Author Archives: mandala56

Jack wrote this in October, 2005:

Morning blogsters:

Several thousand balloonsters from all over the world are twiddling their thumbs this morning.  This was to be the morning for the ‘Special Shapes’ liftoff….. hundreds of balloons in the shapes of everything from Smokey the Bear to the Yellow Submaroon, to the good ship Santa Maria, to a two-hundred foot tall parrot, to a milque-cow-holstein heifer with an udder the size of a barn have lifted off during these events, drifted thither hither and yon across the city or countryside, and occasionally tangled themselves in highline wires.

All the events of the balloon festival hinge on the special shapes.  At least for the spectators.

But not this morning.  Nature said, you puff up those balloons this morning, I’magonna blow you off to Texas before you even leave the ground.  I’m not gonna let this happen, balloonsters.

So the balloonsters are probably sitting in coffee-shops in ABQ and the surrounding towns telling one another balloon stories, recovering from the last-night partying, and hoping it’s better tomorrow.

No mention of wind there, but those bags can be unfriendly if you don’t treat them with respect.

Even on a good day those big ones can rear  up on their hind legs and whinny despite the best efforts of humans with all their planning and designing and thinking up ways to get up in the air without dying.

We’re smart, but not THAT smart.

Ah well.

Trying to make up my mind here whether to talk about numbers, or civility.

Maybe civility would be best to touch on.

Some of you blogsters might have noticed long ago that there appears to be a middling amount of competition between forum users over whether this or that system’s best, particularly on Pick 3 games.

Lately the focus has been on a particular one method of trying to win, which evidently diminished the focus on the one that was drawing the cheers a few weeks ago.  All of which is interesting in its own right, but not nearly so much as the human interactions and strong feelings involved, along with a certain amount of bluster in both camps.

Before the most recent hopeful system emerged the next-most-recent method threads were worth keeping an eye on just to watch the preening, sulking, and down-talking to the folks who were trying to figure it out.

However, I’ll confess it usually stops short of name-calling.  When the leader of one pack gives the best imitation of a shout, calling the leader of the other pack a stale loser and stupid fluck, demanding that the other pack members stay off the new-pack threads, you gotta admit things have degenerated to lows rarely seen here.

It’s sometimes surprising how much a person, completely anonymous in the beginning ends up revealing about all manner of personal traits on a bulletin board made up of electrons on a computer screen, just by having the ability to let it all hang out without fear of consequences.

Civility and civilization emerge from the same root in language.  They’re both the result of an agreement we humans, some of us, have made with ourselves and others about how we’re going to treat one another.

But there’s every reason to believe both run contrary to human nature, that both are more a matter of how we’d prefer our fellow-humans treat us, as opposed to how we’d treat them if we could do so without there being any cost, except the internal rot of the soul that commences when we allow ourselves to do so.

That’s a small price to pay for the tension release that comes with just doing what comes natural.

Jack

Someone’s asked me to define ‘unlucky’ as it pertains to a US President. A legitimate question.

In general, I’d call a ‘lucky’ prez one who doesn’t have to take the historical rap for his mistakes and misjudgments. I’d call an ‘unlucky’ one a prez who does what other prezes have done, but gets caught, or takes the rap for historical processes already moving along when he took office.

Probably it’s best to use examples from history.

Herbert Hoover .. awfully unlucky

Was probably a middling good prez. But the Great Depression, a worldwide event, took place on his watch. The result was that Hoover was remembered during the lifetimes of the citizens who experienced the Great Depression, as a curse. Then he vanished from the national consciousness.

Franklin Roosevelt lucky

Made some of the most devastating errors a prez could make during his three-plus-some-change terms in office, but he managed to hide some of the worst ones behind the veil of national security. He successfully mobilized the population for a war it thought it didn’t want, and when that war brought the country out of Economic Depression, Roosevelt got to ride high in history and living memory as having presided during a ‘good’ war and ending the depression. A lucky prez.

Truman probably qualities as lucky.

He inherited the baggage left by Roosevelt, agreements with the USSR allowing them to occupy Eastern Europe. The Marshall Plan, agreeing to rebuild the industrial capacities of Japan and West Germany. General Douglas MacArthur hanging around as a popular hero with time on his hands. A Communist revolution in China, French Colonial war in Indo-China, and the dust not yet settled on WWII. He made a lot of mistakes, engaged in an undeclared war in Korea, which lost the 1956 election for the Democrats, but all in all, he came out okay, unvilified by the history books. A lucky prez.

Eisenhower, I’d consider neither lucky, nor unlucky. He was a prudent gambler, never pushed his luck, which didn’t give him much opportunity to be declared unlucky in any meaningful way.

