Author Archives: Old Jules

That reincarnated kid video

Posted on June 2, 2014 | 6 comments

Hi readers.  When you think about it the surprise is the Internet isn’t full of what?  Stories?  Reports?  Incidents?  Descriptions of this phenomenon and people for whom the experience is as real as their lives.

But you won’t come across it often.  There’s the 300 cases in India a European physician researched and wrote a book about a decade-or-so ago, and a lot of conjectures and suppositions.  And the million-or-so people who go around telling anyone who will listen which famous person in history they used to be.

That’s why this case comes across so strongly, I reckons.  That, and the fact the kid is from the US, whereas most research into the phenomenon has been elsewhere.

But this one was a US fighter pilot over Japan reincarnated as a kid in the United States.  Maybe nothing can be concluded from it beyond something I’ve never doubted anyway, that reincarnation happens.  But it’s possible if a person knew which parts of this not to draw any conclusions from a lot might be learned from it.

On the other hand, the human way is to draw all manner of conclusions from every shred of it, construct a doctrine and sand-cathedral from it, and figure out away to make money as a cash cow.

Glad to see the kid didn’t get any wisdom out of the ordeal.  Ought to be interesting to watch him along about time when he could volunteer for the US military.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Five Freedom Fighters for One GI

Posted on June 2, 2014 | 5 comments

Hi readers.

The old guys down at physical therapy are pissed.  Evidently five of the Arab freedom fighters the US has been holding captive somewhere are going to be released so’s to get back one GI Arabs captured.  Hell of a deal, seems to me, though some might argue a GI is worth ten of anyone else anywhere.

But there are a lot of different ways of looking at the matter.  Elected officials are afraid we didn’t get our moneys worth on the deal.  I’d have to suspect they think after five years captivity that GI isn’t going to be much use to anyone, which might be their rationale.

On the other hand, people get out of prisons all the time after being gang-raped repeatedly the way that GI almost certainly has been in captivity.  And it doesn’t hold them back.  Ex convicts are almost all able to stick up convenience stores, steal cars, sell drugs, do a little rape and mayhem.  Being gang raped in prison hardly slows them down at all.

So my gut feel is this guy’s probably going to be okay and if he plays his cards right maybe he can sit on top of a building with a rifle somewhere and plink off a dozen-or-so anonymous people of one sort or another.  Plenty of ex-GIs are doing that nowadays anyway who haven’t even been gang-raped that we know of.

Anyway, people who are against the trade still ought to feel good knowing an American is worth five Arabs.  I can’t help wishing it was ten, though.  Would have been ten back during WWII when it was Japanese, I’m guessing.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Don’t let the fact you can’t read either of their alphabets fool you

Posted on June 2, 2014 | 2 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

If you’re harboring any sweetness and light illusions that the Chinese have forgotten the Rape of Nanking et al, and that they’ve bought into the US post WWII dedication to venerating the Japanese, forget it.  Just go over to Netflix and have a look at what comes out of the Chinese movie industry these days.

Naturally they find a lot of opportunities to make films about Nanking days and the countless dramas played out at the end of Japanese bayonets, downrange from Japanese artillery, rifles and pistols, and underneath Japanese bombers.  That’s to be expected.  Murdering, raping and generally having an orgy of plundering a few hundred thousand people lingers on the minds of their progeny.  Native Americans do the same thing.

But the Chinese make a lot of films about all manner of subjects and genres.  It’s inevitable there’ll be Japanese in some.  Military men, of course.  Business men, martial arts masters, you name it.

But what’s fun about Chinese depiction of Japanese is the consistent, mean, evil, ugly, portrayals whenever a Japanese person rears his ugly head in a Chinese movie.  And incidentally, how much better Chinese-martial artists fare against Japanese martial artists, you name the weapon or method.

I’d almost bet there hasn’t been a Japanese person depicted in a Chinese film since WWII that was anyone you’d wish to meet in a dark alley, or want to marry your daughter.

