I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!

Or, perhaps I should assume a calmer, more reasonable tone, and simply paraphrase the pseudo-Einstein that doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result is insanity.

The latest media-driven, socio-political maelstrom over “gun control,” featuring a star-crossed cast of clowns and idiots, including the NRA, Republicans vs. Democrats, Conservatives vs. Liberals, gun-toting red-necks and the urban elite is ending as usual “not with a bang, but a whimper.”

In other words, Congress has done nothing except produce dozens of indignant and inane sound bites for the media.

As we wait for the next heart-breaking, media-driven tragedy involving quick-loading, high-capacity magazines, secret caches of handguns and assault weapons in a home, a crowded public place, a gun-toting sociopath who should have been institutionalized had anyone paid attention to the now obvious signs but shot himself in the head before the police could get to him, dozens of slaughtered innocents, weeping and angry relatives on talk shows and before congressional sub-committees, flocks of trauma counselors descending on the survivors and talking heads jabbering endlessly and inanely on network and cable news, let’s take a deep breath and as calmly as is possible in this issue look at some facts.

Look… I know I’m not sounding very compassionate here. Believe me, I have an inexhaustible supply of empathy for the victims of these senseless crimes.

But, I am sick to death of the media carnival that turns tragedy into a ratings grab, the attempts at celebrity by the “experts” and “specialists” on news talk shows, and the same recurring and useless rhetoric, which does nothing, solves nothing and demonstrates the idiocy and lack of courage of those who have the power and influence to actually effect the “change” that the president and members of congress yammer about when it’s time to convince the gullible, the indifferent and the dupes to re-elect them.

If reasonable people cannot get beyond the rhetoric of the “machine”- the media, the NRA, Congress, Special-Interest Lobbyists, the White House, the gun industry, gun-control extremists-we doom ourselves to witness these events repeat themselves ad infinitum.

So, as reasonable people, who are willing to calmly, completely and with an open mind examine these issues and the facts informing this situation.

Confessio pro bona animae.

At the risk of alienating part of my audience, I acknowledge that I’m a gun owner, but I don’t hunt and I’m not an NRA member.

Since the 1990’s, I’ve owned a Colt M1911A1 Cal. 45 Automatic, which was my personal sidearm as an Army officer. Recently, I purchased a Sig Sauer P928 9mm pistol. I also have a concealed carry permit.

Up until recently, I owned the forty-five simply because… well… I simply owned it. I carried it professionally in the Army as part of my TA-50 field uniform, and I qualified annually with it as part of my deployment readiness and training. Since retiring, it remained locked away, but recently I have looked at it as a potential means of home defense.

The P928 and the carry permit are a bit of a sea change for me. At the risk of being Juan-Williamsed, I think things seem to be getting… well… scary out there. I don’t know if it’s a matter of fact or a matter of fact blown out of proportion by a sensationalist media, but public safety seems to be less safe publically these days with senseless and random shootings in movie theaters, malls, offices, schools and anywhere people gather.

I don’t think for a second that anyone’s “out to get me”! My shrinks assure me that paranoia is not one of my issues. But, the fact is that I am getting… well… old. (My Medicare card arrived in the mail this week!) As I learned in Street Smarts 101-growing up in New York City-my age makes me appear vulnerable to criminals intent on street violence and looking for an easy mark. A target.

So, as I told my good friend, the Major, the other day, I don’t my last conscious thought in this life to be, “If I had the ability to defend myself, this wouldn’t be happening.”

I’ve been handling weapons professionally since I was eighteen. They were the necessary tools of my trade as a ranger and infantryman. The army “qualified” me in a number of weapons-rifles and pistols-and weapons systems required in my profession. When the Army “qualifies” someone in a weapon it means not only its correct usage-how to shoot straight-but also in its safe and appropriate usage.

In the 1980’s, when I was part of an Army team assisting civilian law enforcement agencies in New York and Ohio, I attended federal and state law-enforcement training, in which I was drilled in the legalities and morality of the application of deadly force. I qualified multiple times on law-enforcement combat ranges.

In short, although I am quite capable of the effective application of deadly force, I am unlikely ever to do it outside the law and beyond a reasonable application of morality.

I’m certainly not “impulsive”-in fact, my dear wife suspects that my mean-time-to-respond to anything is about three days. This is especially true in anything relating to the use of deadly force.

And, let there be no doubt, any use of a weapon is deadly force.

The Nature of the “Beast.”

Despite rhetoric from the NRA, firearms were not invented for sport or hunting. They may be useful in these things, but they are by design anti-personnel devices. They were designed to kill people. They always have the potential of being deadly to others when used.

Despite the rhetoric from the liberal-left, firearms are not inherently evil. They’re just machines, tools. Any “evil” done by a gun is a result of the intention or carelessness of the user, or the inability of users to understand-or care-about the consequences of their actions.

As much as I hate to sound like I’m agreeing with the NRA mantra, people kill people… guns just make them better at it.

As we have seen, unfortunately too often, firearms can exacerbate the potential harm intended by individuals and greatly increase their lethal capability. The usage of firearms against another is always potentially deadly. They can extend the range of any intended harm from arm’s-length to hundreds of meters. They are efficient, effective and fast killers.

Also, firearms have the potential to facilitate impulsive and imprudent acts.

And, once used, their effect cannot be annulled, cannot be recalled.

Despite what we thing the 2^nd Amendment of the constitution guarantees, firearms should never be permitted to be in the hands of the unqualified, the irresponsible, the criminal, the sociopath, the psychopath, the insane.

My inference is that any reasonable effort to reduce gun-violence must include not only the guns themselves-availability and type of weapon-but the individuals who have access to them.

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 Please note-Like Tom & Ray’s Puzzler, the blog is taking next week off.  The lunatic who writes them is immersed in evaluating high school research papers for the sake of his check and his immortal soul.

Two weeks from now, the Blog will present Part 2- “Terms of the Debate and that Pesky 2^nd Amendment.”

The post Gun Control: Can the Issue Be Reasonably Resolved? Part I-A Howard Beale Moment. appeared first on Ray Gleason.

When I’m not teaching high school, writing novels and blogs, this is what I do… Medieval Lit!

This is from an article that I’m writing on Marie. Welcome to my “inner-Nerd”!

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“Marie de France” is the title given to a late twelfth-century writer of whom practically nothing is known. To her, scholars attribute a collection of twelve Breton lais; a translation of Aesop’s fables, Ysopet; a translation of Patrick’s Purgatory, Espurgatoire seint Partiz; and a life of St. Audrey, La Vie seinte Audree. Our knowledge of her name and origins are derived from these writings. In the closing passages of Ysopet she declares, “Marie is my name; I’m from France (Marie ai num, si sui de Fraunce[1].” (Ysopet, Conclusion, v 4). Again, in her conclusion of the Espurgatoire we read, “I, Marie, have memorialized the book of Purgatory (Jo, Marie, ai mis en memoire / le livre de l’ Espurgatoire:” (vv. 2297-8). Finally, in the opening passage of the lai, “Guigemar,” she writes, “Listen, my Lords, to what Marie says, who in her time is not forgotten (Oëz, seignurs, ke dit Marie, / Ki en sun tens pas ne s’oblie” (vv. 3-4). Marie’s French origin is also indicated by her writing in a form of Francien.

It is generally believed that Marie lived in England and was associated in some manner with the royal court, perhaps even by blood. Her lais are dedicated to an unnamed king, whose identity is commonly conjectured as being either Henry II of England, or his son, Henry, the Young King, with whom he briefly co-reined.

En l’onur de vus, nobles reis,

ki tant estes pruz e curteis,

a qui tute joie s’encline,

e en qui quer tuz biens racine,

m’entremis des lais assembler

par rime faire e reconter.

(In your honor, noble king, who are so worthy and courteous, before whom all pleasure bows, and in whose heart all good takes root, I undertook to assemble these lais and to retell them in verse (Prologue vv. 43-8).

Marie’s Ysopet is dedicated to a Count William, the theories of whose identity include William of Mandeville, a counselor of  both Henry II and Richard I;  William the Marshall, reputed to have been the foremost knight of England, serving Henry II, Richard I, John, and Henry III; or William Longespée, an illegitimate son of Henry II.

Pur amur le cunte Willalme

le plus vaillant de cest reialm,

m’entremis de cest livre faire

e de l’Engleis en Romanz traire.

