The Damaged Lobe

It was cold and windy, reddish dust being kicked up by a brisk breeze painting a distant sun in an unnatural scarlet hue against the canvas sky.   It was a foreign place covered with rock that looked like it was chiseled from a Paper Mache mold and painted a grayish tone with a can of primer.  The first thing he noticed was how open and free it was, having spent months in a place that was so familiar he felt comfort no matter where he went, a domicile that traveled amongst the stars.  Now here he was standing on the soil of a foreign land, but no matter where he stood it would feel foreign to him, even if it were his parents’ home in the forested northern regions of the state of Utah, a place he had not seen for ten years.   The party moved forward through the whipping sand which stung his skin and and filled his lungs.  He struggled to keep up, the others moving through the dust like silent ghostly apparitions disconnected from anything either real or imagined.  Periodically the party would stop and the leader would talk, look at the ground or point at something off in the distance.  He continued to move forward with a guarded caution, taking in the surreal landscape that spread before him.  At any moment a local indigenous could appear, hostile or friendly, it was not known either way.  Suddenly the party ahead of him stopped and so he looked around trying to see what it was that they were doing.  They reached for their holstered weapons and pointed them at something that was coming out from behind a large boulder.  He hastily fumbled for his weapon as adrenaline coursed through his body.  The image appeared, large and foreboding and of a shape he couldn’t immediately recognize. The creature turned to him, raised a hair covered hand as an ominous glow appeared from its wrinkled palm.  Suddenly the glowing mass shot towards him and he froze.  Death was imminent now.  He was going to die on this barren rock as so many had before him.  The party was watching him in shock and he felt a dread and humiliation knowing he was going to perish in front of his comrades.  But he saw the leader’s eyes peering at him through the dust.  The eyes were speaking to him, you have done well and you have protected your captain and saved all.  You are truly a great warrior, go in peace my friend.   He felt the intense heat from the mass of energy and just moments before he knew he was going to be incinerated one last thought pervaded his mind, now gripped in the reality of an impending death.  He quietly muttered his last words.

“Fuck you Kirk.”

And so it goes for those who bear the cross of the red shirt.  A lonely, lost and melancholy band of security experts assigned to protecting the starship U.S.S Enterprise.  A hulking mass of a starship that travels to strange new worlds, its mission statement, “To boldly go where no man has yadi yadi yaddah…”, whatever.  It’s not important to these lonely misfits, chosen because of their lowly cultural status in the civilization, lured into military service by the promise of adventure, a pension and a good dental plan.   In text book language they are titled “security detail” but amongst the crew and officers of the ship they are simply “the redshirt guys”.  On any other starship they would have had more than a gamblers chance of making it through more than fifteen minutes of an episode.  But not on the Enterprise.  They meander through the complex level of decks alone or accompanied by other redshirt guys because no member of the ships more than four hundred officers and crew will be willing to get attached to them on any personal level.  Even when off duty and not clad in their trademark uniform that has come to represent doom you can easily spot a redshirt guy.  Chain smoker, bourbon drinker, somewhat jittery, drunkenly humming the tune of “swing low, sweet chariot” alone in a poorly lit recess of the bar.  Their eyes are dark and sunken by lack of sleep and a relentless assault of nightmares, not a moment for repose.  They are led by a brash and daring captain referred to as a legend, a brilliant tactician, and a hero of the Starfleet, endearing admiration from those who served under him.  The redshirt guys simply refer to him as “The Reaper”.  Whenever the word comes down to assemble a team it’s the Reaper that has come to collect.  Every time they approach a new world they wait in utter dread for those foreboding words “Captain, there seem to be organic life forms present”.  At which time the redshirt guys all seem to become stricken with a mysterious flu.

“Jones, Smith, Thomas and Evans, you’re going with the landing party down to Gorgon five. You are detailed to protect the Captain, Science Officer and they gay Asian helmsman. Good luck.” The master chief pats them on the back and then walks away, having completed the ritual of disconnecting himself emotionally from the redshirt guys who more than likely will meet some violent and disgusting death.  But what they hear is “Jones, Smith, Thomas and Evans, you poor bastards drew the short straw and therefore are completely fucked.  Leave your belongings on the table so we have something to send home to your mom.”    

Red shirt guys don’t date.  They don’t marry.  When they try to strike up a conversation at the enlisted lounge the female always seems to suddenly have some important duty to attend to. 

“Say there, ever been to Ajilon Prime?”

“No I haven’t but I think I need to get back to my quarters and watch Project Runway.  It’s in its nine hundredth season you know.”

They are the emotional lepers of the crew.  That asshole Kirk goes through redshirt guys faster than the sweatshop in Singapore can produce red shirts.  It’s a running joke that when the Enterprise docks two requests go out. More dilithium crystals and a butt load of redshirt guys.

Redshirt guys are can never escape the wrath of the screen writer.  Even on the ship they are not safe.  Often the Reaper will announce that they are beaming up some alien delegation for some wining and dining who invariably have a taste for violently taking over starships.  It’s great that the Reaper hates to lose but his taste for victory always seems to come at the expense of the redshirt guys and when the announcement comes over the intercom that a group of Klingon flunkies are boarding for turkey legs and booze the redshirt guys know that things are going to get bad real fast. 

So they spend their nights drunk and their days in therapy, knowing that soon a fateful demise will await them, probably in the first fifteen minutes of the next episode.  They silently pray for a stay of execution, an updated security detail training program and a soft blue shirt instead of the “hey I’m wearing the offensive red color despised by cultures throughout the galaxy.”

Then they say goodbye to their comrades and head for the transporter room.  Heads hung low, hoping to all ends for a transporter malfunction or a last minute change of heart by their captain.

“You know guys, this planet sucks.  Lets move on.”  but alas the beaming begins and they leave their beloved Enterprise once and for all for some desolate, hostile planet in the middle of nowhere to be briefly remembered by the deck officers as the graceful starship departs without them.  

I am a redshirt guy.          

Next up…  Are you a Kirk, Picard or a Redshirt guy?    

Poetry is to me what waffles are to him.  Often toasted and covered in a sticky substance sprung from a New Hampshire deciduous.  The very trees that poets flock to see when the leaves turn gold and red and fill their poetic minds with words of beauty and eloquence.  Poets are dreamers, death squads are realists.  Poetry is the great farce of modern time.  What is poetry?  It’s the cerebral vomit of modern man.  And beware the poet that says “I wrote this piece in five minutes” and it’s full of words most college graduates can neither pronounce nor enunciate.  And beware the author who begins sentences with a preposition.  I write poetry.  I write poetry when I’m drunk and it’s not the beautiful flowing existential poetry that requires a half hour of deep thinking and a thesaurus.  No it’s the true poetry that requires much deep thinking the next morning along with a Tylenol or two.  My poetry is neither aesthetic nor deep.  It’s the “jump off the bridge’ poetry rather than the “come give me a hug and a tissue because I just discovered myself through these cleverly arranged nouns, pronouns, verbs and adjectives” poetry.  What is poetic justice?  Nothing rhymes with justice.

