Saint Barack and the Missus

Just a few brief comments on a couple of recent statements uttered by Saint Obama and his attractive, classy, brilliant, scholarly, accomplished, mother-of-the-year (the fair-and-balanced media can’t be wrong, can they?) wife.

Since Obama’s campaign for the presidency began, the two have uttered countless (adj. – too numerous to be counted) statements that beg for analysis by rational minds. Trouble is, few (rational minds, that is) are to be found in the mainstream media. After all, minds, besides being a terrible thing to waste, are of finite dimension and capacity. And, when they are filled to overflowing with biased, left-leaning grey matter, there is precious little room left for ‘rational’.

Ditto for the majority of the American electorate. The finite volume of the average American’s brain is just overflowing with important stuff with which our dolt ancestors didn’t have to contend (you know – the need to remember what day and time ‘Deal or No Deal’ airs, how Angelina and the twins are doing, and volumes of other similarly weighty and life-sustaining pieces of information). ‘Rational thought’ is a luxury we can no longer afford.

But I digress ...

I’d like to take a look at just a couple of comments recently offered up for our perusal by Obama and the missus. We’ll do more at a later time. On any given day, they utter dozens of statements that require careful scrutiny, lest we few remaining ‘rational thought dinosaurs’ be driven mad by swallowing them at face value.

The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more ... Michelle the Merciful

[convenient Marxist translation: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.]

First of all, Michelle ... call me picky, if you like, but you need to remember that, despite its inferiority to Spanish, in English grammar, person is important. ‘Someone’ is not a ‘they’. ‘Someone’ is a ‘he’ or a ‘she’. The grammatically (if not rationally) correct statement should be: ... then someone is going to have to give up a piece of his/her pie ...

More importantly, Michelle, do you not think that the working people of America, most of whom are handing over to the government, in one form or another, more than thirty percent of the fruits of their labor, are sharing their pie sufficiently already?

As for your inference that Americans are going to have to be more willing to give to others (at the figurative point of a gun, it would appear), are you aware that Americans are the most charitable people on the face of the earth? That, when allowed to use their time and money as they see fit, they give more of both to the less fortunate than have any other people in the history of mankind? (By the way, Michelle, how does that particular observation mesh with your recent comment, made during a South Carolina stump speech, that America is 'just downright mean'?)

Are you also aware, Michelle, that nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is the federal government granted the power to dictate educational standards or curricula, or the power to provide universal healthcare to everyone (either citizens and/or illegal residents)? As a matter of fact, the decisions regarding both are left to the states, or the people themselves.

I, for one, am becoming increasingly aware that you, and your husband, are arrogant, racist, elitist, anti-American, Marxist would-be tyrants. And the thought that he may soon be serving as President, and you as First Lady, is among the most horrifying thoughts that have ever entered my mind.

Michelle, before moving on to your husband's comment, I'll refer to yet another of yours, without editorial comment from me. I believe this one reeks so harshly of arrogant, narcissistic elistism that any reader here would be highly insulted if I even attempted to parse it:

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism ... that you come out of your isolation ... Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

Dear readers, have you managed to keep your breakfast/lunch/dinner down, or should I have preceded that particular piece of condescending conceit with an 'impending nausea' warning?

We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom ... the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges ... Saint Obama (in describing his Supreme Court litmus test)

More Grammar 101: Senator, 'criteria' is a plural noun. 'That's the criteria' should correctly read 'Those are the criteria', or 'That's the criterion.' (End of grammar lesson ... I, and many Americans, would forgive you saying, 'I ain't got no criteria,' provided your intentions were honorable. But such isn't the case.)

Senator Obama, I'll see your empathy for the young teenage mom (and all of your other 'victims' mentioned above), and raise you my empathy for the unborn child. A legal scholar who believes in the sanctity of life -- say, a Clarence Thomas or an Antonin Scalia -- what color would your litmus paper turn in his presence?

The problem with relying on emotions (either genuine, or politically-motivated – the latter being the one with which you are most intimately acquainted) to decide cases that come before the Court is that there are invariably passionate emotional arguments on both sides. That is why an unwavering duty to uphold the original intent of the Constitution must be the foremost criterion in selecting judges to sit on the highest court in the land. Emotions must play no part in that noble calling.

Are you really an attorney, or is that assertion just a convenient creation of one of your P.R. people? If you are indeed a member of the bar, did you miss the class in law school in which the professor dispensed the time-honored lesson that justice is blind? The law, and the interpretation of law, has nothing to do with empathy. It has to do with impartiality in upholding the U.S. Consitution -- not any single man’s personal perception of what is ‘fair’ or ‘right’.

Barack Obama regularly displays a blatant contempt for the most magnificent blueprint for governance ever conceived by the mind of man. The quote above is simply one of countless comments that exhibit that contempt. If he places his hand on a Bible on January 20, 2009 and affirms:

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States ...

... he will be lying.

In addition, America’s slide into socialism, and Islamic terrorists’ ability to accurately position her in their crosshairs, will be strengthened to a measure beyond anything any of us can now envision.

The arrogance and elitist attitude of Senator Obama also became glaringly apparent over the past few weeks as he announced his strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq before departing on the ‘fact-finding mission’ (read: campaign swing) that will include visits to both Iraq and Afghanistan – in effect, saying that nothing that occurs during that trip will alter his view, or change his strategy to wind down the war in Iraq.

Here we have a man whose ‘qualifications’ for the presidency seem to amount to a brief and unremarkable stint in the senate (without a single meaningful legislative achievement to show for it) and a history as a ‘community organizer’. On the other hand, more than a hundred thousand duty-bound Americans have served, and are serving, in Iraq and Afghanistan, witnessing both a past and a continuing brutality that you or I cannot even imagine, leaving their friends and family in order to travel to a violent war zone, placing their lives on the line each and every day – and many even re-enlisting two or three times. Yet this ‘community organizer’ has in effect declared that nothing he witnesses in either war zone, and no words, admonition or advice he hears from those Americans who are serving there, will affect his preordained view of that war ... or their amazing accomplishments in prosecuting it.

It would be difficult to conceive of a more insidious kind of arrogance, either historical or present-day. Yet, six months from now, this man may well be the Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, and leader of the free world.

... which all lends tragic new meaning to the phrase 'the inmates are running the asylum'.

~ joanie

The Brotherhood of the Warrior

And so another 4th of July has come and gone. My, how time flies when you’re in the fourth quarter of life. It was just two short years ago, after concluding that the local high school fireworks display was probably not the venue for me, that I got a timely, if not fortuitous phone call from a good friend and local businessman inviting me to spend the evening with his family at the nearby airport where their plane was hangared.

It was an opportune happenstance if I do say so myself. After concluding that sitting in the grandstand of the football stadium, listening to blaring mariachi music and watching the local muchachos running up and down the field waving the Mexican flag and shouting “Viva la Raza!” was not the best way to enjoy arguably the most patriotic holiday of the year, I was still quite prepared to tough it out, so to speak, all in the interests of tolerance for the diversity the oppressed peoples of color of the third world bring to our country. I mean, it’s the melting pot, after all. And if I’m not prepared to get melted, I guess I probably am the hate-filled, homophobic bigot all my liberal acquaintances tell me I am.

But I have to admit the straw that broke the camel’s back was being turned away from the hastily set up Mexican food stand due to my ethnicity – or more accurately the lack thereof. I guess the new slogan around these parts, along with “Viva la Raza!” is “Mexican food for the Mexicans”. And it makes a perverse sort of sense in this increasingly Balkanized land in which we live. I’m all for tolerance, but I must admit, this new policy of no Mexican food for us cholos is a world in which I do not want to live.

But, thanks to the gracious hospitality of my good friend, I had an out on that particular evening, and I took it. I trundled up the hill, parked next to the appropriate hangar, and since we were on the high ground, overlooking the entire San Bernardino Valley, we were treated to not one, but three (count ‘em) fireworks shows going off simultaneously all over the valley. And all for free. And I won’t even mention the burgers, brats, dogs, and char-broiled chicken that came off the grill that night. Not a burrito in sight. (Too bad, though. I like burritos.)