(For the love of Count William, the bravest of this kingdom, I endeavored to write this book and translate it from English into Franch (Ysopet, vv. 9-12).

Marie seems to have been well versed in the languages of twelfth-century northwestern Europe, certainly those languages which would have swirled around the Anglo-Norman royal court that ruled England and much of western France. In her lai, “Bisclavret,” a tale of a werewolf written some seven hundred years before the vampire vs. werewolf craze that seems to possess young people today, she demonstrates some knowledge of Breton and Norman-French.

quant de lais faire m’entremet,

ne voil ublïer Bisclavret:

Bisclavret ad nun en bretan,

garwaf l’apelent li Norman.

(As I attempt to compose some lais, I don’t want to forget Bisclavret. Bisclavret is the name in Breton; the Normans call it Garwulf (vv. 1-4).

In her introduction to the lai, “Laüstic,” she demonstrates some linguistic virtuosity.

Une aventure vus dirai,

Dunt li bretun firent un lai;

Laüstic ad nun, ceo m’est vis,

Si l’apelent en lur païs;

Ceo est russignol en franceis

E nihtegale en dreit engleis.

(I will tell you a tale, of which the Britons composed a lai. Laüstic is the name, it appears to me, they gave it in their land. This is “rossignol” in French and “nightingale” in proper English

Marie’s knowledge of English is further evidenced in the conclusion of her Ysopet as noted above, and later in that passage, she states,

Li rois Alvrez qui moult l’ama

le translata puis en Engleiz

e joo l’ai rime en Françeiz

si cum gel’ truvai premierement.”

(King Alfred who loved [the book]greatly then translated it into English, and I rhymed it in French as I originally found it (Ysopet, Conclusion, vv. 16-9).

Finally, Marie was probably well versed in Latin. In her prologue to Espurgatoire seint Partiz, she alludes to the writings of both Augustine and Gregory, long before those Latin texts were available in convenient Penguin translations. Furthermore, scholars believe that Marie’s source for Espurgatoire was a Latin text. Finally, Marie tells us in her prologue to her lais,

Pur ceo començai à penser

D’aukune bone estoire faire,

E de Latin en Romaunz traire;”[2]

(For this [reason] I began to think of composing some good stories and translating from Latin into French (vv. 28-30).

Marie’s collection of lais are a sequence of twelve “Breton lais” written in a Francien dialect in octosyllabic couplets. Although individual lais are found in five different manuscripts, only Harley 978, a thirteenth-century manuscript housed in the British Library, preserves all twelve. The sequence of the collection, as presented in Harley 978, which scholars assume reflects Marie’s intention, are a short prologue, “Guigemar,” “Equitan,” “Le Fresne (The Ash Tree),” “Bisclavret (Werewolf),” “Lanval,” Les Deus Amanz (The Two Lovers),” “Yonec,” “Laüstic (Nightingale),” “Milun,” “Chaitivel (Unhappy One),” “Chevrefoil (Honeysuckle),” and “Eliduc.” The length of the lais range from “Chevrefoil,” 118 lines, to “Eliduc,” 1184 lines. All the lais are “narrative,” in other words they tell a story, except possibly “Chevrefoil” which, although it alludes to an episode from the tales of Tristan and Iseult, may represent a “lyrical lai.”

Marie’s texts are commonly referred to as “Breton lais,” a type of text that is more difficult to define than it is to recognize. The most unmistakable characteristic of this genre, if indeed the form has the rigor to be characterized as such, is self-reference; the text declares itself a story told, or sung, by the ancient Bretons or a narrative that occurred in ancient Brittany. Other than that, they closely resemble the chivalric narrative, “medieval romances,” in that they relate the deeds and interests of the chivalric class; they focus more on the individual than on national groups; and thematically, they relate stories reflecting the problems of love, marriage and morality in chivalric society. They are typically written in verse, rather than prose. They are “short,” rather than “long.” Thematically “simple,” rather than “complex.” They seem more comfortable with Celtic myth and the land of faery than with Christian doctrine and heaven. They are typically “narrative,” but they often allude to a descent from ancient Breton song, so there might have been a tradition of lyrical lais, now lost, of which Marie’s “Chevrefoil” is a possible remnant.[3]

The post Marie de France, Twelfth-Century Woman Poet appeared first on Ray Gleason.

This event, when North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gate of the South Vietnam Presidential Palace, marked the end of the Republic of Viet Nam. President Duong Van Minh, the last president of South Vietnam, went onto Saigon Radio and announced the Republic of South Vietnam’s unconditional surrender, bringing all of Viet Nam under communist rule.

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I read with interest Ray’s citation [on his website] of an article marking the fall of Saigon on April 30^th, 1975—the date is vivid in my memory-that very day I flew into Lima, Peru, on an admissions trip for my school in the United States. Given my appearance—six feet tall, with blond hair and blue eyes–it was impossible for me to blend in with the local population and I was quickly recognized as an American. Peru was in the hands of a particularly nasty left wing military general, Juan Francisco Velasco Alvarado.  His government had not only expropriated farms and businesses but also the daily newspapers of the capital driving into exile their rightful owners.  I generally enjoyed savoring the colorful flavor of the local press but not these papers–they were run by left wing trade unions and their content reflected that dreary political persuasion. The lead stories celebrated the victory of the communists in Vietnam and rejoiced at the failure of what they saw as Yankee imperialism.

Following my custom I choose to walk about the city and I did so in Lima—at one point ahead of me I saw armed soldiers wearing riot gear and carrying shields moving into position near a plaza filling with people carrying placards. Their slogans were those of a trade union.  Despite its leftist leanings the government was ready to crush any opposition from the left or the right. A quick look showed me that these soldiers meant business so I turned around and returned to my hotel.

Lima was frightened city and the news from Vietnam cast a palpable pall over all my efforts to contact Peruvians. Those who had the money to come to my school had either disappeared or thought it best to ignore me. This was not a good time to be an American.

About a week later I was in Sao Paulo, Brazil, when the American military launched a raid in Cambodia to rescue the crew of the Mayaguez, a US ship that had been hijacked by the Khmer Rouge. On arriving in Sao Paulo I hired a Spanish speaking cab driver whom I used for the few days I stayed in the city. As the news about the raid was broadcast over the radio he pulled the taxi over to the side of the road and translated the Portuguese into Spanish which I could follow. When the news of the successful raid came through he turned to me with a big grin on his face and said, “Congratulations, Yanqui, today Goliath final triumphed over David.” We both laughed at this tiny bit of good news from South East Asia.

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The Legacy of Black April

For many Americans, the My Lai massacre, the Fall of Saigon and evacuation of the US Embassy are the most vivid and lasting recollections of US involvement in Viet Nam. One seemingly shames the individual American soldier, the other the American military.

However, of the alleged massacres and atrocities attributed to the US armed forces during US involvement in Viet Nam, only the My Lai incident has been established with any reasonable degree of certainty.

For the most part, the rest were alleged in North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front documents or by their sympathizers. Even if some of these alleged events did actually occur, it is unclear whether civilians were killed during legitimate military action. Yet, US academics and the media accept and disseminate these events uncritically.

The number of Vietnamese civilians killed in the My Lai incident is approximately five hundred. Undoubtedly, this is a war crime! An atrocity, shameful to every American soldier who served honorably in Viet Nam. A violation of the rules of engagement under which US Forces operated! A violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)! And, an horrific aberration to the conduct demonstrated by the vast majority of US soldiers serving in Viet Nam.

Yet, for many in academia, in the media, and even in the government, it characterizes US involvement in Viet Nam and stains the reputation of the American soldiers who served there.

For this war crime, Lt. William Calley, commander of the US troops at My Lai, was charged on 5 September 1969 with six specifications of premeditated murder for the deaths of 104 Vietnamese civilians. On 29 March 1971, a six-officer court martial, of which five were Viet Nam veterans, convicted him of the premeditated murder of twenty-two Vietnamese civilians. On 31 March 1971, Calley was sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor in the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Ultimately, Calley served only three and a half years of confinement at Fort Benning. After numerous appeals and a number of reversals, President Nixon tacitly issued Calley a limited Presidential Pardon in 1974. His general court-martial conviction and dismissal from the U.S. Army were upheld, but the prison sentence was commuted to time served, leaving Calley a free man.

