Ottawa Outrage, Ottawa Outcome

I was shocked and appalled by the murder of Canadian soldier Nathan Cirillo by a career criminal who decided to embark on a jihadi's course. One thing that struck me, though, is that the shooter was only able to kill one individual before being shot by House of Commons Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers.

Imagine how different such a shooting would have been in the United States, the land in which porn magazines are more heavily regulated than gun magazines. Only one victim? Here in 'Murka, there would have been many more, perhaps a double digit body count. How's that for American exceptionalism?

While the outrage is just as appalling, the outcome was a lot better in Ottawah than it would have been stateside.

Buon Viaggio Mama!

My mom left today on a trip to Italy. My brother Vincenzo, who is a career officer in the U.S. Army, is stationed in the vicinity of Vicenza, and is attached to the African Command. He shipped out to Liberia to oversee the construction of medical facilities to combat the Ebola outbreak. Mom is flying out to help my sister-in-law take care of the kids. Vin's deployment is somewhat open-ended, and he will have to undergo a three-week quarantine when he leaves the "hot zone". Mom is retired, and she has a neighbor she refers to as her "other son" who can take care of her house and yard while she is away, so her European trip is open-ended, like Vin's deployment.

My mom was understandably concerned when she learned that Vin was deploying to Liberia. In a long conversation with her, I noted that the hype and fear-mongering about Ebola was overblown. Vin would be engaged in logistical support- he won't be acting as medical staff, so his risk of exposure to the virus is pretty low. We then had a lament about the failure to fund and support the State Department, so a lot of the tasks that should be performed by our diplomatic and developmental professionals now fall on our military... if the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.

I'm going to go off on a brief tangent now... given the history of Liberia as a refuge for freed African-American slaves, the failure of the U.S. government to lend support to this nation is unconscionable. We should have backed the Liberian people, recognizing their cultural connection to the United States, and helping them to establish a healthy democratic society in order to help in the development of the African continent. I would hazard a guess that a combination of racism and a desire to exploit the peoples of Africa economically was responsible for the neglect of the fledgling nation that was founded by Americans. It's yet another case of us failing to live up to our lofty stated ideals. Pity we were never as good as we claimed to be.

At any rate, mom's on the move, Vin's in the field against an enemy that all humans can agree must be vanquished. Good voyage to mom, good health and good fortune to Vin and his family.

Securitism and Stealing

Last week, WNYC's Leonard Lopate interviewed James Risen on scams and fraudsters making millions off of "homeland security". The good folks at Crooks and Liars are covering the same territory. Simply put, there were a shitton of grifters, many of them well-connected, but some of them just Walter Mitty types who could spout a line of bullshit that impressed the dunderheads in the Bush Maladministration. Besides being a creepily Orwellian bureaucracy, the "Department of Homeland Security" (can we dissolve it already) was a West-West wonderland for yahoos with power-trip fantasies and for straight-up crooks, and for a third class of creep that were a combination of the two. The DHS hires seem to be even worse than the horse-fancying horse's ass who was tapped to lead FEMA (and who CNN saw fit to bring on to comment on the current Ebola situation). WTF, CNN?

The most damaging legacy of the Reagan administration was the complete denigration of government competence. Somehow, in the past forty-odd years, the American public was sold the notion that the private sector was better able to deliver goods and services than the public sector. Throughout the course of these past few decades, the American people have been transformed from citizens to consumers... now, with the advent of the Sociopathocracy, we have made the final transition, from consumers to consumed, prey to cheats and frauds. The amount of taxpayer dollars that was funneled to lunatics, losers, and liars to keep up an ineffectual security-industrial complex is utterly appalling. In the absence of competent defense and security protocols, we are left with securitism, a self-perpetuating farrago of fear-mongering and empty gestures meant to overawe the true enemy of the DHS, which is the American taxpayer. Meanwhile, real safety falls by the wayside as dangerous industries are allowed to operate without regulation, infrastructure crumbles, and the day-to-day operations of well-meaning, competent public servants are underfunded.

Hopefully, the voting public will come to its senses in time to realize that "small government" advocacy really means "big heist" advocacy in time for the upcoming midterm elections. If we ever want to be able to afford nice things again, we need to stop shoveling millions into the coffers of thieves.

That Boner Guy Was Right

By the time this post appears, the annual Fall fundraiser will be half over. As of the wee hours of Saturday morning, we've only had one visitor taken to the hospital (passed out due to not eating all day) and one fence-jumper nabbed by security- the kid was from one of the wealthier burgs in this oh-so-wealthy county. When the security guard made him call his parents, the affluent assholes said they were eating dinner. When told that their son would be delivered to the custody of the local gendarmes if they didn't pick him up within a half-hour, they changed their dinner plans. Ah, affluenza... asshole parents, asshole kid, no repercussions for assholery. I hope the asshole's asshole buddies who hopped back over the fence razz the little shit mercilessly come Monday.

So far, it's been a month in which I've typically been getting three hours of sleep on Saturdays, a month in which I've had to excuse myself early from family functions. It's been a typically hectic October. That Boner guy and his band sung about the month:





October, kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall,
But you go on and onnn and oh-oh-oh-onnnnn, you go onnnnnnnnnnnnnn, you go onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

You got that right, mister!

American Horror Stories

This being October, not only is it the time for me to work my butt off every weekend, necessitating use of the pre-scheduling post setting, it's also time for scary stories. You want scary? Check out Robyn's post about nuclear testing. Yeah, those were some scary times... the U.S. was so afraid of the Soviet threat, it became an even bigger threat to its own existence. Robyn has that covered too.

Personally, I think the scariest of all of the proposals in the New Clear Age of the Atom was Project Plowshare:





No, that wasn't a satire. I sure wish it were!

Remembered Another Detail From Tuesday's Lecture

How the hell could I have omitted this detail from last Tuesday's lecture? In one aside, Dr Mark Siddall exhorted the audience to eat invasive species, just like the Eat the Invaders crew. I do my part, chomping down on the really aggressive Japanese knotweed. Dr Siddall singled out the invasive lionfish and the Asian silver carp which is taking over waterways in the Heartland:





In a bit about eating lampreys (the key is moderation), he mentioned that he had eaten lamprey in, if I recall correctly, Norway, and he exhorted us to depopulate the lamprey population of the Great Lakes, which is injurious of fisheries.

Now, you know what to do... eat the invaders! The only problem is if people like them too much and want to keep them around.

A Bastard Favorite Gone Too Young

I was very sad to hear of the sudden death of actress Elizabeth Peña at the all-too-young age of 55. Ms Peña was the female lead of one of my all-time favorite movies, John Sayles' Lone Star. She brought a quiet dignity to her role- that of a woman forced to come to terms with her past when a former boyfriend, the town sheriff, investigates the death of his father. The film examines the racial dynamics of a small Texas border town, but the forces which separated the protagonists go beyond simple racial animus- I don't want to give away any more, go watch the movie NOW!!!

Ms Peña also lent a certain almost disconcerting sultriness to the cartoon femme fatale she voiced in The Incredibles (the best "James Bond" movie ever made).

Sadly, there aren't a lot of clips from Lone Star on teh Y00T00B, but there is one steamy scene of the movie- watch the whole movie to put the scene in context, the movie is quietly devastating:





Here are two other dear, departed figures from the past talking about the movie:





Watch the film and fall in love with Elizabeth Peña, so you can feel the loss that we, her current fans, feel. She should have been a huge star, but moronic typecasting kept her in small roles in big films and big roles in small films. She was taken from us way too early.