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July 4 2014 Rockaway Park NY in the 43rd year of The Society |
Winning the Hearts and Minds
Lynndie Rana England was born in 1982 in Ashland, Kentucky. Her father was a railroad worker. The family moved to Fort Ashby, West Virginia, when Lynndie was two. Fort Ashby is a very small place and like most small towns in America, apple-pie featured regularly on the menu. Lynndie, according to Bush Jnr, was raised on it. She married James L Fike in 2002 at age twenty but shortly afterwards divorced. After leaving school, she joined the US Army reserves to help pay her way through college. She also worked as a cashier in a supermarket. Then she was sent to I-raq in 2003 and there she met Graner, and at twenty-two, she was no doubt an attractive filly for a comparatively young man in his early thirties. In an interview she gave to Stern magazine, a popular German ¨glossy¨ rather like Time, she said, ¨I followed Graner. I did everything he wanted me to do. I didn`t want to lose him.¨ Whether this was true – or whether she was a female sadist – I leave up to the reader, but I guess it was false, and she was. In 2007, she wrote (presumably ghost-written) a book entitled Tortured Lynndie England: Abu Ghraib and the Photographs that Shocked the World.
Those photographs sure did shock the world. Little is known to the Average Joe about prisons but they do tend to attract sadist-guards. More – many more of these photographs – were released to the US Senate but they were never publicly released, not even at Lynndie`s trial, and so we do not know what was in them. Lynndie herself confessed, ¨You see the dogs biting the prisoners. Or you see bite marks from the dogs. You can see MPs holding down a prisoner so the medics can give him a shot.¨ According to Jeremy Sivits, one of several detainees put on trial for his part in Abu Ghraib, who got one year, the pair of them, she and Charles Graner, were seen ¨stomping¨ on prisoners` fingers and toes. Then there is the infamous picture of her watching a man masturbate. How many times she saw that and if she helped the guys to come, is not recorded.
In a BBC interview on her role at Abu Ghraib, she never once evinced remorse at what she had done. She is on record as saying, ¨Compared to what they would do to US, that`s like, nothing.¨ In this, she is comparing the treatment of some American soldiers, whose bodies were abused, by being dragged through the streets of Baghdad. However, one abuse, one base act of inhumane treatment does not deserve another, does it? Lynndie also compares the abuse of prisoners to what goes on regularly in Boot Camp and College fraternities and sororities, but I think it went a little further than that, although bullying does take place in these groups. To the question of whether she was responsible for her actions at Abu Ghraib, she replies: ¨Yes. Because I was dumb enough to be there.¨ However, you might think that terrorists deserve everything they get. But many of the Abu Ghraib inmates were not terrorists at all but ¨Regular guys rounded up in bar brawls.¨ Furthermore, dogs are Haram (=forbidden) to Moslems. Dogs and pigs are unclean. Moslems like Jews do not eat pork and you can be put in prison in Saudi for possession of a can of it (which the Filipino stewardesses – and don`t Filipinos just love it – gleefully smuggle in). The mere touching of a dog by a Moslem is looked upon as unclean, so all the dog-checks done at Customs by dogs on illicit substances such as drugs, cannot be done in Moslem countries. Mongooses are sometimes used.
However, in 2003, Lynndie was sent to Iraq, where she met her lover, Charles Graner. She was a private but had the rank of ¨specialist¨. Her duties were administrative. However, she regularly went at nights to the prison to meet Graner there. Perhaps she had intercourse with him after watching men masturbate. Such things are titillating to a sadist. One thing is certain. She had one man on a leash. And a mass of naked men piled up in a pyramid. We have all seen pictures of that.
