Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory by Ben MacIntyre

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Interesting tale of espionage, deception, and intrigue during WWII. The tale was told in the 1956 film "The Man Who Never Was," staring Clifton Webb. But now documents have been unsealed and we know who the corpse was, Glyndwr Michael, a Welsh suicide victim. Author makes mistake of including photos of the decaying corpse. Just because you have all the information, doesn't mean it has to be included. This image haunted me during the remainder of the book. Too creapy!



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The Jokers by Albert Cossery

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Perhaps if I had read Cossery’s The Jokers when I was in my early twenties instead of in my early fifties, life would have been much easier to digest. The character Heykal states that are two very simple things to understand. The rest is of no importance. The first being, that the world we live in is governed by the most revolting bunch of crooks to ever defile the soil of this planet. The second being, is that you must never take them seriously, for that is exactly what they want. Follow the pursuits of this group of “Comedy Terrorists” in their attempt to deal with the world’s madness, as if it were their salvation.



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because this darkening is
so malignant of itself
and so contrary to be undone
the memorials are to be sanctified
by prejudice, pick-me-ups
and such wherewithal

the kidneys are to be
diversified and made right
with paraphernalia which
recreate and undergird
the marrow and fabric
of indispensable content

When you grow up in Cleveland, Ohio, you learn how to be embarrassed for the city at an early age. You realize that your city will often be the brunt of jokes by comedians and others around the nation. And much of this is deserved. Remember when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire.

You also learn how to wear this on your sleeve with a self-deprecating sense of humor. Ghoulardi taught us this lesson.

Unfortunately, Clevelanders just gave themselves another black eye. A fan wearing a Lebron James Miami Heat jersey attended an Indians game. Immediately words went back and forth between him and the crowd. After about five minutes of this, some of Cleveland’s finest (CPD) escorted the man wearing the jersey out of the park. In other words—he was ejected.

Now wait a minute! This guy had all the right in the world to wear that shirt. The reaction displayed by the crowd was unbelievably immature. In fact it was EMBARRASING.

As far as I’m concerned, the way the people of Cleveland are reacting to the Lebron James move, is the same as if he were a “run away” slave. If I was offered a better job, in say Tulsa, I would probably take it without worrying about having any obligation to the city of Athens.

In fact, I just ordered my Heat jersey.

The Iroquois Nation which helped develop (or better yet—invent) the game of lacrosse, has a team attempting to partake in the sport’s world championship in England. There is a problem though. They want to travel as the Iroquois Confederacy, using their own passports (meaning that they are a sovereign nation). But England has refused them visas, saying that they are in fact not sovereign.

Actually the problem is with the United States government. They have made it clear that they will only let players back into the country if they have valid US passports. The British government simply won’t give the players visas if they cannot guarantee they’ll be allowed to go home.

Of course the US government has been playing fast and loose with sovereignty issues and Native Americans for some time. Historically, Native American Tribes have been dealt with through treaties, negotiated with Congress or through administrative decisions within the executive branch. In the recent past, 1978 to be precise, the Bureau of Indian Affairs established a regulatory process for recognizing tribes. This is something a country does if they are dealing with another sovereign nation.

But then something strange happened. I think you can guess what that may be. It starts with a C and ends with an O. Wait a minute… you mean the Injuns now have the resources to file law suits against the US governments to protect their interests. We’ll show them.

The U.S. has consequently recognized only about 8 percent of the total number of tribes. The consequence of this is that if a Native American tribe is not currently federally recognized—then the tribe and those enrolled in the tribe are not entitled to certain privileges, such as sovereign status and immunity.

It hasn’t been easy for tribes to gain any sovereign status in the past. There are some examples, such as in Turner v. United States and Creek Nation of Indians, 248 U.S. 354, 357-358 (1919), when the court noted that “the Creek Nation [whose political structure had been terminated by Congress in 1906] was recognized by the United States as a distinct political community, with which it made treaties and which within its own territory administered its internal affairs.”

I can only imagine the hill to climb now.

In 2010, when sovereignty is an internationally recognized concept, indigenous Native Americans still do not retain any of their pre-colonial traditional indigenous rights. And let’s not forget that a basic tenet of sovereignty is the power of a people to govern themselves.

Case law has already established that tribes reserve the rights they had never given away. American Indian tribal autonomy and powers originate with their history—where they managed their own affairs.

So now we are adrift in murky waters. The U.S. Constitution recognizes Indian tribes as distinct governments, and they authorize themselves to regulate commerce with “foreign nations, among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.”

