James M. Redwine

China

Another China Virus?

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Log Futon Before Assembly

When I have nothing to do that’s what I do. When my wife Peg has nothing to do Amazon’s stock rises. I do not recall a promise to love, honor and spend countless hours schlepping around Peg’s mail-order treasures but she assures me it was in the fine print. And when Peg shops I get blessed with packages that must be unpacked and inscrutable assembly instructions. I do not know if China deserves any blame for ’Ole 19 but it seems everything that UPS or FedEx or Amazon, etc., etc., etc., ships to us comes with the warning “made in China” and “easy” guides that are “Greek” to me. Let me ask you, did ancient Greece once fill the current China role of world-wide shipping of products accompanied by Tower of Babble type assembly manuals?

Peg’s most recent “essential” on-line purchase was a log futon; it came in three large cardboard containers. But even though it was plainly labeled with Peg’s name and our address it was dumped by some overworked FedEx driver at an address four miles from our home. Julie and Wayne Brown, the nice people who found our packages propped against their front door, contacted us and we picked them up. Actually Wayne Brown, an innocent victim, helped me load the heavy and cumbersome articles into our SUV then Peg and I had to unload them at JPeg Osage Ranch. I had just a glint of uncharitable satisfaction when Peg could barely lift her end.

Once we removed the cardboard and located the sixteen-page assembly booklet we understood why the furniture company did not offer, at any price, the option of fully put together delivery. On the face of the assembly manual was a large red STOP sign that notified us we could not return the items to the store that sold them but, we had to deal with the manufacturer. Then we were directed to a website for a “video tutorial”. My heart sank as I realized my Labor Day weekend was over and the “holiday” was aptly named.

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Peg is the daughter of an engineer and is amazingly adept at technical stuff. I am better at more sanguine pursuits such as watching football and writing newspaper columns. However, I am highly experienced in the realm of lifting heavy objects and following Peg’s orders. Therefore, together we are usually able to navigate the choppy waters of arcane mail-order living during these unusual days of social distancing; however, not so fast on this Gordian Knot puzzle dumped on the neighbors and then us. It is a testament to our pure stubbornness, the potential waste of hundreds of dollars and our total lack of options that we did not simply add these finished wood parts to our burn pile. If I were not acutely aware of “the Law’s Delay” and the almost always unhappy experience with lawsuits, we would have just thrown up our hands and sought out a lawyer. Surely the sadists who came up with both the futon and its accompanying assembly manual(s) ought to be held liable for our two (2), that’s right, days of frustration before our “Mission Accomplished” was.

One good thing that happened was Peg was so ticked off at Kodiak Furniture and FedEx she may not order anything else for a week or so.

Log Futon After Assembly

I’m OK; You’re Ok; Stay Away!

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When I was a child nobody hugged or kissed anybody unless they were sweethearts or perhaps, occasionally, mother and child. People felt no need to get closer than arms length and nobody breathed on anybody. Then along came bleeding heart liberals and day-time TV shows and voila! Hugging was de rigueur. Suddenly perfect strangers were greeting one another as if they were Romeo and Juliet. I say it’s time to return to those not so thrilling days of yesteryear. It is not like people did not love one another before the 1980’s. After all, the human specie has thrived for thousands of years without faux hugs and kisses and families used to have lots more kids. But no one thought less of you back then if you did not invade their space. Maybe social distancing is a recommendation we can live with. Thank you Tony Fauci!

Peg and I would appreciate it if the rest of the world, except for family and delivery drivers, would stay away for the next few months. Maybe by then we will have a vaccine for COVID-19. One caveat, it is important that computers continue to create funny money pursuant to an on-going Congressional Resolution so that we can receive our Social Security checks. In return, Peg and I will pledge to leave everyone else alone and not attend any public events. No one would be there anyway since the rest of the world will be in their basements watching such enlightening Netflix entertainments as Tiger King.

By the way, I just saw a report on cable news that they may make a movie about Joe Exotic and his big cat petting zoo and crazy conspiracy theories. As announced from prison, Joe wants Brad Pitt to play Joe in the movie. I bet Brad is proud. Actually Peg and I had never heard of the Tiger King until our erstwhile neighbors, Chuck and Bonnie Minnette of New Harmony, Indiana, called to ask us about it. I guess since we recently moved to Oklahoma and there’s hardly anyone out here, the neighbors thought we might know Joe; we do not!

Regardless, back to the column at hand. Other than cable TV, with the COVID-19 panic about the only social activity left to any of us is contemplation of conspiracy theories such as those of Joe Exotic. I know we Americans have always been able to find boogeymen, et al, everywhere from Salem, Massachusetts to Roswell, New Mexico. But our current situation of a total national shutdown has caused a paradigm shift in our public psyche.

If the news reports can be credited, some in the Communist Chinese government posited, and maybe actually believed, that the original outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China in December 2019 was deliberately started by American soldiers. Then some in America floated the idea the pandemic may have been a deliberate creation of the virus as a weapon by China or Iran.

