pell-mell events of recent weeks.

(snip)
Two important inferences can be distilled from this list. One is that the Tehran regime takes its slogan, “death to America,” quite seriously, even if we do not. It is arming the Taliban, with which it was at sword’s point when the Taliban were in power. It seems to be supplying explosives not only to Shiite, but also Sunni terrorists in Iraq. It reportedly is sheltering high-level al Qaeda figures despite the Sunni-Shiite divide. All of these surprising actions are for the sake of bleeding the U.S. However hateful this behavior may be to us, it has a certain strategic logic: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

(snip)

A large portion of modern wars erupted because aggressive tyrannies believed that their democratic opponents were soft and weak. Often democracies have fed such beliefs by their own flaccid behavior.

(snip)

Israel could handle Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria, albeit with painful losses all around, but if Iran intervened rather than see its regional assets eliminated, could the U.S. stay out?

With the Bush administration’s policies having failed to pacify Iraq, it is natural that the public has lost patience and that the opposition party is hurling brickbats. But the demands of congressional Democrats that we throw in the towel in Iraq, their attempts to constrain the president’s freedom to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the proposal of the Baker-Hamilton commission that we appeal to Iran to help extricate us from Iraq–all of these may be read by the radicals as signs of our imminent collapse. In the name of peace, they are hastening the advent of the next war.

Read the whole thing, and tell us what you think. Does Muravchik make sense, or is he all wet? In either case, where do we go from here?

I have only had to run the sprinkler to water the garden once, so far this year. A rainy spring is extremely unusual… well, at least for the whole twelve years that we have been living here. There has been a nice, deep-drenching rain about every week and a half, almost as if it has been scheduled. The only thing to equal it was four or five years ago when for some mysterious reason tropical storm systems kept stalling right over Bexar County for several weeks at a stretch. Not only was Memorial Day weekend rained out that year, but the Fourth of July weekend also. And not just plain old pitter-pat little showers, but a full bore tropical deluge that went on for hours. And days. And weeks.

Everyone went around expressing their surprise that South Texas appeared to have a monsoon season, although I think the story of kayak racing on North New Braunfels avenue between the Nacogdoches and Austin Highway intersections was an exaggeration. Not an impossibility, though. It is one of the embarrassments of our fair city that it is entirely possible to be swept away and drowned within city limits, given sufficient rainfall over certain urban locations.

The upside is that everything is green… green, green, green and ever more green; gardens, parks, highway verges and hillsides. The wildflowers have lasted for weeks longer than usual. Every tree has put out vigorous new growth as regards branches, and the crepe myrtles all have great piles of old bark shredding off their trunks, like snakes shedding their old skins for the new one underneath.

Our neighborhood was scheduled for the bulk-trash pickup during this week just past. We’re still waiting for the huge trucks with the mechanical claw that reaches down to scoop up the great piles of rotting fence palings and landscape timbers, building waste and cut tree branches. On Monday when I went out for a run with the dogs, I saw no less than three tree-trimming services at work on various streets… and an equal number of battered pickup trucks driving very slowly down the blocks, pausing to look at those piles featuring other items… mostly busted furniture.

I think my neighborhood is moving slightly upwards on the socio-economic scale. The people moving in lately have taken to throwing away a better class of stuff. Last bulk-trash pickup week, Blondie and I scored a sturdy wooden chaise-lounge very neatly constructed of two-by-fours, which gravitated to our back yard once I made an oilcloth covered mattress for it. Until it became too hot, it was pure bliss to lay out on it in the afternoon, with a cool breeze stirring the branches overhead and the scent of sweet-olive, almond verbena and jasmine teasing the olfactory senses. When Blondie bought a long extension cord so she could take her laptop out there too, blogging nirvana was achieved.

Gleanings this year were not so rich, but also garden oriented; the junkers with pickups may have beaten me to the good stuff, unlikely as that seems. I did score one very heavy terracotta garden urn in perfect shape (no cracks or damage) and a pair of shiny metal spheres the size of softballs that were the bodies for a pair of a wire-form garden ornament flamingoes. The wire had gone to rust, so I popped out the spheres, and took them home.

