So…it’s official – Senator John Kerry is to be the next State Secretary. But for a colossal blunder in November of 2006 in California, Kerry might have been running against Obama for the democrat nomination instead of desperately politicking now for this new job. This is what Kerry said in California, “You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
This was Kerry’s backhanded way of calling the troops ignoramuses, but the subject of Iraq also reminds of Kerry’s famous remark during his 2004 unsuccessful presidential campaign that he “was for the war before he was against it” (non-funding it with $87 billion)…or something like that. For that matter, his running mate, John Edwards – whom he deserted in his endorsement of Obama – also voted for the Iraq action, as did then-Senator Clinton.
In a CBS Face the Nation appearance in December 2005, Kerry said, “And there is no reason, Bob [Schieffer], that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the – of – the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not ... Iraqis should be doing that.” Not only did Kerry accuse American GIs of crimes but he actually said that Iraqis ought to be carrying out those crimes, as if that would make the crimes okay. Egad!
This is from the Boston Globe of March 25, 2004, “In a question-and-answer session before a Senate committee in 1971, John F. Kerry, who was a leading antiwar activist at the time, asserted that 200,000 Vietnamese per year were being ‘murdered by the United States of America’ and said he had gone to Paris and ‘talked with both delegations at the peace talks’ and met with communist representatives.” At the time, Kerry was a Navy Reserve officer committing an act of treason (defined as “the betrayal of a trust: TREACHERY”) with the enemy while Senator McCain and others were caged like dogs and tortured in the Hanoi Hilton.
This means that by the time he made that statement (his exact words, “So what I am saying is that yes, there will be some recrimination but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the United States of America …”), Kerry’s comrades/nation had murdered [his word] 1.6 million Vietnamese 1964-71 (or almost 4 percent of the population for 1970), mostly civilians – women, children, and old men. Kerry also said this about American GIs: “They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads.” In a Meet the Press interview, he said his language was sometimes “excessive.” EXCESSIVE! He’s never offered a scintilla of proof for that wacky accusation. Regarding morality, he betrayed his country in France and lied to Congress in 1971.
In an Op-Ed piece for the New Hampshire Union Leadera few years ago, Kerry said, “Iraq has made America less safe. The terrorists are not on the run. Terrorist acts tripled between 2004 and 2005. Al-Qaida has spawned a decentralized network operating in 65 countries, most of them joining since 9/11.” According to Kerry, terrorists in significant numbers apparently had just started crawling out from under the rocks, but they’ve been crawling all over the world for decades, especially during the 1990s, when his democratic administration seemed totally unable or unwilling, or both, to significantly try to stay their hand.
Witness the WTC, 1993; Somalia, 1993; Riyadh, 1995; Dhahran Khobar Towers, 1996; U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (at least 257 dead), 1998; USS Cole, 2000, and, finally, 9/11, the terrorist tribute to eight years of Bill Clinton and John Kerry. Did Kerry believe the Girl Scouts were at work in those catastrophes while Bill Clinton was the commander-in-chief? Most recently, Obama attempted to prove that al Qaeda (terrorism) was all but dead when he lied through his teeth about the Benghazi affair…so Kerry should feel at home in his administration.
Of course, if Kerry hadn’t made that stupid remark in 2006 he might have been well-advised to dodge the 2008 race anyway since the “Swift-boaters” would have marshaled humongous forces against him. In only a few months in 2004, they effectively helped blow Kerry completely out of the water on the basis of both his Vietnam-induced conduct (remember tossing the medals over the fence) and his refusal to release the bulk of his military records, including a number of purple-hearts awarded for unbelievably dubious “actions.”
Both Kerry and Hillary Clinton had good things to say about Syria’s President Bashar Assad. They knew (or thought they knew) the territory but they didn’t know squat. Senators Kerry and Dodd (both angling for the big ring in 2008) met with Assad in December 2006. This is what the White House (Bush) had to say: “We discourage the travel of members of Congress to Syria because we believe it undermines the cause of democracy in the region and particularly Lebanon's government,” White House spokesman Blair Jones said (USA Today, December 2006). That was nothing new for Kerry, who had tried – egotistically – to undermine his government while Americans were dying in Vietnam.
On the basis of Obama’s latest subterfuge regarding Benghazi (blaming a movie for the violence in a UN speech long after the massacre), he and Kerry deserve each other. Their levels of intellect and perfidy are about the same. Kerry's a sick joke.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Monday, December 24, 2012
Guns, Pundits, TV-Gurus
Besides publishing a plethora of letters to the editor, the papers have been full of punditry since the school-shooting in Connecticut. As usual, the arguments have to do with whether or not to ban this or that type of gun, the latest villain being the “assault rifle,” a gun capable of spraying bullets so fast that no one can get out of the way. The murder-by-gun rate has been steadily going down nationwide for some time now, but that doesn’t stop the ban-the-gun crowd from being hysterical.
