WordPress didn’t show this abomination and wouldn’t allow me to edit it in. Look at all the land down there that might have shale oil on it the cheating sneaking thieving Mexicans were allowed to keep.
Who the hell needs Iraq and Afghanistan?
Mexican–American War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War
Posted in 2013, America, Education, History
Tagged History, Mexican Cession, Mexican War, Mexico, oil, oil shale
Hi readers. Thanks for the visit.
Probably some of you have noticed as I have that things in Washington D.C. aren’t always as they appear to be.
The reasons for this reach deeply into the psyche of the people who call themselves Americans. They’re entrenched in the idealized construct of the US Constitution and the romantic, dehumanized cardboard cutouts of the ‘founding fathers’, US presidents, generals, politicians and jurists. By definition their motives were pure, their decisions and actions were entirely driven by the desire to protect the rights of the future citizenry.
A classical view of all this would note a few contradictions inside the fog of idealism. The supposed ability of the judiciary, for instance, to shed the skin of partisanship and self-interest once sworn into office. The fact a substantial portion of the humanity born inside the borders, the ‘Indians’, were not to be included in the census, not to be taxed. In fact, were not citizens at all when it came to the protected rights of citizenship. The only protections the US Constitution provided them were treaty obligations approved by the US Congress. Even the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in 1868 pretended the tribes governed themselves and the US Government had no jurisdiction over them. Excluded for automatic citizenship even those who gave up tribal affiliations.
Keeping the options open, those realists. Kept them open until 1924, by which time the protection of any rights they might have had as citizens couldn’t do them a hell of a lot of good.
Not to say impartial or non-partisan Supreme Court jurists, or what happened to the rights of American Indians has anything to do with anything except reality.
The reality. Washington D.C. is inhabited by human beings looking out for their own best interests. They’ve pared the environment down so it’s contained in a two-party system to protect itself from intruders, outsiders, invaders. They’re all singing from the same songbook inside the conch shell where the only sound you hear is their ocean.
Whining about taxes, rights protected by Constitutional amendments, undeclared wars and candidates for National elected offices who aren’t blessed with chins can’t penetrate the walls of the conch shell.
The reality is that if any of that can be changed it can’t happen in a capsule of romantic form anchored to a past that never existed, celluloid people canonized in myth and a piece of paper with less substance than a US dollar.
Playing nicknack tallywack inside Washington’s two-party system only results in them throwing the dog a bone. But the dogs do love it.
That’s reality.
Old Jules
Posted in 2013, America, Government, Politics
Tagged 14th Amendment, American Indians, citizenship, Congress, Constitution, culture, History, lifestyle, politics, Reflections, US Constitution, White House
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.
I keep hearing about something called WossnameCare, which I don’t know what is and honestly don’t want to know. Anything that names itself after a US president tends to arouse suspicion for me. Strikes me as an attempt by someone who sees himself as the most powerful person in the world to inject his name into history books, along with a particular slant. The fact an enormous lot of US citizens are opposed to is suggests it would be worthy of a lot of careful study before anyone formed an opinion.
But it also brings to mind something I believe is a flaw in the way we remember US presidents of the past, figuring out whether they did anything good, and remembering them for that. The entire world and the citizenry of the US would probably be better served if we all remembered US presidents for the absolutely awful, terrible, long-range disasterous things they did and decisions they made. An object lesson to anyone holding that office as a warning he’ll be remembered by history for his follies.
A few examples, in case I’m not expressing myself clearly.
Franklin Rooseveltcare might be a good place to begin. Roosevelt gave us the Manhattan Project and the nuclear bomb. Franklin Roosevelt can be said to be responsible for the Cold War Mutual Assured Destruction, that whole nest of horrors, as well as all that damned radiation contamination the Japanese are dumping into the sky and the Pacific Ocean.
Harry Trumancare. The endless serious of undeclared presidential wars he began.
Lyndon Johnsoncare. The Vietnam War legacy and more importantly, the welfare state.
Richard Nixoncare. A Chinese toaster in every kitchen and a dead US toaster-making industry.
Ronald Reagancare. Generations of an endless War on Drugs, a prison industry and the US becoming the country with more prisoners held in prisons than any other country in the world.
Bill Clintoncare. The careful planting and nurturing of the US police state.
Father and Son Bushcare. Endless wars and military adventures in the Middle East.
