The Snowflakes on the Right in the Gun Debate:

I’m hoping to write up something about the shooting at the Stoneman Duglous High school but have not been able to finish it. But I’ll plod on and cover it next week. In the meantime I’ve been wondering how it is that the debates over guns has become a right and left issue.

Perhaps this is the biggest coup ever by the National Rifle Association to identify itself with the right side of the political spectrum. I’ve noticed that if someone writes something critical of the present gun laws some of the responses to him or her are that the person is a leftist. Many of these don’t stop there but call the person a “snowflake.” Now that’s a term I did not grow up with and appears of recent vintage. I wanted to find out its meaning and how it became associated with those who were unhappy with the present gun laws.

I went to the Merriam-Webster dictionary and learned the term as been applied to people in the early 1860s as those who were opposed to the abolition of slavery. In other words in today’s American patois we’d call those persons Pro-Slavery.

Then over 100 years later during the 1970s it was a derogatory term, according to the dictionary, “for white people or black people who were perceived as acting white.” That sort of threw me. I wondered “how can a white person be perceived as acting white?”  You can figure that one out.

The dictionary also mentioned as I learned in my wiretapping days that part of the word, “snow”, referred to cocaine. it did not mention that it was commonly bought with “bread”. Nor did it mention why it decided to talk about the word snow in an article on snowflake. If it wanted to be consistent it would have told us about the slang meaning off the other part of the word “flake”. Now that’s something that has been around for a long while and needs little explanation.

Merriam-Webster did give us an updated version of the meaning of the word snowflake. It is “used to describe a person perceived as overly sensitive and fragile in a mocking way.” Now that I think of it isn’t the right-wing Boston Herald columnist one that often uses that term. His popularity didn’t save his paper from going under though.

I began to wonder how the NRA people started to think that those who want to changer the gun laws are somehow not manly. (Can I say manly anymore?) Perhaps I should strike that and say the NRA members believe those who are opposed to the present gun laws are not courageous or strong. But haven’t we learned the opposite is true.

Haven’t we seen that it is actually the weak and feeble who use guns. Those who have been with me a while know how Martorano and Whitey Bulger armed themselves to give them courage. They confronted people without guns who they would not have confronted in a mano-a-mano situation. They liked to shoot them from behind.

My experience is the toughest guys I knew never carried.  They didn’t have to do this. They were aware that you don’t take fists to a gun fight but most encounters don’t require guns and they felt no need for them. (I exclude policemen who are required to carry because of their job and the  loose gun laws that often put them up against guns. Of course one of the sad requirements that police officers carry guns is they sometimes in a moment of despair use them on themselves.)

I’m not saying people who kill others with guns are “overly sensitive” since they certainly aren’t that but are self-centered. But they are “fragile” because of their need for a gun to feel tough. Perhaps then if we correctly correlate factors we should understand that guns don’t equal tough people but perhaps the opposite. Where then on what side of the political spectrum are the snowflakes?

 

 

 

241 Comments

  1. Here’s a joke but if you don’t like jokes which contain epithets, skip it. Fair warning.

    I was told this joke the first time 20 years ago by a lifelong friend out of the blue; it has many variations: Here goes:

    A guy goes into a Psychiatrist’s Office for his first appointment; he sits down facing the doctor and his first words are: “Doc, nobody likes me, you big, fat, fuckin’, four-eyed, buck-toothed, Geek Bastard.”

    • That’s funny.

      This is nice that Matt has given us this unlimited recess time.

      This one doesn’t have an epithet but it is a bit blue, so beware.

      I went in for my annual physical. My doctor, a kindly Korean man named Dr. Lee, looked down at my folder and cleared his throat. “The first thing I am going to suggest is that you stop masturbating.”

      I was a bit taken back. I asked him, “Why is that, doctor?”

      He replied, “Because I have to start my examination now.”

  2. I heard another one recently.

    A roving reporter walks up to four men on the street. They are Polish, Russian, American and French.

    He says, “Excuse me. I would like to get your opinion on the current meat shortage.”

    The Polish guy asks, “What’s meat?”

    The Russian asks, “What’s an opinion?”

    The American asks, “What’s a shortage?”

    The Frenchman asks, “What’s ‘excuse me’?”

  3. Walter Cronkite’s favorite joke.

    Two Irishmen walk out of a bar. IT COULD HAPPEN!!!!

  4. John King McDonald

    ( UPDATES TO FOLLOW )

  5. John King McDonald

    Skeleton walks into a bar , rattles onto the barstool , looks at the bartender : I’ll have a beer and a mop .

    As a lumpen Irishman I unhesitatingly suggest he had an old constitutional problem , he could not get drunk !

  6. Anyone got any good jokes?

  7. Exxon Mobil just got fired by Trump…..Tillerson

    Bombogenesis in Mass unfolding while Matt sips
    a pinñ colada ………

    ugh,
    https://robertscribbler.com/2018/03/13/why-are-so-many-powerful-noreasters-striking-new-england/

    Why are So Many Powerful Nor’Easters Striking New England?
    A major nor’easter is pummeling states from New York through Maine today with heavy snow, near hurricane force winds, and high surf. The storm is expected to dump 1-2 feet of snow over this region even as it pounds coastlines that have already been raked by two other major storms during the past two weeks.

    It would be relatively unusual to see one storm of such intensity striking this region during any given March. But as the third in a two-week-long parade of extreme events, the presently intense storm pattern is starting to look more than a little outlandish.

    So what the heck is going on? In a couple handfuls of words — influences related to human-caused climate change are spiking East Coast storm intensity while setting in place a general pattern that causes these storms to repeatedly fire.

    (Over the past 11 days, three major nor’easters have struck the U.S. East Coast. Why have these storms been both so strong and such a persistent feature? Image source: RAMMB/CIRA. H/T to Chris Dolce.)

    The Most Recent of Three Powerful Nor’Easters

    Presently, the most recent strong storm has an intensity of 970 mb and features winds gusting to hurricane force just off-shore with gusts of up to 69 mph along the coast. Pressures are expected to drop into the upper 960s — making it about as powerful as the system that produced major flooding in parts of New England on March 2nd.

    For reference, storm intensity measured by pressure in the range of 970 mb is about as strong as a category 2 hurricane. This is a rough comparison as hurricanes tend to be more intensely concentrated even as nor’easters tend to have broader if more diffuse impacts. But it’s a marker for the high level of atmospheric energy the system is now pumping out and how potentially damaging it could ultimately become.

    The storm is thus strong enough to produce record and historic impacts. This is notable enough by itself. But the fact that we have had three systems of similar strength in just 11 days over what is practically the same region is concerning.

    (Global warming fuels increased convection as lands waters pump out more heat and moisture. At times, this can result in some unexpected instances of atmospheric pyrotechnics.)

    Specifically, on March 7 a 989 mb system raked the same region with gale force winds and instances of intense thundersnow (see above tweet by NOAA). And on March 2nd, a sprawling storm that dipped to around 975 mb generated massive waves and significant coastal flooding.

    Atmospheric Train Wreck

    Looking for causes, we need to go all the way back to February. At that time, a big polar warming event was taking place. In the upper levels of the atmosphere over the pole, the stratosphere was warming up. But at the same time, surface temperatures at the pole were rising to above freezing. In some locations near Northern Greenland, readings were pushing as high as 63 F above average.

    High amplitude Jet Stream waves were eating away at the typically faster polar circulation patterns even as they were helping to inject much warmer than normal air into the Arctic and pull its resident cold air out. Eventually, all this heat running into the various layers of the Arctic atmosphere drove the polar vortex to collapse. This, in turn, resulted in cold Arctic air being ejected south and west into Europe. This massive jet stream dip, in eddy-like fashion produced a large, countervailing high pressure ridge over Greenland.

    (A deep trough that has consistently lingered over the U.S. East Coast and helped to spawn storm after powerful storm, was initially generated by a very intense polar warming event linked to human-caused climate change. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

    The rippling upper level jumble of winds backed all the way to the U.S. East Coast — forming a deep and persistent trough. The trough funneled numerous disturbances slowly through the region. And it was both the trough’s persistence and depth that enabled strong storms to form repeatedly even as they set off such long-lasting and intense impacts (see Dr Jennifer Francis’s related work on how polar amplification impacts the Jet Stream here).

