Well That Sucked, Didn't It?

Okay, so I’d first like to confess that I am in the grips of  PWSS (Post-World-Series-Syndrome) since we live in the SF Bay area and my wife is a fervent SF Giants fan.  And I must confess that they are a odd and interesting collection of personalities, who are being managed by some very, very clever and careful personalities.  We could do worse than have Bruce Bochy run for Vice President.  In the end they won the World Series by one point.  That’s all they needed, and they got it.

And then there was this “election” thing.  I’m not sure if a poll of less than 50% of the electorate really reflects anything very much about anything.  Except that it probably reflects the growing influence of Fox News in the heartland of our country (more on this later) and is a fair measure of the voter enthusiasm that can be generated by spending a gazillion dollars of secret-donor funds on slash and burn political advertising.  Unless we can unravel the “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision our nation runs a very real risk of becoming Italy.  Why Italy?  Because that is where former Prime Minister Berlousconni and his media empires controlled (wait for this) something like 70% of the television programming.  Seventy percent.  Yikes.  It’s amazing that they didn’t have an election to decide whether to make him the Emperor.  Emperor Bunga Bunga perhaps, which for those not familiar with the slang term, would translate to “Emperor Casual Intercourse”. 

Anyhow, despite his almost complete control of Italy’s media, that was not enough to keep Berlousconni in control.  Italy has a young and interesting Prime Minister now, who does not appear to be a corrupt douche.  Change can happen anywhere.

But can you imagine if Rupert Murdock controlled 70% of US media?  Yikes.

But there was enough wrong in this midterm election to give us pause and grounds for concern.  Unlimited money from financial oligarchs like the Koch Brothers.  They have a large pipeline full of tainted crude oil that they’d like to run through your bedroom.  They are very, very wealthy, very powerful, and they are not going away.  Because, it has been decided, “Corporations are people”, and they should have a voice as well as the actual people, and then it was decided that they really should be able to donate as large an amount of their ill-gotten gains as they want to, Gosh Darn it!  Is this a free and fair country, or what?  Umm, yes, to an extent it IS a wonderfully free country, but fair?  Maybe not so much.  We have hundreds of thousands of Americans in jail for selling a bit of pot or something like that, who are costing our country tens of thousands of dollars each, to warehouse them in prisons.  Some should probably be there, but the vast majority of them should be living independently, with state supervision and support, so they can turn their lives around.  It is fairly rare for a person to be in prison and learn to turn their life around.  Those who do get books written about them.

And in the meantime there are major corporations who are discovered to have embezzled enormous sums of money, from their shareholders, the government, the public and so on.  In some cases tens of Billions of dollars.  When they are caught doing that, do they get slapped into the same prisons as someone who sold some pot to an undercover policeman?  Nope.  They get fined.  And if the fine is modest enough, their company pays them a large year-end bonus for having navigated the system so effectively.

And companies of that sort are exactly the sort of “corporate citizens” who can make unlimited donations to elections and campaigns.

And when rightwing politicos blather about people illegally registering to vote, it turns out that there are perhaps (at most) a few dozen in each state who do so, either intentionally or by innocent mistake.  But when we add up the number of voters who were disenfranchised in this election it will add up to hundreds of thousands.  And NO ONE will be held accountable for suppressing/stealing/denying their right to vote.  Why not?  Because they are white and wear suits and ties?  Why isn’t stealing a voter’s rights an enormous and fundamental crime, punishable by a number of years in a really uncomfortable jail?  Isn’t that tantamount to treason, in our Holy Democracy?  Or is there a racial element at work?  Is stealing a Latino or African-American vote just kind of like a Parking Ticket?  While stealing the vote of a white skinned guy should be a Capital Offense.  Why isn’t anyone raising Holy Hell about that?  Will that all be forgotten after the election is over?  Like it has been before? 

You know, like the voter disenfranchisement in Florida that gave us President George W. Bush instead of Al Gore?  I mean, who knows how Gore would have done, but the American people had a right to make that choice, rather than have it be stolen from them by upscale bandits.  Who went totally unpunished for their actions.

We need a couple of new and progressive Supreme Court Justices.  Now.  The odds of one of the medium-aged conservatives quitting their job, or this earthly realm, are small.  But who knows?  LIfe is full of surprises.

In the meantime, Americans are going to get a chance to watch Mitch “Turtleface” McConnell pontificate at length, until we become deathly sick of listening to his avuncular lectures.  Senator Inhofe, who apparently believes in the Biblical story of creation, is slated to take over the Senate Committee on the Environment and explain that Global Warming is a myth.  Listening to him will be loads and loads of fun.  Intelligent people all over the world will be watching with fascinated horror.  And laughing at us.

This should be a very interesting couple of years.  The economy is said to be doing very well, though it seems to have benefitted those at the top of the heap a lot more than those at the bottom, but the success of initiatives to raise the minimum wage did very, very well this election cycle.  That’s a very, very good thing, and the States that had that change in law (Alaska is now $15?  Wow) will be models of what the impact of that change will do to the economy of those States and the lifestyles of the young.  Over the next two years it is very likely that we will see those positive impacts.

