LEATHERNECKM31

Sparta

Sometimes things just fold together nicely so, and I’m around to hear it, read it, or see it.

Yesterday three initially disparate events occurred, the lesson for us follows:

Tough Love:

Congressman Allen West, about whom I’ve written (see previous post), spoke at a Women Impacting Nation meeting; he encouraged women to stand strong because they are essential to having a country of strong American men. He used the Spartans, the most feared army in ancient times as his example:

“But when you understood what made the Spartan men strong, it was the Spartan women. Because the Spartan women gave….” their male children over at the age of nine to years of martial training.

“And when the Spartan mother gave that young Spartan warrior his shield, she gave him this basic commandment: ‘Spartan, here is your shield. Come back bearing this shield or being borne upon it!’”

Mother Superior:

In her book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”, Amy Chua observes:

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover,  have a playdate, be in a school play,  complain about not being in a school play, watch TV or play computer games, choose their own extracurricular activities,  get any grade less than an A, or not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama.

Chua writes,  “Western parents  constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children’s psyches. Chinese parents aren’t. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.”

Chua is crystal clear on this point… humans responds to challenge, even the smallest of them; it is the nature of things. The easiest path provides nothing, and as a society we have forgotten that, or worse, against all facts to the contrary, ignored and doubted it.

From the mouths of babes:

The last of these random events was my decision, also yesterday, to watch the documentary “Babies”; it was not boredom or remote control flick; I’ve long had an interest in early childhood development which was one of the reasons I chose to become a psychotherapist in mid-life.

 

“Babies” simultaneously follows four infants– from birth to first steps. The children who live with their families, are respectively: Ponijao of Namibia; Bayarjargal, of Mongolia; Mari, of Tokyo; and Hattie, who resides with her family in San Francisco.

The film affords the viewer a front-row seat… no script, no interviews or talking heads, just the inner-workings of a family in four distinct and wildly diverse cultures as it welcomes its newest member.

You’d have to have the average IQ of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals not to draw the lesson from the child-rearing styles shown. The two boys grow up a mud hut and the traditional Mongolian yurt… life is hard, even dangerous for the unwary. Siblings take on much of the care taking as parents work through out the day. Ants bite, falls hurt, frustrations abound… and crying usually doesn’t get you anywhere.   

Both boys live literally among the cattle and goats, chickens and dogs… and dirt, drink water from puddles and seem to develop into robust, assertive, adventuresome toddlers who push all the boundaries, and take correction in stride as a matter of daily life.  Extended families are large and communal.

There is very little substantive difference between Mari’s and Hattie’s first year; both raised in apartments, without siblings, usually in the care of and often surrounded by adults. Play is organized and scheduled and always directed by parents. They are are more passive, more whiny (at least Hattie) and more confounded by life than their peers thousands of miles away.

A few moments stand out… at one point Hattie smacks her mother two of three times on the cheek, not angrily just doing what kids do; Ms. Birkenstock responds immediately: with a smile she coos, “we do not hit”, and grabs a book, titled: “No Hitting” and show it to her.

Hattie smacks it too.

Later, four moms and one metrosexual father, with babies in their laps are “exercising”, they hold the babies arms up and chant, “Mother Earth loves you, will protect you.”  Not kidding.

The girls never encounter dirt, they don’t even see dirt; they are clean and cleaned to a fault; at one point Hattie’s Metrodaddy lint-rollers her front and back after he vacuums the rug she’s sitting on. 

And the point in all this…?  

The rugged, strictly conforming, disciplined parenting of Poni and Byar, full of experiences, challenges, tasks and devoid of mollycoddling will produce leaders… strong, self-reliant individuals for whom life will be lived full-bore.

Conversely, Mari and Hattie (who does show a tough streak despite her parenting) are being groomed to be part of the next wave of Japanese/San Franciscan sheeple who will accumulate years of education and training, are pre-programmed to become Employee #16345-Q in the Japan’s massive IT hive, and the appropriately vegan socialist with a degree in Women’s Studies, respectively.

Essentially…. clones of their parents.  

Both Rep. West and Ms. Chau would embrace this observation… our children are owed the best training and advice we can give them…. how could it be otherwise?

But sadly… no, tragically, we have over the last several decades allowed childhood and adolescence to become an overwhelmingly indulgent process which considers discipline to be the loss of video games for a day or so.

Today children have no responsibilities. Why can’t a four-year-old make their bed?

Childhood used to be the period in which you came of age. Now childhood is nothing more than a familial kindergarten which teaches little and asks virtually nothing.

Generations back, once you could perform a man’s or woman’s work… you were an adult at the age of 14…. 12, even younger.

Instead, now we have “adolescence”, a relatively new invention, during which I believe children actually regress.

Do you know a mother who washes and irons their teen’s clothes? One who caters to their every whim… paying all costs and expenses, yet demanding nothing in return?

