The world will.....hey! You figure it out. 

Who's They?

"Ask your real estate agent if they are a realtor." Who's they?
"Ask your real estate agent if he (or she) is a realtor."

"Someone bumped into my car, but they drove away." Who's they?
"Someone bumped into my car, but she (or he) drove away."

"My friend saw last night's Southpark episode, and they said it was funny." Who's they?
"My friend saw last night's Southpark episode, and he (or she) said it was funny."

I think it all started when grammar teachers decided that teaching students to diagram sentences was just too much trouble. Since many government school teachers are near-illiterate themselves, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

A number of years ago, I took a few of the elements of the UCSD Extension Writers Program. One of the classes was a grammar refresher. The first thing the instructor had us do was diagram sentences. Unfortunately, most of those in the class had never been exposed to sentence diagramming. Those few of us who had familiarity with it had, to a man (woman), gone to school in other states.

The problem with this shows up throughout the younger population. They can't put together a decent sentence in writing, and not really even in speaking. Stories of Freshmen in colleges and universities being unable to deal with English 101 are heard every year. I've heard thatat times in some colleges a majority of new freshmen have to take remedial English classes.

Today's youth can't speak, they can't write--neither can they scribble a legible sentence, nor can they compose a sensible sentence. I've been told by many younger adults, "I don't read very much." or "I hate reading." They don't read because they can't read.

Obviously, there are many young people who can read--they are the ones who become engineers, doctors, writers and even (shudder) attorneys. I suspect that those who study these things will tell you that these people had a lot of help, interest and pressure from their parents while growing up.

What's wrong with the sentences above? Both of the objects have to be either singular or plural. Agent....he. Someone....she. Friend....he. Or, Agents....they, etc.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Swat is a para-military outfit designed to separate the city's police from the city's people. It's a "them or us" thing. 

Baby Killer

Ok, I'm down with the idea that Pena began the whole series of events that led to his poor little daughter, and himself, being killed by the Los Angeles police. It was his fault, and that's the name o' that tune.

It's also sort of ironic that the woman who called the cops on her loco old man, is now the most vocal wacko calling for the cops' heads. Better she should have picked a stable, clean, sober working-type guy with whom to have babies. Meanwhile, ambulance-chasers are circling this woman like sharks, in hopes of getting in on a big settlement from the spineless blood suckers at the city of Los Angeles.

Alcalde Vinaigrette has been using the opportunity to get big face time in front of LA tv news cameras every day since this tragedy occurred. Has anyone other than your not-so-humble pontificateur noticed that if you squint and look at the Alcalde's forehead in just the right light, the lines seem to spell out MEChA?

Mark my words: it's time for the return of Zorro.

But, I digress.

The full reason for this entry is to ax a question. First, a couple of observations to lead up to it.

As reported by the local news, 'twas the LAPD SWAT that were called in on this disturbance, because, I guess, they got a clue that this one really was serious.

LAPD SWAT is a highly disciplined group of elite officers who include high-priced negotiators and really accomplished sharpshooters.

So. Why, when this wack-job started shooting, and a single round happened to hit an unlucky police officer, did all of these highly disciplined, elite officers start spraying bullets all around the area the shots were coming from?

My admittedly naive scenario, which is chuck full of Monday morning quarterbacking, sprinkled liberally with near-perfect hindsight, tickles a few errant synapses, telling me something's not right.

At the moment the nut, Pena, started shooting, everyone should've gotten to cover.

Sharpshooters sight in on the area where Pena is located.

First sharpshooter to get a clean shot, Bang! one bullet through the cranium. Crisis over.

Instead, several of these supposedly discipined officers started hosing down the area with bullets, and unsurprisingly, the little girl was killed, too.

I'm not much of a SWAT fan. Teams of elite ubercops tend to militarize the police and separate them from we, the people. The police aren't supposed to be a military force. They're supposed to be ordinary civilians who take on the job of patrolling the city and solving crimes. Most police officers I've known don't feel comfortable associating with "civilians," because any "civilian" might become the enemy. The insane and counterproductive "War on Drugs," aka, "War on the Bill of Rights," only adds to the citizen animosity toward police.

Bad attitude. Their job is to help people vis a vis crime and other injury. Every citizen is innocent until the jury calls him Guilty. That's innocent, not "not guilty."

As I said in the beginning, this was a Pena-driven event. No police officer, according to what I've heard, has done anything actionable.

I just think some training and, more important, a restructuring of police attitudes toward the public is in order. Maybe fewer squad cars and more beat cops would help.

Meanwhile, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

He's watching you! 

