Category Archives: Fire This Time

The Spooks Vs. The Brass: Will This Duel Stop Haspel’s Rise?

the generals flatly reject the excuses & assurances by Brennan and the spymasters:

We understand that some well-respected former senior government intelligence officials have spoken highly of Ms. Haspel’s experience and long record of service to the Agency. However, we do not accept efforts to excuse her actions relating to torture and other unlawful abuse of detainees by offering that she was “just following orders,” or that shock from the 9/11 terrorist attacks should excuse illegal and unethical conduct. We did not accept the “just following orders” justification after World War II, and we should not accept it now. Waterboarding and other forms of torture or cruel and inhuman treatment are—and always have been—clearly unlawful. Individuals in the service of our country, even at the lowest levels, have a duty to refuse to carry out such actions.”

The Road to Columbine – A True Story (Some names are changed)

We headed down the hall and out the door, going as far as we were allowed, to the plowed field, toward the creek. As we walked, watching out for muddy spots, a couple of things became clear to me: one was that Justin wasn’t kidding. He would want his revenge on Eddie, and it would be a bloody one. Another was that when the time came, I had to stand with him, just as he had stood with me in my face-off with Father Vince.
But how could I do that so it made a difference? Justin could flatten Eddie with one fist and me with the other; and where would that leave either of us?
Still feeling shaky, I spotted something in the grass by the creek. It was a length of two by four lumber, about two and a half feet long. It was damp from laying out there in the dew and rain, and that made it heavy. A notch had been cut out of one end, giving my hand a good grip on it, and it swung with a real heft to it.

I whacked it against a tree a few times. The blows were solid, tearing big gashes in the tree’s bark, and making my palm and fingers hurt. But I didn’t drop it. In fact, with each blow I felt stronger and swung harder, and harder at the tree.

And like an electric shock, an idea came to me.
This two by four was not just a piece of wood. It was an equalizer. Looking down at it, I stopped shaking. It could solve our problem with Justin: In my mind’s eye I could see how it would go down, as clearly as if it was actually happening:

The Deaths Of Racism, And Racism In Deaths

Helena then beckoned us through an opening in the low wall, into what seemed an empty field.
This plot was meant to be added to the cemetery (since UVA professors keep stubbornly falling short of immortality). But when archaeologists tested the ground, they discovered that it too was full of unmarked, and previously unknown graves.

A Year of #45. My Year of Resistance.

Many other resisters were organizing to descend upon the public meetings of regime-supporting Congressmen & women, a great many of whom did not want to face or hear from their constituents. That was true of many Members from Carolina, and still is of some. But one exception, in early May, was Republican Rep. Mark Walker from the Sixth district, has been drastically gerrymandered to make Walker’s reelection seemingly safe. So on a May morning he decided to hold a public meeting, and since I had business out that way, I decided to drop in on it — not to speak, since I’m not a resident, but to observe.
A staffer shoved a ticket into my hand when I entered. As I sat down, it was announced that tickets would be drawn from a box to choose questioners.
And the first ticket drawn was — mine??
What? It was true. So I stumbled up to the microphone, trying to think quickly of a question that might get past his well-practiced talking points.
Somehow I succeeded. Walker had previously been a preacher, and so I asked him if he believed in the Ninth of the Ten commandments, the one against “bearing false witness” (i.e., telling lies.) A bit puzzled, he said he did.
So then I asked what he thought about the tally the Washington Post had been publishing each week since inauguration, tracking and documenting #45’s lies, which were running at about 5 per day. Was he okay with that?

Now Walker was really befuddled. As he stuttered, it appeared he might not be exactly sure what the Washington Post was, and he certainly didn’t know anything about this tally. But after much backing and filling, and under my prodding, he did finally manage to come out more or less foursquare against telling lies, without being more specific. Not his best performance.

Other questions were mostly about health care, aka Obamacare, which he was against. As an accidental resister, I felt afterward that I had done okay that morning.