Those two conspiracy theories are about as credible as the reasons given by railroad engineer Eduardo Moreno who, once again according to news media reports, on April 2, 2020 attempted to ram a ship by driving his train’s engine off the tracks to within a few hundred yards of the U.S. naval ship Mercy. The Mercy is a military hospital ship sent by our government to aid the residents of Los Angeles during the COVID-19 crisis. Moreno told the police he believed the ship was part of a government conspiracy to takeover America. I had no idea a train could even travel that far off its tracks. Anyway, I think Mr. Moreno has been watching too much cable TV news.

Then there are the gun rights advocates who see a business lockdown as a government attempt to take away our right to self-defense. Also, there are those Religious Right devotees who see a nefarious plot behind the urgent government push to find an inoculation for the Corona virus. Apparently their fear is that such ideas as espoused by Bill Gates to implant computer chips in people for health reasons is really a cover to allow universal monitoring and control of our lives.

Well, Gentle Reader, you may know of other conspiracy theories. Heck, you may have one or two of your own. I know I sure do. However, as for Peg and me and social distancing, as long as our Social Security checks and the delivery workers keep coming, we are okay with whatever theory floats your boat. That is as long as you keep six feet away and wear a mask. Don’t worry; we promise to neither hug nor kiss you.

With Charity For Some, With Malice For Others

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James Mattis is President-Elect Trump’s choice for Secretary of Defense. According to former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Mattis is a student of history who understands the dangers of Thucydides’ Trap. Thucydides (471 – 400 B.C.) was an Athenian historian who lived through the Peloponnesian War (431 – 404 B.C.), which exhausted both the loser, Athens, and the eventual winner, Sparta. This thirty years of internecine carnage sowed the seeds of Greece’s vulnerability to Roman conquest.

Thucydides observed it was the rise of the upstart Athenians and the fear and resentment of that rise in the more powerful Spartans that led to war. Archidamus, the Spartan king, had cautioned his citizens to not be hurried into conflict out of any sense of offended honor or an attitude of superiority. However, hotter heads prevailed.

The United States is unquestionably the strongest nation on Earth militarily and economically. We may have the power to dictate terms to most other countries. We are the Sparta of our time.

On the other hand, we may wish to learn from history, not repeat it. If Russia attempted to influence our elections, we should address this serious issue with all due diligence. Due diligence is not a euphemism for dueling.

If China builds artificial islands in international waters and declares them China, we need not make a bellicose response. Maybe negotiation from strength might be better.

If the United Nations Security Council passes a unanimous resolution that calls for Israel to follow international law, due diligence does not require that Congress withhold funds from the United Nations unless Israel gets a retraction.

Now that Secretary Clinton and President-Elect Trump have ended their election cycle neither they nor their supporters should precipitate a Pyrrhic Victory for our country by continuing to attempt to delegitimize their opponents or their opponents’ positions by the technique of circular firing squads.

Perhaps it is time to once more look to the wisdom of some of those marvelous ancient Greeks and even our own President Lincoln and not let a misguided sense of offended honor or an overestimation of our own righteousness lead us to another long series of self-destructive attitudes and actions.

{This article relied heavily on an article dated May 6, 2015 by Leon Whyte that drew upon the scholarship of Harvard Professor Graham Allison and appeared in The Diplomat. Click here to go to referenced article ->}

Intelligence Farm

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♪ Does (everybody) really know what time it is? ♪

Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton accused Russia of attempting to influence the election via hacking into unflattering emails. She, John McCain, CNN and virtually everyone on the planet but former presidential candidate Donald Trump cited the conclusions of seventeen intelligence agencies to support the accusations.

Seventeen! They are: Air Force Intelligence Agency, Army Intelligence Agency, Navy Intelligence Agency, Marine Corps Intelligence Agency, Coast Guard Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, Department of the Treasury, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, and my personal favorite, The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. These sixteen all fall under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The Air Force Intelligence Agency alone deploys 50,000 military and civilian intelligence personnel. I was one of those at one time when I served in Air Force Intelligence. You who know me can make your own judgments or trite jokes.

Each of these agencies has subdivisions. For example, the Army Intelligence Agency contains five more “major” military disciplines within its overall functions: Imagery Intelligence; Signal Intelligence; Human Intelligence (yeah, I wondered too); Measurement and Signature Intelligence; and Counterintelligence and Security.

I will leave it up to you, Gentle Reader, to analyze the meaning behind President-Elect Trump’s rejection of the “intelligence” of the groups that gave us “Weapons of Mass Destruction”. As for me, I am transfixed by the notion that America has all these agencies containing hundreds of thousands of people whose job it is to spy on someone. My concern is who? There are only a few folks such as Russia, China and, an assortment of enemies our intelligence agencies created for us by surreptitiously toppling their governments, who might actually need watching.

What about the other 5 billion people on the planet, especially the 330 million Americans? All those thousands of spies have to either spy on somebody or get jobs, judging maybe. I fear our firewall against foreign enemies might turn inward out of boredom or partisanship. But after years of having our country insert itself in places such as Cuba, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc., etc., my real fear is eventually our intelligence manipulators will get us into a hole even the most powerful country in history cannot claw its way out of.

Usually Peg is the only one who reads these articles. However, I feel as if someone will be peering over her shoulder this time. Oh well, it will probably be some of the same disingenuous spooks who have tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully (so far) to get us to bomb Iran; so there is probably no need for us to worry.