OT Atom bombs and 7 irons

It was one of those "between women" periods of my life. There
have been two of those, the first between Wife #1 and JB and
the second between JB and SWMBO. This bit of biography occurred
during the first. I mention this because for some reason I
don't quite understand I don't go off half-cocked with anywhere
near the same zeal and reckless abandon when I'm "with women"
as I do when I'm "between women."

It's August 6th so as I'd done every August 6th for the last
few "between women" years I headed to the Armed Forces Recruiting
Station which was set up in a storefront on the UI campus to do
a reading of Thomas Merton's prose poem "Original Child Bomb".
I carried a placard with an appropriate and pithy barb about
war crimes on one side and genocide on the other (the military
types hate that ;-) and I set up shop on the sidewalk to read
the poem which takes about 20 minutes. Now in years past most
folks would file past without so much as a sidelong glance and
those who did stop, look and listen more often than not rolled
their eyes and went on their way. I expected nothing different.

I'd constructed my placard out of poster board and for no other
reason than it was handy and I didn't have anything else I
stapled it to an old putter. I hadn't got much past the opening
line;

Points for meditation to be scratched on the walls of a cave

when a jarhead came busting out the door demanding that I leave.
He must have been new on the job because my 20 minute reading
had always been happily ignored on that sidewalk in the past.
I politely declined to leave and started right back in with:

In the year 1945 an Original Child was born.

The jarhead glared at me, glanced at the golf club, glared
again, glanced again and you could almost see the tiny little
wheels spinning behind his beady little eyes as he stormed
back inside to call the cops.

The brief shouting match drew a crowd, my biggest ever for a
solo sidewalk demonstration, and I proceeded to enjoy the moment
giving Father Louis' poem full voice and not a little theater
to boot. When the cop showed up the jarhead came back out and
demanded that the cop look at my golf club. I just shrugged and
said so what, apparently the cop agreed, but he did say that I
was creating a public nuisance (thereby giving me a seat forever
on the Group W bench ;-) and insisted that I move along. But the
crowd, attracted by the spectacle of a cop and a fully uniformed
spit & polish jarhead arguing with a longhair, wouldn't hear of
it. Several amateur lawyers and at least one real one argued
that I had every right to read a poem on a public sidewalk.

I finished the poem, provided several in the crowd, which had
grown to a couple of dozen or so, with the citation to Merton's
poem and called it a good day afield.

Fast forward to the first Gulf War. No longer "between women"
I'm with SWMBO. We'd been on some scary outings protesting that
stupid war and took note of the fact that law enforcement was
more likely to help "patriots" beat the **** out of protesters
than prevent it.

I had misgivings from the get go. The "plan" if you can call
anything concocted by a bunch of lefties a "plan" was to march
from the UI Quad to the Armory, speechify under the flag pole
and then plant a bunch of crosses (tongue depressors painted
white and formed into crosses) beneath it. In the first place
the flag pole at the Armory is where the ROTC boys toot their
little horns, shoot off their guns and perform their patriotic
flag fetish ritual. Military types take that kinda silly ****
seriously, which is why the "organizers" decided to go there.
In the second place there was no exit strategy. We were to meet
at the Quad, march to the Armory, insult the military, then
what ? Just disperse and walk the four blocks back to the Quad ?
Riiiiiiiiight. The "patriots" aren't going to attack a whole
organized "march", but when the "march" disperses into twos and
threes ...

Anyway, that's when I remembered the beady-eyed jarhead and the
golf club from years past.

And *THAT* boyos, is the last time I will ever address 7 irons
on this forum ever again.

--
Ken Fortenberry

Fortenberry utters:

And *THAT* boyos, is the last time I will ever address 7 irons
on this forum ever again

Thank God for that.

Little crosses made from tongue depressors and painted white? Hmmmm. Isn't
that a little hypocritical for you?

Protest, Fortenberry, protest. That is what every member of the Armed Forces
has fought for -- your right to protest, burn the flag, print and distribute
your own newspaper, talk **** about anything you want, worship any god you
want, assemble *peacably*, which means ya gotta ****can the 7 iron.

Have fun, and if that's all you've ever done for your country, you ain't done
****.

Dave LaCourse wrote:
...
Have fun, and if that's all you've ever done for your country, you ain't done
****.

A couple of dozen people stopped and thought for a moment
about incinerating 70,000 civilians instantly and condemning
many thousands more to a slow painful death. It ain't much,
and it ain't all I've ever done for my country, but it beats
hell out of traveling halfway across the world to kill a bunch
of those icky brown Arab people so BushCo can steal their oil.

--
Ken Fortenberry

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 22:04:20 GMT, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

Dave LaCourse wrote:
...
Have fun, and if that's all you've ever done for your country, you ain't done
****.

A couple of dozen people stopped and thought for a moment
about incinerating 70,000 civilians instantly and condemning
many thousands more to a slow painful death. It ain't much,
and it ain't all I've ever done for my country, but it beats
hell out of traveling halfway across the world to kill a bunch
of those icky brown Arab people so BushCo can steal their oil.

