zeke emanuel and me, ethicists .... qualifications compared ....

ezekiel j. emanuel is an intellectual big shot.

so, let us start w/ the basics.

his name is zeke emanuel. he claims to be a medical ethicist. he asserts that in certain situations, which he claims to be able to define w/ clarity and objectivity, that he should have the imprimatur of authority and ability to decide & declare who lives or dies. emanuel is silent on this matter, but i assume that he limits this authority to matters of medical extremis and/or deciding who receives public funds for continued treatment of the same.

my name is john jay, and i am not a big shot. i am not a legend in my own mind, nor apparently in anyone else's, for that matter.

my name is john jay. i am a political ethicist. i assert that in certain situations, which i am able to define w/ clarity and objectivity (as conferred by a thorough familiarity with history and an appreciation of human nature, surely as good a source of authority as a harvard education), that i should have the imprimatur of authority and ability to decide & declare who lives or dies. i should be empowered to make my decisions in matters of political extremis, clearly defined, when the fundamental liberties of people are jeopardized by the political and social behavior of politicians who spread the bacillus of evil.

zeke emanuel has degrees that says he is qualified, by education and hubris, to practice as an ethicist. i have no degrees, nor am i lauded by persons like those who wish to elevate zeke emanuel to the level of god, by those who aspire to the same social station.

i do not aspire to the level of god. nor do i seek divinity. nor do i seek dominion over the affairs of others.

i do, however, believe that under principles discussed previously in these pages, that i have the right and the duty to defend my heritage and the political beliefs of many epochs, and that i may rightfully assume the powers granted by god to azrael to do his bidding.

so, what is the difference between zeke emanuel and me, other than zeke emanuel justifies his work in terms of public savings, the public purse, and various other doctrines which devolve ultimately into the worship of expediency? (an expediency, by the way, that favors those who not coincidentally are favored by emanuel.)

zeke would kill because he says he is regarded by others as being qualified to do so. i say that i would be qualified to kill because my aims and limitations are defined by history, religious belief, and sound political doctrine deriving from concepts of self defense and defense of others, to include their heritage and belief.

money and expediency do not enter into my calculus, as they do in emanuels. in many respects, i believe that i am on sounder ethical and moral grounds in my beliefs than emanuel is in the expression of his. gussy it up all you will, in emanuel's world it comes down to the exercise of collective power to foist his decision making onto the fate of others. in my world, my actions come down to intellectual and moral conviction. costs be damned.

i once defended a woman in court for her refusal to tell the authorities who had beaten an infant to death in a home lived in by members of an extended family. the family knew the mother. the family knew of a medical and behavioral condition passed on to an infant, who was neglected and ignored until her care was taken over by the extended family. one morning the infant was found with injuries said by an expert to consistent with being the recipient of a series of injuries and beatings, or at least more likely than injuries any degree of neglect would have allowed the child to inflict upon itself.

say what you will about what the jury found in that particular case, or how the court disposed of it consistent with the jury findings. that's not my concern here.

what interests me in connection with zeke emanuel's function as a medical ethicist, and his role of saying who lives and who dies, is the almost absolutely congruent asserted/alleged role of the family in the above case in deciding upon who was to live and to die, and the fact that the family in all of its alleged shortcomings was infinitely better qualified to make such a decision in the matter of the little baby, than zeke emanuel will ever be in any death he orders as a medical ethicist.

unless of course, he gets to pull the plug on his own mother, or maybe brother rahm, if he happens to be left in a vegetative state as a result of some accident or misdeed.

zeke emanuel has his medical charts, which he comfortably and confidently assumes renders him competent to decide who lives, and who doesn't. and, that's it. by contrast, the family i dealt with had access to all of that, and knowledge of all the other wordily and spiritual aspect of the child's life, and intimate knowledge of the likelihood that the child ever recovering from its disabilities, and the cruel twists of fate to which it was subject. they also had the traditional ways of their heritage at their disposal (such a resource as would emanual repudiate.)

zeke emanuel, why some call him enlightened. society called the family something less than enlightened, and cruel. i see no difference.

in my education i have studied plato, aristotle, socrates, kant, hegel, marx, schoepenhauer, nietzsche, the bible, the koran, bits of the talmud, locke, hobbes, blackstone, stalin, lenin, trotsky, jefferson, washington, jay, adams, franklin, madison, lincoln, hamilton, mao, pol phot, and a host of other worthies, ... , books about, and original works by.

i also spent 25 years in jails, prisons, court rooms, and investigating crime scene and interviewing witnesses, ... , in short, i have had a 25 year apprenticeship in the application of moral and legal precepts to the taking of life in the name of anger, passion, lust, greed, and in the consideration of principle and morality.

i would stack that applied education against all of the book learning and god playing in all of ezekiel emanuel's life.

yes, indeed.

i consider myself an ethicist with all of the intellectual stature and moral authority that zeke emanuel applies to consider himself an ethicist, and more. i have the imprimatur of a history, of a religious, political & social history going back over 2500 years on my side, and zeke emanuel has only marx, lenin, stalin and hitler to support his views on things.*** understood in that context, i would expect a good deal of society, and of my fellow citizens, would respect my views in such matters.

as elwood blues said to "joliet" jake blues, "i am on a mission from god." as "joliet" jake blues said to elwood blues, "me and the lord, we have an understanding." i think in this, as well, i have the ethicist's leg up on zeke emanuel.

update, in the morning, an added thought or two.

zeke (and rahm) emanuel want to get rid of me. (they, too, have political notions, now, don't they?)

i want to get rid of zeke (& rahm, & ilk). emanuel.

we are ethicists from the same bolt of cloth, it might seem. but, they want to rid the world of the maladroit, the miscreant, the handicapped, the halt, the lame, the aged, the weak and the defenseless. but, mostly they want to rid the world of the poor, and those without voice. (they want to keep the strong of back, as their foot soldiers, but they do not want to give them their vote, their franchise, their voice, now, do they? hey, you watch the way they treat those who die on the battlefield for them. tell me that i am wrong.)

