The Fighting Liver Eaters

"Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits."

--All's Well That Ends Well (II, i, 145-147)


The NCAA, always on top of the issues, is shoving aside such trivial matters as the inability of basketball players to read or write, athletic thuggism and use of steroids by young athletes, and has decided that the issue most requiring attention is the shameful habit of naming college athletic teams after Native Americans. I see where my own alma mater has now undertaken an extensive "study" to determine the ethical propriety of calling the football team The Tribe.

This is going on all over the country and the NCAA has announced that no school with an “incorrect” mascot or team name will be permitted to play in post-season bowl events. Academe is in turmoil, of course. Presumably the University of South Dakota will be looking for a mascot to replace The Fighting Sioux. The Utah Utes and the Fighting Illini will also disappear. Indians, Seminoles. Braves. Warriors. All soon to be packed off to the happy hunting ground.

Our university football team was a perennial loser. Big time losers. Not even the likes of the great Lou Holtz or Marvelous Marv Levy, the two coaches who were there when I was a student, were able to deliver winning teams. I think we beat a Japanese trade delegation one year and we defeated Richmond Deaf and Blind in a squeaker, but those were the only victories I can remember. How we celebrated! In any event, neither Lou or Marv hung around longer than it took to sign lucrative contracts at greener pastures where the alumni associations were more generous to the scholarship fund and the coaching staff. Well done.

Teams have Native American mascot names because our culture subscribes to the collective and false myth that the Indians were great and fearless warriors. Braves we call them. In an effort to inspire the traits most admired in winners, we have assigned our sporting teams the names of certain tribes. Seminoles. Braves. Indians. Redskins. Choctaws. We think this will inspire them to great victories.

It goes beyond academe. Our most lethal weapons of war have Indian nomenclature. Blackhawks. Tomahawks. Kiowas. Apaches.

Its probably not helpful then to point out that the Native American tribes were all a bunch of losers and got whipped pretty roundly all over the hemisphere by just about everyone, so if the idea is to honor a winning tradition or totem, changing the names of football teams as well as weapons systems to something less ethnic is probably a good idea. In the case of William and Mary of course, RETAINING the name would be, if not inspiring, at least appropriate in that sense, but the NCAA won’t hear of it.

So I am toying with the idea of writing to the college with my own suggestion for a mascot. They are always eager to hear from me, particularly during the fund season. The name for our college team should be one that evokes a bold and winning tradition, the better to inspire the players on the field. A name associated with victory and conquest.

There are many, many choices not associated with losers. The Palefaces would be fine with me. The Huns. The Vikings. The Norsemen. The Slaving Bastards. I like Los Conquistadores a lot but it wouldn’t fit my school. Maybe it would be better for a campus in the Southwest.

The name the Crow Indians gave to Jeremiah Johnson would be a good one too. It would inspire the team and hopefully strike fear into the hearts of the opponents. They called him The Liver Eater because when he killed them, he ate their loser indian livers. Go Team!

Long Live Israel

"What's gone and what's past help
Should be past grief."

--The Winter's Tale (III, ii, 223-224 )

The hair tearing of the pundits, the wild eyed outrage of the settlers who have invested their lives and the portentous date notwithstanding, I am unable to understand why anyone would argue the adviseability of keeping 8000 Israeli citizens in a decomposing, hate drenched and fetid desert surrounded by 1.3 million primitives.

I salute those brave men, women and children who have dedicated a big part of their lives towards this noble experiment, but now it is time for the nation of Israel to pull back, reinforce the wall and soldier on in order to defeat the bigger threat.

Long live Israel!

If You're Gonna Cock it, Better Throw It.

"This thing of darkness I Acknowledge mine."
--The Tempest (V, i, 275-276)


The recent trouble with the Russian mini-sub was the subject of a conversation at my favorite neo-con watering hole, The Insensitive Neanderthal, on South Congress (SoCo to the cool hep cats) a couple of nights ago.

