Tag Archives: Human Behavior

The moving finger writes and then moves on: NM Floodplain Managers Association

Posted on August 27, 2013 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.

Fairly weird.  I was websearching for Mike Czosnek, a guy I used to do some Lost Adams Diggings searching with, and came across something that rocked me back on my heels. 

New Mexico Floodplain Managers Association http://www.nmfma.org/content.aspx?page_id=0&club_id=920799

An egg I laid, nurtured, hatched, and promptly forgot as soon as my career ended in 1999.

When I assumed the job of State Floodplain Manager for the State of New Mexico in 1992 the state had a law on the books to allow localities to adopt ordinances regulating building in designated floodplain areas, and for the residents of those to buy federally sponsored flood insurance to cover their damages when the creek did what it would inevitably do.

Someone had screwed up when the law was passed and left in language that could be construed [by me] requiring that the locally designated floodplain managers be trained and registered or licensed by the State Floodplain Manager or Administrator.  All that happened 15 years before my arrival, and had lain dormant and unnoticed.  Nobody in New Mexico had a clue what they’d agreed to, what they were supposed to be doing. 

The reason I was hired for the job was that FEMA was losing patience.  I was mandated by my grant to audit the local programs, report to FEMA what they weren’t doing according to their federal agreement, and hassle them to death until they did it.

Lousy, lousy, lousy job I had for a while travelling around the state being ignored and tolerated barely.  Then I happened to study the statute and came up with the idea.  Started hassling the hell out of local governments about not having registered or licensed [by me] floodplain managers whom I could lay some heavy crap on if they didn’t do their jobs.

“How do they become licensed?”

“They have to go through training.  Take a test.  I do the training at the [non-existent Floodplain Managers Association meetings.  Your people will have to join.”

The cage took a lot of rattling, but 1993, 1994, I put together an organizational meeting in Las Vegas, New Mexico.  Almost every participating community in New Mexico was represented.  Did some rudimentary training, had them adopt a constitution and by-laws, create officers [of which I refused to be one].

NM Floodplain Managers Association made my life a lot easier, reduced the amount of heckling and hassling I had to take from FEMA.  And became my primary training tool for the local communities.  Gradually got them training one another.

And my old buddy Mike Czosnek is still out there, treasurer of the damned thing.  Might have to stop in and see him when I get out that way.

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 1990's, America, Emergency Preparedness, Government, New Mexico, NM

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SWAT teams and militarized police forces – An outlet for frustrating human needs

Posted on August 27, 2013 by | 2 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.

I’ve noticed a few scattered concerns on the WEB by people who think the 21st Century militarization of civilian police forces is a bad thing.  Seems to me those complainers aren’t looking at the bigger picture.

Time was when a person with a mean streak, or just a desire  to kill someone didn’t have many options.  He could sneak around and do it and maybe get by with it a while, or he could get drunk and do it, and go to the slammer.  Or he could unhealthily suppress it and go around frustrated and unhappy.

But nowadays there are plenty of outlets for a person with those needs.  Sure, he might spend years becoming a SEAL, a Marine Sniper, or a Green Beret.  But those are really too large and too institutionalized for the local badass who just wants to blow the face off someone without being criticized for doing it.   Municipal, County, or State Police SWAT teams offer a lot easier outlet.  Plus, they’re clubs where all the members have the same goals and can be depended upon to protect one another by keeping their mouths shut if it’s needed. 

For instance, there used to be a cop in Socorro, New Mexico, who was involved in a couple of extremely questionable shootings.  Residents and city officials had all witnessed, or heard about his blusterings, his posturings, his suspected desire to use that firearm as frequently as possible.  After the second shooting incident he was quietly encouraged to find greener pastures elsewhere.

So he applied for, and was accepted to the Albuquerque Police.  Trained for the SWAT team.  Wasn’t long before he got to put a bullet into a suspect and got a lot of praise for doing it.  Short while later they were raiding a drug house and an 80 year old neighbor saw what was going on, thought it was a gang.  Ran out of his house with a flashlight, yelling, and the Ex-Socorro cop stopped him in his tracks.  Turned out the raid was conducted at the wrong address, but the 80 year old was found ex post facto to should have minded his own business.

A year or two later someone was holding a baby over a freeway overpass threatening to drop it into the traffic below.  Ex-Socorro cop plugged him so’s the baby only dropped on the overpass.  Hero again.

