Friends

Via Kathy Shaidle a piece on the enduring legacy of Friends:

It’s one thing to be young, single, and carefree in the city and drawn to a show that purports to be a reflection of your life, or, at least, some fantasy of how you’d like your life to be. It’s quite another to be drawn to a show that’s a reflection, or a fantasy, of what life used to be like for a bunch of carefree 20-somethings 20 years ago. Because if the allure of the show is, on a basic level, all about wish-fulfillment, well, what exactly is the wish that’s currently being fulfilled?

I was 21 when the show started. I recall sitting in the common room at GW University when I first saw ads for Friends:

 'Between Mad About You and Seinfeld, Thursdays this fall.' That might be the most '90s sentence ever spoken. One show about a cutesy post-modern couple in Manhattan, the other,well....

Anywho, that promo is sooooo Generation X, Snarky, ironic, irreverent, unsure of itself. The whole spot is a parody of edgy cologne and perfume commercials. We learned it in the 80's.

Look, when your raised by people who can't shut up about their youth and take it all way too seriously, 1980's MTV makes perfect sense.

I liked Friends for the first few years. No one had ever really made a show about Generation X, and I think it had something to say. After the whole Ross and Rachel drama I thought Friends got pretty stupid. My wife stuck with the show right through the end.

Just writing that sentence took me back to 1996 (why was a wearing jean shorts?).

Young people today love Friends. To each there own. My generation was obsessed with The Brady Bunch. I know people who've seen every episode a hundred times, have read all the books, etc etc. It was a little perfect world in a time of high divorce, kidnappings and looming Armageddon.

Look, a bunch of young people sitting around, no phones, no downloads, no Tinder, no Snapchat, etc etc. No online social pressure whatsoever. It's a nice, safe little fantasy world. And remember, that's Rudy Giuliani's Manhattan, so no muggers or bums either. Take a ride through the city lately?

Back in the Washington D.C.

The family and I visited D.C. last week. Though Mrs. Stroock and I had been in the area before this is the first time I'd been in the District proper since we left Northern Virginia 15 years ago.

Things have a changed. The Ethiopian and Somali immigrant community now has a hordes of teenagers all over the joint. So does the Indian community who have produced thousands of of young people indistinguishable from their cousins back on the sub-continent but who have perfect American non-accents. The ubiquitous Japanese tourists have been replaced by ubiquitous Chinese tourists. Speaking of which I've never seen the monuments so packed in my life. Now back in the day, my friends and I would say, 'Hey its a nice Wednesday night, let's go hangout down at Heavy T's (the Jefferson Memorial)'  We'd hope in the car, ride up 395 and park right next to the monument, took ten minutes and then we'd go down to the Fridays on M Street for drinks and aps.

I do miss my Northern Virginia nights. The heat would burn off leaving a nice, still air that one doesn't really feel. As bad as the days could be, and they were brutal in the summer, the nights were just wonderful just filled with that southern charm a Yankee like me was looking for,

I was expecting this at the memorials.

Ha ha ha ha,...This weekend it was wall to wall people, and selfie sticks, that's new.

D.C. is swankier and tonier than I recall. DuPont Circle, once a rough area is all fabulous now, if you know what I mean.

They changed the door ding sound on the Metro.

For that matter I have totally lost my Metro skills, much to my embarrassment, standing on the left side of the escalator, walking off the train and stopping to see where I am right in front of the doors, and generally walking around like a schmuck.

God that used to infuriate me.I once nearly bowled over a gaggle of Guatemalan activists riding the Metro to Capitol Hill when they stopped right in front of Metro doors.

These were my CNN Days. Yes, I used to work at CNN, for Inside Politics. Don't get too excited I was less important than the interns. A subject for another post, really.

After that I wrote direct mail fundraising letters about which the less said, the better. I will say that industry is a racket.

Before that I interned at the U.S. Senate, Bill Roth (R) DE and the summer before that I interned at the White House. This was the summer before Monica, so no. No ugly gals in Bill's White House, that's for sure.

I got off to a good start but my Washington career was a failure, which is why we bugged out in the summer of 2001. I'm still not sure why. I guess I was a bad interview who didn't really know how to sell himself. I didn't really have much to sell, to tell you the truth. I was a college dropout with no skills or experience. At one point in 2002 I sat down and listed all the places I interviewed. I came up with 27 in three years including a lobby group, another lobby group, yet another lobby group, the NYC Lobby office (came home and got a appendicitis, I kid you not) a senator, two think tanks, a DC political temp firm, Roll Call (I'm pretty sure Chuck Todd interviewed me), a local newspaper, etc etc.