A local columnist (Lexington Herald-Leader) even dragged Jesus into the discussion in the 22 December Op-Ed section, citing the episode in which Jesus remonstrated with Peter concerning Peter’s violence toward an official of some sort. What he didn’t mention, however, was that only a few hours earlier during the last meal with his disciples, Jesus told them to arm themselves even if they had to sell part of their clothing to do so. Two of them had swords already. They were to be used for self-defense, not aggression.
The Peter episode was a special case having to do with Christ’s mission and nothing to do with circumstances occurring later to his followers. Tradition has it that all but one of the disciples were violently murdered anyway, not surprising since all of them, including Jesus, were slaves to the Roman Empire.
Though he’s done nothing about guns during the last four years (except send hundreds to Mexico, currently unaccounted for), the president held the usual after-the-fact press conference, which induced the predictable next-day result, to wit, gun stores selling more guns than ever. Indeed, Wal-mart announced that after the latest presidential conference, its stores – or at least some of them – just sold-out, at least of some of the types. This fear-mongering from the White House is good for little more than that.
People don’t trust government for much in the first place, and have no desire to be at any kind of mercy of the government, in the second place. People with good sense (lets out a lot of the pundits, if not most of them) understand that the problem is with people, not with guns. Laws mean virtually nothing when self-protection is the issue.
The TV-networks are among the guiltiest participants in fomenting unrest in the “gun-matter” (especially cable) by sensationalizing mass murders to a degree unimaginable among people having a grain of common sense. It’s practically a 24/7 thing among the cable outfits that goes on for days. It’s no wonder there are “copycat killings” as these murderers gain far more than a paltry fifteen minutes of fame.
There have been 484 murders in Chicago this year, but has any cable network documented the funerals as they took place? In Connecticut, however, the cable outfits especially, but the mainstreamers as well, have stayed on the matter like a dog on a bone, even to being on-scene for funerals, thus invading the privacy of these bereaved people to an extent that connotes gross insensitivity.
I don’t watch these things to any extent but I surfed over to CNN the other day and Anderson Cooper was interviewing a family of one of the victims so I surfed away only to surf back a while later and he was still at it…with the same family. It’s a sort of “Barbara Walters syndrome” – stay at it until you get everybody crying or give up and go on to the next potential weeper. This is disgusting. It’s sort of like asking a survivor what kind of tree he’d like to be if he wasn’t a mourner. Do these million-dollar TV-gurus have any common sense or sense of propriety at all?
So…the president has appointed yet another commission to “study” the problem and has even appointed the vice president to whip it into shape…sort of like telling a sailor to try spitting into the wind. Besides, the recommendations of various Commissions mean nothing to him. The members of the Bowles-Simpson Commission concerning the recession and something to do about the sad state of financial affairs in this country might as well have gone to Philadelphia. For Obama, it’s as if they never had a meeting.
Vice President Biden’s commission will meet and eat, produce a document, and everyone will have a warm-fuzzy feeling. The prez will pay no attention to it. Life will go on…sadly for many, but it will go on. Nothing much will change the statistics.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
A local columnist (Lexington Herald-Leader) even dragged Jesus into the discussion in the 22 December Op-Ed section, citing the episode in which Jesus remonstrated with Peter concerning Peter’s violence toward an official of some sort. What he didn’t mention, however, was that only a few hours earlier during the last meal with his disciples, Jesus told them to arm themselves even if they had to sell part of their clothing to do so. Two of them had swords already. They were to be used for self-defense, not aggression.
The Peter episode was a special case having to do with Christ’s mission and nothing to do with circumstances occurring later to his followers. Tradition has it that all but one of the disciples were violently murdered anyway, not surprising since all of them, including Jesus, were slaves to the Roman Empire.
Though he’s done nothing about guns during the last four years (except send hundreds to Mexico, currently unaccounted for), the president held the usual after-the-fact press conference, which induced the predictable next-day result, to wit, gun stores selling more guns than ever. Indeed, Wal-mart announced that after the latest presidential conference, its stores – or at least some of them – just sold-out, at least of some of the types. This fear-mongering from the White House is good for little more than that.
People don’t trust government for much in the first place, and have no desire to be at any kind of mercy of the government, in the second place. People with good sense (lets out a lot of the pundits, if not most of them) understand that the problem is with people, not with guns. Laws mean virtually nothing when self-protection is the issue.
