Memorial Day

There's a big veteran's cemetery about an hours drive from my house. It's a pretty old one and all filled up. Most of the guys buried there didn't die in a war. There's Civil War guys that made it out here afterwards, some guys that helped whip the Filipinos, maybe some WW I guys, I'm not sure when it filled up.  I've heard most of the guys buried there died from tropical diseases. Mostly they were wasting diseases. These guys lasted long enough to get back from wherever they were to the adjoining Army hospital on the Pacific coast. It wasn't all just Malaria and Yellowjack. There was all kinds of stuff they didn't even have names for in those days, much less cures. Running sores and body rot. Ameboid and protozoan infections of the brain. Intermittent raging fevers and bloody fluxes. They came back to Sawtelle, to suffer, die and be buried, from tropical hell holes all over the Pacific rim. Sometimes they lived for months, even years, watching as others wasted and died around them, knowing there was no hope for them. Most of them still far from their friends and families.

Nobody's death, who died serving, is worth more or less than another's and those that face death with the most bravery are not always on the battlefield.

More on Jebby's new bride.

Several people have picked up my thread about Jebby Bush's new Arab bride or have developed the information themselves, so I feel secure in releasing a little more information about her. Here is an online business profile on her that gives a little background. Here is the page where I got her picture.

Lakers Head To Championship Series, Again

I didn't think the Lakers would make the Championship series this season. I didn't really want them to. They've had a lot of injuries and the performance of many of their top players is inconsistent. I thought the Cavaliers and Magic could both beat them. Surprise, the Celtics won the Eastern division.

I think the Lakers might beat the Celtics. I'd like to see Phil Jackson win another championship. He'll probably retire after this one. He should keep coaching. What else has he got to do? Chicago wants him back. He should go. What Larks, Pip!

Politicians and Sailors Lie

Mark Kirk an Illinois Congressman running for Barack Obama's old Senate seat has at various times claimed that he received the US Naval Intelligence Officer of the Year award, which I guess is a big deal, although I've never heard of it.. The Washington Post did some fact checking and found it wasn't true that he won the award and Congressman Kirk has backed off on the claim, stating that it was a misunderstanding. This is similar to that Connecticut Blumenthal guy's situation. Maybe not though, since Blumenthal claimed to have served in Vietnam. I'm not sure if he claimed to have been in combat.

I think I should clear something up, in case anybody ever wants to run me for Senator. I joined the Navy because I was broke, homeless and had nowhere else to go, there was no patriotism or desire to experience military life involved. I had a pretty good time in the Navy but I tended to wring the most out of life I could, in those days, no matter where I was, which had a lot to do with why I ended up broke and homeless, with nowhere else to go. I struck for quartermaster because it seemed clean and non strenuous and for subs because my favorite picture book when I was 3 or 4, was the Golden Book of Submarines. One of the big Publishing Houses had this whole Golden Book series for kids learning to read. If I had it to do over again, I would have signed up to be a dental tech. In my opinion, dental tech is the best job in the Navy. When you're a dental tech, all of your officers are dentists and they are very friendly, easy going and non military. They start late, take long lunches, quit early and don't work nights, weekends or holidays. A lot of Navy dental techs were girls and that's always a plus. You could also get a job as a dental tech in the civilian World after your Navy training and experience. Nobody on the outside was clamoring for quartermasters when I got there.

Any awards or medals I got from the Nav were strictly I was along for the ride type of things that every other warm body got too. One time I even got one when I was off the sailing list. Everybody assigned to the crew got an award so I got it too and I wasn't even along for the ride. It might have been a mistake or not. I wasn't a personnelman. I don't know all the rules about that shit. It's in my record I got it. That's all I know.

