Thursday's Prattlings.

--We're due to reach 100 degrees for the first time this year today. That's actually pretty late, for us.
Edit: We broke into triple digits with a bang:

--I write this as much for my future reference, and for my kids' future reference, as for anyone else.

--I have a decent blog-worthy story that I can't post right now. But it ends with the question: "What caliber for douchebag?"

--It's pronounced /puh Kawn/. PEE kan sounds like what you put under the bed at night.

--I worked a 24 hour shift with the fire department yesterday, and not only ripped the tags off of the new wildland firefighting apparel* that they got me about a year ago, but also got it smokey and covered with soot. A welder caught some tall grass while putting in corner posts for a new fence, in the dry 17 mph wind. Right next to him was a stack of sections of old fencing that had probably 10 years' worth of weeds and brush growing up amongst it. I can think of no finer way to start a fire without accelerants. We had to unstack the flaming pyre and douse each level of stacked fencing one by one, and then get the particle board beneath it, and then go moving old rusty farm implements to get under all that. Finally we got all that done, and went to mop-up. When we finally got all the flaming cow turds busted up and stomped out, I climbed dirty and sweaty and ash-stained into our brush truck with our paramedic firefighter, and remarked that the hymen on my new brush gear had been perforated. Startled, he said what?!? I suggested to our best medic that he had heard me just fine. He laughed.

--I just finished reading Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men on my Kindle. I reviewed the movie five years ago, in which I said of the main character, aging sheriff Ed Tom Bell:

I know this man. I've been around him for years, wearing different faces, standing different heights, and carrying different weights. They mostly all spoke with a drawl, and they all wondered sometimes how it all got to be so crazy. Between McCarthy, the Cohens, and Jones, I saw the bewildered squint of people that I've known personally, perplexed and aghast.

 Having read the book, I'd have to say that the Cohen brothers kept the movie's dialogue very true to McCarthy's original work. Sheriff Bell knows that the nation is doomed, and feels like he has lost control of the part of it that he is supposed to keep peaceful. He feels like a failure. I have to admit that I thought a little about whether I help the big picture. I don't take it as personally as he did, I don't think. I know my limitations. The job of a law enforcement officer is to limit damage; he rarely gets to stop it altogether.

I just downloaded Blood Meridian. The reviews show that it's a pretty dark portrayal of the American West in the mid 19th century. We'll see if I start it anytime soon.

--A family member and friend of mine is grieving the passing of a close friend of hers. I've been pretty poor about helping her deal with it. Recently, my wife pointed out the meaning of the lyrics to the Grateful Dead's song "Box Of Rain." I've never much been a fan of the Dead, but I've got to admit that there's a gentle calmness that one can feel from auditing this (first) song.

"What do you want me to do, to do for you to see you through? 

A box of rain will ease the pain, and love will see you through." 

--Speaking of music, my daughter was singing the title music to Singing In The Rain, and I wanted to hear the original, so I played this video. I come away thinking: (1) Gene Kelly was a genius dancer. (2) Even accounting for the poor synching of the sound to the video by YouTube, it's obvious that they dubbed in the tap sounds. But Gene Kelly was still a physical genius. (3) That street was a giant sound stage in Hollywood, right? Where they had to make their own rain? That was a BIG budget movie scene. (4) I cringe seeing Kelly dance through the puddles in his brown leather shoes. I can not stand having soaked shoes.

--Lately at work, I'm plagued with subpoenas to get. Think I don't beg help from the DA's investigators? Haw.

--I need a best location along the coast of Oregon or Washington (Olympic Peninsula?) for two things this summer: Tide pools and yerts.

--I'm planning an epic vacation with the girls and my wife.

--My friend Susan makes a good point: "When hanging around with drunk people...if the topic of conversation takes a turn toward Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories...it's time to leave!!"


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*Typically abbreviated to "wildland gear," which then becomes "Wild man gear." This is tough, light Nomex jeans and topshirt (usually comes with work gloves and boots, but I just use my fire gloves and bunker boots) that one pulls on over street clothes, which prevent embers from immediately burning through, but which have no insulative properties. Combined with a light plastic helmet (kept on the brush truck) and light goggles, this gear actually provides some protection without causing your firefighter to succumb to heat exhaustion in regular bunker gear.

Grimy.

Theo Cottle is a photographer who documents the less glamorous sides of places like Thailand and Germany and the UK. His work is not pornographic, but it's unsavory, and some of it might not be safe for work.

Looking at his documentation of skinheads in the street, I am struck by the common traits among trash in different modern cultures, spanning different races that disdain each other.

Some of these people have less in common with me than the African bushmen, or the Dani of New Guinea.

I am a little defensive of the redneck, at times. There is a popular misconception that the term "redneck" is synonymous with "white trash." That's simply not true. While the terms are not mutually exclusive and there can be some overlap, that's just like saying "plumber" and "Catholic" can overlap.

White trash is world-wide, and even redneck white trash can span continents. Just ask the dwanky zef Boer trash that is Die Antwoord. (Don't watch that. Well, okay, you can watch that, but DON'T watch this. Seriously.)

Trash is universal. Why isn't distaste for it universal?

Thoughts on violence.

--This nation is split right now. There is little in the way of a "conversation about guns and violence." It is two sides, squaring off. It's not pretty, and it's not really effective.

