An Irish Reflection on the 2016 Election in the Colonies

By: Ian O'Doherty,  columnist for the Irish Independent

Tuesday November 8, 2016 — a day that will live in infamy, or the moment when America was made great again?

The truth, as ever, will lie somewhere in the middle. After all, contrary to what both his supporters and detractors believe — and this is probably the only thing they agree on — Trump won’t be able to come into office and spend his first 100 days gleefully ripping up all the bits of the Constitution he doesn’t like.

But even if this week’s seismic shockwave doesn’t signal either the sky falling in or the start of a bright new American era, the result was, to use one of The Donald’s favourite phrases, huge. It is, in fact, a total game changer.

In decades to come, historians will still bicker about the most poisonous, toxic and stupid election in living memory.

They will also be bickering over the same vexed question: how did a man who was already unpopular with the public and who boasted precisely zero political experience beat a seasoned Washington insider who was married to one extremely popular president and who had worked closely with another? The answer, ultimately, is in the question.

History will record this as a Trump victory, which of course it is. But it was also more than that, because this was the most stunning self-inflicted defeat in the history of Western democracy. Hillary Clinton has damned her party to irrelevance for at least the next four years. She has also ensured that Obama’s legacy will now be a footnote rather than a chapter. Because the Affordable Care Act is now doomed under a Trump presidency and that was always meant to be his gift, of sorts, to America. How did a candidate who had virtually all of the media, all of Hollywood, every celebrity you could think of, a couple of former presidents and apparently, the hopes of an entire gender resting on her shoulders, blow up her own campaign?

I rather suspect that neither Donald nor Hillary know how they got to this point.

Where she seemed to expect the position to become available to her by right — the phrase “she deserves it” was used early in the campaign and then quickly dropped when her team remembered that Americans don’t like inherited power — his first steps into the campaign were those of someone chancing their arm. If he wasn’t such a staunch teetotaler, many observers would have accused him of only doing it as a drunken bet. But the more the campaign wore on, something truly astonishing began to happen: the people began to speak. And they began to speak in a voice which, for the first time in years in the American heartland, would not be ignored. Few of the people who voted for Trump seriously believe that he is going to personally improve their fortunes. Contrary to the smug, middle-class media narrative, they aren’t all barely educated idiots. They know what he is, of course they do. It’s what he is not that appeals to them.

Clinton, on the other hand, had come to represent the apex of smug privilege. Whether it was boasting about her desire to shut down the remaining coal industry in Virginia — that worked out well for her, in the end — or calling half the electorate a “basket of deplorables,” she seemed to operate in the perfumed air of the elite, more obsessed with coddling idiots and pandering to identity and feelings than improving the hardscrabble life that is the lot of millions of Americans.

Also, nobody who voted for Trump did so because they wanted him as a spiritual guru or life coach. But plenty of people invested an irrational amount of emotional energy into a woman who was patently undeserving of that level of adoration.

That’s why we’ve witnessed such fury from her supporters — they had wrapped themselves so tightly in the Hillary flag that a rejection of her felt like a rejection of them. And when you consider that many American colleges gave their students Wednesday off class because they were too “upset” to study, you can see that this wasn’t a battle for the White House — this became a genuine battle for America’s future direction. And, indeed, for the West. (Emphasis mine)

We have been going through a cultural paroxysm for the last 10 years — the rise of identity politics has created a Balkanised society where the content of someone’s mind is less important than their skin colour, gender, sexuality or whatever other attention-seeking label they wish to bestow upon themselves. In fact, where once it looked like racism and sexism might be becoming archaic remnants of a darker time, a whole new generation has popped up which wants to re-litigate all those arguments all over again. In fact, while many of us are too young to recall the Vietnam War and the social upheaval of the 1960s, plenty of observers who were say they haven’t seen an America more at war with itself than it is today.

One perfect example of this New America has been the renewed calls for segregation on campuses. Even a few years ago, such a move would have been greeted with understandable horror by civil rights activists — but this time it’s the black students demanding segregation and “safe spaces” from whites. If young people calling for racial segregation from each other isn’t the sign of a very, very sick society, nothing is.

The irony of Clinton calling Trump and his followers racist while she was courting Black Lives Matter was telling.

After all, no rational white person would defend the KKK, yet here was a white women defending both BLM and the New Black Panthers — explicitly racist organisations with the NBP, in particularly, openly espousing a race war if they don’t get what they want.

Fundamentally, Trump was attractive because he represents a repudiation of the nonsense that has been slowly strangling the West. He represents — rightly or wrongly, and the dust has still to settle — a scorn and contempt for these new rules. He won’t be a president worried about microaggressions, or listening to the views of patently insane people just because they come from a fashionably protected group. He also represents a glorious (middle finger) to everyone who has become sick of being called a racist or a bigot or a homophobe — particularly by Hillary supporters who are too dense to realise that she has always actually been more conservative on social issues than Trump.

