I read the following, got up, made myself some coffee, ingested it and sat down again to re-read because I thought it was a trick played by my just awoken mind.

Why are The Miami Herald and other news outlets so quick to label common-sense survival activities in Haiti as “looting”? According to news reports, there are few if any grocery stores open for business in Port-au-Prince, and vast quantities of donated food have yet to be distributed. Meanwhile, there are tens of thousands of people without food, water and shelter.

There also are tons of debris to be removed from the streets. In these circumstances, removal of any useful items before arrival of the bulldozers seems like the sensible, humanitarian, environmentally friendly and cost-effective thing to do.

The missive to the “editors’ was written by Helene B. Dudley of Miami. After a quick Google search, I found out that Ms. Dudley belongs to the group Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of South Florida.God Bless them for the service they performed, but bundling looting to environmental clean-up is akin to associate a stabbing during a mugging to a life-saving open heart surgery.

I won’t comment on the legality of having to steal food and water from a store to survive a catastrophe like that, but I don’t care how flexible is anybody’s imagination, to think that looters are doing so for environmental causes is just idiocy. If anything, looting might be bad for Gaia since people do not know what kind of chemicals and poisons, crushed but contained by the debris will now be released and spread to the four winds in the legs of looters. Contaminated items will pass hand to hand making people sick and overburdening even more the tight situation in Haiti.

Oh and by the way. The traditional looting custom of burning up the ransacked stores after they are pillaged seems to be running against sound environmental principals and are serious increase in the carbon footprint that will kill our planet.

I need another coffee.

So now it is official. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a temper tantrum regarding Trijicon’s 30 year tradition of adding biblical references to their products. According to Legal Counsel Nadhira Al-Khalili “The use of military equipment with hidden Bible references sends the false message to Muslims worldwide that we are at war with Islam.” So every time some Suicide Bomber yells Allah Akhbar before blowing himself and a crapload of innocent MUSLIMS is not sending a false message to Christians that Muslims are at war against them? Call me silly, but several pounds of Semtex blowing up in a crowded market is a bit more radical than six or 7 characters molded in a gun sight.

I think CAIR should spend its time trying to prove that they are not un-indicted co-conspirators associated with know terrorist organizations rather than ticking us off. Then again when you have jello testicled enablers Pentagon officers like Spokesman Commander Darryn James rushing to acquiesce and bend over for CAIR by saying that: “If determined to be true, this is clearly inappropriate and we are looking into possible remedies,” the Un-indicted Co-Conspirators at CAIRN will continue to shape things that are not in the interest of our country .It is sad as hell because if you do a Google search for Commander Darryn James and you’ll see that the Commander’s favorite response to any question tends to be: “it would be inappropriate to comment,” yet he jumps like a burnt cat when CAIR speaks its piece. May I need to remind the Pentagon that this stupid oversensitivity not to be perceived as racist probably cause about a dozen deaths at Ft. Hood? Or you guys already forgot that? Oh wait! It wasn’t any reference in the official report….never mind.

So here’s my final message to both CAIR, Commander Darryn James and the Pentagon regarding Trijicon:

When I finally upgraded my old DirecTV box to a DVR, I went through the motions of setting my favorites and I guess I accidentally programmed Current TV (Wholly owned subsidiary of Global Warming Enterprises owned by Al Gore.) If you have nothing else to do, I recommend you watch it every so often to get a good laugh at the fantastic level of stupidity you can see in some of its shows.

I just finished watching one of their documentaries called Wanna buy an AK-47? by Kaj Larsen and Chritsof Putzel. I’ll take their word that two whiter than Wonder Bread youngsters just stroll in the middle of a Somali gun market, video camera in hand and proceed to haggle for guns. The expected anti-NRA rhetoric is obviously expressed by Mr. Putzel (more on his name in a minute) who tries his best to look professional handling both and AR-15 and several Aks but it looks like his experience does not go farther than playing with Arisoft replicas. Mr Putzel is even amazed at the fact that they sell RPG launchers (no grenades) openly and touches one with fear as if the launcher was going bite him

The best part of the video however is when Mr. Putzer visits another gun selling establishment and a Somali decides to mindf*ck him by aiming an RPG launcher at him. Mr. Putzer just wobbles and freaks like a little girl looking at a mouse and a roach copulate, pushes the launcher away and him and his cameraman seek refuge under a wooden shack to the absolute delight of the Somalis present who can’t help and laugh at the two morons.

You can even here somebody in the background say “No bullets!” amidst the laughter and catcalls. Of course, next comes the obligatory “We are suddenly in danger and we must flee for our lives” scenes and I actually believe it happened. Even though in the video they sort of hint that maybe they overstayed their visit at the gun market with a video camera, I suspect that in reality the translator might have overhead the crowd say something along the lines of “These two idiots just crapped their pants when somebody aimed an empty tube at them. I think it is time we introduce them to the joys of Somali Man-boy love.”

PS: Yes, the tactical bolding of Mr. Putzer’s name is a cheap and low pun. But it is damn funny and accurate after watching the video.

I have not subscribed or picked up a copy of the Miami Herald for over a year. Right after the election I decided that while it is always good to know what the “enemy” was thinking”, it was time for me to stop subsidizing their proselytizing ways besides I could catch them online for free. During that time I caught news from other sources talking about the harsh times and cuts that the Herald was forced to implement to survive but I really didn’t give it too much of a thought till this last couple of mornings where I was given what passes for the Miami Herald nowadays.