Yet the picture today, is one where the U.S. government describes Indian tribes as “domestic dependent nations.” It maintains that the federal-tribal relationship “resembles that of a ward to his guardian.”

So do tribes remain sovereign nations and possess self-government?

Do tribes have any nation-to-nation relationship with the U.S. federal government?

Does Congress have plenary power over Indian affairs?

Is state governance permitted within reservations?

As I watch the World Cup tournament 2010, my prediction of a good showing by the South American countries is proving to be correct. Uruguay is beating South Korea at half time presently. During the first half, though, my concentration wavered as my memory brought me back to 5th grade when I met the President of Uruguay.

My family, during spring break, visited colonial Williamsburg, VA. We stayed in the top half of one of the restored homes in the colonial section, which was near the main Inn. The whole vacation was an incredible adventure for a young boy with an overactive imagination.

It was brought to our attention that the people below us were from another country. Apparently at that time, Washington would put foreign dignitaries up in Williamsburg and fly them into DC via the Marine helicopter. Rumor had it that it was someone important.

Now, when I was young, I could never be accused of being shy, especially if I spied a beautiful woman in her twenties sun bathing on a beach. Even though I was only in my pre-adolescent years, I would ingratiate myself into her life with all the charm of Don Juan.


So, because of my incurable curiosity and having no fear at all, I walked down the stairs and knocked on the door of the apartment. A very dignified man answered and asked what I wanted. I then explained that my family was sharing the house (pointing to the stairs) and that I heard that someone important was inside that apartment.

“I want to meet him,” I said with the arrogance of a royal.

The man hesitated. I looked him in the eye. A grin then appeared on his face and finally he said, “Please. Come in.”

He explained that he was an attendant to the President of Uruguay.

“Do you know where that is?” he asked.

“Of course,” was my answer. I lied.

He showed me the President’s coat, which was on one of those sewing type mannequins. It was covered with military medals. It was one of the most impressive sights these eyes had ever seen. I was speechless.

Finally the man himself came out from the back and the attendant explained to him who I was. He was gracious and dignified. I was meeting a great man. This I understood. Yet he was also very humble. He spoke with me for a short while and then off I went running up the stairs to tell all to my brother and sister.

When we were in the restaurant the next morning, we saw the Marine helicopter land out back of the Inn, through the bay window. I waved at the machine as it eventually flew off, only hoping that the President of Uruguay might have been waving back at me.

(from Circus by Moonlight)

to calm passion
or lull the mindset
we will initiate another
kind of chaos
which will snub and slight
the understanding man

the novice will sit
in his seat
as presiding officer
of idiocracy

prefer me
before my peers
and i will tell you how
to make yourself
stinking rich
as if by
laughable happenstance

act the upstart and
speak as a bigot
but,
like all artless actors
look inflated
and temporize
the name of insolance
and pride

nothing is so pernicious
as the charismatic contagion

an embalming fluid, this blackdamp
of cold light and scattered countenance

the unconscious reflex
of our shameful spewing

be there any frigid agony
in it, or torpid bashfulness

while the hypothermia in the entrails
will make the melancholy atomic

frostbitten wildwood
of trust and confidence

deadweight of thorns making an
all-out effort to bloodstain the margins

a signet from long past
yet so painfully contemporary

When I was a kid and we would play “Army,” often the kids playing the German’s would say something like, “May I see your papers please?” And you would answer, “This is America. It’s a free country. I don’t need to show you anything.” Then we would all laugh. World War II was big theme in these games, because of all the movies about it made in the sixties (the time I was in elementary school).

Consequently we, as a cooperative society believed (and still do) that people in the United States have the right to travel and associate without being monitored or stopped by their government, unless actually suspected or convicted of a crime (and unless that suspicion is reasonable). This is an understanding that stands on the back of decades and centuries of court decisions about the rights of innocent Americans. And when this is taken away, it feels as if we don’t live in a free country. In fact it eerily resembles life in a totalitarian state, where you need the permission of the government to think, to write, to speak, to move from place to place.

In a free country, we have always been under the assumption that people going about their lawful business cannot be compelled to identify themselves, especially when they are engaged in activities protected under the Constitution. This is called—anonymity. In Talley v. California (1960), the Supreme Court stated that “It is plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes.”

Remember your history please…The Federalist Papers, which explained the justification for the American Revolution, were written anonymously, and were published with pseudonyms.

Now in Arizona, a new law has been passed where the law entails that any person who “looks illegal” could be asked to provide proof of citizenship at any time. Skin color, accent or dress can trigger a police officer to stop someone. In fact, a truck driver with a commercial driver’s license was just pulled over while driving “through” Arizona because he had brown skin. When he showed the proper identification, it was not sufficient enough for the police officer, who then asked to be shown a birth certificate. I ask you—who carries their birth certificate around with them?