That it might take a madman to restore some sanity to America is, I suppose, a quirk that is typical to that great nation — land of the free and home to more contradictions than anyone can imagine.

Trump’s victory also signals just how out of step the media has been with the people. Not just American media, either.

In fact, the Irish media has continued its desperate drive to make a show of itself with a seemingly endless parade of emotionally incontinent gibberish that, ironically, has increased in ferocity and hysterical spite in the last few days.

The fact that Hillary’s main cheerleaders in the Irish and UK media still haven’t realised where they went wrong is instructive and amusing in equal measure. They still don’t seem to understand that by constantly insulting his supporters, they’re just making asses of themselves.

One female contributor to this newspaper said Trump’s victory was a “sad day for women.” Well, not for the women who voted for him, it wasn’t. But that really is the nub of the matter — the “wrong” kind of women obviously voted for Trump. The “right” kind went with Hillary. And lost.

The Irish media is not alone in being filled largely with dinner-party liberals who have never had an original or socially awkward thought in their lives. They simply assume that everyone lives in the same bubble and thinks the same thoughts — and if they don’t, they should.

Of the many things that have changed with Trump’s victory, the bubble has burst. Never in American history have the polls, the media and the chin-stroking moral arbiters of the liberal agenda been so spectacularly, wonderfully wrong.

It was exactly that condescending, obnoxious sneer towards the working class that brought them out in such numbers, and that is the great irony of Election 16 — the Left spent years creating identity politics to the extent that the only group left without protection or a celebrity sponsor was the white American male.

That it was the white American male who swung it for Trump is a timely reminder that while black lives matter, all votes count — even the ones of people you despise. You don’t have to be a supporter of Trump to take great delight in the sheer, apoplectic rage that has greeted his victory. If Clinton had won and Trump supporters had gone on a rampage through a dozen American cities the next night, there would have been outrage — and rightly so. But in a morally and linguistically inverted society, the wrong-doers are portrayed as the victims. We saw that at numerous Trump rallies: protesters would disrupt the event, claiming their right to free speech (a heckler’s veto is not free speech) and provoking people until they got a dig before running to the media and claiming victimhood.

But, ultimately, this election was about people saying enough with the bullshit. This is a country in crisis, and most Americans don’t care about transgender bathrooms, or safe spaces, or government speech laws. This was about people taking some control back for themselves. It was about them saying that they won’t be hectored and bullied by the toddler tantrums thrown by pissy and spoiled millennials, and they certainly won’t put up with being told they’re stupid and wicked just because they have a difference of opinion.

But, really, this election is about hope for a better America; an America which isn’t obsessed with identity and perceived “privilege;” an America where being a victim isn’t a virtue and where you don’t have to apologise for not being up to date with the latest list of socially acceptable phrases.

Trump’s victory was a (middle finger) to the politically correct.

It was a brutal rejection of the nonsense narrative which says Muslims who kill Americans are somehow victims. It took the ludicrous Green agenda and threw it out. It was a return, on some level, to a time when people weren’t afraid to speak their own mind without some self-elected language cop shouting at you. Who knows, we may even see Trump kicking the UN out of New York.

Frankly, if you’re one of those who gets their politics from Jon Stewart and Twitter, look away for the next four years, because you’re not going to like what you see. The rest of us, however, will be delighted. This might go terribly, terribly wrong. Nobody knows — and if we have learned anything this week, it’s that nobody knows nuthin’. But just as the people of the UK took control back with Brexit, the people of America did likewise with their choice for president.

 

get it while the gettin's good!

just a few miles up i-575 from our north georgia place is the little town of jasper...now jasper is a nice small town with some good history...civil war stuff, the nelson rifle was made nearby, and the marble quarries produce the bulk of marble used in the country...including almost all of the monuments at arlington. but jasper still doesn't have a wal-mart, thank goodness, there are still a few bastions of innocence left (of course there is one within twenty miles both north and south). and there has been growth...especially new neighborhoods full of commuters that work in atl, and commercial growth along 575 (actually it's 515 since 575 ends right about at our place and becomes sr 515 aka sonny perdue parkway...).

and included in that growth is a place called the bargain barn. now the bargain barn has a long history here, but they took the leap and built a new place on the highway after a big fire wiped out the old one. and this place is big...as big as a football field on the ground floor and another football field on the second floor. if you want outdoor sports stuff, forget dick's or bass pro or gander or anyplace else, because the bargain barn has 'em beat. every outdoor garment there is, every boot and shoe, an archery department that includes the most bows i've ever seen in one place, along with all the accessories and guys and gals who know their shit selling them. fishing stuff? aisles and aisles of it. the biggest case knife department you can imagine, like a self contained case store...and other top blades as well. ah, then we work our way upstairs to the hunting and gun departments. a whole area of tree stands fully assembled for tryout, gun safes of every brand, size, and weight. an "optics" department second to none including every leupold made, and dummy guns to try them out on.