The evening was noteworthy for other reasons as well. Chief among them was the return of the prodigal son, so to speak. My host’s oldest son was on leave from Fort Lewis, Washington, where he was stationed following his completion of Ranger training. He was home on an extended leave awaiting deployment to Iraq. In the archives, there’s a commentary about that night – mostly about how a directionless boy became a man, and how, despite his status as an American soldier, there were places he was not welcome, and establishments that did not want his business. Who knows, it may still be out there somewhere.

This piece is a follow up to that one.

A week ago last Saturday, I had breakfast with his father, my friend, the successful businessman. And what a difference a couple of years make.

Whence last I wrote of him, Dad was riding the crest of a wave. His business – an oil and gas hydraulics consulting firm – was hitting on all eight cylinders. Well, at least most of the time. Business was good, things were thriving, and life was great. He had the outlook and the demeanor of a man who had worked hard, paid his dues, invested his time and energy and was reaping the fruits of his labor.

Nowadays, he’s a good deal more introspective, considerably more reflective, and bears the wear and tear of someone who’s been out there, riding the tiger for thirty plus years. He is getting worn down and worn out. We both are. It comes with the territory when you’re rounding the far turn in the great horse race of life and heading for the finish line.

Let’s face it, deals that were done easily a couple of years ago come a lot harder now. Things have slowed down, and there’s a pervasive uncertainty that engenders an added burden for everybody who has to somehow hustle up a living at a time when the challenges are clear-cut, but the solutions are obscure. We’re both two years further along on the weary round of life, as Ecclesiastes puts it. We’re both closer to the end than to the beginning. And we both have an increased appreciation of the inherent fatigue that comes with hitting the deck every morning, ready to take on the world, and the sure and certain knowledge that this weariness will only get heavier with the passing of the years. But there’s an added burden he carries that I don’t: I’m not the father of a son in the 11th month of a 15-month tour in Iraq.

Things really have changed in two years for the young soldier in question, as well. Leading up to the 4th of July 2006, we all marveled at how the slack-shouldered, long-haired directionless teenager who didn’t say much growing up, almost overnight developed into a ramrod straight, respectful adult, who walked with a purpose. We knew him, and yet we didn’t. In many ways, it was disconcerting, because in his newfound competence (and confidence) we sensed the changing of the guard. And we didn’t quite know what to make of it. The aimless teen became a purposeful adult. But unlike the many benchmarks in the life of a child – which normally necessitate different varieties of hands-on guidance – this turning of the page was a harbinger of a new challenge for parents whose children finally reach the age of maturity. They demonstrate it by their conduct. And it demands an obligatory restraint from parents if this newly-developed sense of responsibility in their grown-up children is to thrive.

For many of us who’ve been through it, this requisite letting-go is the undiscovered country of child-rearing. Hands-on guidance for so many years suddenly morphs into hands-off self-discipline. And it happens in the wink of an eye. Suddenly, our kids shoulder their own burdens, and we come face to face with the indisputable fact that we’re getting old, and they don’t need us in the same way anymore.

Yes, the boy definitely became a man during his time in the Army. Since that time, he’s crossed yet another Rubicon, from which there is no turning back.

He’s been initiated into the brotherhood of the warrior.

I confess I never really bought into the concept, even following my own initiation into such an esteemed group. Somehow, I didn’t resonate with the exclusivity of the contract. It was too unique, too distinctive, and above all, too isolating. The brotherhood of the warrior, by necessity is exclusive, selective and discriminating. It requires its members to stare into the face of the Gorgon as part of their initiation. And the price of admission is blood – their own or the blood of their comrades-in-arms. Sometimes both. It’s a select fraternity, made all the more so because the bar is set high, the standards for entry are exacting, and the attrition is overwhelming.

Captain Ron Drez, USMC (Ret.) spoke eloquently of this very phenomenon on our first night in England back in June 2004 on the eve of that memorable pilgrimage to Normandy that followed close at hand. He spoke of how there will be a special place of honor in heaven for the warrior; about how Washington’s continental army, Wellington’s dragoons, the veterans of the Civil War, the marines of Pacific islands, and many others who stared into the abyss, will know each other with a nod of the head and a shrug of the shoulder.

He gave this address in the ballroom of a hotel in South Kensington, London, in a room filled with a group of aging veterans who earned their credentials on the beaches of Normandy – something all of us were soon to get a heightened appreciation for just a few short days later. Staring into the stoic faces of these elderly fighters, it finally came to me after years of denying the premise – they were a breed apart, and their combat experience did separate them from their country as a whole. And so it did to all of us who dove into a foxhole, dodged incoming mortar rounds, and beat off a counterattack. We were separate, distinct, apart from our countrymen. And that separation was total, complete and absolute. Some integrated back to civilian society better than others, but there remained a part of each and every one of us that would always hold our fellow citizens at a distance. Once so experienced, there is no going back.

Eugene B. Sledge, (USMC 1942-45, 5th Marines) wrote of his experience in the Pacific during WWII in his recently re-released book, With The Old Breed. Sledge served in two of the costliest campaigns in the history of armed combat – Peleliu and Okinawa – and survived without so much as a scratch. He wrote of walking down the streets of his hometown of Mobile, Alabama, a stranger among strangers. He could not relate to the world of civilians, nor appreciate their mindset. Sledge never really made it home. His memoir speaks powerfully of the isolating effects of walking through the dehumanizing cauldron of combat and the personal toll which, once lost, is gone forever.

William Manchester (USMC 1942-45, 29th Marines) was so tormented by his experience on Okinawa that thirty-five years later, driven half-mad by war nightmares, he was compelled to return to the Pacific to exorcise his own private demons. His powerful personal memoir, Goodbye Darkness, serves as a testament to all who shouldered the burdens of war, paid the due bill in both real and psychological terms, and carried the scars home with them.

The brotherhood of the warrior requires of its members a certain level of death. There are, of course, those who fall on the field of battle. And while tragic, their earthly suffering is at an end. What awaits them is the special place of honor spoken of by Captain Drez, where their service will be respected, and they themselves will be lifted up.

Then there are those who suffer the losses, survive the terrors, match brutality for brutality, and then come home. Except part of them never does. Part of them dies on the battlefield. We saw it that night in London in the eyes of the Normandy veterans as our journey was about to commence. We had a far greater appreciation of the cost in real and spiritual terms after walking in their footsteps over the following three weeks. In truth, this sense of separation which held the warrior apart from those he was charged to defend was always there. We just never took the time, nor possessed the insight to notice.

The warrior has suffered more than the horrors of war, in all its brutality. He’s witnessed its devastation, lost compatriots dearer to him than even his closest family members, and knows first hand that man is essentially a barbarian – both the enemy and himself. He knows the whole rigmarole of war ends in squalor, degradation and the cruelest form of death imaginable. And he is forever changed by it. The price he pays is the wall that separates him from the country he defends, and the friends and loved ones he holds dear. And for this spiritual amputation, there is no prosthetic. It is a cross he bears every day of his civilian life, going forward.

The alienation is not, however, without its intrinsic worth. The veterans of Washington’s Continental Army knew they had forged a nation, for good or ill. When the fighting men of Pickett’s Brigade and Hancock’s artillery met at the stone wall at Gettysburg in 1913, they knew they had a country. They had seen it, fought for it, forged it in the fury of fighting and the sea of blood it produced. North or south, it was all the same. Their WWII grandsons – in their sunset years – knew in their hearts that their sacrifice on beaches around the world liberated a continent and destroyed despotic regimes of immeasurable evil. In all such cases, their lives were measured by activities whose core value was defending a country and building a way of life.

Nowadays, the brotherhood of the warrior has been reduced to handful of true believers, regardless of their background. Nowadays, we spend our efforts, not defending a way of life, but sucking it dry. We don’t sacrifice our selfish desires, we indulge them. We don’t free the oppressed, we use them up and throw them away like yesterday’s leftover garbage.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “As a nation of free men, we will live forever, or die by suicide.” If our national self-immolation continues unchecked, that suicide watch will indeed be a short one. Because those among us willing to pay that ultimate price so a nation might thrive, are getting fewer with each passing year.

