Never forget

Twenty-four years.

Pics snicked from around the nets. Let me know if I need to give credit where credit is due.

Ladies and gentleman, the leader of the free world. If by free world, you mean clown world.

No joke. This is the text of Joe Biden's remarks on the school shooting in Nashville. I transcribed it myself, but you can see it here via ABC News starting at the 6:45 mark. It was like watching the guy warming up an audience for the headliner. How someone could joke and laugh at a time like this is inexplicable to me. Just sickening.

Applause. Biden at podium, smiling.

 

BIDEN: My name is Joe Biden.

 

AUDIENCE: Laughter.

 

BIDEN: I'm Dr. Jill Biden's husband

AUDIENCE: Laughter.

BIDEN: And I eat Jeni's ice cream, chocolate chip.

AUDIENCE: Laughter.

BIDEN: I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream.

AUDIENCE: Laughter.

BIDEN: By the way, I have a whole refrigerator full upstairs. 

AUDIENCE: Laughter

BIDEN (Grinning): You think I'm kidding? I'm not. Ben, how are you pal? One of the best guys in the United States Congress, Ben Cardin.

 

AUDIENCE: Whoops and applause.

BIDEN: Folks, uh, welcome to the White House. It's a delight to have you all here. And who are those cool looking kids back there? 

AUDIENCE: Laughter.

BIDEN: They're your kids, all four of 'em? Well stand up, guys.

KIDS STAND.

AUDIENCE: Applause.

 

BIDEN: Well, I want you to know, like you, I had two brothers, there were three in our family, three brothers, and one sister. My sister is smarter than all of us. 

 

AUDIENCE: Laughter.

 

BIDEN: Not a joke, she used to be three years younger than me, now she's twenty-three years younger than me.  

AUDIENCE: Laughter.

BIDEN: Yeah, she managed every one of my campaigns for office, even back when I was in high school. We went to the same university two years apart, she graduated with honors, I graduated.

AUDIENCE: Laughter.

BIDEN: And we had a simple rule in the family: listen to Val. 

AUDIENCE: Laughter.

BIDEN: My sister Valerie's incredible, so guys, be nice to your sister, your gonna need her. You're gonna need her, I promise. It's the same lineup. (POINTS) You're the oldest? Who's number two? (KID RAISES HAND) Number two? Who's number three? (KID RAISES HAND). You're twins, are you guys twins? (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Okay, alright, this is how it was in our outfit. Well, I'm so glad to see you all, thanks for coming with mom, okay? Gotta take care of your mom. Dad's are much harder to raise, but you know...

AUDIENCE: Laughter.

BIDEN: Before I begin to speak, the reason I spent a little time with the kids, I just wanted to speak very briefly about the school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee...

Yes, two minutes and twenty seconds into his Comedy Store audition, he finally wants to speak very briefly about the school shooting. What a leader. And no, I don't care what was already scheduled, if you're the president, you don't joke around when something terrible has happened. I just don't know how someone can yuck it up when they're about to discuss something so awful. I came down here because chocolate chip ice cream. Jesus Christ.

Also, notice they turned off comments on the Biden video? Guessing I wasn't the only person appalled and offended by the jokester approach to a national tragedy.

We deserve better.

Never forget

Many have, I never will.

 

I will also never forget how meaningful this was at the time. We needed a kind gesture like this and guess who gave it to us.

 

From the video description: 

In a break from traditional protocol, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain ordered the change to the daily ceremonial parade to show solidarity with the United States in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. Prince Andrew, representing his mother, was joined by the US ambassador to Britain, William Farish, for the 45-minute ceremony. 

As the band of the Coldstream Guards began the US national anthem hundreds in the crowd sang along while others wept, before observing a two-minute silence. 

An incredible moment for both nations.

 

Merry Christmas, America. Here's your lump of coal.

Gotta love The Babylon Bee.

Except that, basically, that's the official statement:

 

Get vaxxed, still get sick. And I think I'll do everything I can to stay healthy through the winter just to spite him. Shouldn't be hard - I still haven't gotten as much as a cold in the past 2+ years.

For the record, I take no joy in bringing this up

H/T to the Fame is a Bitch Podcast Obsessed Page on FB

I even checked the film's imdb entry for verification, and sure enough...

 

Here's hoping that Richard Fleisher (director), Stanley R. Greenberg (screenplay), and Harry Harrison (novel) weren't too prescient about 2022. 

