By Jim Parks
Moving in a flurry of activity, getting the old couple
seated, flitting about for extra napkins, a bottle of pepper
sauce, more silverware, she takes her place at the table,
turned obliquely to address the room in general.
The dull hubub of the cafeteria swells and ebbs as she talks
steadily in an amplified voice, her head thrown back at a
slight angle, projecting from the diaphram. Her tanned skin
glows, the carefully styled hair glossy, the jewelry
glinting.
Oh, yes, she has gone to Dallas.
She answers her mother's questions with exaggerated calm and
patience.
It's an exciting new job. She's working for S____, F______.
Yes, it's an electronic discovery firm with offices in Los
Angeles, Dallas, Washington, D.C., New York and London.
They scan electronic files - computerized records - For
what?
For evidence.
Evidence.
Yes, anything that can be used as evidence in a trial.
Most of the people who work there are retired from the CIA
or the FBI.
She sounds so proud of that. Her husband speaks in the same
affected, high strung voice.
Questioned by a stranger who said he could not help
overhearing, she admits she has no idea if the computer
scans are a result of a court order on a discovery motion,
or not.
Her expression is blank.
I don't know about all that legal stuff, she says.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
State health officials insist H1N1 Vaccine is Safe
By Jim Parks
If people wait until public health officials offer them
vaccination for the dreaded H1N1 swine flu that that UN
doctors have termed pandemic, "No one will be turned away,"
said a Texas state health department official. "There will
be no charge.
"Everyone who shows up that day will be shot."
The crowd in the Clifton Civic Center auditorium erupted in
giddy laughter.
"That didn't sound right," Ms. Lacy Sanders, a Disease
Coordinator for the Texas Department of State Health Service
said.
"Everyone who shows up that day will get a shot."
More laughter.
Unless you have had full-blown anaphylactic shock, according
Ms. Sanders, the swine flu vaccine against the H1N1 virus is
safe.
Even those who have had allergic reactions to eggs should be
able to withstand a dose of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, she
added.
Only those who have been unable to breathe because of the
sudden production of histamines and other immunological
mediators that closed off their brochial passages or caused
a sudden drop in blood pressure that triggered a
cardiovascular collapse such as the spasms caused by bee
stings or an extreme allergic reaction to penicillin should
be cautious about taking the vaccination.
"It's in a preservative-free environment, so there's no harm
at all."
Has it been tested?
Definitely.
Has the testing been extensive enough?
Of course, said health department representatives. The
mission is to produce a vaccine that will cause the immune
system to form antibodies. Once they are present, testing
has been entirely effective and the product has been proven
safe.
Many internet bloggers have insisted that the vaccine has
been rushed into production without a proper testing period.
There is an air of panic in the among some parts of the
population, people who fear a government grab for power.
Some of them envision concentration camps into which those
who refuse the vaccine will be imprisoned.
The Texas health officials are working hard in public
appearances to dispel these rumors.
To manufacture a live virus vaccine such as the nasal spray
recommended for people up to age 45 or a dead virus vaccine
delivered by intramuscular injection involves the act of
testing the virus as it is synthesized.
"It has been tested," Ms. Sanders inisisted as she and State
Epidemiologist Gene Mikeska presented the nuts and bolts of
the vaccination program, which is meant to target the
uninsured or underinsured.
In fact, the H1N1 virus vaccine was manufactured first in
Australia because the southern hemisphere goes into the
winter equinox at the same time the northern hemisphere
enters the summer months. "They needed it first," said Ms.
Sanders.
Though one to 15 percent of the population can be considered
at risk for anaphylactic shock, only about one percent who
experience it may die as a result.
If the flu has entered a pandemic state, as World Health
Organization officials termed it in June of this year, why
haven't more people been sick or died?
That's simple, according to the epidemiologist, Gene
Mikeska.
"In a business where you make things, your productivity is
judged by what you turn out...In our business, you are
judged by what you prevent." Quite simply, when there is
little or no disease, that's when you know public health
officials are really getting the job done.
How will people get vaccinated? Health officials have
started to receive shipments of the vaccine at the present
time. It is first going to private health care providers
who ordered it months ago.
"Check with your doctor," said Ms. Sanders.
Diabetics and those who are 65 or older should see their
doctors about a pneumonia vaccination, she said. Pneumonia
is a common complication of the pandemic strain of H1N1
swine flu. "Anyone with a immunological deficiency should
be vaccinated for bacterial infections."
The vaccine will become available "around the first week in
November."
Seasonal flu vaccine is available now. It takes two to
three weeks to become effective against infection. Those
who have been exposed to flu may already be sick but not
showing symptoms for several days. By then, it's too late.
The key, then is to be vaccinated early in the flu season
and give the system plenty of time to develop the antibodies
that will fight off the flu virus.
Nasal spray vaccine for the H1N1 virus, the kind used by
those who are less than 45 years of age, takes two to three
weeks to become effective. Dead virus vaccine, the kind
used by the elderly and diabetics or other immunologically
challenged patients, usually takes about a month.
What kind of strain of swine flu is H1N1 2009? It's a virus
that is endemic in pigs, a subtype of Influenza A. However,
transmission of the virus from pigs to humans is not common
and does not always lead to human influenza. It often leads
only to the production of human antibodies.
What about Tamiflu?
It's not effective unless you have been infected. Just
because you took Tamiflu, you won't be immune from the H1N1
virus. Besides, said Mr. Mikeska, "It costs about $125 to
$145 for a five day dosage."
If people wait until public health officials offer them
vaccination for the dreaded H1N1 swine flu that that UN
doctors have termed pandemic, "No one will be turned away,"
said a Texas state health department official. "There will
be no charge.
"Everyone who shows up that day will be shot."
The crowd in the Clifton Civic Center auditorium erupted in
giddy laughter.
"That didn't sound right," Ms. Lacy Sanders, a Disease
Coordinator for the Texas Department of State Health Service
said.
"Everyone who shows up that day will get a shot."
More laughter.
Unless you have had full-blown anaphylactic shock, according
Ms. Sanders, the swine flu vaccine against the H1N1 virus is
safe.
Even those who have had allergic reactions to eggs should be
able to withstand a dose of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, she
added.
Only those who have been unable to breathe because of the
sudden production of histamines and other immunological
mediators that closed off their brochial passages or caused
a sudden drop in blood pressure that triggered a
cardiovascular collapse such as the spasms caused by bee
stings or an extreme allergic reaction to penicillin should
be cautious about taking the vaccination.
"It's in a preservative-free environment, so there's no harm
at all."
Has it been tested?
Definitely.
Has the testing been extensive enough?
