How's the Weather?....
Weather, the most talked about subject on the planet. But so far as we know, a subject completley ignored in the BlogWorld©. Now it will be at the new Interactive International weathertalk space known as How's the Weather. See comments from around the world about how weather is affecting people's lives.
Correspondents from your area are needed now? No sign-up, no fees. It's fast, it's compelling and it's free!
Friday, June 27, 2003
The US Federal Government has finally done something useful for consumers. The new Federal Do Not Call list has been put into effect to try and limit unsolicited phone calls. You can register here. Reports indicate a heavy response.
I intend to sign up, but I am already on the Texas Do Not call list, which predates the Federal list by several years. And for the most part it works. I've only had one unsolicited call that I know of, and it was from a scummer who left a message on my answering machine recently. No return number, or I would have reported it and tried to collect my reward.
Now....if the Fed's would only get busy with SPAM protection for us online junkies! Don't hold your breath. I have been a SPAM fighter now for several years and have become fairly proficient in tracking down the origins of these messages and the SPAM sites that support them. As gratifying as this is, it is mostly in vain.....the spammers have for the most part become professionals and they cover their tracks very well. With modern SPAM sending software, it is almost impossible to track the ownership of the accounts. One can, however determine where the SPAM target sites are being hosted.....mainly in China. These Chinese based hosts do not care one whit if they get complaints and in fact laugh all the way to the Bank of Beijing. Therefore the only recourse is to complain to the American backbone server who is allowing that IP address into their network.
And then guess what happens? Nothing. Because Verio, CW, or AT&T are laughing all the way to the Bank of America. Nothing will be done until these companies, and others, that are permitting this [and making big bucks] are held accountable and/or liable.
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Whee Doggies..
Jed Clampett, aka Buddy Ebsen, has been hospitalized. I wish him well and hope that Jethro and Ellie Mae are there by his side! But the stunner for me is that he is 95 years old! How old does this make me feel. Especially since I still remember him as George Russell, the sidekick to Fess Parker on "Davy Crockett" back in the 50's.
Jed Clampett, aka Buddy Ebsen, has been hospitalized. I wish him well and hope that Jethro and Ellie Mae are there by his side! But the stunner for me is that he is 95 years old! How old does this make me feel. Especially since I still remember him as George Russell, the sidekick to Fess Parker on "Davy Crockett" back in the 50's.
Blog surprise...
Wow, what fast action after mentioning that I might move my Blog business to Moveable Type! Upon trying to update Streams yesterday, I was confronted with a strange webpage, blogger.sorry.streams.htm. My blog had been hijacked to be updated by Blogger.Com. That process is now completed and therefore I type this on the new Dano based system they have installed...whatever that is.
The SORRY webpage told me that this is the "new, all improved" version of Blogger. We'll see.
PS: the basic post function actually worked, and it appears to post and publish in a more speedy fashion. I wait in breathless anticipation for something to completely pfutz up.
Wow, what fast action after mentioning that I might move my Blog business to Moveable Type! Upon trying to update Streams yesterday, I was confronted with a strange webpage, blogger.sorry.streams.htm. My blog had been hijacked to be updated by Blogger.Com. That process is now completed and therefore I type this on the new Dano based system they have installed...whatever that is.
The SORRY webpage told me that this is the "new, all improved" version of Blogger. We'll see.
PS: the basic post function actually worked, and it appears to post and publish in a more speedy fashion. I wait in breathless anticipation for something to completely pfutz up.
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Blogged Down...
It may be about time for me to buck up, buckle down and move on to Moveable Type, for all my blogging needs. I'm not one to complain about free services...but I'm going to. Blogger.com has gone downhill, to the point that it's not worth trying to fight uphill any longer. Free is no good if it drives you insane. I'm not alone in this feeling if my blogmates around the world are any indication. Most complain about the archive function, which frankly I have not had much problem with. My problems are more basic. The templates.
Some time ago I complained in this very text space about my Streams blog template not holding changes. After a month or so, that gradually and magically fixed itself after much consternation on my part. Then in the last month, Julie's informative cybernews spot The Yellow Bug Schmooze started acting up, by adding an unclosed bold start tag into the archived, but viewed entries causing all but the current entry to become bold. I have searched, and searched, and searched for an answer to this problem, driving me to distraction. There doesn't seem to be a logical explanation for this occurence. None at all, it just happens.
And now...I have dragged out and rehabed an old obselete Blog property of mine in order to start a very informative local weather and international news webspace and I'm having problems with it. I haven't touched this Blogspace in over a year, no changes to the template, no entries, it's been in dry storage. So what happens? The first entry I make on the Beta version of the international weather blog causes a nasty and persistent fault error on the Blogger upload page. Something to the effect of !Error 104:Java Meltdown. Danger Will Robinson!
I have learned that to search for the cause of this type of error is fruitless and will short circuit my brain and my good nature. When I made the effort to use the Blogger "self help" page, the only search result for this type of error gave as it's remedy "Exit Blogger and Log In again". Please....I don't need this kind of Microsoft© solution. If I believed this would work you can rest assured that I believe that the "Blue Sreen" warning is for my own good.
Yup I believe it's time to move on.
It may be about time for me to buck up, buckle down and move on to Moveable Type, for all my blogging needs. I'm not one to complain about free services...but I'm going to. Blogger.com has gone downhill, to the point that it's not worth trying to fight uphill any longer. Free is no good if it drives you insane. I'm not alone in this feeling if my blogmates around the world are any indication. Most complain about the archive function, which frankly I have not had much problem with. My problems are more basic. The templates.
Some time ago I complained in this very text space about my Streams blog template not holding changes. After a month or so, that gradually and magically fixed itself after much consternation on my part. Then in the last month, Julie's informative cybernews spot The Yellow Bug Schmooze started acting up, by adding an unclosed bold start tag into the archived, but viewed entries causing all but the current entry to become bold. I have searched, and searched, and searched for an answer to this problem, driving me to distraction. There doesn't seem to be a logical explanation for this occurence. None at all, it just happens.
And now...I have dragged out and rehabed an old obselete Blog property of mine in order to start a very informative local weather and international news webspace and I'm having problems with it. I haven't touched this Blogspace in over a year, no changes to the template, no entries, it's been in dry storage. So what happens? The first entry I make on the Beta version of the international weather blog causes a nasty and persistent fault error on the Blogger upload page. Something to the effect of !Error 104:Java Meltdown. Danger Will Robinson!
