In defense of Rough Men.

”People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because Rough Men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

  This quote has been attributed to Orwell, Kipling, Churchill among others. It doesn’t matter who wrote it. The saying stands. When it comes to the hard dirty work the Statesman stands aloof as the rough man gets into it.
  For many many years I’ve looked for the Statesman to return this country to its original idea. All to no avail. That man, if he even exist has not come forward. So an argument can be made for the Rough Man to step up and take charge.
  The American people have also grown tired of the career politicians and the way the country is run. They want a man who, when asked a question, answers that question in plain speech. None of the political blah blah blah. We’ve grown tired of the decline of all the things that has made America what it is. Our freedoms have been eroded. Our hard earned money going all over the world to places that hate us. Our trade deals that restricts our businesses and constricts our economy forcing us to borrow from foreign powers. We want someone who remembers the forgotten man. Enter Trump. The out rider. Not a politician. The Rough Man.
  Trump is a business man not beholding to special interest groups. He didn’t need their money or help to win the election. He loves America and the idea of freedom on which it was founded.
  Trump is crude some times. He does not speak eloquently. He wields his Twitter account as a broad sword. But he puts America first. Trump speaks like the common man in flyover country. He speaks for us when he stands up to our enemies and our friends. The majority of the People have stopped looking to politicians. We understand the Rough Man because we are as well.

A mosque was shot up in New Zealand killing dozens.
Christians are blown up in churches in Sri Lanka during Easter services killing hundreds.
A synagogue is attacked in California resulting in one death.
Hundreds of churches burnt and defiled in France and Europe.
Black churches in the southern United States burnt.
Sri Lankan churches are now closed to worshipers and guards put up on mosques.
 Evil is on the rise.

  I am a Christian and by the Grace of God Roman Catholic. My Faith as well as the teachings of other religions abhors this murder. We are made in the image of God. When you look into another’s eyes you must see God looking back. This is why it is written, Thou shalt not murder. To murder is to remove the Divine spark that resides in the Other. We must treat each other better. That’s why religions around the world also teach some version of the Golden Rule.

  “All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them. For this is the law and the prophets.” Matt. 7:12 (Douay Rheims Bible)

  In other words love your neighbor as your self. That’s the key isn’t it. To love each other. To love the Other. For the Other is God. If we therefore love God we will, we should, we must love the man or women made in his image. When hungry we want fed. So feed the hungry. When sorrowful we want comforted. So comfort the sorrowful. When we are in error we desire gentle correction. So correct with gentleness and love. This must be our chief purpose. Duty to God. Duty to others.
  Whenever these horrible events take place we feel hopeless. What can we do?  Especially when these events take place a world away. So we offer up our hopes and prayers. Our leaders also offer them up. They too feel helpless. The cynics cry out against our prayers and demand action. Action will indeed be done but prayers are not the same as doing nothing. Prayers unite people. Prayers turn the world to God. Prayers bend our will to God’s will. These events drive us to our knees. On our knees should be the first action taken in all things. If more people started with prayer and surrender the evil in this world would be lessened. But not altogether eliminated.
  Suffering will be with us always. Don’t take our suffering away. My suffering today helps me understand your suffering tomorrow. Just as a lump of ore is blasted by fire and forged on an anvil so too our toils form us into fine steel. Those who have lived through the above evils, and many others, are now better prepared to meet the next event. They can better offer comfort to the sorrowful. They can better attend the wounds of the injured; body, mind and soul. They are now a source of strength and inspiration to the world. By the Grace of God they have walked through the valley and the shadow of death. We shall not fear suffering or evil.
  Let us not fool ourselves evil is still out there. The first evil has been perpetrated by those who committed these murders. They will be dealt with. But there is a second evil. An evil committed by the carrion birds who swoop in after these evil events to feast on the dead. I’m not talking about actual vultures but the so-called leaders in this world who use death and destruction to advance their cause. They cannot stand on their own merits but must bend the narrative to perpetuate their evil. They stir up the masses to a fever pitch knowing all along this will continue the us vs them mania. Their only hope for power is to keep everyone at odds with each other. Divide and conquer! The easiest emotional response you can engender in someone else is anger. So, if I can make you mad I can manipulate you. If you have a focus for your anger it can be used to weaken their opponents. And so they point their finger at the Other. The world is full of these us vs them scenarios that destroys our inner peace and bleeds out into the world and perpetuates the evil.

