Category Archives: Essays

January 12, 2013 · 8:33 PM

England Didn’t Get the Memo – the Sun Set on Your Empire Years Ago!

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Tensions have risen again between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands, a tiny cluster of barely-habitable rocks in the far Southwestern Atlantic, about 300 miles east of the South American mainland.  Those of us who are old enough to remember the ill-fated 1982 battle between the nations over these islands probably also remember it was the first time we’d ever heard of them.  At the time I was surprised to realize that England still had a colonial outpost that far away; some 8,000 miles from London and therefore, closer to Antarctica than Buckingham Palace is to 10 Downing Street.  I knew the U.K. still held Northern Ireland in its grasp, but the Falklands?  And, it’s not like they’re “across the pond,” as the British are fond of saying about the U.S. in their infinitely arrogant demeanor.  The Falklands are clear over on the other side of the globe!  In another hemisphere!

The Falklands are comprised of two large islands (West and East) and more than 700 hundred islets.  They are to the Southern Atlantic what the ABC Islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao) are to the Caribbean: clumps of rock jutting above the water.  If you sit on an Aruban beach, staring into the sunset, you could be blasted with sandy pebbles carried by powerful breezes.  It’s probably why people often visit the ABC Islands to scuba dive and get drunk.  If you sit on a Falkland beach (taking for granted that you can actually find a spot there that qualifies as a beach), you could have a similar experience, except the winds are much colder.  While tropical storms don’t terrorize the Falklands, arctic ones pose a similar threat, as they creep up from the south and assault the archipelago with frigid gusts and heavy precipitation.  They’re not exactly the Galapagos or the Seychelles.  Penguins and seals have populated them for thousands of years, but humans have only been there for the better part of the past four centuries.

Gentoo penguins on the Falklands.

Gentoo penguins on the Falklands.

Argentina refers to the Falklands as Las Islas Malvinas (The Malvinas) and has laid claim to them for the last two hundred years.  I think it’s just a matter of pride and proximity – and animosity towards Great Britain.  What else could it be?

English navigator John Davis may have been the first European to sight the islands, while cruising through the area in 1592.  But, Dutchman Sebald de Weerdt made the first definite and recorded sighting in 1600.  Another Englishman, John Strong, made the first recorded landing, however, in 1690.  He named the sound between the two main islands after Viscount Falkland, a British naval officer.  In 1764, French navigator Louis Antoine de Bougainville established the islands’ first settlement, on East Falkland, and named the islands Les Malovines.  A year later the British established a settlement on what is now West Falkland.  In 1767, the Spanish bought the French settlement and, in 1770, drove out the British.

The British returned to West Falkland a year later, but left again, for economic reasons, in 1774.  Although the British never renounced their claim to the rocky outcroppings, Spain maintained their settlement on East Falkland until 1811.

In 1816, Argentina declared its independence from Spain and, in 1820, proclaimed sovereignty over the Malvinas and began occupying them.  But, in 1833, Britain returned and forcibly expelled the handful of Argentine military officers who remained.  By the end of the 19th century, the Malvinas had a self-supporting colony of Britons who swore allegiance to the British crown.  They ignored frequent Argentine protests over U.K.’s occupation of the islands.

In 1965, the United Nations approved a resolution inviting Argentina and Great Britain to discuss a peaceful resolution to the dispute.  Argentina simply wanted the islands turned back over to them.  Great Britain simply balked.  The relentless head-butting culminated in Argentina’s surprise invasion of the Falklands on April 2, 1982.  Within a few weeks, 10,000 Argentine troops occupied the islands.  Falkland residents couldn’t do much to resist.  But, Argentina was in no position to attack England.  Aside from an inferior military, they were just coming out of their infamous “Dirty War;” a frightening period during which the military dictatorship engaged in a brutal campaign against suspected left-wing political opponents.  People accused of treason disappeared; others turned up dead.  Many of those who vanished remain missing to this day.  The Falkland invasion was really just a political move to unite the Argentine people behind a government whose human rights abuses and financial mismanagement were gaining international attention.

The British response to the invasion was swift and deadly.  They launched a cavalry of battle ships, one commandeered by Prince Andrew.  The conflict was brutal, resulting in the loss of more than 900 lives.  After 74 days, Argentina surrendered and admitted defeat.  It was a serious blow to the morale of the Argentine people and their dubious government.  But, it was bound to happen.  And, more importantly, it still doesn’t mean Great Britain is right.

Long before the Falklands debacle, though, England’s empire had begun to disintegrate.  After the United States broke away from the British crown, England then lost such large territories as Canada and Australia.  The 20th century saw Great Britain experience the greatest number of colonial losses, due mainly to fighting two world wars within a generation.  In 1947, a fatigued and embattled U.K. watched as India gain independence.  Then, England’s colonies in Africa began to clamor for their own freedom.  Both Afghanistan and China had managed to thwart British imperialism in the 1800s.  And, in 1997, another British colonial jewel, Hong Kong, fell under Chinese control.

So, I have to wonder why England insists on retaining the Falklands.  Don’t they realize they’re no longer an imperialist superpower?  Other European nations – mainly Spain and France – conceded losing their own overseas territories.  But, Great Britain won’t let go.  I suppose it’s a Napoleonic complex.  Barely the size of the U.S. state of Alabama, England has to assert itself loudly and – sometimes – viciously.

Argentina is no better suited militarily to take on the British now than they were in 1982.  But, they have become democratized and revamped their financial infrastructure.  Its latest move seems to be isolationism.  Argentina President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has politely asked for the Falklands’ return, but British Prime Minister David Cameron scoffed at the likelihood and said he would “fight militarily” to keep the islands.  Such is the air of British self-righteousness: take what’s not theirs and kill anyone who tries to resist.  Their predecessors did that to the native peoples of North America; a sentiment that persists today in their dismissive behavior and attitude.

Falkland residents are scheduled to vote this March whether or not they want to remain as part of the United Kingdom.  I suspect they will choose to stay with Britain.  I also feel that – whatever occurs – the U.S. should stay out of it.  Regardless, England is starting to learn that the world is no longer its open treasure chest.

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January 1, 2013 · 7:47 PM

Resolving

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I really don’t make New Year’s resolutions anymore.  I figure you should resolve to do something good and positive all year.  It’s like Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Why wait until then to hope for ‘peach on Earth,’ when you should expect it every day?  Of course, that’s a lost cause, especially in the Middle East and parts of South Dallas, but it’s always the thought that counts.  Regardless of the time of year, I always resolve to do such things as exercise and write more, eat better, consume less alcohol and masturbate no more than once a week.  (I really need to stop molesting myself so much.  At my age, the hand cramps are starting to get to me.)  But, I always try to make each day better.

