Monday, January 28, 2013

The Adventures of Mantei Tebow, Ch. 2

On the third day after the apparation of Emmanuala appeared to him, Tebow saw a crowd gathering around the entrance of the Noble Amazon's bookstore down the street from his flat.

On the front of the store was a banner stating that Emmanulana, "Tebow's wife" was appearing for a book signing promoting her new book, "My life with Tebow."

Using all the speed and agility he could muster, Tebow scurred back to his flat hoping to avoid being seen.

Frantically Tebow called his best friend who was what the foreigners call "an agent."

"Jerry, this is Tebow, have you seen that women calling herself Emmanulana is having a book tour?"

"I know, isn't it great!"

"But you don't understand!"

"What's there to understand?  Her ratings are through the roof.  Quick, turn on your television, you can catch her interview"

Tebow turned on the television to see a dark haired women being inteviewed on Oprah.  She was showing Oprah childhood pictures of what she was explaining were her and Tebow together.   Tebow looked on with horror as the camera focused on pictures of a teenage Tebow with his arm around a younger version of this women."

Oprah:  What  was it like growing up with Tebow?

Emmanulana:  It was an absolute paradise.  He is the kindest most devoted man a women could ever hope to meet.

Oprah:  But was it always a paradise with him?

At this Emmanulana teared up.

Emmanulana (through sobs):  I've never told anyone this, but before the attack, he was a different person...He was so cold...It hurts to remember how he (sobs)....

Oprah:  Emmanulana, you are among friends.

Emmanulana:  Its just that after we were on the boat and he fell in the water and the shark....

Oprah puts her hand on Emmanulana's forearm and pats it

Emmanulana:  He was frozen and couldn't move, I don't know if he was afraid, but I knew he was in trouble.  I knew I had to act.   I don't remember what possessed me, but I jumped in the water with the spear, and kept  stabbling and stabbing the shark so it wouldn't get Tebow.

Oprah:  You are an inspiration to us all Emmanulana.

Emmanulana:  After that he was different, he's like you see him now.  That's why I love him so much.

Oprah:  We'll be right back with more from Emmanulana...

"Did you see that Tebow?"  said Jerry.   "I'm telling you, your wife is awesome.  She'll have even better rating than you do with that story.   You are such a lucky man.  I'll tell you what, we need to have you two together for a photo session as soon as possible.  I'll call People magazine to have it set up."

Tebow continued to stare blankly at the TV screen.



End Chapter 2




Saturday, January 26, 2013

The Adventures of Mantei Tebow, Ch. 1

From an early age, Mantei knew he was special.

He could run faster, swim longer, and was stronger than any other boy in town.

And on the nights when the the people gathered in the circle at midnight to protect against the demon Kuahana, Mantei broke the circle and went back to his home, boasting that he was not afraid of any being, mortal or immortal.

So it went until the eighteenth year of the Lakakane festival, when it was ordained that at the celebration dance, each of the young men would be paired with one of the young women.   And together, the couple would perform the Boom Chicka Bow Wow ritual in honor of Kuahana, hoping that Kuahana would be pleased and the town spared of any further mischief.

But Mantei scoffed at the old hag who led the protective circle, and while the rest of the town participated in the ritual, Mantei went to the land of the foreigners and participated in games of strength and agility.

After the festival was over,  the young women named Emmanulana whom the old hag selected to Bow Wow with Mantei became violently ill and her soul was devoured by Kuahana.  At this, the old hag became so enraged that she banished Mantei from the circle, telling him never to return until Kuahana was satisfied.

So Mantei went to the land of the foreigners and settled down.   In order to assimilate, he changed his name to Tebow, in honor of their gods.   And by and by Tebow participated in the foreigner's rituals where they immerse themselves in water to atone for the sins of the elders.

Tebow's fame soon spread far and wide among the foreigners as he excelled in their games of strength and agility.

But as fame invariably begets envy, there became talk among the foreigners questioning why Tebow was not pared with a woman, as is the custom of their people.

Tebow, perhaps being too preoccupied with the games of strength and agility, or perhaps not wanting to be with a women, let it be known that he could not be paired with a women of the foreigners as he was already paired with a women named Emmanulana in his hometown.

And the foreigners were satisfied with Tebow's explanation, and Tebow's fame became even more widespread among their people.

And such was the state of events until one midnight, Tebow's normally dreamless sleep was interrupted by an apparition of Emmanulana performing the ritualistic dance that often proceeds the Bow Wow ritual.  Tebow awoke in cold sweat and was horrified that the mark of the totem, the most profane mark of Kuahana, was upon him.

