While visiting a base where I was stationed in the 2002-2003 timeframe, Retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks said (and I’m sure he’s said it at other times too) – that we should, if we see a protestor, go and shake his hand…
…and then wink at his girlfriend, because she knows she’s dating a pussy.
I think he’s right. And I know he’s wrong.
We should shake the hand of protestors and we should thank them for their service to our country. In fact, I think if you ask most people in the military, they’ll agree that should the day ever come where people cannot peaceably protest in the United States, well, we’ve pretty much fucked up.
The part he’s wrong about then, of course, is the part about protestor’s being pussies. If we look back there have been some remarkable protests – from Rosa Parks' bus to college campuses, to Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria.
Probably the most notable protest photo I can ever remember seeing is from China’s Tiananmen Square in 1989 – that lone individual in front of a column of tanks.
Have you ever stood in front of a modern main battle tank? I have. It’s freaking awesome from only a couple meters away and I don’t think the photo really does justice to what that particular protestor saw. His entire field of vision was armor-plated. And the main gun on a tank – well, you can easily fit your arm down one.
And here’s the difference – the tank I stood in front of was British. While certainly it was on the ‘enemy’ side of the large scale exercise we were engaged in, I’m as sure as I’ve been about anything that it had no ammunition and that the crew inside it, when they turned the barrel of that monster toward me, had no intention other than making me wish I had a new set of drawers.
Let’s look at the Arab Spring protests – all those people were out there raising their voices when there was every chance – in fact history pointed in that direction – that they might be shot. Or at the very least jailed. Often it amounts to much the same thing.
And looking at these instances of people who are entirely brave and deserving of our respect, it’s almost embarrassing for me watching people take part in "Occupy Wherever" around the U.S. I almost have a hard time justifying the word ‘protestor’ when describing them. I think complainers or agitators or people-who-are-fed-up-but-not-sure-what-to-do-about-it, would be more appropriate.
People have the right to protest – but having a point would be in order. As it is, where people in other parts of the world run the very real risk of being shot, Occupy Wherever protestors mainly run the risk of their cell phone batteries dying.
It’s not nearly as inspiring. Not by a long shot. In fact, after a week, it looks more like people are doing it just to have something to write on their FaceBook pages. Maybe they’re hoping for a Kent State style government over-reaction to galvanize them (although it’s hard to imagine why they would and I certainly don't believe that to be the case). Maybe they’re hoping something will come up that they can grab onto with some conviction.
There’s a lot of talk about protestors being angry about corporate greed. If this is the case the writers at Saturday Night Live must be having a field day. The protest is a “social media-driven” protest according to many news sites. Nothing spells "stop corporate greed" like an almost implicit sponsorship by the likes of Verizon, AT&T, i-Phone. And it’s doubly laughable that so many of these people mourned the loss of Steve Jobs last week – while simultaneously protesting the 1% who are wealthy beyond a single person’s ability to spend.
Steve Jobs was no pauper. In 1986 he gave George Lucas $5 million dollars when he bought Pixar. He threw in another $5mil of his own to get it working. And 20 years later when he sold the company to Disney, it was for the tidy sum of $7.8 BILLION dollars. (Insert your own Dr. Evil impression here.) He was the single largest individual shareholder of Disney stock - by a lot.
Rich people are rich generally because they busted their asses and took chances most people wouldn’t take to get that way. Some are rich because daddy or mommy was rich. Well, that happens and there’s no use crying over it. If someone were to hand one of these folks (or me!) a briefcase with a million bucks, I think they'd probably take it and not look to pay any more taxes on it than they could reasonably help.
But, in the end, what I think these protestors are really looking for, is leadership.
They aren’t getting it from their elected representatives. And after a week, not one person has stepped up within the heaving mass of protestors to even try to give it a direction or some coherence - at least no one who has succeeded enough so that we've heard about it.
The reason, I think, is that most of thoe folks know deep down, that it’s not really that bad in America. The government isn’t rolling tanks up on Wall Street. They don’t have to worry about loony-tune dictators sending out the secret police to whack people who get out of line. They live in a country where they can protest peaceably if they want to – and it’s great they’re exercising that right.
But, and here’s a thought, why don’t they all exercise their right to vote. That’s where messages are sent. And I’ll even contribute something they can write on signs:
NEXT TIME – VOTE FOR SOMEONE ELSE.
It doesn’t matter who you vote for, or which party they belong to – just vote out the people who are in. We have the capacity to enforce our own term limits if we would all stop being such lemmings.
At the very least, the iPhone and Starbucks crowd currently gathered in U.S. cities should "Occupy A Point”. They should have one. A solid one.
What makes a solid point? I’d say the bar is set pretty high. If you want to be a real protestor, your point better be something strong enough where you’d be willing to stand in front of a loaded tank with a crew of unknown intention.
Then, I’d defy anyone to call you a pussy.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Sunday, October 2, 2011
I'm Prepping for the Championships in Austria 2015
I’m no renaissance man and I’ve never tried to be. Hell, I had to look up how to spell renaissance so I’m not one to look to for advice on becoming a better person. But still, I realize, and I may have mentioned this before, that there comes a time in a man’s life where he realizes he’ll never play guitar in a band. (Unless of course, he actually does play guitar in a band).
So, knowing you’ll never have a job where random women throw their knickers at you, you have to readjust your mid-life bar. That is, you have to latch onto something that you think you may have a reasonable chance of achieving before you grow so old as to forget it all.
You want to be able to do something; to leave your mark; to have something to chat about while sipping your food and waiting for the spades tournament. At the very least, you want to do something that will annoy people now – while you can still enjoy being disruptive.
I believe I have found such a thing.
