In the days of Pharoahs, Kings, Sultans, and Emperors, occasionally a new ruler would take the throne who had a bug up his or her butt about some previous ruler. Maybe the new tyrant had some unresolved Daddy issues. Maybe the fellow had seized power through a violent coup and wanted to demonstrate his utter disdain for the former ruler. Maybe the new ruler had a well reasoned long standing political or religious grudge against the previous line of rulers and wished to convert the population to an entirely new way of thinking. Whatever the case, throughout history there have been autocrats who have gone far out of their way to downplay, deny and even delete any records of their predecessor's accomplishments.
Sometimes loyalists to the previous regime who were brave enough to continue to speak the truth as they saw it found themselves exiled or like Trotsky, facing the business end of an icepick.
As far as we know President Trump hasn't started issuing kill lists for American citizens who cherish President Obama's legacy. Not yet anyway. But President Trump has been on a significant rampage to wipe away most of President Obama's initiatives or accomplishments.
Mister Banker Mister please, how much does money mean
Won't you reconsider Mister Won't you do this thing for me
Mr. Banker
-Lynyrd Skynyrd
I've written before that if you were a criminally minded sort in today's environment you'd be a fool to join the Mafia or other illicit organizations. These days, the benefit is no longer worth the cost. Working outside the law you have to worry about informants, violent paranoid co-workers, electronic surveillance up the wazoo, and long prison terms. That's no good. If you have wicked urges be smart and work inside the law. For example, if you want to assault or kill people, become a cop. You will be virtually untouchable.
If you want to help people gamble away their cash so that you can make a profit, open a liquor store and run the state sponsored lottery. People will give you money for nothing and thank you for the opportunity. And if you want to loan money at extortionate rates, changing or reinterpreting contract terms to your benefit while emptying your client's sucker's pockets, then do what former Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner did and open up/run a finance company that markets predatory loans to impoverished and/or desperate people.
The check arrived out of the blue, issued in his name for $1,200, a mailing from a consumer finance company. Stephen Huggins eyed it carefully. A loan, it said. Smaller type said the interest rate would be 33 percent.
Way too high, Huggins thought. He put it aside.
A week later, though, his 2005 Chevy pickup was in the shop, and he didn’t have enough to pay for the repairs. He needed the truck to get to work, to get the kids to school. So Huggins, a 56-year-old heavy equipment operator in Nashville, fished the check out that day in April 2017 and cashed it.
Over the years I've had people occasionally get my food orders wrong. Usually it's a no harm-no foul sort of deal. Of course sometimes you run into unreasonable aggressive insulting people who will not take responsibility for mistakes and/or who will not refund your money or make your order correctly. And on the flipside, although we say that the customer is always right, customers exist who go out of their way to cheat, insult, harass and even assault the people who make their food. People of all types can have quick tempers and resort to violence for no good reason. I don't know the truth of what took place at the China 1 restaurant at Mt. Clemens. I do know that language barriers combined with poor service mixed with impatient, angry or demanding customers can cause tempers to flare. The question that must be answered is who threw the first punch. Or more precisely, who bit whom first?
MT. CLEMENS, Mich. (WXYZ) - A woman was arrested for allegedly biting off part of a man's ear during a fight with the man at a Macomb County Chinese restaurant on Thursday night. According to deputies, they were called to China 1 Restaurant in Mt. Clemens around 9:40 p.m. When they arrived, they found a man with his ear partially bitten off and a woman with a large bump on her forehead.
Deputies say 24-year-old Jade Anderson walked into the restaurant complaining about her order. She was complaining to the owners, who are also the victims in the assault. Due to a language barrier, the victim's son translated what Anderson was saying to his parents. That's when Anderson allegedly pushed the son and threw her food onto the floor. She then started assaulting the female victim, and the male victim stepped in to protect his wife.
Former political prisoners read unpublished letters from South African freedom fighter and later President, Nelson Mandela. It's important to remember that no matter what life throws at you, you can't let it break you.
