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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Friday, July 08, 2005

Monkey See, Monkey Do? Works For Sheep! 

...while everybody's waiting around to see if Rhenquist is going to pull the plug today, I'll tell you this story while we wait...

...remember when your mom asked you, after some silly and probably dangerous stunt, "If your friends jumped off a cliff, does that mean you'd do it, too?" Well, it appears that if you're a sheep, the answer is yes. The conflict in my mind is stark: I so badly want to laugh about this, but I know that it represents a real tragedy for many of the families in this small Turkish village. My dilemma stems primarily from the fact that I've been around sheep (for purely agricultural purposes, of course) and I have to say that they aren't even close to being the MENSA candidates among the barnyard animal set. If you asked me in the absence of this story if sheep were capable of this sort of thing, I would have said "yes" in a heartbeat...
Posted by: Jack K. / 4:20 PM 0 comments

Simple Rules for Fugitives 

...generally speaking, if you are going to hang out with the sort of people who accuse you of things that get you slapped on the FBI Most-Wanted list and you are forced to flee across the border into Canada under an assumed name, one thing you should really try to avoid is getting caught in a situaton where it appears you are attempting to avoid paying for the pair of boltcutters you are leaving that Canadian hardware store with. If the misunderstanding gets out of hand and the police become involved, it very likely will come to light that you are considered a fugitive from American justice and stand accused of being associated with a group the FBI calls a terrorist organization. At that point, people are going to be wanting to know just exactly why you wanted those boltcutters; it can only go downhill from there. This is the position that the former Michael Scarpitti, better known around Oregon as Tre Arrow, finds himself in these days. Yesterday, buried in all the tragedy and anger of the London bombings, came the news that a Canadian court has ordered his extradition back to Oregon to face charges related to the firebombing of trucks at a Portland rock quarry and an Estacada logging company...

...Arrow has been attempting to seek political asylum in Canada because he says the US government is conspiring to silence him with trumped up charges and loose talk of terrorism:

“I am innocent of the charges the U.S. government is trying to pin on me,” Arrow said. “Just as many other activists have experienced, I am being targeted by the U.S. government and the FBI, not because I am guilty but because I have chosen to challenge the status quo.”

...that may be true. True conspiracy buff's know about a lot of questionable government activities and black helicopters are said to hover outside certain bedroom windows on a nightly basis. His asylum request is on hold right now because of the extradition fight, and that boltcutter thing isn't going to help his case very much either. Unfortunately for Tre, however, his direct legal problems don't stem solely from an evil government cabal attempting to remove him from the scene so much as they do from the fact that at least some of the three folks who have been convicted for the firebombings have directly accused him of being involved...

...given all that we've seen from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and other sites where federal employees interrogate suspected "terrorists", Heaven only knows how it came to pass that these people happened to give up Tre Arrow's name, but there it is. He no doubt must be disappointed that they didn't bring honor to their cause by sticking to name, rank, and serial number instead of freely batting his name around in front of FBI investigators because of the strength it lends to the federal case against him. His appeal of the extradition decision will delay things for a few months but things don't look good on that front, and the Department of Justice - on the strength of testimony of alleged coconspirators - is probably already trying to pick out just the right cell within which to lodge him during what they undoubtedly hope is a lengthy stint in the bowels of the federal prison system. All of this just goes to show that the simple rules are the most important to follow; if you need a set of boltcutters while on the lam and outside the country, borrow some or, if you want to be anonymous and keep people from gettin' all over in your business, buy a cheap Goodwill suite, shave your hair and your beard, and get a set of drug store glasses before you go to the hardware store to pay cash for a set. Life stays so much less complicated that way...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:52 AM 0 comments

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Make skippy a Millionaire 

...ok, so not really, but skippy the bush 'roo's third anniversary is fast approaching and he's so close to that millionth hit he can just about feel it in his pouch...so to speak. Anyway, he's got that same hungering look, like a presidential candidate at the convention, just a handful of votes shy of the nut needed to capture the nomination and willing to do just about anything. Help a worthy marsupial out; we need to put him over the top before he's reduced to standing on some grim L.A. street corner with a battered cardboard sign reading "will work for blog-hits" or, worse yet, makes Cookie Jill or Pudentilla stand out there. Stop by; there's always something good going on...and our 'roo needs your help...
skippy the bush kangaroo
Posted by: Jack K. / 2:35 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Expanding On A Good Idea 