After the withdrawal of US combat troops under the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 and the Fall of Saigon in April 1975, many in Cambodia, Laos, and especially Vietnam, became refugees. In Viet Nam, the socialist government sent those, who supported the Republic of Viet Nam and its allies, to “re-education camps,” and others to “new economic zones,” a euphemism for forced labor camps. Over one million Vietnamese were arrested and imprisoned.

“Re-education Camp,” trại học tập cải tạo, is the official title given to the prison camps operated by the socialist government of Viet Nam following the end of the war. In these camps, the government imprisoned former military officers and government workers from the former South Vietnamese government, business owners, land owners and any citizen whose ideology was suspect.

Re-education, as it was implemented in Viet Nam, was seen as both a means of revenge and a sophisticated technique of repression and indoctrination.

An estimated 1-2.5 million people were imprisoned in these camps with no formal charges or trials. The government deliberately kept the prisoners on low rations. The lack of food caused severe malnutrition for many prisoners and weakened their resistance to various diseases. Deaths from overwork, starvation and disease occurred frequently and bodies were often thrown into mass graves, which were later abandoned.

According to published studies, an estimated 165,000 Vietnamese died in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam’s “re-education” camps.

The US convicted Calley for his involvement in the death of five hundred civilians; to this day, no one has been held accountable for the deaths of these 165,000 civilians.

In 1979, when Vietnam went to war with the People’s Republic of China, the socialist government required the entire ethnic Chinese population of Vietnam either to perform forced labor in the countryside or to leave the country. Many Vietnamese and ethnic Chinese in the south attempted to escape communist repression and revenge by taking to the sea, becoming what the media dubbed, “Boat People.”

The numbers of people who escaped and were given asylum are staggering: United States-823,000; Australia-137,000; Canada- 137,000; France-96,000; Germany- 40,000; The United Kingdom- 19,000; and Japan- 11,000.

However, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 refugees never made it to asylum and died at sea.

Calley was convicted by the US Military for his involvement in the death of five hundred civilians. Yet, to this day, no one has been held accountable for the deaths of well over 200,000 civilians.

Between 1975 and 1977, an armed conflict between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and Democratic Kampuchea began with isolated clashes along the borders of Vietnam and Kampuchea. In December 1978, Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of Kampuchea and subsequently occupied the country. Calculations of the overall genocide in Southeast Asia caused by the socialist government of Vietnam in the post-Vietnam War period amounts to about 1,040,000 Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians.

The army convicted Calley for his involvement in the death of five hundred Vietnamese civilians. To this day, no one has been held accountable for the deaths of over a million Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians.

For almost ten years, I and my comrades, who served in the Republic of Viet Nam, stood between the Vietnamese people and the genocide that eventually overtook them. Despite William Calley, we have nothing to be ashamed of.

While American soldiers were on the ground, the North Vietnamese and the National Liberation Front were prevented from perpetrating these atrocities on the people of the south. Despite My Lai, the American soldiers, who served honorably in Vietnam, have nothing to be ashamed of.

It was only after US combat troops were withdrawn under the terms of the Paris Peace Accords, signed by the socialist government of North Vietnamese, were the communist armies of the north able to contravene their treaty commitments and destroy the Republic of South Vietnam unleashing an horrific slaughter on the Vietnamese people.

Is it any wonder why in the Vietnamese diaspora 30 April, commemorating the Fall of Saigon, is called “Black April”?

The post Reflections on “Black April,” the Fall of Saigon, April 30th, 1975 appeared first on Ray Gleason.

However, in a letter to Congress the administration made it clear that it did not believe that the evidence was conclusive, saying it only had “varying amounts of confidence” in its reliability. Nor did the evidence prove beyond any doubt that it’s Friday, though this was “very likely” to be the case.

Later, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, said that Friday is believed to occur once every week.

Should the evidence be confirmed, the White House warned, “the United States and the international community have a number of responses available, and no option is off the table, including there being a Saturday”.

“Our intelligence community does assess with varying degrees of confidence that Friday happens once a week, usually after Thursday,” the White House letter to Senators John McCain and Carl Levin said. “This assessment is based in part on calendar analysis. Our standard of evidence must build on these intelligence assessments as we seek to establish credible and corroborated facts.”

The letter said that the “chain of custody” by which the calendars were thought to have made their way to the White House, was “not clear, so we cannot confirm how the week passed and under what conditions”.

“We do believe that any occurrence of Friday would very likely have originated with the Julian calendar. Thus far, we believe that the Department of Transportation has jurisdiction in these matters, and has demonstrated a willingness analyze the situation” the letter said. It was signed by Mairzy Doats, an assistant to the president charged with coordinating days of the week with Congress.

“Although the Gregorian calendar improves the approximation made by the Julian calendar by skipping three Julian leap days in every four hundred years,” Doats cautioned, “This approximation still has an error of about one day per 3,300 years with respect to the mean tropical year. So, for all we know, it could be Wednesday.”

Chuck Hagel, US Secretary of Defense, said “cancelling Friday violates every convention of time keeping.” Hagel added that the administration had not reached any conclusion over the past twenty-four hours. “As I’ve said, this is serious business–we need all the facts,” he said.

Senator McCain, who has long advocated US-led intervention in international time measurement, said the letter showed the administration was not ready to make that assessment. It did however bring US assessments more in line with UK, French and Israeli claims that after several days of the week, Friday usually occurs or, as the French insist, vendredi.

The careful use of language and the phrase “varying degrees of confidence” suggests that there remain disagreements among the various US intelligence agencies over the strength of the evidence and that the administration was seeking to keep its options open on whatever day it is and how to respond.

Perhaps a few of you out there are of my generation and recognized the name of the presidential assistant, Mairzy Doats, as the title of a 1940’s novelty, swing tune. Even if you don’t, let me quote a few lines of its lyrics.

“Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey

“A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?

“If the words sound queer and funny to your ear,

“A little bit jumbled and jivey,

“Sing ‘Mares eat oats and does eat oats,

“And little lambs eat ivy’.”

I don’t want to get too post-modern on you, but it’s all about language, folks… what it actually says… what it sounds like… and how you’re to understand it. If the conventions of language break down, it all comes apart. Words that sound queer and funny to your ear.

A bit more seriously, a few of you out there, who are of my generation, may remember when reading the novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell, was a rite of passage in junior year of high school.

 Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel published in 1949. It portrays a world of perpetual war against a powerful-yet strangely ambiguous-enemy, an omnipresent government surveillance, and public mind control, all under the domination of privileged Inner-Party elites that persecute all individualism and independent thinking as “thoughtcrimes” or “doublespeak”.

The tyranny is headed by “Big Brother,” a quasi-divine Party Leader, who enjoys an intense cult of personality, but whose actual existence is also strangely ambiguous. Big Brother and the Party justify their rule in the name of peace, prosperity and a greater good.

At the center of all this, is the breakdown and cooption of language. “Newspeak” is the fictional language in the novel, a reduced language created by the Party as a tool to limit free thought and any concepts that pose a threat to the regime. For the most part, newspeak follows the same grammatical rules as standard English, but has a much more limiting and constantly shifting vocabulary. Any undesirable concepts, that is, undesirable by those in power in order to control its citizens,  are eradicated in the language. Normally distasteful or threatening concepts are euphemized to the point where the Party’s suppression of its citizens are acts of “love.”

“Oldspeak,” current English, is spoken among the working classes, the Proles.

Although Nineteen Eighty-Four is a fictional parody of a world dominated by Stalinist communism, the fictional news article that you have just read is copied almost verbatim from an actual AP Press release. The only substantive change made was the subject matter.

My reaction to it, when I read it, was that it was an example of a purposeful government obfuscation-something we called “weasel-wording” in marketing and Orwell called “newspeak”-in which the media is woefully complicit.

Why would such a thing happen?

If we Proles were not to understand the substance of what the government is saying… what the government is doing… what the government knows or does not know… what actual threats against us might exist… then we would be powerless to make informed decisions in what should be our democratic process.

It’s a good thing that Nineteen Eighty-Four is just fiction.

There’s no perpetual state of war against “terrorism” fighting powerful-yet strangely ambiguous enemies like Al-Quaeda, or Al-Shabaab, or Sh’ah Boom Sh’ah Boom,  or domestic terrorist groups.  No omnipresent government surveillance through drones… or video monitoring of public places… or monitoring email and internet activities… or key-words spoken on overseas telephone conversations. No public mind control over gun control, abortion, evil capitalists or immigration. No control by privileged party elites within the Washington beltway. No persecution of individualism, freedom of expression and independent thinking as not “politically correct.”  No quasi-divine leaders who enjoy an intense cult of personality, and rule in the name of a “greater good,” “change” and “prosperity.