This was in NOVA's go-go 90's days, when Silicon Valley east popped up along the Dulles Corridor and young people from all over the East Coast flocked to the area. Man, the place was overrun with southern, blonde, ball busting Republican gals. I knew a few. Lots of young money too. I remember driving to work one morning in my beat up Saturn SC-1 and pulling up to a Lexus driven by a nerdy guy my age. I used to beat up guys like him in gym class, now here he was making a fortune int he corridor.

Speaking of corridors, you've never seen traffic like this. I lived nine miles from my DMF job it took me an hour and a half to get to the office. I left at 7 and got back at 7. It was brutal. It was during this time I learned the tough part may not be the job, but the commute. That was in 99-2000 and it was the last 9-5 job I held.

Well it didn't work out for me, my career in politics was cut short, probably for the best. I write and teach now, and I'm a lot happier. In 2001 we moved to Jersey, in 2002 I earned my degree finally, and early in 2003 I finished reading Nick Hornby's High Fidelity and thought, 'Hmmm I think I could do this too...'

Sweet Child 'o AC/DC

What the hell?:

On his radio show, Atlanta-based DJ Jason Bailey said a “very, very good source” told him “Axl was meeting with [AC/DC].” It’s “all but a done deal that Axl will front AC/DC for the 10 remaining shows” on their tour, after doctors advised Brian Johnson to stop performing live, or risk “total hearing loss.”

I mean, I guess it can work. Paul Rodger toured with Queen. I suppose it's either this or find an impersonator, which is pretty much what Boston did when their lead singer kicked it. I can't really say if vocally Axl is going to do what Brian Johnson does, though he is certainly capable of gravely, hard singing. Axl, actually, I believe is supposed to have the widest range in rock and roll.

It's certainly a curiosity. I'd go see it.

Actually, I saw AC/DC once on the current tour and three times on the Black Ice Tour. The later was freakin' awesome. This time around they were ok, did and played everything they were supposed to. Something seemed to be missing though and I can't place my finger on it.

Maybe its me. Six years and three kids later (actually, Mrs. Stroock was 6 months pregnant when we saw them in 2009) maybe I just don't rock the way I used to.

I've been mad at Axl for at least 15 years. GnR gave metal and rock a great bit of pep right in the arm, a shot, if you will, which is certainly appropriate. Appetite and Use Your Illusion I & II are epic, hard rock albums as good as say, Led Zeppelin's first three. GnR should have been the Led Zeppelin of the 90's, and they weren't. By '93 they were tapped out. That's like having a  Led Zeppelin without Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti. Oh the lost potential...

What might have been.

Hang This

Interesting post on cliffhangers:

So I read yet another book by yet another author (a 1st book by a new writer, published by a traditional big 5 publisher) that ended without warning. As in, the book finished without solving any of the main plot points or character arcs. It was like, I turned the chapter, and bam! The End.Buy the next book please.
Legacy publishers have loved this sort of thing. This guarantee readers will buy the next book. And readers hate it.

I've been accused of doing this in a few Amazon reviews. I don't get it. Operation Arctic Storm centers on Operation Arctic Storm and ends with the completion of Operation Arctic Storm.

Operation Eastern Storm doesn't end With Operation Eastern Storm. Operation Eastern Storm is still going when Operation Eastern Storm concludes. However, a major plot point, the SAS raid in Poland, is completed.

I mean, The Empire Strikes Back kinda just ends, no one complains about that!

Another good point here:

But here is a shocking, heretical thought: Why don’t you write good books that readers want to read, ones they will wait to buy? Each reader has a few favourite authors whose books they will pre-order for any price. Why can’t we become those authors?

I don't disagree but hold on there. My two best books, I say without hesitation are A Line Through the Desert and A March Through Hell.  They're also my worst selling books.

Now go check out Israel Strikes (it needs no link). Its a good book, yes, but loaded with typos (they've been fixed) My best selling ever.

Good books don't necessarily sell. Popular ones do.

On Barry in Cuba

To be honest, I really don't care.

Yeah, yeah, embracing dictators and all that. I agree completely.

