Chicago-area women find peace through strength

Despite all the "community activism" through the decades by Saul Alinsky disciples such as Barack Obama, the best efforts of ACORNers, and some of the strictest laws on private ownership of firearms in the nation shoved onto its citizens by the Daley combine, Chicago is an increasingly dangerous place to live, work and visit. Women there are turning their back on the "conventional wisdom" they've been fed about gun ownership and firearms training. They're shopping in gun stores, taking firearms training and heading to the range in record numbers.

Chicago is one of the few places I've been forced to draw a firearm in defense. I traveled there during an icy March weekend more than 20 years ago with some family members. We were returning to our hotel on a street that intersected Michigan Avenue. A group of eight men began to tail us as we took corners and crossed streets. As they started to close in, I noticed a stout, steel-plate dumpster in the middle of one block, I got behind it as the three others I was with started running. I flipped my coat tail back and drew my revolver. The stalkers suddenly figured out it was best to turn around and find more ideal prey.

Mayor Daley and the Chicago police wouldn't have approved. But they weren't around to notice. Gun control isn't reasonable or safe. It just makes it easier for criminals to victimize law-abiding-but-defenseless citizens. Hats off to the armed citizens of Chicago.

A passage from a journal

It's late and sleep eludes. So I'm reading some passages from the journal of Albert Jay Nock, 1873-1945. This one I'd like to share with you.

"Lord, how the world is given to worshiping words! Eschew the coarse word slavery, and you can get glad acceptance for a condition of actual slavery. A man is a slave when his labour-products are appropriated, and his activities are governed by some agency other than himself; that is the essence of slavery. Refrain from using the word Bolshevism, or Fascism, Hitlerism, Marxism, Communism, and you have no troubles getting acceptance for the principle that underlies them all alike--the principle that the State is everything, and the individual nothing."

Nock, a friend of William Jennings Bryan and one of the lights of the early Progressive movement, eventually found these advocates of "change" and "reform" to be "political Frankensteins." In the State, he held no trust. He viewed Statism as a cancer that would eventually throttle the power of independent moral judgment in its citizenry.

Give him a teleprompter or something ...

Uhh, perhaps, uhh ... the's president's low, uhh ... approval ratings, uhh ... could, uhh, I'm sorry, uhh ... pick up, uhh ... 20 points, if he embraced, uhh ... a robust process to, uhh ... find a press secretary to replace, uhh, Robert Gibbs.

A Prediction and an Apology

I, at this time more than 48 hours before the official announcement, predict Chicago will not make the final cut for the 2016 Olympics host city despite the redistributive-changer-in-chief's visit to Copenhagen to sway the International Olympic Committee.

Keeping President Obama's UN speech in mind, I'm also apologizing to our poor, huddled, exploited, global brothers and sisters--particularly the citizens of Madrid, Rio and Tokyo. Our president's old-fashioned wielding of power isn't any way to "embrace a new era of of engagement based on mutual interests and mutual respect

" or forging a future out of deeds rather than speeches. No wonder the world may sometimes view the United States of America with "skepticism and mistrust" for this isn't a shining example of change in word and deed--"a new era of engagement with the world."


A Democrat, former House Speaker Tip O'Neill, once said, "All politics is local." In any attempt to understand the timing of President Obama's trip to Copenhagen, keep in mind he's an old-school, Chicago politician, i.e., a "community activist." He's doing the bidding of the Daley machine.

Polansky: Wanted and Desired

Roman Polansky, "one of the world's outstanding film directors" has been a fugitive from justice for more than 30 years. Despite all his prestige and the public relations campaign his posse has been helping Polansky run from Europe and Hollywood, he plead guilty to a crime that earns him a slot on the sexual predator registry.

Why the governments of France and Poland believe Polansky should be cut loose is beyond me. If those nations wish to be sanctuary countries for child abusers and rapists, let's export several boat loads.

Job "Creation"

Larry Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser, consumed enough Diet Coke last week to blast him out of a slumber. Then he noticed the record-setting unemployment rate, held an interview with news media, and said it will remain "unacceptably high for a number of years."