I heard over the years he got to kill a number of other people who got downrange of the Albuquerque SWAT team, as well.  Managed to make what would otherwise probably just been a lifetime spent in prison, or sneaking around murdering people, into a healthy, productive life.

People who criticize militarized police forces aren’t considering the needs of the SWAT teamers and the healthy way they’ve dovetailed themselves into the greater good of society.

Old Jules

2 Comments

Posted in 2000's, America, Government, Human Behavior, New Mexico, NM, Police

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Should’a done its

Posted on August 27, 2013 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

The last post about creeping cowardice was going to have some of this as a part of it, but became too lengthy so I saved it with the thought I’ve got a while to live yet and might still work it in somewhere.

I believe one of the ways a person might attain valid perspectives about himself and his life events is through hindsight.  Might be the only way.  If a person can look back and seriously say to himself, “I should have done it,” probably he should have done it.

I can’t say that about those two mine shafts because I know even now I’d have done them if I could, and I recognize for whatever reason, I couldn’t.  No ‘should have done it’ hidden in there.

But around 2002, 2003, there’s a should have done it I still occasionally experience a flash of regret about.  Just until my insistence about not to regret anything in my life kicks in to trump it.

There’s an airstrip, or was an airstrip parallel to the old highway running between Belen, Los Lunas, and Isleta Pueblo I used to always swing into when I was in the area.  A number of old airplanes to walk around and look at, wonder about, kick the tires of.  The airstrip was gradually becoming inactive.

But at one end there was an old Cessna 140 tied down.  I’d always go over and walk around, check it out.  Sometimes sit inside it.  Watch the tires gradually lose their air and grass get taller around it.

I asked the guys running a motorcycle shop that used to be an airplane related business about it.  The 140 belonged to a man who lived in the neighborhood adjacent to the air park.  He’d been experiencing advancing dementia … quit flying the plane a couple of years back.  One of them heard he was in a nursing home, and that his wife had died.  The house and plane were in an ambiguous ownership state as a result of complicated family matters.

When I heard that I began to realize that old plane needed to be taken around the patch a few times before it rotted to the ground.  Or before it found its way into Trade-A-Plane and got sold to someone in Alabama to fly off or be hauled off.

I did a lot of planning about that plane.  The battery was going to be dead, and maybe the fuel would have gone bad, but probably not.  Avgas tends to last a long time in a tied down airplane.  But there’s probably water condensed inside the tank if it wasn’t left full.  Water under the gas that would be drained off before the engine started.

I borrowed an air bottle and brought the tire pressure up on one of the trips, checked the oil, got inside and tested the controls.  Everything hunky dory.  Just needed to draw the water off the fuel tanks.  Fuel guages showed one full, one 3/4 tank.  The 3/4 tank would be the one most likely to have water in the fuel tank.

I never made a conscious decision not to take that old bird around the patch, do a few touch and goes.  My bud in Belen,  Deano, died and other matters kept me from going into that area without a special trip.  I suppose it just slipped my mind.

Which didn’t keep it from creeping back into my consciousness for years afterward, including now.  I can tell you today, I should have done it.  The way I know I should have is that I can’t think of a single reason why I shouldn’t have.

I’d be remembering that as my last pilot in command this lifetime, if I’d done it.  And instead of a sense of loss when it sneaks into my head, I’d be remembering those touch and goes in a Cessna 140.

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2000's, Adventure, New Mexico, NM, Senior Citizens, Transportation

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Advancing age and creeping cowardice

Posted on August 26, 2013 by | 12 comments

Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I’ve been noticing something in myself over the years that I suspect is fairly widespread, but doesn’t get discussed much.  I have an idea it’s a sensitive subject with older men.  I first noticed it in myself with an unexpected, irrational difficulty breathing and something akin to panic in situations I wouldn’t have been bothered by in the past.

I’ve done a little spelunking, gone into more abandoned mines than I could count and always got a thrill, a surge of enjoyment doing it.  But late in the 1990s Mel and I were looking over a couple of mine shafts from the 1800s, one at the ruins of Golden, New Mexico and another near Magdalena.  The first was the vertical shaft at Golden.

We carried all the right equipment up there, went prepared to go down the shaft 100 feet without any particular risk.  Mel was troubled by claustrophobia he’d acquired going into some tunnels in Vietnam, so I was elected to go down that shaft to collect some samples.

