The Monday Nut

LANGUAGE WARNING FOR THIS POST

Bernard Goldberg wrote a book last year entitled “Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right.”  Haven’t read it, but I know all the things he was gonna talk about.  I bring it up to suggest a new book based on the title he chose.

“Assholes to the Left of Me, Pussies to the Right.”

Now, this book would have nothing to do with politics in any way.  The title is symbolic of being surrounded on all sides by just the biggest bunch of shiteaters the world has to offer.

So, what does this have to do with Jett Travolta’s death?

Everything.  Within minutes of the announcement of this tragedy, bloggers were surmising that John Travolta and Kelly Preston were denying this boy critical medication because of their belief in Scientology.  The idea spread quicker than you can say “Web 2.0″ (don’t forget to smile!)

Here’s where the “assholes” come in.  We used to relegate such crap to the lowest shelves in the supermarket checkout lines and said that anyone who read it was a moron.  Now the morons have a voice, and they have proven to be much more than morons…

On the other side of the street are all the “pussies” who comment on sites using monikers instead of their real names.  HIPPYGRL1457 sez “how could they let him dye because they beleeve in some crazy christian shit?”  It’s an open forum folks, say WHATEVER YOU WANT and SELF RESPONSIBILITY BE DAMNED.

We took away all the filters that people used to use in the name of “sharing, communicating, community-building” and all the other buzz words. Of course there are important things that can happen through these technologies, but when you give a bunch of closet assholes an opening, they’re gonna fart through it.  And most people are too damned weak to give out their opinions and put their name on it.  Hey, be prick for all I care, but have the guts to put your name on it and get called out when you say something stupid.

If you are going to basically accuse a father of killing his son, then give him the opportunity to track you down and beat the ever living shit out of you for saying so.  If you jump on the bandwagon with anonymous comments…you can jump to the front of the line for your beating.

I’m sorry, but this is just another glowing example of how these amazing “communication tools” are just a place for the steaming piles of our species to congregate and foist their odor upon everyone else.

BTW, if you are first time reader.  My name is Brent Beckley, and if you don’t like what I said, have some guts and tell me so.  If you comment without telling me your name, take a wild guess what’s gonna happen.

Lastly, I am truly saddened by what happened to Jett Travolta. No parent should ever have to lose their child, and the pain is doubled when you lose them in a public forum.  Especially one run by people who lack the common courtesy to leave a family in pain alone.

The First Law of Life, as children under the age of 8 will attest is the following.

Don’t squeeze the juice box.

It’s a simple proposition, but one that is nearly impossible to obey.  The juice box is something that little hands must grasp (and therefore squeeze) in order to avoid Subsection A of the First Law of Life, which spells out that juice boxes are not to be dropped on the floor.  Anyone who has seen a dropped juice box will swear that some dark magic allowed the manufacturers to cram 5 gallons of juice into the 6 ounce box.  In reality, the actual number of possible infractions surrounding the juice box could only be recited by Rain Man in between episodes of Judge Wapner.  Yeah, 137 infractions, yeah.

I had hoped that I would not have to spell out The First Law of Life to my toddler more than once.  As any rabidly proud parent would say, “my son is the smartest kid I ever met.”  Yet, every time a juice box is handed over to the genius that sprang from my loins, the warning is given…and ignored.

Clothes must be changed, floors washed, tempers calmed and tears kissed away.  As all this is happening, I wonder just how such an individual will survive in the great big world when he cannot even remember (or flat out ignores) the First Law of Life?  What horrid destiny is in store for him?  How will I be able to conceal my shame?

Then, I realize the apple has not fallen far from the tree.  I have also ignored some basic rules that can be found as subsections for the First Law of Life.

1. Never give a juice box if the child is in the vicinity of carpeting. It is often best to hand it to them while they are covered in plastic, in a plastic room, with multiple drainpipes installed in the floors.
2. Never stick the straw all the way into the box before handing it to the child (there is some kind of physics at play here that I do not comprehend, but the evidence is clear).
3. Never give a juicebox to a child.

However!  I am an adult, and the rules for us are different, especially when we need to ensure a proper teaching experience is had.

Sure, I’d like to blame the companies that produce these little torture devices, but for some reason I just keep buying the damned things.  Sure, my hand tingles and I get a violent eye twitch as I reach for them on the market shelves, but I keep telling myself things will be different this time, and I am damned well not going to stop buying them until he understands and adheres to the First Law of Life. 

Or maybe I should just give him a cup and start worrying about how to convince him that little girls (or boys if you have daughters) are icky little zombies that steal souls and need to be avoided at all costs for a minimum of 18 years or independence (whichever comes first).  I can only hope he gets the Second Law of Life quicker than the First.

I am seething.  The beautiful and talented Suzanne tells me to “let it go” but…why have a blog if you don’t use it to mouth off once in a while?  I will sum up my frustrations in the following sentence, but hope you will read on.

All you Northeastern liberals can kiss my ass and I rue nothing more than the day I came back here.