When god created man he was forced to create woman in order for the species to propagate.  It all went downhill from there.  From the time women discovered men were always trying to stick a penis in them and then when they did they spent nine months trying to shoot a bowling ball through surgical tubing they have been pissed off.  For centuries men have been trying to figure out women and since they are like the oceans, deep, mysterious and covering three-fourths of the planet, it can be overwhelming at times.  So god invented sports.  Then god invented cable.  Then god invented texting.  This was so men could escape the wrath.  But previously and in a moment of haste god had invented the exclamation point.  There is no escape.  It’s amusing that we always make animated movies involving talking animals that evolved with no vocal chords.  Man has long desired to understand what animals are thinking and how wonderful it would be if we could talk to animals.  I really don’t want to speak to birds, the idiots of the natural world.  Why is it that evil animals have a British accent?  The answer is simple, evil animals all attended Cambridge, where non-British accent animals attended public schools in Oakland.  If all evil things in the world attended Cambridge why are the prisons so full?  So there you have it, crime does not pay, and therefore a college education does not pay, except on the plains of Africa where the public schools always prevail.   But then again how many animals on the Serengeti were involved in Ponsi schemes?  I would say Jackals; Jackals are the Bernie Madoffs of the African frontier.  Coincidentally I explained Darwin to my daughter last night. I told her it was a city in the middle of nowhere that people with no money go to vacation so they can smoke pot and poke around the mangroves not realizing there is a twenty-foot long salt water crocodile eyeing them.

In the simplest of terms I had just described natural selection to a twelve year old.

Goodnight to you all.

Goodnight to you Jenny

In a packed hospital in the Philippines shortly after midnight on Halloween day a small infant lay as crowds of photographers snapped pictures and ogled at the newborn little girl named Danica.  Amid the fanfare the parents were presented with a small cake by attending UN officials celebrating little Danica’s arrival.  Why all of the attention paid to this seemingly normal baby born to two working class Philippine parents?  Danica represented the seven billionth human on earth.  Just one hundred and seven years ago there were only an estimated one billion people on the planet.  Although it can’t be said with any accuracy what the human population of the earth really is, it could be less or could be more, it represents a milestone in the human race.  What Danica signifies, whether she likes it or not, is a problem of human growth that has gone seemingly unchecked for the last century.  In an age where people live longer, infant mortality is down and we find new ways to combat our only true natural enemy, disease, we can only expect the planets population to increase.  It seems the only thing that slows down human growth is a bad economy.  Birth rates are down in the United States and have been declining since the big financial meltdown.  It used to be that birth rates dropped during tough times, such as during a drought or a minor ice age.  But now we have to put things like being upside down in our mortgage or having two car payments first before we bring a new human into the world.  But this seemingly abstract way of determining whether or not we hit our mean of 2.02 children may have a short term benefit.  The world will one day reach a point at which we can no longer support the population that expects to have food, shelter and clothes.  Where exactly is this tipping point of humanity?  No one really knows for sure. It won’t be that one day the world collapses in on itself from the weight of civilization.  It will be much more insidious. 

 

Economics is the study of markets.  We live and die financially by how our markets perform through the trade of both international and domestic goods and services.  One thing you learn in economics is the law of supply and demand and price elasticity.  Currently goods such as food for instance, have little response to price elasticity, meaning that if the price increases for food demand will largely remain unchanged.   As the earths population grows however so will demand and this will have an impact on the price of commodities such as pork, meat, fish, wheat and corn.  The reason for this I believe is that the population will also increase demand in other areas and therefore increase prices for basic commodities not to mention there will be less to go around.  Petroleum products will skyrocket, a commodity with a great deal of elasticity and the cost of getting those goods to market will increase and at the end of the day, being a free market, producers of commodities will still need to make a profit to keep their business running.  Nowhere else will this impact be felt more than in the developing world where families are already struggling to get by on no more than a few dollars a day.  Yet it is the developing countries where we see the highest birth rates.  While population growth is slowing in the United States, except for those looking for a higher welfare check, populations in Africa and Asia continue to explode.  Europe will see a population decline in the next century but overall the population of the planet is expected to hit ten billion by the end of the century.  Population growth is exponential and while efforts at education and using contraceptives will be a key in the next hundred years to altering the growth rate urban areas around the planet will groan at the weight of humanity being pressed upon it.  Food prices will go up, we will see more starvation, famine and disease in the third world and perhaps even in developed nations also.  There just isn’t enough food and resources to go around.  In fifty two years the last drop of oil is expected to get sucked out of the ground.  It will have only taken one hundred and fifty years to accomplish that feat.  What will be next?  More forests devastated to make room for homes and farms and climate alteration will continue.  Human growth isn’t the only thing that is exponential, so is the increasing need for resources and raw materials.

 

One dynamic I find interesting in all of this crowded space is that most of us don’t know our neighbors.  We become more crowded and yet more and more we become isolated as individuals.  In a thousand years humans will have no vocal chords, no ears but will have an extra set of thumbs.  We will worship statues of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

 

That being said human growth is as much a concern as is global climate change.  If we are to succeed in slowing climate change then we must also address the population of the planet.  If in fact humans are to blame for climate change then we must be smarter about how we manage our own population.  Education and family planning will be key.  Jim Bob Duggar and his wife Michele just celebrated the birth of their twentieth child.  Folks, that is just unacceptable moving forward.  Granted they are bucking the trend, but we need to be smarter.  It boils down to cause and effect.  We continue to grow, we require more resources, we take up more land, we alter the climate faster by requiring more leveled forests, more bottled water, more farm land and more I-Phone 4s’s.  We must be smarter, build better communities, continue to seek alternative energy sources and leverage technology.  But first we need to get off of the cell phone and start talking to each other.  It’s time to find a common solution.     

 

If we don’t the results will be catastrophic.   

 

-SC

 

Goodnight to you all

Goodnight to you Jenny

Play It Again Sam

On a pleasant Sunday afternoon at Candlestick Park near San Francisco, California, Dallas Cowboys Quarterback Tony Romo picked himself up from the ground in obvious pain after a hard sack from the opposing defense.  During the second half of the game Romo would return to the field and eventually lead his team to a close victory.  The following morning however Romo was informed that not only had he cracked a rib during the game but had also suffered a punctured lung.  He had played nearly thirty minutes in a high contact, physically demanding game with a potentially life threatening injury.   Football is no stranger to severe injuries and in part it could be why we watch it.   No one wants to see a player get hurt, well most of us anyway, but we at the same time want to see that hard hit or tackle and are disgusted when we see a referee throw the personal foul flag.   But at the end of the day these players are paid a ridiculous amount of money to perform for us at a high level and with that they are willing to sacrifice their health and take great risks to deliver a competitive game for loyal fans like myself.  In recent years however the National Football League has taken measures to protect those very players that they invest millions of dollars into each year.  Some say that these protective measures are taking away from the game and I hear announcers grumble when a hard tackle is made and the referee throws the laundry.  Sports are what they are, competition, and these guys are incredibly fast, strong, and gifted and at some point in their career each player is going to suffer an injury.  But as the sport becomes increasingly competitive and the players become faster and stronger the injuries can become extreme.    Trent Green for example suffered a catastrophic concussion that ended his career and even worse there was Chris Simms who suffered a life threatening ruptured spleen.  At least four players in NFL history have been paralyzed.

