summer patriot, winter soldier

please, a joyous holiday season, to all my readers!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah!!!   Blessed be Your New Year!!!

i had thought ...

friends:

previously i had thought that with intelligence there might be a way to excise the cancerous violence out of the mosques by precise application of surgical measures, to do so the way doctors remove a cancer from the human body in order to save it.

i no longer hold to that conceit.

it is not the clerics and the imams and the mullahs who create the violence in islam, it is the religion itself that incites these men to their venomous preachment.  to use the powerful metaphor given to us by mao, islam is the sea in which these fishes find safe haven, and in which they swim with impunity.

islam is the problem.  the mosques are the outposts of islam.  the mosques are, dear friends, islam.  if we are to eradicate islam from our midst, to keep it from our shores, then we simply have to face up to the fact that the influence of the mosque, as a center of muslim life, as a fortified enclosure from which terrorist is taught and emanates, has to be destroyed.

it is as simple as that.

john jay @ 12.22.2009

time to destroy the influence of the american mosques ....

friends:

it is readily apparent that mosques in the united states, and their allied madrassas, generally known as academies, are centers for recruitment to jihad terror, operational bases for the same, and spread and incite muslim hatred and violence toward united states citizens.

the mosques in new york, virginia lead in these roles but there are others just as virulent.

it is time to destroy the influence of the mosques plying this trade.

time to get rid of the imams who preach hate towards us, recruit for the jihad and proselytize adolescent muslim males to act this way.

milak nadal hasan worshiped at the infamous mosque in virginia.  he corresponded with al queda recruitment and operatives (and army "intelligence" did nothing about it, incredibly enough.)  somalis in this country, raised here, travel to far off lands to engage in piracy and jihad, all nurtured in american mosques.

examples abound.

it is time to destroy the influence of the mosques plying this trade.  it is a simple as that.  these mosques must be closed, using any means necessary.

john jay @ 12.22.2009

husband, family & friends buried jeanie weathers olinger this day ...

with tears of loss, and the laughs of reminiscence, husband, family and friends committed jeanie weathers olingerto the ground from whence she came, this 21st day of december, the year of our lord, 2009.

it was a very simple affair, in keeping with her wishes.  we gathered, heads were bowed, and the preacher read from the 23rd psalms, king james version, perhaps the most beautiful verse in our entire religious heritage.--

a psalm of david. the 23rd psalm
1	the lord is my shepherd; i shall not want.
2	he maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3	he restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4	yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, i will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5	thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6	surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and i will dwell in the house of the lord for ever.

two choices now lie before us, with the entire imposition of socialism upon us ...

1.)the electoral process, within which i would include tax revolt.  in other words, to try and eek salvation from politics are "normal."

i do not believe this path is of any utility.

the radical leftists, no point in redundancy by say "& democrats," in the form of a.c.o.r.n., the s.e.i.u. and other labor unions have already demonstrated that they will subvert this process by illegal campaign contribution and solicitation, by election fraud and voter registration fraud, and by interference with casting of the ballot such as by the black panther voter intimidation at the polling booth.

doubt the assertion?  look no further than the "election" of al franken, the "senator" from minnesota.  (what is it about that state, anyway, it is baffling.)

the democrats have designed to take power permanently, and they have succeeded admirably.

2.)violent armed revolution.

the only alternative to this is passive acquiescence in tyranny.  again, if we look at tax rebellion as an alternative, it is doomed to failure.  they will simply make tax collection "compulsory," remove the last veils of the illusion of freedom from the process, and they will collect it automatically by computers.

the question remains, and i have posed it before in these pages.

are you worth killing for, and are you worth it to me to sacrifice myself for the lot of you who allowed this to happen, by being idiots and sheep?  i believe it worthwhile for me to die trying to preserve my freedoms.  i have not yet decided, i remain on the cusp of the question, if it is worthwhile for me to die trying to preserve your freedoms, when you have proved yourself so patently undeserving of them.

people who deserve freedom ought first to understand it intellectually.  you, as a group, have failed miserably, and have sought protection in your creature comforts and pleasures from the rigors of sacrifice and freedom.