I have learned that to search for the cause of this type of error is fruitless and will short circuit my brain and my good nature. When I made the effort to use the Blogger "self help" page, the only search result for this type of error gave as it's remedy "Exit Blogger and Log In again". Please....I don't need this kind of Microsoft© solution. If I believed this would work you can rest assured that I believe that the "Blue Sreen" warning is for my own good.
Yup I believe it's time to move on.
Friday, June 20, 2003
Enviro Friendly...
Our area of the country is rich in oil and gas deposits, primarily because 300 million years ago, we were the bed of the Permian Sea, an area of shallow ocean now long gone. Left with the biological deposits of flora and fauna that became oil, were vast amounts of salt water now located at varying depths below us, some quite deep.
When we drill oil wells we usually encounter this brine to greater or lesser degrees, and it comes flowing up with the oil. Before the oil can be sold the water must be seperated which we do in large heat treating tanks, the oil floating to the top. Of course, then the problem becomes what to do with the brackish water. In the old days of the business, the water was simply flowed out onto the ground, and in fact in some less developed areas of the world, I'm sure they still practice this method. However, it is catastrophic to the soil and plant life, effectively making the area a salt desert.
Today there are two options of dealing with this water. In many areas the water is held in storage tanks to be trucked away for safe disposal, such as to man made salt lakes where shrimp are raised. This costs around one dollar a barrel. The other option, an injection well, is pictured above. Where there are old non producing wells in proximity, the brine can be re-injected down the old well bore to be placed back in the bowels of the earth where it came from. The injection well above, handles water from 8 wells and is 14,000 ft. deep. The two lines with their solar powered meters running into this injection system come from two of our wells, and from six wells owned by another company in the area. The eight wells flow approximately 900 barrels of water per day back to the Ellenberger formation far below, and costs us 28 cents a barrel to dispose of. One of the ancillary costs of producing oil, but worth it.
Our area of the country is rich in oil and gas deposits, primarily because 300 million years ago, we were the bed of the Permian Sea, an area of shallow ocean now long gone. Left with the biological deposits of flora and fauna that became oil, were vast amounts of salt water now located at varying depths below us, some quite deep.
When we drill oil wells we usually encounter this brine to greater or lesser degrees, and it comes flowing up with the oil. Before the oil can be sold the water must be seperated which we do in large heat treating tanks, the oil floating to the top. Of course, then the problem becomes what to do with the brackish water. In the old days of the business, the water was simply flowed out onto the ground, and in fact in some less developed areas of the world, I'm sure they still practice this method. However, it is catastrophic to the soil and plant life, effectively making the area a salt desert.
Today there are two options of dealing with this water. In many areas the water is held in storage tanks to be trucked away for safe disposal, such as to man made salt lakes where shrimp are raised. This costs around one dollar a barrel. The other option, an injection well, is pictured above. Where there are old non producing wells in proximity, the brine can be re-injected down the old well bore to be placed back in the bowels of the earth where it came from. The injection well above, handles water from 8 wells and is 14,000 ft. deep. The two lines with their solar powered meters running into this injection system come from two of our wells, and from six wells owned by another company in the area. The eight wells flow approximately 900 barrels of water per day back to the Ellenberger formation far below, and costs us 28 cents a barrel to dispose of. One of the ancillary costs of producing oil, but worth it.
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Iran......
It is just 24 years since 1979 when it seemed that every single person in Iran hated the United States, hated democracy and was ready to vow his or her perpetual allegiance to the Muslim clerics, mullahs, and poobahs who had taken over that country. It is with some amazement that I read what is happening there today. It bears a close watch and the support of all who can reach them....which is you via the power of the Internet.
Take a moment to visit these Blogs from Iran:
Iranian Girl
Whoman
Lady Sun
Jactancy
It is just 24 years since 1979 when it seemed that every single person in Iran hated the United States, hated democracy and was ready to vow his or her perpetual allegiance to the Muslim clerics, mullahs, and poobahs who had taken over that country. It is with some amazement that I read what is happening there today. It bears a close watch and the support of all who can reach them....which is you via the power of the Internet.
Take a moment to visit these Blogs from Iran:
Iranian Girl
Whoman
Lady Sun
Jactancy
Monday, June 16, 2003
Why we study history.....[or need to]
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse (generous gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence. From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back into bondage."
These words of wisdom current in their warning were written by Scottish historian Professor Alexander Tyler in 1787, concerning the Athenian civilization.
Thought on Democracy...
As an addendum to this thought on the state of democracy, Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University of Law, St. Paul, MN provides the following 2000 election factoids for consideration..
*Population of counties won by Gore 127 million, won by Bush 143 million.
*Square miles of country won by Gore 580,000, won by Bush 2,427,000.
*States won by Gore 19, by Bush 29 .
*Murders per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore 13.2 - by Bush 2.1
Professor Olson comments, "And may I add that the map of the territory Bush won was (mostly) the land owned by the people of this great country not the citizens living in cities owned by the government and living off the government".
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse (generous gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence. From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back into bondage."
These words of wisdom current in their warning were written by Scottish historian Professor Alexander Tyler in 1787, concerning the Athenian civilization.
Thought on Democracy...
As an addendum to this thought on the state of democracy, Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University of Law, St. Paul, MN provides the following 2000 election factoids for consideration..
*Population of counties won by Gore 127 million, won by Bush 143 million.
*Square miles of country won by Gore 580,000, won by Bush 2,427,000.
*States won by Gore 19, by Bush 29 .
*Murders per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore 13.2 - by Bush 2.1
Professor Olson comments, "And may I add that the map of the territory Bush won was (mostly) the land owned by the people of this great country not the citizens living in cities owned by the government and living off the government".
Sunday, June 15, 2003
Energy Update.....
From my perspective as a producer and supplier of energy commodities [oil and gas], things are looking very good indeed for the near future. We who explore for, and produce oil and natural gas are like farmers. We spend large amounts of money to produce the raw commodity, but have no say so in the price we get for our products. This is decided these days in the world markets and on the commodity exchanges of New York. And for so many years, decades really stretching back into the mid 1980's, oil and gas has been oversupplied, keeping prices low.