Of course, said health department representatives. The
mission is to produce a vaccine that will cause the immune
system to form antibodies. Once they are present, testing
has been entirely effective and the product has been proven
safe.
Many internet bloggers have insisted that the vaccine has
been rushed into production without a proper testing period.
There is an air of panic in the among some parts of the
population, people who fear a government grab for power.
Some of them envision concentration camps into which those
who refuse the vaccine will be imprisoned.
The Texas health officials are working hard in public
appearances to dispel these rumors.
To manufacture a live virus vaccine such as the nasal spray
recommended for people up to age 45 or a dead virus vaccine
delivered by intramuscular injection involves the act of
testing the virus as it is synthesized.
"It has been tested," Ms. Sanders inisisted as she and State
Epidemiologist Gene Mikeska presented the nuts and bolts of
the vaccination program, which is meant to target the
uninsured or underinsured.
In fact, the H1N1 virus vaccine was manufactured first in
Australia because the southern hemisphere goes into the
winter equinox at the same time the northern hemisphere
enters the summer months. "They needed it first," said Ms.
Sanders.
Though one to 15 percent of the population can be considered
at risk for anaphylactic shock, only about one percent who
experience it may die as a result.
If the flu has entered a pandemic state, as World Health
Organization officials termed it in June of this year, why
haven't more people been sick or died?
That's simple, according to the epidemiologist, Gene
Mikeska.
"In a business where you make things, your productivity is
judged by what you turn out...In our business, you are
judged by what you prevent." Quite simply, when there is
little or no disease, that's when you know public health
officials are really getting the job done.
How will people get vaccinated? Health officials have
started to receive shipments of the vaccine at the present
time. It is first going to private health care providers
who ordered it months ago.
"Check with your doctor," said Ms. Sanders.
Diabetics and those who are 65 or older should see their
doctors about a pneumonia vaccination, she said. Pneumonia
is a common complication of the pandemic strain of H1N1
swine flu. "Anyone with a immunological deficiency should
be vaccinated for bacterial infections."
The vaccine will become available "around the first week in
November."
Seasonal flu vaccine is available now. It takes two to
three weeks to become effective against infection. Those
who have been exposed to flu may already be sick but not
showing symptoms for several days. By then, it's too late.
The key, then is to be vaccinated early in the flu season
and give the system plenty of time to develop the antibodies
that will fight off the flu virus.
Nasal spray vaccine for the H1N1 virus, the kind used by
those who are less than 45 years of age, takes two to three
weeks to become effective. Dead virus vaccine, the kind
used by the elderly and diabetics or other immunologically
challenged patients, usually takes about a month.
What kind of strain of swine flu is H1N1 2009? It's a virus
that is endemic in pigs, a subtype of Influenza A. However,
transmission of the virus from pigs to humans is not common
and does not always lead to human influenza. It often leads
only to the production of human antibodies.
What about Tamiflu?
It's not effective unless you have been infected. Just
because you took Tamiflu, you won't be immune from the H1N1
virus. Besides, said Mr. Mikeska, "It costs about $125 to
$145 for a five day dosage."
Friday, October 9, 2009
Private Contract Police To Fill Private Jail in Montana
By Jim Parks
If one set out to make it up out of whole cloth, the story
would tax even the most fertile imagination.
However, any reasonable examination of the facts lends a
certain plausibiity to the equation, if viewed in terms of
natural resources and historical facts.
Situated a scant fifteen minute drive from the site of
Custer's last stand, Hardin, Montana, is at the confluence
of the Yellowstone and Big Horn Rivers. It is located on
the right of way of the old 19th century route of the
Northern Pacific Railroad, which now makes up parts of the
Burlington Northern-Santa Fe and Union Pacific Lines, as
well as Montana Rail Link.
Furthermore, it is the place where Interstates 94 and 90
coming from Billings meet up with Interstate 25 from Casper,
Denver and points south. Most trainloads of coal roll east
to Detroit through Hardin. Wheat trains head through the
city on their way to St. Paul and Chicago.
So Hardin, Montana, with a population of about 3,500 in a
county of about 15,000, more than a third of the work force
of which is chronically unemployed, is located in the place
where there converge a half dozen excellent wagon roads that
carry diesel tractors and trailers at high speed across the
knobs, benches and coulees of the old buffalo hunting lands.
What's more, it's a hub for the rail routes that connect the
Pacific Northwest with the Midwest, Southwest and East
coast.
Big Horn County is the eighth largest producer of beef
cattle in the nation.
That is what the fight with the Sioux, Arapaho and Cheyenne
was all about on that fateful summer day in 1876 when the
grandstander and glory hound, Lt. Colonel George Armstrong
Custer, met his maker and lost his scalp.
The Indians had a treaty granting the hunting lands - an
easy route to and through the Rockies - to them as long as
wind blow and grass grow. But it was not to be as soon as
the settlers and railroad barons sniffed out the yellow iron
in places like The Black Hills of South Dakota, a sacred
place for the plains tribes and the location of a massive
gold field. To the northwest lies Helena and Butte, high
timber country with many deposits of gold.
Then the pony soldiers came with their .45-70 Springfield
trapdoor rifles and Hotchkiss Guns, Gatling repeaters and
mountain howitzers, building soldier forts and burning out
and killing tribes all across the area.
When the surveying crews and wagon trains arrived, the
braves went on the war path. It was the beginning of the
end of aboriginal culture in North America. Following the
wars that ensued, they were all herded onto sparse and
desolate reservations throughout the west.
Hardin sits on the northern boundary of the Crow Nation.
They were scouting and fighting for Custer on the infamous
day of his last stand. They Cheyenne and Sioux were
relegated to South Dakota.
What the Twin Rivers Authority has done is hardly untypical.
In the nineties, many economic development authorities went
into hock by selling tax free municipal bonds, constructed
private jails and penitentiaries, and contracted with such
corporations as Wackenhut and Corrections Corporation of
America to operate those jails at a neat profit. In other
places such as Johnson County, Texas, the city and county,
in cooperation with the development authority and the
commissioner's court, constructed a law enforcement center
for the County Sheriff's Department to meet new jail
commission standards, then contracted with far away
municipalities such as Washington, D.C., Harris County,
Texas, and state penal institutions such as the
Institutional Division of the Texas Department of
Corrections to house overflow crowds of offenders in the
over capacity facilities constructed as much as three times
too large for just that purpose.
In one Connecticut city, the economic development authority
condemned private property and constructed a shopping mall
for a developer using tax free municipal bonds. It's all
perfectly legal under a Supreme Court ruling. Arlington,
Texas, did the same thing with a football and baseball
stadium complex.
