Tag Archives: war

How to get rid of guns: The 3-year plan

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So here we are, one week after Newtown, one week after 20 children were killed in minutes by another man with a gun. Do we have any new laws about guns yet? Ummm. No.

http://www.phillytrib.com/cityandregionarticles/item/7131-mayors-call-for-tougher-gun-laws.html

Lot of talk. Yibber, yabber. “Make all those automatic rifles illegal.” Yeah that’ll do it. Probably get passed in 2013, or maybe 2014 or 2015, or maybe never, depending on what the NRA says to all those Congressmen who want to get elected with NRA money, depending on how many Texans and their oil money contribute to TV ads about why changing gun laws won’t matter. After all, “Guns don’t kill. It’s the people who pull the trigger, particularly crazy people.”

If there wasn’t a trigger to pull, however, no one could kill 20 kids in minutes with a gun. Not crazy people, not smart premeditated sociopaths, not teenagers with a grudge. Of course there are still bombs. There you go again, trying to change the subject. Let’s concentrate on guns.

I’ve got a great proposal to get action faster, in the next year instead of a decade. You see, I know how hard it is to get things changed in people. I see it every day. Ask someone to stop smoking to prevent a heart attack, a stroke, lung cancer, or worsening asthma in their kids. Nah, Doc, I like my smokes. But when they actually get that heart attack, or stroke, or lung cancer, or their kid almost dies in ICU from an asthma attack? Everything changes in a Marlboro minute. You just need motivation. Ask any mafia boss: Threaten their lives? You get action.

So here’s my Mafioso suggestion: It’s a three-year plan, gives gun owners a chance to get used to the new world. First year, the kicker year: Put a trace on all registered guns. Find out where they are in the community. Put their names on the internet. Top of the list, put anyone who owns an automatic weapon, be it rifle or pistol. At the same time make a law that they have one year to turn those automatic weapons in, or go to jail. If you turn it in in that year, you get a tax deduction. Nice one, too. Gotta make it nice. The deduction will be the largest the sooner you turn it in. But still pretty good on day 364. After that year, stroke of midnight, not a second longer, all those guns are taken, confiscated, by force if necessary, and the owner jailed, five years for every automatic weapon confiscated that is registered. Any illegal ones found—life sentence. Any resistance, shoot ‘em. If they are in public office, other than a legal gun-toting law enforcement officer, they get fired, no pension and put in federal penitentiary for treason along with a front page mug shot on the New York Times, and of course the internet.

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_by_the_fbi

Now I’m telling you, once this gets going, pretty quick, instead of 300 million guns there will only be 200 million. Second year: go after all rifles. Third year: go after all the handguns.Of course there will be holdouts, illegal ones at that. They get death sentence if illegal. Others, double time in jail, no parole.

After three years you might have a few hundred thousand guns out there. Now that’s action.

What about people who hunt? They can only rent a gun from a bona fide, licensed outfitter, and only for the time they are hunting. They can only practice at registered shooting galleries, be they outside or in, after first renting the gun there.

Who will enforce it? Why those we trust in law enforcement and the military. You do trust them, don’t you? You better. They will soon be the only ones with guns. As it should be.

Maybe a little harsh? Ask any parent of a Newtown kid killed. They will agree, and may want even worse, like maybe shooting the owners first born.

Just think, what would it be like in a country without guns? How many police would we actually need? The police we had might actually be able to concentrate on the illegal guns. There might be a lot more urban families with fathers.

Granted, after the first year you might have more crowded jails. But I think if you were really serious, and the gun owners saw that, maybe they would give up quicker. Of course maybe you would have a war on your hands. But at least the war would be about something important, saving kids instead of oil.

Milt

Fathers and sons.

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These excerpts from “Dan’s War” witness a soliloquy by Dan Trotter, the main protagonist, a man who has a hard time with emotion, sees prime numbers the same way he sees his loved ones, in pastel colors. Yet, he does feel for his son, Jeff, as you will read.
I’ve included this video again as I think it is so powerful and adds so much to the book.

