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Pentagon is made fun of and likes it. Then bombs satirists.

This might come as a shock to you, but the endless battles fought by the United States military is taking such a toll on its soldiers that its officer corps no longer seeks inspiring its minions.

 “You’ll notice my wife and daughters aren’t here sitting in the audience today,” said Capt. Vince Miller, speaking to his Army company in a change of command ceremony. “That’s because Sheila left me six months ago when I had to skip our 10th anniversary trip to Jamaica so I could come in on a Sunday for unit PT, since one of you dipshits decided to go out and get his third DUI.”

Even suicide, a scourge some see as near epidemic proportions in today’s Army, received no euphemisms from the outgoing company commander.

  “Do any of you morons have any clue how much paperwork it causes when you blow your sad little heads off? At least have the courtesy to go AWOL first,” Captain Miller said. “But for fuck’s sake don’t come back for at least 30 days so I can drop you off my books and let someone else deal with the meatsack of failure that is your existence.”

Such frankness sent shock-waves through today’s Pentagon. That is, until the higher-ups figured out that “articles” such as this one, titled “Outgoing Company Commander: “I Hate You,” is satire. Yes, say hello to “Duffel Blog.”

Once the Pentagon discovered the blog was satire, the uptight dime-a-dozen lieutenant colonels let loose guffaws in probably one of the most nervy spots on Earth. The website which skewers the military and its civilian leadership with headlines such as Obama On Military Cuts: If You Like Your Job, You Can Keep It,” has found its fans even in the Pentagon leadership.

 “Duffel Blog is a beautifully crafted response to an increasingly stuffy environment in today’s America,” retired Gen. James Mattis, a former head of U.S. Central Command who has been parodied in several items,” The Washington Post reported.

Like its civilian-counterpart The Onion, the Duffel Blog has had its articles mistaken for the truth. This, in turn, sometimes confuses those who cannot tell truth from lie. For instance, a blog called Mr. Conservative, rang the wing-nut alarm bells upon discovering headlines from a recent Duffel Blog exclaiming: “Obama Admin. Hands Out Pamphlet: “What To Do When The Veteran In Your Classroom Attempts A Mass Shooting.” That someone could confuse this with the truth makes one worry for their fellow mankind.

Perhaps those unfamiliar with the military culture and structure will not “get” this military satire. But fortunately enough for me, that is not my problem.

 

 

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Open your mouth and say “Verizon.” Let your good day turn to crap on a stick.

“Your time is valuable,” says the sickeningly uplifting recording on the phone. I suppose if they were truthful and said, “Your time means nothing to us, go screw yourself,” I would be even more aggravated than I already am.

Verizon Wireless finally sent me a broadband device that works well and from which I have had no problems since it was delivered. I would cross my fingers but my right-hand second and third finger will not cross anymore. I don’t know why. My left fingers work fine. I just happened to notice the other day that my right-hand fingers will no longer cross. Not that I am superstitious, but I do cross my fingers when someone says something that requires some manner of hope. Perhaps the gesture is an act of affirmation. Still, the fact that my right-hand crossing fingers no long cross sort of bums me out. I can understand undergoing signs of aging at age 58. I’ve got plenty of them. Anyone need one? One sign of the aging process coming up!

I sent the wireless device that was replaced about three weeks ago. Verizon has never received it. Let the games begin.

Perhaps Verizon doesn’t realize it yet, or maybe they have, but what they have invented is a “mood depressor.” Hey, anything can make you happy–sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, religion, funny cat videos. People have been raking money in hand-over-foot for years to sell the items that one another seem to believe will make them happy. Of course, money is at the center of the entire kaboodle. What the hell is a kaboodle anyway? A strange land filled with nothing but kaboodles and kits, of course. What kind of kits I have no idea. First aid kits? St. Kitts? Who knows or cares?

But think of it, eventually the buzz you get from a revival or a shot of cocaine or a shot of whiskey or a shot of Rosa Lee will come tumbling down. Watch out, Junior! The Walls of Jericho are falling. Another day is about to be shot to hell. So why wait for your good mood to fall flat as a beer open Wednesday last and was never covered since.

Why not deploy yourself a good ol’ mood depressor? You have to come down from that mountain, Tillie, the sun’s about to set.

Yes, dial *611 and punch 3. Talk to a real person. Yes, speak to a real person at Verizon Wireless and your day will be all shot to hell. You know you want that feeling. Where you going, Hon? Why I’m going to the State of Pissed Off.

 

 

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Sixty-four yards: Where is the ticker-tape parade?