Government's power of eminent domain is no longer reserved
for the construction of public utilities such as airports
and hydroelectric dams. It's now of extreme benefit to the
private sector.
But the city dads and the bank didn't figure on the reaction
Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer, who, through the
cooperation of his Attorney General, carried out a single
minded campaign against corrections and incarceration as a
growth industry. As a result of their opposition, a
negative AG's opinion that held that no such business could
be conducted because it's the sole authority of the
Sheriff's department to house Montana prisoners in Montana,
and then only temporarily until they can be shipped to the
Department of Corrections.
In the ensuing two years of lawsuits, countersuits, appeals,
depositions and hearings, the bond issue has gone into
default. The U.S. Bank, which underwrote the muni bonds, is
hanging out there for the full pop of $27 million plus debt
service. No one is making money.
The Twin Rivers Authority executives have even made a
serious bid to house the Al Quaeda prisoners now warehoused
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who are awaiting trials before
military tribunals, prisoners whom the President has
declared must soon be brought to the continental U.S. to
face trial. They were turned down because of the Govenor's
opposition.
Then came the answer to their prayers.
Mike Hilton, an ethnic Montenegrin of the Serbian province
of what was once Yugoslavia, proposed that they enter a
contract with him to operate the 464-bed jail under
undisclosed terms amounting to a multimillion dollar
operation, as well as sell an estimated five to 10 thousand
acres for "training purposes" to his corporation based in
Santa Ana, California, American Private Police Force. It is
rumored that this is a subsidiary corporation of what was
once known as Blackwater, a North Carolina outfit that runs
convoys and performs security duty for government and
corporate types in such hot spots as Iraq and Afghanistan.
He and other company officials showed up last week driving
three black Mercedes Benz SUV's with the company logo on
their doors and the words "Hardin Police Department" stuck
on their sides with magnetic signs.
The company logo is the coat of arms of Serbia-Montenegro,
which resembles the two-headed eagle of the Scottish Rite of
Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, or the seal of the
Russian Imperial court.
This plunged the town into a cauldron of hot debate for one
reason and one reason alone. Hardin has not had a police
force now for thirty years. All law enforcement patrols are
provided by the County Sheriff's Department.
Now what? Would foreign mercenaries crowd in to fill the
jail with offenders accused of DWI, non-payment of child
support, driving while license suspended? Would they go
after unaided warrants and jail the offenders?
Conspiracy theorists sniffed out sign of the dreaded
Illuminati, suspecting an evil Masonic influence in a world
wide banker's plot to take over the planet - one town at a
time.
For now, the contract has been extensively re-written to
satisfy the lawyers that the tax free integrity of the
municipal bonds will not be threatened in any way should the
deal go through.
As it turns out, Mike Hilton is a felon who stands convicted
of multiple offenses of fraud and spent several years in
California prisons. He owes judgments of multimillion
dollar proportions and has as many as seventeen registered
aliases on court records. His corporate attorney quit him
in the heat of battle and a public relations consultant he
hired away form the Billings "Gazette," Becky Shay, broke
down and cried when she was unable to answer questions
regarding the corporation's assets, operations or plans.
The contract is awaiting final approval from U.S. Bank, the
underwriter, and there is very little happiness in Hardin,
Montana.
A chilling note regarding ethnic cleansing of muslims in
Croatia and Serbia as carried by Serbian forces:
1) Concentration. Surround the area to be cleansed and
after warning the resident Serbes - often they are urged to
leave or are at least told to mark their houses with white
flags, indimidate the targee.
2) Decapitation. Execute political leaders and those capable
of taking their places: lawyers, judges, public officials,
writers, professors.
3) Separation. Divide women, children, and old men from men
of "fighting age" - sixteen years to sixty years old.
4) Evacuation. Transport women, children, and old men to the
border, expelling them into a neighboring territory or
country.
5) Liquidation. Execute "fighting age" men, dispose of
bodies.
It all sounds a whole lot like the strategy and tactics
employed by Generals Crook, Terry and Sherman in the Indian
Campaigns.
Another riveting detail. The Montana Firearms Freedom Act
took effect on October 1. Under that law, any firearm
manufactured and assembled in Montana that is meant to stay
there in Montana and not be transported across state lines
is exempt from Federal regulation under the terms of the
Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Many other states
including Texas, West Virginia, Alabama, and Wyoming have
introduced similar legislation. It is also law in
Tennessee.
American Private Police Force showed up in Hardin just a
week after the new firearms law took effect.
If one set out to make it up out of whole cloth, the story
would tax even the most fertile imagination.
However, any reasonable examination of the facts lends a
certain plausibiity to the equation, if viewed in terms of
natural resources and historical facts.
Situated a scant fifteen minute drive from the site of
Custer's last stand, Hardin, Montana, is at the confluence
of the Yellowstone and Big Horn Rivers. It is located on
the right of way of the old 19th century route of the
Northern Pacific Railroad, which now makes up parts of the
Burlington Northern-Santa Fe and Union Pacific Lines, as
well as Montana Rail Link.
Furthermore, it is the place where Interstates 94 and 90
coming from Billings meet up with Interstate 25 from Casper,
Denver and points south. Most trainloads of coal roll east
to Detroit through Hardin. Wheat trains head through the
city on their way to St. Paul and Chicago.
So Hardin, Montana, with a population of about 3,500 in a
county of about 15,000, more than a third of the work force
of which is chronically unemployed, is located in the place
where there converge a half dozen excellent wagon roads that
carry diesel tractors and trailers at high speed across the
knobs, benches and coulees of the old buffalo hunting lands.
What's more, it's a hub for the rail routes that connect the
Pacific Northwest with the Midwest, Southwest and East
coast.
Big Horn County is the eighth largest producer of beef
cattle in the nation.
That is what the fight with the Sioux, Arapaho and Cheyenne
was all about on that fateful summer day in 1876 when the
grandstander and glory hound, Lt. Colonel George Armstrong
Custer, met his maker and lost his scalp.
The Indians had a treaty granting the hunting lands - an
easy route to and through the Rockies - to them as long as
wind blow and grass grow. But it was not to be as soon as
the settlers and railroad barons sniffed out the yellow iron
in places like The Black Hills of South Dakota, a sacred
place for the plains tribes and the location of a massive
gold field. To the northwest lies Helena and Butte, high
timber country with many deposits of gold.
Then the pony soldiers came with their .45-70 Springfield
trapdoor rifles and Hotchkiss Guns, Gatling repeaters and
mountain howitzers, building soldier forts and burning out
and killing tribes all across the area.
