Sic Semper Tyrannis

"Valumfree" by Richard Sale

I have been laboring for over ten years on a novel called “Daily Trials.” A long while ago, I spent a month in the Arizona State Prison for LIFE Magazine. Two inmates ran the prison. One of them was a close friend of a third inmate who was being allowed to die because of the negligence of corrupt prison doctors. The prison psychologist and I were threatening with being taken hostage unless the inmate was transferred into a civilian hospital. This I did. I got him transferred.

This chapter is based on an actual incident. There was a killer named Tim Valumfree put on Death Row for killing two men, and one day he appeared in the prison psychologist’s office, Val Emery, to ask him for a better job. As I listened, I had realized that I had never heard anything so shameless, arrogant, rude and unfeeling as Valumfree s rant, so I blew up I told Valumfree he was a first-class jackass without manners, courtesy, or any civilized virtue, or words to that effect.

One day, when I was about to leave the Yard to go lift weights with two convicts, both bank robbers, I stood with Val Emery as the guard on the gate lowered the keys the IER Yard where the weights were, using a fishing pole. This was May of 1970. Some guys from Death Row were lined up behind us, and I was paying them no attention, when suddenly I felt a sharp poke in the middle of my back. I turned. It was Tim. He smirked “See, I could have stabbed you just now,” which was the wrong thing to say. I am a very shy man, but there is a hair trigger lurking in my nature and Tim pulled it. I cursed him out again for his rudeness, and then asked him, “Why would you want to stab me? Because I called you names?”

In the second chapter of the novel, Ben Falls is listening to his clerk, Jute, relate how he had had a run-in with Valumfree over the weekend. I know this is a bit long, but I ask you to please bear with me.

"And of the independence of the United States ...

... the 240th year."

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

pl

One Belt, One Road (FB Ali)

The Chinese project of "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) has drawn remarkably little attention and comment in the West, especially in the USA. This is surprising, considering its tremendous scope, its implications for a large part of the world (with its potential to transform the lives of a sizable part of humanity), and its geostrategic significance.

Typically, the only voice talking about this (and other developments in China) in a sane and prescient manner is that of Amb Chas Freeman. (The neocons were right ‒ from their perspective ‒ in ensuring in 2009 that he would not be able to officially influence US policy; the loss, a grave one, was their country's). He first talked at some length about OBOR in July 2015, and then again in June of this year. This post should be considered an updated summary; for a more detailed view I would recommend Mr Freeman's 2015 talk.

OBOR seeks to convert the Eurasian land mass into a single economy by interconnecting it with a network of roads, railroads, pipelines, ports, airports, and telecommunications links, and, based on these, to create a series of development corridors containing large zones of productive economic activity (and, ultimately, prosperity).

Supplementing this essentially continental development will be a maritime component (the "Road"), aimed at investing and fostering collaboration in Southeast Asia, Oceania, and North Africa, through several contiguous bodies of water – the South China Sea, the South Pacific Ocean, and the Indian Ocean. This will be achieved by developing suitable (deep water) ports and then building the infrastructure to link them to interior industrial zones and markets, e.g, Piraeus (in Greece), Zarubino (in Russia), Djibouti and Mombasa (in Africa), Kyaukpyu (in Myanmar) and Gwadar (in Pakistan).

Amb Freeman rightly called One belt, One Road "the largest and potentially the most transformative engineering effort in human history".

Things Nautical - TTG

Earlier this week, I returned from another bout of being an amateur housewright at the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers. As always, it was a pleasant and vigorous week marked by a near total news blackout. I listen only to an AM oldies station from Albany. It’s a nice chance to listen to a little Sinatra and read a good book. Since some other soul beat me to our local library’s copy of Farley Mowat’s “The Boat Who Wouldn't Float,” I settled for a Project Gutenberg EBook copy of “A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe on Rivers and Lakes of Europe” by John Macgregor. This is a fascinating account of an English gentleman’s 1865 journey across Belgium, France, Germany and Switzerland is a fifteen foot lapstrake sailing canoe.

John Macgregor is an interesting individual. He grew up as an Army Brat, British Army that is. For a time, he served in the London Scottish Rifle Volunteers. He won first prize in the regimental shooting competition at Wimbledon at least twice. He was a barrister at law, trained at Trinity College. He could write in classical Greek and Latin. He spoke French, but not German or Schwabisch. His accounts of interacting with those he met along the way are most amusing. He exuded an abundance, perhaps overabundance, of pride, confidence and pluck of what I would expect of an English gentleman explorer of the period to exude. He was a real life Peachy and Danny. “Not gods, Englishmen. The next best thing.”

Since I so enjoy reading our local newspaper, I have the circulation department hold my papers until I return from a trip. Then I can catch up on local happenings as well as the adventures of Beetle Bailey. Earlier this week, I sat on my deck with a mug of tea on a glorious morning and began reviewing my stack of papers. It was a joy to find an article by Rob Hedelt on the upcoming family boatbuilding week at the Deltaville Maritime Museum. I observed one of these events at the Alexandria Seaport Foundation. Ten or so families were working under a tent building Bevins skiffs out of precut lumber and plywood. Alexandria Seaport members provided assistance and guidance. At the end of the week, the families were rowing their skiffs on the Potomac.

This Deltaville event is run the same way. The biggest difference is that the families build Wright skiffs out of fir and cypress lumber, no plywood. These skiffs are things of beauty, almost museum pieces. Even though my sons are in their thirties, I wouldn’t mind getting the clan together to build one of these sweethearts.

TTG

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40238/40238-h/40238-h.htm

http://www.paddling.net/sameboat/archives/sameboat29.html

http://www.fredericksburg.com/news/local/columns/rob-hedelt-family-boatbuilding-week-draws-folks-from-all-over/article_66417ffe-11b5-5335-a285-3ad8bec83142.html

http://www.chesapeakeboating.net/Media/Feature-Stories/The-Wright-Stuff.aspx

The Day The Earth Stood Still in Clintonia?

 

" ...  the meeting between Bill and Loretta had nothing to do with hair or race. It had to do with the subtle projection of terrifying power.

And with Hillary under investigation by her office, and with her boss, President Obama, having already endorsed Mrs. Clinton, Lynch made a terrible mistake.

She shouldn't have talked to Clinton about anything. Instead, she should have said:

'Bill, may I call you Bill? I can't have any kind of conversation with you in private. It would be wrong. But if you'd like to sit with FBI agents and talk about your wife's illegal emails and how they relate to your epic bank account and your Clinton Foundation international slush fund, you're more than welcome.'

But she didn't. So she deserves to be made a public fool."  Kass in the Chicago Tribune

------------

This is the moment that Bernie has awaited, lurking patiently in the bushes, waiting, waiting, waiting,  Lynch will speak around 1100 today.

All the world wonders...  pl 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-bill-clinton-loretta-lynch-kass-0701-20160630-column.html