Well, maybe, but if Roosevelt, Churchill, Truman, and Co. hadn't been out to
steal all those uninhabited Pacific islands and melted Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
you'd have to post to ROFF in Kanji...and given the trouble you seem to have
with American/English, I'd be careful of what I go out and bore people with if I
were you....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA - "if _I_ were _you_..." - oh, Dickie, you handsome
rascal you, you DO have a sense of humor...

HTH,
Dickie

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 22:04:20 GMT, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

Dave LaCourse wrote:
...
Have fun, and if that's all you've ever done for your country, you ain't done
****.

A couple of dozen people stopped and thought for a moment
about incinerating 70,000 civilians instantly and condemning
many thousands more to a slow painful death. It ain't much,
and it ain't all I've ever done for my country, but it beats
hell out of traveling halfway across the world to kill a bunch
of those icky brown Arab people so BushCo can steal their oil.

Well, maybe, but if Roosevelt, Churchill, Truman, and Co. hadn't been out to
steal all those uninhabited Pacific islands and melted Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
you'd have to post to ROFF in Kanji...and given the trouble you seem to have
with American/English, I'd be careful of what I go out and bore people with if I
were you....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA - "if _I_ were _you_..." - oh, Dickie, you handsome
rascal you, you DO have a sense of humor...

HTH,
Dickie

Dave writes:
Have fun, and if that's all you've ever done for your country, you ain't
done
****.

While I kind of agree in principal with the 7 iron thing(can't picture
Ghandi with a weapon....), I will strongly disagree with this point. What
Ken was doing was the Exercise of Free Speech. Without him, and countless
others doing so, we haven't got a nation worth defending.
Tom

Tom writes:

While I kind of agree in principal with the 7 iron thing(can't picture
Ghandi with a weapon....), I will strongly disagree with this point. What
Ken was doing was the Exercise of Free Speech. Without him, and countless
others doing so, we haven't got a nation worth defending.
Tom

And, it is those that wear the uniform of the United States of America that
have ensured that he has that right, Tom. And I have never said he does not
have that right. Protest on, and on, by all means. But, there are better ways
of serving your country, and I'm not talking about enlisting in the military.

Fortenberry and his ilk bitch and moan about *everything* concerning
government, but they do absolutely nothing about it. When an election is held
and their candidate loses, they speak of revolution and protest. They never
speak of union. It is thei way or ELSE! So much for their "diversity".

"Dave LaCourse" wrote in message
...
Tom writes:

While I kind of agree in principal with the 7 iron thing(can't picture
Ghandi with a weapon....), I will strongly disagree with this point. What
Ken was doing was the Exercise of Free Speech. Without him, and countless
others doing so, we haven't got a nation worth defending.
Tom

And, it is those that wear the uniform of the United States of America
that
have ensured that he has that right, Tom.

Purest unadulterated horse****.......and almost everybody in this country
knows it. The uniformed services of the United States have done precious
little to enusre freedom of speech for it's citizens, and then only under
orders. They have, as often as not, been used for precisely the opposite
purpose. It is an eternal blemish on the character of Americans that ya'll
continuously allow this sick homicidal old piece of **** and millions more
like it to go on like this ad nauseum AND allow them to kill with your
blessings. It is difficult to imagine anything more disgusting.

And I have never said he does not
have that right. Protest on, and on, by all means. But, there are better
ways
of serving your country, and I'm not talking about enlisting in the
military.

Fortenberry and his ilk bitch and moan about *everything* concerning
government, but they do absolutely nothing about it. When an election is
held
and their candidate loses, they speak of revolution and protest. They
never
speak of union. It is thei way or ELSE! So much for their "diversity".

Does any of you actually have any idea of what this maggot is saying?

Wolfgang

"Wolfgang" wrote in message ...

It is an eternal blemish on the character of Americans that ya'll continuously allow
this sick homicidal old piece of **** and millions more like it to go on like this ad
nauseum AND allow them to kill with your blessings. It is difficult to imagine
anything more disgusting.
Wolfgang

And what do you propose that WE do?

Mark --who can only surmise that you are includin' yourself in this "ya'll."
Although, I prefer y'all--

Dave LaCourse wrote:
snip
Fortenberry and his ilk bitch and moan about *everything* concerning
government, but they do absolutely nothing about it.

Boy, do you have *that* assbackwards. It's the Reaganistas who
would have us believe that government is bad and that the best
government is the least government. It's people like me and my
ilk who believe that government is necessary to regulate "free
market" capitalism, protect the rights of minorities and ensure
that *ALL* Americans are treated as if they were created equal.

When an election is held
and their candidate loses, they speak of revolution and protest. They never
speak of union. It is thei way or ELSE! So much for their "diversity".

When have you *ever* heard me speak of revolution ? Protest,
you're damn right, but the violent overthrow of the United
States government ? Not me, Chief, never no way.

--
Ken Fortenberry