Unfortunately the world is full of people, who as the character Blade opined, are always trying to iceskate uphill. There is not really a way to reason with such people. They don't understand reason and/or don't respect it. All you can do with such folks is attempt to avoid them. And if you can't avoid them then you must use force to stop them from hurting you or yours.
This is ugly. But this is life. There is a saying that you don't mess with Texas. A would be carjacker named Rickey Wright found this out the hard way, when a mother, unable to convince Mr. Wright not to steal her SUV with her children inside, used a more persuasive argument that ended the confrontation.
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – A suspected carjacker is in the hospital after a North Texas woman shot him as he tried to take off in her SUV with her two children in the backseat.
The incident happened just after 10:00 p.m. Wednesday, when Dallas police say the woman stopped for gasoline at a Shell station on Camp Wisdom Road.
The mother, who does not want to be identified, left her children in the SUV while she ran inside the convenience store. Before she returned a man jumped into her vehicle and tried to drive away, but the woman saw what was happening and jumped in the back seat.
I really like most of Joe Tex's work. I also like the Ray Charles-Betty Carter version of the standard "Baby It's Cold Outside". Recently on Facebook a relative posted the Joe Tex song "I Gotcha!" which Joe Tex performed on Soul Train, well rather danced and lip synced, with Damita Jo. I love this song and had never had a problem with it. The character whom Joe Tex is singing about is horny and wants to get down to business. There's no doubt about that. But is he a threat? Is he a would be rapist? Some women I know said they found this song distasteful or even intimidating and offensive. I was surprised. I never saw it that way. But everyone has different perspectives and responses. There's no accounting for taste. There is no right or wrong when it comes to the music you like or do not like.
I always thought that the song "Baby It's Cold Outside", particularly as sung by Carter and Charles, was about two sophisticated adults who were doing the dance that almost every man and woman have done at some point in their life with someone they like. I didn't see any coercion or threat. Unlike with "I Gotcha" I was aware that some people thought that "Baby It's Cold Outside" was a misogynist's how-to guide for rape, but some of the people who think that also seem to be hostile to any hint of male heterosexuality so I didn't pay them too much mind.
In any event by today's lyrical standards in popular music both "I Gotcha" and "Baby It's Cold Outside" are quaint and damn near innocent bedtime lullabies. So it's difficult for me to see how anyone could see these songs as menacing or intimidating. For me that's a reach, but I could be wrong. I'm not a woman. So there's that. What's your call? Are these songs harmless ditties or sexist threats?
Blood Song
by Anthony Ryan
This older novel was the author's debut into a pretty crowded field and the first in a trilogy. I think it kind of stinks that so many publishers and authors shoehorn stories into a trilogy when so many of them would be just as well served by having one stand alone story. However, I do admit that this story left me wanting more, which I suppose is all a reader can ask. The story themes will be familiar to anyone who has read high fantasy; there's not too much that's new here. The book's enjoyment comes not from brand new ideas but in how the author weaves together some classic tropes and storylines.
The author sets the story in a world much like our own High Middle Ages. Countries that are fantastic versions of England, France, Wales, The Ottoman Empire, Songhai, and other Eurasian or West African nation states vie for economic and political primacy. Ryan uses a framing technique in which the person we believe to be the protagonist tells the story of his life to an enemy who will shortly it is believed, oversee his execution.
The protagonist is Vaelin Al Sorna, Sword of the Realm to King Janus of The United Realm, aka Darkblade, Young Hawk, and Hope Killer. Vaelin has been captured by his enemies in the Alpiran Empire and is going to be executed, or so everyone believes. Curious about the life of Vaelin and how he became one of the greatest warriors of the Sixth Order, the caste created to defend and expand the Faith, the Alpirian Imperial Chronicler decides to take down Vaelin's story. Vaelin's story starts when he is just ten years old and is abandoned by his father, the former Battle Lord to King Janus, at the gates of the Sixth Order castle.
