Veterans on Veterans Day, Remembrance Day and mostly Armistice Day...

    I grew up with a veteran as my father, my uncle was one, too. Seemed that everywhere I looked as I was going to school, that everyone was a veteran. There was still a draft and Elvis was drafted, everyone was a veteran, so it seemed. So with my resolve firm when I figured out I didn't really care to spend more time in college studying my room mates' courses I joined the Army to be a Special Forces member, not knowing I was a year too young, not that the recruiter cared about what I knew as much as he cared that I was whole and breathing. Grand adventures or plenty of time waiting for something to happen and fat paperback books in my cargo pockets. I mentally fought in a hundred battles and wars through reading, movies abound with romantic themes of glory - movies just aren't as real as life is, just as we wish it could be. But seriously, nothing ever happened to me, no wounds, no bayonet charges, and all my fears just in my nimble mind.

  In the Roman Legions of the Roman Republic, in the mass of men and spears of the Greek city states, in Alexander's Macedonians - veterans were the old guys with the scars and slaughtering attitude that firmed up the lines and kept the innocent youth from breaking and running when the opposing ugly showed their fangs and snarls.  Most of George Washington's greatest battles were with his military inexperience and then with fighting the Continental Congress for the men and material to keep an Army in the field... thank goodness he beat both the Congress and the British generals. All he really wanted to do was go back home, to Mount Vernon, which is really what all the veterans want to do, go back home. Not that they wouldn't do it again if needed, but you can get very cynical thinking about how few people understand what you do and why you do it. Always good for a little humor about how bad it could be, but you have been lucky, blest and getting by the best you can.

   Mostly you want to get on with living in peace and plenty, you wish your children to be strong and courageous - but you pray they never have to go, and then realize they always do go, old folks need them and their service almost every generation - so we honor the Veterans today, and next May we will honor the dead lost in our wars. Don't get them confused, but always remember them and the price of peace and plenty.  It is beyond dollars and sense.

Time to remember the 11th hour of the 11th Day of the 11th month, and give thanks like they did when the guns fell silent.

Best tool for the job...

  So I went and shot a hundred and twenty rounds through my 1911 Colt Model 70. I had a couple of little problems and worked through them. Which makes me think that I might need new magazines and some gunsmith work.  In the reflective light of mowing the wet grass this morning, I realize that buying my way to happiness will never be as effective as working my way to the point of good shooting on time on target.  Since the pistol isn't most of my problem, and I am easier to reprogram for success than the ammunition, magazine and pistol.

Not doing it for the glory of God, nor in the name of the LORD...

  just means not very important, and probably sure to fail. But the challenges of the country are not found in the belief in God, they are found in the belief in other men and women, and the lack of faith.

   I was raised to believe that a promise was a promise, that a man's handshake was part of the bond between us and meant that we could work together for our good.  I was raised to think I should carry out my work, duty and service to the best of my ability.  And to know that sometimes it wouldn't work nor be enough and admit failure and get up and try again.  Conquer the problem by solving it for myself then others.

  I finally realized that no one in Washington, DC or in the banking systems around the world expects to have the debts paid off, they all expect to stay chained in partnership forever since both lender and borrower get their needs satisfied.  If you are a little borrower, the lender owns a piece of you, if you are a giant borrower then you control a piece of the lender. The governments are about power, which in the big picture isn't muscle and iron, it is what you control.

  Who controls you? Where is your contribution to the powerful? Why?

    

Okay debate analysis...

  I watched another debate, and sure enough, I have noticed finally (I am slow about stuff) that the opponents are the candidates and the moderators, that is the two sides with agendas.  The moderators have to promote drama and interest - this last debate was against the World Series, and all the professionals were wearing uniforms with total fan involvement. The amateurs were in suits in indoor comfort in Colorado. That they were amateurs was pointedly pointed out by an off his rocker sitting governor from Ohio, the too long sitting governor of New Jersey was running for Presidential Office as to be considered highly for Attorney General with a possible Supreme Court nominee future. Doctor Ben Carson is concerned for the nations' moral health while the survivor of the Clinton political machinery was proposing making big changes in how the Federal government conquer big ticket health killers.

   It is good there are so many different ideas on stage, one size fits all is the bland beige Democratic Socialist Party poop and no one wants to step in it. 

   Did it make my mind up? Nope, there are several people on that stage and would do a better job of the President than the opposing party... but we will have to wait and see what the folks behind the curtain will allow to lead us... cause you do know the fix has long been in, don't you?

  If I believed that Jeb! and Marco liked each other enough, Jeb! striking out at Rubio's poor attendance record on votes were because Jeb! is saving his best for later when he gets anointed by the Establishment Olde Foggies, and boosting Marco's poll numbers and performance opportunity for the night. Jeb! reminds me of the student that has everything except true reason for living and a solid sense of his silly, and then has no standing in the clique because everyone is playing by different rules they make up as they go, which is just not fair to someone that is given every opportunity and still is boring.