  There is no others. There is only us. We are the light of the world.

Muslims

Muslims. What do you know about Muslims?  Well a recent poll of Muslims living in America is interesting.  A recent poll commissioned by The Center for Security Policy reveals the following:

Of those polled 55% were male,  88% are between 18 to 44 years old and are currently living in the United States.
47% characterize sharia as a guide to the personal practice of Islam
25% agree sharia is a comprehensive program governing all aspects of the faithful Muslim's life.

Sharia vs U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights: 43% for Constitution, 33% sharia.
39% support the American Courts over sharia.
36% think they should be free to choose either.
15% support sharia courts only.

51% want the choice of being governed by sharia.

29% agree with violence against those who insult Muhammad, the Qur'an, etc.

25% agree that violence against Americans here in the U.S. can be justified as part of the global jihad.

Jihad understood by 51% as peaceful, personal struggle to be more religious.
16% believe jihad is the violent holy war against unbeliever of Islam.
11% say jihad as non-violent actions to undermine non-Muslim states and peoples.

54% think that there are violent jihadist in the U.S.

19% thinks the use of violence in the U.S. is justified to make sharia the law of the land.
24% think violence is justified to punish those who offend Islam.
36% think the Muslim Brotherhood is present in the U.S.

According to the Pew Research Center (pewreach.org) in 2010 there are 1.6 Billion Muslims in the world. About 2.75 million Muslims (1% of U.S. population) live in America.  Looking at the afore mentioned poll of Muslims living in the U.S. approxamently 20,000 Muslims are living here who think the use of violence is justified to advance sharia.  If only 10% of them are willing to act upon their violent belief that's still 2000 people willing to attack us here.  Many more would be willing to look the other way or even help those who wish us harm.  Look what two Muslims were able to do in California last week.  Yeah I'd be looking twice at most Muslims I encounter.

We keep hearing about "peaceful" Muslims.  The majority may well be but enough are willing to hijack their so called peaceful religion to advance it to cause pain and suffering to the population around them.  The rest are unwilling to stop the jihadist, to protest or even turn the jihadist in. But we are looking at the problem with Islam all wrong.

Let me elaborate.  Islam calls itself one of the three religions of "The Book".  The Torah, the Bible and the Qur'an are revelations of the One True God according to Muslims.  But I contend the Qur'an is a distortion of God's Word.  Since Satan is the author of lies, he distorts and corrupts all he touches.  As a Christian I see the following as signs of Satan's work.

Islam condemns the Trinity. They view Christians as Polytheists, worshiping more than one God.
Islam considers Jesus a prophet not the Son of God.  They rank Jesus below Mohammad.

God's Law states:
Thou shall NOT commit adultery.  The Qur'an teaches against adultery, punishable by death, but a Muslim man can have several wives and many concubines.
Thou shall NOT murder.  But the Qur'an teaches a Muslim can murder any non-believer to advance the faith. The Qur'an teaches a Muslim can lie and falsely swear to advance the faith and is encouraged to do so.
A Christian man marries a woman and the two become one.  A Muslim man owns his wife(s) and considers them his chattel.  No different than livestock.  Examples of this last point can be seen time and time again when peaceful Muslim men, men put forward as examples of moderates within their faith, beat their wives or even kill them for some violation of the Qur'an.  Their daughters are subject to "honor killings" to atone for some slight to the honor of the father/family.

Time after time the Qur'an takes God's Law written on Man's heart and twists it into something abhorrent. Children, young girls, can be married.  Mohammad himself married children.  When asked how old a girl should be before a husband can consummate the marriage Mohammad is quoted as saying she should be able to bare his weight.  This is sick and flies in the face of Western Civilization's mores.