So in any sport that involves competition injury is likely and you will probably witness one at some time unless you are a devoted fan of chess.   The only injury possible in a chess match is when an opposing player hurls a Rook at the other player’s forehead.   I’ve watched dart tournaments and that is about as much fun as watching a colonoscopy.  Cricket?  Golf?  That crazy, hair-raising sport where they slide the little puck down the ice?  I was subjected to these while living in England where I had two television channels to choose from, showing either British sitcoms or lawn bowling and darts.  About as enthralling as watching flies mate.   But athletes can also pay the ultimate price in the name of competition.  Recently Indy racer Danny Wheldon was killed in a massive twelve car accident in Las Vegas.  When you get sent hurtling through the air at two hundred miles per hour nothing good can come of it.  Last month Jimmy Leeward, a veteran stunt pilot, died when his plane crashed into a crowd of spectators during an air race in Reno, Nevada killing 10 and injuring 70.  Injury and even death are not new to sports and throughout history the risk of death is what drew the crowds.  In some sports survival was victory.  In ancient Greece for instance marathon runners often died after the race, having no thirst quenching Gatorade to spur them on.  Even the ‘Marathon’ itself is derived through death.  It heralds from the Greek battle of Marathon where a runner was sent to Athens to warn of a Persian attack and died shortly after delivering his message.   We all watch sports not to see a boxer die from a blow to the head but because we want to share in the risk that the athlete takes, albeit from the comfort of our living room.  It’s what makes it exciting and worth watching.  Danny Wheldons’ death was incredibly tragic, but it won’t keep us away from watching Indy races, sharing in the risk and feeling the elation of victory…and ultimately survival.   Gladiators, lions chasing unfortunate criminals around the coliseum, knights fighting knights where to live was a victory, to die was glorious.  Good times.

Well it sure beats three hours of poker on ESPN 2.  

It’s a Jungle Out There

In Western Australia there has been a slight uptick in Shark attacks, three to be exact, including the tragic death of American spear fisherman George Wainwright of Houston, Texas.  The Great White Shark has been singled out for all three attacks and the hunt is on for the killer.  A Great White Shark is an apex predator; its whole purpose in life is killing things.  Hunting it down and killing it, if you ever find it (it’s not like they leave fin prints or we have a shark DNA database to fall back on) will not prevent future attacks, only not swimming in the water will.  As I stated in my previous blog [see “Grandpas economy, a little love for the NBA and PETA strikes again”, October 3^rd, 2011] we are in the food chain and not always at the top of it.  Having always had an extreme fascination with sharks, I was watching the story on CNN about the tragic loss of the American diver when Jenny turned to me and asked “Why are they going to kill it?  Isn’t it what they do?”  Yes, predators predate and other species suffer predation.  Carnivores are cunning animals and sharks have been honing their craft for 300 million years as well as crocodiles and alligators of which also both evolved from prehistory.  Earlier this year a guide was attacked by a large crocodile while guiding tourists down a river in the Congo.  The crocodile came out of the water, pulled him out of his kayak and then dragged him underwater.  He was never found.  The crocodile had apparently figured out over time that kayaks had a soft chewy center. 

But why do we refer to animals that attack humans as ‘rogues’ (no, not Sarah Palin) or ‘killers’?  A Killer Whale drags its trainer to her violent death underwater at SeaWorld and yet it still performs.   So who are we to judge or decide what should be protected and what should be destroyed?  Not in the history of the planet has there been a more destructive or deadly a predator as Homo sapiens.  Hell, we even kill each other and not just out of survival either.  40,000 killed in Mexico’s drug war since 2006.  7,000 killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.  There is an average of 520,000 murders globally each year.  Here also are some startling consumption numbers.  Each year we kill around 90 billion marine animals, 42 billion chickens, 1.3 billion pigs and 290 million cows.  On the flip side about 73 people were attacked by sharks last year whereas 70 million sharks were killed.  So I would say that things are unbalanced and in our favor.  While we find stories of crocodiles eating fisherman in Uganda or partially eaten hikers in Alaska gruesome and tragic, we certainly do our part to even the odds. 

So the next time you are running for your life through Yellowstone Park while being chased by an 800 pound Grizzly Bear take a moment to find some solace in the fact that you were chosen to give a little back. 

We thank you for taking one for the team.          

Release The Kraken!

In a very remote area of Kansas lies a fossil site that was once part of a deep mid-continental ocean.  Researchers over the past half century however have been puzzled over the arrangement of certain bones that lay in a peculiar pattern within the fossil record.  The bones belong to the ancient Plesiosaur, a long necked, thick bodied reptile that plies the darkened waters of Loch Ness posing for blurry pictures and generally sneaking around undetected.  Well long before the Plesiosaur gained mythical status at Loch Ness they prowled the seas of what is now the American Midwest.  But as large as these monsters were there may have been something much larger and incredibly, almost psychotically, intelligent.  It would be a giant squid or octopus or at least a member of the family of Cephalopods.  The fossils it has been hypothesized are part of cleverly arranged pattern of Plesiosaur vertebrae, where the giant squid or octopus killed Plesiosaurs either for sport or protection and then arranged the trophy bones in a geometric pattern.  This behavior has been noted with modern octopuses and I recall going to an aquarium where an octopus was fed a crab, yet the crab was inside a jar.  The Octopus was puzzled but began solving the problem and eventually unscrewed the lid and killed and ate the crab.  Imagine something with that intelligence but nearly 100 feet long?  In a Seattle aquarium an octopus was caught killing a shark after a number of mysterious shark deaths in the tank prompted investigation.  I find this fascinating.  What a fascinating mystery to solve.  It’s almost as if the scientists are trying to solve a crime, a murder in the natural world by an enormous and cunning criminal who left its clues in the form of a prehistoric tentacle print.

The theory being presented is a long shot at being accepted.  But until scientists come up with a better explanation for an arrangement of bones in a geometric pattern I’m going to go with a 100 million year old murder mystery.  Killer Calamari.  Yikes.

Crazy Guy Update #1 and Hometown Tales of Lore

My children and I live in a very interesting to say the least, town east of San Francisco.  The town is predominately poor, with high crime and a notorious reputation for drug related shootings and killings.  A store clerk was murdered just two blocks from our complex.  The nightly chorus of sirens serve as a backdrop to often noisy, rap filled nights.  But all that being said it is one of the greatest people watching areas I have ever known and the best place to watch is either the local grocery store or the apartment complex where the kids and I live.  The 7-11 up the street however is off limits.  Driving around my town was exciting at first but now their disdain for traffic laws just annoys me.  Red lights here are merely just a suggestion.    

The apartment complex has a number of baffling residents like for instance the people upstairs who at around 9:45 PM every single night start dropping things on the floor.  You could almost set your watch to it.  One night the kids and I were baffled where for at least five or so minutes we heard something like a table being drug around on the kitchen floor in a small circular pattern, like they couldn’t decide where in a circumference of about three where it should reside.  But one of the more fascinating residents is a very personable man in his fifties that the kids and I simply refer to as “Crazy Guy.”  Crazy guy, I have never learned his name, is one of those guys that speaks in only one decibel range, he does not have voice volume control, and that decibel range is high.  I once learned of his love for pasta from the comfort of my living room while he stood on the pathway behind the apartment.  Although I enjoy my chats with crazy guy about his cats or about his cats, or once offering to throw away the stuff on my patio which means he was looking into my patio or his cats, I do not enjoy seeing him nearly naked.  I understand that crazy guy is challenged, but it does not make seeing him prancing around in tight shorts and nothing else any less painful.  Yesterday morning however was the cake.  Walking to my car to go to work there stood crazy guy, naked, in his bathroom with the window open and of course one of his cats, yelling a salutatory “GOOD MORNING!!!!!!  HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!” to me as I walked to my car.  But at this point now, with nothing really shocking me anymore, I just returned his good morning and left for work.

