Not Just Another Walk in the Park

The Middle East is such a hodge-podge of conflicting factions, all on the same side, yet constantly battling one another.  Still, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been doing a pretty fair job of turning their country back into an Islamic state.  According to the Jerusalem Post, in three consecutive elections, the party has increased its votes from 34.3 percent in 2002 to 49.8 percent in 2011.

But just because he wants his country to follow a 3^rd Century religion doesn’t mean Erdogan wants his country to actually live in the Third World.  The fathers of Istanbul decided to build a shopping mall in Taksim Square, the city’s only remaining park and only remaining open space where citizens can gather for (hopefully) peaceful demonstrations.

Even Islamists can’t defy the environmentalists.  On May 28, a number of environmentalists gathered in the park to protest the building of the shopping mall.  The AKP’s project also includes plans to resurrect the Topcu military barracks, the site of a 1909 Islamist revolt (known as the 31 March incident) against the Young Turk government.  Now it’s the Liberals’ and pro-secular Turks’ turn to revolt.

The Jerusalem Post goes on to report, “The next day, during the opening ceremony of another of the government’s environmentally controversial construction project, Istanbul’s third bridge, which was named after Yavuz Sultan Selim (a 16th-century Ottoman Sultan who massacred 40,000 Alevis), Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the protests in Gezi Park by declaring, “Do whatever you want to do, but we have made our decision.”

“And on May 31, his government sent the riot police to crush the Gezi Park protesters.”

“The police’s excessive use of violence, using tear gas and water cannon against the peaceful protesters, was the last straw for the masses, which took to the streets.  People from all walks of life (liberal, pro-secular, conservative, center-left, center-right, leftist, anti-capitalist Islamist, Turkish nationalist, Alevi, white-collar professionals, workers and students) spontaneously gathered together throughout the country to protest the AKP government’s authoritarian policies, Erdogan and his party members’ illiberal political rhetoric, and the AKP-backed police violence against the protesters.”

“The AKP, which has roots in political Islam, starting in its second term, has successfully mobilized against the secular-democratic state by exerting its power in executive, legislative and judiciary branches. As the party increased its votes, the AKP has started to reveal its authoritarian tendencies and has recently started to impose its Islamic values on Turkish society.”

“During its almost 11-year rule, as Erdogan stated, the AKP government initiated “a silent revolution” in Turkey. The AKP silenced its prominent pro-secular critics and curtailed the media and academic freedom by utilizing the Ergenekon trial – Turkey has become the country with the highest number of imprisoned journalists; increased the power of the police, which Erdogan called “the regime’s assurance”; silenced the secular military by utilizing the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer (Balyoz) trials; redesigned the mandatory education system favoring the Islamist movement’s strengthening and enabling the rise of a ‘religious and revengeful youth,’ in Erdogan’s words; prepared a draft law that would restrict women’s rights by imposing an abortion ban after the fourth week of pregnancy including cases of rape and incest, while severely restricting Caesarean births; ordered each theater and opera house to have a small mosque, and each university to build a mosque on its campus; banned the public’s celebration of national holidays, including the republic’s foundation day; erased the ‘Turkish Republic’ from official buildings; tried to intimidate the citizens, who protested the AKP’s policies, by sending the police over the protesters; and most recently, severely restricted the consumption, sale and advertisement of alcohol, while Erdogan implicitly called Atatürk and Inönü ‘drunken lawmakers.’

“In its third term, the AKP, having a majoritarian understanding of democracy, focused on replacing the secular-democratic values of the Turkish state with its conservative interpretation of Islam. Nowadays, every Turkish citizen can easily see the AKP in every sphere of his/her private life. Erdogan suggests that families should have at least three children and people should not drink alcohol because Islam forbids it, but should drink ayran instead, a traditional Turkish yogurt beverage.

“Erdogan, facing the Gezi Park protests, raised the tension by denouncing the protesters as “looters,” who were organized by “extremists” and “foreign elements”; called Twitter, which has become a hub for activists and a major news source, “the worst menace to society”; threatened to “choke” investors if they were caught speculating the bourse; and threatened to send his party supporters to crush the protesters.

“Indeed, during the demonstrations there were several incidents in various cities of pro-AKP civilians brutally attacking demonstrators with sticks, with no interference from the police. During the nationwide demonstrations, the police excessively used tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and nonlethal sound bombs against the protesters.

“However, the government’s policy of intimidating the protesters by applying brutal police force has failed and resulted in the creation of solidarity spirit among the protesters against the AKP’s authoritarian policies. The protests also revealed how the mainstream Turkish media applies self-censorship.

“During the demonstrations, CNN Türk was broadcasting a documentary about penguins, while NTV was broadcasting a cooking show.”

Yes, we here in America know how that goes.  The Tea Parties also know what it’s like not to be permitted to hold rallies.

“It seems that the tension will continue as Erdogan maintains his illiberal political rhetoric, and responds to the protests by holding mass political gatherings in Ankara and Istanbul, such as those on June 15 and 16. The state-controlled Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) fined four TV channels on June 12 for broadcasting the Gezi Park protests. And the police detained over 70 lawyers, who expressed their support for the Gezi Park protesters, in an Istanbul courthouse.

“The nationwide Gezi Park protests show that even if the AKP wins the 2014 general elections for the fourth time, the party may not be able to maintain the stability it has enjoyed since 2002. A consciousness has emerged among citizens in Turkey, particularly among the youth, that they do not have to remain silent facing the AKP’s authoritarian policies. The US has regarded the AKP as a successful model of democracy for the Muslim Middle East. And since 2002, the AKP government has enjoyed the US support. Yet, the recent mass anti-AKP protests reveal that time has come for the US to reassess its policy toward Turkey.

“The writer, Banu Eligur, is an assistant professor at Baskent University in Ankara in the Political Science and International Relations Department. She received her PhD in political science from Brandeis University, where she taught courses on Political Islam and Civil Society in the Middle East as a visiting assistant professor. She is the author of The Mobilization of Political Islam in Turkey (Cambridge University Press, 2010).”

Reading the article in her own words is important because this is a cautionary tale for Americans and it’s always better to hear the truth straight from the Turkish citizen’s mouth.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Gezi-Park-protests-The-AKPs-battle-with-Turkish-society-316870

Father’s Day 2012 – What Women Don’t Understand Never Learn About Men

Being that the Nephew completely abrogated his duties on Father’s Day and never even bothered to e-mail his father, much less call him from San Francisco (where he still hasn’t found a job), my mother and I went to Big Brother’s house for a Father’s Day barbecue.

The Nephew and his new wife left my brother’s house in a complete disaster.  The rug hasn’t been vacuumed since Christmas.  My brother, being a man, found himself just too overwhelmed to cope with it.  His gal pal nagged him about it, he got mad, and so now she’s forbidden from cleaning the place up.  My brother’s always been fussy about the living room, come to think of it.  It’s his Man Cave and if you try to clean it up, he snorts and growls like a man-bear.

The condition the living room was in was just too much for my mother and I, being females, to bear.  If men are hard-wired to be man-cave slobs, women are hard-wired to organize and clean up the man-caves.  Men really do want their homes to be clean.  Many a young wife has unfortunately been beaten because it wasn’t.  Men just don’t want the cleaning to be done while they’re around, especially after a hard day or week at work.  They want their man-caves to be a place of quiet and solitude.  The kids can’t be helped but they don’t need vacuum cleaners and the sound of furniture being moved about to add to the chaos.  They’re fine with Iron Man but not Ironing Lady.

That was the theory behind the Division of Labor.  Man went out to earn the bread and did the heavy, outdoor chores while Woman took care of the inside of the house and the children, and worked in the garden.  The Two-Income Family has thrown that model into confusion.  With women working, too, the house gets cleaned while the husband and wife are home, invariably leading to fights.

“Why does your brother have to be such a slob?!” Mom asked.

“Because he’s a guy, Mom!” I said.

“He didn’t used to be that way!”

“Yes, he was.  It took him years to fix the hole in the upstairs ceiling where he fell through while working in the attic.  It’s just that he had [his first wife] to clean up after him.  And then he had [his current gal pal – who did a better job than his first wife].  But then the Nephew’s gal pal moved in, and once they got married, she basically declared that she was now the ‘woman of the house’ and wouldn’t let Big Brother’s gal pal clean anything.  They’re gone now but they left a big mess and it’s taken time to recover the house.”