And there are some really horrible things.  John McCain may head the Defense Committee in the Senate and push for getting into a land war in Iraq again.  Dumb-ass.  Dumb idea, dubious outcome.

Anyhow, let’s all stay tuned and see how it turns out.  Sometimes a bad event can be the trigger for some very positive things.  By and large younger people didn’t vote in this election.  If so, they are likely to find the shenanigans of these new Senators and Congressmen not very much to their liking.  Maybe that is what it takes to politicize young people.  If they think politicians have it under control, then why even think about it, but this debacle may help them wake up to the fact that government is a ditch that tends to silt up over time, and needs to be continually dug out and cleaned, in order to keep working.

And here is an interesting article, by all people Frank Luntz, the GOP wonk.  If Republicans listened to him, they’d be dangerous, but I suspect they are soooo pleased with themselves that they’re not in mood to listen to anyone.  Not even each other.  It’s going to be fun to watch Ted Cruz and Rand Paul battle each other for “intellectual” leadership of their party, and the country.

-Arthur

Do You Know Who I Am?

(Former Alaskan governor and Senator John McCain running mate in 2008 Sarah Palin, and her family, were recently in the middle of what some people describe as "a brawl."  "Police responded to reports of a verbal and physical altercation taking place between multiple subjects.  A preliminary investigation by police revealed that a party had been taking place at a nearby residence and a fight had broken out between multiple subjects outside of the residence."  Eric Thompson told ABC News, "I heard Sarah Palin yell, 'Do you know who I am?'"  And in other news, driver Matthew Apperson, 35, of Orlando, Florida, reported to police Friday that George Zimmerman, the man acquitted of murdering Trayvon Martin, threatened to kill him at a traffic light, asking "do you know who I am?" during a road confrontation in their vehicles. All we can respond to Sarah and George is this:  Ohgawd yes, we know who you are, please don't shoot!  But we digress ... )

• We should probably all know who former Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce is, he's the guy who came up with a solution to Medicaid, as though there was a problem with Medicaid:   "You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I'd do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations," he said. "Then we'll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job."  Pearce also said he attended graduate school at the University of Arizona and Harvard University, of course both claims later turned out to be untrue.
• And here's a guy who I really want to know.  The American Family Association's (remember them?) Bryan Fischer has called for atheists to be banned from serving in the armed forces of the United States.  In other words, if you don't believe in god almighty you can't be drafted (assuming we'll get back there sooner-or-later).  To paraphrase, if the kid don't believe in Santa Clause anymore, he don't have to go and fight the Oil Wars.  I'm all for it.  Fischer says that atheists should be prohibited from serving in all branches of the military because "there is no place for those who do not believe in the Creator who is the source of every single one of our fundamental human and civil rights ."  And if I may speak for us atheists, I must say I wholeheartedly agree.
• Here's a two-minute TED talk by David Swanson called "Why End War."  I guarantee it's worth two minutes of your time.  Click HERE.
• And remember, guns don't kill people, nine-year-old girls with Uzis kill people.  And don't forget Idaho State University Professors.  While Professor (so far unnamed) didn't managed to actually kill anyone, he did manage to shoot himself in the foot, an act for which has earned him the Bad Hat Concealed Weapon Idiot of the Month Award.  Lock and Load, everyone!

Tuesday Update - View From The Second Story

(This reunion stuff is getting crazy.  Just before my 50th high school reunion, I got an E-mail from 
Classmates.com, a reunion web site which allows people to find each other from the past.  About 20 years ago I was remembering my bandmates from a rockandroll foursome we had in 1968 while in the Air Force, in Lubbock, Texas, of all places.  I began an Internet search in all the usual places, but finding Billy Martin (lead guitar) and Ken Watts (bass) who were both from somewhere in New York, turned out to be ridiculous.  My only good lead was Paul Bessette, our drummer, who I remembered was from Plainfield, Connecticut.  Well, there were quite a few Paul Bessettes in Plainfield, but none fit the right age group.  Then I remembered that Paul went to the same base in Vietnam where I was about a year earlier, so I went to Classmates and found the Bein Hoa AB, 1968-69 site, and there was his name.  I left him a message to contact me, and heard nothing from him for another 15 years.  Apparently Paul never got back on Classmates, a web site that requires yearly dues to stay current.  Until a couple weeks ago.  Within 24 hours after receiving the E-mail, Paul and I were on the phone for the first time in 46 years, talking for over two hours one night, reliving many wonderful memories.  A few days later Paul, now living in Las Vegas, Nevada, called and said he had found Ken Watts, living in Queens, New York, and he set up a three-way phone link which led to another couple hours of reminiscing.  We have yet to find the elusive Billy Martin, but Ken said he would try to track him down.  Billy, are you out there?  By the way, the band's name was The Second Storymen, and we were damn good, rock-and-roll-wise.  We were so popular that one night, at a venue we were performing at in Clovis, New Mexico, the place was so packed the fire marshall had decreed that no more people were to be allowed inside.  Unfortunately we had just arrived, and it took us several minutes before we finally were able to convince the authorities that we were the band.  Some day I'll tell you some more stories of the Storymen.  But for now, I digress ...)

