Luise Valdes: Glass houses are out – ‘casa de karton’s are in

Artist Luise Valdes collected a lot of unwanted cardboard boxes for his latest installation ‘casa de karton’
or cardboard house. The project is a life-size recreation of Valdes’ apartment using cardboard tape and
lots of white paint. all the objects in the apartment are made from old boxes that have been cut-out and
assembled into the form with a sketch-like outline for smaller details. all the boxes are whitewashed to
give the space a surreal quality of a drawing that has come to life. Take a tour of the rest of his cardboard creations here.

Partisan political hacks take on bin Laden’s death…

 You didn’t think the wack jobs in America were going to give President Obama his due for the operation that took out America’s #1 enemy did you?

Sarah Palin, in another paid speaking engagement, thanked President Bush for catching Osama bin Laden! And get this; the audience actually applauded! No mention of President Obama’s role in the operation was made.

Bush was totally unaware of what was happening (just like when he was president) and Palin gives him the credit! Really? He had 8 years and couldn’t do the job.

Wow! If that’s not scary, I don’t know what is. Apparently everyone in that building that clapped, live in the same Greed Only Party (GOP) fantasy and believe Bush should be canonized as a Conservative saint. How he killed Osama would be his first miracle on the way to sainthood!

Palin may be leading the charge for the stupid and uniformed, but there’s other’s out there doing their best to ignore facts and realities that don’t fit into their narrow world views.

Alex Jones, a radio personality out of Austin, who gives voice to the 9/11 Truth Movement and runs the Web site Infowars.com, sent out a Web headline that screamed, “Red Alert. Inside Sources: Bin Laden Corpse Has Been on Ice for Nearly a Decade” I wish someone besides Jones could be the voice of the 9/11 Truthers, because I can’t simply write them off. Jones as a front man discredits their real concerns.

Take this this claim about bin Laden’s frozen corpse; doesn’t that sound just a little silly to you? What would be the benefit of freezing bin Laden’s body? Perhaps someone could explain that one to me.

And let’s not forget Cindy Sheehan. Her response to bin Ladens death:

“I am sorry, but if you believe the newest death of OBL, you’re stupid,” Sheehan wrote. “Just think to yourself — they paraded Saddam’s dead sons around to prove they were dead — why do you suppose they hastily buried this version of OBL at sea? This lying, murderous Empire can only exist with your brainwashed consent — just put your flags away and THINK!”

There’s one mad lady who never got over her son’s death. I hope she finds peace some day.

If you want to find Bin Laden death conspiracy theories – and apparently they’re already hatching–it seems to me the pertinent question to ask is, who has a deep emotional motivation to question the fact that Bin Laden is actually dead? So I would tend to look first to Al Qaeda supporters, etc, instead of birthers. Their too busy trying to regroup after their lies have been exposed on national TV by the President. This will be interesting to watch and I’m interested in what others think.

I will also add that I don’t know enough about 9/11 Truthers to guess what they will do in this situation. I have to admit that they’ve poised one question that I (as a former combat engineer in  the Nam) think is worth discussing: how the twin towers really came down. Days after it happened, and after I saw the films, I told everyone who would listen that it was a “controlled demolition” and I knew exactly what it took to do it. Not everyone who believes in unpopular theories is crazy.

Frankly, I expect Obama’s enemies in the Senate and House are hunkering down right now and working on a plan to negate Obama’s coup against Al Qaeda, and somehow turn things around in a negative way. Anyone who thinks they will be cooperative now and compromise on issues – out of a renewed source of patriotism – is dreaming. When it comes down to politics in this country, we’ve set the bar for a broken political system struggling to survive in the 21st century.   

As It Stands, now that the “Big bad wolf” is dead, it’s time for all of our political piggy’s to pull their snouts out of their partisan troughs and pay attention to stabilizing our economy.  