And the latest initiates into the brotherhood of the warrior carry the scars that mark a nation ailing in its identity, and a citizenry noted for its apathy. Like the soldiers of the Confederacy, and their latter-day cousins, the veterans of Vietnam, the current generation of fighting men sense they are enlisted in a lost cause. Particularly those who’ve been in the cauldron and made it home. They are world-weary in a way that transcends the wear and tear of life and death struggles. They yearn, not for victory – considering how hollow such a triumph can be for a nation that’s lost its own soul – but for home and hearth, friends and family. They move slowly, talk infrequently and rejoice in the simple pleasures of life. At least the ones I’ve encountered.

Back on the farm, life goes on. We continue to worship our secular gods – Barack Obama as the new humanistic savior of the planet and harbinger of change for its own sake; John McCain as God’s new holy prophet of the truth. We hate our leaders based on the letter after their name, and we treat our neighbors as the strangers they are. We use our employees until they are used up, then we throw them away, and we scramble for the last dollar until the last dollar evaporates. We believe in nothing but the pursuit of our own comfort. And we have no use for the brotherhood of the warrior.

Guess what? Somehow, they know it.

I didn’t attend the 4th of July celebration at my friend’s airport hangar. Alas, I was delivering buses for a local service that specializes in such things. And, these days, work is where you find it. But my final destination on the 4th was the San Diego Naval base, where I was part of a convoy delivering shuttle buses for use on-base. The timing could not have been more appropriate. Just as the sun was going down, and before our own shuttle arrived to take us home for the night, we paused to enjoy the fireworks display lighting up various corners of San Diego Bay. No such celebrations on the base, however. At least not that we could tell. The Navy is at war, you see. Nice to know somebody is standing a watch.

And so, the countdown is in full swing. Our young soldier in Iraq is a short timer. And, whether he’s conscious of it or not, he’s starting to watch his own back. The tone of his emails has changed, according to his father. He’s wary, cautious, and unwilling to take on added responsibility unless so ordered. He’s ambivalent about promotion, something he’s been offered more than once. He’s a hot commodity – a combat veteran who’s still in one piece. And a card-carrying member in good standing of the brotherhood of the warrior.

How little things have changed in the purgatory of the war zone. What is past is prologue.

The tantalizing question remains: Will he (and his fellow warriors) be able to change the world as they shift into the fullness of their adult years? One would think so, hope so. It worked for the WWII generation. Why not this one? For one thing, there are not enough of them. Defenders of the country are the exception, not the rule. For another, they are not welcomed back with anything more than lip service. While their WWII grandfathers returned to the adoring citizenry of a grateful nation, whose opportunities welcomed them with arms wide open, today’s veterans are honored only as long as they wear the uniform and carry the weapons. Going back to civilian life, they’re considered worthless ingrates with their hands out whose jobs can be done better, faster, not to mention cheaper by illegals.

So we await the November winds, and the return of the prodigal warrior. With regime change likely in Washington this year, it is doubtful our young soldier will see another tour in the Middle East. At least for the time being. What awaits him upon his return is anyone’s guess. Undoubtedly, he will have to deal with the inevitable disconnect his compatriots in the brotherhood of the warrior have to endure. But that comes with the territory. As for his future, it will probably be a good deal less fruitful than those returning defenders who’ve gone before him. America is not America, after all. It’s just another member in the global village, another market in the global economy, and we’re all just citizens of the world.

So all of us who are on the countdown, so to speak, will settle for the homecoming that looms in the not too distant future. All of us will settle for a genuine Thanksgiving, where the one thing to be thankful for is perhaps the greatest thing to rejoice in:

A loved one coming home . . . safe, secure and whole. Sometimes, small victories are enough. Sometimes they are all we have left.

by Euro-American Scum
(contributing Team Member of Allegiance and Duty Betrayed)
Euro-American Scum can be reached at eascum@yahoo.com

On Nature and Wildlife in a SmallCorner of Lancaster County, PA

As always, for those of you who stop by here to read political commentary, you may want to skip this particular entry -- a brief personal diversion from discussing the sorry state of the nation/world. I would like to share a little nature/homestead update with those of you who are familiar with our new home and surroundings. More political commentary will follow in a week or so. :) ...

Rick and I have been living in our new home for about two and a half years now. Outside, we have been working, as time permits, on ‘building’ a lawn and several gardens, during the spring and summer months. One of the objectives in doing so has been to keep the area as ‘natural’ as possible. As a result, when we constructed our ‘water diversion project’ last year (a wall of sorts which we constructed in order to prevent water that runs down the side of our 200’-long driveway from flowing into our front yard), the stones that we used to do so are stones that we brought out from the woods, generally on a hand truck or our large wheel barrow.


click for larger pic
We also brought out buckets of much smaller stones to serve as a water ‘channel’ at the beginning of the diversion.

click for larger pic
We put in place, alongside the driveway, a bronze horse sculpture entitled ‘The Yearling’, which was cast at an American foundry from a mold of the original sculpture, created during the Civil War era by P. J. Mené. We also enclosed that in a low semi-circular stone wall.


This spring, we also began constructing a stone border between the garden areas and the woods – a Maginot Line of sorts, between forest and civilization. :) It is only one stone wide in most parts now, but will grow to be much wider as we discover more large stones, and muster the incentive to move them. :)


We are also in the process of planting evergreens on the side of the house, and constructing a semi-elliptical pathway (again made of stones – all flat-topped ones for this project -- hauled in from the woods) from our side door to the back yard. The trees we just planted on the perimeter of the pathway are young and immature (as are all of the plants in the gardens), but will grow to 10’-12’ over the next few years, and what appears to be patchy planting should fill in nicely.click for larger pic
We have discovered, in doing all of this, that there is little more satisfying than working in the soil, and respecting nature. Watching projects take shape, and plants begin to grow and thrive, brings a unique and ‘natural’ kind of peace of mind that cannot be obtained any other way.




On a related note ... the wildlife we see year 'round in this part of the country is astounding -- from (many) deer, to wild turkeys, red and grey fox, coyotes, groundhogs, rabbits, opossums, squirrels, toads, turtles, chipmunks, and dozens of varieties of birds.


We erected a bluebird house in the backyard last autumn, and a male and female set up housekeeping there this spring. Neither of us had ever seen a bluebird before, and we became ecstatic upon first realizing that there was activity in the house. The pair has since hatched several young, who have left the nest. We are hoping that some or all of them return to nest again.


(This is the male bluebird atop the house during the nest building. Apologies for the grainy quality of the photo – it was taken through a screened window.)


We have a hummingbird feeder situated just beyond the front porch, and a pair of ruby-throated hummingbirds visits the feeder dozens of times a day. I fill it with a cup of nectar (four parts water to one part sugar) once a week, and they drink it dry. They’re courageoous little critters, too. When they initially found the feeder, we were sitting on the porch bench, they flew in front of us, hovered not a foot from our faces, checking us out, and then, once they had decided we meant them no harm, they began to feed regularly. Yet, when someone unfamiliar sits on the porch, they will invariably check that new person out, via the aforementioned ‘hover procedure’, before feeding in his presence. :) Uncanny.

One of the miniature peach trees that we have in a front garden had maybe two dozen peaches on it a week ago. The following day, the number was cut in half, yet there were no peaches lying on the ground under the tree. That afternoon, I was able to snap a pic of the peach-thief, caught red-handed. :)


This is what we saw tonight as we opened the front door to take Bert for her evening walk. The three of us walked by, and the toad remained in place on the edge of the step. Brave amphibian he.


Two weeks ago, a box turtle dug a big hole in the shade under one of our larger garden plants and laid eggs, covering the nest with soil. The eggs should take several months to hatch, so I cannot stake up my plant for fear of piercing one of the underground eggs with a stake.

Just last week, a sparrow hatched five babies in a nest in the branches of a small evergreen near our front porch, so I cannot weed anywhere near that tree, for fear of frightening her as she flits from the woods to the nest feeding them.

Who says you need a mortgage crisis to have someone else take over your house and property? :)

And then there are the family dogs ... :)



Thanks for allowing me to share a small piece of 'our corner of the country' with you all. Back to political commentary shortly ...