My biggest regret for last year is that I didn’t get my novel published.  I’m too much of a perfectionist – and, to some extent, a procrastinator.  Just like I should have started my freelance writing career instead of spending so much time looking for a standard job, I should have devoted more time to my book and gotten the damn thing into print by now.  I’m almost embarrassed to say I’ve worked on it for the better part of a decade; although, in my defense, I made three concerted efforts to get it published prior to 2012.

Whatever your particular resolutions are for this year – even if you have some held over from last year, like I do – let’s live each day and each year as best as we can!

Image courtesy “Calvin and Hobbes.”

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December 31, 2012 · 7:46 PM

Impeach Them All!

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Our elected officials have led the American people to the cliff’s edge – and have pushed.  We’re headed into the abyss of recession, and the pathetic bastards don’t care.  Their salaries and health care are assured.  The rest of us get reamed.  Now, don’t get me wrong!  I like being screwed like most anyone else – if I’m enjoying it.  But, I’m not enjoying this!  Neither is most every other American.

This has been going on since…oh, I’d say January 20, 2009, when President Obama took office.  The Republican Party made it a point from the moment that half-blooded Negro won the 2008 election that they’d do everything in their power to undermine his presidency.  Not help to hemorrhage the country’s increasing unemployment; not stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; not start rebuilding the nation’s aging infrastructure; not find out who all was responsible for the banking and housing crises that led to the economic downturn in the first place.  No, their goal was simple: destroy Obama.  For their part, the Democrats replied in their usual conciliatory tone; bowing to the GOP over expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts.  They and Obama relented, lest unemployment insurance lapse in 2011.  Obama collectively – and rightfully – deemed the rest of us a “hostage.”  I dubbed him a wimp for caving to John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.

Now, angry that Obama won last month, the GOP is even more determined to destroy him – and take the rest of the country down, too.  If we look at this entire imbroglio in the same context as a business, Congress would be in bankruptcy.  Wherever I’ve worked anyone who didn’t cooperate with their constituents and strive to achieve the common goals set forth by management ended up contacting the unemployment office.  In other words, they got fired!  They were told to pack up and head out.  I’ve never known a place that allowed people to squabble and not accomplish anything.

Until now.

Congress is the exception.  They’ve always made themselves the exception.  Its members, of course, don’t have to worry about their respective financial futures.  They haven’t had to exhaust their 401K’s and empty their savings like I have in the two years since I got laid off from an engineering firm.  Their health care is secured.  They don’t have to worry about a proverbial “donut hole” like my parents and scrounge through their medications.  They have their own bank where they’re allowed to overdraw their checking accounts and not pay any fees.  Congress lives in its own glass bubble; separate from the rest of us – the people who elected them – and devoid of reality.

But, therein lies the key – we elected them.  We are their employers.  And, since they refuse to do as we instructed, I therefore propose we terminate them.  Every single one of them.  Just fire the whole lot of them and hire some new employees.  From President Obama whose backbone never seemed to have much lead all the way down to every “Tea Party” candidate who give trailer park residents a bad name.  Get rid of them!  They’re not doing the job we told them to do.  They have failed on every level.  I’ve voted Democrat most of my life – including twice for Obama – but, I’m not prejudiced.  Everyone there in Washington needs to go.  If Enron and Bear Stearns could lay off thousands of employees because the companies screwed up, we can certainly terminate every member of Congress for flat out refusing to do their jobs.  I mean, who the hell wants to keep employees like that anyway?  No business can succeed with that kind of staff!

So, as we fly off that “cliff” and head into the New Year, who’s with me on this mass impeachment?  We can work together on this!

Image courtesy I-Clipart.

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December 24, 2012 · 10:12 PM

Old Christmas Photos

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I don’t get too much into the Christmas thing; never really have.  But, I do wish most folks a ‘Merry Christmas.’  It’s just a tradition for most of us born and raised in Christian-based societies.  There is one tradition, though, that I think about often.  My father’s family used to gather every Christmas Eve at his mother’s house.  It’s a common Hispanic ritual.  They gather late on Christmas Eve, eat tamales and other conventional Mexican foods, and then go to midnight mass at a local Catholic church.  Most of us in the family, however, didn’t partake of midnight mass.  We’d usually eaten and drank too much by then.

My father’s family last converged on my grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve 2000; she died the following February at age 97.  And, that was it.  No one got together anymore.  Not for Thanksgiving, not for Christmas, not for Easter.  In fact, the few times we gathered were for funerals.  Two of my father’s older siblings passed away in 2004.  But, by then, things had started to descend into disharmony.

More than a year after my grandmother died, I invited a friend to move in with me.  He needed a place to live, and I was working temporary jobs.  Both our bills had been mounting, and we decided to split expenses.  Ultimately, the only good thing that came out of that deal was my dog.  It had been Tom’s*, but when we parted ways in January 2003, he decided to leave the new puppy with me.  Tom also left me with a warning: be prepared for my dad’s family to quarrel over my grandmother’s estate.  He knew from first-hand experience.  When his paternal grandfather died in the late 1970’s, his father’s family became embroiled in a bitter feud over property near their East Texas homes; property that had been in the clan for generations.  Some wanted to sell, while others wanted to hold onto it.  To the latter group, it was too valuable; they couldn’t see putting a price on it.  It was like a family heirloom.

My parents had always advised me against loaning money to friends and relatives; saying it was the quickest way to lose both.  But, I don’t think even they anticipated the battle that would brew over my grandmother’s estate.  When my maternal grandfather died in 1983, his will was settled peacefully; my mother and her three siblings each got something from what was left of the estate, and that was it.  No fighting, no hatefulness.  They carried on and maintained their loving relationships.

The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks practically killed off what was left of the economic boon of the late 1990s.  The housing market wasn’t spared.  Home values dropped precipitously, and my Aunt Andrea* – who was executrix of my grandmother’s estate – couldn’t find a buyer for the house.  It was an oddly-designed home with no attached garage.  The land on which it sat in North Dallas, one and a half acres, should have been more valuable than the actual structure.  Two realtors tried and failed to sell it.  I think they overpriced it.  A close friend who owns and operates a real estate firm confirmed that to me, when he compared similar-sized houses in the same neighborhood.

But then, Andrea made an egregious move; one that would send the entire family into turmoil.  She decided to lease it to a cousin of mine, Jaime*, and his wife, Linda*.  They were on the verge of losing their own $400,000 suburban Dallas home at the start of 2002 and faced possible homelessness.  I guess they didn’t think that two small children, a pair of luxury SUVs and a country club membership would have a negative impact on their financial well-being.  Without consulting with the family, Andrea let Jaime and Linda move into my grandmother’s house in the spring of 2002.

She said she had to find a way to offset the property taxes.  “Who else is going to pay for that?” she asked my father.  He couldn’t answer, but this didn’t feel right to him.  He was close to Jaime, his nephew; he had helped raised him and his older brother.  They were his brother’s sons; it was a bond that couldn’t be broken.  Blood and family are so strong, my father had always said.  He didn’t realize how badly greed could destroy that.