most of you simply do not comprehend what i am talking about, because you are too fucking fat, stupid and lazy.--  you have just been bought over time, as surely as the coward u.s. senator ben nelson, ... , only you were bought off for far less.  idiots.  that is the only thing i can say of you.  well, fucking idiots, i guess i can say that.

some of you do.

i just have to decide if there are enough of you to die for.

john jay @ 12.21.2009

two paths now lie before us, with the entire imposition of socialism upon us ...

wrack or ruin. 

jeanie weathers olinger dies 12.15.2009 ... you didn't know her, and too bad for you ...

jeanie weathers died the other day at home, aged 68 years (although you wouldn't have noticed it), after a long and courageous bout against cancer.  she was diagnosed in august of this year, already plenty sick, and given two weeks to live.

she was tough as nails, and it wasn't pleasant to have her mad at you.

i loved her.  my brothers loved her.  everybody that knew her loved her.  it is safe to say she wasn't mad at your very much.  she had a chair to sit in, a laugh for all your lame jokes, and a smile for every occasion.  her greatest affection was for her kids and grandkids, and her softest indulgence was for her husband of a lifetime, bub olinger, whose name was jasper, but i will be hung if i ever heard anyone use it.  if you asked bub this second, i would suspect he wouldn't have the slightest idea on earth why she put up with his shenanigans for a lifetime, but, bub would also point out that she signed on for the duration, eyes wide open, as it were: you might say that i have a soft spot for bub as well.

i found out something when i read the death notice.  jeanie's given name was alice.  whudda thunk it, she was just jeanie.

you have never heard of jeanie and bub olinger.

they were not famous.  they weren't rich.  and, they certainly never had any pretense to being big shots.

what jeanie & bub were, ... , well, ... , they were just nice people, who raised decent kids, and who paid their bills when it hurt, and shared when there was enough to share, and there was always enough, somehow.  it goes without saying that they worked hard, and bub was always hustling this job or that job, usually involving trucks somehow.  you know the old saying, how do you make a small fortune in trucking?  the answer, start with a big one.

the world is a poorer place without jeanie, and, i would expect, right about now, bub has considered whether or not it is worth being in with her gone.  it is a fair question.  he'll bounce back, and he'll have a laugh and some stories for jeanie's friends, and will make all of us feel better.

he will do his crying in private, and with his kids, but they won't see much of it.  that is the way we were taught.  tears are not for public consumption.

i haven't seen her for years.  i remember a girl who just walked different, and carried herself different, from the rest:  bub olinger was a lucky man, to have been her mate these many years. i will pay my respects in the morning.  i will recognize the face, but it will not be the jeanie of so many years ago, pony tailed and raucous, and with a voice and laugh i cannot even begin to describe.  the jeanie i will remember is the young woman i idealized when young, and so she will remain in my eye. 

she was a country girl.  the sort of lovely, fresh faced, unpretentious jeans wearing girl that sammy kershaw immortalized in "she don't know she's beautiful ... ."  just a country girl, the jewel of umapine, oregon in my view.

she will be missed.  and, people will have tears.  but, we will gather, and tell stories and visit, and gradually the place will ring with laughter in her memory.  and, the women will wash the dishes and put them away, and people will leave reluctantly from the gathering, sad that we don't see each other more often and sadder still we won't be seeing her any more, at all.

and bub will be left to his thoughts for just a little while, and the new day will beckon.  he will go back to work in a bit, what else is there to do?

this is how we do it out here.  i would expect that is how it is done most everywhere.

john jay @ 12.20.2009

p.s.  and, i notice the day, and i've not gotten anyone presents yet for christmas.  who steals the time?

hamley's saddle shop ... saddle makers ... friends & neighbors ... and, the enemies at our gates ...

hamley’s stores in pendleton, oregon are just 28 miles down the pike from my house, and work both sides of the cowhide very diligently to make an honest buck.  on the corner of a downtown block sits their very large upscale steakhouse and right next door they run one of the finest western outfitters you’ll find anywhere: you know it is a western store when the employees wear cowboy hats indoors.  and, in the little saddle maker’s shop at the back, i learned anew why the american “melting pot” still works with some, and why it will never work with others.