So, for those of you, who happen to have the misfortune to live or pass through that totalitarian state of Arizona, I say—defend your rights.

If you are pulled over by the police, don’t talk to them about your immigration status or anything else. Terminate any police encounter as soon as possible, and never consent to any search, and assert your right to remain silent and to consult a lawyer. This is because the police officer is required; if (1) they are in lawful contact with you and (2) they have “reasonable suspicion,” to “attempt…to determine” your immigration status. This obligation is on the police officer, not on you. There seems to be nothing in the law that purports to create any obligation on you to assist in that “attempt…to determine” your status, to answer any questions, to carry or produce or display ID, or to consent to a search for evidence of identity or immigration status.

Of course, most people don’t know this…and that’s just the way they want it.

Boycott Arizona!!!

The Large Hadron Collider is now smashing atoms (or more properly: colliding subatomic particles). All of this is happening in the Swiss-French countryside. Just imagine it—something out of an impressionist painting with a monster lurking just beneath the surface. And when I say lurking—I mean smoldering.

Protons are stimulated to more than 99 percent of the speed of light, with energy levels of 3.5 trillion electron volts apiece around a 17-mile magnetic corridor. So what does this mean? Well, they crash together to form little (and I mean little) microscopic fireballs which might reveal the forces and particles that might have appeared during the first trillionth of a second of the Big Bang.

But up till now, there has been a hitch: it has kept breaking down. The reason for this is why I’m so fascinated with this subject, being such a sci-fi nut. And here it goes—some scientists believe that the forces that the collider will create will be so abhorrent to nature, that it is being sabotaged by its own future. They call it—Higgs boson hypothesis, which states that the collision or Big Bang would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make it happen.

Wow! And this coming from scientists (most notably Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, Japan)--not just any run of the mill Star Trek geek like me. Oh Yeah—and for all you Nielson fans, also Holger Bech Nielson, of the Neils Bohr Institute in Copenhagen.

This influence from the future, they say, was also responsible for the cancellation of the completion of a super collider in the United States in 1993.

Scientists are so funny—some have said that the theory is crazy. Yet maybe, crazy enough that it might have a chance at being correct. This means that the fundamental laws of physics must be reversible. And I do believe that most scientists believe that they are. Now if you’ve seen Star Trek (Original Series) repeats as much as I have, you have no doubt concluded that it is in fact a Starfleet ship that has returned to sabotage the collider.

But the Large Hadron Collider just successfully made their first little explosions and nothing happened. They are in search of dark matter, which you are fully aware, is some tricky stuff. In fact it is too tricky for Neanderthals such as us. So I think that there is some Spock-like dude (from the future) who has infiltrated the site, and is keeping us from blowing up the universe.

Hey—this theory is just as valid as the one from the smarty-pants with big degrees.

And don’t forget what Albert Einstein once wrote to a friend: “For those who believe in physics, this separation between past, present and future is only an illusion.”

I am thy father’s spirit.
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood;
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine. (Shakespeare)

If the whole of the court and the whole of society is corrupt, and if there is a flaw running through the linear chain of humanity, then my contribution to it can only be termed a failure.

A well known fact is that, although corruption is birthed from somewhere in the middle of our double helix of DNA (probably stuck between scatology and cynicism strands), it is a concept usually introduced to us by our older brothers.

Biological or not, I fall into the later category. And boy was my brother a master.

This story about my fall starts with a brief word about the shoes I tried to follow. My brother Clyde and his good friend Rob took to shoplifting school supplies from a local bookstore.

Act casual.

A pencil (here).

A beautiful ink fountain pen (there).

Compasses. Rulers.

Next—almost every damn thing in the store.

The inventory must have shown that something was wrong. Somebody had to be opening a supply store nearby and didn’t want to purchase their stock.

Deep in Clyde’s closet, was a box with the booty. A treasure box hidden well from a mother’s prying eyes. He and his friend would take out the box and gloat over its contents. I was only given permission to look on rare occasions.

Of course, my privy eyes would bulge. This was incredibly neat stuff. The seed was planted. Their talk of thievery was so casual, it must be an activity worth exploring; must be relatively easy. Just look at their cache.

Yes, there is profit in transgression! There is perfect logic in it. One must imitate an older brother’s enterprise—his art.

So off I went, in pursuit of splendor. Off to start my life of crime. I was thy brother’s spirit, riding towards the store on my new bicycle.

