Another mass murder falls off the front pages.

The story is of F. Glenn Miller (also known as Frazier Glenn Cross Jr.), charged last week with murdering three people at the Jewish Community Center is quickly falling off the front pages of the Star and probably all news outlets in the country. Miley's out of the hospital, millennials find KC a good place to live, and a temperamental Chiefs player has a new attitude. So as these and other stories bubble across the screens of laptops, phones and tablets, the reality is ignored. We have come to a place where the 2nd Amendment right of a convicted felon to own guns and be accused of committing murder is more important than the 1st Amendment right of people to practice their religion in peace and safety.

This is not the first time that a lone gunman with extreme fascist views has walked into a church or a religious community and killed people attending services.  In the madness of modern life this fact has been forgotten. What is it to be? Freedom to practice one's religion in peace and safety or the freedom to commit mass murder whenever the mood comes upon one.

The Kansas City Star on April 19th published an editorial, "As a community, we must move beyond silence." It gave some sensible recommendations such as the following,

?While hard-liners continue to thwart sensible and needed gun-reform measures, these three deaths in Overland Park should prompt a new discussion about how easy it remains for felons to obtain firearms. This must stop. Lobby lawmakers to make changes. Demand background checks and waiting periods. If someone acquired weapons on Miller’s behalf, that transaction must be included in the prosecution of the case."

The most important one is to demand change we can no longer stay quiet while the 39 million owners of the over 300 million guns in this country can declare open season on law abiding citizens, whenever one of them gets demented or a little depressed.

Capitano Tedeschi.

30

Another mass murder falls of the front pages. Copyright, April 21, 2014 by Jamie Jacks

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/04/19/4968214/as-a-community-we-must-move-beyond.html#storylink=cpy

January 20, 2014. Martin Luther King Holiday (Observed)

As I was thinking about the King Holiday today, I was remembering that after Dr. King's death, I was in 8th grade and out teacher read an editorial claiming that Martin Luther King was a communist. I don't remember where the editorial came from, part of me wants to say it was inspired by the FBI, but I can't be certain. As I think of it today, I was thinking what a terrible lie should be taught in an American 8th grade class just a few weeks after his assassination. Thinking of that day in 1968, I am filled with sadness and anger. Sadness about the death of Dr. King. Anger that 50 years on, many of the things he and the Civil Rights Movement fought for are under attack by America's neo-fascists and their plutocrat paymasters. The struggle continues. 

 Capitano Tedeschi


30

Panama Lane Palazzo

Driving east
across the hot, dusty
border between south Bakersfield
 and its industrial agricultural heartland
Dairy farms, cotton gins
and housing developments still
reeking of sawdust and drywall paste.

The Who come on the radio
Eminence Front
as Roger Daltry started singing
a flock of ravens exploded into the sky
like musical notes bursting
against the scale
of telephone wires and powerlines
in a pale summer sky.

Going to meet my friend
living in a former mansion
turned into sober living facility
no job, no car, no family
just a cot, 3 hots, a probation officer and
a shit load of legal bills

Pulled into the former Panama Lane Palazzo
found him in the dining room
an embarrassed smile on his face
gave him a brother hug and
shook his hand,
shared a couple of cups of coffee
(his hands had stopped shaking)
till dinner time

when he had an appointment
with the evening's pots and pans.
when Party's over nowhere to go but up
or down.
Never saw him again
there or anyplace for that matter.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Panama Lane Palazzo copyright 17 December 2013 by Jamie Jacks

Darwin reconsidered

Having giving it 
careful consideration 
I now believe 
that dogs are the top 
of the evolutionary ladder 
and that human beings 
are the race of 
intelligent monkeys 
cats created 
to run the universe.

Capitano Tedeschi

Darwin reconsidered copyright 10 December 2013 by Jamie Jacks 
photo: Bella courtesy of Stacey Hungerford 2004

Ponder then this Presidential Library

Ponder then this Presidential Library

Where Egypt's Pharaohs built
pyramids of stone to safeguard
their immortal lives
The Head Cheer Leader,
The Emperor on the Dry Drunks
built a pyramid of delusion and lies
at some Jesus Cult college in Texas
and called it a library

At the entrance like an Aluminum Butterfly
on a giant stone pin
a replica  of the  Alabama Air National Guard
F-102 fighter jet not flown
by former President Bush
during the Vietnam War.

As you enter the library,
the first stop is the
 Abu Ghraib Prison interactive exhibit,
where visitors can sic virtual German Shepherds
at naked Iraqi prisoner holographs
in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Please note the after visiting the  Abu Graib Exhibit
visitors will have to spend 8 years
in a real military prison.

It's right next to the Replica of Co-President
Dick Cheney's Office as depicted in Dante's Inferno
Nothing like the smell of sulphur and brimstone
to work up an appetite
Next stop is the cafeteria
In the cafeteria you can have pulled pork sandwiches
flown fresh everyday
from the American Embassy in Bahgdad and served
free of charge courtesy of the American taxpayer,
the People of Free Democrat Iraq,
Halliburton and Kellog, Brown & Root.

