Friday - June 04, 2010

No character??

I just got off the phone with my friend mkmchevy down in Texas. He was complaining about my blog posts. Whether on SomethingsRotten or BMEWS, he claims my posts have no ‘character’.

Now, my first response to mkmchevy was that he has a standing invitation to post on SomethingsRotten. I challenged him to post something with ‘character’. ‘Put up or shut up’, I told him.

He declined.

Well, I’ve decided to post something with ‘character’. Something that would make mkmchevy happy. Maybe happy enough to quit complaining about ‘character’?

This is dedicated to mkmchevy…


Poll closes ... Monday.

UPDATED Update:

It’s a TIE !!!!


UPDATE!!

First, I’d like to thank Drew for posting the poll. The results are now tied between ‘Hell Yes!’ and ‘I Blame Bush’.

I did feel the need to clear up my avatar’s origins. See if you can spot my avatar in this YouTube clip:

Posted by Christopher     on 06/04/2010 at 09:00 PM   
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   Thursday - June 03, 2010

Welcome Aboard

A big howdy to new members Miss Tammy and Eldad.
Welcome aboard!

We have another new member in the queue too, but I’m waiting to hear back about what user name he wants.

Anyone who wants to join the BMEWS gang: send me and email, and tell me what user name you want. If you want to log in by a different name than that, let me know that one as well. That’s all it takes!

Now it’s time for me to go get some lunch.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/03/2010 at 02:44 PM   
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   Saturday - May 15, 2010

Waldo Spotting

Jay Jay
PeiperD PeiperD
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great care of his missus
Though he was seventy three
Jay Jay said to his missus,
“Missus” he said, said he;
“You must never go down
To that hot desert town
If you don’t go down with me!”



The Peiper has resurfaced. The two of them are out in Palm Desert CA for an extended vacation. He is doing his best to make up for time lost while living abroad by watching several baseball games a day ("The Dodgers” he writes, “Da Bums!!") and stuffing his face with local food. Screw the waistline, it’s time to eat.

He is living without a computer, without internet, and feeling it badly. BWS. Blog Withdrawal Syndrome. It’s like quitting smoking. Worse. Says he might be forced to get some basic PC just to be in touch with the world.

So he sent me an “analog post” - a handwritten letter, in which he worries about the elections in Britain, that fink Cameron who blew a 20 point lead which let too many from Labour in, what atrocity the EU is up to today, and he’s right POed that the USA (via the IMF) is bailing out Greece. 20% of Greece works for the government, he says, and many of those jobs are sinecures - no show jobs that come with a paycheck and a pension!! - while having an actual job on the side. With the gravy train derailed, The Peasants Are Revolting. [you can say that again!]

On the other hand he is joyfully agog at having an American washing machine and an American clothes dryer once again. I gather that in England both devices are built into the same machine, and not only is it half the size, it does neither task very well at all. Go figure.

Desert life is forcing the two of them to get up and about extra early, so that they can have their errands out of the way before the heat gets too intense. Smart move.

If I read between the lines properly, I think it’s their plan to be there until the fall. He writes that it’s going to be hard to go back to England in a few months ... my guess is that it will be harder than he thinks, as I’m sure that the gyppos moved into their place the moment they drove away. Probably 3 caravans on pads in his backyard already, and a basement hockshop selling stolen goods. But at least this time he’s going back with a proper frying pan for making proper American breakfast pancakes [not the English after dinner kind], and a whole case of Bisquick too I hope.

And of course he’s angry at everyone who is angry at Arizona. Good. Just because he’s taking a trip to the Left side of the country doesn’t mean he’s lost what is Right.

So I’m going to get a card off to the two of them very soon ... probably Tuesday ... and will add in any comments or messages y’all have.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/15/2010 at 03:43 PM   
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   Wednesday - April 28, 2010

IE Problem Solved???

A nice Thank You to

who all sent me emails saying “hey, problem here!” and especially

Larry and the other Gary who sent me a screen cap of the problem as well!!



BMEWS has been having a problem with the sidebar being wrapped around when the blog is viewed with IE. Since Sunday. And Drew has been having a very busy few days and he hasn’t checked his email since Saturday. Serves me right. D’oh!

