Night of the Vegetables

Suddenly wide awake, I found myself sitting bolt upright in my bed, awakened from a sound sleep. And this wasn't the first time this happened to me. On two separate occasions just last week something, a sound or a movement, had reached into my peaceful, dreamy state and had me looking around my room, while an uneasy feeling settled over me. But this time was different; I was determined to find out the reason I woke up. Untangling myself from the blankets, I was just getting out of bed when I heard a sound, something like metal being dragged or rolling across wood. There it was - the sound that had been awakening me! I was going to get to the bottom of this. Opening my nightstand drawer, I took out my Glock, purchased for this specific occasion. Sliding a round into the chamber, I got up and proceeded cautiously out of my bedroom.

Knowing my way around the house in the dark has always been easy for me. I'm not a lights on at all times type of person. Maybe in another life I was a commando; I really don't know. And let it be said for the record I'm not one for confrontation. But a home invasion crosses the line of civility; I was ready to move any trespasser in my home to a much closer relationship with his Maker. After all, it was...there it was again - that scraping sound! It seemed to come from the kitchen, just a little way down the darkened hallway.

Leaving my bedroom, I proceeded slowly, acutely aware that stealth was to my advantage. Well, that and the fact that my dogs might have left rawhide chewies, toys and other encumbrances around that have been scientifically proven to gravitate toward bare feet in a darkened environment. Ten feet to go, then five, two. I was at the kitchen doorway, both hands on the gun. I leaned my head back against the wall, closed my eyes and took a couple of deep breaths to calm myself so I'd be ready when I entered the room. After about three seconds, it was showtime. I crouched low to present less of a target and peeked into the kitchen. And what I saw would be drawn upon my mind forever.

We live in a world that is basically predictable. The sun comes up; we commute to work along with countless other mortgage payers; shop in stores; eat in restaurants; laugh; cry; sneeze. Emerson said that reality is a sliding door and our relationship with it is steeped in mundane routine. Anything not meeting that criteria gives one pause. But in my case on this particular night, my walk down the hallway and into the kitchen left me firmly placed on the other side of that sliding door. I saw there was no intruder in my home; no one dressed in black with a ski mask covering his face; no one with nefarious intent pawing through my possessions, looking for something of value. Rather, the dim light from an outside street light revealed my kitchen cabinet doors were open. Working their way down to the counter tops were the canned goods that had previously been neatly stacked in the cabinets. They were making the sounds I had heard, but were those really small, black, stick-like arms jutting out of the cans?

Transfixed, I watched the scene in front of me; inanimate objects coming to life? Was this some kind of a modern day Edgar Allen Poe story? A flurry of activity to the left caught my eye. On the cabinet by the sink a can of peas had opened itself and was mixing itself with canned carrots. Spinach was heading out the open window, apparently headed for greener pastures. Sauerkraut searched for hot dogs, dragging a package of buns behind itself while beans looked on, practically green with envy. Cans of dehydrated onions and milk sought to reconstitute themselves. Ramen noodles were seeking citizenship; broccoli was watching an old 007 film on the small TV; salt & pepper were sprinkling themselves over everything. I noticed parsley complaining to a a box of raisins that it was sick of being used merely as a decoration, the milk was spilled but no one was crying over it and the watchful eyes of a potato saw all. While the refrigerator opened and closed its door for additional illumination, the bottom over drawer opened and pots spilled out, inviting all the cans' contents to disgorge their contents into their waiting mouths. Toward the end of the evening onions peeled themselves, bringing a tear to many an eye.

For that one, brief and memorable night, I think I knew what Alice felt like when she went through the looking glass.

Little Billy Meyers

Who am I? Have I been affected only by the positive aspects of life? Did the birthday parties of my youth, the delicious aroma of a lilac bush at bloom in a garden, the laughter of my friends on a summer's evening or my first stolen kiss solely complete my maturation process? No; I don't think so. Rather, the full spectrum of incidents life has thrown at me, the pain, the heart-wrenching episodes, the tragedies I witnessed all helped form my character. One such incident, the one I'll relate here, occurred when I was in my early twenties. 