--Under the New Public Service model of governance, we are supposed to engage in a dialogue until we decide what to do, without regard to completing our goal, or achieving a real consensus.

--Those of us interested in maintaining the right to keep and to bear arms are acting calmer than those who blame firearms for the violence in which they are used.
This isn't because we're less upset. 

--Belief that ONE SINGLE POLICY will stop the violence is pretty naive. Thus, even though I believe that there are things that we can and probably should do to reduce the violence, I don't present them and then nod self-assuredly and declare "that's what will finally fix the problem."

--I've said before and I will say again that this nation has a serious problem in identifying and managing our mentally ill. We don't even deal with the emergent ones.

--If I truly believed that we could put the genie back in the bottle, and eliminate all firearms from this planet in an attempt to rid the planet of gun violence, I might well consider it, even though I agree with Marko's excellent essay, here. But it's not possible, so why entertain the mental exercise? If we're going to do that, why not settle invisibility versus flight for a superpower?

--If guns are the problem, why is my life not steeped in violence? Even though I literally am dispatched to every call involving violence in my jurisdiction for half of every other day, I have seen very little in the way of gun violence in the last 12 years of service. I've never been shot at. I've never shot at anyone. I've never arrested anyone for intentionally shooting at another person (true story!). I've only a handful of times arrested people for pointing guns at others. This is in Texas, where private ownership of firearms is almost unrestricted: No limit to number of guns, no registration of guns, no waiting period, no state restriction on private sales, no state restriction on ammunition* or magazines. If you get it federally registered, you can even own an automatic weapon.

--Some folks will see that above comment and say, "well, he works in a small town, so that's different." Well, which is it? Either we're back-woods hicks who are armed to the teeth and seething in violence, or I'm working for Mayberry, and we all get along so great, no one would ever be so unkind as to shoot someone else.  It must not be the guns, though, because EVERY home here seems to have a collection of firearms.

--Firearms were virtually uncontrolled before 1934, then more so in 1968, and more so in 1986. Yet school shootings have increased almost exponentially since just the late 1990s. Why? Yes, there are more guns. Yes, more people live in urban environments. But those aren't the answer. The problem of mass shootings has grown far faster than the rate of gun ownership. Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman, when I saw him speak, opined that the problem grew in direct proportion to the proliferation of first-person shooter video games. Hm.  I don't think that blaming the games themselves is the answer. But I'll for damn sure agree that there's an inured effect upon the players to distance themselves from the perceived consequences of their actions. 

I see evidence of dissociative behavior among youth that I didn't see much before. Youngsters engaged in online debate move quickly to direct each other to kill themselves. We've got individuals scattered among us who genuinely don't see other people as real. We've always had such sociopaths (for such they are), but it seems like we've started distilling them, and creating a higher likelihood that we'll have to deal with them.

--I am real. And so are you.

--The world will never be Nerf'd. We cannot stop violence, much. But maybe we can attenuate it. Maybe we can actually get a handle on what we can do to help reduce the chance that future sick persons will decide to destroy others.  I'm going to try. Please try in your way, too.

--Let me know what you think. I'm interested.
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*Except armor-piercing handgun ammunition.

"The Obligatory Cow Reference."

I had forgotten how well Stingray had written up a certain humorous-and-yet-tense moment, a couple of years ago, at Blogorado.

I just read it again, and laughed for a minute straight.

Shop Tawk

Last night I had a nice chat with Sam, an old co-worker of mine from back when. Sam works in what most folks would consider a small town, but which is the biggest town in about 20 miles in any direction. As such, it's a hub, and as a hub on the interstate highway, it's a local Mecca of business. And dealing drugs, while not a legally-sanctioned business, is still a business. Sam reports that they're finding their local gang list is blossoming like flowers in spring.

"Local" is misleading-- the gangs are oriented toward California and Chicago. Some of the members really are from there. (I was not aware that Bakersfield, CA was a gang haven.) But they're showing up in Sam's neck o' the woods, and they're getting pretty bad. There have been some rather heavy drive-by's of houses. That crap doesn't fly much, in semi-rural Texas.

My good buddy LawDog, further up the (different) road, is similarly working in a hub town, with similar gang problems.

In the small town that I work for, we're too close to other much larger towns and cities-- the gangs aren't really a problem so much as the individual naughty folk.

Half a decade ago, when he got his third arrest in as many days for it, Sam had observed to me that "the whole world's on meth, now." We agreed that it wasn't the possession of methamphetimine that got us worked up-- it was the lifestyle that was repeatedly surrounding our meth users. (Theft, burglary, robbery, criminal mischief, fights, DWI...) He told me last night that in his current town, he's seeing a year's worth of our old city's bad guys in a shift.

I may ride out with ol' Sam one of these nights. No, I don't want to go work with his city, at all. But it might be enlightening to see how they do things there. Just to see.