Anyway, I checked the last 16 posts for html errors. I shrank all the graphics an extra 10%. I made sure every single html tag was matched and properly closed. I turned the left alignment off on the picture of Jesse Jackson’s head. I pulled the animated .gifs. Nothing seemed to work.

I went into the source code and went over the main blog template and the main .css files. Nothing ... although I did see that Allan had used an old form of the code for a text bullet, which is why you may have seen the “&bull” several times at the bottom of each post instead of a • when you read BMEWS using IE. That’s minor, and I fixed that next.

But I could not find it. I could not find where the problem was.

So I had to play Dr. House and do exploratory surgery. Yank a post, reload the blog in IE. Problem solved? No, so put the post back and try another. Finally I found the culprit. I think. But for the life of me I can’t really see anything wrong with that post. All the widths seem Ok.

IE has a notorious history of having problems with blog sidebars. My advice is to use Firefox, Opera, Safari, or damn near anything else if you can. But sometimes you can’t, so I did what I could to make things Ok with IE.

At least this time the issue was not due to a table entry. That’s another bloggy bugaboo that gives some browsers hiccups.

At any rate, now it looks fine when I run it with my IE. I hope it looks fine on yours. I still hate IE though. What a slow motion POS.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/28/2010 at 03:31 PM   
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   Friday - April 23, 2010

International BMEWS

Good heavens, we have a reader on right now from Susah Tunisia. And another one from Egypt.

Love it. I hope these folks can read English, because this site isn’t done in Arabic.

Well, a big friendly howdy to y’all if you come here in peace. And an even bigger go fuck yourself with an angry cobra if you’re just trolling this blog looking for something to get uppity about. Yeah, we’re against all forms of militant jihad here. And we’re against any form of religion that calls for violence or limits certain people’s rights. Deal with it. On the other hand, if you happen to be one of those mythical moderates our media is always alluding to, and you want a place to publish an essay about tolerance and peace, then you are welcome to sign on and I WILL publish what you write.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/23/2010 at 11:51 AM   
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   Thursday - April 22, 2010

Howdy Neighbor

We have a new member! Please welcome Cactus Mark, who hails from Arizona State University.

Go Sun Devils!

Let’s hear what he has to say when he has something to say. And don’t forget, we’re not like them:

Posted by Drew458     on 04/22/2010 at 09:12 AM   
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   Monday - April 19, 2010

Service Interruptus

Sorry about that ... BMEWS was down for an hour or so there. My ISP, Hosting Matters Inc, had to reboot their server and run a disk check. These things happen, and they happen dynamically, so the ISP really can’t let me know in advance.

Nice customer service from them, for sure. I sent in a Help! Help! email from my home account, and within a minute or two I had an actual reply, not just a service ticket.

But we’re up and running again, and that makes Pamelia happy. Very happy.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/19/2010 at 09:49 AM   
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   Tuesday - March 30, 2010

Putting BMEWS on a diet, categorically

The Forum is gone. All iterations of it ... Bark!, Freedom Forum, etc. All gone. It hadn’t been used in a long time, there was nothing great there, and we can use the space. Adios.

I am doing a little category management as well. We have way too many categories, but none of them are empty. The plan is to roll several categories together, but it isn’t that easy. For example, I dumped the QUEER category (poor taste, that) so now we have just Gay, Gay, Gay! That’s enough. Any story that’s primarily about homosexuals will fit in there.

We have several categories for Islam. RoPMA, Sharia Law, Muslims, Middle East. Roll ‘em up. “Everything’s Coming Up Islam!” as a new category name, or we’ll just choose one of the existing categories. We even have several categories for cars, and several for awards (moonbat or otherwise). Should Middle East stay, and absorb Paleswine, Israel, Iran, and Iraq? Maybe, maybe not. But Colleges-Professors could certainly merge with Education.

The problem is that it’s a lot of work, because as far as I can tell, to avoid overloading the Miscellaneous category, we have to go in and edit each and every post in any category that we want to get rid of, change the category name to the new one, then update the post. And we’ve got 15,000 posts here. Yikes. If we just go and snip a category, all the posts in it get dumped in the Miscellaneous category. And that’s kinda stupid, but there is no widget that says “Ooh, killing a category are you? What category would you like all the posts in there refiled under?”. So it’s going to take some time.