JFK, luckyluckylucky

I’d consider the luckiest prez of the 20^th Century. Despite his best efforts, he didn’t get us into a nuclear war, didn’t get called for his incorrigible tactics for the 1960 Presidential Campaign, kept the Bay of Pigs invasion debacle generally out of the public eye, didn’t make the headlines for his womanizing, and got himself dead without having to face any consequences for being one of the sorriest, most arrogant, most self-serving presidents in the history of the US. Made love to the woman almost every adult male in America fantasized about. Came away a legend and a hero. Lucky prez.

Lyndon Johnson.  Unlucky, generally

He inherited a presidency he’d never have occupied without the death of JFK. Lucky. He inherited the urban wars of the late 1960s. Unlucky. He initiated the War on Poverty, which most Americans, including me, believed would immortalize him, but which became the Welfare State. Lousy judgment. We all should have known better, including LBJ. He cranked up Vietnam without asking Congress for a Declaration of War. Bad choice combined with bad luck. Created the Gulf of Tonkin incident under wraps of National Security, which seeped out and was unveiled for the fraud it was. Bad luck. Had to face the choice of a probable loss of the presidency and Congress, because of the Vietnam War, or not running for another term. Unlucky, overall.

Tricky Dixon.  Bullgoose unlucky

Maybe the unluckiest prez in the history of the US. Not nearly so bad as JFK and Johnson, but couldn’t do anything they did without getting caught at it. Rode into his first term with a promise of peace with honor in the war he inherited, Vietnam. Didn’t succeed, because it couldn’t happen without a formal declaration of war against North Vietnam by Congress and making it a war of military strategy, which it was already too late to do. Even though he was a flawed man who was dealt a lousy hand and played it poorly, I have a warm place in my heart for Tricky Dixon. Unlike JFK and Johnson, he wasn’t incorrigible, but he got cashiered from office in their stead because he assumed if they did it, he could do less and get by with it.

Gerald Ford, neither lucky, nor unlucky.

Jimmy Carter. Unlucky

Good man, good intentions. Squeaky clean, blessed with the protracted Iran Hostage affair. A really lousy piece of luck that cost Carter his place in history as a good prez.

Ronald Reagan. Not particularly lucky, nor unlucky

I’d have to put Reagan in a class all his own, a prez with a lot of the attributes of Franklin Roosevelt, but minus the guile, wearing a Republican hat. He might have been wrong on many occasions, but he did what he did because he believed it was the right thing to do. A rare trait among presidents. I disagree with many things Reagan did, consider some of them paramount to a National Disaster, but I tip my hat to him with respect. Not particularly lucky, nor unlucky. Just a flawed man like the rest of us, muddling along doing the best he could do and sometimes doing it badly.

George Bush I. Luckylucky

Almost as lucky as JFK. Rode in on the popular legacy of Reagan. Indulged in an amazingly popular presidential war with Iraq, utilized overwhelming military force, lightning strategy, acceptable casualties. Then stopped short of victory. Never had to take the rap. It’s impossible to fathom such ineptitude, but his luck is even more incomprehensible. Never had to stand up against the wall for what he did. If he’s alive today, people aren’t blowing raspberries at him, yelling jibes, calling him what he is, the way people used to treat the village idiot. We’ve grown more tolerant these days.

I ain’t going into wossname, the guy before this one.

In a later blog entry I’ll tell you why I believe this prez has the makings to be the unluckiest prez since Tricky Dixon, (other than being his father’s son) along with the near certain whys, potential hows, and unfortunate for all of us outcomes.

Jack

Gasoline:  $2.97, Albuquerque.  $3.09, Deming.

Traffic:  Truck traffic light.  Lots of deadheads moving, other traffic mostly tankers, UPS, FEDEX, Walmart.  Automotive traffic relatively light also, except lots of brand spanking new government vehicles on the road.  Lots.  New.

Roadkill:  Not much.  Three fresh coyotes and a badger, one mangled skunk and a mangled rabbit.  Number of coyotes high, especially with such light traffic.  Probably an epizootic, probably rabies or other distemper in the coyote population.

Behind the visor in the rental car:

Short people who ride in automobiles might want to keep this in mind.

Overheard in La Cochina Restaurant, TorC:

Middle aged waitress to younger waitress on smoke break talking about hurricane victim refugees:

“It’s sad when people don’t use any common sense and end up costing the rest of us so much money.”

Gas Station between Deming and Columbus:

Old guy about my age, eccentric looking with underside of hat brim painted black to keep out the sun glare, face furniture’s a handlebar about like mine.  He’s driving a recent, small Toyota, bragging he got 400 miles on 8 gallons.  Says on flat highway driving he’s gotten 78 miles to the gallon a couple of times.  Says he doesn’t care how high they go with gasoline prices.