Fighting Terrorism

Michael Chertoff, Director of the evil and unConstitutional Homeland Security gang o' thugs (has anyone called him czar yet?), was interviewed on the Sean Hannity radio program this afternoon. Of course, Hannity fawned all over him. Hannity asked him what was being done to increase security on buses and trains. To his credit, Chertoff seemed to recognize that treating, for example, New York's subway stations like they do airports would literally "drive" New Yorkers back into their cars.

That'd make New York a daily traffic disaster.

He tried, and failed, to justify the mess they're making at the airports by saying that the feds took over airport security because there was nobody else to do it. Chertoff was born at night, and it must've been last night!

What wasn't asked, or answered, was: Where does it say in the US Constitution that Americans have to pass scrutiny by the federal government prior to being allowed to board a private vehicle?

Does anybody remember when the only reason to get to the airport more than ten or fifteen minutes before boarding time was in case you want a stiff drink before boarding? I do. It was before the feds never ventured out of the air traffic control tower.

Well, Mr Chertoff, if you read this (ar, ar!) here's all you need to do.

Call the enemy by its real name: Radical Islamic Fundamentalism. That doesn't mean all moslems--just the crazy ones.

Watch these uncivilized, bug-eating, camel buggering bastards and don't let them pull any crap. Note: You can pretty much leave elderly women alone.

Stop giving weapons to middle eastern dictators.

Repeal such laws (as violations of the Second Amendment) necessary as to allow anyone who can legally own firearms to carry them according to the conscience of each individual.

Repeal such laws (for the same reason) necessary as to return the right to own firearms to any adult not in prison or in a mental institution.

Make the rules of citizens' arrest easily understandable and available to all.

Admonish real property owners to patrol their property and arrest trespassers--especially in border and coastal areas. Police and the courts must be required to prosecute trespassers rigorously.

Admonish police, park rangers, and other caretakers to patrol public lands and arrest trespassers (as opposed to legitimate users of the lands) and prosecute them rigorously--under pain of dismissal.

Public lands that cannot be adequately patrolled by their caretakers should be sold at auction.

As we Americans educate ourselves on taking care of our property, attacks by savage foreigners (or even domestic subhumans) should diminish to near nothing.

And last, but far from least: Let's put an immediate end to the evil, stupid and unConstitutional "War on Drugs." Most Americans, including myself, do not grant the federal government, nor any local group of corrupt, thuggish narcs, the right to decide what we shall or shall not ingest.

Meanwhile, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Good actors, lousy show! 

C'mon Jim, be a Man!

I was just watching a tv show on the ABC network, called "According to Jim." The show stars Jim Belushi and Courtney Thorne-Smith, both of whose acting I've enjoyed in other tv series and movies.

I've watched episodes of this show before and, well it has its moments. Overall, though, it's bad, bad, baaaaaaad!

Call me slow, but it took me two or three episodes to get it. It masquerades as an ordinary family sitcom, like a modernized "Leave it to Beaver," or "Father Knows Best."

Father knows best? In this case, it's Father is the stupiest bastard in town. The only consistent theme in this series is that adult males are complete idiots who need to be cared for, fed, dressed, and continually have the drool wiped from their chin.

In today's episode, Jim hides his enjoyment of sensitive, emotional movies--that is, "chick flicks." He goes to great lengths to watch these movies, without letting his wife and her friend know. He goes through a series of complicated and utterly stupid antics to keep his secret, but fails. After he's found out, he's the object of humiliating ridicule, then.....I change to something watchable.

Sorry, Charlie. Like all those commercial ads that poke fun at men by both women....and children--I'm not buying it.

ABC has a couple of shows I like, but for reasons like this, I really don't watch broadcast tv much anymore.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The best Homeland Security: The free, armed American 

Uncivilized Islamic Savages Strike Again!

Condolences to the families and loved ones of those murdered, and to all those who were injured in the explosions in London Thursday. I join with all of those who hope that the Yard will uncover and arrest the scummy pigs who set the bombs, and all who were involved with the plot.

Meanwhile, back in the States.....

Homeland Insecurity changed the alert level from Yellow to Orange! Hooo, Doggies! But just on trains and buses.

I feel better already. I don't use trains or buses. *Whew!*

Here in the Stalag, we have a better gauge of the danger. Whenever the danger is actually on the rise, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lou Baca uses it for an excuse to go the the county supes and grovel for more money.

It's kind of hard to tell, though--Sheriff Baca is almost always grovelling for more money. As he sees it, that's his job.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Years ago, before the federal takeover of the drinking age, an eighteen-year-old could walk over that bridge, over that invisible line, and buy a beer in Minnesota. Sometimes those invisible lines are sublime! 