~ joanie

Beyond the Gates

This past weekend, Rick and I watched what was perhaps the most moving, fact-based movie we have ever seen. The honesty and emotional depth contained in this riveting film should rank it among the classics in film making.

Recommended to us by fellow blogger, Luis, Beyond the Gates is a must see for anyone who truly comprehends the value of human life and liberty, and who genuinely wants to contain, if not eradicate, the kind of evil that is represented by those in this world who gain pleasure by causing indescribable torment for their fellow man.

Released in Europe in 2005 under the title Shooting Dogs (reflecting the fact that UN peacekeepers used to shoot local dogs that fed on the decomposing bodies of genocide victims), Beyond the Gates is the story, told in microcosm, of one of the most despicable human-on-human atrocities of our lifetime: the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Referring to the power of man's free will, the film opens in silence with the following script:

Every man is given the key to the gates of heaven.
The same key opens the gates of hell.

.....Buddhist proverb
One of the two main characters, Joe Connor, is a young, idealistic Englishman, bent on ‘making a difference’, who has accepted a year-long post as a teacher at Ecole Technique Officielle, a high school in Kigali, Rwanda.

The other main character is Father Christopher, a Catholic priest who has lived in Africa for three decades – a caring, compassionate man who provides affirmation, love and spiritual guidance for the students at the school, and their families.

Father Christopher insists on maintaining the spiritual essence at the school, even as the situation outside its walls turns increasingly brutal. As persecuted refugees enter the school compound, seeking the protection offered by the United Nations peacekeepers stationed there, Father Christopher remains calm and affirming, and insists on serving mass at the usual times, as though nothing outside of the school or church walls has changed. The Father has lived through coups before, but he soon realizes that the brutality occurring outside his walls goes far beyond anything he has ever witnessed.

John Hurt’s performance as Father Christopher is every bit as commanding as that of any ‘best actor’ academy award winner in history.

Nearly 2,500 persecuted refugees eventually take up residence within the school compound walls. All the while, bloodthirsty, machete- and medieval-skull-mace-wielding killers are congregating, in ever larger numbers, beyond the gates, taunting those inside, and brutally massacring others who are unfortunate enough to pass by.

Upon witnessing a new mother, and her newborn child, falling victim to a horde of machete-wielding murderers outside the gate, Connor, trembling, looks to Father Christopher for some kind of spiritual comfort or reassurance:

How much pain can a human being take, do you think? I mean, if you feel enough pain does everything just shut down before you die? ‘Cause you’d think that, wouldn’t you? You’d think there’d be some … um … something in the design, you know … some shut-off valve, if you feel enough pain?

Connor and Father Christopher can do little more than watch, and pray. And, in that sense, one of the most remarkable things about Beyond the Gates is its beautifully positive view of the role that faith can play, even in the most desperate of times.

Also within the school compound is the small contingent of Belgian U.N. peacekeepers, who encircle the compound with sandbags, and station themselves as sentries – weapons pointed at the growing crowd of armed, bloodthirsty lunatics surrounding them.

As the brutality outside the gates and across the entire nation escalates, the U.N. forces throughout the country, rather than coming to the aid of the brutalized, simply sit back and obey their mandate not to ‘interfere’, but simply to ‘monitor’ the fragile ‘peace’.

Finally, massive U.N. trucks enter the compound with orders to evacuate … only those blessed to have white skin.

The refugees find themselves abandoned by the world … surrounded by madness.

As the U.N. forces, and the school’s staff, prepare to board the trucks for evacuation, one of the refugee Tutsi fathers approaches the U.N.’s Belgian Captain:

Captain, I have a polite request. It is from all of us. The people of Kicukiro and the refugees of the school.

[Reading from a paper]: We are all fathers, mothers, sons, daughters. We are all one family now. And it is as one family that we wish to die.

Therefore, we politely request that, before you leave us, your soldiers use their guns to kill us. We do not wish to be killed by machete. The bullets will kill us all quickly and there will be much less pain.

Captain: I’m sorry. I cannot agree to your request.

Tutsi Father: Please. If not for us, then please spare the children the pain.

Captain: I am sorry.

Tutsi Father: Please, just the children!

Captain: I cannot help you.

I was brought to tears (actually sobs) on several occasions, and was left with an indescribable feeling of loss and anger that the world, in effect, turned a blind eye to this gruesome human-on-human atrocity.

Father Christopher did not evacuate with the other whites, but stayed behind with the refugees. When asked why, he replied:

You asked me, Joe, ‘Where is God in everything that is happening here … in all this suffering?’

I know exactly where He is. He’s right here … with these people … suffering.

His love is here, more intense and profound than I have ever felt. And my heart is here, Joe … my soul. If I leave, I think I may not find it again.

One of the glaring depictions that came through so strongly for me was the impotence of the United Nations to deal with anything truly meaningful for humanity. They are forever handing down elitist tyrannical edicts, and yet, when it comes to taking a stand by stepping in and preventing an historically monumental human tragedy –- an action that should be considered the over-riding purpose of the organization -- they are nowhere to be found. Or, as in the case of the events depicted in this movie, they provide easy lip service, and then withdraw when the going gets tough, allowing the slaughter of thousands of innocents they should have considered their calling to protect at all costs.

On April 11, 1994 more than 2,500 Rwandans, abandoned by the U.N. at Ecole Technique Officielle, were murdered by extremist militias.

Between April and July of that year, more than 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the nationwide genocide.

Fade to a Clinton staff member responding to reporters’ questions:

Reporter: Is it true that you have specific guidance not to use the word ‘genocide’ in isolation, but always to preface it with the words ‘acts of’?

Staff Member: Um … I have guidance which … uh, which … which I try to use as best as I can. I’m not … I have, uh … there are formulations that we are using that we are trying to be consistent in our use of. Um, I don’t have a … an absolute, categorical prescription against something. But I have the … the definitions. I have phraseology which has been carefully examined and arrived at … as best to … as best as we can apply to exactly the situation.

Reporter: How many ‘acts of genocide’ does it take to make a genocide?

Staff Member: Uh, Adam, that’s just not a question that I’m in a position to answer. Clearly, not all of the killings that have taken place in … uh … Rwanda … uh … are killings to which you might apply that label.

It is up to the rest of us to see to it that such politicians, and their staffs, never again hold our foreign policy decisions in their hands.

It is up to the rest of us to see to it that the black evil that has occurred in places such as 1994 Rwanda is confined, if not eradicated. Refusing to do so, or turning a blind eye to the suffering of others, renders us every bit as guilty as those who wield the machetes.

I urge every reader here ... every American … to see this movie.

Don’t argue that you cannot abide witnessing the violence. Such shallow arguments mirror the media who refuse to show us that of which the terrorists are capable. They want us to sit in our easy chairs, lulled into complacency, considering ourselves somehow walled-off from those who see it as their destiny to torment and enslave.

And, when you see this movie, think long and hard about the gruesome fate that befell those 2,500 refugees inside those compound walls after the United Nations abandoned them. Then reflect on Iraq, where coalition forces are accomplishing minor miracles every day, and yet the United States congress, and the front-runner for the United States presidency, intend to withdraw American troops and prevent complete victory. Sadly, the prevention of a hard-won victory, and the declaration that those who sacrificed to obtain it will have died in vain, may well prove to be the second most powerful tragedy occurring after withdrawal. The bloodbath that will follow will have the potential to make the killing fields of Cambodia pale in comparison.

Beyond the Gates
(Do not click on 'enter site'. Simply wait for trailer on the right of the screen to play.)
~ joanie

Questions for Obama

Below is a list of questions, formulated by George Will in his recent Newsweek essay, Questions for Obama, that the media should be asking the democrat nominee for president. Yet of course they aren’t … and won’t.

(Thanks to ‘Barry Up the Road’, a neighbor, fellow patriot, and occasional poster here, for the steer to this excellent compilation.)

• Senator, concerning the criteria by which you will nominate judges, you said: "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old." Such sensitivities might serve an admirable legislator, but what have they to do with judging? Should a judge side with whichever party in a controversy stirs his or her empathy? Is such personalization of the judicial function inimical to the rule of law?