Photo source

Morning musings: bin Laden’s death may trigger PTSD for some, Lakers lose close game 1, and the ultimate pay toilet

My Lakers couldn’t hold 16-point lead, couldn’t hang onto the ball late in game, and gave away home-court advantage for the second straight series with an opening loss. Kobe Bryant scores 36 but misses final shot

Bin Laden's death may reignite PTSD for some- Some may feel a sense of relief, while for others it can trigger old feelings of fear, anxiety, experts say. It also appears the Obama Administration has suspected the Pakistani regime of lying about Osama’s whereabouts for some time now. The question is, are we going to stop pumping millions of dollars into Pakistan now that we have proof they were playing us for chumps? Just to wrap this morning’s musings I found the ultimate pay toilet…

A new standard for toilets is coming out, but can people afford them?

Kitchen and bath company Kohler has come out with a new toilet that it touts will set "a new standard of excellence in the bathroom." (Because that's what we're all striving for in the bathroom, right?)

The "Numi" has a luxury car-worthy list of amenities, among them: a motion-activated lid and seat, deodorizer, feet warming, music and "advanced bidet functionality." (Don't ask.) Oh, and if you forget to flush before you leave the bathroom, there's a REMOTE CONTROL.

Not included: The engineering team required to fix it when it breaks. Source

Obama haters dazed and confused: first birthers are discredited and then the president runs sucessful op that kills Osama bin Laden

Sorry Obama haters.

I’ve been watching all the celebrations from New York City to Washington D.C. this morning and was struck by how many people were really happy that Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy Seals and CIA paramilitary members, and that their president was so decisive.

As I watched the American flags wave from windows and in crowds of jubilant people, I couldn’t help but think about the Obama haters.

This is a dark time for them. The whole Republican Party nearly turned to jello when the news broke. The last thing they needed was for Americans to be proud of their president’s actions! Politically, he’s golden right now. Obama is going to score more points with the American public for his decisive actions in locating and killing bin Laden, than he did after getting the Noble Prize (which many questioned).

I imagine Donald Trump is having a worse than usual hair day. Don’t be surprised when he recovers – gets his ferret that passes for a hairpiece on straight - and comes back with more idiocy to try to discredit this whole operation. I expect something along the lines of:

“The whole thing was a hoax to get Obama re-elected. I have detectives working right now that are telling me that it was a poorly disguised manikin that slid into the sea off that aircraft carrier and that Osama bin Laden is laughing his beard off in a Norwegian spa even as we speak!”

You know the Birthers will recover enough to ask for Osama bin Laden’s death certificate as soon as the celebrations die down. That’s to be expected because they just hate having a Liberal black president. Facts are never going to slow down that rabid group of racists and outright crazed conspiracy theorists.

It’s already happening. From the Washington Post National Online:

Slate’s David Weigel points to this comment from the Facebook page of anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in 2004 while serving in Iraq: “I am sorry, but if you believe the newest death of OBL, you're stupid. Just think to yourself--they paraded Saddam’s dead sons around to prove they were dead--why do you suppose they hastily buried this version of OBL at sea?” Weigel believes this is the beginning of a larger trend he tentatively calls “Deatherism.”

Allow me to clarify my position on President Obama. I don’t care if he gets re-elected or not. I’m certainly not going to be voting for him. Still, I think he did a great job getting America’s #1 enemy, and that’s something his predecessor George Bush couldn’t do in eight years. It’s took Obama two-and-half years. His critics are going to have a hard time discrediting him as “indecisive” after this.

We’ll experience a national honeymoon from all of our woes for a few days as Americans proudly proclaim justice has been served. Everyone, but the Obama haters, are giddy with something to be unified over. Patriotism peeks out from behind the polarized political party’s as the nations leaders stumble over themselves to be somehow attached to this memorable moment.

As It Stands, Enjoy it. It’s been a long time since this many Americans have all been on the same page!        

photo source

Now that’s a bunny hop: Rabbit dressage set to take the world by storm

 

That rabbits like to hop is hardly a secret. But now European rabbit enthusiasts have harnessed their bunnies' natural talents to create a new spectator sport... rabbit showjumping.

Invented in Sweden in the early Eighties, Kaninhop involves bunnies bouncing their way around courses consisting of several small jumps of varying height and length.

Snoopy (top left photo), a black-and-white bunny from the German city of Jena, is the star of the local Kaninhop club - and he makes spends his days leaping over all manner of barricades, jumps and rails. 