When the surveying crews and wagon trains arrived, the
braves went on the war path. It was the beginning of the
end of aboriginal culture in North America. Following the
wars that ensued, they were all herded onto sparse and
desolate reservations throughout the west.
Hardin sits on the northern boundary of the Crow Nation.
They were scouting and fighting for Custer on the infamous
day of his last stand. They Cheyenne and Sioux were
relegated to South Dakota.
What the Twin Rivers Authority has done is hardly untypical.
In the nineties, many economic development authorities went
into hock by selling tax free municipal bonds, constructed
private jails and penitentiaries, and contracted with such
corporations as Wackenhut and Corrections Corporation of
America to operate those jails at a neat profit. In other
places such as Johnson County, Texas, the city and county,
in cooperation with the development authority and the
commissioner's court, constructed a law enforcement center
for the County Sheriff's Department to meet new jail
commission standards, then contracted with far away
municipalities such as Washington, D.C., Harris County,
Texas, and state penal institutions such as the
Institutional Division of the Texas Department of
Corrections to house overflow crowds of offenders in the
over capacity facilities constructed as much as three times
too large for just that purpose.
In one Connecticut city, the economic development authority
condemned private property and constructed a shopping mall
for a developer using tax free municipal bonds. It's all
perfectly legal under a Supreme Court ruling. Arlington,
Texas, did the same thing with a football and baseball
stadium complex.
Government's power of eminent domain is no longer reserved
for the construction of public utilities such as airports
and hydroelectric dams. It's now of extreme benefit to the
private sector.
But the city dads and the bank didn't figure on the reaction
Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer, who, through the
cooperation of his Attorney General, carried out a single
minded campaign against corrections and incarceration as a
growth industry. As a result of their opposition, a
negative AG's opinion that held that no such business could
be conducted because it's the sole authority of the
Sheriff's department to house Montana prisoners in Montana,
and then only temporarily until they can be shipped to the
Department of Corrections.
In the ensuing two years of lawsuits, countersuits, appeals,
depositions and hearings, the bond issue has gone into
default. The U.S. Bank, which underwrote the muni bonds, is
hanging out there for the full pop of $27 million plus debt
service. No one is making money.
The Twin Rivers Authority executives have even made a
serious bid to house the Al Quaeda prisoners now warehoused
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who are awaiting trials before
military tribunals, prisoners whom the President has
declared must soon be brought to the continental U.S. to
face trial. They were turned down because of the Govenor's
opposition.
Then came the answer to their prayers.
Mike Hilton, an ethnic Montenegrin of the Serbian province
of what was once Yugoslavia, proposed that they enter a
contract with him to operate the 464-bed jail under
undisclosed terms amounting to a multimillion dollar
operation, as well as sell an estimated five to 10 thousand
acres for "training purposes" to his corporation based in
Santa Ana, California, American Private Police Force. It is
rumored that this is a subsidiary corporation of what was
once known as Blackwater, a North Carolina outfit that runs
convoys and performs security duty for government and
corporate types in such hot spots as Iraq and Afghanistan.
He and other company officials showed up last week driving
three black Mercedes Benz SUV's with the company logo on
their doors and the words "Hardin Police Department" stuck
on their sides with magnetic signs.
The company logo is the coat of arms of Serbia-Montenegro,
which resembles the two-headed eagle of the Scottish Rite of
Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, or the seal of the
Russian Imperial court.
This plunged the town into a cauldron of hot debate for one
reason and one reason alone. Hardin has not had a police
force now for thirty years. All law enforcement patrols are
provided by the County Sheriff's Department.
Now what? Would foreign mercenaries crowd in to fill the
jail with offenders accused of DWI, non-payment of child
support, driving while license suspended? Would they go
after unaided warrants and jail the offenders?
Conspiracy theorists sniffed out sign of the dreaded
Illuminati, suspecting an evil Masonic influence in a world
wide banker's plot to take over the planet - one town at a
time.
For now, the contract has been extensively re-written to
satisfy the lawyers that the tax free integrity of the
municipal bonds will not be threatened in any way should the
deal go through.
As it turns out, Mike Hilton is a felon who stands convicted
of multiple offenses of fraud and spent several years in
California prisons. He owes judgments of multimillion
dollar proportions and has as many as seventeen registered
aliases on court records. His corporate attorney quit him
in the heat of battle and a public relations consultant he
hired away form the Billings "Gazette," Becky Shay, broke
down and cried when she was unable to answer questions
regarding the corporation's assets, operations or plans.
The contract is awaiting final approval from U.S. Bank, the
underwriter, and there is very little happiness in Hardin,
Montana.
A chilling note regarding ethnic cleansing of muslims in
Croatia and Serbia as carried by Serbian forces:
1) Concentration. Surround the area to be cleansed and
after warning the resident Serbes - often they are urged to
leave or are at least told to mark their houses with white
flags, indimidate the targee.
2) Decapitation. Execute political leaders and those capable
of taking their places: lawyers, judges, public officials,
writers, professors.
3) Separation. Divide women, children, and old men from men
of "fighting age" - sixteen years to sixty years old.
4) Evacuation. Transport women, children, and old men to the
border, expelling them into a neighboring territory or
country.
5) Liquidation. Execute "fighting age" men, dispose of
bodies.
It all sounds a whole lot like the strategy and tactics
employed by Generals Crook, Terry and Sherman in the Indian
Campaigns.
Another riveting detail. The Montana Firearms Freedom Act
took effect on October 1. Under that law, any firearm
manufactured and assembled in Montana that is meant to stay
there in Montana and not be transported across state lines
is exempt from Federal regulation under the terms of the
Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Many other states
including Texas, West Virginia, Alabama, and Wyoming have
introduced similar legislation. It is also law in
Tennessee.
American Private Police Force showed up in Hardin just a
week after the new firearms law took effect.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
After A Long Cessation, A Moment of Companionship
At the automatic teller machine, a tom cat trotted across
new mown grass, up a sidewalk, tail held high in the sudden
autumn breeze.
I meowed, something I am sure I have not done since I was,
oh, maybe three or four years old - five at the oldest.
Losing track of the cat, I finished my business, then felt
him brush between my legs, heard his growling meow. I saw
his dark tiger stripes on a gray coat, looked into his green
eyes, measured his whiskers, felt him dos y doe between the
legs of my faded jeans once again.
"Meow."
"Meow."
It was a matter-of-fact exchange, something between a little
old man and a little old tom cat. I bent to stroke his fur,
scratch behind his ears. He shook his head rapidly side to
side, said, "Meow" again, and began to trot beside me toward
my pickup.