    Much Warmer than Normal Ocean Waters

    Though polar amplification — which is another term for how global warming spurs the poles to heat up faster than the rest of the world — helped to generate the upper level features in the atmosphere that would consistently generate storms running across the U.S. East Coast, widespread warmer than normal ocean waters helped to give these storms more fuel.

    In the Gulf of Mexico, sea surface temperatures have consistently ranged between 0.5 and 3 C above normal since February. These warm ocean waters contributed to severe floods over the Ohio River Valley at that time by pumping record levels of atmospheric moisture into the storms running south.

    (Much warmer than normal sea surface temperatures dominate throughout the Gulf of Mexico and just off the U.S. East Coast. These warmer than normal waters — warmed by climate change — are providing fuel for the powerful nor’easters of recent weeks. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

    As the Jet Stream dip became more oriented toward the East Coast during March, storms that would ultimately blow up over the Atlantic at first got a big plug of moisture from the extra evaporation flowing off that warmer than normal Gulf. But it was over the Atlantic Ocean that the storms would really start to fire. There, ocean temperatures were ranging between 0.5 and as high as 9 C above normal over parts of the Gulf Stream.

    Such very warm sea surfaces provide a lot of fuel in the form of moisture and related convection. And, in particular, we saw some rather amazing instances of convective lift during the recent March 2nd and 7th storms as they tapped that incredible Atlantic Ocean heat and moisture.

    Conditions in Context

    So to sum up, an extreme polar warming event driven in large part by human-caused climate change set up conditions that generated a persistent trough over the U.S. East Coast. This trough was both deep and long-lasting. As low pressure systems moved into the trough zone, they were able to tap abnormal levels of heat and moisture rising off of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean near the coast in order to bloom to abnormally powerful intensity. Both of these factors — Arctic warming and warmer than normal sea surface temperatures — would not have been as acute or intense without the extra push to the climate system that human forced warming provides. As a result, we are seeing a very strong climate change related signal in the present severe storm pattern.

    (UPDATES TO FOLLOW)

  8. P.S. Since I’ve received little official response from Federal, State officials, Magazines, Academics on the EAST COAST regarding my multiple essays, collectively now congealed under One Essay 7 pages long entitled “Three Bill Boards Outside Boston Massachusetts” whose subtitle is “BILLBOARD 3 1. FED PROSECUTORS AS BULLY BOYS”; BILLBOARD #2: FANATIC FEDS STAGE SHAM SHOW TRIALS” and BILLBOARD #3 “POLITICALLY MOTIVATED FRENETIC FEDS FRAME INNOCENTS.”

    i’ve now decided to mail across the country, beginning with newspapers in Texas and conservative blog everywhere . . .of course time and money and my sense of making sure I have fun in life prevents me from sending out ten-thousand copies….there’s other things I enjoy more than research and writing . . .so I’ll send this 7 page ESSAY (first two pages of which are Harvard Law’s Larry Lessig’s essay, “Prosecutor as Bully” about the FED prosecutors role in the suicide of Aaron Swartz . . . to EVERYONE

  9. Now, you all know (likely) that I started my “PROSECUTE THE PROSECUTORS” campaign on December 20, 2017. And have mailed very, very critical letters and posted very critical commentary here and elsewhere about Boston Federal Prosecutors’ abuse of power and specifically have mentioned the grotesque abuse of power by FEDs Sterns,Durham and Wyshak who Deputized Five State Cops as FEDS circa 1996-98 or early 2001 and together the FEDS and Deputized FEDs went on a Fishing Expedition persecuting, investigating, impugning, prosecuting, indicting innocent folks and State Trooper Foley even said he was wrangling with both Whitey Bulger and William Bulger in the FEDs Political Prosecutorial Jihad against Innocent Folks in Boston and in Wyshaks and his Five Deputized Feds’ SHAM SHOW TRIAL STAGED IN MIAMI.

    Well, lo and behold, I have been on the website, blog-site called LINKED-IN for many many years . . .even while writing many books very critical of governmental actors, judges, lawyers, executives, legislators, who abuse power . . . .But it only just three days ago when for the very first time in decades guess who “VISITED” my LINKED-IN SITE (mostly business, educational, friends are on it; and historical visitors always have been from businesses, academic fields, professionals I have historically worked with and in)

    Well, Lo and Behold, two new visitors appeared on my LINKED-IN site on or about Friday-Saturday, March 9-10, 2018 and those two uninvited, unwelcomed visitors were THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE POLICE (official site) and THE MASSACHUSETTS ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OFFICE (official site.)

    I wonder if it were mere coinicidence, do they routinely visit many private citizens’ sites, or do you think maybe the boot-strapped boyos and their buddies in prosecutors’ offices don’t like American Citizens criticizing them and their black-booted boyos in the FEDs and maybe they thought they’d pay me a visit to let me know they were watching . .

    Anyway, I’ll find out sooner orlater when I send a FOIA request asking for all documents in the hands of the State Police and Mass Attorney General’s Office with my name on it and any/all documents relating to why those two Government Agencies (Executive Branch boyos) visited my LINKED-IN page.

    But, I think I’ll let them stew in their intrusive juices for a while, while I wonder how many other LINKED-IN,FACEBOOK, BLOG sites they visit as a matter of course . . .remember the lying dog James Clapper told Congress the FEDs did not spy on the American People, did not collect mass data on the American people?

  10. John King McDonald

    Mutton wrong with that , E. Freeh .

  11. Lambchops, you don’t mind if I call you that
    BigMac ?
    Never thought I would hear that from the Jim Henson
    of Fusionville Sock Puppets.
    ugh!

    Lambchops, I have been down so long
    that DMT looks like up to me

    in other FBI nausea

    https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/03/12/growing-neo-nazi-group-atomwaffen-implicated-in-5-murders/

    MARCH 12, 2018 | PETER B. COLLINS
    GROWING NEO-NAZI GROUP ATOMWAFFEN IMPLICATED IN 5 MURDERS
    FBI Seems Uninterested in White, Homegrown Hate Group

    also see
    http://www.madcowprod.com

    alt-right’s Russian hackers
    Alt-right “author” and scummy disinformation specialist Jerome Corsi’s wild roller-coaster week may have another dip left. Corsi, InfoWars’s DC bureau chief, as well as the man many think invented the alt-right, was riding…

    DRUG TRAFFICKING / MAFIYA / MONEY LAUNDERING / NEWS / THE BOYS / TRUMPMARCH 1, 2018
    KNOW YOUR RUSSIAN MOBSTERS
    Because of Donald Trump, its important for all concerned Americans to “Know your Russian Mobsters.” Today we’ll meet two. FIRST: Dmitry Rybolovlev, Russia’s fertilizer king. How Dmitry got to be the Russian fertilizer king….

    in other Anthrax News

    http://militaryadvocate.blogspot.com/2007/04/former-usaf-jag-disabled-by-anthrax.html

  12. John King McDonald

    Peer not into the FBI Sock Puppet lest it peer into thee . E. Freeh .

    Those friggin’ puppets will take you All the way Down , and completely Out .

    You could even experience Terrence McKenna’s … Death By Astonishment … without taking … Heroic Doses .. of DMT .

    An FBI World even stranger than you presently envision , Ms. Freeh .

    This blog is a ghetto .

    Do not try to run it .

  13. Matt is always quick to point out that
    his blog is not a psychological soup
    kitchen for FBI Sock Puppets who are down and out

    Remember to make your reservation for the
    annual gathering of MC Irregulars at
    contact

    https://www.pressherald.com/2018/03/12/a-popular-maine-restaurant-changes-its-reservation-system/

    in other FBI nausea……

    http://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/business/national-business/article204751104.html

    Settlement reached in veteran FBI agent’s lawsuit
    SFGate-
    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — The Department of Justice has agreed to a tentative settlement of a lawsuit by a Connecticut FBI agent who alleged his bosses discriminated and retaliated against him and were so dysfunctional that then-Director James Comey apologized to employees of the New Haven …

    also see

    http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-montery-park-cop-convicted-sexual-assault-20180312-story.html

    Monterey Park police officer is convicted of sexually assaulting 3 women during traffic stops

    Marisa Gerber
    By MARISA GERBER
    MAR 12, 2018 | 7:20 PM

    • MSFREEH constantly misquotes Matt . . .”Matt always says”, when he never said any such thing . . .and she takes all we say out of context to use as an INTRO to her pet THEORY that the COPS, FBI and US MARINE CORPS killed Kennedy.