WHOA! The paper has dwindle to almost nothing. You can actually get more paper in the almost daily sales pamphlets that come with the junk mail. But the collapse goes beyond amount of pages, even the quality of the printing and design has taken a vacation (or maybe it was downsized along with many staff) and has the quality of a high school paper that was printed in a rush and with other things in mind.

One thing it has not changed has been the quality of the news and articles printed. They still reek of left wing political machine without a care for the people in Miami Dade County. If you happen to bump into a supposedly “caring” article, be sure you would end up reading about how the plight of that person was the fault of the Republicans/Bush/Chenney/Gun Nuts/Cuban Embargo/etc. The editorial page is still plagued with the same old “vote democrat” and “give our corrupts left wing politicians a chance…again,” and the columnists have not changed their tune: Leonard Pitts, the Herald’s version of both Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, can’t wait to blame everything on the non-black people. Andre Oppenheimer still lives with the contradiction of his socialist dream and having to comment on the piss poor job of Fidel, Hugo and the rest of the new Latin American Socialism. And Carl Hiaassen is still having involuntary ejaculations every time he sees or hears Obama mentioned somehow.

The sad part is that the Herald blames everybody but themselves for their collapse. The economy (Bush’s fault of course), the internet (they should blame Gore but you don’t mess with the Pope of Global Warming), Republicans in general, bloggers, Climate Change, lack of hurricanes and even the guy that sells churros in the corner of W. 49th street and Palm Avenue. They never figured that as a paper, they must report the news without bias (or at least not so blatant) and properly reflect the community they serve. And here is the missing key and magic word: serve. The Miami Herald long ago forgot that they were a part of a community which wants information and turned into a medium that told the community what to think and how to act. Their attitude and message reeked with snobbish attitude which did not settle well with us, it never admitted wrongdoing (other than a few misprints) and strutted like a proud peacock announcing to its local world that they were better than anybody else. Now they are paying the price.

The Miami Herald has been up for sale for a while now and cannot find a buyer even for the land! And we are talking juicy real state right on the water a spit away from Miami Beach and the tourist zone which every single tourist tour and cruise ship stops to unload cash money. Even if the real state market is crappy right now, anybody with some business sense knows that the land will be worth untold millions whenever we get out of the benefits of the Obama economic plans.

I do have to make a correction. There is one issue in which the Miami Herald does provide a benefit for the community: The coupons in the Sunday Edition. The rest of the week you can pretty much use the newspaper to wrap avocados in need of ripening.

Going through the news, photos and videos coming out of Haiti, you cannot help but realize the folly of relying on the Government for immediate help. I am not saying that Big Evil Government will not help, but it is a huge slow animal that will take a long tome to get going and, in the meantime, you are on your own.

And as the bureaucracies slowly churn into action, the regular folk are left to their own devices. Most folk will actually try to recreate some sort of mini-society, a tribe if you please, but some will just become a pack of predators with murder and mischief in their minds.The power of armed roaming criminals is awesome. Not just because they are armed but the level of violence they can inflict is something we are not accustomed to see as civilized people. It feeds its violence on itself and even the most simple and peaceful of men will do things that are unthinkable, the hardened criminal will reach new heights of cruelty. Mobs are nasty and Desperate Mobs are cancerous and unforgiving. The result is that rescue efforts will be delayed or denied because safety cannot be guaranteed just as it is happening in Haiti where medical teams are being pulled out because it has turned too dangerous for them to do their mercy work.

I have lived through a total breakdown of law and order. I’ve seen neighbors turn to neighbors for support and neighbors turning against neighbors in frenzy. I saw people getting killed in very horrific ways and sadly I understood the phrase “Life is cheap” in a very short time. We escaped the mayhem not because the mob suddenly developed a conscience (news flash: Mob Mentality does not include conscience or morals) but because we were ready to inflict serious deadly force and managed to transmit the message in a clear and concise way to the looters. Our property was left alone while the Mob went looking for softer or more rewarding targets and they did. I saw more people getting killed and homes and businesses being painfully stripped of anything remotely of value like a cow under a piranha attack.

And the biggest shock of all was that the mob was not faceless and anonymous. I saw people I knew for short, medium and long time in it. They became animals just going about their wild business no matter what past history they had with the neighbor they were looting. It didn’t matter to them, the “reward,” the immediate satisfaction and the feeling pf power that a mob gives was too intoxicating for them to think coherently about what they were doing.

I don’t think I slept for three days. Things started to “calm down” not because sanity returned but because there was nothing much left to loot and the mobs moved on. It took the local government 5 days to send a semblance of authority to the area and only then people became individuals again. Some were embarrassed for what they did, some didn’t care and I just couldn’t digest all that happened. I have most of it now but there is this sense of “I can’t believe it happened” still in my brain. The old “Be polite, be professional but have a plan to kill everyone you meet” is relevant as sad as it may be.

OK, what’s with the recipes? And not only just plain recipes but some stuff that makes you gain a pound just by reading the ingredients? Brigid just posted a cookie recipe that will make you search for the nearest insulin bank. And it is not the only sinful dish she has propagated: burritos, bacon and eggnog (don’t ask, just try it) and an assortment of casseroles. Tamara keeps regaling us with tales of meats, common and uncommon plus her reviews of restaurants and dishes that bled and were on four legs in a past life.

And what really makes me mad is that we males of the blogging species are not even ranking 150th in a 100 runners race. Where are our recipes? Our secret family dishes? Huh? Are we going to let ourselves be beat by the ladies? Are we afraid of showing we are capable of more than Mac & Cheese? 🙂

I know, I am gonna get my butt kicked.

Yep, now offering a bus tour that takes tourists through the turfs of Los Angeles gangs.

Make it a Safari and I am game.