A (formerly) Far East located, politically focused, Blog with attention also paid to the finer things in life: Women, Beer, Women, Travel, Women, Adventure, Golf, and did I mention women?
1) I sat down and wrote out a detailed “mission statement” for the upcoming year. Its the same mission I had last year-get my ass back to Asia. The difference is this year, I am doing it come hell or high water-job or no job. I laid out some pretty specific and hopefully attainable benchmarks to get there. I find that writing it down-its framed on my desk at home-codifies my thinking better.
2) I took the long way into work this morning-allowing six cylinders of precision German technology to propel me at a high rate of speed while I indulged in a little primal scream therapy. This year was ten years to the day when a worthless piece of human excrement thought he had the right to: exceed his authority, violate my rights, and interfere in my life and tell me what I could and could not do. I still marvel at the fact that I was able to rise up-think clearly- and defeat him. As a result I survived and I thrive -in spite of him and his useless ways.
It accomplished nothing-and it accomplished everything. “I’m still here you greasy bastard! In spite of you and in spite of your program. Fuck you and everything about you!!!”
It sure felt good! Feel free to pass my greeting on to him if you wish……….
3) I went to Barnes and Noble and bought some books. Books that I know were sure to piss the S.O. off. One of them was this one-and it was on sale:
4) The S.O. and I are going to a movie this evening. If I had my druthers I would be at a huge new years party in [Roppongi. Bangkok, Orchard Road, fill in the name of your favorite party spot here]-or I would be with the herd in Times Square. Since neither option is available and Shopping Mall will have hordes of road Nazi’s out tonight. We will be drinking champagne at home later.
5) I wrote up a bunch of blog posts.
All in all a pretty good day.
Can you tell I am in sort of a punchy mood today? Maybe it is because New Years is both a time of excitement and trepidation. Because it symbolizes possibilities for good things and still has an underlying tone of uncertainty as to whether bad things will pass you by. That always lends a bit of deep thinking to the day. After all there were literally thousands of people who had great hopes for the year and nonetheless for them it ended badly. I try to keep that in mind and be grateful for what I have.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, I had a squadron mate who was fond of pursuing the time honored Naval Aviation tradition of “ball walking”. These instances usually occurred after consumption of more than a couple of tasty adult beverages-and were intended to be a guaranteed ice breaker to get conversation moving in the proper direction. (Which-when at Miramar- was across the street and into the BOQ). He was never obvious about it, he simply sat at the bar, allowing the bar to provide a bit of overhang, and would usually strike up a fairly benign conversation with a person of the female gender. At some point, the woman would casually look down or around- hilarity and / or physical assault would then ensue.
For the uninitiated, “ball walking’ is the art of positioning Mr. Johnson’s two round, furry, and wrinkly friends such that they just hung out of the bottom zipper of one’s flight suit. Sometimes Mr. Johnson was “let loose” also, but not often-since that involved a too obvious display and bordered on the territory of arrest able offenses.
The best response I ever saw him get-and this too occurred at the Miramar O’Club back when it was a real Officers Club-was this response from one of his intended victims. It remains a classic in the annals of put downs from women:
“ Oh Jennifer look-it looks like a penis! Only smaller!”
Anyway………….
It appears we will all be “ball walking” in 2010:
Let’s be blunt: You’ll have to start showing your gonads when you go to the airport.
You won’t have to show them to the people standing next to you. But you’ll have to show them to the Transportation Security Administration. You’ll stand in front of a machine that sees through your clothes. It will capture every contour of your body and relay this picture to a screen in a nearby room. In that room, somebody who works for TSA will study the picture, including your gonads. They’ll study your gonads because that’s where bombers hide bombs.
Go look at the ABC News photo of the underwear of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged Detroit bomber. Look where the packet of explosive powder was sewn: right into the crotch. You don’t need advanced training in Yemen to figure out why it was put there: because it’s the last place TSA wants to look.