Problem is, tell me please, what has the embargo and isolation ever accomplished? Those never work, ever. You want to bring down the Castro regime, I say, open the place up, flood the island with thousands of American tourists doing dumb American things that ultimately undermine the regime.

That being said, if I were running to become  El Presidente, I'd speak out against the visit, just like Senor Cruz.

Castro's Folly is 45,000 words, now BTW. I swear, though, every place Barry visits, I'm going to have the USAF bomb it.

Voyager Sucks

Very interesting article re-imagining Star Trek Voyager:

What if each of the seven seasons had taken place across a ten year period?
I’m approaching this purely from a story standpoint - I’m pretty sure it’d be difficult to pitch something like this to a network, or even to keep it on the air, given that it’d be much closer to an anthology show than what we’ve traditionally seen of Trek.
In any case, though, what I’m picturing is sort of akin to DS9’s Children of Time, or Enterprise’s E2, but on a much longer timeframe.
Each series would have a ten year scope, and then within that time frame, the writers are allowed to position their episodes how they want; the first few episodes might take place within their first couple of months in the Delta Quadrant, but maybe there would be a six month gap between the third and fourth episode. Perhaps you’d have a mini arc as they travel through Vidiian space, where all the episodes are reasonably joined together, before moving swiftly on the next time. Each episode would need to have a stardate title card; “63 years until returning to Earth”, or some such similar.

I'm not saying I'd go with this idea. But its interesting and creative and imaginative. Everything Voyager was not.

Look, they basically took a Federation ship and put it on a big trek to get home. OK. I've heard some Trekkies argue that the problem was that Voyager was heading the wrong way. But I disagree. That wasn't the problem.

There was nothing new in Voyager. It was the old challenges, the same old conundrums...Prime Directives, time paradoxes and yaaaawn The Borg.....They even had a barbarian race of warriors. At what about the Maquis. Have the point was to have two halves of the crew in conflict. That dissipated after the first season. Everything we had seen in TNG and DS9 we were seeing again in Voyager. The show had not one memorable character and barely a moment.

I think I first saw Sarah Silverman in Voyager. Or was she on Seinfeld first.

And there's the problem.

Two Four Zero Zero

$2400 that's about what I take home teaching history at Raritan Valley Community College. Interesting article on the plight of adjunct professors (that's me):

The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (or TIAA Institute) is an organization that studies financial issues for educators. A 2013 TIAA Institute report stated that over the past 30 years, U.S. colleges and universities have changed the types of jobs they offer.
The report said 70 percent of all faculty positions are now part-time, adjunct, temporary, or full-time. But these jobs are not tenure-track.
Johns Hopkins University published a book in 2006 about higher education called "The American Faculty." That book stated that in 1969, 80 percent of faculty positions across the country were tenured or tenure-track.

There is also this:

Chatfield says being a part-time professor at more than one school is not only difficult financially. It also divides his attention and prevents him from having a relationship with his students.
"I’m just a body that the administration puts in front of a class because they need to fill the class… and that’s about it. So I don’t feel like they value me, because I don’t have an office ... I don’t get paid for any extra stuff that I do for my students outside of class."
Chatfield adds that his schools limit the amount he can teach so they can legally avoid giving him benefits. He also said other part-time faculty he has met through working with the AFT are tired.
"You’ll get exhausted from commuting between several schools and teaching more than what is normally expected of a college professor."

I have many colleagues in this situation. I've always taught at one place because I've always viewed it as a part time hitch. My glory days were 2011-2012. I was getting two or three classes a semester and nailed three summer classes. It as hard work. It was a lot of fun.

In 2013 I walked into a classroom after a full time prof had finished. He said the 5 classes he was teaching was quiet a burden.

Well excuse me.

Last year at RVCC we had an adjunct walkout day and rally. Being an adjunct, and being a former campus agitator, I was all for it. I told my classes there would be no class that day. At the last minute I found out that we weren't actually cancelling classes.

'I don't get it,' I said. 'Isn't this like, you know, a walkout? I mean that's what it says.'

There's a certain level of incompetence in any humanities department. I say without hesitation that the current department chair is a putz. Yeah, so what if he's reading this. Fuck him. Honestly if you teach medieval folklore, and I know people who do how competent can you be at anything? Your specialty is medieval folklore. The above quoted woman has a PHD in 16th and 17th century Spanish lit. WTF?

Ok, Mr. Big Time pontificater, you say, 'what's your specialty?'

