The War on Porn

I'll be the first to tell you, I like porn.
I like women, to begin with, I like women a lot. Particularly beautiful women. (And before one of these "Porn is the Theory, Rape is the Practice" people fires off about liking to see women "degraded" into my comments, let me also say that I believe in strong, powerful, capable women and am actually more attracted to those women than mousy housy wifey types (see Here and Here). I think a little roleplay can be healthy in a relationship, but I absolutely do not like to see women "submitting" to or "degraded" by anyone.)
I yes, I like to see them naked. And no, not just artfully naked, shot through gauze, in funky lighting, in black and white (although I like art nudes too), I like porn. Naughty, entertaining, unrealistic, fanciful, implausible, silly, Debbie Does Dallas-y, "big titty, spread cheeky" Porn.
I figure a woman who gets in front of a camera naked and lets the photog snap away knows what she's doing, and what its for, and is okay with that or she wouldnt be there. (And I'm not talking Linda Lovelace, and forced porn - thats rape, and my opinion of rapists is that they'd make great fertalizer.)
But, to my way of thinking there is nothing wrong with normal porn. Now, you get someone taking pictures while he molests a nine year old, and you're back into the territory of my "Fuckers Who Need Killed" list. We're not talking deviance, cruelty, abuse or actual torture, just porn. No one has to look at it, or be in it - those who choose to, should be allowed to choose to so long as they do it in the privacy of their own homes (I work at a library part time, and the shit some people look at in public amazes me) and dont involve anyone other than consenting adults.
Apparently though, a lot of people disagree and now even my tax dollars get wasted on it.

FBI Forms Porn Squad

Some Nutcases even think that viewing porn releases a "toxin" into the brain that stimulates fear, shame and anger and can cause rape. Gimmie a fucking break, I'm a Psych. major and a rather well read medical professional, and that is patently bullshit. Were that true, I'd be a serial rapist by now - I've looked at a lot of porn, and never once thought "boy, I sure hate those bitches, I'd like to go rape me one o' them". (Also not that the woman behind this theory, although a PhD, is not any sort of psychiatric or medical professional, her PhD is in Communications. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Reisman Once again, let me say, fucking puh-lease!)

And The UK, role-model Nanny State for would-be EuroTrash politicians everywhere, is of course considering banning some forms of internet porn, because one murderer happened to have some on his PC. I'm as appalled as anyone else that a woman would be raped and murdered, and that that turns on some people, but I really dont see a problem with actors and actresses PRETENDING that warrants JAIL SENTANCES. People should be allowed their fantasy freely, but be punished heavily if they try to carry it out. We see nearly hard-core images of rape and murder on television every night - the monsters among us get wood to that just as much as they do to any pornography.

I'm sorry, but this is a waste of fucking Law Enforcement, Academia and Legislative powers. Truly, its a waste.
If you're a church mother, who doesnt like porn, I have shocking news for you - You dont have to look at it, and you can put excellent filters on your kids computers against it!
If you're a rapist, and want to blame porn because you dont have the stones to stand up and admit that you're just a fucked up piece of shit all by yourself, well... fuck you. The society should be (should be) smart enough to recognize a piss poor excuse for deviance when they see one.
Everyone decides their fate for themselves - they decide their actions. Nothing can make someone a rapist, they are or they are not.
I honestly believe that a lot of these people who "crusade" against porn, claiming that it causes these forms of deviance, actually have the tendancies to rape and torture, and dont believe they can control themselves if their libido gets going a little bit, so they try to control everyone else out of a fear of themselves. They are damaged fucking goods, and refuse to take responsibility for their own actions.

Fire on the Mountain, and its Raining

I stood in the yard, looking east at the Sierra Ladrones (Thieves Mountain) that rise to 8'000 feet some ten miles from my home. A large canyon down the west slope was awash with flame, hot sports flaring up into the darkness like distressed signal beacons. Ocassionally the flare of headlights or taillights as the Bureau of Land Management fire crews moved up and down the line, herding their beast where they wanted it long into the night.
This morning, under grey skies, the columns of smoke rose from lower down the western slope as they moved operations down to the foothills, burning a few miles of slash. They've been doing controlled burns since day before yesterday.
Rain clouds built in the south west all day, and have come rolling and thundering in to sit above the dry country with a few teasing droplets of rain.
And the country does look dry, it seems as though fall just fell over everything in the last few days. The grasses have turned yellow again, and the leaves on the tree's around the stock pond have begun their change as well.
Driving to work I saw four bucks standing beside the road. At first I just saw one, and as I looked he ran and became four. Its amazing how they can melt out of the trees like that, you focus on one and the rest just fall into your vision.

The equinox has come - I hope it is a good fall.

Eloquence

Sometimes I can be a well spoken little shit... I amaze even myself, and sometimes I'm so bright my pa calls me son!