That’s about all for the moment, folks.

Jack

I figured on blogging tonight to tell you blog readers a few anecdotes about some interesting things happening in Palomas, Mexico, Columbus, New Mexico, Deming, and points northward…. gas prices, talk overheard in restaurants about hurricane victims, border guard stuff, all manner of scintillating monologue to excite opinion and pondering.

But now I see I’m gonna have to say a few words about Communists, instead.

From May, 1917, until 1990, the US spent unimaginable treasure, countless lives, stupendous energy ‘saving the world’ from Communism, seeing them behind every tree and bush.  Meanwhile, the Communists collapsed under their own weight, packed their tents and went home.

In America, the Communists of Marx and Engels today call themselves Democrats and Republicans.  Not Greens.

That dog won’t hunt anymore.  At least not with me.  If someone else wants to fret about pinkos, someone else will have to.

For me, here’s the great Communist threat to America:

Cataclysmic Doggerel

A schoolmarmish lady in Zuni

Had canines subversive and loony;

Her Communist felines

Made neighborhood beelines

With doctrines both outworn and puny.

The KGB cat was a lean

And speckled-nosed beauty serene

In appearance alone

For her countenance shown

Multi-faceted plots as she preened.
Her Weathercat history was tops:

She sprayed on dozens of cops

With a Commie aroma

But joined Sertoma

Cavorting with phonies and fops.
The ringleader hound was a red

And curly haired rascal it.s said

Whose Trotskyish leanings

And Maoish gleanings

Were pondered curled up on the bed.
Princess Redfeather, they tells

Of this curly red bitch of the cells,

Forsook her fine lineage

To sip of the vintage

of Lenin, and Gulags and hells.
The worst of the felines, Bearboy:

Striped and cross-eyed and coy;

Politically weak,

Had claws that could tweak

Bourgeois carpet, and bedspread, with joy.

The Uncle-Tom dog of the hut

Was Ernie, the gray-bearded mutt;

Dog-tired, and dogmatic,

He thought,.Problematic:

dog-eared dialectic and glut..
The Uncle-Tom dog she called Ernie

Began as a dog-pound attorney

Commuted from gassing

He pondered in passing

Discretion.s demand for a journey.
A calico hound lying dormant,

Most likely a police informant:

A capitalist clown

Took his food lying down

Resisting the commie allurement.
The Stalinish kittenish spies

Spread foment and torment and lies

To Indian curs

And mutts that were hers

And War-Gods high up on the rise.
Princess and Ernie and, Spot,

And Chester, the narc-dog; the lot:

For half a piaster

Would bring a disaster

To Zuni, once called Camelot

From Poems of the New Old West

Copyright 2002, Jack Purcell

Let this be a lesson.  Don’t try to get me talking about Communists.

Jack

Every few months I make a trip to Mexico for some medications I take daily, because they’re dirt cheap down there compared to getting them in a pharmacy here. Prislosec use to run me $3 per tablet here and I was taking a couple per day. In Palomas, Mexico, they cost about 75 cents per tab. Now that it’s over-the-counter here they’re about a quarter per tab, compared to a buck here.

So it’s time to run down there again. I like Palomas because it’s a tiny burg, mostly pharmacies with lines of US oldsters stocking up on medications. It’s like the Powerplay option in reverse, stepping across the International Border into Mexico to buy prescription meds.

So, you parks the car at the border, walks across a couple of blocks, pays in gringo dollars, and walks back to the Border to be questioned and sometimes searched and hassled by US Border guards. They worry a person will pick up some antibiotic for a friend, or anti-inflammatory for a rheumatoid arthritic acquaintance. So they like to ask what condition you’re taking the medication for while they thumb through the book and see if they can catch you out.

I’ve never had the body-cavity search, probably because I’m not female, but maybe just because I’ve never caught them on a boring day.

Sometime I’ll tell you an amusing story about a Japanese Jew pharmacist I used to buy from in Juarez who had an Israeli flag on the wall behind him, didn’t speak English. But it’s a long story.

Anyway, I go down through Deming to Columbus, the US town Pancho Villa raided in 1912, and got the US Army chasing him all over Mexico. That’s where General Blackjack Pershing won his fame. There’s still a lot of ruin from the raid all over Columbus, so it’s worth poking around the bear grass, usually.

(Pictures below are all that remains of the bank vault of the town after Villa’s raid).

I like to stop at this little shrine in Columbus, also. I’d guess the folks who built it in the 60s have grown old… I’ve never seen them there, but when I first saw it during the early 90s someone was still taking care of it, putting out palm branches every day. Now the place is showing a bit worse for the wear.