Andrea didn’t seem to keep good financial records; odd for a woman who had successfully maintained her own beauty salon for years.  The contract or lease she signed with Jaime and Linda was for them to pay $900 a month for a year.  I thought, “Nine hundred dollars a month buys a three-bedroom apartment in my neighborhood!”  No one ever saw this “lease.”  But, before then, Andrea had revealed something personal – and curious – to my mother: “I can’t let go of the house.”

My mother reminded Andrea that the house didn’t belong to her alone; it belonged to the family.  But, my mother decided to stay out of it; she was an in-law and didn’t feel she should get too involved, even though she and Andrea were close friends.  I wish Linda had taken that same attitude.

At some point, that one-year lease metamorphosed into two years.  When my father’s older sister died in May 2004, Jaime and Linda were expecting their third child.  Supposedly, it was an unplanned event; an “accident,” Andrea told my dad.

“Pinché accident!” my dad grumbled.  It was no accident Jaime’s thing fell out of his pants and into his wife.

When Jaime’s father died in October 2004, the family dynamics had become strained.  It had been more than two years since Jaime and Linda had moved into my grandmother’s house.  Linda wasn’t working, but they’d redecorated managed to find the money to redecorate the place.  More importantly, there was no accounting of the “lease” payments they were supposed to be making.

My mother – who had retired the year before – even offered to help Andrea get her papers in order.  “I have more time now,” my mother told her.  Andrea initially accepted, but said nothing about it afterwards.  Soon, though, Andrea would be forced to get that paperwork together.

The proverbial battle lines Tom had warned me about started to materialize in the fall of 2004.  My father’s younger brother, Robert*, had had enough.  Jaime and Linda weren’t renters; they were squatters.  At some point that same year, they actually sought to buy the house, but their credit wouldn’t permit a loan.  Then, they came up with the audacious idea of splitting the property, and they’d purchase that portion of the land on which the house sat.

“Can’t do that,” my real estate friend said.  I suspected as much.

Robert and his son decided to sue Andrea to have her removed as executrix.  Robert wasn’t trying to take over the estate; he just wanted the property sold, and the proceeds divided evenly among the appropriate survivors.  Then, we learned that Andrea had included a clause in my grandmother’s will forbidding anyone in the family from filing suit against her.

“Can’t do that,” another friend told me.  I knew that, too!

Things were getting stranger.  One of the witnesses to the original will was a young woman Andrea had hired to help care for my grandmother; a woman who was an illegal Mexican immigrant and who we suspect had stolen some jewelry from my grandmother.  She was long gone by the time my grandmother died.  The attorney who had drafted the original will, an old family friend, knew that girl was an illegal.  Robert, my mother told me, had never really liked that attorney friend; despite that the friend and my father had known each other since grade school.  They were long-time friends from the old East Dallas neighborhood where they all grew up, when Hispanics had to stick together to survive.  The crisis over the will had started to batter that history.

One afternoon my dad spoke with Andrea on the phone; trying to serve as ambassador between her and Robert.  “Just sell the house and give your brothers and sisters a dollar!” my dad heard Andrea’s son blurt out in the background.  Andrea didn’t think my father had heard that.  The battle lines were now walls.

Finally, in February 2005, we went to court.  Robert, Jr.*, flew back to Dallas for the hearing.  He was there with his sister and a realtor friend of hers who had been the first to try to sell the house.  As I walked into the courthouse, I saw Andrea sitting on a bench, alongside another cousin.  I said hi to both.

“Robert’s over there,” Andrea said, waving a hand ahead of her, as if swatting a gnat.  That cousin, who I’d once considered a sister – as kids, people sometimes thought we were twins – practically scowled at me.

“Alright,” I merely said.

“There’s been a new development,” Robert, Jr., told me.  Andrea had resigned her position as executrix the night before.  The court now would appoint an interim executor and give Jaime and Linda enough time to look for a new house before moving out.

The estate was finally settled in 2006.  The court-appointed executor had sold the house (appropriately enough) to a Mexican family for well under the expected price.  When my father got his copy of the attorney’s expenses, he noticed there were a number of charges for conference calls with Linda.  She had contacted the attorney almost weekly; perhaps, I thought, asking where was the money.  Money that would go to her mother-in-law; not to Jaime, certainly not to Linda.  But, Jaime’s mother had decided to split her share of the money between him and his two siblings.  She didn’t need it, she later told my dad; she had enough of her own.  Moreover, Linda told Andrea the money wasn’t enough.

“That’s none of her goddamned business!” my father replied, when Andrea revealed that tidbit to him one day.  “And, you can tell her I said that, too!”  Linda was invited to call my dad, if she felt compelled to discuss the matter, he told Andrea.  She never did.

Worse, as far as my father was concerned, was a statement Jaime had made in the legal documentation; something that had jumped out at him like a bad dream.  Jaime and Linda claimed they had to spend money to make the house “livable;” from their perspective, it had been in deplorable condition, and the money that should have been used to pay off the taxes instead went to the redecorating.  It was an insult; a slap against my paternal grandfather who had built the house in the late 1950s.

On the Saturday after my grandmother died, my father sat in a chair near the patio door in the den of that house.

“What’s wrong?” I asked rhetorically.

“Oh, nothing.”  We men always say that, even if there is something wrong.  “Just thinking,” he finally said.  “All the birthdays, all the Christmases…”  His voice trailed off, as his gaze remained on the patio area; clear on that bright cool February day.

Years ago, way back when, my cousins and I were always laughing during those holiday gatherings.  Even when we matured and went to work, when some married and had kids of their own, everyone gravitated back to my grandmother’s house where food exploded onto the dining room table in a gastronomical symphony, where everybody had a story and a camera, and a heavily-decorated Christmas tree stood unimposing against the large window in the living room overlooking a major thoroughfare.  I always wondered if people passing by slowed to peer through that window, with the drapes pulled back, and wished they could join us.  Now, with everyone either older and leading their own lives or deceased, I occasionally peruse those old pictures and find myself wanting to jump back through that window.  Way back when.

*Alias.

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December 20, 2012 · 11:13 PM

Update: Third Time’s A…Whatever!

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Sometimes I think the umbilical cord got tied around my neck when I was born and I ended up deprived of oxygen for the first few seconds of life; not enough to kill me, but enough to kill off a handful of brain cells.  Brain cells that never had a chance to grow into fully functioning emblems of life.  The job I thought I had turned out to be a bust.  I hate to sound like a victim, but the health care company where I was supposed to go to work needs a thorough proctological exam.  Its corporate head is jammed up its corporate ass.  Then again, what company doesn’t suffer from that affliction?  Especially the health care ones!