It's cold outside. Not cold as in chilly, but cold as in the teeth-chattering variety that makes you wonder if you'll ever feel any circulation in your finger tips and toes again. An ominous, leaden sky is overhead, confirming weather reports that even more snow is on its way; that an encore to Mother Nature's wintry entertainment is imminent. The residents of our beach community on an inlet of Long Island Sound dutifully prepared for her next act. As has been the case since time immemorial, she threatened and we reacted. The problem was on this particular day, in one tragic instance, she forgot to live up to her end of the bargain. 

After three consecutive days of sub-zero temperatures, my personal rule as an occasional hockey player on the ponds of Long Island was that any enclosed body of water would be frozen enough to allow a quick pick up game. In all my years skating up and down, ice shavings flying, stick handling back and forth across ice towards a make shift goal, only once did I have a slight mishap. Chasing an errant puck, I broke through the thin ice because I ignored the warnings of my more cautious friends. I escaped with only two very cold feet but was otherwise unharmed, a bit wiser for this youthful indiscretion.

Perhaps a certain eight-year old boy even saw us bigger kids cavorting on a frozen pond and enjoying ourselves as only boys could. So when he zipped up his red parka, put on his gloves and hat and went for a walk with his dog on the inlet ice, he thought it would support him. But Mother Nature freezes fresh water at 32 degrees Fahrenheit and seawater at about 28.4 degrees; thus her tragic oversight. When the ice broke and he fell through, the frantic barking of his dog was attributed to just another house pet that had cornered a cat and attracted no immediate attention.

I'm not sure how the little boy's plight was discovered. Maybe it was like a TV commercial that repeats over & over until it eventually seeps into a person's conscious level. Or it was some amateur scavenger slowly walking along the seashore searching for a bit of treasure washed up by the waves who realized the child was in trouble. But either the boy's desperate cries for help or the incessant barking of his faithful dog finally aroused someone who contacted the local rescue squad. They soon arrived, and a crowd of on-lookers began to grow along the shoreline.

Since our house stood on a hill overlooking the inlet, the flurry of activity taking place on the beach below caught the attention of my Mom. So when I returned home from some research project for school the first thing she said after greeting me with a kiss me was, "Something's happened down at the beach. People are standing around, pointing out at the water but I can't make out through the trees what's going on."
Walking over to the windows, I peeked out at the scene and asked, "How long has this been going on?"
"Not sure; I only noticed it about ten minutes ago," she replied.
"Well, I'm going down to see what's up," I said. "Want to come along with me?" 
In no time, Mom & I bundled up, went out to my car & drove down to the beach.

For an area that saw its sun bathers depart, seasonal concession stand close and boaters secure their launches for the winter, I immediately saw that considerable activity was now being carried out. In the parking lot, numerous cars were parked haphazardly, some with their doors still ajar. The fire truck from the local station was idling, its massive diesel engine sounding like marbles in a dryer. Twenty yards or so away, on the sand of the beach itself, were emergency personnel. Some stood with coils of heavy yellow rope around one shoulder, others with long poles used in fire rescues at their sides but all were talking in hushed voices. One of them was a guy I'd seen at some of the places I hung out with my friends.

Known as Fist, I never knew his real first name, but a wrong look, a snicker behind his back or a rude brush up against him in a bar could earn the offender a quick lesson as to why this particular nickname was bestowed on him. Over his left eye, a scar causing the lid to be permanently half closed also announced his disposition as surely as a buoy alerts ships to danger approaching. If the character Leroy Brown from the Jim Croce song of the same name comes to mind, then you have a picture of Fist.