Mobs

• --Any large group of people can become a mob. The difference between a crowd and a mob is how unruly they are. Mobs actually can be celebratory, and some people are strangely drawn toward happy mobs. But not all mobs are angry or happy-- some are just persons simultaneously focused on a goal. There's a reason that schools conduct fire drills; if you don't put order to an evacuation (that crowd's goal), then even a bunch of kids can become a mob, and people get hurt or die.
• --The masses of shoppers flocking on store deals? They arrive as individuals, but often become a mob, if there's not some sense of order imposed.  Despite some effort to control them, some people get hurt.
• --Often a mob will then turn on those who try to control it. That makes life difficult and indeed often dangerous for those who are charged with establishing order among the mob's constituents. This has direct ramifications on the safety of individuals within the mob.
• --To counter such situations, often the people attempting to keep order with large groups will use a show of force, to either turn the mob, or keep the group of people from becoming a mob*.
• --Such shows of force are often criticized by:
• A: Rabble-rousers within the mob,
• B: People who do not know what they are talking about,
• C: People who see an opportunity to get on the news
• D: All of the above.
• --When a person joins a mob, he or she temporarily loses his individuality and personal identity. As such, he or she quite often drops his or her sense of right or wrong.  Peoples in mobs will destroy, attack, and even kill without the sense of individual consequence that most people would feel, taken alone.**
• --Some people like to take advantage of this, and utilize mobs toward their own ends. Anytime that you go to a political rally and someone starts up a chanting cheer that is taken up by the crowd, you're seeing a crowd of people giving up their individuality.  This is not to say that rallies are always (or even usually) mobs-- let's not forget that orderliness aspect of the mob.
• --People like to join such crowds, sometimes, because it feels good to be taken in as "one of them." People say all the time of such rallies, "I liked feeling like I was a part of something."  That need drives people more than you'd think.
• --Thus, I'm not a fan of big crowds. I'm not saying that nothing good ever happens from them. (Because something good can come from them.) But I myself tend to give them a wide berth.

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*The best way to deal with a mob is to predict where they will form, and either impose enough order that they cannot become an effective mob, or to plan to have enough people on hand to disperse them when they form.

**While working security at large events like college football games, I have often politely insisted that attendees remove masks that they have worn to such events. Some variations of these have become quite popular. My reasoning is that crowds create enough loss of individual accountability as it is, without having the second behavior modifyer of a mask thrown in, too. Wish to wear a mask?  Not a problem-- just do it outside, please.

The thing about freedom and equality...

...it spreads.

My co-worker came into the police department this morning to relieve me. While I finished up on a DWI report, he checked his web-based email, which popped up the news. “So,” he said with what I perceived as a smirk, “New York state has made it legal for gays to marry…!”

“Good. Maybe we’ll be next,” I said.

“I know, right?!?” said my conservative, VERY hetero, recently-married cop buddy.

Despite the stereotypes and the expectations of the opposition, many, many of us stand behind equality. More than the bigots know. That’s part of their downfall.

My friend may well have been trying to set up a derisive joke, but the things he said over the next few seconds told me that really, he'd just been waiting to hear someone else say that they support equality. I'm glad that I could answer that call. I think that he'll feel more empowered to next time start that discussion with, "It's about damned time."

Project A Kon

And speaking of Larry Correia, that reminds me-- I ran into a guy dressed out as one of his characters out of his excellent series of Monster Hunters International books.

He was very nice, and let me take his picture. I mentioned that I'd been a moderator with Larry at The Firing Line and The High Road for some time, and he asked if I wanted a patch. I've never gotten an MHI patch, so I was excited to get this one. I think that I'm going to sew it onto my patrol bag. I may put velcro on the back, and put it on my department gas mask bag, or on my fast response bag.

I ran into the guy at A-Kon, an anime convention for serious nerds. What was I doing at A-Kon, you may ask? Well, I think that I was being a good daddy. See, my elder daughter and her best friends have gotten deep into reading all manner of Japanese cartoon books called Manga. They watch videos of Japanese anime. They copy hundreds of Japanese pop songs in MP3 format to trade among each other to play on their iPods and phones and convert to CD format to play on my dadgummed car stereo when we go places.

So when my 12 year old daughter, who had just been recognized by Duke TIP as a really bright kid for doing exceptionally well on the SAT in 7th grade, got all A's for the six weeks, the semester, and the school year, she was getting a big reward. And she wanted A-Kon. I took her and her two best friends.

Folks, I've been to a few county fairs, a goat ropin', and I've seen ducks copulate, but I've never seen anything like this.

We drove into downtown Dallas to the hotel. No parking for blocks. We finally drove into a parking garage that was almost full, for $18 to park. We walked into the hotel amidst hundreds-- nay-- thousands of people dressed in various costumes. My daughter was not in costume, but she had dyed her bangs aqua (hey, they grow out). She was so normal-looking, that she was almost invisible. I just wore khakis and comfortable shoes. I was invisible.

We walked in as the conga line of several hundred passed us. The leader was a belly dancer with 8 foot butterfly wings of gold. Following her were all manner of costumed nerds who were in their natural habitat, mostly between the ages of 14 and 30.

It was as if, repressed of their chance to be social during their daily lives, these youngsters had finally found Their People, and took the opportunity to crawl out of their shells. They were jubilant. When they found someone in a similar costume, depicting the same character that they had come dressed as, they didn't get upset. Indeed, they would happily embrace, as would long-lost friends who had finally reunited. I saw this over and over again. They minded not at all if you asked to take a picture of them (or better yet, with them). It was a high compliment, and the most popular had worked on their poses. My daughter was a little jealous of her friend who was repeatedly recognized for the character whose costume she wore.

I paid the registration fee for all four of us. But that was it. (Besides snacks, lunch, supper, and a little help with a pin when a girl came up short.)

