Feel free to add your own rules in the comments below.
1. One statistic can never tell the whole story.
2. A meme does not constitute an argument. It is an advertisement for a particular point of view.
3. Do not agree or disagree with anything based solely on Rule 1 or Rule 2.
4. Always seek and cite multiple original sources.
5. Life is not simple and cannot be boiled down to a catchphrase.
6. Exception to rule #5: “Life’s a bitch and then you die.”
7. Strive to be fair in your thought process. “We can never hope to be objective we can only hope to be fair.” (I am paraphrasing and I don’t recall the original source of this quote.)
8. Read “How to Lie with Statistics” by Darrel Huff.
9. Freely allow facts to get in the way of your preconceived notions.
10. Be willing to change your mind in the presence of a winning argument.
Since yesterday’s collection of various veterans was so popular, I’m going to post another bunch of pictures of people with whom I’ve served over the years and some notable friends and others I admire who served honorably. Some of these are reruns and others may not be. I’m feeling less lazy today, so I may caption these.
To all of you pictured below, to those colleagues not pictured below and to all who have served honorably, thank you!
Staff of Army Forces Central Command – Saudi Arabia in 2000. Some great Americans in this group. Loved this job.
The ORIGINAL Joint OPERATION TRIBUTE TO FREEDOM Class photo at the Pentagon’s River Entrance.
Family portrait, Dad, me and Jefferson, now a lieutenant colonel.
Dad immediately after his release from active duty, circa 1970.
Dad and Mom.
Riyadh Air Base, Saudi Arabia circa 2000.
Signal Officers Advanced Course, 1985.
Official Photo, first as a colonel, 2002.
Hank Minitrez, Shawn Woodbridge and me at Shawn’s birthday party, I think.
Me on TV as a second lieutenant.
Retired 3-star Ed Soyster and retired colonel Larry Brom during the WWII 60th.
Finance Officer Branch Qualification Course, Fort Jackson, SC in 1999
This one has a built-in caption.
Garold Holcomb, Bill Carnegie and Daryl Pooler on our way to Korea for an EXEVAL of the U.S. Army Finance Command at Yongsan.
My brother, Jefferson, with his unit in Columbus, Ohio.
A reunion of members of Southern California’s 326th Finance Group at National Harbor, MD some years ago.
Rather than post a whole bunch of useless words, I’m going to post a whole bunch of pictures of people with whom I’ve served over the years and some notable friends and others I admire who served honorably. These are all reruns, so don’t get overly excited about new content. And they’re not all captioned because I am lazy.
To all of you pictured below, to those colleagues not pictured below and to all who have served honorably, thank you.
Lt. Col. Speedman, me, Lt. Col. Stan Kensic and Master Sgt. Jeanie West.
George Lopez, me, Shawn Woodbridge and Eric “Chuckles” Harding.
Then Major Mike Downs at the Grand Canyon of the Middle East.
The Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines of Joint Task Force – Los Angeles.
ROTC Advanced Camp. Some of these folks probably never made it to veteran’s status, but I’ll bet most did.
MG Anders Aadland announcing the start of OPERATION Tribute to Freedom in 2003.
The Department of Defense World War II 60th Anniversary Commemoration Committee. Click to enlarge.
Left to right: Shawn Woodbridge, Jeff Keane, Yours Truly, and Jeff’s wife, Ethel Keane. We were celebrating something or other at the Ritz Carlton’s Suinday brunch in 2003.
LTG (Retired) Ed Soyster and I at Nellis AFB outside Las Vegas in 2005.
The late Commander Bob Moran, a friend of mine.
Just ’cause he’s awesome.
Former Coast Guardsman and fellow actor Ken Parham
This is a ten-day record of the activities of a combat unit during WWII in which my father served as a young lieutenant. Always found this to be a fascinating and sobering read.
Reposted from January, 2014. Much to my great disappointment, it’s only gotten worse. These days, you’re either all in or you’re a total asshole with no redeeming social value and ought to be banished from existence.
I lived in Los Angeles from 1990 until 2004 when the Army permanently relocated me here to Virginia. During that period, I was trying to make a career in the entertainment industry as an actor. For a period of about 3-4 weeks smack in the middle of badly mismanaging my early life in LA, I was literally homeless, sleeping on the couches of fellow friends and other starving actors. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t romantic. It was frightening, demeaning and humbling. But I got through it and while I never did establish myself as a working actor as I had wanted, I did build a career as a technician in the entertainment industry for much of my time in LA and loved every minute of it.