      MSFREEH, Deep-State Tool-Stoolie Disinformation Hack (inadvertantly or not) please get your head unstuck from the muck of Kennedy Conspiracy Theories . . . go to Brookline and Hyannisport and Palm Beach . . .BC and Georgetown and Harvard colleges and visit where real people, the large extended Kennedy Family lived and earned degrees . . .and REALIZE REALITY . . .Lee Harvey Oswald, a mentally deranged ex-Marine killed JFK and Jack Ruby, pissed off like a True Texan sometimes gets, plugged Ruby dead. THOSE ARE HISTORICAL FACTS . . .now move into the 21st Century like Matt and the rest of us, PLEASE . . .TRY IT, YOU’LL LIKE IT

  14. John King McDonald

    Have really found … Periphrastic Pontifications … To be a serviceable old Jesuit soldier in the tongue wagging the God .

    Have been on blog early days . Used … Puerile …to describe a blogger . Matt was aghast . Whatever did … Puerile … mean ? …. How durst” you use it ? Actually used to give me a hell of a time over points of diction . I … Always … proved him wrong . Since then Matt has used … Puerile … about twenty times . There is a lot of snarkiness , here . It is tedious . And … Puerile !

    Water seeks its own level .

    Deal with it .

  15. Just the usual puerile bombast and sophomoric commentary. Get some new material, John. There’s no substance to your rants. It’s really not about feelings, man. Nobody cares. Use facts when you want to impress. Your spleen is unimportant.

    • Paraphrastic bits of casuistry? Atrabilious amphigory? Threnody? Call it what you will.

      You might call it the usual puerile bombast and sophomoric commentary, but that would be pretentious.

      • I like JOHN KING MC’S USE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE . . .I’D SAY HE’S QUITE MASTERFUL AT IT . . .nothing bombastic about poetical e.e. cummings-ish taking a new slant at language . . .after all Jackson Pollack, abstractionists, the jabberwocky verse, jazz, rap, “performance art” . . .philosphy in a new key . . .HAVE FiUN WITH ART & MUSIC & WORDS . . .don’t let the pedagogues get you stuck in a rut . . .feel free, ad lib . . .play Moonlight Sonata to a rock beat . . .
        listen to that great American/Canadian poet who my girlfriend in the summer of ’69, Raina Sotzky, (we met at DC General on Psych Ward . . I think she’s a shrink now; she was undergrad at Penn, then; met again when she was doing some grad studies at Harvard; bumped into each other in Harvard Square; had coffee; my friend Tommy T. from Savie was with me; we had a few laughs; she was something very special, beautiful, dark hair, dark eyes, voluptuous, like a Greek Goddess, but Salt of the Earth, too) anyway she introduced me to Leonard Cohen, I still got the book, a present of his poems, but listen to his albumsCohen’s word play: Suzanne, Love Itself, Bird on a Wire, The Future, Democracy, Aint no Cure for Love, Closing Time

        JKM got the Leonard Cohen touch with words

        If music be the breath of life (or somethinglike that) play on . . . .play on words, too, and Have Fun . . . like my favorite abstract artist who painted canvases 10 feet by 10 feet using just two colors . . .they say he’d look at a blank canvas all day, then go out and buy two gallons of paint from the corner store . . .one of my Heroes.

    • John King McDonald

      Jesus Christ .. you elaborate on Abe’s gnomic grumbling … Puerile … Bombast etc . … Have an original thought … You are convention bound , blind to your own faults , always default to projecting your dyspeptic downer doxies on others , and are clearly craving my attention . Try to grasp my style . Nothing there . Sue ya ‘ later !

  16. Ron Lockwood runs the local auto repair shop
    in Mount Vernon. That was until
    until he and his son in law bought Castle Island
    Camps recently.
    Ron spends less time fixing cars and most
    of his time keeping the camps running.

    see

    http://www.castleislandcamps.com/home.html

    In other news on how FBI agents killed President Kennedy see

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ9RkzyeW8A

    The History Channel banned the doc after the FBI told them to

    in other FBI news

    The Informants
    The FBI has built a massive network of spies to prevent another domestic attack. But are they busting terrorist plots—or leading them?
    TREVOR AARONSONSEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 ISSUE

    in today’s news
    why the FBI creates terrorism

    https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2018/03/12/fbi-we-dont-want-a-backdoor-we-just-want-you-to-break-encryption/

    FBI: we don’t want a backdoor; we just want you to break encryption

    12 MAR 2018

    Apple, Cryptography, Law & order

  17. John King McDonald

    We brought them the Gospel , brother , but they would not listen . So Damn Them All To Hell !

    I detect Jesuits .

    Now , Where is my trusty aspergillum ?

    • John King McDonald

      This really is a relevant post !

    • I have to tell you something about Tom Jones.

      A great, late friend of mine, Derek Moore, got the OBE for his work in conservation. The day of the presentations was hot as Hell. They line up the recipients in, I guess, the yard outside The Palace. They send everyone the required dress code which is top hat and tails and line you up alphabetically. So Roger Moore was behind him and Tom Jones was in front of him. They stood there for the better part of an hour. Derek said that Tom Jones was one of the friendliest and funniest guy he had met in a long time. Roger Moore was a stick in the deep mud. Couldn’t even get a grin out of him. Jones the opposite. As the Queen started presenting and the line started to move along slowly, Jones turned to Derek and said, “I wonder if she is going to toss her knickers at me.”

      It was said that Roger was pissed because he wanted to be knighted, hence the sour puss.

  18. John King McDonald

    Does my cat love me because I feed it ? … Posed that question to Professor Slover . He suggested that there are some things we simply have to pray over . He did enjoy his wordplay. Good guy !

    • The only reason your cat loves you is because it doesn’t hate you. I know cats. That’s the truth.

      • John King McDonald

        That is a tautology . It is like saying God is all powerful and you know this because ” he can do anything .” If Western philosophical thought is all a series of footnotes to Plato then we step into Logic’s snare . God is a concept . God is a word . Words have signification . Whitehead warns against the … Accretion of Concretion … My paraphrase … The tendency of the human mind to attribute ” thingness ” to aspects of reality . Words , symbolically , and most significantly , arbitrarily, allow us to ” describe ” Reality . They are not , however , ” God ” . God and Reality can be indicated with words . Only that . The rest is … Experience . Silence . The Void . The Word Made Flesh !

        WHAT’S NEW PUSSYCAT , WHOAHHHH
        OHHHHH OHHHHH OHHHH
        WO WO ! … Theologian Tom Jones

        • John King McDonald

          Try instead … The only reason your cat hates you is because it does not love you …. The negation of the original proposition … The only reason your cat loves you is because it does not hate you … Is not logically possible .

          Your cat may have numerous reasons to both love and hate you at the same time , btw .

          Have you asked it ?

          • John King McDonald

            Dancing in the hypnotic arena .

            YOU .. AND …. YOUR… SWEET … LITTLE … PUSSYCAT EYES !!!

            Theologian Tom Jones .

        • Ok, ok, OKAY!

          Your cat loves you because you scratch its belly.

          Better?

          I tried to read Process And Reality. Don’t quote Whitehead. As Immortan Joe said, “Do not read Whitehead. He will take hold of you and you will resent his absence.”

          My paraphrase.

          (They tell me that the annotated Process And Reality is readable. I certainly hope so.)

          • John King McDonald

            Hui – Neng the Sixth Patriarch of Zen , or some such nonsense , described his Teaching of his students as being like the game you play with a child . The game where the closed fist is waved tantalizingly around , and when the hand opens there is nothing in it . Your Whitehead quote has that way about it . Nice !

          • John King McDonald

            Okay Okay Okay …. Bill C . and his Father Lonergan doorstopper key to the Universe and Abe , girded with Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Reality …. At forty paces .

            Bill , put that book down ! It’s a joke .

          • Forty paces is a long throw.

            • John King McDonald

              Watch out then , Bro . Bill can spit out casuistry at forty paces standing on his head .

      • I had a cat I loved named TIGER, the family cat for 15 years . . .a big cat, gray and black striped with white paws and white chin/neck . . .blue-green eyes . . .a hunter, fighter of other animals, gentle with all kind human beings . . .and it loved us back, our family, we humans he allowed in his regal wild independent company . . .I was the one who when about 20 years old took it to Angel Memorial Vet Hosp in Longwood Medical area where an African-Vet (Congo, Ghana) mercifully put the aged, sick, enfeebled, defenseless semi-wild, semi-domesticated cat to sleep. Cats are never tame as dogs, man’s best friends. Both are great pets.