American Revolutionary Studies and before that Military History. I turned at least 75% of the term papers I wrote into magazine articles. That's how I'm here. You want competence, I give you my career arc.

You have a PHD in Ancient Folkways of Ireland and you say you're having trouble getting work? You don't say.

My sympathy for my colleagues is limited. They feel they have a right to specialize in obsucre subjects. Which is fine. But they think the have a right to a living doing it. Which is not fine.

Hey, the coffee shop I go to in the morning is hiring. Its always hiring. Ten bucks an hour. Figure 8 hours a day, you can work 7 days if you want. Well the math is obvious, isn't it? and it don't come to Two Four Zero Zero.

 

I hate to say 'I nailed it' but I nailed it.

In A Line Through the Desert, Sgt. Jake Bloom returns home from Desert Storm a lost man. The home in which he grew up no longer seems right. His old bed, his old likes, his old diner, his old friends, nothing feels comfortable anymore:

“I was laying here, looking up at the sky and I realized the last time I did that I was in the middle of a battle, my tank was on fire, my crew was dead, and I thought I was about to die.”
            “Jesus.” Devon lit a cigarette and looked Jake square in the eyes. “You sorry you joined?”
            “No.” For a few moments they listened as everyone laughed over a dumb Joke Mathew told, then. “You remember what I was like in high school? I spent four years wondering from class to class without a fucking clue. I mean, Earth Science, Algebra? Who gives a shit?”
Devon laughed. “My mother did.”
            “It’s different in the army, you know? The shit I do makes sense. We boresight the 125mm so it can hit a target. We change the air filter so the engine doesn’t flame out.” Jake held a clenched fist in front of him. “And I’m good at it.”
            “Sounds like it.”
            “You know, in the desert, we were out in the middle of fucking nowhere, way out on limb. But I could look around, and see my squadron. I knew why I was there, I knew what I was doing.”
            “So what are you doing here?
“What am I doing here?” Jake let out and ironic laugh. “I thought I’d come back  and tell Patricia what an idiot I was for the things I wrote. Tell her I love her.” He shrugged. “Instead, when I saw her, I got mad. Started yelling. That’s not how I figured it’d go.”
“You thought the moment Patricia saw you she’d fall to her knees, beg you to take her back, spend the next week in bed?”
            Jake smirked. “Yeah.” He took a big gulp from the Tullimore.
            “Hey take it easy on that would you?”
            Devon reached for the bottle, Jake jerked it away.
“Fine, keep it.” Devon stood up.
            “Where’re you going?”
            “Get a couple of hits in before my brother smokes it all. You coming?”
            “No thanks.”
            “Probably better that way, you would’ve been a buzz kill .”
            “What do you mean, I’d be a buzz-kill?”
            Devon stopped and turned around. “That crap you pulled at the diner, sitting here by yourself listening to imaginary helicopters...”
            “So?”
            “So? It’s like sitting through the Deer Hunter.”
Devon turned around and walked over to where everyone else was sitting.  Jake took another swig of Tullimore, and watched as his childhood friends became enveloped in an ever growing cloud of purple haze...

 I was watching The Pacific, just excellent. As with most war tales, the homecoming is the most telling part. Below, for me is the most poignant scene.

Eugene Sledge, who left for the Marine Corps a virgin and came back a virgin, returns home to Mobile a jaded, cynical pipe smoking combat veteran. Here he is registering for college:

'They taught me how to kill Japs. I got pretty damn good at it.'

He seems ridiculous, doesn't he, in his hunting clothes, probably the same clothes he had before the war. Carrying a shotgun after hauling a mortar and carbine across the Pacific seems obscene. How can he carry a weapon once again?

One of the nice threads going though Eugene's homecoming is his father's compassion:

The old man, a doctor, was in the Great War, and understand what Eugene is going through.

Some things are universal, I guess.

To Strike the Stars

To Strike the Stars, there's our title.

On that note there's an interesting story about Ceres:

The mysterious bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres may be changing, according to a new study published Monday.

A group of scientists using the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory found some preliminary evidence revealing that, as Ceres rotates, its reflective areas seem to brighten and then dim depending on sunlight.