[This is Dan speaking.]
“What is a father’s love for a son? I’ve had some time to think about this … ”
“You might say it is, at first blush, the love of a name–my name, carried past death; a celebration of his birth realizing the continuance of a line, a pedigree. How stupid is that, right? It’s only a name.”
[Then Dan watches a little boy (whose name I will keep secret here) fall, not cry, but push up and run and smile at Dan.]
Dan grinned. “Yep, the boy-things I loved next. We were both guys, so we did rough and tumble things, testosterone-enhanced, like football, rugby, baseball–pitting strength, one against another.”

It was a long hike, but we got there! Lawn Lake

[Dan follows the little boy around a garden, a garden that is special to Dan and this book.]
“The next part is a bit complicated, but bear with me.”
[The little boy gazes in an open-mouthed smile, dimples and all.]
“I hoped he would be better–in the areas I failed, he would excel. So I pushed to make sure that my failures did not become his, that his life abounded in new opportunities. Then it happened, he grew into himself. I had to accept him as his own person: a different contribution, not only to the daily human conundrum and the DNA of life, but to the future. Whether I liked it or not, he traveled in his own direction; he was the future, and he would do it his way.
[The little boy does some things that make Dan cry, something he has done maybe twice in his life. The toddler then shows how smart he is.]
“You’re as smart as he was. After I accepted Jeff him as Jeff, not Dan’s son, it was cool to see him puzzle a scenario in Resident Evil, show Katie how to solve an algebra problem, and feel his strong arms hug me. I didn’t always lik hugs, you know. Or him caring enough to show affection in public.”

The next bit will give away too much, so you’ll have to read it in the book.

The love a father for a son can be as strong as any emotion on the planet. Of course the love of a daughter is just as strong, only different. And yet we still send our sons and daughters into battles to save our asses.
Why is that?

Two days old.

I remember singing this song to my son, my daughters. That was way before Cat Stevens became Muslim. But it still applies. Maybe more so after 9/11 and so much hate has erupted between us and Muslim countries. Now I sing it to my grandson.

Hug your loved ones, today, now. DO IT! They may not be here tomorrow.

Milt

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40 years

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So here we are, summer winding down on the Front Range, cone flowers peaked,

 
wildflowers in the mountains a memory, and I’m coming to our 40-year Arapahoe High School reunion. Back then we’d come off a state championship in football in 1970. Unfortunately, we were far from state in the ’71 season—don’t I know. The summer of ’72 cruised in. Mark Spitz won a record seven gold medals at the summer Olympics. Then he was asked to leave the Olympics early because he was Jewish, after our first big taste of terrorism, the Munich massacre, overshadowed the games with Israeli athletes kidnapped. It only took thirty-six years for Michael Phelps to beat that record. I got fat, got white hair, my football knee doesn’t bend, and my ear hairs are out of control. Okay, not quite that bad, though it feels that way at times.

In 1972 we worried about a scholarship to college, or would we get drafted to Vietnam. Some already had a scholarship: football to Colorado University or Colorado State University; academic to Notre Dame. Some knew they would not graduate from high school. But the rest of our lives would be on us soon. We had to make plans.

What has happened to the rest of your life? Do you want to share that with others? This reunion is a way of reconnecting, completing at least one circle of life. Funny how things come around. I remember a guy, who I fist-fought in grade school, then later he was a friend and a revered teammate in high school basketball. He passed the ball to me; I passed the ball to him. Maybe I’ll see him.

Do you remember your concerns in high school? Who would go to prom with? Would your zits ever go away? Would you pass the course in history? How could you ever finish that English term paper before the end of the week?

Times were different. I took the bus to school or walked a mile through the cemetery unconcerned that a madman would hijack the bus or a pervert would kidnap me. I could even take in the latest movie, The Godfather, or Jeremiah Johnson, and not worry that a guy dressed as a mobster would come in the theater and open up with his tommy gun.

Did you need thick leather gloves to come to grips with your life then; maybe now; or the in between spots? Can you remember? Do you care to? I have a medical school classmate who does not even know his son, and will soon die of Alzheimer’s. Remembering can be a good thing.