 Next week:  I tell a tale of the woman at the grocery store who drove her motorized shopping cart into the eggs while chatting (loudly) on her cell phone.  She continued to chat (loudly) as egg cartons fell to the floor and dangled precariously from the case!

Goodnight to you all

Goodnight to you Jenny

 

Exit, Stage Left

President Obama has announced the full withdrawal of American troops from Iraq by the year’s end bringing the eight year war to a close.  It also marks nearly eight years since President George Bush declared the end to major combat operations and “mission accomplished” in the besieged nation.  Since that declaration over 4,000 American troops have been killed with many more wounded in action.  Mr. Obama’s decision was driven by the Iraqi parliament’s refusal to grant legal protection from Iraqi law to U.S. forces known as a Status of Forces Agreement past December 31.   However 150 troops will remain in Iraq to assist with the purchase of weapons systems for the Iraq military such as fighter jets and missile systems.   It is difficult to say with any conviction if we accomplished what we set out to do since it seemed our objectives were never really clearly defined from the beginning.  As most of us recall the decision to invade was in part because Iraq held weapons of mass destruction and represented a threat to the United States and her allies, mainly Israel.  No weapons ever materialized, a dictator was put to death and a civil war erupted.  Of course we can be certain that stability in the Persian Gulf is a necessity considering the volume of the world’s oil that comes from there.  It is doubtful that Iraq will ever see stability and with Iran next door Iranian intervention into Iraqi affairs is very likely.

So with major combat operations ending and victory declared in 2003 what really transpired over the ensuing eight years?  It was like declaring your Lasagna ready and then spending the next eight hours cooking it while your guests sit around starving.  Our invasion of Iraq seemed very likely after the September 11th attacks.  The Bush administration tried to pin some of the responsibility on Saddam Hussein by claiming Iraq was an Al Qaeda ally, but the terrorists didn’t really start showing up until Iraq was destabilized.  Is Mr. Obama leaving behind a power vacuum in the Middle East?  It’s hard to say but America was shouldering the burden, we lost most of the coalition troops and carried the financial price tag of the war which not only cost the lives of 4,100 Americans but also burdened the American taxpayer and added a considerable amount to the nation’s deficit, it was time to pull out.

Shortly after September 11^th I was deployed to the Indian Ocean to fly airstrikes against Afghanistan.  I recall having a conversation with a friend of mine who said that he had heard we were storing weapons for airstrikes against Iraq at our location.  My  response?  We will find a reason to invade Iraq.  We did.  Eight years later we are pulling out.  Was Iraq a victory or a debacle?  As the saying goes, only history will tell and when history is written so it will tell of the legacy of two American presidents, the one that got us in and the one that took us out.

Another Ruthless Dictator Bites the Dust

Moammar Gadhafi is dead after forty years of iron-fisted rule in Libya.  The victims of Pan Am 103 can finally rest.

Fast and Ignorant

The operation known as ‘Fast and Furious” is rapidly becoming one of the great faux pas of the Obama administration.  For those unfamiliar with Fast and Furious it was a sting operation developed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that allowed the illegal purchase of over 1,000 firearms by known gun dealers and drug cartels in Mexico.  The operation came to light after two of the weapons were found at the scene of slain U.S. border patrol agent Brian Terry.   Attorney General Eric Holder has been taking the heat on this operation and has been testifying before congress that he had no knowledge of the operation and had never even heard mention of the name.  He also stated that the operation was in violation of justice department policy.  Really?  What policy would that be?  Thou shall not give guns to cold blooded killers and then sit back and see what transpires?  The whole operation was doomed from the start and most of the weapons were either not tracked after the illegal purchase or just became unaccounted for.  However they were re-accounted after a number of them were used in a variety of killings.

What sort of strange laws of reasoning exist at the ATF that would suggest giving guns to drug dealers just to see where they end up?  The logic was to give guns to low-level gun smugglers and trace them to high level gun smugglers and Mexican drug cartels.  But shortly after the guns were introduced into the smuggling ring, through a number of stores in Arizona, they vanished, either losing track of them or just not tracking them at all.  The guns eventually surfaced at a few crime scenes in Mexico, including the scene of Brian Terry’s murder.   It just seems like this was a bad idea from the very beginning and well responsibility for this eventually lands on the Department of Justice and Mr. Holder, who in the typical “I’m going to deny everything”  fashion first claims that he had never even heard of the name of the operation and then pointed out…

“Oh yeah?  Well…well…Bush did it too you know!”

Yes, someone else did it too.  That’s the excuse my kids come up with also.  I love the adults we elect to various government leadership positions.

Would You Like to Try that With A Prophylactic Next Time?

At some time during October 31st the seven billionth human will arrive on this planet merely twelve years after the arrival of the six billionth.   Seven billion people.   That is a lot of people folks and it stands to reason that at some point the planet will no longer be able to support the human race.  We are so resource intensive.  In the completely random world in which my damaged brain resides I was vacuuming my house when I realized that perhaps millions of vacuums are produced each year and millions of others are deposited in landfills.  In that vacuum there are plastics, which used oil in their creation, energy and heat to mold them, water for circuitry, perhaps rubber for the belts.  Now granted some this may be recycled but not all of it.  There was plastic for shipping, paper for packaging, paper for printing the Tolstoy inspiring instruction manual not to mention the energy and ink used for printing.  Fuel used for transportation and then finally electricity for usage, created by hydroelectric, coal, nuclear power, whatever.  All of this so I can suck crap up from my floor.   In Kenya they walk for miles just hoping to find drinking water.   When will we hit eight billion and who will that be?  I remember when I read about the seven billion number years ago and thinking “this planet cannot support seven billion human beings” but here we are.  You know instead of investing in solar panels from failing energy firms the administration should pump billions into the condom industry.  Then instead of shipping PC’s and cell phones all over the world condoms start arriving en masse with a brief tutorial.  It will put Americans back to work and reduce the trade deficit and stop the population boom.  That’s my plan. It makes more sense than 9-9-9.

The tipping point for human population growth?  Who knows it, could be ten billion, eight and a half billion…

Or seven billion and one.

Goodnight to you all

Goodnight to you Jenny

 This isn’t your grandfather’s economy…

But maybe it should be.  Fear of a double dip global recession is creating an economic maelstrom as the European Union teeters on financial collapse.  Greek insolvency and mismanagement of capital with French banks threaten to drag the European Union into a complete state of chaos.   To add to the growing fears the projected economic growth of the United States and Japan fell short of predictions and growth in China slowed as consumer frugality continues amid concerns of a weakening job market and soaring unemployment.  The European Union has moved aggressively with desperate measures to shore up Europe’s financial markets, pumping billions of Euros into the Greek economy.  It’s taking a toll on the Euro and financial markets are being hit hard as investors worry about the impact of Greece’s collapse on global markets.  This is leading analysts to believe that the world is tail spinning into another recession or the old ‘double dip’, taking your potato chip that you just took a bite out of and dipping it again into the bowl of debt, to the collective gasp of horrified investors.  Hey, I double dip all the time.