We in the US accepted the US government approach at the end of WWII, that the Japanese were the best people in Asia whom we loved the most of all of them.  Went about making them richer than they were back when they were killing Chinese with abandon, enslaving the Koreans, and charging US Marine machine gun positions with bayonets.

We rebuilt Japan backward forward and sideways while we helped the Chinese further destroy Korea better than the Japanese ever got around to, then moved down and tried to flatten Vietnam because the Japanese hadn’t really focused on them.

But the Chinese didn’t buy that.  Maybe they have WE WILL NEVER FORGET banners out in the rural towns the way the US used to say about Pearl Harbor, the Alamo, and Little Bighorn.  And the sinking of the Maine and the Lusitania.

Wonder if there are any countries remember us that way.  Besides the Indians, I mean.

Old Jules

 

 

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America, History

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Post card art, lousy dreams and cats

Posted on June 2, 2014 | 15 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.  Jeanne’s about to zoom away on her morning bicycle ride, trying to find something long sleeved to block something just this side of the morning chill.    She says she had a lousy dream last night, dreamed Leonard Cohen died.  Bummer.

I recall dreaming Al Jolson died sometime a few years ago, but the fact he’d been dead several decades already took the edge off it.  Not a good dream, but better than when he actually did it.  I was in grammar school at the time and it’s the first time someone I really liked died, I think.  He had just come back from a USO tour visiting troops in Korea and went kerplunk.  Lousier than dreaming about it.

Anyway, in spite of myself I’ve been allowing my mind to wander into Jeanne’s Library job postcard art project.  http://librarymailart.wordpress.com/

Trying to think of something that could be forced down the throat of the post office as a post card and sent over there to be forced down their thoats disguised as art.  I’m considering gluing a 78 rpm record to a 33 rpm LP, a 45 rpm single, and a CD and putting address and stamps on the whole shebang.  Might do it yet if I can find the 78 and 33.

But I wanted to sneak around and tell you about cats, mostly.  That cat documentary at the top got me thinking about Hydrox and might have given me a dream about Niaid last night, or maybe she was just saying hi.  A lot better than dreaming about Al Jolson or Leonard Cohen.

Hydrox, by the way, is hanging in there, and I’m including him in my gratitude affirmations numerous times every day.  Been spending portions of almost every night outdoors doing what cats do.

And I’m about to toodle off to physical therapy to do what old human guys do when they’re hanging in there day to day, including themselves in their own gratitude affirmations numerous times every day.

Old Jules

 

 

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Library Art Received May, 2014 – Jeanne’s project

Posted on May 31, 2014 | Leave a comment

Received May 26, 2014 – May 31, 2014.  Lackman Library – International submissions

Visit the blog and submit some mail art

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Posted in Jeanne Kasten, Libraries

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21st Century Automotives

Posted on May 30, 2014 | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Jeanne’s ride, a 1991 Oldsmobile 98, tried to go kerplunk.  Her working two jobs and depending on it didn’t keep it from wearing out and the brakes going soft around the time I began borrowing it for physical therapy three times a week.

Well, I’m nothing if not confident when it comes to replacing master cylinders on vintage vehicles.  Hell I’ve done it over Christmas [you might recall] on an aging RV in the parking lot of an AutoZone in Big Spring, Texas while enjoying heart attacks on the side].  [ A merry little dumpster diving year-end adventure]

So I assured her I could replace that master cylinder in a New York minute.  Instead, what happened in a New York minute is the discovery I’ve got nothing in me if it’s strength or endurance you’re measuring.  So not far into the job she called her son, Michael, and I kibitzed while he changed it out.

Which is why I didn’t be the one to twist off the left front bleeder valve inside the wossname, como se llama caliper.  I was the one who did the talking at the parts houses trying to get a non-Chinese steel easy-out, buying one out of hunger that deformed and didn’t break, but also didn’t back out that bleeder valve.

So Jeanne took the Olds to the Firestorm store and got an estimate to fix it.  But they told her all manner of things else needed fixing amounting to 2000 3000 smackers.