The TV-networks are among the guiltiest participants in fomenting unrest in the “gun-matter” (especially cable) by sensationalizing mass murders to a degree unimaginable among people having a grain of common sense. It’s practically a 24/7 thing among the cable outfits that goes on for days. It’s no wonder there are “copycat killings” as these murderers gain far more than a paltry fifteen minutes of fame.
There have been 484 murders in Chicago this year, but has any cable network documented the funerals as they took place? In Connecticut, however, the cable outfits especially, but the mainstreamers as well, have stayed on the matter like a dog on a bone, even to being on-scene for funerals, thus invading the privacy of these bereaved people to an extent that connotes gross insensitivity.
I don’t watch these things to any extent but I surfed over to CNN the other day and Anderson Cooper was interviewing a family of one of the victims so I surfed away only to surf back a while later and he was still at it…with the same family. It’s a sort of “Barbara Walters syndrome” – stay at it until you get everybody crying or give up and go on to the next potential weeper. This is disgusting. It’s sort of like asking a survivor what kind of tree he’d like to be if he wasn’t a mourner. Do these million-dollar TV-gurus have any common sense or sense of propriety at all?
So…the president has appointed yet another commission to “study” the problem and has even appointed the vice president to whip it into shape…sort of like telling a sailor to try spitting into the wind. Besides, the recommendations of various Commissions mean nothing to him. The members of the Bowles-Simpson Commission concerning the recession and something to do about the sad state of financial affairs in this country might as well have gone to Philadelphia. For Obama, it’s as if they never had a meeting.
Vice President Biden’s commission will meet and eat, produce a document, and everyone will have a warm-fuzzy feeling. The prez will pay no attention to it. Life will go on…sadly for many, but it will go on. Nothing much will change the statistics.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Friday, December 21, 2012
Cruiser-Caper-Corruption
Corruption and/or outright rip-offs of the taxpayers on all levels of government are legendary in this state and city though to probably no greater extent than in other states. The recent appointing by the governor of his constant thorn-in-the-flesh, the State Senate president, to a judgeship and golden parachute pension-wise, as well as two other opposition senators previously given the same treatment, is a good example, though this bit of skullduggery has backfired so far. This was blatant corruption.
Teachers and law-enforcement/safety personnel can retire in their early fifties and draw full pensions for the rest of their lives, now close to an average of 30 years. Nearly a third of all retired Lexington policemen and firefighters have added to their already sizeable pensions a “disability” enhancement, meaning extra thousands. The people responsible to the taxpayers for negotiating contracts with these people or their unions know a good vote when they see it and, believing the state’s pockets have no bottoms, give away the store, something that can’t happen in industry, in which competition requires a realistic accounting.
The latest example in Lexington is a case in point. A policeman arrested a lady a few months ago for cause but apparently decided to let her forego the rap in exchange for a “quickie” in the back seat of his cruiser. She must have thought it over later, got mad, and accused him of rape, of which he has just been cleared in a trial but convicted on lesser stuff. He was on duty, apparently unhurt in the “payoff” and the whole lurid mess was consensual.
Latest news: This policeman, on the force for just ten years, has just resigned and filed for a disability pension, which means that, if awarded, will grant him up to 75% of his current wage, untaxed, for the rest of his life. Apparently, he’s just discovered this terrible injury acquired on duty though he was suspended last July and hasn’t been on duty since then. Most likely, it will be a back injury (the usual), but probably not incurred in the little escapade in the cruiser.
Based on the 2010 record, this policeman – on the basis of a 40-hour week – earned about $70,720, not accounting for overtime. If he gets the 75% rip-off, he can collect over $53,000, untaxed, until he dies, meanwhile working at anything else he chooses. If he’s stuck with the lower limit of 60%, he will get only get about $42,000 or so until he cashes in.
The odds are, though it will take a few months, that he will collect, though he was physically able to do his job (not injured, in other words) on the night he decided guilt or innocence in the backseat of his cruiser. One can only wonder if a sexually transmitted disease would qualify him for such a great pension, an attack of gonorrhea, for instance, on the 60% level, or (gasp) syphilis, that might require the 75% payout each month.
Sound harsh? Of course, it does…until one considers that this was a grown man, an officer of the law and apparently not suffering unduly. More to the point, the taxpayers should not be subjected to this kind of larceny. With the right amount of money spread around, most anything can be bought and sold in government, the place where the treasury belongs to everyone, meaning that it belongs to no one and is subject to being rifled at will.