The plan was perfect. I had a leather pouch with straps, hanging from the back of the seat. It was the ideal place to stash the goods. Such praise from Fagan.

I entered the store with the eyes of Artful Dodger, trained with amazing awareness. Yes, that would be nice. The clerk is not looking. The clerk is looking. This location is obstructed from view. Act like a browser. Casual demeanor disarms suspicion. If you act nervous horns will sound, Doberman Pinchers will come bounding down the aisle and make lunch meat out of you. Do they send boys to prison?

A problem arises. I just can’t do it. I am too nervous. The anxiety within me is so intense that the booming of my heartbeat is reverberating from the walls. Books will start vibrating and fall from the shelves.

I can’t chicken out though. The humiliation would be even more painful than my cowardice. It is no longer a matter of how much to take, but more like what would be the easiest to conceal and how fast I can get out of there.

I can snatch and run. No—too risky. The minutes seem like hours.

Doesn’t this boy have a home? He must be lost. He must be waiting for his mother.

Finally, my eyes spy the object of my corruption; the singular article confining me to fast in fires. It is a Bic ball-point pen. It’s net worth: nineteen cents. Nineteen cents for a soul. It spoke to me.

Casual as an earthquake, I lifted it from the shelf. I inspected it. Yes, must be quite a fine pen. Try it out. Balances nicely! Walk down the aisle a bit. Nobody looking

Yes--I am a fan of music lists at the end of the year. I love to hear what David Dye has to say at the end of the year, as well as looking for what the NPR listeners pick on the "All Things Considered" list. But I have never ventured into the realm of making a list myself. This year I am changing that.

So here it goes--

1. Band of Skulls: Baby Darling Doll Face Honey

2. Meshell Ndegeocello: Devil's Halo

3. Devandra Banhart: What Will We Be

4. Rain Machine: Rain Machine

5. Other Lives: Other Lives

6. Heartless Bastards: The Mountain

7. White Denim: Fits

8. BLK JKS: After Robots

9. The Low Anthem: Oh My God Charlie Darwin

10. Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca

In 1838, an American by the name of Josiah Harlan led an expedition against Murad Beg (prince of Kunduz and tribal war lord) in Afghanistan. His army included 1,400 cavalry, 1,100 infantry, 2,000 horses, and 400 camels. This rag-tag army crossed the Hindu Kush and followed the path of Alexander. Before unleashing his force on the region he unfurled the Stars and Stripes from the highest pass (Khazar) and had his troops fire a twenty-six gun salute.

Now, let’s back track a little. Who in the heck was this guy?

He was a soldier of fortune from Pennsylvania (and yes—had a Quaker upbringing), who sailed east in 1823 in search of adventure and ended up in India (with the Bengal Artillery) as an assistant surgeon. He had no medical training. He fought in Burma.

When the fighting ended, Harlan resigned and moved into northern India, where he hooked up with Shah Sujah (deposed Afghan monarch in exile). Once he had joined the royal circle, he disguised himself as a dervish and undertook a spying mission to Kabul. When he made his report (that the forces were too strong and well entrenched to attack) the Shah rewarded him with the titles of “King’s Nearest Friend” and “Companion of the Imperial Stirrup.”

Sounds cool to me! Especially the second one.

He then moved on to the court of Ranjit Sing as a mercenary and bagman. Eventually he pops up in Kabul a year later as aide-de-camp to the Sikh monarch’s archrival, Dost Mohammad Khan.

Loyalty going to the highest bidder, you could say in this field.

His new boss had a rapacity for gold, and possessed a cruelty that doubted every motive but self interest. Oh yeah, and he was a drunk.

One wonders how Harlan’s Quaker upbringing reconciled with the perpetual and shameless bacchanals of drink, prostitutes, singers and actors.

Perhaps it was his sober reticence that impressed his boss, because he made him second in command of an expedition against Murad Beg.

After punishing Murad Beg, the army returned to Kabul in 1839. It was then that Harlan learned that the Government of India was sending an army to restore Shah Sujah to the Afghan throne. Dost Mohammed named Harlan as commander-in-chief of his army. But when his people heard of the size of the army advancing, they deserted their leader en masse.

This is when Harlan returned to Philadelphia (1841). He wrote a memoir, where he refers to himself as General.