Lynndie was tried in Texas, in the Bush-bush country. Mr Prezzie, Bushy-tailed and squirrel (read: squinty)-eyed was ably abetted by Do`nut Rumpsfelt ( Min of Defense and the Brains of the duo & Grand Vizir) with ¨Con¨-dollar (¿dolor? – in the butt) Rice bringing up the rear of our trio. The result could hardly be in doubt. Her defense did a deal with the prosecution, whereby she would have gotten eleven years. To the consternation and incomprehensibility of all (as there were no case-law precedents), the judge called it a mistrial, on the grounds that Lynndie would know of her guilt due to her having already heard Graner testify (!?). In her resulting trial, she was given a dishonorable discharge and three years, of which she served about eighteen months (521 days). She emerged to have written (although she was quite brainless so someone else must have written it) an `autobiography`(at age 22?). Charles Graner got ten years, a relatively light sentence in view of his age and his role as ringleader in the merry romp. Others got from zero to eight-and-a-half years. Although during an interview for Denver TV on May 11th 2004, she claimed to have acted as ¨instructed by those in higher ranks¨, she never went further into this. A number of officers were inculpated and relieved of their duties, however, but were never court martialled. Was she acting on instructions from above? Was Do`nit Rumpsfelt to blame for issuing the instructions, or, at least, for turning a blind eye to what was going on? I do not think we will ever know. However, speculation can be a good thing. At best, looking facts honestly in the face we can say that the President did allow a prison culture to flourish in which he – or his subordinates – put prison guards in, who must have been known to have at least sadistic tendencies. And the buck does stop here.
Lynndie presently lives with relatives back in fort Ashby, West Virginia. She has found work as a seasonal secretary. As of 2009, she is on anti-depressants and suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress. She has received death threats. She was found guilty of inflicting physical, sexual and psychological abuse on Iraqi prisoners of war. What a way to end up! And she hasn`t made thirty yet. She is probably the most notorious woman in American history with the exception of ¨Bonnie¨ in Bonnie and Clyde.
Jeff Wordsmith
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Charles Frederickson:
Self Help
Personal reform requires a commitment to a positive attitude and affirmative mindset. I`d like to share 10 self-perception inspirational thoughts that may help you get motivated to become intentional about charting your future life and currently setting your own sails for an incredible voyage:
1. accept responsibility for your life existence; it`s only you who`ll get you where you want and need to go – nobody else.
2. when you passionately desire success, never give up on your discovery search no matter how frustrating it may become;
3. don`t regret things you`ve done; only regret the things you didn`t do when you had the chance;
4. believe in yourself; have faith in your abilities to make seemingly improbable things possible;
5. embrace each new day with humble but reasonable confidence and a sunshiny hopeful can do, will do outlook;
6. learn from the mistakes you make, improving and growing from them;
7. build on your strengths; devote dynamic energy to things you enjoy doing and do well;
8. don`t let what you can`t do stop you from accomplishing what you instinctively feel you can, must, will do;
9. settle for achievable excellence; aiming for unachievable perfection is overrated;
10. design your own life plan blueprint, and constantly revise it, never giving up or giving in.
No Holds Bard Charles Frederickson
Rockaway Park Philosophical Society
P.O. Box 280
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779
10 July 2014
James Harding, Director of News and Current Affairs.
BBC Broadcasting House
Portland Place
London W1A 1AA
Reference: BBC interview of former Sp4 Lyndie England
Dear Mr James Harding:
The Gentlemen of the Rockaway Park Philosophical Society bid you greetings. Recently, the Society was discussing US war crimes in Irak, more particularly the US torture camp at Abu Grave which bears the Orweillian moniker Camp `Freedom.' One of our number raised the most fascinating interview with Lyndie England formerly Sp4 US Army National Guard, (USARNG), the supposed ringleader-ette of the Abu Grave atrocities in 2004. This interview though recorded in 2010 was only recently aired in the US on WNYCE public radio. As some of our members served in military law and military law enforcement capacities, this item was of profound importance.
In the past the Society had been impressed with the impartiality and even handedness of BBC reportage. We did recall a BBC report on the troubles in Ulster in 1980. Even though the IRA had just then paid a courtesy call on your own Queen's Household Cavalry, in the midst of such provocation, the BBC faithfully reported views on both sides of the controversy.