in the outfitter’s shop they hand make tooled leather saddles and other leather goods, using the finest tooled and exotic leathers, including ostrich hide on the saddle i watched being made today.  as i entered the store, i was drawn inextricably to that section with the smell of leather wafting from the back, walking by the life size statute of a bucking bronc, front legs clawing high into the air, a high copper tiled ceiling with skylight to make room for the statue, dramatically set off by his bronze rider leaning forward in the saddle, hat waving above his head clutched in an eternal vise-like grip.  Phew!!

on the way past i looked at brand new saddles, some running pretty close to $6,000, and then a smattering of older used saddles, well cared for and the leather with a rich luxuriant patina that only use and care can give leather.

but, the back rooms always interest me.  it is where the action is.

so, without further dilly dallying i ambled to the back and to the work room, where a mexican american fellow was repairing an old saddle, and where the palefaced cowboy was building a new saddle.

trees hung from the ceiling.  the tree is the backbone of the saddle, made of wood looking not unlike two boards set at the angle of a seagull’s wings in glide to match what little curvature there is in a horses broad back, with a pommel and horn at the front, and a seat back or cantle at the rear of the saddle, to comfort the rider’s rear.  the structure is covered in a “shrink wrap” of rawhide, wetted and then shrunk tightly to a rock hard layer holding the tree together.

the vaquero explained that the trees are made in vernal, utah and as they hung with nothing at all done to them, they cost hamley’s about $300 each.   That leaves us about $5700 to go.

the major “interface” between rider’s butt & thighs and horse’s back are the saddle skirts, two large flaps or wings which are lashed separately in the middle on either side and underneath of the tree through slots by ¾” strips of leather.  on their bottom, the skirts have very nice wool shearling attached, and the exposed part of the top grain leather is finely tooled, usually in either basket weaves or oak leaf and acorn patterns.  it may not be fine art, but the best of it requires an experienced and talented artisan’s hands, and it is pretty.

o.k., so now we have the rawhide coated wooden tree sitting above the shearling bottomed skirts.  the rest of the saddle is also covered with top grain cow hide (and, it is cow hide, whether it is boy or girl cows supplying it.  it is not cattle hide.  trust me on this.)

and, how do the artisans who make saddles attach the leather to the tree?  they glue it on with ordinary contact cement, that is how.  you gotta put some leather on the seat, so you apply some cement, and slap it on there: and you trim the edges to the proper dimension and outline of the saddle.  the seat may be tooled, it may be smooth, it may have the roof side of the hide exposed, or it may be pleated, in a nice tuck and roll, and it might even be of exotic leather.   whatever you think will make your tush feel better, hamley’s will make for you.  and, so on & so forth for the saddle horn (don’t ask me, it has no button), and the pommels, and the rise at the back of the saddle, the cantle, which may be quite shallow, or may be very deep.

no, i don’t know how the saddle maker decides whose butt fits in what, there being such a multitude of butts, and how a rider develops a certain preference is quite beyond me: personally, i find the high back seats very uncomfortable, like a car seat with way too much “lumbar” dialed in.

remember the bucking bronc at the top of the page, at the entrance to the store.

right next to the statute is an old and well used saddle.  it has a very deep seat, with high pommels, and a high back, and a deep seat positioned narrowly between them, and abbreviated and small skirts.  it is darkened with age and use, and the leather is as hard as you can imagine, having absorbed countless layers of saddle soap, a mixture of animal fats, lanolin’s and carnauba and other waxes.  a plaque recounts how the organizers of the pendleton (oregon) round up, the cheyenne roundup (wyoming), the walla walla (washington) rodeo, and a couple others got together to standardize the dimensions of the saddle bronc saddle, for rodeo competition purposes, and contracted with hamley’s to build it.  well, the saddle on display is old no. 1, and where they got it they do not explain.