The corruption/rip-off infiltrates every aspect of state endeavor. Just recently, two assistant football coaches (called coordinators but they’re just assistants) at the university were awarded yearly contracts for $550,000 and $500,000. The head coach makes millions per year. None of the men have anything to do with academics, supposedly the main concern of the university, where a newcomer to the faculty might knock down $60,000 or so if he/she is lucky.
Over the last considerable time, people in the far reaches of the county have been paid mega-millions for promising not to “do business” on their land, though their farms are businesses and though both Planning-Zoning and the City Commission already completely control land-use. This is a classic example of rip-off, with the taxpayers being the collective patsy. Disgusting!
Stay tuned for the results of the “cruiser caper” and potential injuries.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Teachers and law-enforcement/safety personnel can retire in their early fifties and draw full pensions for the rest of their lives, now close to an average of 30 years. Nearly a third of all retired Lexington policemen and firefighters have added to their already sizeable pensions a “disability” enhancement, meaning extra thousands. The people responsible to the taxpayers for negotiating contracts with these people or their unions know a good vote when they see it and, believing the state’s pockets have no bottoms, give away the store, something that can’t happen in industry, in which competition requires a realistic accounting.
The latest example in Lexington is a case in point. A policeman arrested a lady a few months ago for cause but apparently decided to let her forego the rap in exchange for a “quickie” in the back seat of his cruiser. She must have thought it over later, got mad, and accused him of rape, of which he has just been cleared in a trial but convicted on lesser stuff. He was on duty, apparently unhurt in the “payoff” and the whole lurid mess was consensual.
Latest news: This policeman, on the force for just ten years, has just resigned and filed for a disability pension, which means that, if awarded, will grant him up to 75% of his current wage, untaxed, for the rest of his life. Apparently, he’s just discovered this terrible injury acquired on duty though he was suspended last July and hasn’t been on duty since then. Most likely, it will be a back injury (the usual), but probably not incurred in the little escapade in the cruiser.
Based on the 2010 record, this policeman – on the basis of a 40-hour week – earned about $70,720, not accounting for overtime. If he gets the 75% rip-off, he can collect over $53,000, untaxed, until he dies, meanwhile working at anything else he chooses. If he’s stuck with the lower limit of 60%, he will get only get about $42,000 or so until he cashes in.
The odds are, though it will take a few months, that he will collect, though he was physically able to do his job (not injured, in other words) on the night he decided guilt or innocence in the backseat of his cruiser. One can only wonder if a sexually transmitted disease would qualify him for such a great pension, an attack of gonorrhea, for instance, on the 60% level, or (gasp) syphilis, that might require the 75% payout each month.
Sound harsh? Of course, it does…until one considers that this was a grown man, an officer of the law and apparently not suffering unduly. More to the point, the taxpayers should not be subjected to this kind of larceny. With the right amount of money spread around, most anything can be bought and sold in government, the place where the treasury belongs to everyone, meaning that it belongs to no one and is subject to being rifled at will.
The corruption/rip-off infiltrates every aspect of state endeavor. Just recently, two assistant football coaches (called coordinators but they’re just assistants) at the university were awarded yearly contracts for $550,000 and $500,000. The head coach makes millions per year. None of the men have anything to do with academics, supposedly the main concern of the university, where a newcomer to the faculty might knock down $60,000 or so if he/she is lucky.
Over the last considerable time, people in the far reaches of the county have been paid mega-millions for promising not to “do business” on their land, though their farms are businesses and though both Planning-Zoning and the City Commission already completely control land-use. This is a classic example of rip-off, with the taxpayers being the collective patsy. Disgusting!
Stay tuned for the results of the “cruiser caper” and potential injuries.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Bastogne, December 1944
Depending on the perspectives people have, there are many opinions regarding the so-called turning point of World War II. Some say the war in the Pacific was turned around at Midway in the spring of 1942 when the core of the Japanese navy (its carriers) was defeated, never mind that that horrifically bloody conflict lasted through August of 1945, when the A-bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Others will point to D-Day, 06 June 1944, when the bloody, costly invasion by the Allies of the European continent at Normandy took place. Still others will claim that the matter was decided when allied fighters could escort bombers all the way to the targets mainly in Germany and back to their bases in England. Before that, it was considered practically a miracle if a bomber crew lived through 25 missions. Allied fighter pilots made short work of the German-Luftwaffe threat, the result being the absolute devastation of German efforts to manufacture war-making materiel as German cities were laid waste.