Regrettably we cannot say the same of your interview of England by Hillery Anderson. We regret to conclude despite our prior acknowledgement of the BBC as an impartial and reliable source of news, the BBC spread nothing less than US propaganda, the only thing the US proved to be good at in the Gulf War, and feeds the self-satisfying pillars of US White Liberalism: feeling good about themselves and feeling morally superior.
You told less than half the story.
Lets turn back to 2004, when The Bush, a Vietnam Era deserter from the Texas Guard, decked himself out in a triple extra large airforce jumper hand sewn in Brazil to dramatically declare victory in Irak, a pity the Irakis missed that announcement. No account of Abu Grave would be complete without a consideration of The Bush himself who represented in the words of Jacques Chirac of France all that is wrong with the US: inflated, vain, crude, ignorant, boastful and empty. Those were the Bush's more sublime qualities. In 2004, the Bush was boasting of "enhanced interrogation techniques" on Arab POWs. Up at Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz was penning most scholarly tomes on the virtue of torture. In Washington, the silk suited US attorneys swishing through the corridors of power were fervently writing the torture memos, detailing the tortures and requesting the opportunity to be present. These were Emailed to Abu Grave. One of these creatures became Attorney General; another now teaches at a sublime institution in sunny western climes where he was welcomed by The White Liberals as a caring and loving professor of law. What law he professes might be a mystery even to him. What occurred in Abu Grave and Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay) was designed in Washington by silk suited Justice Department lawyers. It was definitely not, contrary to your reporter, invented by a female Specialist Four who ranks in precedence lower than a corporal in the British Army. What these creatures bewitched by power do not understand about war which they saw naught of is that no enemy will surrender to face the tortures White Liberals devised for ignorant rubes like England to inflict.
How many US soldiers came home feet first or legless because the enemy would no longer give up voluntarily is the issue the Justice Department had not considered as the US descended under The Bush Regime into a state of non-law.
Now, we've spoke of what was left out of the report, lets talk about the interview itself. What particularly struck us about its one-sidedness was the line your reporter fed England that she regretted her actions brought discredit on the US Army. That was a very generous remark. The US Army threw England under the bus, the scape goat that warmed the hearts of all US White Liberals with their inflated sense of self-righteousness. This fit the US White Liberal's image of the West Virginian, utterly clueless. The US White Liberal is little more than a rhetorician of nice words laced with hypocrisy, firm in the belief that most people are either too stupid or too intimidated to voice disagreement.
England spent a year and a half in jail for the sins of others. What happened to them is the more interesting story. One became attorney general; another a professor at a White Liberal institution. But of course, the real story might injure the sensibilities of The White Liberal and disrupt their perception of themselves.
But why should the US White Liberals care? Savoring the epitome of liberal effetism , that smug moral superiority, they may confidently order others to administer torture so that the blessings of US democracy will be bestowed upon the wretched of the earth in total fulfillment of the prevailing US schizophrenia.
We therefore congratulate The BBC for its presentation of a most excellent piece of US propaganda.
It is on that note we bid you A Most Cheery Cherio,
Sincerely,
FOR THE SOCIETY,
HARRISON ALFRED ANDREWS
HAA/dfs
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Dr Charles Fredrickson:
CONTRIBUTION
"Progress" is both a verb and a noun, meaning to advance fast-forward for gradual betterment, especially the progressive development of humankind. Abraham Lincoln advocated a "tum dee dai dee" Buddhist-like tolerance and compassion, declaring "When I do... good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion." I offer a few more of Lincoln's homespun philosophical gems to respectfully help guide Army General Prayuth Chan-ocha and the National Council for Peace and Order:
l "Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be."
l "I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."
l "If you forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem."
l "These men ask for just the same thing, fairness and fairness only. This, so far as it is in my power, they, and all others, shall have."
l "He has a right to criticise, who has a heart to help."
l "The people will save the government if the government itself will allow them."
l "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better."
l "Our defence is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy that spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors."
l "I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end."