Many, the President included, point to the sins and writings of Christians as proof of prior bad deeds as an excuse for the Muslims.  The Bible was written by several men (inspired by God) over 1500 years.  Those who wish to point out the violent words of the Old Testament to justify the violent words of the Qur'an do so by ignoring the New Testament which is the Church of Christ.  The Perfect love shown by Christ and the writers of the New Testament is not mirrored in the Qur'an.  The Qur'an was written by one man, Mohammad.  The teachers of Islam say the newer verses of their book overrides the words written earlier.  Meaning the last writings, the ones most violent, have more importance and therefore precedence.

Islam is at odds with modern civilization and our mores.  Islam is a remnant of a mid-evil cult that is an abomination of the teaching of the Bible.  Muslims who behave in a civilized fashion may be at odds with their own religion.  Their conflict and their inability to quell the violent side of their faith is killing us.   It is difficult for me to understand how we can live at peace together.  I am willing to try but how can I be at peace with them when I cannot trust what they say?  If they cannot or will not assimilate into our culture what are they doing here?  I can only conclude that for a few of them they are here to move us in the direction of Islam.

All this rambling is to help me understand our world today.  I also want you to give thought to Muslims.  Our President wants to bring thousands of Muslim refugees here.  Christian refugees are noticeable absent.  65% of Syrian refugees are said to be illiterate and are coming from a war torn area where there is not much in the way of information to properly vet.  There should be a pause from accepting more refugees for those countries until we can set up a better vetting process.  I believe we should help but should we let our compassion get ourselves killed?  What about our families?  Do they deserve to live in fear because of our rush to accept refugees?  The first order of a Government is to protect it's citizens.

Finally.  The group of refugees just forced  upon Texas are young men of military age.  Why aren't they fighting in their own country?  These are not the widows and orphans the President talked about.  Muslims vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Are we being played?  I know what my answer is.

SCOTUS on marriage

These are my thoughts on the SCOTUS rulings this week.

Let me begin by saying I don't care who you marry.  When my daughter Sue gets married I will truly be happy for her and her wife.  I will dance at her wedding.  Not my business but I do have an opinion.

Now, SCOTUS got it all wrong.  It is not for them or any other Federal Government body to define marriage.  The U.S. Constitution does not address marriage.  Therefore it is by definition a States right as defined in the 10th Amendment and/or retained by "We the People" as defined in the 9th Amendment.  The use of the 14th Amendment in this decision is a stretch because that Amendment was passed to straighten out problems that arose after the Civil War when the southern states came back into the Union.  What the Supremes have done is remove the will of the people from the equation and replaced it with the rule of five.  The Government continually takes more and more power from the People and it's our fault.  We vote them in.  Not the Supremes I know but the ones who appoint and confirm them.  We keep running to the Supreme Court to get our wants validated.  We should try working it all out ourselves.

I or anyone else should not have to go to any government agency, hat in hand, and ask permission to enter into an agreement, contract or marriage with someone we love.  I realize some protections need to be in place to protect those who cannot answer or consent for themselves.  But that's not what this ruling was about.  It was the Government inserting themselves into our lives.  If we ask them to define marriage we are asking them to regulate marriage.  They can't help themselves.  We have asked the Government into our bedrooms after all these years of yelling for them to stay out.

Now same sex marriage is the law of the land.  What does that mean?  No one knows but we have some indications.  First every county will start issuing marriage licenses.  Well most will.  I've read of some counties in Alabama who will not issue marriages licenses at all.  For any type of marriage.  How do you get married without a government permission slip?  What are we going to do if the Government doesn't give us permission for every step in our life.  Time and lawsuits will tell.  Yes Lawsuits!  Lots and lots of lawsuits!  Lawyers are going to get rich over this because the government will have to pass laws, rules and regulations to counter all the nuances of enforcing this ruling.  All those laws will have to be adjudicated through the courts.  The Congress will spend time debating and passing these laws further inserting themselves into our private lives.

