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.