I did get this framed citation from COMSUBPAC at an award ceremony after my first cruise. What happened was, I got to the boat, right out of boot camp, A School and Sub School, a few weeks before a really long cruise was planned. Within a short time, the chief and first class on board already, rotated out and I got a new chief and it was just going to be him and me, so I had to get busy with the preparation and also qualify QMOW, so that I'd be of some use. Anyway, we went to sea port and starboard, so I kept pretty busy. Once we got on station, the situation didn't really require a quartermaster at all. I know that's pretty strange, just take my word for it. The Chief just functioned as the on call guy and he sold my ass to the COB as a mess cook. I didn't mind mess cooking but it did eat up a lot of time. When it came time to transit home, one of the guys who had been involved with other duties, that were then completed, a signalman first, was able to step in as QMOW. We would have had three section duty. I decided I would fuck my chief in the ass for selling me away as a mess cook in the first place, so I volunteered to the COB to stay a mess cook. The COB was not my chief's friend, so I stayed mess cooking and my chief went red and green.

Somewhere along the way home, the Captain and XO realized that they could get the whole crew qualified by the time we got home and they became obsessed with flying a dolphin pennant through the Golden Gate. It was almost all they talked about The only obstacle was me. I wasn't dink,  I'd only been on the boat 4 months and a lot of that I'd either been port and starboard or mess cooking. They were really nice about it but they weren't going to let me stand in their way either. They put me on 5 section helmsman/planesman and I spent about 20 hours a day studying schematics and tramping around the boat learning systems and getting my qual card signed. Even though everybody made a big show about how smart and dedicated I was, that was all bull shit, wasn't it. Albert Einstien couldn't qualify submarines in the amount of time I did. If it made them feel better to proclaim me exceptional while they gun decked my card and board, that was OK with me. After they got through the Gate with their fish flag flying, they proclaimed me the rookie of the year and had COMSUBPAC give me a piece of paper to prove it. Pretty cool huh?

Do you think that sea story could get me elected Senator somewhere?

Jebby Bush Gets His 72nd Virgin The Easy Way

Devout Catholic convert and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's youngest child, John Ellis Bush Jr., youngest of "the little brown ones" and famous for enjoying public sex in shopping center parking lots, affectionately known in the family as Jebby, was married today. Little information was released on the bride's background, named as Sandra Mary Algudady. Not a lot of pictures of the bride surfaced in the media or on the Internet, following the wedding but in the pictures of her I saw, she seemed quite comely .

Do you suppose she could be, in fact, Sandra al Gudady, precocious Bedouin wonder girl of Iraqi/Jordanian descent, former close adviser to the King of Jordan and currently, glamorous, jet setting, multi continental, business executive? This dirt dishing, tabloid reporter wannabe bets maybe. I could be wrong. Maybe she's an adventurous shop girl from Nordstrom's  Jebby met on her lunch break, out in the parking lot.

I don't know Sandra's a Muslim but if she's an al Gudady, I bet she is. Maybe she and her new husband can stop by the White House soon and chew the ol' prayer rug awhile with Barrack Hussein.

The Bush clan is known for either bringing in good breeding stock or marrying up if they can. The last generation of Bush boys had to pretty much take what they could get and lucky to get it, marriage wise. Looks like Jebby might be making up for that on both counts.

Congrats Jebby!

Go here for a slide show of the wedding from the Miami Herald. I'd post the photos but the paper is charging for the images and I'm on the zero$ budget plan.

Here's the only picture of Sandra al Gudady I could find on the Web. Sorry it's not better. Do you think it's the same girl? This picture is probably at least a few years old. Jebby's bride is said to be 30 years of age. He is 26.

They Say Ketchup is a Vegetable. Is a Dollar Money? Is Gold Only Good for Fishing Sinkers?

They say that all the gold ever mined, in the history of the World, would only fill up two Olympic sized swimming pools. If that's the case and the World's paper currency failed, leaving gold as a primary means of storing wealth, even a very small quantity of gold would make one very wealthy. Ironically, this is the same argument used by some to explain why such a thing could never happen.

Still, having a little bit of gold couldn't hurt. That's why so many people are buying it and the prices keep going up.

Right now, you'd have a real hard time buying anything with gold and whenever you exchange money for gold or gold for money you pay a Hell of a premium.

What's a boy to do.