What about the religious rights of citizens who object to this ruling?  Justice Kennedy wrote in the majority option that our First Amendment rights will not be affected.  Well present and past practices say the opposite.  Already bakers and caterers have lost lawsuits defending their religious beliefs.  A Georgia state worker was fired because he was as a lay preacher in a church that opposed same sex marriage.  A Marine was discharged because of a scripture quote sitting on her desk.  The Solicitor General before the Supreme Court, in answering a question from a Justice about the tax exempt status of religious organizations, stated "That's being looked at".  I've written before how I think this administration would like to force a confrontation with churches so they could strip their tax exempt status to gain revenue and control.  To force a crisis with the Obamacare law so they could force single payer onto every one.  Single payer was the goal all along if you listen to Obama from his 2007 speeches, but I digress.  The President has stated that we have First Amendment rights in our worship and private homes but has indicated that is as far as it goes.  Being a Christian is fine and dandy as long as you keep it to yourself.  Don't take it to work with you.  It has no place in the public square.  Your business, adoption agency, hospital all must conform or be ruined, closed down and fined.

I am a Catholic!  My Church opposes same sex marriage.  Will I be barred from employment because of my faith?  Will I be barred from my social security next year when I reach 62?  Will the Christians have to return to hiding in the woods or the catacombs again?  I could write on how this might be a good thing but that's not for this discussion.

The future is uncertain.  The path is unclear.  But that doesn't matter.  I write to organize my thoughts and I publish to share them.  Thank you for putting up with me.

How was your day?

How was your day you ask?  Well let me tell you.

Woke thinking it was going to be a good day.  Planning on going for some group therapy.  For those not in the know that means I was going shooting.  Loaded up my pistol and some targets and headed up to the American Shooting Range in Peoria.  40 miles later there I was.  I walked in, did the usual dance and jumping through hoops and found myself on the firing line.  Mount the target.  Load the magazines.  Insert a magazine into the pistol.  Rack the slide, set the safety and put the pistol on the table.  I picked up the pistol and swept off the safety as I aligned the sights on the target.

Boom, boom, boom…….. Shit!

The slide locked back and I had a failure to feed.  So I went through the drill.  Slap the magazine on the bottom making sure it was seated.  Pull back the slide and release.  Only the slide would not pull back.  Would not go forward.  Ok repeat the drill.  Still nothing.  Thinking a round was jammed I dropped the magazine and tried racking the slide.  Nothing.  Ok I depressed the slide lock lever and the slide slid forward into battery.  Ok thinking the round in the magazine might be the problem I striped it out and reset the mag.  Racking the slide it worked fine slapping forward as it stripe the next round out of the mag.

Boom……… Shit!

The slide locked back again.  Thinking the magazine was the problem I removed it and inserted another.  I depressed the slid lock lever and the slide snapped forward chambering the round.

Boom…….. Shit!

Ok, emergency repair procedure number 2: I tried harsh language.  Didn’t work.  Ok bullets not jamming, check.  Both magazines having the same problems, check.  Must be the pistol.  I contacted the range officer and asked for his help.  He loaded one of the magazines and shot the pistol.  

Boom…… Shit!  

After several tries he determined there was a problem with the spring on the slide lock lever.  My group therapy was over.  Loading everything up I drove home.  Did I mention it was 40 miles?  I am now in a sour mood.  Ok, I was pissed!  It didn’t help my mood by bumping along on Illinois roads thinking there were too many assholes on the road.  Then I thought there were the right amount of assholes on the road.  One for each driver.

Getting home I call Ruger and am put on hold.  Finely after 16 months (really only 5 minutes) I get a nice lady who helps me prepare to return my pistol to Ruger to be fixed.  So I go to my email to print out the shipping label and …… Shit!  Window’s 8.1 wants me to watch some video before I can print out the email and label.  I watch the stupid video then go to print….. Arrh!  The printer is out of black ink.  Replacing the cartridge I try again.  Success!  Shit!  The shipping label comes out the size of a stamp!  Reformatting the email creates a life size shipping label.  I start to fill out the form in the email.  Serial number, check.  RMA#?  What the hell is an RMA#?  So I poor over the email and shipping label looking for the elusive RMA#?  There is no such number to be found so I call Ruger again.  On hold again for 16 month!  Really only 10 minutes this time.  Nice lady says that’s the reference number.  Why the BLEEP didn’t they call it the reference number on the form?  Ok, I finish filling out the form then clean my pistol.  Getting in the car I head up the Manito Blacktop to drive back to Peoria to the FedEx place.  Only 35 miles this time.  I’m in a hurry because I have to be back by five o’clock to go pick up something from Sue’s.  Halfway to Pekin there is a police car in the road forcing traffic to detour.  I know not why but I now have to drive almost to Manito (where I live) to pick up another road to cross the Mackinaw River.  Well I made it to the FedEx ok after that and tried the Manito Blacktop coming home thinking it might be open now but no.  So I had to detour once again.  But I made it.  So, how was your day?