they are nothing more, nothing less, than nazi purifiers. put simply.

i, on the other hand, want to rid the world of murderers and tyrants. i exalt freedom and dignity. i exalt the voice, the voices, they wish to quiet, and, to extinguish. a good word, extinguish, is it not?

i will use their methods.

they have taken away any other choice on my part. they will extinguish my voice, given the chance.

i have asked you several times, what's the difference between zeke emanuel and me. i answer you now, that is the difference between zeke emanuel and me. oh, yes, i am despised by the harvard "eugenics" crowd, while they kill in the name of and with the approval of the harvard "eugenics" crowd, the same nazi's who kept the statistics for josef mengele***** and the others.

that's the difference.

where did you go to school? end update, but not the end of the "discussion."

john jay @ 11.23.2013

*** for those of you who care about such matters, you should understand that zeke emanuel's views do not stem from hippocrates, but from those 1920's, 30's and 40's doctrine held by the "eugenics" movement popular amongst progressions and nazi's alike, until discredited by hitler's doctors, psychiatrists and concentration camp lackeys who applied them with a vengeance.

"three generations of idiots are enough," and the medical experimentation of the nazi academics of the 30's and 40's largely destroyed "eugenics," until the likes of obama, the emanuels and other pathologically deranged individuals bled new life into them.

i don't expect many of you to know this, or to accept it, given what passes for a respectable education these days, but those experiments and the results of same meticulously recorded by nazi camp doctors like josef mengele were regularly turned over for academic study to the leading genetic & eugenics institutes in german science and academia. same w/ the other monsters of the 20th century, although none had the meticulous order about them of the germans.

but, all brutal dictators, of whatever stripe, weed the surplus and the derelict from society's midst.

zeke emanuel is no different, and neither is b. insane obama.

i am a lily, white and pure as the driven snow, in intellectual comparison to emanuel and the various hanky wringers who will take exception to my remarks. the twits.

***** josef mengele qualified for his doctorate in medicine from from frankfurt university, as well as his doctorate in anthropology from munich university. he was educated, and "certified" as a societal expert in several fields, as well as being the urbane son of privilege. remember that, someday, will you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele

very little difference between mengele and emanuel, in my estimation.

Posted at 01:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

as i inch down slope in low gear .... i have time to think, and to watch .... emmet lynch's bunk house, and the road thereto ....

i took another drive this day, all the way up government mountain road to emmet lynch's cabin overlooking the north fork of the walla walla river. i hadn't gotten all the way to the cabin because of fog and low clouds, but the trip up and down the mountain road brought back many memories of a time that tom & lynn montgomery, and i, got snowbound just a week or so before lynn was to deliver their first baby.

a boy, as it turned out.

(this is a supplement to this post, http://wintersoldier2008.typepad.com/summer_patriot_winter_sol/2013/11/as-i-inch-down-the-slope-in-low-gear-low-range-in-the-4-wheel-drive-transfer-case-i-have-time-to-look-around-and-to-think.html . i hope you will go back and read it, if you have not done so.)

i wanted to get a picture of the cabin and its setting, for those who read that post.

caption: i don't know who originally built the house, bunk house, tack room and barn at emmet's place, nor who owns it now; emmet lynch is gone now, and sold the property long ago. the setting has changed a bit, because the bunk house has been torn down, and the barn replaced by the slant roofed shed. but, this is where we stayed during our adventure.

the house and associated out buildings are on a gorgeous spot, at the head of several steep canyons, and on the spine of a very steep ridge dropping directly to the river bottom of the north fork of the walla walla river. a view of the ridge:

caption: on the other side of the ridge on the skyline is the south fork of the walla walla river. the skyline ridge is a great wedge, like a piece of pie, between the two forks of the river. i've always liked this view.

as is often the case, one memory evokes others. my little springer spaniel, scout, and i spent many wonderful days hiking the ridges and canyons on the lynch property. and, on occasion, i even did "favors" for emmet lynch, which mostly involved driving a little d-2 catepillar tractor with a small blade, and clearing brush and small trees to help emmet clear ground for roads on his place. he liked roads, and didn't much care for the trees, as cows could not each trees. i suppose that if cows liked tree bark, emmet would have thought that a good and proper use for the pines that grew on the ridge lines of his property.

but, he didn't, and i got to drive the little crawler, which was fun.

one day scout and i were hiking a trail to the south of the house. scout dived into a tangle of weeds at the bottom of a draw, as he was wont to do. spaniels follow their noses. in just a little bit, he broke out barking very excitedly, and i could just see him jumping for doggy joy, ... , that's where springers get their name, a behavior that helps flush game birds that take to very heavy cover, and won't fly.

then silence broke out, a kind of ominous silence.

a moment or two passed, and then all hell broke loose. a great crashing noise commenced, traveled my way, and resulted in scout breaking from the brush in a mad run, as fast as he could go. and, he could run like the proverbial lightning bolt. crashing from the brush, and hard on his fleeing heels, a cow elk followed in hot pursuit, all the while trying to spear scout with a stabbing motion with her front legs and hooves. every time he would slack his speed just a bit, she would gather her legs for an attempt to crush him, and he would gain speed to avoid this.

as he passed, tongue hanging, he had the oddest expression of delirious joy on his face. the cow chased him down a trail, and for all i could tell, she was so intent upon doing him in that she was oblivious to me. it was, you see, in the spring, around calving, and i think my dog had interrupted her care of her newly born calf, and she intended to deal with that the best way she knew how.

long minutes passed, and the forest was silent.

in a while, he came trotting down the trail, tired, but that same idiot's delirious smile on his face, about as well pleased with himself as a dog can be. and, anyone who doesn't think that a dog can smile, or experience the absolute height of joy in pursuit (or being pursued, apparently), simply does not know dogs.

he trotted to me, and instead of coming up at my legs, and sitting for a well deserved pet, he went around me, turned, and then looked back down the trail quite intently. i didn't have the time to be puzzled by this curious turn, for in almost an instant the cow emerged coming down the trail, with her nose to the ground, in a purposeful, ... , well, amble is the way i remember it. she was following his scent, her nostrils working, and working the dog's scent just as though she were a game dog herself.