As I mounted the plain jane Chevy, he squatted and left his
calling card precisely at the corner of the clipped grass,
the sidewalk and the curb of the cross street beside the
bank, said a "Meow," farewell, and wrapped his tail around his
hindquarters, licked his chops, raised his nose to the
breeze.
I drove away, thinking of the price of friendship. A large
can of tuna would make us inseparable companions for life.
Such a bargain.
new mown grass, up a sidewalk, tail held high in the sudden
autumn breeze.
I meowed, something I am sure I have not done since I was,
oh, maybe three or four years old - five at the oldest.
Losing track of the cat, I finished my business, then felt
him brush between my legs, heard his growling meow. I saw
his dark tiger stripes on a gray coat, looked into his green
eyes, measured his whiskers, felt him dos y doe between the
legs of my faded jeans once again.
"Meow."
"Meow."
It was a matter-of-fact exchange, something between a little
old man and a little old tom cat. I bent to stroke his fur,
scratch behind his ears. He shook his head rapidly side to
side, said, "Meow" again, and began to trot beside me toward
my pickup.
As I mounted the plain jane Chevy, he squatted and left his
calling card precisely at the corner of the clipped grass,
the sidewalk and the curb of the cross street beside the
bank, said a "Meow," farewell, and wrapped his tail around his
hindquarters, licked his chops, raised his nose to the
breeze.
I drove away, thinking of the price of friendship. A large
can of tuna would make us inseparable companions for life.
Such a bargain.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Scapegoat Freed In Yom Kippur Trial Setting of Billy Joe Shaver
Amid the Monday morning hubbub and confusion of an empanelment of enough veniremen to seat juries in three district courts and two country courts at law, District Judge Matt Johnson quietly announced that in a "priority setting" of the case, the trial of Billy Joe Shaver has been postponed until April 5, with a pre-trial hearing set for March 26th.
It was not unexpected. The prosecutor had earlier made it clear he was not ready for trial at this time.
The wheels of justice ground on, attorneys and defendants barely blinking as the judge continued to go down the docket with the court coordinator to touch bases with the revisions to the schedule.
Yom Kippur, the ancient Hebrew Day of Atonement, in which priests would noisily bang on gongs and blow trumpets while the ineffable name of God was uttered at low breath by a priest of the Holy Temple of Jerusalem who stood facing a wall of the Holy of Holies, the Sanctum Sanctorum, was like any other in the Court's session.
The alleged offense of assault with a deadly weapon and carrying a firearm unlawfully on premises where alcoholic beverages are sold and consumed took place on March 31, 2007. Shaver is accused of the crime of firing a .22 caliber pistol into the face of an antagonist at "Papa Joe's Texas Saloon, a country music bistro located at Lorena, Texas.
The bullet, which passed through and through flesh only, fortuitously did only superficial damage to the man's cheek.
It was not unexpected. The prosecutor had earlier made it clear he was not ready for trial at this time.
The wheels of justice ground on, attorneys and defendants barely blinking as the judge continued to go down the docket with the court coordinator to touch bases with the revisions to the schedule.
Yom Kippur, the ancient Hebrew Day of Atonement, in which priests would noisily bang on gongs and blow trumpets while the ineffable name of God was uttered at low breath by a priest of the Holy Temple of Jerusalem who stood facing a wall of the Holy of Holies, the Sanctum Sanctorum, was like any other in the Court's session.
The alleged offense of assault with a deadly weapon and carrying a firearm unlawfully on premises where alcoholic beverages are sold and consumed took place on March 31, 2007. Shaver is accused of the crime of firing a .22 caliber pistol into the face of an antagonist at "Papa Joe's Texas Saloon, a country music bistro located at Lorena, Texas.
The bullet, which passed through and through flesh only, fortuitously did only superficial damage to the man's cheek.
Friday, September 25, 2009
A Killing In The Park
By Jim Parks
The little kids who play there know.
"Yeah, they sell drugs here," a young Hispanic boy of perhaps nine or ten says as he and his friends pause in a game of basketball to talk about the murder that took place the night before.
The one thing everyone agrees upon is that Arturo, a 57 year-old man with a family, was found with a gunshot wound to his head - dead - at about 9 or 10 p.m., just as Dahl Park is to be officially closed each night.
Situated on a leafy street at the end of a cul de sac between two frame prairie houses, the park features picnic tables, swing sets and teeter totters, basketball hoops, a public restroom and a parking lot.
The dead man was found in the parking lot, shot as he walked away from what the kids have described as having words with a little gang that sells dope there.
It's not much different than any other setup you will find in the courtyards and pocket parks of urban areas - New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles - except that here the population is only about three thousand. It's a crossroads town situated on the Santa Fe line and Texas Highway 6, a whistle stop.
A Scandinavian enclave community, the population is largely of Norwegian, Swedish and Danish extraction. Dahl Park is probably four or five acres, surrounded by vacant lots that are prone to sudden flooding in the drainage land that slopes down to the Bosque River. It's part of an extensive system of paved canals and quick runoff ditches that route the water around traffic and homes. There is a drainage ditch five or six feet deep that defines the northern boundary of the park. High wooden fences and brushy hedges isolate it from houses on its west and south sides, while a short chain link fence forms a barrier to other vacant lots to its east.
Dope dealers may easily observe from all directions while those who would choose to apprehend them must rush upon them from the narrow street, across the ditch with its one narrow foot bridge, or come through the fenced yards and over the brushy hedges of the private residences. on the southern and western borders.
Typically, according to the kids who come there to play, the young accomplices watch for uniformed patrolmen or plainclothes narcotics agents while the older kids collect the money for the crack or methamphetamine that is sold. Other small kids circle around a dumpster at the extreme southwest corner of the park, drop the dope on the ground, and the customers may pick it up in the shadows; from there, they are on their own.
According to the kids, Arturo, a man who was once employed as a gardener by the city, a local bank as a porter, and a common laborer for a variety of bosses, came to the park after a visit to a kinsman's home on the corner. He went there to find his wife and kids, it is said. Others enter into speculation that they will not really spell out in so many words. They roll their eyes and smile behind their hands. It is a mystery.
In the park, he had words with the drug dealers, turned to leave, and a bullet found his head as he left the scene. He fell in the parking lot and died there.
It's not so different than the killing of an elderly Hispanic man of tiny stature who worked as a porter at a liquor store outside of town for many years. The city is dry; no sales of alcoholic beverages are allowed inside the city limits. According to the prosecution, he was beaten savagely in the yard of some low rent apartment units during a party that turned ugly. Party goers, including his assailant, took him inside after he lay wounded and dying for several hours in the yard outside.