Maybe I have just been looking at the wrong places. But it seems as if relatively little fanfare was given the phenomenal accomplishment Sunday inside the awful-sounding Sports Authority Field at Mile High.

No, I am not talking about the 51-28 shellacking that the Tennessee Titans was given at the hands of the Denver Broncos. And the nearly 500 yards passing by Peyton Manning? Forget about it. What did I say last year about the vaunted Denver quarterback? Uh, I said Manning might night not recover sufficiently from his neck surgery to start this year and if so, perhaps he shouldn’t considering the danger. Of course, I also said this was the year for a Houston Texans trip to the Super Bowl. That won’t happen. In fact it is looking more and more like Denver could just be the AFL half of the Super Duo this year although we have a few weeks to see how that plays out.

What did happen was that Denver kicker Matt Prater broke the 43-year-old field goal record held by the New Orleans Saints’ Tom Dempsey. Prater nailed a 64-footer just prior to the end of the first half to narrow the lead Tennessee held by 1 point. Perhaps, the latest record-breaking kick was not at dramatic as when Dempsey, who was born with half of his kicking foot, kicked the 63-yarder in the last two seconds of the November 1970 New Orleans-Detroit game giving the Saints a win. Wins were hard to come by for the “Ain’ts” back then. Remember the fans wearing paper bags over their heads?

The record-breaker in Denver apparently wasn’t even that dramatic to Prater, the 5-feet 10-inch, 195-pound Central Florida alumni, who ironically first played for Detroit as an unsigned free agent.

Prater said in interviews that he was late lining up because he had not heard the field goal unit being called. With three seconds to go in the half, he did not know until surveying the landscape that he was kicking for a record. This might have helped reign in any anxiety produced by such circumstances.

Of course, any time a record is broken it is analyzed 14 ways come February. There is the matter of the field “at Mile High,” being a mile high. Or close enough. The Sports Authority Stadium is less than 50 feet from the original Mile High Stadium — later Invesco Field at Mile High — which was at one mile high. The current field is supposedly 80 feet less in altitude. But regardless of the actual field altitude there are laws of physics that apply when up that high above sea level.

What is undeniable is that two of the three kickers who tied the previous record held by Dempsey made their kicks at Denver. That the thinner air affects the aerodynamics of a football in flight is pretty well agreed upon. Of course, cold weather also can affect how far a ball will travel and Prater’s kick was in below freezing temperatures. Prater pointed out that the cold weather may have negated any positive effects from the elevation. Some scientists estimate the altitude at Mile High might account for as many as seven extra yards on kickoffs though kickoffs and field goals are hardly the same apple.

Perhaps I am guilty of a so-called “straw man” argument. That being I didn’t see much hubbub over this record-breaking accomplishment while I seriously doubt that is true. Perhaps I sound as if a great pyramid should be built over a matter of only one foot. But keep this in mind: Only three people tied the record in the four decades after Dempsey made the tremendous kick in Tulane University Stadium. No one broke the record until today (Well, yesterday, actually.)

Yes, things were different then. The goalposts were not moved to the back of the end zone until four years after Dempsey set his record. And unlike these days when a kicker’s job is to, well, kick, Dempsey played on other squads in his career including the offensive line and on special teams. The latter reason is why we may not hear of his reaction to his record being finally broken is because he has been diagnosed with dementia, likely linked to taking numerous hits over time.

One should not be hard-pressed to see for themselves why the kick Prater made Sunday might have been worthy of more awe, or at least why it has mine. Take a look from a real football field, or even on televised games. Then take in the view from behind the kicker going for a 50-foot-plus attempt to all the way down the field to the uprights. And look down at the little object — 11 inches from tip-to-tip, and when inflated to about 13 psi, has a center circumference of about 22 inches — that will be snapped to the holder.

As my homies back in East Texas used to say: “That’s a pretty fer damn piece.”

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Happy Holidays — WWJT?

Watch out everyone! The liberals are out to steal your Christmas again. They already stole your flawless healthcare system. Next thing you know they’ll come for your kids.

Yes, just as Christmas trees and mistletoe have come to signify the approaching holidays, so has the right-wing’s pre-Christmas hysteria that the liberals want to abolish the celebration of Jesus’ birth. Some folks are always up in the air, more and more each year, at the thought a vast conspiracy exists to exchange the greeting of “Merry Christmas” with the more secular “Happy Holidays.”

Now I don’t know how long the term “Happy Holidays” has been around. It may have started or at least gained prominence with the popular Irving Berlin World War II tune “Happy Holiday.” The song was sung by Bing Crosby in the film “Holiday Inn.” The film title supposedly inspired the name for the hotel chain. Part of the song’s meaning expressed the wish that the joy of the Christmas and New Year’s season could last all year. It certainly must have been a bittersweet song for Berlin considering one particular Christmas past.