US presidents are in office because they are attracted to the thought of being the most powerful person in the world. US presidents want their names in history books. Naturally most of them are functionally illiterate and haven’t spent a lot of time reading history books. They just have to ride along on gut feel and what they think previous presidents are praised for doing, remembered for doing.
And if US presidents are remembered for the ways they’ve managed to convert the United States to the country it has become, is still becoming, they might well take a deeper look at what they are about. Give a few thoughts to consequences.
Old Jules
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read. Apologies in advance to those of you who never saw or read Deliverance.
One of the problems that comes from ten generations of intermarried first cousins running the country is they all begin to think it’s about Dueling Banjos. They start believing it’s perfectly natural Bobby’s over there squealing like a pig. Nobody wants to rock the canoe.
But at the moment the reason Bobby’s over there in the White House squealing like a pig is that Saudi Arabia and their cousins in Israel are pressuring the hell out of him to bomb their other cousins in Syria. Same as they’re doing over there in Congress where they understand all about squealing like pigs for the White House, Israel, Saudi Arabia, anyone with the money to buy a quickie.
It’s all become a habit. Nobody 75 years ago would have dreamed there’d come a time when the President of the US could believe he could bomb the bejesus out of anyone he wanted to anytime he wanted to without anyone raising an eyebrow. Nobody would have believed US Presidents could take the country into a series of endless wars without consulting Congress. Nobody would have believed any president could believe he could do it and get by with it.
But that all changed with a lot of other things. And now we’ve got a guy in the White House hysterical because he wants to give a war and nobody’s willing to come. Standing on one leg, then the other saying he’s going to get permission from Congress, then saying he doesn’t have to. Saying he’s the only one needs to pick the tune for all of us.
And all those hydrocephalic banjo players over in Congress listening to Israel lobbyists handing them nice stuff under the table, Saudi Arabian lobbyists giving them free trips to Tahiti and porn stars in their hotel rooms to help them remember where their loyalty belongs.
Meanwhile, the world’s died laughing and decided they’ve had enough of US Presidents and their big-headed advisors telling them who needs the bejesus bombed out of them. Which puts Bobby into a hell of a fix.
Bobby knows if he doesn’t do what Israel and Saudi Arabia tell him to do, he’s got a Vice President who will. He knows he can be LBJed same as Kennedy was. LBJed and J. Edgar Hoovered by one of the packs of goons and snipers he’s helped put into place on all the rooftops. He never figured he’d be the one in the crosshairs he helped create.
It’s no wonder he’s squealing like a pig.
Old Jules
Posted in 2013, America, Government, History, Military, Police, Politics
Tagged Congress, Deliverance, Dueling Banjos, Events, History, Human Behavior, musings, Obama, politics, random, Reflections, Saudi Arabia, Syria
Hi readers. When I got back from town yesterday and was putting the groceries into hideyholes and places they wouldn’t scatter hell-to-breakfast in the RV when it went up the hill again I came across a slip of paper the cashier put in one of the bags. Had a ‘code’ number on it and said if I went to HEB.com/viva and put in that number I could win valuable prizes.
Well, heck. I was thinking I wouldn’t mind winning a free bag of potatoes, a bag of onions, who knows? Maybe some cat food or a pound of cheese. A nice brisket would be nice.
So naturally I plugged in the website, went through my name, email address, zipcode and age to get all whetted down so’s I could find out if my number was a big winner.
Whoopteedooo! I won a free pass to some museum 100, 150 miles away from here I wouldn’t go to without a gun to my head. Those folks surely do take care of their customers and know how to build enthusiasm for promotions.
I should have known a grocery store chain had better sense than to give away something valuable such as a bag of potatoes or onions. Old Jules |
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Posted in 2000's, America, Texas
Tagged brisket, economy, grocery store chain, H.E.B., Human Behavior, lifestyle, miscellaneous, other, personal, Reflections, senior citizens
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
I slipped over to Yahoo News when I got online this morning, wanted to find out whether the world went up in smoke during the night. Turns out all the news is piddly stuff mostly, nosy things allowing the non-celebrities spot checks into what life’s like for the sainted big named and big-breasted.
But something caught my eye about some 10 year old kid who found a mummy in the attic of the house his grandparents owned. Brought to mind what a great judge of character I pride myself being.
Early 2000s a friend of mine died near Belen, NM. He and I loved the same books about history, etc, and he used to joke he’d leave me that several walls of books we both cherished, when he died. And I’d tell him I would kill him if he left me those books to have to drag around and find someone else to leave them to.