In the U.S. the European debt crisis and weak job growth has caused the markets to have their biggest decline since 2009 and unlike before where we were assured that the U.S was not in a recession (even though we all knew we were) analysts are now stating that the economy is entering another, having not exited the first one.  The forecast of an impending global market crash is becoming somewhat apocalyptic.  I have even read one person’s advice to store flashlights and batteries since we will all be without power when the economy goes kaput.  Yes, we are going into a double dip recession and yes we are facing an unprecedented global financial catastrophe but look on the bright side, we saved the NFL season so at least we will still have football, until the lights go out.

So where does this leave us?   Well, it leaves us waiting for the hammer to fall.  We hope that the IMF can withstand the collapse of Greece if in fact that happens, and perhaps Europe should let it happen and stop pumping billions into a nation that is just going to default on its loans anyway.  There will certainly be more fallout from the Greek collapse other than just failed economics; the Greeks are facing high unemployment, tax increases and sky rocketing inflation, and the population is growing impatient so add political instability to the mix. 

The news only gets better.  Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland are also facing a debt crisis of their own. 

Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice

We look at Greece and Europe and we think to ourselves “Jeez, I hope that doesn’t happen here”, so let me quote something I said earlier “…the Greeks are facing high unemployment, tax increases and soaring inflation…”   Well that sounds eerily familiar.  Here in the U.S the jobless rate varies depending on who you ask and who does the math.  My daughter calculates the unemployment rate at 13.3%, I say 10.6% and the unemployed guy next door puts it at 100%.  The current unemployment rate as calculated by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics is at 9.1%.  However some estimate that the unofficial unemployment rate could be as high as 24%.  That, if it’s true, would be staggering.  Well since Mr. Obama took the helm of the HMS Titanic we have been plowing full speed ahead and the Obama administration has been navigating issues like the Titanic navigated icebergs.  Yes he inherited a mess, but he also pledged change and a promise of hope and at the end of the day all they [the administration] delivered was a crap-load of ‘nope’.

Mr. Obama the Nobel Committee called.  They would like their prize back

Let us also remember that Mr. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize only twelve weeks into his presidency for reaching out to the world through diplomacy, a grand accomplishment that had not yet been accomplished.  Nothing much has changed since then, we are still in Afghanistan, we bombed Libya without senate approval, there is no resolution between Israel and the Palestinians, revolutions and demonstrations throughout the Middle East (and harsh government crackdowns) and Jesse James giving up Sandra Bullock for some tattooed, crazy, freakish looking, ghoul thingy.   With such instability and a failed economy at home Mr. Obama’s approval rating has gone up in flames faster than a Zeppelin in New Jersey. 

Oh, the Humanity.

The NBA needs love too

A new tell-all book has surfaced (The Rogue:  Searching for the real Sarah Palin; Joe McGinness) that highlights some apparent indiscretions by the polarizing conservative and former presidential running mate Sarah Palin.  In his book Mr. McGinness asserts that Mrs. Palin of all things snorted cocaine from an upside down, fifty-five gallon drum while snowboarding.  That seems to be a Herculean feat.  I tried drinking a Pepsi once while in an inverted, negative 5G dive with a Mig 29.  No one had ever seen a Mig 29 that close before, especially while sipping on a Pepsi, but enough about my Air Force heroics.  The book also claims that she dabbled in Marijuana.  Well if I lived in Alaska and the highlight of my day was staring at the Russian coastline from my back porch I might drop a line of coke and smoke a doobie also.  It’s not like I’m going to the mall or something. 

One of the more eye opening allegations though is that she slept with Michigan Alumni and future NBA star Glenn Rice.  Well NBA players are people too you know.  They have needs.  Mr. Rice did not deny the claim and said that they hit it off, had a great time and that he had a ‘big crush’ on her.  I put this in my ‘so what’ category and am not sure why this is a startling revelation.  Mr. McGinness’ book goes on to claim that she freaked out because she had slept with a black man and fired those on her staff that weren’t white.  Mrs. Palin is apparently a drug crazed, narcissistic bigot that is a conservative hypocrite. 

I’m not sure what Mr. McGinness was trying to accomplish other than a lawsuit.  His royalties will now be spent on a lawyer.  I Hope his is better than mine.

Oh Those Pesky Laws of Gravity

After days of speculation, concern and warnings the six ton NASA Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite met a fiery death somewhere over the South Pacific last week ending days of speculation as to where the falling debris may land.  Unfortunately they were still speculating where it landed well after it burned up ending speculation as to whether or not NASA really knows what it’s doing.  NASA and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) tracked the satellite through its proposed reentry and then lost track of it.  Fortunately since the earth is two-thirds covered with water it landed somewhere other than someone’s living room.  Supposedly we would have had a twenty minutes heads up to flee to safety but since NASA couldn’t really tell us when it was crashing or where it eventually landed the twenty minutes head up would have come twenty minutes after the 9-11 call saying a molten metal Volkswagen bus had landed in someone’s bedroom.  Though NASA couldn’t predict with any certainty where or when the big bird would crash they were able to tell us it was a 1 and 22 trillion chance one of us would be hit by falling debris, which incidentally is about the same chance that the Detroit Lions will ever make it to the Super Bowl. 

Well NASA may be getting another shot.  The German Satellite ROSTAT is expected to reenter the earth’s atmosphere by the end of October and NASA analysts say that the satellite is expected to crash to earth with the same fiery intensity and downward velocity as Mr. Obama’s approval rating.  I doubt it could be that spectacular.        

But it’s the Chicken of the Sea

PETA recently unveiled an ad for promoting veganism using a picture of a Great White Shark devouring a swimmer.  PETA’s ad was directed at Charles Wickersham who was attacked in the Gulf of Mexico by a shark while spear fishing, thus the ads statement “Payback is Hell.”  Wickersham survived the attack but required nearly eight hundred stitches.  I myself completely understand such things as natural selection, knowing full well that at any given time I am in the food chain and not necessarily at the top of it.  Yes payback is hell; there is payback everyday in the natural world.  However being vegan does not necessarily make you less of a target just because you eat vegetables, it just makes you slower and more vulnerable because you lack sufficient protein in your diet.  So if some vegan gets ripped to shreds by a Tiger Shark near Miami are all vegans going to go on a fish-eating frenzy for payback? I think yes.  PETA forgets the reason we developed large brains was because we came out of the trees and started eating flesh and the only reason I am going to be eaten by a shark, a bear or a Bengal Tiger is not because I had prime rib the night before and they are seeking revenge but rather because I was slower than the guy in front of me.  Consequently this brings on my quote of the week.

“We feel that we do have to something unusual. We believe a provocative ad is a good way to bring people to our site and raise their awareness about how animals are mistreated.”

Yes, animals are mistreated.  Show me something on this planet that isn’t.  I was married for eighteen years, PETA should show my leg sticking out of the mouth of my ex-wife.  I respect nature, always have and always will.  I love nature but my love for it will never outweigh its desire to eat me or my desire to eat it.  The only time I am at the top of the food chain is when I am standing in the meat section at the grocery store and I’m ok with that. 

If god didn’t want us to eat animals, why did he make them so tasty?

Idiot?  Guilty as charged your honor!

It is probably well known inside my loyal reader circle that I have been beset with legal issues.  This year I have faced a divorce, a bankruptcy and a legal problem involving one of my kids.  It seems that I have spent more time in court than I have spent at work and nearly all of my vacation time has been spent either in court or desperately trying to find a place to live for myself and the kids.  It has been quite a year.

