"MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES"The above is an old misquotation, attributed to everyone from the ancient Chinese to Hillary Clinton. |
THE ANAL APERTURE CLAUSE
Donald Trump was recently worried that he would be forced to serve 136 years in New York's Sing Sing State Prison due to the state of New York's alleging that he had violated a law against falsifying business records, not once, but 34 times, each charge carrying a sentence of four years.
Donald needn't have fretted. Unless you are head of the Sinaloa Cartel, you will be allowed to serve your sentences concurrently. Thus, it is unlikely that the 47th President would serve more than four years.
Indeed, it is extremely unlikely that Mr. Trump will see the inside of the New York's Stoney Lonesome; bitterly disappointing those who looked forward to Trump modeling an orange jumpsuit and making license plates for the State of New York.
"Umm, why not?" you ask.
Well, think of Trump as your grandfather. (I realize it's a sickening thought, but do it anyway.)
First of all, Trump is an old man; we are by definition, fragile; we break easily. Prisons are full of violent men who flunked Anger Management. Prison would not be healthy for Donald Trump.
Secondly, Trump was convicted of a cerebral crime not a physical one. (Though Stormy Daniels might beg to differ.)
Thirdly, Trump is a first offender. He is not a career criminal (that we know of). There is every possibility that Trump has learned his lesson; that he will no longer conspire to overthrow the government or try to rig the electoral college in his favor.
Fourthly, a stiff fine, probation, or community service or a combination of all three is the normal punishment meted out for falsification of business records in New York.
Normally, you can't obtain a jail sentence for records fraud unless you are a Certified Anal Aperture.
That is, the presiding judge believes you are a hopelessly cruel, remorseless, unreconstructed S.0.B. with no redeeming qualities; that you have not learned any sort of a lesson and you richly deserve any misfortune imposed upon you by the state.
It is at this point that the presiding judge may decide to invoke the Anal Aperture Clause in Unwritten American Jurisprudence and hit you with the whole Nine Yards of Everything The State can Possibly Do to You.
Trump can avoid implementation of the Anal Aperture Clause by the simple expedient of keeping his mouth shut and looking properly humble and contrite during sentencing.
"Now just a darn minute!" you exclaim. "My president, freshly elected Donald J. Trump doesn't do "Humble" and "contrite". These words are foreign to his vocabulary!"
Pity! There are dictionaries available for the slow of wit. It is suggested that Trump avail himself of one, or, as the Dodge Sheriff might say, Trump might find himself in "A heap 'a Trouble!"
"President Trump has the constitutional right to pardon himself!" you say, haughtily.
"Only if the case is a federal crime." We state smoothly "Falsification of Business Records is a state crime" of which your President has been found guilty four times over and currently awaits sentencing; he cannot pardon himself; that would be up to the Governor of the Sovereign State of New York; an unlikely scenario as that state went for Harris in the last election.
Falsification of Business Records is a "White Collar" crime, but it is recommended that the President-elect be given a sentence that shows we take such crimes seriously and do not have two standards of justice; one for the rich and one for the poor.
Mr. Trump should be inconvenienced for his transgressions.
Since the President-elect has more money than God, a fine would not be appropriate as it would imply that one can buy one's way out of trouble
Therefore, a bout of Community Service would be just the ticket for the 47th President of the United States.
As the crime occurred within the City of New York, it follows that the Community Service should take place within the City of New York.
Therefore, we recommend that the convicted felon, Donald John Trump be sentenced to four weekends of Community Service consisting of shoveling out the Elephant House at the Bronx Zoo in the City of New York.
PETRIFIED DAYS AND WIZARD GEORGE HARTZOG
Most Park Service veterans look back on their first permanent NPS assignment with varying degrees of nostalgia; this was certainly true of Your Most Obedient Servant.
My first assignment after graduating with the 21st class of the Horace Albright Academy was the Rainbow Forest District of Petrified Forest National Park; Hugo Huntzinger presiding, as district ranger.
For those of you who have not "been there, done that" Petrified Forest National Park celebrates the Triassic Period in geo-history; a time of around, oh, say about 208-225 million years ago.