His house was a museum of artifacts he’d found. We’d even done some artifact searching together. I think some of those mini-balls on one of the lead pictures on this blog were found when we were somewhere together.
So when I saw in the Albuquerque paper that he’d died I was careful not to contact anyone concerning the fact we knew one another. Not because I was afraid he’d left me those books, either.
Turned out he’d been robbing graves down in the neighborhood of where those mini-balls were found. Maybe graves elsewhere, old ones.
Back room of that house was jam-packed with human remains a century-or-more old. Bastard never showed them to me, all the time we were sitting around drinking coffee and talking about history.
Which I suppose is okay, because I put a high value on his friendship, enjoyed knowing him a lot. And sometimes even then I’d forget how old I was and have to decide spur-of-the-moment whether to open a can of whupass on someone.
In his case if I’d known what he had in that back room we might have had to pick our weapons out of his museum and go at it. I had a lot of mixed feelings swirling around inside me when the news came out and he had his brief day in the sun.
I’d have never suspected it of him. So he’s the exception proving the rule. I’ve got everyone else figured out.
Old Jules
Posted in 2000's, Adventure, America, History, Libraries, New Mexico, NM
Tagged History, Human Behavior, lifestyle, miscellaneous, musings, other, personal
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
Jeanne told me on the phone last night she was surprised by my several references to LBJ arranging for the death of JFK. “I didn’t think you believed in conspiracies, for the most part.”
And for the most part she’s right. I don’t believe human beings are honest enough and consistent enough to pull off successful conspiracies over the long haul. Someone’s going to let the cat out of the bag. And I think the cat has been coming out of the bag about the Kennedy assassination gradually for a considerable while.
I don’t know or care who was directly responsible for the Dallas shooting. To me, JFK was just another US President, no better, no worse than the last several. I’m not offended, not in any way exercized by the fact someone offed him.
But I do believe there’s a fair body of evidence LBJ knew ahead of time Kennedy was going to be killed. And he knew who knew everything else about it. Other than that he mightn’t have been involved, beyond giving it his tacit approval.
The LBJ Library in Austin has the tapes of all the White House LBJ telephone conversations of the time. Here’s a conversation between LBJ and J Edgar Hoover, FBI Director, shortly after the Dallas event. LBJ starts by grilling Hoover about why his friend John Connally, Governor of Texas, got a bullet. Then he goes on to discuss how the investigation into the assassination can be kept small.
LBJ TAPES: Kennedy Assassination 1 (J. Edgar Hoover) .
http://youtu.be/4ZWERQevzms
Seems to me it’s clear that Hoover knew exactly who did the shooting and what the shooter intended to hit. And that LBJ knew that Hoover knew.
The people who upload YouTube videos frequently intend to use the videos to help watchers interpret them as the uploaders think they should. I believe this has happened with a number of the Kennedy assassination YouTube videos. For instance, I don’t believe LBJ’s mistress knew whether LBJ engineered the killing of JFK. But I believe it’s clear from what she describes that LBJ knew about the plans to kill Kennedy before it happened.
LBJ’s Mistress Blows Whistle On JFK Assassination .http://youtu.be/79lOKs0Kr_Y
Again, I don’t think this means LBJ told anyone to kill Kennedy. He might just have tacitly approved of them doing it and agreed to keep his mouth shut.
By one of those strange coincidences of history, Richard Nixon, a man who hated Kennedy as much as anyone alive at the time, happened to have been in Dallas for a couple of days when Kennedy came to town.
November 21, 1963 – Richard M. Nixon in Dallas, Texas .
http://youtu.be/UkeCQWk9ID8
Nixon evidently believed there was a middling good chance LBJ had Kennedy shot, as he joked years later.
NIXON jokes about LBJ killing JFK .
http://youtu.be/OJIb73SPzkE
E. Howard Hunt, one of the guys who went to prison for the Watergate affair, admitted on his death bed he’d been involved in the Kennedy killing and named others.
E. Howard Hunt Outs Lyndon Johnson in JFK Assassination Plot
http://youtu.be/bD4611qW6R8
This one’s hokey and unreliable, but I think at least it can be said RFK probably believed LBJ had John Kennedy killed.
RFK to Johnson: “Why did you kill you have my brother killed
http://youtu.be/zzWNDPx4Pm0
The conversation you hear on tape isn’t about LBJ, JFK, though. It’s about Hoover investigating RFK and whether RJK is trying to violently overthrow LBJ and the US Government by force.