and then the guns...ah, yes. five full time guys working the counters. every browning rifle and shotgun is in stock. racks of remingtons, berettas, rugers, and stacks of backstock in view in the back room. ten cases of handguns, though the counter guy told me their inventory level is the lowest he's seen it in the ten years he's worked there, they're still loaded with glocks, springfields, kimber, naa, taurus, charter, and the best stock i've recently seen of smith and wesson, including most of the j's. and they haven't inflated their prices to take advantage of the obama sales boom. standard glock models for 499, naa's for 200, charters for 200, even the smiths were low compared to anywhere i've seen recently. and they were running a sale, 5% off on all guns, 10% on ammo and gear.
and busy? if there's a recession it ain't here...the parking lot holds 200 and i had a hard time finding a spot. let's hope these guys can keep getting inventory because they do as good a job as any place i've seen of stocking it, displaying it, demo'ing it, with personable, knowledgable people selling it. bravo, bargain barn!

i didn't buy anything but i sure had a fun hour there. then when i left i pulled into the waffle house for a bite of lunch; it's next door to a race trac c-store that usually has the cheapest gas around here...and i couldn't believe the sign...1.259 for regular, haven't seen that in a long damn time. reg. was 1.65 when i left sebring, fl yesterday, and i saw it for 1.49 on the highway inside ga. where the tax is lower, but a buck and a quarter? lady at the waffle house counter said they had a real old-fashioned gas war going in town; a new chain store opened up the road and they're fighting it out on gas and 12-packs of cokes...two for four fifty...that's less than nineteens cents apiece.

i wonder what the law is about loading up a truck with barrels full of gasoline and taking it back to fla? no, i wouldn't do it but it's tempting, 'cause you know that shit ain't gonna last. now if this would've happened in the summer, i could have pulled the motorhome out of mothballs and took that alaska trip i've been putting off. it holds 65 gallons and gets about 8 mpg...a little oppressive at four bucks a gallon and you're spending $250 every 500 miles for gas alone. but of course that was the plan, wasn't it? just wait for june, cheap gas will just be a memory, but it's fun while it lasts.

jtc

where were you forty five years ago today?

it's one of those iconic occurences that freeze us in time.

on this day in 1963 the young and charismatic president john f. kennedy was assassinated...and many say this nation's innocence was murdered along with him.

one thing is undeniably true; if you are old enough to remember that day, you no doubt have a sickening sense of deja vu when you think of it...

myself, i was a nine year old playing football in the schoolyard of our little stucco schoolhouse on the shore of lake okeechobee , waiting for the bus to take us home three miles out u.s. 98 among the sugar cane fields, when the word spread that the president had been shot; we didn't know until walter cronkite told us that evening in fuzzy black-and-white that he had died.

we kids didn't really know much about the politics of the day of course, but thinking of it now still brings an odd snapshot image back to me of that sunny play yard and a sense that the happy and carefree childhood that we were enjoying one moment was gone the next.

would history have taken a different course if kennedy had not been killed that day? would the events that were hurtling us deeper into a war in some tiny God forsaken place that none of us had heard of, but quite a few of us would soon find ourselves in -with some of us never to return- have been altered under his guidance? the powder keg of unrest, the uprising on our campuses, racial war and rioting in the streets...would it have been the same if jfk had remained at the helm of our ship of state?

my own sense is that history holds him in a frozen reverence that would not have been possible had he lived and found himself forced to deal with those issues of the era; the world was in upheaval and exploding all around us, perhaps speeded along by the shooting, but inevitable anyway...it would have been more than the legacy of any president, no matter how powerfully inspirational, could endure.

but we will never know.

jtc

biff burger...

Came across a story on the old Biff Burger chain today, and it brought memories flooding back...Friday night was date night in our little town of Pahokee, Fl, on the shore of Lake Okeechobee...my girl and I were 16 and would go to the local drive-in theater in nearby Belle Glade (think Burt Reynolds as Gator McCluskey, though i'm afraid we didn't see much of the movies ;) .Then it was back to Pahokee to hit the Biff Burger for a shake and a sack of fries to munch on as we joined the cruise circuit through downtown, up to the dike (levee) overlooking the lake, and back again in a continuous meandering circle in my Mom's nearly-new 1969 Plymouth Fury III...  That was 1970, and with a baby on the way we were married the following year at age 17 (like i said we didn't see much of the movies), had two girls by age 20 and a boy ten years later...next week on December 18th we will celebrate our 37th anniversary, have four grandkids and a good life in Sebring, Fl, only about sixty miles but a whole world away from Pahokee, and a mountain place in north Georgia. Pahokee is (was) an agricultural town in western Palm Beach County; the sugar cane business is in decline now, and along with it Pahokee and Belle Glade; the Biff Burger closed along with most other businesses in Pahokee long ago, and though the Belle Glade location lasted longer, it too is now history... And what a history it is to us...the Glades Drive-In Theater and the Biff Burger are some of our fondest memories; we will never forget them. Little did we know that we on those Friday date nights in 1970 were some of the last teenagers that would enjoy the pleasures and freedoms of two of this nation's most melancholy memories and cherished institutions...drive in movies and burger joints. I'm sorry they're not around for our kids and grandkids to enjoy...and remember.