They’ll make very satisfactory gazing spheres… and better yet, gave me the chance to walk in the house and say to my daughter,

“So, you wanna polish a pair of big steel balls?”

Go here.

Boyo and I took a break from the new house yesterday while Beautiful Wife entertained her very deaf aunt. Nice lady, but a bit proper for Boyo and I.

The Movie Megaplex near our new home is GINORMOUS. It’s got 21 very large theaters and was chilled to the point of discomfort for us in t-shirts and shorts. There were only about 8 people total in the theater. Have to remember that for further summer viewing.

Fantastic Four, Rise of the Silver Surfer was one of my most anticipated movies of the summer. I’ve always loved the Silver Surfer story-line. The Herald of Galactica, forced to search the universe for planets his master can consume. The thought of being able to surf the stars always tickled my imagination. Zooming around on a surfboard through the stars. How cool is that?

The movie? Well, as we like to say around here, Meh. It was good as summer blockbusters go, but that was the problem, it felt like a summer blockbuster: All sorts of annoying product placement. Criticisms of how important news gets buried in tabloid news hype. Scenes from around the world that, while pretty and kind of neat, confused my 11 year old. “Why is the Eiffel Tower in Los Angeles?” It’s not, it’s in Paris, but they’re moving around so fast they’re still talking abut L.A.. Later…”Oh…so the Great Wall of China?” Still in China. “Okayyyyy, where’s that?” That’s Hong Kong, it’s sort of like China, only different. It was just…NOT what I expected. I expected better story.

The effects are wonderful. But I’m used to effects being wonderful. Without a decent story for the effects, I just kind of went, “Yeah, pretty, but ummm, yawn.” The Cosmic Radiation causing Jonny to be able to switch powers got old almost immediately. Knowing that it was going to save the day as soon as it happened pissed me off to no end.

If you’ve read the comics with the Silver Surfer then you already know exactly what’s going to happen. Exactly. There are no surprises.

Like Spiderman III, The Fantastic Four have to deal with not just one problem, but two. I don’t recall Dr. Doom having anything to do with the Surfer storyline, but apparently we have to cram as many villains into a movie as possible these days. Sigh. It didn’t help.

Is it a movie you have to see on the large screen? I can’t say yes. If you don’t have kids who absolutely are dying to see this movie, I’d wait for the DVD. It’s cool. It looks good. I was just very disappointed that the story wasn’t more interesting. Maybe it’s because I read that storyline over and over when I was a kid. My son seemed to enjoy it much more than I did.

Maybe my problem is that I’ve grown up and these stories just don’t do it for me any more.

Or more measures from the accelerating writer’s life waltz! One day of paid work at the office yesterday, but two weeks left to myself on such projects as a couple of reviews, and a couple of books to read for upcoming reviews…. And a CD that I simply must listen to and come up with some cogent observations, even though I have never heard of any of the artists. Even Blondie hasn’t heard of most of them; it’s a soundtrack CD for the TV show Kyle XY. So far the only ready observation that has come to my mind is “gosh, where does the poor lad put the salt when he eats celery in bed?” which will only amuse people about a third of a century older than the main demographic for the music.

I’m here all week… try the veal, and don’t forget to tip your waitress

I am galloping away on the Civil War segment of the current epic, having completed the first six chapters, slowly building up to the tragedy which drives the rest of the book (and the subsequent volume) , the murder of a fairly major character by a vigilante gang. And no, I would not be talked into a reprieve; I had always planned this, since I began jotting down notes on various striking incidents and people, and working out how to weave characters and a plot around those particular points. The death of this character sends everyone around – friends, family, and distant connections off on various abrupt tangents… and that accounts for about 75% of the rest of the plot. I have more than just the bare-bones idea on conversations, subsequent incidents and scene descriptions, so I expect the rest of the first draft will move along pretty briskly. This is the Civil War… when the story starts to drag, I can always arrange to have someone in a battle. Or to sneak around on a dangerous mission, or something… the possibilities are nearly endless. I suspect that if I hadn’t broken it out into three parts “Barsetshire with Cypress Trees and Lots of Side-Arms” would be about the thickness of a concrete block when finished. The Fat Guy, who has read some bits of it insists that it would sell in Texas like $3 a pound chicken-fried steaks, and asks what are they thinking of that I don’t have any more nibbles from publishers than I do?

