A Christmas Story

I have a cold. And I got it the only way I know how to do things -- the hard way. On Christmas Eve, I decided I'd give myself a present. I had this bright idea to get a head start on the new year by testing the strength of the Equal Rights Amendment -- you know, the ERA -- the free pass that enterprising women have used for years to back stubborn men into corners...

My friend Bernie is always bragging about what a success he is at snagging bass. He says it's too bad the Bass Club is men-only, and he lords it over me that bass fishing is a "man's" thing -- not for wussies. Not for women. Not for me. Well, I don't like to brag, but I've caught my share of fish over the years, and I can spin a tale with the best of them. I decided it was time to shut Bernie up and crash the "men only" bunch of happy hookers. So, when I approached the president of our local bassin' club, I was armed not only with the ERA, but with a myriad of rebuttals for his excuses, arguments or evasions.

"Sure you can join," he said, his eyes sparkling good-naturedly. "All you have to do is fish in two tournaments. If you pass muster, you're automatically voted into the club."

"Really...just like that?" I asked suspiciously. "Okay, then. When fishing weather rolls around --"

"Oh, no!" he countered, the sparkle now a glint. "Be out here at 3 in the morning. It's always fishin' weather, and we're having a tourney tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? But tomorrow is Christmas!"

"Three-ay-em. Unless, of course..."

"I'll be here!" I exclaimed hurriedly, determined not to be dispensed with so easily. "I'll be here. But -- don't the tournaments usually start at six?"

"Yeah," he grunted. "But you're gonna be fishing with the best -- good ol' Luther, and he likes to get out early and get the lay of the lake."

Thus, I became a willing and unsuspecting pawn in the hands of good ol' Luther. I was even buoyed by a feeling of camaraderie as, excited and shivering, I approached the icy, pre-dawn waters on Christmas morning.

"Where have you been?" An angry voice shattered the stillness. Peering into the darkness, I saw the lean, impatient Luther, gandy-dancing on the dock. He confronted me, blood in his eye, rod and reel poised like a lion-tamer's whip. His coveralls, zipped to the lip, were blazoned with a lightening bolt and the words, "Idi Amin Dada -- Conqueror of the British Empire!"

"Bu--but it's only 3 o'clock..."

"We leave at three," he snapped as he leapt lithely into the shallow bassing rig, leaving me to clamber unsteadily aboard and slink into the "tower seat" high in the sleek boat.

"...life jacket!" Luther mouthed as he started the engine -- a sudden explosion that sounded like a reverberating howitzer. While I groped in the darkness for the jacket, Luther blasted out of the cove. If he noticed I was smashed into the seat; if he heard the snap of my neck -- the castanet rattle of my spine -- he gave no indication. I still get grim satisfaction out of knowing that there are irreparable "chin gouges" in the back of the padded seat in Luther's flat-out racing bass boat.

I could tell right off that "fun tournament" was beyond Luther's comprehension as he tried to get the jump on the rest of the club members who were beginning to show up. He held full throttle; we were aboard a devil craft, rocketing into the eerie pre-dawn fog. Whimpering, I clung to the side of the boat, where I'd fallen upon take-off. Luther ignored my groans when my thermos of steaming coffee went spinning into the lake. He glared at me menacingly when my plastic worm slipped from stiff fingers -- and warned me wickedly that bass fishin' was serious business.

Each time the wind shifted, we were off again; the tip of the boat standing at haughty attention. There's nothing more invigorating on a Christmas morn than icy spray rattling on teeth set against lips frozen into a permanent snarl...

I tried to get Luther's attention, but I didn't have a gun. I prayed for deliverance. I prayed for Luther to get snagged by one of the dead, witch-like trees that grasped and clawed as we soared by. Then -- I just prayed.

Finally, mercifully, it was 5:30 and time to head back to shore and "rev up" for the fun tourney. From my position in the bottom of the boat, I could hear light "men only" banter as the rest of the gang jockeyed for position.