A jury convicted a young black man, a cousin of one of major league baseball's Sadler family, for the killing.
Three of the five who have been arrested for the killing of Arturo are legally of an adult age while two others must first be certified by a juvenile court to be tried as adults.
Under Texas law, the concept of parties to a felony offense applies. It does not matter if a 21-year-old individual pulled the trigger, a fourteen year-old boy, or a teenager of seventeen. All are equally guilty unless the prosecutor decides to extend the terms of any deal in return for their testimony against other parties to the killing.
Drug dealing is an old game in Clifton, Texas, one that has gotten worse as the economy sours and employers cut the hours and benefits available to their workers. The city park along the river bottoms has long been a site of illicit drug dealing among the tennis courts, basketball courts, the American Legion hall - a rusticated stone building, site of a former Civilian Conservation Corps mess hall, a relic of the depression. The river bottom was the place where the old high school stadium stood for many years until the river repeatedly flooded the area and the school district moved on to higher ground, as did the National Guard, which deeded the Armory to the city to use as a community center.
Another favorite drug dealing ground was the former site of a Ford Motor Company dealership, a property that cuts through from the main drag on Highway 6 to a back street one block west. Kids gathered on the parking lot under spreading oaks and pecans to talk and associate while those cruising for a bump circled around behind the place to pick up their drugs.
Other deals were put together at the cross roads of a Farm to Market Road - 219 - and Highway 6 on the parking lot of a pharmacy that is next door to a filling station and Burger King franchise. Everyone has a cell phone. Everyone uses their text messaging feature.
No one is getting rich. Everyone is living with diminished expectations.
Drugs of choice are crack cocaine and the poor man's cocaine, a savage concoction the effects of which lasts for many hours and causes psychotic reactions - methamphetamines, also known as crystal, glass, or in special preparations, ice. They smoke it, snort it and inject it.
The economic conditions are called a recession, but the old timers who live in the country know it for what it really is - a depression that is deepening every day.
Murder over illicit narcotics has come to the small towns of west Texas. It's no longer just a big city phenomenon - a Chicago thing or something that happens in Memphis or New Orleans.
Ironically, the killing took place within a stone's throw of two nearly identical red brick Lutheran churches that are situated side by side on a street near Dahl Park like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. In times past, the elders of these churches ruled with an iron hand.
In fact, one of the largest employers in the city is now the old folks's home, which is operated by a not-for-profit corporation organized by the Lutheran Church.
Certainly, there is too much money in drugs.
In these times, people as young as those in their early adolescence will scratch, bite and fight for it.
Clifton, Texas, Police Department Chief Steve Adcock issued this statement:
"On 9/23/09 at approximately 2200 hours Clifton Police Department responded to a call of a possible intoxicated person at Dahl Park in Clifton who was unresponsive. Officers arrived on scene shortly after, and discovered a Hispanic male with a single gun shot wound to the head. The deceased was identified as Arturo Chavez DOB 3/08/52 of Clifton. The Texas Rangers and DPS Crime Lab were notified and assisted in the investigation with Clifton Police Department. Subsequent to the investigation arrest warrants were obtained for Angelica Nieto DOB 03/24/86, Jennifer Dunn DOB 7/10/87, Pedro Ramirez III, DOB 8/25/86, a 14 year old male, and a 16 year old female, all subjects were arrested and charged with Capital Murder."
The little kids who play there know.
"Yeah, they sell drugs here," a young Hispanic boy of perhaps nine or ten says as he and his friends pause in a game of basketball to talk about the murder that took place the night before.
The one thing everyone agrees upon is that Arturo, a 57 year-old man with a family, was found with a gunshot wound to his head - dead - at about 9 or 10 p.m., just as Dahl Park is to be officially closed each night.
Situated on a leafy street at the end of a cul de sac between two frame prairie houses, the park features picnic tables, swing sets and teeter totters, basketball hoops, a public restroom and a parking lot.
The dead man was found in the parking lot, shot as he walked away from what the kids have described as having words with a little gang that sells dope there.
It's not much different than any other setup you will find in the courtyards and pocket parks of urban areas - New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles - except that here the population is only about three thousand. It's a crossroads town situated on the Santa Fe line and Texas Highway 6, a whistle stop.
A Scandinavian enclave community, the population is largely of Norwegian, Swedish and Danish extraction. Dahl Park is probably four or five acres, surrounded by vacant lots that are prone to sudden flooding in the drainage land that slopes down to the Bosque River. It's part of an extensive system of paved canals and quick runoff ditches that route the water around traffic and homes. There is a drainage ditch five or six feet deep that defines the northern boundary of the park. High wooden fences and brushy hedges isolate it from houses on its west and south sides, while a short chain link fence forms a barrier to other vacant lots to its east.
Dope dealers may easily observe from all directions while those who would choose to apprehend them must rush upon them from the narrow street, across the ditch with its one narrow foot bridge, or come through the fenced yards and over the brushy hedges of the private residences. on the southern and western borders.
Typically, according to the kids who come there to play, the young accomplices watch for uniformed patrolmen or plainclothes narcotics agents while the older kids collect the money for the crack or methamphetamine that is sold. Other small kids circle around a dumpster at the extreme southwest corner of the park, drop the dope on the ground, and the customers may pick it up in the shadows; from there, they are on their own.
According to the kids, Arturo, a man who was once employed as a gardener by the city, a local bank as a porter, and a common laborer for a variety of bosses, came to the park after a visit to a kinsman's home on the corner. He went there to find his wife and kids, it is said. Others enter into speculation that they will not really spell out in so many words. They roll their eyes and smile behind their hands. It is a mystery.
In the park, he had words with the drug dealers, turned to leave, and a bullet found his head as he left the scene. He fell in the parking lot and died there.
It's not so different than the killing of an elderly Hispanic man of tiny stature who worked as a porter at a liquor store outside of town for many years. The city is dry; no sales of alcoholic beverages are allowed inside the city limits. According to the prosecution, he was beaten savagely in the yard of some low rent apartment units during a party that turned ugly. Party goers, including his assailant, took him inside after he lay wounded and dying for several hours in the yard outside.
A jury convicted a young black man, a cousin of one of major league baseball's Sadler family, for the killing.
Three of the five who have been arrested for the killing of Arturo are legally of an adult age while two others must first be certified by a juvenile court to be tried as adults.
Under Texas law, the concept of parties to a felony offense applies. It does not matter if a 21-year-old individual pulled the trigger, a fourteen year-old boy, or a teenager of seventeen. All are equally guilty unless the prosecutor decides to extend the terms of any deal in return for their testimony against other parties to the killing.