she remained oblivious to me.

i enjoyed the view, but begin to get a bit nervous as she approached, as i really didn't want to deal with a thoroughly pissed cow elk at close quarters. they are rather formidable animals, and this one, though not as big as some, was not a lightweight, either.

i put my hand on the grips of a ruger .357 magnum revolver, the only weapon i had besides a pocket knife, and cleared my throat as loudly as i could. she raised her head, regarded me for a bit still trotting, and then when she had apprehended the full import of the whole situation, she stuck out all four legs as stiff and straight as possible, and skidded to a halter, probably about 25 or 30 feet away from me.

and, then she looked at me. and, then she looked at me some more. and looked some more, and parsed the whole deal out. slowly, very slowly, without turning her body broadside to me, she worked her way down the hillside, and back into the brush in the draw. only when she was nearly hidden, did she turn and walk quickly more deeply into the brush, to disappear.

i was relieved, to say the least.

did i chastise the dog? no, i did not chastise scout, for he had such a look of obvious relief on his face, that i could not bring myself to yell at him. all i could do was laugh, and scratch his ears, and all was well between us.

he didn't look smug, but, he was obviously quite satisfied about the way things had turned out. he'd had a ton of fun, and he was safe again, in my company. i think that as far as scout was concerned, the whole thing could not have worked out any better.

we continued the hike, and that day we saw many elk and deer, and quite obviously crossed the scent trail of a good many of them. but, the little dog chose very wisely not to leave my side for any distance, and he stayed well within "reach" of the "presence" that had put the elk back into the gully. i am sure he was amazed that such an insignificant being as myself could have turned that trick, but, he was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

he slept soundly that night, at the foot of my bed.

he's been gone just at 20 years now, and i miss that dog. he was a springer spaniel i found abandoned in a corn field during corn harvest, with a pellet wound in his hip. someone had shot him, on purpose or inadvertently, it made no difference to him. he chose me from the corn crew, among all the candidates he had come across that evening as we arrived for the night shift, and he and i were inseparable for the next 15 or 16 years, death only parting us. yes, i miss him. scout, he who danced with elk.

in my story about tom and lynn montgomery i mentioned getting stuck in a snow drift on a very steep pitch of mountain road, and then lynn walking back up that road to the cabin only about 10 days away from delivering their baby. oh, yeah, she was pregnant.

the cabin was about 2.5 miles distant from that road. let me show you that road, and some of the ground around that area. i think that you will get a kick out of it. well, i hope so, anyway.

caption: from a distance, it doesn't look so steep or so formidable. admit it, it doesn't.

let's look at it up close.

this section of road is comprised of road more nearly like cobblestone that had been turned by the ripper on a cat. it is very, very rough, indeed, and steep.

look at the following, and think about hiking up it while 9 months pregnant, for all intents and purposes. i will allow that she was wearing sturdy boots.

caption: those stones are hard, jumbled, loose and some are bigger than your standard size soft ball. going up the hill, the s-10 blazer 4-wheel drive was in 4-wheel low in the transfer case, low gear in the transmission, and the engine turning 1,000 rpms for about a 2 mph speed over & up this road.

caption: this gives you some idea of the steepness of this road.

caption: out the front window at 1 1/2 mph, at the steepest and roughest step up the hill. imagine walking up in pregnant.

you are probably wondering why anyone would venture into such country, and why anyone would feel the lure of such country just days before giving birth.

well, tom & lynn love the outdoors, and they loved wildlife. and, though gentle and soft spoken, both of them, both of them were as tough, resilient and determined as anyone i had met before, and as anyone that i have met afterward. they both took on the world on its on terms, and as far as i could see, relished every second of it.

i think of them quite a bit, and of those several days which remain unique in my experience.

let me show you why they loved the mountains.

the little surprises.--

caption: a wild crab apple orchard, near a stock pond on a little meadow en route to the cabin. someone planted it, someone nourished it and was nourished by it, but all vestiges of the habitation have vanished. yet, the apples thrive. do you know how much all sorts of animals like crab apples?

the vistas. they speak for themselves. these pictures were taken, btw, with a $65.00 "point & shoot" camera. this is hardly fine photography, but, i think the shots interesting, because the terrain is lovely, and even spectacular in its own way. ---

caption: the valley floor, and the sweep of the hills and wheat fields as they climb to tree line. 5% or so of the wheat combines built in the united states are "hillside, self leveling" combines, and we use a great deal of those in this area. wheat farmers in the pacific northwest do not, for the most part, farm "flat" ground. yes, this is steep.

caption: a jumble of canyons, to the south, and defining the south fork of the walla walla river. they are not high. but, they go all the way to the bottom, and very quickly. it is not easy or forgiving ground to cover, to hunt, or to farm.

but, it is beautiful.

caption: a jumble of canyons to the north and east, which define the birch creek drainage. the head of birch creek lies more or less across government mountain road from the emmet lynch cabin and bunk house. these canyons are where i shot my first and last bear, ever.

it is rugged ground. it is as beautiful as it is rugged.

the wildlife. ---

caption: if you look closely, and i suggest that you click on the picture, and then enlarge the appropriate section, you will find about 7 or 8 elk just under the tree line on the far side of the canyon, just at the head of birch creek. i saw these elk this afternoon, from the road, about 200 to 250 yards away from the gate to the old lynch cabin. although you cannot tell from the snapshot, the elk were about 150 yards away from me when i snapped the picture.

and, we went to the cabin on that winter's day, ... , well, ... , just because we all wanted to, for some reason.

i hope these pictures fill out the story.

i hope you appreciate what nice people tom & lynn montgomery were, and remain. they were a very extraordinary couple, and people bathed in the light of their company.

and, they loved this kind of ground, and being in it.

john jay @ 11.22.2013

Posted at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

in loving memory of abe's great aunt sifra, who died fighting .....

friends:

below, in its entirety, a wonderful column by abe miller, published recently in the american thinker. if you do not now understand the importance of gun ownership, maybe you will after you read abe's post. on the other hand, maybe you never will.