“The kids’” adolescence now extends into the mid-20s and even 30s. Then… they move back home; the big ole world was just too tough.

And whose fault is that?

Poni and Byar prove this thesis… children, even toddlers, will rise to the challenge, will seek the hard and experience-ladened path on their own, and if we are to salvage Real America it is critical that we immediately demand Tiger Moms and Spartan Mothers for the new generation.  

Otherwise, it is impossible to produce another Greatest Generation.

And in the end… the cash they take, is equal to the cash you make….

Someone on the radio said today… “…nothing wrong with getting some of what you want en route to getting all you want”, regarding the House GOP’s compromise, trading the extension of all the so-called Bush tax cuts for and extension of all unemployment benefits.

Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Without the quid pro quo, there is little doubt that Americans would get hammered with a huge tax increase estimated to cost a family making $80K an additional $500 a month in taxes.  

"We've got to do it. So let's do it. But that ought to be it,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. “Let's take care of the unemployment compensation even if it isn't ... backed up by real finances.”

Thus Hatch succinctly offered the money quote on how our out of control entitlement federal colossus has brought us to the abyss of economic suicide. The feds spent your money a very long time ago… it is now spending your children's, and even their children's’ money.

Even the so-called “tax cuts” favored by most Americans and set to expire at the end of the year are not fiscally sound. In addition, the House (with the House in GOP hands) should go through the budget and kill the equivalent amount of federal spending to offset the Bush tax cuts… just a very small start in attacking the deficit.

That way small business (which are actually most of the so called “rich people” making north of $250,000 a year, and so hated by the left) will have more money to do more business and hire more workers to do it. They grow the economy.

But in the face of all reason and 8th grade math, this is what we still hear from the in Congress and the White House socialists:

"We have to pay for unemployment insurance, we don't have to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Tax cuts do not create jobs. They haven't throughout the Bush Administration.  Unemployment insurance creates jobs and does not add to the deficit."

Democrats are lying, they know the lie, they intend to lie and and they've gotten away with it since the earliest days of FDR. They foment class warfare because appealing to base human frailty… greed, envy, sloth—is the easiest way to generate votes when you are otherwise incapable of governing.

Besides, Mr. Jefferson already had the last word:

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

"The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

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And speaking of the runway spending, absurdity and big government (pardon the redundancy), I give you The Train to Nowhere:

(LA Times)-- Citing a need for jobs and fast approaching federal deadlines for funding, the California High Speed Rail Authority board Thursday unanimously approved construction of the first leg of the state's proposed bullet train — a 65-mile section in the Central Valley that would not carry passengers until more of the system is built.

Even though I grew up in the Central Valley, graduated from Fresno State and worked in Merced, I had to look up Borden; I gave up trying to find its population (if any).

The economy in this nowhere land is so bad that it’s being called New Appalachia.

And if the boondoggle even made slight sense, the first leg would begin in either the Bay Area or LA.

So why in the middle of the Valley, yet doesn’t even include Bakersfield, just two hours south of Fresno? Just a little reading gave me the the answer as reported by Dan Walters in the Sacramento Bee.

Why? You'd have to be terminally naïve not to believe that the splashy announcement, made personally by an Obama administration official (emphasis mine) in Fresno, was to help an embattled local congressman, Democrat Jim Costa, stave off a very stiff Republican challenge.

Costa, a long-time bullet train advocate, did, in fact, eke out a narrow re-election win. And last week, the California High-Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) announced plans to spend that money and some other federal and state funds, $4.3 billion in all, to build a 54-mile segment from Madera to Corcoran.

Yep, what’s a few billion of your money to buy your president a congressman? Read more.

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This is especially for my friend and comrade at the end of a long dirt road… Jeff The Norton Driver:

Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a man after my own heart; writing in the Washington Examiner he nails the Obama Administration fantasy world with the help of legendary Spinal Tap guitarist and song writer, Nigel Tufnel, right.

“The more I watch this administration at work, the more I think we're seeing the first Nigel Tufnel presidency.

“Nigel Tufnel, many will remember, was the fictitious heavy metal guitarist in the fictional ‘rockumentary’ This Is Spinal Tap. In a classic scene, he displays his guitar collection and his special amplifier that -- unlike all other amplifiers in existence -- has knobs that go all the way up to 11, instead of just 10.

“And, like the beleaguered band Spinal Tap, Obama is seeing his appeal shrink rapidly despite the increased volume -- though his advisers, like Spinal Tap's manager Ian Faith, protest that his appeal isn't shrinking, just becoming ‘more selective.’ In fact, as it flounders before the Wikileaks scandal and the TSA brouhaha, the entire Obama presidency seems to be shrinking, much like the 18-foot model of Stonehenge that, through a slip of Tufnel's pen, became an 18-inch model of Stonehenge that left audiences unimpressed.”

