In military parlance ‘The Killing Ground’ is that area inside an ambush where the enemy is destroyed. A classic ambush is a U-shaped pocket formed by your forces; the enemy ,by ruse or terrain or direction of travel, is drawn into the open end of the U. Once inside, the opening is closed behind them, and the […]
Blog Archives
Potato Soup That Sticks to Your Ribs [ and anything else it touches ]
Apr 26
Potatoes are the chicken of vegetables. You can fry, bake, boil, steam, grill, broil or eat them raw [ unlike chicken ]. You can slice, dice, chop, shred, waffle cut, mash or puree them. Put two or three good-sized potatoes in a sturdy bag and they make an effective weapon. A one pound potato in a well […]
Goulash in C-major – or – Shovel That Coal
Apr 23
Some people eat the way a season ticket holder at the Opera listens to music. They will wade thru tons of horns, violins, and pounding kettle drums to hear the brief faint trill of a flute or piccolo hidden in the forest of weightier notes; like the rare glimpse of a bluejay flitting among the […]
Hand in The Fire
Apr 21
If you take to yourself a woman, and with her, raise up a home and family, you have given hostages to fate, and the day will come when you must put your hand in the fire to ransom them.
Awalan
Home
Apr 17
While on R&R in Hawaii in 1970 from Viet Nam, I heard this song on the radio. It haunted me from that moment on. I searched for it every where with no success; with no title, no name of the singer, I was out of luck. I never heard it but once, and could find […]
The Titanic – Picking the Bones Clean
Apr 16
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There is a scene in James Cameron’s teeny – bopper – beach – blanket – quasi – semi – hysterical drama – ‘TITANIC”, in which a crewman assigned to con one of the lifeboats tells passenger Molly Brown [ the unsinkable ] to ” sit down and shut the hole in your face”. Those words were actually spoken on […]
Three Marys
Apr 9
Three Marys by W A Adams Three Marys on the road going to a tomb One old one younger one in bloom Hurrying thru a world changing as they sped The dark of the first new day ‘The sun is coming’ the oldest said She carried frankincense to anoint the dead The shadows grew lighter on […]
The Shape of Illusion
Apr 6
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The Shape of Illusion by William E Barrett This is a novel about a 17th century painting, in a Manhattan art gallery with a strange and unsettling quality. The theme of the painting is an unusual one, a subject not painted very often. The ancient canvas depicts Christ leaving Pilots Judgement seat, having been condemned. […]
The Third Thing We Learn
Apr 6
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It’s been said that a human child is a learning machine. We are born with our eyes open and the lessons begin immediately and never stop. At one year or so we take our first steps. In the effort to walk we learn three things. The first two we discover ourselves, the third thing we learn is […]
Beds We Lie In
Mar 31
I’ve lain me down to sleep in a lot of different beds. From dirt floors to feather beds. From straw stuffed ticks to a $4,000.00 state of the art Stearns& Foster Golden Elegance Mattress “made with Moisture-wicking Mongolian horsehair and Insulating, durable New Zealand wool” so thick you needed a step stool to climb onto it. I’ve slept […]
Short Round
Mar 30
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In the course of a conversation with a friend. I idly used the phrase short round. My friend frowned and said: ” What does that mean? I’ve heard that term a dozen times. What does it mean”? Because I’ve been asked that question several times by other people, I will try to explain what might […]
$4,000.00 Per Word
Mar 27
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My first-born son; recipient of centuries of Highland blood, wavy red hair [ he was the wonder of the hospital nursery – the only newborn the oldest nurse there had ever seen born with long red hair ] keen-witted, native good humor, easy-going, soft-spoken, with the heart of a lion. When I stand before the judgement seat […]
Genetic Mutation: The Way That Won’t
Mar 26
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Try this simple experiment; go out to your car and open the hood. Take a pair of wire cutters. Look around at all the wires under there. Pick one and cut it. Get in the car and start it up and drive around the block. Does the car function better or worse? You have just performed […]
The Faith of Our fathers
Mar 14
The Faith of Our fathers by Walter A Adams What is the faith of our fathers If we are come up from the mud Are we close kin to the dog and the rat Does our stomach compel us to blood Do we rip what we need from whoever is near And count any feeding […]
Sandra Fluke; The Ancient Tale
Mar 13
A thousand years before Noah ever laid axe to tree, a handsome young lad held a pretty young lass in his arms and told her that if she refused him the ultimate fulfillment of the passion that raged in his bosom for her, he must surely perish. The pretty lass gazed long into his dreamy […]
Taking My Leave
Mar 7
TAKING MY LEAVE by Walter A Adams Finish up the tale you’re telling For I’m halfway down the shore Every story has an ending Then it’s time to tell no more I can see them waiting for me Over on the other side Finish up the tale you’re telling And kindly let me by. Give me […]
A Parable
Mar 7
Once upon a time there was a little boy named Frank who lived on a farm with his mother, father, brothers and sisters. Frank was five years old. One morning after breakfast; when the men had gone to work the fields, and his older brothers and sisters were off to school; Frank found himself with […]
Rabbits
Mar 4
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Focus. You have to focus. If you are going to accomplish anything of value, you must be able to bring all of your resources to bear on it; your knowledge, your intellect, your passion. Some one said ” NOTHING ON EARTH CAN STAND AGAINST A DETERMINED WILL”. I believe that to be true. If you […]