Lyndon Johnson Admits To Walter Cronkite That He Killed Kennedy .
http://youtu.be/xd1wuXrVPjo
This Walter Cronkite interview with LBJ years later is probably the strongest testimony that LBJ didn’t actually give the orders for the killing. But that he thoroughly believed there was a conspiracy involved involving several others.
As I’ve said, I don’t think it matters who was behind the Kennedy killing. Nor why they did it. But I don’t blame LBJ for being pissed Connally got shot with JFK. Connally was still alive, knew a lot about LBJ and was able to talk. LBJ needed to be able to assure Connelly it was an accident, him getting hit.
John Connally’s first interview after 11/22/63
http://youtu.be/cP04_lGjkO0
Collateral damages, no harm intended. “Sorry old buddy. Someone screwed up.”
And 50 years later, who the hell cares? Human beings make lousy conspirators. People eventually talk.
Old Jules
Posted in 1960's, America, Government, History, Texas
Tagged Austin TX, conspiracy theories, Dallas, E Howard Hunt, J. Edgar Hoover, JFK, John Connelly, Kennedy assassination, LBJ, LBJ Library, politics, richard nixon, Walter Cronkite
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
I promised the other day that I’d relate one more precious memory of John and Jackie Kennedy’s Boston adventure.
So here it is.
All those men lined up along Boylston Street, including Julio, Tonyand I were still mesmerized by the thoughts of whether Jackie Kennedy would be an inspired bed partner. The street between the police cordons was vacant for a moment, when suddenly the sound of a bell clanging brought our attention back.
Hell bent down empty Boylston came a vehicle pulling an open trailer. A guy was on the back of the trailer ringing a huge bell mounted there, big bell. Church bell sized, rather than locomotive sized. On the side of the trailer was a huge sign, “KRUSHCHEV SAYS, ‘WE WILL BURY YOU!”
They zipped past us, hung a hard left around Boston Plaza, and swung in behind the emptying motorcade in front of the Plaza Hotel. Still ringing that damned bell. [Likely the granddaddy of the patriots of today, I’m thinking by hindsight.]
Friends and readers, this whole thing was not in keeping with the high standards Boston wanted in their welcoming Ken and Barbie to town. Every cop on Boylston forgot about that yellow tape and ran across Boston Plaza, pulling their billy clubs out as they ran. Wasn’t any time at all before that trailer was surrounded by Boston’s finest and all an observer could see was the backs of cops and a forest of billy clubs rising and falling.
They weren’t aiming for that bell, either. Didn’t hear it clang one single time after the first club rose and fell.
But you’ve got to admit the guy had imagination and class. A freaking liberty bell! You surely don’t see that anymore. All these teapartying occupiers just go around telling one another inane BS about what they think about guns and abortion and Wall Street.
If that guy with the liberty bell lived through the next five minutes after the cops got him, he might be still alive. He could teach these modern jerks a thing or two about how to deliver messages to the Kens and Barbies.
Having some Secret Service or Homeland Security thug put a rifle bullet through your face before the cops arrived with mace and 20,000 volt non-lethal zappers to finish you off ought not deter anyone from a little display of class and imagination.
Old Jules
Posted in 1960's, America, Government, Human Behavior, Politics
Tagged Boston, boylston street, cars, cops, jackie kennedy, John Kennedy, Kruschev, occupy wall street, Plaza Hotel, transportation
Hi readers.
Representative democracy isn’t working and pretty well everyone knows it. Potential voters aren’t interestedand most don’t even recognize the costumes candidates wear to disguise themselves. Citizens have learned from hard experience that they can vote for Snuffy Smith, L’il Abner or Joe Palooka and they still end up with Daddy Warbucks.
Moving the seat of the US government to Disneylandwould go a long way toward correcting that. Everyone would know the candidates, known them all their lives. A vote for Mickey Mouse or Goofy wouldn’t get you Scrooge McDuck in the White House. Everyone is honest in Disneyland, and you get what you pay for. Drucilla doesn’t get any glass slippers, Chittychittybangbang doesn’t have an atomic warhead and the Lady and the Tramp are all right there where everyone can see the fire hydrants.
The other advantage is that the Powerball Lottery HQ is right there in Orlando, close enough to move the IRS in there with them and do something about how the government can raise money on a more even-handed basis. They could have billion dollar jackpots and just end their foreign wars a day earlier to pay off the winners. Hell, everyone would be buying tickets. And they wouldn’t gripe about doing it.