I also usually stop and scrutineer a little airstrip north of town with a windsock model of the airplane Pershing’s troops used to help chase Villa.

Everything goes well I ought to be back tomorrow night.

Jack

Jack wrote this in September, 2005. It had several photos interspersed, but I don’t know which ones, sorry.

We’ve got to generate more tax revenues, or think of something else.  Americans probably aren’t ready for this.

So a national lottery would be a good place to start.

First game is a clone of Euro Millions, twin sister who walks like it, talks like it, pays off tax-free like it, lump sum only.

Revenues go entirely for a National Disaster Relief Fund, and to the US Veteran Hospitals.

Tickets sold in post offices and at every Federal Office Building in America, Indian Reservations, anywhere the Feds have a toe-hold outside State jurisdiction.

Lots of potential here.

Later games can be provided to allow war lovers to vote with their pocket books to fund whatever war we happen to be fighting at any given time.  When the fund runs out, the troops come home, so the war lovers and patriots can pay for the war themselves, and when they get tired of paying, they’ll quit buying tickets.

Gives new meaning to the word, ‘fair’.  The people who don’t support the war, but haven’t been asked, don’t have to support it.  Those citizens who just love it to death can have their war and maybe win a big prize, besides.

Remember where you heard it first.

Jack

Morning blog readers.

The lure of news is almost as insidious as the lure of having opinions.  Both tend to sneak up and catch a person unawares.  A person can be going along fine, only picking up the occasional piece of news of the world overhearing conversations of others or a glance at a newspaper headline or two in a rack, then something happens to drag you in, and you’re back into the game.

It’s not just the particular thing you’re interested in, once you’re hooked.  Those newspapers are cunning in that way.  They throw in all this other matter that are none of a person’s business, but that tend to snag the mind like a treble hook.  (None of my business, I define as things I can do nothing about, can’t influence in any imaginable way, and aren’t happening to anyone I know personally.)

Then, there you are (me), suddenly knowing a lot of things about what’s going on in the world that I had no intention of knowing about, finding myself having opinions about them.

I see Biloxi was hit fairly hard.  Not much being said about it because it was lacking in the drama of the Super-dome anguish feeding frenzy.  Sorry for those Mississippians, sorry about Biloxi.  If Mississippians want to join the tribe of Native Americans that will almost inevitably be formed they’ll probably have to have a name and a Reservation of their own.  Maybe Fort Jackson, SC, can be vacated and given them.

It doesn’t work, putting different tribes on the same Rez.  The Navajo almost killed off all the Mescalero during those 15 years at Bosque Redondo.  It’s better the Mississippians have their own Rez.

I see where old Judge Rindquist died.  Whew.  Haven’t thought about that guy in a couple of decades.  I recall when Tricky Dixon appointed him, me, everyone so full of news and opinions, all of us young minds fairly certain it was the end of Life As We Knew It.  (I’ll point out for you king-lovers that he had to have the consent of Congress, Tricky Dixon, appointing Rindquist…. I know it must gall you, but the Constitution required it…. might still for all I know)

In some ways I suppose it was nearing the end of Life as We knew it, though that appointment hadn’t much to do with the matter.  A few decades of retrospect and the appointment was roughly a non-event, though it had our juices flowing at the time.  In those days everyone I knew was full of the opinion that what this country needed was a Supreme Court stacked with judges who could read popular opinion into the words of the Constitution, which it had been doing since Franklin Roosevelt.

What we didn’t know was that it wasn’t a good thing we wanted, but that the appointment of this one and a court full of judges who were ‘conservative’ by the post-WWII definition wasn’t going to save the Constitution.  Those new ones couldn’t read the words it said any better than the Douglas Court.  They just read it more to the flavor of Republicans, than Demos, which was considered an offense.

The framers of the Constitution wouldn’t have liked either of those courts much.  They’d have chided themselves for not anticipating descendants who didn’t want a hard-and-fast Constitutional document with things all nailed down with words that meant something, and maybe done something to prevent it.  But, of course, they’d chide themselves for not anticipating a lot of things they might have prevented, such as a series of presidents riding along on Emergency Powers for half a century fighting wars without declarations by Congress, getting the military and Federal cops into the business of kicking down the doors of Americans for various reasons, all that sort of thing.

Ah well.

I see a couple of 18 year old Albuquerquanisto youths got themselves in jail by going into a titty bar and having a series of ‘lap-dances’ they didn’t know the cost of on a per-dance basis…. ran up a bill for $2500 bucks and didn’t have the courtesy to pay.

That’s the sort of thing you don’t know unless you read newspapers.

Jack