Evolution: The Work That Doesn’t
Mar 3
A man stands on a stage. In his two cupped hands are two hundred U.S. dimes. The dimes are numbered 1 thru 200. Behind him on the stage are two hundred randomly scattered empty wine bottles. The bottles are numbered 1 – 200. A dime will just fit into the opening of the bottle. At the signal the […]
Atheism: The Belief That Isn’t
Feb 22
I do not believe in atheists. I have never met one. A lot of people have passed my way who said they were atheists, but a little time invested in listening to them has always revealed that they are mad at God. Not mad at the concept of God, or the belief in God, but […]
TURN IT OFF
Jan 28
Turn it off. Don’t turn it down or over or around.TURN -IT- OFF. There is too much of it. Too much music, talk, opinion-expert or amateur. Too much gunfire. Loud mufflers blaring, people yelling into cell-phones, whining motorbikes, air brakes on buses, iron wheels on iron rails. Air horns on trucks, blaring horns on trains, whistles […]
Words
Dec 20
In the movie “The Cinderella Man”, Russell Crowe plays real life Depression Era boxer James Braddock. After a promising start as a contender for the Heavyweight title, “Gentleman Jim” breaks his hand and must stop fighting. The onset of the Depression sees the family reduced to a cold water basement flat where the faithful wife and […]
I’ve Looked at Clouds From Both Sides Now
Nov 20
I was born in West Texas in a little town named Vernon. My earliest recollection of home is of a small frame house surrounded by flat fields that stretched out to the horizon in all directions. I remember standing in the road that ran past our place and turning completely around ; the horizon was perfectly […]
The Great Divide
Nov 15
Suppose I said to you; “Friend, neighbor, countryman; There is a great wrong in the world. Because of this great wrong hundreds of millions of people find themselves trapped in a hopeless struggle just to keep their heads above water. They toil from sunrise to sunset only to see their effort come to nought; what […]
“The Load of Their Loveless Pity”
Nov 2
He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD; and that which he hath given will He pay him again Proverbs 19:17 “And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrong” G.K. Chesterton —————————————————————- The word “poor” occurs one hundred and ninety-nine times in the King James […]
Never Got Off the Ground
Oct 6
In the many depictions of Pearl Harbor, you usually see the footage of Hickam Field and the scores of Army Air Corps planes, parked in neat rows to guard against sabotage, lying in smoking ruin after being strafed and bombed by the Japanese forces. I think the saddest words I’ve ever heard are – “They […]
Tell it to Lincoln
Sep 28
There are calls in the news these days from worried politicians wringing their hands over gridlock in congress. The crisis of the hour concerns money; one faction wants to keep spending it as though there is no tomorrow; the other insists that tomorrow was yesterday and the spending must stop. Both sides are intractable, nothing gets […]
What Did They Fear?
Sep 13
“Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion” Constitution of the United States of America; 1st amendment 1787 Human beings act out of fear when they write laws; fear of loss, fear of injury, fear of harm, real or imagined, to the individual or the community. If you want to understand […]
A Ghost Story
Aug 29
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Inside they found Maria, in her tattered, mudstained white dress,laid on her childrens cot. Her once graceful feet were swollen and torn, caked with mud. Her arms were folded across her chest and in each hand was a stone from the river. She was dead.
When the Mountain Falls
Aug 10
$18,609,800,070,329(Nov. 2015) Eighteen Trillion dollars and rising. That is what hangs over our heads. That is what hangs over the heads of our children, and their children, and their children. The debating and arguing in the House and the Senate of the last month have been over how much more to add to this towering edifice […]
Plip–Ploop–Pluuump
Apr 15
If you stand on the bank of a river or good-sized creek, and you want to know how deep it is before you stick your foot in, you pick up a couple of rocks; golf-ball size or a little smaller. You toss the first rock in a couple of feet from the bank and it goes—plip. […]
The Shape of Fear
Apr 7
“He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death. He was a man.” Stephen Crane The Red Badge of Courage He did not belong here, and he was afraid. He never tired of telling whoever would listen that his being here was […]
A Little Learning–
Apr 4
When I was about six years old and starting first grade, somewhere I picked up the term Trap Door Spider. I don’t recall where or how I acquired the phrase; if I overheard it, or read it. I had not the faintest clue as to what or where such a thing might be. I […]
The Dykes
Jan 31
The Dykes by Rudyard Kipling We have no heart for the fishing – we have no hand for the oar – All that our fathers taught us of old pleases us no more. All that our own hearts bid us believe we doubt where we do not deny – There is no proof in […]
A Picture is Worth 211 Words
Jan 31
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Islamia is burning. People who have suffered under kleptocratic dictators for decades are rising up and throwing the bums out. Autocrats all across the Mid-east are packing their bags, fueling their private jets, and gathering all of their bank papers, to be ready for the tidal wave that started in Tunisia and is […]
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
Jan 18
The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. We […]
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