Repealing the repeal?

I had thought that DT had gotten this little troll to refocus on the real bidness at hand but I guess old habits and old totalitarians die hard.

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/legal-pot/sessions-end-obama-era-policy-legalized-marijuana-n834591

You'd think he'd know the history though:

https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-prohibition-1779250

Question: Would repealing the 21st automatically restore the 18th, or would it be necessary to repeal the repeal of the repeal?

Yes, he's after the pot not the booze...somebody tell me where the difference lies?

real history...and i let it get away

wifey and i got back to sebring this past weekend, and on monday i stopped by the pawn shop to check up on clint and pick up my check (clint owns the shop now but i kept a minority share; he pays me weekly and the state license is still in my name).

so i'm there for a half hour or so offering what advice i can (price of gold has gone nuts and clint asked my opinion on what jewelry pieces to break stones out of to send the gold to the refiner; good grief, scrap 14k brings well over $16 per gram now, more than triple a few years ago)...and in walks an old fellow...now old guys-very old guys-are not scarce in sebring, especially this time of year...it's a winter mecca for mostly midwestern old folks...we call 'em q-tips...so it's easy to dismiss them without much thought; over the years when i was behind the counter i heard so many stories that started with "back in nineteen hunnerd and...that after a while my eyes glazed over.

but then after reading somewhere that about 2000 wwll vets leave us every day, i would ask guys that i thought likely to be vets if and when they served, shake their hand and thank them for saving the world (my dad's been gone 15 years now; how i wish i'd talked to him more).

clint asked this old fellow what he needed, and the old guy said "well, you don't have it, but i'm looking for an inland carbine made by g.m." now, i had dropped my ffl a year or so before i sold out but clint is ex-army (new generation) so he went into firearms in a pretty big way...he has a wall full of ebr's an a case full of springfield s/a handguns...but also a pretty good collection of neat old stuff standing in the bottom rack, quite a few are from the hundred or so pieces i left him with.

clint says "you know what, i might just have one"...he walks around the counter and picks up a .30, and it's exactly what the old guy asked for; general motors manufactured, and as original as any i've seen...the old boy was a bit shocked, he must have been asking around for quite a while for one (i doubt he's attuned to online access)...then i think he was shocked again when he flipped over the price tag (no doubt he remembered postwar $20 carbines). so he cuddled it for a while and then said he probably made the components himself...he was a machinist at g.m. during the peak of the war and said he made parts for thousands of those carbines...when asked, he said no, he hadn't served in the military, when he applied and told the induction agent what he did for a living, he was told he was doing too valuable of a job to be signed on as a grunt.

so i told him, yes the hell he had served his country in the war, and shook his hand and thanked him...he didn't buy the gun, probably couldn't afford it, but said he'd think about it and left the store.

now, why the hell didn't i get his name, the actual location of his plant, and the years he worked there? when did he stop building those carbine parts and what had he done since then? it's easy to get jaded with old folks when you're in your fifties and you're still the young'uns when you take your wife out to dinner, surrouned by eighty and even ninety-somethings...but this old fellow was American history personified; i wish i had gotten more details, but i am truly grateful to him, to all the other cogs in the wheels that saved the world without any real thanks or recognition, and i'm glad that i met him and thanked him myself.

update: talked to clint the following week, and the old boy came back and bought the carbine! i was very happy to hear this and that clint knocked the price down to $500even though this gun was nice enough to bring 600-650 online or at a show...there is justice in the world!

on this day in history...

mainstream media today is focused almost entirely on the death of mlk, and that is understandable, it is a major 40-year milestone and the event played an integral part in the country dealing with it's internal issues and shortcomings.

but in the even greater scale of things, yesterday was a 60-year milestone of the beginning of a commitment of effort and resources that likely changed the course of the world, or even saved it...and us...from that which might have made the life and deeds of dr. king and all of us either moot or nonexistent.

the marshall plan invested in and saved most of europe from the communism and tyranny that metasticized and ultimately consumed that portion of the world which joined the soviet union's cancerous spread either voluntarily or by coercion.

without that investment in the interests of freedom and capitalism and self-interest, would the empire have successfully absorbed all of the continent and beyond...even beyond the seas? there is no way to know, but what is sure is that the quality of life and prosperity of that downtrodden section of the world was seeded and made possible by the effort, and quite likely ensured our own destiny as an imperfect but free people.