In fact in some years because of low prices it did not even make economic sense to drill new wells, and to operate existing wells meant barely breaking even. But things are changing now. Many analysts believe that we have crested the top of the curve where new supplies coming into the market outweighed the demand. Now demand in growing energy use in the industrialized world, and especially the newly developed third world is going to, henceforth, outstrip existing and newly found supplies. Of course daily world events, weather and manmade market disruptions cause fluctuations, but the trend in prices is definetly and irreversably towards the upside. Just this week the US Department of Energy raised their predictions for year 2003 natural gas price averages by 11%......this over their prediction of just one month ago, and 80% over year 2002!
It is an exciting time to be in the energy business in Midland Texas, not only because our bottom lines look better, but more importantly because of the new innovations that are being developed in response to the growing awareness of our energy needs and the recognition that our area is one of the world's leading locales for expertise in the energy business. Just this week we have had in town a large group from Japan who are exploring ways to more efficiently produce gas from their fields, and due to our Sister City arrangement with Dongying, China we have Chinese techicians in town constantly and now televised classroom links between our college and theirs .
People are looking at new ways of doing things in the oil field. My partners and I have decided to look more broadly at things and truly go into the energy business. We are in negotiations with a major US oil and gas corporation to construct an electrical power generation plant for their use powered by low BTU gas from existing wells that we have. This gas contains high levels on nitrogen and sulphur causing it to sell for a very low price and with the consequence that no one will drill new wells of this type. But this gas will power modern electric generation equipment with no problems. So we will turn an unused resources into one that will turn out low cost, clean electrical power. The Department of Energy is interested in our concept, as is the State of Texas.
Our region is at the forefront in the development of renewable resources too. Over 1000 Megawatts of electricity is currently being produced by wind driven generators, and solar powered plants are finally being considered. An Australian company is exploring solar power on a grand scale as seen in the article Solar Turbine Towers. These are exciting developments, but of course, have their drawbacks as well. The wind turbines, massive and numerous, are placed on hills and mesas which out in this country pass for our only scenic views. Visual pollution. And the solar turbine project is so costly and massive I have doubts about it's viability. And none of these alternative energy sources work economically without large tax incentives. But these new avenues for energy must be explored and perfected. For although when prices are high, we in the business benefit, prices that are too high are no good for anyone.
From my perspective as a producer and supplier of energy commodities [oil and gas], things are looking very good indeed for the near future. We who explore for, and produce oil and natural gas are like farmers. We spend large amounts of money to produce the raw commodity, but have no say so in the price we get for our products. This is decided these days in the world markets and on the commodity exchanges of New York. And for so many years, decades really stretching back into the mid 1980's, oil and gas has been oversupplied, keeping prices low.
In fact in some years because of low prices it did not even make economic sense to drill new wells, and to operate existing wells meant barely breaking even. But things are changing now. Many analysts believe that we have crested the top of the curve where new supplies coming into the market outweighed the demand. Now demand in growing energy use in the industrialized world, and especially the newly developed third world is going to, henceforth, outstrip existing and newly found supplies. Of course daily world events, weather and manmade market disruptions cause fluctuations, but the trend in prices is definetly and irreversably towards the upside. Just this week the US Department of Energy raised their predictions for year 2003 natural gas price averages by 11%......this over their prediction of just one month ago, and 80% over year 2002!
It is an exciting time to be in the energy business in Midland Texas, not only because our bottom lines look better, but more importantly because of the new innovations that are being developed in response to the growing awareness of our energy needs and the recognition that our area is one of the world's leading locales for expertise in the energy business. Just this week we have had in town a large group from Japan who are exploring ways to more efficiently produce gas from their fields, and due to our Sister City arrangement with Dongying, China we have Chinese techicians in town constantly and now televised classroom links between our college and theirs .
People are looking at new ways of doing things in the oil field. My partners and I have decided to look more broadly at things and truly go into the energy business. We are in negotiations with a major US oil and gas corporation to construct an electrical power generation plant for their use powered by low BTU gas from existing wells that we have. This gas contains high levels on nitrogen and sulphur causing it to sell for a very low price and with the consequence that no one will drill new wells of this type. But this gas will power modern electric generation equipment with no problems. So we will turn an unused resources into one that will turn out low cost, clean electrical power. The Department of Energy is interested in our concept, as is the State of Texas.
Our region is at the forefront in the development of renewable resources too. Over 1000 Megawatts of electricity is currently being produced by wind driven generators, and solar powered plants are finally being considered. An Australian company is exploring solar power on a grand scale as seen in the article Solar Turbine Towers. These are exciting developments, but of course, have their drawbacks as well. The wind turbines, massive and numerous, are placed on hills and mesas which out in this country pass for our only scenic views. Visual pollution. And the solar turbine project is so costly and massive I have doubts about it's viability. And none of these alternative energy sources work economically without large tax incentives. But these new avenues for energy must be explored and perfected. For although when prices are high, we in the business benefit, prices that are too high are no good for anyone.
Thursday, June 12, 2003
So long Mr. Peck......
Hollywood star Gregory Peck has died at age 87. With his passing one more true old fashioned "film star" has left us and will make us wonder whether any more film greats of this sort will arise.
There are many movie and media entertainment stars today, but true film stars may be a thing of the past. The film stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, I think, weren't so much worried about their mass market appeal or their commercial success as they were their craft. No, they tended to concern themselves with making great pictures, improving their performances and in securing meaningful roles that told a story and had depth. They made some bombs along the way, but by and large, the film stars had one or perhaps several films that are rated as classics. Such was the case with Gregory Peck. His role as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, has been rated by the public as the #1 hero in filmdom.
The stars of today, seem to take any role that will make them a dime. They are bombarded upon us with interviews, tabloid stories, talk show appearances and they become too familiar. Familiarity breeds contempt, or at least boredom with them. In thinking of names who are big stars today, I quickly come up with people like Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford. Good actors with some really good entertaining films.......lot's of them. Too many of them. We are over saturated with Mel and Harrison, their mystique is gone. On the other side is someone like Meryl Streep. She remains, in my mind, aloof and out of the public eye. Until, she rises from her private world to make another great film. At which time I am awed by her talent and say to myself, "What a great actor, where has she been lately?" She's an old time star, like Gregory Peck and I am sorry there are not more like them.
Hollywood star Gregory Peck has died at age 87. With his passing one more true old fashioned "film star" has left us and will make us wonder whether any more film greats of this sort will arise.
There are many movie and media entertainment stars today, but true film stars may be a thing of the past. The film stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, I think, weren't so much worried about their mass market appeal or their commercial success as they were their craft. No, they tended to concern themselves with making great pictures, improving their performances and in securing meaningful roles that told a story and had depth. They made some bombs along the way, but by and large, the film stars had one or perhaps several films that are rated as classics. Such was the case with Gregory Peck. His role as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, has been rated by the public as the #1 hero in filmdom.
