Wolf Quest Part XIV: South to the Wolf

Way up on the northern tip of New Foundland

For all the trouble the Transmission gave me after it lost 2nd gear in Quebec the reckoning would arrive after the trip ended. 2nd gear actually isn't used much and unlike a manual transmission that falls apart all at once after a gradual slide, a 3 speed C4 uses one gear at a time and with 2nd gear completely gone because the transmission band that clamps down on the drum had lost all friction material, with enough pressure, third gear will be fine. Yes, the batteries and exhaust fell apart but everything else miraculously needed no maintenance. Fate would not cooperate with providing a ship to Ellesmere Island, but many other problems could've caused delays or even cancellation of this trip. Now I've read a great deal more about the obstacles overcome for other Econoline owners so I know that without a doubt the van can go on and on. My personal suspicion is that only gas prices will cause the retirement of this van. Anything can be fixed. Furthermore, within a week I can personally rebuild any one vehicle component. I'm almost looking forward to the day I replace all the differential bearings. It's the one realm I haven't investigated too closely. An 9 inch rear differential. It's pretty complicated but every part is available and there's even a dvd repair video to show you how to rebuild it. The only things that worried me were the backlash settings and the crush washers but I know the people to ask. There's an art to rebuilding differentials, and a shop would probably charge $400+, but I hope I get to tackle it on my own terms like the transmission project back in Tejas.

Confederacy of Dunces

Raise your hand if you're an idiot...

Forrest: (voice-over) Now, when I was a baby, Momma named me after the great Civil War hero, General Nathan Bedford Forrest... She said we was related to him in some way. And, what he did was, he started up this club called the Ku Klux Klan. They'd all dress up in their robes and their bedsheets and act like a bunch of ghosts or spooks or something. They'd even put bedsheets on their horses and ride around. And anyway, that's how I got my name. Forrest Gump. Momma said that the Forrest part was to remind me that sometimes we all do things that, well, just don't make no sense. 

 The thing about the Confederate Flag is that it sets up a paradox, where someone flying it says they believe in State Sovereignty....but they enjoy the Federal Protection to fly the flag without having their house burned down.

See, I'm in favor of total and complete sovereignty. If you want to dress up in a white dress and parade around then that should be allowed, but another person with different views should be able to unload a Bushmaster clip into your crowd. I see it as only fair, because the flag represents this kind of "we're so sovereign that we don't need the Union" attitude. And I respect that. In fact, I respect it so much that I think the Union should ignore any retaliation against people who feel they are above the need for Union protection.

It's a hypocritical debate to suggest one is sovereign, yet, demand protection from the governing body that one has rebelled against. I realize this is far too philosophic for the Whataburger, Chick-Fil-A-fat-fuck-in-a-white-dress crowd, but I'm not going to take the time to explain it.

I would prefer that the matter be settled by bullets and bombs and nooses rather than the ineffective court of public opinion. If you fly the flag of racist idiots who seceded from the Union then you have declared your sovereignty and renounce the protection and benefits of the union. I respect that. And I welcome it because you have renounced any claims to protection and the Union will merely watch your house burn down, since to interfere would be an infringement of your sovereignty....and that would be too horrible to mention...so they won't interfere. That works for me. You fly the confederate flag? Then it's open season on you.

4 of 9 Supreme Court Judges Have Hearts Made of Coal

"Sgt. Ijpe Dekoe and Thomas Kostura became plaintiffs in the gay marriage case after they moved to Tennessee from New York.

The pair had married in New York in 2011, but Dekoe's position in the Army took the couple to Tennessee, which banned gay marriage and refused to recognize gay marriages performed in other states."

The thing is that when a person like Dekoe, who was a plaintiff in the lawsuit, is forced by the feds to move to another state that is still living in a snake charmed era, babbling in tongues, using leeches on wounds etc, and they don't recognize his marriage from NY, then what the hell is he supposed to do? But I guess 4 of of the Supreme Court Judges don't really give a fuck about liberty and are only there to fulfill their hateful quotient of discrimination and obedience to their fabricated mythology and dusty traditional values. There is no heaven or hell so their deaths will merely begin the decay of their rotting corpses and diseased brains.

My feeling is that this is one step closer to relegating religion to the realm of Zeus and Poseidon. Maybe science and reason will rule one day. But having 4 Supreme Judges wearing druid cloaks still trapped in a mythological era is not a good sign.

When drug possession is no longer a crime then I might even come out of my cave. I still feel that the state asking about my marriage status is basically the same as them asking me if I'm fertile, menstruating, pregnant, have a high sperm count, etc. Let me tell you that I'm only confessing those details on a publicly published blog, but never on a piece of paper in a city hall. I have my standards of inconsistency to keep.

Congratulations to same sex couples! Now you can experience the full humiliation of having the government pry into all the details of your life like everyone else.

...just in case you were one of those people who thought this was all about wrecking traditional marriage dogma

The good news for religious zealots is that there are still countries like North Korea that have prohibited both Islam and also gay marriages. That would be like paradise for the Tennessee bible thumper so if they need help with a plane ticket to Pyongyang then I'll start a kickstarter campaign to raise the money. I know it means giving up Whataburger french fries, but that's the price of freedom!

"You can't change the future without changing the present." - Oggy Bleacher

Púa Holder

First, sketch a fish. Then make the craft out of paper. Adjust the design on paper before you get into material.

...then trace on leather, or denim if you are some kind of hippie who think he's saving cows.

Fold the sides together. Hammer the snaps down so it can be put on and off a belt. (the center snap should be a small one because the big snaps are hard to open. Glove snaps would work best) glue the sides or get fancy and sew them. Or use rivets. This picture is a prototype and it's not ready for production. Everything is fine except that middle snap button, which is too strong for something dangling off my hip. It is a Cal. 24 snap. There are Cal. 20 snaps which are lighter duty. And glove snaps which are even lighter duty. And then magnetic snaps which are are probably the easiest to open. Glove snaps are probably the way to go since you're supposed to be able to open it to get the pick with one hand and it will merely pull toward you and not open if the snap is too strong. If you are wondering, those loops are made from 10oz Latigo strap. It's actually too thick so I had to carve the gauge down so the button post would fit. 6-8oz Latigo strap is better.

Púa means Guitar pick in Spanish, but since your new leather rock star pants don't have pockets you can use the bottom loop as a key holder. Or rivet in a carabiner. Or make leather pants with pockets and use your pockets to carry your keys.