After lunch you must go the Battle of Falluja Exhibit
drive go-carts that look like HumVees
over a course of real Improvised Explosive Devices
when you've  finished, those of you that survive
will be consoled by an anamatronic replica of
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 
who smiles like an avuncular crocodile
and will tell you "Stuff happens."

Be sure to visit, the amazing Water Park.
The Pool of Unreflection, a monument to the 43rd President's
spectacularly unexamined life.
Be sure to come early and fly in
minature replicas of Air Force One over
a scale model of the 9th Ward of the City of New Orleans
which also cleverly hides the library's wastewater treatment faciliy
Don't miss the interactive "Enhanced Interrogation Pool"
where vistor's will be waterboard up 183 times until
they agree that waterboarding isn't torture

For children
There's the Art Department
where you can play with fake yellow-cake uranium
and put powdered sugar into glass vials
just like the ones used by Sec. of State Colin Powell
to con the United Nations into passing a resolution
green lighting war against Iraq
Each child will be given a
set of crayons which can be used to create
Law degrees from Franklin University or
replicas of the John Yoo torture memos
At 2:00 they'll be a reading of "The Pet Goat"

Teenagers and the college students are not forgotten
There are educational exhibits
on "How to Underestimate the Cost of the Iraq War
by $2.995 Trillion" or
"How to Bankrupt the Treasury" exhibit
where visitors will be required to donate monies
from their individual retirement accounts to pay off
the $5.1 trillion dollar in federal debt incurred by President Bush
during his 8 years in office.

By now visitors will be heading
for the exit.
No one lingers here.
No scholar will ever be allowed
to truly access its archives
As you leave you'll wonder why this place
has no mirrors, no way to contemplate
if power corrupts
what happens when a totally
corrupt man is voted into power.

No best not think of that.


Capitano Tedeschi


Ponder then this Presidential Library copyright April 25, 2013 by Jamie Jacks


30

Hazards of home repair

There's a saying "Make a plan and God laughs," a corollary to that statement is any time Jamie does household repairs, God rolls on the floor and laughs his ass off. The runner on one of my shower doors needed to be replaced. So I carefully pulled the shower doors out of the shower, unscrewed one of the wheeled runners, took it to Orchard Supply Hardware. I got the correct replacement. Came home used my Swiss Army knife to open the package, and started screwing the runner wheels on the shower. It was then that I discovered that the knife is very sharp by running my index finger across the portion of the blade. The cut, "not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door," twas a trifle but it served. It served. Bleeding, blasphemy and bandage then followed. Rested. Took Bella to the Dog Park, and came back and rehung the shower doors which I completed without further bloodshed. Now I feel ambitious, like doing some re-wiring or unclogging my garbage disposal. What could possibly go wrong?

 Capitano Tedeschi

30

Hazards of home repair copyright 30 March 2013 by Jamie Jacks

No good deed goes unpunished, or so it seems

According to a Feb. 27 Article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Founders of Angel Food Ministries, a Christian non-profit, that acted as a wholesale grocer, buying and distributing food boxes through churches and charities nationwide, have pled guilty to federal charges. The charges included, "conspiracy, wire fraud, theft from an organization that received federal funds, interstate transportation of stolen property, tampering with witnesses, and obstruction of justice," according to and August 2012 post on the blog Charity Watch .

I mention this because in 2009, as an act of community service, I helped distribute Angel Food groceries at a Compassion Christian Center 1030 Fourth St in Bakersfield. At the time, I was proud of my participation in the event.  Later in 2009, federal authorities shut down Angel Food Ministries and indicted its founders. Pastors Joe and Linda Wingo, their son Andy and a business associate Harry Michaels.

They will be sentenced on May 29.  Like so many, I feel disappointed and used. Four years ago I felt I was doing a good deed, while the Wingos were using the money the skimmed from their non-profit to "
According to the indictment, the Wingos used Angel Food funds to make a $280,000 down payment on a Beechjet 400A aircraft, make other down payments on real estate and buy a $65,000 classic car. And they took more than $1.48 million from the nonprofit by giving bonuses to themselves and to others," according to a Dec. 9, 2011 article in The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Capitano Tedeschi,

30

 sources: Bill Rankin and  Shelia M. Poole spoole@ajc.com  Friday, Dec. 9, 2011 Angel Food Ministry benefited founders, feds say Kickbacks, cover-ups, lavish purchases in indictment retrieved Mar. 20, 2013 http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/angel-food-ministry-benefited-founders-feds-say/nQPNL/
By Christopher Quinn - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 Founders of Angel Food Ministries plead guilty retrieved Mar. 20, 2013 http://www.prod.myajc.com/news/news/local/founders-of-angel-food-ministries-plead-guilty/nWbyw/
You Can't Have Your (Angel Food) Cake and Eat It Too August 2012 issue of the Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report retrieved Mar. 20, 2013 http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/Angel_Food_Minist