   I will point out that the difference between 2011 and 2015 is four years, and the Republicans were not well served last time by too little choice, and this time don't seem well served by too many choices, but I was involved last time, since I thought I could really make a difference... I know so much better now. Aside from very real voter fraud, which has been prosecuted for the last two years from that last election, and is still on going --- to all the fast stuff the GOP did to the TEA Party and the tea party to produce Romney and Ryan, who were never ever going to win against the Real African-American Peace Prize winner, there was never a doubt the fix was in, and the lack of real honor in the political classless folks means to me it will happen again... and war games on the computer give me a more satisfactory victory. Like every day on the range is better than an hour on television viewing.

Where did it go, where do we start, how do we survive...

    America is gone, right after Western Civilizations 101... a relic of a different age and a new human race evolved... NOT.

   Getting back into Sunday School teaching (??? guiding might be a better term) I understood I had forgotten youth and the constant effort to control ones growing self and everything around them, call it play, learning, developing or stretching into the unknown - it is constant.  I have been ill and mostly just a problem to be around for over two weeks, but the children actually became nicer as I tried to  perform; thank them, their parents and the Lord. But as I sent them on their way Sunday I wanted them to find a definition of Honor, or as they would in England 'Honour'.  There are so many words I use and know and are part of my life and definition that my brother knows and has changed the meaning of over his years of growing. He also has different core values, but then he isn't the future of the world - his grandchildren are.

   I never see Glenn Beck, since he departed FOX before the Five, but he was pointing to the culture and the elite establishment, to include political, as being out of touch with mainstream Americans, which aren't really in the center of the foolishness - but the whole group is immoral, accept others as immoral, and think that will make a better world.  He also said that the America that will come from descending into that immorality will be so very evil and ruthless that it would never be forgotten but held up as the worst ever.  Got to be first as something, don't they?

  Anyway, what attracts followers of the different candidates is the failure of the current, in both parties, of elected officials to get it done well, on time, on budget and working as promised.  Which is the result of immoral behavior, we aren't telling each other good myths, fairy tales, and moral stories where good triumphs through - thought, planning, execution and lots of sweat and the good Lord's blessings. You know, like functional families, farms and small businesses and crafty stuff... little very important things.  There is a sad lack of heroes held up as examples - as I repeat to my instructors on the rifle ranges, never teach nor demonstrate the wrong way to do anything - it becomes a focal point. Always emphasize the right way, the best way, the way that the body will make the best shot - once the shooter is out of the 'I' of the shot.

   Time for breaking fast, I watched 'Waterhole number 3' last night, enjoying the movie, thanks to Roger Miller my favorite laughing balladeer.  Code of the West.

These United States of America...

   I have been reading Doctor Ben Carson's book A More Perfect Union . A fine book with solid ideas, since it is based on the most successful Republic of modern times.

   I will liken the America I know with the man, the fat olde white one, I see in the mirror.  Because we suffer from the same foolishness.  We got fat, sure we told ourselves we were just doing more, getting stronger, buying the right clothes, getting the good stuff for the table and the home and the family... but we got fat, the teeth rotted and the hair fell out.  We got high blood pressure, which is a risk factor, and treated it and so lost lots of the glandular functions which make for new problems.  So maybe the government did something similar and it will hurt in the long run, won't it? We have two cars, four monitors for cable and computer, a cell phone and a regular phone and Skype.com can come in on the computers.  So too much information, and since I can reach out and contact people in foreign nations - I think that I am in control. Just like those government officials in the DC area, the ones that can't keep drugs from the streets and can't trust the population to be armed.

   Until someone decides that we go back to the smaller Federal Footprint on our necks, pays down and off the debt, and gets rid of the fat that makes us no longer fast and nimble... we are going to die.

   You want a fast growing economy, get the government out of it. Business and Capitalism work better than any other system.  Reports from Denmark are interesting, but Hamlet isn't a prince there, any more.  The original Republic worked well too, but then it got older and fat. Not the man, nor government they were meant to be.

So time changes and improvement becomes the new stupid...

  Playboy, magazine with the centerfold, is folding.. on to other things. Once the entire nation embraces naked women on Time Square and on my home computers - the idea of artful uncovering of the beautiful innocent girl next door - just can't get many takers.  Back from the Gulf War and in Germany I had a soldier ask if I had seen the latest Playboy since it had an interview with Rush Limbaugh.  I had laughed loudly, not remembering the last time I had opened one up.

   When I found Rush Limbaugh listening to some strange First Sergeant tell about only having fifteen bullets to jump into Haiti later, and Rush believing him, I stopped worrying about Rush.

  Media fed madfool disease, it is catching. If you tell the lie often enough and loudly enough it never becomes a truth, just another uninformed voter.  So the Emperor of the Empire state and his cronies pass the SAFE act, and it finally goes up before a court that can't read the Constitution, and the Court says something to the effect that the People don't have a right to keep and bare arms, because the Mafia and its cleaner followers are declaring it out of touch.  The good emperor did not disarm his police forces... to keep them equal before the law.  So New York is quickly becoming as safe as olde York in England. 

  It is good to be old and know the end is near, I am sure of my reward when I depart. For all those living under the stupids, it wasn't supposed to work that way.  But mankind has always found a way to make perfect the enemy of good.