But as I lowered myself down that shaft I hadn’t descended thirty feet before all I wanted was to get the hell out of there.  I couldn’t breathe.  The prospect of going deeper into that hole quickly became a non-option.  I stayed on a ledge of rock trying to calm myself and get control enough to go deeper, but after a while it was obvious this was no longer a pleasure trip.

Mel taunted and heckled me about it the entire remainder of the jaunt, and I thought about it constantly, trying to understand what had happened.  Completely unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

There’s another vertical shaft near Magdalena we’d both fallen in love with and I definitely was determined to go down it.  I was sure I’d be able to if I worked and thought about what had happened at Golden enough.  But a couple of months later the attempt resulted in an identical failure.

It was easy not to think about it during the years afterward, and I didn’t.  But a while back I found I experienced something too similar to be much different when I was working on the Toyota RV, crawling around under it.  Same thing, near panic, difficulty breathing, an irrational need just to get the hell out from under there.

I’ve talked about this with some other old guys lately and have been surprised by their admissions they’ve experienced exactly the same thing, mainly in tight spaces.  When I described it they knew exactly what I was talking about, and they’d also never experienced anything akin to it when they were younger.

I don’t know what’s going on with all this, but seems to me if anyone has any guts anymore it ought to be old men.  This doesn’t bode well at all.

Old Jules

12 Comments

Posted in Adventure

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Lucky to have good allies

Posted on August 24, 2013 by | 12 comments

Thanks for coming by for a read, readers.

I was talking to an old guy in town the other day about how lucky the US is to have good, strong allies in this dangerous world.

Him:  Not many countries have been that lucky.  A lot of them hardly have any allies at all.

Me:  Good point.  Korea’s a good example.  If we didn’t have Korea for an ally there’s no telling what would have happened to Japan.  North Korea always threatening to nuke Japan, and all.

Him:  That’s right.  We have to keep a lot of troops over there to keep the North Koreans from invading our ally, South Korea, and nuking Japan.  Old Dugout Doug MacArthur had it right when he said, “Korea’s a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan.”

Me:  Yeah.  Costs a lot, but it’s worth it to protect a good ally.  Too bad Japan and Korea don’t have more friends and allies, though.  They’re rich as hell and if some other country could help protect them we could bring some of our troops home.

Him:  No way we can do that though.  We’d no sooner pull our troops out than someone would be going after Japan.

Me:  Well, I suppose it might not be so tempting before too long.  A nuke from North Korea won’t add much to what’s already there the way things are going.  And invading a country wouldn’t be much fun if the invading troops have to wear radiation suits to keep from being poisoned by radiation.

Him:  They are good allies though.  Korea and Japan, both.  I’d hate to see us have to get by without having them for allies.  They’ve done a lot for us.  Korea and Japan both.

Me:  I’m glad too.  It’s a scary world out there.  Without good allies like Korea and Japan things would be a lot scarier.  But we’re lucky we don’t have more.  I don’t think we could afford it.

Old Jules

12 Comments

Posted in 2013, America

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Old Sol: “Quit trying to play God!” – “Move Israel to Puerto Rico”

Posted on August 24, 2013 by | 3 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

This pre-dawn Old Sol laid it on fairly thickly.

Old Sol:  With this procedure I’ll be going through I need some quiet time.  I don’t need any unexpected emotional upheavals nor any drama to add to the stress.  I’m depending on my Chosen People to keep things settled down.  You don’t have anything in the works to rattle things do you?

Me:  I don’t think so.  The Japanese seem to have the Pacific Ocean fairly well taken care of so you won’t have to concern yourself with it much longer.  I suppose Israel might nuke someone and get itself wiped off the map, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise.  They’ve been working on that fifty years.

Old Sol:  I swear!  Things were calm in the Middle East for almost a thousand years.  Then you people and the British had to play God.  Moved those people back there and I haven’t heard about anything but trouble there for half a century.

Me:  Just trying to do what was right.

Old Sol:  What was right?  If I wanted those people living there making trouble I’d never have allowed the Romans to run them off.  If you wanted to give them a homeland why there, where they were sure to make trouble?  Why not Puerto Rico?  You OWNED that.  Water on all sides.  Nobody to piss off except the people already there.

Me:  They didn’t want Puerto Rico.  They thought you wanted them where they used to be.

Old Sol:  Why would they think that?  I haven’t even hinted they’re Chosen People since a long time before the Romans ran them out.  If they want to be Chosen People they need to be in the US or a US territory.  Give them Puerto Rico.  They’ll be part of the Chosen People again.  Part of the United States.  And the only borders they can violate will be salt water.  End of problem.