Like minds…

My August 27, 2008 post, “Cause we live in a world gone man…”:

Why am I thinking about the Stonehenge gag in "This is Spinal Tap"?

Reuters reports...

“Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's big speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple.

"Some 80,000 supporters will see Obama appear from between plywood columns painted off-white, reminiscent of Washington's Capitol building or even the White House, to accept the party's nomination for president.

"He will stride out to a raised platform to a podium that can be raised from beneath the floor.

"Once Obama speaks, confetti will rain down on him and fireworks will be fired off from locations around the stadium wall."

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And….

Don Imus call your office:

Free Internet a Civil Right For Every ‘Nappy Headed Child’ — FCC Commissioner Clyburn

Are those code words for community organizer?

“Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever”

Here’s the latest contestant for the 2010 Leni Riefenstahl Propaganda Prize for efforts on behalf of a far left wing government.

Yes… Obama is our Savior... just ask the New York Times.

Some Real Americans believe that if we stop Obamacare, we have turned the corner on taking the government back from the communists; not so fast.

While perhaps the major battle at the moment, there are lesser battles being waged on all fronts and there as as many as there are Tiger Woods hookers.

Education: Quietly last September the House voted to cut banks and student loan giant Sallie Mae out of most of the $92 billion college student loan business, and give it the Education Department.

Said House Education Committee Chairman George Miller, a Democrat, "We must not waste this opportunity to fix America's broken health insurance system and make college much more affordable, at no cost to taxpayers."

No one who ever attended a day of college would believe that having the federal government involved would ever save money. More importantly, this means that in addition to socialist and communist—controlled banks, insurance companies, car companies and in one way or another most aspects of the federal government, education will controled via purse strings.

If the White House controls students loans, it will largely control the type of person who gets into college. Loans for the few conservative colleges will be turned down and admission clerks will be looking for the “right” classes, activities, and politics of the applicant.

Minority/affirmative action populations will skyrocket as the doors are thrown wide to the more easily controlled diversities who seek “social justice” rather than good paying jobs.

Perhaps your liberal sister-in-law isn’t concerned about real diversity in college, because she thinks it has to do with skin color.  Well, what about medical school?     

What happens in a nation where health care is already controlled by the people who brought Chicago the Olympics, and then they control who gets into med school? 

We had a recent example of that in Maj. Nidal "I can't wait to join you in the afterlife” Hasan, M.D. who was pushed along by government handlers who recruited him, educated him through med school, commissioned him (despite his being a radical Muslim with terrorist ties)… and then unleashed him to kill 14 and wound 30 others.

That’s why I don’t like liberals… they’ll get you killed.

And in case you’ve always wondered how Magic Negro Barack Hussein Obama—the Manchurian candidate—was able to afford all his education, travel and living expenses without a work history that most students have, just follow the money and Dr. Khalid Al-Mansour.

Al-Mansour is a senior advisor to a Saudi Prince; he mentored the founding members of the Black Panthers, is a lawyer, a radical Muslim, a black nationalist, and an outspoken anti-Semite.

He makes Rev. Wright look like a moderate; and he has had contact with Obama as far back as the 1980s.

There’s a lot of detailed information about just one more of Obama’s connections with anti-American radicals, you can begin here.

“I chose my friends carefully.The more politically active black students.The foreign students.The Chicanos.The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists….” –---“Dreams From My Father” – Barack Obama

Good news from Hollywierd and leftist gnome Matt Damon regarding his latest anti-American, anti-military, Bush-hating screed: “The Green Zone” has officially tanked, just like all the other anti-Iraq/Afghanistan films have.

The non-political and well-made “The Hurt Locker”, by contrast, won six Oscars while kicking the hell out of James Cameron’s latest anti-American, anti-military, anti-Marine Corps yawner… “Avatar”. 

Perhaps even left-wingers are getting tired of left-wing tripe.

A word about degenerates….

Does defending a degenerate—in this case, left wing Hollywood defending child rapist Roman Polanski—make one a degenerate?

No… it makes you worse. 

As soon as the bracelets clicked in Switzerland on the dwarf director’s tiny wrists (see below), more than a hundred left-wing artists and members of the intelligentsia (sic) mobilized to protect one of their disgusting own and demand his release.

The list includes the lucky to have his head Salman Rushdie, directors David Lynch, Jonathan Demme, John Landis, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Terry Gilliam (Monty Python) and—wait for it—Woody Allen! 

Debra Winger who had a career for about as long as it takes me to drink a Starbuck’s grande, even “issued” a statement:

Winger (shown left with close friend)... on Monday demanded Polanski's release and criticized Swiss authorities for their "philistine collusion" in arresting Polanski as he entered the country for a film festival.

"This fledgling festival has been unfairly exploited, and whenever this happens the whole art world suffers," Winger said.