Pretty creepy though...

 

Amazon Loot: An app for those who would prefer to loot in the privacy of their own home

The Babylon Bee strikes again: Amazon Looting App. Gotta love the Facebook comments.

 

 

Updated 11/24/21 4:35pm: More looting humor from The Babylon Bee.

 

Let the holiday shopping looting begin!

 

A somber and depressing anniversary

Given some recent events and the anti-American disposition of so many of our political betters, the 20th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11/01 is more depressing than usual. 

I just pulled these images from the internet, so let me know if any of them are yours and I'll give credit where credit is due. 

God bless our fallen soldiers

Like everyone else (with a soul) I've been riveted the past few days by the news of the tragic deaths of American troops in the explosion at Kabul Airport in Afghanistan. 

One of the many things about this story that really got me is how young they all were. All but one were only in their twenties. The oldest of all of them was only thirty-one. One of the young men has a wife who is about to give birth. They were:

• U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31
• U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Johanny Rosariopichardo, 25
• U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23
• U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23
• U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22
• U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22
• U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20
• U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20
• U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20
• U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20
• U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20
• U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman Maxton W. Soviak, 22
• U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23

We all spent about twenty-four hours looking at pictures of them and reading about what wonderful people they were. The pain from family members has been palpable. Now these young heroes have been brought home to their loved ones. And here, side by side, are two of the most enduring images from their arrival at Dover Air Force Base.

In one photo, someone who would rather be anywhere else.
In the other photo, someone who would rather be anywhere else.

If you feel like our country is drowning, you're not the only one. This also popped up on my social media yesterday:

I usually try to keep the blog reasonably upbeat, but these are somber days. In fact, I kept finding more and more unpleasant reports from Dover, but at some point I needed to get this posted, so that's it for now. Probably more to come, if I can stomach it.

Mostly peaceful Death Star

So, in response to this story, The Babylon Bee offered up this headline: 

From the article:

Dateline: Yavin, LOL.

There were some great comments on their Facebook page. Here are a few of my personal favorites:

This world has gotten so ridiculous, I kind of wish I was in a galaxy far, far away.

November Words of Wisdom

I'm sorry if you don't like my honesty, but to be fair, I don't like your lies. 

--Unknown

To me, there's no better feeling than arriving home. --James Farmer

Knowledge isn't free. You have to pay attention. --Unknown

Strong and truly brave men are rarely cruel and evil; meanness and cruelty are the traits of weaklings, never strong men. --Unknown

Where you look is where you will walk. What you think is what you will do. What you fill your mind with matters. --Greg Laurie

When nothing in society deserves respect, we should fashion for ourselves in solitude new silent loyalties. --Nicolas Gomez Davila

People living in a lie don't want to see the truth, because the lie protects them from the inner work they need to do to free themselves. They'd rather be enslaved to lies than to face themselves and their shadows. --Ali Zeck

It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steeps on the path, and to proceed. --Ram Dass

When you're stuck, go back to your character's motivation. --David Mamet

Neither pleasure nor pain should enter as motives when one must do what must be done. --Julius Evola

The truth is still truth, even if no one believes it. A lie is still a lie, even if everyone believes it. --Unknown

Fake people have an image to maintain, real people just don't care. --Hikigaya Hachiman

Just be honest with me or stay away from me. It's not that difficult. --Unknown

If you want to be wrong then follow the masses. --Socrates

Boarded up

Rolled up to my salon this morning to find this:

This is Killer Hair in Marina del Rey, which was just voted Best Hair Salon (again) in the Best of the Westside issue of The Argonaut. It doesn't usually look like this. It was a real jolt.

It turns out that boarding up the windows is a combination of concern over potential vandalism (aka rioting) because of the election, and the fact that there is a weed shop right next door. They felt if people start looting, the weed shop will be an attractive target, which could easily lead to Killer Hair's windows being smashed. It's already been a tough year for salons, so they don't want to have to shut down again. Hopefully they can pull down the boards soon and get back to business as usual.

Also, my hair looks fabulous.

Who just won the jury duty lottery? THIS. GIRL.

So this drama has been going on for a few months.

In July I received a notice for jury duty in mid-August. I don't usually mind doing this, but I was assigned to a courthouse in downtown L.A. and this was after the rioting had started. I was seeing footage of things like The Grove being looted, streets and freeways being blocked, motorists being accosted and their vehicles being damaged, people being attacked on trains, and no one responding to the attacks. I wasn't about to drive into DTLA and didn't feel safe being on the Metro, especially since I couldn't carry my usual arsenal of pepper spray and a small but extremely sharp knife if I was going into a courthouse. 