'Snoopy can jump 60 centimeters (about 2 feet) high,' proud Claudia Fehlen, the 23-year-old founder of the Jena bunny hopping club, told Der Spiegel.

'And he has done well in tournaments. He came in second once, and third another time.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1381464/Bunny-rabbits-compete-jumping-course-Dressage-set-world-storm.html#ixzz1LD57HQ4F

Osama bin Laden dies in hail of American gunfire, his body is recovered for proof

Osama bin Laden, whose al-Qaida terrorist organization killed more than 3,000 people in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, is dead, U.S. President Barack Obama dramatically announced Sunday night.

 Full story  Graphics from BoingBoing

As It Stands: UFE: Dreaming of economic equality

By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard

Posted: 05/01/2011 02:40:20 AM PDT

Once upon a time, some wealthy people in the Kingdom got together and said, “We need to be fair and share.” It was a beautiful kingdom stretching from sea to sea, a marvel and example of what a country should be.

A fantasy? Perhaps not. Let me introduce you to “United for a Fair Economy (UFE),” a national, independent, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Their goal is to close the growing wealth divide, to change the rules that tilt tax benefits toward the wealthy, and to spotlight the role of race in economic inequality.

Their mission is to raise awareness that concentrated wealth and power undermine the economy, corrupt democracy, deepen the racial divide, and tear communities apart. Talk about taking on “Mission Impossible.” The members of UFE believe in their vision of a global society where prosperity is shared.

 This is certainly a noble vision where corporations don't dominate our economy or the content of our mass culture. In their version of a better world, values, not profits alone, will guide economic decisions. But who are “they?” These visionaries? These Ivory Tower dreamers?

”They” are a collection of wealthy (you read that right) people who want to raise taxes on rich people like themselves. As strange as that may sound, it's on the level. To learn more about them, go to the website www.faireconomy.org.

Let me tell you about one of the members of UFE. His name is Eric Schoenberg. He inherited money and has a healthy portfolio from his days as an investment banker. Currently, he teaches a business class at Columbia University. Not exactly some kook who wants to endorse a social upheaval.

Schoenberg recently told AP that his income is usually “north of half a million a year.” He had a rough year last year and only made $200,000. His federal income tax bill was a little over $2,000. “I simply point out to people, 'Do you think this is reasonable, that someone in my circumstances should only be paying 1 percent of their income in tax?” he asked reporters.

Now that tax day has come and gone, both Democrats and Republicans are calling for tax laws to be changed. The whole issue will be campaign fodder for the 2012 presidential election as the two parties get entrenched in their ideological foxholes.

The Republicans have made their position clear when it comes to rich people paying more taxes. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, remarked that nothing stopped rich people who wanted to write checks to the IRS from doing so.

Technically he's right, but obviously he missed the entire point.

Schoenberg asked, “Are we going to let people volunteer to build the road system? Are you going to let them volunteer to pay for education?”

Enter UFE. Can they make a difference? Our politicians are polarized by partisan politics and neither side shows signs of cooperating on meaningful issues.

Is the private sector set to become America's savior? Will financial equality settle upon the land and values replace greed if enough wealthy people help UFE and other nonprofits with the same idea? Is there actually a chance of racial equality in earning power? Will America's roads be repaired and education restored as priority number one in the land?

Sounds like a dream, eh? What are the chances groups like UFE will make a difference? It's hard for me to imagine generations of greed defeated by values in our society today. That's a sad statement to make, and I would love to be wrong and see a real shift in equality, both financially and racially, in the future.

As It Stands, Dom Helder Camara once said, “When we are dreaming alone, it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality.”

 

How the U.S. saved a starving Soviet Russia: PBS film highlights Stanford scholar's research on the 1921-23 famine

Photo - An American Relief Administration transport column on the frozen Volga in Tsaritsyn, which is now Volgograd.

The world barely remembers the terrible famine in the Soviet Russia – or the American charity that relieved it. Historian Bertrand Patenaude tells how Herbert Hoover saved more lives than any person who has ever lived.

Corn grits, cocoa, condensed milk, white bread and sugar.

