A Year's Worth of Hard Work...Down the Drain.

What’s the only bad thing about going on vacation? Knowing that the squirrels will have free uninhibited access to my back yard, that’s what! All year long I have been out there standing guard, putting the fear of God into those rabid, twitchy little rats. I have worked hard trying to penetrate the dense thickets of their tiny pea-brains with the notion that my yard was a place of death and destruction, hoping that at some point they would desire an end to the slaughter, that the mysteries of the squirrel DNA would reveal this deadly truth to them, and I would at last be free of them. No such luck.

They keep coming. They devise ill-fated schemes to penetrate the bird feeder; they cast covetous glances at my tomato plants. Meanwhile, I pick them off one by one, killing a few, injuring many and scaring the living bejeezees out of all of them. They never know exactly where I am, because I come at them from all fronts, even going so far as setting up a snipers nest in the movie room window upstairs where I rain down a barrage of BB fire from the sky, hoping the pure terror of it will get through to them that the back yard of my house is where squirrels go to die! But still, they keep coming.

And now, for the next 10 days I won’t be there to maintain order. There will be no death or destruction. I might as well put up a sign in the pine tree by the fence gate announcing, “CRAZY MAN GONE…PARTEEEEEEY-TIME!!”

It’s almost enough to make me hire some trigger happy teenager as a stand in. But, that wouldn’t work. The squirrels would know that he was just a nervous kid firing off shots every time he saw something move. They would laugh at me and my feeble attempts at deterrence. No, these next 10 days belongs to them, and there’s nothing I can do about it, furry little bastards!

Don't Be a Garbage Parent

This Friday is my wife’s birthday. What will we be doing? We will wedge all of our vacation gear into the back of the car and leave the house around 10 am for the white knuckle thrill ride that is I-95 north to Princeton, New Jersey. 5 hours and several near death experiences later, we will check in to our hotel, rest a bit, then get dressed for my son’s choir concert. He has been taking part in some sort of advanced choral workshop thing with all these high powered choral big shots from all over the country for the past two weeks and they will display the fruits of all their labor Friday night.

It just so happens that the Dunnevant family vacation of 2013 begins Saturday, in Hatteras, North Carolina, which means, that after this night of singing and frivolity, we will add Patrick and his suitcase to the back of the car, and make the 8 and a half hour drive from New Jersey to the Outer Banks. Why would we do such a thing? Why not make him drive himself? Why not fly him down?

Well, my friends, here’s the deal. This side trip to Jersey serves three noble purposes. Number one, it saves Patrick’s very old and hanging by a thread car the pain and agony of a sixteen hour drive in 1000 degree heat. Number two, it saves me the pain and agony of having to be a part of the famous Dunnevant beach convoy, where 5 cars turn a 4 hour drive into an all day scenic tour of the finest bathrooms between Richmond and Hatteras. But lastly we do it because we have no real choice. We can’t afford to miss the concert.

Half of parenting is just showing up. If your kid has a ballgame or a play or a concert, you make sure your fanny is in a seat watching it. There are no excuses for not being there. When I hear some guy say, “my kid is in a play tonight and I wish I could be there, but I have to get this proposal ready. Ha, somebody’s gotta pay the bills,” I usually say, “you’re a fool.” No, seriously, I say that to his face, because it’s total garbage. The entire debate between quality or quantity time is complete garbage. If it’s important to your kid, it better be important to you or you’re a garbage parent.

So, Pam and I will make a ten hour detour to hear our son sing his heart out in a chapel at Westminster. Somewhere along the way we will celebrate the birthday of the woman who brought him into the world, perhaps at a rest stop in Pisquataway.

Break a leg, son.

Old School vs. No school

"The jury, they old. That's old school people. We in a new school. Our generation."

                                                                                         Rachel Jeantel


If this particular child of God is an example of the new generation of America, then my advice would be to sell your United States Treasuries....TODAY. Miss Jeantel thinks that the jury of six women who decided George Zimmerman's fate were "old school" people. Listening to excepts from her appearance on the Piers Morgan show last night leads me to the conclusion that Rachel Jeantel must represent the "no school" generation.

I don't know Miss Jeantel, I know very little of her background since what little I can find in the media is distorted beyond believability by the biases of the media. Depending on the source, I can choose to believe that she is a terribly misunderstood victim or an illiterate embarrassment. Either way, she doesn't present a desirable outcome. If Miss Jeantel is any indication of what is being produced by the public school system in Florida, then there isn't any amount of money in the world that can correct it. This is one bitterly angry girl who is either semi-literate or deliberately ignorant. From the looks of it, I would guess that she comes from difficult circumstances and most likely a one parent home.