So of course I got on social media and bitched about it, as we do in this day and age. And I was informed that I could request a change of venue. Again, I don't mind doing jury duty, but I do have an aversion to placing myself in a potentially dangerous situation and/or location, especially for the benefit of some law-breaking dirtbag. I lived in Hollywood for fifteen years with a minimum of issues, so I trust my gut on these things. And with all the crazyness going on, my gut told me to avoid downtown Los Angeles like the plague. 

It turned out that I could request a change of venue via the L.A. Courts online portal. So I did. I explained as tactfully as I could that I didn't mind doing it, but I didn't want to go downtown or on the Metro these days due to the "unrest" (I purposefully avoided calling them riots - which is exactly what they were - because, you know, Los Angeles and political correctness and all that bullshit). I asked that I be assigned to a court closer to home. I also figured that if the change was rejected, at least I'd be done with it all by the time my week in the middle of August was done.

I requested a change of venue. What I got was the same courthouse, but with my jury duty week changed to late October, in fact, the week right before the election. My tax dollars at work.

Which means that I could have been done with this crap a couple months ago. Instead I had to wait until the very end of October. And that week was this week. I braced myself for it.

The system has changed since I was last called for jury duty. In the past, you could call in starting at 4:45pm the day before to find out if you had to report. Now you have to wait until 7pm. You can also check in online. 

So this is what happened:

Saturday, I logged on to watch the orientation and it turned out they already had my Monday non-assignment. So I was off the hook for Monday.

For the rest of the week, each night I watched the clock inch toward 7pm. Tuesday: "You do not need to report." I emailed The Brother each day: "Three down, two to go." Wednesday night I learned I didn't need to report on Thursday, which was the good news. The bad news, I felt, was that if I was called in Friday, my jury duty might bleed into the following week and possibly longer if I was chosen to be on a jury, and for reasons that I think are sad but obvious, I didn't want to be anywhere near DTLA on or after election day.

So last night I watched the clock lurch slowly towards 7pm. I couldn't believe I would get lucky enough to get through the whole week without being summoned. It has actually happened once before, years ago, when I worked for a post-production house and got called for jury duty during pilot season. I didn't know at the time I could request a delay, so every day at quarter to five I called in to see if I was going to be at work or at court the next day and surprisingly made it through the whole week without being called in, much to the relief of my boss. 

And lo and behold, last night I log on to the L.A. Courts portal and find a message that I have completed my jury duty service, and thank you very much.

I called The Brother and told him I just won the jury duty lottery. I think a lot of it has to do with the COVID-19 crap; they can't call several hundred people in to sit in a room all day waiting to see if their services will be needed. But whatever. 

This kind of made up for them not moving me to a closer courthouse. By the way, the reason given for not moving me was that the courthouses are supposed to be assigned at random. Yeah, right. This is the first time I was assigned to this particular courthouse, one other time I was sent to San Fernando, other than that I had done multiple jury duty services at the same exact courthouse every time. Not terribly random. And it also didn't explain why they changed my dates, which I didn't request. But whatever. I've done my civic duty and I'm done with it.

September Words of Wisdom

I was happy anywhere I could see the ocean. --Ai Yazawa

Politicians should wear sponsor jackets like Nascar drivers, then we know who owns them. --Robin Williams

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy. --Marcus Aurelius

The percentage of good police is much higher than the percentage of good politicians...So what should we really be defunding? --Burgess Owens

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. --C.S. Lewis

If you're depressed you're living in the past. If you're anxious you're living in the future. If you're at peace you're living in the present. --Tzu Lao

Common people will believe anything if frightened. But critically thinking people will find the truth through the smokescreen of fear. Listen to critical thinkers, not fearful reactors. --Dr. Suzanne Humphries

Often it is those who live quietly, modestly, and contentedly with a simple life who are the happiest. --Joshua Becker

People will come to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
--Neil Postman

Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. --Iain Thomas (has also been attributed to Kurt Vonnegut)

Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend than inspiration. --Ralph Keyes

If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. --Mother Teresa

There is no person so severely punished as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse. --Seneca

The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. --G.K. Chesterton

Strive to preserve your heart in peace; let no event of this world disturb it. 