• Voting against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, you said: Deciding "truly difficult cases" should involve "one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy." Is that not essentially how Chief Justice Roger Taney decided the Dred Scott case? Should other factors—say, the language of the constitutional or statutory provision at issue—matter?

• You say, "The insurance companies, the drug companies, they're not going to give up their profits easily when it comes to health care." Why should they? Who will profit from making those industries unprofitable? When pharmaceutical companies have given up their profits, who will fund pharmaceutical innovations, without which there will be much preventable suffering and death? What other industries should "give up their profits"?

• ExxonMobil's 2007 profit of $40.6 billion annoys you. Do you know that its profit, relative to its revenue, was smaller than Microsoft's and many other corporations'? And that reducing ExxonMobil's profits will injure people who participate in mu-tual funds, index funds and pension funds that own 52 percent of the company?

• You say John McCain is content to "watch [Americans'] home prices decline." So, government should prop up housing prices generally? How? Why? Were prices ideal before the bubble popped? How does a senator know ideal prices? Have you explained to young couples straining to buy their first house that declining prices are a misfortune?

• Telling young people "don't go into corporate America," your wife, Michelle, urged them to become social workers or others in "the helping industry," not "the moneymaking industry." Given that the moneymakers pay for 100 percent of American jobs, in both public and private sectors, is it not helpful?

• Michelle, who was born in 1964, says that most Americans' lives have "gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl." Since 1960, real per capita income has increased 143 percent, life expectancy has increased by seven years, infant mortality has declined 74 percent, deaths from heart disease have been halved, childhood leukemia has stopped being a death sentence, depression has become a treatable disease, air and water pollution have been drastically reduced, the number of women earning a bachelor's degree has more than doubled, the rate of homeownership has increased 10.2 percent, the size of the average American home has doubled, the percentage of homes with air conditioning has risen from 12 to 77, the portion of Americans who own shares of stock has quintupled … Has your wife perhaps missed some pertinent developments in this country that she calls "just downright mean"?

• You favor raising the capital gains tax rate to "20 percent or 25 percent." You say this will not "distort" economic decision making. Your tax returns on your 2007 income of $4.2 million show that you and Michelle own few stocks. Are you sure you understand how investors make decisions?

• During the ABC debate, you acknowledged that when the capital gains rate was dropped first to 20 percent, then to 15 percent, government revenues from the tax increased and they declined in the 1980s when it was increased to 28 percent. Nevertheless, you said you would consider raising the rate "for purposes of fairness." How does decreasing the government's financial resources and punishing investors promote fairness? Are you aware that 20 percent of taxpayers reporting capital gains in 2006 had incomes of less than $50,000?

• This November, electorates in four states will vote on essentially this language: "The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting." Three states—California, Washington and Michigan—have enacted such language. You made a radio ad opposing the Michigan initiative. Why? Are those states' voters racists?

• You denounce President Bush for arrogance toward other nations. Yet you vow to use a metaphorical "hammer" to force revisions of trade agreements unless certain weaker nations adjust their labor, environmental and other domestic policies to suit you. Can you define cognitive dissonance?

• You want "to reduce money in politics." In February and March you raised $95 million. See prior question.

Questions for Obama

Celebrating Independence Day in Baghdad

July 4, 2008
In what is being described as the largest re-enlistment ceremony in the history of the American military, 1,215 servicemen and women signed up for a combined 5,500 years of additional service earlier today in Baghdad:


General David Petraeus oversaw the ceremony:

Petraeus, reiterating earlier remarks made by Command Sergeant Major Hill, said that the unprecedented ceremony sends a “message to friend and foe alike.” He told those assembled that it is “impossible to calculate the value of what you are giving to our country . . . For no bonus, no matter the size, can adequately compensate you for the contribution each of you makes as a custodian of our nation’s defenses.”

Fittingly, the re-enlistment took place in one of Saddam's former palaces.

submitted by John Cooper
(contributing team member of Allegiance and Duty Betrayed)

On Rainbows and Puppy Dogs

Check out We Are the Ones, an extraordinarily popular YouTube video that has been viewed more than 1.6 million times. It was composed by Hollywood celebrities and ‘ordinary Americans’ who are passionate in their support of Barack Obama in his bid to become President of the Untied States and leader of the free world.

The video is composed of constant melodic repetition of the phrase ‘We can change the world’ and background chants of ‘O-ba-má! O-ba-má!', with the entirety of the remainder of the message transcribed below. (I had to omit a small, but no doubt significant, portion of the message because I am not fluent in Spanish.)

_____________________
I would like to see a cleaner earth for my child that I’m bringing into the world very soon.

I think it’s time for change. I want a better future for my children.

I would like our environment to be safe.

This is our America. My America. Your America.

Someone to actually make a difference in my generation.

I would like to see us in a world without fear.

Basically … um … I just want the war to end.

I would like the rest of the world to think highly of our amazing country.

I think the thing that inspires me most about Obama is that he really is going to be the president of the United States. You know, he’s not just going to be the president of the top ten percent, or the president of the most powerful corporations, or the president of the most powerful lobbyists. He’s gonna be our president. He’s gonna speak for us. ‘Cause we put him there.

Obama is about unity to this country and changing America’s face to the world.

This is my America, your America, our America.

And he stands for not just black people but all people. He’s almost like a revival for a lot of people’s souls.

I believe in Barack Obama because he believes in us.
_____________________
I suppose that some of those who authored, and appeared in, this video are genuine Marxists and/or black supremacists. But I suspect that the remainder are simply useful idiots who believe that history, education, research and facts are bothersome, and a life of security and fulfillment can result from focusing on rainbows and puppy dogs.


I don’t begrudge the vast ocean of ‘citizen sheep’ represented by this video their ignorance, but I deeply fear the fact that they may now comprise the majority of the American electorate. Our corrupt-to-the-bone ‘leadership’ in Washington, the NEA, our Marxist institutions of ‘higher education’, the Hollywood elite, and the mainstream media must be very proud.

Al-Qaeda has no use for rainbows or puppy dogs.


... and Atlas is preparing to shrug.

~ joanie

Enjoying the Company of'Small Town Pennsylvanians'

Rick and I, and a friend, attended a concert performed by the Booth Brothers, an excellent Florida-based southern gospel group, at an outdoor amphitheater in a nearby park over this past weekend. We have probably attended twenty of their concerts over the years (an example of their singing).

During this concert, the character of 'small-town Pennsylvanians who cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them' was made manifest in a minor way, but one that I don’t believe Senator Obama capable of comprehending.

The Booth Brothers performed on a large covered stage. In front of the stage, on a newly-asphalted area were perhaps fifty eight-foot-long, newly-constructed benches, with an area equal in size left empty for people to set up their own lawn chairs. There was also a vast expanse of grass on either side of this area, to the left and right of the stage. And, far from the stage itself, beyond all of this, was a large grassy hill.


By the time the program began, the benches were filled with young Mennonite men in their suspenders and straw hats, Mennonite women in their small white head coverings, and other Christians of all denominations. The remaining asphalt area was filled with others in lawn chairs. The side grassy areas were covered with lawn chairs as well. And the grassy hill area was also completely occupied by people who had brought their own chairs. We sat up on the hill, perhaps two hundred feet from the stage, with a panoramic view of everything.

The program, as always, was beautifully performed, and indescribably inspiring.

About two-thirds of the way through, the threatening skies ceased to be merely threatening. The rain came down in buckets, accompanied by occasional subdued rumbles of thunder, and lightning in the distance.

About a quarter of the audience left. The remaining perhaps five hundred people simply pulled their umbrellas out from under their chairs or benches and continued to enjoy the uplifting music.

The performers, seeing the increasing severity of the storm, semi-seriously invited whomever wished to do so to bring their chairs up onto the sheltered stage -- at which time perhaps a hundred of the audience slowly and courteously folded up their lawn chairs and, in a quiet and orderly manner, walked up the steps on either side of the stage and formed a large, four-person-deep semi-circle behind the performers, while they continued to sing. Most of the stage was now occupied by audience members, with just enough room for the performers to comfortably do what they do best.