“Oh.  Well, that’s still no excuse for living that way!”

“Mom, we’ll get the house.  We just have to do it when he’s not around.”

His house is being re-roofed this week but once that’s done, I’ll help out Big Brother’s gal pal and get the house straightened out.

Meanwhile, a friend walked out of his son’s house before Father’s Day dinner because his daughter-in-law soundly scolded his son for coming home too early from their motorcycle ride.  She claimed she hadn’t had a chance to clean up the house and that he was supposed to call first.  She was also yelling at the youngest child to pick up his toy.

Hissy-fits are a no-no when you have company.  I had one when I was about her age on my first Thanksgiving Dinner.  My sister-in-law and another female guest came in and started bossing me around in my kitchen; I threw the pots and pans at them.  My mother came into the kitchen, had a little talk with me, and I went back out and apologized to my guests.

My friend left and went home.  Desperate, apologetic phone calls for him to come back were futile.  Finally, the son came down to his father’s house alone, with the barbecued steak he’d prepared for him.  My friend told him he wouldn’t tolerate witnessing such abuse, the same kind of abuse he endured in his first marriage (he’s now a widower).  He’s still in a sour mood.  If I’d been in a position to advise the son, it would have been to bring the two grandsons with him; he would have left his father in a better mood.

My former sister-in-law behaved the same way.  It seems we women only grow up and get over such behavior sometime after the age of 50.  Some not even then; they carry on that way to the grave, never understanding what they’re doing wrong.

Marriage is a partnership, not a tyranny, more often with the woman as the dictator, although in cases of domestic abuse, it’s the husband.  Men endure such rants because they feel they have no choice and the result is years of unhappiness for both the husband and the wife.  Women have to realize that they bear a responsibility, too; the men don’t have all the work to do to make marriage work.  The scolding, or nagging, if you like, is the bane of marriage.  Your husband is not your kid and don’t justify your behavior by telling yourself that he is just like another child so you have the excuse to rip him up one side and down the other with a sharp tongue.

Everything I know about men came from my own upbringing (and mistakes were made) and from the novel, Jane Eyre.

“’In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax [the housekeeper of Thornfield!’ said I.  ‘No dust, no canvas coverings:  except that the air feels chilly, one would think they were inhabited daily.’

“’Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester’s visits here are rare, they are always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness.’

“’Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?’

“’Not particularly so; but he has a gentlemen’s tastes and habits, and he expects to have things managed in conformity to them.’”

I can hear the howls of feminine protest already.  But men are men and you’re not going to change them, no matter either how clever or superior you think you are.  At the last battle, you’ll preen yourself for getting the house and children, and possibly alimony, and pat yourself on the back for having put up with his “abuse” all those years.

Nonetheless, it takes two to make a marriage and two to destroy one.

 

Flag Day, 2013

Fans of the Patrick O’Brian series about the adventures of a British naval captain, Jack Aubrey, and the ship’s doctor, friend and spy for England, Stephen Maturin, will be gratified to know that when Francis Scott Key, a lawyer, and his friend J.S. Skinner made a bid to free their friend, Maryland physician Dr. Beanes, they were taken aboard the H.M.S. Surprise.  Beanes was accused of aiding in the arrest of British soldiers.

The Surprise is the name of Aubrey’s ship in the film Master and Commander.  “Master and Commander” was the name of O’Brian’s first book in the series, but the film itself is based on a later book, “The Far Side of the World.”  Key and Skinner boarded the British flagship HMS Tonnant on September 7 and spoke with Major General Robert Ross and Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane (the captain of the Surprise and the model of O’Brian’s Capt. Aubrey) over dinner while the two officers discussed war plans. At first, Ross and Cochrane refused to release Beanes, but relented after Key and Skinner showed them letters written by wounded British prisoners praising Beanes and other Americans for their kind treatment.

Because Key and Skinner had heard details of the plans for the attack on Baltimore, they were held captive until after the battle, first aboard HMS Surprise and later back on HMS Minden. After the bombardment, certain British gunboats attempted to slip past the fort and effect a landing in a cove to the west of it, but they were turned away by fire from nearby Fort Covington, the city’s last line of defense.

Key and his friend were later transferred to a supply ship and then released to Key’s own vessel, the HMS Minden, where he witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry beginning on Sept. 13, 1814.  During the rainy night, Key had witnessed the bombardment and observed that the fort’s s smaller “storm flag” continued to fly, but once the shell and rocket barrage had stopped, he would not know how the battle had turned out until dawn.  By then, the storm flag had been lowered and the larger flag had been raised.

During the bombardment, the HMS Erebus provided the “rockets’ red glare.” The HMS Meteor provided at least some of the “bombs bursting in air.”  Key wrote the four-stanza poem entitled “The Defence of Fort McHenry” on the back of an envelope and gave it to his brother-in-law the next day.  Judge J.H. Nicholson suggested using the nearly unsingable tune, “Anacreaon in Heaven,” which was also a popular bar tune (when you’re drunk, it doesn’t matter if you don’t hit the right notes anyway and no one will notice) known as “When the Warrior Returns,” written in honor of Stephen Decatur and Charles Stewart on their return from the First Barbary war.

Also known as the Tripolitan War or the Barbary Coast War, it was the first of two wars fought between the United States and the Northwest African Berber Muslim states known collectively as the Barbary States: Tripoli and Algiers, which were quasi-independent entities nominally belonging to the Ottoman Empire, and the independent Sultanate of Morocco.  It was from this battle that a treaty was signed, declaring that the United States of America was not a “Christian nation.”  The Muslims broke the treaty anyway, resulting in the second war and the nullification of the first treaty.  We were a Christian nation once again, at least until 1962 when the Supreme Court declared prayers in school unconstitutional.

So on this day, remember the service men and women who sacrificed their lives in defense of that flag (today is the 238^th Anniversary of the U.S. Army).  You may think differently now of the tune to which the words were set.  Difficult as it is (although not too difficult for 16 year-old Marlana Van Hoose, a blind and disabled high school girl who belted the song out of the park – or in this case, gymnasium – before a women’s basketball game between the University of Kentucky and Mississippi State), the song is a reminder that freedom is never easy.  Certainly not as easy as collecting welfare without even being a citizen.

According to the YouTube site, “16-year-old Marlana was born with Cytomeglovirus (CMV), a virus that prevented her optic nerve from ever forming.  Marlana healed from the virus after her first birthday.  She then began humming before learning to talk and taught herself how to play the piano by age 2.

“Today, Marlana loves to sing, her most recognized performance is when she sang the National Anthem before the University of Kentucky vs. Ole Miss women’s basketball game Feb. 2, 2012. University of Kentucky head coach Matthew Mitchell said “the standing ovation that she got was the longest he could ever remember.”

Francis Scott Key would have been proud.  ‘Let this be our motto:  In God is our Trust.’

 

 

Famous Last Words

“Rosebud.”   Those are the first words of the 1941 film, “Citizen Kane,” which happen to be the last words of the titular character, played by Orson Welles.  The remainder of the cast – and it’s a cast of thousands – spend the rest of the film trying to find out what the name means, who it belongs to.  A cast-off mistress?  A long-lost love?  They’re the most famous last words in cinematic history.

Following is a humorous and often ironic look at last words.  But we should be concerned about what might be the last words of the United States of America.  Glenn Beck apparently thought he was being punished by God for saying something wrong.  More likely, God was making an example of Glenn to demonstrate to us what may happen if we lose our voices as Americans.

Some famous last words include:

“Et tu, Brutei?” (from Julius Caesar)

 “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” (Nathan Hale, hung as a spy by the British during the American Revolutionary War.)

“That was a great game of golf, fellas!” (Bing Crosby)

“I’m losing it.”  (Frank Sinatra)

“Thomas Jefferson survives!” (John Adams)

“Good morning.”  (William Howard Taft)

“Tomorrow is another day!” (Scarlett O’Hara, Gone with the Wind);

“No, you certainly can’t.” (JFK in response to Nellie Connally’s remark, “You certainly can’t say that the people of Dallas haven’t given you a nice welcome, Mr. President.”