I was really surprised to get that job in the first place.  My interview was set for a Friday at 8 A.M., and I was late because I got lost.  MapQuest didn’t lead me in the right direction.  Didn’t they have problems with the Grand Canyon being put somewhere like Detroit or something a while back?  Either way, it just proves you can’t rely on technology too much.  In the old days – circa 1990 when I first went to work at the bank – you had to call the place and get actual cross street names and stuff.  Either way, I arrived 20 minutes late and made the best of it.  I looked at the lady in the eye and asked plenty of questions about the company itself.  I’d done my research on it; even finding out their latest stock price from the day before.  That kind of detail usually impresses people, or terrifies them if you’re with the Secret Service and trying to nab someone selling faux Cabbage Patch dolls.  But, I forgot about it after I left; thinking that the 20 minutes late thing killed it for me.  I returned home and went to bed.  I was still sleepy.  Thank God my truck knows its way back to the house.

Then, the recruiter with the health care staffing agency who had contacted me almost a month earlier called me late Monday afternoon.  The company offered me the position!  I couldn’t believe it.  I’d been late to an interview two previous times and didn’t get the job.  So, I was surprised.  Not enough to have an orgasm, but enough to have a drink that evening.  I had to complete the requisite paper work and submit to a drug screening and criminal background check.  I hate drug screening tests!  Can’t they just draw blood these days, instead of requiring you to urinate into a tiny plastic cup and then hand it back to them, like you’re a bartender at a dive joint?  I guess blood makes some people too squeamish.  The criminal background check is always intriguing.  I never know if they see my Spanish surname and feel compelled to contact the Border Patrol.  Damn those illegals!  But apparently, a weekend of drinking only water and shredding important documents paid off.  I was scheduled to start this past Monday, the 17th.  What could go wrong now?

A lot.

I had asked the recruiter (who’s in Florida) to whom was I supposed to report at the company.  She didn’t have a name; just go to the receptionist’s desk, and someone will lead me to orientation.  Okay, good.  Orientation was set for 9 A.M., and I arrived at 8:35.  I signed in at the receptionist’s desk log book and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.  For about 10 minutes.  A couple of people came and went.  No one stopped to ask if they could help me; offer me a bottle of water; compliment me on my suit.  They just strolled past as if I was another cheap Christmas ornament.

Finally, the receptionist glided into the office in her 5-inch spike heels.  I told her who I was and why I was there.  She initially looked at me as if I was from the sewer plant; then she told me to head back down to the lobby and “wait on one of those black couches.”

“Any particular couch?”

“No, just pick one.  And, I’ll call someone to come get you.”

Okay, good.

So, I loped back down to the first level of the spacious glass-lined lobby and waited on one of the black couches.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Until I needed to find a men’s room.  After I stalked the halls of the first level, looking for the men’s room – hoping a ninja security official wouldn’t zap me with a taser for looking suspicious in my black suit and black brief case – I returned to that same black-ass couch.  And waited.  And waited.

Then, I noticed a sign on an easel opposite from me, beside a set of glass double doors.  In faint, italic type it said: Orientation.  Ah-hah!  I found it!  I grabbed the door handles.  They wouldn’t open; it was a secured access area.  Like Fort Knox.  That ninja security was surely headed my way now.  I’d better retreat to the black couch on the other side of room.  Another side embedded in the wall next to the doors advised visitors to head to the receptionist desk on the second level.  I’m not a visitor!  I’m a new employee!

I called the recruiter.  She muttered a ‘hm.’  Not one of those, ‘that’s an interesting question,’ or a, ‘I’ve never thought of that,’ kind of ‘hm.’  It was one of those, ‘Oh, shit!  I don’t know what the hell to do,’ kind of hm.

“I’ll call you back,” she told me.

Please do.  When you get a chance.  I was starting to like hanging around that lobby, examining all the cheap artwork, and hoped I could savor it a little while longer.  “I’ll go back up to the receptionist desk,” I told her.  Perhaps, when I was in search of the men’s room, some tired human resources drone lumbered out of her cocoon looking for me and only found my butt print on that black couch.  I think he was here!  He had to have been right here!

The receptionists gave me that, ‘Oh, you again,’ look.  Her feet are still recovering from walking around in those 5-inch spike heels, I thought.  She started calling people; five different people.  I counted.  I hoped one of them wouldn’t be a ninja security official.  She went off on the last person: “Why didn’t I know about this?  Why doesn’t this trickle down?”

“I’m going to call my recruiter again,” I told her.  I wanted to tell Trickle-down she looked cute, even though she didn’t.  But, I decided it’s not worth the energy to kiss up to people anymore.  I retreated back to that one black couch where my butt print had faded.  I hoped I wouldn’t inadvertently make it reappear.  I decided to stand, chic black cell phone in hand, looking like I was waiting for a client.  I can do that very well.  I waited.  And waited.  And waited.

I’d heard the receptionist utter the name of someone; a lady in human resources I suspected.  Perhaps a life line into Fort Knox.  If I could find her, I’d be free from the glass lobby.  So I stopped a young woman exiting Fort Knox and asked if she knew this person.

“No,” she squeaked, before ambling away in her 4-inch spike heels.  What’s with these damn spike heels?!  I thought they’d gone the way of dial phones.

I asked another young woman exiting Fort Knox if she knew that particular woman.

“No,” she replied, before shuffling away in her painted-on jeans.  I thought painted-on jeans had also gone the way of spike heels.  They look so…so 70s-ish anyway.  Especially on a fat chick.

I stopped another woman leaving Fort Knox and asked if she could let me into the area.  I was prepared to tell her she looked cute, even though she didn’t.

“You have to check in at the receptionist desk,” she said.

“Okay,” I said with a gritty smile, “thank you.”  Translation: I’ve already done that you dumb bitch!  Let me into fucking Fort Knox!

I returned to the couch, cell phone in hand, keeping an eye out for that ninja security official.  I could see my big black truck from that vantage point.  It seemed to be calling for me.  ‘I’ll take you home now!  Just say the word and we’re gone.’

Then, that dreaded ninja security official arrived.  By my truck.  She stepped out of her little car with the yellow light on top and began examining my truck.  My truck can take care of itself; it’s a Dodge after all.  It scares Smart Cars stupid.  But, I decided I needed to help it out anyway.  The security official had whipped out her little note pad and was scribbling down my license plate number.  Didn’t note pads go the way of painted-on jeans?  I looked at her; this poor pathetic 50-something soul.  She was either a virgin or a lesbian; a girl whose role as a parking lot security official or a gym teacher was set at birth.

“I’m a new associate,” I told her.  Translation: I’m supposed to be here, so get the fuck away from my truck!

She squinted at me through her sunglasses.

“Apparently, there’s been a miscommunication,” I told her.

“Okay,” she said politely.  She had a nice smile – for a lesbian / virgin.