My attention was quickly drawn to the agitated barking of a dog out on the ice about 50 yards away, where a small, partially submerged red splotch stood out on the otherwise drab, gray ice. I then heard a faint cry of "Mommy, please help me!" and realized the object of everyone's attention was a little boy in a red coat. More sounds; off to the side. Stamping my feet to ward off the cold, I turned and saw a group of young Mothers, sobbing, each wondering whose child was fighting for its life out on the ice. They stood shivering, arms around each other for support, secretly praying it would be the person next to them and not themselves who might need a strong sedative later that day. My own Mom was clutching my left arm very tightly, softly weeping. My Mom, who taught me all I knew about compassion, who a couple of years later would lose a daughter to disease, who several years after that would lose a son to a heart ailment. 

Then, another cry of "Help me...please!" was heard. Was it my imagination or was this one slightly weaker than the last one? As if an electric shock ran through him, Fist jumped into action. Tying one end of a coil of rope around his waist, he told the first responders to feed its remaining length out as he began walking out on the ice, placing one foot slowly in front of the other. Everyone watched breathlessly as he advanced five, ten, fifteen yards. "I'm coming, son, hold on!" he yelled to the boy. There was no response as the freezing boy held on to the edge of the ice, apparently exhausted from his efforts to remain above water. If possible, his dog's barking took a more urgent tone, urging Fist to hurry. He was now twenty yards out, then twenty five; he had made it half way to the boy! But with one more step he was suddenly gone, having fallen through the ice himself. He surfaced immediately, tried to advance a couple of times but the ice repeatedly broke around him. Frustrated and freezing, he pulled himself up on the ice behind himself and was guided back to shore with his tether rope. 

When I thought about Fist's failed rescue attempt weeks later, I realized his efforts were not carried out properly. His weight was concentrated directly over his feet; why hadn't he gotten a running start, thrown himself on his chest and slid out to where the boy was waiting? This would have displaced his body's weight over a broader area, less likely to break through. Even if he had gone through the ice, it would have been significantly closer than where the ice broke underneath him. 

Immediately after Fist's failed attempt, I saw the rest of the emergency personnel galvanized into action with a contingency plan. Several of them ran to the locked life guard shack where one kicked in the door and the others rushed inside, dragging out the row boat and oars that had been stored there. Others helped by pulling the boat to the water's edge, then Fist & three of them jumped in with a couple of ropes and poles & another three pushed the boat onto the ice where it glided for a few yards but then sunk into the ice & stopped dead. Two men scrambled to the bow and with the oars proceeded to break up the ice ahead of the boat. Progress was agonizingly slow but eventually the men made their way to where the child had been. But he was now nowhere in sight. 

Where was the boy? Men on the boat were now shouting, the Mothers were screaming, on-lookers were yelling; it seemed no one knew what to do. That is, no one but Fist. He quickly stood up in the boat, stripped off his coat & dove head-first into the freezing water where the boy had last been seen. This action silenced everyone and time seemed to slow to a crawl. Five agonizing seconds, seven seconds, ten seconds passed but no Fist.  Could he possibly find the...YES! Rising up to the surface and sputtering for air was Fist, holding something red in his arms. Hands reached over the side of the boat & hoisted the two soaking people into the boat. With the precious cargo in hand, the boat was ready to return to shore.

But another problem immediately faced the men. With the boat facing towards the center of the inlet & no way to turn around in the ice, its flat bow as pointed back towards the shore where we all stood. Two men were trying to row the boat back to shore but their progress was exceedingly slow. That was when I ran out into the path the boat had made in the ice. The frigid water practically immobilized me and Mom was screaming "Jackie...NO!" but I knew what I was doing. I yelled to the men in the boat, "Throw me the rope; THROW ME THE ROPE!" Immediately they understood. Holding one end in their hands, they threw the other to me. I grabbed the rope, put it over my shoulder, turned back to shore, put my head down and began pulling the boat with everything I had. I was about fifteen yards from shore, the water a little bit below my rib cage so I didn't move too fast. But then I heard splashing coming at me; the paralysis of some of the people on the shore had broken & they joined me in my effort. 