Suck On This

After the park had been scanned for pressure cooker bombs, the activists were allowed to file to the designated free speech zones. Oggy helped with the box containing subversive literature and stickers while Woody and Robert and Kim brought the food and plates. While they were setting up, Street Cred Red ambled into the park after a few loud words with the security screening drone.

Everyone braced themselves for Red’s verbal assault.

“Fellow Comrades of the Revolution! I salute you!” Red gave a deliberate military salute and began to bear hug everyone in sight. Oggy eyed him as Red hugged Bella. He lingered too long, thought Oggy, too tightly embraced her, too sexualized, obviously an implication of molestation. When it came time for Oggy to get hugged he turned away and said his back had been hurt during the last protest and arrests. Red smiled through his shaggy beard.

“I’m sure you all heard the latest slander directed at the revolution. But in case you want a reminder I brought a recording. Red lived in a house so he had access to many digital wonders that Oggy and the other homeless activists only heard about. Red assembled a speaker system with a miniature digital player and as the meal preparations began they were entertained with the professional pundit known as “The Voice of Reason”. After a countrified version of the final bars of the Star Spangled Banner followed by a sound clip of a recent protest, shouting voices, “No peace, no justice!” broken up by the distinct humming of police drones and cries of pain.

“Those screams? That’s the sound of justice, fellow Americans,” began the narrative. “That’s the sound of these roaches getting a few thousand volts shot through their traitorous Liberoach spines. There’s a few videos I’ve linked to on my freedom sponsored home page. I invite you to watch some of these scumbags get their serving of justice. These traitors were marching around downtown, breaking windows, shoplifting, burning tires, destroying the livelihood of hard working folks and I think I could make a Christmas Carol from these screams and play while I’m wrapping presents. See,” here the voice changed gears to one of the ‘all-knowing sage’. “These are entitled roaches, they are dirtbags. Filthy. They spread their disease and they know you can’t do anything about it. They are thumbing their nose at all the hard working true Americans who go to work and put food on the table for their families. These filthy dirtbags are molesting your children, they are stealing your tax money, they are trying to undermine everything that you have worked for, everything that protects you family. They don’t care because they are diseased, the welfare state has poisoned their core so they can’t take any responsibility for themselves and they just want to cripple the economy so everyone is like them. All that matters to them is destroying America and we’re letting them get away with it. I guess there isn’t one brave person left in America who will stand up to disease-ridden scum bags in filthy clothes dragging their pestilence around the streets, picking up ticks and leeches and bacteria in the sewage system where they live, and make no mistake about that, these scumbags live and breed in the sewage system. They couldn’t get the government to give them housing so they displaced the cockroaches in the sewer and they have no regard for public health so they bring their diseases and drugs up from the sewers and spread them on the street. Why isn’t there a public outcry? Why aren’t the lanterns and pitchforks on the streets every night protecting our community? I guess people are afraid to stand up to pestilence and disease. I don’t know, America, I don’t know what happened to the spine of this country to allow these despicable cockroaches to murder children, to molest little helpless girls, to defecate on church lawns, to sleep in sewers where they keep their victims. I don’t know why long haired filthy disgusting worthless street rats are allowed to breed like cockroaches and not contribute one penny, not one penny, to the economic strength of the community. They only take and take and take and spread disease and poison and molest children. America, I am telling you that this disease will spread until it is too late to beat into submission. These cockroaches have no morals, they have no religion. They admit to worshiping Satan, they practice satanic rituals with innocent school children, poisoning the young, because they know that your innocent children can’t resist them. They only prey on the weak and innocent because they are corrupted to the core. These rats, they call themselves ‘Activists’, are diseased cockroaches and their existence vexes me deeply, America, because it means there are no brave souls left who will stop the spread of pestilence. I guess that’s how I was raised. My father was a doctor, God rest his soul, so I was raised to recognize disease and try to cure it, to stop the spread of disease, not ignore it. And I’m telling you that the disease these gutter punks and merchants of hate are spreading is threatening everything you cherish. They hate freedom, they hate liberty, they molest children, they are probably stalking your daughter right now, but go ahead and do nothing, I can’t be everywhere at once. All I can do is warn you that the war has already started and we need to organize, to defend our church, to defend our families. The streets are already filled to the brim with these gutter rats and their fleas and filth. They smell like feces because they don’t know enough to wipe their ass. All the drugs that their parents did when they were infants destroyed their brains. They are no longer human and you can tell that from one whiff of their odor. Imagine the putrid rotting mouth of one of these creatures close up against your daughter, imagine how afraid she would be. And you have a chance to prevent that today, or mourn your loss tomorrow. You think these cockroaches care if they molest one of your daughters? They probably don’t even know what they are doing because the drugs have destroyed their brains. We treat homeless dogs with compassion and I don’t know why we don’t round these cockroaches up and get rid of them in the same way. They’ll thank us for it. These cockroaches are lost, they don’t know any better, they are diseased and their poison has eaten all their sense away. It’s our responsibility to find a way to put them right, not ignore them until they breed out of control. There’s still a chance to save our community from these disgusting cockroaches who live in the sewers but only if we all work together, all stand up and do something. We have a chance to save our families from deadly disease. These street rats are full of disease and they are dangerous. If they attack you then you need to protect yourself. The police can’t be everywhere. These diseased gutter cockroaches may not go down if you shoot them once. Remember that. If they attack you, when they attack you or someone in your family then you must understand that they scumbags are high on drugs, their brain is numbed. They were diseased to begin with, from birth, but now they are simply walking zombies carrying disease up and down our beautiful streets. Please, do something. Don’t let yourself become a victim of these destructive cockroaches. It’s almost too late and I pray that I have still reached enough of you to make a difference. Let’s listen to one of the cockroaches, one who hasn’t had her voice stolen by drugs and disease…”

Oggy and the other activists were only half listening as they cut carrots and squash for the soup. But the voice they heard no was Kim’s, so they stopped.

“A flood is on the way, these citizens have petitioned for help but you can see that they’re being persecuted for their economic status…”

Kim’s recoding had been lifted from a media transcript for the radio show. The voice of reason returned, “I’m sorry, Folks, I can’t listen to this babbling cockroach for long. She said herself that she’s organizing these diseased gutter rats to bring a flood of disease to our community. I’m sure she is one of the leaders who has been molesting children for her amusement. Who knows what twisted ceremonies she’s involved in, but she admits that she’s going to flood our community with pestilence as revenge for not being allowed to molest children….”

Kim shook her head. “This guy is really out of control. I was talking about the flood of civil rights abuse that the City Council is preparing for all the people living on the street. He’s just taking everything out of context and spinning it to his narrative. Pathetic. Do people really listen to this crap.

