Day # 168 Tribes

The English language is a funny thing.  Ask Professor Higgins.

 "There even are places where English completely disappears. 
 In America they haven't used it in years."


Somewhere in the course of the evolution of our mother tongue, some person or persons had to decide what to call groups of things.  Bananas, when finally encountered in the plural, were bunches.  Shoes, for the well-to-do what could afford, them came in pairs and donuts were by the baker's dozen.

Groupings of our non-human friends created all sorts of opportunities for naming and that opportunity was not missed.

Some groupings of the members of the animal kingdom seem less than imaginative, perhaps only by dint of common usage.  A pack of dogs is nothing out of the ordinary, nor is a school of fishes, regardless of their subject matter.  Herds of ungulate mammals do not raise an eyebrow and a gaggle of geese is quite common, especially here in the GreyNorWet where the Canadian geese have long since ceased to migrate and wander about in said gaggles hissing and pooping in every public park.

Pause, however, to consider that a group of gorillas, upland or lowland, are called a band.  There is also a band called the Gorrillaz.  A group of giraffes, should you be lucky enough to see one, are properly referred to as a tower and, of course, a bunch of whales in the same bit of ocean are called a pod.   A band I understand and a tower is evocative but I think that a pod is reaching somewhat.  What do peas and cetaceans have in common?

When you gather a group of goats together you have a tribe, complete with the bearded elders and thousands of bats add up to a colony (and tons of guano).  Should one be successful in an attempt to herd cats one would have a clouder, which has to be theoretical for the most part.

If you pass under a tree full of crows, a not uncommon occurrence hereabouts, you will have just seen, and likely heard, a murder.  The etymology of the term "murder of crows" is something of a debated item which you can research yourself but the term is still the correct one.

Yet when faced with a group of porcupines, our language creating forebears came to perhaps their finest hour.  In their wisdom they forever after dubbed a grouping of porcupines to be a "prickle".  This wondrous bit of linguistic charm would allow one to say "My God Bob, look out for the prickle of that porcupine!" or, alternatively, "My God Bob, look out for the prickle of porcupines!" and to be equally correct in doing so.

"But use proper English and you're regarded as a freak...."


There, there Professor.  It will all be fine and you will get the girl in the last act.

Day # 166 The Envelope

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh Frabjous day, Callooh!  Calley!

And I shall chortle in my joy.  The genetic envelope arrives this evening and will, once greeted, utter his favorite phrase:  "Food!"  And we shall feed him, for to do otherwise would be to deny his raison de etre.  He being an almost six foot three inch tall teenage boy this side of sixteen years of age, his two sole occupations in this world that I care to know about are eating and growing.

Of course, a time we will have.  Perhaps not at Pacific Raceways.  No matter that this is where I am supposed to be this weekend.  The microbes have robbed me of half of my brain and as such I may not be a benefit to the sport of motorcycle road-racing.  Consequently The Kid may be relieved of his Pit Bob duties.  We shall see, but a time we will have nonetheless.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson saw publication of his book "Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There" in 1872.  At the time it probably did not occur to him that one of the words he coined, the word "chortle", would live on and become a part of the English language.  Other words used in the poem "Jabberwocky" were not so lucky and today one seldom hears "vorpal" or "brilllig" or even "frumious".  I suppose having even a single made-up word survive and become a part of the mother tongue is no small achievement.

While today the only thing that The Kid goes galumphing after are victuals, he certainly understands the adjective "beamish" although generally not without an eye-roll when he hears the word directed at himself.

In the meantime it is my strongly held opinion that the sooner we promote the wide-spread use of the word frabjous the better and happier a world it will be.

Callooh!  Calley!

Day # 165 Gore

OK, in my defense, I am delerious, my brain and body taken captive by tiny microbes bent on my complete destruction.  The little bastards have forgotten that if they kill the host, they die too!!!

Ok, ok, blog already:

In the early 1960's, Truman Capote had a famous rivalry with Gore Vidal.  What the prize was, no one has ever surmised.

In 1968 Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley (the "F" stands for Frank, by the way) were asked to provide political commentary during the party conventions of that election year.  During the commentary things got a little heated after Gore referred to Bill as a "Nazi" and Bill got pissy and called Gore a "Queer".  Fair enough on both counts.

In 1968 Allen Ginsberg sings "Hare Krishna" to Bill on Firing Line.

In 1969, on the air, William F. famously offers to punch Noam Chomsky in his "goddamed face" if he doesn't behave.  Conservativism in action I suppose.

1971 finds Gore Vidal, Janet Flanner and Norman Mailer on the Dick Cavett show.  It ends up with the crowd cheering for Vidal, Cavett and Flanner versus a somewhat inebriated and pugnacious Norman Mailer.   (I used to love the Cavett show!!  His interview with David Bowie is like a collision of two worlds, oh, but I digress.)