“Aw, no one’s gonna shoot at me.”  (Lee Harvey Oswald to a Dallas policeman)

“Put out that bloody cigarette!” (One officer to another while in trench during World War I.  He was then shot by a German sniper who heard the remark)

“I can’t sleep.”  (J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan)

“I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.” (Humphrey Bogart)

“Now why did I do that?” (Gen. William Erskine, after jumping from a window in Lisbon, Portugal)

“I hope I haven’t bored you.”  (Elvis Presley, at his last press conference).  His actual last words were in response to his fiancée who warned him not to fall asleep in the bathroom.  “Okay.  I won’t.”

“Thank God, I have done my duty.”  (Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson)

“Let’s roll!” (Todd Beamer on 9/11)

 “I’d rather be skiing.”  (Comedian Stan Laurel, paraphrased from when his nurse asked if he was a skier)

“To the strongest!” (Alexander, upon being asked to whom his succession should go)

“May God forgive me for putting on another [uniform].”  (Benedict Arnold)

“The ladies have to go first.”  (John Jacob Astor IV, aboard the RMS Titanic)

“Now I can cross the Shifting Sands.” (L. Frank Baum, referring to the impassable desert in The Wizard of Oz.”

“I don’t want to die.  Please don’t let me die!”  (Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez)

“I just wish I had time for one more bowl of chili.”  (Kit Carson)

“I’m so bored with it all.”  (Winston Churchill)

“You got me.”  (John Dillinger)

“One last drink, please.”  (Jack Daniel)

“That guy’s got to stop…He’ll see us.”  (James Dean, just before car accident)

“Kurt Russell.”  (Walt Disney, on a scrap of paper, although no one, including Russell, who was 15 at the time, knows why)

“This is the fish of my dreams.”  (Fisherman Dan Dodds, who caught a 20-lb. salmon, then died of a heart attack.  The salmon was eaten at his wake).

“Don’t let them put me in one of those bags; I might suffocate.”  (Darragh Doyle, just before dropping a live grenade at Omaha Beach.)

“We are running on line north and south.”  (Amelia Earhart

“So, you got any advice for me here coming up?”  (Dale Earnhardt to Andy Pilgrim at Daytona 500 waiting for last start after caution.  Pilgrim’s reply was, “No.”)

“I’ll see you at the movies.”  (Roger Ebert, last public blog)

“Citater fra…”  (Albert Einstein, Danish phrase meaning “quotes from”)

“All my possessions for a moment of time.”  Elizabeth I

“Hurrah for anarchy!  This is the happiest moment of my life.:  (George Engel, before execution)

“Please don’t leave me!  Please don’t leave me!”  (attributed to both John Belushi and Chris Farley before dying of drug overdoses)

“Nothing soothes pain like human touch.”  (Grand chessmaster Bobby Fischer)

“I am sorry to trouble you chaps.  I don’t know how you get along so fast with the traffic on the roads these days.”  (Ian Fleming, to ambulance drivers)

“You can stop now; I’m already dead.”  (Abigail Folger to Manson Family murderers)

“Please – please don’t kill me – I don’t want to die.  I just want to have my baby.”  (Sharon Tate according to the court testimony of Virginia Graham as she was being murdered by Susan Atkins.  Atkins response to Tate was, “Look, you might as well face it right now; you’re going to die and I don’t feel a thing behind it.”)

“That’s not true!  I’m going to die in this suit?”  (Frederick William I)

“Don’t cry, Alfred!  I need all my courage to die at twenty.”  (Mathematician Evariste Galois to his brother after being fatally wounded in a duel)

“Don’t worry.  Relax!”  (Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to his guards when a suicide bomber approached him with flowers)

“No!  I didn’t come here to make a speech.  I came here to die.”  (“Cherokee Bill” when asked if had any last words before his hanging)

“And now for a final word from our sponsor.”  (Days of Our Lives soap opera writer Charles Gussman)

“Dying’s tough, but not as tough as doing comedy.”  (Actor Edmund Gwenn)

“That’s good.  Go on, read some more.”  (Warren G. Harding, to his wife, who was reading him flattering newspaper accounts)

“Everything is an illusion.”  (Mata Hari, propagandist)

“It was the food!  Don’t touch the food!”  (Actor Richard Harris to fellow hotel guests as he was wheeled out by paramedics)

“Gentlemen, I bid you farewell.”  (Titanic musician Wallace Hartley)

“Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more.”  (Pres. William Henry Harrison, 9^th president, to his successor John Tyler)

“God will forgive me; it is His profession.”  (Heinrich Heine, German romantic poet who converted to Christianity from Judaism)

“Leave the shower curtain on the inside of the tub.”  (Conrad Hilton)

“Don’t be in such a hurry.”  (Singer Billie Holiday)

“Surprise me.”  (Bob Hope, when his wife asked where he wanted to be buried)

“Enough already.”  (Author William Herrick, Being Human)

“Don’t worry; they usually don’t swim backwards.”  (Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin of a stingray, which did swim backwards and stung him to death)

“That picture is awful dusty.”  (Jesse James, shot to death by a former associate while dusting a picture)

“Oh wow.  Oh wow.  Oh wow.”  (Steve Jobs, Apple CEO)

“Kaputt..”  (Manfred von Richthofen, The Red Baron.  Trans.:  “Broken” or “Smashed.”

“I will see you tomorrow, if God wills it.”  (Pope John Paul I, an hour before he died)

“Amen.”  (Pope John Paul II, seconds before he died)

“Vancouver!  Vancounver!  This is it!  This is…”  (Volcanologist David A Johnson’s last radio transmission before Mount St. Helens eruption)

“Vicisti, Galilaee!”  (Emperor Julian, trans. “You have won, O Galilean!” having attempted to reverse the official endorsement of Christianity by the Roman Empire.

“And remember, I am with you always, to the end of time.”  (Jesus of Nazareth)

The quotes could go on and on.  This listing was “inspired” by Glenn Beck’s question to his audience, “If you knew you were going to lose your voice forever tomorrow, what would your last words be.”  Beck is suffering from paralytic laryngitis, which is treatable, but rather inconvenient if you happen to be a radio and television broadcaster.

My personal favorite is the cry of William Wallace at the end of the film, Braveheart:  “Freedom!”

There are other gems such as rock musician Terry Kath’s last words as he put what he thought was a gun with no magazine:  “Don’t worry; it’s not loaded.”  Ouch.

A more sublime quote comes from Martin Luther King Jr.:  “Be sure to play ‘Blessed Lord’ tonight – play it really pretty.”  Some famous quotes were actually uttered by other people.  American playwright Wilson Mizner was more down to earth with his priest:  “Why should I talk to you?  I’ve just been talking with your boss.”  Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery last words were:  “Well, now I must go to meet God and try to explain all those men I killed at Alamein.”

“Don’t give up the ship.  Fight her till she sinks.” Was not uttered by Commodore Perry but his friend and fellow naval officer James Lawrence.

“She won’t think anything about it.”  Abraham Lincoln was referring to family friend Clara Harris and what she would think of his holding hands with his wife, Mary.  According to an account by Mary, they’d been talking of their future plans and how much he’d enjoy seeing Jerusalem when the bullet struck.

More irony came from Joseph Lucas’ last words.  Founder of Lucas Industries, he was  manufacturer of automotive electrical components, including headlights, which were notorious for unreliability in the early days of the automobile.  His last words were:  “Never drive at night.”

“Mozart!  Mozart!”  No, it wasn’t Anton Salieri, as the film Amadeus would have it; they were Gustav Mahler’s last words.  Speaking of Mozart, the brilliant composer waxed poetic upon his death:  “The taste of death is upon my lips.  I feel something, that is not of this earth.”  Groucho Marx, on the other hand, waxed comedic:  “Die, my dear?  Why, that’s the last thing I’ll do!”  These words were also spoken to his doctor by Henry John Temple, 3^rd Viscount of Palmerston.

Nostradamus, apparently predicting his own death, said, “Tomorrow, I shall no longer be here.”  Laurence Olivier remained true to his Shakespearean roots to the end:  “This isn’t Hamlet, you know,” to a nurse who stuck him in the ear with a lip moistener.  “It’s not meant to go into the bloody ear.”  [Ears and hearing are a key them in “Hamlet.”]

