Another bear attack

This time, in Alaska, where a sow grizzly with her cubs attacked seven teenagers in an outdoor survival school.  All were injured, two with nearly life-threatening injuries.

I was going to get more than a bit snotty here, wondering if the "Wilderness Family" series of movies (from the mid seventies) were still  doing their damage by playing down the fact that "These are WILD animals!  What part of "wild" escapes you?".

Jeff Millar (Houston Chronicle movie critic at that time) considered them irresponsible, predicting:

"A family is on vacation in the woods.  Their kids come across some bear cubs, just as cute and adorable as they are shown in these movies. They will want to play with them.

"And somewhere close by will be the mother..."

But, this appears not  to be the case.  From what I've read so far, the teenagers seem to have been well-instructed, responsible, and level-headed.  They were certainly level-headed in the aftermath and very likely that is why they all survived.

This may well be a case of, if you spend enough  time in proximity to these creatures, well guess what?!!!  You're apt to encounter them.

So ...
    When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
    He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
    But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
    For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
        ~Rudyard Kipling - "The Female of the Species"

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Bimbos of the Death Sun ...

... with apologies to Sharyn McCrumb.  (Updated below)

I hope she will forgive my use of the title of one of her novels, as this post will concern itself with same.  I used it because I think a good title should be a "grabber", and if that one doesn't qualify, then I'm damned if I can figure what would.

My previous post, on the pending demise of Borders Books, was announced by email to various friends and acquaintances, one of whom used "Reply to all" to comment, suggesting that E-books helped to do them in.

This prompted another "Reply to all" from the Goddess Bloggess Foxfier ( Head Noises ) mentioning other ways in which Borders may have brought this down upon themselves and also noting...

E-books probably didn't help, nor the way that I couldn't find a single book I wanted in the nearest big store, but could find a lot of over-priced toys. (What I went in for: Kipling's collected poetry, the Just So Stories, some of Tolkien's essays, a fantasy paperback that wasn't a freaking supernatural romance with a Buffy-bimbo on the cover, some book under $10 for a friend's five year old.) Contrast with the used book store on the way back, where I came out with a stack that I actually needed a bag for. (Although I still haven't found the Kipling or Tolkien.)     (Emphasis mine)

So, from the part that I emphasized, I'm guessing she probably wont  be scouring the book stores in search of ...

R.I.P. Borders Books

In the spring of 1984, I moved up to Mt. Pleasant, in central Michigan, and lived there for 10 years beore returning to Houston in the fall of 1994.

My favorite places to shop for books up there were the various Borders Books stores, in Saginaw, Lansing and other towns there.  They had started, in Ann Arbor, in the seventies.

I've always liked the stores and their selection, and was delighted to find they had opened stores in Houston when I returned.

So, it was a shock to just now get an email from them announcing "going out of business" sales, beginning Friday, Jul 22, 2011 in their 399 stores prior to total liquidation.  They were just the latest victims of the current economy.

I've always liked them, and feel as if I've lost a personal friend.
That's all I can say.
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A Balanced Budget Amendment would ...

... make it "virtually impossible" to gouge more money out of you.

That is a paraphrase (but not by much) of the reaction of House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Dem - Maryland) to the parts of the Republican Cut, Cap and Balance plan that would require supermajority votes in Congress to increase taxes.

What he actually said was, "In order to pay our bills, Republicans would require us to pass a Constitutional amendment that would permanently enshrine their partisan budget priorities in law and make it virtually impossible to raise revenue." 

But, tell me honestly, was my paraphrasing of it all that much of an exaggeration?

He is whining because the bill would make it harder  for them to get more money out of you, and of course he says it as if that was a bad thing, because it truly is  to their ilk.

Their approach to an economic problem seems always  to amount to pointing the "revenue" gun at you and demanding, "Hand it over".

If someone proposes actually cutting  something, their reaction is best described by Ace at Ace of Spades HQ ...
   "His mouth is moving and there is sound coming out,
     but it's not a language that any of us understand."

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Who do the Democrats fear most?

Best way to get a handle on that is to see who they attack the most. You do not waste your ammunition on someone who doesn't matter.

Sarah Palin's easily the reigning champion there, with the biggest bullseye of all painted on her back, and she just will not fall.  That she's my personal  favorite shouldn't come as a shock to any who know me.  You will underestimate her at your peril. :-)

Michele Bachmann has had to contend with "Are you a flake?" from one of the biggest flakes on the air (other than Chris Matthews), Chris Wallace.

And now that our governor Rick Perry seems very likely to enter the race, the heavy artillery is being zeroed in on him.

Fw: How Dry Is It In Texas?

About three weeks ago, one of my best friends forwarded an email to me, which I in turn forwarded by publishing it as a post.

Another good friend forwarded the following email to me, and here I go posting it as well.

That last post resulted in a commenter opening up on me with both barrels, about factual inaccuracies in that email, and I received an education.

This time, I'm gonna use the email as inspiration, and as a skeleton for a much larger and more diverse post.  In other words, I'll probably go all over the map.