I ran across another writers’ webside, who does historical fiction also (different period) and was amused to note that she also sets out a humongous chart, tracing incidents and accidents, and character’s development, and when children are born (or conceived!)… when you are dealing in a story that spans several decades, and pivots around historical events, keeping track of it all is absolutely key! I have a chart that contains about six different historical time-lines, from national down to local, maps out three different families, four romantic pairings, two towns, one feud… and the rise of the Texas cattle industry. At the very least this means that when two characters meet in an Austin saloon in March of 1847, I know what their small talk would have been about!

But as soon as I finish the draft, then I will need to sit down and read… a lot. If the chart and my chapter outline are rather like the bones, and the first draft is the inner organs and muscles and skin and all… then the final draft is getting it into shape, doing a bit of nip and tuck, and applying the couturier outfit, manicure makeup and hairstyling. All these details that show, and I like to get them right; as a matter of pride and of not wanting to be nibbled to death by those ducks who are mad for that particular event or period. I can’t imagine anything more embarrassing than having an expert enthusiast look at a particular episode and say, “No, it didn’t happen that way, it’s quite impossible,” and then refer me to about a dozen authoritative tomes that would have set me right to begin with. And this applies to smaller stuff, as well: what was the name of the fanciest retail store in Austin, on the eve of the Civil War? Who did daguerreotypes, and where was that studio, or was there more than one? When did the various militia troops recruited by the Committee for Public Safety begin to wear gray uniforms, and who supplied them? Where was the stage stop in various towns, and how often did the stages run… and what was the average travel time? What were people talking about, after church on a Sunday, or in a tavern, or on a long scout into the Llano? All this and a thousand more questions potentially come out of just about every paragraph, when you are trying to write it looking through the lens of a different century than the one you know first and best.

All this is part of making a convincing venture into the past, and showing it to the present, making it real and breathing, dust-covered and glorious… which is a way of saying that I need some books now, either that the library doesn’t have, or that I will need for months longer than they will check them out to me… should any of our readers want to help me make it a little farther down this trail. I posted a list here, and will add to it as the need occurs, or subtract as I am able to buy them myself. More happy blogging this weekend. I promise.

On a happier note than my previous post, Red Haired Girl has finally hung up her dance shoes. The first one or two recitals were fun to attend, and we videotaped everything. Six years into it I was to the point where gouging my eye out with a dull spoon was preferred to sitting for 2 – 3 hours watching group after group with little or no talent. The last two years she and Real Wife have taken pity and allowed me to forego the experience. She has now decided to take lessons from a voice coach, and the results are nothing short of amazing. This kid can make people take to their feet and clap now. Last weekend she brought home a trophy from a local “Star Search” contest, performing Mr. Cellophane from the musical Chicago. It was an outdoor show performed on the courthouse square, with absolutely perfect weather and an audience of a couple hundred or so locals.

The next day, she was going through the typical thirteen year old angst of being bored because there was nothing to do. Her best friend called and asked her if she wanted to ride along with their family to an old fashioned tin can shoot at the local gun club. Real Wife was kind of down on the idea (there were never guns in her household while growing up, so she most associates them with the all-too-often sensational news stories seen these days). I pointed out that the kids would be well supervised, so she relented and off went RHG. She returned home about five hour later, and I’ll be damned if she wasn’t toting a rather large trophy for having won second place in the age 11 – 17 class. She’s never held a gun in her life, much less fired one. I think the sweetest part of the victory was the fact that, of the other twenty or so kids in her class, most were boys, and first place also went to a girl.