without further comment. ---

john jay @ 11.20.2013

===============================================================================

november 20, 2013

gun_control_the_jews_and_the_third_reich.html#ixzz2lF2jKErT

gun control, the jews, and the third reich

by abraham h. miller

in 1996, in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the modern olympics, the german government issued a set of four stamps. one of these celebrates alfred and gustav flatow, cousins, who were gold medalists in the 1896 olympics. alfred took the first in the parallel bars and with his cousin also won gold for the german team's overall performance.

in 1932, alfred flatow registered three handguns, as decreed by the harsh gun control laws of the weimar republic that were drawn amid the violence and chaos of the aftermath of world war i. the weimar republican grew out of the ashes of the great war. perceived as an institution imposed by germany's enemies, weimar lacked political legitimacy and was vulnerable to insurrection.

the first assault on the republic, however, came not from the right but from the communist left. under the leadership of rosa luxembourg and karl liebknecht, the german communists attempted to overthrow the government by armed struggle. the fragile government mobilized the freikorps, undisciplined militias composed largely of veterans. the freikorps brutally put down the communist insurrection and murdered its leaders. the communists had also seized the government in bavaria and the freikorps succeeded in vanquishing them.

hoping to stem further attacks on the state, the liberal weimar republic imposed draconian gun control laws that made it punishable by death to carry a gun. the brutal and undisciplined freikorps were given the task of enforcing these laws and did so with alacrity, even murdering nurses who carried firearms for protection against rape amid the post-war chaos.

the weimar ministry of the interior made gun registration mandatory. the overall intention of the gun control laws was to disarm those who were making war against the state and each other. inspired by gangster violence in chicago, the nazis and the communists loaded up cars with thugs armed with tommy guns and invaded each other's neighborhoods.

like most attempts at gun control, the policy failed. neither the nazis nor the communists gave up their guns, but law-abiding citizens like alfred flatow did and bore the consequences. although the weimar ministry of the interior worked to assure registrants that their information would remain safe, this proved to be an empty promise. when the nazis took over in 1933, the information was culled for registrants who were deemed "enemies of the state," a euphemism for jews, communists, and other political opponents.

gestapo legal adviser werner best proposed to execute jews who were found in possession of firearms. he had both ample precedent and experience to draw upon from the harsh gun laws and their brutal enforcement in the weimar republic.

in 1938, in preparation for kristallnacht (November 9-10, 1938), the gestapo used the weimar gun registration records to disarm jews and focused on jewish gun owners for deportation to concentration camps. alfred flatow fled germany for the netherlands, but when the nazis invaded the netherlands, in may 1940, flatow was on the gestapo's list.

flatow was arrested and sent to theresienstadt concentration camp, where he died from starvation on december 28, 1942. his cousin gustav died in the same camp three years later.

throughout their conquest of europe, the nazis encountered armed resistance by those who refused to accept defeat. even the pitifully armed jews of the warsaw ghetto put up meaningful resistance, as did the jewish bielski partisans in the forests of byelorussia and poland. among the conquered people of europe, where there were arms and munitions there were partisans who continued to fight.

only in germany was there no armed resistance, other than what came from the military. would armed resistance on german soil have made a difference? no one can answer that with any certainty, but clearly it was a formidable concern for werner best and his gestapo henchmen. without arms there was no hope of meaningful resistance.

the issue of an armed populace resisting tyranny is why the second amendment exists. it was not written to promote hunting or target shooting. it was written to keep a check on tyrants both foreign and domestic. [if you do not understand this, read "the federalist papers" by alexander hamilton, john jay and james madison, ... , which collection of pamphlets in support of the ratification of the u.s. constitution is regarded of part of the organic documents establishing our government.: jjjay.]

a new book, "gun control in the third reich," analyzes the manner in which the nazis capitalized on the strict gun control policies of the weimar republic and used those policies to consolidate power and render the political opposition defenseless and the jews hopeless.

it is far too facile to dismiss any comparison between the rise of hitler and a threat from analogous policies in a viable democracy. as scholar stephen p. halbrook notes notes, historians have failed to see gun-control policies as the prelude to the rise of tyranny, even in nazi germany.

the weimar republic, despite problems in legitimacy and economic strangulation by the victors of world war i, was a struggling democracy with liberal principles. its leaders thought that their policies of gun control would end the street violence between radical groups and promote political stability. the weimar ministers did not comprehend that their gun control policies would pave the way for tyrants to direct and remove the political opposition.

hitler came to power without ever winning a majority vote. his own electoral results paled in comparison to those garnered by president paul von hindenburg, and the nazi party itself never received more than 37% of the vote. in the last free and fair german parliamentary elections of november, 1932, the nazis actually lost 34 seats. through orchestrated chaos and the incompetence of others, hitler was appointed chancellor of germany. he stayed in power by eliminating future elections and preventing armed struggle against the regime. the fragile democracy of the weimar republic had created a tyrant, who now abused the pledge weimar had made on the secrecy of gun registration.

any real analysis of the rise of the third reich should contribute to our own debate over gun control, but of course, that is a pipe dream. when it comes to guns, the lines are tightly drawn. if you are among those who believe that you do not need a gun and no one else should have one, then there really is no room for debate. in this country, john lott, jr., through decades of exhausting empirical research, has shown that guns save lives. yet, lott's work hardly gets mentioned in the policy debate.

jews, who should look at the battle of the warsaw ghetto and understand the value of resistance for the sake of preserving the dignity of the human spirit, are all too prone to utter the fatalistic yiddish adage that translates as -- if it comes to this, nothing will help. in other words, when I will need a gun it will not do any good.

such sentiments, in the light of jewish history, are appalling, as are the attitudes that liberal jews generally bring to the gun control debate. i am reminded of my great aunt sifra, who stood nearly six feet tall and fought with the bielski partisans. she died fighting; it was a noble death. she died a warrior's death, not an anonymous death as a nameless, faceless victim. that is what separates a hero from a victim. that is the difference a gun makes.