So she went to the credit union and borrowed money hopefully enough to buy a car, an old one, but good, or better than the Olds.  Decided on a Subaru Forester or Toyota RVsomething, or Honda CRV with 150k miles or thereabouts.  Needs something high enough off the ground to go on unpaved roads sometimes.

A couple of Sikhs, offspring of Punjabi parents who migrated here in the what? 80s maybe, had one listed on Craigslist.  2002 Subaru Forester with 165000 miles that looked good and fit inside her budget with a little hammering.

Looked great.  So she had them hold it with $200 until she could have a mechanic go over it for another $100.  Mechanic says, “Subaru’s a great vehicle, but not this one.  You don’t want this one unless you want to spend $3000 trying to get it fixed.”

Hot damn.  They kept $100 of the earnest money, those Punjabi bastards, but agreed to pay for the mechanic examination.

No pain, no gain.  She told her boys to fix the damned brakes, replace the caliper on the Olds, that it didn’t look so bad after all.  What’s a bad radiator, electrical problems, rearview mirrors that flap in the wind and power windows going to hell among friends?

Maybe I could sell her the old 1978 Ford Econoline RV that has a new master cylinder and most of the damage of blown tires hidden out of sight underneath the truck.  Except I’m going to have to live in that again one day if I live so long.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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“Don’t plug this in” mystery untangled

Posted on May 29, 2014 | 5 comments
Seems to me that's asking for it. I did manage to resist the temptation, but it was difficult.

Seems to me that’s asking for it. I did manage to resist the temptation, but it was difficult.

Do not plug in this USB connector

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

I had an appointment with the cardiologists over at the KC VA yesterday and they clarified that USB plugged device I got in the mail.  Future shock is what it is.  They’re sending me a thing to sleep in the vicinity of that will communicate each night with my nocturnal electrical emissions device [defibrillator].

They’re sending  it to me and all I have to do is plug this into it and around 2:00 am the shocker will download my days affairs of the heart to it.  And it will quickly upload it all to someplace in San Francisco where another machine will look it over, twiddle its thumbs, and decide whether there’s anything illegal my heart muscle’s been up to.

In the unlikely event my heart’s been sneaking around getting cheap thrills and got busted by the defibrillator whispering gossip about it to the Coleman Camp Stove piece, and it reporting it to the San Francisco Heart Police, they’ll send it to the KCVA cardiologist right after breakfast, next day.

Then, if he thinks it’s worth it, the cardiologist will contact me and explain what’s going on, or went on, while I slept.

So KC VA cardiologists don’t want to see me until something interesting happens and they find out about it from the heartthrob gossip columnists.  And the previous day the private cardiologist who put it there in my shoulder examined it and said essentially the same thing,

How about that?  Barring any new drama I don’t have to see anyone about my broken heart for a year.  And other than the physical therapy that will go on for another month-or-so, I’m draft-exempt insofar as medicos.  Sure, I’ll have to fill various prescriptions and be financially crippled for the remainder of my life because of this series of events beginning November 9, 2013.  But I’ll just be writing $10 checks to each of them every month unless they turn me over to their collection agencies.

If they send out their constables with summonses or their leg breakers trying to squeeze blood out of a broken heart shaped more like a turnip, power to them.  Get in line.  I’ve got no more sympathy for them than a multinational bank has for someone loses his job and gets behind on house payments.

Except the VA.  If you can’t pay whatever’s due them for co-pay they go directly to Social Security and get it deducted from your pension.  I’ve naturally got more than my fair share of sympathy for folks who can do that.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Kansas City Star

Posted on May 29, 2014 | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

The KS Star gave Boy Scout merit badge hunters a gold star on Sunday.  Jeanne and I figured to visit the Union Cemetery, oldest one in KC, on Memorial Day just for the hell of it.  Then I saw the KC Star front page had Boy Scouts out decorating graves of veterans there.  And everyone using the words ‘Veteran’ and ‘Warrior’ interchangeably.