It's doubtful that any one thing can be determined to be the turning point, but a significant effort started on 16 December 1944 that eventuated in heroism defined to the nth degree. Remarked this month on its 68th anniversary, it was called the Battle of the Bulge and centered in large part around a city in Belgium called Bastogne. Allied troops and commanders, mostly American, were taken entirely by surprise in the Ardennes area on the German-Belgian border when the Germans mounted a last-ditch offensive, code-named Greif, with 38 divisions during what some termed the "coldest winter in memory." The ensuing battle was by far the worst in terms of lives and materiel lost during the European campaign. If the weather had not made flying impossible for days, the affair would not have caused the terrible problem it did, since by December of 1944 the German Luftwaffe (air force) had practically ceased to be, giving the Allies complete control of the skies.
It was during this campaign that American General McAuliffe, when offered a chance by the Germans to surrender his badly outnumbered army at Bastogne, simply replied, "Nuts." Until that German offensive began, it seemed that it was only a matter of time before the Allies reached Berlin. Indeed, there had been talk of Americans going home by Christmas. All that changed overnight when the surprisingly well-equipped German hordes descended upon the Ardennes. The tide was turned eventually, not least because of a break in the flying weather and the advance of General Patton's Third Army, and the German forces were driven all the way back to where they started by late January 1945, but the toll in lives and other resources was horrendous. Of the 81,000 American casualties, 19,000 were killed-in-action and another 23,554 captured. The most horrible atrocity in the European theater also happened during the battle when 86 American prisoners were massacred by German soldiers at Malmedy. This was reminiscent of the infamous Bataan Death March of 1942 in the Philippines, when Japanese soldiers brutalized and killed American prisoners in the early stages of the war.
Was the Battle of the Bulge a turning point? Of course it was, just as the other incidents mentioned above were turning points. The Germans meant to drive all the way through Belgium and Holland to the North Sea, thus splitting Allied forces and gaining access to ports. Their attack was a total surprise, and they were aided by weather so bad that it constituted, on its own, an enemy almost as deadly as the gunfire, with deep snows and frigid temperatures a constant threat simply to survival, much less success against the enemy. It is to the eternal credit of the men who fought there that they would not be denied victory against the weather and the enemy. Most of the American GIs who fought there are dead now. Their average age at the time was said to be twenty-two. Thousands were just teenagers. The nation owes them gratitude so profound as actually to be impossible to comprehend or adequately express, to say nothing of the fact that free nations the world over were delivered by the Americans in the Ardennes in December-January 1944-45. In their honor:
Bastogne
Isaiah 1:18
The scarlet and the snow…the crimson and the wool
Isaiah seemed to know - but not this fiendish ghoul -
This battlefielded ghoul that graced a frigid hell
Saw each a bloody fool, whose life it would expel;
But, not unlike God's seer, it stared down years of time
When it would leech - as here - young blood while in its prime;
The scarlet, deadly sin…not bleached in falling snow…
And wool, with life within, dripped crimson - friend and foe.
The scarlet and the snow…the crimson and the wool
Isaiah had to know - but not a tyrant fool
Who reasoned not with God…but came, instead, to kill,
Who made his minions plod toward graves that thousands fill,
Who was incarnate sin…the scarlet, crimsoned wool…
His god - himself within - though simply Satan's tool;
But, in that icy hell…where tens of thousands fell,
No tyrant fool would dwell - the proud knew all too well.
The scarlet and the snow…the crimson and the wool
Isaiah could but know God reasons with no fool;
So, scarlet ruled the day…and crimson ruled the night,
As sin engaged full sway…the snow and wool to blight;
Men's scarlet-crimson gushed, as - brave - they fought to death,
Their screams of pain not hushed…till final, rasping breath;
But, right would win the day sin's scarlet-crimson spawned,
When wrong was made to pay…and hope, again, had dawned.
The scarlet and the snow…the crimson and the wool
Isaiah - did he know? - about each frozen pool
Of red that stained the earth, when warmed and gone to ground,
Of blood that gave rebirth…pure wool in earthly mound,
Where buglers sound the dirge for freedom-fighter's loss,
Where mourners yet emerge…from fields of star and cross.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The soldiers - friend and foe - from summer years have gone…
And where, then, did they go? - they went to cold Bastogne.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
It's doubtful that any one thing can be determined to be the turning point, but a significant effort started on 16 December 1944 that eventuated in heroism defined to the nth degree. Remarked this month on its 68th anniversary, it was called the Battle of the Bulge and centered in large part around a city in Belgium called Bastogne. Allied troops and commanders, mostly American, were taken entirely by surprise in the Ardennes area on the German-Belgian border when the Germans mounted a last-ditch offensive, code-named Greif, with 38 divisions during what some termed the "coldest winter in memory." The ensuing battle was by far the worst in terms of lives and materiel lost during the European campaign. If the weather had not made flying impossible for days, the affair would not have caused the terrible problem it did, since by December of 1944 the German Luftwaffe (air force) had practically ceased to be, giving the Allies complete control of the skies.