Perfection, or as close as we will ever get to it, is a state of action not gear.
Chaos Live

Why Would Anyone Need to Own a Gun?

As a gun owner I've been asked, many times, "why in the world would anyone actually need a gun?" and my answer to that question is very good, although not always short. I'm sure some readers of this blog have wanted to ask me that question, and although my answer can actually be found in older entries, I've got an answer for you from someone else.

http://www.detnews.com/2005/editorial/0509/18/A17-318167.htm
The Detroit News is not exactly a conservative rag - in fact I'd have ventured to say it was a leftist bastion of anti-gunnery before today, so I'm not just spreading around a sermon to the choir.
Read it, its a good article.

[Update]Actually, since its short, I'm going to quote it here, given the fickle nature of eNewspapers and active links.

Katrina chaos boosts case for 2nd Amendment

By Nolan Finley / The Detroit News

As New Orleans flooded and whatever civil society the city could lay claim to disintegrated, those left behind needed two things: a powerful will to survive and a gun.

Hurricane Katrina might end up being the best friend the Second Amendment ever had.

Gun dealers across the country are reporting increased sales. People who saw on television what happens when government can't deliver on the promise of protecting its citizens are buying firearms as an insurance policy against anarchy.

That assurance of government-provided security has convinced individual Americans to gradually trade in their unrestrained constitutional right to bear arms.

But for days, there was no law in New Orleans and no government to speak of. All rules were off.

While the politically correct version of what happened is that desperate people looted stores for food and water, that's only part of the story. Bands of armed hoodlums roamed the city, smashing their way into businesses and homes, carting off jewelry, liquor, televisions and other goods that had nothing to do with survival.

People were murdered, raped, stripped of their meager provisions.

Those with the best chance of surviving were the ones who had shotguns, rifles and pistols stashed away in closets and drawers.

Homeowner John Carolan ran off a mob of young men armed with knives and machetes and intent on stealing his generator by firing a few rounds from a .357 Magnum over their heads. "They scattered," he told reporters.

After looters poured into a nursing home and carted off the food, water and medicine, administrator Peggy Hoffman told the Associated Press, "we'll have to equip our department heads with guns and teach them how to shoot."

Lots of Americans are thinking about shooting lessons today.

The tiresome question, "Why does anyone need a gun?" now has its answer.

Order can deteriorate in this country to the point where nothing stands between the law-abiding citizen and the marauding mob except blue steel. It happened in New Orleans. It can happen anywhere else in America at anytime.

It will be harder now for the anti-gun lobby to convince Americans to dismantle even more of the Second Amendment.

Of course, they'll try to spin this to say that were there no guns to begin with, the looters wouldn't have been armed and dangerous. But thieves, murderers and the rest of the rabble have always been more ingenious at procuring weapons than law-abiding citizens.

No amount of gun control laws will keep the dark side of this society from arming itself for evil purposes.

To twist the old bumper sticker, Americans will give up their guns when they can be certain all the guns have been pried out of the cold, dead fingers of all the bad guys.

Until then, they'll prefer to keep a little heat in the house.

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News. Reach him at (313) 222-2064 or at nfinley@ detnews.com. Watch Nolan Finley on "Am I Right," 8:30 p.m. Fridays on Detroit Public Television, Ch. 56.

A few more...

Well, shit, I've just been up all night trying to beat my sleep cycle back into some sort of normalcy (been staying up till three our four AM and sleeping till noon most of the time for the last two weeks, figure if I stay up all night and today I'll konk out around ten PM and get back into it like a sane person) I'm going to give in to being a little shallower than I usually am here, and post some more Izzy chicks...

So, is it just me or wouldnt it just be hella cool to see beautiful young women walking around with M-4's slung all the time, here in the US?

IDF Chicks...

If life were fair, one would be my wife.
If life were good, the other would be my mistress.

I love IDF (Israeli Defense Force) chicks... there is something amazingly appealing about an already good looking woman, who's got some muscle tone like she does a little work and is well armed.
That "capable" look really gets my motor runnin'. Yes'sir, the woman for me has to be able to change her own tires, and do immediate action drills if her rifle jams.
Fuckin' hard thing to find here though. A nation of airheaded princesses... at least my generation.

