Do you remember how translators and other locals who worked with and for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan and Iraq, as a matter of course, went -- and still go -- by pseudonyms and otherwise shrouded their true identities because, for certain other locals, to know, know, know them is to kill, kill, kill them?
As it turns out, you don't have to go all the way to southwest Asia or the Middle East to become familiar with the concept.
No, a mere 1,000-mile drive from where I type can give you a homegrown taste of the concept, where contractors bidding to remove Confederate and white-supremacist monuments from the New Orleans public square, so to speak, won't even tell reporters who they are. That comes after the last guy to get the job, a Baton Rouge contractor, pulled out after receiving death threats . . . and after someone torched his luxury sports car.
It also comes after city government in the Big Uneasy was forced to remove a list of interested contractors from its website after the threats started rolling in, vowing at a minimum to put one firm out of business. The owner contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
FROM the New Orleans Times Picayune:
Speaking at an informational meeting held for firms interested in bidding on the removal job, they also raised concerns about diving into such a controversial job.
One asked city officials whether he would be required to post a sign with his company's name on it at the job sites. Another asked whether his crew could work in the predawn hours, presumably to limit as much public exposure as possible.
Vince Smith, director of Capital Projects Administration, said that the city would work with the winning bidder on a security plan to mitigate any threat. Regarding signage, he said, "Quite frankly, I don't think we are going to make that a requirement," given the ongoing controversy over monument removal.
The city had originally hoped to bypass the traditional public bid process, selecting Baton Rouge firm H&O investments directly from its pool of pre-approved contractors to handle the removal of monuments to Confederates Robert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard and Jefferson Davis. The owner of the company, though, pulled out, saying he had received death threats after his name was associated with the project. A crane operator, though it had not yet been formally hired for the job, also disavowed any involvement.
The contractors at the meeting did not give their names during the discussion, and one, pulled aside after it adjourned, declined to give his name to a reporter. He said that he had driven by the monuments discretely to get a look at their construction, but he didn't want to go too close for fear of being identified by pro-monument hardliners.
The city did not distribute a sign-in sheet at the meeting.
DONALD TRUMP isn't trying to impose fascism on the United States. Donald Trump isn't introducing the specter of violence to the public square or the political arena. And Donald Trump hasn't started a movement to celebrate racism, bigotry and nativism.
All these things have been popular forever in this country, and nowhere more than in the South and my home state, Louisiana. Merely to have been black in the South -- within living memory, within my memory -- was just about as dangerous as it is to be Christian in Iraq today or be found out as an American collaborator in Afghanistan.
All Trump is doing is summoning forth the demons, because summoning forth America's demons just might get him elected president. God knows that demon-summoning always has been a booming business in Louisiana, where it's always 1959 somewhere. Or maybe 1861.
Ted Nugent is a taco shy of a combination plate.
This follows his being more than a generation shy of a hit record.
In light of this, I call for the public stuffing of a sock into the mouth of the has-been rock 'n' roll guitarist, sealing it with tar and smashing his computer and any other communications devices he may possess.
Because what's good for the goose is good for the verbally incontinent Motor City Madman, as demonstrated by this article on the Radio.com website:
Right-wing rocker Ted Nugent has taken to his column to call for the public hanging of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the now-charged Boston Marathon bombers.
The column, titled “Time To Stretch Neck Of Jihadist Punk,” was posted on the right wing website WND over the weekend. Stressing the need for quick justice, he (mostly) avoided his frequent talking points (fighting against gun control, criticizing Democrats and President Obama).
Using his usual colorful language, Nugent refers to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his now-killed brother Tamerlan using the term “voodoo” 13 times in his article, and calls for “stretching their necks” three times.
In the piece, he laments that Tsarnaev will likely spent years in custody before being sentenced: “Justice is supposed to be swift. At least that’s how our Founding Fathers thought it should be,” speculating that, 150 years ago “he would have been swinging from an oak tree in Boston Common no longer than 60 days from the date of his arrest. That would be justice.”
Nugent predicts: “He probably won’t go to trial for more than a year due to court-sanctioned delays. Once he’s found guilty, he will be afforded any number of appeals that will take more years, possibly more than a decade. The young voodoo nut has got a long life in front of him, thanks to America’s screwed-up justice system.”