Whew! What a relief! Nineteen Eighty-Four never happened. So, whatever the media tells us, it’s safe to read, “Mares eat oats and does eat oats  and little lambs eat ivy.”

It’s great to be a Prole!

The post US Government Sources Say That the Evidence Is Not Conclusive That It’s Friday appeared first on Ray Gleason.

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At the risk of offending some of my friends on the political left, I cannot let the passing of Baroness Margaret Thatcher go by without expressing my feelings of deep gratitude to the woman whom the Soviets rightly dubbed “The Iron Lady.” She was one of the great figures of our time transforming Great Britain and going on to shape world politics in ways that will reverberate for generations to come. I join my British kin in mourning her death and I would like to share with my friends some of the reasons I admired her.

As many know, I lived in Britain from 1968 to the spring of 1974. I went through the rolling blackouts, work-to-rule and other ways that the British public was bludgeoned by an arrogant [and I suspect, relatively small] leftist trade union leadership. I walked past shops in London and Oxford blacked out but for flashlights in the windows trying to illuminate whatever wares they were selling. I saw posters that read “We survived the Blitz—we can survive this!” Instead of inspiring me these signs enraged me, because I wanted the great British public to rise up in fury and demand that they be treated with respect and allowed to live their lives in dignity. I left Britain before Mrs. Thatcher tapped into that discontent and reshaped the political landscape. I know that she was no saint—and not everything that she advocated was good, but she towers over her contemporaries.

On a slightly less heavy note, I would like pass on a telling anecdote about Mrs. Thatcher that arose in a summer NEH program I was at on “Medieval Women” facilitated by a prominent American Medievalist. Late in the seminar the group was stung into discussion because a woman had been appointed as Cadet Regimental Commander at West Point. I was, by the way, the only male in the group—which made for interesting moments! Some members the group were enraged that the female cadet had taken that position. Others went so far as to opine that women could not and should not take part in battle! I was ‘possessed’, as I like to tell my friends, by one y Tylwyth Teg, one of the puckish Welsh fairy folk, because I took delight in pointing out to the group that during the Falklands Islands War it was Thatcher, herself, who gave the order to sink the Argentine battleship, the General Belgrano, after it was steaming away from the British task force. There was dead silence in the room after I voiced that incident—I suspect that some of the more extreme feminists wished to assert that Maggie wasn’t a real woman, but were constrained from doing so by the sheer idiocy of that position.

What is my point with this little story? I think that Mrs. Thatcher gave that order because at some deep level she felt that her honor and the honor of Britain had been violated by the Argentines. She showed no pity for the young conscripts lost in the frigid waters of the South Atlantic, rightly feeling, I believe, that these young men died because of the actions of a corrupt and arrogant Argentine junta.

An afterword by Ray Gleason.

Margaret Thatcher was not popular in my neighborhood, Woodside, Queens,  in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. How could she be… we were Irish and we were Union. The Bobby Sands issue was probably the most dramatic incident turning attitudes firmly and bitterly against the “Iron Lady.”

In 1981, Bobby Sands, an IRA prisoner in Belfast’s Maze Prison, began a hunger strike to regain for himself and his comrades the status of political prisoners, that had been removed in 1976 by the preceding Labour government, and to win concessions over their living conditions.

Publicly, Thatcher refused to consider a restoration of political status for the prisoners, declaring “Crime is crime is crime; it is not political,” but privately her government contacted republican leaders in an attempt to bring the hunger strikes to an end. However, it took the deaths of Sands and nine other prisoners, before some rights were restored to IRA prisoners. Thatcher’s government never granted  official recognition of their alleged political status.

In Irish tradition and under traditional Brehon law, what Sands and the other prisoners were engaged in could be considered troscud.  This is a procedure of public fasting against those of high rank to pressure them into conceding. The one fasted against, the cosnoir, is expected to concede to justice, admitting responsibility or agreeing to arbitration, or suffers great shame and loss of honor in the community. If the cosnoir holds out against a justified and properly conducted fast, the cosnoir loses legal rights in the community. If the person who fasts, the gearani,  dies as a result of the fast, the cosnoir may be considered guilty of the gearani’s murder and be held accountable for the dead person’s head price.

I read in Lisa Bitel’s book, Isle of the Saints: Monastic Settlement and Christian Community in Early Ireland, that St. Patrick conducted a troscud against God over Patrick’s demand to judge the dead. Patrick remained at Cruachán Aigle for forty days refusing all food. God sent one of his angels to demand that Patrick end his fast, but he refused. God then sent blackbirds to harass the saint, but Patrick drove them off by singing psalms and ringing bells. Finally God capitulated, not only granting Patrick the power to judge the dead, but promising that no Saxons would ever dwell in Ireland (Bitel 215).

On 6 November 1981, Thatcher and the then Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald established the Anglo-Irish Inter-Governmental Council, a forum for meetings between the two governments. On 15 November 1985, just a little more than a year after the IRA bombing of a Brighton hotel on 12 October 1984, where Thatcher was staying to attend the Conservative Party Conference and which claimed the lives of five people, Thatcher and FitzGerald signed the Hillsborough Anglo-Irish Agreement. This is the first time that a British government gave the Republic of Ireland an advisory role in the governance of the six occupied counties.

The treaty gave the Irish government an advisory role in the government of the six counties while confirming that there would be no change in the constitutional position of these counties unless a majority of its people agreed to join the Republic of Ireland. Although vehemently opposed by Irish Unionists, the British House of Commons voted for a motion to approve the Agreement by a majority of 426, 473 for and 47 against, the biggest majority during Thatcher’s premiership. In the Republic, despite opposition from Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin, the agreement was approved by Dáil Éireann, 88 votes to 75.

Although the agreement failed to bring an immediate end to political violence in Northern Ireland and did little to reconcile the two communities, it can be seen as a major stepping-stone in the peace process. It did improve co-operation between the British and Irish governments, which was key to the creation of the Good Friday Agreement thirteen years later. And, for this unrepentant Fenian, it hopefully brought the peaceful end to British occupation of the six counties and the reunification of the Irish people closer.

Under the tradition of the troscud, after the cosnoir has settled the offence, that offense may no longer be held against her. Holding such a grudge is itself a offense against honor. So, rest in peace Maggie Thatcher! God has not granted me the power to judge others, but  I’m sure St. Patrick will consider what you did for his beloved people when he judges your deeds.

The post Thoughts on the Passing of Maggie Thatcher by Dr. Richard Davies appeared first on Ray Gleason.

As a public figure, Annette was the image of innocent, adolescent glamor in the late 1950’s. I watched her grow up on the Mickey Mouse Club, as one of the original “Mouseketeers” as I too grew up.

In New York, the Mickey Mouse Club aired in the late afternoon, so I had to be sure to get my homework done as soon as I got home from school so I could watch. Each day of the week had a different theme: Monday–Fun with Music; Tuesday–Guest Star; Wednesday–Anything Can Happen; Thursday–Circus; and Friday–Talent Round-up Rodeo. My favorite segments were anything that featured Annette and “Mouse Cartoon Time,” featuring a Disney cartoon, where the Mouseketeers opened the cartoon vault with the incantation, “Meeska, Mooska, Mouseketeer, Mouse cartoon time now is here.”

I had my own Mouseketeer hat… I kept it in a safe place in my room with my Davey Crockett “King of the Wild Frontier”  cap. My Mouseketeer hat was a black, felt beanie with plastic mouse ears stapled to it, an elastic chin strap, and a Mickey Mouse Club logo glued to the front. I only wore it in the house. If I wore it around the neighborhood, I’d get my ass kicked.

My fixation with Annette peaked during her appearances on the Disney serial, Spin and Marty. I imagined myself sitting at the Triple R campfire, holding hands with Annette while we sang  ”Yippee Yay, Yippee Yi, Yipee Yo” and “Slue-Foot Sue.”

Like many kids my age, I really wanted to be a Mouseketeer. But, for a working-class kid growing up in Queens, New York, in the 1950’s that was about as likely as getting into West Point, or graduating from Northwestern, or becoming a published writer.