“This is a hell of a way to die.”  That was George Patton’s swan song, after a car accident while out hunting.  Ballerina Anna Pavlova last word’s were “Get my swan costume ready…Play that last measure very softly.”

“And will you rule better?” were the last words of Byzantine emperor Phocas to Heraclius who had asked him, “Is this how you have ruled, wretch?”  Outraged at the reply, Heraclius immediately beheaded Phocas.  Another Oriental traveler, Marco Polo’s last words were “I have not told half of what I saw.”

James W Rodgers, facing a firing squad, was asked if he had any last requests.  He replied, “Yes, a bullet-proof vest.”  To Eleanor Roosevelt the idea that she would die when the reason God put her on earth was fulfilled was “Utter nonsense.”  To Babe Ruth, he was “going over the valley.”

Edward H. Ruloff, the last person to be hung in the state of New York said, “I’d like to be in hell in time for dinner” and Finnish actress Sirkka Sari cried, “Let’s be wild tonight!” just before falling down a chimney, which she had mistaken for a scenery balcony, and into a heating boiler.

“I could shoot better!” Hannie Schaft, a Dutch Communist resistance fighter, said to her executioner when he missed.  He subsequently emptied his machine gun into her.  Union Civil War General John Sedgwick was just as skeptical of the aim of Confederate snipers.  “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.”  He was then shot by a sniper.

“Roger, go at throttle up,” were the last words of Space Shuttle Challenger Captain Dick Scobee.  But the Challenger’s last recorded words were actually “Uh oh…” by crew member Michael J. Smith, less than half a second before the shuttle disintegrated.  Capt. Edward Smith of the RMS Titanic, as he was releasing his crew, said, “You know the rule of the sea.  It’s every man for himself now, and God bless you.”

Despite rumors to the contrary, Princess Diana did not die immediately upon impact in that French tunnel.  She had some last words and they were, “My God, what’s happened?”  Joseph Stalin was rather less coherent on his deathbed.  As best as anyone can make out, he muttered “Dzhh…”

When urged to make his peace with God, Henry David Thoreau’s last coherent response was, “I did not know that we had ever quarreled.”   Japanese Army General Hideki Tojo, attempting to commit suicide for his failures by shooting himself in the heart, ultimately failed and said he had tried to dispatch himself honorably but “sometimes that fails.”

Whatever happens, let our last words as Americans not be, “If only we had spoken out against what was happening.”

 

Crashing Chrysler

The Chrysler Jeep Gran Cherokee is probably one of the most rugged SUVs on the road.  The favorite of off-roaders, it also has its fans among ordinary drivers for its legendary durability.  Twenty year-old Gran Cherokees are still on the road.  A good friend owns a 2000 JGC; it’s 13 years old and still hanging in there.

These drivers can’t understand the total recall of all Gran Cherokees for an alleged gas tank “defect”.  Only 57 Cherokees – and Jeep Libertys – have experienced this problem.  That’s in comparison to the millions of Ford Pintos back in the 1970s that burst into flames at the slightest touch.

The Gran Cherokee features a plastic gas tank, although off-roaders can order a more rugged, reinforced steel tank.  The reason the JGC was outfitted with a plastic gas tank was because the 15 percent ethanol that is now a standard part of all gas mixtures (it’s as high as 85 percent in the Midwest) rots out the steel gas tanks.

Chrysler Group LLC board member John Lanaway would have known about the plastic gas tanks and what ethanol could do to steel tanks.  He was Director of CNH Global N.V., an agriculture and construction equipment manufacturer which is a majority-owned subsidiary of Fiat Industrial SpA.  It was probably a good idea.  Steel tanks that rot out and leak gasoline are more likely to burst into flames than a plastic tank.

So, the question, who wants to run the Gran Cherokee and its manufacturer, Chrysler, off the road?  And why?

Well, why happens to be an easy question.  A rugged, dependable car that can run for two decades isn’t very good for planned obsolescence or the company’s bottom line.  If you have a car that reliable, you hang onto it.  Gran Cherokee owners love their Jeeps and don’t have to rush out to buy another one.

The Gran Cherokee is a great buy for its owners, but not so great for its executives, stockholders, and union employees.  So what do you do to get planned obsolescence and union benefits up and running again.   You sell Chrysler to one of the worst automakers on the planet (according to my JGC friend, who’s a mechanic).  Then you create a crisis with the brand.

OMG!  Fifty-seven Jeep Cherokees have caught fire because the gas tank is over the rear axle (where most other gas tanks on other cars are located).  You get your auto industry bureaucrat friends from the NTHSA to go on TV and the radio and denounce the car and initiate a total recall.

Crazy, isn’t it?  Replacing a gas tank on a 20 year-old car that isn’t having any problems?  But rest assured.  Someone is looking to shut Chrysler down.  They may have to shoot every last JGC in the hood to actually kill the car, but by golly, they’re going to do it.

One of Chrysler’s board members is a “closer” -  Stephen M. Wolf.  His credentials read something like this:  although he’s currently chairman of R.R. Donnelley & Sons, a printing company and Alpilles LLC, a relationship mapmaking company, he’s also served as chairman and/or CEO of every airline that has either gone down in flames or has had a lot of trouble keeping its wings up:  U.S. Airways, United Airlines, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Republic Airlines, whose merger with Northwest Airlines he orchestrated, Flying Tiger Line, which he helped sell to Federal Express, and Pan American World Airways.

He’s also a member of the board of Philip Morris, was chairman of Lehman Brothers Private Equity Advisory Board (the investment banking firm at the head of the 2008 banking scandal), and is an honorary trustee of the very Liberal Brookings Institution.  Wolf earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from San Francisco State University.  As chairman of the Advisory Board of Trilantic Capital Partners, one of his latest victories is a new, upstream oil and gas investment (meaning they’re at the oil well rather than the gas pump end of things).

Although Fiat is an Italian company, there’s a lot of Canadian camaraderie in this board of directors.  The chairman and CEO, Sergio Marchionne is also on the board of directors of Philip Morris as well as non-executive Vice Chairman and Senior Industrial Director for UBS (United Bank of Switzerland, where the one percent is trying to keep its money).  Marchionne was a philosophy major at the University of Toronto, although his minor was, wisely, in Economics.  He has dual Canadian and Italian Citizenship

Alfredo Altavilla is the Chief Operating Officer of Europe, Africa and Middle East Operations and Head of Business Development.  At one time, he was the Head of Projects in China and India, and served as the head of the Beijing office.

Douglas Steenland, in addition to serving on the board of AIG (think Warren Buffett), he’s also a member of Digital River, Inc., Hilton Worldwide and International Lease Finance.  Steenland is another airliner, serving on the board of Delta and Northwest Airlines.   Earlier in his career, he worked in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Transportation.  He served on the board of the Detroit “Renaissance” in 2008 as a member of the Super Bowl XL committee.  He has a juris doctorate from the National Law Center at George Washington University.

Erickson N. Perkins is the union guy.  He’s a member of the staff of the United Auto Workers Office of the President and serves as Director of the UAW Strategic Research Department, as well as serving as UAW appointee to the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Health Care Reform.  Previously, Perkins served on the UAW’s National Negotiating Team during the 2011 contract negotiations with Detroit automakers.

In 2008, he was a consultant to SEIU (Service Employees’ International Union).  He has also served as an independent economic consultant, advising trade unions including AFL-CIO and the UAW.  He was also the Portfolio Manager, Senior VP, and Director of the European Research Alliance Capital Management L.P. (Now AllianceBernstein L.P.). Perkins graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a BA in Math and Economics, and an MBA from the business school at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

John Lanaway is the board’s accountant and marketing expert.  He was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of McCann-Erick, North America, and Ogilvy, North America.  Not to mention an assumed expert on the effects of ethanol on steel gas tanks.  He’s another Canadian graduate, of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario, as well as earning his bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto.