Well, almost the last place. Four months ago, another al-Qaida agent smuggled the same powder into a Saudi palace and tried to blow up the Saudi chief of counterterrorism. Saudi investigators think the bomber in that incident, like the Detroit bomber, hid the powder in his underwear. CBS News tells a different story: The Saudi bomber hid the powder in his rectum. Which theory is correct? It’s hard to know, since the Saudi bomber, his underwear, and his rectum ended up all over the room.
You get the picture: Bombers hide bombs where we’re least likely to probe them: under the breasts, behind the scrotum, up the bum. So that’s where we have to look.
This wasn’t how you were hoping to spend your time at the security gate. You wanted a flight, not a prostate exam. Fortunately, we don’t have to grope you—at least, not yet. But we do have to look at you, including the private bits.
Now me, being the kind of “cup is half full” kind of guy I am-I’m quite OK with this development. Especially when you consider the alternative of getting blown to smithereens by some Nigerian wanna be who is overly influenced by a bunch of Muslim losers from Yemen. Besides, the idea of hard working female TSA officers being impressed by my prolific specimen of Skippy manhood is ego reinforcing –in a twisted kind of way.
Especially since it will be done with new technology. Now everyone will get to start in their own porn movie:
That’s where technology comes in. TSA is beginning to deploy scanners that can see you naked without removing your clothes. At last count, the agency said 40 scanners were in use at 19 airports, with 150 more on the way. To reassure us that the scans won’t expose us in full detail, TSA says the resulting images are scrubbed by an “algorithm” so they look like a “chalk etching” or a “fuzzy photo negative.”
It’s time to give up this squeamishness. Forget the etchings and fuzzy negatives. Take the whole picture, TSA: breasts, scrotum, penis, labia, gluteal cleft, whatever. Look at mine so you can look at the next guy’s. ( Mine’s bigger by the way!) Because if he’s a bomber, that’s where you’ll find the bomb.
Privacy advocates are fighting to keep the scanners from becoming standard procedure. In today’s New York Times, their point man, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, argues, “I don’t think anybody needs to see my 8-year-old naked in order to secure [an] airplane.”
Sorry, Congressman. You’re mistaken. Smugglers aren’t stupid. They’ll use whatever category of passengers you exclude from scrutiny. That’s why terrorists and drug traffickers use women and babies. My 9-year-old and 6-year-old are fair game for the scanner. So’s your 8-year-old. There were 8-year-olds on the Detroit flight. I’ll bet you every parent of every kid on that flight, in retrospect, would gladly have let their children go through the scanner in exchange for Abdulmutallab getting the same scrutiny.
Will the best looking scans probably end up on some internet web site that requires credit card access? Possibly. I have this vision of some geek(s) in a TSA back room acting out this scene from a semi famous movie:
Think of the revenue it might generate. ( Pay Pal or Credit Cards cheerfully accepted!)
It is that time of year again, where folks take a look back at the year that was and a look forward to the year that is yet to come. It is a time for making lists, taking stock, making predictions that almost certainly will not be proven true.
This year, the process is amplified, since folks are treating 2009 as the end of the first decade of the 21’st century. ( To be technically correct, the decade, does not end until the end of NEXT year-just as the 21’st century did not begin until 2001-but hey who am I to quibble over those details?).
One conclusion is becoming inescapable-the 00’s genuinely sucked. Only a moron like William Kristol thinks they were any good overall-and we all know how right his track record has been over the past decade. Zero point Zero. All courses failing.
