Almost Shot My Eye Out

Tonight was the first in what will probably be many viewings this holiday season of A Christmas Story. It was with belated irony that I remembered I too had a Red Ryder BB gun when I was about Ralphie’s age. I also recalled that I really did almost shoot my eye out. One of those hundreds of childhood moments you’re glad your mother wasn’t there to witness. (I’d have to say a close second was setting the back yard on fire when I was 13.) Moms just don’t understand the relationship between a boy and his BB gun. Before you hit puberty it’s probably the strongest you bond with any implement. What moms also don’t know is that the Red Ryder is a gateway gun. It starts with BB guns, then by the time you’re a teenager you just can’t get enough of that .22 rifle. By early adulthood you’re up to .308’s and 30-06’s. Somewhere around your early to mid twenties it grows into 1911-style .45’s and 12 gauges. By my 30’s it was an AR-15 with magazine connector and a Trijicon Reflex. I think the only place left for me to go is a Springfield Armory standard M1A or a Barrett model M468. Dad, I raise my glass of Tang in salute to your calling that one from way back, and taking all the heat came with it.

Ares

Metal Abuse

In the wee small hours of this morning I happened to get a few moments with my remote and television. VH1 had something called Metal Mania listed in the directory. When I was freshly pubescent VH1 was where mini-van driving soccer moms and wine sipping, sweater wearing, sensitive guys got their music. Now they have an ‘effing “metal show”? Thinking it would be interesting to see what passes for “metal” these days, I sat back on the couch and pressed “Enter” on the remote. It’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking, because it would have probably shot out of my nose. Displayed with the prominent “VH1 Classic” symbol in the corner was Judas Priest’s Turbo Lover. A heavy sigh, followed by some drive-by depression, quickly followed. Dammit.

Following closely on the heels of this little booger in the punchbowl of my disposition was a viewing of Mad Max2: The Road Warrior. Many a Sunday afternoon was pissed away with me, Jeff, and Matt watching that little celluloid gem. You absolutely have to be a teenage boy to truly enjoy that movie. (It’s where we went in the entertainment continuum after we discovered girls.) The only way to get three boys in puberty to be quiet for an hour and a half was to pop that cassette into the top-loading VCR. One question occurred to me as I watched The Road Warrior. The characters in that movie are dressed pretty much exactly like all of the metal bands that passed through the ‘80’s. Is that movie where that wardrobe guidance came from? Somebody older than me answer that one, I was still in Toughskins when The Road Warrior was in theaters.

On top of this now XM has an all-Led Zeppelin channel. I think Don Henley said it best in The Boys of Summer: “Out on the road today I saw a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac, a little voice inside my head said don’t look back.”

Ares

Damnable Statistics

You can do all sorts of things with numbers. A data set can be used to prove or disprove a given position, depending on the author’s angle and objective. Just like lawyers can make facts irrelevant by composing a better argument, writers can pull statistics as far as their talent will take them. It was with this in mind that I came across a Congressional Research Service report entitled American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics.

I think we can safely assume from the report CRS doesn’t have a political axe to grind. It’s very Joe Friday “Just the facts, Ma’am”. These numbers don’t tell too much of a story by themselves, but they offer some interesting insight. From 1980 to 1983 there were 7091 military deaths. From 2004 through the end of 2006 there were 5674 military deaths. Total military deaths from 2001 through 2006 are 8795. From 1980 through 1985 there were 13807 fatalities. Mind you, some of those where due to places like Beirut and Grenada, but even with those combat fatalities factored in there’s still quite a gap. The really interesting statistic is the suicide numbers. We occasionally get hit with stories about the jump in military suicides since invading Iraq. From 1980 through 1985 there were 1444 self-inflicted life exits. From 2001 through 2006 there were 960. The highest scoring year since 2000 (2004 with 188) is lower than the lowest year of the 1980’s (1983 with 218).

What does all this tell us? Not much overall. Numbers don’t tell the story, context does. For me, this is further evidence of one of Thomas Barnett’s theories that the world is actually getting to be a better, safer place. Hard to believe that if you imbibe in the daily multi-media swill that’s pushed in front of us, but if you dig a little deeper and look a little more critically you can find it. Now if we could just get people to stop plugging into that pleasure center in the brain that is activated by distant feelings of doom. I’ll do my part by starting on myself.