I knew a girl in junior high, but only tangentially as the pretty locker partner of my girlfriend. In high school I dated that pretty locker partner. Then, she became my locker partner for life, my wife. We’ve been married for 36 years, had children and now a grandson. My grandson will not likely go to Arapaho High School, but, if I live another thirteen years, I will reconnect with high school ways, through him. I will see him grow through things I did, or didn’t. I hope to have more time with my grandson than with my own children. I was too busy to really enjoy their high school experience. Friends, work, make money, all those things vacuumed my time away forever.

Now we have different worries. Will the fracking going on in what used to be a free space behind my house contaminate the best-tasting water in the world? Will my daughter ever be able to buy a home since the average price of homes has gone up ten times—$27,500 in1972 to $275,000 now—and the average salary of a elementary teacher has only gone up four times from $12,200 to $50,000 a year. Will my grandson see the mountains as my son and I did when we camped in Rocky Mountain National Park?

Now beetle-kill trees, almost beautiful in the fall with their rust-colored hews offsetting the apple-green and yellow aspen, and what’s left of dark green pine trees, are ninety percent of the forest on the Western Slope. Here, just north of Fort Collins, the High Park Fire consumed over 25,000 acres, racing through beetle-killed trees and drought-crisp forests. Subsequent rains flooded the hillsides and turned the Poudre River black with soot, killed thousands of fish and destroyed entire mountains. Is there global warming?

High Park Fire made for beautiful sunsets.

What the heck am I going to do about those darn aspen trees coming up through my lawn?

But, hey, some things don’t change. We still have wars that take our children’s arm, or eye, or even worse, their mind so they can never enjoy the world in any form for the rest of their lives. Vietnam just changed names.

And, if my fourteen-year-old Labrador retriever poops in the house again . . .

Awh. Look at that face! She won’t do it again. Honest.

So, I’m going to the reunion to escape the current worries, have a great meal, get drunk and . . . okay, not really. I want to reconnect to a time of less intensity, when you had time to think without a tweet or cellphone bleep interrupting your thoughts. Or, maybe I want to at least put those times in perspective. They were different, and in some ways much more joyful, easier, simpler. Though, at the time, those pimples and getting that certain girl to notice me seemed pretty damn serious. For God’s sake I might have never had a family. I could have been a lonely bachelor and lived as a hermit in a time machine like Dr. Who. Hmm.

I’d like to see you, talk with you, find out where your life has gone, what has happened with you, discuss and laugh at the old times and perhaps share your current hopes and dreams over a pint of Easy Street beer, or a wee dram of Glen Morangie Scotch, or maybe just a Diet Coke. All these things are what make life interesting and what make us human beings. Our social nature cannot be denied. We learn lessons from others, and who knows, others might learn from us. The collective will grow.

So give in. Have fun. Reconnect.

The summer of our life, just like the cone flowers, will eventually wilt and turn brown; the stems weaken, the petals fall. At the 50-year reunion things will look much different, if I’m even around. I might be sucking Ensure through a straw wondering when the next morphine dose will come.

But for now, the flowers are still blooming and my grandson is a joy.

I hope you have joy. I also hope to see you at the reunion.

 

Milt Mays

Bad Day?

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Woke up, beer was stale, coffee cold and weak, it’s still 2012, and then I looked at last week’s blog–What is an American Patriot?

Damn. What a rant. All about freedom, too. Blek!

But, today is so much better. Forget patriots. Just look at Twitter or Facebook, or listen to the news—everyone’s a patriot. I have to move on.

There’s really nothing I can do to prevent war. Since about 3000 B.C., war has been a continuous human event. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_before_1000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_wars

Find out how to make shields and arrows out of bronze and look out baby, I’m gonna take over your pissant little Stone Age community. Gunpowder—oh hell. Nuclear bombs, computer-assisted, laser-guided bombs—one touch and I get my gold, my water, my oil, and you’re toast.