Admin volunteers wanted!

I’m starting with the EU. Euro-Peons, EU Super State, and EU Pin Heads will all go under the new category EU Follies. The various PC categories need to merge into one, including the Diversity BS group.

In the meantime, let’s STOP ADDING NEW CATEGORIES until we get this thinned out and under control.

And yes, we now have a Chess category. And a Books category. And that’s fine. But we need to get rid of the “Baskin Robbins Syndrome”, because many of those “57 flavors” are all still Ice Cream.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/30/2010 at 11:17 AM   
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   Monday - March 29, 2010

One little sign and twelve words that say it all.  And does so very well.

H/T RichK

I was sent this a few days ago and was looking for a story to fit it. They are out there in plenty lord knows. However, I still was not able to fit it to any article I had. But that shouldn’t matter anyway. Should it?  This little sign says everything, and what it says is so true that I felt it could stand all by itself as a post.

Posted by peiper     on 03/29/2010 at 06:17 AM   
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   Friday - March 26, 2010

Linky Love

I just added CargoSquid’s blog to the blogroll. He runs United Conservatives of Virginia, and is doing a good job. Stop by sometime and see what he’s got going on.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/26/2010 at 09:28 AM   
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   Saturday - March 20, 2010

Space limitations

Running low on space again here at BMEWS.

I had to trim a few hundred ancient posts, clean out the server side email accounts - Sorry Mr. Christian, you aren’t around anymore so you no longer have an email account!, and delete a few gigs worth of gigantic graphics files. That should keep the wolf at the door for a few more weeks, until I can see what kind of deal I can work out with the server company for buying more space.

The annual bills just came due. It costs a dollar a day to run this blog. That is relatively expensive I think, but Hosting Matters, the server company, has been extremely reliable. This blog has NEVER been down, even when they have had to move the account from one machine to another. To be completely transparent, a good chunk of that dollar a day is for the widgets I have running both in the foreground and in the background. Several of them are annual renewal things.

And a big thanks to the “known user” who emailed me because he wants to snail mail me a donation. I really appreciate that; every little bit helps. PayPal works well, but some folks have problems with it, and some folks just don’t trust it. I understand. But no, I won’t give out my home address to just anyone. Have to be careful these days you know.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/20/2010 at 12:13 PM   
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   Friday - March 19, 2010

FOUND … a fragment of family history. It’s 1892, and Queen Victoria is still on the throne.

As mentioned already, the mil passed away a year ago and we are still dealing with papers, old letters and fragments of family memories.
No doubt there many families in the UK that have papers far older then what I offer here. But this is still interesting because it puts a light on a time when things like this were taken seriously. 

The mil saved things all her life and in fact couldn’t even remember all that she had packed away.  We keep hoping we can finish with it all but then again, when you find stuff like this, well, it takes on another meaning. Kind of touching bases with kin long gone.  In fact, my wife had never seen this document before yesterday, when we discovered another box stored away collecting dust and silverfish.  Inside that box was a fireproof container with papers and some letters and old bills and such.  You can’t believe the things we came across, aside from this document.  We found the full extent of some family skulduggery, posted last year in our history of two families. We just didn’t have ALL the papers when I wrote that as their existence was not known to us then.  This is the bit we found fascinating.  Her maternal grandfather in 1892 became an apprentice in something called an indentured apprentice for more then six years.  Take a look.

The red seal at the bottom has mostly fallen away and what’s left is unreadable.  The the old paper has some holes where the folds are.

Posted by peiper     on 03/19/2010 at 09:46 AM   
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Some history wherein …. I found myself kind of up close and personal

I only have minutes to put this together as I have to go out for an appointment and then the post office.

For more then a year and in bits and drabs, we have been unloading things that are mostly dead memories and or junk that was rat packed by the late mil.
The woman kept every little item she ever acquired including her own school report card at the age of 12. 