*********** Start of email **********************

How Dry Is It In Texas?
Cows are giving powdered milk.

A buddy in Longview said he'd killed a mosquito that was carrying a canteen.

A man in Dime Box said the chicken farmers were giving their chickens
crushed ice to keep them from laying hard-boiled eggs.

In Lake Palestine , they caught a 20 lb catfish that had ticks on it!

But just this week, in Bryan, a fire hydrant was seen bribing a dog.

It's so dry in Texas that the Baptists are starting to baptize by sprinkling, the Methodists are using wet-wipes, the Presbyterians are giving out rain-checks, and the Catholics are praying for the wine to turn back into water.

Pray for rain!

*********** End  of  email **********************

Now, I'm sure you will be shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that Texas is no stranger to extremes in anything, including weather.

In 1836, Santa Anna surprised the defenders of the Alamo by showing up much sooner than anyone expected.  This was the day of Napoleonic warfare, and the General considered himself (and styled himself) "The Napoleon of the West".  Of all of the Napoleon wannabes that came along after the original, he was probably the best by far.

That type of warfare requires a large train of supplies, usually wagons pulled by oxen.  The Texians expected him to wait until spring before moving out because of considerations of forage for those oxen and for the cavalry's horses.

But, the General was a gambler and got underway in mid-February.  He lost that gamble a bit;  a blue norther coming straight out of Canada, down the plains and hitting his army (without proper winter gear; some of the soldiers even barefoot) with a blizzard that cost him as many casualties as the battle itself.

Update - 19 Jul 2011 - Ah, Hell!! - Every word of that anecdote above is accurate; Santa Anna's army truly did  get hit with a freak blizzard while on their way to San Antonio, and did  suffer casualties as a result, but further research discloses that this  event happened in northern Mexico. They had not crossed into Texas yet, and neither did the snow (over a foot), making the anecdote interesting,  but utterly useless  as an example of Texas  weather extremes.  Oh, well...  :(

Visitors to Texas also tend to notice that it gets hot  here as well.

The quote, "If I owned both Hell and Texas, I'd live in Hell and rent out Texas", attributed to both General William T. Sherman and General Philip Sheridan probably evolved from a much more mundane, "Damn, it's hot down here!"

It's been that way since before there was a Texas.

If you get all of your info from The Weather Channel or the mainstream media, you'd think we've had nothing but record after record after record recently.  But, that just ain't the case.

About seven weeks ago, I published a memory-lane post ( Just 50 years ago today ... ) about my 19th birthday, on 25 May 1961, and things going on at that time.

Now, let me bore you with birthday # 10, in May of 1952, in San Antonio, Texas.

I got my first bike; a brand new J.C. Higgins from Sears, Roebuck.

I'm not sure if a whole week went by before I got my first cast, after taking a spill and landing on my elbow, cracking it.  Dad had to rush home to drive me and mom to the doctor, where the cast was put on, costing about $50.00 if I recall correctly.

I think the bike went for almost that amount, and that we paid about that much in monthly rent.  As a mechanic in 1952, I doubt his weekly take-home pay was much (if any) higher.  I do recall that he was less than thrilled at this turn of events.

Shortly after, mom took me (still in the cast) and my brother to spend a few weeks with her parents and some cousins of mine in rural Arkansas, the money for the trip having already been put aside (I think).

1952, going by train both ways.  Going up was by a steam-powered train from San Antonio to Fort Smith, Arkansas, winding though small towns like Palestine, Texarkana, and so on,  taking maybe 15 or 16 hours to get there.  Coming back was a special treat; her parents driving us down to Little Rock so we could ride Missouri Pacific's Texas Eagle  back to San Antonio, doing the roughly 600 mile trip in maybe 10 hours.

Before we started back, the cast had already been removed and my arm back to normal.  So, upon return, I proceeded to wear out that bike, in San Antonio summer, and got myself introduced to heat exhaustion.  Scared the Hell out of mom (and me too, for that matter).

As I noted above, it does get hot down here.  Triple-digit temperatures were not at all unusual in San Antonio at that time; we just called it "summer".

Back in those days, before every house on the block had a TV, they ran newsreels in the movie theaters, between the features.

A staple of them, every summer, was a shot in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, D.C, or Los Angeles with the announcer going ,"How hot is it?", and then showing someone cracking an egg over the pavement and watching it fry.  I suspect that whoever put the summer newsreel together would be drummed out of whatever guild or union they belonged to if they failed to include that.

Now, I know (because Al Gore tells us so) that we are living in the "End Times" because of "global warming", "climate change", or whatever they will come up with next.

My problem with being so damned old is that my memory goes back a long way, and although I've had a scare or two about my recollection, when I took the trouble to look things up and check them out, I found that memory to be working just fine.

Along with that age comes a little bit of cynicism about the fact that nearly all  of the "cures" proposed for AGW, climate change, or whatever involve putting people who couldn't even run a lemonade stand in absolute totalitarian control of every aspect of our lives.