Borders? Borders? We Don't Need No Steenking Borders!

For a long time, I've wondered at the concept of national borders. Why do we need to keep people on one side of an invisible, imaginary line. When I was a small scout, not yet even having achieved the rank of private, I saw the dash lines on the globe and was taught that they represented the borders of countries. For a while, I imagined that there was a big dash line demarking the border between North Dakota and Canada. 'Twas when I realized that the dash line between North Dakota and Minnesota was in the middle of the Red River, my world began to change in mysterious ways. I started asking questions that my teachers couldn't answer. Perhaps they thought they were stupid questions.

Did the border between North Dakota and Minnesota wash away? If I accidentally stepped over a border I couldn't see, would something bad happen?If I fell into the river and drowned, would they be able to tell if I died in North Dakota or Minnesota?

For years afterward, borders didn't mean much to me. I crossed the most international borders while I was in the Navy. Being in the Navy, and having the ID, seemed to cover me as far as the government foolishness was concened--though, as I was informed afterward, I crossed a couple of lines that could've gotten me into trouble.

Conservatives say: many of our problem are caused by our open borders. Anyone can walk into the US at will. Ok, that's true. We have long borders. Even if the Administration wanted to close the borders to illegal entry (it doesn't) I don't think it could.

The best solution, though it won't be tried, would be to charge the border property owners to see to the policing of their property for trespassers. They'd have to allow arrest powers to the property owners and they'd have to require federal and local officials who oversee publicly owned border lands to police them for trespassers--and hold them accountable should they fail. All responsible Americans should be cleared to carry personal weapons and should be allowed citizen's arrest powers. (actually, Americans have these rights already, if government didn't abuse its power by means of gun laws, etc.

Government should do away with welfare for the able-bodied. One of the reasons people enter the US illegally is that it's easy to get work and/or free government services. It's easy for Americans to get welfare--that is, extended unemployment payments, aid for dependent children, etc, which makes it easy not to work for long periods of time. Thus, many Americans can refuse low-paying jobs without any downside. Those jobs are often filled by illegal aliens.

If Americans had hunger pressure to require them to take these jobs, not so many would be available to illegals.

Now, I have no problem with Hispanics, Canadians or others who want to come here to work, make careers and become Americans themselves. I just don't want to be forced to support them. Equally, I don't want to be forced to support lazy Americans. Most aliens won't come here if there aren't jobs.

Americans will pick lettuce or shovel wet concrete if it's that or go hungry--the way it was throughout America until the corrupt Lyndon Johnson made all that tedious work stuff unnecessary, dude.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Sir Anthony Hopkins and yours truly--old buds. 

Star Chaser

A few weeks ago, at a service of the Los Angeles Welsh Church, I happened to (practically) bump into one of the most interesting celebrities of the day. It turns out that on this particular day, the Welsh Church was conducting a memorial for this gentleman's late mother.

I happened to be standing outside the church, greeting a friend who works for Warner Bros, when a Lincoln limo pulls up and stops. Who gets out, but Sir Anthony Hopkins, followed by his wife and a friend.

Mr Hopkins, who has been a very prolific actor, happens to have been in several of my recent favorite movies, including The Edge, Legends of the Fall and, The Mask of Zorro. I also enjoyed his work in Silence of the Lambs, The Road to Wellville and Amistad.

I was introduced to Mr Hopkins and his party, we had a brief chat, and went inside. Debbie was already inside, so I found her, but then it was time for the service.

Afterwards, at tabach, the tea following the church service, Mr Hopkins stayed and met and talked with just about everyone, including Debbie and I.

I don't get crazy about celebs, and there are relatively few that I actually respect, but meeting Anthony Hopkins made my day.

More about Mr Hopkins at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000164/

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The new alcalde is not a mainstream, middle-of-the-road politician.

El Uno de Julio

Los Angeles has a new mayor, or shall I say, alcalde. Friday, the first of July, 2005, a day that will go down in infamy, Antonio Vinaigrette descended to the throne of mayorhood of the city.

Promising to improve the city's schools, streets and hire more police, the new alcalde thus guarantees that, whether he remains in office for one, or two or three or more terms, at the end of that time, not only will the schools have continued to decline, but the streets will have continued to deteriorate and LAPD will have become even less effective. To top it all off, productive individuals and businesses will be continuing to move away from Los Angeles because of overregulation and confiscatory taxation, and the aggregate economic well-being of Angelinos will continue to decline.