So, in a play on Sheryl Crow and Obama lyrics, a change wouldn't do you good.

Larry, will you ever be able to explain to me how Obama can claim how he and Congress have created or saved 1 million jobs this year via the $787 billion, budget-busting, economic "stimulus" plan? The Obama administration's own numbers show 492,ooo jobs lost in July and August and 6.9 million total lost since the recession officially began. It sounds like fuzzy math and voodoo economics all over again, Larry.

Three-for-one swap

After looking at the news page this morning, I propose this trade with Venezuela: three of our left-wing radicals who slept through economics courses for one of theirs.


The trade: Obama, Pelosi, and Michael Moore (who now thinks capitalism is an evil that cannot be regulated) for Hugo Chavez. Why? Because, with the red shirt, Hugo stands out at town hall meetings.

Strange Sake?

Japan's first lady, Miyuki Hatoyama, is one multi-faceted lady. She's traveled to Venus, knew Tom Cruise when he was Japanese, and has been abducted by space aliens. She also serves as Yukio Hatoyama's, her husband and prime-minister-elect, chief stylist.

Maybe Cristophe, hairstylist who's groomed many high-flying politicos such as President Bill Clinton, should open up a sixth salon on Venus.

Transparency and Open Government

I'm keeping President Obama's executive order regarding transparency and open government in mind as I watch the spinning, red numbers grow larger and larger here.

Each one of us--rich, poor, child, adult, man, woman, minority, majority, Democrat, Republican, left-wing radical, right-wing extremist--as of this moment own $38,187 of the national debt. Then there's $191,845 per citizen of unfunded federal liability. Tack on more than $24,000 per each man, woman and child of private debt, and each of us should subtract more than $254,000 from our net worth. If you're like me and most ordinary, working Americans President Obama is fixing stuff for, you're a couple of hundred thousand in the hole. And the hole's going deeper, perhaps clear through to China.

That's change we can believe in even before adding $1 trillion--most likely many trillions more using the sordid history of federal cost estimation failures as a guide--Obamacare is estimated to cost. If the Obama Administration truly wanted to fix stuff, it would mandate every American to pass a written economics exam before he or she walks into a polling place.

Buying groceries, gasoline, shelter, prescription drugs, and clothing with dollars that are worth less is the most cruel tax of all. This growing burden results from our exploding national debt. Inflation is this disguised, disgusting tax everyone who spends dollars pays. It has the greatest impact on the people President Obama claims to care about the most, the working poor.

Reloading, fixing, and reforming

There's one gun shop two counties south of here that usually has primers on the shelf. Of the dozens of times I've made the 60-mile trip through the years, the dealer has only once not had the primers I needed. This was during the dark ages of the Clinton Administration when Democrats and gun banners were working hand-in-hand to pass Brady II, which would have enacted an "arsenal tax" on firearms, primers and ammunition.

True to form, I found primers there despite striking out at other stores such as Cabela's, several closer guns stores, and many online merchants of reloading components. This dealer, unlike many, hasn't tripled prices on primers. I paid the pre-Obama price for 1,000 CCI No. 41 small rifle primers, 200 Sierra .224 dia., 55-grain HPBT Gameking bullets, a pound of Hodgdon Varget, and some Winchester 5.56mm ball ammo. He said he was lucky to have just received 40,000 small rifle and pistol primers.

It lifted my spirits to see some .223, 7.62x39mm, 9mm, .45 ACP, .380 ACP and .357 Mag ammo sitting on shelves, all labeled with fair-market prices. However, there's one change I hated to see. The dealer had to move the primers, formally stacked on shelves in cardboard, 5,000 ct. boxes--often three or four deep by brand--behind the register because of shoplifters.

The dealer, an honest citizen who faithfully pays his taxes, mentioned he had just emerged from a seven-month battle with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to get it to perform an act federal law requires it to carry out in 90 days or less--approving or rejecting a Federal Firearms license transfer from one business entity to another. The buyer and seller both hired attorneys, who intervened twice by reminding the BATF it is supposed to enforce federal laws rather than break them.