it has very deep seat with a high cantle, so that when the horse goes up on its hide legs there is something for the rider’s butt to ride on.  and, lots of pommel,  so that when the horse goes hind legs up on his front legs & head down, there is plenty of saddle up front to lock the legs to, to prevent the rider from sliding right off the front of the horse.  sideways, that is the discretion of the rider.  the bronc rider has to keep his feet in the stirrups, his one hand on the reins, his other hand free and off the horn or pommel, and he must stay on the horse.  the stirrups are designed to eject the cowboy’s feet & boots at the same time as the rest of him is ejected from the horse, as it is considered bad form to be drug under a horse as he runs wildly away from your flailing arms and screaming, as he stomps you at every stride.

you may rest assured that every kind of tack and bridle leather outfit known to man is at hamley’s, as well as a wide assortment of chaps and boots.  i know some of you are prideful of your pradas and the like, … , but, oh, my slicker friends, … , the tooled leather in a fine pair of boots or chaps is something to behold.  and for certain, cowboys from texas to calgary must blush at their getups, but they wear them.

a parting note about top grain leathers.  And, about the way of the world.

regardless of critters, the skin at the top of the neck and along the shoulders and back to over the hips is the toughest and thickest skin on the animal.  and, this is where the finest, most durable & most expensive top grain leather comes from, as it is the thickest, strongest, most fibrous and most resistant hide on the animal

it is the same with birds.  on a bird, the base of the neck and shoulders are where the largest and strongest feathers are attached, and so it is that on a bird or lizard or similar animal, this is where the most desirable leather comes from, because it is thickest, as it shows the “bumps” where the feather go in, proving it is an exotic skin

on cows and deer especially, the upper neck and shoulder skin is thickest, because it takes the most punishment from briars and brambles and stickers and limbs, and also from the teeth and claws of predators.  it is surprising, by contrast, how thin and delicate the skin and fur on the stomach and inner thighs of the rear legs is on some animals: on a horse, the skin there is so smooth and delicate as to be as smooth as the inner thigh of a woman, perhaps more so.  and, it is correspondingly sensitive: if you watch a house fly land there on a horse, he will shiver all over, and if it is a horse fly, he will shake his entire skin vigorously to shed it. if you touch him there with a curry without some notice, or do it maladroitly, you can have a very upset horse on your hands.  it is sometimes not so amusing how light an agitated 800 pound horse can be on his feet: very nimble, indeed.  and, tough to dodge.

the flank of a four legged animal is between the last or bottom rib and the thigh muscle, and right there is the thinnest & most delicate skin.  it is precisely here, where least armored, that some animals are incredibly vulnerable to fatal attack.  cats kill by suffocation or piecing of the skull, and a cat is linebacker robust in build (if you ever see a big cat from the front, you will see the curvature of the legs is such as to grip a cylindrical shape, just like a linebackers arms set to make a tackle), because they join battle close in to kill and grasp their prey when they do so.  canines by contrast, especially coyotes and wolves that are highly educated in killing without being injured, kill differently.  they are pursuit killers, and they like to get their prey running, so that they may move in deftly from the side and rear, and nip and tear at the running animal precisely at his flank.  they catch the abdominal muscles and skin stretched thin to their utmost, slash with the incisors, and slit the skin and the abdominal muscles, so that the animal’s intestines spill to the ground as it flees.

i don’t care how tough you are, or how hardened to existence, or how tenacious in your grasp upon life you are, but you are simply not going to run very far with your intestines catching on the ground on tree limbs and the like, … , be you moose, deer or whatever.

a pack of wolves will often refrain from attacking a bull elk or bull moose with a full set of antlers if he will stand his ground, because even though they may successfully kill him, if he maintains his posture of defense he may also injure or kill a wolf with his antlers in the process.  sometimes it is not worth the risk to the wolves, especially if they are well fed.  but, once the elk or moose loses his resolve to stand and fight, and breaks off running, he is done for, because the wolves will attack him on the run where his antlers are useless.

why didn’t animals evolve to have thick bite resistant skin here, too?  i don’t know for sure, we can all ask stephen jay gould when we get to heaven.  but, i expect, the answer is, why bother?