If we take this as a full circle conflict does this mean that Norman Mailer had a crush on Truman Capote?  Or, when Allen Ginsberg is chanting "Hare Krishna" to Bill Buckley on Firing Line, is it actually some sort of mating ritual?

Or were these all just folks with amazing, dangerous minds, capable of conducting discourse on a level we can only regard as endangered?  Well, Norman was dangerous a lot but that's a different story.  Discourse and content, even if they were calling each other names.  All of them gone now but Mr. Cavett.  Oh well, I guess I'm stuck with 2011 and the Tea Party folks touting "Atlas Shrugged"

Damn.  The microbes are staging a counter-attack.  I am going to retaliate with my Toshiro Mifune face!!!

                                                            Run you little bastards!!!

Day # 164 Treatment

There is only one thing to do when I am this sick:  poison the little microbes that are doing this to me.  Make them pay!!  I do this by pouring the hottest chilies down my gullet that I can stand.

Picture Ash in the immortal classic "Army of Darkness" when he pours a kettle of boiling water down his throat to kill one of the little Ash clones:  "Ok, little fella, how bout some hot chocolate, huh?!?"

Ash, my one true hero, I think I'm going to die.  Where is that 5-star curry stand?

Day # 161 PEEPS!!!

First off, let me come clean and say that I am sick and staying at home and inside during one of the only sunny spring days we have had so far this year.  If you were expecting insightful commentary from me, well, on virtually any day that would make you delusional, but particularly so today.  I am not even going to be able to work up a good rant.  So, given the circumstances, I am going to go all heavy-weight and talk about something of dreadful importance to us all:  PEEPS!!

Peeps are one of those things that sound really good until you actually bite into one.  Just like donuts, they are a great concept and a horrid reality.  Sort of like shellac for one's mouth.  While I will tear apart cake and pie with gluttonous glee, Peeps just aren't my thing.  But regardless of whether you hate the little bunnies and chicks, love them, or just want to buy a big ole 16-pack to do horrible things to them, its good to know that the little marshmellow critters come in green, blue, lavendar, orange, pink or yellow.  If you are really daring you can get them in dark or milk chocolate and even chocolate mousse.    

Peeps have become a cultural phenomenon.  I do not believe that I have ever eaten an entire peep, at least not since I've been sober, but each year I love the peep photos that are churned out in response to newspaper and online contests.  And for good times there is nothing like micro-waving a nice grouping of peeps into twisted alien blobs from hell.  

If you like a cleaner ending for your peep, here is what happens when you shoot one with a pellet gun:

                                                                       Pretty Cool, huh?

According to the website for the makers of Peeps, "In 1953, it took 27 hours to create one PEEPS® Marshmallow Chick.  Today, thanks to advances in technology, it takes six minutes."  Good thing too, what with all of the Peeps getting shot and made into dioramas and whatnot.

The popularity of the marshmallow critters should not be underestimated.  Again, says the website: "Just Born produces enough PEEPS® Brand Marshmallow Candies in one year to circle the earth twice."  That is a 50,000 mile long Peeps conga line.  Who wouldn't love that?

If you are a more vertically oriented human being, this might be of greater interest:  "If you had 8,000 PEEPS® bunnies, and you stood them in a straight vertical line, you could reach the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago."  Before you try this I would recommend having a large supply of toothpicks on hand to lend structural stability to your peeps tower.  Also, alternating colours will give it a pleasing visual aspect.

The true joy of Peeps, however, is their amazing ability to make a political statement.  My favorite in the last few years is the image that I will leave you with, Wide-Stance Peep, in honour of the  I-am-not-gay ex-Senator from Idaho, Larry Craig.  

                                                          This one's the Peep

                                                              This one's the Perp

Day # 160 The Bunny Day factor

Once again the time is upon us for micro-waving Peeps and watching very small children in cute clothes bumble about with small baskets lined with plastic grass.  One of the few holidays that does not have a fixed date, Easter is a moveable egg hunt with the roots of its strange flexibility in the distant past.  There is even a vestige of the Hebrew calendar in the mix.   Christmas and Halloween, while both pagan holidays co-opted by The Church, are firmly fixed on the calendar regardless of the day of the week they fall on.  Not Easter.  Easter can fall on any Sunday between March 22nd and April 25th.  Why?

Before the First Council of Nicaea, convened by the Emperor Constantine in 325 CA, the Christians were in disarray when it came to what day Easter actually fell on.  Originally the day of Easter was based on the Hebrew calendar because the scriptures say that Christ was crucified on the day after Passover.  The last supper was held on a Holy Thursday.  Passover is based on the Hebrew calendar which is a lunar system.  Given the difference between the Hebrew, Julian and Gregorian Calendar systems, its no wonder that early Christians were celebrating Easter almost willy-nilly.