He tried to promote the use of camels by the US Army. And during the Civil War, he raised a regiment known as Harlan’s Light Cavalry. After the war he got Congress to raise $10,000 for a Central Asian Expedition. It never happened, and Harlan ended his days in San Francisco, where he practiced medicine until his death in 1871.

branding irons are to be used
in the suture of our commutable contusions

only yesterday I exhaled your dingy smoke
and it irradiated like frankincense

we made a toast with Helena’s bowl
to the true nepenthes in Homer

and retired our sorrow and debt
to the aliment of all heart-eating vice

but ended up mutually misaffecting each other
with songs and slurs until you broke my skull open

which it turned out, no reparation would suffice
unless the injury remained rational

Solomon himself would have offered me his cup
because, the onlookers thought i was a ghost

although you and i knew different--that atheism
like ours could be maintained by heathens alone

Dear Mister/Ms Police Officer,

If I get pulled over for speeding in the future and I seem a little nervous, please understand—I’m not hiding anything—I’m only worried that you might stun me for no reason other than that you are lazy and incompetent.

This is because you have complete authority. And you don’t have to do any work, anymore. Open my mouth (you know you don’t have to take any lip from me) and –ZAP!

How does that power feel?

Yours Truly, John Q. Public

The Taser is shaped like a gun and is battery operated. It fires two fishhook like barbs into a person’s skin, discharging between 50k and 1000k volts of electricity, disrupting a person’s muscle control. The darts have a range of up to 21 feet. The tool can also be pressed directly against a person’s body to use in stun mode. About 6,000 agencies use the device.

That’s the technical scoop.

But here’s the real deal—the pain caused by the electricity is excruciating and freezes you on the spot. And it keeps you frozen, until someone hits the “off” switch.

And the troubling part of this story is that it is now the preferred method of resolving any issues between police and the community. No one is immune from the TASER. This includes people who don’t pose any serious threat, such as unruly school children, pregnant women, a 6 year old mentally disturbed boy in Miami, a handcuffed 9 year old girl in Arizona, along with the elderly (including a legally blind 71 year old woman in Portland).

And get this—69 people have died nationwide after being shocked by Tasers. Many of which were due to the “rush to tase and ask questions later,” according to Sheley Secrest of the NAACP Seattle chapter.

Those tased who were fortunate enough not to have been killed by the devise, includes a deaf man who couldn’t hear deputies ordering him to stop, and a teenager who ran after not paying a $1.25 bus fare.

In my day--kids were taken home to their parents and made to account for themselves.

Now we all know the reason Tasers were introduced to law enforcement. They could potentially end violent standoffs and subdue suicidal people. But, as they have become as ubiquitous as the handcuff, they are being routinely used in far less threatening situations.

Amnesty International has released a report saying that police nationwide are abusing the stun gun. They advocate that officers stop using the device until independent tests prove they’re safe (The company that builds them insists they are). Some studies have indicated that not enough scientific data is available to determine whether Tasers are safe for use in all circumstances.

Several chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union have urged police to use Tasers only in the most serious situations. This is because there are no rules and standards that apply to their use. There are only suggestions. And some police departments are starting to clamp down on abuses by their officers. The Las Vegas Police Department recently had to ban the use of Tasers on handcuffed people and “discouraged” multiple shockings.

According to Amnesty International, Taser use has been followed by death in 277 cases. They are concerned that the weapons are being used on unarmed people, where there is no imminent threat to the officer or other people in the situation.

Only recently, I was channel surfing the old television, and came across the beginning of a new police reality series, featuring female officers in Broward county, Florida. One of the officers said something about how much she enjoyed stunning people with her trusty Taser, as an introduction to her character. It was sadistic and perverse. She thought that it was funny.

Tell that to the 15 year old boy in Michigan, who shortly after a Taser was used on him Tuesday, died. And of course, I wonder how funny those three officers in Laredo, Texas, think it is after

Recently, British police began combing an upscale London neighborhood. It was not to catch criminals though. It was to commit crimes themselves. They were in search of things to steal. They were checking for unlocked cars for items and taking them.

The rationale: to teach the owners a lesson to keep their doors locked, and their windows closed.

They were to “remove the property for safekeeping,” and a note would be left to explain what happened.

I guess that this type of thing could be referred to as the weird cousin of “focused deterrence.” Normally, the principle of this form of crime fighting is to force criminal activity to another jurisdiction. Criminologists refer to this as “displacement.” In Madison Wisconsin, campus police understand this fundament, and have been successful in deterring crime with their “bait bike” program. A GPS device is attached to such bikes. Since the program started, 18 people have taken the bait, ending in 16 arrests in two months. The police, in this situation, attempt to make the criminal evaluate the risk of apprehension; contemplate the seriousness of the expected punishment, along with their immediate need for criminal gain.