As if on cue a truck drove by the park and a man shouted, “Gutter rats! Get the fuck out of my town!”

“Well, there’s your answer, Kim,” said Red as he paused the recording. “This is the guy I’ve been warning you about. He’s been broadcasting non-stop for weeks and he gave out my phone number so I’m getting threats all day.”

“You should tell the police, Red. Don’t ignore that.”

“I went into the police station and they were listening to him. They took my information and said they’d look into it. Then they arrested me for those outstanding warrants. I bailed out and have a prelim in two weeks. It was for those two citations that I contested a year ago. Paperwork never got processed.”

Bob stated, “So you went to the police about death threats and they arrested you?”

Woody followed that up with, “A fucking firebomb would solve all that bullshit. A big fucking bomb loaded with TNT. Who is with me?”

“Talk like that doesn’t help anything, Woody. You’re no better than him.”

“Fight fire with fire. Eventually we’re going to get to that point but if we don’t act first then there is absolutely no chance of winning. We can be too late or we can flip the script.”

“Woody, with all these drones around you’re going to get us all arrested.”

“Those drones have supersonic spy microphones.”

“I don’t give a fuck! Fuck them.”

Oggy sat in a trance, chopping the same carrot over and over. He was stunned by the vitriol he had heard from that talk show. Calling everyone diseased cockroaches, poisoned, molesters, living in the gutter? Where did he get these treacherous lies?

Two pedestrians passed nearby and he heard the woman say, “street rats…I can smell them from here.” It pained Oggy with embarrassment and shame, reflecting on his days in school when a drug sniffing dog would pass before a line of students and the joke was that Oggy smelled like shit so the dog didn’t want to sniff him. For a few days Oggy had been called “Shit Sniffer” and games and taunts and mocking songs had been sung at his expense.

“Shit Sniffer Oggy, sitting in a tree.

S-H-I-T-I-N-G.

He smells like shit, never wipes his ass

Oggy the shit Sniffer has no class.”

He could still remember the awful taunting song years later. Oggy also reflected on his own teasing a girl with buck teeth. He would chew like a rabbit every time she walked by. Childish but hurtful and he concluded it was a sign his moral construction was flawed from the start. Everything was poisoned. Maybe the talk show host was right and he was simply a diseased gutter rat spreading his poison. A wingless pigeon waddled nearby, pecking at the dry lawn.


*Hutu Power Radio is where I got the inspiration for this rant. The dehumanizing screeds are very important to genocide movements and I've seen this mostly on the Conservative media side and wanna-be Conservative pundits directed toward Liberals and gays, blacks, immigrants, women,, Muslims. Liberal media merely dehumanize Conservatives. I'm guilty of this in my darker moments. But the historical precedent is abundant: genocide needs antagonists and usually the hate pundits will encode their propaganda and act bewildered when someone takes it seriously. 

free exchange of healthy ideas

 
"All liberals need to be exterminated. The President has betrayed America...etc, etc...impeach, torture...Oh, but we don't mean to encourage violence. No! Where did you get that idea? We're merely expressing our opinion, which is protected by the constitution that we renounced when we stated our desire to secede from the union, but that we still want protection from because we're hypocrites."

There's a lot of crazy running free these days.

Some more Punditry with Your Coffee

The manifesto of mass murderer in SC was thankfully short enough to read in one sitting. Adam Kokesh wrote a whole book basically saying “We need to take responsibility for our own freedom.” And then justifying it with proof that responsibility is "good" and the government hinders our self-governing abilities. And he did a horrible job at demonstrating anything other than his own narcissism as he used the plural “we” throughout the book, never used the pronoun “I” and then signed the book with only his name. So, who the fuck is the “we” you were referring to? Why aren’t “their” names on the manifesto? Bizarre.

Well, the latest manifesto isn’t signed but comes across as a “My 10th Grade Summer Vacation Race War”.

This is serious and here I am trying to be funny. What kind of asshole makes fun of this? The Oggy kind.

Well, it gets at the heart of many of my other essays/manifestos. The redacted syllogism is like this:

1)     Punditry is poisonous.

2)     Poisonous punditry is endemic

3)     Endemic poisonous punditry will lead to civil war.

4)     A free society is not possible with corrupt media filled with pundits.

5)     Punditry must end.

6)     Punditry will end if I REDACTED and wwww until they all dddddd.

It’s not a complicated manifesto. In the past, I’ve attempted to draw these conclusions out to meet the word count my internal editor asks for, but it doesn’t need defense.

Wolf Quest Part XIII: Sanctuary

The drive from Happy Valley to the coast of Labrador was uneventful. The fact I picked up the two hitchhikers made me feel responsible for at least getting them to some spot near civilization from which they could get rides south and that spot was the turn off for Mary’s Harbour. My history of hitchhiking leaves a soft spot for travelers on the side of the road and once they get in the vehicle I have to accept some sacrifices. The two young men were starved for rock n roll and for some reason Kiss was making a Canadian Tour with a stop in central New Foundland. “Good evening, New Foundland! Are you ready to Rock?” and like twenty people clap their hands and think, “I thought this had something to do with kissing.” I had spent about a week in Happy Valley trying to find a sponsor to take me north to Ellesmere Island and that week demonstrated the utter bleakness of that area. If Levelland, Texas is a Baptist amusement park where a tractor is considered a ride then Happy Valley, Labrador is…I don’t know…it’s an Army base. I think there is a high school. I didn’t see any source of amusement other than my van. In the summer the mosquitoes make any outdoor activity miserable. I saw a few ATVs running around but with gas at around $7 a gallon, who can afford to ride an ATV? So the winter is the only time people enjoy outside activities. And those probably involve ski-mobiles, skis, snowshoes. There is one park/playground, but who would be eaten by mosquitoes to play on a swing? My point is that if you spend more than a few days in Happy Valley in the summer then you have exhausted all the amusement opportunities so hitchhiking around 1000 miles, across the St. Lawrence Strait to the middle of New Foundland for a music concert of has-been lips-stick rock stars prancing around with battle axe guitars starts to sound reasonable.