Among her other amazing talents (sic) Whoopi Goldberg is like her idol, Barry Obama,…. she’s omniscient:

"I know it wasn't ‘rape-rape’. It was something else but I don't believe it was ‘rape-rape’. He went to jail and and when they let him out he was like "You know what this guy's going to give me a hundred years in jail I'm not staying, so that's why he left."

That’s right dumbass, it’s called fugitive flight it’s what guilty criminals do because they have the money to make bail. It’s what Nazi war criminals did, it’s what O.J. Simpson did.

You see, Whoopi and Winger and all those directors and millions of other Americans, probably 68 million, are enlightened, leftist feminists. They are for other enlightened, leftist feminists, but claim the right to (and no doubt have in fact) murder(ed) babies in womb and believe that it’s perfectly understandable to drug (with Quaaludes) and then rape and sodomize a 13-year-old child.

In fact, this child.

I’ve read the 30-page, pre-sentencing probation report in this case.

The crime.

At every turn the rape of this child was either aided and assisted, facilitated or not prevented by no less than 8-10 adults who had a chance to intervene or who bent over backwards to see that Polanski did not have to pay for his crime.

• The girl’s mother (a a twice-divorced, failed actress, there’s a surprise) freely allowed the girl to go unaccompanied with 44 year-old Polanski twice to be photographed for a “foreign fashion magazine.“
• Polanski said that he took the girl to a Santa Monica area home of a friend to take some pictures but a number of people also arrived so, he took the girl next door to the time of Jack Nicholson who was away at the time.
• A neighbor, Helena Kalliniaotes, who watched Nicholson’s house allowed Polanski and the girl in the house and them opened a bottle of champagne from which all three drank. She would later say she thought the girl was 18 “… trying to get in movies. I assumed they were lovers.”
• Angelica Houston, Nicholson's girlfriend at the time testified that she came by the house, learned Polanski was there and knocked on the bedroom door. She said, “Roman, are you in there?” Polanski who had already drugged and raped the girl twice went to the door and talked briefly with Houston and returned to the bed and attempted a third assault.
• Later the child and Polanski came downstairs and talked with Houston who said, “She didn’t seem to be distressed. She was breathing high in her throat when she came out… she seemed sullen which I thought was a little rude.” (Well, imagine that, being rude after emerging from the bedroom with a middle-aged man.)
• Houston said that she “though she was one of those little chicks who could be any age up to 25.”

Miss Houston is nothing if not a person of wide margins.

The arrest.

Polanski’s takes the girl home; the girl says nothing to her about the assault. But when the girl’s 17-year-old boyfriend comes over she hears him and her daughter discussing the drugging and sexual assault.

Polanski, apparently an idiot in addiction to being a pedophile, gave the girl some proof of the nude shots he had taken of her. These were then discovered found by her mother who immediately called….. wait…. her accountant.

The accountant, the only human being in this whole disgusting affair, told her to call police immediately.

Polanski was later arrested in the lobby of a hotel.

The plea bargain and justice denied.

In the end Polanski admitted the assault which contained in part the following:

• The defendant said that during the first photo session he took topless shots of the girl outdoors but “… didn’t realize that topless photos objectionable here (the U.S.)… they’re acceptable in Europe.”

And it is these towering, promethean mores and values that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wants the Supreme Court to use in interpreting our Constitution.

In the usual get-outta-jail-free-card, Hollywood plea bargain, Polanski agree to plead guilty to a single charge of unlawful intercourse with a female less than 14 years of age.

In his pre-sentencing probation report, PO Irwin Gold was nothing if not rhapsodic over his probationer’s great character, profession and his high-octane friends.

He spent to or three pages filled with quotes from his friends about the scumbag’s great contribution to the universe and his kind and gentle and in no way criminal behavior. 

Mia Farrow’s letter was not the most gushing, calling him “… a brave and brilliant man important to all people.” Others mention how helpful he’d been to Polish Jews, giving them generous donations.

In the end the mother didn’t want this paragon of virtue behind bars, but she was adamant about Polanski showing remorse.

She and the PO were equally concerned that a trial might “…cause serious damage to the victim.”

Naturally, there was an undisclosed amount of money that exchanged hands… I hope the kid got some of it, but I doubt it.

The PO ended his evaluation recommending no incarceration, no therapy or psychiatric care because he was “unlikely to reoffend” , and lobbied to have the travel restrictions lifted for such an important personage as Mr. Polanski who had to travel to work, don’t you know.

Proving that “polak jokes” will never die, Polanski reviewed this situation and decided his only chance was to flee the country… which he did; and in so doing he’ll face a 2009 judge instead of a 1977 judge. The world has turned over several times since those days… even in Hollywierd.

YLSIL: GA, why so much time on this case? It was a long time ago and there are more important things to solve like global warming.

GA: Yeah, I heard that for 20 years ago about Bill Clinton the draft dodger…that the Vietnam war was “a long time ago” and that we should all practice situational ethics and that the passage of time is plenty enough reason to forgive… any left-wing jack ass.