if you let the predator get that close to your belly while you are in vulnerable flight, you are probably not gonna live through it, anyway.  no use having the defense at the bedroom door after the outer walls have been breached.  if you haven’t stopped the intruders at the castle gates or the city walls, your last ditch defense at the parlor is probably laudable for style points, but ineffective in terms of evolution, if i may mix and mangle metaphors with casual impunity.

the mexican saddle maker and i talked for some time about leathers, and he spoke of how the Spaniards learned how to make fairly effective armor from compressed leather (which is how leather is tooled to make the patterns on it), and how this was taught to the spaniards by the moors.  i smiled when i heard this, thinking to myself, too bad the spaniards didn’t know the techniques before the moor’s conquest.  we also spoke of vaqueros and buckaroos, vaqueros the cowboys of the southwest and texas, buckaroos the cowboys of the great basin and eastern oregon, idaho and western montana.

my friend said, that as originally pronounced, the “v” in vaqueros had a hard “b” edge to it, rendering the word almost like “baqueros,” and that when those cowboys came into northern california and the pacific northwest, the locals bowdlerized it to “buckaroos.”  it makes sense to me.

as we chatted, i teased him about the band aids on his fingers and thumbs, suggesting that he just trim the leathers and not his fingers.  he laughed, and said, nah, it was just his skin cracking, in a way the v.a. tells him is consistent with the agent orange exposure talked about as having occurred in viet nam.  i asked him, did he help apply the stuff, or handle it, to be exposed to it.  he said no, he just got exposed to it as he was walking around looking for people to shoot, and he said it was hard, because they weren’t very cooperative about it.

we all laughed, and his saddle making friend chimed in a couple friendly remarks, and we moved along.  you will find, despite a.i.m. and chicano activists, that native & mexican americans serve in the military service with distinction and enthusiasm, and are quite active in veterans’ affairs.

they are trusted comrades, no matter political and social differences.  they don’t submerge them, they put them aside for their fellows.  simple as that.

interesting, isn’t it, the difference between conquest and influx.  in california and the northwest, all of us eat salsa instead of using ketsup, and we scarf up the food at mexican restaurants, and the Mexicans are even a little pushy about politics and unions and stuff. 

yet, we all get along famously, inter-marry, and people retain their culture and religious beliefs and assumptions, and adhere to their cultures as they please. our languages and our folkways intermix and –mingle, and it works.

i once joked with friend adolfo banda, a lawyer whose parents are mexican born, whether he wanted mexican politics and mores to come across the border.  “hell no,” he responded, “why in the hell do you think my parents left mexico?  they sure as hell don’t want to bring it here, and i don’t want mexico here, either.  more salsa, amigo?”

i thought of this at hamley’s, as i chatted with the mexican-indian-american artisan repairing the saddle harness, and his fellow artisan, his palefaced, (english, german, scandanavian, italian, … , who the hell knew) american friend fabricating knee braces for the saddles tree to which he had just attached the skirts, i really did.  as we chatted, a umatilla indian lady walked in the back with a hand tooled leather purse, and talked with the mexican fellow, wanting to know if he could make a strap for the purse, to which she could attach some of her bead work (she was proudly wearing a “shipwreck bead shop” t-shirt, i asked if she owned it), and he said, “sure, cost you $80.00.” she said, “give me your card.”  he said, “I’ll be able to get back to it as soon as the museum gets started up again, and i go back to work there tooling my leather stuff.”

while this was going on, the anglo kid in the cowboy hat and gingham shirt and jeans ambled in and out of the shop’s back room several times, wanting to know why the customers were all in the damned back work room talking with the help, and wanting to know why he was not talking to customers out front in retail.

he didn’t say so.  you could just feel it.

he was surely management, maybe a hamley, or a hamley in-law.  that’s the way it works everywhere, isn’t it?

the saddlemakers paid him no mind at all.  oh, they were cordial enough to him, he was a “boss” after all.  but, you know something.  he couldn’t make a saddle in twenty years of trying: just not cut that way.  they can, just by looking and cogitating it out.

you just don’t run roughshod over guys who can make $6,000 saddles, and $80 bead straps.  artisans are like that, they are valuable, and everyone knows it.  it all works out, it all fits in, when people want to make it work.  maybe some rough edges here and there, but it works.

but, the fellow who wants in your bedroom or your parlor, and is willing to fight his way there, and isn’t going to accommodate and work with you, but is just going to take over even if he has to do you harm, you had best kill him at the gate. 

yes, i think precisely this way.  this article replicates the way my mind actually works, just as its working.  kinda scary, ain’t it.  laughing.