In a few seconds our combined efforts beached the boat. Fist jumped out of the boat, the boy still in his arms and ran towards the waiting emergency truck. On the way, I saw the boy's limp arms and legs swaying along with Fist's movements as if in time to some macabre music that only he could hear. His lips were still red, his face still pink, not the translucent gray of a dead person. I didn't know it at the time but my friends and I would meet Fist a couple of years later when he reverted to his more pugilistic tendencies. But on that cold day at the beach, he showed the heart and soul of what humanity really is, risking his own life to save an innocent child. In my book, the man earned his stripes for all eternity.

In the context employed here, the word "if" performs as a function word to introduce an exclamation expressing a wish. So, IF the ice was thicker, the boy spit up water, was revived and went home after a brief hospital stay. He suffered no ill effects of his ordeal, was perfectly healthy. Strong, good looking and personable, he became a star track athlete in school, graduated from college cum laude and became a successful dentist with an office in Huntington, Long Island. With a beautiful wife, a dog and three children of his own, he is a devoted husband and father, watching over his family very carefully. But in reality, when Fist ran past the expectant Mothers, a wail from one of them confirmed her worst nightmare, the one no parent on God's good Earth ever wanted to realize, had occurred. She knew before any of us did that her son was dead. 

Breathing heavily from the exertion of pulling the boat, I stood bent over with my hands on my knees, dripping water. Up until now, I maintained the stoic face of impartiality, the stiff upper lip demanded of a male in our society. The dictate is that a man can show no feelings in emotionally charged situations. So, maybe it was it was the wet clothes I was wearing, or the freezing temperature, or perhaps a combination of the two that elicited a change in me. Like a light turned on that pierces the darkness, a surge of emotion swelled up inside me that I had never felt before. It was as if my very soul had been wrenched out of me, leaving in its place a mere shell, a broken plaster mold of what I had once been. And I started sobbing. I think I would have been able to quietly cry in a controlled fashion until my Mom, my rock, the woman who patched my scrapes as a boy, who had walked me to school, who took me to Church, who later would offer me one of her own kidneys when one of mine was thought to be deteriorating came up and put both her arms around me. It was then that I lost it, that the veneer of tempering my feelings was crushed to oblivion. I heaved full, uncontrollable cries of anguish, an emotional outburst I would call upon when my sister and brother would depart all too suddenly from this life. The last sight I remember from that day was a dog, its tail between its legs, making its way away from the fateful hole in the ice cautiously back to the shore. 

Years later, on a warm summer's evening, I'm sitting on the porch at my parent's house in Vermont while my own little children are sleeping peacefully inside. The sweet smell of newly cut grass announces the abundant, lush vitality of the area. A gentle rain starts to fall but doesn't deter the bugs that still creak, hum and call to each other. Far away, an occasional bolt of lightning illuminates the sky, and its accompanying thunder reverberates from hill to hill, eventually fading away in the distance. This sound is so relaxing, so tranquil it can lull one to sleep. Perhaps this is Mother Nature's was of apologizing for her tragic mistake so many years ago; perhaps it's merely my interpretation of life from my personal rose colored glasses, from the perspective that is uniquely me.

I stand up, take a step but knock over the cane my Mom now uses to help her walk. "Where are you going, Jackie?" she asks. "Just to check on the boys, Mom." She smiles at me, a knowing one that seems to radiate her face in the dim light. I lean over and kiss her on the forehead, below the gray hair that has rewarded her years like medals for valor on a soldier's breast. Inside, I carefully pick my way through a flotilla of plastic cars and trucks, a scattering of Lego pieces and assorted other toys. My three boys are asleep, safe and protected. After rearranging blankets I look down at them. Reminded of the thin thread that holds a happy, contented life from plunging into the abyss of tragedy, I recall the words of Camus: In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Geo. Wallace Riot

This incident, this near riot occurred years ago, but its sounds still echo in my head. Hundreds of screaming, angry voices, hell bent on destruction announced the mob's presence, reverberating down the concrete canyons of the city’s buildings like a chorus of banshees. As it drew nearer sounds other than human voices could be discerned: the repeated concussive thump of fists pounding on car hoods and doors, the tinkling of glass as store windows were smashed, the resounding crashes of what must have been shelving being tipped over and smashing to the floor.