The stars of today, seem to take any role that will make them a dime. They are bombarded upon us with interviews, tabloid stories, talk show appearances and they become too familiar. Familiarity breeds contempt, or at least boredom with them. In thinking of names who are big stars today, I quickly come up with people like Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford. Good actors with some really good entertaining films.......lot's of them. Too many of them. We are over saturated with Mel and Harrison, their mystique is gone. On the other side is someone like Meryl Streep. She remains, in my mind, aloof and out of the public eye. Until, she rises from her private world to make another great film. At which time I am awed by her talent and say to myself, "What a great actor, where has she been lately?" She's an old time star, like Gregory Peck and I am sorry there are not more like them.
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
A Toad Floater.....
Last week it was a close call with death by dust suffocation, this week death by drowning. For those not familiar with West Texas weather, dust storms and floods are close cousins, it just depends on how the thunderstorms grow and where they dump their much needed moisture. Tonight they chose to dump on us. I surmise close to 2 inches in just about 45 minutes. I'm not complaining about the rain, true West Texans never do for we know in August we'll be praying for anything we can get. But.....this storm started my roof leaking again after winter repairs, I'm just glad I was still up to set the buckets by the offending fireplace.
This storm started off as a small line of thunderclouds off to the west of us and grew rapidly, and came swiftly. At 8:30 p.m. it was barely a blip on the radar, and by 10:30 had grown into a storm packing 70 mph winds and dime sized hail. To give out of towners a scale, the distance on the map from Midland to El Paso is over 300 miles.
We genteel folk call these big rains toad floaters, but really the common Texas vernacular requires you to juxtapose two other letters into the "toad". The term originated in the ranching business, describing rains large enough to float the cow pies and start them drifting off out of the pasture. You figure it out.
Thursday, June 05, 2003
Blown Away...
Midland, Texas is generally a great place to live, but it does have it's drawbacks. Dust being chief among the negatives. The picture above is not a 1930's Dust Bowl retinted image, but a weather event that happened here this last Tuesday.
This roiling, seething mass of geologic particulate hell was caused by a micro-burst [a misnomer here..this was mega!] from a thunderstorm that was over 90 miles away to our north. For those of you who don't have massive thunderstorms coupled with flat prairieland, I'll explain the concept. As thunderstorms build with rising heat they carry massive amounts of moisture aloft to great altitudes of 40, 50, 60,000 feet or more. As the clouds encounter colder temperatures at these altitudes they lose the ability to hold this moisture, and if conditions are right, the moisture rich center of the cloud basically collapses on itself releasing the water and huge amounts of energy in the form of wind, which goes straight down. When it hits dry, dusty flatlands it spreads out and travels for long distances. Think of blowing a hard concentrated breath straight down into a pile of flour and you'll get the idea, except on a grand scale.
This one must have had the force of a small nuclear weapon; large, amazing and somewhat spooky. As I was standing in the front yard facing south and with a clear blue sky overhead, I noticed an orange glow starting to embue itself on everything. Turning around I noticed this wall cloud of dust some miles north. Before I could go inside, procure the camera and come back out, it was on us, the wind going from 0-60 mph in zero seconds. I got a rather bad image of the wall almost over me, a sheer face thousands of feet high, so I'm lucky a friend took the image above from an office building. I could barely see across the street for an hour or more and when the dust settles it covers everything with the consistency of fine talcum powder. One minute perfectly clear and calm, the next instant a maelstrom. I have some feeling of how the citizens of Pompeii must have felt as they watched the volcanic gas cloud descend upon them!
I'm still cleaning dust from the estate!
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Letter from the Prime Minister...
It's not often that I get a letter from a world leader, but one came in the mail today. Arriving in a fairly nondescript envelope I almost threw it in the trash thinking it was another "special deal" offering a no interest credit card. I'm glad I didn't, for the letter was from Prime Minister John Howard of Australia. I had found his address on a link in down under Blogmate, Tim Blair's informative column and had jotted off a quick note to the Prime Minister thanking him for his steadfastness concerning Iraq, when so many other world weasels were scurrying for their holes.
I'm glad Mr. Howard found the time to write. And, OK, doubters I know you are saying........"form letter". Perhaps some of it is, but he does allude in paragraph 2 to my comments about the closeness those of us in the United States feel for our Aussie brethren...Texans in particular. And, I am basically a doubter too...so I wet my fingers and tried to smudge the ink. A successful smudge as seen on the signature. It's an inpiring letter, I hope you find the time to read it:
Prime Ministers Letter
It's not often that I get a letter from a world leader, but one came in the mail today. Arriving in a fairly nondescript envelope I almost threw it in the trash thinking it was another "special deal" offering a no interest credit card. I'm glad I didn't, for the letter was from Prime Minister John Howard of Australia. I had found his address on a link in down under Blogmate, Tim Blair's informative column and had jotted off a quick note to the Prime Minister thanking him for his steadfastness concerning Iraq, when so many other world weasels were scurrying for their holes.
I'm glad Mr. Howard found the time to write. And, OK, doubters I know you are saying........"form letter". Perhaps some of it is, but he does allude in paragraph 2 to my comments about the closeness those of us in the United States feel for our Aussie brethren...Texans in particular. And, I am basically a doubter too...so I wet my fingers and tried to smudge the ink. A successful smudge as seen on the signature. It's an inpiring letter, I hope you find the time to read it:
Prime Ministers Letter
Monday, June 02, 2003
Divorce, European Style........
Writer Ralph Peters pens what many Americans have been thinking.........
"The societies of "Old Europe" remind Americans of the Arab Street. Preferring comforting delusions to challenging realities, Europeans talk a great deal, do very little, and blame the United States for home-grown ills.
The recent chants in the boulevards of Berlin were almost indistinguishable from those heard--until recently--in downtown Baghdad. Europe's culture of complaint, its enthusiasm for accusing America of every wickedness while assigning every virtue to itself, and its stunning lack of self-examination leave Americans bewildered.
We thought you were adults, but, from across the Atlantic, you look like spoiled children. And your recent tantrums have convinced Big Daddy America to deposit you on the steps of the strategic orphanage.