Song Meaning Still Eludes Appreciative Audience

Fans of the song "Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald" have debated for 4 decades about the meaning behind the lyrics and author, singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, has been notably secretive about his intentions when penning the esoteric 1976 tune.
"It could be about anything," said Lightfoot during a 1987 interview. "Once I've completed a song I don't try to interpret it. I'll let the listener decide." 
Simon Duluth, the creator of a website dedicated to the mysterious song says the song has been linked to extra terrestrials, the demise of the United States auto-manufacturing industry, a romantic relationship ending and other theories. 
"The endurance of this debate can be attributed to the cleverly disguised meaning of the lyrics, "said Duluth, who grew up in Michigan. "For example, the line 'The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay if they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er' has been linked to the Nixon administration and the NASA Apollo missions. I guess we'll never know exactly what Lightfoot was referring to, but it's fun to discuss."
Fans of the song defend their theories with long dissertations providing their evidence.
"Eddielover76" wrote, "If you count the syllables in the line 'and ev'ry man knew, as the captain did too, twas the witch of November come stealin' then you come up with the same number that was in a campaign speech by John F. Kennedy in 1960 which clearly points to a premonition of his own assassination.
The debate continues as the 40th anniversary of the song approaches and listeners are left only with the baffling lyrics such as "With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more, than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty." These words could refer to Medieval dragon myths or the weight of responsibility that presses down on a new father, but until Lightfoot reveals the source of his inspiration then we'll never know for sure.

For the record, once again, I beat The Onion to this spin.

Two Wheels to Hell: Part 2

See PART I HERE

PART II

I'm going to wrap this story up. This journey had almost nothing to do with scenery or people so look elsewhere for those details. It was a test of endurance and my will power to meet the wind head on. The landscape was irrelevant.

I remember lighting fires; I remember sitting by 'em;
  I remember seeing faces, hearing voices, through the smoke;
I remember they were fancy -- for I threw a stone to try 'em.
  "Something lost behind the Ranges" was the only word they spoke.

- Kipling. "The Explorer"

The madness was only beginning. I remained in St. Paul for a week or two, always thinking about the winter approaching Wyoming and the Sierras. I slowly recovered use of my arms and legs. The soreness and lack of agility would take 5 years to recover from but in the two weeks off the bike I managed to walk, to support my weight with my arms, to open and close my fists. A doctor would've told me that I had narrowly avoided permanent joint damage. "You're lucky to be alive," he'd probably say. But I didn't see a doctor and considered my partial recovery a sign that I would indeed arrive at my destination before winter.  No sooner had I regained the ability to walk I returned to the road. My friend had been unable to convince me to postpone the journey until I fully recovered. I wanted to prove to the wind that I could take the worst it could dish out. The rain never stopped but I had washed my clothes. Dried out my gear. I've seen other bike touring rigs and most weigh less than mine, but not by much. I had 75 pounds but most of that weight was water.

Two Wheels To Hell: Part 1

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Perspective

Google Maps allows one to zoom out so far that you can see your relationship to the sun and the Milky Way. We're not alone in the universe, but for practical purposes we are indeed alone. Developed from pure random and inexplicable circumstances.

Wolf Quest Part XII

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Key Problems

I don't know what it is with me and broken computer keyboards but this is the second one that has failed me and required emergency repair so I can continue to expose my emotionally traumatic past.

I really suspected it was the power wire.

I don't abuse this keyboard at all although if it had eyes I'm sure it would be in therapy. Maybe it's trying to kill itself so it doesn't have to watch me torture myself anymore. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. But it was connecting and disconnecting randomly and I dreaded a BIOS update and all the keyboards in Latin America are not the same so I would have trouble I don't want. Spanish keyboards have bizarre symbols and if I told you want I have to do to make the @ symbol on a Spanish Keyboard you would laugh in my face. It requires two people. And simply making " quotation marks involves three different key shortcuts, and then the quotation marks do not appear until you type a letter. There are upside down question marks that begin a question. Ctrl+A doesn't do shit to select all the text. No. And Ctrl+T (todos) also doesn't do shit.  a comma is where the period normally is. In short, I had to fix this fucking keyboard that I bought in a pawn store in Maine many moons ago. I manipulated the cable and it seemed that either the software was dropping the keyboard exactly when I twisted the cable or else the cable had broken inside the housing, which has never happened to my keyboard before. This was a trip down memory lane into shielded cable, ground wires, data, power, neutral, strain relief, dsub pins, engineer drawing, sweating vodka while I fucked up a semi-conductor cable harness. God, the awful things I've done to survive. Bunch of bullshit but it helped me avoid buying a new keyboard and learning the Latin American layout.

That plastic block is called a strain relief and you can see how well it worked because only one wire broke.

Well, I took the keyboard to an internet shop where I print out my Flintstones Theme Jazz charts and plugged it in and it didn't work there either. Then I tug on the wires and the red one pulls right out. So that's a clue. And it broke right next to the strain relief and for a week or two it was hanging on by a thread and if I held the keyboard perfectly it would power up, but that thread broke finally and would only reconnect when I twisted the wires. Even though it's like .7mA of current the red power wire does succumb to heat over time and also the strain of repeatedly typing "Cheerleader Porn" could have been too much to tolerate. I feel bad for the keyboard, but the world is full of grief these days and we all have to deal with bullshit.

Don't cut the shield or the ground wire that surround the main wires. Split the shield in half and then pull the metallic-wrapped 4 wires out. Take the wrapping off and check for continuity. Cutting the ground wires won't kill the power but it will allow a short to ground to kill your computer.

The lesson is that things can be fixed but at this point it doesn't matter if you buy another brand new keyboard.

Brown Recluse

Larry had a small cot inside the woodshed. Electricity came from an extension cord from the main house. It froze in the winter like a meat locker but when the fog and rain came in the evening he would lay awake because of the back spasms and prostate throbbing like the bass drum of Blonde Destiny’s first hit “Rock My Rocket” The agony Larry described was comical because every day was a struggle with death. One night he woke up and there was a mattress spring poking into his side. He said he rode his bike to the hospital for more pain medication on account of the bleeding but he was denied. “What does it matter if an old carpenter like me suffers and dies in their waiting room?” Larry had asked.

Oggy stayed in the tool shed a few night, but there was almost no room on the floor and Larry had to urinate into a plastic milk jug “every hour on the hour” and Oggy had trouble staying asleep on account of the troubling holocaust visions. So it had been safe from patrol drones but mostly a miserable experience. Larry told bedtime stories in his coastal Maine accent, laughing and groaning, as he waited for the pain killers to numb his throbbing neck. The stories were similar to this one:

Mean To Me

I've been pondering music in general lately and my conclusions are in two realms. The first realm concerns music itself and the process of learning about music. What is the goal ? What is realistic? What is the fantasy? In elementary education there is a technique knows as KWL.* It's been a while but it's the basic process. 1) What do you already Know? 2) What do you Want to know? 3) What did you Learn? K-W-L. It's important to recognize that those are three questions. Those are not three statements. A teacher who makes statements is probably a pundit. Traditional music education is basically the study of the codified language and symbology related to music along with some history and mechanics. It doesn't create musicians; it creates musical technicians. I had ideals of studying 'art' but I think the approach is more anatomical than that, like dissecting a heart to learn about love. 