They're late to the game, so to speak. In TSTS the 1st Gurkha Space Rifles are already on scene. A wee snippet:

 Rao was following Mukherjee’s firing plot when Lt. Peri said, ‘Colonel Rai is getting ready to attack Pyramid again. Would you like to listen in?”            ‘Yes, on my flat-screen only please. The bridge will concentrate on the task at hand.’            Rao followed along closely. The 2^nd Gurkha Battalion landed several kilometers away from Pyramid and approached the tunnel in two lines. Before the infantry two tanks advanced each alternating fire into the tunnel, sending a stream of high explosive shells which flashed inside the tunnel upon impact.            ‘We are approaching the entrance cone of fire.’            ‘Still no activity.’            ‘Wait…there, enemy is firing.’            For another minute as the battalion pushed on Rao heard a lot of cross-talk.            ‘Firing light. Ineffective.’            Rai must have destroyed most of their defenses, thought Rao.            ‘Advance elements inside the cone of fire.’            ‘Copy.’            ‘We are deploying lasers now. If the Jai fire another earth penetrator missile, we can intercept it.’            Rao nodded. Good, he thought.            The lead tanks stopped firing. Engineers cautiously approached the tunnel and surveyed. Rao viewed the image the beamed back. The tunnel was filled with wreckage, steel girders, concrete slabs, but with some work it looked passable.            ‘We will keep Pyramid under fire.’            ‘Yes, sir.’            ‘Engineers I want…’
            Rao heard shouting, and the static. A few seconds later the signal returned but all Rao could make out was shouting and cross-talk. He heard the word ‘gone’ and then ‘vapor cloud’ and finally, ‘Mine! they detonated a mine!’            ‘Damn it,’ said Rao.

The Morons

This from Jennifer Rubin has to be read to be believed:

It is not as though there were no GOP candidates who embraced a more inclusive, problem-solving message. One after another, however, they lost. You cannot fault the GOP for a lack of choices. There were experienced governors (current and former), a pro-immigration reform freshman senator with a panoply of creative ideas, a female former CEO and so on. The voters have rejected the vast majority of them. Were they all bad candidates with inept campaigns? It is hard to imagine so. Is it all the doing of one evil genius who is destroying the party and ruining its chances for electoral domination? Trump is clever but no genius; he merely saw what was there and seized the opportunity.
In short, you can blame the often spineless RNC, the other candidates, the media and a dozen other factors, but in the end the GOP voters (or the voters choosing to cast ballots in the primary contests) repeatedly have chosen Trump — after hearing his rhetoric and getting a full look at his ethical and intellectual shortcomings. No, it’s not a majority of the GOP who are embracing him, but it sure is a healthy plurality of voters. You want someone to blame for the GOP’s dilemma: Blame the voters.

Let's take a step back, deploy a little more 'fair use' and read a previous paragraph:

 To be clear, a positive, inclusive message was directly taken up by leaders such as now-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and a gifted Senate class of freshmen in 2014. They were and are inclusive, bubbling with ideas. They won races across the country outside of deep-red enclaves. Even without a hope of passing legislation with Obama in the White House, Republican policy-designers are attempting to, as Ryan likes to say, “set the table” for the 2016 election. They did not do all this because an autopsy report told them to do it, but because savvy, brainy pols figured out that the GOP was headed for extinction if its base continued to shrink and it remained unceasingly negative.

Setting the table, yeah sure. I thought W was setting the table in 2003-2004 and then nothing, nada, zip.

This why the GOP is in this mess. It delivers nothing.

Jennifer Rubin blames the voters, that is the audience for rejecting establishment candidates. She loathes Ted Cruz, of course, and just loves Jeb! Bush and later Rubio. Heck I loved Rubio too, but it was not to be.

Bottom line, when the audience rejects you, the audience isn't wrong, you're wrong.

You Don't know Apartheid

Jennifer Rubin, who is otherwise going through a public spiritual meltdown over Donald Trunp, brings this to our attention:

Ironically, in the real world, the post-apartheid government of South Africa wants closer relations with Israel on trade, water and technology. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director General Dr. Dore Gold is in South Africa to do just that. A readout of the meeting between Gold and his counterpart states: “The discussions focused on the relations between the two countries and the sides agreed on improving cooperation between the two countries. The Directors General agreed that officials from South Africa and Israel will work together on national priority issues such as water, agriculture, trade and science and technology. The sides also discussed the situation in the Middle East. The sides emphasized the importance of trade delegations in both directions.”

The Israelis used to have close ties with the Apartheid government. They shared technology,  including nuclear, and probably tested a nuclear bomb together in the Indian Ocean. Like everywhere else in the old empire, South Africa had enclaves of Jews in Pretoria, Johannesburg and Capetown. The Boers looked at Jews as 'people of the book' and welcomed them.