No, this is a perfect case for the Brave New World that godless leftists want to force on the rest of us, a cesspool of gay marriage, child rape, abortion, everything/anything is alright all the time, school children should be brainwashed to pray and pledge their allegiance to be the servants of whomever the left’s political leader is.

They seek the final destruction of the America that rose from obscurity to lead and protect the world from the kind of people you’ve just read about.

If Roman Polanski can get a slapped wrist out of all this, which is entirely likely, it’s easy to understand why Obama is president.

They all come from the same cess pool…. if you need proof, just tune in the dimocrat national convention or the inauguration of any dimocrat president.

And what about the sexually abused little girl? Well, Samantha Geimer, now 46, is a product of that cess pool and that has damaging life-long effects.

January 12, 2009--Samantha Geimer, 45, who was raped by fugitive film director Roman Polanski three decades ago, has filed a legal declaration asking that the charge against Polanski be dismissed in the interest of saving her from further trauma as the case is publicized anew.

Oh, that’s Miss Geimer over there, shown at the premiere of the HBO documentary “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” on May 6, 2008…. being victimized once again by coverage of those lurid details.

The Real America in Real America

I’m dispensing with my usual meat and potatoes posts today… I figure that what with Obama thinking he’s the King of the World who has forfeited the rest of America’s season to our enemies… with Iran working on two nukes… not the zero nukes the dimocrats have insisted there are, and OBL is demanding that Europe withdraw its pitifully small number of troops from Afghanistan, and Kadafi claiming paternity of Barry (not a stretch considering Barry’s old lady)… terror squads being busted across the nation…. what could happen?

Today me and my homie, Chuck Chow attended the annual Gene Autry Oklahoma Film and Music Festival in where else but Gene Autry, Okla., (near Ardmore).

All my life I’ve used “Howdy” more than any other greeting and in this crowd… in the civic Center near the Gene Autry Church and the Gene Autry Volunteer Fire Department, so does everyone else.

Many in attendance dress the part, celebrating perhaps not the authentic West but the West portrayed in thousands of Western films… the exhibits are awash in boots, parasols, school marm dresses, marshal badges, cowhide vest and long sleeve shirts with pear snap buttons…. and enough six-guns to start a range war, I reckon.  

Autry (1907 – 1998) made a lot of mostly B Westerns which usually saw him meeting a nice girl and defending her honor in a fist-fight or with some fair gun slingin’ which usually involved The Singing Cowboy shooting the bad guy’s Colt from his hand.

Damned fine shootin’ from waist.

And yes, each two-reeler usually featured at least three or four songs, often on horseback.

Autry:

• acted in almost 100 films, and had soundtrack credit for 115 movies in a career that spanned more than a half century. 
• made 640 recordings, including 300+ songs he wrote or co-wrote.
• sold more than 100 million records and had more than a dozen gold and platinum records, including the first certified gold record.
• flew “the Hump”—over the treacherous Himalayas—in the China-Burma-India Theater after enlisting in 1942 at age 35.

Gene owned the Anaheim Angles for decades, died at 92, and made more money than God, appearing on the Forbes’ magazine list of the 400 richest Americans until he slipped to a "near miss" in 1995 with an estimated net worth of $320 million.

Not bad for the grandson of a Methodist preacher,

And of course Autry had his own radio and TV shows in the 1940s and 50s, and was concerned that his young radio listeners would emulate him, so he wrote the Cowboy Code:

He told his fans that to be a good cowboy one:

1. must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.
2. must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
3. must always tell the truth.
4. must be gentle with children, the elderly and animals.
5. must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
6. must help people in distress.
7. must be a good worker.
8. must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action and personal habits.
9. must respect women, parents and his nation's laws.
10. must be a patriot.

Perhaps these few, now remarkable guides for life were his greatest contribution.

Gene Autry, great American.

The real fun today was meeting some of my favorite movie and TV character actors from the 40s, 50, and 60s, including Donna Douglas—The Beverly Hillbilly’s “Elly Mae”; Ben Copper, left and above, mostly known for his work in Westerns, including Duel at Apache Wells, Johnny Guitar and numerous TV appearances through the 1980s; and James Hampton best known for his portrayal of bugler “Dobbs” in TV’s send up of U.S. Calvary movies… F Troop.    . 

Cooper is shown below in a scene from Gunfight at Comanche Creek starring Audie Murphy,WWII Medal of Honor Recipient and one of the most decorated American soldiers of all time.

Cooper remembered Murphy as a “quiet, great guy” who was easy to work with.

Most people don’t know that Murph was also a successful country music songwriter. His songs were cover4ed by such diverse artists as as Dean Martin, Eddy Arnold, Charley Pride, Porter Waggoner, Roy Clark, and interesting, Harry Nilsson.