So, I settled comfortably into my Mickey-Mouse-Club-Annette fantasy of adolescent desire… that was until one day my grandfather told me that he had once had an opportunity to work for Disney.

My grandfather, Walter Hoyler, was a talented artist. His pen and chalk drawings of my mother as a baby, and of his friend, Spencer Tracy, which hung in his apartment, were pristine, like photos. But, like many of his generation, trying to survive the Great Depression, he had no time for dreams. He was dedicated to supporting his family. He worked as a draftsman in the engineering department of the Interboro Rapid Transit Company in New York, the old IRT, that built the elevated and the original subway lines in Manhattan. It was good, steady work, and during the 1930’s a job was a invaluable asset.

According to Pop, in the late 1920’s, when Disney was struggling, having lost the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and before Steamboat Willy made Mickey Mouse famous, Pop had a meeting in Manhattan with Rudolph Ising who, after reviewing Pop’s portfolio, invited him to travel out to Southern California to interview with both Roy and Walt Disney. But, at the time Pop had three kids-my mom was only a year old-the stock market was taking a nose dive, banks were failing and he had good, steady work with the IRT. So, he declined the invitation.

So, in my peri-pubescent-boy imagination, I was sure that had Pop made the trip, he would have been hired and I would have been part of the Disney family in Southern California.

Southern California! To a kid growing up in Queens, that was Shangri-La… endless beaches… year-round summer and Disneyland! Despite the difference in our ages, I was sure Annette would have fallen head-over-heels for me.

But, it was not to be. For me, as for thousands of other young boys in the late 1950’s, she would forever remain an unreachable, untouchable, image of smiling beauty, innocence and grace dancing across a twelve-inch TV screen in black-and-white.

My fascination with Annette ended in 1963 during the Winter of my sophomore year in high school. My buddies and I wandered into a movie theater in downtown Scranton where I saw Ann-Margret sing the reprise of Bye, Bye Birdie. Suddenly, at fourteen, I realized what sex was. It had nothing to do with innocent crushes.

At that moment, Annette and I “broke up.”

I’m not altogether sure that was a good thing.

In a sense, the contrasting images of Beach Party Bingo Annette Funicello and Kitten With A Whip Ann-Margret are metaphors for the passing of the “innocent” 1950’s and the beginning of the sexually explicit 1960’s.

One might argue that such a transition is necessitated by sexual maturation. I would counter saying sexual maturation is personal; sexual explicitness is social.

My “Annette-Phase,” always remains special to me. Even to this day, I get a warm, pleasant and happy feeling when I think about her. It’s a sense of sexual attraction, certainly, but one curiously, and pleasantly, unsoiled by sexuality.

Perhaps Annette’s greatest accomplishment was in her struggle against Muscular Sclerosis (MS), a degenerative neurological disease, which she conducted with courage, quiet dignity and grace.

In early 1987, she began to suffer from dizzy spells, but concealed her failing health. Although she kept her condition a secret for many years, in order to combat rumors that her increasingly obvious physical impairments were the result of alcoholism, in 1992 she announced that she was suffering from MS.

In her announcement, she stated, “I have great faith there is a reason God wanted me to have MS. I think the reason is for me to help others and help raise funds.”

Later that year, she established The Annette Funicello Research Fund for Neurological Diseases, dedicated to funding research into the cause, treatment and cure of multiple sclerosis and other neurological diseases. According to the fund’s website, it has no paid staff, allowing it to operate at little cost, and per Funicello’s wishes, ensuring nearly 100 percent of all donated funds are used for research purposes only. It continues to be an active charity.

Summing up the life of this iconic star, Diane Disney Miller quoted from Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty,”

“She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies,

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes

Thus mellow’d to that tender light

Which Heaven to gaudy Day denies.”

I add to this tribute the words of John Donne,

“Each man’s death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.”

To this day, what remains of that little boy sitting in his parents’ front room in the late afternoon watching the Mickey Mouse Club with mouse-ears strapped to his head is still attracted and fascinated by that smiling girl.

The post Good Bye, Annette: Adieu Innocence and Quiet Courage. appeared first on Ray Gleason.

My immediate response was skepticism… I’ve seen the Major’s smirk before… but, after looking the issue up on the Internet, my incredulity quickly evolved into sheer and absolute panic!

In my mind’s eye, I pictured certain members of my school’s faculty with six-guns strapped to their hips!

I knew that under current Indiana law, unless one is a law-enforcement officer, bringing a weapon onto school property without the explicit authorization of the school district is a felony. The only exception is that anyone with a state carry permit can be armed while in the process of picking up or dropping off.

However, this putative bill in the Indiana legislature would require a person designated as the school protection officer—whether a police officer or school employee—to carry a loaded weapon and be at the school at all times during regular school hours. The protection officers would have to meet training standards set by a new statewide school safety board.

According to the news reports, leaders of the Indiana School Boards Association and the Indiana State Teachers Association said they didn’t believe the proposal was well thought out.

To quote one of my favorite teenager expressions, “DUH!”

I have a concealed carry permit. But, I’m retired military and an ex-Federal officer. I have been thoroughly trained in weapons safety, operations and tactical deployment. And, I never carry at school.

As I mention in my first book, A Grunt Speaks, a key issue of the “tactical employment” of weapons in the military is what’s called the “Rules of Engagement.” Essentially, these are rules that define the circumstances, conditions, degree, and manner in which deadly force may be applied. And, the discharge of any weapon is “deadly force.”

In combat, the basic ROE is that a soldier is authorized to use deadly force when

1. Someone is firing at the soldier.

2. The target is identifiable as an enemy combatant—uniforms, equipment, activity, etc.

3. Deadly force is required to preserve the lives of US personnel, allied personnel or civilians.

In general, deadly force cannot be directed into or near civilian areas unless such fire is mission essential.

In the early 1980’s, I served with a unit whose mission was to provide counter-terrorist assistance to federal agencies and civilian police agencies when authorized. Specifically, we deployed sniper teams and assault teams operating under the SWAT concept.

Despite being a qualified infantry officer with combat experience, before being qualified to operate in this role, I was required to complete a special course in Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT), four weeks training in SWAT operations, a one week sniper school, and complete a basic civilian law-enforcement officer training course.

In this unit, we spent most of our time training and one of our recurrent tactical training exercises was the “Shooter in a School” scenario. The reason why we repeatedly practiced this scenario is that it’s probably the most difficult challenge-tactically and emotionally-we could expect to face.

There’s a 180-degree difference between the combat goals of military combat and those of law-enforcement.

In the military, one neutralizes enemy resistance in accordance with the ROE to achieve the mission; one took prisoners only if it were possible and would not jeopardize the mission or the safety of the friendly forces. In law-enforcement operations, one is expected to take prisoners whenever possible, using deadly force only when absolutely necessary.

In other words, although casualty rates in military operations are typically greater, in civilian operations law-enforcement officers are made more vulnerable to the bad-guys by their ROE.

Another issue complicating combat in civilian environments is the presence of the civilians themselves. Even if one is authorized to use deadly force under the ROE, one must deploy it in such a way as to avoid any harm to civilians.

The presence of civilians at the point of contact is a distraction, emotionally and tactically. Tactically, civilians will try to flee the danger area and, in doing so, will both distract the attention of law-enforcement officers and, at times, get in the line of fire. Emotionally, the sight of injured civilians greatly affects the ability of officers to operate effectively and moderately. The site of injured children is emotionally crippling.

Despite all our training and drill, the “shooter in a school” scenario was an operation we never wanted to execute!

So, when the State of Indiana talks about arming school employees in order to prevent or to lessen the damage caused by a school shooter, I see greater potential for the opposite happening. An under-trained, emotionally ill-prepared individual, with the ability to deploy deadly force, in a chaotic and cathartic situation will most likely exacerbate a tragedy.

I fervently hope that legislators, not only those in Indiana but in any state contemplating such a law, will come to their senses and not legislate such a scenario. The likely outcome of this situation is one even the professionals do not want to contemplate.

The post Indiana Schools and Gun Violence-Trying To Tell the Zoo Keepers from the Critters appeared first on Ray Gleason.

I know you Cub and Yankee fans have just started playing your violins for me. One of you I’m going to ignore; I’ll get to the other one later.

The Mets, despite playing in one of the best baseball markets in the known universe, didn’t exactly tear up the league last year (or for the last six or so) finishing second to last in the NL East with a 74 and 88 record.