One of the benefits about spending so much time in a courthouse is it affords great people watching, much better than that of an airport or a bus station.  Some of the things I have seen and heard and people I have witnessed has truly enriched my life and made me a more complete person.  Ok, not really.  There was the time when I sat in the courtroom awaiting my turn when a very old woman took a seat before the judge and began her diatribe about her son who yelled at her, threw things at her and just sounded like an all round a**hole.  So I watched her as she went on, she was difficult to understand and she often didn’t make much sense, but hey she was old so I let it go.  Then I heard the judge ask her a question I will never forget. 

“And you are fifty years old?” 

“Ah, yesh your honor.  **cough**.  Yesh”

Jesus lady!  You’re fifty?!  Lay off of the meth!  It looks like her fifty is the new seventy three.   

One of my favorites involved court appropriate attire.  I was once again sitting awaiting my turn, wondering where my $400 an hour attorney was, when a very large woman (very large) walked through the door wearing spiked heels, black spandex pants, a bra and a mesh top.  I momentarily lost my vision as my retinas began to smolder.  Thankfully she was shown the exit and reappeared later wearing a t-shirt.  I however was left with severe mental trauma.  The physical scars may heal but the emotional ones will not.

My favorite courtroom experience came recently as I completed my bankruptcy.   I sat in a room with about twenty other debtors, waiting for my turn to share my financial woes with complete strangers.  The first couple spoke absolutely no English.  None at all.  Then it turned out they didn’t have driver’s licenses or even social security cards.  They did however have one passport and a paper from the embassy.  Now how on earth does someone who has no identification and no social security cards, get credit in the first place to go bankrupt?  The next couple, well they spoke no English.  The third person spoke English however mother did not.  We spent a lot of time on the phone with an interpreter.  My favorite however was the couple from Yuba City.  Their bankruptcy was going smoothly when the judge stopped and began asking questions on their expenses.

Judge:  “You have listed $500 per month for Casino’s?”

Wife:  “Yes ma’am.  We had a problem but we’re cured now.”

Husband:  “We sure blew through our money!”

Judge:  “Um, you have listed $1200 a month for gas?”

Wife: “Yep! His truck gets but eight miles to the gallon!”

Judge:  “Uh, $225 a month for school supplies?”

$225 for school supplies?  What in the hell are your kids doing in school, building a new gimballed robotic arm for the International Space Station?  Needless to say this couple was referred to the trustee board and their bankruptcy, well is going away.  I find it irritating that this couple is there because of a gambling problem and then had the audacity to pad their expenses to include an ongoing gambling problem so they could file for chapter seven.  I’m there feeling disgraced, doing what I have to because I am now a single dad and have two great kids to take care of.  More court dates are ahead and more of societies finest ahead of me I’m sure.

It is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Please use the link to get to the Susan G Komen website.  Help find a cure.

-SC

Goodnight to you all

Goodnight to you Jenny         

If you’re not drinking the tea…

…then you’re drinking the Kool-Aid.  I remember when a friend of mine, a devout Tea Partier, posted that comment on his Facebook page.  That is the premise on which the Tea Party movement moves.  You are with them or you are against them and if you are against them then you stand for all that is wrong in this country today.  This sort of clear-cut and definitive philosophy has allowed what was a fledgling movement two years ago to really gain traction and become a serious player in the upcoming 2012 presidential election.  This movement has become so popular it has created a divide between moderate Republican’s (RINO’s as they are referred to, Republicans In Name Only) to the point where 49% of the GOP members have either joined the movement or at least agree with the movements philosophy.  It’s any wonder that such a movement could gain such widespread popularity, with the nation’s economy in ruins, government bailouts of corporations, a monolithic national debt and Charlie Sheen torpedoing his career and my sanity.  Such polarizing candidates as Michelle Bachman (Polarizing if you are not a Tea Party member) are making noise in the early debates, slamming current front-runner Republican and moderate Rick Perry on his mandating of the HPV  vaccine to school girls in Texas (she cites that the vaccine may cause mental retardation.  She may also think that Unicorns should be taken off of the endangered species list).  Whether or not the claim is true, and it’s not, she stands against what all Tea Party members stand against and that is any sort of government mandated health care.  Hell, any sort of government mandated program at all.  The platform of the Tea Party is to bring America back to its roots.  Bring Christianity back into our lives, abolish abortion all together and inform most of us that we are wrong on evolution and global warming.  After all one hundred percent of all liberals and fifty one percent of the GOP are delusional, having been all of our lives drinking the Kool-Aid. 

If you go to the official tea party website you will find that the writing seems almost borderline revolutionary.  If you don’t agree with what the tea party stands for which is less government, individual freedom, personal responsibility, free markets and returning the governing power back the individual states and the people you will be exposed, or if you wait long enough a Democrat will expose himself on Twitter.  Though the tea party is often associated with Republicans they do not associate themselves with either party and would support and elect a member from either side.  Really?  I don’t foresee even the most moderate democrat being supported by the Tea Party. 

In a recent poll conducted by CNN that stated the Republican Party was sharply divided, it found that Tea Partiers were mostly white, no surprise there, educated, older where as your generic moderate republican is more likely to be less educated, female, younger and less likely to say they are either an evangelical or a born again Christian.  What?  Tea Partiers are theological radicals?  Possibly, but let’s remember where the metaphor ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’ originated from.  The 1978 Jonestown massacre in Guyana where the enigmatic Reverend Jim Jones served Kool-Aid (actually it was Flavor Aid but that just wouldn’t sound right) to his devout followers laced with arsenic.  ‘Drinking the Kool Aid’ is associated with blindly following an ideology without question.   So who is drinking what here?  It comes down to you to decide, which ironically is what the Tea Party stands for and when the Kool-Aid guy comes crashing through your living room wall during Jeopardy, hide the arsenic.

The Tea Party wants America to return to 1776 politics and self-responsibility.  Bring the church back; rid the country of the moral decay and selfishness that has brought it to its knees.  We always look back to the old days and think things were different.  Let’s see, Ben Franklin couldn’t keep his fly zipped, Thomas Jefferson fathered a child with a slave (oh, and yes, we were in the human trafficking business back then) and we had revolted against the legitimate government of Great Britain and committed high treason.  

I don’t know.  Things haven’t changed much.  Well I don’t care who’s in charge.  Just don’t take away my internet.

Honestly I do not disagree at all with what the Tea Party is trying to accomplish.  I disagree with their platform, I’m the enemy, but I respect them.  If anything, they don’t mince words.

Pass the salt please and take your time, say about a decade…

Michele Obama has announced that her goal of providing healthier meals to kids is approaching success after Darden foods signed an agreement to reduce sodium in their foods ten percent by 2016 and twenty percent in a decade.  This is a success? We will have a fully functioning moon base by the time we hit the twenty percent reduction in salt.  Are we really that addicted to salty, fatty foods that we can’t just whack ten percent by the end of the week?  We have to take five years?  The obesity rate in this country is appalling, agreed, but making the restaurants yank a grain of salt a day from their recipes so Americans don’t start convulsing on the floor from salt withdrawals is hardly a success.  She puts full blame on restaurants for serving unhealthy meals.  I put full blame on the parents for ordering them.  Hmmm…personal responsibility, maybe the tea party is onto something.

