I spent my summers at various YMCA and Boy Scouts camp.  I admired and listened to every counselor and adult that I came in contact with.  We usually stayed in tents with wooden floors, and to this day the smell of treated canvas rockets me back all those years.  I took it for granted that those older guys were concerned about me and wanted to teach me things I needed to know.  I wanted to grow up so I could be as cool as they were.      I did not realize that I was growing up in the last days of a collapsing society.  My values now were my values then.  I believe in treating every single person on the square, rewarding achievement and punishing bad behavior.  I believe it is the duty of the single male to put his life second to the young or helpless.  I care more about reading than anything else in my life, family excepted.  I love the outside, it sure is a shame that where I live is so damn hot during the day.  This is the Cri de Coeur for today.  Abayo.

  In summer, central Texas is unbearably hot.  At nightime people come alive.  Sitting under the stars and listening to music is what we live for.  Beer and weed add to it. Pictured is a mythical day in an alternate life where temperatures top out at about 70.   This is on the bank and there is no crowd.  Soon we shall couple like rabbits.   Does any one remember Tony the Tiger?  He wa probably the most civilized tiger of all time, being a vegan and all.  They're great!  The poor guy must have been fucking starved.

     I saw a dead raccoon in the road today.  They are so beautiful, at least alive, anyways.  In the midst of life we are in death.  Time is an illusion, the universe has already collapsed and gone cold, we just can't see it from our place on the totem pole.  The rabbit is quoting from Leonard Cohen.

     Weapons add dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.  The M1927A1 T-Gun has earned it's place in American history.  Complete with Cutts compensator and Blish lock, this over engineered machine delivers.  (at 450 per)  Illegal or not, Scribbles believes in honest dealings and right action.  Hah!  Just kidding.  Get there first with the most.       Inspiration for todays lesson was provided by channel 7.2, Austin, TX.  Yesterday was, for some reason, a war film day.  If the reader has not seen "Hell is for Heroes", then for the love of God and Country, don't.  Lots of weapons, and lots of Jeeps.  I love both of those things.  Bob Newhart was shoehorned into this movie and I do mean shoehorned.  Steve Mcqueen, Fess Parker, Bobby Darin and James Coburn round off this well filmed bad movie.  Also last night was the "Diary of Anne Frank", in case there was someone out there that still wished to see a film come hell or high water.  My favorite

     Found "Heat of the Sun" on net-flix and watched that for a while.  I really like this series and have not seen any of it since it first showed here in Austin.  Africa is just as interesting as it can get.  If anyone wonders what kicked off the doomed "Mau-Mau" emergency then they should read about conditions in Kenya at the time.  Two days ago this site recieved a hit from Zimbabwe.  When I think about how that country is going, I figure Mugabe himself was reading this. 

     Lim Poon, d. 1991, age 72.  Part of the inspiration for the book referred to in yesterday's post, The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.  Mr. Poon was seen several times as he floated on his raft and it is believed that he was not picked up because it was thought he was a decoy for a waiting U-boat.  The other inspiration, plot wise, was the Count Of Monte Cristo.  I very much recommend all three of these stories.       I spent the day on the Gulf of Mexico and I  would not wish to be in this situation for three hours let alone 4 months.

     Today I don't feel like history or anything like that.  Fragile shells of flesh, we are but chips on the flood.  To paraphrase Eric Ambler, the notion that we are in charge of our own destiny is the basis of all good drama. 

     Here we see the end of the Third Punic War.  Scipio Aemilianus weeps as he orders the destruction of Carthage.  He is said to have thought that some day Rome would suffer the same fate.      For some reason, the Romans decided to eradicate Carthage instead of reducing them to allies subject to Roman rules.  As it was, the disarmed Carthaginians put up one hell of a final fight, against a poorly organized and trained Rome.  That Aemilianus was able to do as well as he did shows that he was a chip off the old block.   Sic Transit Cartago!

     October 15 1946 Landsberg prison.  A game of basketball is faked to conceal the noise of the gallows being erected for the major Nazis sentenced to death.  Early in the morning, only an hour or so before his hanging, Hermann Goering removes a glass container from a cut-down rifle cartridge, places it in his teeth and bites down.  This in full view of the guard.  No one has any idea where he got the poison from.  Several people have confessed to giving it to him but they have all been proven liars.  An American officer (Lt. Jack Wheelis) has been accused of procuring the poison for Goering with slightly more probability but this is not proven and the case is weak.  ("The Mystery of Herman Goering's Suicide", Ben Swearingen).      Goering, a person of proven bravery and very great leadership ability, was a moral coward who was the one person who could have removed Hitler and ended the war.  He also signed the final solution order given to Heydrich.  Other than t