A Dreadful Horseman

It should come as no surprise to anyone that one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse has been loose in North Korea.  Well at this point I think even Famine should be retching his guts out on the ground.  The starving, oppressed, enslaved people of North Korea have been reduced to cannibals.  To find sustenance they have resorted to eating their children.  Yep even eating the corpses of their children.

Now I have a question all you world leaders and beautiful people who are always screaming about some calamity across the globe.  What are you going to do with North Korea?

Actually that is a rhetorical question.  They will do nothing because to do something truly constructive requires real effort. 

For the world leaders, they would have to admit how badly they have fumbled North Korea all these years.  For Beijing to allow its useful toy to be deposed.  Jimmy Carter to admit fault.  Madeline Albright to take her basketball and go home.  Things that will never happen because that would mean admitting they are not perfect.

For the pretty people its even worse.  To work on something besides keeping fit, eating their organically grown vegan overpriced food, wearing fabulous clothes, ride in limos, and go on talk shows.  Something selfless instead of selfish.

What a horrible brutish world exists in North Korea.  And the ones who clamor for Syrian intervention won't say the same thing about North Korea.  Pox upon them and their works.

School Violence 1991

With all the renewed talk about doing something to stop school violence I decided to reach back to 1991.  Lo and behold Jim Palmer of the Montgomery Advertiser had drawn the above cartoon.  Of course this is from Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year : 1992 Edition. 

Saddam's Shields

Saddam Hussein using human shields to ward off Coalition air strikes.  When it turned out to be a PR disaster he let the foreigners go.  This was scanned from Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year : 1992 Edition.

Powell's Stance

When Colin Powell first thought of trading in his reputation as a winning general and run the office of President.  Way back in 1995.  Cartoonist is Dick Wright.  This cartoon can be found in the book "Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year : 1996 Edition."

Move to Shrangri-La

Ladies and gentlemen of the most sensitive nature, that is the only useful advice that I can give you.  That you should move to Shangri-La and enjoy the meditative peace found in that far distant destination.  As opposed to where you now find yourself living since it seems to be such a tribulation. 

Fleeing things like high taxes or inferior schools you moved away from the local city center to a more rustic area.  So you settled for a nice house in a suburb that was was just a few miles and to the left of the runways of your local airport.  Now it is a few years later, you and your neighbors have happily settled in and done improvements.  But there is a fly in your ointment.  Those dratted planes taking off at all hours of the day and well into the night.  Oh how will that Dutch china given by an aunt survive all the rattling?  Never mind your cute little pug named Fifi who goes into spasms with every aviation related noise.  So you hit upon a brilliant idea, complain to the city and airport management!  By Jove that is what you will do. 

By now you, dear brave home owner, have forgotten it was you who had move near the airport, not vice-versa.  Now you scream in city council meetings and meetings of the airport board on how the noise of take offs and landings damage your house and ruin your sleep.  You will thunder at one point in these proceedings on how its un-American to be subjected to these noises.

The long serving members of the airport management will silently turn to each other while you thunder from the podium and trade knowing glances.  The glance will communicate that not much has changed in fifteen years when farmer Jones was saying the same things about jet noises making his chickens laid funny eggs and then farmer Bjorn will immediately follow and claim those noises are ruining his cows' milk.  Next they will each think in the deepest recesses of their minds 'You stupid fool you chose to move next to an airport. But now here we go placating you for your stupidity.  And then get with the FAA to devise noise abatement plans that will cost money.  Money taken from your taxes bud and airport fees.  Just to keep you happy in your McMansion.'  But none of this will be visible for they will have their poker faces on.  And once you have run out of steam they will thank you politely for letting them know how you feel and adjourn the meeting.

Variations of the above always run through my mind when someone complains about noise from their local airport.  What has caused me to wax to long and eloquently this time concerns the plane in the picture at the top of the post, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.  Burlington, VT is the home of the Vermont Air Guard's 158th FW which is an F-16 unit and is now trying to be one of the first units to get F-35s.  Sounds grand except for those who complain the F-35 is far louder than the F-16.  Leading the fight it seems is Rosanne Greco who is the South Burlington City Council President.  She is most concerned because the noise from the F-35s will be akin to a vacuum cleaner running three feet away, that seems unacceptable to her.  So she is leading the opposition.  For a 29 year Air Force intelligence officer she does realize how quickly jet noise transits?  Or does she?  A more detailed biography of Greco can be found here.  Failed novice nun, retired officer, and now environmental activist.  I think I know her true motivation now.  And if she gets her way and no F-35s are assigned soon there will be no F-16s either and when that unit shuts down many nice paying technical jobs will go with it.  Which will have a negative impact on the tax base.  But if you ask Greco about that impact she will probably say that is fine with her as long as she turns Burlington into her personal Shangri-La.