They've been chased out. That's a familiar story to American Jews. Drive through the South Bronx and you'll see lots of AME churches with Hebrew writing across the facade.

Maybe the Jews had just a bit of sympathy for an international pariah, no? Gee, wonder why.

Anyway I've published some on the South African Army and their Angolan Bush War and  right now am writing about them in Castro's Folly. I have to admit I've come to admire the South African Army. They had the most active special forces in the world, probably equal to the Israelis in school, certainly in experience. They developed some very interesting armored vehicles specific to the Savannah, the Eland and Ratel. They won a lot of battles, all them really.

But, but...what about...Yeah, yeah, Apartheid I know.

Given the record of other African nations, Zaire the Congo, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Liberia...I could go on, if the Boers were genocidal maniacs, they weren't that good at it.

Israeli Innovation

This summer marks the ten year anniversary of Israel's disastrous  war against Hezbollah.

For me the most interesting thing that has happened since is the spate of Israel innovation. From mock Arab villages filled with Israeli Arabs acting as Palestinian civilians, to technological innovations like the Trophy anti-missile system for tanks, the Arrow ABM system, and of course Iron Dome, Israel has counted on its human capital to give it an edge in the next war.

Don't kid yourself, there will be a next war.

Of course, 2014's Operation Protective edge saw Hamas did dozens of tunnels into Israeli territory. Of course, the Israelis are taking action:

According to intelligence officials, Israeli engineers are working tirelessly to develop what’s being called the “Underground Iron Dome” — a system that could detect and destroy cross-border tunnels. According to a report on Israeli Channel 2, the Israeli government has spent more than $250 million since 2004 in its efforts to thwart tunnel construction under the Gaza border.

What this could be, I have no idea.

Needless to say, the Jew is Clever.

Don't believe me? There is also this:

Since the beginning of 2016, nearly a dozen Hamas tunnels have collapsed on the Palestinians who were building them, killing at least 10 of the group’s members. While winter rains have been blamed as the culprit, the wave of collapses has led many here to wonder if Israel’s new secret weapon is already at work.

I'm serious. I think the Israelis are selling corrupted concrete or some such to Hamas. They have a sense of humor for that sort of thing.

Which is absolutely hilarious. Somewhere, General Pin Kreiger smiles.

Updates!

Castro's Folly 40,000 words and counting.

I decided (Not) To Liberate Mars is complete. The editor has it.

Summer for the later, autumn for the former.

Hezbollah's Deterent

I read interesting article, which I can't find  on Hezbollah intentions and capabilities which says Hezbollah plans to attack Israel and seize territory.

I remain deeply skeptical about Hezbollah's ability to penetrate Israeli territory, much less take and hold any of it.

That said, despite the more than 1,000 casualties its taken in Syria, they have clearly improved as a fighting organization, which is most important. Of course they have the best equipped terrorist army in the world now. Personally I bet they could smack around plenty of NATO armies.

Tens of thousands of rockets, deep tunnel complexes, drones, naval commandos, anti-ship missiles, well trained, armed, led and motivated troops....Hezbollah has created quite a deterrent. Which seems to me is the point of all this.

Any conflict against Hezbollah will be far bloodier and nihilistic than anything they've fought before. The Israelis can count on hundreds of military and hundreds more civilian casualties. That's a lot in a nation of six million...whoops that number again.

Why create the deterrent? What's Hezbollah waiting for?

Why nuclear capability of course!

Castro's Folly, Mornng Research...'Get to the Choppa!'

A little morning research for Castro's Folly:

Ah, Latin American during the Cold War, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatamala, Honduras....aye gringo!

What a mess. Someone ironically, at least to me since I grew up in a home where Dad proclaimed, 'El Salvador is Spanish for Vietnam', the Reagan Administration made Latin America better. By prosecuting various proxy wars, they wore down the communists and forced elections whereby all four of the above mentioned nations had democratically elected governments by 1990.

Hundreds of thousands were killed in a conflict in which the U.S. backed military death squads against communist insurgents.