So what are my chances of getting rid of war? Rat’s ass chance in a box full of cats.

Back to business. All I have to do today is get up, have some coffee, edit a novel or two, drive to the store for beer, and watch Wimbledon. Of course there will be the smattering of Graham Norton, perhaps Preditor for the 1213th time(that’s a prime by-the-by), and finishing up Dashiell Hammit’s The Maltese Falcon (It’s old, but damn!). Maybe cut the grass, but only if it’s not raining and it’s green. I do enjoy the color green, don’t you? And when the grass is cut it’s so neat looking and even greener. Then again, I can still see the dog when she pees. She has to work to get through the taller grass and she needs to struggle a little to keep her legs strong. A fourteen-year-old lab needs all the help she can get.

Also, the mower uses oil and gas. Pity.

I would like to ride my bike thirty or forty miles, but since I’m not quite as young as I used to be (I did mention it was 2012, right?), maybe cut that in half. Actually, I did that, and the damn Poudre river is as black as soot—exactly as black as soot. How the hell am I gonna catch any fish in a river full of soot this summer? Probably not. Well, there’s plenty of other rivers I can drive the camper trailer to and have a jolly old time. A forest fire is such a hassle.

There is a damn good movie coming on tonight, and I gotta get a new blog out, so I’ll need electricity until about 10pm. That only uses coal, so I’m okay there—if only coal were a bit cleaner. That pizza and beer was damn good. A man has to assuage his sufferings somehow. Am I right?

Okay, so the day wasn’t so bad. We’re still at war and I didn’t have to give up a damn thing. Imagine that.

I wonder what it would be like to be eating a protein bar and humpin a seventy pounder (that’s a ground pounder term for hiking with a 70lb pack) over Afghan mountains wondering if that next step could trigger an IED and blow my leg off?

All to keep Big Oil flowing and to allow millions of strangers to enjoy freedom.

No thank you. Not for me. Glad someone else is giving up their life. I don’t even have to give up my movie. Why should I?

Let’s see. Tomorrow I’ll fly a gas-guzzling plane to visit my mom and brother. I hope the plane isn’t late.

Milt

What is Freedom Worth?

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On a recent Chris Hayes Memorial Day video, a mother who was just told her only son was lost in the war asked the Marine casualty assistant officer, “Was it worth it?” He replied, “I can’t answer that for you.”

Why didn’t he just say yes? Because he knows that mother would filet him and serve him up as grilled dumbshit to every mom with a kid in the service. If he said no, his boss would fire him on the spot; have a nice retirement, and oh, by the way, you remember that UCMJ article that says you can’t oppose the President? You got some ’splaining to do, Georgy. I hear they have good books in Fort Leavenworth.

So, this is just a friendly blog and you can answer the question without the above. Just leave a name no one will know, and an email no one can trace. Yeah. Blogs are so private.

Okay, I’ll be the first. Freedom is worth Death for thousands and Suffering for those millions that survive–every damn day. Not good enough? How about, freedom is worth the complete annihilation of two Japanese cities, making them unliveable for, what was it for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, twenty years, twenty thousand years?

That’s taking it too far, you say. How about close to home. What is MY freedom worth: the ability to walk my dog in a pleasant neighborhood; ride my bike for hours at a time every day if I like, drive to a nice campground and catch fish on a clean river? If I gave those up, no big deal.

What about the freedom to talk to you about problems in our government, or discuss with my neighbor about how unfair the schools are to handicapped children, or publish a book that takes a political shot at the President, or a member of Congress? Hmmm. I still think I could live without those.

Then there is the freedom to sleep at night, or walk the streets without someone from our now non-free government, kidnapping me or my kid, and torturing us because they heard a rumor from the fanatical kid down the block that I didn’t like what a Congressman said on TV. Yeah. Me neither. Not big on torture. I think freedom as The Constitution outlines might be worth that, all by itself.

So where does this slippery slope begin, and where does it end? The real question is, shouldn’t we all have to suffer some to have freedom, not just the soldiers and their families?  Yes. And we do, every time we pay taxes. Right? Oh, yeah. That’s real suffering, spending a couple of hours on Turbo Tax figuring out how you can get a refund. Surely we suffer more than that. Hmmm.