It was during this campaign that American General McAuliffe, when offered a chance by the Germans to surrender his badly outnumbered army at Bastogne, simply replied, "Nuts." Until that German offensive began, it seemed that it was only a matter of time before the Allies reached Berlin. Indeed, there had been talk of Americans going home by Christmas. All that changed overnight when the surprisingly well-equipped German hordes descended upon the Ardennes. The tide was turned eventually, not least because of a break in the flying weather and the advance of General Patton's Third Army, and the German forces were driven all the way back to where they started by late January 1945, but the toll in lives and other resources was horrendous. Of the 81,000 American casualties, 19,000 were killed-in-action and another 23,554 captured. The most horrible atrocity in the European theater also happened during the battle when 86 American prisoners were massacred by German soldiers at Malmedy. This was reminiscent of the infamous Bataan Death March of 1942 in the Philippines, when Japanese soldiers brutalized and killed American prisoners in the early stages of the war.
Was the Battle of the Bulge a turning point? Of course it was, just as the other incidents mentioned above were turning points. The Germans meant to drive all the way through Belgium and Holland to the North Sea, thus splitting Allied forces and gaining access to ports. Their attack was a total surprise, and they were aided by weather so bad that it constituted, on its own, an enemy almost as deadly as the gunfire, with deep snows and frigid temperatures a constant threat simply to survival, much less success against the enemy. It is to the eternal credit of the men who fought there that they would not be denied victory against the weather and the enemy. Most of the American GIs who fought there are dead now. Their average age at the time was said to be twenty-two. Thousands were just teenagers. The nation owes them gratitude so profound as actually to be impossible to comprehend or adequately express, to say nothing of the fact that free nations the world over were delivered by the Americans in the Ardennes in December-January 1944-45. In their honor:
Bastogne
Isaiah 1:18
The scarlet and the snow…the crimson and the wool
Isaiah seemed to know - but not this fiendish ghoul -
This battlefielded ghoul that graced a frigid hell
Saw each a bloody fool, whose life it would expel;
But, not unlike God's seer, it stared down years of time
When it would leech - as here - young blood while in its prime;
The scarlet, deadly sin…not bleached in falling snow…
And wool, with life within, dripped crimson - friend and foe.
The scarlet and the snow…the crimson and the wool
Isaiah had to know - but not a tyrant fool
Who reasoned not with God…but came, instead, to kill,
Who made his minions plod toward graves that thousands fill,
Who was incarnate sin…the scarlet, crimsoned wool…
His god - himself within - though simply Satan's tool;
But, in that icy hell…where tens of thousands fell,
No tyrant fool would dwell - the proud knew all too well.
The scarlet and the snow…the crimson and the wool
Isaiah could but know God reasons with no fool;
So, scarlet ruled the day…and crimson ruled the night,
As sin engaged full sway…the snow and wool to blight;
Men's scarlet-crimson gushed, as - brave - they fought to death,
Their screams of pain not hushed…till final, rasping breath;
But, right would win the day sin's scarlet-crimson spawned,
When wrong was made to pay…and hope, again, had dawned.
The scarlet and the snow…the crimson and the wool
Isaiah - did he know? - about each frozen pool
Of red that stained the earth, when warmed and gone to ground,
Of blood that gave rebirth…pure wool in earthly mound,
Where buglers sound the dirge for freedom-fighter's loss,
Where mourners yet emerge…from fields of star and cross.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The soldiers - friend and foe - from summer years have gone…
And where, then, did they go? - they went to cold Bastogne.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Griever-in-Chief
The president expressed remorse
When acting as Griever-in-Chief,
The murders at the school, of course,
Provided need for some relief;
It was a heinous crime – obscene –
Dead kindergarteners so pure,
A gory, bloody, numbing scene –
Young lives so sure they were secure.
Their teachers, too, were shot outright –
One minute, normal…next one, dead,
Townspeople viewed that gory sight
And traded Christmas cheer for dread;
And, as is always sure the case,
The questions came forth instantly…
So, where was God when this took place?
Well, God was there…illegally?
The president did what he could
And sort of blamed society
But folks collectively just would
Not launch a heartless killing-spree;
No one could get into the head
Of him who perpetrated death,
Not least because he, too, was dead,
He brought about his own last breath.
Was shooter evil or insane?
No one will ever know, of course,
But blame, remorse among the sane
Are normal as a prime recourse;
Such massacres are nothing new,
On street-corners they happen, too,
Since as from when mankind was new,
Descendents all its flaws renew.