In June of the year 325, the 300 odd leaders of The Church got together in Nicaea in what is now Turkey.  There were a lot of agenda items do deal with, including formulating the Nicaean Creed, the issue of self-castration versus castration by barbarians, keeping only women who are above suspicion and of course anathematizing Arius and his pesky blasphemous teachings and followers.  Also on the to-do list was establishing a system for determining the day of the Easter feast.

So, here is how it works.  In a nod to the Jewish lunar calendar, Easter falls on the Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon.  Simple, no?  The Paschal full moon is the first full moon after the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere.  The equinox falls on either March 21st or 22nd depending on the mood the sun is in that year.  So now, blending the lunar and solar calendars, you simply find the next full moon after the equinox and then the following Sunday is Easter.  Voila'!

Well, not quite.  While the system adopted by the Fathers served fairly well for the Western Church, what we now call the Roman Catholic Church, it is different in the Eastern or Orthodox Church.  The churches split off one from another in the Great Schism of 1054.  But that's a whole 'nother blog.

Because the Orthodox Church uses the Julian Calendar (not to be confused with julienne fries) and the Roman Catholic Church uses the Gregorian Calendar, the dates for Easter got all muddled again.  So, for anyone reading this who is from the Orthodox side of the Christian line, the system as described above does not work and you will just have to look it up.  For anyone on the Western side of the great schism, you will find that this year is remarkable in that it is the penultimate date that is possible on the late end of the Easter spectrum.  April 24th it is.  Enjoy, because Easter will not fall on a later date until the year 2038.

I'll be 79 years old on that Easter and perhaps my choices for Peep art will be different.  Who's to say?
Since I am not yet quite fully into Geezerhood, I look forward to the Peeps being deformed in the beams of the microwave, even at this late date.  Good luck finding those eggs!

Day # 158 On a clear day

Once again I have taken to the skies, leaving and returning on a jet plane.  The more I go through the TSA lines in US airports, the more I get the giggles.  I am relieved, however, that the TSA screeners are still cooking up little tricks to trip up the evil-doers.  Thursdays it seems, at least at SeaTac, are the days when shoes still come off of our feet but they don't go in the convenient plastic bins.  On Thursdays the shoes ride down the conveyor belt and into the maw of the x-ray machine all by themselves.  That will show the bad guys!  I can only imagine the consternation that will occur in a well trained terrorist faced with the prospect of sending his possibly deadly footwear down the conveyor.  In the infidel manufactured box or no?  The ensuing confusion will surely cause a breakdown of the bad person's will to do harm, leading to an immediate surrender.  Hallelujah!

In an even more confusing move, the Office of Homeland Security has revised the way that they communicate the daily threat level to the populace.  I did not have to watch the news to know this.  People talk, I listen.

             The old system looked like this.  Why does Red always get the bad rap, anyway?

I cannot remember what the terrorist alert level is.  I don't think about it.  I don't think about it at all.  In fact, one of the last things I worry about on any given day is the possibility that some fanatic from another country will hurt me.  I wish I had my own cool alert system so that the things that actually worry me could be neatly categorized so I would know just how much energy to expend on each.  Should I be worried about my son's education, or just concerned?  Should I be guarded about the possibility of squandering, before he has the chance to do it himself, the natural resources of the world that should be his legacy?  Is there an elevated risk that some over-zealous Teflon-coated bullet toting maniac with an NRA card in his wallet will bring about a sooner-than-expected end to my temporal existence?  A simple to use tool for prioritizing my daily concerns would be so handy.  Alas, I ain't got one.  I guess I will have to worry free-style.

Now, instead of the confusing colour chart that denotes the threat levels, there is the much easier to use descriptive system.  It goes like this:

Imminent Threat Alert

Warns of a credible, specific, and impending terrorist threat against the United States.

Elevated Threat Alert

Warns of a credible terrorist threat against the United States.

Sunset Provision

An individual threat alert is issued for a specific time period and then 

automatically expires. It may be extended if new information becomes available or the threat evolves.

What is remarkable is that there is nothing else.  There is no non-threat, only a level of assumed threat.  The threat is either elevated, or worse, imminent.  Either of these levels may have a sunset provision to provide specific parameters.  That's clear right?  

In my life, when something is a constant threat, it ceases to become a threat and becomes a daily part of living.  It has no immediacy.  When I ride my motorcycle, people make it a point to try to kill me.  They usually do this while talking on a cellular phone which is illegal unless it is a hands-free device.  Either way, if they succeed in killing me, they won't spend a day in jail over it.  It is a daily, elevated and imminent threat without hope of a sunset provision.  As such, this threat has ceased to be anything more than a fact of life.  If I am riding a motorcycle in America, from the moment my ass hits the seat I know, without a doubt, that everyone is trying to kill me.  It is not a threat or an abstract concept.  It is daily life.