This was America's menu for the starving millions in Soviet Russia during the 1921-23 famine – one of the greatest human disasters in Europe since the Black Death. The famine relief was spearheaded by Herbert Hoover, whose biographers credited him with saving more lives than any person who has ever lived.

The story was featured in the PBS "American Experience" documentary, The Great Famine, which aired nationwide on April 11. However, I found a link here that shows it.

The film is based on Stanford researcher Bertrand Patenaude's The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921.

Photo Above - Shelters for orphaned and abandoned children multiplied across the famine zone during the fall and winter of 1921.

Photo Right - An ARA supply caravan on the frozen Volga River in the winter of 1922.    All Photos from the Hoover Institute Archives

A monumental display of ignorance: All statements involving Donald Tump…

After the U.S.-led military alliance ejected Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait in 1991, the Kuwaitis "never paid us."

 

Kuwait paid $16 billion in war costs, U.S. paid $7 billion

 

"CNN did a poll recently where Obama and I are statistically tied."

 

One poll (misidentified) conducted before he delved into birth certificate issue

 

"Libya supplies the oil for China. We get no oil from Libya."

 

More to Europe than China

 

Says President Obama's "grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya and she was there and witnessed the birth."

 

Keep listening to tape, there's an immediate correction

 

South Korea doesn't pay the United States for U.S. troops that protect their country.

 

South Korea pays nearly $700 million a year

 

You get this idea. Truth is “Trumped” in Donald’s world. Wanna read some more stupid statements? Go here.

‘People who boast of ancestry often have little else to sustain them’

“This sad little lizard told me that he was a Brontosaurus on his mother’s side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little else to sustain them.  Humoring them costs nothing and adds to happiness in a world in which happiness is in short supply.”  –Robert Heinlein

So why were the tornadoes in South so deadly?

Twister fatalities down radically in recent years, but this was unavoidable

“The bottom line: Massive tornadoes hit populated cities head-on. Forecasters had warned of an "insane" storm system for days, so it's unlikely that the tornadoes caught many by surprise. But with few basements in Dixie Alley, not many places were safe in the paths of tornadoes that had nearly 200-mph winds. Even solidly built houses were swept away. Many entire neighborhoods were completely obliterated.” Story Here.

Tornadoes are pictured moving through Mississippi, in this still image taken from video on April 27, 2011 and released on April 28. Tornadoes and violent storms ripped through seven Southern states, killing at least 295 people and causing billions of dollars of damage in some of the deadliest twisters in U.S. history. Mandatory Credit REUTERS/Image Courtesy of Tornado Videos.net/Discovery/Handout (UNITED STATES - Tags: ENVIRONMENT DISASTER IMAGES OF THE DAY) MUST COURTESY "TORNADOVIDEOS.NET/DISCOVERY CHANNEL'S STORM CHASERS"/NO USE AFTER 1600 GMT MAY 7, 2011. NO ARCHIVES. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

It’s feeling a lot like the 1930s for America’s working class

Despite the fact that nearly everyone in the country was hurt to some degree by onset of the Depression, the 1930's was a period of exacerbated class conflict. One possible reason for this was the divergent responses which upper and lower class individuals had to the crisis. While many of the richest people in America lost money when the stock market crashed, the upper classes as a whole still retained much of the wealth which they had held before the Depression and in most cases did not suffer from unemployment. Perhaps as a way of displaying their continued prosperity in the face of nationwide suffering (or of trying to show up their social equals who may have been hit harder by the crash) many among the upper classes began to flaunt their wealth more than ever. Working class Americans, many of whom were thrown out of work by the Depression (which they often correctly blamed upon the reckless financial dealings of the upper classes) were shocked and angered by this ostentatious display of wealth.