The president might have a point
Called Culture Shock…with his amen,
Since time is surely out of joint
When men, he said, may marry men,
Since that bespeaks perversion, coarse,
Society can ill-afford,
Why should he not expect, of course,
Perversions all across the board?
Or, when he staged his massacre
Attacking Libya…and for what?
In no way could a threat occur
From that poor nation’s polyglot;
His was a massacre of choice,
Bombs raining down on children there,
For seven months did he give voice
To grief for Libyans dying there?
And so it goes with massacres,
A nation, world inured to them,
Collective wail when each occurs,
With grief cried for the gross mayhem;
But mark it well – when nations fail
To follow God’s expressed decrees,
There will be terror, grief, travail –
Griever-in-Chief should warn of these.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
When acting as Griever-in-Chief,
The murders at the school, of course,
Provided need for some relief;
It was a heinous crime – obscene –
Dead kindergarteners so pure,
A gory, bloody, numbing scene –
Young lives so sure they were secure.
Their teachers, too, were shot outright –
One minute, normal…next one, dead,
Townspeople viewed that gory sight
And traded Christmas cheer for dread;
And, as is always sure the case,
The questions came forth instantly…
So, where was God when this took place?
Well, God was there…illegally?
The president did what he could
And sort of blamed society
But folks collectively just would
Not launch a heartless killing-spree;
No one could get into the head
Of him who perpetrated death,
Not least because he, too, was dead,
He brought about his own last breath.
Was shooter evil or insane?
No one will ever know, of course,
But blame, remorse among the sane
Are normal as a prime recourse;
Such massacres are nothing new,
On street-corners they happen, too,
Since as from when mankind was new,
Descendents all its flaws renew.
The president might have a point
Called Culture Shock…with his amen,
Since time is surely out of joint
When men, he said, may marry men,
Since that bespeaks perversion, coarse,
Society can ill-afford,
Why should he not expect, of course,
Perversions all across the board?
Or, when he staged his massacre
Attacking Libya…and for what?
In no way could a threat occur
From that poor nation’s polyglot;
His was a massacre of choice,
Bombs raining down on children there,
For seven months did he give voice
To grief for Libyans dying there?
And so it goes with massacres,
A nation, world inured to them,
Collective wail when each occurs,
With grief cried for the gross mayhem;
But mark it well – when nations fail
To follow God’s expressed decrees,
There will be terror, grief, travail –
Griever-in-Chief should warn of these.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
Climate Contrivance
It has been interesting recently to watch the TV newscasts (the “mainstream” ones) with regard to the terrible threat of manmade global warming, which by people who have bothered to pay attention know to be a hoax. The latest ones noticed in this corner have been foisted by NBC and ABC, featuring unbelievable “scare” prognostications. On one network, for instance, the coastlines around Florida and the East Coast were shaded in red to show the extent of the inundation of sea water occasioned by the melting Arctic ice floes or the melting ice in Greenland.
In one of the Newscasts (ABC, I believe) someone sort of slipped up and managed what Shakespeare would have called an “aside” by almost whispering something about what must have been thought a strange anomaly, i.e., the ice buildup in Antarctica…in other words, the re-freezing of melted Arctic ice, thus neutralizing the threat to the “red zones.” He quickly recovered and went on explaining the dire consequences of operating cars and heating houses.
It’s inconceivable that in this administration there’s no one actually cognizant of the way things are, ergo, there’s an agenda that has to be advanced notwithstanding the facts, not least the one that there’s been no warming in at least the last 12 or so years, whether considered manmade or otherwise.
Anecdotal stuff is all the rage now, everything from a hot July this year to Sandy the hurricane, as if anomalies have never occurred or as if anything can be considered an anomaly in the first place. Modern records go back virtually no distance compared to the age of the earth, as if anyone actually has an idea about that.
Take Chicago on Christmas day: In 1982, the temperature rose to 64 degrees; in 1983, the temperature fell to –17, a differential of 81 degrees. Does that prove anything? No! The hottest decade on record was 1936 – at least in this state, Kentucky. So what? It was 70 degrees here yesterday…proved nothing, especially since November was unusually cold.
According to the University of Illinois Cryosphere Today data based on that of a number of agencies such as NASA, the Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area is growing, as it has been exponentially since 1984. It reached a record in 2007 and is currently (September) nearly 2 million sq. km. greater than its lowest volume in 1986.