Now I agree that the decade sucked for the world-but I’d be lying if I said that the decade sucked for me. With the sole exception of part of 2009, the period of 2000-2010 was perhaps the best decade of my life. As the year 2000 dawned and I watched the television broadcasts from all 24 time zones of the arrival of the New Year-I was in the process of pulling the ejection handle from that miserable institution known as marriage and venturing forth into what was then a very uncertain and precipitous future. I was optimistic-but also genuinely worried. Within six months though-while still fighting my way out of a financial bottom- I was having the time of my life, traveling literally all over Asia, meeting and “greeting “ more women in that time frame than I had in the previous years combined. It’s not right to complain about that. That kind of thing should be celebrated-loudly. ( You listening to me Tiger? )
Then again-I’m something of an optimist. Even the 90’s which were supposedly great for the world, were less than perfect for me. But they were not really bad either. I subscribe to theory that if you are healthy and alive-no time frame is truly bad. Certainly that has been true in my life. I sincerely hope it continues in the next decade and as the 2020’s dawn, I’m here and healthy to see it.
I also hope that I am on the other side of the Pacific to greet it-both next year and then. However if I am not-I’ll figure out a way to manage. Or at least console myself while I cry in my beer about it.
Which is what I wish my fellow countrymen-especially those of the species teabaggus whinus would learn to do. The are a lot of problems that need to be dealt with in the country, and for sure, one side only does not have all of the answers. However for a group that is supposedly so strong in their feeling for America, they certainly have an amazingly little bit of confidence in their fellow Americans. One reason I hold the tea baggers in such contempt is their level of hysteria-the country, after all, has been through a lot worse.
Even if Obama is 100% wrong on every issue(and I assure you he is not)-we are not in the same position we were 100 or 200 years ago. A little blessing counting seems to be in order.
On the other side of the coin, it would be good if those trying to push through reform understood that there is no free lunch-and in particular over time, government favors cannot be dispensed without some means to resource it. And that overseas-Ronald Reagan was not necessarily wrong-there are bears in the woods. A little bit more understanding of that fact, coupled with a lot less more social agenda would go a long way towards diminishing some of the harshest criticisms.
Unfortunately, for me, the thing about writing about politics is when you know one group of people is right about something, but they are just powerless to do anything. That is what has been adding to my angst the last couple of weeks regarding the health care debate and the kill the bill folks. On a lot of things, I think they are absolutely right- the public option would be better, I think the mandates will be politically dangerous , there should be more subsidies, single payer would be better, there shouldn’t be abortion restrictions, and so on. On so many of these things, I agree with the Huffington post crowd. The problem is, I don’t see any way of getting that done, and one of the things I like about Obama is he understands the art of the possible and takes what he can get.
But he’s got some “splaining to do”, just like Lucy did. It would be better if the folks in teabag land would stop assuming that just because someone does not agree with them-it does not mean they don’t care about the country. But that’s a reach at this point-and I fear next year will be even worse on the enmity scale.
Not to worry though-I will opine about it. And since I just got a series of e-mails telling me that I can get a bigger specimen of manhood-and I just won the Euro lottery-it sounds like things may just be going my way.
Does this even remotely make sense-especially in a world of 10% unemployment:
The end-all-regulation, my-health-insurance-company-is-just-fine-thanks crowd in the Tea Party movement have found an unlikely target for their next national effort: Corporate America.
The Tea Party Patriots group is planning a “National Day of Strike” for Jan. 20, one year to the day after President Obama’s inauguration. The goal of the strike, according to the website where it’s being planned, is to “financially cripple” the companies across America the group says are “backing the leftist agenda” and “funding socialism.”
How can you tell which companies are funding socialism? The answer, according to organizers: they advertise on CNN and/or MSNBC, and they donate money to Democratic candidates.
So they are going to cripple socialist businesses by striking for one day? That means they acknowledge their boss and employer is a socialist- why not quit? Striking for one day- don’t they call that a “sick day” or a “hangover” most places in the country? What happens when one of them gets fired? Will that be labeled socialist oppression? Will the fact that once that person’s reason for being gone that day comes out (and it will), it has now become easier to identify the next person to be downsized or insourced?
Not to mention that it might be worthwhile to point out to these morons that a lot of conservative advertising is found on CNN. So should they boycott themselves?