This isn't Union Cemetery, but you get the idea anyway.

This isn’t Union Cemetery, but you get the idea anyway.

As it happens a lot of  one-time Confederates are buried at the Union Cemetery.  Once a person gets into the spirit of putting flags on graves, might as well send the troop out with Confederate battle flags, too.  Most were one-time Confederates who died decades after the Great War of Secession, but there’s a monument over the mass grave of Confederate POWs who died in a prison camp near here.  That one got a forest of Confederate battle flags.

I say this with some authority, though we took a pass on the Memorial Day visit.  Went out there Sunday, Memorial Day Eve, instead.  Though most of the burying that’s ever going to be done there has already happened, 55,000 funerals seems plenty for most normal purposes.  And a surprising lot had flags sticking up from them courtesy of Boy Scouts.  Back in the heyday of Union Cemetery veterans had a lot bigger wars to get drafted into.

Likely as not somewhere out there the Boy Scouts put German flags on WWI Germans who fought in the Big one on the wrong side before migrating to the US.  Maybe even a few from WWII.

Because the only way past the post-WWII series of incomprehensible US military adventures in foreign lands with any hope of inspiring those Boy Scouts to enlist to buy a piece of one is to ignore the Wars and glorify the warriors.  Dead or alive.  Company clerks, regimental band trumpet players, helicopter mechanics.  All heroes, all warriors, all guilty of conspicuous courage without having to do a damned thing to demonstrate it to anyone.

If you’ve never done anything worth mentioning in your entire life and never will, visit your Army recruiter.  Gets you a flag on your grave after everyone’s forgotten everything else about you.

A lot of old US Veterans have to be getting a lot of secret laughs about this in the privacy of their home bathrooms before they hoist their trousers, pluck their galluses over their shoulders, and carefully place their cammy ball caps with VETERAN over the visor onto their gray pompadours.

Old Jules

 

 

4 Comments

Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Curry fish for the Gods only

Posted on May 22, 2014 | 9 comments

ironhorse wall menu

The pink haired, much pierced daughter of the Hong Kongish couple owning the Iron Horse [low sodium] Asian restaurant spent a year or more doing the menu-items on the walls and ceiling. Prices don’t change much and aren’t likely to, I’m thinking.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

A person gets a hankering to eat someplace with storebought food occasionally, and if he does he can figure on getting a salt-load worthy of the Morton Girl.  Here in Olathe there’s a Chinese joint named the Iron Horse tries to breach the pattern, might even succeed except for the taste.  It’s not great, but they’ll swear there’s no added salt and no wossname monosodium glutamate.

But I gradually am coming to think I can’t afford to eat in food joints, and that they can’t make as good an Asian food as I can, and I know how much salt is in it.  Without having to listen and feel around for spots in front of my eyes or blind staggers.  Maybe if Chinese steel weren’t so lousy I’d be more prone to believe what’s said about the contents of food items.

Anyway, I was leading up to saying I made up the most toothsome stir-fry  curry dish without any salt at all last night, with steamed rice.  Gave Jeanne a taste before dumping it onto the rice.  A look of delight crossed her face briefly before she gasped, “Wow!” and ran for something to drink.

She’s of the opinion that all my years of loving habenero and other seasonings have left me bereft of taste buds.  Claimed she could feel that spoonful burning it’s way all the way down her goozle.

Being the best no-sodium Asian chef in Christiandom’s fairly nice, but I can’t find anyone else who can eat my creations.

Old Jules

 

 

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The Monastery: Mr. Vid and the Nun [Russian Orthodox in Norway]

Posted on May 21, 2014 | Leave a comment

Hi readers.  More Nun stuff.

Worlds collide, tempers flare and dreams come true when Mr. Vig, an 82-year-old Danish recluse who has never known love, and Sister Amvrosija, a headstrong nun, join forces to transform Mr. Vig’s run-down castle into a Russian Orthodox monastery.

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