Riding, Shooting Straight and Speaking the Truth

"To Ride, Shoot Straight and Speak the Truth" is the title of a book by Col. Jeff Cooper, founder of Gunsite (The American Pistol Institute) and father of the Modern Technique of the Pistol. Now, I'm a Mod. Iso man, not Weaver, but I still respect Col. Cooper a lot because he went before so many of us, and created the roads many of us now travel. I also think that book title is one of the best things I have ever heard. To me, that is one of the most noble goals I have ever heard.
I am a child of the west, a son of ranching and cowboying, and that bloodline and history has instilled in me that the highest values may well be Honesty, Accuracy and the ability to Ride.
Riding is more than just sitting a horse, its being capable. If you can ride, you can look after your place, you can travel, you can move cattle.
Accuracy is more than just shooting. It speaks to capability as well, but more so to knowledge and skill. If you can set your sights on something and go do it, and do it well, you're an accurate man.
Honesty is just that, honesty. You set yourself up to do the best you can by your definition of right for yourself and yours, and you dont waver from that. If you make mistakes, you say it. If you see problems, you call 'em out. Your word is who you are, and if its not honest you are not only a liar, you are a lie.
My goal in life is to Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth.

SAS Trainers Denounce Armed Met. Police

Seems some of the SAS tasked with training the Metropolitan Police's "elite" armed unit dont think the police are fit for the job. Not "psychologically or physically" equipped or prepared.
Imagine that shit!
From a nation that is disarmed, thats promotes cowering in fear over proactive defense of self, and that encourages people to believe that protection from the government is all thats needed, is anyone surprised that regular citizens turned police officers wouldnt have it upstairs to properly use firearms?
Most people who apply to be Police Officers in this nation dont have that problem. America still has, uses and is rather open about liking guns. This is a good thing. Young men and women who join the police probably have some experience with arms already, and go into it knowing they are going to get more. Thats why when our police go train at someplace like the Rogers School (a shooting school that gives SpecWar types a good schooling), the instructors never have to go and publically say "They are all unfit!"
When you have a nation of un-armed sheep... thats your stock to pick from for police officers too. Not so here, and thank the gods.
See: Every Rancher a Rifleman

Dying with Dignity in the Middle of Horror and Inhumanity

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina we have all seen and heard many story of heroism, inspiring and heart breaking alike, and have added names to our rosters of "hero's in my book". Well, I'm sorry to say I dont know the names of the latest additions to my book, but God bless these people for their mettle and their compassion: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=361980

From the Daily Mail Article "We Had To Kill Our Patients"

Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.

In an extraordinary interview with The Mail on Sunday, one New Orleans doctor told how she 'prayed for God to have mercy on her soul' after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save.

[...snip...]

Their families believe their confessions are an indictment of the appalling failure of American authorities to help those in desperate need after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, claiming thousands of lives and making 500,000 homeless.

[...snip...]

The doctor said: "I didn't know if I was doing the right thing. But I did not have time. I had to make snap decisions, under the most appalling circumstances, and I did what I thought was right.

"I injected morphine into those patients who were dying and in agony. If the first dose was not enough, I gave a double dose. And at night I prayed to God to have mercy on my soul."

[...snip...]

"We divided patients into three categories: those who were traumatised but medically fit enough to survive, those who needed urgent care, and the dying.

"People would find it impossible to understand the situation. I had to make life-or-death decisions in a split second.

"It came down to giving people the basic human right to die with dignity.

[...snip...]

I dont envy those doctors, nurses and tech's their position in those hours of madness, but I respect them for it.
I respect them for respecting life enough to protect it, and when death is inevitable making the quality of life up until the moment you cross as high as possible is respecting that life. And death. Death must be respected to - and those who have suffered so much, for so long, deserve to go into it with dignity and peace. At times when there is no other humane, dignified and peaceful thing to be done, the dying process needs to be speeded up.
Those doctors, nurses and tech's made a hard, brave, decision to respect their patients lives, and give respect to their deaths. Simply put, that took a lot of fucking balls. And a lot of love.
Life is hard, the earth is a harsh mistress and no amount of law, regulation or philoshopical ruling on ethics will ever change that - although it certainly seems to try. Life will always push people to the extreme where law, regulation and ethics dont even have meaning, because they have no ability to grasp the situation at hand. Those things, the laws and regulations of a field, or a country even, only have meaning when everything is going perfectly - when things are going horribly, when the harshness that is natural to this world raises its head, the rule of law is not a tool capable of dealing with it, or the circumstances it creates.
But, like the one good doctor said "People would find it impossible to understand the situation", and they do. No one wants to understand, when everything is going good, that our system of rule making and ethics as good as it is, is wholly fallible on a gust of wind.