He cites the trial of Nidal Malik Hasan, set to start May 29 (Hasan is accused of killing 13 soldiers and wounding 32 others at Fort Hood in 2009), as an example of crimes against Americans taking a long time to reach the court.
While “The Nuge” didn’t bring up gun control specifically (though he had a bit to say about it last week), he did note that Hasan’s “voodoo-inspired rampage” took place “in yet another gun-free zone.” Nugent added, “I would have supplied the rope, the lumber for the gallows and gladly pulled the hatch on this soulless rabid dog.”
TED NUGENT -- and this is the kindest thing you can say about the man after his repeated whacked-out, incendiary outbursts about, well, everything . . . particularly all things political -- is a thought-challenged hothead. This is reason enough not to take him seriously, much less not give him a column.
It's also plenty reason enough to just shake your head and say "There goes ol' Crazy Ted again. That ol' boy just ain't been right after he slipped into irrelevance after "Cat Scratch Fever." But that's not who we are today. Today, we take our nuts seriously, giving them all the more opportunity to act bat-s*** crazy.
That would make a large chunk of America almost as cat-scratch crazy as ol' Ted.
Of course, when you're cat-scratch crazy, you don't think of things like subverting due-process to get quicker vengeance (and it is vengeance Nugent desires, which is quite a different thing than justice) against a suspect in a terrorist bombing ultimately would pave the way for subverting due-process and other constitutional guarantees to get at you and me should we fall in disfavor with the government.
No, you don't think about such things when you're ol' Crazy Ted . . . or the people who still take him seriously.
By Nugentian standards of justice, ol' Crazy Ted would be playing air guitar in a cage at Guantanamo after saying this at last year's National Rifle Association convention in support of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
BUT NO. After having a little heart-to-heart with arguably America's nuttiest musical has-been, the Secret Service thought about it and figured "That's just ol' Crazy Ted being ol' Crazy Ted." Thus, ol' Crazy Ted gets to go on saying patently nutty things to a national audience, thanks to the constitution Nugent says he reveres but seeks to subvert in the name of "patriotism."
If Dzhokhar Tsarnayev is found guilty in the terrorist bombing at the Boston Marathon, the killing of one Massachusetts policeman and wounding of another, as well as the carjacking of a civilian, he will -- in due time and after due process -- get what's coming to him. That would be thanks to our constitution, our system of criminal justice . . . and to due process.
It will be no thanks at all to hotheaded nutjobs like Ted Nugent, or to Americans who think the man has anything to say that's worth hearing.
When a New Orleans-area mall dealt with a rash of teen-age unruliness and vandalism by requiring chaperones for the under-17 crowd after 4 on weekends, some teens responded in the manner common to our times.
They went on MySpace and threatened to shoot the place up. According to The Associated Press:
The Times-Picayune reported that at least two groups of teens formed MySpace sites this week, after Clearview Mall in Metairie announced a weekend curfew for anyone under age 17.
On one site, members suggested violent protests, with one posting saying "we should all take our guns and go in and kill everyone," the newspaper reported Friday on its Web site.
TODAY, The Times-Picayune reports sheriff's deputies have busted two teens in connection with the threats:
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand on Friday afternoon announced the arrests of two teens for terrorizing, after the pair allegedly threatened to shoot up the Clearview Mall on the MySpace website.
The announcement of the arrests came about an hour before officials at Clearview were to begin a second weekend of a new curfew only allowing teens 16 and under into the mall with an adult.
Arrested were Joseph Madsen, 17, of Metairie and Cory Odenwald, 17, of River Ridge, officials said.
Normand, who announced the arrests during a press conference Friday at the East Bank Lockup in Metairie alongside members of the FBI, and also said that several guns, belonging to the Madsen's father, were confiscated by police.
"We will not tolerate intimidation or fear placed on any of the patrons at Clearview," Normand said.
He announced that all corners of the mall will be under video surveillance and that the deputy presence at Clearview will be significantly beefed up this weekend.
I AM A BOOMER. My generation was going to change the world.
Well, looks like we succeeded. Us and the little monsters we've failed to raise.
Cud'n Walker Percy nailed it way back in 1971 when he published "Love in the Ruins." He knew what ought to have been obvious to everybody but wasn't.
And now the center has not held, and the s*** has hit the fan."The work of a madman!"