Greetings from North Carolina. The drive was as long and difficult as I thought it would be. Having the roads blocked by two different landslides at two different places-did not help one bit.
Brittany Murphy died a couple of days ago. Only 32-its so very sad.
What I did not know, was that she made a movie with a famous Japanese actor.
A long time back, I did a post about Toshiyuki Nishida, the Japanese actor who played in the Tsuri-baka Nisshi movies. He’s the guy playing the Shujin of the Ramen shop in this movie. Looks like it was shot in Japan, in Tokyo.
As an aside-the 19th movie in the Tsuribakka Nisshi series was released this past October.
Old H-2 guy suggested that I need to celebrate Festivus tomorrow.
But that leads to a question.
Isn’t by definition, blogging a celebration of Festivus every time you blog? After all, blogging is nothing-if not a thorough airing of the grievances.
1. The Nutcracker Suite
2. Little Drummer Boy
3. Deck the Halls
4. Silent Night
5. Noel (No L)
6. All I Want For Christmas Is My 2 Front Teeth
7. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
8. Joy To The World
9. 12 Days of Christmas
10. Do You Hear What I Hear?
11. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
12. Up On The Rooftop
13. Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer
14. Away In A Manger
15. Go Tell It On The Mountain
16. O Little Town of Bethlehem
17. I Saw Three Ships
18. Hark The Herald Angels Sing
19. Jingle Bells
20. As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night
For the record-there are only two recognized holidays in December: Hannukah and Christmas. So saying “Merry Christmas” is not only proper, its THE RIGHT THING TO DO.
Take your kwanzaa and stick it where the ……. I don’t understand why, when most African Americans are also Christian, Kwanza is even on the radar screen.
When I said, while making dinner, “try an onside kick!” Never thinking they would actually do it-with a two point lead.
Steelers won that game by one RCH-nothing more. I was climbing the walls during the last minute-trying to cook and scream at the TV at the same time…………
Its the 20th of December and 5 days before Christmas. I am declaring a moratorium on any talk of politics till after Christmas. This coming week is for buying presents, thinking about my life, wondering about fun things, and getting ready for the holiday. ( As well as driving 500 miles to my fathers house. ).
So here is a Christmas trivia quiz. Try your best with no Googling and put your answers in the comments:
How many of these Christmas songs can you identify?
1. The apartment of 2 psychiatrists.
2. The lad is a diminutive percussionist.
3. Decorate the entry-ways.
4. Sir Lancelot with laryngitis.
5. A B C D E F G H I J K M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z.
6. Present me naughty but dual incisors for this festive Yuletide.
7. The smog-less bewitching hour arrived.
8. Exuberation to this orb.
9. 288 Yuletide hours.
10. Do you perceive the same longitudinal pressure which stimulates my auditory sense organs.
11. The red-suited pa is due in this burg.
12. Stepping on the pad cover.
13. Uncouth dolt has his beezer in the booze and thinks he is a Dark Cloud’s boyfriend.
14. Far back in a hay bin.
15. Leave and do an elevated broadcast.
16. That exiguous hamlet south of the holy city.
17. Behold! I envisioned a trio of nautical vessels.
18. Listen, the winged heavenly messengers are proclaiming tunefully.
19. A joyful song relative to hollow metallic vessels which vibrate and bring forth a ringing sound when struck.
20. As the guardians of little woolly animal’s protected their charges in the shadows of the earth.
Middle of the road kind of guy. Love living in Asia and will be back there as soon as I can. I lived 8 and a half grand and glorious years in Asia traveling from one end to the other and generally having a really good time. Despite my best efforts to stay, I was "Quantum Leaped" to a 3 and 1/2 year exile in the USA to pay for my sins - suffering through the lunacy that is life in the American South. I am now back overseas, living the expat life again, working my way around the world- taking the long way home to Asia via the path of living in Germany. Like Dr. Samuel Beckett, I am hoping my next leap will be the leap that brings me home to Asia. Always on the lookout for my next ex-wife.