Terrorism, in the sense that the Department of Homeland Security describes it, is a threat of violent action directed against the citizens, legal or not, of the United States.  Despite a colour coded system or vaguely worded threat alerts, I do not feel threatened in anyway.  I think that the Homeland Security folks should come up with a new system.  I could perhaps offer suggestions.  Here is what I think the levels of security should be:  Ring Number One, Ring Number Two and the Center Ring.  Watch out if the action gets frantic in the Center Ring.  That will be the time the Circus is most trying to distract your attention from what is going on in the clown-cars.

Day # 157 Swifter

When last we checked, the San Francisco Vigilance Committee, in 1851, had hung four souls, whipped another, deported fourteen-odd back to Australia and informally asked another fourteen to leave.  Whatever that means.  Perhaps feeling that there work was done, the SFVC disbanded for a time.  Another view is that they were worse than the folks they were hanging, whipping and deporting, formally or otherwise.  But they would be back. They hadn't even built their fort yet.

                                                     The handiwork of the first SFVC

Besides wanting a Fort it seems the fine members of the SFVC wanted some political clout.  The fort, Fort Gunnybags, was built in 1856.  It was finally destroyed for keeps by the 1906 earthquake.  Its an ill wind that blows no good, etc.

The political clout came shortly thereafter.  In the rigged (therefore normal) municipal elections of that year, the voters sent an Irish-Catholic candidate to the City Board of Supervisors.  A journalist from the Daily Evening Bulletin, one James King, accused the newly elected supervisor of corruption.  This proved to be an error in judgement.  Casey confronted Mr. King in the street and shot him dead.

After the mob of Vigilance folks dragged Mr. Casey out of jail (it seems that the regular avenues of justice were actually working) they tried him and then hung him.  Quickly.  Over the remainder of the year, the mob hung a few more people, tormented another to the point that he killed himself and busied themselves with the maintenance of the Fort and armory which they supplemented by seizing a shipment of arms from the Federal government.

Behind the scenes the folks of the Vigilance Committee formed a political party, the People's Party, which with their backing and armament, usurped power from the local Democratic machine.  As the Vigilance Committee disbanded, its People's Party ruled The City until 1867 when it was merged into the Republican Party.  Some of the members went on to form other mobs in other places, some settled down to enjoy the fruits of their labors.

It seems that a lot of influence and money found its way into the hands of the mob, committee, whatever.  Imagine, behind the scenes money of wealthy individuals being used to influence political and social events, often with the use of backroom deals, intimidation and even sanctioned violence against the citizenry.

Its a good thing that this sort of behavior did not have any sort of lasting legacy with the exception of a plaque on a wall, overlooked by most passers-by.

Day # 156 The Swift Hand

This weekend, whist wandering the streets of San Francisco, I came upon one of the oddest historical plaques I have seen.  And this is what it looked like:

Landmark 90 

Site of Fort Gunnybags 

243 Sacramento Street 

Built 1856 -- 

Destroyed 1906

Who were the Vigilance Committee and why did they have such a crappy name for their fort?  I built lots of forts as a kid and my tribe of hooligans and I would never stoop so low.  From the saddles of various motos, I have stopped to survey many an old fort site, reproduced, tumbled down or nothing more than a historical marker on a dusty pull out.  Regardless, none of these were stuck with such a poor appellation as "Fort Gunnybags".  I had to know more.

The gold rush of '49 brought the population of San Francisco from a few hundred flea-bitten souls to over 20,000 with more coming all the time.  As fast as they could, the newcomers were off to the gold country, including most of the law enforcement staff, the newspapermen and almost everyone else.  A great percentage of the population who remained in the growing city were employed in fleecing the soon-to-be miners on their way to the gold fields and re-fleecing the soon-to-be-poor miners returning from the gold fields.

Those amongst the denizens of the Barbary Coast who were tolerated included prostitutes, opium den hosts, mercantile suppliers, gamblers and even bankers.  Who were intolerable, it seems, were Australians.  A South African could appear in The City, lose his fortune, disappear and then reappear to appoint himself Emperor Norton, but not so if you were from the penal colonies down under.

In 1851 the first Vigilance Committee, fed up with the rampant crime and particularly that of the Sydney Rabbits, hung four of the poor bastards.  First to swing was John Jenkens, then James Stuart.  Not content, the fine folks besieged the jail and during Sunday services, dragged Samuel Whittaker and Robert McKenzie from their cells.  Their trial was speedy and so was their hanging.  I'm not saying that these men were saints.  I'm just saying they were hung.

Well, I guess they had been warned.  But the folks that manned the Vigilance Committee still didn't have a Fort, crappy name or no.  

It took political rivalry and pesky charges of corruption before the newly constituted San Francisco Vigilance Committee would, in 1856, utilize a warehouse on Sacramento Street.  

Tomorrow, killing off your rivals and more.  