can it be that the crushing sacrifice being made in the arab world now is analagous to europe of the late 1940's? can it be that the effort to save peoples and nations from absorption into an empire of hate and ambition that would make the evil ambitions and intents of lenin, et al seem innocuous by comparison, is truly an exercise in self preservation, and therefore very much in line with the views of isolationists and conservatives that would confine military intervention to cases of direct threat to our nation and our selves?

one thing is sure: deciding if, when, where, and how to commit our children and treasure in the defense of our safety, freedom, and very existence will be the defining mission of government in the next ten years, and if the experience to make the right decisions is not in place, all of the domestic concerns and calls for hope and change will be of no need or consequence. jtc

response becomes reminisce becomes rant...

the munchkin wrangler references (and soundly disputes) a "study" that concludes: “sexual content on tv is linked to teen pregnancy rates”. well, me being me, i started to offer a comment of agreeance...then i sorta went all tangential...


well, i can put the lie to that little study with my own personal little anecdotal history. there surely wasn’t any “sexual content” on tv in my little town in the 60’s and 70’s; we got snowy reception of abc and nbc only, and cable was just a rumor when my sweetie and i were missing the onscreen “features” in lieu of our own at the local drive-in…backseat rendezvous which eventually and predictably resulted in my daughter’s debut when we were both just 17.

hard to put the blame on something that didn’t exist, and we weren’t the only ones…several of our classmates made babies that year and the next, though we might be the only ones still together after 37 years; it’s not an easy or advisable path, that’s for sure. but it wasn't hbo, and it wasn’t ignorance either; this was the height of the counterculture age of “making love not war” which resulted in some fairly blunt and practical sex-ed courses in school, and most of us had pretty straight talk from the parental units at home on the possibilities and consequences. still, it was before aids had reared its ugly head and condoms were used not as much for std prevention as for their decidedly imperfect role of baby prevention, and there were those- ahem- whose preference for bareback sometimes outweighed the potential for parenthood in the heat of the moment, but who decided to accept responsibility and embrace the role of parent once it was, uh, thrust upon us.

but none of this is to say that popular entertainment for our young is anything to champion…the internet, videos, movies, “music”, and yes, television to which our young are exposed and addicted, has absolutely had its negative effects on their concept of what is good and decent and worthy as related to attitudes and actions towards others and even themselves; nudity and sex and love have been degraded and defiled and dulled to the point of eclipsing the beauty, tenderness, sacredness...and personal responsibility...that human relations are based on.

censorship at the hands of parents is an excellent tool; we limit the choices of those who are not yet mature enough to make wise decisions…but in the hands of gov, censorship and restriction of anything; entertainment, drugs, guns, and any other victimless pursuit or pleasure, is fallacy…even counterproductive as evidenced by the reduction in unwanted pregnancies, addictions, and other aberrant behaviors in societies which leave such choices up to adult individuals. that is one of the strongest arguments for "little l” libertarianism, and one which has been and probably will continue to be ignored as peripheral or antithetical to common thought and more importantly to those who would wield it, political control.

jtc

knockin' the no-knock

tam snarked at me a bit here, but she had missed my point...

i didn't say the lady was selling dope...i said she fit the profile and didn't deserve to die for it...there was never further investigation because the whole thing was so stupid, botched, and corrupt, and porked, that it wouldn't matter if she had been selling or harboring dope, and in any case these actions and tactics could never be justified...there are several profiles that attract these nazi raids and we're all at risk...

now, in my best foxworthy (i hate his poser ass)..."if you're an old lady in a bad neighborhood where constant drug deals are made, you might fit a profile...if you're a decent lowtone guy like ryan frederick just livin' your lowtone life, you might fit a profile...or if you piss off an acquaintance who knows you own guns, and he decides to say you have an "arsenal" at you're home, then you more than might become an instant profile..."

again, the point is that the laws and methods used to enforce them...forfeiture, specific grants and subsidies for paramilitary squads and equipment, and the politics of "cracking down", virtually guarantee incidents like this, and anyone who might fit a profile is subject to having their home invaded based on just about any tenuous claim or thread of information, because it is necessary to justify the existence of the squads when there are very few justified uses for the squads.

but it is a mistake to damn the individuals who make up the police squads involved...as i said before, the problem is systemic, and though the system may be rigged to ensure that most cops, while probably good and well-intentioned, are chosen by evaluation to be non-analytical or contemplative, maybe have a few power issues...and most of all be willing to follow orders, and it is the orders and the genesis of them that are the problem.

the family of the lady was interviewed, and that is fine, but not the families of the cops, who are their husbands, sons, and brothers...if my three decades of contact with so many of these guys at every level from street cops and detectives to the brass, even state lea and fed atf guys is any guide, and my informal, unscientific lifetime study of human nature tells me it is, these were badly managed and misled guys who screwed up, panicked, and committed felonies to cover up what they should have never been doing in the first place.