From our vantage point up on the grassy hill (I truly wish I had brought my camera), we saw a beautiful rainbow of hundreds of variously colored umbrellas below us, stretching all the way to the stage, and a stage upon which many of our fellow audience members were sharing in fellowship with those whose performance they had come to hear -- and the message was so strong that they were not going to be denied.

The Booth Brothers sang the remaining selections as if they were performing ‘in the round’, not wanting to slight those now seated behind, and alongside of, them. Clearly moved by the spontaneity of it all, they expressed their appreciation to ‘the faithful’, and extended their program a good half hour longer than scheduled, singing many more selections than intended. At one particularly powerful point in the program, Michael Booth commented, ‘I really do like you gun-totin’, religion-clingin’ small town Pennsylvanians!’ – which, of course, brought uproarious applause.

About twenty minutes after the skies had opened up, they cleared. We all enjoyed three or four more vocally inspiring pieces, prayed together, and called it a night.

As we were driving home, all three of us commented that those who see small-town Pennsylvanians through a closed-minded, left-leaning stereotypical prism would not have comprehended the simple beauty and spiritual closeness of what happened in that park. Either they would have been among the small handful who left when the rain began, or they would have begrudgingly sat through the program, focused on the fact that they were damp and disappointed in the weather.

Not so with the large majority of those who attended Sunday night’s concert. And for that we were all greatly blessed.

~ joanie

A Tale of Two 'Citizens':A Glimpse into America's Future?

I’d seen her before, but never paid her any mind. My years of paying attention to the high drama of the local teen queens have long since passed me by. My daughter, had she lived, was well past that age as well. However, had my oldest granddaughter survived, she would now be on the threshold of that trying time of life when everything matters. (Right. It was a terrible tragedy. And if I can somehow weave that story into some kind of relevance to the collapse of America, you’ll see the specifics here at some future time. In the meantime, I accept your ain’t-it-awfuls, with grace, humility, and humble thanks. The accident happened quite a while ago, and everybody has moved on to the extent they can. And so must we get back to the business at hand.)

It seems I get more material for this blog on Sunday morning than at any other time of the week. And so it was this past Sunday. I normally go to second service, which starts at 9:30 AM. It allows me enough time to put myself together without ruining the only day I get to sleep in, and still get there early enough to get a good seat. But, on this day, I was late. After a Saturday night of food, fun, and watching Indiana Jones accomplish feats of acrobatics no stunt double for a 65-year-old actor would dream of attempting this side of a Hollywood sound stage, I slept through even my own generous 8:00 AM wake-up call. I felt like Alice’s white rabbit, who pulled his pocket watch out of his red vest and declared himself late, as I rolled out just in time to throw myself together, jump in the car and burn more gasoline than I would dare imagine (at $4.65 a gallon – at least on that morning) while racing up the hill to church.

It was all to no avail. I missed getting my customary seat one row from the back. So, I had to move forward, out of my comfort zone. Normally, I sit in the middle of the row. I’m a solitary worshipper, and I usually get there early. So, what’s the point of sitting on the aisle and forcing annoyed fellow believers to climb over me on their way to the middle – where nobody wants to be. I mean, what great urgency compels me to go thundering out of the sanctuary at the end of the service? I’ve got nowhere to go and nothing to do on Sunday. It’s not as if I have a life. So, I learned to love the middle. And I’ve been sitting there for over fifteen years at various houses of worship.

But, I’m not the only one. Over the years, there has been a group of teenage girls who also sit in the middle. I’ve noticed them from time to time, from when they first graduated from children’s church when I first arrived at this church four years ago, to what now appears for them to be the threshold of high school graduation. About the only distinction they hold is that I’ve never seen so much as a single, solitary parent in their presence for some reason. But they seem to be fairly well-behaved, conducting themselves with a minimum of fidgeting, whispering and giggling that teenage girls are inclined to engage in. At least until recently.

Normally, we’re separated by several rows, since they tend to sit together near the front of the sanctuary and I gravitate toward the back. But they usually make a sufficient production of their arrival for people to sit up and take notice no matter where they end up, so on most weekends, it’s impossible to miss their grand entrance. Last Sunday, however, I got an up close and personal look at the most fascinating high school mini-drama since The OC went off the air.

My young acquaintances had a different version of the same problem I had. Their usual perch in the second row was similarly occupied. So after an appropriate amount of pouting, whining and sighing, they forged their way through a row much further back than they would have preferred and took a seat right in front of me.

It was my first good look at what I’ve come to not-so-affectionately refer to the three weird sisters. Sure enough, they looked to be seventeen or eighteen – probably high school friends who’ve known each other since middle school and have pal-ed around ever since.

Ever meet people from time to time you know you’re never going to exchange more than a casual conversation with? And have any of you – besides me, that is – tried to put a name to the face, based on what they look like and how they carry themselves? I’ve been at this little game of pick-the-name for years now. And if I ever get to meet that person properly, my guess is almost always wrong. Well, this Sunday the game was afoot on in earnest.

As so often happens in this insular community of movers-and-shakers, there is a pecking order to almost every gathering. And social outings, including – perhaps especially – church gatherings, are by no means exempt from this overwhelming drive for dominance. With this trio, it was easy to figure out who was who, and what was what. The queen bee sat in the middle, prominently enthroned between her two adoring admirers. I mean, how can any girl be the center of attention without an entourage, I ask you?

On her left, was a girl I’ll call Jessica. Jess was a few inches shorter than the queen. She was shapely, but just a little too chunky to qualify as a resident hottie. Her attempt to wear her long, chestnut hair halfway down her back didn’t quite work either. Her tresses weren’t exactly straight, and weren’t exactly wavy. They were . . . something else. Altogether, this girl stopped a car-length short of being able to turn heads and stop traffic in the parking lot. She may have figured that hitching her wagon to the star of the local princess would be good for her flagging visual stock. Ever see a trim, yet slightly plump teenage girl of whom you’re just certain there lurks within an enormous fat woman just aching to burst forth? That’s Jessica.

On her right was Carmen – a raven-haired Hispanic beauty. Almost as tall as her majesty, Carmen had all the trappings of a girl whose family had done so well, so quickly, that she was working very hard to dispense with her ethnic heritage altogether. Her goal was to become as white as possible as quickly as possible. She obviously had been accepted into the queen’s inner circle based on whatever criteria teenage royalty deems worthy these days.

And then there was her majesty the queen. In her case, a name didn’t quite fit. Ashley, Amber, Michelle, Jennifer – they all worked, but somehow they didn’t. She was so much a stereotype as to qualify as a caricature.

Tall and tan and young and lovely . . . No tears, no fears, no ruined years, no clocks . . . and of course . . . She can kill with a smile, she can wound with her eyes; she can ruin your faith with her casual lies – This girl has been immortalized in song and verse since before Buddy Holly stumbled over the Big Bopper on his way to that fatal plane crash the day the music died.

So, without a name for this Über-wench, I had to settle for a title – The Icy Blonde Bitch Goddess of San Antonio Heights. Tall, naturally blonde, California-perfect tan with a complexion upon which nary a single bead of perspiration would so much as dare to make an appearance. Zits? Fuggetaboutit. They were outlawed by statute when it came to this girl. Her face was classic, contemporary and perfect – high cheek bones, perfect upturned nose, azure blue eyes, pouting lower lip, and altogether a face that could easily end up on Seventeen Magazine today, and Cosmopolitan tomorrow. (And a body to match, if I do say so myself.) A sullen, dissatisfied demeanor made the image complete.

So there they were – the ice queen and her minions – making their dramatic entrance, and promptly sitting down directly in front of me after the requisite primping and posturing was complete. And so the games commenced.

Sunday was a day of singular frustration for this teen queen. It seems she was about to be consigned to the misery of cruising the Mediterranean with her parents this summer, and considered it a fate worse than death.

“It’s soooooo boring!” She lamented. “I mean . . . like . . . what is there to do on a cruise ship after the first week? I’ll just die out there!!”