• Remember the American Family Association?  We've talked about  these idiots before, it's one of those terribly conservative anally religious Christian groups, dedicated to opposing most everything - abortion, gay rights, evolution, global warming, intellectuals, etc.  Well, it seems the demented people at the AFA have their collective panties in a bunch over a new postage stamp just issued by the U.S. Postal Department.  Yep, a stamp.  You see the stamp has a picture of Harvey Milk on it.  Harvey Milk, if you remember, was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California in 1977.  He and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were shot and killed by former city supervisor Dan White, a year later.  And of course, the tiny minded bible-thumpers at the AFA can't allow something like a picture of a dead gay person on a postage stamp!  Mark Morford explains the rest of this incredible story in "How To Live Wretched and Small."
• And speaking of the religious right, I just love it when they start trying to explain that sex is bad.  Particularly when it comes to those horrible satanists at Planned Parenthood.  For example, did you know that Planned Parenthood is trying to get your kids "hooked" on sex?  Yes indeedy.  Oh, and there's more.  Check out "5 Crazy Myths About Sex From the Religious Right."
• So what's going on here in these old United States?  Is it me, or does it seem like police officers are getting trigger happy?  I watched a video the other day of an obviously mentally disturbed young black man, who had just shoplifted two cans of soda from a convenience store, being approached by two police officers on a sidewalk.  The unarmed young man walked directly toward the officers, ignoring their commands to halt, and the officers suddenly opened fire, shooting the man five times.  As he then lay on the sidewalk bleeding to death, the officers handcuffed him.  Justified?  Were their tasers in for repair?  Then there's this Michael Brown case.  Brown's funeral was yesterday, in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, attended by the rich, famous, and talkative.  At first glance it appeared that Brown was murdered by white officer Darren Wilson on August 9th.  Again, Brown was unarmed at the time, and by some witnesses accounts, had his hands raised in surrender.  But then a video was produced by the police department showing Brown stealing a box of cigars and bullying a shopkeeper, just minutes before the confrontation that led to his death.  The New York Times even suggested that Brown "was no angel."  Well, who is?  I can only imagine what someone could dig up on me out of my past if I were to be shot dead by a policeman.  What does that have to do with anything? What the hell's going on?
• The price of California wine will probably be going up after Sunday's 6.0 magnitude earthquake that struck the Napa area north of San Francisco.  Apparently one could hear glass bottles shattering all the way down to Marin County.  Of course we, and those crazy Californians especially, are wondering if this was a precursor to "The Big One," the 8.0+ quake that's been promised for a hundred years or more.  No one knows for sure, but if I was living down around the San Francisco area right now I think I'd take the hint and pack up and move back to Oregon.  I'm just sayin' ...
• And Texas Governor Rick Perry was recently indicted for some silliness regarding politics, and although it brings big grins to Liberals everywhere, we're afraid it may actually help this idiot to get his name back in the spotlight.  The charges sound flimsy at best, and Perry's lawyers will undoubtedly beat the charges, which will also make him look good.  Governor Perry, actually slightly dumber than George W. Bush, still would love to be president, in spite of his disastrously embarrassing previous campaign.
• Four more days until the first Duck Football game of the year.  It's been a terribly long summer.  Go Ducks!

Reunion

(As some of you may have noticed, we here at Bad Hat have been on vacation for the summer.  That's right, the staff and management just up and decided to take some time off, but we've now decided to get back into it.  Before we get into any political updates, allow me to share with you a remarkable event I recently experienced, an event that happens only once in a person's life.  My 50th High School Reunion.)

 I don't know why I torture myself with these high school reunions.  I graduated from South Eugene High School in 1964, a clean shaven, naive, slightly uptight young man with a severe attitude problem, hell-bent to somehow change the world.  I attended the University of Oregon for a brief time before deciding I knew everything I needed to know, then I set sail onto the river of life to find my adventures.  But Uncle Sam and Lyndon Johnson decided that my adventure would involve the adventure of Vietnam and four years in service of my country, and when I got home after that, with new wife in tow, I was a changed man.

I didn't attend my 10th Reunion.  In 1974 I had just discovered sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, and besides, I was sure that all of my classmates were fine upstanding wealthy citizens, and I would be trampled underfoot like some prairie dog in a herd of horses.  I did, however, go to the 20th Reunion.  It was quite nice to see everyone again, and although I could sense that some of us were jockeying for position of better-than-thou, most of us just seemed happy to be there.  One of the best things that happened during that particular reunion was that I spoke to my former girlfriend, Suzanne, for the first time in almost 17 years. She was married, had children, and brought her husband along with her, so I got to meet him too.  It was excruciatingly painful, but to my credit, instead of wailing and beating my chest, I just smiled.