Me:  But what about the Puerto Ricans?  They think they already own the place.

Old Sol:  Send them to Texas.  Put them to work in all those new oil fields I just gave you.  No trouble.  Those Zionists will have a homeland and get to be part of the Chosen People again, and the Puerto Ricans will have jobs.  Besides, I always intended Texas to be mostly for Mexicans.  Puerto Ricans are mostly Mexicans.

Me:  I’ll pass this on, but nobody’s going to like it.

Old Jules

3 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Astronomy, Current Issues, History

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Old Sol’s gender change

Posted on August 22, 2013 by | 6 comments

The sun’s magnetic field is about to flip

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/05aug_fieldflip/

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.

Praying up Old Sol this morning He brought up a sensitive issue we’re all going to have to try to work with. Hurting the feelings of Old Sol might not be wise at this stage of the game.

Old Sol:  Now that you’re finally recognizing that the United States is My Chosen People instead of that bunch of imposters over in the Middle East there are a couple of things we ought to get straight.

Me:  I’m pretty much up for anything.  Is this a good time for you?

Old Sol:  It’s okay.  I’ve got a little time right now.  Later on I’ll have My people call your people to hammer out the details.

Me:  So what’s on your mind?

Old Sol:  Well, it’s about this Old Sol thing, and about He.  That’s been okay for the past eleven years, but it’s about to change.  It won’t be long before I’m a She instead of a He.

Me:  Hmmmm.  It’s going to take some getting used to.  I suppose we can work it in somehow.  We’ve changed all kinds of other things during the past generation.

Old Sol:  Actually it’s not just the He and She thing.  There’s more to it.  A male doesn’t mind being called old.  But I’m about to be female gender, and having My Chosen People throwing around the word ‘Old’ probably won’t be the best way of keeping things straight and level.

Me:  Wow.  I hadn’t thought about that.

Old Sol:  That’s the reason I’m bringing it up.  Old Lady Sun, Mama Sun, Mama Sol, none of those would be prudent under the circumstances.  Allowances can be made for slips using He because human habits are just not easy to change.  But flippancy could cause some anger.

Me:  Sheeze.  Okay.  I’ll have my people call your people.

Old Jules

6 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Astronomy, Science, Spirituality

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The abomination of cross-species sex

Posted on August 22, 2013 by | 1 comment

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

The cats were a mite disturbed when they heard me talking on the phone to someone describing mule jacks and how human beings go about arranging mules.   A jackass has feelings

Hydrox:  That’s disgusting!  Don’t they have laws to keep people from doing those kinds of things?

Me:  Um.  No.

Niaid:  Yuk!  Tricking some poor donkey into screwing a horse?  And that isn’t against the law?

Me:  I don’t think you’re seeing the big picture here.  They want mules.  Not much use for a donkey, but mules can be handy.  They’re not doing it for fun, nor just as some kind of perverted turn-on.

Tabby:  Yeah, you SAY that.  But I’ll bet there are guys up in the hayloft watching and kicking off their jollies.  It doesn’t make sense any other way.

Me:  No no no.  You aren’t getting what I’m saying.  Those people aren’t interested in the erotic side of donkey/horse intercourse.  They’re after persuading the male donkey, the jackass, to get the lady horse pregnant.  Nobody’s filming it to put on a website for the gratification of deranged people.

Hydrox:  Do they do that with CATs?  Are people out there making cats think they’re dogs and making them YUK do THAT? [Shudder]

Me:  Hmmm. Well, probably if they are it’s only in the sanctity of a science lab somewhere.  No harm intended.  Just science guys scrambling things, throwing things into test tubes to see what happens.

Niaid:  That is absolutely incredible.  What is wrong with you humans?  Do you suppose the humane society people know that’s going on?

Me:  Maybe.  Some of them.  As a rule humane society people are fairly single minded, though.  Don’t pay a lot of attention to what’s going on around them if it doesn’t involve arguing over which way of killing things is best.

Hydrox:  I swear, every day I live I get a new surprise about human beings.  You creatures are so wrapped up in yourselves you can’t see your own noses.

Me:  Yeah, that’s mostly true I guess.  But at least it’s only human beings on the porn websites I’d imagine.  At least people aren’t getting their jollies off about the donkeys and mares.  And there IS a field called animal husbandry, so I suppose some decent people at least force the jackass to marry the mare to make it less objectionable.  Animal preachers to do weddings, perform marriages and whatnot.  Keep it from being so perverted.