His two biggest hits were "Shutters and Boards" and "When the Wind Blows in Chicago". 

Donna Douglas, below with my main man, Chuck, was a dear heart; easy and pleasant with the fans, chatting and signing and posing for photos.  

When I purchased one of her photos I asked her if she recalled making a public appearance in Taft California about 1964-65 where I first met her as a high school student. (Donna is shown right with my protégé the aforementioned Mr. Chow.) 

Assuming she’d look quizzical or just say, “no”, she surprised me by immediately saying, “Yes, it was at a car dealership.”

Right she was…. and to this day I can still recall my, shall we say impure thoughts as I clasped her tiny hands and said “pleased to meet you”, my mind filled with fantasies that will be recounted in my soon-to-be published autobiography…. “I’ve Done Some Interesting, and Dangerous Things.”    

For those keeping track, Miss Elly May will be 76 tomorrow.

Ahh, where did my life go? 

Had some nice conversation with Jim Hampton, who lives in Trophy Club, Texas, in the Dallas area—just and hour and a half from here.

“F Troop” was a great TV series which should forever be respect for the punch line about the “Ha’kowie Indians” who were so named after being lost for a very long time and then finally uttered… “Where the heck are we?”

The tribe’s name has been changed over the years to a more humorous and far more crude punch line.

So?…  call Russell Means. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a great day, walking back through my childhood, full of Red Ryder BB Guns, Roy Rogers lunch pails, and humming the lyrics of “Happy trails…. to you… until we meet again…..”

And once again I felt very grateful for the childhood I had… when children were loved and given the right role models and expected to respond to those lessons. For a time of wholesomeness and easily defined lines, a great education and wonderful friends… most of whom I still have.

Those who came after me have my sympathy

Well, gotta go, Pilgrim; It’s quiet….. too quiet, I think it’s Comanch’.

When village idiots go wild...

LM31 On the road again...

Will post from the road this week with some observations and photos from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society's national convention... and no doubt the continued dem party DefCon-4 meltdown. 

(Liberal) Fools and their money are soon parted...:

Homeless 90210: Slumming time and the livin's easy

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - (AP) -- Being homeless in this upper crust enclave is not exactly like living on the street in other places. There are handouts of $2,000 and bottles of Dom Perignon, lucky finds of Gucci shoes and diamond-encrusted bracelets, a chance to rub shoulders with rich and famous locals such as Mark Wahlberg and Master P, even empty houses to live in.... read on.

NYT's Palin Panic: Four Hit Pieces On Alaska Gov in One Day

News Busters.com reports that the NYT has turned its full, but limited talent and its pocketbook in to attacking Gov. Plain. Four hit pieces--a front page "news" article and three columns, totaling some 6,000 words, yesterday alone. 

LMAO: one of the pieces bemoans the fact that her husband, Todd, is, well, uppity: "... when the spouse of an elected governor steps away from safe issues that are nonpartisan in nature, that it is bad for the legislative and executive branches, and Todd Palin would not be an exception to that.”

Did we hear this at anytime in the eight-year Clinton co-presidency?

Obama's numbskulls have wasted months running against George Bush and now with just weeks to go, Barry is running against Sarah Palin.... this is turning out very nicely indeed.

When your opponent is committing suicide, it's best not to get in his way.

Hollywood in orchestrated attack

Has-been entertainer Chevy Chase, best known falling off ladders, and exhibiting his brilliance by leaving Saturday Night Live after it first season to become a mega-movie star, is attacking Gov. Palin.

He joins a growing list of Hollywood, attack-Palin lefties including pseudo-lesbo, drug addict and pop-slut, Lindsay Lohan and "Pink"; and from One-Hit Wonders Dept. comes the bimbo whose name is the answer to the trivia question: "who played TV's Wonder Woman?"; Matt Damon, Brad Garrett (hint: the brother on "Everybody Loves Raymond"), Silicone Valley's Pamela Anderson, and Bill Mahr and Roger Ebert (the morbidly obese movie critic).  

Be afwaid, be vwery afwaid....

Against such a formidable array of intellectual firepower, how can we Bible-clinging, gun-toting racists and homophobe Neanderthals stand a chance in November?    

Now... and then

Here's a good one about The Clintons' favorite source of ready cash... Tyson Foods. Debbie Schlussel reports that:

Well, folks, here it is--the beginning (or maybe the middle) of the end of America as we know it. Tyson Foods is now ending employees' paid day off for Labor Day and, instead, giving 'em the paid day off for the Muslim festival, Eid Al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. It is the most important holiday in Islam.

It will be interesting to see how Tyson calculates which day it is, since Muslims are never really sure on which day or two it falls until right before--and since Shi'ites and Sunnis frequently feud about when it falls.

Same thing happened with Cinco d-f'ing Mayo once the full on flood of wetbacks began invading our homeland and taking up positions in every state in the union.