Am I exaggerating?  Consider Energy Secretary Steven Chu's recent defense of banning incandescent light bulbs, "We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money."

This arrogant snot is literally telling you that you are just too damned stupid to make your own decisions; so they have to do it for you.  They absolutely believe this.  They truly believe that, "for your own good", you must get their  permission for whatever it is you feel like doing.

If you doubt that, then you do not even begin to comprehend the mindset of these people.

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Vietnam's most infamous photo ...

... has so much back story that you probably never knew.

Foxfier  has just done what I sometimes do on occasion;  publish a post that is mostly a reference to another post by someone else, because it is almost impossible to build and improve on what that someone else has said.

So, she brings it to your attention.

And, here I am adding yet another link to the chain, because I can't improve on it either.

So, PLEASE, go to her Pictures Lie  post, and find and click on the  "a post on a very famous picture" link.  It ain't pretty, but it sure as Hell is an eye-opener. (Changed link - see update at end.)

If the late Paul Harvey was still reporting, it would be one of his "... and now, you know the rest of the story." pieces.

Give her blog a try; she's very smart, very interesting, and very patient.

How do I know that last part?

In a recent comment exchange, she expressed worry (not too much worry; she keeps things in perspective and has a sense of humor) that she might have annoyed me over a slight political difference.  I reassured her, beginning,
  "Kid, you don't know what annoyance is."

As soon as I had hit the "Post Comment" button, the thought came,
  "Did I just say that to a mother of teen-agers?!!!".

That I'm still breathing is a testament to her patience (or, perhaps to the 2000+ miles separating us :-)

Update - 20:40, 03 Jul 2011 - FYI - Neo-neocon covered much of this ground in Jan 2008 in A mind is a difficult thing to change: (Part 7B: the Vietnam photos revisited)

Addendum - 05 Jul 2011 - Here's a bit more of what Foxfier's post was about.

Synopsis...

Using "infamous" in terms of "spin" (The photos becoming ammunition for protest against the war), the two most infamous photos to come out of the Vietnam War were:
 1) The photo of South Vietnam's Chief of National Police General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan summarily executing a captured Viet Cong by shooting him in the head.
 2) The "Napalm Girl" photo of a young girl running naked down the street from a napalm attack on her village.

Neo has dealt with both of those photos in her post.

Foxfier concentrates on the first;...

 (Photo from neo-neocon's post linked above)

... her post mostly referring to the link I mentioned.  Comments on Foxfier's post make essential reading, for reasons that will become clear below.

From Who, what, where, why and when?  (This is the post that Foxfier linked to) ...

...the picture was taken on February 1st, 1968 in Saigon.  This information is significant because the Tet Offensive, a well coordinated countrywide North Vietnamese attack, was launched the day before, on January 31, 1968.
...
"Nguyễn Văn Lém [the executed man] commanded a Viet Cong death squad, which on that day had murdered South Vietnamese National Police officers, or in their stead, the police officers' families; these sources said that Lém was captured near the site of a ditch holding as many as thirty-four bound and shot bodies of police and their relatives, some of whom were the families of General Nguyễn's deputy and close friend, and six of whom were Nguyễn's godchildren." (Emphasis mine)

A bit confusing because of the common family names (which come first in Asia), the bottom line is that the General was the godfather of six of the murdered children.

So, he's got this bastard, who is NOT in any kind of uniform and is therefore subject to summary execution by the laws of his country.  His city is in chaos and there's no guarantee that he could even find a safe place to hold this guy.  What would you do in his place?

The AP photographer, Eddie Adams, later said... 
“The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths

Adams continued, "This picture really messed up his life. He never blamed me. He told me if I hadn’t taken the picture, someone else would have..."

Adams was very remorseful about the effect that his photo had on the rest of the General's life (after the fall of Saigon, the General, on his own, managed to get out and made his way to Virginia, where he died in 1998).

That picture contributed to our weariness of the Vietnam War and therefore can be legitimately considered as helping the country to eventually fall.

In the comments to her post, Foxfier opens up on Adams with both barrels...
The General was a better man than I am-- I most assuredly would have held the man that lied about me like that responsible for the results, as well as the massive amount of damage to my home nation.

A little further down from that comment, she reloads and let's loose with what would suffice as a bottom line, but she still has more to say.  Very definitely worth a look.

Update 03 Jun 2012 - Foxfier used to have a blogspot (Google's Blogger.com) address. She had issues with them (she ain't the only one) and finally said "adios", and is now on Wordpress. So, I fixed the links.

Update 04 Jun 2012 - In the 05 Jul 2011 Addendum, I vented (at length) about people not following links. While it may have felt good to get it out of my system, it contributed absolutely nothing to the post, and pretty well obliterated the focus.  After some encouragement from a writer to whose attention I brought this post, I decided to weed that out. While still not all that great, the post is definitely better without the rant. And it only took me eleven months to figure that out. :-)
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