What if every time we were at war we were not allowed to use any electricity after 8 p.m.? That would save a lot of money, make us realize every day we wanted to get rid of war, and make each of us suffer some.  Any other suggestions?

Here’s the other problem, though. In order to have freedom we have to convince those bullies around the world that want a piece of the USA to NOT be aggressive about it. Or we have to fight back.There ain’t no principle of the school to settle our differences. We have to do it. Just the Pres, his diplomats, and our army against theirs.That’s it. And sometimes their army shoots at our army and there you have it: war. How do you keep them from shooting? How do you avoid shooting back?

What about Iraq and Afghanistan wars? Did someone shoot at us? No, other than almost 3,000 people killed at 9/11. Did we have to shoot, or could we still have pretty much the same freedoms we had before 9/11 today, without those wars? Seems to me the terrorists still got us terrified enough to invent Homeland Security, and search everyone going on a plane ride like you were entering San Quentin. Okay. Worse.

Did killing all those Iraqis, Afghans, along with a few kids and other innocents, and, oh by the way, our best and brightest hearing Taps from six feet under, did that get rid of that terror? I don’t think so.Then again, did it prevent the terrorist from having more 9/11′s? Hmmm. Hard questions.

Milt

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How to Handle Insults

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“Darn, I forgot to get the eggs.” I thought I said it nicely to the young man at the checkout station in King Soopers.
“That doesn’t surprise me, gramps. You’re old.”
I’m hoping that angry young man, barely old enough to sport a whisker, will call someone to help. He merely holds out a hand towards the back of the store. “Better go get it, grandpa.”
What do you do now?
Behind door #1: I rush back and find the extra large Eggland, the most expensive, and jog back to the nice young man in his oil-speckled shirt with his sarcastic eyes.

I stand there. He finally stops texting.
He sips his Monster energy drink and eyes my eggs. “Wow. You should really stop eating those. Next thing, you’ll be having a stroke and lose more of your pathetic memory. Good thing for you we have an AED on the wall to shock your worthless old butt back to life so you can spend the next year in rehab spending the rest of my Medicare benefits.”
I open the package and smash the eggs on his head.
He pours his drink on my head. I must admit, I feel energized.
I get out my Rohrbauh r9 pistol and aim it at him. Not great for long range, but at five feet, I will have no problem etching two eyes and a smile on his forehead, à la Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. Of course this hairless, skinny-assed sixth grader only knows Mel Gibson as a priest on Signs, or a wannabe priest in real life. This little tadpole missed the good stuff, the long-haired crazy-assed Mel. And he’s going to miss a lot more.
He reaches under the counter and pulls out his Berretta 92FS. Nice gun. A bit heavy and hard to conceal, but it will do the job.

And it does.
There’s lots of blood mixing with eggs and Monster drink. The AED won’t work for either of us. Damn. He died an angry young man. I died an angry old man. Billy Joel was right.

Behind Door #2: Instead of smashing the eggs on his head, I shout, “I want the manager.” And the older woman behind me says,”Damn right. Get the manager over here for this sad excuse of a checker.”
The manager comes over, and I say, “This is the third time this month one of your checkers insulted me. I will no longer be coming to your establishment.”
All the other “time-challenged” wise people in other lines yell, “Yeah. We’re not going to take it any more!” Us old guys can be grumpy.
The manager’s eyes resemble Eggland extra-larges. “I am so sorry. How about this. For the next ten minutes all Diet Coke will be one dollar per twelve-pack. No limit.”
There’s a big crowd at the DC. Go figure. On the way back, a rather sexy brunette with a few too many wrinkles to warrant that beautiful black hair says, “This store has gone downhill with that new manager. I don’t care if he gives us free sirloin steaks, I’m not coming back.”
The crowd huddling around the manager agrees. “We’re still not coming back. You can shove your store.”
These guys are even grumpier old men. Okay, here’s the sex–Well at least inuendo.