This is but a small example of how our country is being attacked from within as well as without. Every facet of our lives has been breached... religion, marriage, patriotism, law, popular culture, language, entertainment and especially education.

The left's fifth columnists started opening open the gates during the 60s and now the barbarians are inside... "Gentlemen, prepare to defends yourselves."

This from 1999--I'm sure you remember: "Stupidity no color but ignorance sure is transparent. And ignorance showed through last week when Anthony Williams, the new black mayor of Washington, D.C., accepted the resignation of Public Advocate David Howard, who is white. Howard's offense was sounding offensive: In a staff meeting, he used a perfectly good word - ''niggardly'' - to describe the administration of a fund.

Which led to this: Wisconsin University student Amelia Rideau is upset that her professor used the 'N-ardly' word at least twice: Once on Jan. 25 during a class on 14th-century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, and once in a subsequent class to explain the word’s meaning.  Ms. Rideau was outraged, and is demanding the UW implement a speech code which would punish anyone using what she described as 'offensive' language - including the 'N-ardly' word.  She urged the university not to require proof of intent before punishing verbal villains such as her professor.

She's never heard of "due process" either.

I'm sure you'll agree the funniest thing in this story--other than affirmative action which allowed Ms. Rideau past the ivy-covered walls-- is that the Wisconsin Star-Trib used "N-ardly"; Or as Ms. Rideau pronounces it... "nard-lee". 

And if a newspaper is too frightened to use a perfectly good word, then a great deal of the battle for wisdom over ignorance is already lost. 

Now comes this:

Commissioner Defends 'Black Hole' as Racist Term

Dallas County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections and other court paperwork.

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, white, said that central collections "has become a black hole" intro which paperwork falls.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, black, interrupted him with a loud  "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole." That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, (surprise) to demand that Mayfield apologize for his racially insensitive analogy.

The honkey commissioners just laughed.

As a briefly famous black general said... "Don't git stuck on stoopid."

This from the WSJ via Debbie S.: The Department of Homeland Security has a new strategy to help deal with illegal immigration: self-deportation. This new "voluntary, self-deportation" program with a name as stupid as the idea: "Operation Scheduled Departure."

The numbers of course are staggering...

• 550,000 illegal aliens have received final deportation orders.
• 31,000 illegal aliens have been rounded and detained.
• Thus-- if ICE can only grab 31K of 550K ordered to be deported there's but a 5.6% chance of being caught. Wetbacks w/o a deport order have even less chance of being picked up by one of only 84 ICE fugitive teams.
• No wetback in his right mind heads south.

You're doin' a fine job "Cherty"

No for something to cleanse the palate:

Heroes

World War II hero and respected actor, Charles During received a tip on the hat with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame a couple of days ago.

He is the very last actor of his generation who also gave so much to our country in the military.

Like so many of the tough, unpampered men of his generation he lied about his age and forged his mom's signature on his enlistment papers.

Durning was in the first wave at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. He was captured during the Battle of the Bulge six months later; incredibly he survived the Nazi SS massacre of American POWS near Malmadey Belgium.

(Most people are unaware that the SS massacred more than 360 US POWs and more than 100 civilians during this time in the area around Malmadey.....  here. Durning was among some 40 Americans who escaped from the Malmadey group.) 

Durning was awarded the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts--one for being hit in both legs by German machine-gun fire.

Watching him in the great TV series "Rescue Me" with Denis Leary, it's clear his wounds caught up with him.  

Durning is well-known for participating in various functions to honor American veterans. He was the past chairman of the U.S. National Salute to Hospitalized Veterans

He is also a well-known participant in the National Fourth of July Celebration on the Washington DC Mall. 

We won't have him much longer, and then that era--so familiar to the WWII generation and fans of the great movies from the 30s, 40s and 50s-- will, save for memories, be gone.

Color-coding history

Okay. This is right in my wheelhouse.

Spike Lee, the director who seems to make only cache "black films" which do little business but are loved by guilt-ridden white critics, can't generate headlines with his work so the other day he called Clint Eastwood a "racist."

Lee couldn't carry Clint's .44 magnum... it weighs more than he does.

Lee attacked Clint because his two films--"Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima" didn't give a co-starring role to the black Marines who served in non-combat units on the "sulphur island".

"He did two films about Iwo Jima back to back and there was not one black soldier in both of those films," Lee said Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival.

"Soldier"? I thought we were talking about Marines.

(And of course, he's wrong anyway, one of the Lee trademarks: One of Eastwood's co-producers, Robert Lorenz  had to explain to Lee that 12 black extras were used in the landing scenes. "They are there in this film ... but the focus of this film is the story of the flag raisers. This film is very much about racism and the treatment of Ira Hayes, the Native American flag raiser.")

Yeah, Hayes had it tough as a Pima Indian in the Corps at that time, but it didn't dominate what I thought was a very flawed movie anyway.