Poland Upholds True Catholicism

The Roman Catholic Church is having hard times in Europe. Secularists and Homosexualists no longer lurk in the shadows but brazenly come out in the light of day and challenge the revealed truth of the one true Catholic God.

The one country in Europe that maintains even a semblance of the true faith is Poland. This is largely due to the Polish Roman Catholic priesthood, who have the faith, courage and intellect necessary to protect and preserve the true sentiments of Church dogma and doctrine.

Here we see one such young priest explaining gently but firmly the reality of the Homosexualist problem and what must be done about it.

Burn'em at the stake.

Snorkle Paris

It's Fleet Week in NYC. Paris Hilton has come out to keep the boys company.

We had a girl like that at Mare Island. Her name was Snorkle Patty. We were pretty sure she was a girl. The kind of thing she specialized in, being a girl wasn't really required, strictly speaking.

I'm sure Paris is a real girl. I've seen her sex videos. But also, having seen those videos, I can tell you, she's no Snorkle Patty. Patty did this gargling yodel kind of thing that was always well received and highly in demand, in spite of the fact it often caused her to fart.

So Long, Mercury

I read that Ford is going to shitcan Mercury. The Mercury brand was the brainchild of Henry's son Edsel. A lot of guys my age idealize old Mercury "lead sled" hot rods, made famous in the James Dean movie, "Rebel Without A Cause". I don't. Where I lived, those kind of cars were driven by members of "low rider" gangs. Some were White, a lot were Hispanic, some even Black. They were the natural enemy of White, middle class SoCal youth, whether Coastal or Valley dwelling.

I did like the Mercs of the late 50s and early 60s. They were wacky and fun in a Soupy Sales kind of way. The back seats were huge and the upholstery as bouncy as Granny's sofa. You could get them with suicide doors. Some of them had back windows that rolled down. You could throw stuff at the cars coming up behind you. Had to be careful with the dog back there though.

A guy I went to school withs mother bought him a brand new Couger in '67 or '68. They were rich. It was just a Mustang with retractable headlights, a plush interior, came stock with the 289 V-8 and automatic transmission . I thought it was very nice. He didn't like it because it was too much of a Mommy car. Probably was but so was the Mustang. The first car I ever had the pink slip on was a '61 Comet wagon. Total piece of shit. It would break down while parked. It ate a water pump every month or two and the engine block cracked, on two different engines. The two speed automatic was good though, never had a problem with that.

Nobody will miss Mercury. They're just Fords with a little different chrome and cladding. The last time they had anything distinctive was in the late 80s, when they imported a couple of Euro sport sedans badged under the Merkur name, the Skorpio and the XR4Ti. Remember those? Probably not. I really liked the XR4Ti. I'm really an idiot but not enough of one to actually purchase an XR4Ti. It was the first World Rally type car offered for sale in America. It had a turbocharged, inter cooled, high compression 4 cylinder engine, completely impractical for SoCal driving and went about six months between major engine rebuilds. Nobody knew how to work on them and all the parts had to be special ordered from Germany at huge cost. Even after they started selling them at a loss they weren't a good deal. They wouldn't have been a good deal if they paid you to take them.

So long, Mercury.

Praising Sexual Predators

Sex and the City II is opening this weekend. I guess the first one made some money. I didn't see it.

This is the continuing story of a gang of much practiced and highly skilled serial sexual predators, practicing their craft unimpeded.

A lot of people think it's cute. This is a story that would never work in the entertainment mass media if the main characters were cunning, manipulative, more than a little over the hill, middle aged men. As long as the characters are women, it's all right. I'm not saying that's bad or unfair to men. It's just the way it is.

It's nothing shockingly new. I remember a movie, "How to Marry a Millionaire", with Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable, came out when I was a very little boy. In that movie, the predatory women were after financially advantageous marriage, not gratuitous sex and not so superannuated but the practiced, predatory sexual overtones were the same. It was a big hit almost 60 years ago. I hear Nicole Kidman wants to do a remake.

Outlier

My determinate tomato plant now has 25 or thirty small tomatoes set on and is still blooming profusely. The indeterminate plant has one tomato set on. It is also beginning to bloom plentifully and I have no reason to believe it will not also be a big producer. The two plants are simply following different schedules.