This has led to evidence of sizeable crime reduction on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Unfortunately, it did not shift crime to surrounding areas. But, it did put a dent in crime without putting a strain on police-community relations. I can only imagine the strain on police-community relations in London when the folks discovered that their valuables had actually been nicked by the police.

Perhaps the police in London have come to the conclusion that studies usually indicate that traditional crime deterrence programs, like that being employed in Madison, do not cause criminals to move to other areas. They resist movement to other sites, because of the natural tendency to stay with what is familiar. Movement would cause demand that they encounter new and less familiar conditions. Criminals simply change their methods in order to continue their activities without getting caught. So, instead the coppers focus their attention on the prospective victims by making them victims.

Yet, from where I come from, the state is responsible for maintaining order and preserving the common good through a system of laws—not the audacity to commit crimes in order to educate the populace about possible future crimes. The police in London need to achieve their objectives through policies that convince criminals (not victims) to desist from criminal activities, delay their actions, or simply avoid a particular target.

To do this, they must develop strategies which focus on future behaviors of criminals, and preventing them from engaging in such crimes by impacting rational decision making processes.

To put it another way—if criminals choose to continue their disruptive and threatening behavior, they deserve to be punished. The citizen, though, does not deserve to be punished (by having their property seized by the police) because of the activities of a few deviants.

As crime rates increase, police resources always are stretched and the certainty of apprehension decreases. Come on folks—let’s use our money more efficiently!

The folk down here in the hills of southern Ohio, understand that y’all are upset about not getting the lion’s share of the federal transportation stimulus money. We hear that y’all are complaining that you have the nation’s worst traffic jams and some of the oldest roads and bridges, so the money should be going to y’all. Some are saying that y’all contribute three-quarters of the nation’s economic activity and that money should be returned by filling all those little pot holes we’ve heard about. I’m not sure what they are, but I do know of one farmer down here who lost his horse and buggy in a sink hole. He just shook it off and said it must have been the Lord’s work.

Well, I just want y’all to know that things have gotten down to the stems and seeds here too.

I have a cousin up in Cleveland, who started complaining that $115 million of $200 million earmarked for something called an Innerbelt-bridge was sent down here for the Nelsonville Bypass. I’m not sure what an inner-belt is up there, but down here it usually means the life savings someone carries around in a hidden pouch, because they haven’t trusted banks since the great depression. Word is out that that bridge might save some commuters about a half an hour in the morning, while the bypass will improve transportation to Appalachia.

It’s no secret that those up in Columbus would rather have Rt. 33 bottle necked to keep “all those” hillbillies from coming up from West Virginia. But being cut off from the rest of the state by inadequate ingress and egress will only keep us isolated from the rest of the state. Damn shame too. This is prettiest part—hands down. At the same time, I’m not sure we would care to see very many of those Columbus yuppies (going through their middle age crisis) riding into town on their Harley’s (no helmet and thousand dollar, designer shades) on weekends.

OK, I admit that fewer people live here. But does that mean we shouldn’t be getting some of “the monies” also.

Folk who live in rural areas don’t have all the services that y’all have in the big cities, so many times we have to make that long drive for certain things. Now, the bypass will make the drive to Columbus only a short one hour drive, instead of the one and a half hour drive that it is now. Folk in cities know that a one hour drive is like crossing town. But to us, that extra half hour makes the drive seem more like that dreaded long drive to aunt Gerdy’s for Thanksgiving dinner.

It seems like those up north have developed a sense of entitlement that Buckeye football fans have exhibited for years. If they lose one game, the season is over. Down here in Appalachia, if the Bobcats win one game, we’re happy.

So now the score is Nelsonville Bypass-1, Innerbelt-Bridge-0.

As usual, right wing conservatives and fundamentalist Christians are dropping the ball on homelessness in America. Either they are blind to it or just prefer to ignore it by denial or by rewriting the story.

Officials who actually live in the real world and work with the homeless, are experiencing a SURGE in homelessness this summer and are expecting an all time high in the numbers of families in shelters. The higher numbers in unemployment will no doubt add to the increase.

Many shelters are now overcrowded and have been turning away numerous people at night, and Salvation Army shelters have had to put mats on the floors to accommodate the amount of those in need. In New York, the number of families applying for shelter has increased by 28%.

So where are the conservative Christians? Isn’t charity supposed to be the hallmark of this religion?

Well, I’ll tell you—

They are inviting their congregations to wear or carry their guns into their sanctuaries, in order to celebrate their rights as Americans. At least, that’s what happened recently at an Assembly of God church in Kentucky.

Let’s hear it for LIBERTY!

Wait a minute—aren’t Christians supposed to be PACIFISTS?