The Triassic Period is sort of dullsville as far as sexy Dinosaur fossils go; for that you are going to have to drive to Dinosaur National Monument and the Jurassic Era on the Colorado-Utah border to satisfy your grandchildren's craving for Tyrannosaurus Rex and other carnivorous Jurassic period treasures.
HOWEVER, the Triassic period can't be beat for petrified wood and that's where Petrified Forest comes in. Conditions were exactly right for the preservation of giant conifers; a sort of "goldilocks" climatic period, not too hot; not too cold; not too wet not too dry.
The Petrified Forest National Monument was championed by the Scottish American naturalist, John Muir, due in part to his daughter Helen's need for a dry climate as she had lung problems. In those days, around the turn of the century, the universal treatment for lung ailments was to send you to Arizona. That was just fine with Helen as she always wanted to be a cowgirl.
So, John Muir accompanied his daughter to Petrified Forest where he studied the great logs of Petrified wood and Helen got a job as a stagecoach driver taking tourists around the scenic portions of what would become Petrified Forest National Monument; not quite a cowgirl, but pretty darn close for Muir's adventurous daughter.
John Muir was able to influence his good friend President Theodore Roosevelt to use the newly minted Antiquities Act of 1906 to preserve the bulk of the petrified forests of Arizona and the Painted Desert on December 8, 1906. It was among the first of a landslide of national monuments that continue to enrage and terrify greedhead Republicans down to this day. As for Petrified Forest what tourists there were arrived on the Santa Fe railroad which bisected the monument and sported a small hotel where the Muirs and other guests stayed.
Petrified Forest National Monument languished in genteel obscurity until the coming of the Great Depression and FDR, who made public money available for construction of park infrastructure; access roads, staff housing, a museum, trails, and so on.
It was obvious even way back when then that the automobile not the railroad would be the access key to national parks and monuments. (Although John Muir's Sierra Club and the problematic naturalist Edward Abbey thought otherwise.)
The monument received a small blip of publicity with the 1935 film "The Petrified Forest" with Humphrey Bogart playing the role of the gangster Duke Mantee. (It was perhaps not one of Mr. Bogart's best efforts).
Petrified Forest National Monument quickly became embroiled in a status quest: "What, exactly, is the difference between a national monument and a national park?" This was a question incessantly asked by park visitors. One answer, formulated by Washington, was that the National Monument protected one large, obvious thing, such as Devil's Tower, our first National Monument, whereas the National Park protected MANY things, and was BIG like Yellowstone.
This explanation would work only if the park visitor was unfamiliar with Death Valley National Monument, which protected many things ranging from the lowest part of the continent to Scotty's Castle, and was the largest NPS holding and STILL languished as a lowly national monument until promoted to glory as a national park.
Other visitors claimed that national monuments were really national parks "in training" and would be raised to that sainted grade when they achieved some lofty goal such as the acquisition of private inholdings within the monument boundary. (There was some truth in this myth in that many national monuments DID become National Parks, including Death Valley National Park)
The correct answer is that under The Antiquities Act of 1906, the executive branch, (that is, the President) could withdraw from claim certain public lands that contained "antiquities" which were of interest to the American Public.
Now the beauty of this legislation is its vagueness. It really doesn't define what, exactly, IS an "Antiquity", nor does it state how much federal lands would be required to protect the "antiquity". That chore would be allotted to the President. (Or more likely, to the congressional district wherein the national monument resides.) The size of the national monument will err on the generous side to take in any other possible "antiquities" that might show up.
While a President can create a national monument of virtually any size on public land, another President can reduce or abolish that national monument, which is exactly what happened when the Greedhead in Chief Donald Trump reduced Bears Ears National Monument from 1,351,849 acres to 201,875 acres, a shrinkage of about 85%.
As long as Petrified Forest retained a national monument (and as long as there were right wing Republicans) Petrified Forest remained in mortal danger. There was always the danger that something "dollarable" as John Muir would say, would be discovered under its petrified wood and The American People would elect a greedy moron as president.
"Something" was finally discovered under Petrified Forest National Monument.