We saw furries, cross-dressers, perverts, and robots, both real and imagined. We saw storm troopers. We saw girl storm troopers. We saw video game characters. We saw faux Florentine fencing demonstrations. We saw people dressed as stone angels. We saw browncoats. We saw steampunks. We saw movie heroines. We saw superheroes. We saw strange mixes of culture that defied explanation. It was a throng of nerd-dom, taking up three stories of the hotel.

And next year, if she gets all A's, I'll take her to do it again.

A Worrisome Gap, Indeed.

I didn't serve.

I should have. I regret that I didn't. I believe that I would have made a good serviceman. But for whatever reason, I did not.

I now attempt to serve my little community as a patrolman. I don't kid myself about what the job is, and I get paid, so I refuse to accept praises beyond my actual worth.

But every serviceman who signs up for the armed forces of this nation puts himself or herself at risk of being put in harm's way. Yes, even the pogues and the REMFs and the supposedly non-combat support personnel. All may be sent into a hostile country, wearing our nation's uniform. And in truth, our D.O.D. is famous for taking a physicist or an engineer, handing him a rifle, and telling him to march in the front of the line instead of plying his preferred trade. Guys that sign up for easy duty might not get it. That's the risk. They've all got that in common.

But we who do not serve don't often think about those who do, unless someone close to us is in the military. Even now, with our servicemen and women scattered around the globe on two and a half fronts, we forget. Yes, we do.

So I find that the words of Admiral Mike Mullen (head of Joint Chiefs Of Staff) hit home when he describes a gulf between our military and the nation that it serves. He said that we who are on the outside are more and more failing to grasp what those on the inside are experiencing, and what their needs are.

"This is important, because a people uninformed about what they are asking the military to endure is a people inevitably unable to fully grasp the scope of the responsibilities our Constitution levies upon them," he said.

Our jobs on the home front are varied, but we all have a duty to this nation. The first duty, it would seem, is to remember.

Maybe, in between the pouring of drunks back into their houses or into jail cells this three-day weekend, I can remind one or two citizens of why we have the holiday weekend. Because frankly, it's easier to forget than it should be.

Who knew there even WAS such a musical genre?

Friend QP introduced me to Professor Elemental's brand of steampunk British comedy hip-hop:

The Indifference Engine.

And it's actually kinda catchy.

I'm actually not kidding. Who knew?

"Cup Of Brown Joy" actually reminds me-- need to pack some good tea for my weekend hog-hunting trip with LawDog*, Ambulance Driver, Alan, and a cast of others.

Oh, hadn't I mentioned that, before?

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*Edited: LawDog had to cancel. :(

Bringing up Men in an age of sissies.

I've a good friend (let's call him Red) who has married a good woman, with two boys. At ages 12 and 9, they're decent kids, but they've been reared for the previous several years by their mother, alone, and before that, with an ufortunate man. Red's new bride is delighted to see the boys now have a positive male role model, and my buddy Red is more than happy to step in and provide them direction in that role.

Long before Red proposed to her, he began helping the boys. After they got married, he began working in earnest to show them how to grow up to be Men. There are little things, like how to shake hands like a man, and how to wear clothing. Then there were bigger issues, like not coming inside and just sitting on the couch to watch television all day long, simply because it's hot outside. (It's Texas. You can expect triple digit temperatures in the summertime. Drink lots of water, and get back to playing outdoors.)

The younger boy has shown an uncommonly strong love of WebKinz. Okay, says Red. Fine. But try not to be silly about it-- boys at some point shouldn't carry around dolls. And when that doll is a wolf, a boy traditionally names it "Fang," or "Spike," or "Timber"-- not "Jenny." Red isn't trying to impede the boy's creativity, but he does insist that the doll get left home in the boy's room when they're out and about town.

Wailing and gnashing of teeth were observed.

Looks like Red has his work cut out for him.

The other day, Red reported to me that his boys were coming in the house, whining about what to put on an ant bite that each had sustained. He was incredulous. "You could rub some dirt on it," he answered. "If that doesn't work, maybe we could find you some cream for it, from your Mother's bathroom!"

Red isn't intolerant. If the boys grow up to actually be gay, he's fine with that. But he will be DAMNED if he will let them grow up to be wussies.

We have discussed how the world has changed since we were kids. Nowadays, boys are taught that there is zero tolerance for violence, so that even throwing a punch back at someone who has punched them in the face is grounds for expulsion. Boys are taught to cry more readily, and come seeking the ready attention of their mothers, rather than learning to deal with adversity themselves. Red's wife is a very, VERY good mother. She gives her boys lots of mothering. The problem is, they've been receiving double doses of mothering, without much fathering, in the past. Red is trying to overcome that. He figures that he doesn't have much time.

The good news is, the boys have taken to him like a duck to water. They will literally follow him around, doing work with him. They learn lessons from him about telling the truth (this has been an issue with them), treating their mother and other women with respect (also an issue), and speaking plainly. Of course these aren't exclusively the providence of men, but some lessons seem to take better to boys, when taught them by a grown man whom they respect, and who walks the walk. Talk is cheap.

I reckon that Red is just doing what's right, and no more. But because so few seem to do just that, it makes him stand out some. I'm proud to call him my friend.

We've been talking about culturally manly things to do. He takes them fishing, and they do the sports thing. I mentioned that he needs to watch some John Wayne movies with them. Maybe The Cowboys, and The Searchers, and The Sons Of Katie Elder. I like The Wind And The Lion, partially because it's actually a movie about men, rather than just cultures.