No Holds Bard Dr Charles Frederickson
Thomas Dean: MADE IN US
Dr James Davies The Lord Mentor of the Society questioned the Dean on how products bearing made in US labels may be manufactured elsewhere.To answer your question about putting - MADE IN US- ribbons on things manufactured elsewhere and calling that manufacturing, I refer you to the Teachings of the Dean. No doubt you were busy checking your notes when the Dean spoke.
When power, real power is lost first a threatened social group takes refuge in the vanishing illusion of it and once it has entirely dwindled away, the memory of it. You may recall my illustration of Goering and Donitz each claiming precedence as successor to der Fuher in the cafeteria of Nuremburg Prison. It must have been comical to your predecessors in the MP corps to have watched the scene.
There are two contradicting forces involved. Rationalization and Self Delusion. Rationalization accommodates The Dream with some semblance of reality. Somebody must want to win over some Deutschland, preferably the Americans or other Western allies, but the Russians might do in a pinch.
Then there is Self-Delusion. The Dream somehow lives on.
Of Course the Mentor had to hear from Dr. Douglas Kelly, MD staff psychiatrist at Nuremberg Prison, and fall into a great funk before he would believe it.
It would be unfair of the Dean solely to criticize White Liberals in general for worshiping an Empire of Wishful Thinking. Indeed perhaps the entire conservative movement is guilty of living in the pretense and illusion phase of the flight of Real power. They seek not a return to the Good Old Days of pre FDR but to the artificial political culture of WWII: unity, respect, sacrifice.
Those are not bad things and the Dean may have certain sympathy.
For The Society
THOMAS DEAN
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CHARLES FREDRICKSON:
HOLY MACARANA MAJOR WORLD RELIGION
Only sport played in every
Country around rotating spherical globe
Defeatist loser mentality thinking squad
Shoulda coulda woulda might`ve didn`t
Team sport sense of togetherness
Combining experience balanced with youth
Requiring gritty perseverance sacrifice dedication
Practice practice more committed practice
It`s not the will to
Win but willful positive mindset
Being ever-prepared to win finding
Different insights to achieve goals
Best teams often are eliminated
Not believing they can hard
Enough regretfully upsetting compromised expectations
Deflating swelled ego nationalistic pride
Anything can happen probably will
Nothing simulated playing for real
Uniting uneven odds enthusiastic motivation
Catching fever pass it on
Passion evolves in 4-year cycles
2018 Olympics World Cup bids
The future isn`t something we
Enter it`s something we create
~ No Holds Bard Charles Frederickson
RPPS Corp
PO Box 280
Ronkonkoma NY 11779
visit our web site at:
Fullosia Press
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07 August 2014
Editor USA Today
7950 Jones Branch Drive
McLean VA 22108
Reference: The Reduction in Force USA TODAY 2/28/14 p 9A
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Dear Sir or Madam:
The Gentlemen of the Rockaway Park Philosophical Society bid you greetings. Recently we were discussing the sabre rattling of THE HISTORIC PRESIDENT at Syria, Iran, most recently ISIS or ISIL as you prefer, and The Russian Federation when one of our number raised the most interesting discussion on p9A of the USA TODAY edition of February 28, 2014 in which THE HISTORIC PRESIDENT's decision to take various divisions out of the battle line and to reduce authorised strength of the Armed Forces to a pre 1940 level. We were stunned of the lack of insight on both sides of the argument.
The US drifts on in a state of self-delusion. What THE HISTORIC PRESIDENT has done is shrink authorised strength to actual strength and delete undermanned units. The problem since 9-11-01 notwithstanding various periods of public outbursts of patriotic gore is that no one has enlisted. If in 1941 (WWII) everybody gave their all, in 1950 (Korea) most gave a lot, and in 1964 (Vietnam) many did something, after 9-11 no one did anything. An army less than the size of Switzerland was kept in the field by recycling those unlucky enough to have been under obligation on 9-10-01 until their brains turned to mush or they just stopped showing up. The US excelled only at propaganda. I accused President GW Bush, a deserter in the Vietnam era dubbed by US media as The Voice of Courage, of living in a WWII movie. The HISTORIC PRESIDENT Barak Hussein Obama aka Barry Soetoro by contrast lives in a Chuck Norris movie where pop up legions simply materialise out of thin air and pull off phenomenal feats against the odds. A pity that didn't work at Benghazi where Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens THE HISTORIC PRESIDENT's personal representative was brutally raped and murdered! Of course we do hope THE HISTORIC PRESIDENT enjoyed himself that evening dancing with Beyonce.