Ah, Maybe Just a Little Bit

I dont consider myself a hard-case, in fact I try not to be, and although I am fairly in touch with my emotions theres not a lot that makes me want to bawl like a little kid. Call me jaded, maybe I am.
But some things definately do choke me up, bad.
I already talked about one thing that does already today - the un-asked for heroism of the men and women who climbed the stairs into hell at World Trade One and Two on September 11th, 2001. I'll never be ashamed to admit that I have cried thinking about them. I was in a Emergency Response to Terrorism class a year ago with several hardened medics, cops, former military and other "tough" people and on the anniversary of 9/11 (it was a Saturday class) we watched one of the HBO documentaries about the horrible events of that day. There wasnt a dry eye in the room, and there shouldnt have been.
The other things that choke me up are kids and dogs (or pretty much any animal).
Normally, I'm not really sure what to do with kids - and I love my dogs and other animals, dearly, and would kill anyone who hurt one of them as fast as I would kill someone who hurt a human family member. But other than that, I'm not one of these people who goes to pieces just at the very being of kids or animals. Nor am I one of these particularly nutty animal rights activists. I eat meat, I am partial owner of a cattle ranch, I hunt occasionally, and I have no problem with it (although I believe it is important to respect the life I am responsible for taking).
But there are times when I get torn up about kids and dogs, in times of great suffering, great sadness and displays great strength.
Somewhere in the region of U-Go-Crazia (Bosnia/Herzegovina, Serbia, Etc.) during a massive bombing attack a tiger at a public zoo got so scared he chewed off his own paws and had to be put down. We cage them, treat them as if they have literally no brain, and then we wonder or call them "stupid" when animals, alone and isolated as they are in our "care", do things like that. It makes me sad and angry to think about that poor tiger - such a majestic, powerful, animal reduced to that.
In more recent days, in the aftermathof hurricane Katrina, I have heard things that made me cry like a little girl.
I heard on TV about a Six year old boy in New Orleans who led a small group of children in a hand-holding chain, only one of them a sibling of his, to safety and to rescuers all by himself, because he was seperated from his parents. A child so young, shouldered with such responsibility - he must have been so frightened, so unsure about the entire world - and he did it anyway, he took that responsibility and he lead. A six year old child. I know adults who couldnt do that, who would fall apart under those pressures.
And then there is the picture I've attached to this post on the upper right. Thats from New Orleans, at a gas station. That dog had been there for days, standing vigil over the body of its master. People say animals dont have souls, and cannot reason, much less love - but if that is not love and devotion, I dont know what is. A dog is smart enough to be cutthroat and go to the first hand that will feed it, I've been around dogs all my life and will guarantee you that - but that one didnt, alone and hungry. Thats such a sweet face, and such a sad knowing look. And god only knows what will happen to him or her - I hope one of the rescue groups down there picked him/her up and has given it shelter, and love and maybe even a new home, new family.
Fuck the people who say animals are dumb, soulless, un-reasoning creatures - fuck them all to hell. I know better. I dont wish to think better, I know better.
That picture makes me cry - and I almost didnt post it because I didnt want to have to see it again. I closed the page I saw it on as soon as I saw it - and then reopened it and took a good long look and decided to post it. Its important.

~Cowboys dont cry,
Ah, mebbe just a little bit
Sometimes dirt get in your eye...~

The Fateful Day

All my life I've heard people of my parents generation ask one another where they were when Kennedy was killed. Now everyone in America, young and old, has another question to ask - Where were you on 9/11, when the towers fell?