Yeah!  It’s “my Marine hat that I bought at the MCX on Parris Island” and I wear it because I am proud of my son.  Yeah!  I still love my country even though my son might get sent to Iraq or Afghanistan and may never return. He volunteered…there is no draft to be dodged by “conscious objectors.” Ever done anything that gutsy in your life?  No!  I’m not a crappy parent because I let my child join the Corps and supported his decision.  No!  I’m not stupid because I think military service is an honorable choice in life. 

Truth is…I’ve been back here only five days, and talked only to a few people and this is what I have heard so far.

To compare, in the two days I spent in the South, not one person was less than gracious when they discovered our son had just become a Marine.  Hell, half of them said “Now, there’s a new Marine” when they saw him walking toward them (sans uniform). They gave heartfelt congratulations on his graduation, showed true gratitude for his decision to serve his country through the military, and promised to put them in their prayers.

And all you blue staters think you are just sooooo superior to all the “hicks and rednecks.” 

You ain’t worth a one of them.

To be fair…I have friends and acquaintances here that are left of center, and they have been very supportive and gracious.  Some of them have children in the military, have served themselves, or are simply worried about Ryan. One particularly close friend who leans tha udda way has been a rock throughout and has expressed his admiration for Ryan’s accomplisment several times over.  Thank you all and, of course, you are fully exempt from my ire.

The rest of you can kiss my ass.

Private Ryan Michael Conklin… Graduate, United States Marine Corps Bootcamp, Parris Island, South Carolina, September 19, 2007.

I cannot express in words how I felt when I saw my boy walk into the 1st Battalion, All Weather Training Facility in preparation for Family Day.  Suffice to say, I cried.  I’ve learned only a little bit of what he has gone through…but let me put into simple terms.  Once you have completed basic training in the Marines, you automatically qualify to transfer to any of the other services without having to repeat basic training for the new service.  The reverse is NOT true.  There was actually a member of his company that had been in the Navy for four years…and had to start from day one in the pits with the rest of them.  He may have had more pins on his uniform at the end, but he was just another recruit.

As he showed us the rifle range (he was 2 points from “sharpshooter”) he told us an interesting story about how the crew at the range kept using loudspeakers to try to get recruits who had run away to get out of the woods next to the range, giving them time warnings as to when live firing was going to start.  It gave us a real inkling of the number of recruits that would do anything to get off Parris Island, and a real sense of pride in our son that he was able to complete three months of the most intense training ever devised for recruits and didn’t make a run for the border.  If you ever get a chance to see Parris Island, you will note on the trip in that it is the perfect place for such a school.  If the gators don’t get you, the snakes will, and if you are lucky enough to miss those, you’ll just sink up to your chest in the swamps.  The low country of South Carolina is gorgeous…but “there be bears in them thar woods.”  There were also stories of recruits who made mistakes near the end of their training, and were sent back to “day two” to repeat the entire process over again.

And yet, the recruits were not the only ones who were being put through their paces.  Shortly after Family Day ended, we watched a little bit of the graduation practice from the stands on the parade deck.  It was quite humorous to watch a Gunnery Sergeant (non-commissioned officer) barking orders at a Captain and Lieutenant Colonel, making them repeat their roles over and over again until it was perfect.  His voice carried for hundreds of yards as he put them through the ringer, demanding perfection in every movement.  Later, my son told me that the non-commissioned officers are the heart and soul of the Marine Corps, and even generals respect them utterly.  I could tell when Ryan introduced us to his drill instructors that even thought they had tortured his mind, body, and spirit for three months; he felt a deep down fervor for them that will never go away.

So, we get to see him for 9 days, and then it’s off to School of Infantry in North Carolina, a quick trip home for Christmas, and then where? We don’t know but he is hoping to be based in Germany or Japan for a bit before rotating into Iraq or Afghanistan.  We’ll just have to let go and let God protect him.

In the end…God bless each and every young man and woman that graduated on Friday, September 19, 2007.  Our prayers are with you, and with every person serving in the military here at home and abroad.  Your sacrifices, great and small, will never be forgotten.

Tonight at midnight, we begin the 15 hour trek to South Carolina to watch our son graduate from the Marine Corps Boot Camp at Parris Island.

HE DID IT!

Please keep him in your prayers as we have a total 10 days with him before he moves on to the next part of his training and then onto defending the United States of America.  God bless you all.  I’ll post pictures when we return.

Here I stand.  I only have a little boat and there’s water over my ankles.  I’m trying to bail it out, but my only tool is a something that resembles a colander. 

I’m not getting anywhere.

Forgive me for saying so…I’m getting pissed.  (A note to my more “sensitive” readers.  I’m a little ticked off right now, so it might be a bumpy ride from here on out).

Before the bow sinks below the waves and I succumb to Davy Jones’ Locker (which smells of gym socks, I hear) let’s look at the source of the waters that are rushing in upon me.  It can be summed up in an equation.