Day # 149 Borders

Sometimes there are moments that illuminate, with intense clarity, a small facet of a larger issue.  During my recent trip to Tucson I had such a moment.

On a hot and sunny Saturday morning, with the rental SUV carrying the TBG, Genetic Envelope and Maternal Unit, we set out from Green Valley (God's waiting room) on a day when temperatures would reach into the 90's.  We headed South and West to the hamlet of Arivaca where we left the pavement for the gravel of the Ruby road, which leads to one of the best preserved ghost towns in Arizona, the former mining community of Ruby.

Aside from the caretaker and two Forest Service workers, we had the abandoned mining town to ourselves.  We wandered the the buildings and adobe ruins until we could wander no more, including an unsuccessful search for the cemetery past the tailing piles.  We retired to the shade of the old school house for lunch and lots of water.  When we had our fill, we headed back out to the Ruby road, turning South and East towards I-19 North of Nogales.

The Ruby road is a maintained gravel road that more or less parallels the US-Mexico border, usually staying within 10 miles of less of the line between the two countries.  Like most of the small rural roads in this area, it has a heavy Border Patrol presence.  Within ten minutes of leaving Ruby, I saw a Border Patrol truck behind us.  I pulled over to let him pass and after a cursory look at the occupants of our rental vehicle, he was on his way.

There are lots of check-points around Southern Arizona.  When we visit there, we go through them all the time.  We slow down, stop.  The agent looks into our vehicle and sees that we are all non-Hispanic.  Without any request for papers or identification they invariably wave us along with a smile and a "Have a good day, Sir".  It all seems very weird and surreal.  Ask anyone who lives around these parts and you will find out just what a touchstone the issue of border security is.  Opinions vary significantly, but I have yet to meet someone who lives in Southern Arizona that doesn't have one that they hold strongly.

When the dust from the Border Patrol truck had settled, we continued on our way.  The road South from Ruby runs through rugged desert mountains, beautiful and dry country with rocky draws and thorny scrub.  Montana peak is on one's right hand as the road skirts along the West side of the "Sky Island" of the Atascosa Mountains.  Dropping down into one lightly shaded draw, we came across the Border Patrol compound, a group of air-conditioned modular trailers in the middle of nowhere, including holding buildings with bars on the windows.  We continued on.

As the road swung into a narrow draw a few kilometers past the Border Patrol camp, two figures emerged from the shade on the side of the road, the young man waving at us.  They had a single neatly packed backpack sitting on the ground by the young woman's feet.  My first thought was "Water, they need water".  My son was in the front seat with me, the TBG and Maternal Unit in the back.  I told them to get some water which they fished out of the back.  I handed the young man our gallon jug, three-quarters full.  This young man's English was much better than my Spanish.  He was in his very early twenties at most, polite and well spoken.  His companion was a young woman about the same age, very beautiful, with very frightened eyes and a loose bandage tied around one of her knees over her blue jeans.  They were both Hispanic.  While he and I were beginning to talk, the others rummaged up some food and some money for the travelers.

The young man told me that they were trying to get back to Mexico.  It did not matter to me whether they were coming into the US or heading back to Mexico, they were obviously lost and needed help.  We were almost twenty miles from I-19 and further to Nogales.  The border was some eight miles due South over some very rugged territory, dry and dangerous.  Blocking their way East, the shortest route to anything as the crow flies, was the high ridge of the Atascosa Mountains, a brutal climb on a good day, even if one had lots of water and food.

I explained to him, as best I could, where we were and how far they were from anywhere.  I warned them that the Border Patrol was less than three kilometers behind us and could be on the road heading this way.  At this, the young man asked if we could help them with a ride.  He lifted his shirt and turned around, saying "We have nothing, no weapon".  I never thought that he did.  The young woman was crying, obviously scared, with her hands clasped in front of her saying "por favor, por favor.."  As I turned to ask what the others thought, my Mom, who is a resident of Arizona, said there was no way we could give the couple a ride.  She said that the Border Patrol would arrest us if we helped these two people.

I hasten to add, my Mom was the first person to hand the young man some money, found the food and did not hesitate to offer the jug of water.  She is a good and caring person.  There is also a real risk in giving a ride to two strangers met on a lonely road when one is traveling with one's own children and family.  I never felt any risk, but one could easily argue, and rightly, that it existed, weighting the decision of what to do.

I explained to the man that we could not give them a ride.  I apologized and told him that we could be arrested by the Border Patrol and again warned him that they might be along at anytime.  He seemed resigned that we would not help them any further, but he thanked me for the water.  The young woman was still crying.  We pulled away.  Before we rounded the other side of the draw, while they were still in sight, the Border Patrol pulled up and stopped.  The young man walked over to the truck.  That was the last I saw of them as we went around the bend and they disappeared.