Any other ideas I can pass on? Favorite books? Important activities?

I myself was fortunate to have been reared with a definitive positive male role model.

Our nation.

Our President said today that we can't do much about the immigration problem until we have done something about the illegal employment problem. I happen to agree. We need to do something about the large pile of sugar that's sitting out.

Well, it appears that our President says that he wants to hold our estimated 11M illegal immigrants accountable. Okay. I agree there, too.

Barack Obama says that deporting them all would be untenable. As much as this irritates me, it's probably partially true, though exporting illegal border-crossers would certainly decrease the work taken to document them. Okay.

He says that we should make them "get right with the law" before they can get in line to apply for citizenship. Okay.

He says that they should be fined* (for a felony), and admit that they did wrong, and lean English, before they can apply for citizenship. Okay. (Side question: When are we ever going to push for English as a national language? Until this is done, frankly, the English language requirement to be a citizen seems unwarranted.)

He claims that this puts them in at the BACK of the line. I wonder.

He also claims that "there are, right now, more boots on the ground on the SouthWest border, than ever before." He also claims that crime on the SW border is down to less than it has been in 20 years. This is clearly a set-up to deny further funding to border security.

So it would appear that the President's answer to Border Security is to largely to make the illegal citizens legal.

As a guy who's constantly dealing with undocumented aliens, I'm actually not quite as disgusted with this as you might suspect.

Understand: I'm NOT anti-Mexican. I'm NOT anti-Hispanic. I'm NOT anti-immigrant. I wish to hell that the race/ethnicity/xenophobe argument was gone, frankly; it's a red herring. I'm first and foremost unhappy that the documented citizen has to pay taxes and answer for violations of the law, which the undocumented alien does not. So I'll admit that our President managed to actually speak to my interests in this speech.

But I suspect that he'll hold border security hostage until the Republican votes for the new immigration bill are in. Mark me on this one.

_______________

By way of Tamara, I read of a little girl who insists that her mama keep her promises to be patriotic. I had to wipe my eyes to see to type a response.
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*How much? Set the price point too high, and no one is buying. Set it too low, and everyone will buy.

A polite society.

Yet again last night, I saw another example of it.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I had run into the medium-large town down the road to pick up some groceries. I had my 7 year-old daughter with me. I was wearing a clean T-shirt, some cargo shorts and tennis shoes, and my assorted pocket plunder.

As I finished putting the groceries into the trunk, I realized that I was being approached by someone. I turned around to meet them, with my right hand casually dropping into my right pocket.

The individual was a man, not of my race or ethnicity. He looked like a working man, of younger middle age, still in his working clothes of a pair of worn khakis, an untucked non-labeled button-front short-sleeved work shirt, and a very worn clip-on ID tag that was smudged beyond recognition. I didn't know him, nor did I have the impression that we had met, but we might have. I meet a lot of people who remember me, whom I forget pretty quickly.

His voice was kind of gravelly as he said, "Excuse me...?" and continued walking toward me. This was in the parking lot of a large strip shopping center that also contained the huge supermarket where I had just finished my shopping. The man came from the end of the shopping center with all the little shops that had already closed for the night. He looked mildly aggravated. He didn't seem to notice my hand in my off-side pocket. My daughter was standing next to the back door of the car, waiting for me to get in and unlock it for her from the inside, but had the trunk of the car between the man and her. She was out of traffic, and reasonably out of harm's way.

"Yes, sir?" I responded. I kept my face open, and my eyes moved from the man's face to his hands to his waist and pockets and back to his face.

"Do you know this area?" he asked. "I thought that there used to be a store that sold cut-rate cigarettes here, somewhere." I now recognized that annoyed look on his face as being the frustration of someone who has made a trip that he is discovering to be a waste of time.

"Yeah, there was, wasn't there?" I said, searching my memory. "Wasn't it in that empty spot over there? Or that one over there? I don't smoke, so I don't pay much attention," I said.

"Naw, it wasn't that one, but maybe the other one. Dang. I don't smoke, either. It's for my brother," he said. "I heard they moved, but were still here somewhere."

"Sorry, man. Maybe the front desk guy at the restaurant there will know?" I suggested.

"Just came from there. Well, I'll have to get 'em at the convenience store. They want a lot of money, you know?" he responded.

"I heard that," I chuckled, and got into my car and opened the door for my daughter to get in. "Good luck." He waved as he walked away.

As I drove away from the parking lot, I noticed a new store, closer to the road than the rest of the strip center, with a new tobacco store in it. I tried to change lanes to get back into the parking lot to go tell the guy where it was, but couldn't safely make the turn, and gave it up for lost in the medium heavy traffic.

My daughter asked me who the guy was. "Just a stranger," I told her. She asked me why I had talked to him (she herself has strict orders never to do just that, with strangers). I explained that he was just someone who was seeking help, and wasn't a threat to me, and that I try to help people when I can do so safely.

She said, "Oh, because you're a police officer."

This was complicated. "No. Not just because I'm a police officer. Grownups should be able to try to help each other, if they can, without worry about other grownups. I wasn't talking to him as a police officer, but just as another adult. We were both citizens. Do you understand that?"

She nodded. "Uh huh. And my daddy's not afraid."