The actual process of learning music is learning traditional approaches and terminology to music. We learn chord formulas...but those chord formulas were actually manufactured by the study of common practice J.S. Bach compositions from 1640. Bach didn't provide harmonic analysis of his music because the closest thing to theory Bach had was a shorthand notation called 'figured bass' and he operated on a different dimension of music than that. Felix Mendelssohn and others analyzed Bach compositions and arrived at certain conclusions that we now call music theory. If you study Western Music then you are studying the inception and development of Bach's music. The goal of music education is not to create the next Mozart...no, the goal is to create the next cruise ship musician or high school Band director. Earning a living as a musician, who makes music, is almost impossible. Every job has 25 applicants who are equally qualified and there are limited number of  jobs. The chances are good that a musician will end up treating music as a hobby. Even top musicians basically work 365 days a year, travel every day, one gig after another and if they decide to take an extended break they will be nearly forgotten about except by their fan club. A performer's value usually transcends his or her own musical talent and it's not a relevant topic. This applies to Madonna as well as anyone. It's incredible that Madonna had a longer career than Patti Page but that's what happened. The biggest puzzle I have concerning Bob Dylan is that he was so one dimensional that he didn't stop recording albums except due to near-fatal accidents for 50 years. You can criticize Miles Davis tracks all you want but at least he stopped playing horn for nearly ten years to smoke crack and pimp some hookers. He had other interests and I like that. I'm very suspicious of one dimensional people like Bob Dylan. How little imagination do you have to possess in order to do nothing but record music for 40 years? I don't get it.

I've been pondering this question because when people see I play guitar and piano they naturally ask questions that have been nagging them about music in general and I've wondered what it is I'm trying to do when answering them. I really wonder if there's any good answer if the question involves experience. What's the fundamental issue? They are asking a question, but what's the bigger question, the question behind the question? And the answer is anatomy.

The second realm I've been pondering is guitar pedagogy. This is the damnation of learning anything as an adult: one also learns to study process. I've taken professional lessons and read everything possible and there is no flawless method. You're better off locking yourself in a closet with a guitar and no food and not leaving until you are happy with your progress. This is not like playing Chess against a computer, which you can conceivably never win. The Guitar never tries to outsmart you. There are rules and the rules never change. The patterns never change. So it should take about 40 hours to theoretically understand the guitar, but I've met people who don't understand it after 40 years. And I've met people who understand it but can't explain it. And I've met people who can explain it but recommend you simply apply yourself to figuring it out. The one common train between the great guitarists is the amount of time they spent with a recording and a guitar trying to decipher a lick or solo. Simply, the ear and the guitar. Why? Because all the great lessons are embedded in the great solos. You can't play the solo without learning the lessons. But that does no good for analytical/deconstructionist folks like me. 

When a child learns something they either accept the process or rationalize avoiding the process. But an adult knows that process is everything and they have hopefully learned to translate information into suitable terms that match their own specific intelligence. Guitar pedagogy is definitely one of the more fraught and fragmented processes. Fretted Stringed instruments are like 300 years old but I can assert that no effective method exists, no 'official' method, no 'proven' method. Many methods exist that include effective elements, but none of them are flawless for all people. They all take one or another approach that can easily be considered a baffling mess to some students and to some others it is clear enough and some others it's like the hand of Segovia guiding one to the light. The author of Fretboard Logic method wrote something like, "All methods are equally good. It's merely a matter of the student committing." I'm not sure about that because there are some methods that lead to complete dead ends. I've seen some very good instruction that is completely absent from all other method books. And I've seen some fundamentally horrible demonstrations included in all method books. Basic questions are unanswered, questions that I know the answer to but am perplexed that a method book would ignore. Maybe it's like Alcoholic's Anonymous: the method will work if you work with the method. The generic guitar method always deteriorates on about week 2 of the method into a mess involving an editorial decision to use a single key...and on fretted instruments the key is irrelevant because everything is relative to how one perceives the nut. The authors usually state that the goal is to 'transcend sheet music' but none have figured out how to start out in that transcendent space. Oh, it's frustrating and this isn't the first time I've pondered a categorical unified theory of guitar. What frustrates me further is that I've concluded: 1) it's possible to create an effective unified theory of guitar pedagogy and 2) no one will want to use it.

But the one detail I'd like to develop is the progressive approach of stages, such as one would encounter in Ballet.

Stage 1) In which the student learns manual techniques as an end in themselves.
Stage 2) Student applies manual techniques to traditional music.
Stage 3) Student improvises changes beyond the realm of stage 1. Attempts self expression.

An example of this would look like this:

Stage 1a: The guitarist learns 12 different voicings of the D minor7 chord. These 12 formations, when moved up one fret, are the Eb minor7 chord.

Stage1b: The Guitarist learns the  D Dorian scale in three positions: 5th position, 7th position. 12th position. This scale pattern, moved up one fret, is the Eb Dorian scale.

Stage 2a: The guitarist plays the Coltrane song Impressions, which has  16 measures of D minor7, followed by 8 measures of Eb minor7, followed by 8 measures of D minor7. That's the whole song, 2 chords. The guitarist plays rhythm for those 32 measures using the 12 different voicings x the 2 chords. So 24 "different" chords, though they will look identical and played 1 fret apart.

Stage 2b: The Guitarist plays the melody of Impressions in 3 different positions. This melody is built from the D Dorian scale and the Eb Dorian scale.

Stage 3: Guitarist improvises the D Dorian scale when the D minor7 chord is being played. Improvises the Eb Dorian scale when the Eb minor7 chords is being played.

I think that most guitar students would drop this method at Stage 1a because it's tedious, boring, involves no real music at first and ultimately will lead to playing 60 year old basic jazz songs written by a heroin junkie for a saxophone. I accept that this method will not attract nor keep any students. And yet, I see nothing else wrong with the progressive strategy.