Camping Cook Pots

OK! Something different for a change.  I'm going to try to incorporate pictures into a story.  This story will not be about politics or religion.  It's about cook pots for camping, so here goes.

When I was in Boy Scouts I used the boy scout mess kit.  What a bad piece of cook kit it was too.  It had a plate, fry pan, small kettle and a plastic cup marked off in quarter cup, half cup, three-quarter cup and one cup measurements.  The frying pan was too thin to cook with and I lost the wing nut for the folding handle right away.  The plate was alright I guess but I ended up using the small pot and the plastic cup the most.  We used the group cook set for the whole patrol but when I cooked for myself all I did was boil water to make instant coco and instant oatmeal.  The only other cooking I did was soup.  Here's a picture of the small pot.

It would hold about two cups of water and did all I needed at the time.

Later someone gave my Scout Troop a bunch of Army surplus cook gear and I was able to snag onto a canteen and canteen cup as well as an Army mess kit.  Again not much cooking in the mess kit but the canteen cup became my new cook pot. 

Here you see canteen cup next to the Boy Scout cooking pot.  This is not the canteen cup I used in Scouts.  This has the better butter fly type handle and a home made lid for it.  The old type handle folded under the cup and when unfolded and hooked had the worst timing for coming undone.  Usually when it was full of boiling water and lifted off the fire.  After our Canada canoe trip I ditched the Army mess kit and just carried a Tupperware cereal bowl to eat out of keeping the canteen cup as my main cooking pot.

Later I wanted a collecting hobby and since I didn't have much money I decided to collect mess kits.  So here are a few I have...

First up is an East German mess kit patterned after the German WWII mess kit.

This kit is aluminium and light weight but I am not a fan of the inner cup and would replace it with something plastic like a Tupperware bowl or a Swedish Kaska cup.  You will see one of the Swedish cups in that mess kit.  This kit will hold about four to six cups of water for cooking and the lid can be used as a small fry pan or to heat up one quick cup of water for coffee or tea on the march.

The next mess kit is another German mess kit.  It may even be from WWII but I don't know for sure.

This kit is the same dimensions as the East German kit just better made and also aluminium.

Next the Swedish mess kit.  It's a little larger than the German ones but not by much.

Here you see it packed together inside its aluminium pot stand/wind screen.  The pot itself is Stainless Steel.  The newer mess kit were made of aluminium and the newest Swedish mess kit look entirely different.

Now you can see the pot does not have the inner bowl the German mess kits have.  Instead the pot is packed with the Kaska cup, trangia stove and alcohol bottle.

You'll notice too that the Swedish mess kit is oval where the German kits are kidney shape.  The Germans would wear their kits on the bread bag or their Y-straps so the kidney shape allowed the kit to ride closer to the body.  The Trangia stove ran on alcohol.  Not any alcohol will do.  The best is denatured alcohol like you get in the paint aisle of a hardware store.  They say you can use the yellow DEET fuel additive too.  The red DEET contains chemicals that are harmful if breathed in when it burns.  The stove is super simple in that all you do is pour in some alcohol and light.  It's a little finicky in the super cold but works well enough even someone in the Army could use it. 

Here are a series of pictures showing the set up and use of the cook kit.  Notice too the D-rings on the skillet handle that allow a stick to be used extend the reach of the pan.

Notice the pot stand unfolded.