The damage done by the recent confrontation between The United States and those nations whose vocabularies collapsed to the single words "Nein!" or "Non!" will be repaired--on the surface. We shall continue to cooperate on matters of mutual interest. But, on a deeper level, the exuberantly dishonest attacks on America heard from France and Germany (Belgium simply doesn't count), along with the shameless grandstanding of Mr. Schroeder and Mr. Chirac, appear to even the most pragmatic Americans as grounds for divorce from our long marriage of convenience.
The divorce is long overdue. Ignoring "Old Europe" on questions of grand strategy will liberate the United States, freeing us at last from the failed European model of diplomacy that has given the world so many hideous wars, dysfunctional borders and undisturbed dictators. The recent mischief wrought in Paris and Berlin has enabled Washington to escape a long thrall of enchantment, a slumber of sorts during which America allowed Europe's ghost to haunt its decisions. Now you have awakened us, and we see that Europe's influence was nothing but a legacy of nightmares. We shall no longer subscribe to your bloodsoaked, corrupt rules for the international system, but will forge our own.
You will not like many of our new rules. But to paraphrase Frederick the Great's remark about Maria Theresia, you will cry, but take your share of any available spoils. As a result of a series of remarkable strategic miscalculations, France and Germany have lost their international footing--not only with the USA, but with the world. You had your moment in the anti-American sun. High noon revealed you as powerless and inept.
For Germany, this divorce will offer some advantages. American combat forces soon will begin to leave German soil permanently, followed in good time by our logistics facilities, which are simply more difficult to shift. This will be to Germany's benefit practically and psychologically--and very much to the benefit of America's armed forces, which have become nothing but a cash cow for greedy organizations ranging from your railways to your labor unions.
NATO will survive, of course. Along with the European Union, it's an indispensable employment agency for Europe's excess bureaucrats. But other bilateral and multilateral military arrangements will take precedence in Washington's strategic calculations.
On the negative side, Germany will lose almost all of its diplomatic influence beyond continental Europe--and Berlin never had much, at least since 1945. The world will take your Euros, but will not take you seriously. You have asserted your independence from America. Now you have it. Good luck.
We won our war, easily, despite your protests and without your help. And do not flatter yourself with rhetoric about refusing to be America's vassals. No one in the United States questioned Germany's right to decide for itself whether or not to support our efforts to depose Saddam Hussein. Germany had every right to decline to participal, but it was the way you did it that infuriated us.
Bundeskanzler Schroeder astonished us. We long had recognized him as a political charlatan, but the extent of his demagogy and his amateurish inability to foresee the consequences of his ranting still came as a surprise to us. We see Mr. Schroeder as a man utterly without convictions-a man without qualities--a political animal so debased that he resembles no one so much as he does European caricatures of small-time American politicians. His opportunistic anti-Americanism seemed all for effect, without substance or genuine belief.
Yet, in other respects, Schroeder proved quintessentially European: He criticized, but failed to offer meaningful solutions of his own. He chose slogans over ideas, convenience over ethics, and portrayed small-minded selfishness as political heroism. What qualities might better describe 21st century Europe? Germany has come a long way downhill from Adenauer and Schmidt to Gerhard Schroeder.
Most difficult of all for us to stomach were remarks from members of the German government comparing President Bush to Hitler. Now, does anyone reading this newspaper believe that's an honest comparison? And was it fitting coming from a German official? One thinks not. Americans heard the echo of Joseph Goebbels.
Then there were all the demonstrators waving signs equating the United States to the Nazi regime, as tasteless a display as Germany has managed since the last crematorium went cold. Once our tempers cooled, we realized that all these Nazi comparisons weren't really about us. It was all about you, your guilt and your evasions.
Perhaps the most revealing incident of the war came during a television interview with a young protester in Berlin after Baghdad had fallen. The reporter asked him what he thought of the images of Iraqis cheering U.S. Marines and toppling Saddam's statue. The young German said the scenes "annoyed" him. Doubtless. Reality is annoying, indeed.
Oh, we know how you see us. You never cease telling us. We are uncultured, because we cannot recall the date of the first performance of Das Rheingold. We are heartless, since our society favors opportunity over security. We are na ve, since we do not share your prejudices. We are warmongers, because we still believe some things are worth defending. And now we are Nazis, because we moved to depose a dictator who had slaughtered his own people as well as his neighbors, while harboring terrorists and pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
Of course, you continue to buy our cultural products. Your brightest young people come to our shores to work. We Americans have moved beyond the racism that blights Germany and France (we look forward to meeting a German Colin Powell of Turkish ancestry in Berlin or an ethnic-Senegalese Condoleeza Rice in Paris), so we certainly do not share your prejudices. And after the events of September 11th, 2001, we will not wait to be attacked, but will strike pre-emptively wherever we believe it to be necessary--and we shall do so without ever again asking Europe's permission. So we are, indeed, warmongers by European standards.
But what about the charge that Americans are the new Nazis? I think I understand the sickness that afflicts you. I received my first insight as a young Army sergeant in a not-yet-reunified Germany a quarter-century ago. Although the event was ten years past, young Germans unfailingly brought up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam during our conversations. My Lai was one of two documented American atrocities in that war. Almost two hundred villagers were murdered. It was inexcusable, and we did not try to excuse it. But those young Germans grasped at the My Lai massacre with an alacrity that astonished me. To them, the two-hundred dead at My Lai canceled Auschwitz and Treblinka, six million murdered Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and dissenters. The message was, "See! You Americans are just as bad as we Germans were-maybe worse." I did not find the comparison convincing.
Now, with Germany's Jews long since slaughtered or driven out (to America's great benefit, thank you), you attack Israel at every opportunity, hanging on every Palestinian claim, no matter how absurd, and inventing Israeli atrocities. Americans see Israelis as fighting for their existence against those who want to exterminate them. You view Israelis as a reproach to your past deeds, and you lash out at them. Clausewitz is no longer a guide to your national behavior. Today, we need to consult Sigmund Freud. A Jew, of course.
The Israelis, too, have been called Nazis by your elected politicians-indeed, "Nazi" seems to be your favorite insult. At times it sounds to us as though everyone who isn't a German is now a Nazi. Unless, of course, we are talking of Arabs who murder Jews, in which case a good German speaks of freedom fighters. Here in America, Holocaust survivors live among us, as do those aging G.I.s who opened the gates to Dachau. They have been our fathers, our teachers and our neighbors. Is it any wonder that we find your rhetoric repulsive? Hitler, at least, was honest about his bigotry.