Drug dealing is an old game in Clifton, Texas, one that has gotten worse as the economy sours and employers cut the hours and benefits available to their workers. The city park along the river bottoms has long been a site of illicit drug dealing among the tennis courts, basketball courts, the American Legion hall - a rusticated stone building, site of a former Civilian Conservation Corps mess hall, a relic of the depression. The river bottom was the place where the old high school stadium stood for many years until the river repeatedly flooded the area and the school district moved on to higher ground, as did the National Guard, which deeded the Armory to the city to use as a community center.
Another favorite drug dealing ground was the former site of a Ford Motor Company dealership, a property that cuts through from the main drag on Highway 6 to a back street one block west. Kids gathered on the parking lot under spreading oaks and pecans to talk and associate while those cruising for a bump circled around behind the place to pick up their drugs.
Other deals were put together at the cross roads of a Farm to Market Road - 219 - and Highway 6 on the parking lot of a pharmacy that is next door to a filling station and Burger King franchise. Everyone has a cell phone. Everyone uses their text messaging feature.
No one is getting rich. Everyone is living with diminished expectations.
Drugs of choice are crack cocaine and the poor man's cocaine, a savage concoction the effects of which lasts for many hours and causes psychotic reactions - methamphetamines, also known as crystal, glass, or in special preparations, ice. They smoke it, snort it and inject it.
The economic conditions are called a recession, but the old timers who live in the country know it for what it really is - a depression that is deepening every day.
Murder over illicit narcotics has come to the small towns of west Texas. It's no longer just a big city phenomenon - a Chicago thing or something that happens in Memphis or New Orleans.
Ironically, the killing took place within a stone's throw of two nearly identical red brick Lutheran churches that are situated side by side on a street near Dahl Park like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. In times past, the elders of these churches ruled with an iron hand.
In fact, one of the largest employers in the city is now the old folks's home, which is operated by a not-for-profit corporation organized by the Lutheran Church.
Certainly, there is too much money in drugs.
In these times, people as young as those in their early adolescence will scratch, bite and fight for it.
Clifton, Texas, Police Department Chief Steve Adcock issued this statement:
"On 9/23/09 at approximately 2200 hours Clifton Police Department responded to a call of a possible intoxicated person at Dahl Park in Clifton who was unresponsive. Officers arrived on scene shortly after, and discovered a Hispanic male with a single gun shot wound to the head. The deceased was identified as Arturo Chavez DOB 3/08/52 of Clifton. The Texas Rangers and DPS Crime Lab were notified and assisted in the investigation with Clifton Police Department. Subsequent to the investigation arrest warrants were obtained for Angelica Nieto DOB 03/24/86, Jennifer Dunn DOB 7/10/87, Pedro Ramirez III, DOB 8/25/86, a 14 year old male, and a 16 year old female, all subjects were arrested and charged with Capital Murder."
Monday, September 21, 2009
Bowman
By Jim Parks
Kneeling on one knee, the classic posture of prayer or attentiveness among men of my ethnic type, I take up way too much floor space in the crowded Wal-Mart store.
People rudely slam into my shoulders and rump with their hips and legs in a mad dash for the cash register and their opportunity to pay, pay, pay, pay - less, less, less, less!
That faintly sick making mercantile odor of floor wax, sugary deodorants and damp cardboard dominates the air of the big box big store with its fluttering fluorescent lighting and obnoxious intermittent public address interruptions of an unmodulated decible level to actually serve as a bar to concentration,
"Merchandising associate to the electronics department. Merchandising associate the electronics department."
The truth is, I'm not really too big; the space afforded for selection of arrows is too small; because one needs to be able to consider the length and material of the shaft, the fleching, the quality of the alignment of the nock, it all adds up. The selection is really quite vast, but it's placed so low to the floor that a man must squat or kneel to be able to see it at all.
Add to the mix the fact that I have never before done any of this, that I'm a complete novice at this ancient art of sending an arrow on a path of devastation at a target, and you have set a little old man in his early sixties - a pot bellied, squat, graying little fellow with a bald spot - squarely in the way of people in a hurry, people in all too big a hurry to ridicule that which appears ridiculous.
Appearances can be so important in this world.
What of other worlds unknown to these people?
What about the art of concealment, of remaining so well blended into the texture of the forest, the brush, that even an animal with the ability to see the slightest movement remains oblivious to the danger, much less an enemy with no notion that a band of short, squat little pot-bellied men such as I lie in wait to send the shafts of arrows whistling his way tipped with razor sharp broadheads no one will be able to prevent causing hemorrhaging and subsequent internal bleeding so swift he would fall and die on the spot or be unable to quit the field without exceptional assistance?
What of bolt holes and trenches covered with camouflage where men may lie in wait to emerge upon a whistled bird signal from an observer? What of the art of stealth and planning?
The English longbow speaks volumes of all these things. To take one in one's hands and learn the technique of stringing it, to pull it back to its full draw and let an arrow fly at a target, this reverberates in some racial memory one does not understand, only experiences.
This bow is made of red oak, backed with linen glued into place to make it springy and responsive. When strung, it becomes a live thing, light and taut and singing of its efficacy with every fiber and molecule. It is as long as I am tall - which is not very tall - but this makes it proportiionate to the length of my arm, which draw determines its pull weight, a value set by law by the king's men - that is, by fish and game officials - to prevent needless maiming of animals, the buck and boar, turkey and alligator of forests public and private. It is a traditional design - a self bow with no recurve and only a grip made of wrapped twine and a carved arrow rest to make nocking and aiming easier, quicker. Like the traditional material, the heart wood of the yew, it is straight grained and its string is twisted three-strand twine eye-spliced at each end, which may be adjusted by rotating it against the lay for the desired tautness. The string is captured by precise grooves carved into the ends of the wood. It is strung by the use of another slackened cord upon which one stands with one foot while flexing the back of the bow up toward one's chin and placing the loose end of the string in the top notch of the bow.
Crossbows are reserved by game laws for those with physical handicaps, but their original advent was credited by the historians as the one geopolitical event that finally broke the back of the feudal system.
No longer could a liege lord send out "knights" on horseback to trample down a man's stand of wheat and rye, barley and oats, then set fire to the thatch of his roof, to poison his well, kill his sons, rape his wife and daughters. At least, it could not be done with impunity because the bolts thus propelled by the crossbow were entirely capable of penetrating the armor these paid thugs wore - multiple layers of leather and quilted padding, light sheet metal, chain mail.
A crossbow bolt once brought down a king who led his troops from the front; he lay in agony for days while the infection worked on his system.