        All must read Rule 12 of “12 Rules for Life” by Jordan b. Peterson: It is entitled:”Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.”

  19. Elizabeth Bruenig. An excerpt from Vox.com today:

    Capitalism is an ideology that is far more encompassing than it admits, and one that turns every relationship into a calculable exchange. Bodies, time, energy, creativity, love — all become commodities to be priced and sold. Alienation reigns. There is no room for sustained contemplation and little interest in public morality; everything collapses down to the level of the atomized individual.

    • Morality has never been the criteria for success in a capitalist society. BUT that ideology doesn’t cover all. I know many true capitalists that have great compassion and I mean real compassion. Not someone that thinks he is going to heaven because he give loads of money to charity. Maybe Elizabeth dropped acid and read Orwell. Her use of the words ‘all’ and ‘reigns’ and ‘no’ and ‘everything’ need some annotation.

      So, Khalid. What’s the biggest fish you ever caught?

    • I heard the Greek Opposition leader speak last night. He favors Capitalism with prudent pared down regulation/oversight.
      Capitalists I’ve read about and wealthy capitalists’ families I’ve brushed elbows with (known in passing from arms’ length) (Davis (New Balance) and Demoulas (Market Basket) have been very generous, compassionate persons, family-oriented, generous to friends, neighbors, communities, employees, charities, schools, museums, hospitals and personally are wonderful giving “salt of the earth” regular folks.
      As an Irish American Catholic who is a blood brother to an Apache (half-Polish.half-Apache, from Phoenix area . .it’s a long story . . .we helped each other and we both had minor cuts, he mixed our blood in his palm, and told me “We are now blood brothers”)and as I married a Methodist girl who was one-sixteenth Cherokee Indian, and Irish-English-German-American from D.C.Area(MD),
      What I’m trying to say is that as me personally I’ve always had an affinity for Jewish, Greek, Italian and Spanish girls, and Black Irish girls . . . growing up, high school, college, dating, twenties, thirties, forties . . .til today . . .it must be the BLACK IRISH BLOOD in me . . . .’With a rebel yell, she cried more,more, more

      • The punch line is my friend said, “I’ve always preferred Italian girls, dark hair, dark eyes, earthy, voluptuous, and I married and divorced two blue-eyed blondes.”
        Probably All-Americans . . .maybe one was who the Commies call an all-American capitalistic pig.

  20. “Participating in a gun buy-back program because you
    think that criminals have too many guns is like having
    yourself castrated because you think your neighbors
    have too many kids.”

    Clint Eastwood

  21. Matt

    Breathe deeply…..

    http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=8887&Method=Full

    Guess who just got 12-18 ?

    https://www.boston.com/weather/weather/2018/03/10/boston-snow-maps-noreaster-march-12-13-2018

    The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning for all of Southern New England and a Blizzard Warning for most of the Massachusetts coast ahead of the nor’easter expected to impact the region starting Monday night and continuing through Tuesday.

    The service wrote Monday that the third storm to hit Massachusetts in less than two weeks “will deliver accumulating snow, strong to damaging winds, [and] coastal and marine impacts” to the region. The warnings are in effect from 11 p.m. Monday through 8 p.m. Tuesday.

    in other bombogensis snowflake news

    https://robertscribbler.com/2018/03/12/polar-anomaly-flip-in-an-abnormally-warm-world-arctic-to-cool-as-antarctica-heats-up/

    Polar Anomaly Flip in an Abnormally Warm World: Arctic to Cool as Antarctica Heats Up
    Interesting and concerning climate-change influenced weather in the global forecast for the next ten days.

    As the Arctic is projected to cool down, it will open a brief window for sea ice to grow above its present track toward a record low maximum. However, any new edge ice will likely be weak and thin relative to past years. Meanwhile, sections of western Antarctica are predicted to see above freezing temperatures over the next week. And all of these various swings are occurring in a world that is considerably warmer than normal.

    Global Context

    Today, as with practically every day since I began tracking global weather and climate back in 2012, the world’s temperature averages are warmer than normal. An odd and increasingly harmful warmth that is driven by atmospheric CO2 levels ranging above 405 ppm (490 ppm CO2e). High heat-trapping gas levels that are, in turn, primarily the result of human fossil fuel burning.

    (Despite an building cool-down relative to typical temperatures in the Arctic, the globe remains much warmer than average. The most intense hot spots for today hover over Canada, Southern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, India through China, and Parts of Antarctica. Image source: Climate Reanalyzer.)

    The world, overall today, is about 0.7 C warmer than the 1979 to 2000 average. Compared to 1880s, that’s about 1.2 C warmer than a typical late 19th Century day. This warming is considerable. A long term average that is in a range comparable to the Eemian of about 120,000 years ago. In other words, the world we live in today is the hottest its been in more than a thousand centuries.

    Looking at the various climate zones, we find that every major region except the Arctic is warmer than average. This is happening as Northern Hemisphere Winter transitions to Spring and as the polar jet stream appears to be reasserting itself a bit after a major polar vortex collapse event during February. A new integral cold air vortex is gathering over Northwest Siberia — which is allowing cooler conditions to again reassert in the Arctic.

    Opportunity for Late Season Sea Ice Regrowth

    Over the next week, temperatures in the High Arctic are expected to plummet. And for the first time since practically the start of Winter, readings over the Arctic Ocean zone are expected to range below average.

    As noted above, the cold pole appears to be asserting in the region of Northwest Siberia. But cold air pushing out into the Barents, North Bering, North Baffin, and Irkutsk regions will afford some opportunity for a sea ice rebound.

    This cold air retrenchment is expected to be juxtaposed by significant warming through Northern Canada, Alaska, the Southern Bering, Southern Baffin Bay, Southern Greenland and in a zone just north of Svalbard. This warm pole will likely help retard any sea ice bounce coming from cooler air asserting on the Siberian side — constraining ice growth in a number of edge zones and possibly asserting some counter-cooling melt. We may even see a polynya open up in the Beaufort as temperatures over Alberta rise to above freezing and warm winds drive northward.

    As a result of this warm-cold dipole, and the related warmth in certain key ice edge zones, it remains uncertain whether sea ice will bounce enough to overcome an otherwise strongly asserted trend toward a record low Arctic sea ice maximum for 2018. But if such a bounce back were to happen, the opportunity for it to occur will be during this week or next.

    Extreme Antarctic Warming

    As the Arctic is predicted to cool down this week, the Antarctic is expected to heat up. By late this week through next weekend, a powerful plume of warm air is expected to drive above freezing temperatures across Marie Byrd Land and the Ross Ice Shelf in West Antarctica. As with recent Northern Hemisphere Events, a high amplitude wave in the Jet Stream will drive much warmer than typical temperatures far into what should be a frigid polar zone.
    (A major warm-up predicted for sections of West Antarctica will likely produce surface melt as temperatures rise to above freezing. Image source: Climate Reanalyzer.)

    This warming event is predicted to be rather intense and last for 2-3 days, with temperatures rising to 25-30 degrees Celsius above average in certain zones.

    Such a warm-up would push surface temperatures in some locations to 2-4 C or warmer (up to 40 degrees F) and would likely produce periods of surface melt. These kinds of melt events have been a more frequent occurrence for Antarctica recently. They’re a part of the larger trend of ice mass loss both at the surface and on the underside of sea facing ice sheets as the local ocean has warmed. A primary driver of a noted acceleration in the rate of global sea level rise.

    Looking on into next week, a subsequent warming in East Antarctica is expected to push temperatures for the whole Continent into a range approximately 3.5 C above average. This event, however, is not expected to drive significant above freezing temperatures inland, though some coastal areas may see brief departures into these ranges.