I attended several more reunions, and each one I went to seemed to be slightly better than the one before it.  I think that phenomena was caused by the fact that we were all growing older together, and the natural need to impress each other was fading with each advancing year.  Perhaps that's why I believe the 50th was the best reunion so far.

The reunion committee put together a photo presentation consisting of pictures of Eugene from the 1960's, along with pictures of the graduates from then and from previous reunions.  It was fascinating to watch us all grow up and older, and there were squeals of delight from the attendees over many of the pictures of old Eugene.  When watching something like that, there are two things that amaze:  How many things you've forgotten, and how many things you remember.  This reunion was held at a large ritzy hotel here in Eugene, called The Valley River Inn.  At my table, as I sat eating prime rib, our good friend Arthur, who promises to begin contributing his sage words of wisdom here at Bad Hat again, sat on my left.  On my right, sat the very lovely Suzanne, who left her husband at home this time.  For just a few moments the years were washed away, and our whole lives were once again ahead of us, and there were many more adventures to come.

JP

Friday Update: "Don't Pee On My Leg ..."

Hi, my name is John, and I'm a Judge Judy watcher.  I started watching Judge Judy many years ago,
out of loneliness and some kind of unfulfilled need to be yelled at, I suppose.  I went from watching Judge Judy a couple times a month to every week, then to several times a week, to where I am now.  I now watch Judge Judys (new and repeats) twice a day.  Because my TV can record programs, I have set my machine to automatically record every episode of Judge Judy, even the sneaky one on Sunday afternoon.  I've tried to stop, believe me.  I once went almost two full weeks without watching a single Judge Judy, and I actually almost stopped using words like "kerfuffle," and phrases like "we're having sushi for lunch," and "don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining," and finishing every phone conversation by saying "step out."   But I eventually caved.  And now I'm like some kind of "Rainman" type, having to get home every day at four o'clock to watch "Wapner."  There are some people, and I know because I've met them and talked with them, who hate Judge Judy.  Yes, actually hate the woman!  My friend Cheri' was in Los Angeles on other business, when she had the opportunity to attend the Judge Judy show taping one day.  Cheri' was far from a rabid fan, just an interested spectator in the audience, but she came away from the experience absolutely appalled at Judge Judy's behavior.  Cheri' said awful things about Judge Judy.  She found her rude, obnoxious, dismissive, mean, and several other unprintable things.  Cheri' didn't, and still doesn't, understand that those things are why the rest of us love Judge Judy.  You see, people opt to go before Judge Judy rather than in a regular court of law, because they can get on TV, and depending on her ruling can get the show to pay their judgements.  It's all performance art actually, where the greedy and the stupid can stand in front of a camera and be embarrassed and yelled at, in front of millions of people.  What's not to love?  At any rate, I love her, but I will try to cut down a bit.  I've got other things to do around here, one being this blog.  After all, they don't keep me here because I'm pretty.  But I digress ...

• Oh those pesky Christians.  Remember that cultish Christian focus group out of the Bush era called Focus on the Family, the one run by James Dobson?  Mr. Dobson and his group of idiots managed to become one of America's foremost hate groups, right up there with the Heritage Foundation.  Well, Focus on the Family now has a new leader, a man named Jim Daly.  And they've made a movie called Irreplaceable, purportedly about the benefits of family-according-to-the-Bible, but which is just another anti-gay tirade with soothing music.  By the way, speaking of gaydom, a judge in our beloved state of Oregon has finally ruled that our ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, and gay people are finally able to be referred to just as "people," at least marriage-wise.  But getting back to this movie, apparently Mr. Daly and his weird homophobic hate group are getting such awful reviews, and hate spewed right back at them, that he feels he's being persecuted.  Really?  Mark Morford reports on Sympathy for the Christian Bigot. 
• Gotta love Jon Stewart.  He's started a #fuckyourush campaign against the man he calls   “the quivering rage heap who is apparently desperately trying to extinguish any remaining molecule of humanity that might still reside in the Chernobyl-esque superfund clean-up site that was his soul.” Apparently  El Rushbo made fun of Michelle Obama for her concern about those 200 missing Nigerian girls, and actually felt it necessary to point out that they weren't "our girls," so why should we be all that concerned about them.  Okay, we expect shit like that from Limbaugh, right?  But you know, sometimes it just feels like insensitivity is a right-wing trait.  From Karl Rove to Bill O'Reilly, check out "9 Vilest Right-Wing Moments This Week."
• United States Senators the other day asked representatives of the Department of Defense which groups we are currently at war with.  The DoD refused to answer the question, saying it was classified.  We're guessing it's either Oceana or Eastasia (ref: Orwell).  From the Washington's Blog.
• Okay, I'm just going to say it.  Georgia is a strange little state.  And I'm guessing that most the people who live in Georgia are a little strange.  Let me give you an example of what I mean:  Did you know anyone can carry a gun in Georgia?  I mean anywhere - grocery stores, church, bars, brothels, etc.  But did you also know that a woman has to have a prescription to own a vibrator?  Yes, indeed.
• Oh I've just GOT to finish this week's update with one more list of right-wing nuttery.  Have you heard the latest right-wing conspiracy theory concerning President Obama?  He's going to run for a third term!  Seriously!  Several right-wing commentators and websites have advanced this rumor, including our butt-buddy Rush Limbaugh.  It's all over the Internet, including that vast bastion of knowledge, FaceBook.  Oh, and there's more.  Check this one out:  The Right-Wing's 5 Most Insane Conspiracy Theories This Week.
• We'll try to check in with you on Memorial Day, but if not, have a happy one.  And don't forget to remember someone.  