I struggled to give good ol' Luther a scathing look, but my eyes were frozen shut. "HELP!" I whispered as we nosed against the dock.

They all pitched in to get me out of the boat, and it didn't take but a few minutes to chip away the two inches of ice around my feet. They didn't even break anything when they folded my stiff body into the seat of my car.

"Be back out here tomorrow at the same time for the final phase of your initiation," Luther said, patting me on the head ever so gently so as not to break my hair. "That's the fun part -- going after the big ones. All you gotta do is catch yourself a bass, and then you'll be one of us."

ME? One of THEM? I stared at Luther with wild eyes -- now frozen open. "When donkeys fly!" I attempted to shriek, but my frozen lips could only muster a plaintive, "Aaaaarrrhhh..."

So, here I am, still shivering and nursing a cold, and coming to grips with the fact the ERA isn't all it's cracked up to be. But on the other hand, why would I want to be out there with Luther, baitin' bass -- when I can be here with you, bashin' Bush?

Happy New Year!

Culling the Herd

"Everything you can imagine is real"~~ Pablo Picasso

In 1974, a year after orchestrating a mass terror bombing of Cambodia -- after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize -- Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his National Security Council completed “National Security Study Memo 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.” This document, whose sharp edges are dulled by page after leaden page of how to reduce over-population in the Third World through birth control and "other" population-reduction programs, was classified until 1989, but was almost immediately accepted as US policy, and remains the US blueprint for ethnic cleansing today.

It is difficult to imagine the staggering number of innocent humans who have perished through war or famine as a direct result of Kissinger's half-century obsession with, and lust for, genocide. It's even more difficult to imagine the cruel indifference with which Kissinger, and those like him in positions of political and corporate power -- the elite -- continue to plan the elimination of millions, even billions. All under the guise of national security, or to spread freedom...democracy...

Kissinger targeted a number of "key countries" whose populations, he said, must be curtailed and controlled lest they gain economic, political and military strength, and thus threaten US strategic interests. "Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world," Kissinger said, "because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries.”

Then, as now, any nation refusing to surrender its natural resources was an ominous threat to our national security and was dealt with initially through birth control and other population-reduction programs such as food rationing. But that was too slow for Kissinger, for Brent Scowcroft who replaced Kissinger as national security adviser and was put in charge of thinning out the Third World population, and for his eager enabler, CIA Director George Bush who trotted like a love-starved puppy at Kissinger's heels for decades.

At first, they used food as "an instrument of national power" to coerce the dumb masses to stop copulating and populating, and then as a deadly weapon because widespread famine not only dealt death quicker, but it was cost-effective. And it made more sense. Like Kissinger said, "To give food aid to a country just because they (sic) are starving is a pretty weak reason."

If we could imagine the suffering endured by victims of such perverse inhumanity, we might feel a twinge of outrage or, as George Washington so succinctly put it -- a "little spark of celestial fire called conscience." Or not. Perhaps we are so far removed from reality because our minds cannot grasp the horror of that reality. Those who seek to destroy the denizens of this planet are totally without compassion or remorse. They are grotesque mutants who kill indiscriminately in their relentless drive for world conquest and domination.

It's naive to think the carnage will stop once predators such as Kissinger, Alexander Haig, Robert McNamara, George H.W. Bush, and other One World advocates, many of whom are in their 80s or 90s, are no longer in our midst. With the release of thousands of tons of Depleted Uranium in both Bush Gulf Wars and Afghanistan, they have poisoned food, water and air, and turned the entire region into massive radioactive death camps. Without fear of accountability, they have ensured the slow, agonizing extermination of entire populations, to include the American military, whom Kissinger views as "dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy" -- and their families -- that will continue for many generations.