Leo W. Houle is the Chrysler board’s human resources guy.  He was Chief Talent officer of BCE, Inc. and Bell Canada.  He was group Vice President of the Lawson Mardon Group, which does investment research for investors and served as Senior Vice President, Corporate Human Resources for Algroup Ltd., a Swiss private equity and securities brokerage firm.  Yet another Canadian, he graduated from the College St Jean in Edmonton and holds Certificate of Human Resources Professional from the province of Ontario.

Then, there’s Ronald L. Thompson, who serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA), a for-profit life insurance company, serving the retirement and financial needs of faculty and employees of colleges, universities, hospitals, cultural institutions and other non-profits.  Thompson has served as a board member of the Commerce Bank of St. Louis, the GR Group, Illinova Corp., Interstate Bakeries Corp. (the Twinkie baker that went bankrupt), McDonnell Douglas Corp., Ralston Purina, Ryerson Tull, and the National Association of Manufacturers.  He has also served on the faculties of Old Dominion University, Virginia State Univ., and the University of Michigan.  He holds a Ph.D and an M.S. in Agricultural Economics from Michigan State.  Plus he’s earned countless awards for being a black/minority entrepreneur.  Well, good for him.  He, too, would know all about the effects of ethanol on stainless steel tanks, opting for the safer plastic tanks.

Ruth J. Simmons also has a background in government service.  Her first job out of Dillard University in New Orleans in 1966 was as a French interpreter for the Language Services Division of the U.S. Department of State.  She earned her Ph.D in Romance Languages and Literature from Harvard University, which means she must have learned Italian, very useful when serving on the board of an Italian car company’s North American subsidiary. She served as an Admissions Officer at Radcliffe College, Assistant Dean of the University of New Orleans, Acting Director of International Programs at California State University at Northridege, Associate Dean and Vice Provost at Princeton University, and Provost at Spelman College.  Her last gig was President of Brown University (an elite Liberal college).  Prior to that, she was Professor of Comparative Literature and African Studies at Brown.  Since retiring, she was named President Emerita

Looking at the Chrysler Board’s honor roll of board members, it’s not hard to see why they’re having problems.  Actually, the notion of plastic gas tanks for the Jeep Gran Cherokee was a good idea.  Kudos probably are due for Thompson and Lanaway. 

There has to be more to Chrysler’s sad story.  Industry experts probably have a number of very good explanations.  Chrysler’s economic woes are well-known.  How typical of the Obama administration to target Chrysler’s most successful SUV, the Jeep Gran Cherokee, the successor to the famous World War II vehicle – Jeep, or GP, for General Purpose vehicle, according to my World War II father who drove around Europe in enough of them to know.

By mid-June, the NHTSA will make its final decision on whether to recall millions of Gran Cherokees and Jeep Libertys for a problem that doesn’t exist.  The real problem is not the car but the ethanol gas that’s put into it and Obama has to squash Chrysler and its plastic gas tank before consumers find out the truth.

 

“Pushing” Agenda 21 onto Riverdale

Under the guise of creating a facility for patients with spinal injuries, the non-profit organization Push to Walk, N.J., is introducing low-income housing to the small town of Riverdale, N.J.

According to the Suburban Trends, “two ordinances to redevelop a Newark-Pompton Turnpike site [the old telephone/Verizon building where people used to be able to go to pay their telephone bills] to ‘smooth the way’ for at least 60 affordable housing units was introduced by the governing body last Monday but only with the mayor breaking a tie on the measure.”

Originally, the building was scheduled to house 25 AHUs since it was proposed in January.  Three council members were opposed to the new, larger-scale project.  Ted Guis explained how so many homes would impact the population of the school system and that the borough may have to reimburse the Board Education.

Push to Walk is working in conjunction with RPM Development Group of Montclair.  Their board of directors is composed of policy wonks specializing in real estate for Section 8 and other low-income tenants.  They’re experienced into wrangling small, suburban communities like Riverdale into accepting low-income housing as part of the COAH requirements.  Frequently, they frighten town councils with the specter of some developer planning 700 units.  When presented with a 60-unit development, the town councils and planning boards breathe a sigh of relief.

One of the ordinances will declare the site a “redevelopment zone” just as they did with a piece of virgin woodland in Bloomingdale.  The second would grant a long-term tax exemption on the property, meaning the residents of Riverdale would foot the bill for town services and education of the children living there.

This project will not only affect the town of Riverdale, but as a sending district, the town which receives its high school students.  The town has a total population of 3,559.  Somehow, the 900-plus families currently residing there will be expected to support the deadweight of this low-income community, which will not be paying any taxes; only collecting them.  Riverdale has a busy highway commercial district along Route 23, but even those businesses (Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Loews) are feeling the effects of a difficult economy and close competition.

The Trends sates that “Push to Walk and RPM need these ordinances adopted by June 21 in order to apply to the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency for an allocation of credits from the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program,” which would cover 85 percent of the cost of construction.

“The group, currently located in Riverdale off of Riverdale Road [the location of an already-existing Smart Growth apartment complex], is growing out of its current location and came to the governing body in January with a proposal to redevelop the former Verizon building on the Newark-Pompton Turnpike.  The Borough Council looked favorably on the idea.

“The plan at the time was to renovate the former Verizon building in order to serve as Push to Walk’s headquarters and also build roughly 25 affordable homes on the rear of the property.

“At the May 30 meeting, the Planning Board approved a much larger plan that would demolish the existing building to house the Push to Walk headquarters and construct a four-story building that would have at least 60 affordable housing residences with one-, two-, and three-bedroom units.”

The Newark-Pompton Turnpike is conveniently located along a N.J. Transit Route.   There is currently no bus service up the long hill of Rt. 23 North to where the major stores are located.  The nearest supermarket is the A&P in Pompton Lakes, which is already having youth hang-out problems, particularly at the Wendy’s restaurant.  Pompton Lakes’ minority population is growing rapidly and changing the town’s demographics.

Pompton Lakes is also Riverdale’s receiving district for high school students.  Every town in the Suburban Trends reporting area is under siege by these so-called “Smart Growth” housing projects.  Driving up Kiel Avenue yesterday evening, instead of seeing the comfortable one-family homes, there were rows and rows of the hideous, four-story monstrosities.

Obama had vowed from the beginning of his first term to invade the suburbs and he is succeeding.  Is it surprising that an entirely Republican town council would agree to such an arrangement?  Alas, no.  They already have another one of these “Smart Growth” complexes just off of Route 23.  But at least the majority of those units aren’t low-income and generate some tax revenue.

Push to Walk will not bring in any revenue.  It will not bring in productive citizens and will likely result in a crime increase in lower Riverdale.  Riverdale will become like its sister town, Butler; a dangerous place to walk at night since the 1990s.   There is also talk of using the site of the local rock quarry, whose lease is soon to run out, into another low-income housing project.

Before Route 287 was built, a row of ramshackle houses occupied that portion of the Hamburg Turnpike.  The residents were employees of the rock quarry.  They were extremely poor, but worked hard.  The town demolished the row houses with the advent of the highway, declaring them (rightly) an eyesore.

The quarry itself is an eyesore.  The sight of the hill being destroyed has been a sad fact of life in our area for the last 50 or 60 years, since the quarry began operations.  Not much is left.  What will replace it is nothing less than an urban cancer that will do more to destroy what is left of this area that any mining operation could have ever done.  Agenda 21 has not been named in this project, but it hardly has to be.

The rattlesnake is known by its rattle.  But you only hear it when it’s too late to avoid its poisonous strike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The IRS Hustle

At about the same time the IRS was targeting grassroots Tea Party groups and more formal organization’s like Freedom’s Watch, the Internal Revenue Service held a training and leadership conference in Anaheim, Calif., for 1,900 employees.

The highlights of the conference included a Star Trek spoof video, another of Gilligan’s Island, and finally, the Cupid Shuffle.  The Star Trek and Gilligan’s Island videos cost taxpayers $60,000 and the dance video, $1,600.  The videos were produced in the IRS’ New Carrollton, Md., offices.

Meanwhile, the agency was targeting Freedom Watch’s individual donors to try to slap them with a gift tax on their donations.  The gift tax is legal, but generally reserved for taxpayers trying to give their money away to relatives before they die and the money is subject to an estate tax.  According to a report on the front page of the Wall Street Journal’s weekend edition, the tax is legitimate but that the IRS generally doesn’t impose it upon  tax-exempt organizations.