/s/ abraham h miller

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/11/gun_control_the_jews_and_the_third_reich.html#ixzz2lF4UuJU5

p.s. i have taken liberties w/ abe's superior efforts at capitalization. i have also removed many very interesting live links from his post. i would suggest you repair to the american thinker, and read the post there, and have recourse to those links for much that is interesting, informative and thought provoking. menachem begin once remarked that it was far better to live on your feet, than to die on your knees: it is a sentiment that i share.

Posted at 06:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

as i inch down the slope in low gear, low range in the 4-wheel drive transfer case, i have time to look around, and to think of this place. i am on a "default" road, a course cut out of bare basalt by virtue of the fact that wheat cannot be planted on it.

it is bare rock, and the tires feel each prominence among the stone, slide into each cut in the rock, and the motor holds my speed by compression to about 1 1/2 miles an hour, three miles an hour over the "smooth" spots with a touch of the throttle, raising the engine speed to about 1,000 rpm's. the weather has been unsettled here, cold for a couple days, then warming to a mixture of high clouds and then heavy moisture laden black and grey clouds scudding over the mountains at break neck speed, then enveloping them in mist, fog and cloud the next moment. this has made the rock slippery.

it is nearing dusk, sunset 30 or 40 minutes away, and the valley is a mixture of blue skies with shafts of light on the hills and stubble fields, illuminating them in bright golden hues, and then the aforementioned gray clouds pressed against the foothills, putting the low slopes in shadows and hiding the retreating mountains.

i decide to gas the rig, and go for a ride along mountain roads many times traveled, with many memories. i take my time, rarely racing the motor, just letting the little s-10 blazer climb at its own pace over the rough sections, and going slowingly along the smooth sections looking down in the ravines and gullies between the rounded slopes plunging to the creek beds below. the blue mountains are not terribly high, but, they are rough, and remembered by the pioneers in their ox-pulled wagons are being rougher than the rockies.

the sky is now pretty much covered by grey and black clouds, but, there is a gap between them and the horizon to the west, and the sun shines on the foothills even as dusk approaches, making brilliant the last greens of the autumn turning to winter, and the golden slopes of the fallow wheat fields, even as the shadows making the wooded slopes on the hills near the bottoms of the ravines a dark black.

i am stopped short of my goal, which is the old emmit lynch cabin, by the clouds and the fog blowing across the rode, and the setting sun turning everything dark. i turn back, and as i go down hill i am greeted by more splendor, and more memory and reminiscence.--

it is just about dark, and the western horizon is pink from the sun's last rays, and the bottoms of the clouds are pink as well. the hills at the wallula gap, about 45 miles distance, are at first a robin's egg blue, then a darker blue, and finally gray black against the pin as the sun disappears. the southern tip of the wallula gap is like a great headland jutting to the sea, and beyond, i see the grayish-white outline of mount adams, some 150 miles distant, or so.

it is spectacular.

below me, on the valley floor, i see the lights of milton freewater and walla walla, and watch the headlights of traffic on the hills wend from pendleton, oregon to walla walla, washington which are about 40 or 45 miles distant from each other.

just splendid.

these vistas spread before me on the exact basalt slope, (we locals call a road), where tom and lynn mongtgomery and i got stuck in a snow drift in my old international scout over 40 years ago, as we tried to make it to walla walla, washington where they lived. we had stayed the night before in the bunkhouse at emmet lynch's spread, and spent the day doing not very much, and stayed late. as we got to the slope, we could see that it was drifted in with snow, but, it was cold, and looked firm, and we all agreed the old scout would make it through.

it did not.

we were stuck fast, the axles resting on the snow, and i couldn't even "rock" the car moving the transmission in and out of forward and reverse gears.

no problem. we would simply hike back up the hill, and then to the bunk house, and dig our way out in the morning. except, ... , except that lynn montgomery was very pregnant, and about a week away from her scheduled delivery. it would be lynn and tom's first child.

i was scared shitless. i should say that i was beside myself with anxiety, but, the truth of the matter was i was scared shitless. i shouldn't have been. oh, it would have been very inappropriate not to have had some concern over the matter, ... , indeed, ... , but, i really didn't know how very tough my friends were. i should have known better. they were montana kids, and not spoiled by luxury.

lynn didn't have a care in the world, at least not that she showed, as she trudged up the hill, wrapped against the weather. we were lucky, because though the wind blew a bit, and it wasn't exactly warm, it was not as harsh as it might have been the day before when the snow had fallen, and blown into the large drift.

tom and i carried some provisions. not much, but, enough.

we got to the bunk house, got the wood stove up and going, and then the cook stove and spent a cheery evening just talking, and discussing things. the next morning, tom and i went down to the scout, got it dug out, and backed it out of the drift. we turned around, and went back to the bunk house, and discussed the matter with lynn. we decided that we would wait until mid afternoon if it warmed up, and chance the drift again, hoping that it had melted some and we could make our way through.

and, that's what we did. we arrived safely in walla walla that afternoon, and tom and lynn got situated, all snugged up as only expectant parents can be. she delivered, without incident, about a week later.

tom died young.

lynn was brilliant. tom was brilliant. they'd been high school sweethearts, and married young while in college, but not before tom survived a bout with cancer. it was the sort of cancer for which he took medication the rest of his life, and that medication gave, and then took away. just like life.

tom talked his way into veterinary school, against the concerns of the admissions people that he might go into remission, and die, and "waste" a precious veterinary education. (if you think it is hard to get into medical school, try getting into a veterinary medicine school some day. it's much harder.) but, tom got in, and he practiced veterinary medicine for many years, and was very well respected.

he caught something. and, that disease, probably contracted from an animal he was treating, reacted with tom's medications, and he went into a toxic shock, and was dead in a matter of a couple of days. i have seen lynn on occasion since, but, not for a long time now.

i will never forget those few days in the mountains.

