Bradley Manning, Jailbird

My moral compass won't settle down to a cardinal point on the Manning case.

Begin with the boy-man himself, a classic reject by three cultures, America, Wales, and the United States Army. Even his chosen cults, the society of hackers and the community of gay men did not embrace this physical runt with anything approaching  his massive emotional needs.

Bradley Manning: The mythical Army misfit called Sad Sack, come to life and  writ large, an inept soldier made even more miserable by a an unbelievably bleak personal life,  a young man lacking even the wit to mask the manifestations of his  dispirited soul from family, chance acquaintances, and Army colleagues.

Unstressed by more responsibility than his personality could bear, Manning might have ambled through a harmless and reasonably contented life. He might have been a salesman of the year, a wheel in a local Kiwanis, president of his neighborhood home owners association -- anything that might have given him an identity short of accountability for arcane secrets to embarrass nations.

Manning did not authorize himself to sit at a computer a few key strokes away from military plans and sensitive letters between diplomats. Some one in authority gave that order, and others refused to countermand it even after he slugged a superior, locked himself in fetal positions, and posted details of his top-secret office on Facebook.  So dare we suggest courts-martial of the senior officers responsible for Manning's monstrous misassignment?

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Nevertheless, he is guilty. He promised the nation he would not broadcast our leaders' nasty secrets, and he broke that promise. We are left to ponder, "How guilty?" And to consider the collateral good from his legally treasonous acts.

(TBC)

The Hayseed Gun Market: Yep, another country auction

I didn't go for the firearms; nothing there I cared to own.  My goal was to steal* a power washer. I failed.

Nevertheless, I stuck around and recorded hammer prices for those of you keeping track.

--Thunder Hawk black powder rifle (straight line; plastic stock) $60

--Another one $75

--Hawes SA .22/.22mag, vg/exc $240

--Browning Buck Mark .22  as NIB  $400

--Ruger 77, .308 Winchester - laminated wood stock, as new, $440

--Howa 1500  .270 Winchester, fancy laminated stock, cheap scope, as new $525

--Ruger GP 100, .357, scope, as new, $610

--Ruger Super BH, .44 mag., stainless, straight optical scope.  as new, $700

--Another one, identical but with magic battery driven Buck Rogers scope, $700

Two 26.5 mm flare pistols (ComBlock? Didn't look closely) @$100

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I did leave a very few dollars with the clerk, biting on four nice new chairs for the commandant's conference table. The old ones were becoming matted with chocolate lab hair beyond the capacity of any vacuum cleaner. The new ones are, OEM,  in a better color, about like chocolate lab hair. Besides they're slightly smaller and on better casters and lend my headquarters a gracile, elegant, air,  not to mention smelling much less like a wet chocolate lab.

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*Since Eric Holder reads my stuff, looking for a way to jail me, by "steal" I mean "get it cheaply."  It's like, y'know, Eric, a figure of speech.

Taking a Chance on Spam

Blogger seems to be doing a better job of trapping spam. So, since we all hate it,  we'll try turning comment moderation off.

You really ought to hear it done by Ella Fitzgerald.


Things are mending now 
I see a rainbow blending now 
We'll have a happy ending now 
Taking a chance on love 

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Also, she's beautiful.

Death Dawn

About that time of day I'm a little sleep-drugged and wobbly. Chore One is to set the Mr. Coffee gurgling. In my altered state, that requires intense concentration
lest I omit the coffee, the filter, or the water. *

In the groggy process this morning something flickered in my port side peripheral vision, maybe twenty yards south of the uncurtained kitchen window, near the pickup. I registered two adolescent rabbits. No big deal; they're all over the place. Then something dark whooshed down from a nearby cottonwood.

The lucky bunny found shelter under the truck. The hapless sibling was last seen squirming in talons a dozen feet up and climbing.

The light was poor so I can't be sure, but I offer odds that the bandit was a rough-legged hawk even though they shouldn't be here in this season. They are scheduled to spend summer in the arctic north, making little hawks, but perhaps the settled science of global cooling offers an explanation.

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*(I know people who can bound out of bed and instantly whip out a bowline on a bight with the left hand while jotting down differential equations with the right. I hate them.)