The now-defunct Freedom’s Watch, which began in 2007 and had a $56 million budget, spent about $10.7 million on political issue ads.  Under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, such groups are allowed to endorse candidates, as long as that isn’t their primary focus.  The WSJ’s article reads “engage in some political activity” but our understanding when forming our Tea Party was that there were two types of groups.  The first was absolutely allowed to engage in political activities, take out ads, and endorse candidates.  The second had a more limited budget ceiling and a more limited mandate, involving public education but not endorsing any candidates.

Clearly, Freedom’s Watch had a higher budget and their goal was absolutely broader and politically oriented with a larger audience. 

According to the Wall Street Journal:

“In February 2010, the same month the Tea Party-targeting started, according to a recent inspector general’s report, Freedom’s Watch was subjected to an IRS audit that focused largely on its political activities, an uncommon but not unprecedented action, election lawyers say.  The probe broadened into other areas, including executive compensation.

“About a year later, as many as five donors to Freedom’s Watch were subjected to IRS audits of their contributions that sought to impose gift taxes on their donations to the group, according to lawyers and former officials of Freedom’s Watch.

“Tax experts say that effort was highly unusual.  The IRS generally hadn’t sought to impose the gift tax on donations to tax-exempt groups such as Freedom’s Watch in at least 20 years, perhaps longer, following an unfavorable court ruling and changes in the law by Congress, according to lawyers and IRS documents.

“The legislation didn’t except donations to 501(c)(4) groups such as Freedom’s Watch, and for years the IRS has taken the position that the gift tax still applies to donations to 501(c)(4)’s.  But in recent years, it hasn’t enforced that position, lawyers say.

“Freedom Watch’s two-year audit came after two complaint letters were sent to the IRS, one by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s House election arm, and another entity whose name is redacted in letters provided by to Jeff Altman (Freedom Watch’s attorney) by the IRS.”

This confirms that the audits were politically motivated.  Freedom’s Watch was part of the audit, but the focus was on the donors.  The only charge the IRS can really make against the donors is that they were attempting to donate away part of their estates, a charge difficult to prove.  The real effect it had was of discouraging large donations by wealthy donors.

The audit was led, admittedly by Lois Lerner, out of the Cincinnati IRS office in the exempt organizations unit, conducted by workers in the estate and gift-tax unit, a separate division of the enormous bureaucracy of the IRS.

 For the IRS to be targeting legitimate grassroots organizations and their larger counterparts, while attending expensive conferences on leadership training (“How to Cheat on the Taxpayer,” “Money Talks:  How to Silence Limited-Government Activists,” and “Nothing is Certain But Death, Taxes, and Death Taxes:  Your Guide to a Life-Long Career in the IRS”) in a weak economy gives fuel to the Tea Party fire:  Taxed Enough Already, indeed.

The bottom line is that the IRS is Obama’s financial terror arm.  Take away their guns and they’ll just find another way to defend themselves.  Take away their money and threaten them with prison-time to boot if they evade the tax, and they will sit down and shut up.

 

 

 

 

 

D-Day 2013 – Performing the Impossible

In 1944, the Germans were expecting an invasion on the coast of France, probably somewhere near Dunquerque, the shortest point across the English Channel from England to France, near the Belgian border.  Belgium had already thrown in the towel.  Germany didn’t expect the Allies to throw in the towel.  They didn’t know when the invasion would come, nor exactly where, so they built a fortified wall from Norway to Spain.

The cliffs themselves were a formidable obstacle – at least 100 feet high, roughly the height of a ten-story building.  The Nazis weren’t taking any chances.  They mined the coastal waters, built barbed wire and iron obstacles to prevent vehicles from coming ashore.  They also built concrete bunkers with machine gun turrets to strafe any infantry that landed on the beach.  The weather was also bad that spring; the coldest spring in that area in at least 20 years.

Der Fuehrer and his generals scoffed at the idea of an invasion.  All the same, they didn’t take any chances.

Across the channel, American soldiers filled the British Isles from Southampton to Scotland (Ireland declared itself neutral in the war).  A campaign was already going on in southern Europe and across North Africa.  Troops had been trained in Scotland for mountain climbing through Italy.  The biggest gamble, though, was the liberation of France and the Low Countries, and then on to Berlin.

Thousands of men waited for the green light from Eisenhower.  The weather over the English Channel had been holding them back.  The invasion, code-named Operation Neptune (the assault phase of Operation Overlord), was a big risk.  The casualties were expected to be high, particularly for the Americans landing on Utah and Omaha beaches.

The operation, planned by a team under Lieutenant-General Frederick Morgan, was the largest amphibious invasion in world history and was executed by land, sea and air elements under direct British-American command with over 160,000 soldiers landing on June 6, 1944: 73,000 Americans, 61,715 British and 21,400 Canadians. Another 195,700 Allied naval and merchant navy personnel in over 5,000 ships were also involved. The invasion required the transport of soldiers and material from the United Kingdom by troop-laden aircraft and ships, the assault landings, air support, naval interdiction of the English Channel and naval fire-support. The landings took place along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword.

Under the high-level plan Operation Bodyguard, the Allies had instituted a comprehensive and complex series of deceptions which led to the landings achieving strategic and tactical surprise. One of the key successes of these operations was Operation Fortitude South, which convinced Hitler that the Allies’ plan was for their main attack to be across the Straits of Dover by the fictitious First U.S. Army Group to be led by Gen. George S. Patton and that the Normandy landings were a diversionary tactic. The fiction was maintained after the Normandy landings to the effect that Hitler, still believing an attack was imminent across the straits, was unwilling, until it was too late, to reinforce his troops in Normandy with forces placed to defend the Pas de Calais.

Particularly relevant to the Normandy landings was the use of heavy bombers in Operations Glimmer and Taxable which flew in highly precise patterns over the Straits of Dover, to drop radar-reflecting aluminum strips (“window,” now known as chaff), to create a picture on German radar of an invasion fleet moving across the straits simultaneously with the arrival of the invasion fleet in Normandy.

The landing was timed for low tide in Normandy, which allowed the landing craft to better avoid obstacles in the water, but exposed the troops to a longer stretch of beach and increased the chance of higher casualties.

When the troops debarked from their landing craft, they fell into chest-deep water.  Heavily laden, many drowned immediately.  Others were exposed to heavy machine gun fire from the four German divisions overlooking the beaches.  The troops were pinned down for some time until one of the engineering corps blew a breach in the wall.  Farther down the beach, the soldiers had no choice but to scale the 150-foot cliffs in order to take out the machine gun placements before the rest of the divisions were murdered.

Omaha was the most heavily fortified beach, with high bluffs defended by funneled mortars, machine guns, and artillery; the pre-landing aerial and naval bombardment of the bunkers proved to be ineffective.  Difficulties in navigation caused the majority of landings to drift eastwards, missing their assigned sectors and the initial assault waves of tanks, infantry and engineers took heavy casualties. Of the 16 tanks that landed upon the shores of Omaha Beach, only two survived the landing. The official record stated that “within 10 minutes of the ramps being lowered, [the leading] company had become inert, leaderless and almost incapable of action. Every officer and sergeant had been killed or wounded [...] It had become a struggle for survival and rescue.”

Only a few gaps were blown in the beach obstacles, resulting in problems for subsequent landings. The heavily defended draws, the only vehicular routes off the beach, could not be taken and two hours after the first assault the beach was closed for all but infantry landings. Commanders (including Gen. Omar Bradley) considered abandoning the beachhead, but small units of infantry, often forming ad-hoc groups, supported by naval artillery and the surviving tanks, eventually infiltrated the coastal defenses by scaling the bluffs between strongpoints. Further infantry landings were able to exploit the initial penetrations and by the end of the day, two isolated footholds had been established. American casualties at Omaha on D-Day numbered around 5,000 out of 50,000 men, most in the first few hours, while the Germans suffered 1,200 killed, wounded or missing. The tenuous beachhead was expanded over the following days, and the original D-Day objectives were accomplished by D+3.