Each plant had one outlier fruit develop much earlier than the others. My hypothesis is that the plant produces this outlier  in order to test that conditions are favorable and then sends a hormonal feedback to the plant, stimulating it to increase blooming. It seems like the logical explanation.

I have never read that this is true but I bet it is. See if your plants don't produce a very early outlier and let me know.

Together in Heaven

Brittany Murphy, a movie actress in her early 30s, died several months ago, of nebulous causes. Her husband, Simon Monjack, who wasn't that much older, died yesterday, probably of those same causes.

Errol Flynn and Micheal Jackson at least lasted into their 50s. Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown are pretty run down but still hanging on. Charley Sheen is doing fine and even just got a big raise. Brittany and Simon must have been blow torching the candle at both ends.

I would guess that Brittany and Simon made some seriously bad lifestyle choices. It's pretty hard to kill yourself in your 30s. I don't even think they had much fun, which for me, has always been the main justification for bad lifestyle choices. What a Bummer.

The Right. They're Right. Right On.

People my age and over are still concerned about "the system".  Conservatives still believe they can roll back the clock and bring back the good old days if they just teach the right things in school and make enough stuff illegal. Liberals are concerned that the conservatives might be right.

Younger people, grew up with a much more relaxed society. A lot more things have always been legal during their memory and a lot of things that are technically illegal, there is no enforcement of or penalty for and they don't give a shit if it's illegal or not. They realize that most of what they learn in school is bullshit and that every type of information, from every possible perspective, in every media, is available for free, 24 hours a day, on the Internet. They don't worry that a totalitarian government is going to suppress anything they want to do, say or find out. It's just not possible.

Younger people, say 40 and under, aren't really represented yet in positions of political power. They will be soon. When they do start showing up, it may seem that they are more conservative and apathetic about protecting basic freedoms. I think it would be a mistake to think that's true. They just don't feel threatened. They're right.

Two Types Of Tomatoes

I bought two tomato plants on a whim. I want fresh, homegrown tomatoes this Summer. I understood there are two different classifications of tomato plants, determinant and indeterminate.  I bought one of each.

Determinant varieties grow and mature more quickly. They are smaller, bushier plants. They put out profuse blossoms on major stems all at once and the fruit develops and ripens at the same time. Once all of the fruit is ripened, the plant is pretty much through.

Indeterminate varieties develop more slowly,  they are larger, more rangy plants. They put out initially fewer blossoms, on all stems. As fruit forms and ripens, they continue to put out more blossoms and develop more fruit and will continue to do so as long as growing conditions remain favorable.

This is my understanding and seems to be confirmed by the way my plants are growing.

I think that determinant plants would be better for the commercial grower. For the home gardener, the indeterminate varieties are better. I have no idea what I will do with the 50 or 60 tomatoes that my determinant plant will probably put out in another month or so. The indeterminate plant will probably continue to steadily produce fruit until Thanksgiving.

We'll see.

No Trespassing

Here we see BP contractors and Coast Guard personnel threatening to arrest a CBS camera crew filming an oil soaked beach in Louisiana. They better explain that pretty quick.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Lied about his service

There's a guy named Richard Blumenthal who is the Attorney General of Connecticut, currently running for the Senate, as a Democrat in that State. He had served in the Army during the Vietnam era but had misrepresented himself as having actually served in Vietnam, when that was not the case. He's in trouble for it now.

I turned 19 and thus eligible for the draft, in October of 1970. This was the year after the lottery system had been adopted. I was very lucky to get a high number and it was very unlikely that I would be drafted that year. After the numbers were drawn, I dropped my student deferment and sweated it out until the end of the year. I was in no rush to defend democracy in South East Asia.