  22. Abe, if we went on a trip .. . .all on this blog . . .we’d find that the writers amongst us were not the best talkers, story tellers, debaters, and vice-versa . . .the ones I know who post here, would make any trip STELLAR or at least enjoyable

    But we never know til we’re there . . .REMEMBER THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE . . .none of us know if at that moment we’d be Hero or Coward, the life of the party or colossal malapropish bore, angry argumentative or collegial social pleasant, . . .so, it’s like walking into a coffee shop . . mostly good, sometimes achore,, sometimes delightful . . . a joy

    Which reminds me of Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

    For non-family, I’d probably take Hutch as #1 on a trip . . .he could tell me more about splendour in the grass, which makes me thing of a Moor or things Moorish, like Emily Dickenson: “I never say a moor, I never saw the sea; yet know i how a heather looks and what a wave must be; I never spoke with good, nor visited in Heaven yet sure I am of the spot as if the chart were given>”

    I know this” Only God can make a tree, bee, amoeba, universe . . .and we mere mortals are trippin the light fantastic through universal time& space

    Count me a man who marvels and who is like the Comic Book Character Super Duck: “Super Duck: Born into a world he never made.”

    • And I know that I would out fish every one of you!

      We would have fun. The times that I have done trips like that with people that were not altogether friendly when involved elsewhere, have all been wonderful. Its a pause, if you will, on that other part of life. A time to let yourself be at ease. Check your egos at the dock and relax. And no one would be anonymous. That is a key part.

    • John King McDonald

      The Moor the Merrier ?

      • Yes, intended pun, as my brother and his wife just got back from two weeks vacation in Morocco . . they said it and the people were great . .from Casablanca (play it again, Sam) to the Marakeesh (opium tinged hash of the late ’60s, early ’70s) to the Atlas Mountains and Sahara Desert. They even sent pictures of themselves decked out a la mode on Camels, reminding us of Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia . .
        IMAGINE! as John Lennon sang

  23. You have to read the lyrics to U2’s three songs: ONE, PRIDE AND SUNDAY, BLOODY SUNDAY, to understand why all the Irish loves’ are merry and all the Irish wars are merry . . . .
    Because, as Chicago sang, “It’s only the beginning” as as Steppenwolf sang, “There’s a MONSTER on the loose” and the Monster is the Deep State and Bully Boy Federal Prosecutors who abuse power, law and reason

    And as the Clancy Brothers’ sang, “I wish that my rifle had given the same to those Quiszlings (effin’ FEDS) who sold out the Patriot Game.”

    The effin FEDS, the DEEP STATE SNOOPS and the BullyBoy Federal Prosecutors sold out the American Way to garner power for their egomaniacal narcissistic selves . . .they sold out the Patriots, they targetted and still do target Patriotic Bostonians . . .

    By the way, did you read that bogus 138 count indictment against Boston-area State Senator Joyce from Milton . . .I read it, and as an experienced, retired lawyer I spit on it . . .for the Boston Federal Prosecutors once again have targetted for persecution and prosecution and their intent is both imprisonment and bankruptcy. . .and what their accusations boil down to as I read the 138 counts is that Mr. Joyce practiced law while being a State Senator . . .

    Another innocent, like Judge Teddy Glynn, Aaron Swartz, Boston Cop Kenny Conley who they persecuted for a decade then forked over nearly $1 million to settle the wrongful prosecution case against them, like the 50 year old nurse who Wyshak recommended getting 8 years in prison because she deposited her bookie husband’s income in the bank . . .a total of about $50,000 . . .while Wyshak recommended that the Congressman Tierney’s wife who laundered $4 million of her brothers’ illegal offshore gambling earnings get PROBATION: ‘And why are you recommending probation in this case, Mr. Wyshak,” the Judge asked, and Wyshak replied, “Because she’s the Congressman’s wife.” And the judge sentenced her to 30 days. THAT’S EQUAL JUSTICE AS THE FED PROSECUTORS/COURTS SEE IT . . .and did I mentionthe FED Prosecutors tried to steal Carswell’s motel or the FEDs wrongfully prosecuted innocent probation officers because Mr. Obrien hired bill bulger’s son Chris and other persons “not the most qualified” . .thank God the Appeals Court threw out that fraudulent prosecution/conviction . . .and did I mention the one-year sting against the traditionalist nearly 70 years old City Councilman with the clean record, and the 2.5 years he got in prison for accepting a $200 “preacher’s handshake”? Councilman Chuck Turner. You didn’t think your Federal Prosecutors would do such mean-spirited petty vile things while 60,000 persons were dying of drug overdoses annually, did you? and did I mention . . .well, I could go on and on

    But let me rest my case here: Read Jordan B. Peterson and listen to his youtube blog and remember the HowieCarr/BostonGlobe/AlanDershowitz/FederalProsecutorsSternsDurham and Wyshak’s jihad against the innocent FBI agent John Connolly and their targetting of political foe William M. Bulger

    You didn’t think Judges/Prosecutors/GovernmentLawyers/Academics/theMedia/theBoston Globe would gang up and target South Boston conservative/traditionalists, . . you don’t think so? Read From Trial Court to the United States Supreme Court: Anatomy of a Free Speech Case by Walkowski and Connolly (Branden 1996) and refresh your memory of how the COURTS/AGENCIES/cheerleadingMEDIA/PRESS in Boston for 3 years running 1992-1995 tried to crush, destroy the FREE SPEECH RIGHTS OF THE PARADE ORGANIZERS, SOUTH BOSTON VETERANS . .THAT’S RIGHT THE ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE THEY TRIED TO SHUT DOWN AND THE ORGANIZERS OF THE PARADE WERE FIRST TO PUT THEIR HOUSES IN MORTGAGE PROTECTION PROGRAMS AND THE PARADE ORGANIZERS LAWYERS WAS FORCED TO THE BRINK OF BANKRUPTCY as corrupt State officials pursued their jihad in the name of Political Correctness and against traditionalists from South Boston and the Boston area . . . .when Chester Darling and the Veterans finally won a unanimous 9-0 Victory for Free Speech at the US Supreme Court in JUNE OF 1995, the FEDERAL APPEALS COURT IN BOSTON WAS STILL TRYING TO DECIDE IF SOUTH BOSTON VETERANS WHO ANNUALLY ORGANIZED AND RAN THE ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE HAD FREE SPEECH RIGHTS . . .
    and the wind cries, “Mary” . . .”Holy Mary, mother of God . . .”

  24. kHALID AND MSFREEH: you’ve got your Irish History . .and all histories all wrong . . .

    Go Back to the early to mid 19th Century: O’Connell led massive demonstrations for Civil Rights in Dublin along what is now called O’Connell Street and in 1848 who were they The Young Irelanders staged armed rebellions for civil rights, and before them back to 1640s they revolted against Cromwell, and Bloody Elizabeth was more bloody that Bloody Mary in suppressing revolts in Dublin and eastern Ireland (@35,000 Irish killed) . .revolts, rebellions uprisings for civil rights and liberties and for RELIGIOUS RIGHTS AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND CULTURAL FREEDOM AND FOR A FREE NATION FOR THE IRISH, A NATION WELCOMING TO ONE AND ALL OF EVERY RACE, RELIGION AND ETHNIC GROUP
    After you get done with the 13th Century through the mid-Nineteenth Century, start considering Parnell, then the 20th Century boyos James Connolly Padraic Pearse, John O’Neil, ….and harken to the words of the songs, “Shake hands with your cousin Mike, me boy, and kiss your cousin Kate,you’re as welcome as the flowers in May to dear old Donegal . . .there was Sullivan, Mulligan, . . .Malloy, Flannigan,Shannigan, . . .Lonergan (ah, the Jesuit Philosopher Bernard Lonergan, he of ‘INSIGHT” a heavy tome taught to BC freshmen, the book as thick as the Bible in small print too” and don’t forget Galway Bay . . .and it’s in their blood to REBEL AND BE FREE . . .U2 SANG ABOUT IT IN “ONE” …one man come . .

    • John King McDonald

      Philosophy may not neglect the multifariousness of the World — The fairies dance , and Christ is nailed to the Cross . A.N.Whitehead

  25. John King McDonald

    If God can do anything then he could invent a stone too heavy for him to lift. This is impossible as God is Omnipotent as well as Omniscient . … William of Ockham …Logical necessity ! ROCK ‘EM , OCKHAM !

    • When I was a lad I served a term……

      Woops. Wrong lifetime. I made up a little thing for my 7th grade science teacher. Pissed him off and I still don’t know why. The subject was perpetual motion machines. Here was what I passed in.

      1st man: So I made a mistake. No one is perfect.
      2nd man: Wrong! Jesus is perfect.
      1st man: So I made a mistake. No one is perfect.
      2nd man: Wrong! Jesus is perfect.