This time, my homelessness is not as a result of my own gross mismanagement. In fact, this time, my homelessness is not a physical one but an ideological one. There’s no place at all for me to hang my hat when it comes to politics.
I am politically homeless.
The Republican Party as a group doesn’t seem to want to include anyone that doesn’t adhere to its strict conservative set of ideals. Sure, there are things about which I agree with the Republicans among them defense, fiscal responsibility (though no one in politics seems to be practicing this anymore) and personal responsibility above government responsibility.
The Democrats, on the other hand, deride anyone whose ideals conflict with a generally liberal perspective. I observe the Democrats pulling out the race card for things that generally aren’t racist, but that’s their opinion, I suppose, and they have a right to it. And there are things about which I agree completely with the Democrats including broadening the definition of marriage, legalization of marijuana and the easier provision of health care, though I disagree with the approach which is the Affordable Care Act.
So you see neither party will have me. And frankly, I don’t want either of them.
Since I disagree with the ACA, there are many in the Democratic Party who will state unequivocally that I hate poor people and actively want them to be sick. I don’t, and such charges are ridiculous. No one wants people to be sick if we can make them well. I’ve seen the ups and downs of the American health care system during my former spouse’s dealings with multiple cancers and other serious maladies and I welcome health care reform. I just disagree with this particular approach.
I hear a lot of Democrats say that the Republicans want dirty water and filthy air since they don’t support the same environmental concerns they do. That’s crazy talk, too. No one WANTS dirty air and water. No one. Not even the vast majority of corporate entities who are often falsely accused of relegating environmental concerns to the basement of the priority stack. They want to be good corporate citizens because it’s good policy and it’s better for their bottom line.
Republicans often say that if you support abortion under any circumstances that you want unborn babies to die. That’s ridiculous. Do you know one person who actually WANTS unborn babies to die? Do you know anyone who thinks that’s a great idea in every case? Again, no one wants that, but to hear it told by some staunch conservatives, if you have a (D) after your name, that is precisely the belief you hold along with ALL of those with (D)’s behind their names. That’s just nuts.
You get the idea.
Life is not now nor has it ever been an “either/or” proposition. Why has politics become this way?
And it’s not like a relationship with either party can be like one of those Venn Diagrams that you did in school:
Lately, it seems to me that neither party ideologically allows you to overlap even a little bit. (Not publicly anyway.) You’re either all in or your all out. You either agree with them 100% on everything or you’re a horrible person who wishes bad things to happen to everyone else.
Yes, I am aware of the Libertarian Party. In fact, ideologically speaking, I probably overlap with libertarians the most. But right now, the (L)’s are not influencing the national dialogue to any significant degree and therefore, not a practical entity in my opinion.
Ok, I admit it. There are a few people – very few — on whom I’d wish bad things. And no, none of them are ex-significant others or spouses or anything petty like that. So no, I don’t wish for bad things to happen to the sick, the well, the poor, the rich, the homeless, the unemployed, the heterosexual, the homosexual, the bisexual, the trisexual (or any sexual I can imagine — and I have a vivid imagination) or the purple people eaters of the world.
I’m just me and I have my own ideas and thoughts about things. And I’m smart enough to draw conclusions from the available data for myself. I have an equally smart, terrific circle of friends and acquaintances most of whom don’t share my every perspective and I don’t hate them and they don’t hate me. Sometimes I agree and sometimes I don’t. Yes, we have been known to have heated discussions, but we have far more in common just as people then we do politically.
And herein is the lead for this essay: We ALL have far more in common as people than we do politically. The two well-established political parties have lost sight of the American populace as people FIRST. People have nuance, color and diversity of thought. Voters don’t. And that’s how the two well-established political parties now view all of us – as voters not as people. You’re either all in or you’re all out.
In today’s political climate, this leaves the thinking person with no place to go. This leaves me homeless.
Rather than post a whole bunch of useless words, I’m going to post a whole bunch of pictures of people with whom I’ve served over the years and some notable friends and others I admire who served honorably. These are all reruns, so don’t get overly excited about new content. And they’re not all captioned because I am lazy.