It was, ironically, potash. Millions of tons of potash. We say "ironically" because Horace Albright, the second Director of the NPS had made his fortune mining potash as President of American Potash. What is potash used for? Mainly fertilizer. As long as we have farmers we are going to need potash.
So Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert had the "opportunity" of becoming a vast open pit mine with the logs of petrified wood presumably stacked in one big pile, the better to "preserve" and "interpret" them
In short, as a national monument, Petrified Forest could share the fate of Bears Ear National Monument should the American people elect an environmental moron as President. (As you recall, they did).
Clearly, the Friends of Petrified Forest would have to act fast. The only solution would be to turn Petrified Forest National Monument into Petrified Forest National Park, the highest level of protection. It would take an Act of Congress to do just that. It was not so easily done. Petrified Forest had enemies as well as friends. Its ecosystem has a rather quiet beauty. It does not thunder, roar, awe, tower, amaze, or do any of the superlatives that a national park is supposed to do.
"Purists" both within and without the NPS opposed national park status for Petrified Forest. Fortunately, politics prevailed.
Barry Goldwater was one of Arizona's Senators and he had political clout far beyond Arizona's borders. Now the primary job of a ranger at Petrified Forest (or PEFO as we fondly called the park) was the sale of entrance permits and the prevention of theft of petrified wood.
The first task was easy, the second was far more difficult as it involved a battle of wits between a nefarious segment of the public and the park rangers.
A segment of the public rationalized that we had so much petrified wood and they had so little, surely we wouldn't miss a little piece?
We thought otherwise; pointing out that God doesn't make petrified wood anymore.
The wicked side of the public realizes that there are many cracks and crannies in an automobile in which one can hide things. What they did not seem to realize is that we too know them all.
One favorite hiding place was the dirty diaper pail. "No matter! We invented a tool to sort through the dirty diapers. Another was the car's air filter (Oh, come on Sir! You can be more creative than that!)
So, did we search every car? No, that would be unconstitutional, as well as labor intensive.
How about a car and driver that looks "suspicious" or "Hinky" in police parlance? Sorry, Jethro! no can do! As Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas memorably observed "There is no such crime as "suspicion" (Not even Advanced Hinkyness! though the astute lawman is well advised to keep an eye on potential miscreants based on past experience.
So what is a ranger to do?
Well, there's good ol' "Probable Cause."
Let's look at a scenario.
You and your ranger friends have actually observed somebody being bad; that is stealing petrified wood. How did we do that?
Well, you drive your patrol vehicle out to "Crystal Forest", a heavy concentration of Petrified wood. You have your binoculars and your walkie-talkie. You park your vehicle, smile at the visitors and cross the road to a small butte. The butte has a trail running up the backside of the formation.
The trail ends in a camouflaged fox hole. You make yourself comfortable and begin your observation.
Say you have observed a Petrified Miscreant. You will alert the entrance stations at Rainbow Forest and Painted Desert with your trusty Walkie-talkie. You will provide the rangers in the entrance stations with as much information as possible (make, model, color, and direction of travel as well as the license plate number, if possible).
The ranger at the rainbow forest exit onto Arizona Highway 180 stops the suspect car.
The ranger smiles pleasantly and asks "do you have any petrified wood, rocks, or minerals in your car"? (In formulating our interrogating questions we tried to be as broad as possible. It is just as illegal to take rocks, minerals, plants, flowers or anything from the park: Believe it or not, there are visitors who claim that they had no idea they were taking petrified wood and thought it was just a plain old rock.
Like St. Peter's Three Time betrayal of Christ, the suspect will be asked three times if he/she has taken any "petrified wood, rocks or minerals from the park".
If the suspect (or family members), confesses that they have taken petrified wood, and hand it over, they will be given written warning and sent on their way.
What always amazed me is when we would politely ask "Since you have no petrified wood in the car, may we do a quick search?
The answer was incredibly and invariably "Yes, of course" or "Certainly" or some other variant on "You have my complete permission to conduct what may be a violation of my civil rights."
One U.S Supreme Court Justice went so far as to say that a request from a sworn officer of the law to consent to a search without probable cause was unconstitutional. (Remember, this was all happening B.T. - Before Trump.)