the problem is systemic, all right, but not local...until there is enough understanding that the cancerous nature of laws and controlled behavior makes suspects of us all and is without any basis in the Constitution, we are doomed to more frequent and more broad-ranging intrusions, restrictions, and controls.

laws and policing focused on perpetrators of force or coercion on others, and not on the limiting of personal, private, behavior and responsibility, is the ideal and faraway goal...in the meantime, it's not fair to blame the messengers and characterize them as thugs any more than we should be called rightwing nracontrolled anarchist gun nuts because we appreciate the history, workmanship, function, control, and symbolism that our firearms represent.

my lower-case libertarian interpretation of the Constitution as a whole is that "an individual has the right and freedom to do and act as he sees fit so long as he harms or infringes the rights or freedoms of no other individual"...simplistic but all-emcompassing, though subject to interpretation as usual...that is why a Constitutionalist government and supreme court is so vital to us now, more than ever...and yes, Molon Labe, and all that that implies...jtc

eight is enough!

after eight consecutive overall wins at the 12 hours of sebring, audi falls to not only a porsche, but a porsche in the next lower class from the state-of-the-art diesel-fired audi entrants...in a race where speed is secondary to durability, the tdi audi's and the upstart diesel peugeot just couldn't avoid enough of the crashes and mechanical failures to endure the punishing track and 12 hour duration of the american lemans first race of the season and precursor to the 24 hours of lemans.

and roger penske, the icon of auto racing whose team also won the daytona 500 in this year's first and all-important nascar race, sees his team improbably leap past the top category cars to win not just class but overall honors at sebring in the same year that he was inducted into the 12 hours of sebring hall of fame.

that same induction ceremony also honored audi, the first time a nameplate has garnered that prize; alas, it was apparently a jinx, as the two audi entrants which have finished first and second several times in their eight year championship reign, failed ignobly and are beaten back by the lesser p2 class porsche, and perhaps the most winning brand in endurance racing history regains it premier position...at least for now.

congratulations to porsche, the winning team of drivers, and most of all to roger penske himself, who has endured failure and tragedy but persevered to attain the pinnacle level of success and recognition in all of his racing endeavors.

behind the scenes...

it's easy enough to see who pulls the strings in moscow; the pretty puppet goes through the moves while the plotting puppeteer makes the real plans.

but who (or what)is behind the curtain (heh), pulling the levers for the bo-bot? he makes nice and speaks flawlessly about leading by example, but what is the true vision for our ultimate defense? (hint: his recent voiceover gig and similarities to neverland notwithstanding, it ain't disney...)

could those who call the shots for the former also be architects of the grand design (or the grand disarmament) for the latter?

one might look to history (or channel adolf and ask him) about the value of the firm handshakes and earnest promises of those who would (still) rule the world.

jtc

in honor of dr. king...

i'm not a fan of mlk day being a national holiday. it devalues the honor that is implied by setting aside such a day to honor and observe far more significant milestones in our history...

but i'll say this: listening to his speeches now, with the retrospect and maturity gained as this country worked through the turmoil and did the right thing in respecting the rights of all citizens, makes me realize that this peaceable man was far more deserving of the honor of being the first black man to hold our highest office than the "one" who will be crowned tomorrow.

not that either of them possess(ed) the experience and capabilities required to be the leader of the free world...just that of the two, mlk would be far and away the better, less divisive, and probably far more effective choice.

r.i.p., martin luther king jr....let's hope your vision and methods will live within the hearts and minds of those who follow.

jtc

so, it looks like bo or mac...sigh...

well, it looks like it's down to obama or mccain...and while i can't say that mccain inspires me or impresses me, obama does...just listen to him talk and you'll believe he is the chosen one!

but i'll tell you this, and nothing else really matters...

i have to think that iraq is (was) more of a vacuum than a sieve, and that our mission there, while p.c. couched in humanitarianism, is the chosen stage to draw, divert, and deplete the resources, concentration, and planning of the region’s terrorists, who would much rather be suicide-bombing sites in dc, nyc, london, and tel aviv…

judgement and criticism of this endeavor is above my need-to-know…at some point we must trust in the good intentions and expertise of those we have chosen to (at least for now) guide our ship…and while the captain and crew are employed by us the paying passengers, what we are paying for, it is hoped, is knowledge and experience and they should not be micromanaged by their employers. history will arbit the place of ghwb in its archives, as it also will for bho if and when he reaches the end of his term…

but if it is knowledge and experience we pay our “figurehead” for, i can’t see the bang for the buck with bo…if it is good intentions we value most, we need look no further than 1976-1980 to realize how worthless they can be on the world stage without also commanding the respect and at least the perception of willingness and capability to use force to protect us and ours,… and it is those very military and intelligence agencies you reference which failed on such a monumental, top-down scale until the reagan adminstration turned that perception around.