Of course, I can’t actually start doing it yet because of military rules which prohibit such things, but next year I think I may give it a shot. It will probably take a year or two before I can decide if it’s something I really want to commit myself too, but it meets all the pre-requisites I’ve set out for myself…
1. It has to be something obscenely easy and paradoxically difficult to achieve in a pure sense.
2. It has to be something that takes a long time – like baseball.
3. It needs to have no underlying value or point – again, like baseball.
4. It needs to be one of those things that my children, as they start to reach puberty, will walk away from in disgust if any of their friends takes even the slightest interest in.
5. It needs to be something I’m physically capable of doing.
6. It needs to be something I can do without sweating severely, or without injuring a major moving body part.
7. It would be best if I could do it sleeping.
I’ve decided, in short, to grow a beard.
Not just any little scrub beard or one of those silly beat-poet goatees that the coffee slurping crowd seem to favor, but a proper, full-blown, prize-winning beard.
It meets all the criteria listed above and there is a competitive element to it – and if you think I’m crazy, obviously you’ve been spending too much time using the internet to look at your facebook profile, because there's an entire culture in America dedicated to beards.
In fact, there is a World Beard and Moustache Championships. Yes, “world”. We’re not talking county fair stuff; we’re talking, carry in the red, white and blue, play the national anthem and line up the endorsement deals world championships.
Now, the timing on this is really excellent, because the 2011 championships are being held in Lancaster Pennsylvania this week – on Oct. 8. And the governing body of this group has already set up the 2015 championships to be held in Austria. The real Austria, in Europe, not some little town in Idaho or something.
This year’s event will be judged by Miss Pennsylvania; a former member of the Superbowl Champion (2009 version) Steelers – Justin Hartwig, who himself sports a rather mundane and conventional set of whiskers - and an as yet unnamed player from the Philadelphia Eagles. There are real beard-guy judges as well, and you need to check out there website because I cannot adequately describe judge Willi Chevalier. If you click on only one random link that you read this week, click on that or the Beard Team USA homepage.
This is not follicle fundamentals, but big time hirsute haberdashery we’re talking about. The guys who compete in this make Grizzly Adams look like Mr. Clean. And best of all, for a clean-shave guy like me, it really only takes time, imagination, two opposing chromosomes and the little bit of the genetic goodness that allows you to grow facial hair.
Time I’ll have when I leave big blue; chromosomes I can prove by presenting you with my offspring; and genetics…well, we’ll have to wait and see, but the three day stubble I currently sport provides a tantalizing glimpse at dreams that could be.
And as I get ready to start training next year, I’m going to hold off on those guitar lessons. No sense learning an instrument when I’d only just get my beard caught in the strings.
So, knowing you’ll never have a job where random women throw their knickers at you, you have to readjust your mid-life bar. That is, you have to latch onto something that you think you may have a reasonable chance of achieving before you grow so old as to forget it all.
You want to be able to do something; to leave your mark; to have something to chat about while sipping your food and waiting for the spades tournament. At the very least, you want to do something that will annoy people now – while you can still enjoy being disruptive.
I believe I have found such a thing.
Of course, I can’t actually start doing it yet because of military rules which prohibit such things, but next year I think I may give it a shot. It will probably take a year or two before I can decide if it’s something I really want to commit myself too, but it meets all the pre-requisites I’ve set out for myself…
1. It has to be something obscenely easy and paradoxically difficult to achieve in a pure sense.
2. It has to be something that takes a long time – like baseball.
3. It needs to have no underlying value or point – again, like baseball.
4. It needs to be one of those things that my children, as they start to reach puberty, will walk away from in disgust if any of their friends takes even the slightest interest in.
5. It needs to be something I’m physically capable of doing.
6. It needs to be something I can do without sweating severely, or without injuring a major moving body part.
7. It would be best if I could do it sleeping.
I’ve decided, in short, to grow a beard.
Not just any little scrub beard or one of those silly beat-poet goatees that the coffee slurping crowd seem to favor, but a proper, full-blown, prize-winning beard.
It meets all the criteria listed above and there is a competitive element to it – and if you think I’m crazy, obviously you’ve been spending too much time using the internet to look at your facebook profile, because there's an entire culture in America dedicated to beards.
In fact, there is a World Beard and Moustache Championships. Yes, “world”. We’re not talking county fair stuff; we’re talking, carry in the red, white and blue, play the national anthem and line up the endorsement deals world championships.
Now, the timing on this is really excellent, because the 2011 championships are being held in Lancaster Pennsylvania this week – on Oct. 8. And the governing body of this group has already set up the 2015 championships to be held in Austria. The real Austria, in Europe, not some little town in Idaho or something.
This year’s event will be judged by Miss Pennsylvania; a former member of the Superbowl Champion (2009 version) Steelers – Justin Hartwig, who himself sports a rather mundane and conventional set of whiskers - and an as yet unnamed player from the Philadelphia Eagles. There are real beard-guy judges as well, and you need to check out there website because I cannot adequately describe judge Willi Chevalier. If you click on only one random link that you read this week, click on that or the Beard Team USA homepage.
This is not follicle fundamentals, but big time hirsute haberdashery we’re talking about. The guys who compete in this make Grizzly Adams look like Mr. Clean. And best of all, for a clean-shave guy like me, it really only takes time, imagination, two opposing chromosomes and the little bit of the genetic goodness that allows you to grow facial hair.
Time I’ll have when I leave big blue; chromosomes I can prove by presenting you with my offspring; and genetics…well, we’ll have to wait and see, but the three day stubble I currently sport provides a tantalizing glimpse at dreams that could be.
And as I get ready to start training next year, I’m going to hold off on those guitar lessons. No sense learning an instrument when I’d only just get my beard caught in the strings.
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