The upper classes, on the other hand, began to resent their social inferiors (as they saw the lower classes) even more than ever, particularly after the institution of the a number of New Deal programs which were paid for out of taxes on those who still had an income. They often viewed such programs as hand outs, which, as can be seen in this magazine cover (right), were not something which the upper classes felt was their responsibility to provide.They were further angered by the actions of President Roosevelt, who catered to the mass of Americans while largely ignoring the interests of the upper classes. These factors served to heighten class tensions during a period when many Americans (both rich and poor) were already tense over their financial futures.Amid this tension, class conflicts often became very visible and even violent, especially in cases of worker strikes. New Deal regulations helped foster significant unionization and these unions would often run into conflict with company hired police forces. Such conflicts, like the Memorial Day Massacre in Chicago, often left people dead on both sides. Upper class Americans, sensitized by the Russian Revolution not two decades before, feared that a class war might be on the horizon as a number of workers joined the Communist party. While these violent conflicts never reached such a boiling point (thanks largely to the New Deal programs which many among the upper classes opposed) fears of this sort helped contribute to a general suspicion on both sides for the entire decade of the thirties.

Part III - A strange thing happened to me ‘in country’

Going back 41 years ago to this same week in April of 1970 - Part III of a 3-part series of posts                                                                                By Dave Stancliff 

One night I got drunk drinking Tiger Beer with some buddies, and found myself staggering towards the Song Ba River in the dark. Heck, I don’t know why I did that. Leaving the base camp alone was a stupid thing to do for several reasons.

Maybe I went to relieve myself. I was drunk. I don’t think I was going there for a swim. I clearly remember a young boy suddenly coming out of nowhere and startled the crap out of me! He stopped me from getting any closer to the river by pulling on my arm urgently and babbling something in Vietnamese or Montagnard. I really couldn’t make sense out of his excited babbling and I was feeling dizzier every moment. 
I tried to shake him off, and slipped and fell down on the muddy ground. Couldn’t seem to get back up.That was the last thing I recalled until I woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and still on the ground.

It was early, and the sun was slowly rising when a couple of my buddies came looking for me. After giving me a ration for being outside the camp perimeter, I told them about the kid.

“One of them, Crow, shook his head in wonder and pointed out to the river. “If you would have gone any further down that bank you would have slid right into rolls of razor sharp barbwire just beneath the waters edge!” 

There is nothing I could say that would explain that feeling of having dodged danger like that. I might have drown if I got tangled up in it while drunk. I looked for the kid the next day to thank him, but couldn’t find him.
I didn’t die because some nameless little boy took pity on a stupid grunt that night. It was one of the strangest things to happen to me during my time in country. This incident happened during the last week of April 1970. We got orders the same week that we were going to Cambodia! But that’s another story that may, or may not, be told another day.

Have you ever heard the original “Good Morning Vietnam?”

I enjoyed Robin William’s version, but let’s keep it real here!

I hope this little three-part series of posts helps you understand what it was like 41 years ago for a 19-year-old boy who had to become a man fast in a foreign land.

It helps me to share this part of my history and hopefully help people understand war is hell. For some soldiers like me with PTSD, the war never ended.

I live with tortured memories that still come unbidden. I manage to lead a somewhat normal life (what’s that anyway?) and I don’t fight my battles every day. Most of the time I’m diverted by my daily routines, and Vietnam and Cambodia stay far in my past. Another life. Another reality.

It’s the nights that sometimes get really bad during certain times of the year (like now), when the nightmares come in terrifying clarity. But medications have lessened them. Counselors call it an “Anniversary date” and attribute it to extremely bad times in a person’s life. Whatever.
I’m really not sure about that. I guess it really doesn’t matter what anyone calls it; this isn’t my best time of the year for me and that usually extends through June.

As It Stands, Thank you for reading this. It helps me to share sometimes.

Royal pain in the ass is over, Lakers win series, & it’s TGIF time

It’s finally over! The Royal Wedding show has come to an end and people can go back to dealing with the real world. I simply cannot see the fascination some people had with these royal jerks. The efforts to make this a “fairy tale” wedding has probably paid off for the merchandizers here and in England. By the way, did you bid on that Kate Middleton look alike jelly bean? I hear it sold for $800.00!

Meanwhile, my Lakers finished off the pesky Hornets and are now ready to face Dallas in the second round of the NBA playoffs.The Mavs eliminated the Blazers last night, and are now ready for the Lakers in what should be a tough series. (Photo - Andrew Bynum turned it on in Game 6, hitting for 18 points and 12 rebounds in the Lakers' win.)