I'm proud to say my own family was up to its armpits in the mess:

 It was under Stroock's command that an embassy staff member told a visiting religious delegation--"I'm tired of all these lesbian nuns coming down to Guatemala." It was Stroock who said, a week after I was abducted, before any embassy member had interviewed me, "Her story as told is not accurate." It was Stroock who told the State Department that my motives were questionable, that I had perhaps staged my own abduction to secure a cut-off of US aid to the Guatemalan army. Yet it is Stroock to whom the US government gives the report--a report so private that even I cannot see it.

Proud Wyoming man and friend to Dick Cheney (NTTAWWT).

I talked to him on teh phone once, in late 2000 back in my Virginia days. Asked if he could help get me some work in the Bush White House. He said to send him my CV. I never heard back from him.

Prick.

Anyway all this Latin American research and writing given me a craving for Mexican food (fiesta grande de los conquistador as it is known in Casa de Stroock) Eli Wallach movies, and 80's flicks with Central American guerrillas.

Come on, you know the one. Da-dum da-dum dum dum....repeat as necessary.

That battle sequence really is well done.

What a movie. Great action, lots of tension.

For me, anyway, Predator marks the transformation of Arnold Schwarzenegger from a a Golan-Globus type schlockmeister to a legit action star. I mean look at his other big Latin American themed movie:

Cool, but schlocky none-the-less.

'I eat green berets for breakfast...'

Hey, come to think of it, wouldn't an invasion of Cuba require a lot SF types? Maybe the CIA can hire a mercenary commando squad?

Heh.

Ghost Busters! I ain't afraid of no Social Justice Warrior

Well, here's the trailer:

So they remade Ghostbusters with an all girl cast.

Why not? Do something different.

And they made them all a bunch of geniuses. Why not to that too?

The movie was written by Katie Dippold.

She's a professional comedienne, and strikes me as a bit of a comedy geek. I bet she's watched every episode of 30 Rock. I know I have.

The movie has something of an agenda: smart STEM girls. Penny from the Big Bang Theory is closer to the truth, but why not? Yes, I'm saying girls don't like science. Jersey girl, too Here's a telling pic:

Girl Power! Indeed. I have three myself.

They even got a black chick.

Judging by the trailer she's the stock sassy, no no-none ghetto girl whose gonna tell it like it is. Actually I think pairing her with three geeky white girls is a good idea.

Of course the Social Justice Warriors are throwing a fit. Why not, a black woman can't be a scientist too? Well of course, but as a writer, I think its a natural gag. Of course, the choice does make one think that Ms. Dippold can only think of a black woman in the terms outlined above. What would one expect from a white suburban girl of privilege?

It's not my problem,

In the original Ghostbusters the guys may have been brilliant, but they were also doofuses who had to figure out things as they went along. I mean, they trash a ballroom first time out and its hilarious. They brought a black guy, Ernie Hudson, into the mix mid-movie. Me thinks an exec said, 'Great, but you need to broaden the audience. Billy Dee Williams isn't available? Fine, get Ernie Hudson, or Kieth David if he's available.'

So here Ms. Deppold decided to stick with the formula.

The whole controversy can only help ticket sales.

God I wish I could get some of the SJW action directed at me. I mean with all the 'rape culture' hysteria, these people would freak out if the read A Line though the Desert. Don't believe me, go out and by a copy. Please?

Just because. You're welcome:

31 Year Old Middle Aged Square

So I've been watching a lot of character driven movies about women dealing with emotional issues. Cake, A pictures of You, The Girl in the Book, etc, etc...

Yeah, yeah, take my man card.

Hey, this sensitive stuff will get you laid...

Last night I was watching A Walk on the Moon.

Briefly a middle class family is on vacation is the Borscht Belt. See also Dirty Dancing.

Anywho...it's 1969, we're about to walk on the moon and just a few miles away Woodstock is unfolding. What struck me about the movie is that our protagonists, Pearl and Arty are in their early 30's, Pearl is 31 years old, she has a 6 year old and a 14 year old. Thirty one years old, yet in 1969 these people are thoroughly middle-aged and part of the post war middle-brow culture.

At the end of the movie Pearl and Arty are dancing, first to Johnny Mathis, or some such, but then in a sign he's changed, Arty changes the station to rock and roll and finds Purple Haze. Pearl and Arty try to dance to it, but its clear they are middle aged squares.

Pearl is 31. That picture of her buying a ty dye is a subversive thing.

When I was 31 I was wearing T-shirts, jeans and Chuck Taylors. I was a HS sub and widely known as 'the cool one'. Don't worry I had boundaries and was also the 'trouble shooter'. When I started, the kids thought I was a nark. God, some of those kids are approaching 30, but that's another post.