birch creek runs at the bottom of the ridge the road mounts at the top. i shot a bear at the very bottom of the creek bed, mainly because i had missed a deer the day before within rock throwing distance, and i was out to atone for my lack of skills. (oh, yes, you can miss with a scoped rifle, especially if you hope to substitute aiming w/ blind luck, ... , believe me, i've done it.) i was walking along a road skirting the creek, and old log skidding path, mostly overgrown, and i heard a commotion just ahead. i snuck ahead, and much to my surprise, was a very large bear tearing an old dead fall to absolute shreds, and eating the grubs and larvae in the rotted wood, with absolute relish.

i sat. i took deliberate aim, the previous day's events still in my mind. i shot. the bear did nothing, except to continue digging at the fallen tree. he turned a bit, his rear still to me, and presented his other side. i aimed again, and shot again, and for the longest time the bear appeared to have no reaction to the shot.

i thought i have missed again.

suddenly, he wheeled around, without a sound, and made a mad dash to the very bottom of the creek bed, diving head long at full speed into a tangle of trees and brush and dead falls at the bottom of the creek. as he did so, i loosed a third shot at him as he fled. i did not hear any bullet strike.

i started down the slope at a mad dash, completely oblivious to my bad knee, which made the usual traversing of such terrain sort of halt and cautious. in moments i was to where i had shot at him, and i found no blood. but, i had very easy "tracking," as he simply had bent sapling after sapling to the ground in his head long assault on the brush rushing to the creek

i found him on the dry creek bed, his head and front shoulders wedged fast into a tangled dead fall of logs and tree trucks left behind by the creek's flow. try as i might, i could not pull him uphill, and i could not at first turn him over.

i gutted and tagged him. and, then, i hiked out the bottom, went to the lynch cabin where the old scout was, and drove to umapine, oregon to get jack richartz, who was running emmet lynch's cow operation during the summer grazing. we trailered up two horses, one a huge old thorough bred that was jack's own horse, because it was very tall as was jack, and because it was very smart, as well. going up the mountain i told jack that i wasn't much of a horseman, and he just laughed and said, that's why i brought my horse. we'll put you on him, and you keep your mouth shut, and just sit up straight.

he'll do all the thinking.

we walked down a "trail" through the rocks, the same trail that i'd had to use my hands to walk up, a trail made up of ankle busters and steps, and, well spots where it was just steep ground, suitable only for deer and elk.

i kept my hands on the horn, and left the reins alone, and that thorough bred picked his way down that trail as delicately as a fat lady eats a plate of bon bons, and i don't think his head was above the level of his ass the whole way down. as we got down near the bottom, jack stopped, look back at me, and said, grab the reins. he won't pay any attention to you because he's watching me, but, when we get down near the bear he's liable to spook because of the smell of that bear. the smell of bear will just cause a horse to go loco, from the fear of the bear.

i said, in a remarkable display of wit, well, yeah, what good will holding the reins do me.

jack said, it will make you feel better until you hit the rocks.

you know what that horse did? well, we got to a little flat near the dead fall on the bottom, he tensed as he smelled the bear, and then he just walked up to it, put his head down, and sniffed that bear from one end to the other, and smelled at him where i'd opened him up.

we loaded the bear on the horse that jack had ridden down. jack rode his horse back up. you think i am walking up that damned trail, you are nuts, he'd said. and, that was that. well, he did say, don't shoot anything else this year, you nincompoop. and, he'd laughed. i thought he was being pretty restrained for someone who'd left his dinner table to come help me.

i followed the little train up. it wasn't so bad, i just grabbed the pack horse by the tail, and scrambled up the trail behind him. jack had allowed as how he didn't think the horse would kick my brains out, and i just trusted to luck. i was too tired to worry about it, that being my second trip down into the bottom and out.

i thought of those things, and many more things, as i inched my way down the road, and as i looked at the sun setting. i am 65 years old now, bad knees and ticker, and i think that you can appreciate all the metaphors dusk and sunset welled up in me as the little car & i traveled back down into the snug valley that is home. i won't bother you with them, not now.

maybe later.

you should understand something, however, and that is that i am wedded to this little valley by such memory, and such experience. by the people i have known. by the attitudes of those people.

i will not turn my back on them, i will not turn from that and from those which threatens that way of life. i will fight them. to preserve this.

john jay @ 11.19.2013

p.s. for years after, jack and helen richartz, whenever they greeted me, would smile, and say, laughing, don't ever give us any more bear meat. that was the toughest damned old thing we ever ate. and laugh some more.

good people, my friends, that i have known and lived with.

Posted at 08:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

lee harvey oswald slept at john kerry's 2nd-cousin's house the night before oswald killed john f. kennedy .....

i am simply going to set forth the update i ran to the previous post. abe miller asked me to take a look at an article linked below, " ... john kerry's relative who was friends with lee harvey oswald lashes out at sec. of state's claim that assassin did not act alone," by david martasko, 11 nov. 2013, the daily mail (net), uk., http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2501424/EXCLUSIVE-John-Kerry-relative-got-Lee-Harvey-Oswald-book-depository-job-disputes-secretary-states-doubts-assassin-acted-alone.html .

update, same day as publication. my oh my, oh what an interesting web of intrigue the world weaves. i would write, "... when first we practice to deceive ... ," but it is very difficult indeed to see where truth ends and deceit begins in this world.

lee harvey oswald stayed at the home of ruth paine the night before he killed john f. kennedy at dallas, on november 22, 1963. he kept the 6.5mm carcano rifle he used to shoot kennedy in ruth paine's garage, and even showed her a picture in which he held the rifle, but she denies having had any knowledge that oswald possessed the gun before the assassination, and intimates she would not have allowed it in her house. she was a quaker, you see. (i would remind you, so was richard nixon, for whatever that is worth.

ruth paine is related to john kerry. yes, that john kerry. the secretary of state, john kerry, and intimate and protege of the kennedy's.

it's all related here, w/ interesting pictures and links. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2501424/EXCLUSIVE-John-Kerry-relative-got-Lee-Harvey-Oswald-book-depository-job-disputes-secretary-states-doubts-assassin-acted-alone.html .