These arrows come in two varieties, both of them impervious to moisture and warping - aluminum and carbon fiber. Both are light and straight and true. They are threaded to accept either the "field points" used for target practice and small game, or "broad heads," which are razor sharp four or two-bladed devices about an inch or inch and an eighth in diameter. Their fleching is made of sheet plastic.
With each rude bump and shove, I become more and more resolved to get the more expensive cedar shafts a straight-grained material of about 30 inches that resembles a lead pencil, through a mail order cataloguer, collect feathers and shave and trim them to just the right length, and whittle the ends of the shaft to just the right shape to accept the points and broadheads, the nocks. The fleches are wrapped tightly with light twine that is passed between the strands of the split feathers which have been glued to the shaft. The nocks are fastidiously checked for concentricity, as are the points. Any alignment that is grossly discrepant affects the balance, and thus the flight, of the arrow.
What else would a little old man, squat, short, balding and gray in beard and tonsure, have to do on a long winter night while he survives by the light of the fire, staves off the chill, plans for the future, keeps the wolves away from his door?
Something ancient and clean and bright and shining and painful arises in me every time I am told that I and my type are not trustworthy to handle weapons, that there is something faintly distasteful in our proclivities for the blade and bullet, the snare and pistol, the rifle and bow and all the impedimenta that hungry men use to survive and live - not exist - but live comfortably and well.
I am, therefore, resolved.
It is my faith; it is my practice. I am perfectly free to exercise thereof.
I shall.
Kneeling on one knee, the classic posture of prayer or attentiveness among men of my ethnic type, I take up way too much floor space in the crowded Wal-Mart store.
People rudely slam into my shoulders and rump with their hips and legs in a mad dash for the cash register and their opportunity to pay, pay, pay, pay - less, less, less, less!
That faintly sick making mercantile odor of floor wax, sugary deodorants and damp cardboard dominates the air of the big box big store with its fluttering fluorescent lighting and obnoxious intermittent public address interruptions of an unmodulated decible level to actually serve as a bar to concentration,
"Merchandising associate to the electronics department. Merchandising associate the electronics department."
The truth is, I'm not really too big; the space afforded for selection of arrows is too small; because one needs to be able to consider the length and material of the shaft, the fleching, the quality of the alignment of the nock, it all adds up. The selection is really quite vast, but it's placed so low to the floor that a man must squat or kneel to be able to see it at all.
Add to the mix the fact that I have never before done any of this, that I'm a complete novice at this ancient art of sending an arrow on a path of devastation at a target, and you have set a little old man in his early sixties - a pot bellied, squat, graying little fellow with a bald spot - squarely in the way of people in a hurry, people in all too big a hurry to ridicule that which appears ridiculous.
Appearances can be so important in this world.
What of other worlds unknown to these people?
What about the art of concealment, of remaining so well blended into the texture of the forest, the brush, that even an animal with the ability to see the slightest movement remains oblivious to the danger, much less an enemy with no notion that a band of short, squat little pot-bellied men such as I lie in wait to send the shafts of arrows whistling his way tipped with razor sharp broadheads no one will be able to prevent causing hemorrhaging and subsequent internal bleeding so swift he would fall and die on the spot or be unable to quit the field without exceptional assistance?
What of bolt holes and trenches covered with camouflage where men may lie in wait to emerge upon a whistled bird signal from an observer? What of the art of stealth and planning?
The English longbow speaks volumes of all these things. To take one in one's hands and learn the technique of stringing it, to pull it back to its full draw and let an arrow fly at a target, this reverberates in some racial memory one does not understand, only experiences.
This bow is made of red oak, backed with linen glued into place to make it springy and responsive. When strung, it becomes a live thing, light and taut and singing of its efficacy with every fiber and molecule. It is as long as I am tall - which is not very tall - but this makes it proportiionate to the length of my arm, which draw determines its pull weight, a value set by law by the king's men - that is, by fish and game officials - to prevent needless maiming of animals, the buck and boar, turkey and alligator of forests public and private. It is a traditional design - a self bow with no recurve and only a grip made of wrapped twine and a carved arrow rest to make nocking and aiming easier, quicker. Like the traditional material, the heart wood of the yew, it is straight grained and its string is twisted three-strand twine eye-spliced at each end, which may be adjusted by rotating it against the lay for the desired tautness. The string is captured by precise grooves carved into the ends of the wood. It is strung by the use of another slackened cord upon which one stands with one foot while flexing the back of the bow up toward one's chin and placing the loose end of the string in the top notch of the bow.
Crossbows are reserved by game laws for those with physical handicaps, but their original advent was credited by the historians as the one geopolitical event that finally broke the back of the feudal system.
No longer could a liege lord send out "knights" on horseback to trample down a man's stand of wheat and rye, barley and oats, then set fire to the thatch of his roof, to poison his well, kill his sons, rape his wife and daughters. At least, it could not be done with impunity because the bolts thus propelled by the crossbow were entirely capable of penetrating the armor these paid thugs wore - multiple layers of leather and quilted padding, light sheet metal, chain mail.
A crossbow bolt once brought down a king who led his troops from the front; he lay in agony for days while the infection worked on his system.
These arrows come in two varieties, both of them impervious to moisture and warping - aluminum and carbon fiber. Both are light and straight and true. They are threaded to accept either the "field points" used for target practice and small game, or "broad heads," which are razor sharp four or two-bladed devices about an inch or inch and an eighth in diameter. Their fleching is made of sheet plastic.
With each rude bump and shove, I become more and more resolved to get the more expensive cedar shafts a straight-grained material of about 30 inches that resembles a lead pencil, through a mail order cataloguer, collect feathers and shave and trim them to just the right length, and whittle the ends of the shaft to just the right shape to accept the points and broadheads, the nocks. The fleches are wrapped tightly with light twine that is passed between the strands of the split feathers which have been glued to the shaft. The nocks are fastidiously checked for concentricity, as are the points. Any alignment that is grossly discrepant affects the balance, and thus the flight, of the arrow.
What else would a little old man, squat, short, balding and gray in beard and tonsure, have to do on a long winter night while he survives by the light of the fire, staves off the chill, plans for the future, keeps the wolves away from his door?
Something ancient and clean and bright and shining and painful arises in me every time I am told that I and my type are not trustworthy to handle weapons, that there is something faintly distasteful in our proclivities for the blade and bullet, the snare and pistol, the rifle and bow and all the impedimenta that hungry men use to survive and live - not exist - but live comfortably and well.
I am, therefore, resolved.
It is my faith; it is my practice. I am perfectly free to exercise thereof.
I shall.
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