The difference is that a WWII propaganda movie has some grain of truth, Chuck Norris movies of stupendous men and deeds are pure fiction. Nevertheless it is dangerous to start believing in your own propaganda and start planning on that basis.
Now The HISTORIC PRESIDENT wants to attack Russia over the desire of the Russian people in the rump state of Ukraine to reunite with Holy Russia. We have several suggestions for him after the delusion fades away: pull out the race card, sick the so-called Justice Department on Russia, organise a protest rally and start a sit-in. These might actually work better than his imaginary wonder weapons and legions of imaginary troops. I find it ironic that THE HISTORIC PRESIDENT wants to fight Russia over the Ukraine to support DRAG NACH OSSTEN, exactly where Hitler also armed with pervasive propaganda, imaginary legions, and imaginary wonder weapons failed.
It is on that note The Society bids you A Most Cheery Cheerio!
Very truly yours,
Harrison Alfred Andrews
HAA/dfs
The (Kim)-Il-logical Case of the Japanese Abductees
In the early part of my life, I have dabbled at being an English language teacher. That means purveying the English language and culture in the wider world. Unfortunately, no one wants to go to North Korea to teach. Perhaps the wages are too low. However, the North Koreans appear to have come up with an ingenious answer to this – abduct people. Various people have been abducted, particularly from Japan, to teach the Japanese language and culture to spies in North Korea, who can then pass themselves off as undercover agents. Moreover, the depredations of the North Koreans extend to the Chinese. People have been snatched from the North-East region of the People`s Republic of China and particularly people of North Korean origins have been abducted. Otherwise, it`s been a mixed bag: one Thai woman, a brace of Lebanese, one Romanian woman, one French, Italian and Dutch woman, one Jordanian, four Malaysians and a Singaporean woman. Women appear to be preferred above men but not always. The abductions have been going on since the 1970s but Japan, for instance, who is the chief target, has done very little about it. However, it may be said: ¨The abduction issue has become very central to Japan`s North Korean policy and Japan`s participation in the Six-Party Talks. Most importantly, ¨Tokyo has kept conditioning its provision of economic incentives, widely deemed to be crucial to a comprehensive and lasting solution of the nuclear concentration on the establishment of diplomatic relations with North Korea – a development which, in turn, hinges on a resolution of the abduction issue.¨ ¨
Why, on Earth, do the North Koreans do it? It may be indeed that they want to train spies. However, you or I could not pass for Russians or even East Germans, with a mere three years` training. There would always be some tell-tale trace of accent. And since North Korean and Japanese are very different – but albeit related languages – you wouldn`t really get past first base there in learning the language. Really, we are brought face-to-face with the fact that the North Koreans are abducting people for the sheer Hell of it and because they like to. With the exception of the one lady, who fooled a Middle East airline – who do not speak much Japanese – that she was an Oriental lady of the Japanese kind and promptly blew up the plane in question – a case of which I will touch upon presently – there is no evidence of North Korean `spies` being trained to infiltrate the Japanese, in spite of what Western newspapers might like to believe. It seems to me highly unlikely that `sleepers` could be put in, in this way. Though they could be put in, in a number of other ways, of course. Whatever is going on, it appears to be a brainwave of Kim Il-Jong, who has now succeeded Papa Doc. Some twelve years ago, the then-time Prime Minister of North Korea, Juichivo Kunizumi, did visit Japan to give an apology from Kim Jong-Il, who admitted to the abduction and provided death-certificates, which later proved to be falsifications, for several people. In November, 2006, two of the abductees were allowed to return to Japan, where they identified their chief abductors as Sun-Gwang (Kwang)-Sun, who later told police in South Korea that he had been acting under the personal orders of Kim Jong-Il.