The next morning, compounding his growing unease, Tebow read in his favorite entertainment weekly magazine that a women named Emmanulana, purporting to be his wife, was making routine appearances at public events among the foreigners.

And for the first time in his life, Tebow would soon learn the limits of his strength and agility.

End Chapter 1



Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Things that Don't Go Together, Ch. 14

Israel and Pakistan.

-Pakistan was founded in 1947.   Israel in 1948.

-Both nations originated with the end of British mandates in their respective territories.

-Both nations came into existence accompanied by violence.

-Both nations came into existence because their founders were not willing to live as a protected or tolerated minority in a post-British settlement. Just as the Zionists rejected the idea of a federal Palestine, the Pakistani's turned down suggestions of autonomous Muslim units within a unified India.

-Both nations expelled indigenous peoples from their territory when they were created.

-Both nations were nations founded out of religions:  "Pakistan is like Israel, an ideological state. Take out the Judaism from Israel and it will fall like a house of cards. Take Islam out of Pakistan and make it a secular state; it would collapse."  Zia ul-Haq, 1981.

-In both countries, few spoke the language that served as official tongue. Hebrew, revived from millennia past as a vernacular, had to be learned by nearly everyone. In Pakistan, Urdu -- spoken primarily in the Gangetic belt that lay outside its borders became the country's official language.

-Both nations inspire great loyalty in their respective diasporas.

-Both nations originally emphasized religious freedom, perhaps as a result that denziens of each were repressed religious minorities in their prior habitations: "You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan.... You may belong to any religion or caste or creed -- that has nothing to do with the business of the State.... Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims --not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State."  Jinnah (1947).

-Both nations have now changed all that.

-Both nations are involved in more or less constant turf battles with their neighbors.

-Both nations are victims of terrorism.

-Both nations probably sponsor terrorism (depending on who you ask and how it is defined:-))

-Both nations received F-16 fighters from the United States.

-Both are nuclear powers.

-Both nations are hurting morally and spiritually in ways that only millions of people sharing the same space can.

-The hurt these nations feel is probably not their fault.

-Both nations make lousy vacation destinations.





Sunday, January 13, 2013

The Open Microphone, Ch. 4

An Ode to Jo Low

Of course, this is more about me than about you.

It always works out that way.

But I don't have musical parents.   Certainly not in the way you do.

Big fish in a small fish pond.

and you are a whale.

Sometimes when I hear you singing to a room that should be much more full

I get sad.

The music is sad, the candle lights are sad, even the flugelhorn is sad.

Have I told you you look just like your dad?

Have you noticed how quiet everyone gets when you turn you head to the side and belt a note into the air?

And then shake it back and forth like the old blues women do?

Rise up

Don't be afraid to be yourself, Egyptian drummer

"Its only right that you should play the way you feel it"

May everyone you know not go away in the end.





Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Silster Wilster, Ch. 13

Before the First Quarter begins:

Bob O'Reilly: Hello, and welcome to another edition of Bob O'Reilly's Superfans. I'm Bob O'Reilly, sittin' in for my brother Bill, who is still recovering from that dreadful heart attack. With me as always are the Superfans, Pat McDermott, Todd O'Conner, and Joe Swerski.

Todd O'Conner: How are ya' Bob?

Bob O'Reilly: Real good. Real good. Once again, we're comin' to ya from Senior Pub in the heart of South Bend, the city of the big shoulders, and home to a certain team, which come January will run roughshod over the competition in the BCS National Championship Game. A team that is known as.....Da Irish!

Superfans: (Lifting their beer mugs) Da Irish!

Todd O'Conner: Why are we so blessed?

Joe Swerski: Well, we'll get to that later Todd, but first off, we're gettin' ready to enjoy today's basketball game folks, in which the Cincinnati Bearcats are gonna run into a certain team from a certain town known for it's Polish Sausage, assumed to be the home of....Da Irish!

Superfans: (Lifting their beer mugs again) Da Irish!

Bob Swerski: Okay, some predictions from the sports fans on today's game. Pat?

Pat McDermott: Irish, one forty-nine to twenty-tree.

Joe Swerski: Todd?

Todd O'Conner: Irish, four hundred and two to zip!

Bob Swerski: Okay! Real good!

Bob Swerski: As you know, basketball is a pleasant diversion, but let us get back to a more serious topic-

Pat McDermott: Da Irish!

Superfans: Da Irish!

Bob Swerski: Now when we were last privileged to observe Da Irish, they were playing the Trojans in the Coliseum. The final score of that game was twenty three to seventeen, and I shant say who won. Pat, what happened?