"Well, not of just passers-by, er-- people-- on the street," I reiterated. "You're a little girl, now. I don't let you talk to strangers because you're very [I tickled her, at this point] pretty, and someone might want to take you away. But someday, you will be an adult, and on your own, and you will make your own decisions about who you talk to, and about what. This will be based on your own comfort level with people. That's why we talk about bad guys, and how to deal with them," I said. I realized that I was going on a bit too long for a 7 year-old.

"But that wasn't a bad guy?" my daughter verified.

"No, sweetie. That was just a guy," I responded.

"Smoking is bad for you," she said, changing the subject at c speed.

"You're absolutely right, it is," I agreed. "That's one reason why Daddy never smokes."

"You smoked a cigar with John [Shirley]," she said.

"Well, yeah, you're right, I did. And that, my dear, is the exception that proves the rule," I admitted.

"What's that?" she demanded.

"Another time, kiddo. But Daddy doesn't smoke," I said.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

If it hadn't been for my seven-year-old using the Socratic method, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. I am more willing to engage in conversation with strangers, and at least attempt to help them, because I am armed, and feel few concerns about my safety. This happens all the time. It's a genuine example of cultures intermingling in a generally pleasant manner, because the participants weren't worried about each other.

Want to engage in peaceful multiculturalism? Speak kindly to a person of another race, culture, or ethnicity, and try to help a brother out. You can't do that if you're afraid of the world.

Stand at thy right hand.

To those of us who like a little classical history mixed with our modern guns and science fiction, there are few more beautiful stories than "Horatius," as told by Thomas Babbington Macaulay in Lays Of Ancient Rome. Whether or not the tale of Horatius Cocles is true, it should have been. I've always liked the concept of the valiant captain of the guard, but too have also liked the concept of his two buddies.

"Who?" you might well ask? "Horatius stood alone." Well, yeah, sort of. Actually, he stood first, and two other Roman citizens volunteered to stand with him: Titus Herminius & Spurius Lartius. You never hear their names, do you? Horatius fought with them at his side, and finally sent them away. But they also served. Their names are just not remembered.

Proud, honorable, anonymous service is a trait that I very much admire, in life as well as in literature. For the past few years, my email address has come from a line uttered by Lartius: "'Lo, I will stand at thy right hand, And keep the bridge with thee.'"

While I'm not such a geek that I sit around constructing GIF animations to show the battle at the gate, I will admit to smiling a little bit smugly that, one time in my early twenties, I seduced a chick with my reading and partial recitation of "Horatius."

And as they: Any lady who would be seduced by such a thing, is worth seducing. :)

More Belize, with some Guatemala.

Travelers Of The People, Pt I.

When we crossed the river from Belize into Guatemala, we were taken aback by the "Exit Fee," which was $37.50 Belize, or that amount in US for both of us together. Seems strange to be charged a fee to travel, but we weren't charged again on re-entry, nor were we charged again when we flew out of the country.

We walked up the hill to a gas station past many money-changers, and bought a few quetzals from them at 7.5 Q : $1 US. We bypassed the rather aggressive taxi drivers, and bought a Pepsi, noting the slightly different taste of sugar-based syrup, as opposed to high-fructose corn syrup.

After a bit, a minivan full of people came by, and asked us if we wanted a ride. Sure. We wanted to go to Tikal. Well, he was going to Flores, but could drop us off at the crossroads for 20Q. Done. We shoved in, and thought that, now that the minivan was really full, we would have an express route to the crossroads. Eh, not so much. A 20 mile trip turned into a 2 hour trip along their highway, made up of well-grated gravel. Following distances are poorly thought of, in Guatemala. More stops were made, and more people were squeezed in, with more and more baggage put on the luggage rack on top. We finally stopped at 17 passengers, all of whom were polite, exchanged pleasantries, and generally were of good spirits, despite tropical heat and no air conditioning.

Here's a minivan that is at its least-full status. Note that they guy to my left is practically in my lap. I've got two adults to my right, and four or five behind me.

A boy always minded the door. We boarded different vans in Guatemala, but it was always the same: the boy whose age was closest to 12 years old would sit closest to the sliding side door, and open it and scramble out to assist with luggage and such at each stop. Although he handed the money to the driver, and returned change, I never saw the boy tipped, and never saw any expectation of him that there might be a tip. When he got off the minivan, the next closest-aged boy took over the duties. The boy didn't seem to get any break in price for his services; he was just a passenger. I never saw anyone direct the boys to take these actions, and heard no one comment on them, which leads me to believe that this is simply expected behavior. If so, then I find it to be one of the most charming aspects of Guatemala.



Here the boy is inside, holding the door open after pulling it open.

Eastern Guatemala seems to run on the backs of the little mid-engined diesel mini-vans. They all had cargo racks welded to the top, with some kind of customization made to the window tinting and to the seat upholstery. Not one had a clear field of view in the windshield.




This was one of the newer minivans that we saw.


Speaking of windshields, I noticed that one of our minivan drivers had decorated his windshield with a series of small decals of motorcycles. Victory markers?

_________________

My wife and I believe that a good way to see a country and understand its people is to ride its public transportation. In Belize, we first walked, took taxis, and then took water taxis from Belize City to the cayes. Water taxis are basically used like bus lines, and are essential to the economy of the cayes. They deliver people and goods very quickly to the docks, and are surprisingly punctual, despite the rest of the islands being on "Caribbean time," a.k.a. "Belize time."



Looking aft in a water taxi. The locals sit in the shade. The tourists sit in the sun.