The current situation is that there were only really ever thirteen abductees and that since five of them had been returned and pretty-well all the rest are dead, there is nothing left to get hot under the collar about. However, this is just not true. There were, in fact, many more abductees than North Korea has ever admitted and some of them need to be returned. The Japanese government considers that the issue has not been resolved and that the North Korean government has even been forging evidence. Japan received international support for its predicament over the abductees. Kofi Annan in a speech to the Japanese Diet raised the subject and spoke against it, expressing sympathy with the victims and their families. Later in the same year of 2004, the US Congress passed the North Korean Human Rights Act condemning what the hi-jacked people and their families must be going through. The South Koreans also expressed concern but in rather muted language so as not to damage North-South Korean relations. People had also gone missing from South Korea, however. At the present state of play, the number of abductees is put at around 485.
Now, returning to the case of Hyon-Lui, the woman plane hi-jacker. She apparently boarded a plane in the Middle East with her male partner, getting off in the nick of time, and blew the plane sky-high, killing 115 passengers. For which she received the death penalty. She had learned Japanese from a female Japanese abductee and successfully passed herself off – to Middle Easterners – as a Japanese woman. However, she was soon on free foot and wrote a best-selling autobiography, the proceeds of which, she devoted to helping the families of those she had killed. A laudable act, you might say (or not?). She also informed Japanese officials of the extent of the abductee ring and seems to have been quite content with her new role of helping the police with their enquiries. No doubt, we will be able to welcome into our ranks this illustrious writer, who can no doubt go on to write spy novels to follow up ¨Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy¨ ad infinitum and enjoy full rights accruing.
However, it otherwise remains really baffling as to why the North Koreans have willy-nilly abducted people from Japan, South Korea and Northern China. Are these really a serious attempt to train spies to work in these countries? Is the going rate for an instructor in Japanese so far beneath the rate paid to a British Council teacher (this being the top payer for English language teachers abroad from the UK) as being quite unattractive financially for a Japanese teacher to enroll? Why weren`t just teachers targeted instead of the rag-tag and bobtail of the people who were, including one thirteen-year old girl, one waitress etc. ? the mind boggles at the answers. I would go for the simplest answer. It`s all a question of Oriental tit-for-tat. Whenever Japan or South Korea gets out of line – according to Kim Il-Jong`s way of thinking – the North Koreans simply abduct someone. And the Japanese with their inscrutable politeness simply save face by acting as if nothing were happening. It all has to do with Kim Il-Jong`s notion of getting his own back. Heaven alone – or the Chinese – may save us from this nuclear-bomb brandishing jumped up dictator of a crackpot country far out beyond the Pillars of Hercules!
Jeff Wordsmith
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ROBERT L MARTIN:
EXTRA INNINGS
Preseason Jitters
Even though the sun had disappeared behind the horizon, the mid-summer heat was still unbearable. As I sat on the bench, I was sweating profusely. I sat there looking at my helmet wondering if I would ever get the chance to put it on and go into the game. The first stringers were in there. The coach wanted to see how they all jelled; then he wanted to evaluate the rookies. That was my chance. My time came in the fourth quarter to show what I, a walk on free agent, was made of. I was scared. Please don’t throw the ball my way. My palms were sweaty. My knees were shaking. I felt a lump in my throat. My head felt light. I was lucky I didn’t faint, because maybe that would be my only chance to impress the coach and make the team. I tripped and fell when I ran out onto the field amid all the laughter that was aimed at me. There I was, alone out there with man to man coverage. They gave me the job of trying to cover a rookie, a first round draft pick, All-American, who ran a 4.30 40 yd. dash at the combines. I wanted to quit and go home, but I stayed there, hoping for the best. He came at me like a locomotive, then cut to the left. Instead of falling down, I ran with him; then when the ball was late, I jumped the route and luckily the ball floated into my hands. I grabbed it and ran it back for a pick six. “Fear no more.” That was my first experience on the field. Since then, my confidence grew each day. Maybe it was my good karma, or my reward for being true to my faith, or just plain being lucky when the ball fell into my arms. It was that one fleeting moment that could have gone either way that I experienced as I made the team as a cornerback in nickel situations. I owe my success to that one pass that floated on the quarterback. When life gave me that one moment to seize, I couldn’t let it go by.