Have things become so bad in our country that our government has to tell us what food to order?  It’s becoming Orwellian.  Soon we will all have to stand in front of a giant screen in a town square with our neighbors and friends being excruciatingly force-fed hours of Wolf Blitzer.  You know I just can’t think straight anymore.  I’m going to LMAO, LOL then tlk 2 U ltr. 

Somebody please be in charge of my life.

To boldly go where no High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher has gone before

I blogged a couple of years ago (see “Nonsensical Ravings of a Lunatic Mind- Week in Review” Oct 22^nd, 2009), which was around the time I stopped blogging, about the flurry of planets outside of our own solar system being discovered using the High Accuracy Velocity Planet Searcher, or HARPS.  HARPS is a fascinating telescope that, once you tuck away the physics behind it that most of us with smaller brains would never understand, finds planets and determines their mass by measuring the change in wavelengths in the light spectrum as the parent star moves towards and then away from us while in the gravitational tug of war with its fledgling planets.  The change in wavelength is known as the Radial Velocity.  This of course is somewhat similar to my own device I developed while I was in school, the Very Inaccurate Michelin Radial Intestinal Flatulent Gas Spectrum Analyzer (VIMRIFGSA).  It wasn’t much of a success but researchers stood upon the shoulders of my discovery and now we are finding planets left and right.  Announced recently by the European Southern Observatory was the discovery of fifty new Exo-Planets and that one of these worlds, with the elegant, poem inspiring name of HD 85512b, is about 3.6 times the earth’s mass and resides in a favorable distance from its sun that could promote liquid water and possibly harbor life.

These discoveries come at a time in which our own space program is in a sort of space limbo.  Questions as to whether or not our space program is viable or even fiscally responsible puts the future of the space program in question.  Many years and administrations from now it is unlikely we will ever see a space program as robust and successful as the one that got us to the moon and on to Mars.   Predicting the future of NASA is about as reliable as predicting the weather.  Mr. Obama has stated that space exploration will continue, both robotic and manned albeit much more privatized, competitive and with more foreign collaboration.  I agree with Obama’s approach.  Take the government out of it, make it competitive and deliver a better product at the end of the day.  Because at thirty six light years away, we sure has hell aren’t getting to HD 85512b on a Soyuz.  Regardless of what vehicle we are using, getting there will probably never happen but the desire to explore our universe should never be stifled, it’s what makes us human.  It’s the dream of far-away lands and mysterious and fascinating civilizations that give us reason to look up at the stars every night and know that we are not alone.  

In The Name of Love and Kalashnikovs

Iran has been working with the international community on striking a deal that would release American hikers Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal from an Iranian prison.  After reviewing the case, where hiker Sarah Shourd had been released earlier in the year, American authorities have decided to arrest the three for violating international laws of common sense.  Choosing a war zone that borders a reclusive non secular state with a hatred of all things western to go hiking in as if they would prove that the Peoples of the world can be united though love and understanding was at best, a very bad and naïve idea.  A bond of $1MM is being raised to release the two who apparently deserve release much more than the wrongfully jailed Iranian political prisoners just because they are American.  We should all take a lesson from this.  For instance if you want to unite the Peoples of the worlds together through peace, love and understanding, start with Facebook or face a Kalashnikov. 

Is That a Python in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

A man was recently arrested at a Miami airport for trying to smuggle seven baby pythons and an additional three baby tortoises in his underwear and pockets.  What was the giveaway? The full body scanner or the constant need to adjust himself?  I mean to have seven baby pythons in your underwear?  Seems at the least uncomfortable and I would be constantly worried about having a certain organ partially swallowed by one of the Reptiles.  The TSA agents however must have been very impressed…

“Hey Gary check this out.  This guy has seven Johnsons.”

“Jeez Bill, his wife must be exhausted.”

“Could be.  Say, they seem to be moving autonomously.”

“I agree with your conclusions Bill.  His Johnson’s do seem to possess independent thought and freewill, it makes me wonder if this is a genetic adaptation or merely a congenital fluke.”

“I dunno Gary.  Let’s go get a Philly Cheese Steak.  I’m starved.”

Who says we’re intelligent life?

 Hero of the Week

You have probably all have heard about Medal of Honor recipient Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer.  He saved thirty six lives but lost some of his best friends on a fateful day in Kunar Province, Afghanistan.  Driving five times through unrelenting fire to rescue members of his platoon Sgt Meyer acted with complete disregard for his own safety.  All things being equal he would trade his medal and that day for any of the lives that were lost.  In honor of those who lost their lives that day a memorial service will be held at the same time that Meyer receives his Medal of Honor.  A touching move from a man who never wanted to be a hero.  Over 7,000 American and Coalition troops have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Let’s keep supporting our heroes abroad.

    

 Keep our Children Safe

I am realizing more than ever now just how dangerous this world is for our children.  It seems as though keeping our kids safe from those who would do them harm is a twenty four hour seven day a week job.  I recently discovered that my twelve year old daughter had signed onto a singles website while at her mothers.  I found this out when I was scanning her I Pod Touch after she got home.  Technology enhances and enriches our lives but it also allows for some of the most vile predators in the country the ability to prey on our children.  To try to get my daughter, who wants to be popular and receive attention, to understand just how dangerous our world is seems like an impossible task at times, it’s just too easy for our little girls and boys to get pulled into the web of deception perpetrated by a pedophile.  This became all too real when to my horror I saw that a thirty five year old man had responded to her profile telling her that she was cute.

If my daughter was looking for attention she got it.  I am paying even more attention than ever now to what she is doing, who she is texting, who she is calling.  We as parents hate to have to intrude so much on our kid’s lives but in this high-tech world that we live in, vile despicable people have the tools to steal our children away from us.  I really scared my little girl when I told how a predator can piece together innocent slips of information gathered over a period of chats telling them where they live, where they go to school and even when their parents are at work.  I think I got my point across, but I also woke up a bit.  I was checking up on her but apparently not enough.  The pedophiles are always one step ahead.

Parents I beg you.  Stay informed, pay attention and most of all, inform your kids.  They need to make the right decisions.  According to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children an average of 2,185 children are reported missing every day in the United States. 

 - SC

Goodnight to you all.

Goodnight to you Jenny.

To say that the September 11th attacks changed or shaped my life would be hyperbole. However the day directly impacted me as it did so many other Americans for the fortress America had finally fallen to what had plagued Europe and the Middle East for decades. This day still rings clear in my mind, the feelings, the thoughts, the experiences all come back to me. I relive it in vivid color and it all comes back to me, regardless of whether I want it to or not.

 We had only been back on U.S soil for a year having spent four years in Japan prior to leaving military active duty. Having embarked on a new career at a large global energy firm and also as an Air Force reservist I was now looking forward to a small vacation with the family at Disneyland. It was still dark when we loaded the van and began our drive for the airport, a small one and a half hour trek from our suburban family home to San Francisco International Airport. The kids were asleep, my two-year old daughter strapped in her car seat and the boys sleeping with their heads tilted in awkward positions in the rear seats of the minivan. I was listening to the car radio when the disc jockey mentioned that a small airplane had hit the World Trade Center. “You have got to be kidding me,” I told my wife at the time, “how can someone fly a damned airplane into the World Trade Center?” I envisioned a small Cessna meandering around New York and blindly smacking into the side of the enormous building. “Must be the weather” I remember commenting and the music started playing again. Surely he was lost in overcast or fog, for I had no idea at the time that in New York it was a magnificent and crystalline clear blue day.