But she no more represents African Americans, than Albert Einstein represents White Americans. The number of blacks who overcome poverty and terrible schools to become leaders of industry, entertainment and academia indicate that it can be done. The fact that it doesn't happen very often is a National disgrace. There are of course many factors involved in producing the Rachel Jeantels of this world, but a major one is the notion among many urban blacks that education is for suckers. Any young black boy or girl who decides to apply themselves and excel in school has to fight through a barrage of accusations by their peers of being an Uncle Tom sell-out. Until this mindset changes, we better get used to more and more Rachel Jeantels.

But I refer to her as a child of God because she is, and any analysis of her must begin and end with that fact. When I hear her speak, when I see her anger and ignorance on display, I feel a sense of pity and shame. She has been the butt of a thousand jokes ever since her bumbling testimony, but there is nothing funny about the world that produced her.


 

Vacation Logistics

As is my custom at 6 am on Monday morning, I just finishing writing out my action plan for the week. I say “action plan” because it sounds more masculine and aggressive and less pathetic than a “to do list”, which is more accurately what it is. These are the things that I must accomplish for the week before I can start my weekend. As a business owner, and my own boss, if I manage to check off the last item by Wednesday afternoon, well, my weekend starts early. However, this week everything must be checked off by Thursday evening or, the barnyard manure will hit the fan. See, this is the week before my vacation, which means I must work twice as hard as I do any other week, so as to earn the right to officially goof off for a week. It’s all very much a matter of cosmic justice.

Usually there are 10-15 items on my list, er.. action plan, all of them business related. But this week there are 27 items, only around half of which have anything to do with making money. The rest are all about the intricate details involved in vacation logistics, when one goes on vacation with 15 of your closest relatives. Yes, once every two years we Dunnevants engage in a week long exercise in communal living on the Outer Banks, where everything is shared, from each according to his/her abilities, to each according to their needs. We even establish a communal bank of sorts, which involves a large white envelope stuffed with cash. Karl Marx would be proud, except for all of the religious music.

To complicate things (another hallmark trait of the Dunnevant clan), Pam and I have decided to pack up a couple of days early so we can drive up to Princeton New Jersey to hear Patrick perform in a concert. Then we will rise early the following morning and stuff Patrick’s vacation suitcase into the back of the car and make the 9 hour trek from Jersey to Hatteras, through the byways and highways of the Garden State, then down the coast, a trip never before attempted on a Saturday in July since the Great Boll Weevil infestation back in the 1920’s.

Nevertheless, I will hack my way through this prodigious list one item at a time until I check off the last one, which reads, “follow up TransAmerica money-laundering requirement”, which is much less sinister than it sounds, but regardless, must be done. Then Pam and I will leave town for nine days away from life, and for the first time in twelve years, not have to leave instructions for someone concerning Molly’s care. Strange how we mark the passage of time.

The Zimmerman Verdict

http://doug-thetempest.blogspot.com/2012/03/conversation-about-trayvon-martin.html

 

In March of 2012, I wrote the above blog about the Trayvon Martin case. Now that the jury has rendered a verdict, a few observations.

Re-reading my old blog, I find that not much has changed in my views on this subject. Back then, I thought it odd that a 28 year old man could shoot a 17 boy and be released simply on his word that it was an accident. Much of the anger back then from the black community centered on this point and on this point they were right. No 28 year old black man would have been so breezily sent on his way for an accidental shooting of a 17 year old white boy.

However, my observations about the unseemly nature of the race-hustlers and their roll in enflaming tensions have likewise not changed. The Al Shartons and Jesse Jacksons of this world are a scourge on our nation. They practically break their necks trying to beat the other to the closest microphone whenever something like this happens, assuming for themselves the roll of “spokesman” for every African American in the country. Meanwhile, since the day over 16 months ago when Trayvon was killed, 480 blacks have been murdered, the vast majority of them by other blacks, in Chicago alone! Jesse Jackson, call your office.

I must here confess that I didn’t watch any of the trial. I only read summations. I found the wall to wall coverage by the cable networks an appalling spectacle. It was very difficult finding anything approaching dispassionate coverage of the facts in question. From the beginning, The New York Times, and most of the mainstream press were heavily invested in a guilty verdict, so much so that the Times went to the trouble of creating an entirely new racial classification, the heretofore unheard of “White Hispanic”. Under this new Times standard, from now on I suppose that the Times will refer to the President as a “White African American”, since he too had one white parent. On the other side of the political barricades, Fox News was absolutely convinced of Zimmerman’s innocence, even going so far as calling the proceedings a “show trial”. Conservative talk radio was nearly unanimous with accusations that the fix was in, and that Zimmerman would be found guilty to appease the race hustlers.