She now wants me to join the gun club so we can shoot on a regular basis, which I am inclined to do. I have a 1938 Walther PPK, a 1940 Walther P38, and a 1937 (I believe) Mauser Hsr, all semiautomatic pistols that I bought as collector items but have never fired. I did present to her (albeit with a lot of restrictions relating to its usage and availability) to my first rifle, an Ithaca model 49 lever action single shot .22 that my dad gave me for my twelfth birthday ($25 from Sears and Roebuck). I think that I’ll watch the local gun auctions for a single action .22 revolver to teach her pistol shooting – I’m very against the idea of handing a semi to a kid.

There may be readers out there who rail against teaching kids to shoot guns, but in these parts, and where I grew up in rural upstate New York, it is a perfectly natural thing to do (my 15 year old niece shot three turkeys and two deer last year). Our local high school is consolidating, and one of the benefits will be more diverse activities, which to her excitement will include trap shooting. It looks like I need to find a decent shotgun too. She’s a little worried about the kick, but we have a year to work on it.

I am now wondering what other hidden talents she has…

Real Wife and I met with the specialist this morning to discuss treatment options and prognosis for her breast cancer, and I must say it was quite revealing. Our initial reaction on hearing the news was based largely on the norms of twenty to thirty years ago, i.e., that such a diagnosis meant at best radical and life-changing surgical procedures, extensive radiation, and chemotherapy and, at worst, the unthinkable. While I have suffered loss in my life, I cannot recall ever feeling such intense fear and hopelessness, compounded by the need to not let it show in front of Real Wife and Red Haired Girl, both of whom were likewise caught in their own personal hell. In retrospect, we erred in convincing the primary doctor to apprise us of the results as soon as they were known but before meeting with the specialist to determine what they really meant.

In this instance, we were told that it is the most common form of breast cancer, with both the treatment regime and typical outcomes well understood. Also working in our favor is the fact that it was caught relatively early, with the lump at slightly less than one centimeter. The plan at this stage is to remove the lump and inject a dye for the purpose of checking the lymph glands – both procedures done, surprisingly, on an outpatient basis. Followed up with several localized radiation treatments to catch any stray cells floating around, the hope is for a complete cure. I thought it significant that the doctor chose the word cure and not remission. If they fail to get all of it this round, another surgical procedure may be indicated, along with possible chemotherapy. While we both realize that nothing is certain, and things could take an unexpected turn for the worse, our attitude will be optimism unless hard facts tell us otherwise.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch we received a phone call yesterday at 6:00 a.m. from Real Wife’s eighty-eight year old mother asking us to come immediately. She had fallen in the night and broke her hip, and it took about two hours for her to crawl to the phone (she is now more receptive to the use of those Lifeline alert systems!). We flew over and met an ambulance, which transported her forty miles to the nearest hospital with an orthopedic surgeon. After about ten hours of waiting they finally performed surgery to replace the femoral head, which was snapped off at the base. Coincidentally, I had an identical injury some twenty-two years ago, so I was expecting the worst in terms of the trauma associated with the surgery and the difficult recovery. In my case, because I was just a little over thirty, they elected to save the head, so I was put back together with pins, rods and plates. That led to over three hours of surgery and several months of recovery. Yesterday they had her on the table for about forty-five minutes replacing the head with a prosthetic, and had her up on her feet today. Simply amazing.

All in all a pretty crappy Father’s Day, particularly for someone who really, really hates hospitals. The only good thing I can associate them with is – becoming a father

Regular reader Robert D. emailed me overnight, letting me know that an ace in two wars, General Robin Olds had died over the weekend.

In my early time in service, General Olds was famous for a defiantly non-reg mustache, and for having flown with Chappie James over Vietnam, forming a duo nicknamed “Blackman and Robin”.

He was a colorful character; these days seeming like a character in a swashbuckling adventure novel, or a movie serial.

More here.

