Of Little Boys

The ancient lords living in Babylon had it made.  The capital city provided every pleasure imaginable.  Every decadence was at ones beckoning.  In ancient Egypt it was the same for the ruling class.  If you were on the top levels of society anything you wanted was a finger snap away.  The same was true in Greece and in its turn Rome.

The men who ruled civilization had the best of everything, every food, intoxicant, and every sexual pleasure was available at any time.  Life is good when you are on the top.  How did these men get to be on the top?  At first they got there by starting at the bottom and as a result of their values, hard work and some sword play they clawed their way to the top.  When you have it that good it's only natural to want to leave it to your sons.

The problem was that as they looked around at their sons they didn't like what they saw.  It seems that luxury and vice as a boy breeds lazy and incompetent men.

The Egyptians came up with a system where the sons of the pharaoh, the nobles, the priests were schooled together without regard for rank.  The boys played together, worked on school assignments, and engaged in the training required to run Egypt.  When it was time for the next generation to take over, they knew (in theory) which of their classmates were able and reliable men that could be trusted to administer the kingdom.  In a sense this system still exists today.  Certain elite prep schools are known for getting their graduates in to specific ivy league schools.  Those top universities are then the selecting grounds for government and corporate leadership.

The Babylonians had a slightly different approach.  The motto was that a boy should "ride, shoot straight and speak the truth".  That might sound more like something John Wayne would say, but they said it first.  The program worked by sending the sons away form the capital.  Then the boy's tutors would train them to live off very little food, work very hard, endure hardship and learn to be "real men".  When they were older they would return to their fathers side and work with him, learning his duties so that when he retired/died they would be ready to fill his job.

Every culture has had a method and a rite of passage for boys to become respectable men.  The bible has passages about how to raise children.  The Greek city states each had their own program.  In more modern times military service and apprenticeship did the job.  In the British navy everyone was subject to ships discipline.  The young prince or nobleman's son was read into the service, after which if he screwed up in his duties, he found himself stripped out of his breeches, bent over a cannon and receiving a dozen stripes from the bos'n mate's cane.    20 years latter that boy might be running the whole admiralty with several fleets of ships at his disposal.  His views on the navy weren't based on watching TV.  He knew what it was to be cold, tired and to have the ships company see his ass whipped red for falling down on the job.

The American Indian had their rituals.  The Jews have the bar mitzvah.  What do American boys have?  They used to have military service.  My grandfathers proved their manhood in World War II.  My father had Viet Nam.  My generation had Pac-Man high score.  We had sports and scouts and some of us hunt and climb mountains etc but by and large the rites of man hood are gone.  We sort of have rites of passage.  "Sort of" is exactly the right descriptive.  Graduation form high school is "sort of" an achievement.  Everyone does it, if they show up for class and don't create a problem.  College is more of the same now.  Pay your tuition, hang out, drink beer and graduate.

Before the male child becomes a victim of the evil Female Socialization Complex (FSC), he knows what he wants.  He wants to become a man.  Ridding a horse well was what a man did.  Babylonian boys wanted to ride that horse.  Shooting, be it a bow or a gun, is what men do.  The boy in the British navy who was about to get his first beating would sometimes get advice from the older men on how to bear up under the punishment.  If he didn't scream or cry out they respected him.  The tears?  Those didn't matter, he couldn't help that.  If he kept still and took it without complaint, he was a man.  If the bos'n mate had been especially hard with the beating, the older men might even slip the boy a part of their cherished rum ration to help him recover.

You can see something amazing in a little boys eyes.  Look closely.  Do you see it?  It's not mischief.  It's not some devilment or acting out.  It's the spark of life its self.  He wants to be, to do, to become.  What does it take to be a man?  The little guy might not even have the vocabulary to ask the question yet.  He is asking it.  With every fiber of his being, he is asking it. 

Someone is answering the question.

If the question is answered by the FSC, the answer is not only wrong, its evil.  Boys do not need to be like little girls.  We have creatures who are supposed to play quietly while mom is on the phone, build and nurture relationships and care about feelings and stuff.  We call them girls. 