Pat McDermott: I think its pretty obvious Coach Kelly had his mind on more important things.

Bob Swerski: There was a war on, my friend.

Todd O'Conner: Thats right, our boyssss were overseassss.

We now rejoin our friends at the end of the first quarter from the Orange Bowl:

Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!

We now rejoin our friends at the end of the second quarter:

And even if we win, if we win, HAH! Even if we win! Even if we play so far above our heads that our noses bleed for a week to ten days; even if God in Heaven above comes down and points his hand at our side of the field; even if every man woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn't matter because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the guys from Mohawk because they've got all the money! It just doesn't matter if we win or we lose. IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER!
Rest of group: IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER! IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER..


At the end of the third quarter:

Monday, January 7, 2013

This is not the Story, Ch. 1

From an early age he/she showed no promise.

Some souls are not granted great destiny at the moment of conception.

He/she spent early infancy and childhood lacking the ability to feel surprise.

Some souls are not deemed to remain societies' useful idiots.

Social engineers scrubbed anything more than base contentment from he/she's demeanor.

Some souls are deemed not be be raised with a lovely lady bringing up three very lovely girls.

Crying brings punishment, acceptance begets reward.

Chorus:

It really doesn't matter, because matter doesn't mind what we are releasing.

One more time:

It really doesn't matter, because matter doesn't mind what we are releasing.

Metaphor:

Like an Alka Seltzer dropped in a glass of water, the boundaries began to dissolve.

And now a word from our sponsor:

"I tuned up the bass a little, alright?"

No response.

"It just sounds like it gets thinner instead of ballsier."

We can't have any of that.

"Now I love it.  I love everything."






Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Some of the President's Men, Ch. 2


President Obama handed me a folder:    

"This is the Venetian file.   Read it and return it to the guard.   It will explain everything.  We are grateful the Venetians reestablished contact with us.  We are glad to have you aboard.  We will be in touch." 

And with that the President returned to the command room and I was ushered into a small room outside with a wooden desk.   The guard shut the door behind me.    I sat down and opened the folder:



TOP SECRET                                             11 Nov. 1964



At the beginning of 1952, in part at least as an alternative to the proposals for a congressional watchdog committee that had been so vigorously debated during the preceding year, President Eisenhower appointed a Board of Consultants on Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Activities (ETIA) to help him oversee the work of the intelligence community and especially the CIA and the ETIA. The formation of this organization consoliated much of the intelligence activities of the Venetian Receiver (VR) in response to the aftermath of World War II and the situations in Russia, China, and Korea.  Composed of men both competent and nationally prominent, the
BCETIA—kept intelligence activities under lively scrutiny for the remainder of the Eisenhower administration. Its critiques and recommendations were the prime mover in many of the important new developments of the period,for example the creation of the (delete) and the establishment of the community's remarkably fast system for "critical" communications;

and they helped shape many others, such as the accomplishments in

advanced reconnaissance which were to achieve a breakthrough in

data on the (deleted).

(section deleted)

A.  ICBM COMPLEX NEAR MEN' GASTELLO, USSR
1. CONTINUING ANALYSIS OF JUL 64, AEI JUL 64,

HAS REVEALED A NEWLY IDENTIFIED ICBM COMPLEX UNDER CONSTRUCTION


• APPROXIMATELY
8 NM WSW OF IMENI GASTELLO, USSR. THE COMPLEX


CONSISTS OF A
COMPLEX SUPPORT FACILITY AND FOUR SINGLE-SILO

LAUNCH SITES IN MID-STAGE OF CONSTRUCTION.

LAUNCH AREA "A" CONSISTS OF A ROUGHLY SQUARE EXCAVATION CONTAINING

A SILO UNDER CONSTRUCTION. A SPOIL FILE IS ADJACENT TO THE

EXCAVATION ON THE SSW SIDE. THE SITE SUPPORT FACILITY LIES TO

THE NORTH AND CONSISTS OF FOUR MEDIUM-SIZED BUILDINGS, THREE


VERY SMALL STRUCTURES, AND ONE T-SHAPED BUILDING. THERE
WAS NO

EVIDENCE OF THIS ACTIVITY ON DEC 63.

LAUNCH AREA "B" CONSISTS OF A U-SHAPED EXCAVATION WITHIN A POSSIBLY

SECURED AREA. SPOIL PILES ARE ADJACENT TO THE EXCAVATION ON THE

NNE AND SSW SIDES. A WHITE RECTANGULAR AREA ON THE NNW SIDE AND

A SQUARE WHITE AREA ON THE SSE SIDE ARE SIMILAR TO THOSE SEEN

AT SEVERAL LAUNCH SITES AT ALEYSK ICBM COMPLEX. THERE APPEARS

TO BE FIVE BUILDINGS UNDER CONSTRUCTION EAST OF THE SITE.