~ Robert L. Martin
Trees
Of your resilience I stand in awe
Battle worn but yet still able
Through seasons of demolition you stand
You hold your head high and mighty
Your feet travel an uncharted course
Gathering strength along the way
Through darkened matter with thirsty eyes
To settle and hold the veins of life
Your arms adorned with transitory emeralds
Reach out and shield our sweaty faces
The eyes of the sun with their brutal assault
Comes to be when summer is on high
You play with children with your silent revelry
Offering your steadfast body to rest
Friends for life and a life to come
May God watch over and keep you safe
~ Robert L. Martin
Squeaky Clean
How can baseball and football clean up their sports when human nature in general is far from being squeaky clean? Notoriety has its own price to pay. It is exalting as much as it is belittling. When an athlete is involved in a domestic dispute, it is his own business and nobody else’s. Because he is popular, he is no more evil than someone who isn’t. How many times did you have a fight with your spouse? Should you be punished for it? Depending upon the severity of it, a private reconciliation is all that is needed to repair an ill feeling that needs its gusto. Isn’t that what intimacy is all about? If we didn’t fight with our loved ones, should we let our disagreements fester in our systems until it turns to rage? Are we suppose to smile at each other and pretend that our disagreements didn’t happen? Marriage between professional athletes is the same as marriage between any other man and wife. We argue and fight. If we fight all the time, we have to go away from each other. That is just human nature. Nobody wants to be around somebody if they fight all the time. The media has no right to meddle in other peoples’ business. Everybody on this earth has a temper. Just because an athlete has one, it doesn’t mean that he is committing a crime and that he should be publicly chastised for it. He is no different from anybody else. Too bad for you; MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL. You will never clean up the sport. Human nature is always the same as it always was; besides, the media will continue to exploit human weaknesses to sell their stories. Who wants to hear something nice about athletes? We humans will always cheat if we can get away with it. We will always argue and fight with our spouses. We will continue to break the laws. We will just keep on living like we always have before. We can try to be totally righteous, but it is in our nature to fall short of it. The squeaky clean person to represent professional sports is one out of a million. He is a holy man who lives exactly how God created him with the same gentle, uncorrupted mind.
~ Robert L. Martin
The Blur
I stood in the batter’s box
Palms were sweaty, knees shaking
Stomach churning, light headed
Felt like fainting, feeling nauseous
My heart in my mouth
Felt my pants getting wet
Bat weighed a ton, or maybe an ounce
My arms and legs felt like spaghetti
Pitcher’s mound seemed like two feet away
Pitcher was ten feet tall
A killer look in his eyes
He was the hunter, I was the prey
I wish I was ten miles away
I wish I never took up this game
I wanted to go home and forget about it
He released the ball
It was that blur coming at me
One hundred miles an hour
A little chin music so they say
I fell back as it went down the middle
Strike one, then strike two
Strike three, then I was out, thank God
Glad I don’t have to see
That % & # ^ * for a while
Time for a drink
~ Robert L. Martin
That Extra Yard
The end stretches up,
Forth, and beyond
That familiar playground
For all who dare
Relinquishment is a
Forbidden thought
That extra yard
My extra yard
I run, I persist
I bleed, I live
I have my place
My allegiant creed
For football takes
Me to my fate
I breathe it all in
For that extra yard
~ Robert L Martin
DR CHARLES FREDRICKSON:
RECONFIGURED MAPOSPHERE
Just as World War I transformed the Middle East by ending Ottoman rule, the Arab Spring recalibrated power-play featuring diminished oily Western influence motives. Realigning borders in the volatile region, shifted tactical alliances vying to establish a less chaotic new order were reshaped to favor vested national interests. Today, the challenges our quickly-changing globe faces include depleted energy sources, water shortages, soaring food costs, climate change, global warming and population growth, all having serious eco-environmental implications which require brilliant innovative solutions. The dismal legacy we’re passing on to future generations ranges from careless greedy pollution to extinction of finite resources as well as tragically ignored endangered species plants and animals concerns. Global change begins with empowerment through progressive education – celebrating literacy, raising awareness, broadening perspectives and instilling a love of reading habit in motivated learners. Unemployment among 15-to-24-year-olds is above 25%, with nowhere to go for jobless youth but the streets. In the Middle East and North Africa, committed youth played a major role in bringing down authoritarian regimes. Optimally, Generation XL might help speed global economic development growth and institute reforms of obsolete systems and outdated procedures. Technological advances in Telecommunications and their worldwide dissemination has opened previously slammed doors for the highly educated and IT- savvy young adults representing tomorrow’s fast-forward leaders who helped foment a peaceful revolution and digital reformation, summed up by John F. Kennedy: “A videotape is more potent than ten thousand words.” Shouldn’t we repay their brave dedication to common good ideals, adopting youthful wondrous optimism when it comes to confronting and overcoming planetary challenges?