I arrived back home, much to my dog’s delight, and immediately emailed my recruiter to explain the situation.  ‘There’s been some kind of misunderstanding,’ I gleefully typed.  Translation: somebody fucked up big time!  I don’t know who it was; you or the company.  But, one of you two – maybe both of you – doesn’t have your shit together!

I breathed deep.

She called me and uttered that nefarious ‘hm.’  “Let me find out what’s going and call you back.”

Okay, good.  That would help to know what’s going on.  Problems get solved that way.

She called me back a few minutes later and told me to return to the company for the second half of orientation.  She even gave me the name and phone number of someone.  Perfect!

As I headed back, my phone rang.  It was a young woman I’ll call Andrea; she was with the company’s HR.  “I’m sorry,” she sang.  “There’s been some kind of mix-up.”

“Oh, I understand.  Those things happen.”  Translation: you have to be kidding me?!

She told me to wait for her in the lobby of that same building.

So, I arrived and perched myself in front of that same black couch; attired this time in a burgundy shirt and black slacks.  I still had my chic black cell phone and black brief case; still trying to look like a traditional well-seasoned businessman waiting for a client.  I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.  I finally decided to call that number the recruiter gave me.  It was the receptionist; the nothing-trickles-down-to-me gal whose feet hurt from walking around in those 5-inch spike heels.  She didn’t know why I was calling her, but said she’d call someone in HR to come get me.  Okay, good.  Don’t rush though.  I’m really enjoying this art work.

A moment later a young woman wandered into the lobby.  Andrea.  “I’m sorry,” she sang.  She was my saving grace; she knew who I was and why I was there – even if she resided in another building across the street.  She immediately began calling people from her hot pink cell phone.  She called three.  I counted.  No one knew what she did – that I’m a technical writer who was supposed to start that day.  For some reason, though, she couldn’t let me into Fort Knox.  “Let’s go upstairs!” she said cheerfully.

Oh sure!  Want to hang out near those cool fake Christmas trees and see Trickle-down again.

Trickle-down was not happy to see us.  She also didn’t know Singing Andrea.  They began calling more people.  They got one woman in there who tried to help.  I mean, she really tried.  But, she didn’t know where I was supposed to go.  I couldn’t go to hell.  I was already there!  They lulled another woman out from the back.  She must have rushed to the front; her bangs were astray.  She didn’t know where I was supposed to go.  They tricked a young man to the receptionist desk.  He didn’t know where I was supposed to go.  The first woman had disappeared briefly, then reappeared – with the names of two authority figures!  If one couldn’t help, the other surely could.

I followed Singing Andrea across the hall into another Fort Knox-type area in search of this mysterious person.  She wasn’t at her desk.  Singing Andrea asked someone about the second woman.  I followed her to that second woman’s office.  She didn’t know who was or where I was supposed to go.

I followed Singing Andrea back into the lobby.  “I’m sorry,” she hummed.

“Should I just wait?” I asked, clinging onto hope like a third-class Titanic passenger would hang onto a deck chair.

“No, because I don’t know what’s going on.”

Oh, God!  You’re kidding me!

“I’ll just call my recruiter,” I responded with a gritty smile and sauntered back to my truck.

‘I told you,’ it said.

My dog was even more surprised to see me.  I emailed the recruiter.  ‘Things still didn’t work out,’ I wrote.  Translation: they still don’t know what the fuck they’re doing!

I was exhausted.  But, at least I got to watch another episode of “People’s Court.”  I love Judge Marilyn Milian!

The recruiter called at 6:45 A.M. the next morning.  “There appears to have been some kind of misunderstanding.”

Deep breath – no!

This time she had a name; someone I’ll call Donna.  “They’ll conduct a special orientation for you,” the recruiter told me.

I’ve always known I was special – in a ‘Children of a Lesser God’ kind of way – so I started to feel warm and loved.

“It’s at 9; be there by 8:30.”

I wouldn’t miss this for the world.  Besides, my truck is multi-talented; it can run on water, too.  I arrived at 8:35.

Trickle-down gave me her best constipation-from-hell face.

Damn, girl!  Are your feet still sore?  “I have a name.”

Her eyes lit up.

“Donna,” and then, Donna’s last name.

She didn’t recognize the name – and didn’t have a phone number for her.

I started to get constipated.

“But, she has an email address, so let me try to get hold of her that way.”

Oh, thank God!  I mean, who in a company wouldn’t have an email address these days?

I called the recruiter’s supervisor who was also in Florida.  “They don’t have a number for Donna.  Do you?”

“Hm,” said recruit-supervisor.  (Shit!)  “Let me call you back.”

Okay, good.  I want to check out that art work again.

I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.

Trickle-down said she hadn’t heard from Donna yet.

“I’ve let my recruiter know,” I smiled grittily.

Recruit- supervisor told me to ask the receptionist at the lobby desk to let me into Fort Knox.  I could see the lobby desk from my second level view; it was barren.  No receptionist; no lesbian / virgin security official; not even a phone or a wax plant.  “Just go down to the first level and wait for someone.”

I hoped ‘someone’ would have a name.  So, I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.  I’d noticed some people gathering in a nearby conference room.  I finally decided to approach and ask somebody – anybody! – if they knew this mysterious Donna.

A young woman with coal black hair said she knew Donna and immediately tried to call her; she couldn’t reach her.

Constipation started creeping back into my gut.

Coal-black finally asked another woman who entered the conference room if she could help me out.  This second woman, a smiling middle-aged lady, uttered what I’d suspected for the past 24 hours; the company often had a failure to communicate.  Trickle-down wasn’t alone!  “I’ll find someone,” said Smiling-middle-aged and disappeared upstairs.

I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.

A third woman in a purple sweater approached me.  “Let me find out what’s going on,” she said merrily.

“Okay, good.”

Purple-sweater disappeared upstairs.

I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.

Recruit- supervisor finally called back.  “They’ve decided to pull the position.”

“Excuse me?”

As fate would have it, the position had evaporated sometime between the time I pissed in a cup and the day I arrived with my black brief case.  It’s just that no one below upper management knew it.  Until five minutes ago.  Texas time.

My truck and my dog were both glad to see me.  It was mutual.

This has been one of the strangest odysseys I’ve ever encountered.  But, it proves what I say in my ‘About’ page: I’m just not one for the corporate environment.  I’m too independent-minded.  I’m a true outsider.  Always have been; always will be.  I’m a writer; therefore, I’m a strange little creature.  I just don’t fit into anyone’s box.  Other people’s rules don’t apply.

So, this it.  I’m done with corporate America.  I’m starting my own freelance writing business.  Writing is all I’ve ever wanted to do anyway.  I’ve been writing since before most people started reading.  I was reading before most people were walking.  It’s part of my genetic makeup.  Thus, I see all this as some sort of sign; a twisted, back-breaking sign.  But, a sign nonetheless.  You dumb ass it said!  You don’t belong behind some else’s desk!  Alas, I’ve come to realize it.