Oh, I’m sorry--I guess that was just Jesus.

So, it follows that gun laws are a more important issue than poverty, and the need for community activism, volunteerism, and service.

Just recently, the right wing used the opportunity to bash President Obama, and his alleged liberalism, when Michelle was photographed working the food line at a homelessness center. They failed to mention that this center actually feeds about 300 people a day. And get this--the shelter is only a couple of blocks away from the White House.

Now let’s talk about rewriting truth and issues to jive with your own agenda. When John Edwards brought up the issue of homeless vets, Bill Oreilly said that there were no homeless vets (period). Michael Savage, when asked by a caller on his radio show about “the problem with the homelessness in the country,” responded by saying, “Why not put them in work camps.”

Excuse me? Do you mean work camps, like in concentration camps? Or prison camps?

When did homelessness become a crime? I guess when it started to infringe on the Norman Rockwell image of conservative, white, gun toting Christian America’s picket fence sentimentality. Not in my neighborhood—you grubby, smelly cretins.

Listen—

When you deny social problems and say that they don’t exist, you are denying knowledge itself. And to abandon knowledge is to abandon LIBERTY.

IDIOTS!

The Recording Academy (Grammy Awards) has just decided that they are going to eliminate the award for best Polka album.

What?

Or better yet: Who stole the kishke?

They claim that they want to ensure that its awards show will remain “pertinent within the current musical landscape.” They also claim that the category is attracting too few entries. Perhaps they simply can’t deal with the fact that the Polka King, Jimmy Sturr, keeps winning the award. Now if this were actually the legitimate claim, then certainly the categories of Pop, Country, Rap, Latin, and Gospel have nothing to fear. But if we are talking about what is pertinent to the current musical landscape, we will also have to eliminate the other categories that don’t “sell.” This then would put pretty much the rest of the lot into the same dilemma as Polka: Rock, Reggae, R&B, Jazz, Historical, Folk, Dance, Comedy, Classical, Children’s, and Blues.

Blues gets only two awards. Compare this to the relevance it has in relation to the history of American music. At the same time, World Music gets three. Children’s also gets three. Jazz, which holds a place in the American music lexicon that is obviously pertinent, gets eleven Grammy’s. Yet no one buys the CDs. Classical gets fourteen, and they sell fewer CD’s than Jazz.

Did you know that Gospel gets more awards than any other category, with 22? Wow! I can’t even remember the last time I ran out to buy the newest Gospel album. Oh Yeah, it was NEVER.

The Grammy Awards is supposed to honor the rich diversification in American music. So have they the right to decide whose heritage is more important than some one else’s. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. My heritage is Welsh and Dutch, but believe you me, I can oompah with the best of them. And after all, isn’t the role of the Grammy Awards to let these diverse musical styles fuse with each other in the full spectrum of American music. Is not polka just as much a part of our lexicon as say, Best Hawaiian Music Album, or Best Native American Music Album, or even that coveted Best Surround Sound Album?

If we are going to reward music, we are going to have to consider all that it conveys to all people. And if this is the case, then we have to consider what the classical composer Schoenberg wrote in his autobiography—“For the wonderful thing about music is that one can say everything in it, so that he who knows understands everything; and yet one hasn’t given away one’s own secrets, the things one doesn’t say even to oneself.”

On the other hand, if relevance and pertinence is everything, then we must listen to the words of Stravinsky—“I consider that music is, by its very nature, powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature…If, as is nearly always the case, music appears to express something, this is only an illusion and not a reality.”

Fortunately there are still people who believe otherwise. The Julliard School estimates that there are between 20,000 and 40,000 Americans who consider themselves composers of classical music. If it weren’t for them, the music that I listen to would surely die. Let’s hope this doesn’t happen to polka.

On May 11, three teenage boys (ages 18, 17 and 17) assaulted a homeless man in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. When they were done with him, the victim was a bloody mess. Just one year ago, a man was shot in Columbus, when he tried to stop two teenagers from throwing rocks and bottles at a homeless man.

This is not an uncommon occurrence. For years, advocates and homeless shelter workers have given reports of men, women, and even children being harassed, beaten, set on fire, and even decapitated.

What is happening to our youth?

In Los Angeles, a homeless man was recently doused with gasoline and set ablaze. And here’s the troubling part: the assaulters had targeted him in mind. The suspects remain at large.

And if this wasn’t bad enough, you can go to You-Tube and watch, what are called, Bumfights. Yes--teenagers go into areas where the homeless live, pay them to fight each other, and record it for entertainment. The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty attributes a 65% increase in violence against the homeless due to these videos. The numbers are probably even higher, since many attacks are never reported.