I remarked that his struggle with one federal agency illustrated how silly it was to expect the U.S. government, designed from the start to be somewhat inefficient to preserve individual liberty, to "reform" or "fix" our health-care system. He said, "Yes, we'd die before the feds decided we needed hospitalization."

It will be a pleasure to go back there later this fall and do business with an honorable person.

No, Ed ...

I don't want to shoot President Barack Obama. I'm not a conservative, but I would say both libertarians, of which I am one, and conservatives simply want President Obama to stop shackling us with chains.

The Dog Days of Summer

It's not a typical Dog-day summer here. August is usually the time of browned grass and 100-plus-degree afternoon heat. The metal buildings remind me of solar coolers we used to make in science class. Any short-pants-wearing human passing dried-up stalks and sunflowers will receive a rigorous shin pelting from grasshoppers.

A cool breeze and being pelted by little except rain--now that's real change.

The term, "Dog days," or Caniculares dies for all you Latin speakers, can also describe a time period or event proven to be dull, mind numbing, and listless. I've not felt like writing. This use is more illustrative of my summer than the former, which is how Romans viewed the evil days of summer "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies" according to Brady’s Clavis Calendarium, 1813.

I'd rather suffer from a lack of words that be forced by Roman policy wonks to sacrifice a choice brown dog to appease Sirius, the Dog Star, and ward off global warming.

Every winter the Dog Star shines from its home in Canis Major, one of Orion's two best friends. It seems odd that it has anything to do with summer, a languid time for star gazers like me who wait up for the Perseid meteor shower. The clouds moved in to frame Venus just after dark while I checked on the horses. After midnight when the shower was supposed to be at its peak, the multiplied clouds, both languid and boiling, had covered Perseus with a shroud.

Change: Town hall meetings may endanger one's health

The Democrats are dealing with "the fringe" that show up at town hall meetings in new ways: bouncers from the labor unions possibly seeking federal assistance for their steroids, White House strategy planning and video reviews, abandoning town hall meetings all together for conference calls with supporters, and streams of "Organizing for America" messages urging recipients to "fight the smears."

Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina told Democratic members of Congress, "If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard."

Why do union members, seniors, and other people who expect Barack Obama and members of Congress to "fix" health care turn out at these town halls? In this Youtube video of a meeting held by Kathy Castor, a congresswoman from Florida, one of the attendees answered my question:

"She's [Castor] the one with the money! Not you!"

No, Castor's one of several who's put the government nearly $12 trillion in debt.

A new "lawn" rifle

I haven't played croquet, badminton or the fast-paced game of lawn darts in years. Where the yard here at the farm slopes down to the banks of Elm Branch, I have, however, indulged in the decadent sport of lawn riflery.

Steyr Mannlicher US sent out an e-mail announcing the Steyr AUG/A3. The company refers to it as a "sporting" rifle. Because I don't assault anything with a semi-automatic rifle except rodents and other varmints, I refuse to use that verb as a modifier before "rifle". Around here, any black rifle or carbine considered by gun haters to be inherently evil in itself are called something else.

The rifles I use for dispatching pests, hunting, defending my loved ones, safeguarding our home and enjoy shooting and reloading for are called lawn rifles. Lawn riflery, one of liberty's many blessings, is indeed the true sport of Kings--and Queens, of course.

My son will take an expensive trip to the oral surgeon Friday. I don't have the dollars for a Steyr AUG/A3 even if they are truly in stores now as Steyr's message indicates. Prez Obama and Congress will not fund a cash-for-clunkers rebate for prospective gun owners any time soon. Since the battle for health care reform has stalled, those nice men and women from the federal government won't pay for oral surgery, either. Damn the bad luck!

Back from the Left Coast

I apologize for not entertaining my VIP readers, my legion of raving fans--the four of you, I think.

It's green this summer in Kansas, which means it has been a constant war with noxious weeds. I gave up last week and spent some time in San Francisco. It was my first time to visit the city on the bay, and it was a pleasant trip. Things were spinning well there including the mass transit system. BART workers refrained from striking. The state of California was still able to get by on IOUs. This week may prove to be different, but Toto and I are back in Kansas. Of course, the state government here has cranked out some IOUs. But we have horses to ride if government wheels stop turning.