We were approaching the San Mateo Bridge when the announcer broke in and reported that a second plane, a passenger jet, had struck the World Trade Center. I immediately switched the radio over to KGO, the local news station where a concerned host was announcing that all flights in and out of the Bay Area had been grounded. I felt confused and was not able to comprehend how a plane crash in New York had anything to do with our flight to Orange County. As the newsman unveiled the details of the attack I couldn’t get information fast enough and as we crossed the bridge something struck me as odd. I could not see any aircraft forming the long line that is the ILS approach into San Francisco Airport. The skies were void of airliners as the sun now lit up the early morning sky. I mentioned this to my wife who just sat there, seemingly confused. I knew we weren’t going anywhere that day.

We continued on to the airport and the news was coming in fast now. Planes were missing, there was a possible attack on Chicago and there was a jet that they had lost contact with. We arrived at the airport and parked and then I sat in the van listening to the news while the kids and bags were unloaded. A fight ensued when I suggested we leave for my wife’s sister’s house in nearby Oakland immediately. I relented and agreed we would go and talk to the ticket agent but well by this time it was clear to me. Our nation had been attacked.

 

 We caught the shuttle and headed to the terminal with a group of about a dozen or so unsettled passengers, some of whom were leaving for New York. They were mainly on their cell phones chatting excitedly about the mornings events when a woman put her phone down and announced to everyone, “Hey, the Pentagon was just hit!” I turned to my wife and not in a clairvoyant way, but most likely in a tone of acceptance, said to her, “Jesus, we’re at war.”

We were almost at the terminal now and the bus was noisy with chatter. My cell phone rang. It was a call from my Reserve Squadron. As we pulled up to the terminal my mind was racing. My wfe was panicking about our vacation and I was wondering to what part of the world I was going to be sent to the following day. “Sean, what’s your availability?” Jeff asked over the phone. I told him I was on vacation and available for whatever they needed. “Good, you’re in crew rest. You go on bravo alert in twelve hours.” I hung up the phone as the bus stopped and people started filing off of the bus but it was a short-lived venture as security people told the passengers to get back on the bus, the airport was being evacuated. Back on the bus now we headed back to the van awaiting us in the long-term parking lot. The wife was nearly beside herself about our vacation and my patience had by now run out. I explained to her that this was much more than just a vacation and if it would make her feel better she could call the airline and see about rescheduling which I thought would keep her busy for a while. I looked at the kids. My daughter was silent, I can’t recall what Christiaan was doing but my oldest, Michael, looked confused and scared.

 The trip back out of the airport was eventful. I followed the normal exit out of parking and followed the signs to highway 101. I told my wife to call her sister and tell her we were coming. I desperately wanted to get the family as far away from the airport as I could. We were approaching the intersection leaving the airport when a police car screeched to a stop in front of us and the officer stepped out of the vehicle with his gun drawn, (for reasons I never understood) not paying the slightest attention to the startled family of five in the white van. “Dad!” Michael screamed and began crying as the wife muttered a small comment to our lord and savior. I made a u-turn and sped back through the airport, past the now empty terminal and eventually on to Oakland and the wifes sister’s house. I arrived at her quaint home, walked briskly inside, gave a cursory salutation to her sister and went straight for the TV

  The towers had just fallen. Diane Sawyer was weeping. Three hundred firefighters were missing.
I went outside, sat on the step and broke down.

The rest of the day continued to be tense with the family and more feelings and images come to mind as I write this. Back at our home I continued to watch the news. One image that is burned into my brain was the taped footage of the man and the woman leaping to their deaths from the burning Trade Tower. It was suspected that an airliner had been shot down by U.S fighter jets. Bad news just kept pouring in without yield. I told the wife to turn off the TV, we had seen enough and Christiaan was upset, worried that some bad men were going to now blow up his school.

“Dad’s going to go and fly tomorrow. We are going to keep everyone safe and you have nothing to worry about” I remember saying to him. But to be truthful I didn’t really know what was going to happen. I didn’t know if there were going to be follow-up attacks using buses or trains or trucks. The Oklahoma City bombing came to mind. How could I or my colleagues at my squadron really keep anyone safe? How did this happen? Who were these guys? Where was I going to be next week? It was obvious to me now that we would certainly be heading out somewhere, after all this rivaled the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, or worse.

I received the alert call the following morning. It was a beautiful clear day in the Bay Area for flying. I was not told what mission I would be flying but was given directions to a security gate at the base I didn’t even know existed, nestled away in some housing division near a high school. I showered, threw on my flight suit and kissed the kids goodbye, reassuring them once again that they would be safe and then made the drive out to the base.

After checking in with the gate guard I drove to the squadron building and met my fellow crew members in the flight planning room where I was informed we were going to be flying CAP (Combat Air Patrol) over San Francisco. The whole thing just seemed surreal; a feeling that was cemented when we were told that we would fly armed (with a 9MM Beretta) and as I took the crew bus to the armory, checked and loaded my weapon, it seemed that none of this could really be happening. It felt like I was in a war zone. Nothing seemed familiar anymore, it was if an invading army were waiting off of Stinson Beach preparing for an invasion. I arrived at the jet along with the Boom Operator and began my preflight checks. As I sat going through the preflight procedures the Boom Operator came into the cockpit and told me that the maintenance personnel had received an alert that the security fence had been breached and a possible terrorist was heading towards the flight line. It seemed unlikely to me that had actually occurred but never the less I told the Boom that if some asshole makes it to the cockpit he had better be holding eleven rounds in his chest. I was not in any mood to be hijacked. However I would periodically peer out through the windshield and scan the flight line for some guy running towards us with an AK-47 and a chest full of dynamite.

Thirty minutes after takeoff we took up position in an elliptical orbit pattern over the San Francisco Bay. The surrealism continued. It was a crystal clear day and from 24,000 feet you could see all of the way to Monterrey. We had two Marine Corps F-18’s from Leemore Naval Air Station orbiting with us, effortlessly cruising with AMRAAM and Sidewinder air to air missiles slung menacingly under each wing. The radios were completely silent save for the occasional message from the AWACS controller flying along the coast. Occasionally the radio would crackle as we were notified of a bogey somewhere near San Jose, or near Santa Cruz or Las Banos. There was no radio chatter, no planes in the air, nothing but a tanker and its ‘chicks’ (a term used to identify a tanker and its receivers of fuel). We were the only aircraft in the airspace between there and the Los Angeles basin and at any given time that day, on September 12th 2001, you could count the number of aircraft flying along the entire West Coast of the United States on two hands.

The next few weeks would be a time of uncertainty. I went back to work the following week after flying a few missions, including carrying a mortuary team to Delaware. After that I was asked again about my availability, only this time it was for an unspecified period of time. I told them I would give whatever they need, walked over to my bosses office and informed him I had just volunteered for deployment, which as I recollect, I had to in turn explain to him what a deployment was. I was one of only three people in our marketing department that I knew of aside from myself that had any affiliation with the Reserves or National Guard

A week later the phone rang. I was taking a jet to an undisclosed location; no one was to know where I was going or where I was when I got there and the period of time? Undetermined.

                        Once again I said goodbye to the kids. This time I had no idea when I would see them again.

                                                                                             – SC