      I wrote it on every line on both sides of a piece of paper. He didn’t appreciate the humor.

      Now, Bill. Don’t call me out on this if you Google it and find out that it exists in the universe somewhere else. You did it before when I said something about a quote I made up about “Everything I say is a lie”. I did make that up myself its just that many great minds (and some not so great minds) think alike.

    • Apparently God has decided to give us free will and decided not to take it away from us and decided not to create inherently impossible paradoxes

      It’s like MEATLOAF sang, “And I won’t do that”

      God can do all, and as best (very poorly) was we mere mortals can fathom, He’s decided not to do certain things . . .like blow us all to smithereens yesterday

  26. In the spring of 2001 we brought LAPD narcotics
    detective Mike Ruppert to speak at Bates College
    about local police working with the CIA to bring
    heroin and cocaine into our communities

    see

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mITT-AG3M8s

    In the summer of 2002 I met Undersecretary at HUD
    Catherine Austin Fitts in Washington DC at the
    National Press Club where I was shooting the DOC
    911 Press For Truth
    Catherine discussed how the CIA laundered the drug money
    by buying stocks on Wall Street
    see the missing 21 trillion here
    scroll down

    https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=&u=020fa759c66a3d8580fa6261b&id=992027d3f5

    this is for Matt’s grandkids to ask him what
    did he do about climate change

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug

  27. If we all went out to Boston Light on a party boat we’d have a blast.

  28. John King McDonald

    Meanwhile …” The situation in the Counties is reaching a terrible state …”

    Another straw horse’s ass invitation to debate .

    Inevitably , as bloggers who debate the straw horse’s ass have learned in Time’s course , said horse’s ass starts whinnying Marxist brewed miasma , yes , from that end ( the straw horse’s ass being indistinguishable from its mouth ) and then gets into outright insult and invective .

    Then : The voluble and volatile talking hindquarters equine invariably comes snuffling around to those insulted parties … Oh , do chime in … he frets . Please … Like me . This is pathetic .

    Khalid , We may like you in spite of yourself . Or , hyperbole ?

  29. Remember, John, keep all your derision in the first line. You’re wasting the rest of it.

  30. John King McDonald

    Keep those cards and letters coming there , Perfessor ! Always great to see a man of your larnin’ get parabolic on the old hyperbolic . I am convinced that you are stuck on the way the word … Hyperbole .. burbles from your lips . It is a binky for you . You mistake a word for reality . Burble on El Dialectico ! ….. You amoose me . It is amazing how you keep showing up here in Dr. Freud’s waiting room . However , I never turn away the genuinely quaking . Do your best !

  31. The situation in the Counties is reaching a critical state. The money that fueled the peace process has run out. Expect everything to go backwards. Brexit is bringing things to a head. I’m not sure the new generation of Sinn Fein leaders have the same politically deft hand that Adams, and, McGuinness, exercised. Without US money, it’s back to the old zero-sum game. Most don’t want that. I’m open to argument, please chime in.

  32. Wa-llahi! We need a new thread. It’s hard to keep track of everyone’s comments, especially, the instantly forgettable first lines of your thoughts, John.

  33. Abe, I’m delighted that you’re well read in Irish History, particularly, the Troubles. We’ll have a fine discussion, regardless, what your local rag spouts on the subject.

  34. John: I stop reading after first hyperbole. I’m well familiar with your style.

  35. The MC Irregulars Derby,Preakness,Belmont stakes
    are upon us.

    Vegas bookmakers say it is to early to give odds
    around Matt “ the barrister “ Connolly and when
    he will acknowledge it was the police who wacked
    President Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Bobby
    Kennedy.

    Matt “ the southie toughie “ is said to be looking
    into protection for himself if he decides to go
    public.

    if you don’t like the news
    go out and make some of your own.

    in other I predicted the future ughs……

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-chicago-police-oversight-commission-20180306-story.html

    Give a civilian oversight board the power to remove police superintendent, set policy, community groups propose

    A seven-member civilian board would have the power to fire Chicago’s police superintendent and set department policy under a far-reaching proposal by some of Chicago’s leading community organizations that quickly drew criticism from police.

    The long-awaited report from the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability calls for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to also retain the ability to fire a superintendent. But extending that authority to a civilian commission would be a dramatic change in a city where City Hall has long held tight controls over what happens at police headquarters.

    • Anagram of Rahm Emanuel—–A Lean Hummer

      • Abe: Emanuel was a weird fit for the machine. I don’t get back to town like I used to. I have to depend on my sisters’ reads on city politics. They’re Southsiders, and, aren’t all that fond of him. Everyone from the parishes are waiting for another Daley.

  36. Maine musings

    Driving home from Farmington Maine to my home in Vienna
    is a 14 mile trip taking me past the gold laden Sandy River in
    Farmington Falls ,into the mountain shrouded corridors of New Sharon
    until I pass the town spring on Kimball Pond road in Vienna that
    announces my arrival at Eaton mountain where my home squats
    perilously halfway up the side of the mountain.

    Driving at dusk always puts me at risk for chance encounters
    with deer crossing these back country roads or say a gaggle of
    wild turkeys which seem to be popping up with greater frequency
    now that their population is growing unchecked.

    My head snapped to attention this particular evening
    as my headlights cut through a patch of
    shrouded fog generated by a wood stove located in
    a old solitary house bellowing its smoke and
    smell of a roaring maple log fire.

    There are 3 reasons why I love living in Maine.

    The smell of a maple log fire

    The smell of a freshly mown hay field

    The smell of freshly spread cow manure tilled
    over a hay field

    in other 9/8 time…

    Watermelon Slim is providing some music
    for my documentary on Maine artist Robert
    Shetterly.

    Here is the obituary for his dad

    William Homans Jr. Dies; Civil Rights Lawyer Was 75

    William P. Homans Jr., a Boston civil rights lawyer who championed the downtrodden, the oppressed and the out-and-out villainous with such verve that he became a legend in Massachusetts legal circles, died on Feb. 7 at a nursing home in Phoenix. He was 75 and had lived in Cambridge, Mass.

    His family said the cause was a variety of ailments.

    In a career in which many of his clients had, in fact, done whatever heinous acts they were accused of, Mr. Homans lost his share of cases. But he won enough, too, and established so many precedents on appeal that he had more than a passing impact on state law.

    Virtually every criminal lawyer in Massachusetts, for example, knows that it was Mr. Homans’s arguments that led the state’s Supreme Judicial Court to abolish the death penalty in 1975, and that he also won a landmark victory on appeal after a client was convicted of manslaughter for performing a legal abortion.

    But Mr. Homans’s impact extended so far down the scales of justice that one of his own former associates learned only recently that he had also been the lawyer who established that offhand promises made by a company in an employee handbook were contractual rights not to be trifled with when he had taken a trivial employee discrimination suit to the state’s high court.

    Mr. Homans was a native of Canton, Mass., and his commitment to civil rights and to public service was both a family tradition and a personal passion.
    see link for full story
    http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/13/us/william-homans-jr-dies-civil-rights-lawyer-was-75.html

    here is a cut from his CD
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-yNmoHmf8RE

    in other news

    https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bay-Area-coffee-shop-won-t-serve-police-for-12741262.php

    Bay Area coffee shop won’t serve police for ‘safety of customers’
    KCRA Staff

  37. John King McDonald

    Got a sweet zig-zag scar on my right front forehead on that deal . I call it … Lightning Zen ! HAH !

    • Good stuff, John.

      I have a bite mark on my chin from an encounter with an infamous Italian kid in Dedham. That was back in about 1974. It was outside that Chinese place near Lechmere on Rt. 1. I never named the bite scar but I may look into it.

      The maxillary guy down here in Vienna, Virginia that took out a wisdom tooth stared at it and said, “Why, you’re been bitten by a primate!”

      I said, “No. It was an Italian.”

      He knew his chop marks.

      • John King McDonald

        The Tahiti , Abe . Probably Stivaletta or Costa , I wager . Both had reps . That was a hopping joint and the Feng Shui of that restaurant location led to mad mojo on many a night . Any night !

        • John King McDonald

          The Tahiti Restaurant , snug on a side bluff , shouldering the hollow , an oasis , a vortex , Route One , two North and two South . In daylight it masked its somnolence in the humdrum buzz of traffic . At night , especially a warm and wet night , the macadam invited terror , and the traceries of the cars’ lights , like so many electrons in a ceaseless tension , whirled like the circles around a lit cigarette as it is moved rapidly in the dark . But , I digress .