John jay @ 12.19.2009

old mother hubbards bare old dilapidated cupboard, an allegory ... the perils of doing business with the rich ...

old mother hubbard’s bare old dilapidated cupboard, by John Jay, an al le gory

old mother hubbard went to her cupboard, ebony stained in non- polluting teak oils, cut from the finest forest in her land by hands gnarly and skilled, to look for her curds and way, and to see if she had any to spare.

along came a spider, foots 1-6 shod italian, sat down besides her, and said, “man, that baby is bare, it’s so empty in, it’s so bare in, good gracious me, there ain’t nuthin in there, in there.”

little boo peep, riding her sheep, (she’d not taken delivery yet of her benz, the one she anticipated, the one she deserved, a conferee, she’d participated!!), poked her head from ‘neath the table, and said, “hey, jack, where’s my swag, man?”

kofi anini, munching on some panini as he rose from the table, looking very dapper & very contented indeed, in his threads fashioned by amini, padded on over to the cubbard, as he preferred to say it, looked in, and said, “i am here, babe, where’s the loot, my skinny little patoot, i have always been the bag man, my manini?” and, added laughing, “fee, fie, foe fom, my tush in a cute little bikini!!”

“where’s the payout, where the loot, where’s the swag, from the rich galoots, we want $350 billions per anin, and we walkin’, over anythin’ less."  and, from all,  "that’s the name of that teeny tine tinny tune, tess,” they shouted, shrill in unison.***

entered a tall man somber, the undertaker’s gloom in his wake, carrying a pall, at a slow dull pace, bad news writ large, upon his almond brown face, frowns where smiles were but days before, and thus he spake.---

“i am so sorry,” his voice attenuated, “but we checked our coffers, and found only notes marked ‘ past due & owing,’ our billions in bullions somehow wasted, and upon the walls, notices of foreclosure taped and pasted.  it seems we’ve already spent beyond our dreams, leaving quite empty, it seems, our rhetoric and our holiest schemes, … , and, well, you’ve found out, what that means.”

“don’t think me callous of indifferent, but this year, no riches shall issue from our northern climes so lush, you’ll have to wait a few more years, and keep on drilling for your gusher.”

Mother hubbard was chagrined, and muttered, “where shall i market my carbon credits, if all you have, are pressing debits?”

jack of beanstalk fame, standing in the corner, stuck his thumb in some pudding, and pulled out a plum, “been to the castle in the sky, not a hard climb if you’ve some try, looked to the books, uncooked, a rare find these days, and by my reckonin’, you’ve got ducats and marks and dollars and swag, hip deep, tons of gold & silver, why you’ve got money to brag on, stacks and stacks to drag on, plenty o' piles to shovel from, , … , money to drag to our doorsteps, money to pile on our stoops, money to bury our pitiful little hovels, replace them with mansions, from just the dust, at the bases the stanchions, … , hey, man, this is serious, this is for keeps.”

the somber brown man turned to the door, a jet to catch, natch, … ,  “gotta be home for ‘health care,’ gotta game, ‘game, set, match,’ i am hoping, gonna be close, says the doping,” as he languidly sat the homburg upon his head, demurely balanced on his pointed ears, “but, listen here, jack, some merit in what you say, but we got things marked for contingencies and needs and indulgences, lots of politicians to feed of our public weal, lots of things to pay for and buy, when we cut a deal,”

and with his countenance dark and foreboding, doom upon his brow, warning issuing from every pore, his mien now serious, his listeners now quite delirious, from fear and disappointment, “our budgets, our plans, don’t include you, hey, catchy, ... , we can make our goals without your help, this year, this decade, you are on your own, so whatever good happens, why, you get to say it’s home grown, … , so not all is lost, i am sure you can manage, it’s not such a great cost, it is all just part of the brocade.”