well, then, how could ruth paine have been a conspirator w/ oswald, if she held those sorts of convictions? sometimes, it ends up that things may not be what they seem, on the surface. that observation cuts many many ways in this tangle.

for, you see, ruth paine may not be all she seems, and ruth paine may not be all that there is about ruth paine. no, i did not garble that up, it is written as intended. ruth paine, after all, was related to michael paine, her husband. a reader of the article wrote in a comment section:

"Ok.....Lee Oswald had met Ruth Paine in February 1963 at a party in Dallas to which George de Mohrenschildt and his wife had brought them. Ruth Paine, wife of Michael Paine, an engineer designer who did highly classified work for Bell Helicopter, a major Defense Department contractor. Jim Garrison later suggested that Ruth Paine might have been involved in setting Oswald up as the "patsy". Garrison points out that Ruth Paine's father had been employed by the Agency for International Development, a cover op for the C.I.A. .... Hey Ruth Paine, did I leave something out? /s/ james"

in the post, ruth paine explains that she got acquainted w/ the oswalds because they were russians.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2501424/EXCLUSIVE-John-Kerry-relative-got-Lee-Harvey-Oswald-book-depository-job-disputes-secretary-states-doubts-assassin-acted-alone.html .

it is interesting to note that marina oswald knew of the fact that lee harvey oswald had made an attempt on the life of retired general edwin walker, and presumably ruth paine knew of this as well. (she may not have been as naive as she portrays herself.) and, it is interesting to note that marina oswald was the daughter of a high ranking soviet internal/external intelligence/espionage officer, and that she was accelerated in her studies and employment consistent with a person raised with the culture of russian intelligence operatives. this is doubly interesting given that the writer of the /comment/note above, "james," asserts that ruth paine's father was connected to the c.i.a. himself, and suggests in ruth paine, if not exactly an intelligence background, then one in which she might have had more than passing familiarity with the workings and goings on associated with the intel game.

there is, in short, the suggestion in all of this of there being far more to ruth paine than she sees fit to reveal. she does not seem to me to be a naif. at all. end of this update, 11.17.2013. and, thank you abe miller, for bringing this to my attention.

http://wintersoldier2008.typepad.com/summer_patriot_winter_sol/2013/11/the-jfk-assassination-conspiracy-.html .

john jay @ 11.17.2013

p.s. it occurs to me, ... , what if john kerry had told his 2nd cousin ruth paine that john kennedy was going to visit dallas, texas in november of 1963 in september of that year. and, had related in october to her that kennedy would take a motorcade through dealy plaza, right past the texas school book depository. and, then, ruth paine had gotten lee harvey oswald the job at the texas school book depository soon after?

what if?

i mean, can this whole thing take any crazier turns than it has? 50 years after the fact, we find out that john kerry's 2nd cousin put lee harvey oswald up the night before he killed john f. kennedy. that's amazing.

Posted at 08:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

the jfk assassination .... conspiracy ....

fifty years ago president john f. kennedy was murdered by lee harvey oswald.

kennedy was shot by a rifle chambered in the 6.5mm carcano, wielded by oswald from a 6th floor window in the texas school book depository building in dallas, texas as kennedy traveled in an open car in a motorcade.

this really is not open to contention. oswald was employed by the school book depository, and other employees put him in the building contemporaneously with the shooting. the rifle was found in the building, and it was covered in oswald's hand prints. the bullet that killed kennedy was found to have been fired from oswald's rifle.

the grassy knoll. the bullet that entered kennedy's head was fired from behind. it was not fired from "the grassy knoll" as many have conjectured, and asserted. in an excellent pbs program, an episode of nova, forensic examination of the medical records, to include x-rays of kennedy's skull and drawings of the injuries to his brain, and other evidence at the national archives, determine that as physical fact the bullet entered the rear of his skull and exited the front. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/cold-case-jfk.html .

more importantly, in absolutely eliminating a shooter on "the grass knoll" theory, the bullet did not enter the right side of kennedy's head, as there is almost no damage whatsoever to the left side of kennedy's skull or his left brain, as would have occurred had the bullet struck him on the right side of the head.

and, there is the little matter of a hole in the right back of his skull that grassy knoll enthusiasts have to contend with.

kennedy was killed by a bullet striking the back of his head, fired by lee harvey oswald from the 6th floor of the book depository. the rifle, the prints, and three empty shell cases establish that. period. end of discussion.

the magic bullet. those who would debunk the warren commission report contend that another shooter must have been involved, in order to "explain" the wounds suffered by texas governor john connoally. they say, almost poetically, that in order for the same bullet to have struck both kennedy and connoally, it would have had to have "magically" taken two "right turns" to have followed that bullet path.

or else, connoally would have had to have been in line with the bullet's path as it exited kennedy's head. since connoally is described as sitting in the middle of the car, and kennedy on its right & behind connaolly, this seems pretty reasonable to me.

could the same bullet have killed kennedy and wounded connaolly, passing through both of them? well, yes it could, and quite easily, as a matter of fact.

the 6.5mm carcano cartridge was adopted as the italian service round in 1891. it shot a 159-160 grain bullet at something around 2100 fps at the muzzle. it is very similar to the 6.5mm mannlicher schoenauer cartridge, adopted by the greek army in 1903, again firing a 159-160 grain bullet around 2100 fps from the muzzle, more or less. update: i've seen other sources list the velocity of both the carcano and the mannlicher-schoenauer at around 2400 fps from the service rounds, but, i am a bit dubious that either would have achieved such velocity given the relatively low pressures at which both operated. end update.

william maitland dalrymple bell was an adventurer, perhaps the greatest ivory hunter of all time. he used, for the most part, a rifle firing the 7x57mm mauser cartridge, firing 173 grain bullets at a muzzle velocity of 2400 fps or so. he often went on safari in the african interior a year or more at a time in search of large bull elephants, because they had the largest tusks, ... , and, he wanted to collect large tusks, because they earned him more money.