Fortunately, we did have probable cause. (That would be you in the fox hole our whole expert witness.)
Unfortunately for them, the lads and lassies of the New York Police Department did not have probable cause in their celebrated "Stop and Frisk" Program. They had "Hinkyness".
In my three years at PEFO did I ever have anyone turn down my request for a "Quick look through their ..."
They were always amazed when we went directly to their supposedly
invincible hiding place. (As was one handicapped gentleman when I disassembled
his crutches to find - surprise! - a piece of petrified wood!)
Then there were the husband and wife co-conspirators.
"Surely" they reasoned. "The gallant ranger would not dare search under the wife's skirt!" This line of reasoning led to thinking large; you can hide a very large piece of petrified wood under a woman's skirt.
The suspect car would arrive at the entrance station, husband and wife smiling bravely.
They answered negatively to my three questions about taking petrified wood.
"Then you won't mind if I take a quick look through your car?" I asked, smiling.
ÔWhy no, go right ahead, Ranger!" We have nothing to hide."
The lady would be seated sedately in the passenger seat, smiling sweetly at me.
I would smile just as sweetly back at her and then I would drop the bomb.
"I'm sorry Ma'am, but Federal Regulations require that you stand 30 feet away from your car while I search it". Yes, Ma'am, that fence post will do fine, thank you."
At this point, the lady would burst into tears and admit to having petrified wood "on her person"
And shamefacedly hand it over as I wrote out the citation.
However, every so often we would encounter a lady that was a real competitor, that rose to the challenge. The lady would heave herself out of the car and begin her Frankenstein Lurch across the pavement to the fence post.
(Have you ever tried walking with a 25 pound rock between your knees? It should be an Olympic event!")
"Wife always walk like that? I would inquire of the husband. Before he could reply there would be a satisfying crash of falling petrified wood and a disclaimer from the wife
"I DIDN'T WANT TO DO IT!" OR "HE MADE ME!"
To the best of my knowledge, no wife made it to the fence post.
Occasionally, we would be threatened with bureaucratic retribution at the hands of somebody's Congressman who was a "personal friend" of the wood thief.
Usually this was just a bluff and we would politely send them our letter 13B; but it was only a matter of time before our unique law enforcement problem came to the attention of the Director of the National Park Service, George B. Hartzog Jr.
Now Wizard George as we fondly called him, loved good publicity and glowingly liked anything that made the agency look good and conversely very much disliked anything negative about the Park Service and its mission bad.
Wizard George pointed out that we were definitely queering the act with our aggressive search and seizure procedure.
Director Hartzog pointed out that the petrified wood thieves were not "normal" thieves and criminals such as what you would find at Lake Mead or on the floor of Yosemite Valley, but rather solid middle class citizens who had been temporarily led astray by the beauty of the petrified wood.
In short, we were not making friends for the national parks with our aggressive search and seizure procedures.
So, to prevent angering the taxpayers and prevent further theft of petrified wood Wizard George authorized the purchase of petrified wood from outside the park. The entering park visitor would be given a short lecture on the evils of stealing wood from the park and then "gifted' with a small piece of petrified wood, with the understanding that the visitor would not take anything from the park.
In return, the rangers were forbidden from "spying" on the park visitors, but were encouraged to go on roving patrols and make as many contacts as possible.
This raised the morale of the park staff as we really didn't like terrorizing the park visitors.
DOES KAMALA HARRIS PACK HEAT?
Something interesting was revealed during the Trump/Harris Debate: Apparently Ms Harris is a four square supporter of the Second Amendment.
How do we know? Because Kamala told us so.
About half way through the debate, Donald started to blubber about how the Democrats were going to take everyone's guns away and we would no longer be able to protect our pets from being eaten by brown skinned people. (Where did they find this guy?)
Ms. Harris gave Trump her patented "WHY DO I HAVE TO BE IN THE SAME ROOM WITH THIS MORON? look and said that she owned guns and so did her running mate, Tim Waltz and it was not an issue and why was Trump wasting everyone's time?