And now we must endure the ludicrous schizophrenia of your present society, in which you alternate between insisting that German guilt must have an end and indulging in revisionist history that equates the allied bombing campaign against your cities or the sinking of ships ferrying submarine crews with Nazi evils. Your attempts to excuse the inexcusable merely remind us that Germany deserved every bomb dropped upon its soil. Bush the equivalent of Hitler? Show us the American death camps, please.
As a lifelong admirer of German culture, you leave me in despair. Your chancellor has transformed the worthy old maxim "Be more than you appear to be" into "Appear to be more than you are." Goethe's timeless query, "Germany...but where is it?" has been answered with "Between France and Russia, duped by Chirac and cooly manipulated by Putin." And Faust has been outed as Professor Unrat.
Auf wiedersehen, Lili Marleen. It was great while it lasted.
And Marianne? Since no one took Germany seriously to begin with, Berlin had less to lose in l'affaire Iraq than Paris. France gambled with Dostoevskian abandon in the strategic casino and ended up bankrupt in the morning light. President Chirac and his sorcerer's apprentice, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, emerged as one of the most incompetent combinations in diplomatic history, two drunkards behind the steering wheel of policy. It astonishes us that the French actually believed that Paris could dictate terms to Washington. Sorry. Gaul does not give orders to Rome.
We understood that Chirac was playing to the Arab world as well as to his domestic electorate. But the succession of French refusals to negotiate seriously or even to consider compromises at the United Nations, climaxed by France's announcement, in advance, that it would veto any further resolutions introduced by the United States or Britain, seemed suicidal to us.
And it was suicidal. The legacy of Charles de Gaulle perished in the Security Council. The tradition of permitting France a greater voice in trans-Atlantic decision-making than its place, power or contributions merited is over, as dead as Jean-Paul Sartre or his idol, Josef Stalin. The Gallic cock crowed so loudly it fell off the fence and broke its neck. Washington will no longer entertain the views of Paris on vital international issues. Nor will we risk another French veto on a matter we view as critical to our national security. And we will feed the United Nations the crumbs of strategy. Far from expanding its influence, France has forced its collapse. A quick round of applause in Algeria is hardly worth the loss of America's ear. Briefly the champion of all the anti-American forces in the world, from Libya to North Korea, France is left unable to resolve the civil strife in Ivory Coast. And Paris will not be given a significant role in rebuilding Iraq.
France long has seemed to Americans to be the apotheosis of European hypocrisy. While defending Saddam Hussein from "American aggression," Mr. Chirac hosted Robert Mugabe in Paris in a pathetic attempt to expand French influence into Anglophone Africa. But I was in Zimbabwe when the visit occurred and the degree of fury the people of that country felt toward France for hosting Mugabe--whom they have nicknamed "Robodan Mugabevich"--guaranteed that the French will never be welcome between the Zambezi and the Limpopo. France seems to us an aging whore desperate to attract even the most diseased customers.
But, above all, it is French naivete that leaves us shaking our heads. How could they so misjudge the situation? Aren't the French supposed to be terribly clever and devious? How could they be so clumsy, and on such a grand scale? The short answer is that, like Arabs, they believed their own fantasies. In addition to the forlorn illusion that France is still a great power, Mr. Chirac and Mr. de Villepin utterly misjudged George Bush. They had called him a cowboy for so long that they came to believe there was nothing to the man. And they were wrong.
I did not vote for President Bush. But, after 9/11/01, I was glad he was our president. Had Al Gore been in the White House, we would have done the European thing and formed a committee to ask how we had brought disaster upon ourselves. President Bush led a galvanized nation into a series of deliberate, carefully-considered actions that have broken the back of one terrorist organization after another while removing a brutal, backward theocracy from one country and a blood-encrusted dictatorship from another.
And America is not finished. We will no longer subscribe to the European system in which dictators may do as they wish with impunity within their own borders--your insistence on respect for national sovereignty simply means that Hitler would have been perfectly acceptable had he only killed German Jews. And we will not follow the traditions of kings and kaisers in which heads of state are exempt from personal punishment, no matter their crimes. We will go after the truly guilty, not the masses. And no amount of insults hurled from beneath the Brandenburg Gate or from the Place de la Concorde will deter us. We are finished with your delight in weeping over past holocausts while you remain unwilling to act to prevent or interrupt new holocausts. Srebrenica is the European model. Baghdad is ours.
President Bush is a Texan, as Europeans never fail to remind us. But the intelligence services of France and Germany seem to have failed to understand the character of Texans. They don't speak artfully, but they act resolutely. They aren't relativists. Texans believe there is a difference between right and wrong. And when you insult a Texan to his face while betraying his trust, he is not going to take it kindly. Confronting a Texan in public is always ill-advised, unless you intend to fight it out to the end--and have the means to do so. Texans don't even care where Europe is on the map.
We Americans are all Texans now. You have left us no choice."
Ralph Peters is a retired U.S. Army officer and the author of sixteen books, including novels, collections of essays and works on strategy. His most recent book is Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World.
Writer Ralph Peters pens what many Americans have been thinking.........
"The societies of "Old Europe" remind Americans of the Arab Street. Preferring comforting delusions to challenging realities, Europeans talk a great deal, do very little, and blame the United States for home-grown ills.
The recent chants in the boulevards of Berlin were almost indistinguishable from those heard--until recently--in downtown Baghdad. Europe's culture of complaint, its enthusiasm for accusing America of every wickedness while assigning every virtue to itself, and its stunning lack of self-examination leave Americans bewildered.
We thought you were adults, but, from across the Atlantic, you look like spoiled children. And your recent tantrums have convinced Big Daddy America to deposit you on the steps of the strategic orphanage.
The damage done by the recent confrontation between The United States and those nations whose vocabularies collapsed to the single words "Nein!" or "Non!" will be repaired--on the surface. We shall continue to cooperate on matters of mutual interest. But, on a deeper level, the exuberantly dishonest attacks on America heard from France and Germany (Belgium simply doesn't count), along with the shameless grandstanding of Mr. Schroeder and Mr. Chirac, appear to even the most pragmatic Americans as grounds for divorce from our long marriage of convenience.
The divorce is long overdue. Ignoring "Old Europe" on questions of grand strategy will liberate the United States, freeing us at last from the failed European model of diplomacy that has given the world so many hideous wars, dysfunctional borders and undisturbed dictators. The recent mischief wrought in Paris and Berlin has enabled Washington to escape a long thrall of enchantment, a slumber of sorts during which America allowed Europe's ghost to haunt its decisions. Now you have awakened us, and we see that Europe's influence was nothing but a legacy of nightmares. We shall no longer subscribe to your bloodsoaked, corrupt rules for the international system, but will forge our own.