We have these other creatures who want to know how stuff works, so they take it apart.  They want to do and see.  They want to defend right and protect those they love so they play at being "the good guys" and they fight "the bad guys".  They don't set quietly.  They run and yell.  They eat huge amounts of food.  They fart and burp at the table. They will pick a fight just to see who is stronger.  As soon as they learn to ride  a bike they look for things to "jump" it off.  They make stuff with Legos.  If they get ahold of firecrackers they will blow up the stuff they made. 

You can domesticate the human male, but you should never try to tame him.  Boys cannot be made safe.  There is nothing safe about a boy.  There is only energy.  Teach the boy how to control that energy.  Never try to take it from him.  If you do you will rob him both of his manhood and the spark of life itself.

IF you tame him, he will live at home in the basement till you die and leave him the house.

IF you tell him that he will become a man and how to do it, he will.  That energy will focus one day.  He will learn all about something and become very good at it.  He will build something unique called a life.  One day he will discover that the thing hanging inside his pants likes girls.  He will chase one until she catches him.  His energy will focus on the 3 P's of civilization, Providing, Protecting and Procreating.

Let your little boy, be a boy.  One day he will be a man.  Train him up and he will be a good man. 

One day, when that little boy has little boys and girls of his own, if a bad man comes around, he will handle it.  When hardship hits, he will deal with it.  When his little boy asks, "What does it take to be a man?".  He will show him with his own life.

Todays little boy is tomorrows great-granddad.  Make him one you can look down from heaven and be proud of. 

Cruel to be Kind

A nun stepped out of the doctor's office, saying her rosary rather loudly as she hurried down the hospital corridor.

Another doctor witnessed this, and went to ask her doctor about it.

"Hey, what happened?  The nun ran out of her praying her rosary as though it were the end of the world!"

"Oh, I just told her she was pregnant." The first doctor replied.

"Oh my!  Is she?"

"No, but it sure cured her hiccups!"

Shirley Temple, Dead

Shirley Temple died of natural causes today at age 85.  I only remember her movies because my grandmother loved watching them and would have them on when we visited.  There was only one TV in a house in those days the custom (i.e. the belt) dictated that the owner of the house got to do what ever they wanted.  I watched the Little Rascals, I love Lucy, and the Bob Newhart Show as a kid for the same reason.  Thankfully I was allowed to go do something else when her other "stories" aka the soaps came on. 

Ms. Temple was a childhood star, best remembered for being cute at a time when things were grim.  As she grew up, she remained attractive but lost that charm that made her a big star.  She never grew her audience as she grew older and so while she had one of the most recognizable celebrity names of her generation, she lost her acting career.  She did what sensible young women did in those days, she got married, settled down and raised a family.  Life wasn't perfect she divorced her first husband.  The second time around she made it work and stayed married till "death us do part".  Shirley wasn't perfect but she was successful outside of the movie studio and had both corporate and a small political career. 

Contrast her to two other celebrities in the news recently.  Phillip Seymour Hoffman, was found with the needle still in his arm.  I don't know how his career would be classified, if it was up or down, either way he was unable to handle the same Hollywood stress as a teenage girl.  The other is childhood star turned sluty attention whore Miley Cyrus.  Shirley Temple had a more respectable method of hitting puberty than is common today, she got married at 17.  It seems that she reserved her twerking for her husband.  To my knowledge there are no Shirley Temple sex tapes or nude threesome photo's floating around out there. 

I'm not canonizing Mrs. Temple.  However she did seem to have a tad more dignity than the current generation of entertainers.  I'm kinda glad grandma made me watch grainy black and white Saturday afternoon movies of a little girl tap dancing.  I didn't know it at the time but I was seeing a touch of class.

Dingbat Alert!

I've not done an Archie Bunker rant is awhile.  It's time.

From Buffalo NY.

A Buffalo, N.Y. community activist who is well known locally for pushing for a highly restrictive 2013 gun control law has been arrested for — wait for it — carrying a gun illegally at a public elementary school.

Experts Increasingly Contemplate End Of Smoking

ATLANTA (CBSMiami/AP) — Health officials have begun to call “end game” on cigarette-smoking in America.

They have long wished for a cigarette-free America, but shied away from calling for smoking rates to fall to zero or near zero by any particular year. The power of tobacco companies and popularity of their products made such a goal seem like a pipe dream.