Chinatown Gate, Grant Street, San Francisco

News I missed while traveling: China has figured out how to send fresh-breathed men into orbit. This is something I didn't hear discussed in Chinatown. It might have been, but I've never learned Cantonese or Mandarin. I did learn of Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata’s month-long underwear test there from the front of a newspaper dispenser. Thirty days in the same pair of underwear--try that in the Chinese space program, General Yang, and you'll be kicked out and sent to some remote place such as the Wolong Nature Reserve to monitor panda mating.

The Stupid Police in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Did the police officer, Sgt. James Crowley, who arrested Henry Louis Gates, Jr., professor and director of Harvard's African-American research center, act stupidly? President Obama, during his latest prime-time news conference, said he did.

Here's the police report, once posted by the Boston Globe but now pulled. There were several witnesses at the scene, Gates' home, where the officer had been dispatched to investigate a potential burglary in progress. President Obama wasn't one of them.

Maybe in the President's mind, everyone has the right to yell, threaten, ignore repeated warnings to "calm down," and to throw a tantrum after a police officer asks a few basic questions in response to another citizen's call.

Perhaps Professor Gates should have a discussion with someone's mama about disorderly conduct and how it's against the law. And the national chief executive should explain why he's encouraging anyone who thinks they are being treated unfairly to disregard and abuse law enforcement officers carrying out their sworn duties. Hint: Don't try it with the Secret Service, BATF or the FBI.

Prosecutors dropped the charge against Gates Tuesday, which seems reasonable to me. A fine or time in the city jail would serve no useful purpose. Hopefully Gates will find some good mental health care. He's a victim of racial profiling, which he describes in this magazine interview.

Smooth Operator

Nah, this post doesn't have much relevance to Sade's 1985 single detailing the life of a cold-hearted, jet-set gigolo nor removing noise from data. So if a search engine brought you to this remote corner of the Web by error ...

"No place for beginners or sensitive hearts When sentiment is left to chance. No place to be ending but somewhere to start."

Europe between 1938 and 1945 was no place for beginners or sensitive hearts, so Winston Churchill tasked "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare," or the Special Operations Executive (SOE), to pry it back from the Third Reich. The average life expectancy of SOE agents serving in occupied territory was six weeks despite their extensive training.

Etienne and Violette Szabó during their honeymoon

Some SOE agents were particularly ungentlemanly--they were women. Section F of the SOE employed 39 female agents in occupied France. Thirteen never returned. Of those, Violette Szabó, who volunteered as an agent after her husband Etienne was killed at El Alamein, is most likely the best known. Szabó, the second woman to receive the George Cross, was beaten, raped, starved, and eventually executed and cremated at the Ravensbrück concentration camp with three other female SOE agents shortly before it was liberated by Allied forces.

If you're like me, avoiding the noise about important issues of the day such as a universal health care "right" that "the rich" are going to pay for, there's relief and lessons to learn from history. Then, rather than working and paying taxes, one can take solace in some Violette Szabó-inspired movies, books and even a video game, Violet Assassin.

I don't think Gervase Cowell, an ex-MI6 officer and British Special Forces Club historian, had Violet Assassin or morphine in mind when he told Queen Elizabeth II, "I help the old to remember and the young to understand."

WWJP: What would Jesus Pack?

I have no doubt Jesus, as range master, oversees a deluxe firearms training facility in Heaven. When he comes again, he'll be toting heat. After all, what we know about Jesus Christ from scripture reveals he was a practical, tactical thinker when he walked among us.

Worship planners at a Louisville, Ky., church held a service June 27 where all were invited to carry their personal sidearms, albeit unloaded. The church also raffled off safety lessons, a concealed carry class and a new handgun.

I'm armed when attending church. I don't check the ammo at the door, either. It's always been peaceful at my church, and it doesn't bother me in the least that the people around me might be carrying as well. When I was in law enforcement, it didn't alarm me when I encountered law-abiding, ordinary Americans, who our current president says he understands, carrying weapons. In fact I assumed my fellow citizens were not much different from me--most of us own firearms and have been using them safely since we could hoist and level one at a target. As far as distrusting or fearing these armed, peaceful, outstanding people, it's not my nature to do so.