The National Coalition for the Homeless have statistics from 1999 through 2007, which report 774 acts of violence against the homeless who actually receive shelter (this does not include those who live on the street), resulting in 217 murders. Of these murders, only 85 qualified as hate crimes.

Excuse me?

The U.S. Congress, in 1968, defined hate crimes as crimes in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim because of their race, color or national origin (Title 18 Section 245). It mandates that the government must prove both that the crime occurred because of a victim’s membership in a designated group and because the victim was engaged in certain specified federally-protected activities, such as serving on a jury, voting, or attending public school.

There have been several laws enacted subsequently to provide additional coverage. The Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990 authorizes the Justice Department to collect data from law enforcement agencies about crimes that “manifest evidence of prejudice based upon race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.” It, though, says nothing about economic or housing status. The poorest of the poor, again remain the “silent ones” in a culture that rewards wealth.

Is homelessness a disability? Certainly many are on the streets due to a disability, such as mental illness.

The Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act, of 1994, defines hate crimes as “a crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, because of the actual perceived race, color, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.” The problem is that this law only applies to attacks and vandalism that occur in national parks and on federal property.

We now need to ask ourselves—how and why are we responsible for the behavior of our youth?

Why are we, as communities, increasingly taking punitive actions against homeless people? And, does this send a message that these people are less than human and that attacking them is acceptable?

Let us not forget: Violence is learned behavior! Not only do children (remember-teenagers are children) learn behaviors from their family and peers, but also learn it from what they observe in their neighborhoods and in the community at large. These behaviors are then reinforced by what they see on television, on the Internet, and in video games.

The perpetrators of these crimes are angry adolescents. You simply do not commit murder unless you are angry and resentful. These are children who have, no doubt, lived with rage for years. They feel cut off socially and emotionally.

To deal with this dilemma, we have to start by seeing our society as an organism, in order for it to properly function. It must become an organic whole of inter

It’s time to fire the bums. That’s right! The Cleveland Indians need a complete overhaul. Fire the manager, the general-manager, and the owner, as my father would say.

I feel that I have the right to say this. After all, the present owner’s fortune actually started at my family’s house. They made their fortune with cable television. So why does the house I grew up in claim to be the starting point. Well, we were the very first house to be wired for cable television, back in the sixties. I always knew that we were one of the first homes to have cable television in our neighborhood (Shaker Heights, Ohio), but it wasn’t until almost thirty years later that I found out we were the first.

Our cable went out, and a crew came to fix the problem.

They came upon a dilemma. The cable was not strung across the backyard, and drilled through a wall, into the home. No! They found that the cable had been tunneled under the garage, under the driveway, and came into the home through the basement. It was then thread up throughout the home inside the interior of two foot thick brick walls. The cable itself was of a type that the crew had never seen before. It was as if a car mechanic had someone drive a 1914 Model T into his shop, and said, “Can you fix this?”

Word got out fast, and before we knew it, there were at least thirty cable trucks parked all the way down our street. It was amazing. They all came to see the infamous house. They were crawling over the place like ants. “Come look at this!”—“Check this out!”—was the banter throughout the house.

The company was called Telerama, when we first got cable. Basically all it did was to add the two UHF stations to the dial of thirteen numbers. The best part was that we also got a CBC station from London Ontario. I loved it, because I grew up watching Hockey Night in Canada. The best part was that in Canada, they didn’t censor movies. Back in the sixties, by the time a newer movie made it to television, one third of it would be left on the editor’s floor. On late night, I sometimes even got to see flesh. Years later they added WOR TV, from New York, where I got the Ranger’s games. Also, I was raised watching the WOR TV 4 o’clock movie (I owe them a debt).

My father got it, because when the Cleveland Browns played a home game, Telerama would pick up a station from Erie, Pennsylvania or Sandusky, Ohio, that would be outside of the banned area. Remember, the NFL has always had strict rules about showing home games, unless it is a sell-out. All the kids in the neighborhood would come to our house to watch the games.

The folks that started this operation eventually moved on to New York City and renamed it Viacom Cablevision. The family went on to make a gazillion dollars. So what do gazillionaires do with all their money? They buy sports teams. Now the Cleveland Indians have another, in a long line, of inept owners (with the exception of Dick Jacobs). It is only an ego massaging exercise for them. It’s too bad they don’t run the team the way they did their cable company.

But, the fact is, they don’t need to run this team. Let’s find a new owner and fire the bums!

By the way, the crew decided to string new wiring, the way they do it with all the other houses in America. And guess what? It turned out that the old system worked better!