LAUNCH AREA "C" CONSISTS OF A U-SHAPED EXCAVATION.



(THIS PAGE LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK).



3. I believe the current outbreak of violence is more than coincidence.
More precisely, I believe it signals the beginning of a new stage in the
global struggle between the Free World and the Soviet Union. My contention
rests on a perception that present US policies have fundamentally changed the
course of history in a direction favorable to the interests and security of
ourselves and our allies. What we are seeing now is a Soviet-led effort to
fight back, in the same sense that the Mafia fights back when law enforcement
agencies launch an effective crime-busting program. Let me concede right now
that I cannot prove this -- if your definition of proof is restricted to
intercepts, photographs, and purloined documents. Of course these things
matter. They matter hugely. ' to truly understand an alien phenomenon like
the Soviet Union, one needs to go beyond a listing of facts; one needs also to
make a leap of imagination:
4. If four years ago the Soviet leadership had asked my counterpart --
call him Vice Chairman of the Soviet National Intelligence Council -- for his
evaluation of the global struggle, I believe my counterpart would have

replied: "Comrades, I'm delighted to report that the correlation of forces is -
moving steadily in our direction." He would have cited the following trends
to support his upbeat analysis:
-- The US economy was faltering.
-- US defense spending was too low to truly assure the
nation's security.
-- The Soviet Union had established a mechanism for the steady
flow of wealth from West to East.
-- The Soviet Union had established a companion mechanism to
assure the steady flow of technology from West to East.
-- The Soviet Union, through the effective use of surrogates
such as Cuba and Vietnam, had developed a technique for
spreading its influence throughout the Third World by
targeting fragile countries, destabilizing them, and
swiftly taking over.
-- Through the massive deployment of SS-20s, the Soviets were
changing the balance of power in Europe.
-- In more and more countries, policymakers, elites, and the
masses were coming to accept the Soviets' long-standing
claim that time was on their side; that one needed only to
align with Moscow to be on the winning team.
5. Were the Vice Chairman of the Soviet National Intelligence Council
called in by the Kremlin's leaders, say in mid-1983, and asked for his
evaluation, I believe he would have sung a very different song: "Comrades,"
he would have said, "something has gone wrong. The US is refusing to accept
history!" Assuming our Vice Chairman were allowed to continue -- and this is
a bloody big assumption -- he would have cited the following trends to support
his downbeat analysis:
The US economy is recovering, with the only argument
focusing on the breadth and duration of the boom. (The
vice chairman, who enjoyed the privilege of access to US
business publications, could not understand their failure
to discuss the awes of national-security implications of a
15-month, 64 percent rlse in the Dow-Jones Industrial
Average, combined with a lowering of the annual inflation
rate to less the 4 percent.)
US defense spending is up, with the debate in Congress and
on the campaign hustings focusing only on the proper size
of the increase. (The vice chairman had in his briefing
book -- but chose not to read aloud -- a letter Dwight
2
AIM
Approved


Eisenhower wrote to General Lucius Clay in
1952: "One of

the great and immediate uses of the military forces we are
developing is to convey a feeling of confidence to exposed
populations, a confidence which will make them sturdier,
politically, in their opposition to Communist inroads.")
The flow of wealth from the West to the East is less than
the Soviets had anticipated it would be by now. (The vice
chairman took a deep breath and pointed out that Moscow's
most audacious project, the Siberia to Western Europe
pipeline, had been literally cut in half by US opposition;
after all, the pipeline was originally to have comprised
two strands, and lately no one either in Western Europe or
the Soviet Union had even mentioned that second strand.)
The flow of technology from West to East is less than the
Soviets had anticipated it would be by now. In part, by
reducing the flow of wealth the US also reduced the Soviet
Union's ability to buy equipment and know-how. And the
US-led crack-down on illegal technology transfers had put a
crimp in that key effort. (The Vice Chairman thought sadly
-- but did not take the liberty of complaining -- that the
expulsions of roughly 100 KGB agents from Western
countries, mostly on technology transfer-related charges,
had wiped out the KGB's welcome home-party fund.)
The Soviet mechanism for spreading power through the

  (this page deleted)