Forty five years ago, if you were 31 you were a tragically uncool middle-aged doofus. Think about THAT.

Politics!

Sadly, my man Rubio is fading, even I see. Each day shrinks a bit. My dream of the Rubio-Haley ticket dies a little more every day.

I'm not freaking out like a lot of people over Donald Trump. I mean, I'll vote for him over Her Majesty, that's for sure.

But I still say no. I'm Cruzin', all in for Ted Cruz TrusTed!

The man is a real movement conservative, and I have faith that on day one he'll start undoing Barry's executive decrees and appoint a Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Also, he knows that he's not running against Trump or even Hillary but the media. He'll rip their lungs out, as Algore would say.

In any room he walks into he instantly becomes the smartest man in the room. Evil genius he is:

 Couldn't resist. My daughter did this number in her dance class.

Castro's Folly

Meet the commander of Operation Rabenga:

General Carl Stiner seems right out of central casting, gruff, outspoken, right down to the Tennessee drawl.

A bit of background, he served in Vietnam of course and later commanded the 82nd Airborne Division and then XVIII airborne corps where he planned the invasion of Panama. In the World War 1990 universe he hasn't had much to do. I originally thought about tapping him to command Pacific Storm but chose 'Mad Max' Thurman instead. He clashed heads with Schwarzkopf (in our universe), but so did everybody else.

If I made him up people would think he were a cliche, but he's not. That's the man.

The book itself has passed the 30k word work, about halfway.

There is something so American about a four star general addressing the Eagle Scouts.

World War 1990: Looking for Allies

I've noticed a lot of South American traffic coming to this blog so this one's for you.

So when the U.S. invades Cuba and casts about for help it will hit upon Brazil, among others.

Think about it. President Collar (Collar de Mello?) hits the ground running that spring, tries to pull a Thatcher and gets into trouble right off. So he does what Maggie would do. When the U.S. asked for help with Cuba, President Collar is willing to help.

Now, brace yourselves, yanqui readers, but Brazil has a serious military establishment. In 1990, 26 surface combatants, two amphibious warfare ships, four troop transports, and 14 C-130s + other transport air craft. I figure they'll be able to drop their airborne brigade and land two brigades of marines and a light tank brigade. They can base a few squadrons of F-5s out of Jamaica.

Not a bad punch, eh?

World War 1990: Castro's Folly

I'm having way too much fun with this; an invasion of Cuba.

Of course all three Marine divisions are already committed as are the 82nd and 101st. Every last Regular Army division is committed as well. So are the ten National Guard Divisions.

Acting as the Chief of Staff, I'm scraping together NG brigades here and there and forming them into ad-hoc divisions, I've found four brigades so far + the 4th Marine Division (reserve). Needles to say everyone is under strength and using older equipment.

That's three under strength divisions + a few battalions of Regular Army troops out of Panama some SF, maybe the 75th Ranger regiment. Allies, the Americans will need allies. Can they find any to help them invade Cuba? Heh, sure they can.

Anyone speak Portuguese?

I Am Andrew Breitbart

Four years ago today Andrew Breitbart died. I've always been glad I found out via Drudge. It just seems so right.

A lot of the things I've done the last few years have been because of Breitbart. I continued teaching, I held a pro-Israel rally at RVCC, I sat in an disrupted an anti-Israel rally, I gave a hard time to a lefty speaker on campus, I brought up the rear of a BLM rally handing fact sheets, etc etc.

When he started Big Hollywood in 2009 my thought was 'meh'. I knew who Breitbart was, vaguely remembered his book, Hollywood Loser, and knew the role he played in Drudge. He got my attention though after California Prop-8 passed. I saw him debating a gay rights activist who was going on and on about Mormons and Evangelicals, Breitbart finally said, 'Protest a Mosque'. It was at that point I understood. Sadly I can't find the clip.

When he died four years ago I openly wept.

I am Andrew Breitbart, indeed, and in more ways than one.

Last fall I went to the hospital with chest pains. Doctor's discovered a blockage in my artery (95%) and put a stent in my heart. After several months of dieting, etc, I got some blood work done. The triglyceride and cholesterol count are actually worse than before the stent.

Andrew Breitbart died of a heart attack four years ago today. He was 44.

I'm 42.

I am Andrew Breitbart.