Fat Karl wondered why the Russian navy, until recently such a mighty force to be reckoned with, is now unable to unsnag its own subs in just 600 feet of water. "Unless I'm wrong, free divers go that deep." he said. "The Russians have to have the enemy to come and rescue them. The Big Red Machine is now just a floating bucket of bolts where the officers are frequently drunk, sailors go unpaid for a year at a time and cruel hazing sends raw recruits to hospitals routinely. Not so long ago, the top of the line Russian attack submarine shot itself in the crankshaft with a torpedo killing 120 sailors. The torpedoes were ancient in the first place, and hadn’t been rotated out of the tubes for maintenance since they were loaded. The electronics were rusted and faulty. And this is the best they had."

Johnny B chimed in. “It’s not just the Russian Bear whose muzzle is greying . It’s all of Europe with the particular exception of Great Britain. The best French soldiers are foreigners. The Dutch Marines are a joke. You can see them lolling around the beaches of Curacao and Aruba taking smoke breaks while playing beach volleyball in their speedos and giggling like a bunch of homosexualists. The Spanish and Italians? Please. Empty uniforms. The European Armies for the most part are now just generals, admirals and bands.”

“Ya know why this is?” asked Big Stick Dick, speaking softly. "There’s a reason they're not funding the support functions--modern warfare doesn't require it to address the threat. The nukes have given them a false sense of security. Why should they go to the trouble and expense of having a standing army? First of all, Uncle Sugar is there for the heavy lifting (and to pump billions into the economies of Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain) and secondly, if they can’t negotiate their way out of trouble, there is always el nuko grandote. It takes the worry out of being close. No need to pay for a huge army when ya have nukes to settle any serious dispute.”

“So where does that leave us?” Donny wanted to know. “Isn’t it about time to reevaluate the catalogue and rethink the doctrine? I’ve studied these things. The history of warfare is a history of expensive campaigns that require a commitment to logistics, maintenance and expensive lubrication of the combat trains. War is complicated, expensive and technologically sophisticated. Did I mention that it's also very expensive? So how long do we get to go on observing these artificial “rules” which no one else seems to be aware of or care about, while the enemy gets to use a different play book? How long do we go on shouldering the burden of cleaning out the world’s stables using a golden shovel? The primitives don’t have to maintain field hospitals, dust-off choppers, messhalls or a standing million man army. So why do we? Does this make sense?”

“I agree,” said Johnny B. “We need to change the game. It’s time. Instead of making little incremental changes to training and doctrine, we need to make one big one to remind the primitives how the cow ate the cabbage. Forget about a shot clock. Forget about putting in a three point rule. We need to change the shape of the ball and the size of the field. We need to confront the primitives about all these wrongs, slights, injuries and insults they are perpetrating on us. We need to get their attention. We need to nuke the snot out of them. We need to make an announcement that the next outrage that is perpetrated on us will result in the loss of a city to be named later. Tehran maybe. Damascus. Medina.”

Dick knows his history: “The bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki played an important part in getting the Japanese to listen to reason. Six weeks earlier in the battle of Okinawa we had lost 12,000 marines and soldiers with three times that many wounded. The Japs lost over a hundred thousand dead. And that was just defending Okinawa, which was really the red-headed stepchild among islands by the Japanese—different language, different history, inferior people and culture etc. And the Japanese 4th graders on the four main islands were being trained with sharpened sticks to repel the Americans invaders during the expected invasion. So what do ya think happened to put the chill on that fanatic and fundamentalist determination sixty years ago?

“Well, I'll remind ya. Two juicy nukes refreshed the parts of the emperor’s attention that other methods couldn’t reach. Five days later they surrendered. We need to remind the primitives of what is really important--preserving our Judeo-Christian way of life and culture, even if that means wiping out the primitives and theirs."

Don said, “You got it, C-man. “If you’re gonna cock it, ya better throw it.”

Cowboys and Euros

"Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?" - Hamlet, Act III, Scene II

The Euros, having wrestled the issue away from the cowboy Americans in order to show the yokels how effective diplomatic negotiations can be when properly conducted by cultured professionals, seem to have run into an obstacle while attempting to negotiate the Iranian islamofascists into withdrawing their plans to build a thermonuclear bomb.