If that wasn’t bad enough, everything good they did last year seemed to have been twisted into something dreadful.

1. They had a great start, actually going into the All-Star break contending for the division… then there was that horrific 7-18 July, and not another winning month for the rest of the year… they even went 1-2 in October.

2. Johan Santana pitched the franchise’s first ever no hitter,  a somewhat ironic accomplishment for a franchise who had Tom Seaver, Dwight Gooden and Nolan Ryan pitching for it at various times. But, the no-no was tainted; it was preserved on a bad call, which was broadcast on every national sports media outlet in the world.

3. R. A. Dickie became the first knuckle-baller to win the Cy Young. I hope he’ll be happy playing in Canada this season.

 Other off-season gems included the Mets paying outfielder, Jason Bay, $21 million not to play baseball for them. They even lost one of their AAA Minor League teams, the Buffalo Bisons.

While other teams were scarfing up free agents to get ready for a competitive 2013 season, the most hopeful thing for the Mets going into spring training was that the franchise’s owner, Fred Wilpon, won’t start the season in the slammer. Wilpon announced he had settled a $162 million lawsuit over the Bernie Madoff scandal. In fact, Madoff himself claimed from prison that Wilpon “knew nothing” about Madoff’s Ponzi scheme… and God knows… Bernie’s word is as good as gold… as long as you get out quick. But, at least the Mets’ 2013 season will open without the team in receivership and a foreclosure sign on Citi Field.

So, going into opening day, the Mets hopes of success are about the same as the Chicago Cubs, with one huge difference… unlike the Cubs, the Mets aren’t loveable… in fact, they’re pretty much despised around the league.

So, what would cause someone… someone like me for example… to be a Mets fan, other than a ploy to piss off all the Cub fans I know (and loving it).

The first thing I’d like to point out is that I’m a Mets fan neither by nature nor by nurture.

As I mention in my bio, I’m about as much “New York City” as anyone can be. I was born on the east-side of Manhattan in Gotham hospital. When I was a kid, New York City had three baseball teams (they weren’t called franchises back then) the Giants, the Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers. And, the team you rooted for was not really a matter of choice, it was part of your social identity.

Dodger and Giant fans-this was the old National League, when the Braves played in Boston-were the salt of the earth. These were hourly-wage, blue collar, union-member, ethnic folk-Irish, Italian, Polish, Sicilian. Yankee fans over in the American League tended to be  Republican, white collar… the bosses… the English.

National league fans drank beer; Yankee fans, cocktails. Dodger and Giant fans rode the subway to work; Yankee fans drove their car (or had a Dodger fan drive it for them). National leaguers lived in apartments with all the kids stacked in one bedroom; Yankee fans had homes in the ‘burbs with a bedroom for every kid, green lawns and swing sets in the back yard. Dodger and Giant fans were Democrats; Yankee fans, Republicans. There was no common ground.

In my family, who were all Giant fans since the Fred Hooey-Buck Ewing days, changing religion would have been accepted easier than going over to the Yankees. (To this day I have a brother and sister whose souls I pray for daily). In fact, in my house the three persons of the blessed trinity were McGraw, Terry and Ott.

During the baseball season, Dodger and Giant fans ignored the Yankees. They were over in that other league and the only inter-league play that existed back then, when the Baltimore Orioles were still the St. Louis Browns, was the World Series in October.

But, Giant and Dodger fans savaged each other. I had an uncle (by marriage) who was a Dodger fan. From April to October, no one in the family would talk to him… and that was the merciful option; even his wife, my aunt, my father’s sister, who taught me poker and black jack, was tainted by odor of Dodger-ness.

There’s a famous story about the Giant player, Bobby Thompson, who in a playoff against the Dodgers in 1951, hit a home run up the left-field line in the old Polo Grounds in the bottom of the ninth-the famous “Shot Heard ‘Round the World”-to consign Dodger fans to “waiting for next year” while the Giants went on to the series against the Yankees. (They lost in five!) After he hit the homerun, Thompson remembered that his apartment was in Brooklyn, and the Dodger fans in his neighborhood would probably be waiting for him to get home. So, he had to hide out in the clubhouse until the Brooklyn lynch mob gave up and went home.

But, during the World Series, Dodger and Giant fans united against the Yankees, regardless of what National League team they were playing. So in October, at various times in my life, I’ve been a Dodger fan, a Milwaukee Braves fan, even a Pittsburgh Pirate fan (that was sweet!), any National League team that was playing against the Yankees.

Then came that horrible day in September, 1957. The National League abandoned New York City. The Giants left the Polo Grounds for San Francisco; the Dodgers abandoned Ebbets Field for LA. New York baseball was dead!

Now you have to remember (for some of my readers, you have to find out) these were the days before national media. There was no ESPN, no USA Today, no internet. When the Giants and Dodgers left New York, they completely disappeared from view for a ten-year-old kid growing up in New York, except for the vestiges left in box scores in the NY Daily News and Daily Mirror.

 Then in 1962, after four years of no National League-in other words, real baseball-in New York City, the Mets were born!

Now the 1962 Mets were arguably one of the worst teams ever to play the game. They made the pre-Jackie Robinson Brooklyn Dodgers look like champs! But-and here is one of the secrets of their early success with New York City fans-they emulated the old Dodgers and Giants. One of the colors they wore on their uniforms, was Dodger blue, and on their caps they wore the same orange “NY” logo as the old New York Giants. And, they played their home games at the Polo Grounds. That pretty much did it for me… I was hooked.

Another major attraction for the early Mets was that they brought the Giants and Dodgers back to New York. Anytime one of these teams came to town, the Polo Grounds were packed, and most of the “home town” fans were not rooting for the Mets. What would be the point in that? They went 40-120 that first season,  the most losses by any major league team since 1899. They finished dead last in the National League, 60 1⁄2 games behind… wait for it… the San Francisco Giants (who went on to play the Yankees in the Series losing in seven).

Also, with the Mets, returned some hometown heroes like Gil Hodges, Don Zimmer and Roger Craig who had Dodger pedigrees. And, of course, Casey Stengel, who had both Giant and Dodger history, as well as being one of the most successful mangers the Yankees ever had, was brought out of retirement to manage the team. Stengel’s baseball wisdom included such sage advice as, “Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It’s staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in,” and “The secret of successful managing is to keep the five guys who hate you away from the four guys who haven’t made up their minds.”

And, of course, the early Mets, despite their dismal proficiency at anything resembling major league baseball, were “loveable.” For example, say the following two words to any vintage Met fan, “Marv Throneberry”! The response you’ll get, with a healthy dollop of New-York-City irony, is, “Marvelous Marv!”

Throneberry was the personification of Mets endearing ineptitude. Not only did he screw things up on the field, he did it big! An infamous “Marvelous Marv” story. Throneberry was called out at second and manager Casey Stengel came out to argue the call, but was told by the umpire “Don’t bother arguing Casey, he missed first base, too.” And, New York Mets fans loved him!

Ironically, the Mets two World Series victories destroyed their image as the “loveable losers.”

When the “Miracle Mets” of 1969 overtook the Cubs for the Eastern Division, swept out the Braves for the National League Pennant, then beat the Orioles in five for the Series, Met fans had to accept the fact that their team were no longer a parody of a major league baseball club, and their play on the field had to be taken seriously. The comedy show became a melodrama.

The Mets stopped being “loveable”-at least, outside of Chicago, where they never were-in 1986, the year they beat the Red Sox in seven. I’m not sure exactly how this happened, but my theory is that it had something to do with playing “power baseball” around the league with a little too much swagger and a little too much cocaine.

So, here we are in spring 2013, and my team is neither “lovable” nor the Washington Generals of baseball, but just another  perennially underperforming Major League franchise. My only question is whether it’s too early to do adopt a venerable Brooklyn Dodger tradition and declare, “Wait’ll next year!”

The post The New York Mets and Other Bad Habits appeared first on Ray Gleason.

In the last chapter of my novel, The Violent Season, “The Bay, Part Two,” a man who is struggling to recover from the horrific experiences of war and combat in Vietnam, and shocked by the destruction wrought by time on the home of his youth, remembers stories of ancient heroes and the Tír na N’Óg that his Irish grandmother had told him as a boy, which now resonate in a way the man had never anticipated.