        • Of course. The Tahiti. The appetizers were my favorite.

          We walked out and one of my friends was a bit drunk but not too drunk to fight. He was about 5’8″ but benched 300+. All chest and lats with skinny legs. Never wore shorts. I’m sure you know the type. So on the way out someone gives him a shoulder and chuckles. My pal couldn’t punch much so he would grab an unfortunate and body slam him. Then it was bang, bang, bang the guy into the ground many times. Another short guy was going to punch my mate in the back of the head and I wrapped my gibbon arms around him and held on. He turned in my grasp and latched onto my chin. Animal. (That was the night I found out that there is room aplenty around an eye ball.) I put my thumb deep into his socket and asked if he would like to lose the eye. He let go. The folks in the Milton Hospital emergency room had a good laugh. Ms. Ryan at the desk asked me if I got locked in the ape house at Franklin Park. They all knew me well, those ER staffers.

          Looking back, quite a funny experience.

          • John King McDonald

            Some heavy panting after the appetizers at the Tahiti , eh ? … Just another night in Paradise , Abe , Just another night …. Those umbrella drinkers ! Here’s to a trying to hammer a nail in the sky . Such spaciousness . And that is an idea too . Am familiar with the eye gouge . It is a calibration . Might as well be knifing someone at that point . Neither is generally a good idea. You know the type .

            • John King McDonald

              That said …got into fight with red haired Irish Westie , pizza shop Little Italy , ’81. I was looking askance at his pimping of girl with him . Really was not my business , but , I was young and did not realize that it was a duet they were playing . SOB chomped down on three fingers on my right hand . Excruciating pain is highly motivatin’ !

              • John King McDonald

                Here’s an umbrella handle in his eye , Abe . Chin Chin ! ( I know you get a chuckle out of that , bro ! )

          • More than a chuckle!

            A Westie. You swam in the deep water. With the Sharks!!!!

            Lucky you can still play the cello.

            • John King McDonald

              Keep vampin’ , Abe . ” Swam in the deep water with the sharks ? ” Now that is a chuckle . Leave your ego out of it . Sharks have brains too . I knew a guy who stuck a hatchet in a big ape’s head when he was still a teenager . The guy was a giant . He was also a murderer . I knew and liked that kid . Was he a shark ? Save your Westie fantasies for the funny papers . I buried the hatchet on ” Sharks ” long ago . Good Tahiti tale , nonetheless .

              • John King McDonald

                Westies : Crew of guys got together and acted like complete and savage A-holes . It is a tough cello !

  38. John King McDonald

    * luckily cracked my walking stick over their head ( In defense of one of The Chosen People , yet , I was fortunate that it broke .)

  39. John King McDonald

    And there is mutton they can do about it. A raft of Keats memorized for essentially same reasons following a baseball bat to the temple ( I had just cracked , luckily cracked , someone over the head with my walking stick , hors de combat , naturally, but I digress . The ordering of neurons in the process of re-circuiting one’s brain is richly enhanced by such a dish as Burns’ .

  40. “Come all ye young rebels, and list while I sing
    For the love of one’s country is a terrible thing
    It banishes fear with the speed of a flame
    And it makes us all part of The Patriot Game . .
    My name is O’Hanlon and I’ve just gone sixteen . .

    You all know the rest of that Irish ditty

    • Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
      Great Chieftan o’ the puddin’ race……

      About a year ago I was told that if I really thought I was losing my marbles I should see if I could memorize a poem of length or complexity. I figured that one with both characteristics would be the proof. I chose an old favorite. Address to the Haggis by Robert Burns. It took about a month to accomplish the task and it has been a great education about the history of Scotland in Burns’ day. After 80 years of togetherness (Scotland and England) many Scots were losing all connection to their native ways. That included their language. The upper crust on Scotland were even taking lessons in English!

      Now Burns decided his fellow Scots were ready to be lashed. The poem is a strong statement by Scotland’s premier patriot and satirist of the day. So by learning this poem I have also learned about the Jacobites and the Highland Clearances. Stuff that I never would have thought to investigate. Now I enjoy the poem a lot more. I have also blown a few minds of folks that challenged me that I was full of haggis when I told them I knew the thing.

      • I tried a similar exercise. I knew a few verses, “Let us not forget the hour of splendor in the grass and beauty in the flower—–“, but could not remember the poet.

        Finally I found Wordworth’s “Ode on Immortality from recollections of early childhood”. (The title almost scared me away, for good reasons.) I opened the work and stared at about fifty verses of Lake magnificence. I settled on “The Yarn of the Nancy Belle” and simply read “Ode….” aloud for its wistful beauty. I guess I may be losing my marbles, but I’ll retreat to Wordsworth et al in blissful senility.

        • Hutch, a typical brilliant poetic remembrance from you yourself . . .a masterful story teller . . .the folks in Donegal are smiling with pride these days as their Irish-American kin rememberest the beauty, the gorgeousness and gorgeosity of Natalie Wood in the film spun whole-cloth from “Splendour in the Grass”

  41. Essay #3 begins with a list of those innocents framed, wrongfully persecuted and/or excessively punished by the politically-motivated Federal Prosecutors in Boston, going back even before the malevolent tactics of Sterns,Durham, Wyshak and their successors (collectively called the Sterns Gang, disparagingly . . .but they were assassins of a sort: character assassins. If fact, we impugn state prosecutorial abuse, too., to lesser extent. We start with the malicious shanghaing (prosecution) of Judge Teddy Glynn for no other purpose than that he supported Foster Furcolo for governor.

    We speak of Irish Uprisings . . .we forget 1775-76; we forget what make’s Patriots’ blood boil, what triggers the Patriot Game . . .during the St. Pat’s Parade Case, stellar civil rights attorney, Andy McCauley of New York who aided the Veterans, Parade Orgaaanizers, as a Volunteer, said after just two years of State Executive and State Judicial Oppression of Free Speech Rights: “It’s time to take the muskets off the walls.””

    How much more urgent when our Federal Officials in Boston are staging Stalin-Like sham show trials and prosecuting innocents like John Connolly, Carswell, the Probation Officers (O’Brien, Chris Bulger’s boss) Kenny Conley, City Councilman Chuck Turner, a fifty-year old nurse with a clean record, AARON SWARTZ . . . .we could go on . . .

  42. Three Bill Boards outside Boston Massachusetts:
    1. IN Harvard Yard: FEDERAL PROSECUTORS AS BULLY BOYS
    2. ATOP the highest hill in Chestnut Hill: FEDERAL FANATICS STAGE SHAM SHOW TRIALS
    3. ACROSS the street from Newton City Hall, at John Kelly’s Boston Marathon Memorial:
    FRENZIED FEDS FRAME INNOCENTS, DIS BOSTON JURORS’ VERDICTS,
    GUT CONSTITUTIONALLY SACROSANCT SAFEGUARDS and
    TORCH DUE PROCESS/ DOUBLE JEOPARDY PROTECTIONS

    All 3 Bill Boards are also Essays #1 by Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law Prof; #s2&3 by William M. Connolly MPH (Harvard) JD (Suffolk) a.k.a. the Savin Hill Billy
    ESSAYS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST . . .Larry’s is found on his blog “Larry Lessig” published 2013
    d

    • John King McDonald

      Sandwich Board in Harvard Yard ? … Let’s get the word out ! … If you were really serious there would be a graffiti brigade stencilling this manifesto , albeit fragments , on every promising bit of iron superstructure in Boston .

      • John King McDonald

        If I see you walking around over there I will say hello . This all has a highly belated quality . It is a sop to conscience , conscientiousness , and consciousness , but what is the practical value ? The entire … Dynamic … is not taken into account when there is a braying tone to the denunciations . You are not a donkey . There is another side , many other sides , to many stories you have fit into your rhetorical … gift packages . Again , Deep Breath ! …

  43. John King McDonald

    Khalid , Stay curious ! Slainte .

    • Yes, Khalid. Stay curious, but dig a little deeper. MLK might have been on the minds of some, but there were centuries you forgot. A person holding court in the 1960’s might have yelled his name and then inspired a youth with no knowledge of the past to thank MLK for the inspiration, but it didn’t start with Peters or any other person born in the 20th Century.

      Read a little before you pop off. (And I don’t consider the simple word ‘no’ as popping off. I do that with my 1911.)