The ride from Belize City to Ambergris Caye is about 50 minutes, with a short stop on Caye Caulker while en route. Because the drone of three outboards running full-throttle makes it a little too loud to talk, most people on the water taxis read books, listened to iPods (EVERYONE has earbuds for their MP3 players there. Most just use their phones for this. Hell, I don't even have earbuds for my cell phone, yet.), watched movies on their iPods (my wife did this), or, like the dork that I was, stared out the windows at the reef going by, and at the Caribbean Sea beyond it. I even took pictures of just... open water. I'm certain that the locals rolled their eyes at this. I thought about how, the first time he went skiing, a friend from Houston spent an entire roll of film photographing every snow bank he passed, much to his fellow travelers' amusement.

Looking out over the bow on our last ride back to Belize City.

I tried various ways to get my crappy point-and-shoot camera to capture the true blue of the Caribbean waters, and the reef below. I found that the lens could actually sort of see the reef just 10 to 15 feet below, if I shot through my polarized sun-glasses, which caused a little distortion of the horizon.

I simply cannot represent here the blues that we saw.



More later.

That's it! I'm leaving this country!

Not to sound like a Baldwin, or Streisand, or anything. Frankly, as I don't consider myself the star of my own movie, if I were leaving for political reasons, I wouldn't say so here; I'd just go. And just as frankly, with Barry O' in office, I actually have more incentive to stick around and keep a sharp eye on my money.

But go I shall, and soon. My wife and I are taking our first vacation in 6 years, and it is to be our very first international vacation together.

See, last year, we got the hunger to go afield so badly, that we applied for and received our very first passports. I was shocked, once I finally did it, how easy it was. I had built it up in my head into this mammoth task that would take months and many hundreds of dollars to overcome. Instead, I took my docs with me to the post office, and stood in one short line, and after I had paid my state department fee and my post office fee, I was ushered back to get my picture taken. One-stop shopping! I was grinning so big when I signed for my receipt, that the guy across the desk shook my hand and said "Congratulations." To be honest? It wasn't funny to me. I felt like a citizen of the world all of a sudden.

I got my passport in the mail less than two weeks later. (I'm serious. There are areas of the government that seem capable of some efficiency.)

So my bride and I found that, by some oversight or other, we had managed to accumulate enough money to go on vacation. When my father and step-mother offered to take the kids off of our hands for a week, we said, "Take 'em!" and then set to planning.

My bride wanted a cruise. But having read the Atomic Nerds' experiences, I was kind of cautious about putting myself on a ship where I was to be unarmed, and relinquishing control of my destiny. All of the cruises gave you less than a day at each port. Knowing that a full hour would likely be devoted to disembarking at each port, this time seemed to me to be too short.

So we looked at some places to go. I threw out the idea of Belize. My wife challenged me with, "Fine. Do it."

So I did it. 7 days in Belize. While I do have some serious plans to be repeatedly served drinks on a beach by gracious Latinas with British accents, I still want to see culture, ruins, and I want to sunburn my butt whilst I snorkel the reefs.

So here's my request, gentle readers: From your own experiences, please give me some pointers, some must-sees, and some for-Gawd's-sake-stay-away-froms. I'm NOT a regular traveler, and I'm not too proud to take notes.

Gimme.

.

"Under the shade I flourish." I can handle that motto.

Dallas Gun Show

A buddy on leave from his job as an armourer for the Army came though town and wanted to go to the gun show on Saturday. I explained that I had to work that evening, and had to be back in town. He said that would be fine-- he just wanted to pick up some AR receivers.

We drove and drove to get to Dallas Market Hall, and were astonished by what we found: a line about 200 yards long to get in!

My friend said, "Maybe they're wanding everyone who's entering." Dad and I kind of looked at him askance, seeing as how almost everyone walking in had a pistol, bayonet, rifle, pistol, lock blade, hatchet, spear, or whatnot.

We found a parking space, and stood in line for about half an hour. Actually, the line was moving pretty quickly-- it was just that the press to get in was enormous. They were taking our money and zip-tying guns as fast as they could, to get us in. The crowd inside made the ginormous Market Center Hall feel cramped and difficult to walk into.

In all my lifetime of going to gun shows, I've never seen it like this. EVER. This is a direct response to Bary O' being elected in November.

My buddy went off in search of AR recievers. He'd bought his last ones a few months ago for $120. He came back with ONE Rock River receiver and parts for it that he found for $225, and counted himself lucky to get the last one on the table.

I priced some Webleys, but found that it was just too busy to browse. I vaccilated on buying some Crimson Trace stocks for my J Frame and my KelTec BUGs, but let that go, too.

From the good folks at Blue Star, I bought 200 unfired .38 S&W cases, and 200 hard-cast 158g LSWC .357 bullets, for my project of getting my friend Bill to come shoot plate matches with his Webley.

I bought a dental tool, some hemostats, and some tweezers for gun-cleaning.

And then we rounded up and headed out. Felt kind of lame, actually. My bag couldn't have weighed 10 pounds heavier than when I entered. Heck, I've seen times that I regretted not bringing a frame pack and a wagon in with me.

Hugs.

Boys seem to be hugging more than I remember. More than I'm used to, actually.

Not that this is a bad thing.

When I was a kid, a boy hugged his mother, his female relatives, and his dad on special occasions. Girls hugged whoever they wanted, I guess.