You will not like many of our new rules. But to paraphrase Frederick the Great's remark about Maria Theresia, you will cry, but take your share of any available spoils. As a result of a series of remarkable strategic miscalculations, France and Germany have lost their international footing--not only with the USA, but with the world. You had your moment in the anti-American sun. High noon revealed you as powerless and inept.
For Germany, this divorce will offer some advantages. American combat forces soon will begin to leave German soil permanently, followed in good time by our logistics facilities, which are simply more difficult to shift. This will be to Germany's benefit practically and psychologically--and very much to the benefit of America's armed forces, which have become nothing but a cash cow for greedy organizations ranging from your railways to your labor unions.
NATO will survive, of course. Along with the European Union, it's an indispensable employment agency for Europe's excess bureaucrats. But other bilateral and multilateral military arrangements will take precedence in Washington's strategic calculations.
On the negative side, Germany will lose almost all of its diplomatic influence beyond continental Europe--and Berlin never had much, at least since 1945. The world will take your Euros, but will not take you seriously. You have asserted your independence from America. Now you have it. Good luck.
We won our war, easily, despite your protests and without your help. And do not flatter yourself with rhetoric about refusing to be America's vassals. No one in the United States questioned Germany's right to decide for itself whether or not to support our efforts to depose Saddam Hussein. Germany had every right to decline to participal, but it was the way you did it that infuriated us.
Bundeskanzler Schroeder astonished us. We long had recognized him as a political charlatan, but the extent of his demagogy and his amateurish inability to foresee the consequences of his ranting still came as a surprise to us. We see Mr. Schroeder as a man utterly without convictions-a man without qualities--a political animal so debased that he resembles no one so much as he does European caricatures of small-time American politicians. His opportunistic anti-Americanism seemed all for effect, without substance or genuine belief.
Yet, in other respects, Schroeder proved quintessentially European: He criticized, but failed to offer meaningful solutions of his own. He chose slogans over ideas, convenience over ethics, and portrayed small-minded selfishness as political heroism. What qualities might better describe 21st century Europe? Germany has come a long way downhill from Adenauer and Schmidt to Gerhard Schroeder.
Most difficult of all for us to stomach were remarks from members of the German government comparing President Bush to Hitler. Now, does anyone reading this newspaper believe that's an honest comparison? And was it fitting coming from a German official? One thinks not. Americans heard the echo of Joseph Goebbels.
Then there were all the demonstrators waving signs equating the United States to the Nazi regime, as tasteless a display as Germany has managed since the last crematorium went cold. Once our tempers cooled, we realized that all these Nazi comparisons weren't really about us. It was all about you, your guilt and your evasions.
Perhaps the most revealing incident of the war came during a television interview with a young protester in Berlin after Baghdad had fallen. The reporter asked him what he thought of the images of Iraqis cheering U.S. Marines and toppling Saddam's statue. The young German said the scenes "annoyed" him. Doubtless. Reality is annoying, indeed.
Oh, we know how you see us. You never cease telling us. We are uncultured, because we cannot recall the date of the first performance of Das Rheingold. We are heartless, since our society favors opportunity over security. We are na ve, since we do not share your prejudices. We are warmongers, because we still believe some things are worth defending. And now we are Nazis, because we moved to depose a dictator who had slaughtered his own people as well as his neighbors, while harboring terrorists and pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
Of course, you continue to buy our cultural products. Your brightest young people come to our shores to work. We Americans have moved beyond the racism that blights Germany and France (we look forward to meeting a German Colin Powell of Turkish ancestry in Berlin or an ethnic-Senegalese Condoleeza Rice in Paris), so we certainly do not share your prejudices. And after the events of September 11th, 2001, we will not wait to be attacked, but will strike pre-emptively wherever we believe it to be necessary--and we shall do so without ever again asking Europe's permission. So we are, indeed, warmongers by European standards.
But what about the charge that Americans are the new Nazis? I think I understand the sickness that afflicts you. I received my first insight as a young Army sergeant in a not-yet-reunified Germany a quarter-century ago. Although the event was ten years past, young Germans unfailingly brought up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam during our conversations. My Lai was one of two documented American atrocities in that war. Almost two hundred villagers were murdered. It was inexcusable, and we did not try to excuse it. But those young Germans grasped at the My Lai massacre with an alacrity that astonished me. To them, the two-hundred dead at My Lai canceled Auschwitz and Treblinka, six million murdered Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and dissenters. The message was, "See! You Americans are just as bad as we Germans were-maybe worse." I did not find the comparison convincing.
Now, with Germany's Jews long since slaughtered or driven out (to America's great benefit, thank you), you attack Israel at every opportunity, hanging on every Palestinian claim, no matter how absurd, and inventing Israeli atrocities. Americans see Israelis as fighting for their existence against those who want to exterminate them. You view Israelis as a reproach to your past deeds, and you lash out at them. Clausewitz is no longer a guide to your national behavior. Today, we need to consult Sigmund Freud. A Jew, of course.
The Israelis, too, have been called Nazis by your elected politicians-indeed, "Nazi" seems to be your favorite insult. At times it sounds to us as though everyone who isn't a German is now a Nazi. Unless, of course, we are talking of Arabs who murder Jews, in which case a good German speaks of freedom fighters. Here in America, Holocaust survivors live among us, as do those aging G.I.s who opened the gates to Dachau. They have been our fathers, our teachers and our neighbors. Is it any wonder that we find your rhetoric repulsive? Hitler, at least, was honest about his bigotry.
And now we must endure the ludicrous schizophrenia of your present society, in which you alternate between insisting that German guilt must have an end and indulging in revisionist history that equates the allied bombing campaign against your cities or the sinking of ships ferrying submarine crews with Nazi evils. Your attempts to excuse the inexcusable merely remind us that Germany deserved every bomb dropped upon its soil. Bush the equivalent of Hitler? Show us the American death camps, please.
As a lifelong admirer of German culture, you leave me in despair. Your chancellor has transformed the worthy old maxim "Be more than you appear to be" into "Appear to be more than you are." Goethe's timeless query, "Germany...but where is it?" has been answered with "Between France and Russia, duped by Chirac and cooly manipulated by Putin." And Faust has been outed as Professor Unrat.