      • John King McDonald

        It were the Zeitgeist , Abe . Curiousity of the Times ? No , mutual arising ; those centuries past as linked to present as the arms of the marchers at Selma or Bogside . Burnt Norton .

      • O’Casey. Think Creggan, John. Bogside’s changed a bit.

        Abe: The Civil Rights marchers in the Counties actively studied, and, emulated, Dr. King’s tactics in the American South, particularly, the non-violent aspect. The loyalist’s violent reaction to the marches forced things to go bloody. Devlin, Hume, and, others, have written all about it.

  44. John: A lot can happen in 66 years. Sometimes, the weight of it staggers me. There’s many things I wish I could undo. Teaching school isn’t one of them.

  45. John King McDonald

    King was a lion . So was Padraic Pearse . The … IRA .

  46. Remember, President Trump has proclaimed March 2018 as”IRISH HERITAGE MONTH”

    I write in that spirit . . . .”With a rebel yell, she cried more, more, more.” Don’t forget the courageous English, our brothers and sisters, who sacrificed all, who fought and died on the Republican’s side, on Ireland’s side for Irish Independence. Remember the Riddle of the Sands and its truly heroic author.

    • Ironic, indeed. Most folks in Ireland, particularly Republicans, despise Glorious Leader, and, consider many Americans of Irish descent to be racist assholes. The original Catholic civil rights campaign in the Six Counties was based on MLK’s work in the American South.

      If anyone has seen David Rupert walking around, please make a blog entry. There’s a bag of cookies in it for the sharp-eyed. Never forget, never forgive.

      • “The original Catholic civil rights campaign in the Six Counties was based on MLK’s work in the American South.”

        No.

      • Youve got your histories all mixed up Khalid . . .the original Irish Civil Rights fights date back to Cromwell and before . . .”For four hundred years Ireland stood alone . . .” against Imperial Might said Eamon DeValera to Winston Churchill who complained of standing alone against the Nazi’s Wermacht for 2 years . . .
        It was Connolly, Collins and Pearse who inspired MLK ….read Yeats

    • Khalid if you read the Boston Globe or the liberal/leftist press in Dublin and then try to tell us what “most folks in Ireland think” you’re barking up the wrong trees . .

  47. Three Bill Boards outside Boston Massachusetts:

    1. In Harvard Yard posted by Larry Lessig, Harvard Law Professor:
    FEDERAL PROSECUTORS AS BULLY BOYS

    2. Atop Chestnut Hill posted by Billy C (Billy C. is not Bill C. the blogger and is not to be confused with him.) Billy C is the nom du pen of William M. Connolly, MPH, JD, who is not the retired Nebraska Supreme Court Justice, essayist and author, William M. Connolly, J.D., nor is he William M. Connolly, MPH, M.D. Billy C. is William M. Connolly, MPH, JD, a.k.a., just another “Savin Hill Billy.”

    FEDERAL FANATICS STAGE SHAM SHOW TRIALS

    3. At a Newton Law School posted by William M. Connolly, MPH, JD, who is not affiliated with that particular law school and who is long since retired altogether from the law.

    FRENZIED FEDS DISS BOSTON JURY’S VERDICT,
    GUT DOUBLE JEOPARDY JURISPRUDENCE

    These three Bill Boards are also three essays: The three essays titles are
    1. “Federal Prosecutors as Bully Boys” by Larry Lessig
    2. “Federal Fanatics Stage Sham Show Trials” by Billy C., a.k.a. William M. Connolly, MPH, JD, and
    3. “Frenzied Feds Diss Boston Jury’s Verdict, Gut Double Jeopardy Jurisprudence,” which is subtitled, “The Petty ‘Crimes’ and Non-Crimes for which John Connolly was Convicted by a Boston Jury which Unanimously Acquitted him of all Serious Charges rejecting serial Mafia murderers’ patently perjurious stale triple-hearsay testimony which Boston Federal Prosecutors pathetically persuaded themselves to give credence to and to believe and to use as the sole basis for eviscerating double jeopardy jurisprudence and which the Washington D.C. Office of the DOJ, fully cognizant of the facts and law, greenlighted, sanctioned and approved.”

    These three essays are available upon request by sending a SASE to Billy C, c/o William M. Connolly, MPH, JD.

    • John King McDonald

      The Savin Hill Billy Ex Machina ? … This is Cosmic Consciousness , no , not Comic , Cosmic … Both are side-splitting !

  48. My dog, Twoomey (RIP), did a stretch in Walpole. It was rough. He survived a cell burning. PRs lit him up after he complained about their dope.

  49. Nix that request Matts, Bill C has been located!
    Matt could you run a welfare check on BillC

    in other FBI news……

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-agent-david-raynor-wife-dead-apparent-murder-suicide-crownsville-maryland/

    March 7, 2018, 4:29 PM
    FBI agent, estranged wife found dead in apparent murder-suicide

    An FBI agent and a woman were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide outside a home in Crownsville, Maryland, on Wednesday. The Anne Arundel County Police department said officers arrived at the scene after 8 a.m. in response to a 911 call about a domestic assault. The caller said a woman was being threatened by her recently estranged husband, police say.

    in other uprisings….when the inmates ran walpole prison

    from the film 3;000 years and Life

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nI0P8NxXdGo

    In 1977 I was teaching at UMass Amherst
    working for Walter Silva in a program he
    created helping lifers get their Bachelors
    Degree in Mass Prisons

    inmate Jerry Souza briefly passed thru
    after he was released. He appears in the
    film 3000 years and life see above

    also see

    http://people.com/archive/jerry-sousa-vol-18-no-18/

    • That 3000 years and life is an excellent doc.

      • Abe: Restrict ammunition sales. An Armalite is useless without bullets. It doesn’t even make for a good club, too light. Outlaw 223 rounds except for the military. Most cops would rather use a shot-gun anyway. Pellets, and, 12 gauge slugs, generally, don’t go much farther than the intended target. There’s less chance of hitting bystanders.

        • Ammo has been restricted a lot since I was a lad. The price is off the charts, too. There, again, there are people I know with a million or so rounds. The stockpiles have been started. The movement to begin always gets too much abuse from NRA. “They are going to take ALL our guns away!” Impossible. And like the adage goes, the outlaws will always have plenty of guns and ammo.

          Its a big problem, this mass killing thing. Many components and lots of questions. I don’t know why people need military type weapons. They are unnecessary for civilian use. Then right off the bat you get, “If criminals have them how can we fight back?” Its true to an extent and that is where the mandatory ten years added comes in. So we put AR-15’s and hand guns in that same boat.

          And then the BIG problem must be dealt with. How do you get politicians who’s campaigns were funded by the gun lobby to vote for saving lives? How do we get life, liberty and pursue happiness if we are in lockdown in an elementary school?

  50. The SLA used cut-down M1 carbines tricked out for full auto. Easy to conceal. Not too accurate, but, very impressive to the average bank audience. They were a rum bunch, but, before their time, which, might be these days! Take it to the pigs!

    Concealed carry reciprocity agreements? Sounds nuts, but, I’ll go with it. Does that mean you can board a commercial aircraft heeled? Hot damn! That would make for an interesting flight.

    • The SLA with a full auto rifle that only has an eight round clip? Sounds lethal. And how short can you make an M1? Its only got about a 22″ barrel to begin with. Why not a nice little Ingram MAC-11 with a 32 round magazine and a suppressor? I guess they were “terrorists in training” back them.

      • Typo, my bad.

        No such animal back in the seventies. M-1 carbines were cheap, and, plentiful, back, then. Take a look at Patty’s weapon in the bank surveillance photos. They’d tape the clips together. Spray, flip the clip, and, spray, again. With no butt stock, and, a shortened barrel, the M1 was very concealable, easily, walked into a bank under an over-coat. The SLA used cut down 12 gauge pumps, and, pistols, as, well. An automatic weapon was a status symbol, back in the day. It connoted militancy in a revolutionary cell. Logistics cells were, generally, unarmed. Everything was well organized, coast-to-coast.

        All Aboard the underground railroad! Stops in Berkeley-Madison-Ann Arbor-Amherst.

        Ah! The good old days. That Patty Hearst program brought back a lot of memories.

        Tanya, bust on out of your elderly haus frau bourgeois prison! It ain’t too late. Flip the script. Death to the pigs! All power to the Dialectic!