I felt like a coward. At the same time events proved we had probably made the right decision.  We would have been loading the folks into a rental SUV as the Border Patrol pulled up.  There would have been some serious consequences.


Section 274 felonies under the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, INA 274A(a)(1)(A):
A person (including a group of persons, business, organization, or local government) commits a federal felony when she or he:

* assists an alien s/he should reasonably know is illegally in the U.S. or who lacks employment authorization, by transporting, sheltering, or assisting him or her to obtain employment, or
* encourages that alien to remain in the U.S. by referring him or her to an employer or by acting as employer or agent for an employer in any way, or
* knowingly assists illegal aliens due to personal convictions.

We continued our outing for the day, safe and secure in our SUV.  The young couple were, of course, picked up by the Border Patrol and taken to the compound and then, most likely, to either Nogales or Tucson.  Once processed as undocumented immigrants, they were probably put on one of the white buses with slit windows that are regularly seen heading South on I-19 toward Nogales and then across the border to Heroica Nogales on the Mexican side.  I do not know for sure.  But the young couple did not die in the desert.

I will try to relate the aftermath of this day in another blog, maybe tomorrow.  I will try to tell you how proud I am of my son and my wife for the deep feelings they shared with me about how this meeting affected them both, how it strengthened their convictions.  I will try to tell you why I respect my Mom for how she struggled with a very difficult situation.  But now it is late and I am very tired.

As for me, after this day, anytime that the political issue of immigration and border security comes up it will do so accompanied by two very real human faces

Day # 147 Paying the Cold War Piper

As the victorious powers began re-arranging the world after World War II, things began to go awry.  Conflict emerged between the Soviet Union, our erstwhile allies, and the Truman administration.  Whomever you want to blame for the Cold War, and there is a lot of blame to go around, during the years immediately after the Big One, the US side followed Truman, George F Kennan and Dean Acheson down the primrose path they called "containment".  All sorts of countries were now free or wishing to be free of the yoke of colonial meddling.  Countries as far flung and different as Greece and Viet Nam began to have rebel uprisings.  To have an uprising you need guns and the new Superpowers were more than happy to oblige, shipping arms willy-nilly to whomever aligned, even slightly, with a pro-Soviet or pro-western political agenda.  By shipping arms to small rebel groups who opposed the Soviets, the US was supposedly containing the spread of Communism. The Russians, of course, were doing exactly the same.

It became obvious to Truman's apparatchiks that containment using small groups of armed rebels probably wasn't going to keep the pesky ruskies at bay.  Thus the cork was popped out of the bottle of nuclear containment and the Cold War was on.

Of course, this little blog entry is not intended as a complete history of the Cold War, but just a few more tidbits if you will allow.

The Famous General inherited the White House and the Truman Doctrine.  I know that at the end of the Eisenhower years he famously warned about the dangers of the "Military-Industrial Complex" but that is probably because of his guilt over this monster that, while not birthed during his eight years as president, certainly took on some healthy girth through that era.  During the 1950's, we had Allen and John Foster Dulles, Walter Bedell Smith and Robert Cutler, amongst others, preaching the gospel of the arms race to Eisenhower and the rest of the world.

And so it continued, through Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan and then Bush who was just hanging around when the wall came down.  Technologies progressed, guidance systems got better, nukes went to sea on submarines but the parade went on and the behind-the-scenes thinkers, tinkerers and military gurus kept up the drum beat.  One of the most constant voices throughout, and the most Kubrickian of the cast of characters, was Curtis "Bombs Away" Lemay who left us with a reorganized Strategic Air Command and such bon mots as:

"I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. However, the public opinion in this country and throughout the world throw up their hands in horror when you mention nuclear weapons, just because of the propaganda that's been fed to them."


So what did this legacy cost us?  Well, besides all of the moral cost and the climate of fear that ruled the chess game of world politics and caused American suburbanites to dig bomb shelters in their back yards, there was an unfathomable financial drain on the world.  But for the moment, let's be zenophobic and concentrate on the costs to the United States alone.


As you might imagine, estimates on the cost of the Cold War vary greatly.  In the interest of fairness I will start with the lowest figures I could dig up.  The sources for these figures were Department of Defense and Center for Defense Information.  All the figures used are averaged out for 1998 dollars (I don't know why they use 1998).  The lowest cost estimates for just the nuclear weapons, including deployment, maintenance and oversight is 5.8 Trillion Dollars.  This is for the period 1940-1996 and does not include any other defense spending and does not include weapons systems like artillery and short-range missiles that had both conventional and nuclear capabilities.  This is a very low figure, but lets start there.  If you use this as a benchmark, the citizens of the US footed the bill for nukes at 10.4 Billion Dollars per year, every year, for fifty-six years.  That averages out to 28.5 Million Dollars a day, every day.