Weekend Update - Do What You Gotta Do

I finally had to do it.  I had basically run out of options.  I was down to three good upper teeth along with a couple chipped and broken ones, and the rest was a loose and irritating partial that had to be practically glued in with more Polident than I'd prefer.  And there was that gap thing.  Within a month I had lost half a tooth (lightly popped popcorn kernel) and a complete tooth broken off at the gum line (who knows, it was ready.)  I have always been plagued with weak teeth.  Hereditary, I suppose.  I brushed, flossed, picked, polished, with the best of them.  I went to the dentist every six months for forty years for cleaning and cavity repairs.  But my teeth just got worse and worse.  Some people I know hardly think about their teeth, and haven't had a cavity in their life.  I hate these people.  At any rate, the final straw was the above mentioned gap thing.  I couldn't smile without looking like some third-world refugee.  I developed weird hand movements to cover my mouth when I laughed, and being a singer in a band was rather awkward, particularly during the high notes.  So, something had to be done.  I had put it off long enough.  I chose something called DentureMasters after talking to several of my similarly afflicted friends, and met Dr. Ridley who advised me that the way to go was a denture implant device.  It's like a denture, only without the palate plate, and it's held in place by four implanted posts.  Quite neat, actually, and very real looking.  So out came the remnants of my uppers, and in went the implants.  Fun afternoon, I'll tell ya. Yes, it was rather expensive, and I'll be paying for it for the next two years.  But damn, I'm pretty again.  Grin!  But I digress ...

• And speaking of aging, and bodies going bad, and the coming Apocalypse, how's your back?  My friend Jerry has the back from hell.  I've seen him suddenly collapse to the floor screaming in pain for no apparent reason and lay there for up to an hour, because something not-so-funny happened in his back.  I drove a public transit bus for 42 years, and believe me, the only reason I was able to last that long was because my back, for godknows what reason, was strong.  Only now that I've retired, my back has decided to convince me to stay sitting in the recliner (Honey, would you bring me a beer?) rather than getting up for small errands.  And it's not funny, no matter what anyone says.  Even Mark Morford:  "Stand Up or Die Trying."
• Hillary Clinton certainly has been grabbing the headlines lately.  First of all, just to grab headlines and
  
  lift herself to the level of George Bush, she somehow orchestrated a shoe-throwing incident at some speech she was making.  And then, by some monumental magic, she got her daughter pregnant with her first grandchild.  This truly is an amazing woman.  The ever-so-sharp Republican spin machine has been spewing spittle over the conspiracy theories concerning all of this.  And this is only the beginning.  Secure your seat belts, and brace for impact.  This is going to be a fun campaign.  Go Hillary.
• President Obama referred to Paul Ryan's recently released budget proposal as a "stinkburger."  Horrors.  A very old and technically irrelevant dinosaur named George Will almost had a stroke when he heard that.  While most intelligent people wonder why anyone reads George Will anymore, we do find it rather amusing that he assumes someone does.  From Salon:  "George Will's Humiliating Temper Tantrum"
• After the horrible incidents on 9/11/01, the United States government did a lot of good things, and they did a lot of very bad things.  Can I get an Amen?  The bad things can be laid pretty much directly at the feet of the CIA, who's sleuthing missed all the clues and thusly began an operation of "ohshitguilt" by arresting, containing and torturing every possible suspect they could find.  We've been waiting for heads to roll, and apparently it's beginning.  The CIA has been ordered by a military judge to turn over classified information regarding its secret prisons used last decade to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists.  Uh oh.  
• It doesn't get much better than this.  Some old tea-party-type shitkicker in Nevada named Cliven Bundy has drawn in the right-wing pundit folks by refusing to pay the federal government grazing fees, or some such nonsense, and ohgawd they loved this man.  Other shitkickers from all over the country

  
  

  
  

  have loaded up their various assault weapons in the back of the old pickup truck and headed west to help old Cliven keep the Feds off his (not actually) property.  FOX news absolutely loved this guy.  Right up to the point old Clive not only said he doesn't recognize the United States government, he also had a few choice words about "the Negro community."  Uh oh, again.  And the FOX news
  reaction.
• Bad Hat's Person of the Week Award goes to Dr. Garen Wintemute, a professor of emergency medicine who runs the Violence Prevention research Program at the University of California, Davis.  Apparently since Congress pressured the Center for Disease Control to stop funding research on gun violence, because, well, it's our goddamned American right to own an assault weapon, Dr. Wintemute has given more than $1.1 million of his own money to keep the research going.  While the slaughter continues, we salute the good Doctor, and give the big Bad Hat middle finger to the United States Congress who obviously can't get its head out of its ass long enough to smell the gunpowder.  Keep your heads down.