There was a huge celebration in Los Angeles Friday, which spilled over into Saturday. If one didn't know better he'd assume it was Cinco de Mayo. On the eve of Independence Day, there were more Mexican flags flying in the central Los Angeles area than US flags.

Ok, I'm not baggin' on Hispanics here. As a construction worker, I've enjoyed working with, and occasionally working for, Hispanics for decades. I'm baggin' on Hispanic socialists. I'd normally only bag on socialists in general, regardless of ethnicity, but the socialists of Los Angeles are making it an Hispanic issue.

Alcalde Vinaigrette sold himself as an Hispanic as a city councilman, he campaigned as an Hispanic, he campaigned more in Hispanic areas of the city, he campaigned predominately on Hispanic issues (where the issues were not universal) and pretty much patronized everyone else.

Furthermore, alcalde Vinaigrette was a member of mecha, an Hispanic organization bent on returning, not only California, but most of the southwest US, to Mexico because the US took it as spoils of the Spanish-American War. He has refused to renounce his relationship with that organization.

The rest of us, including the more sensible, productive Hispanics, realize it'd only take Mexico DF a decade or two to fully loot this area and render it as poor and barren as the current Mexico.

Fair to say that in four years or so, maybe sooner, everyone in the San Fernando Valley, including the Valley's tens of thousands of Hispanics, will be wishing that the late effort to separate the Valley from the city of LA had been successful.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Happy Birthday, Declaration of Independence! May Americans achieve independence from their own oppressive government!

Have a Happy and Reflective Independence Day

In spite of my negative assessment of the direction of the government toward a high-tech police state, I still love the country, both the land and the society. The government, well, I regard it as a peculiar sort of occupying force.

Yeah, these thieving bastards were elected (not sure by whom), but they've effectively insulated themselves from any meaningful challenge by anyone who could actually effect change toward liberty.

The schools are run by and for government.

The corporate structure is built to supply and bolster government.

The healthcare system is being increasingly designed to keep government informed, and is being run by government direction.

The social welfare system is being run by government to keep people in their place.

Tranportation systems are fully controlled by government to direct the movement of both goods and people.

And the electorial system is run by government.

In light of all this we should enjoy Independence Day (which sould really be July 2nd, not July 4th) both as a fun day of BBQ's and fireworks, but as a day of reflection. It's a day to read the Declaration of Independence and take note of the grievances addressed against the British Crown at that time. One might also observe that all of those grievances have been committed by the current federal and local governments against us.

And think about whether you like that.

Happy Independence Day!

They've killed Freedom! Those Bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

It's fun to watch fireworks on Independence Day, but we have to remember that the fireworks commemorate the colonies' fight for freedom.

Independence

July fourth is the day we traditionally celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the document that enumerated the grievances that precipitated Americans' decision to end the states' alliegance to Great Britain. As Americans, we ought to be keenly aware of those grievances, lest they again become a plague on our lives.

Alas! Most Americans haven't really read the Declaration, or if they have, 'twas long ago in school. I'm hearing that a lot of the more socialistic government (but, I repeat myself) school districts dismiss the Declaration of Independence as an obsolete document of questionable value. Socialists despise the very concept "independence," for obvious reasons.

In order for Americans to have realized that they were being politically abused by the British Crown, a transformation had to take place. That transformation happened partially because of the sort of individuals that had the degree of valor, adventurousness and even desperation to leave the relatively safe, if heavily controlled, life in Europe. There was very little chance of a better life there. Men and women came here because they wanted better lives than they could ever have in Europe.

And they were able to achieve a better life here. Many prospered.

The literacy rate in colonial America was very high--perhaps higher than it is today. There was communication akin to today's blogging in existence then: pamphleteering. Quicker than newspapers, pamphlets spread word of British oppression throughout the town and beyond.

The many printing presses in America were not only employed to print pamphlets. They printed books. Books by John Locke, Baruch Spinoza, Rene Descartes and others, which taught the rationalism that not only helped Great Britain become the home of the Industrial Revolution and the biggest market economy on earth, but allowed America to break free of the British Empire and surpass Great Britain by the time the United States had been existence for a mere century.

As King George III asserted his "divine right" to a bigger and bigger piece of the action, the colonists became more and more dissatisfied with their allegiance to King George.

Thes factors created the philosophical climate needed to create a revolution.

Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, the revolutionists made plans and recruited men, and the American Revolution was underway.

And won.

The world's first free country.

So, we'll pop off a few lame, politically correct fireworks in celebration of a free country that no longer exists. King Franklin, King Harry et all up to and especially including the current King George have gradually eased American Freedom into the history books.

Then, the government schools' teachers have gradually eased it right out.

So.....What're we gonna do about it?

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California