No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson Bangkok, Thailand
Robert L Martin:
Heaven`s Delineation
Is heaven exactly sixty four and a third miles up from earth, forty three miles in length, thirty two miles high, and twenty seven miles wide?
Does it have high walls and barbed wire around it? Does it have a sign saying, "Private Property, No Trespassing?"
Will the man holding the rifle outside, let you in if you ate your vegetables or helped an old lady across the street? Does he even care if you did all those things, or does he just shoot on sight without asking any questions?
Does heaven float down to earth once in a while and enter into dens of wayward passion to pleasure the senses? Is it the sweet nectar that passes through carnal lips on its ecstatic journey? Is it in the battle cry of the warrior, brandishing his bloody sword? Is it an evil being that swoops down and gathers you up for a hearty meal?
Does it come to all who punish those who choose their own way to worship? Does it only come to black people, or white people, Orientals, Latinos, rich people, or poor people?
Or does it tame itself and come to a place where kindness and peace prevail?
Is it in a virgin smile, a child`s eyes, a sunlit day, or a merciful rain shower?
Is it a place where only those who can see the unseen can bear witness to it? Does it only reveal itself through death? Is it a place where religions look to find their way? Is it the Kingdom that appears before the faithful, the ones that follow the course of love, the peacemaker of all religions?
I believe in a benevolent heaven and a pure, unbiased, love of God.
~ Robert L. Martin
RPPS CORP
PO Box 280
Ronkonkoma NY 11779
March 13, 2014
Hon. Kristen Gillibrand
Long Island Office
155 Pinelawn Road, Suite 250 North
Melville, NY 11747
Reference: Sexual Assault Cases in the Military
Dear Senator Gillibrand:
The Gentlemen of the Rockaway Park Philosophical Society bid you greetings. Recently, the gentlemen were discussing the status of women in the Armed Forces. One of our members drew our attention to your proposal to limit command discretion in sexual assault cases. The matter was of considerable interest to us since our membership served in the Armed Forces, several in military law and law enforcement capacities. We do agree with you that the problem you have raised is serious and requires a solution, but may we suggest a different approach? Your proposal threatens the command structure of the Army, and their power to exercise discretion, possibly inappropriately in many cases. A way around the deadlock where the military would rear up its back and fight, is by enacting a completely new civilian law offense in title 18 which punishes any assault on a member of the armed force serving on active duty. There are similar offences prohibiting all assaults on the President, US Senators, US Representatives and even Postal Employees. Rape by definition includes an assault. Such a law would not interfere with discretion of military commanders to decline to court-martial an offender, but would open the federal civilian courts to the victim. Also, phrased in that manner would avoid the implicit accusation directed at the Army Establishment that sexual abuse is more common in their ranks than elsewhere. Further any offender, regardless of civilian or military status, could be punished.
On that note, the Society bids you, a most cheery cheerio.
Respectfully,
HARRISON ALFRED ANDREWS
HAA/dfs