The massive concrete cliff-top gun emplacement at Pointe du Hoc was the target of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, commanded by James Earl Rudder.  The task was to scale the 150 ft. cliffs under the cover of night, approximately at 5:30, one hour prior to the landings with ropes and ladders, and then attack and destroy the German coastal defense guns, which were thought to command the Omaha and Utah landing areas. The infantry commanders not knowing that the guns had been moved prior to the attack, had to press farther inland to find them and eventually destroy them. However, the fortifications themselves were still vital targets as a single artillery forward observer based there could have called down accurate fire on the U.S. beaches. The Rangers were eventually successful, and captured the fortifications. They then had to fight for two days to hold the location, losing more than 60 percent of their men. They subsequently regrouped and continued northeast to the rally point one mile from the gun emplacements on Pointe Du Hoc.

Casualties on Utah Beach, the westernmost landing zone, were the lightest of any beach, with 197 out of the roughly 23,000 men that landed. The 4th Infantry Division troops landing at Utah Beach found themselves in the wrong positions because of a current that pushed their landing craft to the southeast. Instead of landing at Tare Green and Uncle Red sectors, they came ashore at Victor sector, where relatively little German opposition was encountered. The 4th Infantry Division was able to press inland relatively easily over beach exits that had been seized from the inland side by the 502nd and 506th Parachute Infantry Regiments of the 101st Airborne Division. This was partially by accident, because their planned landing was further along the beach.  Brigadier Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., the Assistant Commander of the 4th Division, upon discovering the landings were off course, famously said, “We will start the war from right here.”  By early afternoon, the 4th Infantry Division had succeeded in linking up with elements of the 101st. American casualties were light, the troops were able to press inward much faster than expected, making it a near-complete success.

Over 360,000 men put their lives on the line for Europe’s and Britain’s freedom.  5,000 Americans died in the first few hours on Omaha beach alone.  Many of the forward paratroopers were slaughtered when they missed their landing zone (according Wikipedia, it was actually a change in Allied plans when the Germans changed theirs).

Whenever I give a pep talk to Tea Partiers who feel we’ve been defeated, or that we can’t win against the massive alliance of Democrats, George Soros, drug cartels, women, minorities and assorted deviants, I remind them of the Normandy Invasion.  I remind them of the courage it took to scale those 100-foot walls, to run, exposed, onto those beaches with the enemy firing down upon them.

If you think it’s too much for you to run for office, to walk door to door for a candidate, to make telephone calls, to hand out flyers, or even just to take a chance on voting for a Tea Party candidate; if you think we’re out-numbered, out-moneyed, out-messaged, or out-of-date, just remember those soldiers who died for us on the beaches of Normandy.  Freedom was younger then (168 years old) than it is today (237), but even in 1944, the Revolutionary War was history and the war was in service of our then-allies.  Still, Americans fought and died for freedom.

Think of their courage in the face of almost-certain death, especially today – D-Day, and then tell me what you’re so afraid of, Tea Partiers.  Conservatives?  Republicans?  Americans?

Lessons in Losses

Tea Party Conservatives are new to the political process.  They are fighting a system built up over 60 years, in which there are no distinctions between Democrats and Republicans.  The word “Moderate” is a cover for treacherous Republicans like Chris Christie who represent the other side, particularly in social issues, but are fiscally Conservative.

The problem with that is is that the so-called social issues, which they claim should not be in the political domain, are squarely in the center of everything and are what is driving our national debt to astronomical extremes.  Welfare (ADP) has grown exponentially since Obama took office.   What’s more, these social issues are a danger to our rights, civil and otherwise.  Even the Boy Scouts have caved, in with thousands of parents withdrawing their sons from the organization.  Once same-sex marriage reaches critical mass, clergy will be sued for discrimination if they refuse to marry a same-sex couple.

Meanwhile, in their sympathy for all minorities, young voters are giving their assent to legalizing illegal immigrants, their voting “rights” even for criminals, and narcotics.  In the education sector, tax payers are footing the bill for a dangerous transformation to a system called “Common Core” which will gut your children’s education of most of Western Civilization and focus on the students’ feelings and emotions instead.

That’s what “compromise” has brought us.  Well, “Compromise” has a second definition, usually used in engineering:  “to weaken.”

 WOR’s John Gambling said this morning that “Conservatives have to learn to compromise; they have to learn that they just can’t have everything their own way.”

Really?  Our demands for limited government, lower taxes, and accountability in our legislators, are that unreasonable are they?  We’re being churlish in defense of our Constitutional rights, then?  Unkind in our expectation that immigrants come here legally, learn to speak English, assimilate with the culture, and arrive with job skills?  We’re backwards in our notion that marriage is the union between a man and a woman, with the general intention of building a family?

Worst of all is our criticism of abortion.  We should mind our business, should we?  It’s none of our business if teens want to do drugs, have sex, and abort the inconvenient results?  It’s their “civil right” to do so, is it?  That’s funny, because that’s what the slave owners of the 18^th Century said about slavery.  To them, blacks were no more human than fetuses are to our present narcissist generation.  The South thought the North had a lot of nerve dictating to them the terms of nation-building.  They would have their slaves or there’d be no United States.  They won on the argument that “everybody is doing it” and that it was better for the economy.

“States’ rights!” was their cry.  Today, the cry is “civil rights!”  Relativists say there’s no such thing as morality, or values, or decency.   Inmates in a prison can read the Bible (or the Koran), but not public school students.   They can also vote now.  Gay men can marry and we have to smile (wanly) at the beatific site of their wedding pictures and cringe later, even when your conscience tells you that while you sympathize with their marginalization, and certainly don’t want to see them beaten up or murdered for the way they are, this is just not right and you shouldn’t have to fear to say so.  Isn’t God (who’s merciful to the repentant) more powerful than the government?

We’re not tolerant enough of the Muslims, either?  They’re not very tolerant of any other religion.  They want to take over the world.  They’ve said so.  Just as there’s no such thing as a “Moderate” Republican, there’s really no such thing as a “moderate” Muslim.  Some choose forced conversion over violence and murder, but their goal is the same:  by the end of the century, America will be under Sharia law.

America has become the weak, degenerate nation the Progressives have wanted us to become.  There was a great post on Facebook the other day, paraphrasing Lenin:

How To Destroy the West: 

• Corrupt the young
• Get them away from religion
• Encourage their interest in sex
• Make them superficial by focusing their attention on sports, sensual entertainments and other trivialities
• Always preach true democracy but seize power as fast and ruthlessly as possible
• Encourage government extravagance, destroy its credit
• Produce fear with rising prices, inflation, and general discontent
• Encourage and foster a lenient attitude towards disorders
• By specious argument, cause the breakdown of the old moral virtues:  honesty, sobriety, self-restraint
• Cause registration of firearms; leave the population defenseless.

Vladimir Lenin, 1921 (abridged)

(Many thanks to James Gasko for the post. He ran for State Republican Committee in Passaic County on the Taxed Enough Already line.  He lost, but he’s still got a lot of fight left in him.)

My Tea Party companions allowed the GOP regulars to dictate the language of their messages and who they should seek support from.  They were told to only approach the Republican voters who vote regularly.  That advice couldn’t have been more unsound.  It’s the irregular voters who needed to hear the Tea Party message.  They’re the ones who given up, who trust neither the Democrats nor the Republicans, and who think the cause is already lost.  Those were the people we needed to reach out to.

Well, the death of Sen. Lautenberg has given us another chance to do it right.  Just take a look at Lenin’s list.  There you see what is wrong and what you can set right. 