Now what was interesting was not so much the governor of Minnesota owning guns (The Midwest is, after all, hunting country. He probably has two 12 gauge shotguns and a deer rifle, and maybe a .22 rifle.)
Kamala Harris is more problematic. Although her home state of California is the most populous in the nation, relatively few Californians hunt. Guns they do own are usually hand guns and are owned for self-defense. Self-defense is often defined by the nature of the defender's occupation: Liquor store owners, small businessmen, law enforcement such as Prosecutors, which was the occupation of Kamala Harris and would allow her to successfully apply for a pistol permit given the nature of her job as prosecutor and sore loser nature of some of her "clients ".
While the Prosecutor has the right to buy a pistol, he/she is not required to own one, and a pistol is not normally issued to the district Prosecutor.
This brings us to the primal question: Does Kamala Harris pack heat?
If so, what caliber and what make? Foreign or Domestic? Revolver or Semi -automatic? Would the Chief of the Secret Service allow Kamela to fire in support of her Secret Service Detail had she been elected rather than Donald Trump (The President-elect has evidenced no interest in firearms.) Probably not. (The Secret Service wanted some control over the amount of, and direction of lead flying.)
ALOHA HO!
As we often have proposed, Maryland has five months it really doesn't need: They would be November, December, January, February and March. (There are those who would throw in July and August, due to the insufferable humidity) but five months are enough.
It's not so much the cold and the snow, though that's a factor; rather it is the overwhelming greyness, complicated by rain; this can last for a month or more, followed by more of the same.
If you are afflicted with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) as is my spouse, this can lead to depression, which is unnecessary if you are retired. You simply do what the robber barons of the 19th century did; you hitch your private railroad car to a passenger train and let it carry you to Miami or Los Angeles. Don't have a private railroad car? No matter. Southwest Airlines will do.
Southwest long had the reputation of being the funniest airline in (possibly) the world; not funny in the sense that the wings appeared to be coming off, but funny in the Ha! Ha! sense of the word. The founders of the airline, Herb Kelleher and Rollin King, encouraged the staff to practice deadpan humor on the customers; example: Flight attendant would deadpan "We have reports of broken clouds in the Los Angeles area, but we hope to have them fixed by the time we reach LA."
In another case, I once witnessed a Southwestern Flight attendant haul out her guitar and provide a spirited rendition of "Happy Trails": Turned out she was the granddaughter of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans; hence the reason for the concert.
Even the Sacred Safety Announcement was not off limits: "In the event of a water landing and even the most blasé passenger has noticed that the aircraft is filling with water. Now is the time to don your life jacket and begin your epic 1500 mile swim to the nearest dry land."
Sadly, humor and/entertainment is not as prevalent as it once was in the skies of Southwest.
POLITICIANS
Politicians come in many stripes, few of them lovable.
Mark Twain was asked his opinion of the British Imperialist and politician Cecil Rhodes.
Twain replied "Mr. Rhodes is a very great man and when he dies, I would like a piece of the rope for a souvenir."
Ambrose Bierce in his Devil's Dictionary, defined "Politics" as "The conduct of public affairs for private advantage."
Many voters were surprised by the results of our recent election: They need not be. There was nothing unusual about the outcome, given the ingredients.
One need go back only to the writings of the journalist H.L. Mencken to find an explanation:
When a candidate for public office faces the voters, he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas or of comprehending any save the most elemental-men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand... On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
"S" MINES AND DONALD TRUMP
"It turns out that Donald Trump is many things: He is a consummate liar, a thug and enabler of thugs and is an all around cruel person. The French have two words that describe him; louche and gauche
There is, however, one thing that Donald Trump is not.
He is not a herpetologist. Like most folks from Queens, Mr. Trump is not familiar with poisonous snakes.
You will remember that Trump planned to reinforce his famous wall by digging a dry moat on the American side and filling it with poisonous reptiles.
Granted, this would daunt the most determined border jumper.
Except for one thing: snakes don't work that way.
Snakes, even poisonous ones, have no particular interest in working for Trump or anyone else.
It would be next to impossible to keep them from escaping from the moat or even keeping them in one place or feeding them.