Granted, there are some who, in the pursuit of nefarious ends, have abused the power that flows from gun barrels. Despots, felons or any individual or group who takes their freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness to the point of stripping others of their same freedom readily seek such power for themselves. Then there are cretins who happen to possess guns along with other useful but dangerous objects such as golf clubs, baseball bats, a bathroom door ripped off its hinges, or extension cords that they use to maim and kill others.

Fortunately none of the latter have shown up in any church I've frequented. It is true a small number of cretins roam our communities, and sometimes they do come into worship centers shooting. If so, it would relieve me if the preacher, Aunt Mabel, or someone in the choir could make a clean, safe hit on him if I couldn't. To lump my fellow citizens in with the cretins as people to be distrusted or feared doesn't make sense.

It does encourage me to see fellow Christians who truly love their neighbors even when they're wearing handguns. I'd never ridicule, raise objections or consider a brother or sister in Christ an "extremist" or "gun nut" for taking steps to protect themselves and others from evildoers. When I pass the peace to other members of my congregation, I truly mean it. To let my fear, mistrust and desire to control others make them more vulnerable in the face of evil--how would that reflect my level of discipleship and faith? So, by all means, bring your guns to church. Hey! Don't forget to load 'em.

This is Independence Day. I'll close with thoughts Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, shared at his inauguration as our third president in 1801.

"Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the governance of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."

Guns in church, along with so many other things, is a matter of trusting ordinary Americans to govern themselves, a practice Jefferson considered democratic. Aristocrats practice the opposite, as he explained in an 1824 letter to Henry Lee. Trust or distrust? Jefferson's question of liberty will truly be answered in time. That's change we can believe in.

Surviving on hope, prayer, and bribes

Detroit city council president pro tempore and "child of God" Monica Conyers faces a possible sentence of up to five years after her guilty plea last Friday on one federal count of conspiracy to commit bribery.




Ms. Conyers, 44, long dogged by a bad temper, was so quiet in court the judge had to ask her to speak up. Maybe that's because she hadn't strapped on her political "gun" husband, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, 80, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He was back in D.C. saving us all from global warming. His people released this statement following her plea:

"This has been a trying time for the Conyers family and with hope and prayer they will make it through as a family. Public officials must expect to be held to the highest ethical and legal standard. With this in mind, Mr. Conyers wants to work toward helping his family and city recover from this serious matter."

If you're weary of reading about Jacko's autopsy results and legacy, the Detroit Free Press has done an admirable job of covering the FBI's four-year probe of Detroit's pay-to-pay corruption.

Monica and John Conyers, center, with Rev. Charles Adams, l, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Ms. Conyers, who couldn't get on just her $81,000 annual salary plus perks such as a taxpayer-supplied Ford Crown Victoria, should spare the people of Detroit more entertainment and resign before she's forced out of the city council.

Call me Lucifer, a skeptic or whatever, but ...

I doubt Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), co-sponsors of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, or members of their staffs actually wrote it. Few, if any, of the 219 representatives who voted for it or the 212 who voted nay had even read it. The full text of H.R. 2454 wasn't fully released until hours before the historic, transformational vote. Who was awake in D.C. when a 300-page amendment were dumped onto servers at 3 a.m the day of the vote?

Members of Congress knew little about the bill beyond what President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Markley, Waxman, and ex-vice-president Al Gore told them. If you think the cap-and-trade tax to reduce carbon dioxide emissions will only raise your household electrical bill $175 per year by 2020 as a Congressional Budget Office report claims, you also believe in the tooth fairy. The legislative and executive branches of our federal government have a historic tendency to botch estimates such as Social Security solvency, the cost of weapons systems, and Medicare and Medicaid subsidies.

In government I do not trust. It has a known track record. Legislation is crafted by lobbyists--in this case nearly 2,340 authors working for 770 special interest groups and companies. These groups spent nearly $90 million in 2008 for climate-change lobbying. Cap and trade taxes will eventually bring about a cleaner environment by making it too costly for "ordinary Americans" to live, work and invest here.