We're like herds of cattle, grazing placidly, unable or unwilling to imagine that we might share the same fate as the millions throughout the Third World targeted by the elite as "bottom feeders," contributing nothing -- eating into their profit -- gluttons who must be dispensed with. Any rancher or farmer will tell you that it's good business to cull the herd for a variety of reasons, such as market outlook, cash flow, or just to maintain a healthier, more easily controlled mass of cattle. It makes no sense to keep problem cows, the elderly, the ill or non-productive around. There comes a time when you must cut your losses -- and cull the herd.

There are those who, unlike Kissinger and his co-conspirators, are not interested in profit or power, but believe fervently that human population is destroying the planet. Perhaps the most outspoken is University of Texas evolutionary scientist Dr. Eric R. Pianka, who gave a speech in March 2006 advocating the elimination of 90 percent of Earth's population.

According to Forrest M. Mims III, Chairman of the Environmental Science Section of the Texas Academy of Science, and the editor of The Citizen Scientist, Pianka shrugged aside war and famine -- too slow -- and said "the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die" is disease. Pianka advocates airborne Ebola because, he explained, "it is highly lethal, and it kills in days, instead of years."

Pianka drew rounds of enthusiastic applause throughout his speech, and a standing ovation when he threw in the Bird Flu for good measure, and quipped gleefully, "We need to sterilize everybody on the Earth." Five hours later, the University presented Pianka with a plaque, not for winning hands down as "Mad Scientist of the Year," but in recognition of his being named 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.

It doesn't take a wild imagination to know that genocide is real, and it's underway in America. The most blatant example is the barbaric response to Hurricane Katrina victims -- withholding food, blocking aid, ignoring those clinging to rooftops while crying out in vain for help, leaving corpses to float in the flooded streets or to rot in the Superdome.

If you start with the poor, minorities, elderly, the ill or non-productive, the culling becomes much easier the next time around. Those who wait become inured to the inhumanity and, rather than rise up against it, breathe sighs of relief that it's others and not them who are rounded up and herded to the slaughterhouse.

Imagine what life would be like if the Food and Drug Administration did not ensure the safety of our food chain...if our creeks and rivers were polluted by sewage and industrial waste...if vaccines forced on our children caused mental deficiencies, even death...if mothers were afraid to breast-feed their babies because the environmental toxin perchlorate present in our food and water supply accumulates in mother's milk...if our air was contaminated...if we had a government cold-hearted enough to withhold food and aid from the needy and health care from poor children...if we were spied upon and incarcerated, tortured, disappeared without charges...

Oh yeah. I forgot. That is what our life is like. All that, and more, is grinding relentlessly away at our safety, our health and our lives.

We have the power to remove these madmen. They are criminals under Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, and they must pay for their crimes. One more year wherein millions more throughout the world are slaughtered is, as they say, not an option.

The culling must stop, even if we are forced to stampede. They must be impeached. Go here, here, and here and take action.

Straight Talk -- From Cal 45

I do not care about the votes of gays, straights, jews, gentiles, rich, poor, christians, aethists, vegans, meat-eaters, recyclers, liberals, conseratives or flat-worlders.

The purpose of government is to:

1. Keep the playing field level -- socially and economically for the sake of what reasonable people would define as a "civilized" society

2. Represent the majority and protect the minority

3. Enforce the common laws

4. Protect the democracy from internal and external threats.

Period.

Those who vote on a "single issue" alone deserve what they get -- which is an entire nation whose citizens have their heads up their asses, voting against each other instead of for good government. This naturally results in bad government, which made their issue an "issue" to begin with...and on it goes.

President Theodore Roosevelt said...

"We freely extend the hand of welcome and of good fellowship to every man, no matter what his creed or birthplace, who comes here honestly intent on
becoming a good United States citizen like the rest of us . . . Americanism is a question of spirit, conviction and purpose, not of creed or birthplace. The politician who bids for the Irish or German vote, or the Irishman or German who votes as an Irishman or German, is despicable, for all citizens of this commonwealth should vote solely as Americans."

If I could be dictator for a day, I would have these words tattooed on every citizen's forehead....heh,heh,heh.

Cal 45