“and, besides, you got this far, you’re on the home stretch, or, shall i say, the home stretches for all your poor people, for all your poor wretches.  look, i know, you’re a bit disappointed, but sell it all just right at home, and you won’t be disjointed.  and, we won’t go far, it's just a little global village, t'ain't it, and don’t you worry, we’ll keep an eye of darfar, and you’ve always israel to blame, for the deal going sour, just this close to the swag, just this close to the final hour, ... , and, if the cubbard, that's the way i say it, looks a little bare in there, just paint it, ... , blue sky will do.”

so, good byes exchanged, and a promise to reconvene, anoni; anin was left, anini in his armini’s; and little bo peep departed sullen but wiser, with her sheep; the spider chagrined, for he has many children with many feet to keep shod, and, in politics, you don’t get rich, if you are on the wrong end of the prod; and, jack has his plum on his thumb, and decided not to utter a word about the side deal he’d cut, why worry if they thought him dumb, he’d been promised to be czar of the fruits if he’d kept his mouth shut about the gold and the booty and the prize and the duty in the vaults he’d discovered, the wealth of the nations he’d uncovered;  … , but, a bargaining chip for the future, if they played him the stiff.

so, as we leave from copenhagen, home of the copenhagen noggin knockers, those brave bureaucrats who battle in the trenches, all the while bitter, not receiving their notice due, for being such menschs, i live you this little ditty, these little riffs for all the developing world working stiffs, from billy preston ---

“nothing from nothing leaves nothing, you gotta have something if you wanna be with me, nothing from nothing leaves nothing, you gotta have something if you wanna be with me.”

john jay  @ 12.18.2009

***heard all the way in gunnison, colorado, far up the creek, where you cannot get, without the right kinda paddle.

the jury rejected claims [that] naveed haq was criminally insane when she shot [and killed pamela waechter at] the seattle [jewish] center ....

seattle (ap wire)  --

jurors on tuesday brought a close to a case described as washington's worst hate crime, rejecting claims of legal insanity as they convicted a hate-spouting gunman of a deadly shooting rampage at a seattle jewish center in 2006.

under the verdict, naveed haq, a 34-year old with a long history of mental illness, will spend the rest of his life in prison rather than a state mental hospital, as his attorneys had sought.

"this was our state's worst hate crime," said king county prosecutor dan satterberg.  "the jury held that holding extremist views does not make you insane, but it does make you dangerous."

haq held a teenage girl at gunpoint as he forced his way into he jewish federation of greater seattle on july 28, 2006, and opened fire, killing pamela waechter, director of the charity's annual fundraising campaign, as she fled down a stairwell.  five other women were wounded.

handed a phone by a pregnant woman he had shot in the arm, haq told an emergency dispatcher he was tired of jews, israel and u.s. foreign policy, and he wanted to get on cnn.  then he suddenly surrendered.

haq's first trial ended last year with the jury deadlocked over whether he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.  jurors this time had the benefit of evidence not presented during the first trial, including jailhouse recordings of haq telling his mother, "i did a very good thing.  i did it for a good reason."

victims, supporters and members of the jewish federation wept, hugged and clasped hands as king county superior court judge paris kallas read the jury's guilty verdicts on eight counts [sic] of aggravated murder, unlawful imprisonment and malicious harassment, the state's hate-crime law.   fini.

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friends,

a personal note.   i have ended many letters re: islamic jihad with a reference, "coming soon to a neighborhood near you."  some perhaps think this mildly sardonic.

naveed haq grew up and attended mosque in the tri-cities, washington just about 60 miles from my porch.  he visited friends and family at the mosque, saying his good byes, just several days before the shootings.

did he keep his intentions secret, before he murdered pamela waechter.

john jay  @ 12.17.2009

p.s.   btw, haq's weapon of choice was a 12 gauge shotgun.  he shot these women at close range with a 12 gauge shotgun, a devastatingly powerful weapon: "professional hunters" take 12 gauge shotguns into the thick pucker brush after the likes of wounded lion and leopard, precisely because of its killing power at closed range.  just thought that you should know.