...the news that Washington State will be placing State Troopers in the cabs of semi trucks to look out for drivers who drive irresponsibly around the big rigs is certainly good news, but not necessarily for the obvious reasons. You see, in my neck of the Oregon woods where we have a heavily travelled two-lane highway, one of the biggest vehicular threats that regularly presents itself is the speeding big rigs. Because of the traffic flows, they will occasionally find themselves bottled up and unable to pass someone like...oh, say, me, who doesn't particularly relish the idea of driving at the speed of electrons in the early morning hours on a highway that is generally lined with the corpses of all those deer whose fatally flawed sense of timing led them astray (my insurance man once told me that there are two types of people in this area, those who have hit deer and those who will). Many's the occasion when I - unwilling to drive 75 mph but unable to find a safe place to pull over - have been able to see in my rearview mirror only the "N W O" of the Kenworth immediately behind me for a long.....long....time. So I'm supportive of this Washington pilot program and I can't wait until it comes to Oregon. In fact, I just might write all my elected representatives to encourage them to provide sufficient funding to put a trooper in the cab of every semi. It would be a good thing for everybody...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:40 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

The Peril of Unintended Consequences 

...every so often you run across a story that seems to lack all the facts necessary to help it actually make sense. As a result, it becomes one of those "hunh?
!?!" moments. This is one of those stories...

...ah, the mind just reels with questions. Was anybody else trying to rescue this guy while this was going on? If there were enough emergency personnel to be telling this guy to get out of the water, why weren't there enough to be out there participating in the rescue? Who's efforts exactly was this guy interfering with? Instead of arresting him, have they given any consideration to hiring him? Strange, strange stuff....
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:59 AM 0 comments

Sunday, July 03, 2005

The Rich Aren't Like Us.... 

...it's a wonderful little story, really. Not an Oregon story per se, but one coming out of my birth-state of Idaho that says it all about the perceived nature of the lives that we live versus those of the truly well-to-do. The short version of this little tale is that Sun Valley, Idaho, a wholly corrupted mountain redoubt of the rich and famous, is the home to an annual retreat of the fabulously rich and famous. This retreat just happens to fall this year at the end of the Fourth of July weekend. The local airport manager, rightfully (I suppose) concerned about air traffic around the airport, declared to the FAA that he intended to close the airport at certain times to all VFR (visual flight regulation) aircraft, essentially closing the facility to small-guy private aviation aircraft for the exclusive use of the sorts of big dollar big time private business aircraft that the wealthy are accustomed to using. The national association representing general aviation private aircraft (just like you and me except they decided to fritter their money away on small airplanes instead of beer, cars, and the constant youthful quest for willing sexual partners...thank God we outgrew all that, eh?) challenged the closures with the FAA and managed to get the Big Dogs to overrule the airport manager. Recriminations now abound...

...this is a great story, at least as long as you're not planning on flying into or out of the Haily, Idaho, airport over the next few days; if you are...well, via con dios, my friend. It's a classic "big guys vs. little guys" story, and - to be honest - it really doesn't matter whether any of those little guys are "short-notice" charter pilots, as the airport manager accuses. Even though the egalitarian nature of American has been generally lost on certain select places like Sun Valley, the fact remains that anything short of the approach of Air Force One is a pretty slim reason to begin selectively limiting the right of movement of Americans who don't have the good sense to become rich fat cats with multi-million-dollar aircraft and highly trained IFR-rated pilots at their command. It would be one thing if there were something like an airshow going on at the airport; restrictions are common, known well in advanced, and generally accepted under those circumstances. This, however, nothing more than an effort to address the convenience of the wealthy class at the expense of the little guy. This little saga says just about all that that needs to be said about the twisted nature of what our society has become, the degree to which privelege and expectations have taken control of what was taught to us in school about a neutral, open society. The interesting thing is that it is, as so much of the perks that we accord to the ruling class are, something of which they may not even be aware, being - as is so often the case - the effort of a well-meaning airport manager to make smooth the path for their convenience. Angry words are flying, and so will a whole bunch of airplanes over the next several days, but the bottom line is that the ruling class has no prior right to use of the airport in question. If there is a problem to be addressed, maybe it should be addressed in the future by limiting the number of business aircraft that can use the facility at any one time. Maybe some of the big-bucks attendees can share a plane...
Posted by: Jack K. / 9:15 PM 0 comments

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