and while i am no bush apologist and remain unconvinced that the chosen theater will prove to have been the correct strategy (the actual costs in all guises will not be known for a generation), i am convinced that if “change” in our worldwide vision, strategy, and presence is required, i would like a “figurehead” who can do more than say it, howevery earnestly, and convincingly, he may do so.

jtc

could be worse...

it was predictable that with the teevee industry making almost nothing new except "reality" shows, there would eventually be one featuring pawnbrokers; anything that is not widely understood or perceived to be somehow odd or illicit is bound to be a target, so i've been expecting it.

sure enough, a few weeks ago the so-called "history channel" started running promos for something called "pawn stars". great, right off the bat an off-color alliteration to "porn stars".

i've seen a couple of episodes now (twice they've run back-to-back episodes, apparently trying to give the show a shove out of the gate), and it's pretty bad...but not as bad as it could be.

you've got your standard cast of characters/caricatures; the crusty ol' grandpa who founded the business, his middle-aged son who is the main man now, and the son's son, a 300-lb smart-mouth who just wants to get rid of dad and granddad so he can take over and call all the shots. add a 400-lb doofus as the designated clown and a seemingly endless supply of "experts" who are apparently at the beck and call of the central characters, anxious to drop everything to run over to the shop to do appraisals and provide historical data in their specialized fields, and you've got the pawn shop version of "dog the bounty hunter", "operation repo", "deadliest catch", et al.

set in vegas, you expect a different clientele than main street, usa...but damn. it strains credulity (as if reality shows had any) to watch the steady stream of off-the-wall and high-dollar items walking in; an 18th c. hotchkiss wheeled cannon which they drag out into the desert and test fire and subsequently pay 30K for, a civil war officer's sword, a five hundred year old jousting helmet, a 20K chris craft speedboat, a big dog chopper, several scarce antique firearms, a couple of rolex watches, a '54 gretsch, a huge commercial woodworking machine (which required a forklift, a flatbed, and a crew of four to pick up for pawn), even a couple of salvador dali's...all in the first couple of episodes? and the customers are all apparently collectors, businessmen, etc.; where the hell are the housewives pawning their wedding rings to make the rent, the out-of-town gambler who spent it all and pawns his bracelet and laptop for airfare home, not to mention the paycheck to paycheck types bringing in the same flatscreen every month for a couple hundred to get by, and the steady stream of lowtones dragging in useless junk they "found"? and what about the goofballs who come in muzzle-sweeping everybody in the place with the hunting rifle they want to borrow on, and the obligatory druggie/drunk you have to (sometimes forcibly) remove from the premises? shit, if his client list was representative of "reality", maybe i wouldn't have burned out and turned out.

still, the main character has a decent way about him, and at least on camera seems pretty honest and open; most media pawnshop depictions have featured monosyllabic cretins with dirty hands and a dirtier demeanor, so as i say, it could be worse. no doubt most of the stuff is scripted, but if his daily fare is the multi-thousand $ items that are featured on the show, this is one unique pawn shop. and i'm gonna have to get ahold of his rolodex of experts who are so anxious to help him make a deal without trying to scarf the deals for themselves...

so even though this show and others like it should be called "unreality" shows, i'll probably keep watching just because it's one of the rare non-negative portrayals i've seen, and some of the stuff that makes it on camera is pretty cool.

but that name..."pawn stars". *shudder*.

jtc

in pawn...

in 1978 i left my job of five years near lake okeechobee, where i was a sugar mill worker since i was 18...the crew of about a hundred men would refurbish and rebuild the giant mill during the summer, and my job was to help replace, refit, and repair huge steam lines, tanks, pumps, and other equipment...then in november the sugar cane crop starts rolling in and the crew doubles and switches to six months of 24/7 operation of everything from the railroad yard carrying thirty tons of cane per railcar at a clip of 25-30 per hour, to conveyors, giant steam-turbine operated grinding mills (that was my job), with the resulting juice going to evaporator tanks, filters, and pressure cooking pans the size of flying saucers. the thick black granular liquid was then cured in stirring vats, and spun in a bank of centrifugals to seperate the molasses from the dry raw sugar crystals that went straight into boxcars to the refinery or into warehouses where the mountains of golden sugar resembled a moonscape...the waste, or bagasse of the cane stalks was conveyed into and burned in triple boilers that generated steam for all operations plus a power plant with the capacity to run a small town.

this was a union job, and from age 18 till 24 i probably made at least the average yearly income of a four-year college grad...good money to provide for my wife and two daughters which i had by age twenty. but the problem was, this was a pretty coarse bunch of guys, and the bad habits and attitudes were infectious...we are very much products of our environment, and this product wasn't one my wife much cared for. and of course wifey and i were still just 24 and and had already been married 7 years; maybe we needed to see what else there was to the world.