Berlin came from a Belarus-Jewish background and though known as America’s first Jewish songwriter, he and his Catholic wife celebrated Christmas while their children were growing up though they stopped the practice once the children were grown. Though “celebrating” the holiday it was surely a sad occasion for the couple. Their only son died on Christmas Day in 1928 at the age of three-weeks-old. Berlin, of course, wrote a number of other popular songs relating to Christian holiday themes such as “White Christmas ” and “Easter Parade” as well as “God Bless America.”

I never really thought much about the greeting “Happy Holidays” any more than I did “Season’s Greetings.” I found it a practical wish for those who celebrate both Christmas and New Year holidays. I can understand those of faith who see Christmas the more important of the two. Though as I also grew up I came to understand the celebrations of other faiths during the “Season,” for instance the Jews.

What I can’t understand is why many who profess they are Christians today back Israel? I say that because I remember many Christians I knew while growing up found little tolerance for Judaism, or even some religions within the realm of Christianity for that matter.

Granted, the celebration of Christmas does not carry the gravitas for me as it does for those who profess Christianity. I see Christmas more as a secular holiday, while I also celebrate the birth of Jesus who I see as a great prophet. I like and always have liked New Year’s for the revelry and the day to toast that the coming year will be better than the last.

Frankly, I sometimes wonder what Jesus would think about people so bent out of shape over semantics when it comes to “how” one should greet others in celebration of his birth. Jesus just never seemed as if he let petty matters get to him. And, in a world where there always is turmoil, would not its people do much better by focusing on those things that perhaps Jesus viewed as more important?

 

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Where is my flying car? Why, it’s in the garage behind the boxes of Slinkys.

They’re here! They’re really here! Well, maybe not exactly …

I speak of flying cars. Flying cars, or rather, the thought of flying automobiles have be around us for a long time. During the 50s and 60s, movies and TV shows like the cartoon “The Jetsons” placed the idea in many a young brain that come the turn of the 21st century we would be driving in and out of terrestrial and interstellar traffic. The assembly-line flying car has yet to materialize, even though they have really been around for quite awhile. And while some folks who have their heads way in the clouds and feel the airborne car will be here sooner than later, a technology is already here that could be the predecessor of the modern flying car — a cross between a helicopter and a drone — could be clogging the skies carrying Amazon deliveries by 2015. That is if Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has his way.

Entrepreneur and now owner of The Washington Post Bezos sure got his PR machine on full-throttle and heading way out to the clouds, especially since announcing on “60 Minutes” last night that his drone technology to deliver Amazon products is here. It just needs a bit of tweaking.

One needs only to take their heads out of the clouds for a few minutes to realize what all is involved for a drone to actually show up at one’s doorstep with a load of books, CDs and maybe even a pizza and a six-pack of beer.

It seems like everyone and their dog wants a drone now while everyone else and their cat believes drones are a terrible idea. But what about the flying car? And flying cars everywhere? Well, it seems as if that is being worked on as we speak, and probably by more than one dreamer. It just seems as if the drone will pave the way for flying cars in everyone’s garage. And probably a chicken in every pot just for posterity. I don’t know why to expect either to tell the truth.

But those in the crossed centuries have wondered why the year 2000 came and went without flying cars everywhere. Flying cars have actually existed for awhile now, at least 60 years or more.

I was always amused by the Bob Cummings TV series of the early 60s. The comedy starred the debonair Cummings, who both in the small box and in life was a former World War II pilot. He happened to have driven/flown an honest to Abe flying car, one which known as an Aerocar. This being the late 50s and early 60s, one might have easily guessed, and correctly so, that the airborne car was peculiar looking. Of course, given Cummings’ background his enthusiasm of flight must have been predestined.

Now I have not had time to verify this, at least to my satisfaction, but I will go ahead and repeat the biographical information gleaned from the Wikipedia page for Robert Cummings. The Wiki piece notes that Cummings was taught to fly as a teen by his Godfather, Orville Wright. Yes, that, Orville Wright. Supposedly Cummings also became the first person who the government certified as a flight instructor.

Whether the Bezos octo-drone actually takes flight and delivers stuff remains tot be seen. There does seem as if an awful lot of “tweaking” would be required for such a roll out. Of course, that might just be the spark needed for flying cars. But one has to think about this: These flying cars have been wrapped around inside a time warp and still the objects have not advanced. One has to wonder why that is so.

Think about it, then dust off the old Aerocar and fly over to pick me up. I’ll be the one wearing the parachute.