Fred Thompson is on board with John Edward’s ‘Marshall Corps’ program, and expands on the idea

“Here’s how I picture it - after joining, the courageous volunteers would shave their heads, spend a few months receiving combat & weapons training, then be deployed to unstable countries to reach out to those who are at risk of seduction by violent extremism. For maximum effectiveness, this reaching out should be done mostly with bullets, grenades, rockets, and other high-velocity/high-explosive projectiles.”

“I would call this expanded version of Edwards’ ‘Marshall Corps’ the ‘Massively Armed Response to Islamic Nutjob Extremists’ or ‘MARINE’ Corps.”

I will allow that he really didn’t say it but as with so many things posted at IMAO .. he should have.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Via.

In a comment to another post, contributor Radar writes:

Real Wife and I married on 13 June 1992, and it’s been a great fifteen years. Sadly, we learned Friday, based on a biopsy done on our anniversary, that she has breast cancer. We go to the doctor tomorrow morning to learn the details and what lies ahead. Hold Patsy tight, I know that I will be holding Real Wife like the most valuable jewel I ever found.

Radar

I didn’t want his words to be lost in comments.

Radar, you’re embarking on one of the scariest journeys an individual can ever take. Let it change you both. Let it make you more aware of the deep, abiding love you share. Let it make you more aware of the beauty not just in each day, but in each hour, each minute, each breath you take.

Listen to those who’ve gone before, and learn from them. Listen to those who’ve never been there, and accept their love, concern, and well-wishes.

Your family has my prayers, my good thoughts, my well-wishes, and my promise of help if there’s anything I can do when I live so far from you.

As crazy as it sounds, I’ll be praying laughter for y’all, as well as health and peace.

Gentle hugs to you,
Mary

For the troops, courtesy of Instapundit. Normally, I don’t link to stuff that the Blogfather of us all notes, as I assume that everyone knows about it, once he has linked it. But this is one of those exceptions. (The technique is called “editing to the beat”, BTW)

“>

It’s a rhetorical question, to which the answer is probably “straight down the same old drain that it has been circling for thirty years and which have become even more circumscribed since the latest intifada and the election of an even more unsavory lot of gangsters than Yassir Arafat if that were &&$#@ing possible and why the &$##@ does anyone still care?” I certainly don’t, except for a lingering bit of curiosity about how long until… oh, but I’ll get to that.

Now the whole of Gaza looks like a sandy and surrealistic version of “Escape from New York”, combined with one of those nature films which have quantities of rats or scorpions or something equally unattractive, all crammed together at the bottom of a pit, or in a wire cage and either frantically clawing/stinging each other to death… and trying to escape, while the dispassionate camera stands above the tangle, and watches.

Watching dispassionately is about all that is left for all but the die-hard pro-Palestinian adherent to do. The rest of us have becoming increasingly disabused of our illusions and our natural sympathies. Fifty years of sucking on the international charity teat, and being waved as a bloody shirt every time someone gets a little narked at Israel, or the Jewish community, or the US, or whatever the middle-east cause du jour is. Thirty years of murdering Americans, culminating by rejoicing in the streets after 9/11. The unstoppable torrent of lies, sickening violence, whining self-justification, of children dressed up in little bomb vests, of honor killings and mob killings and plain old killings. Of hijackings and assassinations, and the desecration of Christian holy sites. The corruption of international agencies tasked with responsibility for looking after three, or is it four generations of those who backed the wrong side in a war they thought they might win, the perversion of the news agencies who are supposed to do more than shill for one side, and of intellectuals who have rather more invested in striking a pose in an artfully draped kaffiyeh…

Nope, every shred of sympathy I ever had for the poor, pitiful Palestinians dissolved about two years ago. In the words of a tee-shirt I used to have, “I used to be disgusted. Now I’m only amused.” And not even very much amused, since there is really only thing I have left to wonder about in this regard. And that would be, how soon the usual media shills, international charity busy-bodies and intellectual frauds will start prancing around, telling us how sorry we have to be for the Palestinians and demanding that we “do something”. Oh, yeah, and I wonder if it will have any effect this time around, outside the very small circle of media shills, international charity busy-bodies and intellectual frauds. Even Jimmy Carter must be getting fed up.