Your Irresponsibility + Your Sense of Entitlement = My Watery Death

So, who’m I talking at?  There’s so many choices these days and you could plug any number into the first part of the equation, but this time, it’s all about the Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac bail out. 

$300 billion.  That’s the cost of irresponsibility.  Irresponsible lenders AND EQUALLY irresponsible borrowers.  Let me give you just a little background here.  When I went to purchase my first home, since it was my first time and my credit at the time was SLIGHTLY shaky (not being sarcastic), I had to meet with a “counselor” for four hours to “teach” me how to be a good citizen and pay my mortgage.  This was REQUIRED by the bank for me to get my loan at just under 7%.  And…I purchased a home that cost LESS THAN WHAT I MADE because I wanted to make sure I could AFFORD to pay my mortgage and still have a comfortable cushion if anything happened.  In other words, I didn’t purchase something I knew could become a burden.

So now…You peckerheads want ME to bail you out?  (There are a few “mo better” words for Congress, but I digress).  You bankers offered ADJUSTABLE rate mortgages to people for homes you KNEW they couldn’t afford should the rates rise.  You borrowers took ADJUSTABLE rate mortgages when you KNEW you wouldn’t be able to afford it should the rates rise.  Um…when have you EVER seen an adjustable rate go down?  You bankers wanted to make a bunch of money quick.  You borrowers wanted to LIVE THE LIFE.  Now, you’re both screwed and you’re looking to me to take care of you.  In the immortal words of Kaiser Soce…”forgive me Lieutenant, but you can kiss my pucker.”

I CAN’T AFFORD IT!  This, I say to you…as I do whenever something comes my way that is beyond my financial capabilities.  I know there are so many economic ramifications here, many of which I don’t understand, but what I SEE is that, once again, I am being asked to bail out another group of irresponsible twits.  I bail out people who don’t want to work for a living on a daily basis.  I bail out mistakes by crappy politicians on a daily basis (I LOVE NEW YORK!).  I bail out an education system that consistently fails to do its job on a daily basis.  The list goes on and on…

I conclude with these thoughts…Shouldn’t they feel the pain more than me?  Shouldn’t irresponsible actions be PUNISHED instead of being rewarded with a bail out?  Isn’t this what capitalism is about?  Wouldn’t better services appear on the horizon that would be more effective?  Wouldn’t people LEARN from their mistakes if they felt the pain with an honest look at what they did?

<maniacal laughter>

Sorry, forgot myself there for a moment…A good nanny is always there to soothe the pain.

Turned 40 today and spent most of the day in a funk.  Typical behavior for me around birthday time every year.  Taking stock and all that…what have I done?  What successes can I point to?  What have I learned?  Who have I helped?  I think normal questions at the half-life point (ah if I could only be Cesium, but then again, who wants to live that long?).

Well, the answer came at dinner.

 There’s a 5 year old in my house that adores me, and an 18 year old that gave me a wise-ass card about getting old, and a wife that bought a singing card with one of my favorite artists and a special song about love.  It’s all good.

So often, the answers lie right in front of us.  Someday, I think that God will be more concerned with what I did in this little part of the world than anything else…

Major credit to Pope Benedict Exx Vee Eye for coming to the USA with full intention of meeting with and making at least vocal reparations to the victims of abusive priests.  It’s been a long time since I can remember a leader (of any kind) truly apologizing for something.  I believe a lot of hearts have been set on the path to healing by his frank and honest speeches, and although I don’t know if any other reparations will be set in motion; at least he has forged a new day for the Catholic Church and for religion as a whole.

I’m not Catholic, but I can respect this guy because of his true grit.

Although…because of his visit to NY, the Yankees have begun the longest road trip in MLB history, which is never a good thing.  So, kudos to His Holiness for being more like John Wayne than John Wayne Gacy…darnitol’s for taking over Yankee stadium and wrecking the schedule.  Sheesh.  You’d think the Knick’s could have invited him to Madison Square Garden.  If anyone needs a blessing, it’s that bunch of…(expletive deleted out of respect for the main subject of this post).

Or was it The Boss’ Fault?  Whichever.

So here’s the question for you.  Which one of these catches was best?  As a Giants fan, I jumped for joy when David Tyree hauled Eli Manning’s throw in for the most important play of the Super Bowl and something that would be a highlight film clip for all eternity.  The other picture is of a 9 month old infant dropped from a burning building in Ludwigshafen, Germany into the waiting arms of a police officer.  The impact of the child knocked the officer to the ground, upon which his unhelmeted head took a beating.  The child…not a scratch on him.

What a lesson in priorities. But which one will live forever?  NFL Films, ESPN and The NY Giants organization will run David Tyree’s catch for the next 50 years.  This officer and the innocent life he saved in Germany will be forgotten in 50 days.

Sir, you do not know me (and frankly I can’t find your name referenced anywhere online) but God Bless You for what you did.  I’ll never forget it, and neither will those who love the little boy you saved.