It seems her family will be leaving around the first of July and returning a week before Labor Day. Complicating matters further, her majesty’s presence is not optional. The situation was made all the more exasperating considering the rest of her peer group of indulged, pampered poodles will be winging their way to Bora Bora for a summer of surf, sand and merriment, on a nearby private island owned by one of the families.

“It’s sooooo unfair!” She whined.

I just shook my head and thought – It’s a tough old world out there, honey babe. Lots of dirty jobs and somebody’s got to do them.

Sunday was also yet another picture perfect California day. Not too hot, not too cold. Eternal sunshine and not a cloud in the sky. Like everything in the Golden State, it was . . . well . . . perfect. And since our church is consumed with a passion to make sure everybody is happy, all the time, they had the same problem as Hamlet himself – to turn on or not to turn on the A/C? That was the question. They opted not to. So our ice maiden was uncomfortably warm. And she proceeded to engage in a pouting fit to make certain her companions knew she was suffering the torments of hell in this sauna of a worship center.

Now, it was clear from the start who the alpha dog was in this pack of predatory females. But if any doubts remained, they were quickly dispelled when her two adoring admirers proceeded to fan her holiness with their church bulletins. A girl knows she’s reached the top of the food chain when she commands such selfless acts of obedience. Consider it extracting an oath of fealty from her unworthy ladies in waiting, both of whom were eager to scoop up any scraps from the mistress’s table that might land at their feet.

As the worship portion of the service began, an altogether different form of worship was going on right in front of me. This golden goddess whispered something to Jessica and dismissed her with a flick of her regal wrist. Off she went, out the row, down the aisle and out the side door. She returned some five minutes later with an extra large, iced, decaf latté, complete with extra crème, extra sugar, and extra whipped toppings lest her majesty be displeased.

Her royal highness sipped her latté while the rest of us participated in the worship service. She could not deign herself to be bothered to stand up and join in.

When the message began – something about I’m OK, you’re OK, God loves you and what a wonderful world it is – and with her faithful minions fanning away to ease her suffering, the ice princess proceeded to engage in the main activity that, in all likelihood, brought her out so early on a Sunday morning. She proceeded to pin up her shoulder length blonde hair with a plastic clip, let it down a minute later, toss her head like a young goddess, and turn around left and right to check out whoever might be checking her out. It was to her everlasting frustration, I’m sure, that most of what she saw was the face of an aging, gray-bearded, baby-boomer with an annoyed, expression of acute boredom on his face. Said boomer, if he’d had a scissors handy would have gladly taken it to those golden locks, hammer and tong. Harsh measures would be required to stop this exercise in cosmetology. Alas, I was unequipped.

It was an endless, hour-long ritual – hair pinned up, hair coming down, head toss, turn around and check out whoever’s watching. And it went on, and on, and on. Over and over and over again.

It’s not a new phenomenon. The ice queen is part of every generation. She is eternal for all time. At first glance, she has all the trappings of the good life, and one can safely assume that she will be able to slide through life without so much as a scratch. But such assumptions are specious at best. Oftentimes, life ends up taking its toll on one so pampered in many subtle ways. But as she stands on the threshold of the beginning, and is queen of all she surveys, it’s a tempting conclusion to draw. I only mention her to make a contrast as stark as night and day.

An ancillary development of note that also bears on this tale of life among the elite is that yours truly – after a four year hiatus – is finally back to work. Please, no applause. It’s not exactly the answer to my maidenly prayers. I’m driving a school bus for a local Christian high school. Not bad for someone who once developed state-of-the-art, real-time software for business, industry and government. And, except for the annoying fact that it’s too little, too late, won’t provide even a subsistence living, and the school year just ended, it’s just what the doctor ordered. But, since it was the only door that opened in the last four years, I went through it. And the rest is history.

Actually, if I was comfortably retired, it would be a fun job. I’ve been at it for three weeks. During that time, I’ve had an air brake failure, an alternator crap out on me, a starter die while on a run, an ignition key that broke off in the lock, one high school girl who had a . . . how can I put it delicately . . . an embarrassing accident related to that time of the month, and a grade school girl who came down with an acute case of projectile vomiting. Other than that, everything’s been as dull as dishwater.

However, the experience has not been without its significance. Since the school is private, it is not bound by geographical district lines. They accept students within a twenty-five mile radius. So, the bus service goes out that far, in different directions. Rules for discharging students are strict, ironclad and non-negotiable. No student may be dropped off except into the custody of a parent, guardian or school teacher and/or administrator. There are no exceptions.

So, when a kid begs over and over again for me to let him off at a local Burger King on the way home, the answer is simple: NO! In three weeks, I’ve heard every tall tale there is. And no, I’m not sympathetic to stories of how they haven’t eaten for a month and will die of starvation if they can’t stop and chow down on a Whopper.

But this kid was nothing if not persistent. And so I was treated to a tale of woe that, sad to say, panned out to be true. And that was how I came to be acquainted with Julio.

It seems this sixteen-year-old works at the Burger King in question. Dropping him off there would save him the time and trouble of riding his bike from home back to the restaurant. Of course, before he can do this, he has to ride the bus to the end of the line and get off at the last stop. And so it was about a ten mile ride on his bicycle (one way) to get back to work. Most times it takes one to two hours in heavy traffic, and – during the winter months – encroaching darkness.

Still, the rules were not flexible and neither was I.

It further turns out Julio is the son of Mexican immigrants. His father is a day laborer, and his mother works as a custodian (a polite word for janitor) at the school. She cleans toilets overnight, in exchange for a meager salary. However, the kicker in this deal is that any employee, no matter how unskilled, gets comprehensive, company-paid medical and a full tuition waiver for their school age kids. Between the two, that adds up to a $10,000 annual perk. All things considered, you might be inclined to clean a lot of toilets for that kind of bene.

I learned all this about the time I began my bus driving duties. What I suggested – a little late in the game, considering school is now out for the summer – was for Julio to talk to the school principal and the transportation director to see if it could be arranged for me to drop him off at his job next fall. I didn’t bother to ask if his parents had green cards (turns out they do; the school requires that kind of documentation) or if those cards are legitimate. Such questions are ludicrous, given the mockery of this country’s immigration situation. But there was something about the kid that impressed me.

He’s not the brightest bulb in the drawer. His grades are average, due in part, I’m sure, to the extra hours he has to work to help support the family. And he has no sense of king and country, no interest in history, and no concern beyond the immediacy of the moment. He’s impatient, and has a smart mouth when things don’t happen fast enough to suit him. In this regard, he is, perhaps, no different from the vast majority of teenagers, both past and present. But he does have a sense of obligation, a devotion to family, and a strong work ethic. Necessity appears to be the mother of invention in Julio’s case. The family’s financial straits dictate that the kids in his family grow up hard and fast.

The other thing about him is that he’s thinking ahead. He’s already looked into joining the Marine Corps when he graduates – mostly for the benefits – and knows full well that, as a regular Marine, he’ll run the risk of a combat tour somewhere. Afghanistan, Iraq, possibly Iran looms in his future if he goes down that road. But he has (correctly) identified that he’s currently not college material, would, at best, have to spend a couple of years in a two-year school – they call them junior colleges out here – and failing that, resign himself to a life of double-sizing orders of fries while wearing those cute, little Burger King hats.

Julio is ambitious, after a fashion. And he’s realistic enough to know that whatever path he takes, the road will be long and hard. But he’s young, works hard, and harbors vast reservoirs of energy tempered with a distinctive sense of sobriety young people who find themselves on the bottom rung of the ladder, looking up seem to possess.

Personally, I hope he doesn’t draw a house spin in the great roulette wheel of combat arms, if it comes to that.

The last run of the year found Julio as the only student on an empty bus trundling down the road to the last stop. Most of his upscale friends have gotten cars for their ensuing senior years. So he was riding alone this day. Julio, who will begin his junior year next fall, and thus, is a year away from enjoying full driving privileges in this state, will be riding the bus, along with his bicycle, for another year. After that, maybe he can scrape together enough money to scrounge up some clunker to park in the student lot next to the Bemers, AMGs and Porsches.