In answer to those impassioned pleas, I will do something, of course. I will go and make more popcorn.

I was married on June 13, 1997. My wife is the bestest, sweetest, kindest and most loving person I know and I’m privileged that she’s chosen to share her life with me.

A long time ago in another life when things got difficult or strange we used to say in a mock-ironic way “every day a holiday, every meal a feast”. The past ten years there have been hard times and difficult times and I’ve learned that what we used to say in jest can be true.

Every day a holiday, every meal a feast. I love you, Pasty.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

I’ve been listening to John Kennedy’s Inaugural Address via these guys. It might be the lateness of the hour or my own latent romantic streak but

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

I’ve got chills running up and down my spine. I know that the man had his issues and Camelot is just an after-the-fact deal but . . . I’m jealous.

I want a President like that.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

(Another one of those amusing e-mailed lists, posted at the Far East Network Yahoo Group chatroom)

1.) Only a true Southerner knows the difference between a hissie fit and a conniption, and that you don’t “HAVE” them, — you “PITCH” them.

2.) Only a true Southerner knows how many fish, collard greens, turnip greens, peas, beans, etc. make up “a mess.”

3.) Only a true Southerner can show or point out to you the general direction of “yonder.”

4.) Only a true Southerner knows exactly how long “directly” is - as in: “Going to town, be back directly.”

5.) All true Southerners, even babies, know that “Gimme some sugar” is not a request for the white, granular sweet substance that sits in a pretty little bowl on the middle of the table.

6.) All true Southerners know exactly when “by and by” is. They might not use the term, but they know the concept well.

7.) Only a true Southerner knows instinctively that the best gesture of solace for a neighbor who’s got trouble is a plate of hot fried chicken and a big bowl of cold potato salad. (If the neighbor’s trouble is a real crisis, they also know to add a large banana puddin’!)

8.) Only true Southerners grow up knowing the difference between “right near” and “a right far piece.” They also know that “just down the road” can be 1 mile or 20.

9.) Only a true Southerner both knows and understands the difference between a redneck, a good ol’ boy, and po’ white trash.

10.) No true Southerner would ever assume that the car with the flashing turn signal is actually going to make a turn.

11.) A true Southerner knows that “fixin’” can be used as a noun, a verb, or an adverb.

12.) Only a true Southerner knows that the term “booger” can be a resident of the nose, a descriptive, as in “that ol’ booger,” a first name or something that jumps out at you in the dark and scares you senseless.

13.) Only true Southerners make friends while standing in lines. We don’t do “queues”, we do “lines,” and when we’re “in line,” we talk to everybody!

14.) Put 100 true Southerners in a room and half of them will discover they’re related, even if only by marriage.

15.) True Southerners never refer to one person as “y’all.”

16.) True Southerners know grits come from corn and how to eat them.

17.) Every true Southerner knows tomatoes with eggs, bacon, grits, and coffee are perfectly wonderful; that redeye gravy is also a breakfast food; and that fried green tomatoes are not a breakfast food.

18.) When you hear someone say, “Well, I caught myself lookin’ .. ,” you know you are in the presence of a genuine Southerner!

19.) Only true Southerners say “sweet tea” and “sweet milk.” Sweet tea indicates the need for sugar and lots of it - we do not like our tea unsweetened. “Sweet milk” means you don’t want buttermilk.

20.) And a true Southerner knows you don’t scream obscenities at little old ladies who drive 30 MPH on the freeway. You just say, “Bless her heart” and go your own way.

In late August 1984, I arrived in Mountain Home, Idaho, my first permanent station with the Air Force. As a single airman, I was destined to live on-base in a dormitory. The Headquarters Squadron had two dorms - one of them housing the Dorm Manager’s office.