Guns, ya gotta love guns.  Even if you don't own any you gotta love them.  What other inanimate object brings out such blatant hypocrisy in the bed wetter class? 

"Community activist" is code for communist member of democratic party, grievance agitator, a professional member of the left wing nut, busy body association.  He is a man (wait I can't call someone who makes a living off of grant money and telling other people what to do a man) a boy (can't say that either, then I'm a racist) an old women with a penis, a superiority complex and clinical dissociative decreolization disorder, actively keeps others from carrying a gun, at school, then does the same thing. 

How does a mind like this work?  "Guns are bad".  "Guns at school are bad".  "Lets pass a law keeping people from taking guns to school".  "Now when I go to school I'll be the only one with a gun, this is good". 

I'm not saying people shouldn't have guns at school.  I think they should.  Teachers should have guns.  Parents should have guns.  If the kid is over 18 he should have a gun too.  Let everyone in a public school carry a gun.  It's a public school.  Everyone who loves their kids got them out 20 years ago.  If not, and the parents think its safe, let them send their kids there.  It's not my place to say they can't. 

For what its worth, I think the police responded correctly.  They called out the SWAT team, the military grade equipment and were ready to shoot on sight.  Good for them.  This is the correct response for any time a psychopath, mental defective, Nazi, democrat gets within 100 yards of the education system.  Too bad we weren't doing this in the 50's.

He wanted it to be a felony to carry a gun into a school.  Let's see if he does any time for his crime.

Smoking.  Holy crap are cigarettes bad for you?  I hadn't heard the news.  The "experts", (how does one become a smoking expert, don't you have to smoke?) are now contemplating the end of smoking.  Well whoop de do!  Despite what they are saying, this is bad for America.  Let's break it down.  Social Security was based on everyone dyeing between the ages of 55 and 65.  That's why they picked 65 as the retirement age.  The government didn't save or invest any of those SSI taxes they collected.  They spent nearly all of it on high end hooch and hookers for congressmen.  The rest of it they wasted. 

In order for social security to "work" (other than in the sense it bilked generations of Americans into paying into a system from which they can't hope to receive a substantial benefit) people have to die off in large numbers BEFORE they reach age 65.  That's how it works.  The government collects money that they never intended to pay back to you, you die and they keep spending other peoples money, all in the name of providing for you.  It's a freaking brilliant con, unless of course people quit smoking and live longer.  If that happens social security goes broke and all those old people will have guns and they won't be happy.

Which is why we have to legalize pot.  If the broke boomers can stay high then maybe they won't notice that the checks aren't coming.  Marijuana has more cancer causing chemical per oz than a box of cigars, or so I'm told.  Maybe if we hurry up and get everyone smoking pot, instead of evil tobacco, we can save social security. 

Warrior's Code

"Rough Justice" is what one writer has called the treatment of Danny Nightingale.  Yes what's happened to Danny is rough.  No it's not justice.  Sergeant Danny Nightingale is one of the worlds elite snipers.  His career has been the taking of human life.  That is what the army taught him to do.  He relished his army service so much that he joined one of the worlds elite special forces units.  Apparently he was good at his job.

Then he came home. On a Friday afternoon in September of 2011 the police, working a tip form his roommate's estranged wife, came and searched his home for an illegal gun.  They found two.  His roommate had one in his possession and Danny apparently had a glock handgun and over 300 rounds of ammo for it.

The roommate, whose name has not been released, admitted to being the owner of one of the guns.  He didn't want to fess up to owning two of them, because he thought it might make him look bad.  He was sentenced and has done his time.  Danny also has served 18 months prior to winning an appeal.

One pistol and less than 7 boxes of ammo.  I've got more pistol ammo than that on hand in my house.  Hell, I've shot more ammo than that in a single afternoon's worth of drills.  I'm nowhere near being one of the worlds elite special forces operators. 

The big deal is in Great Britain home of the Special Air Services, guns are illegal.  They are especially illegal if the women who is divorcing your buddy is looking for some extra leverage.  Cops care about these things when the soon to be ex calls in the complaint.  Did the women know her husband was SAS?  Oh yes.  Did the cops?  Yeah.  The reason they rented the house is because it's just off base and these men are required to be deployable with 30 mins notice to kill Britain's enemies.  That's the job, killing people, with guns or bombs or by whatever means necessary.