And it’s Friday…people are looking forward to a nice weekend and an end to a long work week. Maybe that’s why Friday’s seem so special. My thoughts today are on those poor Americans suffering from the killer tornedos ripping through the Midwest. I’ve heard that there’s been over 300 casualties and will probably be more as searchers go through the ruins. It’s time for me to get on down the road…

Fake doctors make house calls and rob naïve residents in Turkey

Turkish police donned white coats and stethoscopes to disguise themselves as doctors, then knocked on people's doors to see how easily they would fall for a confidence scam.

The undercover police officers told residents of the southeastern city of Gaziantep they were screening for high blood pressure and handed out pills, according to Turkish media.

They were alarmed when residents at 86 out of 100 households visited on Tuesday swallowed the pills immediately.

Police later returned to warn residents to be more cautious.

The police pills were harmless placebos. But a local gang had been using the same technique to give people heavy sedatives and then burgle them.

Turkish police in other provinces have also used novel methods to test citizens' gullibility.

Officers in Adana in southern Turkey last week called at houses, announcing through the intercom: "I am a burglar, please open the door."

Police said they were stunned at the number of people who opened the door, the Radikal daily newspaper reported.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; editing by Alexandra Hudson and Andrew Heavens) Image source

Brazilian Police To Wear Glasses That Scans Faces To Find Criminals

What do you want to bet we already have these scan glasses in the states?

I figure if the technology is going to be used publicly in Brazil then it’s been around for a while. Sure, they talk about testing the glasses, but I’ll bet they got a guarantee when they bought them from...hey wait a minute! Who did invent these advanced specs? There’s no indication in the story where the Brazilian cops got these goodies.

“In technology that is lifted straight from Robocop, Brazilian cops will be outfitted with glasses that can scan faces in a crowd and automatically pick out criminals. The glasses use advanced facial recognition technology that can scan 400 faces a second at 50 yards away.

Facial profiling! The glasses scans 46,000 biometric points on a person’s face and compares it against a criminal database. When the glasses find a bad guy (it’s actually a camera attached to the glasses), a red light pops up inside the glasses and alerts the officer on what to do.

The goal is to start using these Robocop glasses in test runs at crowded events (think soccer games and concerts) so police will be familiar with the technology come 2014 (when Rio de Janeiro hosts the World Cup). A big concern about the World Cup being in Brazil was the security, and if you saw Robocop, you’ll know he handled his share of bad guys with ease.” Source

Part II–The Montagnards were our allies against the NVA & VC

Going back 41 years ago to this same week in April…                                

                                          Part II – in a 3-part series of posts                                                               

                                                            By Dave Stancliff

Highway 22 overlooked the Song Ba River (photo below). To be more accurate, the Ba River as “Song” means river in Vietnamese. We called it the Song Ba River because that’s what someone wrote down on the maps we used. Maybe that someone liked the sound of “Song” and modified the real local name as Americans did so often during the war. Who cares right? My unit camped by this bridge for nearly a month.

   We had allies out in the jungle too. We were staying in the An Khe area along the West bank where some Montagnards lived (camp below right). They hated the NVA and the VC, so we became allies. The tribe that we had the most contact with was the Jarair. They were tough little nuts who were fierce fighters and who considered the Vietnamese their enemy from ancient times.

They also knew how to live off the land. They picked wild green onions, chopped bamboo shoots, and captured red ant nests using battery bags discarded by Americans. They’d take some of the rice they always carried with them and throw it into boiling hot water along with the green onions, bamboo shoots, and the red ants.

 The concoction wasn’t bad at all. Kind of a minty tasting. Much better than the fish head stew I once had in a Montagnard village like the one shown at the left. Pictured below is a heavily guarded Montagnard Base Camp.While we’re on the subject of local cuisine, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Vietnamese Centipede, an orange-legged terror that runs from four inches to eight inches long and has an attitude.
 A nearby South Korean unit, we called them ROKS, liked to eat those centipedes. They put them in with their foul-smelling kim che (which already smelled bad enough to gag a maggot). They also ate monkey brains, but I’m not going any further with this.