They could have a drawing every day giving away a billion dollars, all the while cutting off one day in the distant future when they’d end the wars overseas, bring the troops home. It would assure that someday the past would catch up with the future and voila! No more foreign military adventures!
Mary Poppins would make one hell of a lot better president than any we’ve had since wossname, Washington.
Old Jules
Posted in America, Animals, Gambling, Government, Human Behavior, Lottery
Tagged Disney World, Disneyland, Human Behavior, Mickey Mouse, miscellaneous, musings, politics, Powerball Lottery, thoughts, US Government, Washington
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read. Not all of this is humor.
Must have been November, 1962, election day in Massachusetts though we didn’t know it. Three young GIs in uniform, Tony Bozza, Julio Ditata and I were off work. We lived in a brownstone house converted to apartments on Beacon Street, so we wandered over to an ice-cream joint on Boylston Street across from Boston Plaza.
As we finished off our ice cream we saw police cordoning off Boylston Street, people drifting in behind them. Something was happening so we rushed out for a front-line position. Asked one of the cops what was going on.
King/President Kennedy was in town. Came to vote for his brother for the Senate. Maybe State Senate. I can’t recall for certain. JFK was going to stay at the Plaza Hotel across the street. “Salute when he drives by!” He scowled at our uniforms. [In those days the military was appropriately recognized as shit. Nobody saying, “OOOOO thank you for your service”.]
Eventually along came the limo, JFK sitting up on the back the way you’ve seen his picture in Dallas a year later. He was patting his cheeks red with the cold. Barbie, Jackie, whatever, was sitting down closest us gazing vacantly at the admirers lining the street, bored. No further than from here to the door from us.
After the motorcade passed and circled over to the Plaza Hotel across the Plaza the cluster of admirers thinned and another incident happened I’ll tell you about another time. But we GIs all looked at one another shaking our heads.
Julio: Man I’d like to screw her!
Tony: Fat chance of that! She wouldn’t screw anyone with less than a million dollars.
Me: Felt good looking at her, though. Pretty woman.
A year later I was in Korea when Kennedy went to Dallas and LBJ arranged to have him offed. The Stars and Stripes newspaper was full of pictures of LBJ, Barbie-Jackie, Kennedy in the back of that limo. I thought a lot about that day in Boston.
LBJ stayed out of the backs of open limousines, but more importantly, nobody would have wanted to screw Lady Byrd Johnson.
Fact is, the historical precedent has worked fairly well. If a King dies, his Queen takes over things until other kinfolk can fight it out and settle things. And if Barbie-Jackie Kennedy had been vice president and taken over the White House things would have been a lot more better for the US.
LBJ would never have been VP never been prez because nobody would have wanted to risk having Lady Byrd for prez. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident and the Vietnam War would have never happened.
Hell, when Ma Ferguson took over as Governor of Texas after her husband died she pardoned half the people serving time in Texas penal institutions. Hell of a lot better Guv than her hubby.
And one of the US Prezes, maybe Taft, became incapacitated in office, his wife took over his duties for the remainder of his term. Didn’t feel obliged to get us into a single damned war.
I’m sitting here trying to think of some Vice President we wouldn’t have been better off replacing with the wife of the croaked prez. Elleanor Roosevelt surely wouldn’t have been a bad’un compared to Harry Truman. And hell, Mary Todd Lincoln was conducting seances in the White House. That would certainly have been better than Johnston, who got himself impeached.
I haven’t looked at the others, but I’m betting the same would be true, their wives better than their legal VP replacements.
But nowadays they’d need to be good looking, as well as rich girlygirls graduated from Vassar. Barbie’s good compared to Ken, but if Barbie and Ken go to the White House again we’ll need to know how she looks in a bikini.
Old Jules
Posted in America, History, Politics, Texas
Tagged Boston Plaza, boylston street, Eleanor Roosevelt, G.I.s, jackie kennedy, JFK, Korea, Lady Bird Johnson, LBJ, Mary Todd Lincoln, stars and stripes, Vice President
74 years old, a resident of Leavenworth, KS, in an apartment located on the VA campus. Partnered with a black shorthaired cat named Mister Midnight. (1943-2020)
Since April, 2020, this blog is maintained by Jeanne Kasten (See "About" page for further information).
https://sofarfromheaven.com/2020/04/21/au-revoir-old-jules-jack-purcell/
So Far From Heaven 