13. In sum, time is not on the Soviet Union's side. This assertion is
now widely accepted among Western observers, as I've noted. But its
staggering implications have scarcely been absorbed. To do so we need to make
yet another leap of imagination, this one to consider the phenomenon of
thwarted ambition: •
14. We have all known individuals who have come to recognize that time is
no longer their ally: the 45-year-old corporation vice president who realizes
that he may never make chairman; the 35-year old childless woman who lies
awake at night, listening to the relentless ticking of her biological clock;
the campaigning politician who has confidently brushed aside polls that show
him trailing his opponent by 20 points, and who now realizes that with just
two weeks left before election day, that lead may be too big to close. The
perception that time is no longer on one's side may take weeks or even years
to develop, and often it is obvious to others first. But by definition the
perception comes suddenly.
15. There are, in fact, just two ways to cope with the perception that
time has become an enemy. The first is to accept the unpleasant reality, and
to resign one's self to reduced expectations: life as a mid-level corporate
manager isn't so bad, there are advantages to not having children, it'll be
nice to leave public life for a while. This is quite often an honorable and
perfectly sensible approach.
16. The second response is to go for it. That is, to refuse to meekly
accept one's likely fate, and instead to work or even fight for whatever it is
one wants. This, too, is quite often an honorable and perfectly sensible
approach. But it is a phenomenon of human nature that from the moment one
concludes that time is an enemy and that the proper response is to go for it
-- all is changed. Ideas and actions that were unthinkable the day before are
now quite thinkable and even appealing. Why? Because the alternative is
failure, and this is judged to be unacceptable. Ambitious, seemingly defeated
mid-level business executives who have taken desperate and daring measures
populate our corporate boardrooms. They populate our prisons, too. The
35-year-old single woman who conceives a child before finding a husband has
gone from a scandal to a national trend. And the history of desperate
politicians in the final days of their campaigns is the stuff of Washington
legends.
17. Now let us consider the implication of our assertion that if the
Soviet Union doesn't take the West in the next 20 years or so, it never
will: it means that if present trends continue, we're going to win the Cold
War. That is, the US will con4pue to be the world's pre-eminent power and
the Free World will both survive and flourish.
18. What matters here is not whether US observers believe this, but
rather whether our perception is shared by Soviet officials. No doubt there
are some in Moscow who view the future with confidence. And probably there
are some who see trouble ahead, but who take an apres-moi-le-deluge
attitude. But it seems to me inevitable that some Soviet officials --
7




possibly at the very top, more likely at the third or fourth level echelons --
now view their empire's future as bleak. And of those officials it seems
equally inevitable that while some will opt to accept the inevitable, so to
speak, others will be less fatalistic. Their argument would run like this:
Ours is an unstable political system, held together solely by terror and
military force. Peaceful political change is utterly alien to Russia. The
alternative to moving forward is not standing still, but falling backward.
Thus when we lose our forward momentum and begin to suffer reversals, our
empire will crumble swiftly and violently. We who are the elite -- like every
totalitarian elite that has come before -- will be swept away. And unlike the
elite that we swept away in 1917 -- so many of whose members wound up driving
taxis in Paris -- we will wind up swinging from lamp-posts in every city from
Leningrad to Vladivostok.
19. They could decide to go for it: to launch one or a series of actions
designed to change the correlation of forces before it is too late to do so.
In this category I would include a grab for the Persian Gulf, and possibly
even a conventional or nuclear bolt-from-the-blue first strike on Western
Europe or perhaps on the US. I do not predict these actions. I merely
predict -- and this is worrisome enough -- that to some Soviet officials such
actions may no longer be too risky to contemplate.
20. It has long been fashionable to view the Cold War as a permanent
feature of global politics, one that will endure through the next several
generations at least. But it seems to me more likely that President Reagan
was absolutely correct when he observed in his Notre Dame speech that the
Soviet Union -- "one of history's saddest and most bizarre chapters" -- is
entering its final pages. (We really should take up the President's
suggestion to begin planning for a post-Soviet world; the Soviet Union and its
people won't disappear from the planet, and we have not yet thought seriously
about the sort of political and economic structure likely to emerge.) In
short, the Free World has out-distanced the Soviet Union economically, crushed
it ideologically, and held it off politically. The only serious arena of
competition left is military. From now on the Cold War will become more and
more of a bare-knuckles street fight.
20. We should be optimistic, for if present trends continue we will
win. But we must also be on guard, for it is all too likely that incumbent or
future Soviet leaders will not choose to await their fates quietly while their
empire completes its shattering descent into history. The current outbreak of
violence may thus be merely a prelude to the most dangerous years we have ever

(break)



TOP  SECRET