Next week I see that poor little boy downtown, on the street by The Mission, smoking and looking pretty scraggly, along with half the other King Soopers checkers. I pull over (a bit brazen for an old fart, I admit, but I have my gun) and ask him, “How come your not checking, wise ass.”
“Oh, Grandpa Moses. You’re the one got us all fired. No health insurance. Got a few dollars?”
Guess he learned a lesson. Don’t mess with us wise old coons.

Choice #1=direct armed conflict: You pick it: Colombia, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria, etc. There are twelve major conflicts (they don’t like to call them wars) in the world right now. Major=1000 deaths a year. Okay, so that’s not so bad. Hiroshima was 150,000, give or take 10,000. That only took a month.

Choice #2=Embargo. Rememeber Iraq. Only problem, 300,000 children perished in those years.

Okay, so wars and embargoes cost a lot of lives.

There’s got to be a simple solution to handling an insult that prevents loss of lives and suffering. Any ideas?

Come on people. There are over 7 billion of us now. We need to learn to live together. So give me some suggestions. Please. 

Milt

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War, Oil, and Family

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(No one came up with an answer to my last blog. So I will keep trying.)

 

In my life, War and Oil are intertwined like a crown of thorns and thistles around Family. They make my love bleed. The biggest thorns are war, causing untold injuries the results of which I see and weep over, every damn day: Agent Orange causes diabetes, coronary heart disease, all of which blossom into strokes, heart attacks, stents, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc., etc., etc. Every war breeds mental disabilities, PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury, leading to alcoholism, other addictions, cigarettes, depression, suicide . . . etc., etc., etc. There is no end.

Really?

Yeah.

The last decade of wars aches for more oil. Please, we must have it. Oh, and keep the oil companies in profit (Billions a quarter? No prob.). Who cares if us lowly peons have to pay more and more for gas? Grow that crown of thorns, war, by ensuring the thistles, oil companies, are as healthy as possible. Those two weeds are choking our priorities of life right off the planet. Soon, flowers, trees, wilderness will be merely another challenge to overcome in order to feed the weeds. Well, actually, they already are. Don’t look now but a fracking well may be moving in next door.

 

Then there is family, our loved ones, those who support us when we fight for our country, defend freedom. They support us and cry blood for years after we come back. If we come back. Are we defending freedom, or ensuring the continued survival of an overwhelming machine of war and support for oil. Can we tolerate $10 a gallon, or will civil war result in son fighting father? Sister killing brother? What is the price we are willing to pay for driving our cars to work? Mowing the golf course twice a week? Four-wheeling for fun over wilderness terrain?

 

We are the most powerful nation the world has ever seen and we act like adolescents in conservation, peaceful negotiations, and putting love before violence. Can we survive? That is why I wrote Dan’s War, to ask some of these questions, and get people to think. Every word, action, and evolution in Dan’s War is not only possible but becoming more probable every day. It can happen. Tomorrow. And the only thing left will be our humanity—if we haven’t destroyed that, too, with war. In Dan’s War humanity may save the hero. May. We must find a way to make humanity work, to rid beauty and peace and all those creations that make us laugh and cry, from the most destructive and ugly force in history: War.

 

As long as we are at war, ugly things happen, like killing children, massacring villages, virginity checks. Who knows, we might even drop a nuclear bomb or five that kills millions, “To Save More.” How can war not cause bad things, when war sucks out love and preaches kill thy enemy, and do it now, and move on; kill more. Can you find a way to stop it? Please.

 

I know you have hope. We have a whole generation of new fodder for war that we can save with that hope. Do it. Find a way to prevent another war.

Maybe even a cookie?

Milt

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Kony 2013

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Kony 2013

Yes, I know, the big deal is the Kony 2012 video.

My question: Where will this be in 2013 and how will we get there?
The YouTube/Facebook video, now over 50 million views, touts getting rid of Kony, a warlord for LRA who kidnaps kids in the night, has them run his “revolutionary” army, disfigure his enemies, kill their own parents. This travesty must end, and the Invisible Children supporters, including the great guy who made the video should be applauded.