“His grandmother told him it was a magical stone. In Ireland, the “little people,” the tuatha dé danán she called them, used these moon stones to mark the entrances of the líos, their magical underground kingdom, a land of eternal youth where mortal time didn’t exist. She told the boy that only great heroes, Fionn mac Cumhail or the great Cu Chullain, dared to enter the líos. Once there, they were greeted by the léanan sí, three beautiful maidens, one red, one gold and one black, who

would love and care for them.

There, the hero was reunited with his comrades, who had fallen in battle at his side.

There, they all were young again, their battle-wounds healed.

There, they would feast and drink in the eternal strength of their youth.

There, the hero would be reunited with his loved ones, who had gone before him into the land of shadows.

There, all their joy, all their love, would be restored” (from, The Violent Season).

In the late 1970’s, some eight years after I had left the mountains and jungles of Vietnam, I was sitting on an American Airlines flight at the gate at LaGuardia Airport on my way to Chicago, the same flight I had taken every Sunday night for the last six months.

It was April, a New York City Spring; wet, sleet-laden rain was pummeling the thin skin of the Boeing 727, teetering the wings like a playground see-saw. I was strapped into an aisle seat with three tiny bottles of Bacardi rum and a can of Coke that the flight attendant at the door, who by this time knew me by name and had anticipated my arrival, had handed me when I flashed my boarding pass.

I was a nervous flyer. Surviving two helicopter crashes and a “rough” landing on a mountain runway under mortar attack in an Air Force C7A Caribou will do that. I figured my number was way overdo. So my coping mechanism was rum, coke and a spy novel to bury myself in while the flight crew and the fickle gods, who rule the folly of human flight in tin contraptions on stormy nights, decided whether we were going to land at O’Hare that night (and in what condition).

I was reading a passage in my book where the “hero,” a British secret agent-type, and his ally, an ex-IRA terrorist, who was now working for MI6, were trying to extract vital information from members of the Irish underworld in the slums of Belfast. Part of the conversation was in Irish Gaelic, which I suddenly realized that, as my eyes passed quickly over the text, I understood! Amazing stuff this Bacardi! But, when I went back actually to read these passages, the Gaelic was as obscure to me as Sanskrit.

Now, I would have attributed this entire phenomenon to pre-flight jitters and that miracle elixir bottled by that esteemed miracle worker, Don Bacardi, and just forgotten the whole incident. But, about a week later, I was on the phone with one of my more high-tone friends, a young woman, who boarded and trained horses out on Long Island. She was telling me about one of her new horses.

“… and his name is Capall Dubh…” she was saying.

“Oh! He’s a black horse?” I interrupted.

“Yes,” she answered, “That’s what his name means, but how did you know that?”

Well, I didn’t know how I knew! The English meaning had just popped into my head!

This being the 1970’s, and with my need for explanations, rational or not, I developed a number of theories to explain this linguistic marvel.

First, I was having a nervous breakdown that somehow manifested itself in the “gift of tongues.” Then again, the whole concept of a “gift of tongues” suggested to an Irish-Catholic a second Pentecost of the Holy Ghost (very unlikely considering my lifestyle at the time) or a demonic possession (The Exorcist was a very popular movie at the time… I haven’t been able to face pea soup since I saw it).

My personal favorite theory was that I had had a former life as an ancient Irish warrior. (We’re always someone famous in our former lives. That’s the way these things work as the character, Annie Savoy, in the movie Bull Durham, explains.) I was having flashbacks to my former life as an Irish hero.

A couple of days later, I was at a family wedding, one of those wonderful, New York, Irish blowouts (Q: What’s the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish wake? A: One less drunk.) There, I ran into my older cousin. She and I had spent our summers together as kids; to me, she was more like my older sister than my cousin.

When I told her what was happening with the Gaelic and my Irish warrior theory-we were well into the wedding celebration by this time-my cousin just laughed and said, “When you were small, you and Nanny used to sit in the front room every afternoon, sipping tea, watching The Kate Smith Show and Queen for a Day, while Nanny jabbered away at you in Irish and you just sat there saying ‘Tá, mamó,’ “Níl, mamó,’ ‘Tuigim, mamó.’ We were never quite sure you spoke English until you were about five, Skip!”

I remembered the tea-hot, sweet and thick with canned, Carnation condensed milk; my grandmother would pour a bit in the saucer to let it cool for me. I remembered sitting in the front room in the late afternoon with muted sunlight glowing behind heavy drapes, softening the noises of the city street, as Nanny and I sat in large, over-stuffed, high-backed chairs watching the tele.

But I didn’t remember the Irish! So, I asked my cousin, “Then why don’t I remember Nanny speaking Irish to me, Sock?”

“When you started school… what were you… about six… Nanny refused to speak Irish in front of you anymore,” my cousin explained. “Nanny believed if you wanted to get anywhere in this country, you had to speak English without an accent, like an American. That’s why she never spoke Irish in front of any of her own kids. My mother had never heard her speak Irish! She wanted her children to sound like Americans. They couldn’t sound like they had just gotten off the boat. Barry Fitzgerald sounds quaint in a movie, but no one in America’s going to give him a decent job. So, she never spoke Irish in front of you since that day.”

Well, in a way, I was kind of bummed that in a former life I hadn’t been a fénnid, a doughty warrior of the king’s fianna, but I had quite enough on my plate trying to deal with having been a grunt in Vietnam. Yet, I began to remember the tales my mamó had told me while we sat in the front room sipping our tea and listening to Kate Smith on the tele.

My grandma had been born in Mayo, so she wasn’t a big fan of Cú Cullainn and the Ulaid. Being a Connaught woman, she was partial to the legendary Queen Maebh, if her daughter, my Aunt Mae, was any evidence, bean fíochmhar rua dearg, a fierce, red-haired woman. But, she loved the tales of Fionn mac Cumhall and the Fianna.

One of my favorite tales that she had told me was how Fionn saved Tara on the Samhain from a fire-breathing demon, Aillen, who lulled his opponents to sleep with a magic spell before he attacked. Fionn manned the ramparts of Tara alone, with his spear placed under his chin, so if his head nodded in sleep, the point of the spear stabbed him. (I would have tried this one to keep students awake in my Monday, first-period classes, but I’m pretty sure bringing spears to class is illegal in Indiana.)

Her favorite tale, though, was that of Derdriu and her tragic love for Naoise. “Deirdre of the Sorrows,” she called the tale in English. In fact, I remember she once told me that derdriu, not brón, was the true Irish word for sorrow.

  So, these many years later, I now play the role for my readers, that my mamó had played for me, a seanchaí, a teller of tales. These echoes of the Irish language spoken on sunny afternoons over sweet, thick tea and the myths of Irish heroes of course find their way into my tales.

In my novel, The Violent Season, a man, haunted by the horrors and combat and lost friends, and horrified by the devastation of the places he had loved as a child, wants to escape back into his past, where he can be innocent again; where he can again be with those who had loved and protected him; where his childhood dreams would again live.

“Somehow the man believed that, if he dared the dark, twisting path, broke through the brambles and brush of the years and climbed the hill, when he reached the top, all would be restored to him. The waste lands would be restored, would live again. He could again run along the secret Indian paths, brave the valley of the Iroquois, sit under the shady maples in the place of watching over the broad, grey-green bay of Lake Champlain near the fort of the English.

When he reached the top of the path, there before him would appear the white bungalow, framed in red. His grandmother would be there standing on the back porch, calling him.

His beautiful, red-haired aunt, would be sitting at the patio table next to her radio playing “Deep Purple.” She would look up from her magazine, take off her sunglasses, and her bright, green eyes would flash a welcoming smile.

His uncle would be behind the house polishing the Green Hornet, with its spotlight and police radios, into a deep, boundless, green luster.

And Janey, his sweet Janey, would run to him, her arms wide in welcome. ‘Why did you take so long to get home, squirt? Don’t you know how much we missed you?’” (from, The Violent Season).

Of course, entry into the Tír na N’Óg is not possible. The man must remain in the land of mortals. But, life renews itself, because love survives all things, and it is his wife who calls him back into the world of light, as his violent season ends.

The post The Ghosts of an Irish-Catholic Childhood II: A Visit to the Tír na N’Óg in The Violent Season. appeared first on Ray Gleason.

I actually do have a few of those, but I’ll save them for another time. No… this is more an exploration of the sub-conscious of an Irish-American writer as we approach that great parody of the Irish-American identity, “St. Paddy’s Day.”