Now, the Chief really begins a new chapter in his life.  Besides, my dog and my truck will be grateful.  And, I can watch more Judge Marilyn Milian!

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December 18, 2012 · 8:33 PM

Gun ≠ Manhood

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Recently Bushmaster, the gun manufacturer, released an advertisement aimed directly at its male patrons; challenging them to reclaim their “man card.”  The online ad linked to a “test” where questions would help determine if a man is a real man.  Some are silly: ‘Do you eat tofu?’  Others are practical: ‘Can you change a tire?’  For the record, my answers are ‘no’ and ‘yes,’ respectively.  The test apparently has been removed, but this debate is coming up again in light of the Connecticut school shootings last Friday.

The connection between Bushmaster and the massacre of 28 people in that grade school is more than just a little unsettling.  Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old shooter, used a .223 assault rifle – the same kind displayed in Bushmaster’s advertisement.  In this gun-loving society, some men – and women – still equate firearms with masculinity.  A gun or rifle, after all, has a strangely-phallic shape (which may or may not be by design) and bullets could easily be mistaken for testicles or even sperm cells.

This whole thing is similar to the ongoing myth that a boy becomes a man when he has sex with a woman.  Apparently, the hyper-macho crowd didn’t that out too well, since it assumes that adult females are the harbingers of masculinity; that the secret ingredient to true male adulthood is somehow ensconced within a woman’s vaginal walls.  But, as the proud owner of a penis, I never felt a woman held the ‘Holy Grail’ to my manhood.  And, neither does Bushmaster.  Despite its phallic resemblance, a firearm just can’t substitute for a penis, or more importantly, a man’s true sense of self worth.

I’ve known plenty of real men in my life, including my father and uncles.  They, along with several male friends, know how to shoot a firearm; a few own actually a gun or two.  That’s fine.  People have that constitutional right, just like they have the right to free speech, which I feel is more important.  But, none of those men I know has the overwhelming need to shoot a gun and kill people to prove their masculinity.  Boys become men when they learn to accept personal responsibility for their actions; when they learn to take care of themselves; when they show respect for others, while maintaining their dignity; when they care for their families and their communities; when they stand up for those who truly can’t stand up for themselves.  These are real men I know: fathers and husbands; hard workers; tax-payers – men who have built good lives for their families.  A real man knows how to set the table and do laundry, as well as change a flat tire.  A real man spends time playing tea party with his young daughter, or coaching his son’s little league soccer team, not out shooting deer and moose.

These men don’t need a gun manufacturer to issue them a “man card.”  They earned their “man cards” themselves – not from some stupid test asking about tofu and staring down fifth-graders.  They’re the silent majority.  They’re the real men of this world.

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December 17, 2012 · 7:31 AM

Third Time’s A…Whatever!

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Today, the Chief begins the next phase of his increasingly curious life – another job.  It’s a contract technical writing position – the third one in the past year.  The last two were pulled out from beneath me without much warning.  So, we’ll see how this one goes.  I’m trying to temper my enthusiasm.  A close friend of mine told me not to be so pessimistic; that people can sense a negative attitude and eventually steer away from it.  I almost told him to go to hell, but he’s such a good friend, and I don’t have too many friends.  Such is the plight of the writer.  We observe and write about human nature, but just don’t like to get too close to those human types.  Admittedly, it’s tough to be optimistic after enduring unemployment for the better part of the past two years.  Getting laid off from that engineering company was a mixed blessing.  The stress throughout that last year had become almost unbearable.

So, why would I put myself back into that maelstrom?  Well, there are these minor inconveniences called bills.  They’re like zits to a teenager.  You eliminate one, and another pops up.  They just don’t go away.  My student loan zits have become especially annoying.  They really just won’t go away!  They impact another little inconvenience called credit reports.  I suppose I could pack up and move far away to some isolated coastal community like a lot of writers and concoct a new identity to eschew those little pests.  But, I’m too tied to this community.

Thus, I reenter the corporate world once again; pushing my creative writing career just a tad further back.  But, I need and want this technical writing experience.  I love it almost as much as I do fiction writing.  I trained for it anyway; my English degree specializes in professional writing.  I have to make that pay off.  Besides, I reflect on my years in the standard business world and found all the crap I’ve seen and done makes for some great stories!  That’s the writer in me: always finding a way to humiliate the people around me without them realizing it.

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December 12, 2012 · 12:55 AM

Mother Wolf Turns 80

The wolf pup and his mother, Christmas 1965.

The wolf pup and his mother, Christmas 1965.

Today my mother, Guadalupe, marks her 80th birthday.  Even with high life expectancies here in the U.S., that’s still a notable milestone.  My mother was born just outside México City, the second of four children to a German-American father and a Mexican mother.  If you understand anything about Germans and Mexicans, then you might have an idea what a character my mother turned out to be.  She had a rough start.  She weighed less than 2 pounds, which in the early 1930s, was an almost certain death sentence for a baby.  They carried her home in a shoe box and used her father’s handkerchiefs as diapers.  And, she lived.

Her father had traveled from his native Michigan with an uncle to México in the late 1920s.  They were selling farm equipment.  Eventually, my grandfather’s uncle returned to Michigan, but my grandfather stayed in México where he met my grandmother.  They were an odd couple; two people from two completely different worlds.  But somehow, it all worked out.  Unfortunately, my grandmother died on Christmas Day 1940 at the age of 33.  Less than three years later, my grandfather moved the kids and mother-in-law to Texas where he had found work.  It was the height of World War II, and he had to leave México.  That turned out to be the best thing for them all, though; in part, because my mother eventually met my father.

I’m an only child and knowing what my mother endured during her pregnancy and labor makes me realize why.  She literally almost lost me twice and nearly died in the process.  There’s just no way to thank a woman willing to sacrifice her life to bring you into this world.  Besides, it’s from her that I get my love of reading and my acumen for spelling – two attributes that every good writer must have.  Happy Birthday, Mother!

Me with my parents at their 25th wedding anniversary in 1984.

Me with my parents at their 25th wedding anniversary in 1984.

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December 2, 2012 · 9:40 PM

I Almost Hope They Don’t Find a Cure for AIDS

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Yesterday, December 1, was World AIDS Day.  Since 1988, this day has been set to bring attention to one of the world’s greatest health crises.  Since the scourge was first identified in 1981, epidemiologists estimate that more than 25 million people across the globe have died of AIDS. The agent that causes AIDS – HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) – was first isolated in 1984.  But, AIDS surely was around long before 1981; wreaking havoc on the immune systems of unsuspecting people.  There’s anecdotal evidence that people were dying of AIDS in Africa and Europe in the 1960’s and in the U.S. by the 1970s.  Not all of the victims were gay/bisexual men, drug users, prostitutes or various other members of society’s miscreants.