But, and this is a very BIG BUT, are we waging another war against another boogie man instead of finding peaceful solutions? The video wants us to support military “advisers” to the African Army so they can find this monster and bring him in. What exactly is their “advice?” Hint: They are military. The video wants us to make Kony famous, so we can get everyone to be against him. Got it.

Historical rewind: We all wanted to do the same for Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, bin Laden. How many lives were lost in the War on Terror because of one man—bin Laden. Bin Laden was famous in an instant—9/11. Our country tried to end his continued reign of terror worldwide, not just of a small part of Africa, like Kony. How much money was spent on this same War over the last ten years? But, we finally got him, right? Was it worth it? Did we work hard on peaceful solutions during those ten years of war? How much money went into peaceful ideas vs. new Humvees, tanks, drones, jets, soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, etc., etc., etc.???

So, in 2013, if we still don’t have this guy, Kony: What then?

My pessimistic side says probably we won’t get him, though my optimistic side hopes for a quick capture, using a “surgical strike” (that means only a few get killed in the “tiny” attack—Right.). And if we do get him, will his methods, his LRA end?

My plea is: Let’s find peaceful solutions to make Kony go away. Any ideas?

Come on! Did you just want the social media to be a video fest, or actually do something useful?

Milt

Dan’s War is an award-winning novel about the end of world oil . . . in two weeks. Cajuns and one lone computer geek try to save us against an eco-fanatic and his army who want to get rid of OIL to end global warming.

It’s about WAR, true, but also about family struggles with teenagers serving their country vs. college, and a computer genius with near-Asperger’s and desperate to be a hero at his job, but most of all in his son’s eyes.

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How to End War

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After the last post, I got to thinking. My anger at war is getting too much. So here’s a different approach.

If you make a funny face you'll feel better

The Power of Numbers(Oh goody, says Dan)

It’s not so hard, really, to end war. You just have to make that your goal, every day. Get rid of hate and rage; make it your goal to push for love and peace. War is an act of hate. If all of us get rid of our own hate, how can war start? Every day ask yourself what you can do to get rid of any hate or rage and do something that shows your love. You will feel the peace. Others will notice, too. It will catch on. Then one will become many. I need to try this. The other way isn’t working. (So, where’s the numbers? asks Dan. They’re coming.)

Examples of How Love can End Hate:

I’ll bet when your kids won’t do their homework you get angry. So get in there and help. It shows how much you love them, and all those angry arguments will not happen. They will love you for it.

Maybe you hate it that your mother is dying of cancer. Take her places she loves; play games; hug her. Hating the cancer won’t take it away, but loving her more will take away her fear of dying alone.

Are you pissed the bank is going to foreclose on your house? Sit in the rooms you love and talk to the house, tell it how much you will miss it, and what great times you had. Talk to the banker. Ask her how you can help her to make the transition easier for both of you. It’s likely she will fight to keep your home.

You’ve got PTSD from the Iraq War and hate the thought of war? You, most of all, must embrace what has happened to you, realize it was not your fault, that what you feel is natural, but can be turned off. Remember the comraderie of your service, and talk with the men and women you served with, making plans to celebrate peace, and plan for a future of peace. You are our best envoys of peace.

The Economic Cost of Hate: (Finally, numbers! But their not even primes, says Dan.)

Wars have cost the USA over $1.2 trillion since 2001.

http://costofwar.com/en/

If you saved $1 every second (that’s $31.536 million per year-Hello, Mitt Romney),  how many years would it take to pay off $1.2 trillion? 38,051 years (Dan studied that number for a microsecond. Why couldn’t it have been 38053–that’s a great prime!)

However, if 100 million people paid $100 per day, it would take 120 days to pay off $1.2 trillion. The power of numbers works. Hence taxes.

Hate Can Destroy Humanity, Tomorrow

Could hate at sometime cancel out all the love and destroy the world? All it takes is one super hateful person with a few nuclear bombs, a very bad virus or bacteria, or the right wind and poison gas. How about spiders with nanobacteria that eat oil? Surely you jest.