I was asleep here at the ranch. My father called from in town and still talking to him my mom told me to turn on the TV. Nothing I had gleaned from listening to their snippets of conversation gave me the slightest idea, or the least bit of preparation for what I would see.
Smoke, and god damned lots of it, rising from Manhattan. Pieces of ash and debris blown out over the water, circling in the skies on rising currents of heat like alien birds. And just one tower.
I was full of disbelief, but I had no doubt. I've talked to people since that awful day four years ago who didnt think it was terrorism immediately, or even until some "authority" figure told them. The first words out of my mouth were "The god damned sand niggers finally did it".
I'm not a racist person, I dont judge people by skin color, creed, or faith, not individually, not as a group. But individuals I do judge by their actions, and Mohammed Atta and his 19 comrades were sand niggers. I'll stand by that declaration till the day I die.
Then of course, I had no idea who personally had done it, but the logical assessment was some of the same people who had tried to bring the World Trade towers down before.
That was a day un-rivaled in emotion - horror, shock, hate, love, all of it and back again. Aimless at first, just shocked into high vibration in all directions, and then focused, hard.
That day, we loved the firefighters who went up those flights of stairs. Those men with families and lives who did their job and walked up into that maelstrom of hateful fire, and never walked out again before the towers came down. They were the best of us that day, everything good and strong and un-askingly brave in the people of America, was in the FDNY, NYPD and Port Authority that day.
We loved New York and her people. We were horrified for them, and grieved with them.
And our hate was a pure elemental thing, and as the intel grew about who was responsible, it was focused like a cutting torch. Hate is never beautiful, but god damn it was something that day. There was purposefulness to it, direction and it demanded action. It was pure, burning white flame. Undiluted by politics, foriegn policy, political agenda, party line attitudes, or anything else. We were not trying to pander to the feelings of the sensitive in this world, the people who said we'd brought the attacks on ourselves. The American Muslim community was not an entity we thought about offending, they were either like every other American and filled with the same rage, shock, fear and love as the rest of us - or they didnt deserve to be American. We were righteous and our path was clear of such trifles and bullshit.
And now, four years later, all that has changed. It has become important to pander to the people who feel we deserved being attacked, and to constantly check ourselves lest we offend the Muslim community by saying some truth that is offensive to them. We are kissing ass to the weak and cowardly, and we have said "hate it bad - we cant use hate against our enemies". And now thats true, because any hate thats left is all the wrong kinds - we let that purest flame burn out before we could use it.
And now we're on a familial revenge fantasy quest in Iraq, hunting boogers and wasting time, resources and lives instead of taking the war to terrorism around the globe. Iraqs connection to terrorism was miniscule and flimsy compared to other nations, and the war there has as much relevance to the Global War on Terror as arresting a homeless guy in the alley outback of the bank has to catching the bank robber.
We've lost ourselves in all of this - We've allowed many of our freedoms to be sold down the river with the Patriot Acts, and we're allowing our government to play games and tell lies about it all without much question. And those who do question, those who dare to dissent, are called unpatriotic, un-American, seditious, etc. Hell, even those who didnt vote for the President in the last election are called that. We have lost ourselves, we have lost our true patriotism, we have lost our vision, and we have lost much of our freedom in this quagmire we've created out of the General War on Terror.
Instead of actually fighting terror, acting with that burning fury, and actually making a difference, we've screwed around and ended up here.
And its no better on the home-front - even 9/11 cannot be kept pure, it is a vehicle for political agenda's of all sorts, none of them in the least involving the terrorist attacks of that day. For example - http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006791
Now while I disagree with Ms. Burlingames stated political views, particularly on dissent and calling into question un-Constitutional things like the Patriot Act, the idea that the 9/11 memorial will be about everything touchy-feely-human-rightsy but 9/11 pisses me off to no end. Its a travesty.
We have forgotten - We have lost ourselves.

This Day

How soon have you forgotten?
Forgot how we wept,
As they came to their end and slept…
Have you ignored, like the stench so rotten?

You choose not to waive the flag,
Because that’s not right anymore,
We don’t remember what it was for,
You chain smoke and you bitch, between drags

You say Its just those right wing crazies,
Who are patriotic these days,
Just to mask their wars in so many ways,
To hide the dead children and burning daisies

You lie through your teeth,
But you swill at the trough,
And when asked to leave you scoff,
You lie, you see, so you can seethe

And you forgot how we bled,
This day past,
And all the rest, the blood not the last,
You forgot and your morality fled.

Go away from us in peace,
We’d ask not your counsels,
For what good are you scoundrels?
Damning yourselves to the fleece.

I remember and I mourn,
Not to make war,
Nor excuses for,
And I wear with pride the fools scorn.

Forgotten this day,
And ever the follow,
Forgotten gallow,
But not by all, not this day.

Going Up

Going up
Into a world of wonder
Smoke and clouds of doubt
Nothing else to be done
Thoughts forward and up
110 stories
and where’s the fire?

People running
Dying
and Hiding
and still they go up
Calm like warriors
Scared like little boys?
and still…

Falling

Slowly wheeling, down, down, falling,
More charred remains, more haunted calling
Lives in their own hands and falling
Lovers locked in final embrace leaping, into the cold high air,
Down, down, and through the licking flames glare
When did they die?
Or more importantly, Why?
What angry gods of wrath and destruction did it appease, this blood sacrifice?
Why must men, fall for mice?
Its all falling... falling... Its all falling now.
Someone knows but the rest of us... the rest of us are all left asking, How?
Ashes falling, and twirling, and dancing on the wind,
Bones and flesh and bodies, falling but who among them sinned?
Wipe at your dampening eyes, and bow your heads in shame and sorrow,
And look whats been done, what has been ruined for the children of the morrow.
Falling... falling... arms stretched out... falling...
Looking heavenward, and crying with silent lips... for reason within madness, and for one more slip of mortality...calling

Police in New Orleans Begin Confiscating Weapons

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/national/nationalspecial/08cnd-storm.html?oref=login
According to BugMeNot you can login to view the above with user: liarliar1234 and pass: password if you are smart enough to not already be registered).

But here's the important bit from the above article anyway:

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 8 - Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here.

No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said.

But that order apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16's and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.