so anyway, even though we lived well, had new cars, and were building a nice house, she left my ass and went back to south georgia for a while. i knew it would be traumatic, but i wanted a change, too; i could look around at guys who had worked for u.s. sugar corp for thirty and forty years, and they were pretty much living the same life as i was, just waiting to retire...not a bad life, but not what you want forever for yourself, your wife, or your kids, really. so i loaded up my tools, cancelled the house (even made some money on that; this was the height of the inflationary boom of the 70s and i flipped the contract for a profit) and i moved to beverly...oh, wait that was jed clampett...no, i loaded up the truck and moved to wpb, west palm beach, that is, just thirty miles and a whole continent away from the rural agricultural region of palm beach county...swimmin' pools, yep, even movie stars, and lots of flashin' lights.

reflecting on a life change as radical as i could handle, i took a duplex apartment that was big enough for the family that i was sure would be back to me in a short time, and answered a couple of help wanted ads in the palm beach post...one was for diebold, the safe and security company that installs bank equipment...hoisting and installing bigass heavy equipment was something i already knew how to do, and they offered a company truck and pretty good wages and benefits; i planned to start the next monday.

but i had noticed another ad, too; for a manager of a pawn shop...and remembered it was on the main road leading into downtown; i drove that way and saw the store, but it didn't look too impressive; i didn't know anything about pawnshops except what most people think they know, which is usually nothing good. plus i already had a good job offer, so i continued through downtown and then over the bridge and across the intracoastal waterway and into palm...beach...proper.

oceanside mansions featuring kennedys, vanderbilts, lots of other old-money names, and even the ultimate new-money name of trump. then a right turn onto the avenue...worth avenue, that runs from the ocean back to the intracoastal, lined with rolls royces, etc.; tiffany, cartier, and all their buds are there, culminating at the end with private yacht clubs with 100ft toys bobbing in the salty breeze...but i digress.

i had planned to drive north along the ocean from palm beach up to the lake worth beach and pier...a great place for bikini watching, and hey, i was single at least for a while...but for some reason, instead i headed back across the intracoastal and past the pawnshop, but this time i pulled in...the pawnshop was nothing like worth avenue, in fact it seemed pretty low-rent to me; but just as i was about to leave, it struck me that the "decor" was by design...shelves might have been cluttered, but over behind the counter was an antique restored slot machine that i knew was valuable; a closer look through the scratched glass of the front showcases revealed not one or two, but at least a dozen rolex watches from $1000 to $5000 (those 5k watches are 20k now)...then a bit further back, four showcases of handguns, all the usual lowend suspects were there, but a whole row of old colts and breakback smiths, the whole line of colt 45's, a dozen or so wood presentation cases holding custom engraved revolvers, and even a set of browning gold-plated renaissance presentation models from the .25 to the mighty hi-power, all with matching numbers...in the back rack among the obligatory cheap .22's and old sears pumps, was a parker double, an anschutz competition rifle, and the first sliding-stock colt ar i had seen in a store...damn...

so i called the number in the ad, and the lady arranged for the owner, she, and i to meet for lunch at a hotel down the road...what unusual people; she a cool, chic, razorsharp jewish american princess who drove a 'vette and was an interior designer...and dick? not the seedy looking little elf i kind of expected but a tall, slim guy with long hair and beard, meticulously groomed, and with penetrating eyes...and only in his thirties. turns out dick had bought out his father-in-law harry (hence d&h pawn) who along with his own father and brothers had been in the pawn business since the 1920's in new york and palm beach...dick had been exposed to and studied and learned from some of the very best dealers, appraisers and collectors in the world of fine jewelry, firearms, coins, paintings and other valuable art and collectibles...there was little that dick didn't know about ancient roman coins, the history and value of fine guns, even 18th century silversmith proofmarks that can make the difference in a set of silver of thousands of dollars.

but dick didn't like to stay in the store...for one thing, he was best at visiting, talking, and consulting with other dealers, including the hotshots in three-piece suits on worth avenue who listened to and respected dick's opinion, and more, they partnered with him on the purchase of large old-money estates, and traded inventory with him so that he had items from these fabulous estates in the unassuming showcase at d&h, and they had access to his knowledge (and money) for big purchases, and also access to his sometimes amazing pawnshop acquisitions...yeah the store was taking tv's, tools, and bicycles in pawn and helping out the little guy till payday...while dick was putting up thousands against the worldly jewels of asset-rich but cash-strapped palm beach socialites with names like dodge...no kidding, the dodge, more on that later.

and so it was that i took the job as manager of dick bergeron's pawnshop in west palm beach at age 24, having spent the five years prior working in the sugar mill just a short distance but worlds away...and the course was set for what would become my life's work in an industry that few understand and even fewer would believe...jtc