What You Can Do

Show a neighbor how to make love and peace destroy their hate. If everyone does it in the world–7 billion people now–that’s a lot of numbers. Now we’re talking. (Dan beats his fist. Could you at least make it 7 billion and 1–that’s a prime! Yeah, I’m sure we’re there now.)

Bring it to the attention of Congress and the President. Ask them to make a law that compels them to debate ending any war we are in, not once a year, or once a month, but every day we are at war.

Is it possible?

I don’t know if I can do it every day. This peace, love stuff may be too much. What about you. Could you at least start? Would you email your Congressman and the President about passing this law? Is this possible? What do you think?

Dan (Dan’s War) would say, My grandson is worth it. I say the same.

Have a cookie. It will help.

mm

Dan’s War is an award-winning techno-thriller with heart, about the end of world oil . . . in two weeks. Cajuns and one lone computer geek try to save us against an ecofanatic and his army.

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Sanitizing War

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So, you think by building schools, hospitals, and training all
those soldiers to respect Muslims you can erase all the drilled-in
depersonalization of the enemy, precise killing techniques, and subtle (well, maybe not so subtle) building-up of their anger after 9/11.

I have read the books on war, Sun Tzu to Clausewitz, and more recently, Lt. Col Dave Grossman and Captain Paul K. Chappell,. I have studied war at the Naval Academy. It all sounds very chess-like, until you are there, killing people. No matter how you cut it, war is not kind, not filled with etiquette for the other side. Gentlemen (or ladies) don’t wage wars; barbarians do. If you call the enemy Krauts, Nips, commies, gooks, chinks, or ragheads it allows you to depersonalize it, and keep it okay. And make sure those soldiers know the easiest, quickest, and most lethal way to kill the enemy, and that they actually do it. We don’t want them aiming high to avoid killing another human being. We have to drill that out of them. They must understand that the enemy is not a real person like you and me. They are Yellow Devils, or the Axis of Evil. God does not bless them, like they do Americans. We are right, and always will be.

Cut off and take one of their dead ears and spit on their face. They deserve it. And those ragheads who killed all those innocent people at 9/11? Piss on their dead bodies.

http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/the-urination-video-and-pressures-of-battle/

http://www.mediaite.com/online/howard-stern-on-marines-urinating-on-dead-taliban-fighters-so-what-dave-navarro-agrees/

But go ahead and build your hospitals and schools, and try to help their culture believe that we are right and they are wrong, after you’ve starved them for a decade with an embargo and killed half their neighbors. Spend billions of dollars a month training our soldiers to kill “targets” with machines that are the most lethal in history. You will surely be able to change all those killing habits you’ve cemented in your soldiers, those same soldiers who have tried so hard to do the right thing, preserving our freedoms, but have nightmares and lose families over recurring visions of buddies blown to bits by those @#$& targets.

You think there might be a double message there: Kill those people, but don’t you dare call them a name or piss on their bodies. Double messages don’t mean anything, right? (Except to politicians!) Just do what you are told, soldier. Don’t think about it. Besides, we have psychiatrist who can treat our soldier’s messed up mind.

But, you politicians should try not to focus too much on stopping wars, or keeping them from happening. War is our heritage, our children’s future. Without wars, patriotism would wither. Oh yeah, and where would we spend those billions of dollars?

And the death of all morality? Who cares. If you think you can make war moral, you are indeed a true politician. You think this is the only amoral thing that has happened in war, and that court martialing them will cure it? They just won’t video tape it. First rule of the Naval Academy: You rate what you get away with. Don’t get caught.

No, it’s not the right thing to piss on a dead enemy, rape his daughter, or cut off the breasts of his wife. If we must be at war we should at least kill quickly, and treat the enemy with respect. We are not barbarians, after all. Are we?

Why isn’t there a law passed that states: If the US is in a war, there MUST be a daily debate in Congress about how to get OUT of war, as fast as possible?

Talk about getting priorities straight.

mm