Now, I understand that they are concerned with the possibility of violence when they begin forcibly evacuating the people who remain from the city. Its a valid concern, and when I first heard they were going to start doing that I said to everyone in the room watching TV with me "That’s when the shooting starts again".
But taking peoples legally owned firearms is not the solution.
Why? Because firearms are not the problem. They never are. People who do stupid or dangerous things are the problem, and firearms make it no easier for them to do those things. And wonder of wonders, criminals who want to use firearms will not obey any ban or comply with any confiscation program, because they are criminals and the law already has no meaning for them. It solves nothing.
What confiscating the legally owned guns from the citizens of NOLA will do is make them easier prey for the criminals, who didn’t turn in their guns and probably cant be found to be asked for them anyway. I'll go out on a limb here and assume that a lot of the people who were moving around in groups of armed looters have gone "underground" to abandoned buildings (of which there will be some amazingly fine pickings right now, from court-houses to out-houses) and are moving from place to place, avoiding detection, with their "posse" and piles of stolen big screens and PS2's.
NOLA for criminals right now is possibly the largest Temporary Autonomous Zone in the United States right now, definitely the largest in any urban setting (I can think of plenty of areas here in the Southwest U.S. where it could still be the wild west, but no one is exploiting the space and absence of control in any massive, or illegal, way as in NOLA). The TAZ, disconnected from the establishment and not really under the strict control of the government at any level, is an ideal place for criminal enterprise of all sorts. Oddly enough it may also be one of the last places in this world where a human being can be truly free.
However, survival in a TAZ as a non-criminal is dependent on the ability to bite back. Disarming people prevents them from being able to do that - no mans home is his castle when he has no way to defend it.
Now I realize that the disarmament is a precursor to forced evacuation, so it’s not like they are leaving these people there, but how long of a time period will there be between disarmament and evacuation? If its anything more than overnight, the citizenry will be at the mercy of those who still have guns. Namely the criminals, but lets not forget the behavior of the New Orleans P.D. in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, many of them took as much advantage of the TAZ as they could, looting right along side everyone else. Not every New Orleans cop did that, of course, but many of them did and there is now no good way to tell who did their job, and who disgraced the uniform. If there are still N.O.P.D. officers working down there, they are not to be trusted, I'm sorry. Cops are human too - those who do their job get my greatest respect, and some of them my friendship - but there are those few who have no honor, and damaged morals and ethics, and will do harm for their own gain or pleasure. I'm sure some of those bad seeds have gotten down there as volunteers, of all types (Medics, National Guard, Police, etc.) and all it takes is one.
Disarmament solves nothing and makes the people weaker.

I think the actual solution is to just leave people alone. Make a stronger evacuation effort, bordering on forced but with a strong backing of educating people about the dangers of staying (namely disease in the water, and thus on everything the water touched), and then those who still want to stay, let them. It is a problem that will correct itself in short order; they'll get sick and be all too willing to leave then. Or they'll die. Hate to be that way, but its nature at work - It shouldn’t be the government’s job to keep people alive beyond a reasonable expectation, and expecting the government to take care of you when you refuse to take care of yourself and leave a place like NOLA is far beyond reasonable.
But, if things were done that way, they wouldn’t have to worry about officers being shot at by people resisting removal. They wont have to waste manpower on the unwilling but demanding, or the insane and dangerous.
But of course... everyone is special, and entitled (so sayeth the government) so they deserve to be evacuated to safety whether they like it or not. The government knows what’s good for you, and being disarmed and left at the mercy of fate while you wait to be dragged kicking and screaming from your home is what’s good for you.

Rain on my Parade

Just got off the phone with the health office about getting my Hep. vac's and other shots for going to the gulf coast. No dice.
Seems they dont want to give the shots to people who dont know for sure if they are deploying.
Also seems that the other agencies selecting people for deployment are looking at the un-vaccinated as their last choice picks too.
Much cursing and spitting.

Cest la Vie. Sun will come up tomorrow all the same.

Time to start shopping around, see if one of the smaller local health offices has what I need on their shelves and are a little more willing to give it out.

Rain in the High Desert

Rain out here is a complete elemental thing, it is made up of all that is. If you want to see the circle, the yin and the yang, chaos and order, you need to see it rain here.
The sky begins to grey and fold, rolling under and rising like an ocean at storm turned upside down, and then it begins to fall...

The earth comes clean and then begins to get up and move away, going walkabout

And as the wind fans the storm and drives it, pushing the torrent through, in its wake the sky begins to burn


Then when the fires burn down, their last flickering hopes for life dying with the setting of the sun the heavens are reduced to ash

And when all has come to pass, the rains return as the sky splits and spills itself and all is renewed once again


The rain out here, in the hot, dry mountain country, is a spiritual thing. Each rain dances and rolls with power and energy, but some carry an awesome burden of it, a pleasure the borders on terror, as all life borders on the veil called death. It will make your heart beat faster, your breath will steal away but each will taste sweeter, and your back will straighten to accept the weight of it all, as each drop of rain teases and runs down your skin, dancing with the lightning raised hairs.