The weird part is that all the professional guitar methods follow some kind of similar strategy of progressively guiding a student from chords and scales to performance. But when some one comes to me and says, 
"Oggy, I want to learn guitar." 
and I say, "It's an irresponsible activity. In maybe two weeks you can learn enough to play every Hank Williams song and be content at every campfire." 
And they respond, "But how do these junkie rock musicians who can't keep their pants up learn to play the guitar and I've been trying for 5 years and have no idea what I'm doing?"
And I repeat, "Their tolerance of irresponsibility was much higher than yours. They probably identified patterns on the fretboard without any explanation and most of them could not explain what they play and don't want to explain what they play. There is only one overlapping pattern on the guitar and it always overlaps and always repeats. It never changes and some players immediately recognize this single pattern and realize the position they are playing in makes no difference since they are always working on that single overlapping pattern. Everything about the guitar is applying a chosen matrix (scales/chords) over a set pattern. Neither the matrix nor the pattern changes but you have to know where you are located on the fretboard. For some reasons there are players who immediately accept these facts like their are piano players who can immediately transpose a song to any key and don't understand why others can't since all the notes shift up or down a certain amount."

This goes on and on but it irks me that something mechanical/manual is so befuddling to many including me. And my solution is a method that would not work for anyone I've ever met, but that I stand by as technically flawless, logical, perfect. The object is to be able to start somewhere and progress toward a goal, but I've seen atrocious methods and some rock guitarists pawning 'non-methods' that simply demonstrate a series of common licks or fretboard hacks that sound good without any explanation of what is happening or even how to transpose it to another key. I think I've examined every method book available and I can't recommend any of them without first knowing someone's objectives and learning style. In general, there is no good method available.

The best lesson I've seen involves another activity that would cause pretty much every student to run the other direction: playing half steps up and down the neck in something he calls "An unbroken chain of half steps". The only rule is you can play any half step with any finger. And you move up and down and horizontally across the strings but never by more than a half step. I like this method because it can't be done without some focus and any mistake will be easy to discuss and analyze. Maybe you can't do this perfectly, but to understand the lesson is pretty fundamental to the guitar so there's no point in moving on if this lesson is a puzzle. And a complimentary lesson is to learn every note name on the guitar. This sounds self-explanatory but it befuddled me for the longest time. Amazingly, you don't need to know any of the note names to play pretty good. I've played guitar recitals in exotic tunings without knowing the note names. But if I were in control of the method then this is a fundamental one and isn't too hard. Start with the BC-D notes. One string under those are always the EF-G notes. That only leaves the A note which is always a whole step below the B and a whole step above the G. As basic a lesson as that seems, I've never seen it in a published method book. They seem to think publishing a chart of all the notes on the fretboard will help you deconstruct it and memorize it. Not true, for me.

Horizontal Chords

Vertical chords

Middle voicing/horizontal

I don't know if the goal is to think 'pianistically' because it's way easier to think in groups/shapes. But I suspect advanced jazz players do not think in groups, but rather think as a pianist with each note being played by a finger and they adjust their fingers for different notes, rather than adjusting their fingers for different shapes. It's a subtle difference but important. The hard part is not seeing the strings and frets since your head is behind the fretboard.

That's all for now.

The song I recorded is a great co-dependent tune written by the same people who wrote Nat King Cole's tune "I Don't Know Why"
music by Fred E. Ahlert and lyrics by Roy Turk. Out of respect to them both I combined the two songs into a co-dependent medley. If I had to start with any Jazz standard that isn't monotonous like "All of Me", I think it would be either "Memories of You" by Eubie Blake or "Mean to Me" by Ahlert and Turk. 
 

Why the fuck do I watch these things? Why? IS there anything worse than being a Borderline Personality Disorder who is addicted to codependency?

The compositional elements are flawless and the lyrics are right in the Cole Porter witty wheelhouse, but not so demanding. I tried to play a bunch of Cole Porter the other day and I have to admit defeat. They are too complicated lyrically, melodically, harmonically and philosophically. My fingers were pleading for mercy after 'Love for Sale'. I can not play them adequately because they all have a critical Broadway tempo and non-traditional quirks. Cole Porter is advanced piano technique in my opinion. However, "Mean to Me" is perfect. Like I said, Lester Young and Nat King Cole and Buddy Rich recorded this as a trio. Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra both took a stab at it and I personally prefer Dean Martin or King Cole or Bobby Cole to Sinatra, but I won't judge fans of Old Blue Eyes; he's also awesome. A crash course in jazz could include those three recordings and a long afternoon. All the secrets of Jazz are in a comparison of those three recordings.

* Holy shit, I remembered that from a 1999 pedagogy class.

Free Speech

Imagine you read these messages from me:

"There's one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you,"

"Enough elementary schools in a ten mile radius to initiate the most heinous school shooting ever imagined,"

You'd probably think old Oggy was having a laugh. Funny guy! Well, one Pennsylvania guy posted similar messages to his fuckbook page and was arrested for federal threats...

And here we are a while later and I'm talking about free speech as it applies to terrorizing Muslim worship.

Big Hero: Oggy, could you clarify your position, you traitorous draft dodging hypocrite?

Oggy: Sure. The thing is...

Big Hero: Cause we're all waiting to hear the next bat shit idea that comes out of your mouth.

Oggy: This is my interpretation of...

Big Hero: Big man behind his computer screen. Fucking world falling apart and you run down to Central America. Real Big Man!

Oggy: FYI...I've been deadly sick for two weeks. Vomiting all night. Shitting in a bag.

Big Hero: Wwaaaaahhh! You want some tampons for your cunt? You pussy bitch.

Oggy: I only get off the toilet to collapse on the floor.

Big Hero: Booooo Hooooo, you got me crying in my corn flakes.

Oggy: Can I finish my essay about Free Speech?

Big Hero: It's a free country, at least where I live, not down in some taco field in Central America where the savage fags run around with sombreros and swim across borders to....

(Oggy takes gun out and shoots Big Hero 12 times. Reloads. Shoots him another 12 times. Reloads and shoots him another 12 times.)

Oggy: I GUESS I'LL FINISH MY FUCKING SENTENCE NOW SINCE YOU ARE A BIG FUCKING HERO LYING IN A PUDDLE OF BLOOD AND I'LL PISS ON YOUR BONES SINCE I DRANK SO MUCH WATER TO REHYDRATE AND I GUESS I'LL SHIT IN WHAT REMAINS OF YOUR MOUTH TOO BECAUSE YOU ARE CLOSER THAN THE TOILET!