In his 1987 book And the Band Played On, author Randy Shilts describes the early uncertain days of the AIDS epidemic; noting how even the gay male community was reluctant to admit there was a problem; and providing incredibly detailed scientific research.  He’d based it on a series of articles he’d written about the ailment for the “San Francisco Chronicle.”  The same year AIDS was identified Shilts had become the newspaper’s first openly gay employee.  While the novel was hailed as groundbreaking and a masterpiece of investigative reporting, Shilts took a big risk with both it and his series of articles for two reasons: 1) he brought attention to a health issue many at the time thought wasn’t worth covering, and 2) he revealed personal details of his own sexual proclivities.

Shilts (who died of AIDS in 1994) faced the same level of ostracism within the gay/lesbian community as writer and gay rights activist Larry Kramer did in 1978 when he published his book “Faggots,” a scathing criticism of New York City’s seemingly sex- and drug-obsessed gay male populace.  In the story the main character laments, ‘Why do faggots have to fuck so fucking much?!’  At the start of the AIDS epidemic, Kramer condemned gay men for “fucking themselves to death.”  Such honesty doesn’t correspond nicely with political correctness.  Neither do I.

AIDS is not really a disease unto itself.  As the acronym implies, it’s a syndrome in which the body’s immune system is adversely impacted and it’s acquired.  Once that happens, individuals can fall victim to almost any ailment.  AIDS is associated primarily with 2 diseases: Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), a rare form of skin cancer, and pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), a rare form of double pneumonia.

Among cancers, KS is relatively benign.  Historically it usually strikes older men of Mediterranean extraction; perhaps, because they spent years fishing in the open sea without any of the now-recommended skin protection.  But, they often live long lives anyway and usually die of something else.

In 1910, a scientist named Antonio Carini Orsi discovered the PCP virus in the lungs of Brazilian guinea pigs.  In 1918, European doctors found it in the lungs of the common sewer rat.  Not until after World War II, however, did scientists realize it could live in humans; when European orphanages and Nazi concentration camps (where health conditions were deplorable) were evacuated.  In the 1950s, as organ transplants became possible, doctors realized they had to suppress the body’s immune system to prevent rejection – and discovered that PCP would then settle into the patient.  Once they started up the immune system, the PCP would disappear.

By the late 1960s, however, doctors in some of Africa’s largest metropolitan areas, such as Kampala, Uganda and Nairobi, Kenya, were startled to learn of a particularly vicious strain of KS coming from the continent’s heartland.  It didn’t make sense, since the region’s residents didn’t fit the traditional profile.  At the same time, doctors in many large European cities began to treat cases of both KS and PCP.  There was a tenuous connection: many of the European victims had either visited or lived in Africa.  They were military personnel, diplomats, missionaries and others involved in the health care industry; all helping various African nations to build their new-found independence after centuries of European imperialism.

Beginning in the late 1970s, doctors in such U.S. cities as New York and San Francisco were alarmed at increasing incidents of KS and PCP among otherwise healthy gay men.  Then, other doctors began to notice similar KS and PCP developments among intravenous drug users and prostitutes.  But, since those groups were generally considered the dregs of society, the mainstream medical community didn’t take their health concerns seriously.

In June of 1980, California state health officials met in San Francisco for their annual conference.  Dr. Mathilde Krim, an official with the San Francisco Health Department, expressed concerns about the relentlessly high rates of venereal disease infection, including Hepatitis B, among the city’s gay men.  Just 5 years earlier, scientists had confirmed that Hepatitis B could be sexually transmitted; the same year they identified Hepatitis C (initially called non-A, non-B).  In 1977, San Francisco established the “Cohort Study,” a program designed to track rates of Hepatitis B infection in gay men.  Administrators aggressively asked participants detailed questions about their sexual activities and drew blood and tissue samples.  A decade later, when the first test for HIV appeared, many of those blood and tissue samples tested positive for that virus.  That’s why the U.S. bans any man who’s had sex with another man since 1977 from donating blood or becoming an organ donor.  On the bright side, results of the Cohort Study led to the development of the Hepatitis B vaccine in 1983.

At the 1980 California state health conference, though, Krim warned that there was “too much infection,” later adding, “If something new gets loose here, we’re going to have hell to pay.”

That was a long time ago.  It’s 2012, not 1982.  We now know how HIV is – and is not – transmitted.  We know it’s not God’s condemnation of the homosexual lifestyle, and Ronald Reagan wasn’t responsible for its spread.  AIDS circulated rapidly among gay men not because of the type of sex they had, but because of the number of partners they had.  Beginning in the late 1960s, gay men took the sexual revolution and ran with it – further and faster than any other group of people.

AIDS didn’t spread in the U.S. and other developed countries as rapidly as in Africa and Asia for two main reasons.  In the developed world, there’s a generally higher standard of living; people have greater access to health care and information.  But, also women in developed countries are more empowered with education and economic security.  Unlike women in developing nations, women here know they don’t always have to jump in bed with a man; they don’t always have to resort to prostitution just to survive.  They can say no to those things and not be considered an outcast.  Women here also aren’t nearly as sexually promiscuous as men.  They’ve always considered the consequences of reckless sexual behavior; mainly an unwanted pregnancy.  But, if you have two men who are attracted to other men, there’s no cat-and-mouse game; no ‘he acts, she reacts’ type of situation.

HIV most certainly isn’t a new virus.  It’s probably lurked in the blood stream of humanity for centuries, if not millennia, waiting for something like the drug and sex revolutions of the mid-twentieth century.  In that respect, the AIDS death toll in the U.S. alone surely exceeds 700,000 and probably the 1 million mark.  Throughout the 1980s, many health care professionals – some long since retired – began recalling odd illnesses among people who didn’t fit the early AIDS profile: gay men, drug users and prostitutes.  Scientists are now certain that a man who died in what is now Kinshasa, Congo in 1959 succumbed to AIDS.  Doctors treating him at the time were so baffled by his illness they preserved samples of his blood, which later tested positive for HIV.  That same year a British sailor died of what was later confirmed to be AIDS.  His doctors also were confounded by his illness and preserved samples of his tissue, which tested positive for HIV in 1986.  Then, there’s the strange case of a teenager known only as “Robert R” who died in his native St. Louis in May 1969, following a 6-month bout with a series of debilitating illnesses.  Intrigued by Robert’s curious symptoms, a Washington University researcher froze some of his autopsy samples – which later tested positive for HIV.

A cure for AIDS would be a triumph of medicine and science; perhaps the greatest since the elimination of small pox.  It’s one of the many proverbial “Holy Grails” sought by medical researchers.  But – to some extent – I hope that day never arrives.  If it does, I’m afraid we’ll see a rebirth of the sex and drug revolutions.  Some people – realizing they could just take a pill or a series of shots if they become infected with HIV – will go wild and starting fucking around like rabbits on Viagra.  Then, within a decade or two – if that long – we’ll see a new, more virulent strain of HIV appear on the microbial horizon.  And, it won’t be so easily cured.  And, all that time, money and energy that went into AIDS research will be dumped into the sewer like a used condom.  That’s not something I wish for – it’s something I fear will happen.