Close Encounters

I was channel surfing through the usual nonsense on the TeeVee the other night when I stopped at the Science Channel.  They had something called "Close Encounters" playing, and I could tell from the listings that there were several half-hour episodes waiting in line.  The first one was about Japanese airline pilots "encountering" strange lights somewhere over the pacific, and the other episodes had similar story lines, true, all true, as seen by competent eyewitnesses, all.   I put the whole thing on pause, got up and refreshed my brandy, got back into my seat and punched the button which would record all the upcoming episodes and turned the lights down low, because ohmygawd I love this stuff.  I've loved "UFO" stories every since I was a teenager.  I would scour the library for books on "close encounters," and was particularly fond of books by people who claimed to have been taken aboard one of these exotic crafts from another world.  My favorite was one by George Adamski, who not only claimed he had been invited for a ride-along, he had taken pictures.  And even though the pictures he included in his book looked like pictures of a lamp shade taken with a Brownie camera (see the creatures in the window?) I tended to wish it was all true.  And then there was Roswell, and all the sightings ever since, all over the world.  Pretty compelling stuff, actually, when you read it all at once.

Which brings me to a point, sort of.  We as human beings tend to want to believe all kinds of stuff we find mysterious and exciting, because, well, they're mysterious and exciting.  Some people believe in ghosts, for example, which the skeptical scientific mind rejects simply because, in the long run, their existence is ridiculous.  The imagination is a powerful thing, indeed.  As I get older I become more skeptical of unscientific theories.  Except for UFO's.  I know they exist.

I helped make several of them.

My long time friend Jerry Paulsen is my co-conspirator in all this, and I'm not in the least bit hesitant to place most of the blame on him.  Although while I'm sure Paulsen hasn't an evil bone in his body, I do know I thank Whomever-may-be-in-control for allowing us both to survive his shenanigans, and the "BaDass Balloon" was only a mild example of what I'm talking about.  First of all, I'm ashamed (not really) to admit there were drugs and alcohol involved in most everything Jerry and I did those three or four years we roommated together.  We called it "BaDass," a French word we invented  from the English word "Idiots," and the word itself was convenient enough to which we could blame our antics upon.  It was all Cheech and Chong and Firesign Theater, combined with our own exquisite bullshit.  There's enough silliness connected with "BaDass," that a book could be written, and should be written, and if we live long enough, might be.  Stay tuned, one day I may tell you the whole story.  But I digress.  The "BaDass Balloon" was an invention of Jerry's, I think, although I suspect he learned it from some other degenerate and was just passing it along.

It consisted of two thin strips of balsa wood, about fifteen inches long each.  We would take these thin strips and form a cross, or an "X" with them, and poke a small straight pin through the middle to hold them lightly together.  Now the hard part.  Someone had to get a laundry bag, a laundry bag you get back from a laundry. One of those really thin bags that the laundry people put over your shirts when you got them back.  And you'd have to get a box of a dozen small birthday candles.  And a couple of Bic lighters.  And some really good ganja from Dave's apartment next door; Dave, whose nickname was "Stoner."  And a sixer of Bud, if you're thirsty.  Ohgawd, it's all coming back to me now.

At any rate, the best one we ever did was at Mike's party in Springfield, at his house about a mile east from the enormous Weyerhaeuser Plant in east Springfield.  It was a good party, in the mid '70's, the drugs were above average, the tequila was flowing, and the "BaDass Balloon" had become legendary enough to have been requested by those in the know.  It had just gotten dark on a misty fall night, when we began our preparations.  We assembled the "X," with larger-than-usual balsa strips, and placed over 20 large birthday candles on it, and Jerry had obtained a larger, double-size laundry coat bag.   We placed the then assembled balsa strips gently into the open end of the laundry bag and affixed it with several more small straight pins.  I held the top of the bag, having to stand on my tip-toes to do so, and Jerry and a couple helpers started lighting the candles.

I could feel its power as it began to fill up with heat from the candles.  I was worried that the heat would actually begin to burn the laundry bag, and I yelled, "it wants to go NOW," and we all moved as a unit to the open air.  The slight misting of rain had stopped, but the air was cold, with a slight wind moving to the west.  We got to the open space, and I let go of the top of the bag.  Now just Jerry held the "X" at the bottom.  He gently lifted his hand and let go, and the "UFO" took flight.  It went up quickly.  Faster than any of the other "UFO'S" we'd ever launched.  It rose into the night sky against a backdrop of stars and black clouds, and slowly drifted westwardly, over the eerie steam clouds of the Weyerhaueser plant, and kept ascending.  Up, up, and mysteriously burning in the cold night air.  The glow from the candles reflected off the large laundry bag, and made the whole thing look very unearthly.  A true UFO.  It traveled west, toward the Willamette River and Eugene, with a purpose only it knew, and rose silently as it went.  It's glow was mesmerizing, something that once you saw, you could never look away.  For a moment, I thought of George Adamski and his friendly aliens, beckoning him aboard their wonderful spacecraft, and I was a kid again.  Here's to you, George, and all the aliens we know who are "out there," waving.