Some historical facts:

There were some 700 black Marines on Iwo in non-combat roles---if there was such a designation on the hellish island. There primary tasks included running ammunition to the front lines, burying the dead, and unloading the amphibian crafts at the waters edge. My guess is that there were thousands of Puerto Rican, and even Brooklyn and New Jersey Marines who performed the same and similar tasks.

Guess what, Spike...? Eastwood didn't feature them in either movie.

Guess what #2.... in neither of Eastwood's Iwo movies (one from the perspective of the six Marines who raised the flag on Suribachi and the other from the perspective of THE JAPANESE) did not feature any black Marines.

Why...? Because they were not assigned to combat units; to portray them as such would have stood history on its head. I have no doubt, however, that in some future movie about Iwo, a black, a Hispanic and a woman will take the places of three of the flag raisers on Suribachi... "... calling Mr. Stone, Mr. Oliver Stone."

You want a documentary on Iwo featuring black Marines in all disproportion to their actual role, Spike...? call Ken Burns. (BTW: And just look how unfairly even the libs' favorite documentarian was treated on his last outing. See here.)

By the way, where's the Spike Lee movie about black Marines or any Marines for that matter, on Iwo?

Wait for it....

Someone with half a brain might just suspect that Lee is such an insignificant little dipwad that he slandered Eastwood solely for the purpose of grabbing ink for his new movie, "Miracle at St. Anna", about four members of the 92nd "Buffalo Soldier" Infantry Division in Italy during WWII.

Lastly, you know who was left out of "Flags and "Letters"?

The 27 Marine Corps and Navy Medal of Honor Recipients, that's who; if anyone has a bitch coming about Eastwood's Iwo movie it's Marines Herschel "Woody" Williams and Jack Lucas, and Navy Corpsman George Wahlen--our three surviving Iwo Recipients. There was not even a passing reference to any Recipient; in fact, "Flags" was almost devoid of any American heroism.

The single most decorated battle in history, one-quarter of all Medals of Honor earned by Marines in the entire war, the bloodiest, most costly fight in Marine Corps history... and no heroes?

So come to think of it, if anybody has a bitch about Eastwood's movie, it's Iwo vets, black and white, the Marine Corps and all Marines.

Attack of the Hypocrites

Just as Tim Robbins predicted, a “chill wind” is blowing in Hollywood… but it’s blowing in Mel Gibson’s face.

Some of the Gomorrah-by-the-Sea moguls have stated that they will never hire or work with Gibson in the future because of his self-financed film, “The Passion of The Christ.”

“Blacklisting”--the bleating battle cry of the Left for 50 years--is in fact practiced by… uh-huh, The Left.

The rising tide against Gibson began with Braveheart. The criticism sniped at the moral center of the film--the central character’s resistance to oppression and his willingness to die for his beliefs. The same hypocrites who lavished praise on Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill Part I called Braveheart “gratuitously violent.” What did they think war with broadswords and arrows would look like?

Next, Gibson gave us The Patriot in which the central character (with Biblical foreshadowing) sacrifices one of his sons in the fight against brutal oppression. Worse… in avenging that murder, he puts guns in the hands of his surviving young sons who cut down as many Redcoats as they can. The usual pundits gathered their skirts about their knees and worried about “the message that sends” about guns and children.

Next, Gibson really offended with We Were Soldiers, a near-documentary film about young American’s heroism in Vietnam. The Hollywood Left (at least until John Kerry ran for president) ignored the truth of Vietnam, favoring instead, the portrayal of GIs as murderers, rapists, kooks and drug addicts… see: Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Born of the Fourth of July, Full Metal Jacket, and Casualties of War.

General Hal Moore and Joe Galloway who wrote We Were Soldiers… and Young turned down numerous movie offers before accepting Gibson’s. “We were determined that the truth be told,” Gen. Moore said.

Critics criticized Gibson for the “unbelievable” dialog in which a dying solder asks a comrade to tell his wife that he loved her. It wasn’t a line; it was actual uttered by a hero in the Ia Drang Valley.

Once more, Gibson’s theme of fidelity, faith and sacrifice--and of a devout “father’s” love for his “sons”--played through the film.

Simply, Gibson does not follow the approved Left politics of secular Hollywood and they hate him for it.

And now, he’s made a film which is clearly for him an article of faith… his faith… it is the story of Christianity.

For what it’s worth, the box-office receipts for Passion indicate that an overwhelmingly Christian society is interested in such films; it’s every bit as clear as the hypocrisy of the Hollywood.

loneliness of the long distance swimmer

Spaulding Gray may finally be completing his longest swim.... a gifted but tormented practitioner of one-man shows largely structured around his depression and his not-so-skewed vision of the world...

A friend remembers:

http://barlow.typepad.com/barlowfriendz/2004/01/
is_spalding_gra.html