On this night, my Dad and I were leaving a hotel in New York City. I had accompanied him to a ratification meeting for his union and we’d now head home via mass transit. The cold air greeted us as we walked out into the night, suggesting snow, ice and the havoc it wreaks were about a month away. Dad and I pulled up our collars and were on our way.

After walking only a few steps I heard the rapidly approaching commotion. I turned to my Father and asked, "What's going on?" But he had already evaluated the situation, took me by the hand and said in a voice that left no question as to its meaning, "LET'S GO." And we did. At first Dad didn't run but set a brisk pace that forced me to trot every few paces just to keep up with him. But after the bright flash and subsequent explosion of a car, undoubtedly the work of more malevolent members of the angry throng, run we did.

The date was 10/24/1968 and Presidential candidate George Wallace had just spread his racist vitriol to 16,000 wildly enthusiastic supporters at NY’s old Madison Square Garden located on 8^th Avenue. His rise to popularity in a nation just awakening to equality standards began five years previously when the US Supreme Court took a firm stand on desegregating schools. In Alabama, then Governor Wallace decided he would not obey the law and blocked African American students from entering the University of Alabama. That is, until Federal Marshals and the National Guard persuaded him otherwise. The fallout from Wallace’s confrontation with the government firmly crowned him as the de facto leader of segregationists.

As was typical during the Viet Nam war era, college-aged protesters disagreeing with Wallace’s political leanings assembled outside the Garden. Talking, chanting and singing, they had whipped themselves into their own ideological frenzy and now needed to express their emotions. And my Dad and I were on a collision course with this madness.

We needed to get to the Port Authority Bus Station about ten blocks away. As we trotted along, we didn’t speak but I could see the concern etched on my Dad’s face. In practically no time we and a small crowd of other people covered one, then two, then three blocks, all without incident. Angry shouts and screams of the mob came & went, bouncing off the building, carried by the wind so we couldn’t tell exactly where it was at any time. Police sirens now joined in the cacophonous symphony, a sign that at least some semblance of civilized society existed somewhere. Perhaps because of this we all slowed to a fast walk, and then to more of a leisurely stroll after going another two blocks.

Suddenly, my Dad stumbled and immediately clutched his left hand and I heard a glass bottle smash on the ground near him. Even in the poor luminescence cast by the overhead streetlamps I could recognize the crimson color of blood as it dripped from his hand. There, directly ahead of us, individuals were pouring into the intersection, filling it up like ants converging on a bread crumb. “Dad,” I screamed, “You’re bleeding!”

But he had already taken out his handkerchief, wrapped it around his injured hand and yanked it tight with his teeth. I was reminded this man had served in the Navy in WWII and witnessed its horrors first hand. He wouldn’t be deterred by a cut on his hand.

Grabbing my left with his good right hand, we ran after the others in our group and quickly veered into an alley. It was here, in the garbage strewn, two-car wide darkened expanse between adjacent buildings that I realized the strongest memory of that evening.

At one end of the alley, our group congregated, huffing and wheezing from the sprint we had just made. Then, at the other, members of the mob started to appear, backlit by streetlamps, jeering, gesticulating and shouting obscenities at us. But unnoticed in the middle of the alley until what appeared to be a flashlight illuminated its interior was a car. No engine was running, no voices were heard; just the light moving around inside. Then, a movement in the car drew the attention of groups at either end of the alley. Other than noise from the mob coursing through adjacent streets an eerie silence blanketed the little section of the city we occupied. What was going on inside that car? A clue was revealed as one of the doors opened slightly and the interior light went on.

A man slowly exited the vehicle. It was a Police officer – the biggest man I have ever seen outside of a professional athlete. There was no point of reference but he must have been about 6’10” tall. Although dressed in riot gear: helmet, protective vest, high leather boots and a belt with dangerous looking appurtenances, easily the most intimidating part of his outfit was the baton he held in his arms. This tree trunk of a weapon must have been at least 48” long; a full four feet if an inch. And the giant brandished it with absolutely no difficulty at all. He stood next to the car, legs slightly apart, holding the baton in his right hand and slowly tapping it into the palm of his left, over and over. His message was painfully clear: disband or be broken, probably in half.