The deal is that posting dumb suicidal and homicidal shit to your fuckbook page or to your blog is that this is not public. It's basically a fictional diary that I publish and fictional diaries have no limit on depravity. That's a key feature. This blog is buried among something like 90,000,000 other fictional blogs. If you find this thing and hang around to read then that's your problem according to the SCOTUS. Death Threats against schools, in the eyes of the Supreme Court, is "Offensive and disagreeable" but not illegal. Actually making plans and going to a school and shooting children is, I'm pretty sure, still illegal. So, this guy was arrested and convicted of federal threats but the SCOTUS overturned the conviction, giving all closet mass murderers reason to cheer because until they kill someone then they can't be prevented from killing any more people. This does puzzle me because I have often written essays and saved them as drafts but not published them. Isn't this a feature of Fuckbook? By publishing the draft I am choosing to go live, to turn my private diary into a public announcement, which is not required to 'vent my emotions'. A diary that is 'just joking' doesn't have to be published. So by publishing it I am making it a public announcement and if it threatens anyone and causes real fear or havoc then it is irrelevant that I was 'just joking'. If I am just joking then keep it as a draft and don't publish it. That is responsible free speech. A threat that is intended to threaten and cause fear can't later be called a joke simply because you got caught before you followed through on the threat. But that's crazy Oggy thinking. SCOTUS wants you to threaten as many as possible but to do it in a way that can later be defended as a joke. They are saying that any threat I think up must be published because I can't hit the 'save as draft' button.

Yes, it's offensive and disagreeable to write about murdering school children. Yes, and I guess if you are busy body who cares about preventing mass murder then you will call the cops and they can investigate the threat. That is the point SCOTUS is getting at. The written threat is simply a starting point to investigate. It does not constitute any preparation to commit the threat that was written. But an investigation may turn up additional evidence, (maps, guns, suicide letter, a wall covered with photos and a few of them are crossed out, etc) and that can be used to prosecute a credible threat. But the simple typed words on a screen do no constitute enough evidence that the threat was anything more than a bleak slip to the dark side. We're all prone to those unless your medication is working perfectly and the SCOTUS isn't going to add to your depression the possibility that you will be arrested and charged and convicted of terrorist threats. No, but the threat may be used to begin an investigation that can be used to convict you, so mind yourself. There are some details of this case that have me scratching my head because this dude obviously intended to be threatening and after getting his restraining order from his ex-wife he continued to "threaten" her and even 'threaten' the FBI who came to investigate 'threats' against the school. His intent was to threaten and place them in fear. That's pretty obvious because he's a no-nut piece of shit and the only kicks he gets are from emotional terrorism. And that emotional terrorism is a violation of a federal threat statute. You can't call in a bomb threat to school and then say, "I was only joking. I don't have a bomb" No, you're getting fucked if you do that because if you're the only one in on the joke then your fake bomb threat will be treated like a real bomb threat and will cause real fear and cause real havoc...just like this idiot's 'threats' did inspire his ex-wife to file a restraining order. Was it a fake restraining order? No. It was real because the fear was real. But he put up disclaimers on his fuckbook account - "This is for entertainment purposes! Merely venting" etc. I guess I could say, "I'm merely venting by running you over with my car. haha. Just kidding! Oh, you broke your leg? Well, that's your fault. I wasn't serious. It was entertainment." This rationale puzzles me because his conviction was overturned. I really hope someone has some entertainment with him too, just for fun, not seriously breaking his spine, but pretending to break his spine. (That would entertainment and kind of like a movie. Not seriously though, just put him dead in a coffin and piss on him. Hahaha. not serious. who would do that? Only a hysterical comic! It's funny to call him a pig fucker who should die! Not serious! haha. I'm going to kill him and piss on his corpse <<<<JUST A JOKE! SCOTUS THINKS IT'S FUNNY.)

How this relates to the Phoenix Mosque terrorist attack by anti-Islam terrorists who have hijacked the 1st amendment is simple: The Pennsylvania guy was posting these messages on his private account. They basically amount to tasteless jokes of the, "Take my wife!" variety and if you don't like them then don't read them. HOWEVER, if this asshole actually marches to a school with cartoons of dead children and several handguns strapped to his back wearing bulletproof vests and begins to march around the school shouting "DEATH TO ALL STUDENTS! FUCK STUDENTS! NO MORE SCHOOLS!"

Then, I ask you, what choice do the students, teachers and parents have to avoid this lunatic? They have no choice and the issue becomes whether his right to denounce schools and verbally threaten and insult and mock them qualifies as free speech when it inspires real fear and can not be ignored? SCOTUS think it's a big joke. All I can say is that if you think this is free speech then PLEASE go experiment with it. But make sure to let me take out an insurance policy on you because you are going to get shot down like fucking dog. Several black people were arrested for making similar threats against white police and this SCOTUS decision pretty much sets the precedent that those people are innocent because they were merely venting. Well, that's good to know the law applies equally to blacks and whites. Threaten cops all you want but just make sure to 'be kidding'.

But something went wrong in Phoenix because the war pundits are winning their war to recruit puppet soldiers for their profit wars. That's the only difference. Islam has been demonized by several high profile pundits generating hysteria and they have been so successful that an armed mob can surround a mosque, hinder the worshipers, abridge their civil right to worship in peace, threaten them, insult them, mock them, wear shirts "FUCK ISLAM" make signs "NO MORE MOSQUES" Shout "MUSLIMS MUST DIE" and the police will stand around and consider it 'free speech'. Simply ask the people in the mob and they will tell you they intend to create fear, they intend to disrupt lawful prayer, they intend to terrorize. These protesters were not kidding but they were ignored regardless. Thanks, SCOTUS! Do a similar set of actions at a Yankee game in NY and you will be killed. Do it outside a Mosque? Police shrug. You literally must now shoot someone down like a dog before being considered a credible threat. Emotional terrorism is supported and defended by the 1st amendment in 4 states.

I denounce this because the Muslims have no choice. They must tolerate discrimination and persecution that is prohibited by federal law. I guess they could file a restraining order against all members of American Freedom Defense Initiative, and I would support that. Hell, I'd pay for it. They have no opportunity to turn the computer off or go to a different street. The hate group has not chosen a courthouse to have their event. They went to the mosque to guarantee a disruption of worship, which is prohibited, but the disruption, including emotional terrorism, was considered within the realm of free speech. All playground bullies can now breathe a sigh of relief that as long as they simply emotionally terrorize their targets then they are OK! Just say, "I was only kidding." and all will be forgiven. SCOTUS has your back.

Now, in my recent crusade for Islamic liberties I have learned that identical protests happen outside Latter Day Saint conferences. LDS, for some reason, is a persecuted religion and their prayer has been abridged. I didn't know anything about this because I thought the year wasn't 1840. The LDS are Mormons. I guess they are the same. I recently met some LDS missionaries and we literally sat around, read the bible in Spanish and prayed. I felt it caused no harm and they were respectful. I said, "Jesus Christ, Thank you for sending these two men to spread your glorious word of good and holy salvation. God bless them. God bless Guatemala. Amen."
It was different. I almost videoed it because it was so bizarre.