I knew some guys my age who went to Vietnam. Most of them were drafted. They all just tried to keep their heads down while there. None of them stayed on or went back for a second tour. Some actually saw combat, most did not. It was pretty dangerous there whether or not you were in a combatant unit. A lot of veterans used the GI Bill to attend college where I went. They would tell stories over beers, a lot of them were terrible, funny and fascinating at the same time. Most agreed that the War was a futile effort and that the Vietnamese had no stomach for the conflict without us to do most of the fighting. The loathing for officers and enlisted lifers was universal and the consensus was that they all had their heads up their asses. There were stories of courage and heroism told. Mostly guys who were driven to take out their rage and sense of futility on whoever was around and if the Viet Cong were around they at least didn't get punished for killing them. I'm not saying that every young guy that went to Vietnam felt that way but a lot of the ones that I knew did.

I was good friends an old guy who's dead now, originally from Western Louisiana. Little shrimpy Cajun guy, maybe 5' 5", 130lbs. He was in his early middle twenties when World War II started. He joined the Army the day after Pearl Harbor. He got put in Patton's Third Army. He fought across North Africa, Italy, France and Germany. He was in the Battle of the Bulge. He mustered out after the War but joined up again, this time as a Marine, for Korea. Great guy, maybe not the brightest you'll ever meet. He was there when the Chinese blew the bugles for the Winter suicide charges, the Americans ran out of bullets trying to kill them all and the lines were overrun. He stayed in the Marines after Korea. Why not? He'd done more than his share.  He figured he'd get his thirty in. He had the kind of decorations you don't see all the time and lots of them. He ended up as an E-8, running the motor pool at El Toro. In '67, they told him he should either volunteer for Vietnam or hang it up. He was still years short of his thirty. He never hesitated. Put in his papers the next day and was a civilian within a month. He told me more than once that he regretted not getting the bigger pension check but not refusing to go to Vietnam. I never met a more patriotic guy. Beat the crap out of ya with a lead loaded, sawed off, Louisville Slugger if he thought you lacked respect. Get away with it too. The local cops all loved him. Anybody involved in anything nefarious around the neighborhood, he'd warn them once to their face, then drop a dime on 'em if they were still around the next day. He was just that kind of guy.

So what do I think of Richard Blumenthal? He never had anything to be ashamed of. Shouldn't have lied. He's probably not the kind of guy you'd want representing you in Washington. Is he?

Tuesday Recap

My predictions for yesterday's elections were pretty good.

I was surprised that the Dems were able to hold on to Murtha's old district, PA-12. This district was the only seat in the country that Kerry won and then went on to be carried by McCain, four years later. It seemed like a no brainer that with the passing of their longtime Congressman, Jack Murtha, the Republicans would get a chance at the seat and they still may very well, come the November general elections.

Mark Critz, who won this seat, in the Northern most section of the Appalachians, is a very Blue Dog but will presumably cooperate with Nancy a lot more than any Republican. This is at least one bright spot for the Dems to hang their hopes on.

She's Changing Her Name to Tanya

Laura Bush is OK with abortion, the Elena Kagan nomination and Gay marriage. She opposes the Arizona immigration law. She'll smoke a little weed to mellow out. Not a big church goer. Her daughters obviously trust and confide in her.

Do you think she might be a radical lesbian Marxist?

Glen Being Glen

Glen Beck gave the commencement speech at Liberty University over the weekend.

He apologized for his Mormon faith to the young Baptist Wingnuts and stated that the Democratic Party in America is controlled by Radical Marxists. He cried a little bit over his failure to attend college, due to mental illness.

What a guy.

Eenie Meenie Chilli Beanie. The Spirits Are About To Speak.

There are a few primary elections tomorrow. Here are Swami Dave's predictions.

In Pennsylvania, Joe Sestak will take the Democratic Senate nomination from Arlen Specter. A lot of people want to make this a big ideological contest. I don't think so. Arlen is 80 and has a disturbing history of multiple cancerous brain tumors. Would you vote for a guy like that? I wouldn't. Also in Pennsylvania, there is a special election to fill the House seat vacated by now deceased Representative John Murtha. The Republicans will take that seat from the Democrats.

In Kentucky, Rand Paul will defeat Trey Greyson for the Republican Senate nomination.

Now pay up. That will be a nickle, half a pound of saltines or a large dill pickle.