• Denounce the use of drugs and alcohol.  Demonstrate the damage is does to them through car accidents and brain damage.  The stuff is intended to numb the wits.  That’s the definition of “narcotic.”  Find witnesses who will attest to those dangers and have them speak up.  Bring that message to the kids.  Advocate for the death penalty for drug dealers and jail time for users.  Lay down the household law about drug use to your kids.  Let them know they’ll be subject to searches, surveillance, and sermons.  If they give you the puppy dog eyes and ask, “Don’t you trust me?” tell them straight out:  “No.”
• Teach the young to pray.  The ones who are in the most in trouble are the most in need of prayer.  Recruit the others through activity in charitable works.  The young like to be active.
• Encourage interest in marriage and family.  Be a good example to them.  Teach them why raw, casual sex is wrong and harmful.  Sex should be the last step in consummating a relationship, not the first.  Once you take that step, there’s no going back and if the relationship turns out to be wrong, you’ve got a lot of webs to untangle.
• There’s really nothing wrong with sports and entertainment.  The problem comes when there’s no engagement.  Instead of watching football in their lounge chair, get out there and play a game with their buddies.  Instead of listening to a concert on their Ipod, play an instrument – guitar, piano, clarinet, tuba, violin, whatever – and try making music themselves.
• Remind the poorly educated that America is not, in fact, a participatory democracy, but a federated republic.  That means paying attention and remaining informed.  But that beats having to participate in weekly town, state, and national meetings.  What we do need are term limits to keep the politicians from becoming too comfortable and ultimately, corrupt.  Those with leadership abilities might want to try running for office.  The more candidates we have, the better the choices and the less likely any one candidate will have a job for life as Sen. Lautenberg did.
• Practice fiscal discipline yourself and demand it of your elected officials.  Demand it, as well, of your neighbors, especially those in the inner cities.  They’re under the mistaken impression that we don’t want them to work.  They couldn’t be more wrong.  We’re under the impression that they don’t want to work and vote for legislators who take the taxes from us and give it to them.  The N.J. Democrats have taxed businesses right out of the state, so that not only are there no jobs, but no company or payroll taxes.  Just Unemployment Insurance, which is running out.  Isn’t that comforting?
• Don’t be afraid to combat inflation by economizing, cutting coupons, finding sales, saving your money.  Discontent arises from wanting things we really don’t need.
• Don’t tolerate disorders; don’t allow your elected officials to do so.  If things get out of hand, get on the phone to your legislators.  Fill up their voice-mails.  Clog their fax machines.  Inundate your local newspapers.  If you’re big enough and can do so safely, take photos of the disorderly so everyone can see what they are and post it on Facebook or YouTube.
• Be honest, sober and practice self-restraint and let everyone know you’re proud of being a good citizen.  Praise other honest, sober, self-restraining citizens.  Don’t be afraid to openly criticize those who are not.  Don’t be put off by the old Progressive saw of not judging others.  Spare the rod and spoil the childish.
• If you already have firearms prior to 1971, don’t tell anyone.  Here in New Jersey, the gun laws have made the guns pretty much useless.  Educate the ignorant about the real worth of firearms, how without the right to bear arms, the rest of our rights are nothing but ink on paper.  But do it wisely; don’t brag about bagging Bambi.

 Getting America back to greatness is going to be a long, rocky road.  The Progressives have had far too much time to build up their fortress and indoctrinate generations of kids.  Between them, the Democrats and Republicans have a good deal of wealth and power.  They’ve bought a great number of votes through chain immigration, narcotics, and indoctrination.  The Media is a well-oiled, well-financed propaganda machine.

But that’s not to say we can’t make inroads.  The past few years, including yesterday, are just the beginning of the road to recovery.  There are a lot more people like us than you realize.  I spoke to just a few of them before Election Day.  The problem in getting through to them is they think we’re fools for trying.  The Media certainly did its best to portray us as fools when the Tea Parties began rallying in February of 2009.  To the skeptical eye, the Tea Parties looked ridiculous, disorganized, bumptious, and unprofessional.

Only that’s not us and we have to make them understand that.  Our job is to show them what America was, even in spite of her faults, and that there’s no reason why we can’t still be that great nation.  If we are to be a great nation, they have to come out of their shells, stop watching the network news, tune out their teenagers, and speak up.  Or at least listen to more positive voices.

They don’t have us licked yet.  This is still our country, of the people, by the people, and for the people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Jersey Purple Primary Day, 2013

News reports say that Gov. Chris Christie is already set to celebrate his primary victory in Bridgewater.  The smart money says his only Republican opponent, Seth Grossman, doesn’t stand a chance.  A former Atlantic County Freeholder, City Councilman, Attorney & National Guard Veteran, Grossman’s name is not well known in the more populous northern counties.

Still, at least he’s an alternative to the Democrat-hugging, donkey-kissing Christie.

In Monmouth County, Christie friend Joe Kyrillos (did I mention before that I didn’t think he could be trusted?) is being challenged by Tea Party candidate Leigh-Ann Bellew.  Conservative Ira Geiger is running for Union County Board of Chosen Freeholders, having a history of campaign activity in his resume.  Geiger is a good choice in the mutinous Union County, where certain municipalities are considering secession to escape the tax burden of Elizabeth.  He’s a special education teacher who majored in psychology.  Keeping Union County together and its tax revenue distributed evenly and fairly, so that the outer municipalities are not beggared,  takes someone who can communicate.

Last night I finished up some phone calling for Carol Gallantine, running for State Republican Committee in Essex County.  Experience counts in making these phone calls.  You have to have a thick skin when one voter shrieks at you that the phone calls are annoying (“that’s all right, ma’am; I understand.  I don’t answer them myself!”) and another old geezer insists that voting is useless (“well, it is if you wait until the general elections, sir!”  “Politicians are not necessarily all the same; if we had term limits, they wouldn’t be”).

I was blessed with an NRA Republicans list.  Moreover Ms. Gallantine is in Row G, so I told voters who answered the phone that all they had to remember was “G” for “Gallantine and Gun Rights.”  Many of them got a kick out of that.  They also appreciated the brief message.  I didn’t go on and on.  That’s what my annoyed caller objected to and I didn’t blame her.  What’s more, if I didn’t keep it short, laryngitis already trying to take up residence in my throat, my voice would have failed by the end of the second page.

“I’m calling for Carol Gallantine a pro-Gun Conservative running for State Republican Committee in Essex County in tomorrow’s primaries.  Conservatives are in Row G, off the Republican Party line, because the GOP does not support pro-gun legislation.  Genuine statesmen and women have this one chance to get in and make sure Conservatives – and gun-owners – are represented.   Carol and Mikhail Zlotnikov are endorsed by the N.J. 2^nd Amendment Society and they’ve pledged to promote conceal & carry in N.J.  They want to work for the people at the state committee level.  They can only do that if they’re elected.   So, please remember to Vote Row G (G as in Gun) in tomorrow’s primary.  Thank you for your time.”

I found ways to shorten it as I proceeded.  When I finished, I had to tell the callers that that was it; they seemed to be expecting more and were grateful to find that was it.  When I got a real person on the line, I checked to make sure they were still NRA members.  Some weren’t.  Some had  moved away and one had died.

My duty done, I treated myself to a viewing of Star Wars:  Return of the Jedi.  If only Conservatives had the confidence and optimism of Luke Skywalker.

Then today, it was on to the polls.  Once again, as in the school board elections, I didn’t receive a sample ballot.  I questioned the poll workers about that.  They said they would make a note of it.  More appalling was the sign at the entrance to the school:  “All voters welcomed!” it read.  “No voter will be turned away.”

Excuse me?  If a felon walks in, they’ll be allowed to vote.  Or an illegal alien?  Or someone who simply failed to register, who could be from who knows where, voting in my town?  Because it’s too much trouble to check?  Are the poll workers afraid they might be beaten up?  Or sued for “discrimination”?  Against crooks, illegal aliens, and fraudulent voters?

It’s no wonder politicians like Christie are so confident of winning the primary.  With rules like that, they could just send a busload of voters from one precinct to another, cast their ballot and move on to the next town.

With Sen. Lautenberg’s death yesterday from pneumonia, Christie now has the task of naming his replacement, which puts the governor in a tricky position on primary day and in the months before the election.  .  He has just held a press conference calling for a special primary election on Aug. 13 and a general election in October.  Let the people decide, he says.   So he won’t have to.  Also, his death places Newark Mayor Corey Booker in the lead for Democrat candidate for the Senate.  Heaven help us!

Low-information voters don’t have much to go on, which is why so many of the voters I called were frustrated.  Some were “gun-ho” when they heard Gallantine was a Second Amendment supporter.  All were disgusted by Christie’s behavior.  Have you noticed how the story, and especially the pictures, disappeared after Glenn Beck aired them?

But as your Tea Party Information Center, we will be here throughout the summer and fall, up until Election Day,  to remind you how purple Christie is.  We New Jersey Conservatives have our work cut out for us.  But we’re not giving up.  There’s still good in New Jersey; we can feel it.