The current projection is that a new record for southern sea-ice volume will be reached in 2013. This is the entirely credible data that’s ignored by the media, which seems to be a propaganda arm of the administration, President Obama having announced his “fear” of manmade global warming often enough, not to mention his promise in 2008 of bankrupting energy-producing agencies and making electricity costs “skyrocket,” something happening in Kentucky (among lowest energy-cost states) now as plants are being regulated out of existence – this after all the millions spent for years on “scrubbing” emissions.
When the Gore-Obama combine grabbed the Nobel peace prizes for 2007 and 2009, respectively, apparently for warring successfully against warming and accomplishing the goal of cool peace, U.S. citizens were being frightened about everything from losing Coney Island and the Miami beaches to the extinction of (gasp) the polar bears, four of which actually died of drowning though Gore warned of their apparent starving to death (I never read the book or saw much of the film).
Before Obama could collect his million or so and teleprompt himself as savior of the planet in Copenhagen and Oslo in 2009, The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its partners in crime, not to mention robbing Gore of the whole prize in 2007, were thoroughly discredited by their own electronic admissions, considering themselves intellectual guru-giants vis-à-vis climate but lacking even the elementary knowledge that e-mails never die.
In the final analysis, it could be said that climate-science, while incredibly useful but only if people pay attention and act thereon, is among the least understood of the disciplines, not because of brilliant scientists who recognize scientific discipline itself, but because of the totally undisciplined amateurs or agenda-drivers such as the president and Gore look-alikes, who intend to prostitute it for use in attaining personal goals.
The world is not overheating – North becoming a bit warmer, South becoming a bit colder (a tie) – although folks in Greenland might appreciate farming again, as they did a few centuries ago.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
In one of the Newscasts (ABC, I believe) someone sort of slipped up and managed what Shakespeare would have called an “aside” by almost whispering something about what must have been thought a strange anomaly, i.e., the ice buildup in Antarctica…in other words, the re-freezing of melted Arctic ice, thus neutralizing the threat to the “red zones.” He quickly recovered and went on explaining the dire consequences of operating cars and heating houses.
It’s inconceivable that in this administration there’s no one actually cognizant of the way things are, ergo, there’s an agenda that has to be advanced notwithstanding the facts, not least the one that there’s been no warming in at least the last 12 or so years, whether considered manmade or otherwise.
Anecdotal stuff is all the rage now, everything from a hot July this year to Sandy the hurricane, as if anomalies have never occurred or as if anything can be considered an anomaly in the first place. Modern records go back virtually no distance compared to the age of the earth, as if anyone actually has an idea about that.
Take Chicago on Christmas day: In 1982, the temperature rose to 64 degrees; in 1983, the temperature fell to –17, a differential of 81 degrees. Does that prove anything? No! The hottest decade on record was 1936 – at least in this state, Kentucky. So what? It was 70 degrees here yesterday…proved nothing, especially since November was unusually cold.
According to the University of Illinois Cryosphere Today data based on that of a number of agencies such as NASA, the Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area is growing, as it has been exponentially since 1984. It reached a record in 2007 and is currently (September) nearly 2 million sq. km. greater than its lowest volume in 1986.
The current projection is that a new record for southern sea-ice volume will be reached in 2013. This is the entirely credible data that’s ignored by the media, which seems to be a propaganda arm of the administration, President Obama having announced his “fear” of manmade global warming often enough, not to mention his promise in 2008 of bankrupting energy-producing agencies and making electricity costs “skyrocket,” something happening in Kentucky (among lowest energy-cost states) now as plants are being regulated out of existence – this after all the millions spent for years on “scrubbing” emissions.
When the Gore-Obama combine grabbed the Nobel peace prizes for 2007 and 2009, respectively, apparently for warring successfully against warming and accomplishing the goal of cool peace, U.S. citizens were being frightened about everything from losing Coney Island and the Miami beaches to the extinction of (gasp) the polar bears, four of which actually died of drowning though Gore warned of their apparent starving to death (I never read the book or saw much of the film).
Before Obama could collect his million or so and teleprompt himself as savior of the planet in Copenhagen and Oslo in 2009, The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its partners in crime, not to mention robbing Gore of the whole prize in 2007, were thoroughly discredited by their own electronic admissions, considering themselves intellectual guru-giants vis-à-vis climate but lacking even the elementary knowledge that e-mails never die.
In the final analysis, it could be said that climate-science, while incredibly useful but only if people pay attention and act thereon, is among the least understood of the disciplines, not because of brilliant scientists who recognize scientific discipline itself, but because of the totally undisciplined amateurs or agenda-drivers such as the president and Gore look-alikes, who intend to prostitute it for use in attaining personal goals.
The world is not overheating – North becoming a bit warmer, South becoming a bit colder (a tie) – although folks in Greenland might appreciate farming again, as they did a few centuries ago.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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