Well, some people aren't as tolerant as I am and they march on LDS conferences, where I'm sure the Mormons pray before and after the meetings, and the protesters disrupt the prayer. I was asked if I denounce this event too and I see it as very similar. Yes, it's a civil rights violation. If you can't abolish a religion without violating their civil right to worship in peace then you aren't going to abolish that religion. Sorry. Getting desperate only shows your whole premise is flawed. Folks in Utah are persecuting Mormons, abridging their right to worship, infringing on their civil liberties. Just because the religion is Mormon and not Muslim doesn't mean it's permissible. But again, the pundits opposing Mormons have won their local war and police make no arrests. They consider it free speech even though the Mormons have no option to avoid the threats of violence and insults and mockery. You're a fucking asshole if you march on an LDS conference. Yes, the Mormon religion is bat-shit crazy. Obviously an angel did not give Joseph Smith gold books that vanished and he led his people through a persecuted flight through the Mid West, where he was attacked and many were murdered and he advocated pedophilia and also bigamy, plural marriages, doomsday theory, mysticism. A bunch of utterly bat-shit ideas that have survived to this day. What can I say? It's not my business. Thomas Jefferson said, "Religion is a matter for a man and his god." It's not my concern even when two missionaries in Central America insist on praying with me in front of my van. Basically, they go home, they do not insult me. I have options to say, "Thanks, I don't want to meet anymore to pray to a false god. Goodbye." And they will leave and say I'm doomed to damnation. Boo Hoo for Oggy's soul. 

When you stalk someone at their place of worship, surround them, insult them, threaten them, then they have no alternative and must tolerate you or kill you. The police do nothing so they have demonstrated their impotence. They are worthless. You must defend yourself because threats are intolerable. Do not accept a bully in your face. No. Emotional terrorists are not thoughtful people and they can't be reasoned with. It's easy to say that violence is not justified when you are not the one being stalked and surrounded and threatened. There's no scenario where I would ask for you to tolerate that and if the police are indifferent then you must defend yourself alone. It's a sad state of affairs when the court refuses to defend the 1st Amendment, but we've reached that stage in Texas, Arizona and also Utah where the abridgement of civil liberties is clearly a new tradition. I blame the pundits who villainize a religion like LDS or Islam or Satanism until they can get a dumb mob with pitchforks and march on a place of worship.

Lots of examples have been thrown in my face: "WHAT ABOUT THE GUY WHO PUT A STATUE OF JESUS ON HIS FRONT LAWN AND PISSED ON IT AND SHIT ON IT?"

My response: did he put it on the front lawn of a church? Can Christians avoid it?

"GAYS MARCH ON WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH TO DENOUNCE GAY BASHING"

My response: It's a civil rights violation. Worship may not be abridged.

"WESTBORO CHURCH MARCH ON GAY WEDDINGS/EVENTS WITH SIGNS "GOD HATES FAGS"

My response: It's a civil rights violation. The gay attendees can not avoid the threats and insults.

PRO LIFER LUNATICS BLOCKADE FEMINIST HEALTH CLINICS

My Response: I've received medical care at a feminist health clinic and it wasn't for a common cold. So get the fuck out of my way before I cough on you! It's a civil rights violation because I can't avoid them.

PRO CHOICE LUNATICS GO TO HEALTH CLINICS TO MURDER BABIES

My Response: Because the clinics do the job without a coat hanger, you ignorant fuck. There are 7 Billion people so unless God is going to build an escalator to another planet then let the women kill their sperm tumor before it mutates! Constitutional law is debated in court, not outside a health care clinic.

Like cigarette smoke, which I loathe, I don't go to restaurants or bars that allow smoking. If I go to park and people are smoking I move. It's a civil rights violation but I tolerate it because it's a big park and living with aspiring lung cancer patients is a cost of city living, like noise and dog shit. The one thing I liked about the oil field is that no one smoked. It was forbidden at the site because of flammable atmosphere and in company vehicles and the money involved proved you can pay someone to quit smoking because everyone quit. It smelled like diesel fuel and methane and Hydrogen sulfide, which can crystallize your lungs, but at least it didn't smell like cigarettes. But this issue arises with strippers and waiters and performers who look for work and must tolerate cigarette smoke. I would personally starve to death on the street before working around cigarettes but others are not so determined and have petitioned their governments to forbid smoking in their workplace so they don't die of cancer. Many states have accepted their argument but many have not. The reason is lobbyists and pundits.

In conclusion, at least we are having this conversation although there is a dead body with 36 bullet holes in it I have to go clean up now.( HAHA! <<----Just kidding, INTERPOL! ) The Missouri folk who attacked the Mormon wagon train in 1838 did not have this discussion. Maybe that is progress. 

We take God and all the holy angels to witness this day, that we warn all men in the name of Jesus Christ, to come on us no more forever. For from this hour, we will bear it no more, our rights shall no more be trampled on with impunity. The man or the set of men, who attempts it, does it at the expense of their lives. And that mob that comes on us to disturb us; it shall be between us and them a war of extermination; for we will follow them till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to exterminate us: for we will carry the seat of war to their own houses, and their own families, and one party or the other shall be utterly destroyed.—Remember it then all MEN.^{[15] -- Sidney Rigdon}

"...Your orders are, therefore, to hasten your operation with all possible speed. The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace--their outrages are beyond all description."  - L.W. Boggs*

I'll say it again: religious persecution never eradicates a religion and I denounce it. Even if religious persecution DID eradicate a religion I would denounce it because I don't want to live with anyone who is capable of eradicating a religion. I denounce terrorism in all forms. ISIS demonizes Christianity to recruit puppet soldiers and Fox news demonizes Islam to recruit puppet soldiers. In the end, a bunch of ignorant poor pawns will fight to profit the elite puppet masters. This has been the history of man and I suspect this will be the final fate of man, but I rest knowing I stood against it when I saw it. I did not ignore it. I did something.

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away." Mark 13-31

sign this petition to do something about it.



And while you are there sign the petition to ban infant circumcision because I lost my foreskin for absolutely barbaric reasons more suitable to Sharia law than America.

*The result of this war was a forced migration of Mormons from Missouri. They moved to Indiana. Then they moved to Utah. Then they moved back to Missouri when the extermination order was rescinded in 1976. Then they moved to all states. Now LDS missionaries are everywhere in the world. So, how effective was this war? I'm sure someone made some profit from it but not the men who died. It bore only poisoned fruit on which we still feast.