he killed in the neighborhood of 12 or 1300 bull elephants, the majority of them with the 7x57mm mauser, and toward the end of his career w/ the .318 westly richards. but, here is the point of this little passage. at the beginning of his career, he also used the 6.5x54mm mannlicher schoenauer to kill elephants, with results sufficiently sure that he was himself not killed in these endeavors.

his preferred shot was to "brain" the elephants, which involved being able to send a bullet into the brain case of the bull elephant from as many angles that he could: he studied elephant skulls at the various british natural history museums to learn the anatomy of the skull, and its weakest points that would allow the bullet's passage to the brain.

i will simply note, that if a 6.5mm mannlicher schoenauer has enough oomph to penetrate to an elephant's brain, (and we are talking very large bulls here, that were carrying 100 lb. tusks, yielding 200 pounds of ivory per bull), then most certainly the 6.5mm carcano, of almost identical power, could have penetrated the bodies of both kennedy and connoally.

the 6.5mm carcano, was, after all, designed as a military caliber capable of dispatching those soldiers who met italians on the battlefield. the bullet & cartridge were designed to be predictably lethal, to humans. and, they are, to this day. period.

the matter of conspiracy. i believe that lee harvey oswald was a lone shooter that day, and that he alone shot at john f. kennedy.

does it follow, based on that singular fact, that no conspiracy to kill kennedy existed? does logic mandate that if we can say with some degree of conviction that no shot was fired from "the grassy knoll" that no conspiracy existed to kill john kennedy?

to my mind, that fact that lee harvey oswald was a lone shooter does not preclude the existence of a conspiracy to kill kennedy.

and, i think that it is quite likely that more people were involved in kennedy's assassination than just oswald.

let me put it this way.--

whenever i hunted elk, i went to the mountains where the elk were likely to be. (that was the plan, anyway.) and, if you are in the business of assassinating political figures, you have to be where they are. or, are likely to be.

lee harvey oswald was hired by the texas school book depository on october 16, 1963. he was hired because a family friend, by the name of ruth paine, told him of the job at the school book repository. that is what she told the warren commission, at any rate. ruth paine also is the person that drove oswald from new orleans, louisiana to texas, from which he left to travel to mexico city and visited the russian embassy attempting to get approval & the necessary documents to travel to russia via cuba.

he was unable to gain that permission.

it was announced that john f. kennedy would visit dallas in september of 1963.

the exact motorcade route that he would take through dallas, texas was determined on november 18, 1963 and announced a few days later, a couple of days before kennedy was shot.

lee harvey oswald was in place. he had managed to find himself in the exact place that john f. kennedy would be on friday, november 22, 1963 and with a commanding view of the whole affair as the motorcade moved down houston street, thence onto elm street, through dealy plaza.

it was then that oswald shot and killed kennedy.

timeline of the assassination -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_John_F._Kennedy_assassination

lee harvey oswald -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald

read these two articles, very closely. the matters discussed in this blog post are found in the text of the articles. read closely, and see what you think.

ballistics -- the hornady handbook of cartridge reloading, vol. 1, published 1991. pages on the 6.5mm carcano and 6.5mm mannlicher schoenauer.

before lee harvey oswald shot and killed john f. kennedy he made an attempt upon the life of retired general edwin walker, who also resided in dallas. the attempt failed, with walker being slight injured in the matter. but, the point i wish to make is that almost certainly others knew of this attempt to kill walker, to include his wife, marina, and family friends. they did not seem very bothered by what he had done. perhaps they were in sympathy.

no one reported oswald to police authorities.

conclusion on the matter of conspiracy. somehow, oswald got himself to the place where kennedy would be. and, where he would be vulnerable to attack by a skilled rifle shot.

i do not much believe in coincidence as a causal explanation of things.

i strongly suspect that if conspiracy is to be found, if would be found by looking for a connection between those who either planned or had knowledge of the planning of the motorcade route through dallas, texas in september of 1963. that knowledge seems to have been passed on to friends and assciates of oswald, and then to oswald himself. it seems reasonable to me, for instance, that lee harvey oswald wanted to plan an escape route to russia after the assassination of kennedy: and, that he had determined to use that route before he went to mexico.

if this is true, and this is a very big "if," then oswald was planning the assassination and his escape just days after the plan was formulated by john kennedy and his handlers to visit dallas, and well before the matter was made public.

if a conspiracy existed, then it also seems very likely to me that those who knew of the motorcade route communicated this fact to those who secured employment for oswald at the texas school book repository in october of 1963, just a little bit over a month from the time that john kennedy would be in dallas, texas. again, if a conspiracy existed, then the school book depository was chosen early on as the point from which to launch the assassination attempt.

it just seems logical.

i would look for some sort of connection between the planners of the route through dallas, and ruth paine, who got oswald his job at the warehouse. if a conspiracy existed, and it were to include planning john kennedy's assassination, then a logical nexus between the various planners is to be found w/ lee harvey oswald's employment at the texas school book repository.

somebody in high places did not like the kennedy brothers. john f. kennedy, and then robert kennedy, were killed in turn. again, i don't believe in coincidence in such matters, and "coincidence" is not much of a substitute for causation.

i would look for motive. i would look for opportunity. i would start looking in the back pocket of lyndon baines johnson, or texas governor john connoally. they got kennedy to texas, and they planned the motorcade route.

i am not saying that they personally had anything to do with john f. kennedy's assassination. but they, or someone close to them politically, or working on their staffs, are the best place to start digging. to my way of thinking, someone there knew ruth paine. and, ruth paine knew someone who shot at other people.

update, same day as publication. my oh my, oh what an interesting web of intrigue the world weaves. i would write, "... when first we practice to deceive ... ," but it is very difficult indeed to see where truth ends and deceit begins in this world.

lee harvey oswald stayed at the home of ruth paine the night before he killed john f. kennedy at dallas, on november 22, 1963. he kept the 6.5mm carcano rifle he used to shoot kennedy in ruth paine's garage, and even showed her a picture in which he held the rifle, but she denies having had any knowledge that oswald possessed the gun before the assassination, and intimates she would not have allowed it in her house. she was a quaker, you see. (i would remind you, so was richard nixon, for whatever that is worth.)