As we pulled up to the last stop, I wished him a pleasant summer, and gave him my phone number. I told him if he was ever hard up for a ride to work to give me a call. It was strictly against the rules, but I did it anyway. It’s a forty mile round trip from where I live to Julio’s neighborhood, but I’m prepared to make it, despite the $4.65/gallon gasoline prices.

Everybody deserves a leg up sometime.

So there you have it. The yin and the yang of life among the current crop of gen-Y slacker/patriots. Two very different sides of the same coin. What do these two disparate young people have in common? Nothing. And that’s the point. Will Julio ever encounter the ice maiden? Unlikely. Unless he has the misfortune to end up doing the landscaping at her palatial estate.

Meanwhile, back at church, the resident Rhine maiden departed the worship center that Sunday morning to face a day as golden as her picture perfect persona. Like Yertle The Turtle, she was queen of all she could see. God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world. What stretched before her was a life in which she can safely fret and wonder and worry about nothing but years of herself. And as she left, I wondered just what lay in store for this future trophy wife.

No doubt, the Icy Blonde Bitch Goddess will comfortably morph into a high-maintenance super bitch with an acute case of gimme-get-me-I-want, and a terminal Daddy complex. She has the look of a lawyer’s wife. And I mused about just how long it would take – after her fast track husband makes partner – before he will notice that his hot, young 20-something law clerk looks better to him than his pouty, shrewish, and (every so often) heavily pregnant 30-something wife.

Then there remains the ravages of the artillery of time. Just how will she cope when the first crow’s feet appear in the mirror, along with the first gray hairs, love handles, and the inevitable devastation of gravity? How will she react when, after the latest baby, the Size 8 becomes a Size 10, never to return? Teen queens may hold court over all they survey, it’s true. But time is a ruthless taskmaster, and life after thirty can be harsh and unforgiving. Try as she might, she cannot beat the clock.

As for Julio, his future is a little more obscure. Will he serve a tour in the Corps and take advantage of their generous educational benefits? And what will come of that? Will he serve his time in the penitentiary of the global economy, bouncing from one anonymous cubicle to another, until his grateful corporate handlers find someone in Sarawak willing to do his job cheaper than him? Or maybe he will prove to be one of the innovators. Maybe he’ll have the vision to see the needs of future generations and move to fill them. Maybe he’ll be richly rewarded for his efforts. Perhaps he’ll end up a career Marine. There are worse fates. Then again, could be his number will come up in some third world sewer and he will come home in a flag-draped coffin.

It would seem that a long hard climb awaits this frustrated boy, no matter what course he charts. It would further seem that the ice goddess holds all the cards, enjoys all the perks, enters in through all the open doors. And for the moment, she does.

But Jim Morrison made a very astute comment in one of his more razor’s-edged musical compositions from the tense and turbulent 1960s – “They got the guns, but we got the numbers.”

To paraphrase that incisive observation, the ice queen may have all the advantages, but Julio has the drive, the ambition and the need. He too, has overwhelming numbers on his side, as any Sunday drive around the local neighborhoods can attest. He also has two other qualities going for him, and they are crucial.

His people are stronger. And they want it more.

by Euro-American Scum
(contributing team member of Allegiance and Duty Betrayed)
Euro-American Scum can be reached at eascum@yahoo.com

Is This America's Future?

I am afraid for America.

The democrat party has just effectively nominated a man for the office of President of the United States ... leader of the free world ... who despises individual freedom, who envisions capitalism as a virulent cancer, who considers white people an enemy to be contained and overpowered, who sees government as a beneficent god, who places no value on right and truth, and who sees himself as a savior embarked on a crusade whose ends justify whatever means necessary.

‘The democrat party’ has nominated Barack Obama. Not the American people who define themselves as democrats. The party itself is to-the-bone corrupt – not only as regards its wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing policies and platforms, but also in its methods of defining itself and choosing its leadership. The democrat party's nominating process has become so convoluted (primarily, but not exclusively, via the introduction of ‘super-delegates’) as to render the votes of ‘average Americans’ meaningless. ‘Super-delegates’ are the nominating process’s equivalent of federal judges. They are appointed gods, whose purpose is to declare null and void the will of the people, should that will run contrary to the will of the party puppet-masters.

But I digress -- and foolishly, too, since I don’t give a rat’s patoot how ridiculously unfair the democrat party is to its adherents. Let the party implode ... or explode ... or spontaneously combust ... or bicker itself into oblivion. Any such demise would represent a victory for freedom, no matter the form it takes.

Barack Obama has aligned himself all of his adult life with people who judge others by the color of their skin – people who consider blacks as oppressed and whites as oppressors.

Barack Obama has aligned himself all of his adult life with people who consider America to be a society whose national character is defined by the (sometimes brutal) accumulation of power over other civilizations, the pillaging of the environment, and the worshipping of greedy capitalist doctrine -- which, by definition, is inherently evil.

Barack Obama has aligned himself all of his adult life with people who believe that government (defined as a self-appointed elite group of pseudo-altruists) is the solution to the rampant greed and baseness that result from individual freedom. Freedom must be restrained in deference to a perverted concept of ‘equality’. And government is the only viable ‘restrainer’.

Barack Obama has aligned himself all of his adult life with people who believe in ‘villages’ rather than individuals. Call it Marxism, if you like. Or collectivism. Or socialism. Whatever words you choose, paint the individual in your portrait as seated in a hard, rigid, straight-back chair, under a merciless glaring light, with shackles around his wrists and ankles, answering to a government interrogator who demands mediocrity and compliance.

Barack Obama has aligned himself all of his adult life with people who believe that material success, in both the business and individual realms, is evidence of moral decay and lack of compassion for one’s fellow man – unless said material success is enjoyed by a member of the ruling elite, in which case it is simply evidence of an innate cultural superiority -- a necessary trapping in order to distinguish the elite from the masses.

Barack Obama has aligned himself all of his adult life with people who preach tolerance and brotherly love, yet who speak pejoratively about, and, in extreme cases, seek to punish, those who do not share their views. Psychoanalyzing, and demonizing, ‘the opposition’ (i.e., individualistic, freedom-loving Americans) has been honed into a veritable art form. Obama and his ilk have developed the enviable ability to quack like a duck without being mistaken for one.

Barack Obama has aligned himself all of his adult life with people who have little or no comprehension of the history and foundations of America, but who are extraordinarily gifted in using words. In Obama’s world, glibness and charisma occupy a significantly higher plane than do historical fact and personal integrity. Nebulous, poetic verbiage has assumed much more power and value than facts and deeply-held principles, and the honest interpretation of their relevance.

There are many more examples of the less-than-stellar qualities of ‘friends of Barack’, but I’d like to make another (more important?) point before I lose you.

That such a man would rise to the top of America’s political leadership is reason for deep concern.

That half of the American electorate is considering electing him president in November is evidence of the ignorance that is rampant among the American electorate.

Of course there are those among us who actually believe in the leftist, racist, elitist, anti-liberty, anti-capitalist doctrine that is at the core of Barack Obama’s political philosophy. And their votes are every bit as legitimate as yours and mine.

But, for every American voter who casts a vote for Obama truly understanding his political philosophy, there will be ten others who vote for him because they are ignorant (i.e., destitute of knowledge or education) about what that philosophy represents, and the evil, destructive repercussions it will portend for us all.

And you can bet that (1) the ‘academics’ whose charge it is to teach our young people in America’s colleges and universities, (2) those in decision-making positions in the mainstream media, and (3) those who choose to use their stage/screen/music/sports celebrity beyond their intellectual ability to do so, will be doing their best to ensure that the ignorance quotient of the American electorate remains intact, at least through November 4th.

Every now and then, there are those who point to a political figure and whisper the term ‘anti-Christ’. I always tend to view such label-affixers with a large degree of suspicion and skepticism.

Yet there are other ‘anti’ labels that fill me with real and significant dread. I am proud of my white, Anglo-Saxon ancestry. I value human liberty. I respect success ... achievement ... rugged individualism ... capitalist doctrine ... and limited, Constitutional government. And I despise any man seeking national office whose political philosophy seeks to limit or destroy all of the above.

Barack Obama is such a man, and I am afraid for America.

~ joanie