The Dorm Manager, a senior NCO named Vince (I’ve forgotten his last name, because we all just called him Vince), was either a Technical Sergeant (E-6 for our non-USAF readers) or a Master Sergeant (E-7 ). Swarthy-skinned, short and powerful, he was a former aircraft mechanic who’d been re-trained due to health issues.

Vince met me, talked to me, and assigned me to room with another airman who was close to my age. He thought we’d make a good match. I spent months convinced he was wrong, and then one day something clicked and my roommate and I became good friends.

Vince was smart like that. He was smart in other ways, too. There was nothing he couldn’t fix, from a broken faucet to a wounded heart. The guys would talk to him about “guy stuff,” whatever that is. But the girls could talk to him, too. He listened, and he cared.

Dorm Managers are part of the background in an Air Force dormitory. Like the building superintendent in an apartment building. Or like your parents after you’ve moved out on your own. You know they’re there, but unless there’s a problem, they’re not really in the fore-front of your consciousness. But they’re there, a steady force in the background, one more stable piece in an often unstable world, one more part of your life that won’t change.

Vince wasn’t going anywhere. This would be his job, and his base, until he retired. He had a business in town - I don’t remember if he ran an apartment building or if it was a trailer community, but there were rental units involved. I never dealt with that side of his life, and at that point in my life I was much too shy to just sit and visit with him, as if we were just regular folks. He was an NCO (or senior NCO - wish I could remember his rank), and I was an Airman. In my mind, there was a huge chasm between us, and it was enough that I was allowed to call him Vince, instead of Sgt Whoever.

As dormitory residents, we were not only responsible for keeping our rooms clean, we also shared the responsibility for keeping the dorms clean. Every so often your name would come up on the rotation list, and you would spend a week as “Bay Orderly,” or as we called it, “Bay Hoser.” For that week you belonged to Vince, doing whatever tasks he assigned. Cleaning the day rooms (TV lounges, basically), vacuuming the hallways, dusting, etc. I seem to recall that we even moved furniture, on occasion. Menial work, but necessary to the comfort and well-being of all those living in the dorms. And it was for Vince, and with Vince, so it was ok.

I was at Mountain Home for about 3 1/2 years, and Vince was part of my life for most of that time. Until one summer, and I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t even remember which summer it was, but I think it was late summer, 1986. I was spending a week in town, house-sitting for my first sergeant while he was on vacation, when the phone rang. Part of my job as house-sitter was to take all his messages, so I answered the call.

I could barely understand the voice on the other end, then I recognized our Assistant Dorm Manager. He was trying not to cry as he asked for the First Sergeant. It seems that on this unseasonably hot Idaho day, Vince had been mowing the yard at his rental community, and his heart gave out. That magnificent, caring heart, that made him such a good dorm manager for two buildings of young adults who were mostly on their own for the first time in their lives, wasn’t up to the strain of heavy yard work on a blisteringly hot summer day.

We had a Service on the base. Three or four dorm residents were asked to speak - I was Dorm Council President, so I was one of them. I don’t remember anything I said that day. I remember very little of what anyone else said that day, other than one of the other airmen saying Vince was a father-figure. I hadn’t thought of it until she said it, but she was right, for all the reasons I listed above. I blocked most of it out, willing myself to not hear, to hold it together until the end.

The service ended, the Honor Guard marched out, I shook the widow’s hand and murmured something appropriate, then ducked and ran for the nearest latrine, where I locked myself in a stall and released the tears I’d been fighting since the other airman compared him to a father.

The stability that Vince had represented disappeared with his death. We got a new Dorm Manager, and later that year, a new First Sergeant. I moved out of the dorms the next spring, and shared a small house with a co-worker until I moved on to my next duty station that December. The dorms weren’t the same without Vince.

Vince was an amazing man, who always had a smile and a kind word. I’d not thought of him in years, until I read Timmer’s post about his red-eyed airman grieving for her friend lost in Iraq. I’m glad I remembered him, even though the memory brings tears. He’s worth remembering.