--St. John of the Cross

True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it. 

--Karl Popper

Life is short, but there is always enough time for courtesy. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

You are far too smart to be the only thing standing in your way. --Jennifer J. Freeman

I've never lost a game. I just ran out of time. --Michael Jordan

It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life. --J.R.R. Tolkien

I've had a sign over my typewriter for over 25 years now, which reads 'Don't think!' You must never think at the typewriter - you must feel. Your intellect is always buried in that feeling anyway. --Ray Bradbury

Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. --Eric Hoffer

Don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will - then your life will flow well. --Epictetus

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. --Victor Hugo

19 years...

Hard to believe it was so long ago. I'm not sure we've learned from it.

 

 

As always, this ad featuring the Budweiser Clydesdales brings it all back. The ad was aired only once, as Budweiser did not want to give impression of exploiting the 9/11 attacks for advertising purposes. It lives forever on the internet.

#NeverForget

Recent reading: "Thank You For My Service"

Thank You For My Service by Mat Best with Ross Patterson & Nils Parker

Former Army Ranger Mat Best is one of the co-founders of Black Rifle Coffee Company, a veteran owned company that happens to make great coffee as well as YouTube videos that are hilarious (unless you have a problem with rugged men with a fondness for high powered guns, gorgeous women in American flag bikinis, patriotism, booze, dogs, guitars, and of course coffee).

At the age of seventeen Best decided to follow his father and older brothers into the military. Unlike the senior Bests, who were Marines, Mat aspired to be an Army Ranger. What follows is a rollicking, insane story of five deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, plus five years working for a private military contractor. And he enjoyed every minute of it.

It's also an opportunity for civilians to get a behind the scenes glimpse into the reality of war that we don't get from Hollywood and the media. The dedication, patriotism and unimaginable courage tinged with the trademark humor that helped keep Best sane in the face of daunting evil and violence is a view of warfare most of us will never see or imagine.

During one of his private contractor deployments Best was surfing social media and found himself irked by what he describes as "this pathetic chorus of first-world whining" by people who would have withered in the face of what Best and his military brothers faced on a daily basis. This prompted Best to grab his guitar and and vent in song. The result was "Champagne Facebook Problems", the video of which would eventually garner a following mainly among his fellow military types. This led to a journey that would produce more videos, a larger following, and eventually the formation of Black Rifle Coffee Company.

My only complaint is that he didn't include stories behind the BRCC videos. When I first saw one, I was so intrigued by the videos (and the idea of supporting a company made up of veterans) that I ordered a bag, then another. When I ran out for some reason I picked up a bag of Starbucks at the grocery store...which eventually got thrown out. It tasted like crap compared to BRCC. Now I order two bags at a time (I'm partial to the AK-47 Espresso Blend).

But the book wasn't written for BRCC fans or even for civilians. Best makes it clear that he wrote the book for guys like him: soldiers who loved to fight for their country, loved to kill evil bastards, and didn't return absolutely wrecked by the experience and who might have felt alone due to the constant portrayals of veterans as consistently damaged and traumatized. He wanted them to know that there were others like him and that they are thriving as civilians.

And while some veterans do suffer from those issues, if Law & Order did an episode where a soldier killed someone, it was never because he was an evil prick who happened to be in the military (the Marines, obviously) it was because he'd done a tour in Iraq and he saw his best friend die in an IED attack and it broke his brain and then he came home and everything was different and he couldn't sleep and it made it hard for him to hold down a job and then he got evicted from his apartment and then his girlfriend fucked his best friend and took his dog. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Every veteran story was just this endless parade of horribles. What they failed to show, time and again, was my experience, which was the same as the experience of the hundreds of veterans I've known and served with who loved their time in the military and to this day view is as one of the most important, meaningful, enjoyable periods of their lives. No matter where you looked, there was no appetite for our stories anywhere.

We now return you to Pacific Standard Time

This has been a public service announcement.

Never Forget

Back in 2011, if someone had told me what world we'd be living in fifteen years after the horrific events of 9/11, I would never have believed our so-called "leaders" would be coddling the very people who attacked us. I just don't understand it.

Note: I have picked these images up from the internet over the years. If any are yours please let me know so I can give credit. God bless America.

Speaking of images, there are some amazing and heartwrenching ones here.

Updated: Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who was with President Bush when the Towers were hit, is doing an amazing blow-by-blow of the President's day on Twitter.