Undoubtedly, one or more or more of Trump's more sentient advisors has disabused Donald of this unusually dumb idea.
However, Trump is a veritable cornucopia of cruel ideas to keep our border leak proof and it is only a matter of time before he stumbles upon the "S" mine
The German "S" mine is the famous "Bouncing Betty" anti-personnel mine that terrified Allied troops during World War II.
The "S" mine was a small, but deadly anti-personnel mine. The pressure of your foot activated a small explosive charge that boosted the main charge to about waist high. The main charge would then explode at hip elevation, sending a hail of shrapnel in a 360 degree circle, killing or wounding everyone within 30 feet. The mere presence of the "bouncing Betty was deleterious to Allied troop morale.
Most countries now forbid anti-personnel mines for the understandable reason that most people forget where they put them and they go on merrily blowing up civilians for decades after everyone has forgotten what the war was about.
The U.S. Army claims not to use them, but does maintain an inventory of around 3 million mines "Just in case".
One can imagine that the Trump Administration will ask to "borrow" a few hundred thousand of the "Bouncing Bettys" to reinforce the Trump Wall, now that Rattlesnakes, Cobras,
Copperheads, Carpet vipers, Death adders, Kraits, Black mambas, Gaboon vipers and others have proven unpatriotic.
SAFETY MESSAGE
Yes, it's time for the Safety Message: As you know, this is the message that gives you the right (Nay the duty) to read THUNDERBEAR on government time. Why?
Because Safety is Job # 1 in the National Park Service! AND as we have sadly neglected to put a table of contents pin each issue of THUNDERBEAR, you have no choice but to painstakingly go through each issue in pursuit of Safety Wisdom; not your fault!
So, we will commence with this issue's Safety Message.
Strangely enough, this safety incident happened in Petrified Forest National Park, the very park that Wizard George Hartzog decided to give every park visitor a free piece of petrified wood from a source outside the park in the fond hope that the park visitors would restrain themselves from filching from within the park.
The incident I am describing occurred at Crystal Forest.
"I was in my spy hole atop one of the buttes. It had been a slow day: Two possibles and one probable called in.
It was soon to become more active.
There was a lady carrying a baby. (Always worthy of attention as baby clothes and stuff provided numerous hiding places.) She bent down, picked up a piece of petrified wood, examined it critically ... and then dropped it.
Then she did something that you must never do. She put her baby on top of the car.
This is the Iron Law of disasters: IF YOU PUT ANYTHING ON TOP OF A CAR; SURE AS SATAN SOMETHING WILL DISTRACT YOU AND YOU WILL DRIVE OFF WITH THE COFFEE CUP, GROCERIES, CELL PHONE, OR WHATEVER ON TOP OF THE CAR (BUT IT WON'T BE THERE FOR LONG: I GUARANTEE!)
INVARIABLY, IT IS SOMETHING THAT YOU TREASURE AND NEED; LIKE YOUR BABY.
The lady with the baby was distracted by another group of park visitors, who in turn , did not notice the baby on top of the car.
Disasters seem to happen in slow motion, at least that way it unspooled to me as the lady started up her car to drive off.
I erupted out of my foxhole, yelling STOP! STOP!
Which she did. The baby slid off the roof of the car
The car passed over the baby.
The lady started screaming hysterically: "MY BABY! I KILLED MY BABY!!
Not Quite, but she had made a reasonably good try.
Turns out that the brat had the same Guardian Angel later assigned to one Donald J. Trump in Pennsylvania.
You see the parking lot at Crystal Forest was not entirely paved. A section was clayish mud. It had rained recently (in a desert environment!) There was a rut in the clay. The baby had landed exactly right in the rut to allow the tire to pass harmlessly over the baby's head, leaving a tire tread imprint on the baby's forehead. The baby was now crying lustily in rebuke of Mom's carelessness.
I I assured the Mom that her baby would be all right but a trip to the E.R. was advisable so follow me to the Hospital in Holbrook. The E.R. doctor agreed with my diagnosis and we both agreed on the importance of never putting anything of value on a cartop; and so ended one of the one of the most bizarre safety incidents in NPS history.