Old Jules

1 Comment

Posted in 2013, America, Animals

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Being a marketable commodity: A ticket to the Promised Land

Posted on August 21, 2013 by | 3 comments

21 grams aftermath 3

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

During the hardest, leanest times of my life, shortly after Y2K, I used to visit with the Korean guy who owned the trashed out motel across the parking lot from the Chinese joint my one-room apartment was situated behind.  [I mentioned that motel before because one of the scenes from the movie 21 Grams was filmed there.]

Kim, the old Korean guy used to come over and we’d drink coffee and talk about Korean places we both knew.  He’d stare around him and say, “Man, you are POOR!”

Me:  I ain’t poor.

Kim:  This is America!  You don’t have to live this way.

I did odd jobs of handyman work for Kim to make a little cash sometimes, so I didn’t boot him out on his ass, calling me poor.  And one day Kim offered me a proposition.

Kim told me there were wealthy families in Korea who had daughters they’d love to see become US citizens.  Said they’d pay a man thousands of dollars for marrying one of them, staying married long enough to get her papers completed, then divorce.

He made it clear this would be strictly a business proposition.  No kissee kissee fickycick in the deal.  Cash and carry all the way.

Kim offered to put me in touch with some Korean families who were in the market for that kind of work.  I thought about it long and hard, but one thing led to another and I never did it.

But I was telling Jeanne about it on the phone, just remembering, a while back and it came to me.  I’m betting there’s a lot more of that nowadays than there was then, and that the price is sky high.  I’d bet there are Japanese who’d pay out the wazoo to get a piece of their gene pool somewhere east of the Mississippi river these days.  Not to mention rich Chinamen, Koreans, Malasians, hell, who knows.  Maybe even Arabs.

Hell, I’m thinking if times ever get really hard I’ll trim my mustache, polish my boots and go after some of that easy money if the price is right.  The world’s full of pest holes I’ll bet rich wealthy people with Swiss bank accounts would love to get their daughters out of.

Wonder if old Kim’s still owner of that motel.

Old Jules

3 Comments

Posted in Adventure, America, Politics

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Why the Jews used to be God’s Chosen People but aren’t any more

Posted on August 21, 2013 by | 22 comments

Hi Readers.   Thanks for coming by for a read.

After we prayed Old Sol up this morning I was explaining to the cats about how and why God picked the Jews for his Chosen People and didn’t give a hoot in hell for any of the rest of humanity.

He did it out of hunger, I explained patiently.  God looked around and, while nobody down there was any great shakes, there were a lot of them.  Trying to make human beings as a species Chosen instead of a single pocket of them was just not worth the effort.  The Jews would do okay for a while until something else came along.

Things began to look up after 1492, and after 1776, God could see he finally had some worthwhile raw material to work with down there on earth.  And the more He looked at the situation the better He liked it.

Today God couldn’t care less about any Jews besides the ones living in America.  He’s completely indifferent about Roman Catholics living all over the place except America.  Same with Zen Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims.  Same with Latter Day Saints, and the various Native American religions.  Americans are Gods Chosen People today.  All of them.  God cares more about an American atheist than He does about a Roman Pope, because at least that atheist is an American.  Chosen.

Just like before, when it was only Jews, God doesn’t give a hoot in hell about anyone else on the planet.

God loves American Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Christians, Taoists, you name it.  And He has perfectly good reasons for doing it, same as he had originally when he made regular Jews His Chosen People, and they blew it. 

The competition back then was just no great shakes.  It still isn’t.

If you don’t believe me look at all those shale oil deposits they’re suddenly finding under the United States every time they poke a hole in the ground.   If that doesn’t convince you look around a bit more.  Americans have Chinamen working three shifts to build their toasters.  They’ve got Japanese designing and manufacturing their cars instead of worrying about having two-headed offspring.  They’ve got Middle Easterners giving them excuses to keep a military establishment big enough to fight the USSR in the golden days of the Cold War.  They’ve got Israel keeping things stirred up so’s there’s no danger anyone much will survive what’s going to happen there.

If Americans aren’t God’s Chosen People why are they building that big fence on the US Border with Mexico?  Do you think all that starving and killing going on everywhere, say in South America and Africa happened by accident?  Hell no it didn’t.    You don’t see that kind of crap happening to God’s Chosen People.

God bless America.

Old Jules

22 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, History, Human Behavior, Spirituality

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