The Islamos' reply to the EU (pronounced Eeeeeewww) was essentially this:

"Eff off, infidel punks".

But the message was delivered in a subtle and nuanced way, which is important for everyone’s self esteem and helped the Euros validate themselves and to feel warm and nurturing to the negotiating partners.

Upon closer analysis of the Iranian “position” however, the euros have detected what they suspect to be a camoflaged rejection and now the whispered suggestion is that the entire affair might be referred to (cue the Star Wars theme) THE SECURITY COUNCIL OF THE MIGHTY UNITED NATIONS! The same United Nations that was so successful in getting Saddam to cease and desist in the past. Yes, that one. The United Nations of the 17 resolutions. That one. (Segue to Thus Spake Zarathustra! And heavy on the timpani.) That’ll show those primitives just how the cow ate the cabbage!

Can we fast forward this one past the previews and get to the part
where The United States does the needful for europe? Again?

Foiled

Why, then the world ’s mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. ACT II Scene 2.


I don't like spiders and snakes. I killed a cottonmouth last night that was as long as your leg. His eyes were dull and black. Sashka spied him trying to get into the garage and alerted me. I immediately went into the Chinese Fighting Stance of Death which I had practiced a few times after watching Bruce Lee films back in my untamed youth. I have never been able to get the piercing "YI-YI-YI" Chinese shriek of impending attack down accurately, but I did my best last night and it worked out pretty OK. I got his attention and then I tricked him with the old "HEY! LOOK OVER THERE!" ruse and when he looked away, I conked him with the old garden shovel of doom maneuver. I could have kicked him with a Kung-Fu high kick to the throat but since a. he was lying down on the ground already so that would have been unsportsmanlike and b. the risk of missing his throat was too chancy, so I opted for whacking him Cosa Nostra style with a shovel which I had previously bought at a garden store for another purpose. You go to war with the weapons you have.

In other news, I failed in my bid to go see the Rollerderby last night and Austin's own team, the indominatable Putas Del Fuego. In a cruel twist of fate, the season ended two weeks ago and no one had the common courtesy to call and tell me. So that's another pleasure denied me, although killing the vicious cottonmouth made up for it in a weak and diluted sort of way.

Neito-san and Jiru-san called last night from Kobe and alerted us to the new and fast growing Japanese fad of owning fighting Rhinoceros Beetles. Neito-san thoughtfully forwarded a photo of one of these beasts feasting on a shallow dish of a gelatinous bloodlike product. He then forwarded a photo of himself eating a Skippy peanut butter sandwich onto which he was slathering the same Beetle food. Personally, I am not so adventurous but I understand you have to eat the food you go to war with, so well done, Neito.

Copenhagen Comments

"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to Heaven."

--All's Well That Ends Well (I, i, 231-232)



I went to The Country Store outside of Seguín on Saturday afternoon to get a sack of ice and an eskimo pie. Two old cowboys were on the front porch killing time and waiting for it to cool off enough to go home and kick the dog. One was sitting on a bench drinking a coca cola out of a can (co-cola you call it here). The other was squatting on his haunches leaning up against the wall. Elbows on his bony knees.

"How's it goin', guys?" I said by way of greeting, stopping on the steps. Neither of them looked at me but by reply, the first one said, "I haven't felt this good since the last time I felt good."

"And I feel a lot better now than the last time I felt this way." his partner said.

I stuck around to chat a little and chew on my toothpick. "What's it like around here?" I asked. "Is this a good place to live?"

A considered silence for a while and then the first geezer said, "Well, I reckon we got two problems in Seguín. We got too much Johnson grass and we got too many baptists."

"Well, at least we know how to get rid of the Johnson grass." said the other one, standing up to kick the kinks out of his knees. I could hear them grate and pop. "We pour whiskey on it and them baptists chew it down to the nub."

They snickered and gave each other the geezer equivalent of high five. I wondered how many times they'd used this line on a stranger.

A long way down the road we could see an old truck coming our way. The heat shimmered off the asphalt in front of it making it dance in the air.