MY DUMPLINGS!!!

We eat a lot of Asian dumplings and noodles in this household. We're close to a massive Korean supermarket (H-Mart) and a large but less-massive Japanese supermarket (Mitsuwa). Even though we have superior dumpling access, there have still been times that someone ate the last dumpling. We've never experienced a scene like this:

London Calling

I just found this. It's video of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band covering "London Calling" at a recent show at the Philadelphia Spectrum. It's pretty cool:

For all the Cardinals fans out there

There is no "Arizona Blues" so you'll have to settle for some "St. Louis Blues" instead:

The children are our future

I believe that children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside...

-The Greatest Love of All, by Masser & Creed

And by all means, teach 'em to field strip an AR-15.

Blue Monday

Sing it, Fats.

There's a reason we eat turkeys on Thanksgiving

And you want to know what that reason is?

It's because turkeys are aggressive, kill crazy birds that are increasingly marauding into suburban backyards across the nation, and they need to be controlled, that's why.

Ben Franklin understood the true nature of the turkey, and wanted the turkey to be used as the symbol of our great nation instead of the bald eagle. He undoubtedly knew the fear that the warlike turkey would strike into the hearts of enemies:

For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard...

Yes, it's true that reasonable people have far more to fear from alligators than from turkeys. For now. But that doesn't mean we should, for a moment, let our guard down.

Witness the horror of this unprovoked attack. Anecdotal evidence clearly proves that turkeys are increasingly targeting the youngest and most vulnerable among us:



Witness this unprovoked attack on a woman in North Olmsted, Ohio, as she's driven back into the safety of her home by a rampaging tom:



As I said before, this phenomenon is not limited to one region. Attacks have been documented throughout the midwest as well as in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. The Boston Globe recently ran a helpful article titled Tips to stop wild turkeys from terrorizing you. As a public service, I'll reprint some of the best advice from the article:

• Don’t let the turkeys intimidate you. Don't hesitate to scare or threaten a bold, aggressive turkey with loud noises, swatting with a broom or water sprayed from a hose. A dog on a leash is also an effective deterrent.
• Cover windows and other reflective objects. If a turkey is pecking at a shiny object such as a vehicle or window, cover or otherwise disguise the object. Harass the bird by chasing it, squirting with a hose or other means of aggression...
• Educate your neighbors. Pass this information along: Your efforts will be futile if neighbors are providing food for turkeys or neglecting to act boldly towards the birds. It requires the efforts of the entire neighborhood...

"Educate your neighbors. Pass this information along..." Sound advice, my friends.

Finally, one last video that offers hope. It is much the same with turkey attacks as it is with flesh eating zombie outbreaks: very often the gun-happy redneck is best equipped to recognize and deal with the threat. This video is a perfect illustration both of the turkey's aggression, and the appropriate human response. Watch as the savage tom turkey pwns a decoy, and is in turn totally pwn'd by a trio of hillbilly ninjas somewhere in Florida:



CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

Shiny shiny, shiny shoes of pleather

Yes, those are my shiny shoes. My honor guard shoes, all shined up and ready for action.

I wore them tonight to post colors before the graduation ceremony for our department's latest citizen police academy. We marched out, I barked out commands without any gibberish flowing from my lips like it does in the nightmares, posted the colors, and everyone said the pledge of allegiance. I understand the crowd was impressed.

The last couple of days were filled with honor guard stuff. One of our retired officers, a great cop and a great character, died this week and will be waked and buried this weekend. He retired a few years before I got hired; I worked with both his nephews, and know his son who's a commander in a nearby department. A few years after his retirement he came back to work for our department as a civilian. He worked as a community service officer--one of those guys who come out when you're locked out of your car, or someone's dog won't stop barking. He never really stopped being a cop though.

Back when I was a detective, and he was working as a CSO, he saw someone sitting in a car across the street from a bank and thought the guy looked funny. Not "ha ha" funny, but "hmmm" funny. He walked up to the car to ask the man if he needed help (this was his story, anyway--I think he really walked up to the car because he thought the guy looked suspicious, just like he would've when he was on the job years earlier) and he noticed what appeared to be a fake beard on the passenger seat, with what looked like a gun underneath it.