While the numbers listed above are frightening, it does get worse.  If you look at the period of the Cold War as 1945 through 1996 (historians differ on the starting years) the US had an average defense budget of 285.4 Billion Dollars and that's after you factor out the Korean War years and the Viet Nam War years.  During the years that we were supposedly at peace, we spent 810 Million Dollars a day on defense spending.  To be fair, I will grant you that a peace time army is a reasonable expense but most of this spending was driven by the Cold War.  So, just for argument, lets give back 50% of this mountain range of cash for the Generals to have their toys.  That leaves a daily expenditure of 405 Million Dollars each and every day for the duration of the Cold War factoring out Korea and Viet Nam.


Instead of a world cloaked in fear of nuclear annihilation, which permeated everything down to the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, what we could have had for that amount of money is staggering.  Here is a small sampling of what we might have done with the money had we a bit more vision and a bit less wooden-headedness (thank you Barbara Tuckman).  We couldn't have done everything on the list, but we certainly could have done a few.  Pick your cause de jour and mourn:

The US National Deficit -- It would not have existed.  Not at all

The Transportation Infrastructure -- Completely re-built.  Twice.

An Educated Society -- 41.5 Million citizens could have gone to a four year private university in todays dollars for the cost of the low estimates listed above.  We could have had the most educated and competitive society in the world.

Universal Health Care --  Done and done.  And no co-pays.

Social Security -- Fully funded and financially healthy.

Environmental Issues -- With the kind of technology that we could have brought to bear on evironmental issues, we could all be driving zero emissions cars and using power off of the most sophisticated grid in the world while paying the coal miners not to dig the foul stuff out of the ground.

In truth, I simple cannot imagine the sums of money that we are talking about here.  Six Trillion, Thirteen Trillion, these are sums too vast for my feeble comprehension.  What is much more immediate and discernible for me is the immense feeling of loss over horrendously missed opportunities.  As I read the conclusions of Cold War Historians I find that most acknowledge the whole thing was a disaster for all concerned.  And it concerned all of us.  We, as a society, shoveled obscene amounts of money into the gaping maw of fear, dogma and misunderstanding.  We fed this beast year after year until it controlled us and we were over-mastered.  Morally and financially bankrupted, or nearly so, we continue to stagger along under the weight of this legacy, the effects of which will still be felt for years to come.

 

Day # 146 Cold War Kid

My very recent tour of the Titan II Museum in Green Valley, AZ is still resonating with me.  As I posted yesterday, the museum is the last Titan II ICBM silo in existence.  For you youngsters, ICBM stands for Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile, in this case a device that was intended to lob a single 9 or 10 Mega-ton hydrogen bomb from Arizona onto a Russian target in less than an hour.  The actual target(s) of this particular Titan II are still Top Secret.

                                                   Titan II launch from Vandenburg AFB

In case you are wondering, a 9 Mega-ton warhead, dropped on Los Angeles, would completely destroy everything in a 30 mile radius from the epicenter, depending on how the warhead was set to explode, either in an air burst or ground burst.  An air burst would produce third-degree burns (blackened, charred flesh) at a distance of 30 miles.  In effect, one of these things falls out of the sky and a major city would cease to exist.

As I toured the missile silo and launch room, I felt personally connected to this tragic piece of history.  I was born in 1958 and grew up during the cold war.  While I was too young to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, one of the legacies of my formative years was the cold war rhetoric that led to dogmatic debacles like the increased United States involvement in the Viet Nam war.  The "Duck and Cover" movies that seem so ridiculous now, mostly because they were ridiculous then, were part of the crazed thinking that marks that era.  The logic that bred educational films for kids that taught us to duck under our desks in case of a nuclear attack was the same logic that had brought us the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction.

By the time the Titan II missiles were retired they were obsolete, eclipsed by missiles with names like Minuteman, Trident and my favorite, the Peacekeeper.  But being obsolete did not make the Titan any less devastating.  Even though not one of these missiles was ever launched in anger by either side, the effects of the cold war caused irreparable damage to both Russia and the United States, bankrupting the former, nearly bankrupting the later and expending the moral capital of both.

I spent a good bit of this evening researching the economic cost of the cold war.  In the next entry, I will try to outline the enormous, unimaginable amount of money that were consumed by the obsession and madness of the cold war.

Day # 145 Kubrick

Whilst the family unit and I were carousing about in the Sonoran Desert, we toured the Titan II Museum in Green Valley, AZ.  This is the last Titan II ICBM silo in existence and certainly the only one that has been turned into a museum, possibly the weirdest museum I have ever been to, which is saying something.

It is going to take more energy than I have tonight to create a clear image of just how strange this place was.  I have worked my butt off today, first at the salt mines and then a four hour shift at my shop.  Dinner calls more strongly than blogging.

Besides, I am re-watching Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece "Dr. Strangelove"  Perfect, don't you think.

More to come on ICBM's and duck and cover.

Later.