Those Who Will Do

There is a phrase that pretains to less-than-ideal equipment I have been using a lot lately as I go through my gear and prepare to be called to go down to the Gulf Coast, "(blank) will do, if I will do" - blank being the piece of kit being discussed at the time.
I really like the mindset behind this phrase - it puts the importance on personal knowledge and ability, skill, instead of on tools and technology. A tool or a technology is only as good as the person behind it - even the best tool will fail miserably in the wrong hands, but even the worst can be put to some use if the person behind it knows what they are doing, it will do, if they will do.
As I watch events unfolding in New Orleans and surrounding areas, and talk to friends and associates about it, I am continually impressed that this can be applied directly into classifying people.
Ohh, I know, bad: profiling! I'm singling people out and singling people out is bad (unless its in the name of "celebrating diversity" of course. Somewhere we forgot that the goal was unity... ).
But it is true, you can pretty easily divide people into "Those Who Will Do" and "Those Who Wont Do".
The latter, those who wont do, I think have been illustrated quite well in recent days by the ne'er-do-wells in New Orleans causing all the trouble. These types of people, those who feel entitled no matter how lazy they are, will never stand up and do for themselves when they have been taught for so long that it will just be handed to them. This isnt the first time I've spoken of this either, I saw the problems with these kinds of people some time ago, but what I saw was a "kinder, gentler" if you will sort of problem. I wanted to believe they would simply suffer, not try to drag others down with them into their suffering. It was naeive. I am far less tolerant of these types of people now than I was back then.
Those who will do however are a fantastic group of people. The capable, resourceful, adaptive and thoughtful people who are willing to work to get ahead, to survive and to help others in a time of need. I am proud of these people, because people like this are my friends, they are the people I choose to stand with.
As I've prepared to try and do my part down South, I've had several people I hardly know step up and offer me things of significant financial value, because they too wanted to do their part and couldnt go down themselves because of circumstance.
I also have friends who are down there, providing aid, law enforcement, and whatever else is neccessary.
Those who will do are attracted to these jobs, fire-fighter, police, emergency medicine, etc. but it is more than just a job - it is a calling, and one doesnt have to be a professional whatever to be one of those who will do. Bus drivers, systems administrators, school teachers, manual laborers, anyone from any walk of life who is capable and resourceful and can and will do for themselves, and for others.
My heart swells with pride for these individuals - The people who helped others escape NOLA, the fire-fighters who went up the stairs into the malebolge of the World Trade Towers and never came down again, the people every day and stand up to do brave, heroic things, silently and without asking or wanting to be recognized, the people who are simply capable and take care of themselves and their people without questioning "shouldnt I just be given this?". These are thepeople who will lead us to survival and rebuilding in the aftermath of events like Katrina.
In the future, with terrorism, the sudden rise in disease (tropical diseases like West Nile are in the United States now. Malaria and other nastiness, like Dinge Fever, is sure to follow. NOLA is going to be a fucking breeding ground for tropical nastiness if any of it gets brought in on trade ships), and simple overcrowding combined with a rather twisted and savage economy and weak infrastructure, things like the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans are going to become more common.
The "entitled" wont be the ones who pull us back up, and re-take the reigns of civalization.
It isnt too late, people can still change... but we will run out of time eventually, and we're all going to have to pay the tab that those who wont do have run up in the last few years.

Naw'lins & Gulf Coast Insanity

For some further thoughts on NOLA here's some interesting reading in the same vein as my earlier post about the curse of "entitlement":
How Many People Did Dependance Kill?
Trudeaupiate
Diagnosing New Orleans: a Canadian Perspective (This one also contains the previous links, but its quite interesting as a stand alone piece too).