He backed away from the car and called for a beat car. It was a fake beard, it was a gun, and the man in the car was planning on robbing that bank. A regular person would've driven by that guy sitting in the car and not looked twice. The bad guy gave a full statement, got charged, and ended up going away for a few years.

I once saw a picture of this man from the mid-70's, taken by a reporter during a brawl as he dragged away some hapless mook. He was a badass: stocky and tough. In the time I knew him he was skinnier and older, somewhat stooped and wisened, and loved his smokes and his beer.

Anyway, I'm on vacation starting Thursday, and I can't participate in the honor guard for his wake on Friday. In the three years that my department has had an honor guard this will be the first time I haven't been there to run a detail. It feels strange. When we got done with the citizen police academy tonight I went over the particulars of posting a silent guard at the wake with a couple of officers who'll be doing it on Friday. I did my best to make sure they are prepared, and passed on a list of instructions for the sergeant who'll be running the detail.

The reason I'm on vacation is that this weekend is MizBubs' early Thanksgiving celebration for her brothers and their families. We've done this for a few years now. Everyone assembles here, we end up with about 20 people on Saturday for a big dinner, we hang out all weekend, and then a few of us run in the Lincolnwood Turkey Trot on Sunday morning. It's a good time. We have a heck of a menu planned, too. Maybe I'll write about it later.

So, as of right now, I'm on my own time Jack. It feels good.

I hope all of you have good things planned for this weekend, and are surrounded by people you love.

Closing time with Johnny and Bob

Sometimes...

Sometimes, when I gets my drink on, I like to do a little dance.

Ralph Stanley

I just found out from the good Doctor MVM that one of my all-time favorite musicians, Ralph Stanley, endorsed Obama and did a spot for his campaign.

Here it is:




[ Find Your Polling Place | Voting Info For Your State | Know Your Voting Rights | Report Voting Problems ]

T.G.I.F.

Who wants to get freaky?!

*This is not photoshopped. On this YouTube clip of the debate, you can see this moment at around 1:29:57.

Energized Palin Voters Speak Out!

Also.

The Irish Rover

I just remembered that Saint Patrick's Day is just a few days away. We have no plans as of yet, but if we do make plans there may be whiskey drinking and singing involved.

Let's talk stupid

The first thing to catch my eye over coffee this morning (other than the NIU shooting--I'll get to that later) was this story in the NY Times, titled "Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?" The article focuses on author Susan Jacoby, who has a new book out this month titled "The Age of American Unreason". Jacoby is one of several authors with new books lamenting the state of American culture. She focuses on what she describes as a "generalized hostility to knowledge." Here's a brief quote from the article:

The author of seven other books, she was a fellow at the library when she first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11.

Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.

At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”

I think I'll ask MizBubs, girl genius, to grab this for me from the library.

As if to prove Jacoby's point, this article recently appeared in the Orlando Sentinel: "Clash Over Teaching Evolution Hits Orlando". Here's the opener:

Evolution has been a cornerstone of biology for more than 100 years, but don't try to tell that to many of the thousands of people who posted comments on Florida's Department of Education Web site.

"The last time I went to the zoo, the monkeys weren't evolving into man," read one comment.

"Evolution is not proven and we should not brainwash our children with this concept," stated another.

_____________________

This video was mentioned in the opening paragraph of that NY Times article. Boy howdy, there's some hilariously disturbing elements to this. Like Pickler's apparent lack of embarrassment when confronted with her own ignorance ("Buda...Budapest? I never even heard of that...I know they speak French there, don't they?") That's followed closely by this retro gender exchange between Pickler and the host, Jeff Foxworthy:

Foxworthy: Kell...focus.

Pickler: I am. Like, I'm listening to what you're saying, but I only hear what I want to.

Foxworthy: That's just called being a woman.

Audience: Woooooooo...

Pickler: Well we could just call this show "are you smarter than a man?" I'd win that.

Foxworthy: Women don't really want to hear a man's opinion, they just want to hear their opinion in a deeper voice...

Yuk yuk yuk yuk, ain't that the truth? Har. Here's the video:



I found this next video bit while looking for Ms. Pickler's performance. It's one of those Jay Leno man-in-the-street bits, set in Las Vegas. In all fairness, at least some of this stupid is alcohol-induced.