A combination of police sirens, screeching tires and crowd noise then broke the spell that had held us all as the rest of the mob was now being round up by the authorities. In a few short months, Wallace became a has-been, segregation became a reality and the unrest of the 60s and 70s were relegated to the annals of history.

In New York City on the night of 10/24/1968, I watched with the eyes of a child but began to understand the mind of men.

$2 Billion for Alternative Energy Research

As the headline below indicates, the President is setting aside $2 billion for alternative energy research. But isn't this a case of déjà vu all over again? Haven't we heard this before? And does anyone really think the oil companies will sit back, let the rug be pulled out from under them and go off quietly into the night? Surely, they'll want a slice, or rather, the whole pie of this new initiative. Let's face it - if tomorrow it was determined that ground glass could operate cars instead of gas, Big Oil would own all the grinders and charge $4.00/pound for their efforts.

In the early 1960s, then President Kennedy said America would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Of course that goal was achieved, and the residual inventions that were realized (think computers, baby) changed the world forever.

Just imagine if President Obama challenged American industry to a similar goal...to create an EFFICIENT energy alternative to oil? Our country would once again become a technological world leader, with even China playing catch up.

Why can't anyone see this? (And yes, I know about the Solyndra debacle; simply throwing money at a problem without accountability has been proven precisely how not to solve it.)

Obama & Energy Research Funds

Crows & Brimstone

Sometimes I put the wrong octane rating of gas in my car. Other times I've been known to make a left-hand turn in my car instead of a right. But one thing I DO know is when an author of a book spins a tight, concise tale, yet still manages to draw in my interest. Writers Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (“Still Life With Crows,” “Brimstone,” etc.) have effectively done this to me, enticing me to return to their FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast books like a teenage boy on a second date after hitting a grand slam on the first. But a little background information is needed before I discuss particulars used by my current favorite authors.

Perhaps I've drawn you in right here, reading this post. (Apparently so since you're still plowing along!) I'm using the first person point of view (POV) here, speaking to you as if I'm sitting here, right next to you. Notice how I’m continually using the pronoun “I?” That’s an immediate give-away when you’re immersed in a book featuring the first person. Limitations to this method, as you can probably imagine, are if I can't see, feel hear or otherwise sense something, it can't be included in my conversation here.

There are three other methods of story delivery. The second person POV is generally used in genres catering to video games, self-help and travel articles. The pronoun “you” presents itself conspicuously in these works. And books written in the third person have the pronouns he, she and they dispersed generously throughout the story.

That leaves us with the final device of this category. It’s called the omniscient POV. An author using this method tells us a story from an all-knowing, god-like view point. Every single detail, nuance, feeling and fact, no matter how trivial, is presented to us via the god-like individual in a third person narrative. Omniscient also means past and future events can be revealed to us, too. A sub-category of the omniscient POV is the limited POV. This simply means while that same all-knowing viewpoint is utilized only one character is speaking or thinking at a time. And now, faster than our teenage friend up above can utter, “of course I love you,” I’ll switch back to my main men, authors Preston & Child.

Using a limited omniscient POV, our authors of note let us know what’s transpiring in their stories, advancing plots along steadily & assuredly. But I’ve noticed another interesting device used in the Pendergast stories. In both “Still Life With Crows” and “Brimstone,” a character close to Pendergast is used to ask those questions we’d ask if we were on the crime scene with him. In “Crows”, Corrie Swanson is a young Goth girl who is taken under the Special Agent’s wing. She, in turn, becomes a first hand witness to his indiosyncrasies, reactions to situations, ask clarifying questions what we’d ask them, etc. In “Brimstone”, Sgt. Vincent D’Agosta performs similar duties.