Between 1981 and 2011, estimates put the AIDS death toll in the United States at less than 700,000.  But, since 1981, how many people have died of cancer?  Leukemia?  Diabetes?  Heart disease?  Suicide?  Each of those has taken several times more lives than AIDS.  Even among gay/bisexual men, HIV is not the number 1 health crisis.  It may be the top concern – as gay and bisexual men comprise nearly half of all people with HIV in the U.S.  But, heart disease and various cancers are taking the lives of more gay and bisexual men than AIDS; yet if you look at the literature and the propaganda, you’d think it was the only thing they’d have to worry about.  To make matters worse, HIV infection rates are rising among young gay and bisexual men – or “MSM” (men who have sex with other men), as if though the terminology makes a hell of a lot of difference.  Regardless, it doesn’t make sense.  This generation of young adults grew up reading and hearing about AIDS, safe sex and drug abuse.  I can understand 30 years ago when people had no real idea what was happening.  But, as a society, we’re not so ignorant – or we shouldn’t be.

HIV is difficult to get.  It’s infectious, but not contagious.  You don’t catch it from sitting next to an infected person in a movie theatre, or touching an elevator button.  It doesn’t float through the air like a flu virus.  It’s a blood-borne pathogen, and you really have to do something serious with an infected person – either by choice or unwillingly – to get it.  So, why do some people screw around aimlessly and then cry when they get sick?  It’s the same with folks who drink alcohol heavily for 20, 30 years and develop cirrhosis.  It’s the same with people who deal drugs and get arrested.  Why do they think they’re victims?  It’s tough to have sympathy for someone who recklessly, almost deliberately, puts themselves in danger and then, comes out injured – or dead.  It’s one thing if a firefighter charges into a burning building to save someone and dies in the process.  It’s another if someone races down a highway at 100 mph on a motorcycle without wearing a helmet and crashes.  Yes, you’d probably help the bike rider.  But, are you really surprised he or she crashed?

I’m not being judgmental, but I can be critical.  I’ve had unsafe sex with both men and women.  I’ve been fortunate, since I’ve never come down with anything.  One of my best friends died of AIDS in 1993, and another good friend has been battling HIV for more than 20 years.  Neither ever blamed anyone else for their circumstances.  About 10 years ago yet another HIV-positive friend of mine dismissed the severity of his affliction; claiming that, one day, AIDS will be a chronically-managed ailment, akin to diabetes and blood pressure.  I looked at him like the idiot he was and resented the comparison.  An AIDS death is not pretty, or even “chronically-managed.”  It’s painful and ugly.  Watching my friend die in 1993 made me leery of it and realize it’s not just an inconvenience.  There’s nothing manageable about that.

So, as the 25th annual World AIDS Day passes, I wonder how the ailment will progress in the near future.  I wonder how our global society will progress with it.  Yes, I’m certain science will discover a cure for AIDS – but, in some ways, I think that could be a bad thing.

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November 30, 2012 · 10:23 PM

United Hamlets of Texas

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Once again, my beloved home state of Texas is in the news for all the wrong reasons.  We used to make headlines for our space program and oil patch revenues.  Now, it’s the glaring call for “Secession.”  Two years ago Governor Rick Perry publicly toyed with the idea of secession; claiming he didn’t want Washington elitists interfering with our business – especially any half-blooded Negroes who might occupy the White House.  After he won a third term that fall, he denied rumors he would seek the presidency, again stating, in effect, that would betray his anti-Washington stance.  Then, he went back on his word and jumped into the presidential race last year; ultimately embarrassing the crap out of the Lone Star State.  We moderates didn’t like him much anyway, but now, he’s our version of the anti-Christ.

But, the “S” word has reared its ugly head again; this time in the form of a petition a group of Texans actually have submitted to the White House.  The petition reads, in part:

“Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it’s [sic] citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.”

As of now, more than 118,000 people have signed it.  If I had my way, I’d secede them and any subsequent followers to a boat in the middle of the Atlantic.  Unfortunately, though, the White House – by federal law – now has to take this mess seriously.  We’re in the midst of an economic crisis, and our troops still haven’t left that oversized latrine known as Afghanistan.  But, the Obama Administration will have to spend precious time and resources giving a pack of disgruntled moonshining acolytes the attention they didn’t get from their own trailer park families.

Never mind that, should Texas actually manage to secede, we’d lose tens of millions of dollars in federal funding for highway infrastructure, education and our slew of military bases.  But, if Texas does become its own nation, I have to wonder how our constitution and “Bill of Rights” would read.  From El Paso to Texarkana and Amarillo to Brownsville, what would become of all of us?

Would our currency have a picture of Rick Perry holding a gun or a pair of fallopian tubes?

Would we have to build an electrified fence along our border with New México?  I can understand Louisiana and Arkansas, but New México?!

Will our national history begin with David Crockett and Jim Bowie, instead of c. 9,000 B.C.?

Will everyone above the age of 10 months be required to carry a gun?

Will there be a border crossing bridge into Oklahoma?

What will we bomb after we’ve destroyed all the Planned Parenthood offices?

Will Ann Richards’ body be disinterred and reburied at sea?

Will the Bush clan be declared our royal family?

Will everyone with Spanish surnames have to get branded?

Will Chuck Norris be our ambassador to the United States?  Or, will it be Ted Nugent?

Will legitimate rape be included in the “Texas Bill of Rights”?

Will the Civil War be renamed “The Great Freedom Battle”?

Will the term “slavery” be replaced with “low-skilled labor”?

Will chicken fried steak be considered a delicacy?

What will be the official national religion – Southern Baptist or Smith & Wesson?

Will art museums be considered communist propaganda?

When will open season on Muslims, Jews and Wiccans begin?

Will foot-binding become fashionable again?

Will Texas Supreme Court justices still wear black robes, or switch to leather chaps?

So the death penalty will only apply to retarded people now, right?

Will shooting and killing any non-White person be classified as a misdemeanor?

Will rap music be outlawed?

If Lady Gaga tries to make it into Texas, will she be shot on sight?

Will TV shows like 20/20 and Dancing with the Stars be subtitled?

Will FOX News become our state-run news station?

Will every home have speakers installed through which “God Bless Texas” can be blared 5 times a day?

Will red become the official national hair color?  I’d go for that!

Will people from California and Massachusetts have to step aside at the airport for extra pat-downs?  Or, will they just be jailed as soon as they step off the plane?

Will opera and symphony companies have to shut down and be replaced by NASCAR gift shops?

If Chris Matthews tries to make it into Texas, will he be shot on sight?

Tea klux Klan_secdee

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