_____________________

The shooting at Northern Illinois University. Tragic and horrifying. Normally I don't start contemplating the nature of human evil this early in the morning; that's better saved for darkness, and strong drink.

For now my questions are:

• What was the background of the shooter?
• Where did he get the guns?

I have a professional interest in the police response. By now nearly every department in the country has abandoned the old model of responding to these incidents (aid the wounded, set up a perimeter, contain the threat and wait for a SWAT team) and has adopted rapid deployment/active shooter tactics.

Most police are now trained that the first officers on the scene should go directly towards the gunfire and engage the shooter as quickly as possible, even if it means stepping over the bodies of the wounded to do so. According to this article in the NY Times the police arrived within 2 minutes of the first 911 call. The Chicago Tribune reports that police arrived 29 seconds after receiving a 911 call at 3:06 pm.

The reason I'm including this at the end of a post about stupidity is that, over the past 14 hours, I've heard some really stupid stuff come out of the mouths of radio news people and some NIU kids who have been interviewed. I heard one radio interviewer ask a kid who was present at the shooting "when the shooter's eyes locked onto yours, what did you read in his expression?" Seriously, what kind of asshole asks a 19 year old kid, who's just seen a bunch of people killed, a question like that?

What really got me angry were the questions prompting kids and parents to find fault with the school's security. I heard two different young women interviewed, students who were not present at the shooting. Both of them felt that the school could have done more to keep them safer. Both of the women had those voices? You know? The kind where every sentence sounds like it's ending in a question? And they just thought, that, um, the school didn't do as much as they could have? To keep them safe? As if 18 people shot isn't newsworthy enough, the reporters are already trolling for the next angle--that someone, some institution, failed and must be blamed.

Yes, NIU could have kept all those kids safe. All you have to do to prevent school shootings is turn every school into a prison: locked doors, search everyone entering, metal detectors, total video surveillance and armed guards everywhere.

Thinking like this got Bush reelected in 2004, and if the dumbing-down continues lord knows what lies ahead.

John Edwards? Is he running for president too?

A new video from the John Edwards campaign:



How does John Edwards, now running statistically even with Obama and Clinton in Nevada, get only a tiny fraction of the news coverage that those campaigns get? Why does Mike Huckabee, a third place finisher in New Hampshire (like Edwards) get so much more coverage than Edwards? Here's an interesting analysis of media coverage during the week January 6-11. It's from the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The mainstream media clearly decides on a narrative early on, and then crafts its coverage to fit that narrative. It is a disgusting spectacle.

And now, something for the ladies

Ladies, because the world is full of guys like Bill from that last movie, you might find yourself in the occasional dating slump. This film offers valuable advice:

"Grooming, and cleanliness, and letting the boys know you're around are all important."

Spend some time with Kay as she gets busy making friends with everyone.

Social Courtesy

Unfortunately for Bill the Internet is still 40+ years away, so he has to keep going to these parties and being nice to people instead of running a blog, digging up obscure film clips while in his pajamas.

Surly bastard.

Jamie Lynn Spears docudrama to air on Nickelodeon

According to the promo for this movie

"You will follow this girl as she gets into trouble, and finally learns the real facts of life which her parents never explained to her. In addition to the film there will be a brief lecture on how to use our bodies..."

Rise and Shine!

Sorry for not stopping by and commenting on your blog; things continue at a furious pace around here, at home and especially at my job. At least we have a working shower again, and it's a darn fine one, too. The Las Vegas Marathon is next Sunday and I've barely prepared. My Elvis costume hangs in my closet, unpressed and unaltered. I promise that at some point before Christmas I'll return to our regular fare of freaks, perverts, clowns and animal attacks. Until then I'm just throwing up random videos and pictures in a desperate effort to hold on to some readership.

We've taken to listening to motivational speakers and inspirational music lately, just to keep us on track and moving forward.

I'd like to share some of that, so here it is, my gift to you this Monday morning.

Check out these enthusiastic swanky bastards. They're playing "Powerhouse" and swinging it pretty hard, I'd say.

Continuing our celebration of Thanksgiving...

...and wanting to continue the theme of pilgrims and Indians living in harmony, I bring you the rocking video "Apache". This was big in Denmark.