The Trangia stove is in place ready to light.  (If it wasn't in my living room on a card table)

The top picture shows the cooking pot in the stand.  The middle shows how the skillet can be used to cover the pot and speed up boiling time.  The bottom pictures shows the skillet in the stand for frying or boiling a small amount of water for a cup of Joe.  Notice too the stick in the D-rings on the handle allowing for greater reach.  Helpful if cooking over a wood fire.

These are all the military mess kits I have so I think I will wrap it up for now.  I'll show some of my other mess/cook kit later.

Death Visits a Child

  This coming November 20^th marks the 50^th anniversary of the assignation of President Kennedy.  The television is playing stories around the clock informing us of all the details of who, what, when, where and why of that fateful day.  I am not watching any of these.  It’s not that I know all about that day.  Nor that I don’t care.  The fall of 1963 had another meaning for me and the killing of JFK was only a part.  That year was the year “Death visits a Child”.

 

   When I was 8 years old, almost 9, in late September 1963 I remember sitting in our car in a parking lot at a Missouri hospital.  Mom and I, and my 2 year old little brother, were waiting for my dad who had gone into the hospital where his mom was.  I don’t remember much about the drive down from Illinois but for some reason I remember eating candy waiting for dad.  When he came out of the hospital I saw my father cry for the first time in my life.  Grandma Watts had died.  This is very big for a little boy who is starting to be taught the life lessons needed to grow into a man.  My father cried, my grandma Watts had died.  This is the first death I had experienced in my short life.  Since I was so young my mom and dad had Grandpa and Grandma Pannebecker (mom’s parents) take care of me during the visitation and funeral.  Later we returned to Illinois and life returned to normal for a little boy.

 

On November 8^th I turned 9 years old.  Five days later my mom’s mom died.  Mom, my brother and I rode down to Missouri with mom’s sister and family.  Dad followed soon after when he could get off of work.  For some reason I don’t remember much at all about this trip except that Grandma Pannebecker had died.  I do remember saying to my mom “two down and one to go”.   She looked at me shocked and said “don’t say that”.  I was making reference to the fact that both grandmas had now passed away in six weeks’ time and one great-grandma remained alive.  As a 9 year old losing both grandmas in such a short time had changed me.  I was not thinking any great thoughts, just all that was normal in my life was changing.  For a little boy change like this makes you begin to think that all things in your life may change.  You begin to wonder what else is going to change, who else is going to die.  Death was changing my world and he was not through with me.

 

November 20^th, 1963.  I am sitting in class when one of my fellow students, a girl named Leslie Maquet, came back from the principal’s office and starting whispering in the class that the President had been shot.  Not long after the principal came over the school speakers telling us the President had died.  Back then there was only three channels on TV and all three were playing nothing but this story.  I saw Ruby shoot Oswald.  I watch as the new President was sworn in on Air Force One with Kennedy’s widow looking on still in her blood stained dress.  I watch President Kennedy’s flag draped casket lay in state in the Capital Rotunda.  I watched John salute his father’s casket as it rolled by on an Army caisson.  The rider less horse with the empty boots turned backwards in the stirrups.  All the flags were at half-staff.  Then “Little Grandma” died five days after Kennedy.

 

I didn’t go with mom to Missouri to her grandma’s funeral because I had already missed too much school.  I didn’t need to for death to tell me my life had changed once again.  I have referred to 1963 as my year of death.  But it was only the beginning.  Latter in the 60’s Bobby Kennedy died.  Martin Luther King Jr. died.  I watched the Watts riots.  I watched Detroit burn.  I watched the Vietnam War on TV every night.  The limp bloody bodies of our GI’s carried across the TV screen day after day.

 

About this time I started doodling dead trees.  Leafless branches attached to dead stumps graced my pages.  Latter I was told by a girl I used to work with that my doodling showed my preoccupation with death.  Perhaps.  However I know death has taught me the rule of change.  The rule simply is “All changes”.  We die.  Life changes.  We move on.  We flow through this river of time, going from one scene to the next in this play of life.  Yet I struggle with this change every day.  I want my life to be the same today as yesterday.  I want the people who were in my life yesterday here today.  I know I cannot get what I want.  I know I must accept the change and the sorrow.  I know this because in 1963 death visited a child.