At first Danny confessed to owning the gun, then he recanted.  Danny it seems has a memory disorder that the SAS has known about since 2009.  That's right, he has a medically recognized aliment, that the powers that be at SAS knew about before the incident with the glock. 

After Danny's mate refused to own up to two guns, the army's lawyers "helped" Danny remember it was his and confess to owning a gun that he can't remember how it came to him.  Danny was convicted in a court martial.  With his life in ruins Danny started fighting back.  He fought back in court, winning a new civilian trail.  He fought back in the press.  Even Britain's professional politicians saw he was being railroaded and they debated his predicament on the floor of the House of Commons. 

At some point, people who could make a difference realized that Danny didn't do the crime.  Now he is free, his name is clear and he is persona non grata with the SAS.  The army is kicking him out too.  The whole hit on the head thing from back in 08 that causes his memory issues, is embarrassingly public knowledge.  Danny is being medically discharged.  He is in debt for his legal fees and will likely loose his house.

What about Danny's mate?  He did his time.  He is a member in good standing with the SAS, despite his crimes.  The difference between the two men is that Danny spoke up, in doing so he broke the code.  The second man, whose name we will likely never know, kept the code despite breaking the law and taking his friend down with him.  He will be protected.  Danny, who will have his honor, will forever be worse than an outsider, he will be a traitor.

The code doesn't have to make sense, but it is the code.

Jay's Last Day

Tonight is Jay Leno's last day as host of the Tonight Show.  Technically they had the show filmed and in the can yesterday afternoon so he was done yesterday, but it airs tonight.  I won't be watching it because I'll be working.  Otherwise I'd make the effort.

I liked Jay.  I liked Johnny Carson too.  Both of them were basically clean comics, who were funny.  Both men had the knack of drawing out one last chuckle at the end of the day.  Somehow The Tonight Show was the perfect night cap after the news.  No matter how hard of a day you'd had or how crappy the news of the day was, Jay was there to poke a little fun, get a little laugh and ease the tension.

A fact about Jay Leno that you may not know is that he is a lefty liberal.  He always has been.  You may not know that because he was a true equal opportunity comic.  I was reading a summation of his monologs yesterday and Bill Clinton was the subject of more Leno jokes than any other president.  That's not surprising for a couple of reasons, first Clinton was in office 8 of Leno's 20 years on the show, Second, no one in the history of the presidency has provided more comic material than Bill Clinton. 

It's easy to like a comic that takes shots at everybody, especially if you know the person he is taking a shot at deserves it.  Republicans had 8 years of cracking up at the expense of the Commander in Brief, Boxers.  When Bush part II came along Leno threw some zingers his way too.  Nobody got there panties in to much of a wad over it.  Everyone was fair game from Charlie Sheen to anyone caught in a Jay Walking segment. 

Carson then Leno, Jimmy Fallon has big shoes to fill.  Hopefully he will stick to their example and be clean, be funny and be an equal opportunity zinger.  Every time NBC has tried to get more "edgy" or "left wing" with late night comedy, its not worked out so well.  David Letterman was the left wing hater of record prior to Bill Maher.  He has increasingly mastered the art of boring.  Conan O'Brien sucks great freckled pale skinned comedy male reproductive organ.  How anyone at NBC thought he was "edgy" or "funny" is anyone's guess.  Apparently none of them ever watched his show before they kicked out Jay the first time.

I wish Fallon good luck.  If he stays the course of Johnny and Jay I think he'll do well.  If he doesn't we might get Jay back like last time.  I'm sure Jimmy is feeling the pressure of wanting to do great and live up to expectations as well as wanting to do his own thing.  Audiences like a mix of new and old.  I'm sure he's setting up his own format.  Getting his own band ready.  Likely they will have some new writers.  Maybe Jimmy could work in a putter as a prop for the monolog and a guest Jay Walking segment.  It would be hilarious to send Leno to Congress and have him wander the halls asking congressmen basic questions and watching them flub it up.

Then again that might not be so funny.