Many of the things she got her claws into really were nothing but junk.  Hundreds of empty bottles stored in plastic bags in the badly rotted garage.  A box of coal on top of which sat an old decayed and rotted wardrobe.  Which completely fell apart when the guys we called to haul things away tried to lift it after it was emptied. I can not even begin to describe the things here inside the house from clothes to cheap pottery. When we arrived in April of 2004 we had a heck of a time making room for ourselves and had to fight to toss out old and decayed junk, much of it along with the mouse droppings and whatever other varmints were using the upstairs as a hotel.  She ( the mil) worried that we were getting rid of treasure. Sure. Like a double size mattress completely folded in half in a large plastic bag in the attic. The plastic and the mattress having been gnawed most thoroughly by her unseen guests. See, when she bought the new one, she kept the old one too.

Well, among the many things squirreled away, there were a few (very few) items of interest.  A WW1 bayonet for one. Old letters from the war including the notice that her fiancé was lost in the RAF on a mission. In fact, neither the plane or the crew were ever found.  It makes for some sad reading going over all these very old letters of his that she saved through all these years.
He writes of his worry for her as he was aware of the serious bombing of Southampton, and says he won’t sleep until he hears that she and family are okay.

The letters are written on small size stationary and a small cramped hand in many places, so it isn’t easy to read everything. I have never been good at making out other people’s handwriting.  Anyway, it’s interesting reading and gives one a sense of things back then.  While I remember clearly the concern of our family for uncles away at war, one a navigator on a Liberator bomber and the other in the Navy, my uncles didn’t have to worry when the next air raid would occur in the USA. 

(There’s even a short note she wrote to him in 1938. How it came to be in her possession I’ve no idea. Surely it was sent and read by him, as also she had the original envelope franked and all.)

Well, there’s still talk of a strike over Easter by the union against Brit Airways and now as I read the letters from another time the radio of today is informing us that the union representing the Railroad wants to vote a strike too.  But at the front in August of 41 and writing from an RAF base somewhere, a Sgt. Bill Rogers is writing to my wife’s future mom, a letter of condolence to a young lady named Peggy, who Roy “constantly talked about.” Sgt. Rogers assures the young lady that having spent some many months together, he and Roy’s friends got to know him well.  There were apparently some crew photos taken (? not sure and hard to read here) which he promises to forward.  Must be photos. This was August and Peggy replies to him.
But in a letter dated 4th Sept. 1941 from Wing Commander (can not make out the name) No. 78 Squadron, he writes as follows.

“ It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that Sgt. Rogers was reported missing on 25 August 1941, this being the reason for the return of your letter.”

How that must have hurt, and how many times that feeling was duplicated over the course of the war.  It wasn’t until I held letters like these in my own hands and read them that the war finally came home to me, as much as it could given time and generations. It was vastly different from reading the diaries and memories of that generation in a magazine or newspaper.  Reading those is reading history to be certain. But it isn’t near as personal.

Who knows what else we may find in some cubbyhole or under a rafter somewhere in the attic.

Stay Tuned.

Posted by peiper     on 03/19/2010 at 07:16 AM   
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   Thursday - March 11, 2010

A LIFE REMEMBERED AND A GOOD FRIEND STILL MISSED AFTER ALL THIS TIME. BARRY SADLER.

I believe there was a time when a guy could describe his feelings for a good friend with the use of the word “love.” This would be someone he was close to (but not too much mind you).  Happily we could say so without fear of being thought of as,, you know. To use the common expression of my bygone day, queer.  Use the ‘L’ word these days and you’re sure to draw odd looks.

As one who has always been in awe of real talent, as I understand that term, there were many people I admired greatly.  I viewed some artists (mostly musicians)
in a god like way. I was depressed beyond measure for example when Gene Krupa died.  The same with Benny Goodman and I was totally devastated when Jack Benny passed away.

When those I knew personally and had almost daily contact with passed from the scene, the pain was on a par with the passing of a parent.

Such were my feelings for the late Al ‘Jazzbeaux’ Collins, a man of immense talent who guided my initial radio career. My self appointed mentor and radio guru.  The best damn Jazz DJ that ever was, and one of the very best radio personalities ever to sit behind a microphone spinning disks on air in major markets from NY to L.A.

I still mourn his passing and that of Royce Kendall, (one half of the duo, The Kendalls) one of the nicest and kindest gentlemen I’ve known.  As great as they all were, I’ve discovered that what I might mourn as much as their physical passing, is the loss to the world and me personally, of their unique talent.  So maybe it’s talent I worship more then the person, which is not saying I didn’t have great feelings for all. 