Auf wiedersehen, Lili Marleen. It was great while it lasted.
And Marianne? Since no one took Germany seriously to begin with, Berlin had less to lose in l'affaire Iraq than Paris. France gambled with Dostoevskian abandon in the strategic casino and ended up bankrupt in the morning light. President Chirac and his sorcerer's apprentice, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, emerged as one of the most incompetent combinations in diplomatic history, two drunkards behind the steering wheel of policy. It astonishes us that the French actually believed that Paris could dictate terms to Washington. Sorry. Gaul does not give orders to Rome.
We understood that Chirac was playing to the Arab world as well as to his domestic electorate. But the succession of French refusals to negotiate seriously or even to consider compromises at the United Nations, climaxed by France's announcement, in advance, that it would veto any further resolutions introduced by the United States or Britain, seemed suicidal to us.
And it was suicidal. The legacy of Charles de Gaulle perished in the Security Council. The tradition of permitting France a greater voice in trans-Atlantic decision-making than its place, power or contributions merited is over, as dead as Jean-Paul Sartre or his idol, Josef Stalin. The Gallic cock crowed so loudly it fell off the fence and broke its neck. Washington will no longer entertain the views of Paris on vital international issues. Nor will we risk another French veto on a matter we view as critical to our national security. And we will feed the United Nations the crumbs of strategy. Far from expanding its influence, France has forced its collapse. A quick round of applause in Algeria is hardly worth the loss of America's ear. Briefly the champion of all the anti-American forces in the world, from Libya to North Korea, France is left unable to resolve the civil strife in Ivory Coast. And Paris will not be given a significant role in rebuilding Iraq.
France long has seemed to Americans to be the apotheosis of European hypocrisy. While defending Saddam Hussein from "American aggression," Mr. Chirac hosted Robert Mugabe in Paris in a pathetic attempt to expand French influence into Anglophone Africa. But I was in Zimbabwe when the visit occurred and the degree of fury the people of that country felt toward France for hosting Mugabe--whom they have nicknamed "Robodan Mugabevich"--guaranteed that the French will never be welcome between the Zambezi and the Limpopo. France seems to us an aging whore desperate to attract even the most diseased customers.
But, above all, it is French naivete that leaves us shaking our heads. How could they so misjudge the situation? Aren't the French supposed to be terribly clever and devious? How could they be so clumsy, and on such a grand scale? The short answer is that, like Arabs, they believed their own fantasies. In addition to the forlorn illusion that France is still a great power, Mr. Chirac and Mr. de Villepin utterly misjudged George Bush. They had called him a cowboy for so long that they came to believe there was nothing to the man. And they were wrong.
I did not vote for President Bush. But, after 9/11/01, I was glad he was our president. Had Al Gore been in the White House, we would have done the European thing and formed a committee to ask how we had brought disaster upon ourselves. President Bush led a galvanized nation into a series of deliberate, carefully-considered actions that have broken the back of one terrorist organization after another while removing a brutal, backward theocracy from one country and a blood-encrusted dictatorship from another.
And America is not finished. We will no longer subscribe to the European system in which dictators may do as they wish with impunity within their own borders--your insistence on respect for national sovereignty simply means that Hitler would have been perfectly acceptable had he only killed German Jews. And we will not follow the traditions of kings and kaisers in which heads of state are exempt from personal punishment, no matter their crimes. We will go after the truly guilty, not the masses. And no amount of insults hurled from beneath the Brandenburg Gate or from the Place de la Concorde will deter us. We are finished with your delight in weeping over past holocausts while you remain unwilling to act to prevent or interrupt new holocausts. Srebrenica is the European model. Baghdad is ours.
President Bush is a Texan, as Europeans never fail to remind us. But the intelligence services of France and Germany seem to have failed to understand the character of Texans. They don't speak artfully, but they act resolutely. They aren't relativists. Texans believe there is a difference between right and wrong. And when you insult a Texan to his face while betraying his trust, he is not going to take it kindly. Confronting a Texan in public is always ill-advised, unless you intend to fight it out to the end--and have the means to do so. Texans don't even care where Europe is on the map.
We Americans are all Texans now. You have left us no choice."
Ralph Peters is a retired U.S. Army officer and the author of sixteen books, including novels, collections of essays and works on strategy. His most recent book is Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World.
Sunday, June 01, 2003
Major League Guy......
We've been attending numerous charity events of late, last night's soiree benefited the West Texas Kidney Foundation. The speaker was Major League great ballplayer, Jay Johnstone, a funny guy with impressive baseball credentials. Like four World Series rings, being named the American League Rookie of the Year during his inaugural season and a record setting pinch hitter. He has written three books about his experiences including the best seller, "Temporary Insanity". He is still involved with baseball, broadcasting for Fox Sports and in a management capacity with the World Champion Anaheim Angels.
Baseball stats not withstanding, however, I was as much impressed with the charity work that he does including the Boy Scouts, the Special Olympics and being named the Big Brother of the Year, not once but twice, in two seperate cities, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. He also has a company, SporThings that provides sports collectibles to charity events. You should have seen the ones last night. Too varied to mention, but how does an autographed picture of Roger Stabauch, Sammy Baugh and Troy Aikman sound......all in one photo.
But most impressive to me, and the subject of a nice conversation with Jay, is the fact that he is a former U.S. Marine, and Vietnam Vet. An accomplishment that in my book is as good as any World Series ring!
We've been attending numerous charity events of late, last night's soiree benefited the West Texas Kidney Foundation. The speaker was Major League great ballplayer, Jay Johnstone, a funny guy with impressive baseball credentials. Like four World Series rings, being named the American League Rookie of the Year during his inaugural season and a record setting pinch hitter. He has written three books about his experiences including the best seller, "Temporary Insanity". He is still involved with baseball, broadcasting for Fox Sports and in a management capacity with the World Champion Anaheim Angels.
Baseball stats not withstanding, however, I was as much impressed with the charity work that he does including the Boy Scouts, the Special Olympics and being named the Big Brother of the Year, not once but twice, in two seperate cities, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. He also has a company, SporThings that provides sports collectibles to charity events. You should have seen the ones last night. Too varied to mention, but how does an autographed picture of Roger Stabauch, Sammy Baugh and Troy Aikman sound......all in one photo.
But most impressive to me, and the subject of a nice conversation with Jay, is the fact that he is a former U.S. Marine, and Vietnam Vet. An accomplishment that in my book is as good as any World Series ring!
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