 There was a certain lizard there, about three feet long, that also figured into the local cuisine. I don’t know what it’s real name was, but we called them “Fuck You” lizards. They hung around trees and in the night you could hear them go: “Tik, tik, tik, phuk yu!” They really sounded like someone saying fuck you. If you listened long enough.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A typical Montagnard fighter (below). They were fearless and loyal to Americans.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 We’d tell the new guys that it was Charlie out there taunting them, and that generally got their attention so well they didn’t sleep. Saw a Fuck You lizard with a flashlight one night. It looked like a miniature dinosaur and hissed at me!

The next day I saw that lizard’s double draped across the back of a young Montagnard boy. He may have been Vietnamese. It’s hard to remember some details. It’s limp body spanned his shoulders and he smiled when I pointed at it.

“Numba one chop chop” he said.

Read Part III on Friday April 29th – “The Strangest Thing That Happened To Me in The Nam”

Oh, say can you see $1,515 for flag tank top?

What recession? People are paying outrageous prices for stuff like this.

A tank top designed to look like a ripped, burned and tattered American flag is a hot seller this spring.

And the $1,515 price tag isn’t the only thing kicking up controversy.

The trashed tank, from French design house Balmain, is besieged with holes that look like cigarette burns and is held together at its open sides with safety pins. Story Here

Slideshow: Ooh la odd! Crazy couture

Eating armadillos blamed for leprosy in the southern United States

The next time you decide to cuddle an armadillo, think again!

Scientists are saying these “hillybilly speedbumps” as they’re often called because they get run over a lot, will infect you with leprosy!

Disease likely spreads when people handle, eat the animals, which carry bacteria for disfiguring disease.

Going back 41 years ago to this same week in April

This is a Three-Part Post.                          Part One
                                                         By Dave Stancliff
   Forty-one years ago this month, this week, I was a combat engineer serving in the Republic of Vietnam. One year earlier, I was a high school student without a care in the world and eager to graduate so that I could get on with life. Be my own boss. You remember what that was like, don’t you?
  My squad’s mission was to sweep for mines on a two-lane dirt road laughingly referred to as Highway 22. We would get up at first light and haul our heavy mine-detection equipment out and take a stroll down that reddish dirt road until we finished, usually at noon.
   The VC, who watched our every move from hidey holes, enjoyed putting “Bouncing Betty’s” beneath piles of buffalo shit as they knew the odor offended our Western sensibilities. The hoped we’d pass over the putrid piles rather than bother disturbing them. I never saw the trick work, but heard it did somewhere else from guys in other units.
I can tell you that it was no fun probing for live bombs with a bayonet in a stinky mess. I got use to it however, as I got use to everything in that alien world somewhere in the Central Highlands that spring. How I managed remains a mystery to me today.

 Army units were assigned to provide us security and walked along behind us bristling with weapons as we did our job swinging those heavy mine detectors for hours at a time. Truck and tanks followed us in this daily routine.

We always had close ground-to-air-support. We could call in “Puff” the Magic Dragon, Spooky, Golf Ball, or Spectre, which were a bunch of assorted gunships made from AC-47s, C-123s, and C-130s.
Our security radioman could call those death-dealers in for a strike in a heartbeat. Charlie knew this and made it a habit not to wander around during the day. He just burrowed down into the ground and waited for darkness. Hoping that the mines he set during the night would kill some invaders during the day. Sometimes I imagined the enemy’s eyes following me. Patiently watching. Hoping to see me become a causality.It was a feeling we all had to get use to.

We were on constant alert for the many signs that could mean life or death. I found an old French anti-tank mine one day. Took off my earphones and handed my mine detector to my sergeant. I found it and that meant it was mine. The earth stopped as I carefully probed the spot and slowly traced around the perimeter of the pressure plate. Time was meaningless. Sweat poured off my brow as I strained to recognize what kind of mine I’d uncovered.
I recognized it even as the sergeant said “French make.” That meant it would take at least 500 pounds on the pressure plate to set it off. Excellent for mangling vehicles like American trucks. Once I disabled it I sat down and drank some water from my canteen. I felt like throwing up, but the sensation passed.

See Part Two – Thursday, April 27 - “The Montagnards were our allies.”