For the last few years, I've noticed that it's common for high school and even college-aged boys to give a quick hug when they meet. These hugs are clearly just good fraternal hugs-- I'm not trying to say that there's a creeping androgyny going on-- but they absolutely are unlike anything that occurred in the culture that I grew up in, just 20 years ago.

I'm pretty sure that I've hugged my best friend just twice in the quarter century-plus that we've been best friends, and on both of those occasions, one or both of us had tears in his eyes.

As a police officer, I've noticed that some kids will hug a cop, whom they've met but rarely. As an adult male, I'm reluctant to hug even a little girl. As a man in uniform, I think I'm doubly self-conscious of being hugged. It's sweet. But, you know. I'm not the daddy.

More awkward is the boy who spontaneously hugs me. And the older he gets, the more awkward. Today I had an eleven year old boy walk up to me and hug me before reminding me that we had met once, a year ago. I didn't know what to say, or do with my hands. He was a sweet kid, but. . . at eleven years of age, I was hunting with my dad, and trying to get a kiss from the neighbor girl, and... I don't know-- Hugging the neighborhood cop just out of the blue would NOT have occurred to me. The instance when I met him was in no way traumatic or life-altering, any more than a visit with a grocery clerk would have been so.

Curiouser and curiouser.

ER Docs Use Inappropriate Means, Causing The Death Of Their Patients.

See? I, too can spout off about something that I'm not qualified to discuss.

Wish I were out with them.

Early September morning in North Texas. The gold of the sun contrasts like pyrite against the lapis lazuli sky, on this, the first morning after the hurricane churned past. The breeze is from the north, and it dries the streets and the dewy ground quickly. There are gunshots in the distance, and as usual, the radio crackles with hunter complaints.

It's dove season.

Noticing a couple of flights of mournng dove over the new-ish housing development near the edge of town, I begin to motor over toward the pastures at another frontier of my jurisdiction, improbably far from my position to be the source of the pops. But the north wind on a quiet morning does in fact blow the sound of the shotgun reports a good long way, and I find the hunters' pickups parked at the back end of a new housing development that's built of ghost streets to nowhere, without houses or landscaping or even street signs. A line of round hay bales denotes the edge of the large meadow next to the development. Out of habit, I stop and run the plates, in case I get a call later.

In the distance, I see a camouflaged man walking toward me, unloading a shotgun and putting his shells in his belt pouches. It's a nice gesture, but he doesn't have to do it; I know he wasn't hunting on the road, and I've never been afraid of a sober hunter who minds his muzzle, as he's now doing.

"You doing any good?" I ask out the window of my cruiser. I don't bother getting out of the car because I don't want to hold the man up. It's coming up on 8:00AM, and this is the Golden Hour for morning bird hunting. I also don't want to give the impression that I'm here to give him any trouble. Getting out implies that I'm here to do just that, or at least give him more attention than he might prefer.

"Aw, I got a few. Three dove, and a couple of pigeon. Dad says they're worth eatin', but I don't know," he answers as he extends his hand to shake mine. "Henry."

"Matt," I respond, shaking his hand. "You're dad's right. Look in the craw of those feral rock doves, and you'll see that they're eating the same stuff your mourning dove and white wing dove are eating, but with three times the meat per bird."

"Yeah, and there's no limit on 'em. I know that. They're meatier, to be sure. I have to hit them a bit closer in than the dove," he answers.

"With that 20 gauge, I don't believe I'd try to bring them down further than those hay bales, I say, pointing to the line about 20 yards away,"unless I were carrying bigger shot than 8 shot."

"I reload, and these shells hold an ounce and an eighth of #6 shot," he says, with a grin.

"Then I formally withdraw my previous comment," I say, laughing with him. I consider making some worry-wart comment about being wary of excessive pressures, and realize that it would be foolish. I don't know much about shotshell reloading, and I've no way to know his experience level with the skill, and I'd be a little peeved if some Johnny Law took it upon himself to question my own careful efforts at reloading rifle and pistol cartridges, without any evidence of ineptitude. For alll I know, this guy's a master. I grin inwardly, and let my unnecessary warning die in my throat.

Instead, I ask him if the choke is a Modified, and he glances at the barrel to report that it is. He's thus well-suited to the long-range passing shots that he gets in that half-section field he came out of.

About this point, a flight of dove comes over, and I point to them. He laughs and reminds me that he's unloaded. I suggest that he step a few steps off the newly-poured road right-of-way and reload, lest we be overcome by attacking migratory game birds. He looks around and asks if I thought that the new concrete streets would count as roads that he couldn't hunt from. I nod and admit that they probably are, and point out where the right-of-way is.

I ask him whose land he's hunting on, and he shows me a card for the lease he's signed on to, which includes the meadow. Wow. I never had a printed card from any land that I hunted on. A few times, I've carried a quick permission notice signed onto a scrap of paper. Once it was a napkin. I wave it away when he offers to hand it to me, and point out another bird flying the tree line a hundred yards distant.

"I don't want to keep you," I say. "Good luck and good hunting, sir."

"You too," he says. We both chuckle as we simultaneously admonish the other to "be safe."

I haven't driven a hundred yards away before I hear the bark of his Wingmaster. I turn to see him already walking to pick up another bird, as two more do aerobatics to fly away from him.

Wish I was out there with him.

I log a note on my clipboard, and move on.