Ares

Happy Birthday P.J.

A bit fat Ares and Athena happy birthday goes out to P.J. O’Rourke, who turns 60 today. Congratulations P.J., you’re now the old man you spent your youth railing against. For those not familiar, P.J. is the smartest funny man that nobody reads. Okay, some of you read him. My next door neighbor economics professor uses Eat the Rich as an intro text, as well he should. P.J. has the rare ability to entertain and inform at the same time. Give War a Chance and All the Trouble in the World should be required reading for all high school graduates. Parliament of Whores should be the nationwide high school civics text.

Our Founding Fathers lacked the special literary skills with which modern writers on the subject of government are so richly endowed. When they wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they found themselves more or less forced to come to the point. So clumsy of thought and pen were the Founders that even today, seven generations later, we can tell what they were talking about.

The opening lines of Eat the Rich hit the literary nail on the head.

I had one fundamental question about economics: Why do some places prosper and thrive while others just suck? It’s not a matter or brains. No part of the earth (with the possible exception of Brentwood) is dumber than Beverly Hills, and the residents are wading in gravy. In Russia, meanwhile, where chess is a spectator sport, they’re boiling stones for soup. Nor can education be the reason. Fourth graders in the American school system know what a condom is but aren’t sure about 9 x 7. Natural resources aren’t the answer. Africa has diamonds, gold, uranium, you name it. Scandinavia has little and is frozen besides. Maybe culture is the key, but wealthy regions such as the local mall are famous for lacking it.

P.J., I hope there’s more where that came from.

Ares

Create A Flow of Dollars

After another long silence I’m back at the keyboard helm. That whole earning a living thing sort of got in the way of blogtime. Part of the reason for my silence is that I simply haven’t had much to say. I subscribe to the less-is-more theory of blogging. If I were advancing an academic interest or chronicling an ongoing whatever there would be cause for more frequency. But this is mainly just rant space.

One little juicy thing caught my eye in today’s online Atlanta Urinal-Constipation. Nice, big piece about the Senate investigation into the finances of a few mega-churches in town. The two big ones are Eddie Long’s Newbirth and Creflo Dollar (for those out of town, I swear I’m not making that name up) and his World Changers. Seems Creflo took in $69 million in 2006. That’s a lot of collection plate passes. In the piece he says he doesn’t receive any income from the church, and his revenue is derived from real estate. Wonder where he got the money for his real estate investments? Also says that the church ‘bought’ him a Rolls Royce. ‘Nuff said on that one. Eddie Long isn’t quite as conspicuous with his wealth, although he’s rolling as well. Although the money is theirs to do with as they please, it raises the good question of what does a minister need with a private jet? Suicidal Tendencies nailed this one eloquently in their 1990 ditty called “Send Me Your Money”. Ah, the classics.

I suppose on some level this is a mark of progress. What’s good enough for Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson is good enough for Eddie Long. Equal opportunity hucksterism at work. The worrisome aspect of Creflo and Eddie’s churches is the underground power. There are a lot of buried cables of political current at work here. Vernon Jones, my favorite local elected idiot savant, has been playing touch & rub under the table with local preachers for years. He’s not the first; the Southern Baptists have been doing this for over a hundred years in this town. Vernon leased a county building to a local church for a buck a year right after he was elected. When he fired the police chief a few years ago, a local preacher was tasked with going to the chief’s home to tell him. (Typical Vernon, didn’t even have the sack to tell him face to face like a man.)

Back to Creflo, anybody that’s watched him preach will get a familiar feeling. Creflo comes off as a pimp in a thousand dollar suit. Hey, I just had an idea for slogan for World Changers: Pimpin for Jesus. Or maybe the less caustic “Blinging for Jesus”. I actually sort of hope this Senate investigation doesn’t run too far. Not because there isn’t anything to find, but because of the price we’ll pay if it goes too deep. If it gets beyond cursory it will immediately become racial and we won’t be able to swing a dead cat without tales of victimization. What I really wish is that some A-list investigative journalist/author would do a thorough book about the power/wealth nexus of these churches and politics. Mark Bowden would probably come away thinking Somalia was simple by comparison.

Ares