Well, the person I want to write about here was something of a standout. Besides Al Collins, he was the only other male I had ever bonded with.  He was, Barry Sadler.

Better known as Green Beret, Sgt.Barry Sadler. Songwriter (The Ballad of the Green Beret) and singer. And teller of great jokes. He was a good friend and a great talent.

Those who knew him either feared him, thought ill of him, or loved him.  Obviously I fall into that last category.

Barry Sadler was a man of many talents.  Historian, weapons expert, story teller with a gift for mimicracy and author of books that are still selling today as I write this.

Nobody could tell jokes like him, often in dialect.  He was a wonderful character and I know many were frightened of him because he shot and killed Lee Emerson, another writer.  He was cleared as it appeared to be self-defense. Even if it hadn’t been self-defense, it would have made no difference to me. Barry said it was self defense and that was enough for me.  I looked up to him, he was one of the very few heroes I ever had. 

We spent time at the bar in the Hall of Fame hotel on Music Row Nashville. I didn’t drink. Barry did, often times too much. But he was so damn funny. Not his books however. There was nothing funny about those. They were violent mostly but well plotted.

One of the books I favored a lot was, “Nashville With a Bullet” (the term bullet in the music industry, indicates a song is hot and getting airtime and one to watch. They are usually hyped but not always. The term was invented by promoter Charlie Lamb. A song placement on the Billboard charts and the expression “in Billboard (or Cashbox) With a Bullet” came into use.) Coming from radio as I had, and at the time I knew Barry I was working in Nashville, everything in that book was quite familiar. 

His books are still selling but most in demand is the CASCA series. They are selling at premium prices on Amazon among collectors.  He even has a fan club here in Britain, where his books sell as well.
Should you want proof of that, check out Barry Sadler, CASCA books at Amazon USA or UK and see what they’re selling for.  And these are not large books btw. They are thin paperbacks bringing prices equal to new hardback books. Barry would laugh to see the prices people are paying. 

When I told a friend who was a decorated ex Marine that I personally knew Barry Sadler, he asked me to introduce him as Barry was a hero to him as well. So I did. When my friend proudly told Barry that he was once in the Marines, Barry looked him straight in the eye and with a serious expression said, “I tried to enlist in the Marines before I got in the Army. But they rejected me.” They rejected YOU? My friend asked in great surprise. “WHY?” And with a straight face Barry said to him, “Because I can read.” Oh god, I was on the floor. I felt bad for my friend, but that was Barry Sadler. The eternal joker.

Sadly, there was another Barry Sadler as well. The warrior who couldn’t sheathe his sword. If there was fighting somewhere, Barry had to go. Oddly, he got involved in helping a children’s hospital and bringing in supplies to them and raising money for them. A lot of it his own. This was in Guatemala, where things finally caught up with him.

We’re not sure how. Some say it was a robbery in Guatemala, others point the finger at some shadowy hit for hire and others say it was a grudge carried out by some enemy. I guess we’ll never really know for certain how anyone ever got the drop on Barry Sadler. Someone else even suggested that a drunk Barry might have shot himself accidentally.  Most of us don’t believe he could have been sober for it to happen the way it did. I still miss Barry. It’s not true that anyone is replaceable. That’s the disadvantage of having heroes. They let you down one-way or another, by being mortal and dying when all the time you thought they were gods.

Before he left for that last trip, I recall our conversation and all but begged him not to go. I told him I thought he was pushing his luck, that every time he went over he increased the chance of never coming back. And from a purely selfish view I told him, I couldn’t replace a friend like him. Ever!

His reply was one I’ll always remember. He said, “Hey Jay, how would it look if one day you picked up a paper and read that Sgt. Barry Sadler died because he got run over by a bus? Wouldn’t you feel better if you knew I went out in a firefight?” I said, “Hell No Barry. I don’t want you to die period. You croak and I lose a friend I can’t replace.” He laughed, we parted and I never saw him alive again.

I played Taps on my silver Bach trumpet when he died , and never played it again.  I haven’t been able to re-read any of his books either.

-30-

Posted by peiper     on 03/11/2010 at 11:18 AM   
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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