The entire party was out on the lawn that night, in the misting rain of Springfield, Oregon.  We all stared upward at the departing space craft, and no one spoke, except for a occasional "wow."  We watched as the glow in the sky suddenly flared, as the candles eventually burned down and set the balsa wood on fire, and then the magical flash of the laundry bag gently exploding with dripping ecstasy into the night.  Jerry and I turned to each other and hugged.  

It was, after all, BaDass.  And it would always be so.

Weekend Update - Can We Get a Little Break Here?

(Okay, I'm ready for Spring.  Did you hear me, Oh-Great-Whomever-Is-In-Charge of this?  This silly little mind game you've been playing with us is no longer funny, not even remotely.  You give us a little sunshine, bring the temperature up to about 70, convince us it's okay to wash the car, then rips it all out from under us the very next day with a deluge of rain and wind.  We haven't even got all the damage done during the big ice storm we had a month ago cleaned up.  Come on. There's flowers to plant, seeds to be cast, decks to power wash; you know, the usual springtime stuff.  I'm giving you one more chance, Oh-Great-Whomever, and if you do this to me again there'll be hell to pay.  Do you hear me?  Hell, I say.  But I digress ...)

"...and when I get REALLY excited ..."

• Let's start with news we barely care about.  Apparently actress Gwyneth Paltrow and  Coldplay singer Chris Martin have split up.  This news shouldn't be news to anyone but the most ardent of fan club members, except for something the couple included in their press release about the break.  They used the term "conscious uncoupling."  You know, like in "Things didn't work out between us, so we consciously uncoupled."  Oh brother. I'm sorry, but crap like that is what keep my eye sockets lubricated with copious amounts of eye-rolling. When I think of divorce I think of death-wishes and name calling, dishes being thrown and clothes tossed out onto the lawn.  You know, normal stuff.  But "conscious uncoupling?"  Please.  However not everyone feels like I do on this subject.  Mark Morford weighs in with "How Not to Murder Your Ex."
• Nothing gets our blood boiling more than a good alcohol fueled discussion of the Junior Bush years, and the conversations get the loudest when it gets to the subject of the Iraq debacle, and especially Dick "We Call Him Dick" Cheney.  Discussing The Dark Lord calmly is almost an impossibility, because we know, we KNOW, Dick Cheney has never admitted he did anything wrong during his years in the administration, and as a matter of fact he thinks most of things he did were heroic.  But lest we forget, there's one other person who took part in all that, who, when you think about it, was even worse.  We called him "Rummy."  Donald Rumsfeld served as Secretary of Defense under Cheney, and practically everything he ever uttered about his actions turned out to be wrong. (Lies.)  Documentarian Erroll Morris has released a documentary about Rumsfeld entitled "The Unknown Known," after one of Rummy's most famous misspeaks, and it's a doozy.  The fact that Rumsfeld sat for this documentary shows how demented this man is.  Check out Alternet's "Rumsfeld Documentary Reveals What an Unaccountable Slippery Bastard He Is."
• And since we mentioned Dick Cheney, we can't help but pass this along.  Yet another pro-gun Republican politician has taken careful aim and accidentally shot a fellow hunter in the face.  Must be something going around with these fellows.  Oklahoma Representative Steve Vaughan afterwards said he was sorry, but apparently that's just one of the hazards one has to contend with when one goes hunting with a conservative.
• I was watching The Today Show the other day when I got up to get another cup of coffee.  When I got back to my seat what I saw on the TV screen almost made me loose my Wheaties.  There was Dubya Bush, being interviewed by his daughter Jenna (who now works for NBC,) and they were standing in a room full of paintings, purportedly painted by Dubya himself.  The paintings, grade school level at best, were of world leaders, and even old Dubya himself.  He began heh-heh'ing his way through the "interview," and made an alarming statement.  "Painting has really opened my mind," he said, and then stood there frozen with his Alfred E. Newman grin waiting for his daughter to give him a little hug, or something.  Opened his mind?  Holy shit.
• If you have not watched an episode of "Cosmos" on TV's Sunday nights, you have been missing the most fantastic stuff anywhere on the tube.  Bad Hat highly recommends it, and be sure to gather the kids around the set with you.  That is unless you're a devout radical Christian who believes the Earth is 6000 years old, and mankind used to ride around on the backs of dinosaurs.  Then I'm thinking you probably wouldn't like this show so much.  You see, it has a lot of "reality" and "science" and yucky stuff like that in it.
• From the Miami Herald:  " CIA officers subjected some terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11 attacks to interrogation methods that were not approved by either the Justice Department or their own headquarters, and illegally detained 26 of its 119 captives in CIA custody, the Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded in its still-secret report, McClatchy has learned."   Uh oh.
  
  Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/04/03/4037714/mcclatchy-senate-panel-finds-cia.html#storylink=cpy

Thanks, Lyndon

So I sat there for the longest time trying to figure out what was wrong with my foot.  Since I was in an aisle seat, and the plane had landed, I was fast becoming a roadblock of sorts to the fellow inhabitants of my row, but I was, at least for the moment, more concerned with my foot than I was with their inconvenience.  It was numb.  No, more than numb, it wasn't there.  I couldn't feel it anymore.   My knee was there, but since I couldn't actually see beyond my knee I wasn't sure if my foot was there anymore.  We had been on this stinking airplane for approximately 21 hours straight since we left Travis Air Force Base in California, and somewhere around the International Date Line we not only had traveled back, or forward, in time, I had also lost a foot somewhere.  "Hey asshole, how 'bout gettin' out of the way."  That came from my seat mate to my immediate right, a rather large swarthy dipshit from Merced, California who had not only fallen asleep with his head on my shoulder several times, he had drooled while doing it.  I mumbled something about my foot being asleep so he kindly kicked it.  My foot, I mean.  It woke up.

Several hours before, we had plummeted through the dark of night headed toward Tokyo International Airport, and we were apparently low on fuel because the pilots in their infinite wisdom decided it would be cheaper to fly directly through a monstrous thunder storm than to go around.  I have never been afraid of flying ever since that night, because that night the Flying Gods had their chance to do away with me, and chose not to.  It was September of 1966, and I would live another day, at least.  I would tell you the details of the wings flapping up and down like an actual bird, and the engine pods swinging back and forth, but I'd have to double-up on my medication again.  We'll just let it go for now.

But now we had just landed at Tan Son Nhut airport, in the heart of Saigon, South Viet Nam, a freaking war zone. I stumbled forward down the aisle with the drooling dipshit bumping my backside like he was in a hurry to get out and kill something, but they hadn't opened the door yet.  Something was wrong with it, apparently, and two of the stewardess's (stewardi?) were teaming up trying to get the handle to swing down. I figured the storm we went through in Tokyo had twisted the plane so much that we were trapped, and they'd have to cut us out like sardines in a can.  Now, the air in that plane was not good.  It smelled like Hank Kucera's South Eugene High School gymnasium right after football workouts.  We needed air, and we needed it fast.  Drooling Dipshit pushed past me and yelled "get outta the way!" and grabbed the handle and almost ripped it off the door frame.  The door opened.  We suddenly regretted that action.

If you ask anyone who's ever been to Viet Nam what it was like to be there, the first thing they'll try to describe is the smell.  But I'm going to begin with the heat.  The door flew open and it all hit us right in our faces.  When I had left home in good ol' Eugene, Oregon it was cold and rainy, so I decided to wear my Air Force blues, a full uniform consisting of wool and other natural warming fibers.  When the door opened, a wave of kerosene scented heat made our eyes squint like we were staring directly into the sun.  Then we were walking down the ramp, walking and coughing, walking and squinting.  It must have been near 90 degrees.  It took me a few minutes to realize it was also actually raining.  Raining!  In the twenty or so minutes it took to get to the terminal, my rumpled Air Force blues got soaking wet, and heavy.  And hot.  I sat on a bench in the terminal to collect what was left of my thoughts and heard my first thump of an explosion.  Then another.  And another.  They were a ways away, but it was an otherwise alarming sound, and as I looked around, I could see the people in charge didn't seem concerned at all about them.  Steam began rising from my uniform.  It would be two more hours, including a harrowing 18 mile trip by military bus northward up a narrow, very busy road, until we reached Bien Hoa AB, my home for the next 12 months. And that was the first day.

I've include the above in this report because (1) it's part of what I've been doing lately - writing my memoirs, such as they might be; and (2) to tell you of the following.  I'm now receiving a monthly check of over $400 for being exposed to Agent Orange while I was in Viet Nam, and developing Diabetes Type-II afterwards.  Seems there's some sort of connection.  I had odd feelings about accepting this money, because, well, hell, lots of people have diabetes type-II who were never anywhere near Viet Nam.  But then I thought of Lyndon Baines Johnson.  He was the President of the United States when I was drafted, "Greetings," (okay, I avoided the draft by joining the Air Force), and he was the one who sent me to Viet Nam, somewhere I definitely did not want to go, under any circumstances.  Now, if Lyndon was alive now, I'm sure he'd feel guilty about all the shit he did to us, the young people he ripped away from their homes to go fight a war that was probably illegal, and definitely immoral.  But we did it, and he did it, and I look at this monthly check like it's a check directly from ol' Lyndon himself.

So thanks Lyndon.  I appreciate it.  It'll help pay the bar tab when the nightmares come, and I can see the steam rise off my uniform again.  And I'll raise a glass in toast to you, you who had no sons to send off to the fight, and I'll remember those of us who never came home, and maybe I'll sleep tonight.  But then again . . .

JP