Day # 144 Rant Storage

After four days  visiting the genetic envelope in Tucson and soaking up hot sunny days in the desert, I have returned to the GreyNorWet.  This evening I have just completed a brisk walk to the beach during which it hailed, sleeted and then rained incessantly.  No, I do not love this.  I know that Oscar Wilde famously said that "Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative" but look what happened to him.  He died in the month of November in a city renowned for its crappy winter weather.

For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.


I know that there are positive things about the GNW.  Yes there were otters on the beach.  No they were not seals, I know the difference.  Yes the evening light peaking out under the clouds over Puget Sound is lovely as it illuminates the sleet knifing sideways into my eyes.  Groovy, that.

Well, the weather be damned.  I have had days of not blogging and the rants are building up like untapped carnal desires in a novitiate.  If I am on vacation and I try to blog around the TBG and/or the Envelope, they mutter and throw things at me.  They tried to burn my blackberry at the stake the other day.  They don't understand that the rants need to breath free, the wretched refuse of my teeming.... you get the idea.

I had thought to blog about one of the many triggering events on this trip, whether the poor scared Mexican couple miles from anywhere on a back road who needed water or the Titan II Missile Museum.  Instead I am on a rant about the events at my office.

Today we had a health care meeting.  Rather, we dragged in our insurance broker and the rep for the large-and-unnamed-insurance-provider-who-might-sue-me (LaUIPWMSM) so that they could explain just what in THE hell has been going on since we switched from our former LaUIPWMSM.   People were not happy.

OK, here's the disclaimer:  I know lots of people don't have insurance of any kind and that I should be grateful that I do.  I want to say that I am grateful to my employer for continuing to provide health insurance for us even if our only two choice seem to be the LaUIPWMSM who is screwing us now as opposed to the LaUIPWMSM who was formerly screwing us.  I am also full of compassion for the many of my fellow citizens that are not able to afford health insurance in this ridiculous and obscene system of predatory insurance that we have allowed to flourish in this country.

My small employer pays almost $ 1,000 per month for health and vision insurance for each of our employees and their dependents.  Yes, roughly a $ 1,000 per person per month.  The insurance kicks in after each person pays a $ 500 deductible.  If you get really sick or hurt, you are going to pay $ 3,000 in co-insurance on top of your deductible while my company is still paying the $ 1K each month.  These are obscene amounts of money.  I want the bucket concession for these folks since they obviously don't have enough places to store all of their loot.

Co-pays, like co-insurance, are the sort of thing that gives the prefix "co" a bad name.  Here's a spot of joy:  the co-pay is waived on preventative care.  Unless the practitioner finds something wrong, then it ain't preventive anymore.  If you go in for a mammogram, and are careful to have the physician correctly "code" it as preventative, then there is no co-pay.  That is, unless you mention anything else when the Doc questions you about your general health and then its an office visit and ca-ching, co-pay time.  Colon check?  Yes, its preventative right up until they find that polyp.  "Preventative" is the Cheshire Cat of the insurance game, now you see its smile, now you don't.

Take a prescription drug?  I don't, but if you believe the ads aired or plaster on everything, everyone needs to if they want happiness, sleep or an erection.  The LaUIPWMSM charges a low co-pay (sick of the "co" yet?) for generic prescriptions, a much higher co-pay for "Formulary Brands" and a co-pay that is over seven times that for the generic for what are called "Non-Formulary Brands".  Even after serious questioning the rep would not or could not answer the question of who chooses what is "Formulary" except that it was their board of "medical experts".  If I had to bet on it, I would be wagering that the pharmaceutical rep with the best golf resort junkets for the "medical experts" was getting "Formulary" tacked on to the name brands that he or she represents.

Are you a healthy person, exercise regularly, watch your diet and not taking any prescription drugs?  Well are you going to feel left out of the hit parade because the nice insurance folks are taking ALL of your money or your employers money and you are getting nothing.  The stick, of the carrot and stick, is the very real possibility of being homeless if you or a family member are unlucky enough to suffer a catastrophic illness or injury.  Actually, there is no carrot and stick.  There is only the stick of homelessness.  The insurance folks kept all the carrots for themselves.  Maybe there are feeding them to the test rabbits.

Let me just say that calling these pirates health care "providers" is as silly as the Kniggets of the Round Table being taunted a second time.  These are health care denyers.  Health care repellers.  What they really are is sleight of hand artists involved in an amazing game of three card monte.  Guess who the marks are?

Best health care system in the world?  Puh-lease.  Oh, and when asked who the culprits really were, the answers were the Doctors and health care reform.  Well, we all knew that the Doctors are actually an evil cabal bent on world domination through ugly golf clothes.  As for health care reform, who wouldn't hate an effort, even a watered-down, pissed on and distorted effort such as our polarized political system belched out, if it even dreamed of tampering with a perfect health care system such as the one we have.