Now, I say parody out of no disrespect for the Irish, the Americans, the hyphen or the saint. The term applies to using some twisted perception of “Irishness” as an excuse to get drunk, loud and disorderly in vast, overwhelming numbers.

Parody would also characterize the hundreds of images seen in store windows, on front lawns and windows and on TV of a runty, drunk and pugnacious, red-headed character, fists up and with a clay pipe sticking out of the side of his mouth, who curiously has found himself a long-term gig, when not acting as the symbol of “St. Paddy’s Day,” as the logo of a nationally famous Indiana sports complex, which is also vaguely associated with a Catholic university.

I could go on about how these characterizations have their pedigree in nineteenth-century, anti-Irish, Hogarthian, British caricatures of “Paddy and his Pig” to suggest that the Irish were too “savage” and “infantile” to govern themselves.

Or, I could go off on a rant about the hypocrisy of that well-known and nationally-renowned liberal, Catholic institution of higher education, which loudly and indignantly condemns as “racist” the use of Native American caricatures as “mascots” by other universities and sports teams, but still displays a bigoted and degrading caricature of the Irish as its mascot on its athletic website and on its “team apparel.”

No… that’s not at all what I want to talk about today…

 I had the opportunity earlier this week to appear on “The Dead End,” a talk-show hosted by Richard Long, author of the best-selling thriller, The Book of Paul, on Blog Radio out of New York. I had a lot of fun doing the show with Richard and two other Irish-American writers, Karen Victoria Smith, author of Enslaved and Dark Dealings, and Michelle Browne, author of The Loved, The Lost, The Dreaming: A Horror Anthology. (Connections to these talented writers and their works can be found at the end of this article).

 If you have a few minutes-about 120 of them-take a listen to the show… we had a grand time.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/richardlongnyc/2013/03/14/the-dead-end-presentsst-patricks-day

In his exploration of how an Irish-American identity informed our writing, Richard asked whether the Irish version of Catholicism make the Irish different from other ethnic groups. I didn’t respond to this question (the curse of the introvert… I was still processing it while the show moved on to another subject). Having grown up among other ethnic groups, who are generally Catholic-Italians, Sicilians, Puerto Ricans, Polish-there is one area where I believe the Irish differ vastly, the Irish sense of sexuality.

Now, I know we Catholics all received the same rigorous indoctrination from the good sisters in “Catholic School.” Over our eight years of grade school, we memorized the Baltimore Catechism and the nun’s drilled us in it daily.

“Raymond! What is mortal sin?”

“Sister, ‘Mortal sin is a grievous offense against the law of God.’”

“Why is this sin called mortal, Raymond?

“‘This sin is called mortal, or deadly, because it deprives the sinner of sanctifying grace, the supernatural life of the soul,’ Sister.”

“Good! What are the sources of mortal sin, Raymond?”

“‘The chief sources of actual sin are: pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth, and these are commonly called capital sins,’ Sister.”

“Are sins of lust mortal sins?”

“Yes, Sister?”

“And what would become of your soul if you were to die with a sin of lust on your soul, Raymond?”

“I would burn in Hell for all eternity, Sister.”

“That’s right, children. Remember! Our Lord said that the one who lusts even if only in his thoughts, still commits a deadly sin. Lust is a mortal sin in thought, in word and in deed. Thinking about it, or talking about it, or committing it will condemn your soul to the agonies of Hell for all eternity.”

Is it any wonder I have nightmares?

My sense of my Irish-Catholic sexuality is angst… even in my wild-child days of the 1970’s as a swinging bachelor and bar owner in New York City, sex always seemed a somewhat forbidden fruit. Somewhere, even in the darkness of my bachelor boudoir, was a little, chubby-cheeked, Irish kid dressed in the white and navy-blue of our Catholic school uniform reciting,  “I would burn in Hell for all eternity, Sister.”

By the way, if any of you out there also suffer from this same, Irish-Catholic anxiety over sex, do not read James Joyce’s, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The Jesuit’s sermon on damnation-the black, eternal, smothering fires of Hell-will put you over the edge.

Or, for that matter, Dante’s Inferno and Purgatorio where the punishments in the afterlife of those guilty of the sins of lust are revealed in lured detail. There’s no sex or sadism in the Paradiso, which probably explains why no one reads it.

This sense of Irish-Catholic sexual angst comes up in a couple of places in my new book, The Violent Season.

In the second chapter, “Soldiers of Christ,” I tell the story of a young boy, Mickey Dwyer, falling in love for the first time but not understanding what’s happening to him. As he is about to file into Sunday mass with his best friend, Joey Benedict, and the rest of his eighth-grade classmates, Mickey tries to catch a glimpse of Lorie McShea.

“As they got ready to file into the church with the rest of their class, the line of girls drew parallel with the line of boys. Mickey knew he shouldn’t be looking around—the nuns might catch him, or even worse, Joey—but he couldn’t help but look for Lori among the girls […] Mickey had never had any interest in girls. But, for the last few months, something seemed to be changing. Gradually, he began to realize that he thought he might think otherwise. He wasn’t interested in what girls did; that was all pretty silly and useless stuff as far as he was concerned. But, he was becoming interested in girls… well… because they were girls. Why? He didn’t have a clue. He never gave it much thought. But, whatever was going on, it was probably sinful and should be suppressed, because it felt so… so… strangely delightful and alluring. So, Mickey didn’t want to suppress it, especially with Lori, even if it did endanger the salvation of his immortal soul. For him, Lori was a blond-haired, blue-eyed ray of sunshine in his shadowy world of predators and power in the school yard, the playgrounds and the streets of the neighborhood” (from The Violent Season).

Later, in Chapter Four, titled ironically, “A Meeting Engagement,” another young man, Pat Green, after four years attending an all-boys, Catholic high school, finds himself in a college classroom with a beautiful and assertive young woman, who is trying to get his attention. Green of course doesn’t have a clue about what to do.

“At this point in his life, Pat Green had not shared a classroom with a member of the opposite sex since the eighth grade when he was thirteen-years old. And, he was discovering that a few things had changed since then. His memory of awkward, skinny, stringy-haired girls dressed in shapeless Catholic-school jumpers had been abruptly shattered by the image of Judy Kelly, a well-developed, auburn-haired, beauty in lipstick, eye-shadow and skirts that never quite made it over her knees when she sat in a desk less than six feet from him in two of his classes. The Jesuits of St. Xavier Academy had done nothing to prepare him for this moment except convince him that every time he so much as thought about Judy Kelly, he was committing a horrible sin and endangering his immortal soul. He never even consciously realized that it was she who had chosen to sit near him, and this had to mean something important. No, he couldn’t think. He couldn’t function. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He found her very act of breathing fascinating, the way she filled her stylish white blouses that moved in and out… in and out… as she took each breath causing a condition in him that any first year nursing student sitting in that cafeteria at that moment would immediately, and correctly, diagnose as hyper-ventilation” (from The Violent Season).

In the narrative related by The Violent Season, this sense of sexual naïveté and angst serves to establish the innocence of these young men who will soon be cast into the crucible of war raging in the hills and jungles of Vietnam. For one, sexuality is an act of commitment that keeps him joined to the woman who loves him and awaits his return. For the other, he finds love in the arms of an exotically beautiful woman in Vietnam but both are scarred by tragedy and war. Neither can recognize their feelings for the other.

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!

The Blessing of St. Patrick’s Day to You!

 Connections

Richard Long

Blog: http://www.thebookofpaul.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RichardLongAuthor#

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/RichardLongNYC

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/O72Fm0

Google+: http://bit.ly/LYZFG0

YouTube: http://bit.ly/Ne5yAW

Amazon: http://amzn.to/LJf2nX

Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/NpEy0E

iTunes: http://bit.ly/Mo9fBc

Karen Victoria Smith

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/karen-victoria-smith/13/433/344

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/K.VictoriaSmith

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Dealings-ebook/dp/B007Z9DEEI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1363376142&sr=8-2&keywords=Karen+Victoria+Smith

Barnes & Noble:    http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/karen-victoria-smith

Michelle Browne.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michelle.p.browne?fref=ts

Amazon Author’s Page: http://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Browne/e/B00BGWZRCW/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1363376400&sr=1-2-ent

The post The Ghosts of an Irish-Catholic Childhood I: Guilt Without Sex in “The Violent Season.” appeared first on Ray Gleason.