I scribble notes constantly. It’s my job, my life, my compulsion. weapons, tactics, quotes, places — people. At year’s end, I have boxes full of ’em, and many are “paper orphans” — fragments, ideas, and observations with no context to frame them within. Not enough for a column or a feature article.
What do you do with a hero’s confession? A scientist’s definition of the difference between “clever” and “smart”? An unforgettable bumper sticker? Toss ’em? Use them to start the kindling? Maybe. But first, I’ll share a few of them with you.
Simple Wisdom
Simple wisdom from a cop who patrols a decaying ghetto neighborhood outside a mid-South city, where home invasions are common, cruel and bloody. After one such horrific crime, the family scrawled a warning on a scrap of cardboard with a felt-tip marker and hung it by their front door. It read, “If you come back again to rob us, we will kill you. All you. We got guns now and we mean it.”
“After two years,” the officer said, “Almost every other home on that block has been hit, some more than once. Not that place. Now they even put out flower pots and chairs, nice ones, and sometimes the kids leave their bikes on the porch. Nothing gets stolen. That sign is still there. The crooks know they mean it. Do you think if more crooks thought for sure that’s what would happen to ’em home invasions would just go away?” Hmmm. What a radical concept.
Bumper sticker: When seconds mean life or death, the police are only minutes away.
On Capital Punishment
More simple wisdom on capital punishment from a great-grandfather in East Texas:
“I’m sick of hearing people talk about how them executions over at Huntsville ain’t a deterrent to murders. That there’s a red herring. You don’t shoot a rabid dog to teach other rabid dogs a lesson. You shoot him so he don’t bite nobody else. I guarantee you something from 90 years of life now: You put down some murderin’ sumbitch, he won’t never murder nobody again. Ain’t that deterrent enough? Have people now got no sense no more, or no guts, or neither one?”
On Smart Versus Clever
A researcher at a “future weapons” think-tank was struggling to articulate his concerns about some younger colleagues. They were brilliant, he said, but not wise. Like many scientists, he worked comfortably with complex theories, but he had trouble expressing himself in “lay language.” Suddenly it hit him:
“An acquaintance has a home coffee grinder. The motor is powerful and the blades are razor-sharp. It is designed so it cannot be operated unless two separate plungers are depressed simultaneously. One requires a crescent-shaped plunger, and the other, a pin-plunger set at a different height, both of which are set into the top of the grinder. His son spent most of an afternoon figuring out and fashioning a tool to overcome that safety feature. He succeeded — and cut off two fingertips. He was clever and determined, but not smart, not wise. Apply that mindset to energy weapons, and you’ve got trouble. There’s too much talk about can we do this, and not enough about should we do this?”
With Friends Like These …
Beyond Bubble-Blowers
After months of stealthy probes, in June 2007 a network of hackers carried out a massive and successful cyber-attack on the Pentagon’s computers, including the system used by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The DoD had to shut down systems for over a week to protect them from further intrusion.
The Pentagon had no comment on who was behind the attacks, but inside sources confirmed the incursions were traced back to computers operated by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, from sites all over China. This hardly registered as a blip on our media’s radar screen. Do ya think the Chinese have motives beyond cornering the U.S. market on plastic clothes hangers, bubble-blowing toys and lawn chairs? Hmmm …
Holier Than Who?
Department of Homeland Security officials say they’re going to tighten up the review of foreigners applying for entry into the U.S. under the “Religious Worker Waiver Program,” which was intended to foster religious studies and worship. A quick check revealed 33% of applicants were unqualified in that they were not “ministers” as they claimed, and/or their “sponsors” were phony. Suspicions were raised when someone noticed one tiny basement storefront mosque had filed over 200 phony applications for “visiting imams.”
On The Home Front
Dennis Henigan of Handgun Control, Inc.’s “Center to Prevent Handgun Violence” made the astute observation that self-defense is “not a federally guaranteed constitutional right.” Gee, I was taught — wrongly, I presume — that self-defense was a basic “human right;” what we used to call a “God-given right,” before we became so enlightened and sophisticated.
Personally, every time I hear the word “sophisticated” anymore, I think of people who invent excuses for physical and moral cowardice. At any rate, Henigan may be correct in his observation, and perhaps we should fix that. Is anybody up for a campaign to make the right to self-defense an amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
The Reluctant Hero
While gathering combat evaluations of optical sights and ammunition, I met a young Marine who had been recommended for a decoration for valor. His CO said not once, but on several occasions, he had shown absolute selfless disregard for his own safety while moving to relieve fellow Marines under heavy fire, recovering a wounded Marine, and evacuating civilians from the line of fire. He was waiting to hear if his decoration was approved — and he was worried about it. He confessed he felt like he would be accepting it “under false pretenses.” False, because he said, “I wasn’t afraid, so I wasn’t being brave, and maybe there’s something wrong with me.” He explained:
“When I’m in danger, and it’s all about me, I’m scared to death. I can hardly move. When I’m in danger, but it’s about somebody else, fighting for somebody else’s life, I just feel free, fast, light; like I’m on that gas my old dentist uses, you know? Like I can run on air, run over water, do anything, and it’s all good. Do you think I’ve got like some kind of mental condition?”
I assured him he didn’t have a mental condition but a rare condition of the heart. It’s called “gallantry.” He is still waiting but not so worried now.
Bumper sticker: Your kid was an honor student. That’s great. Mine liberated a nation.
Well, dang. All outta space, and I still have eight pounds of note-frags and scribble-scraps. I wonder if I can hit the fireplace from here?
Connor OUT.