Granted I’ve only read the two books in this series but I believe by now inconsistencies in their stories would have been flushed out. All aspects in the stories have come to, IMHO, successful conclusions. In all fairness, I did uncover one area that had me a bit confused. While questioning the CEO of a company in “Crows,” Pendergast apparently guesses the combination of a safe. I note guesses because we aren’t informed if the numbers he recited to the CEO was, in fact, the safe’s combination. I thought this apparent oversight odd for the otherwise tightly knit story lines constructed by Preston & Child.

That said, you can start their series with “Relic.” But be warned – you’re apt to miss scheduled appointments, burn your dinner and if you dare read at night, oversleep the next morning. These books are extremely engrossing.

The Vacillating Senator

Headline: "G.O.P. Senator Says He Has a Gay Son, and Backs Gay Marriage." This joker was anti-gay until his son announced his interests. So I'm a bit confused here. If Senator Porter's a Republican & aligned himself with their platform, how can he change his view on this matter? And what of his constituency? If THEY are have a penchant towards a decidedly anti-gay stance, doesn't he have an obligation to listen to those same voters?

Look at the hypocrisy of his position. A democracy is a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections. With the operative phrase for our purpose in that last sentence "a system of representation," Porter is supposed to REPRESENT his constituency, not vacillate as fits his whim & fancy.

So, where the hell he get the right to do what he wants & the screw over the voters?

The Art of Vacillation

Better NOT Fly Those Friendly Skies

After the 9/11 tragedies, the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) was beefed up to be certain such incidents could not happen again. So when an undercover inspector for the TSA hid a fake bomb under his clothing on Feb. 25, 2013 and was cleared through not one but two separate security checkpoints at Newark International Airport, it was all the more disturbing.

In part, the First Amendment, Section 8 of our Constitution states: "Congress shall have power to...provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." Therefore, we have the right to expect our government will protect us from harm. Considering the TSA has dropped the ball and put US citizens in harm's way, it appears that someone, somewhere has definitely violated its obligation to the people.

The same First Amendment allows freedom of the press. More specifically, it permits newspapers, radio and broadcast media to inform the public of such a breach of security to the world. And thus the problem; the proverbial genie is now out of the bottle. With full knowledge of this incident, armed terrorists waltzing through airport security is now only a numbers game. What’s meant by this?

Stay with me here: the goal will now be to flood lines waiting to board jets with numerous bomb-carrying murderers, knowing at least one of them could very well get aboard a flight. And recently, the TSA allowed small knives to be carried on board. Such are the ingredients that comprise a recipe for disaster.

You now have to wonder…how long until terrorists make it through "security" & board your flight...or a loved one's?

Beijing Pollution

China has long been a country known to employ Draconian measures to solve social problems. Thousands of years ago, its Great Wall was constructed for the sole purpose of keeping foreigners out. More recently, a one child per family edict was issued to control a population exploding more rapidly than a troupe of rabbits that had chewed its way into a Viagra factory. And, the Three Gorges hydroelectric dam, the largest in the world, will provide power to people for years to come...but displaced an estimated 1.24 million residents.

Faced with an ever-growing pollution problem in Beijing, the Chinese were true to form in their response. Beginning in August, 2013, residents of this city of over 20 million people will be limited to breathing only 23 hours/day. Official recommend holding one’s breath periodically for 20-60 seconds at a time for compliance; over the course of a day, this should result in saving precious oxygen in the beleaguered city. 

People will be monitored with devices to affirm their compliance, and violators are to have their noses pinched shut for an hour. Ling Su Tso, deputy of the newly created Fresh Air Revival Team (FART), said, “Air is important to our people. We want them to conserve this precious resource.” 

Meanwhile, residents of Beijing are concerned about their health. Stepping up to the plate are local Chinese entrepreneurs who are selling paper & plastic bags filled with fresh air. And sterile face masks, once the trademark of Michael Jackson, are now more prevalent on the streets of Beijing than young boys at the late singer’s Neverland ranch. 

Tom Frisben, a US State Department liaison, was asked when travels would learn if they were subject to the breathing restrictions. “If you’re waiting for an answer from the Chinese, don’t hold your breath,” he replied.