The Thin Line Between Civilization and Anarchy

I’ve been trying to keep informed about the post-Katrina stabilization and rescue efforts, and find out about immediate opportunities to get into the area, and have noticed something. Several private contractor companies, the kind who provide private security contractors in Iraq, have gotten or are in the process of acquiring contracts to go to New Orleans and similarly affected areas to provide armed security and medical response. They are paying in the neighborhood of $400 a day for those with the qualifications they are looking for (all too high speed, low drag for me to qualify).
High-risk employment Private Security/Military Contractors operating on American soil, and actually needed! on our soil too. I wish I could say I never though I would see the day. Unfortunately, I’ve known we would see the day for a long time now.
What I didn’t know, what I couldn’t guess, is just how easily it would come. How easily the framework of our society can come crumbling down. How fine the line between Civilization and Anarchy actually is.
The armed gangs, the looters, the general pandemonium, chaos and merciless anarchy that has risen up in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina is nothing short of phenomenal. The people who need assistance are the biggest threat to those trying to assist right now. And relatively, it took very little doing. It took one big storm, a lot of wind, and a lot more water to send a large American city from functional and stable into a tailspin of uncontrollable unrest.
And the people doing it all? They want this. The looters, rioters, rapists, murderers, they want to live like this, and act like this. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be.
I’ve already seen media personalities, and various supposed experts and important people (I.E. Jesse Jackson, a most self-aggrandized lying blowhard) jumping up and down and crying out that this is a race issue, that its an issue of the haves vs. the have nots (the proletariat vs. the bourgeoisie, to use a term from another era), of the oppressed vs. the oppressors, poor vs. rich.
Simply put, that’s not what its about at all. It’s about animals acting like animals (and to anyone getting ready to say I am picking on blacks, calling them animals, I’d ask you to keep your ideas to yourself – I’m talking about all races, creeds and colors who act that way).
I’ve heard people say that since the average poor family in Nawlins makes less than $10,000 a year they didn’t have the money or resources to evacuate (bug out) when the hurricane was bearing down on them. Fuck that nonsense. I grew up and have lived most of my life (still being a young man) in a family that made less than $6,000 a year on average. We always had a vehicle (maybe not the best vehicle, but we’ve always had one), we always had suitcases (and if that failed we always had plastic bags), we always had shoes. That’s all you need to leave an area and take your shit with you.
This isn’t an issue of the poor and oppressed being left behind to die by the rich. This is a case of a bunch of people too stupid to listen to reason finally having to pay the price for their stupidity. Most stupidity in this day and age carries a relatively small price, but the piper will always have to be paid in the end.
This isn’t a case of active, or even passive, racism. This isn’t the proletariat suffering at the callous and cruel hands of the bourgeoisie. This is the stupid suffering at their own hands, and then getting sand in their cunts about it.
In this day and age when our children are taught entitlement instead of responsibility and self-dependence not one of us should be surprised that the situation in New Orleans has degraded as far, and as quickly, as it has.
The continual allowance for stupidity: the continual passing of kids through grades when they wont do the work; the continual mediocritization of everyone in the schools and workforce so that there is “equal opportunity” for the stupid (meaning the intelligent have to be forced lower) and we have “no child left behind” (even if they deserve it); the continual dumbing down of entertainment and information all across the board so that the stupid wont feel left out – all of this teaches everyone that “no matter what, you are entitled. You can be as stupid as you want, act as badly as you want, and you are still entitled to all the same things as those who are willing to learn, willing to be intelligent, and willing to work for what they have”. And all of these things are directly responsible for what we are seeing today in New Orleans.
Any other reason or explanation is simply bullshit. The stupid/willfully ignorant, lazy, ne’er-do-wells of New Orleans (and the rest of the country) have been told for the last thirty years that they are entitled to whatever they want without having to make any effort, without having to be anything but stupid, lazy and ne’er-do-well, and until now our society has been stupid enough to support that belief. Now, now that something truly awful happened and the stupid, lazy and ne’er-do-well actually had to work to come out good, those who still felt entitled are pissed and acting like the shit-heads they are, taking their aggression out on the world around. They have been told they are entitled, so now they are damn well going to act like it and take what they want, do what they want. Simply put, they are acting like little girls with sand in their cunts.
Fuck ‘em, I hope they all get shot.

The Road to Hell

My state Department of Health put out a call this afternoon for medical and rescue personnel willing to volunteer for deployment to assist operations in the gulf coast. They are looking for both people to deploy to New Orleans and other areas in the path of hurricane Katrina, and for people to deploy yo hospitals in neighboring states recieving patients from the devastated areas.
I signed up, put my name and info into their registry. I'd like to go to where the damage actually is, but we'll see what comes up.
I think I'll make some calls tomorrow anyway, see if there are any Red Cross groups, or church rescue groups, from this area getting mobilized to go down there.

I know I am needed at home, my 91 year old grandmother just broke her wrist yesterday and I was on scene to dress her wounds and splint the wrist for the two hour trip to the hospital. But, I also know that everyone else is capable of taking care of things at the ranch for a couple weeks, and I feel totally useless and purposless sitting here watching Mississippi and Lousiana fall apart on the television.
I want to be there - I want to be "in the shit" - I want to help.

As bad as I want to go down, I also know that I have no idea what I'll be getting myself into, but that I need to be prepared for more than a campout. If I go down the first thing I'm going to buy is some body armor. I'll worry about expanding my medical kit, and maybe getting a good equipment vest, after I've got kevlar wrapped around me. Probably after I stock up on ammunition too. I think I know which one of my rifles will fit easiest into my duffel bag.

"Well I'm standing by a river
But the water doesn't flow
It boils with every poison you can think of
And I'm underneath the streetlight
But the light of joy I know
Scared beyond belief way down in the shadows
And the perverted fear of violence
Chokes the smile on every face
And common sense is ringing out the bell
This ain't no technological breakdown
Oh no, this is the road to hell" The Road To Hell - Chris Rea