But, despite the alleged “fix”, I read this morning that Zimmerman was cleared of all charges by the jury of six women. Unlike me, these six women sat there in court for every second of the testimony, every preening speech, and the presentation of every item of evidence. These six women decided unanimously that George Zimmerman was innocent. Now comes the hard part. Will there be riots? From some of the stuff popping up on social networks, it seems inevitable. But perhaps, the ability to anonymously vent on Facebook, the technological gift of being able to spew forth vile epithets without consequence on the internet will take the place of actually destruction of property. Instead of a thousand cars turned upside down, burning, looting, rape and murder, we will only have to endure a virtual riot. If so, we should nominate Mark Zuckerberg for the Nobel Peace Prize.

A Confession

Sometimes in life, you just have to admit that you’re a terrible person. This is one of those times. I’ve been in Atlanta the past couple of days on business, so I was out of my morning routine and consequently missed this story. In the aftermath of the crash of Asiana Airlines flight 214, a San Francisco television news anchor broadcast the names of the four Korean pilots of the ill fated plane. The names had been confirmed by none other than the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington. She read the names on the air:

     Captain: Sum Ting Wong

     Wi Tu Lo

     Ho Lee Fuk

     Bang Ding Ow

Apparently, a “summer intern” at the NTSB had come up with these names as a prank and the folks at KTVU in San Francisco fell for it hook, line and sinker. The info-babe read the names on the air without batting an eye. See for yourself: http://youtu.be/BFDwgJa7JOI.

Was this prank insensitive, racist and juvenile? Yes, yes, and yes. Then, why did I laugh so hard, I nearly wet my pants? Judge me all you want, but if you can watch that clip without at least smiling, then, well… you’re a better person than I am.

This, on the heels of the Chicago Sun Times issuing an apology for their headline announcing the crash: “Fright 214”, seen by many as an insensitive jab at Asian-American pronunciation. Let’s just say, it was a busy week for the politically correct language police.

On some level it bothers me that this sort of thing is funny to me. I blame it all on Mel Brooks, and his influence on me at a young age, but tasteless jokes have always made me laugh. Although I can sit for hours reading Shakespeare, Hemingway, Dostoevsky, and C.S. Lewis, I still find a well timed fart hilarious. I am confident that I harbor no animus towards Asian Americans; in fact, I have never known one who wasn’t fairly awesome, but when I heard that the Captain of flight 214 was someone named, Sum Ting Wong, well my first thought was, that summer intern at the NTSB has a bright future at the Onion!

2.5 Million Gladys Kravitzes'

With very little fanfare or public comment, President Obama issued an executive order in October of 2011 called the Insider Threat Program. You’ve never heard of it, have you? See, that’s the great thing about executive orders, no Congressional hearings, and no annoying media to generate negative feedback. It was in response to the leaking of classified material to WikiLeaks by Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. The idea behind the Insider Threat Program, or ITP for short, is to turn all federal employees into snitches, a two and a half million strong horde of spies, all trying to be Gladys Kravitz.

You remember her, right? Well, if you’re under 50, probably not. She was the nosy neighbor on Bewitched who was constantly peering through the window, seeing some supernatural thing going on over at the Stephens house, but by the time her beleaguered husband would come to look, things were back to normal. Eventually, he stopped paying attention.

Well, here’s what the ITP is asking each federal worker to do:

            

  Watch lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors...
·  Odd working hours, unexplained travel...
·  Monitor co-workers stress, divorce, financial problems...
·  Track online activities...
·  Those failing to report face penalties, criminal charges...

 

 

I love that last one…snitch, or else! So, now when I go to the Post Office, my 30 minute wait in line will be more like 45 minutes, since all the employees will be busy keeping a sharp eye out for stressed out divorcees in their ranks.

I suppose this is designed to prevent leaks of classified material by identifying potential threatening employees who might be so inclined. Whether or not any of this would have worked on Pvc. Manning, or Edward Snowden is hard to tell. Seems to me a better way to prevent these sort of leaks is to limit access to classified material to Army personnel with the rank of Private first class!

 

But, in the age of NSA spying on ordinary American’s phone calls, why shouldn’t Government workers be ordered to spy on one another? It seems to have become our national pastime.

 

All of this reminds me of one of the most disturbing yet powerfully moving movies I’ve ever seen. It’s called, The Lives of Others, and is about a Stasi officer who is ordered by the East German government to spy on a playwright. As he hides in a room on the roof of the apartment building where the playwright lives and listens to every word that is spoken inside the apartment, he hears poetry for the first time. What happens to this Stasi officer is both beautiful and chillingly tragic.

 

It’s a German film which could never have been made in Hollywood, since the villain in this picture is totalitarian Communism and it’s destruction of the human spirit. When I watched it in 2006, I never dreamed that one day, agents of our own government would be up to many of the same tricks.

 

Do yourself a favor and find The Lives of Others on Netflix.